text:
The pleasures of the graveyard
A journey with my daughter
· musing
This quiet Dust was Gentlemen and Ladies,
And Lads and Girls;
Was laughter and ability and sighing,
And frocks and curls.
This passive place a Summer's nimble mansion,
Where Bloom and Bees
Fulfilled their Oriental Circuit,
Then ceased like these.
("A cemetery," by Emily Dickenson; the astonishing painting above attributed to the manner of Ribera, around 1630)
A doleful angel in the cemetery at Stockton.
With my two daughters, at a dark time in my own life but when their lives seemed fresh and untroubled, they'd visit me in a darkened nest that suited the times, which I was renting in inner Sydney. It was a gloomy old house with damp sandstone walls, but I have one of the most beautiful photographs I took of Anna and Catalina, the two of them cast in a shaft of photographer's light, curled like two little Odalisques across a Persian carpet, apparently playing a zither and seemingly untroubled amidst the wreckage around them.
At the cemetery at Bronte, with Catalina and Anna.
There were things they enjoyed to do beyond ice cream and cannoli and buckets of marshmallow hot chocolate, and when we wandered out of boredom and dampness beyond the walls of my dungeon, it was almost always to the great cemetery at Bronte where we played hide and seek, ate picnics, declaimed from piles of broken tiles, and lay exhausted in the winter sunlight, trying to warm ourselves among all that broken stone, decay, grand statuary, and the small histories carved in staccato prose on frigid rocks.
The wreck of the schooner "Adolphe" (wrecked 1904) in a sea wall at Newcastle, and the plaques of the dead, mostly young people, many who took their own lives.
In this time of pandemic Catalina and I went in search of the restless dead. First we strolled along the Stockton seawall past the skeleton of the "Adolphe," a French schooner sucked onto Newcastle's sandy banks at the beginning of the 20th century. Although all hands were bravely rescued from her deck in the churning waves sadly, the walk along the wall today includes dozens of plaque memorials to young suicides. "I think I knew him," said my girl, pausing in front of the brass plate named Jack. "Poor Jack."
And soon, she asked to go to the nearest cemetery. Stockton, a village that lies a short ferry ride across from Newcastle, is a typical Australian settlement - low level, drab, stubbornly charmless, and cheerfully bearing the three hallmarks of Robin Boyd's famous 1960 critique of our urban planning and architecture, "The Australian Ugliness," that is, a disdain for trees that dare sprout in an urban environment; the use of cheap building materials (to wit, the Novocastrian worship of Colourbond fencing, which they would shred and eat on their Cornflakes if they could); and a thirst for building 'featurism.'
[The last attribute gave form to the lookout tower known as The Big Penis. Designed by local architects, using steel milled locally in BHP's giant steelworks, and erected to mark the visit of HM Queen Elizabeth in 1977, the eventually dismemberment (joke) of the tower prompted a Save our Schlong campaign, which fortunately failed, felling the morbid phallus that greeted ships entering harbour.]
Robert died fighting in May 1917 at Bullecourt, France, just 18 years old. The Stockton cemetery.
To visit any Australian cemetery is a melancholy journey, not only for the ranks of infants who died like any other pre-antibiotic country, but also for the soldiers who perished far from home. In these pandemic times, there's a level of comfort that one needs to achieve with death, and we went in silent search that day, pausing carefully among the graves, no longer up to hide and seek when – the contagion, massive disruption, the smallness of our own lives – was all about us.
Harry died in a work accident in Newcastle in 1927. The Stockton cemetery.
Who was this magnificent Hercules W., with a named that outmatched his birthplace? The cemetery, Stockton.
Catalina, paused, in front of the gravestone of an Emily too. The cemetery at Stockton.
The Magic Stone: A parable of conspiracy
The Hand of God


text:
Also In Global Health News: Bangladesh MDGs Progress; USAID In Indonesia; Disease In Darfur
Report Measures Bangladesh's MDG Progress
A report by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and UNICEF shows the country "has made a good progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) even though there are big disparities in education, child and maternal health among its 64 districts," the New Nation reports. In addition, "[t]here exist wide gaps between the best and the worst performing districts related to education, child death, maternal health, HIV/AIDS, access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation, survey showed," according to the publication. UNICEF's Carel de Rooy said the report would give Bangladesh a baseline measurement for tracking MDGs (1/25).
USAID Program In Indonesia Helps Reduce Water-Borne Illness
USAID's work with members of the Indonesian government, private sector, NGOs and community groups to educate the people of Indonesia on clean water and sanitation practices has helped to reduce water-borne illness, the Jakarta Post reports. Between February 2007 and June 2009, the number of people suffering from such illnesses droped from 18.3 percent to 7.7 percent in Aceh, Jakarta, Central Java, East Java, West Java, North Sumatra, Papua and Yogyakarta, according to the newspaper (1/22).
Disease Kills More In Darfur Than Violence, Study Finds
A study published Friday in the journal Lancet finds "nearly 80 percent of the 300,000 conflict-related deaths in Darfur were due to diseases like diarrhea, not violence," Reuters reports. Unsanitary conditions combined with little or no health care infrastructure were to blame for the disease-related deaths, scientists said (Kelland, 1/21). "Adequate humanitarian assistance to prevent and treat these potentially fatal diseases is essential," the authors wrote in the Lancet study. "The full effect of the expulsion of non-governmental organizations from Darfur is still not known, but the increased mortality rate during a period of reduced humanitarian deployment in 2006-2007 suggests that we should fear the worst" (Degomme/Guha-Sapir, 1/23).
Clinical Research/R&D
MDGs/SDGs

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Vincent Lecavalier
Position(s):
• Center
• Left Wing
• Right Wing
Status: AHSQ
Date of birth: 21-04-1980 Age: 40 Country: CAN
Height: 6' 4" Weight: 215 lbs Star Power: 2
Repêché : N/A Average Cap Hit: UNRESTRICTED FREE AGENT
Condition:100% Suspension: 0
72 25 70 88 82 20 25 95 25 40 40 69 30 88 88 50 0 0
CAREER REGULAR SEASON STATISTICS - Summary
2004-05 Phoenix Coyotes	 79 31 21 52 -10 50 6 0 5 1 232 13.4
2005-06 Phoenix Coyotes	 84 29 61 90 23 110 11 1 3 1 245 11.8
2006-07 Phoenix Coyotes	 81 29 27 56 3 41 10 0 5 2 300 9.7
2007-08 Phoenix Coyotes	 82 45 50 95 18 59 16 2 5 3 320 14.1
2008-09 Phoenix Coyotes	 80 40 34 74 -6 59 10 1 7 3 284 14.1
2009-10 Florida Panthers	 80 29 62 91 -18 57 10 2 7 4 323 9.0
2010-11 Florida Panthers	 80 39 58 97 3 71 12 0 2 2 369 10.6
2011-12 Florida Panthers	 48 25 30 55 7 63 8 0 4 2 265 9.4
2011-12 New Jersey Devils	 34 12 28 40 3 16 8 0 2 0 152 7.9
2012-13 San Jose Sharks	 75 37 55 92 27 42 7 0 8 2 301 12.3
2015-16 Philadelphia Flyers	 82 12 21 33 -6 31 0 0 4 0 143 8.4
PRO TOTALS 953 383 531 914 102 680 107 6 62 23 3,414 11.2
CAREER PLAYOFF SEASON STATISTICS - Summary
2005-06 Phoenix Coyotes	 11 4 4 8 -1 10 2 0 1 0 28 14.3
2007-08 Phoenix Coyotes	 7 4 4 8 3 6 0 0 0 1 29 13.8
2009-10 Florida Panthers	 5 1 3 4 -4 2 1 0 0 0 19 5.3
2011-12 New Jersey Devils	 4 1 0 1 -1 2 1 0 0 0 13 7.7
2012-13 San Jose Sharks	 19 5 13 18 5 8 2 0 2 0 68 7.4
2013-14 San Jose SharksSan Jose Sharks	 7 1 4 5 4 6 0 0 0 0 18 5.6
2014-15 San Jose Sharks	 12 1 7 8 3 2 0 0 0 0 30 3.3
PRO TOTALS 70 21 40 61 9 40 7 0 3 1 241 8.7
CAREER REGULAR SEASON STATISTICS - EXTENDED SUMMARY
2004-05 79 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2006-07 81 2 27 0 0 0 0 1038 1932 53.7
2009-10 80 0 77 0 0 54 49 1319 2553 51.7
2010-11 80 1 45 213 0 78 37 1022 1948 52.5
2011-12 48 1 16 154 0 46 21 828 1544 53.6
2011-12 34 0 16 -45 224 34 18 572 1051 54.4
2014-15 72 0 6 0 0 0 0 914 1770 51.6
PRO TOTALS 953 8 234 328 224 213 126 10,882 20,524 53.0
CAREER PLAYOFF SEASON STATISTICS - EXTENDED SUMMARY
2005-06 Arizona Coyotes 11 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2007-08 Arizona Coyotes 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 119 228 52.2
2008-09 Arizona Coyotes 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 82 165 49.7
2009-10 Florida Panthers 5 0 6 3 15 4 4 99 185 53.5
2011-12 New Jersey Devils 4 0 1 11 0 3 1 50 104 48.1
2012-13 San Jose Sharks 19 0 2 0 6 0 0 264 476 55.5
2013-14 San Jose Sharks 7 0 2 0 0 0 0 73 145 50.3
PRO TOTALS 70 0 11 14 21 7 5 870 1,632 53.3
CAREER REGULAR SEASON STATISTICS - Time On Ice
2004-05 Arizona Coyotes 79 00:00 0 00:00 0 00:00 0 00:00 0 0
2006-07 Arizona Coyotes 81 25:32 00:18 00:00 0 00:00 0 25:32 00:18 00:00
2009-10 Florida Panthers 80 1522:08 19:01 209:16 02:36 206:43 02:35 1938:07 24:13 00:34
2011-12 Florida Panthers 48 844:25 17:35 58:48 01:13 176:35 03:40 1079:48 22:29 00:17
2011-12 New Jersey Devils 34 645:11 18:58 26:25 00:46 90:27 02:39 762:03 22:24 00:00
2012-13 San Jose Sharks 75 1229:24 16:23 54:35 00:43 268:40 03:34 1552:39 20:42 00:16
2015-16 Philadelphia Flyers 82 1060:27 12:55 03:45 00:02 173:59 02:07 1238:11 15:05 00:07
PRO TOTALS 953 9461:29 09:55 510:44 00:32 1578:48 01:39 11551:01 12:07 01:34
CAREER PLAYOFF SEASON STATISTICS - Time On Ice
2007-08 Arizona Coyotes 7 02:51 00:24 00:00 0 00:00 0 02:51 00:24 00:00
2009-10 Florida Panthers 5 99:56 19:59 27:45 05:33 13:16 02:39 140:57 28:11 00:39
2011-12 New Jersey Devils 4 59:29 14:52 04:40 01:10 17:50 04:27 81:59 20:29 00:19
2012-13 San Jose Sharks 19 311:36 16:24 00:12 00:00 74:49 03:56 386:37 20:20 01:03
2013-14 San Jose Sharks 7 127:48 18:15 00:00 0 19:17 02:45 147:05 21:00 00:18
PRO TOTALS 70 833:18 11:54 38:06 00:32 149:33 02:08 1020:57 14:35 01:53
CAREER REGULAR SEASON STATISTICS - Hits & Fights
2004-05 Arizona Coyotes 79 111 0 50 0 0 0 0 5 6 3
2005-06 Arizona Coyotes 84 229 0 110 0 0 0 0 12 3 10
2006-07 Arizona Coyotes 81 57 87 41 0 0 0 0 5 1 2
2007-08 Arizona Coyotes 82 74 134 59 0 0 0 1 13 6 4
2008-09 Arizona Coyotes 80 62 117 59 0 0 0 1 7 6 3
2009-10 Florida Panthers 80 146 166 57 5 0 0 0 0 6 6
2011-12 Florida Panthers 48 106 99 63 5 0 0 0 8 2 6
2011-12 New Jersey Devils 34 56 61 16 0 0 0 0 2 2 3
2012-13 San Jose Sharks 75 99 206 42 0 0 0 0 9 6 5
2013-14 San Jose Sharks 76 164 196 48 0 0 0 0 6 7 4
2015-16 Philadelphia Flyers 82 52 133 31 15 1 1 1 2 1 1
PRO TOTALS 953 1,407 1,531 680 35 1 1 3 84 57 85
CAREER PLAYOFF SEASON STATISTICS - Hits & Fights
2005-06 Arizona Coyotes 11 34 0 10 0 0 0 0 1 1 0
2007-08 Arizona Coyotes 7 6 12 6 0 0 0 0 1 1 0
2008-09 Arizona Coyotes 5 5 4 4 0 0 0 1 7 6 3
2009-10 Florida Panthers 5 15 15 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2011-12 New Jersey Devils 4 6 5 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2012-13 San Jose Sharks 19 17 45 8 0 0 0 0 1 1 0
2013-14 San Jose Sharks 7 9 17 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
PRO TOTALS 70 106 126 40 0 0 0 1 10 9 11
CAREER REGULAR SEASON STATISTICS - Special Teams
2004-05 Arizona Coyotes 79 25 21 46 232 6 0 6 0 0 0 0 0
2005-06 Arizona Coyotes 84 17 61 78 245 11 0 11 0 1 0 1 0
2009-10 Florida Panthers 80 17 37 54 273 10 25 35 39 2 0 2 11
2011-12 Florida Panthers 48 17 16 33 223 8 14 22 39 0 0 0 3
2011-12 New Jersey Devils 34 4 20 24 133 8 8 16 17 0 0 0 2
2012-13 San Jose Sharks 75 30 41 71 233 7 14 21 65 0 0 0 3
2014-15 San Jose Sharks 72 24 30 54 189 3 7 10 32 0 0 0 2
2015-16 Philadelphia Flyers 82 12 15 27 123 0 6 6 20 0 0 0 0
PRO TOTALS 953 270 417 687 3068 383 531 220 315 383 531 7 31
CAREER PLAYOFF SEASON STATISTICS - Special Teams
2005-06 Arizona Coyotes 11 2 4 6 28 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 0
2007-08 Arizona Coyotes 7 4 4 8 29 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2009-10 Florida Panthers 5 0 1 1 13 1 2 3 3 0 0 0 3
2011-12 New Jersey Devils 4 0 0 0 10 1 0 1 3 0 0 0 0
2012-13 San Jose Sharks 19 3 9 12 49 2 4 6 19 0 0 0 0
2013-14 San Jose Sharks 7 1 4 5 11 0 0 0 7 0 0 0 0
2014-15 San Jose Sharks 12 1 6 7 29 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
PRO TOTALS 70 6 0 47 29 21 40 14 33 21 40 0 3
CAREER REGULAR SEASON STATISTICS - Shootouts
2004-05 Arizona Coyotes 79 0 0 0
2006-07 Arizona Coyotes 81 4 7 57
2008-09 Arizona Coyotes 80 1 11 9
2009-10 Florida Panthers 80 3 7 43
2010-11 Florida Panthers 80 3 15 20
2011-12 New Jersey Devils 34 1 5 20
2012-13 San Jose Sharks 75 4 5 80
2014-15 San Jose Sharks 72 0 7 0
2015-16 Philadelphia Flyers 82 0 0 0
PRO TOTALS 953 24 82 29
CAREER PLAYOFF SEASON STATISTICS - Shootouts
2007-08 Arizona Coyotes 7 0 0 0
2009-10 Florida Panthers 5 0 0 0
2011-12 New Jersey Devils 4 0 0 0
2013-14 San Jose Sharks 7 0 0 0
PRO TOTALS 70 24 82 29
Salary Hit by Season
* = No Trade Clause
No Trade Clause
Contract Extension
0 Year(s) Two Way Contract (Pro & Farm) NO NO NO
[27-08-2021 10:46:59] - Vincent Lecavalier ratings were not updated!
[21-06-2016 22:49:52] - Philadelphia Flyers paid 0 $ to release Vincent Lecavalier.
[21-06-2016 22:49:52] - Vincent Lecavalier was released by Philadelphia Flyers.
[07-26-2015 09:21:27] - Vincent Lecavalier was added to Philadelphia Flyers.
[06-18-2015 18:31:05] - San Jose Sharks paid 12-860-000 $ to release Vincent Lecavalier.
[06-18-2015 18:31:05] - Vincent Lecavalier was released by San Jose Sharks.
[03-28-2015 18:32:29] - Game 1119 - Vincent Lecavalier from San Jose Sharks is injured (Right Hip) and is out for 2 weeks.
[04-10-2015 20:23:12] - Vincent Lecavalier from San Jose Sharks is back from Right Hip Injury.
[12-14-2014 22:00:01] - Vincent Lecavalier from San Jose Sharks is back from Exhaustion.
[12-13-2014 20:37:22] - Vincent Lecavalier from San Jose Sharks is injured from Exhaustion.
[02-27-2014 21:16:06] - Last 30 Days Pro Star : 1 - Jonathan Toews of Edmonton Oilers (7-7-14) / 2 - Steven Stamkos of Carolina Hurricanes (7-2-9) / 3 - Vincent Lecavalier of San Jose Sharks (4-5-9)
[03-03-2014 19:06:36] - Last 7 Days Pro Star : 1 - Steven Stamkos of Carolina Hurricanes (5-2-7) / 2 - Vincent Lecavalier of San Jose Sharks (4-0-4) / 3 - Joe Thornton of Montreal Canadiens (3-3-6)
[10-10-2013 18:02:06] - Game 56 - Vincent Lecavalier from San Jose Sharks is injured (Sports Hernia) and is out for 2 weeks.
[10-20-2013 22:47:09] - Vincent Lecavalier from San Jose Sharks is back from Sports Hernia Injury.
[12-02-2013 18:11:06] - Last 7 Days Pro Star : 1 - Vincent Lecavalier of San Jose Sharks (3-5-8) / 2 - Jordan Staal of Montreal Canadiens (3-5-8) / 3 - Patrick Marleau of Washington Capitals (4-2-6)
[04-08-2013 18:24:12] - Last 30 Days Pro Star : 1 - Vincent Lecavalier of San Jose Sharks (12-15-27) / 2 - Alexander Ovechkin of Toronto Maple Leafs (7-11-18) / 3 - Scott Hartnell of Vancouver Canucks (7-10-17)
[04-09-2013 18:15:21] - Vincent Lecavalier from San Jose Sharks has scored a Hat Trick!
[04-10-2013 18:17:26] - Last 7 Days Pro Star : 1 - Matt Moulson of Washington Capitals (5-3-8) / 2 - Teemu Selanne of Washington Capitals (4-3-7) / 3 - Vincent Lecavalier of San Jose Sharks (4-4-8)
[2013-01-10 20:49:13] - Game 598 - Vincent Lecavalier from San Jose Sharks is injured (Strained Groin) and is out for 3 weeks.
[01-25-2013 18:04:05] - Vincent Lecavalier from San Jose Sharks is back from Strained Groin Injury.
[02-14-2013 17:55:58] - Game 808 - Vincent Lecavalier from San Jose Sharks is injured (Sprained Right Knee) and is out for 2 days.
[02-14-2013 17:55:58] - Vincent Lecavalier from San Jose Sharks is back from Sprained Right Knee Injury.
[03-20-2013 18:12:37] - Last 7 Days Pro Star : 1 - Eric Staal of Tampa Bay Lightning (5-1-6) / 2 - Vincent Lecavalier of San Jose Sharks (4-4-8) / 3 - Jason Pominville of Ottawa Senators (5-1-6)
Rimouski Océanic[edit source | editbeta]
Lecavalier played two years of junior hockey for the Rimouski Océanic of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL). During his tenure, he quickly established himself as one of the NHL's top prospects. In his first season with the Océanic, he won the Michel Bergeron Trophy as the QMJHL's top rookie forward, and the RDS Cup as the top rookie overall.
Tampa Bay Lightning[edit source | editbeta]
Lecavalier was drafted first overall by Tampa Bay in the 1998 NHL Entry Draft, during which new Lightning owner Art Williams proclaimed that Lecavalier would be "the Michael Jordan of hockey".[1][2]
On March 1, 2000,[3] following his sophomore season, he was named captain, becoming the youngest captain in NHL history at 19 years and 314 days (since surpassed by Sidney Crosby and Gabriel Landeskog). Previously, Steve Yzerman had held that honour, having been named captain of the Detroit Red Wings at 21 years, 5 months.[4]
However, Lecavalier did not fulfill expectations and was later stripped of the captaincy before the 2001–02 NHL season when Lightning management decided he was too young even as a high calibre player. Around that time, he clashed frequently with head coach John Tortorella.
Lecavalier faces off against Jarome Iginla. The two players battled in the 2004 Stanley Cup Finals.
Tortorella has since noted that Lecavalier matured since losing the team captaincy.[1] During the 2003–04 NHL season, while Martin St. Louis led in regular season scoring and Brad Richards led in the playoffs, Lecavalier played a key role in the team's Stanley Cup victory, assisting on the Cup-clinching goal. He was named MVP of the Canadian National Team in the 2004 World Cup of Hockey, which Canada won.
During the lockout which canceled the 2004–05 NHL season, Lecavalier, along with Lightning teammates Nikolai Khabibulin and Brad Richards, played for Ak Bars Kazan in the Russian Superleague. Lecavalier scored 16 points as Kazan finished 4th in the league and lost in the first round of the playoffs.
Lecavalier was chosen to play for Team Canada at the 2006 Olympics, but returned to Tampa without a medal.
Lecavalier broke the all-time Tampa Bay Lightning record for most points in a season by scoring his 95th point on March 16, 2007 against the Buffalo Sabres. The record was previously held by Martin St. Louis, who had 94 points during the 2003–04 NHL season.
On March 30, 2007, in a game against the Carolina Hurricanes, Lecavalier became the first Lightning player to record 50 goals in a season. He finished the season with 52 goals, edging Ottawa's Dany Heatley, who scored 50 goals, to earn theMaurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy as the NHL's top goal scorer for the 2006–07 season.
Lecavalier in 2007.
During the 2007–08 NHL season, Lecavalier recorded 8 straight multipoint games, being the first to do so since Jaromír Jágr in 1996. The scoring streak put him first in the NHL scoring race, until he was surpassed by Ottawa Senators' captain, Daniel Alfredsson, who scored 7 points in the final game before the All-Star break. He was named captain of the Eastern Conference at the 2008 NHL All Star Game. At the end of the season he was named the winner of both the King Clancy Memorial Trophy and the NHL Foundation Player Award for his tremendous charity work in the community.
In the 2007–08 offseason, Lecavalier underwent shoulder surgery to repair a fracture from taking a hit against Matt Cooke of the Washington Capitals. He underwent another surgery on his left wrist later in the summer.
On July 12, 2008, Lecavalier agreed to an eleven-year, $85 million contract extension with the Lightning. His new contract began after the 2008–09 season, and ran through the 2019–20 season.[5]
He was renamed captain of the Tampa Bay Lightning on September 18, 2008.
Captain Vincent Lecavalier in December 2009.
In mid-January 2009, rumors were swirling around a possible trade which would send Lecavalier to the Montreal Canadiens, his hometown, but Brian Lawton later stated that Lecavalier would rather stay in Tampa Bay for the rest of his career. Lecavalier confirmed in his own words his preference of playing in Tampa Bay over his native Montreal.[6] On January 24, at the NHL's superskills competition, Lecavalier received a standing ovation from the Montreal crowd that lasted for 30 seconds when he was being introduced.[citation needed]
Lecavalier underwent season-ending wrist surgery on April 3, 2009.[7]
On January 21, 2013, Lecavalier played in his 1000th NHL game, all with the Tampa Bay Lightning, becoming the 280th NHL player to reach that milestone. The team honored him on January 25, their next home game, with several gifts including an engraved silver stick.[8]
In June 2013, the New York Post reported that the Lightning and Toronto Maple Leafs had discussed a trade which would have sent Lecavalier to Toronto; the Maple Leafs would receive an asset in exchange for buying out Lecavalier's contract and he would then be free to re-sign with Tampa as an unrestricted free agent at a lower salary cap hit. Though the Maple Leafs denied the report, NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly promptly sent out a memo to all 30 league teams, warning them to avoid transactions deemed a circumvention of the collective bargaining agreement. The CBA prevents teams from re-signing players they've bought out for a minimum of one year.[9] One day later, the Lightning announced that it was buying out Lecavalier's contract, allowing their longest serving player to become an unrestricted free agent. The buyout will pay Lecavalier a total of $32.67 million and rid the Lightning of his $7.727 million salary cap hit.[10]
Philadelphia Flyers[edit source | editbeta]
On July 2, 2013, Lecavalier signed a five-year, $22.5 millon contract[11] with the Philadelphia Flyers, less than a week after being bought out by the Lightning.[12] Lecavalier will not be able to wear his usual number 4 in Philadelphia, since the uniform number is already retired in honor of Barry Ashbee. Instead, he will wear number 40.
The Internet Hockey Database TSN.ca NHL.com Hockey News - Forecaster


'Sisters uncut' are organising nationwide protests highlighting the impact of cuts on domestic violence refuges and we as Unite housing workers have sent a message of support. Below we reproduce an article from their website.
Sisters Uncut UK Day of Action!
Theresa May's £20 million funding announcement for domestic violence refuges is a sticking plaster over a haemorrhage. After 6 years of Tory cuts, the outlook for non-binary people and women trying to escape domestic violence is increasingly bleak, with survivors being trapped in violent homes by Tory policies. Support services have been decimated by austerity, and this comparatively tiny pot of money will not restore them.
The £20 million is a short term fund covering just 2017-18. Services will be forced to bid for the centralised fund, pitting local services against each other and ensuring that larger, generic services are much more likely to win funds due to their resources. This fund will not reach the smaller, specialist refuge providers who desperately need it – especially culturally specific refuges that provide life saving support for women and non-binary people of colour. These are the providers who have already been hugely disadvantaged by the "competitive tendering" processes that local councils use to fund services.
Theresa's £20 million is not enough. It will not reach the services that need it most, and black, brown and migrant women will be blocked from accessing it.
Black, brown and migrant women face a higher risk of domestic homicide. Hostile immigration control measures directly contribute to this by blocking survivors' paths to safety.
Hostile immigration controls, many of which were implemented by Theresa May as Home Secretary, make life infinitely more dangerous for migrant survivors of domestic violence. Just one example is the Immigration Bill 2014, which forced private landlords to run immigration checks on tenants, commonly known as the 'right to rent'. This leaves undocumented migrants or those fleeing without their documents unable to access safe housing.
Calling the police is simply not an option for many survivors of colour who risk racism and violence in response, and undocumented migrants face the additional risk of detention and deportation.
Refuge spaces are funded through housing benefit, so migrant non-binary people and women with 'no recourse to public funds' (no access to state support) – a common restriction placed on migrants – have no access to refuges, social housing, benefits or healthcare. Survivors of colour are being disproportionately turned away from refuge services. Women's Aid statistics show that 2 in 3 women who approach refuges for help are now being turned away. For BME women, that figure rises to 4 in 5.
In this climate, specialist domestic violence services for women and non-binary people of colour are more vital than ever – but cuts and closures have left them in crisis.
Specialist BME domestic violence services are independent, specialist and dedicated services run by and for the communities they seek to serve. Survivors report that they are more likely to access these services and feel safer with them. Research by Imkaan, the UK umbrella organisation for BME violence against women and girls services, found that 67% of BME VAWG organisations feel uncertain about their futures. Problems include uncertainty in funding, an unequal playing field when bidding against larger generic providers, and an increased demand for support that doesn't match local authority funding. Services for Black survivors are often entirely absent, even within BME specialist services. These life saving services are having to fight for their own existence rather than supporting the survivors who need them.
Theresa May claims she wants to end violence against women and girls. To do that we need an awful lot more than refuges. We need a long term, sustainable funding plan for all domestic violence services. We need universal access to benefits so survivors have the resources to escape, rather than policies like the benefit cap which are making it even harder when already 52% of survivors report that they can't afford to leave. We need domestic violence support services for black and brown, disabled and LGBT+ survivors – a "one size fits all" generic approach might save money but it doesn't meet needs. We need funding for outreach workers who are able to slowly build up survivors' confidence over time and support survivors before the danger escalates, rather than a focus solely on crisis response. We need an end to gentrification and the devastating effects it has on communities; not all survivors want or are able to access support services, and it is their neighbours that provide their lifeline. And we must see the links between violent, racist government policies and the increased risk for black, brown, Muslim and migrant women experiencing domestic violence.
We demand a secure, long term plan to support ALL domestic violence survivors, regardless of immigration status, with specialist services for black and brown, disabled and LGBT+ survivors.
Take action with us in London, Bristol, Newcastle and Glasgow on 20th November.


text:
Samba to the rescue
Troupes offer to help control Arcata Plaza holicrazies
Photo by Bob Doran
Samba da alegria drummers at 2010 north county fair.
An ugliness struck our dear, fun-loving, free-flowing Arcata late last year, nearly stopping the happy beating of its heart, the downtown plaza. But now some of the city's more rhythmically proficient residents want to revive that heart -- with drums and dancing.
It's samba to the rescue.
The problems began on Halloween, when a 3,000-strong horde of revelers-gone-bonko shredded the hell out of the Arcata Plaza's planters and lawn, broke bottles and nearby windows and spray painted the bronze statue of William McKinley, a controversial work of art -- but art, nonetheless -- that has stood in the center of the plaza since 1906. There also were reports of random needle-jabbings of strangers in the crowd, people peeing from the top of McKinley, and other out-of-control drunkenness.
Then, on New Year's Eve ... nothing much happened -- except for the arrest of one samba drummer. In answer to the costly disaster that was Halloween -- $8,600 or more in repairs -- the City of Arcata had fenced off the Plaza earlier in the day and then posted a second fence of living, armed bodies -- police personnel dispatched from six jurisdictions, including from Rio Dell, Humboldt State University and the county District Attorney's office. That effort cost roughly $7,000.
Neither outcome -- nasty chaos or cop-presence overkill -- seemed tenable for future impromptu holiday celebrations. So the city, which had held a what-do-we-do meeting in November, hosted another one on Jan. 24, with official mediators, and invited everyone to attend. Of the roughly 50 in attendance, about half turned out to be samba drummers and dancers -- members of a thriving, embedded culture in Arcata and Humboldt County consisting of at least five distinct groups, each with a different approach to samba. The samba contingent had met before the mediated session to work out a unified message.
Why such interest from our favorite public boogiers? Because of that arrested drummer -- who did not immediately stop drumming when an officer asked him to, and then struggled when the officer reached for his drum.
"When I saw a photo of one of the drummers getting arrested, I thought, 'Oh no, here we go again,'" said David Peñalosa, who founded the North Country Fair Samba Parade in 1986 (it started out as the All Species Parade, but soon the samba portion split off and became its own thing).
In the 1990s, Peñalosa said, a random event put a damper on drumming on the Plaza.
"When Jerry Garcia died, the Deadheads didn't have a place to go," said Peñalosa. "So they went to the Hog Farm Festival and Reggae on River. But there was a week in between the two festivals, and so thousands of Deadhead travelers were parked on the Plaza in Arcata ... . And they just drummed in the Plaza -- not really a rhythm, just pounding their drums. Boom boom boom boom. It was such an unmindful thing that they did, that it prompted the City of Arcata to tighten the ordinances."
The result was "the bongo ordinance" -- officially called "The "Downtown Plaza Area Noise Ordinance" (section 4300 of Arcata's municipal code). Among other things, it prohibits "any noise which is loud, boisterous, irritating, penetrating, repetitive, rhythmic or unusual, or that is unreasonably distracting in any other manner, such that it is likely to disturb people of ordinary sensitivity in the vicinity of such noise." It sets specific limits on decibel levels depending on the time of day.
In spite of it, samba groups have proliferated in Arcata, performing in a number of events with no incident -- until last New Year's Eve. In light of that, and the Halloween chaos preceding it, some samba drummers feared the rules for drumming on the Plaza were now going to get even tougher.
The group that met before the mediated city meeting drafted a proposal asking the city to amend its noise ordinance by extending the times in which drummers can play on the Plaza on weekends and holidays such as Halloween, New Year's Eve and Fourth of July. The proposal also said that the group wanted to volunteer to organize and clean up after such events.
At the meeting last week, samba members also said they could be used to control the chaos at big events. Peñalosa suggested that a samba troupe could surround the McKinley statue and flower planters in a wall of musical protection. But others said that wouldn't work because the statue would block eye contact between samba players and their leader.
Samba participant Robin Paschall offered to help create a festival, and many liked the idea of an event similar to the North Country Fair or the I-Block party, with controlled access to the Plaza, no outside alcohol, and venues spread about the space. Samba troupes could even be used to lead people from venue to venue.
In the end, the attendees agreed to form two subcommittees: one to pursue solutions for events like Halloween and New Year's, and another to look into improving Arcata's nightlife options for all ages. So, many meetings lie ahead; Paschall has scheduled the first followup for 7 p.m. Feb. 6 at the Arcata Playhouse.
Peñalosa said his fears of a drum-hate resurgence now seem unfounded.
"I've heard that the police appreciate samba because it gives drunks a focus, so we have happy drunks," Peñalosa said. "It gets everybody dancing. The rhythmic principles are very old; they go back to Africa. They're tried and true."
The arrest of the drummer on New Year's, it turns out, was an isolated event. "There have been occasions when we've asked samba drummers to stop playing, and they've been cooperative," Arcata Police Chief Tom Chapman said. "The samba community has never been a hindrance or uncooperative. I thought it was really cool that they were able to organize and come forward with ideas and ways to improve the situation. ... I've always viewed them as a positive influence."
Chapman said samba could very well be part of the solution for controlling chaos on the Plaza, but not the entire solution. Samba players agree.
Jesse Jonathon, the musical director of Samba da Alegria and of the private group SambAmore, said the local samba groups want "to bring light and focus to what could otherwise be a really dark, drunken space."
"I'm saying, fence everything off you want protected, and set us free," Jonathon said. "If the issue is safety -- shine some light on this space, and put some formal police presence there, but not a police state. Maybe we've got a couple of cops in the drum line with us, cruising around. Maybe the punks will go somewhere else that night."


text:
Бежа () е град в южна Португалия, административен център на окръг Бежа в региона Алентежу. Населението му е около 21 700 души (2001).

Разположен е на 255 метра надморска височина, на 43 километра северозападно от границата с Испания и на 135 километра югоизточно от столицата Лисабон. Селището съществува от Античността и е важен център през римската и ислямската епоха, но е тежко засегнато от Реконкистата в XIII век.

Известни личности
 Родени в Бежа
 Карлуш Моедаш (р. 1970), политик

Бележки

Градове в Португалия

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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What makes Wall Street so attractive to ambitious workers and bright minds?
It's the same thing that also makes it so reckless: big paychecks.
The aggressive loan-makers who made millions churning out junk mortgages contributed to the 2008 financial crash. Those mortgages fed the fee-generating securitization assembly line developed by math whizzes, which fattened more wallets. The high-risk traders at banks and hedge funds took it a step further, gambling on the fate of those original loans to generate even bigger windfalls.
And astronomic compensation remains the norm on Wall Street.
After a record year for Wall Street bonuses in 2010, the nation's six largest banks paid out $144 billion in bonuses and compensation in 2011, the second-highest figure ever for these institutions. Bankers claim that their bonuses fell last year, but they managed to make up the difference with higher base pay. At Morgan Stanley, CEO base pay doubled. At Goldman Sachs, CEO base pay tripled. Since 2008, the six largest banks have paid out $539 billion in total compensation.
Don't be jealous of this compensation. Be outraged.
The bankers' half-trillion-dollar payday comes close to the $879 billion their firms received in taxpayer bailout funds and other federal help after the financial crash. It comes even closer to the estimated $750 billion in mortgage debt Americans owe that exceeds the current value of their homes.
Americans paid — and continue to pay — for this risky business. Beyond the cost of the bailout, unemployment stands at 8.3 percent, real wages have stagnated, and millions have lost their homes through foreclosure.
No wonder Occupy Wall Street, which dramatized the geographic source for the nation's economic troubles, sparked a nationwide movement.
"Compensation systems…too often rewarded the quick deal, the short-term gain — without proper consideration of long-term consequences," the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which Congress mandated, concluded.
Unfortunately, the regulators' proposal for achieving this key objective lacks teeth. They suggested that only a sixth of a banker's annual bonus be withheld for three years. That's a small penalty on bonuses that can run into the tens of millions of dollars, especially if the profits the bonus is based on turn out to be illusory. It would be better to withhold the entire bonus for three years.
Washington's banking agencies asked the public to weigh in about this proposal. Thousands of Americans outraged by the role Wall Street pay figured in crashing the economy offered their two cents.
But Wall Street knows a few tricks about influencing Washington. My colleagues and I at Public Citizen documented Wall Street's grip on this issue in a report called "Just Not Us," which showed that opponents of Dodd-Frank spent $242 million, deploying 712 lobbyists, to get the rule to apply to anyone but them. Nearly 400 of these lobbyists had previously worked for Congress or one of the same agencies now finalizing the rules for this law. These Wall Street lobbyists know who makes decisions, whom to call, and what arguments work. And the lobbying seems to be achieving the best results for Wall Street: Nothing.
This vital reform has been waiting for more than 18 months. We need cops on the beat. The sooner, the better.


text:
National Insurance (NI) is a fundamental component of the welfare state in the United Kingdom. It acts as a form of social security, since payment of NI contributions establishes entitlement to certain state benefits for workers and their families.

Introduced by the National Insurance Act 1911 and expanded by the Labour government in 1948, the system has been subjected to numerous amendments in succeeding years. Initially, it was a contributory form of insurance against illness and unemployment, and eventually provided retirement pensions and other benefits.

Currently, workers pay contributions from the age of 16 years, until the age they become eligible for the State pension. Contributions are due from employed people earning at or above a threshold called the Lower Earnings Limit, the value of which is reviewed each year. Self-employed people contribute partly through a fixed weekly or monthly payment and partly on a percentage of net profits above a threshold, which is reviewed periodically. Individuals may also make voluntary contributions to fill a gap in their contributions record and thus protect their entitlement to benefits.

Contributions are collected by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). For employees, this is done through the PAYE (Pay As You Earn) system along with Income Tax, repayments of Student Loans and any Apprenticeship Levy which the employer is liable to pay. National Insurance contributions form a significant proportion of the UK Government's revenue, raising £145 billion in 2019-20 (representing 17.5% of all tax revenue).

The benefit component includes several contributory benefits, availability and amount of which is determined by the claimant's contribution record and circumstances. Weekly income and some lump-sum benefits are provided for participants upon death, retirement, unemployment, maternity and disability. In order to obtain the benefits which are related to the contributions, a National Insurance number is necessary.

History

The current system of National Insurance has its roots in the National Insurance Act 1911, which introduced the concept of benefits based on contributions paid by employed people and their employer. William Martin-Smith was issued with the First NI number A1. The chosen means of recording the contributions required the employer to buy special stamps from a Post Office and affix them to contribution cards. The cards formed proof of entitlement to benefits and were given to the employee when the employment ended, leading to the loss of a job often being referred to as being given your cards, a phrase which endures to this day although the card itself no longer exists.

Initially there were two schemes running alongside each other, one for health and pension insurance benefits (administered by "approved societies" including friendly societies and some trade unions) and the other for unemployment benefit which was administered directly by Government. The Beveridge Report in 1942 proposed expansion and unification of the welfare state under a scheme of what was called social insurance. In March 1943 Winston Churchill in a broadcast entitled "After the War" committed the government to a system of "national compulsory insurance for all classes for all purposes from the cradle to the grave."

After the Second World War, the Attlee government pressed ahead with the introduction of the Welfare State, of which an expanded National Insurance scheme was a major component. As part of this process, responsibility passed in 1948 to the new Ministry of National Insurance. At that point, a single stamp was introduced which covered all the benefits of the new Welfare State.

Stamp cards for class 1 (employed) contributions persisted until 1975 when these contributions finally ceased to be flat-rate and became earnings related, collected along with Income Tax under the PAYE procedures. Making NI contributions is often described by people as paying their stamp.

As the system developed, the link between individual contributions and benefits was weakened.

The National Insurance Funds are used to pay for certain types of welfare expenditure and National Insurance payments cannot be used directly to fund general government spending. However, any surplus in the funds is invested in government securities, and so is effectively lent to the government at low rates of interest. National Insurance contributions are paid into the various National Insurance Funds after deduction of monies specifically allocated to the National Health Services (NHS). However a small percentage is transferred from the funds to the NHS from certain of the smaller sub-classes. Thus the four NHS organisations are partially funded from NI contributions but not from the NI Fund. Less than half of benefit expenditure (42.1%) now goes on contributory benefits, compared with over 65% in 1978–79 because of the growth of means-tested benefits since the late 1970s.

An actuarial evaluation of the long-term prospects for the National Insurance system is mandated every 5 years, or whenever any changes are proposed to benefits or contributions. Such evaluations are conducted by the Government Actuary's Department and the resulting reports must be presented to the UK Parliament. The most recent review was conducted as at April 2015, with the report being published two years later.

Contributions

The contributions component of the system, "National Insurance Contributions" (NICs) are paid by employees and employers on earnings, and by employers on certain benefits-in-kind provided to employees.  The self-employed contribute partly by a fixed weekly or monthly payment, and partly on a percentage of net profits above a certain threshold.  Individuals may also make voluntary contributions, in order to fill a gap in their contributions record and thus protect their entitlement to benefits. Contributions are collected by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) through the PAYE system, along with Income Tax and repayments of Student Loans and Postgraduate Loans.

People in certain circumstances, such as caring for a child, caring for a severely disabled person for more than 20 hours a week or claiming unemployment or sickness benefits, gain National Insurance credits which protects their rights to various benefits.

National Insurance is a significant contributor to UK government revenues, with contributions estimated to comprise 18% of total revenue in the 2019/2020 financial year.

Contribution classes

National insurance contributions (NICs) fall into a number of classes.  Class 1, 2 and 3 NICs paid are credited to an individual's NI account, which determines eligibility for certain benefits - including the state pension. Class 1A, 1B and 4 NIC do not count towards benefit entitlements but must still be paid if due.

Class 1
Class 1 contributions are paid by employers and their employees. In law, the employee contribution is referred to as the 'primary' contribution and the employer contribution as the 'secondary', but they are usually referred to simply as employee and employer contributions.

The employee contribution is deducted from gross wages by the employer, with no action required by the employee.  The employer then adds in their own contribution and remits the total to HMRC along with income tax and other statutory deductions. Contributions for employees are calculated on a periodic basis, usually weekly or monthly depending on how the employee is paid, with no reference to earnings in previous periods. Those for company directors are calculated on an annual basis, to ensure that the correct level of NICs are collected regardless of how often the director chooses to be paid.

There are a number of milestone figures which determine the rate of NICs to be paid. These are the Lower Earnings Limit (LEL), Primary Threshold (PT), Secondary Threshold (ST) and Upper Earnings Limit (UEL), though often the PT and ST are set to the same value. The cash value of most of these figures normally changes each year, either in line with inflation or by some other amount decided by the Chancellor. The PT is normally indexed to inflation using the CPI, while other thresholds remain indexed using the RPI.

On earnings below the LEL, no NICs are paid because no benefits accrue on earnings below this limit.
On earnings above the LEL, up to and including the PT, employee contributions are not paid but are credited by the government as if they were (enabling certain low-paid workers to qualify for benefits).
On earnings above the LEL, up to and including the ST, employer contributions are not paid.
On earnings above the PT/ST, up to and including the UEL, NICs are collected at a rate which is determined by a number of factors:
Whether the employee has reached the age at which State Pension becomes payable
Whether the employee is a married woman paying reduced-rate contributions. This facility was abolished on 11 May 1977 but women who were already paying these contributions at that time were allowed to opt to continue to do so for as long as they remained married and in employment
Whether the employee is an ocean-going mariner or deep-sea fisherman.
In the case of the employer contribution, whether the employee is aged under 21 or is an apprentice aged under 25.
On earnings above the UEL yet another set of rates apply, this time depending only on whether the employee has reached the age at which State Pension becomes payable or is an ocean-going mariner or deep-sea fisherman

Table letters
As indicated above, the rates at which an individual and their employer pay contributions depend on a number of factors. Consequently, there are many possible sets of employer/employee contribution rates to allow for all combinations of the various factors. HMRC allocate a letter of the alphabet, referred to as an 'NI Table Letter', to each of these sets of contribution rates. Employers are responsible for allocating the correct table letter to each employee depending on their particular circumstances.

Each tax year, HMRC publish look-up tables for each table letter to assist with manual calculation of contributions, though these days most of the calculations are done by computer systems and the tables are available only as downloads. In addition, HMRC provide an online National Insurance Calculator.

Class 1A
Class 1A contributions were introduced from 6 April 1991, and are paid by employers on the value of company cars and certain other benefits in kind provided to their employees and directors, at the standard employer contribution percentage rate for the tax year. Class 1A contributions do not provide any benefit entitlement for individuals.

Class 1B
Class 1B contributions were introduced on 6 April 1999 and are payable by employers as part of a PAYE Settlement Agreement (an arrangement whereby the employer meets the tax liabilities on certain benefits). Class 1B contributions are paid at the same rate as Class 1A contributions and do not provide any benefit entitlement for individuals.

Contribution rates
Contribution rates are set for each tax year by the government.

The general rates for the tax year 2022/23 between 6 November and 5 April are shown below. For those who qualify for the mariners rates, the employee rates are as shown below and the non-zero employer rates are 0.5% lower than those shown below.

Class 2
Class 2 contributions are fixed weekly amounts paid by the self-employed. They are due regardless of trading profits or losses, but those with low earnings can apply for exemption from paying and those on high earnings with liability to either Class 1 or 4 can apply for deferment from paying. As of January 2020, self-employed National Insurance Contributions (NICs) will be categorised as Class 2 when profits are between £6,365 and £8,631.99 a year. If a self-employed worker earns £8,632 or more a year they will be categorised as Class 4. Class 2 contributions are charged at £3.00 per week and are usually paid by direct debit. While the amount is calculated to a weekly figure, they were typically paid monthly or quarterly until 2015. For future years, class 2 is collected as part of the tax self-assessment process. For the most part, unlike Class 1, they do not form part of a qualifying contribution record for contributions-based Jobseekers Allowance, but do count towards Employment and Support Allowance.

Class 3
Class 3 contributions are voluntary NICs paid by people wishing to fill a gap in their contributions record which has arisen either by not working or by their earnings being too low.

Class 3 contributions only count towards State Pension and Bereavement Benefit entitlement. The main reason for paying Class 3 NICs is to ensure that a person's contribution record is preserved to provide entitlement to these benefits, though care needs to be taken not to pay unnecessarily as it is not necessary to have contributions in every year of a working life in order to qualify.

Class 4
Class 4 contributions are paid by self-employed people as a portion of their profits. The amount due is calculated with income tax at the end of the year, based on figures supplied on the SA100 tax return.

Contributions are based around two thresholds, the Lower Profits Limit (LPL) and the Upper Profits Limit (UPL). These have the same cash values as the Primary Threshold and Upper Earnings Limit used in Class 1 calculations.

No class 4 NICs are due on profits up to and including the LPL.
Above the LPL, up to and including the UPL, class 4 NICs are paid at a rate which can vary but has been 9% for several years.
Above the UPL, class 4 NICs are paid at a second rate, which has been 2% for several years

Class 4 contributions do not form part of a qualifying contribution record for any benefits, including the State Pension, as self-employed people qualify for these benefits by paying Class 2 contributions.

NI credits
People who are unable to work for some reason may be able to claim NI credits (technically credited earnings, since 1987). These are equivalent to Class 1 NICs, though are not paid for. They are granted either to maintain a contributions record while not working, or to those applying for benefits whose contribution record is only slightly short of the requirements for those benefits. In the latter case, they are unavailable to fill "gaps" in past years in contribution records for some benefits.

Benefits

The benefit component comprises a number of contributory benefits of availability and amount determined by the claimant's contribution record and circumstances. Weekly income benefits and some lump-sum benefits to participants upon death, retirement, unemployment, maternity and disability are provided.

Current benefits
Benefits for which there is a contribution condition:

Bereavement benefit
Employment and Support Allowance  (new-style)
Jobseeker's Allowance (new-style)
Statutory Sick Pay
State Pension

Former benefits
Historic benefits for which there was a contribution condition:

Incapacity Benefit
Invalidity Benefit
State Earnings-Related Pension Scheme
Unemployment Benefit
Widowed Mother's Allowance
Widowed Parent's Allowance
Widow's Pension

National Insurance number

To administer the National Insurance system, a National Insurance number is allocated to every child shortly after their birth when a claim to Child Benefit is made. People coming from overseas have to apply for a NI number before they can qualify for benefits, though holding a NI number is not a prerequisite for working in the UK. An NI number is in the format: two letters, six digits and one further letter or a space. The example used is typically QQ123456C. It is usual to pair off the digits - such separators are seen on forms used by government departments (both internal and external, notably the P45 and P60).

National Insurance and PAYE Service
National Insurance contributions for all UK residents and some non-residents are recorded using the NPS computer system (National Insurance and PAYE Service). This came into use in June and July 2009 and brought NIC and Income Tax records together on one system for the first time.

The original National Insurance Recording System (NIRS) was a more archaic system first used in 1975 without direct user access to its records.  A civil servant working within the Contributions Office (NICO) would have to request paper printouts of an individual's account which could take up to two weeks to arrive.  New information to be added to the account would be sent to specialised data entry operatives on paper to be input into NIRS.

NIRS/2, introduced in 1996, was a large and complex computer system which had several uses.  These included individual applications to access or update an individual National Insurance account, to view employer's National Insurance schemes and a general work management application. There was some controversy regarding the NIRS/2 system from its inception when problems with the new system attracted widespread media coverage.

Due to these computer problems, Deficiency Notices (telling individuals of a possible shortfall in their contributions), which had been sent out on an annual basis prior to 1996, stopped being issued; the Inland Revenue took several years to clear the backlog. As a result, many customers were unaware whether they had incomplete years of contributions towards their State Pension.

Contribution rates – employees
As noted above, the employee contribution was a flat rate stamp until 1975. After this, the rates have been as follows:

On 7 September 2021, the government announced an increase of NI rates by 1.25 percentage points for the 2022–23 tax year, breaking its 2019 manifesto promise. From 2023, a new health and social care levy charged at the 1.25% rate would be introduced with NI rates reverting to their previous rates. This move was reversed by new chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng effective 6 November 2022.

In the early 2000s the lower threshold for employee contributions was aligned with the standard personal allowance for Income Tax but has since diverged significantly, as illustrated in the following table.

The upper limit is currently set at the figure at which the higher rate of Income Tax becomes chargeable for a person on the standard personal allowance for Income Tax in all parts of the UK except Scotland (which can set its own level for the tax threshold, but not for the NI upper limit).

For 2015-16 there was therefore up to £304.80 payable by someone who has not reached the point where they are liable for Income Tax. This has risen to £352.80 for 2016–17, to £400.32 for 2017–18, to £411.12 for 2018-19 and to £464.16 for 2019–20. This fell to £360 for 2020–21.

The current Government's manifesto in the 2019 General Election promised to restore the parity between the NI and Tax thresholds by the end of their first term in office. The limits were harmonised on 6 July 2022.

The limits and rates for the following tax year are normally announced at the same time as the Autumn budget made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Current rates are shown on the hmrc.gov.uk website.

The calculation of contributions for employees has to be made on each pay period (for non-directors of a company). As a result and unlike UK income tax, a weekly paid employee will face a charge in any week where earnings exceed 1/52 of the annual limit. It is therefore possible for a charge to arise on someone who earns below the limit on an annual basis but who has occasional payments above the weekly limit.

A further complication is that an employee has an allowance per employer, unlike income tax where the allowance is split between employers via the person's tax code. So a person with two low paid jobs would pay less, possibly nothing, than someone who earned the same amount from one job.

Notes

See also
 H.M. Stationery Office Collection A collection of British national insurance stamps in the British Library Philatelic Collections
 National Insurance Fund
 Beveridge Report
 Social security

References

External links

 HMRC Up to date national insurance rates tables
 National Insurance contribution rates from 1975-76, from the Institute for Fiscal Studies

Taxation in the United Kingdom
Social security in the United Kingdom
Retirement in the United Kingdom


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/ Living Here / Healthcare
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HEALTH CARE IN PEARLAND
As Pearland's population continues to grow, the community has seen a tremendous increase in hospital and other health care developments.
Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) opened its HCA Healthcare Houston Pearland, a 30-bed, acute care hospital in Pearland in February 2015. HCA Healthcare Houston Pearland is located at the southwest intersection of Highway 288 and County Road 2234 (Shadow Creek Parkway) on a 48-acre site that is currently home to a full-service, freestanding 24-hour emergency department, imaging center and a 3-story, 80,000 square-foot medical office building. HCA Houston Healthcare Pearland is a 144,000 square-foot, $71 million facility featuring surgical suites, medical/surgical beds, intensive care beds, an emergency department, and an imaging department that includes magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computerized tomography (CT), catheterization lab, echocardiogram testing, and nuclear medicine modalities.
Memorial Hermann completed construction on a new medical campus in Pearland in 2016. The centerpiece of the new medical campus is a 4-story, 64-bed acute care hospital that features an intensive care unit, operating rooms, cardiac catheterization labs, medical/surgical units, women's and neonatology services. The multi-purpose complex is located on a 40-acre site that is also home to an outpatient imaging center, diagnostic lab services, and two medical office buildings. The campus also includes a "one-of-a-kind" convenient care center, which opened in February 2014, that provides one-stop, highly coordinated access to adult and pediatric primary care, specialty physicians, sports medicine and rehabilitation, and a 24-hour emergency room.
Encompass Health opened a 40-bed rehabilitation hospital on Business Center Drive in 2017.
In 2016, Houston Methodist Primary Care Group opened Pearland Medical Commons, a 46,000 square foot primary care practice on FM 518 near Cullen. The medical office building is occupied by Methodist physicians, offering primary care and orthopedic and sports medicine services.
Kelsey-Seybold opened a 55,000 square-foot multi specialty clinic on State Highway 288 and Business Center Drive in 2015.
Texas Children's Hospital opened its first ever combined Pediatrics and OB/GYN center on Broadway in 2013.
Pearland: A Great Place to Live!
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Melissa oversees the implementation and management of the PEDC marketing plan, and the design, development and direction of targeted campaigns to recruit new business to Pearland. She is responsible for all printed and electronic communication materials including the PEDC, community and demographic information, and social media.
Pearland Economic Development Corporation
Established in 1995 by the voters of the City of the Pearland, the Pearland Economic Development Corporation (PEDC) is the lead economic development group for this thriving, business-friendly community.
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We recognize the seriousness of the COVID-19 virus and the impact that it will have on our community. PEDC is compiling resources for Pearland businesses that can provide assistance during this disruption.


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Forget Me Lewis Capaldi Download 'Forget Me' on iTunes
Rita Ora And Calvin Harris Enjoy Brief Reunion In Los Angeles Before Her UK Return
The couple enjoyed just a short reunion this week because of their hectic work schedules at the moment.
Rita Ora and Calvin Harris shared a tender farewell out in Los Angeles this week after their respective work commitments kept the reunion brief.
The 'Shine Ya Light' singer has been out in America for the past week continuing work on her second studio album, but managed to meet up with the Scottish DJ on Monday (17th June) for a short visit.
Calvin is believed to have flown into Los Angeles specially to see the star, who he has been dating for several months, after a gig in Chicago over the weekend.
Rita opted for a unique look of suit trousers and blazer paired with just a bra top on underneath, as the two shared a public embrace before she returned to the UK.
Check out a picture of Calvin Harris and Rita Ora out together in Los Angeles this week below (Credit: Splash):
"Switch. Hello! #Album2 #arrrgghhhh #excited! #sillystudiotime!" Rita tweeted over the weekend while in the recording studio.
Last week saw Rita inviting her BFF Cara Delevingne on stage at a gig in South London to dance with her during 'Party & BS (How We Do)', with Cara even taking the mic to sing a few bars at one point.
Rita Ora is currently working on her new album, the follow-up to last year's 'ORA', which is expected to see release later this year.
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Scooper - Technology News: Is Europe heading for a clash of generations?
Is Europe heading for a clash of generations?
Throughout the industrialized world, governments are rushing to hand out money to the elderly. Germany's government has not only reversed an increase in the retirement age intended to make pensions more affordable; it has recently announced a 5% increase in benefits, the largest such rise since 1993 (when, unlike today, Germany was actually experiencing inflation). Poland's Law and Justice government, in one of its first moves after taking power last year, decreased the pension age and increased payments.
At a time when public budgets are strained, this trend may seem counter-intuitive. And, in fact, the United Kingdom's government has moved in the opposite direction, cutting disability benefits (though a cabinet minister resigned in protest). But the overarching trend toward increased benefits for the elderly has a simple explanation: politics.
As populations in Europe and Japan age, the demographic pyramid is rapidly inverting – and a war of generations, rather than of classes, is emerging. The war is fought primarily at the ballot box – old people win elections, while young people stay home – and the spoils lie in the national budget, in the balance among education, pension, health-care, and tax regimes. With this clash, the intergenerational pact that long underpinned social and political stability has been broken.
The conservative philosopher Edmund Burke famously saw society as a contract not just among "those who are living," but also with "those who are dead" and "those who are to be born." Burke was suspicious of popular politics that would favor the current generation over future cohorts. The father of welfare economics, Arthur Pigou, thought that the state would somehow protect the social contract's absent partners, but that view was hopelessly idealistic. What motive would the government have to be a trustee for unknown people at the expense of real and present voters?
The focus on the present has far-reaching consequences. The impact is particularly severe in a context of labor mobility, where the losers at the ballot box – the young – wield another weapon: their feet. In countries dominated by gerontocratic politics, young people typically try to leave as quickly as possible. And because young people receive extensive subsidies in the form of education, when they leave, they take with them resources that could otherwise have been used to pay for other people's retirement. Put another way, they leave behind a debt burden that will be much more difficult to reduce without them.
This trend is fueled by inadequate economic opportunities at home. In the mid-twentieth century, rapid economic growth implied that each generation would have a better future than the last. Today, by contrast, widespread malaise and forecasts of secular stagnation make promises about a better future appear fraudulent.
In many countries – particularly in the Mediterranean, but also elsewhere in Europe, as well as in North Africa – youth unemployment has reached record levels, owing to a combination of problematic macroeconomic policies and bad labor-market policies. With the young seemingly bound to leave, spending on education increasingly appears to be a waste. As education diminishes, the amount of investment in human capital that the migrants take with them declines – but so does the amount of human capital that stays behind.
A better approach would be to reverse the exodus of the young through better policies, as Ireland did in the late twentieth century, with rapid economic growth leading many of the skilled workers who had left in the 1980s to return – and spur even faster growth. In order for such a reversal to take place, however, young people's countries of origin must become more open and more innovative – no small feat, especially when the elderly are in political control. In short, there are many feedback loops that make the gerontocracy self-reinforcing.
The damage wrought by the preference for the old over the young extends beyond national economies. Environmental damage on a global scale provides perhaps the starkest illustration of how today's middle-aged population is making decisions without regard for the younger generation – and those that will follow.
Indeed, global warming, for example, is often viewed as imposing a heavy burden on future generations. While the scale of this burden has not been unambiguously calculated, it is clear that it could be reduced substantially by investing relatively small amounts today on a global basis. Yet countries continue to fail to make such investments. By the time the needed adjustments are implemented, they will be the next generation's problem – and they will cost much more.
In this sense, current generations are imposing a kind of tax on their successors, who are already being starved of life opportunities. Some commentators describe the burden in even more brutal terms, saying that the current generation is essentially colonizing the future, as they, like many European colonizers in the past, strip the world of its riches and leave a wasteland for those they colonized.
It might be said that it is hopelessly naive to expect altruism of the present generation. And, indeed, in today's self-centered culture, it is difficult to expect people to put the interests of future generations first. For now, the safety valve provided by labor mobility may rule out a youth revolt against the selfishness and complacency of the elderly. The question is what will happen when opportunities abroad are no better than those at home.


May 2013 – Life is not Accumulation, it is about Contribution.
Posted by Mich Talebzadeh in Oracle.
In the post Automatic Workload Repository (AWR) Performance Monitoring Tool Basics , I described the basic set up and report generation for AWR. In this post we will try to understand the AWR report itself.
The output from the AWR report is shown below.
Oracle has been designed to be a portable database. It is available on every platform from Windows to UNIX to mainframes. Oracle architecture is adequately generalized that you can get a good understanding of how it works on all platforms.
Oracle database consists of many logical storage structures such as data blocks, segments, schema objects etc. The physical storage space in the data files is logically allocated and de-allocated in the form of Oracle data blocks. The three types of physical database files are data files, redo logs, and control files.
Data files contain the actual data of the database that is represented in the form of tables or indexes.
Redo logs are used to record all changes made to the database. In order to function properly, every oracle database should have at least two redo logs.
The control file describes the physical structure of the database. It contains information such as the database name, date and the time of creation etc. Oracle process architecture is depicted below.
Oracle background processes are created at the time of initializing the database. Certain background processes are required for normal operation of the system and others are only used to perform maintenance and recovery operations.
Oracle uses two major types of memory structures for storing and retrieving data in the system. They are System Global Area (SGA) and Program Global Area (PGA).
SGA is a shared memory region used to hold data and internal control structures of the database. PGA (also called as Process Global Area) is the collection of non shared memory regions, each containing the data and control information for an individual server process. When a server process starts, the PGA memory gets allocated for that process.
This white paper reveals oracle performance tuning best practices that any administrator, database designer and performance tester must focus on.
The performance issues in operating system normally involve memory management, process management and scheduling. After tuning the Oracle database instance, if you still need to enhance the performance then you may reduce system time. You should also make sure that there is enough CPU power, swap space and I/O bandwidth. For instance, the number of system calls increases in case of excessive buffer busy waits. You can decrease the total number of system calls by minimizing such buffer busy waits.
Some platforms offer operating system resource managers. These are actually designed to minimize the impact of peak load use patterns. Operating system resource managers are different from domains or similar facilities. Domains can provide thoroughly separated environments within one system. As long as the partitioned memory resource allocation is steady, oracle runs within domains as well as other less partitioning constructs. Administrators generally prioritize the allocation of resources within a global pool of resources.
Note: If you have more than one instance on a node and you want to distribute resources among them, each instance should be assigned to a dedicated resource manager group. To run multiple instances in the managed entity, you need to use instance caging to manage CPU resource distribution among the instances. While managing CPU resources, the Oracle Database Resource Manager expects a fixed amount of CPU resources for the instance. With instance caging, it assumes the available CPU resources to be equal to the value of the CPU_COUNT initialization parameter. Without instance caging, it assumes the available CPU resources to be equal to the total number of CPUs in the managed entity.
In order to address CPU issues, you need to determine whether enough CPU resources are available and also recognize when the system is consuming too many resources.
You can also capture various workload snapshots by using the Statspack, Automatic Workload Repository, or the UTLBSTAT utility. Workload is an important factor while evaluating the utilization of CPU. During peak hours, 90% CPU utilization with 10% waiting time could be acceptable. Even 25% utilization at a time of low workload is understandable. But there will be no scope for peak workload if your systems show high utilization at normal workloads.
For instance, the following figure depicts the workload over time and has peaks at exactly 10 AM and at around 2 PM.
This application has 100 users working 8 hours a day. Each user entering one transaction every 5 minutes translates into 9,600 transactions daily and in 8 hour period, the system must support 1,200 transactions an hour i.e. an average of 20 transactions per minute.
However, usage patterns are not constant and in this context, 20 transactions per minute can be understood as merely a minimum requirement. If the peak rate you need to achieve is 120 transactions per minute, then you should configure a system that can support this workload.
For this example, let us assume that at peak workload, Oracle may use 90% of the CPU resource. As per the calculation shown below, the database may use around 15% of the CPU resource for a period of average workload.
(20 tpm / 120 tpm) * 90% = 15% of the CPU resource.
If the system requires around 40 to 50 percent of the CPU resource to achieve just 20 tpm then this could be an issue. However, if you can properly tune the system so that it achieves 20 tpm by using only 15% of the CPU, the system can easily support 120 transactions per minute by using 90% of the resources.
The query optimizer is built-in software that chooses an effective method in executing SQL statements.
SQL statements could be executed by a database in many ways such as index scans, full table scans, hash joins and nested loops. The optimizer can acknowledge many factors pertaining to the objects and the conditions mentioned in the query while examining the execution plan. This is an important step in SQL processing and can considerably affect the execution time.
The three main query optimizer operations are Query transformation, Estimation and Plan generation. The following figure illustrates the components of optimizer.
Each query portion is considered as a query block. The input to the query transformer is a parsed query that is defined by a set of query blocks.
The transformer decides whether it is beneficial to rewrite the existing statements into semantically equivalent statements that could be processed effectively.
The estimator evaluates the total cost of an execution plan. Estimator normally uses the available statistics in computing the measures. These statistics can enhance the degree of accuracy.
By trying out different access paths and join methods, the plan generator investigates a variety of plans for a query block. The generator actually selects the plan with the lowest cost.
The query transformer employs many transformation methods including View merging and Predicate pushing.
The view merging optimization is applicable to views that contain selections, joins and projections. In order to authorize the optimizer to use view merging, you should grant the MERGE ANY VIEW privilege to the user. You need to grant the MERGE VIEW privilege to the user on specific views to allow the optimizer to use view merging. In case of predicate pushing, the optimizer pushes relevant predicates into the view query block.
Note: The above privileges are used only under certain conditions, for instance, when a view is not merged because of security check failure.
To increase the performance of SQL execution, you are supposed to use the following parameters. These parameters are helpful in controlling the behavior of optimizer.
This parameter is used in converting literal values of a statement to bind variables. This can promote cursor sharing and could have significant effect on execution plans. The optimizer produces the plan by using these bind variables.
It can control the costing of an index probe in combination with nested loops. The values range from 0 to 100. A value of 100 denotes that 100 percent of the blocks are likely to be found in the buffer cache so that optimizer can adjust the cost of an index probe accordingly.
This adjusts index probe costs. The values range from 1 to 10000. The default value is 100 and it indicates that all indexes are evaluated as an access path as per the normal costing model. A value of 10 denotes that an index access path cost is one-tenth the normal cost.
You can use this parameter to control the memory allocation for hash joins and sorts. We can minimize the optimizer cost by allocating more memory for sorts and hash joins.
This parameter allows the optimizer to cost a star transformation for star queries. Star transformation has the ability to integrate all the bitmap indexes on various fact table columns.
Oracle normally recommends using automatic memory management. But you can also adjust the memory pools manually. The information is stored in memory caches and on disk. As Memory access is always faster than disk access (i.e. physical I/O), disk access can increase the CPU resources required. So, it would be better if the data requests of frequently accessed objects are handled by memory.
Our aim should be to minimize the physical I/O overhead as much as we can by making the data retrieval process as efficient as possible.
You need to set SGA_TARGET initialization parameter to a non-zero value.
You must set the STATISTICS_LEVEL parameter to TYPICAL.
The SGA_TARGET parameter should be set to the amount of memory that you would like to allocate for SGA.
Note: You can manually resize memory pool by using the parameters such as SHARED_POOL_SIZE, DB_CACHE_SIZE and JAVA_POOL_SIZE.
Oracle database can bypass the buffer cache for certain operations such as parallel reads and sorting. Buffer cache could be used effectively by properly tuning SQL statements for the application. While using parallel queries, you need to configure the database to use buffer cache instead of performing direct reads into the PGA. This configuration is more appropriate in case of servers with large amount of memory.
There are few methods to examine buffer cache activity such as V$DB_CACHE_ADVICE and Buffer Cache Hit Ratio. If you need to use V$DB_CACHE_ADVICE then the parameter DB_CACHE_ADVICE should be set to ON.
The Buffer Cache Hit Ratio estimates how frequently a requested block could be detected in the buffer cache without accessing the disk. You must use the Buffer Cache Hit Ratio to verify the physical I/O as anticipated by V$DB_CACHE_ADVICE.
Redo data is generated when server process makes changes to the data blocks in the buffer cache. While log writer (LGWR) attempts to write all the redo entries to a redo log file, the user processes can copy new entries over the previous entries in the memory.
Properly batch the commit operations. Here the log writer can efficiently write all the redo log entries.
Use NOLOGGING operations especially while loading large amount of data.
Note: In many cases, sizing the buffer more than 1M may not give performance benefits and it also uses extra memory.
The random I/O operations are actuated by inserts, deletes and updates that in turn are activated by queries that scan bulk portions of table. The random I/O operations are calculated in IOPs (I/O operations per second). Sequential I/O operations are calculated in the number of megabytes of data that could be scanned (MB/s).
Storage arrays must be sized by the number of IOPs they can deliver. The total number of IOPs and MB/s required for existing Oracle databases could be determined from the workload repository reports.
In case of OLTP (On-Line Transaction Processing) environments, assume that every transaction incurs about five random IOPs.
For data warehousing environments, assume that a reasonably modern core may require around 200 MB/s in order to be kept completely busy. So a two processor quad core machine needs around 1.6 GB/s scan rate.
Oracle Automatic Storage Management must be utilized in maximizing the I/O bandwidth. It offers efficient realization of storage array capabilities.
It is recommended to use Direct and Asynchronous I/O to optimize I/O performance. Reads can be done asynchronously. In case of query intensive workloads, read ahead capability for sequential scans can improve the performance.
You are supposed to use Direct NFS Client to enhance the performance of network attached storage.
A big advantage of Oracle's Maximum Availability Architecture is that it consists of redundant components to improve the efficiency of production systems.
Oracle Real Application Clusters provide protection against server failures and offer more scalability for enterprise applications.
You can use built-in Data Guard technology for disaster recovery. The Active Data Guard allows reporting and backup operations to be offloaded to standby systems.
In an Oracle Data Guard environment, users can be switched between production and standby databases. Version differences of the database and the operating system are always supported. That is, standby database can be upgraded to the next version and users on the older versions can be switched over to the latest versions.
In the designing phase of any system development, you need to make sure that all the developers understand SQL execution efficiency.
As every database connection is an expensive operation, you are supposed to reduce the number of concurrent connections to the database.
As far as multi-tiered applications are concerned, you must ensure that the database connections are pooled.
Maintaining user connections is also important in reducing the parsing activity. Parsing is the process of analyzing SQL statements and developing an execution plan. This process involves syntax checking, loading shared structures and security checking.
Hard parses perform all the operations involved in a parse. They are considered as unscalable and resource intensive. Soft parses are not ideal. They still require security checking that may consume system resources.
As parsing should be reduced to a great extent, developers must design their applications that can parse SQL statements once and execute them many times. This could be achieved through cursors. Experienced developers should be aware of opening and re-executing cursors. Make sure that SQL statements are shared within the shared pool. To achieve this, you can use bind variables to represent the parts of the query.
Performance optimization is an iterative process. Removing the first bottleneck may not give desired improvements because another bottleneck might be revealed that may affect the performance. As this process is iterative, few investigations may have less impact on system performance. It actually takes time and experience to effectively pinpoint critical bottlenecks.
By eliminating resource conflicts, systems could be made scalable to the levels required by any enterprise. Hence, improved performance should be measured in terms of business goals rather than system statistics.


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Celebrating 70 years of Nursing and Midwifery in our National Health Service
The Big 7-Tea Celebration of Nursing in the NHS
NHS 70th celebrations organising committee selfie (L-R: Siobhan O'Connor, Bruce Harper-McDonald, Margaret Moran, Gillian Taylor, Connie McLuckie)
An enthusiastic team of Nursing and Midwifery academics secured £1,500 of Public Engagement Funding and organised a public exhibition and NHS "Big 7Tea" on Thursday 5 July 2018 at Edinburgh Napier University's Sighthill Campus to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the National Health Service (NHS).
Led by myself (Gillian Taylor), the five strong team spent several months pulling together a fun filled and informative day of activities for staff, students, health and social care professionals and members of the public to enjoy.
The free exhibition entitled "Celebrating 70 years of Nursing and Midwifery in our National Health Service (NHS) Scotland" aimed to raise awareness of the history and evolution of Nursing and Midwifery education, research and practice. In particular, we wanted to highlight the role of Nurses and Midwives within Scottish/UK society from the inception of the National Health Service (NHS) on 5 July 1948 to 5 July 2018 and gather hopes and aspirations for the future of the NHS in Scotland.
In support of the exhibition a series of decade posters with historical photographs and interesting facts from the 1940's to present day were designed and displayed. Colleagues from Lothian Health Service Archive at the University of Edinburgh were helpful in pulling together historical images of Nurses and Midwives in action across various parts of the NHS in Scotland.
Exhibition posters of each decade of the NHS
The team were also keen to raise awareness of academic and clinical career pathways within Nursing and Midwifery and opportunities for inter-professional education, research and practice and so they incorporated a quiz into the exhibition with prizes for the top three fully correct answers to all ten historical questions. The quiz promoted public participation and engagement with the exhibits – with some attendees requesting that the questions could have been easier!
An Edinburgh Napier University second year nursing student won the first prize of a £70 Blackwell's Book Shop gift voucher, with second and third prizes being awarded to administration staff at the university who took part.
Second year student nurse, Andrew Brown, receiving his prize from lecturer Gillian Taylor.
Professor Tracy Humphrey, Dean of the School of Health and Social Care at Edinburgh Napier University, launched the exhibit and the attendees enjoyed tea, coffee and seventy NHS inspired delicious cupcakes, courtesy of a local baker, which were quickly devoured!
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Scotland also supported the event with a stand displaying key nursing artefacts, documents and images. One such object was the "Case of Memories" which contained District Nursing items or replicas (e.g. bandages, surgical spirit, antiseptic cream and nursing stories) designed to facilitate reminiscence and the sharing of memories. Alison O'Donnell from the RCN History of Nursing Forum, a keen nursing historian, attended and mingled throughout the day to answer questions from inquisitive visitors about the history of Nursing and Midwifery.
Emma Taylor, from RCN Scotland, displaying historical nursing objects
Two interactive trees, themed for autumn and spring, were also showcased and people invited to write and post their experiences of Nursing and Midwifery in the NHS and their hopes and aspirations for the future of the National Health Service.
Spring experiences of Nursing and Midwifery in the NHS and their hopes and aspirations for the future of the National Health Service
Autumn themed experiences of Nursing and Midwifery in the NHS and their hopes and aspirations for the future of the National Health Service
A series of 'vox pop' videos was pre-recorded by the team, featuring retired and current nurses and academic staff, along with current students, talking about their experiences of working in the NHS and education . This was screened throughout the day so people could sit and listen to a range of real-life stories about what ward or community life is really like, and some of the changes throughout the history of the NHS.
The exhibition also raised money, via donations, for Edinburgh and Lothians Health Foundation by hosting a "Big7Tea". A total of £138.06 was raised on the day! The team have decided to divide this money equally between NHS Lothian's Labour Suite Education and Equipment Fund and NHS Lothian's Specialist Palliative Care Fund.
A popular hit amongst visitors whilst browsing the exhibition was a selfie-booth, where old nursing uniforms and props could be worn, and images taken on a standalone machine that printed the photos for people to take away. The exact number of selfies taken cannot be disclosed but the machine almost broke down at one point in the afternoon from over use!
A selection of selfie photos taken during the NHS 70th anniversary celebrations at Edinburgh Napier University on 5 July 2018.
The organizing team are hopeful of taking the exhibition on tour as it has been very popular with staff, students and the public who dropped in to see it. Plans are in progress for showcasing the exhibit within the Scottish Parliament early in 2019, RCN Congress 2019 and a retired Queen's Nurse gathering in Inverness on Saturday 1st September 2018. The team also hope that the materials produced and used within the exhibition can be used to support induction and teaching activities within the undergraduate Nursing and Midwifery Programmes.
Thank you again for awarding funding for this exhibition and to everyone involved in organizing the event, helping to secure such a successful day.
I gratefully acknowledge funding for this project from the School of Health and Social Care at Edinburgh Napier University (ENU) and the ingenious support of academic colleagues Siobhan O'Connor, Bruce Harper-McDonald, Margaret Moran and Connie McLuckie.
I would also like to acknowledge the invaluable support and expertise of ENU's Marketing and Communications Business Partner Brenda McIlwraith.
Finally, I would like to mention the contribution and professional services provided by ENU's Information Services, particularly Mark Pentler, Print Services and Facilities and Estates Department without whom the exhibition would not have been possible.
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Working with communities [through public engagement] provides me with fantastic opportunities to learn from a diversity of lived experiences that are often missing from academic life. It also nourishes a grounded and reflexive approach to my teaching and research.
Dr Kirstie Jamieson


We have been examining a new sketching paradigm that allows direct free-hand creation of immersive graphics. Based on Apple's QuickTime VR Technology it enables one to paint in a cylindrical panoramic space. To increase drawing speed we make extended use of the cylindrical geometry of the panoramic space, particularly the fact that a straight line on screen is a sinusoid on the flattened cylinder. We have added a secondary window to the QuickTime viewer too indicate the view angle and orientation, and various grids to help structure the space. Standard drawing functions such as colour pickers, shaped, straight and curved line drawing tools, flood fills, and cloning tools have all been implemented. In addition to these, brush controls have been added with parameterised opacity, hardness, size and spacing. The software handles a background read-only image plus an overlay (with alpha channel) containing new marks. There is also an undo buffer. To aid with the initial creation of an image, VRML models can be directly imported as wireframes. Many possible extensions of this application are discussed with the aim of opening up the digital panorama as a fully interactive VR experience.