text:
Paper Count: 15
Search results for: Ha Hai Duong
15 Management Practices and Economic Performance of Smallholder Dairy Cattle Farms in Southern Vietnam
Authors: Ngoc-Hieu Vu
Although dairy production in Vietnam is a relatively new agricultural activity, milk production increased remarkably in recent years. Smallholders are still the main drivers for this development, especially in the southern part of the country. However, information on the farming practices is very limited. Therefore, this study aimed to characterize husbandry practices, educational experiences, decision-making practices, constraints, income and expenses of smallholder dairy farms in Southern Vietnam. A total of 200 farms, located in the regions Ho Chi Minh (HCM, N=80 farms), Lam Dong (N=40 farms), Binh Duong (N=40 farms) and Long An (N=40 farms) were included. Between October 2013 and December 2014 farmers were interviewed twice. On average, farms owned 3.200m2, 2.000m2, and 193m2 of pasture, cropping and housing area, respectively. The number of total, milking and dry cows, heifers, and calves were 20.4, 11.6, 4.7, 3.3, and 2.9 head. The number of lactating dairy cows was higher (p<0.001) in HCM (15.5) and Lam Dong (14.7) than in Binh Duong (6.7) and Long An (10.7). Animals were mainly crossbred Holstein-Friesian (HF) cows with at least 75% HF origin (84%), whereas a higher (P<0.001) percentage of purebred HF was found in HCM and Lam Dong and crossbreds in Binh Duong and Long An. Animals were mainly raised in tie-stalls (94%) and machine-milked (80%). Farmers used their own replacement animals (76%), and both genetic and phenotypic information (67%) for selecting sires. Farmers were predominantly educated at primary school level (53%). Major constraints for dairy farming were the lack of capital (43%), diseases (17%), marketing (22%), lack of knowledge (8%) and feed (7%). Monthly profit per lactating cow was superior in Lam Dong (2,817 thousand VND) and HCM (2,798 thousand VND) compared to other regions in Long An (2,597 thousand VND), and Binh Duong (1,775 thousand VND). Regional differences may be mainly attributed to environmental factors, urbanization, and particularly governmental support and the availability of extension and financial institutions. Results from this study provide important information on farming practices of smallholders in Southern Vietnam that are useful in determining regions that need to be addressed by authorities in order to improve dairy production.
Keywords: dairy farms, milk yield, Southern Vietnam, socio-economics
14 An Assessment of Tai Chi Exercise on Cognitive Performance in Vietnamese Older Adults
Authors: Hung Manh Nguyen, Duong Dai Nguyen
Objective: To evaluate the effects of Tai Chi exercise on cognitive performance of community-dwelling elderly in Vinh city, Vietnam. Design: A randomized controlled trial. Participants: One hundred and two subjected were recruited. Intervention: Subjects were divided randomly into two groups. Tai Chi group was assigned 6-months Tai Chi training. Control group was instructed to maintain their routine daily activities. Outcome measures: Trail Making Test (TMT) is primary outcome measure. Results: Participants in Tai Chi group reported significant improvement in TMT (part A) F(1, 71) = 78.37, p < .001, and in TMT (part B) F(1, 71)= 175.00, p < .001 in comparison with Control group. Conclusion: Tai Chi is beneficial to improve cognitive performance of the elderly.
Keywords: cognitive, elderly, Vietnam, Tai Chi
13 A Ratiometric Inorganic Phosphate Sensor Based on CdSe/ZnS QDs and Rhodamine 6G-Doped Nanofibers
Authors: Hong Dinh Duong, Jong Il Rhee
In this study, a ratiometric inorganic phosphate sensor was fabricated by a double layer of the rhodamine 6G-doped nanofibers and the CdSe/ZnS QDs-captured polymer. In which, CdSe/ZnS QDs with emission wavelengths of 595nm were synthesized and ligands on their surface were exchanged with mercaptopropionic acid (MPA). The synthesized MPA-QDs were combined with the mixture of sol-gel of 3-glycidoxypropyl trimethoxysilane (GPTMS), 3-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane (APTMS) and polyurethane (PU) to build a layer for sensing inorganic phosphate. Another sensing layer was of nanofibers doped R6G which were produced from poly(styrene-co-acrylonitrile) by electrospining. The ratio of fluorescence intensities between rhodamin 6G (R6G) and CdSe/ZnS QDs exposed at different phosphate concentrations was used for calculating a linear phosphate concentration range of 0-10mM.
Keywords: nanofiber, QDs, ratiometric phosphate sensor, rhodamine 6G, sol-gel
12 Empirical Research to Improve Performances of Paddy Columnar Dryer
Authors: Duong Thi Hong, Nguyen Van Hung, Martin Gummert
Good practices of mechanical drying can reduce losses of grain quality. Recently, with demands of higher capacity for paddy drying in the Mekong River Delta of Vietnam, columnar dryers have been introduced rapidly in this area. To improve the technology, this study was conducted to investigate and optimize the parameters for drying Jasmine paddy using an empirical cross-flow columnar dryer. The optimum parameters were resulted in air flow rate and drying temperature that are 1-1.5 m³ s-¹ t-¹ of paddy and 40-42°C, respectively. The investigation also addressed a solution of reversing drying air to achieve the uniformity of grain temperature and quality. Results of this study should be significant for developments of grain drying, contributing to reduce post harvest losses
Keywords: paddy drying, columnar dryer, air flow rate, drying temperature
11 Synthesis and Functionalization of Gold Nanostars for ROS Production
Authors: H. D. Duong, J. I. Rhee
In this work, gold nanoparticles in star shape (called gold nanostars, GNS) were synthesized and coated by N-(3-aminopropyl) methacrylamide hydrochloride (PA) and mercaptopropionic acid (MPA) for functionalizing their surface by amine and carboxyl groups and then investigated for ROS production. The GNS with big size and multi-tips seem to be superior in singlet oxygen production as compared with that of small GNS and less tips. However, the functioned GNS in small size could also enhance efficiency of singlet oxygen production about double as compared with that of the intact GNS. In combination with methylene blue (MB+), the functioned GNS could enhance the singlet oxygen production of MB+ after 1h of LED750 irradiation and no difference between small size and big size in this reaction was observed. In combination with 5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA), only GNS coated PA could enhance the singlet oxygen production of ALA and the small size of GNS coated PA was a little higher effect than that of the bigger size. However, GNS coated MPA with small size had strong effect on hydroxyl radical production of ALA.
Keywords: 5-aminolevulinic acid, gold nanostars, methylene blue, ROS production
10 Integrative System of GDP, Emissions, Health Services and Population Health in Vietnam: Dynamic Panel Data Estimation
Authors: Ha Hai Duong, Amnon Levy Livermore, Kankesu Jayanthakumaran, Oleg Yerokhin
The issues of economic development, the environment and human health have been investigated since 1990s. Previous researchers have found different empirical evidences of the relationship between income and environmental pollution, health as determinant of economic growth, and the effects of income and environmental pollution on health in various regions of the world. This paper concentrates on integrative relationship analysis of GDP, carbon dioxide emissions, and health services and population health in context of Vietnam. We applied the dynamic generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation on datasets of Vietnam's sixty-three provinces for the years 2000-2010. Our results show the significant positive effect of GDP on emissions and the dependence of population health on emissions and health services. We find the significant relationship between population health and GDP. Additionally, health services are significantly affected by population health and GDP. Finally, the population size too is other important determinant of both emissions and GDP.
Keywords: economic development, emissions, environmental pollution, health
9 Techniques to Teach Reading at Pre-Reading Stage
Authors: Anh Duong
The three-phase reading lesson has been put forth around the world as the new and innovative framework which is corresponding to the learner-centered trend in English language teaching and learning. Among three stages, pre-reading attracts many teachers' and researchers' attention for its vital role in preparing students with knowledge and interest in reading class. The researcher's desire to exemplify effectiveness of activities prior to text reading has provoked the current study. Three main aspects were investigated in this paper, i.e. teachers' and student's perception of pre-reading stage, teachers' exploitation of pre-reading techniques and teachers' recommendation of effective pre-reading activities. Aiming at pre-reading techniques for first-year students at English Department, this study involved 200 fresh-men and 10 teachers from Division 1 to participate in the questionnaire survey. Interviews with the teachers and classroom observation were employed as a tool to take an insight into the responses gained from the early instrument. After a detailed procedure of analyzing data, the researcher discovered that thanks to the participants' acclamation of pre-reading stage, this phase was frequently conducted by the surveyed teachers. Despite the fact that pre-reading activities apparently put a hand in motivating students to read and creating a joyful learning atmosphere, they did not fulfill another function as supporting students' reading comprehension. Therefore, a range of techniques and notices when preparing and conducting pre-reading phase was detected from the interviewed teachers. The findings assisted the researcher to propose some related pedagogical implications concerning teachers' source of pre-reading techniques, variations of suggested activities and first-year reading syllabus.
Keywords: pre-reading stage, pre-reading techniques, teaching reading, language teaching
8 Thermophilic Anaerobic Granular Membrane Distillation Bioreactor for Wastewater Reuse
Authors: Duong Cong Chinh, Shiao-Shing Chen, Le Quang Huy
Membrane distillation (MD) is actually claimed to be a cost-effective separation process when waste heat, alternative energy sources, or wastewater are used. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that a thermophilic anaerobic granular bioreactor is integrated with membrane distillation (ThAnMDB) was investigated. In this study, the laboratory scale anaerobic bioreactor (1.2 litter) was set-up. The bioreactor was maintained at temperature 55 ± 2°C, hydraulic retention time = 0.5 days, organic loading rates of 7 and 10 kg chemical oxygen demand (COD) m³/day. Side-stream direct contact membrane distillation with the polytetrafluoroethylene membrane area was 150 cm². The temperature of the distillate was kept at 25°C. Results show that distillate flux was 19.6 LMH (Liters per square meter per hour) on the first day and gradually decreased to 6.9 LMH after 10 days, and the membrane was not wet. Notably, by directly using the heat from the thermophilic anaerobic for MD separation process, all distilled water from wastewater was reuse as fresh water (electrical conductivity < 120 µs/cm). The ThAnMDB system showed its high pollutant removal performance: chemical oxygen demand (COD) from 99.6 to 99.9%, NH₄⁺ from 60 to 95%, and PO₄³⁻ complete removal. In addition, methane yield was from 0.28 to 0.34 lit CH₄/gram COD removal (80 – 97% of the theoretical) demonstrated that the ThAnMDB system was quite stable. The achievement of the ThAnMDB is not only in removing pollutants and reusing wastewater but also in absolutely unnecessarily adding alkaline to the anaerobic bioreactor system.
Keywords: high rate anaerobic digestion, membrane distillation, thermophilic anaerobic, wastewater reuse
7 Empirical Examination of High Performance Work System, Organizational Commitment and Organizational Citizen Behavior: A Mediation of Model of Vietnam Organizations
Authors: Giang Vu, Duong Nguyen, Yuan-Ling Chen
Vietnam is a fast developing country with highly economic growth, and Vietnam organizations strive to utilize high performance work system (HPWS) in reinforcing employee in-role performance. HPWS, a bundle of human resource (HR) practices, are composed of eight sets of HR practices, namely selective staffing, extensive training, internal mobility, employment security, clear job description, result-oriented appraisal, incentive reward, and participation. However, whether HPWS stimulate employee extra-role behaviors remains understudied in a booming economic context. In this study, we aim to investigate organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) in a Vietnam context and, as a central issue, disentangle how HPWS elicits in employee OCB. On the other hand, recently, a deliberation of so-called 'black-box' HPWS issue has explored the role of employee commitment, suggesting that organizational commitment is a compelling source of employee OCB. We draw upon social exchange theory to predict that when employees perceive the organizational investment, like HPWS, in heightening their abilities, knowledge, and motivation, they are more likely to pay back with commitment; consequently, they will take initiatives in OCB. Hence, we hypothesize an individual level framework, in which organizational commitment mediates the positive relationship between HPWS and OCB. We collected data on HPWS, organizational commitment, OCB, and demographic variables, all at line managers of Vietnamese firms in Hanoi and Hochiminh. We conclude with research findings, implications, and future research suggestions.
Keywords: high performance work system, organizational citizenship behavior, organizational commitment, Vietnam
6 Memory Retrieval and Implicit Prosody during Reading: Anaphora Resolution by L1 and L2 Speakers of English
Authors: Duong Thuy Nguyen, Giulia Bencini
The present study examined structural and prosodic factors on the computation of antecedent-reflexive relationships and sentence comprehension in native English (L1) and Vietnamese-English bilinguals (L2). Participants read sentences presented on the computer screen in one of three presentation formats aimed at manipulating prosodic parsing: word-by-word (RSVP), phrase-segment (self-paced), or whole-sentence (self-paced), then completed a grammaticality rating and a comprehension task (following Pratt & Fernandez, 2016). The design crossed three factors: syntactic structure (simple; complex), grammaticality (target-match; target-mismatch) and presentation format. An example item is provided in (1): (1) The actress that (Mary/John) interviewed at the awards ceremony (about two years ago/organized outside the theater) described (herself/himself) as an extreme workaholic). Results showed that overall, both L1 and L2 speakers made use of a good-enough processing strategy at the expense of more detailed syntactic analyses. L1 and L2 speakers' comprehension and grammaticality judgements were negatively affected by the most prosodically disrupting condition (word-by-word). However, the two groups demonstrated differences in their performance in the other two reading conditions. For L1 speakers, the whole-sentence and the phrase-segment formats were both facilitative in the grammaticality rating and comprehension tasks; for L2, compared with the whole-sentence condition, the phrase-segment paradigm did not significantly improve accuracy or comprehension. These findings are consistent with the findings of Pratt & Fernandez (2016), who found a similar pattern of results in the processing of subject-verb agreement relations using the same experimental paradigm and prosodic manipulation with English L1 and L2 English-Spanish speakers. The results provide further support for a Good-Enough cue model of sentence processing that integrates cue-based retrieval and implicit prosodic parsing (Pratt & Fernandez, 2016) and highlights similarities and differences between L1 and L2 sentence processing and comprehension.
Keywords: anaphora resolution, bilingualism, implicit prosody, sentence processing
5 Maresin Like 1 Treatment: Curbing the Pathogenesis of Behavioral Dysfunction and Neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's Disease Mouse Model
Authors: Yan Lu, Song Hong, Janakiraman Udaiyappan, Aarti Nagayach, Quoc-Viet A. Duong, Masao Morita, Shun Saito, Yuichi Kobayashi, Yuhai, Zhao, Hongying Peng, Nicholas B. Pham, Walter J Lukiw, Christopher A. Vuong, Nicolas G. Bazan
Aims: Neurodegeneration and behavior dysfunction occurs in patients with Alzheimer's Disease (AD), and as the disease progresses many patients develop cognitive impairment. 5XFAD mouse model of AD is widely used to study AD pathogenesis and treatment. This study aimed to investigate the effect of maresin like 1 (MaR-L1) treatment in AD pathology using 5XFAD mice. Methods: We tested 12-month-old male 5XFAD mice and wild type control mice treated with MaR-L1 in a battery of behavioral tasks. We performed open field test, beam walking test, clasping test, inverted grid test, acetone test, marble burring test, elevated plus maze test, cross maze test and novel object recognition test. We also studied neuronal loss, amyloid β burden, and inflammation in the brains of 5XFAD mice using immunohistology and Western blotting. Results: MaR-L1 treatment to the 5XFAD mice showed improved cognitive function of 5XFAD mice. MaR-L1 showed decreased anxiety behavior in open field test and marble burring test, increased muscular strength in the beam walking test, clasping test and inverted grid test. Cognitive function was improved in MaR-L1 treated 5XFAD mice in the novel object recognition test. MaR-L1 prevented neuronal loss and aberrant inflammation. Conclusion: Our finding suggests that behavioral abnormalities were normalized by the administration of MaR-L1 and the neuroprotective role of MaR-L1 in the AD. It also indicates that MaR-L1 treatment is able to prevent and or ameliorate neuronal loss and aberrant inflammation. Further experiments to validate the results are warranted using other AD models in the future.
Keywords: Alzheimer's disease, motor and cognitive behavior, 5XFAD mice, Maresin Like 1, microglial cell, astrocyte, neurodegeneration, inflammation, resolution of inflammation
4 Factors Influencing Milk Yield, Quality, and Revenue of Dairy Farms in Southern Vietnam
Dairy production in Vietnam is a relatively new agricultural activity and milk production increased remarkably in recent years. Smallholders are still the main drivers for this development, especially in the southern part of the country. However, information on the farming practices is very limited. Therefore, this study aimed to determine factors influencing milk yield and quality (milk fat, total solids, solids-not-fat, total number of bacteria, and somatic cell count) and revenue of dairy farms in Southern Vietnam. The collection of data was at the farm level; individual animal records were unavailable. The 539 studied farms were located in the provinces Lam Dong (N=111 farms), Binh Duong (N=69 farms), Long An (N=174 farms), and Ho Chi Minh city (N=185 farms). The dataset included 9221 monthly test-day records of the farms from January 2013 to May 2015. Seasons were defined as rainy and dry. Farms sizes were classified as small (< 10 milking cows), medium (10 to 19 milking cows) and large (≥ 20 milking cows). The model for each trait contained year-season and farm region-farm size as subclass fixed effects, and individual farm and residual as random effects. Results showed that year-season, region, and farm size were determining sources of variation affecting all studied traits. Milk yield was higher in dry than in rainy seasons (P < 0.05), while it tended to increase from years 2013 to 2015. Large farms had higher yields (445.6 kg/cow) than small (396.7 kg/cow) and medium (428.0 kg/cow) farms (P < 0.05). Small farms, in contrast, were superior to large farms in terms of milk fat, total solids, solids-not-fat, total number of bacteria, and somatic cell count than large farms (P < 0.05). Revenue per cow was higher in large compared with medium and small farms. In conclusion, large farms achieved higher milk yields and revenues per cow, while small farms were superior in milk quality. Overall, milk yields were low and better training, financial support and marketing opportunities for farmers are needed to improve dairy production and increase farm revenues in Southern Vietnam.
Keywords: farm size, milk yield and quality, season, Southern Vietnam
3 Proposed Design of an Optimized Transient Cavity Picosecond Ultraviolet Laser
Authors: Marilou Cadatal-Raduban, Minh Hong Pham, Duong Van Pham, Tu Nguyen Xuan, Mui Viet Luong, Kohei Yamanoi, Toshihiko Shimizu, Nobuhiko Sarukura, Hung Dai Nguyen
There is a great deal of interest in developing all-solid-state tunable ultrashort pulsed lasers emitting in the ultraviolet (UV) region for applications such as micromachining, investigation of charge carrier relaxation in conductors, and probing of ultrafast chemical processes. However, direct short-pulse generation is not as straight forward in solid-state gain media as it is for near-IR tunable solid-state lasers such as Ti:sapphire due to the difficulty of obtaining continuous wave laser operation, which is required for Kerr lens mode-locking schemes utilizing spatial or temporal Kerr type nonlinearity. In this work, the transient cavity method, which was reported to generate ultrashort laser pulses in dye lasers, is extended to a solid-state gain medium. Ce:LiCAF was chosen among the rare-earth-doped fluoride laser crystals emitting in the UV region because of its broad tunability (from 280 to 325 nm) and enough bandwidth to generate 3-fs pulses, sufficiently large effective gain cross section (6.0 x10⁻¹⁸ cm²) favorable for oscillators, and a high saturation fluence (115 mJ/cm²). Numerical simulations are performed to investigate the spectro-temporal evolution of the broadband UV laser emission from Ce:LiCAF, represented as a system of two homogeneous broadened singlet states, by solving the rate equations extended to multiple wavelengths. The goal is to find the appropriate cavity length and Q-factor to achieve the optimal photon cavity decay time and pumping energy for resonator transients that will lead to ps UV laser emission from a Ce:LiCAF crystal pumped by the fourth harmonics (266nm) of a Nd:YAG laser. Results show that a single ps pulse can be generated from a 1-mm, 1 mol% Ce³⁺-doped LiCAF crystal using an output coupler with 10% reflectivity (low-Q) and an oscillator cavity that is 2-mm long (short cavity). This technique can be extended to other fluoride-based solid-state laser gain media.
Keywords: rare-earth-doped fluoride gain medium, transient cavity, ultrashort laser, ultraviolet laser
2 Emissions and Total Cost of Ownership Assessment of Hybrid Propulsion Concepts for Bus Transport with Compressed Natural Gases or Diesel Engine
Authors: Volker Landersheim, Daria Manushyna, Thinh Pham, Dai-Duong Tran, Thomas Geury, Omar Hegazy, Steven Wilkins
Air pollution is one of the emerging problems in our society. Targets of reduction of CO₂ emissions address low-carbon and resource-efficient transport. (Plug-in) hybrid electric propulsion concepts offer the possibility to reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) and emissions for public transport vehicles (e.g., bus application). In this context, typically, diesel engines are used to form the hybrid propulsion system of the vehicle. Though the technological development of diesel engines experience major advantages, some challenges such as the high amount of particle emissions remain relevant. Gaseous fuels (i.e., compressed natural gases (CNGs) or liquefied petroleum gases (LPGs) represent an attractive alternative to diesel because of their composition. In the framework of the research project 'Optimised Real-world Cost-Competitive Modular Hybrid Architecture' (ORCA), which was funded by the EU, two different hybrid-electric propulsion concepts have been investigated: one using a diesel engine as internal combustion engine and one using CNG as fuel. The aim of the current study is to analyze specific benefits for the aforementioned hybrid propulsion systems for predefined driving scenarios with regard to emissions and total cost of ownership in bus application. Engine models based on experimental data for diesel and CNG were developed. For the purpose of designing optimal energy management strategies for each propulsion system, maps-driven or quasi-static models for specific engine types are used in the simulation framework. An analogous modelling approach has been chosen to represent emissions. This paper compares the two concepts regarding their CO₂ and NOx emissions. This comparison is performed for relevant bus missions (urban, suburban, with and without zero-emission zone) and with different energy management strategies. In addition to the emissions, also the downsizing potential of the combustion engine has been analysed to minimize the powertrain TCO (pTCO) for plug-in hybrid electric buses. The results of the performed analyses show that the hybrid vehicle concept using the CNG engine shows advantages both with respect to emissions as well as to pTCO. The pTCO is 10% lower, CO₂ emissions are 13% lower, and the NOx emissions are more than 50% lower than with the diesel combustion engine. These results are consistent across all usage profiles under investigation.
Keywords: bus transport, emissions, hybrid propulsion, pTCO, CNG
1 Potential Benefits and Adaptation of Climate Smart Practices by Small Farmers Under Three-Crop Rice Production System in Vietnam
Authors: Azeem Tariq, Stephane De Tourdonnet, Lars Stoumann Jensen, Reiner Wassmann, Bjoern Ole Sander, Quynh Duong Vu, Trinh Van Mai, Andreas De Neergaard
Rice growing area is increasing to meet the food demand of increasing population. Mostly, rice is growing on lowland, small landholder fields in most part of the world, which is one of the major sources of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions from agriculture fields. The strategies such as, altering water and residues (carbon) management practices are assumed to be essential to mitigate the GHG emissions from flooded rice system. The actual implementation and potential of these measures on small farmer fields is still challenging. A field study was conducted on red river delta in Northern Vietnam to identify the potential challenges and barriers to the small rice farmers for implementation of climate smart rice practices. The objective of this study was to develop and access the feasibility of climate smart rice prototypes under actual farmer conditions. Field and scientific oriented framework was used to meet our objective. The methodological framework composed of six steps: i) identification of stakeholders and possible options, ii) assessment of barrios, drawbacks/advantages of new technologies, iii) prototype design, iv) assessment of mitigation potential of each prototype, v) scenario building and vi) scenario assessment. A farm survey was conducted to identify the existing farm practices and major constraints of small rice farmers. We proposed the two water (pre transplant+midseason drainage and early+midseason drainage) and one straw (full residue incorporation) management option keeping in views the farmers constraints and barriers for implementation. To test new typologies with existing prototypes (midseason drainage, partial residue incorporation) at farmer local conditions, a participatory field experiment was conducted for two consecutive rice seasons at farmer fields. Following the results of each season a workshop was conducted with stakeholders (farmers, village leaders, cooperatives, irrigation staff, extensionists, agricultural officers) at local and district level to get feedbacks on new tested prototypes and to develop possible scenarios for climate smart rice production practices. The farm analysis survey showed that non-availability of cheap labor and lacks of alternatives for straw management influence the small farmers to burn the residues in the fields except to use for composting or other purposes. Our field results revealed that application of early season drainage significantly mitigates (40-60%) the methane emissions from residue incorporation. Early season drainage was more efficient and easy to control under cooperate manage system than individually managed water system, and it leads to both economic (9-11% high rice yield, low cost of production, reduced nutrient loses) and environmental (mitigate methane emissions) benefits. The participatory field study allows the assessment of adaptation potential and possible benefits of climate smart practices on small farmer fields. If farmers have no other residue management option, full residue incorporation with early plus midseason drainage is adaptable and beneficial (both environmentally and economically) management option for small rice farmers.
Keywords: adaptation, climate smart agriculture, constrainsts, smallholders


text:
Prof. Sayed Khatab: Supreme Leader's Letter to the Western Youth Is an Invitation to Truth
The Iranian Supreme Leader's letter to the young people in Europe and North America has encouraged an extensive debate across the globe on the importance of free thinking and intellectual discourse about the true origins of Islam.
Thinkers, academicians, authors and researchers worldwide have commended Ayatollah Khamenei's letter and described it an effort to defuse Islamophobia and deconstruct the clichéd mentality of the Western societies about Islam.
Prof. Sayed Khatab says Ayatollah Khamenei's letter was an invitation for the Western youngsters to find the truths of Islam.
"[T]he Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Khamenei is obviously concerned that such terrorist attacks, including the recent one against the office of Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris might be used, by some here or there in the West, to tarnish the image of Islam and present a falsified depiction of Muslims to the Westerners," said Prof. Khatab in an interview with Fars News Agency.
"He also is concerned of the Islamophobia in Europe and North America. Therefore, he sent a message to the youngsters in the West inviting them to think and meditate over the truths of Islam and its origins and not to follow those arrogant people," he added.
Sayed Khatab is a researcher at the School of Political and Social Inquiry at the Monash University, Australia. He is a recipient of the Australian Academy of Humanities Fellowship and Australian Research Council Discovery Project grants. His research areas include political thought, human rights, Islamic philosophy and international relation of modernity.
Prof. Khatab responded to our questions about the rise of Islamophobia in the West, with a special focus on the January 7 terrorist attacks in Paris, and the Supreme Leader's letter to the Western youths that followed it.
Q: Disrespecting Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and the Holy Quran have become a convention in the West, and it seems that the mass media, filmmakers and artists who think they can become renowned by ridiculing the beliefs of the Muslims are either unaware of the consequences of their actions, or intentionally denigrate the Muslims without taking into consideration that such attacks on the holy figures and things of millions of people will breed hatred and religious intolerance. Why do you think they insist on disparaging the Islamic sanctities and fail to notice that their actions don't contribute to increased cooperation and understanding between the people of faith?
A: The recent attacks on the personality of Prophet Muhammad by the French Charlie Hebdo magazine, is not a new or separate case but is a cycle that is going on throughout the history of Western literature and takes varying forms and shapes in the mass media, films and artistic works. Focusing on the recent times, we find after the September 11, 2001 that the attacks and prejudices against Prophet Muhammad started to take new colors which the Muslims had never seen.
Insulting the sacred symbol of more than 1.5 billion Muslims is a clear confirmation of not less than ignorance and stupidity. One should also be aware of the difficulty to consider those who ridicule Islam and Prophet Muhammad as unwary individuals who ignore the consequences of their actions. It becomes even more difficult when they consider their insults against Prophet Muhammad as freedom of speech. Do they understand that freedom is not and will never be absolute? Freedom is not absolute because absolutism is not in the nature of things. Their stupidity is also confirmed in their claim of freedom while denying other's freedom. They do insult, on the one hand, and claim civility and democracy for themselves, on the other hand. It is difficult for these categories and conceptions to go hand in hand. Insulting Prophet Muhammad cannot go, hand in hand with civility. Insulting Prophet Muhammad cannot go hand in hand with freedom of speech. Their claim of freedom of speech cannot go hand in hand with the denial of others' freedom of speech. These categories and conceptions, as presented by Western thought, are contradicting each other.
These conceptions cannot go hand in hand with each other except in the Western dictionary of ignorance. Also, they insult Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), while Muslims do not insult Jesus the Christ. Muslims are dealing in accordance with the morals and ethics of Islam, the greatest and most perfect religion on earth up to date.
Q: The recent letter by the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei to the youths of the West regarding the rise of Islamophobia in Europe and North America, and his appeal to the young people to contemplate over the truths of Islam and its origins, has caught many people by surprise, as they say free thinking and religious ideology are not compatible. Is it really so? Why have the people in the West been indoctrinated to believe that Islam rules out "logic" and cannot come with reasoning and free thought?
A: Those who insult Islam and its symbols are ignorant and intolerant people and they must understand that their ill behavior might lead to a clash between the two camps. This is what concerns Muslim leaders today from Egypt to Iran. For example, the Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Khamenei is obviously concerned that such terrorist attacks, including the recent one against the office of Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris might be used, by some here or there in the West, to tarnish the image of Islam and present a falsified depiction of Muslims to the Westerners. He also is concerned of the Islamophobia in Europe and North America. Therefore, he sent a message to the youngsters in the West inviting them to think and meditate over the truths of Islam and its origins and not to follow those arrogant people. His message is also confirming the compatibility between Islam and freedom of all types and forms. The Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei's message is teaching the West that freedom has limitations like human life which is limited in the place and space. Thus, the freedom of person "A" must end to begin the freedom of person "B". In other words, the freedom of the West is limited and they should respect the freedom of others.
Similarly, in Egypt, the response of al-Azhar Academy was also swift and direct. They called a conference to be convened under the title "From Blasphemy and Atheism to Violence and Terrorism". The conference was held in the al-Azhar University hall of al-Azhar Imam Mohammad Abdu. In this conference, Professor Mohammad Mehanna, the adviser of the present Sheikh al-Azhar, Professor Ahmad al-Taiyyb, pointed out that the Europeans thought the foundations of Western civilization is based on atheism and has come through atheist revolutions against religion, and then legalized terrorism in the general European laws.
In the aftermath of Charlie Hebdo, the Muslims outside France reacted quickly and condemned terrorism. While Muslims condemned the terrorist attacks against Charlie Hebdo and rejected its motivation, there are those who insist on insulting Prophet Muhammad and Islam and calling their actions freedom of speech. This, however, is not freedom of speech, but freedom of insulting and therefore they are responsible for their decision.
Muslims are also calling on the world community for the adoption of an international punishment against anyone who insults sanctities. This idea began to be spread after the Danish cartoons in 2005, and the Egyptian Professor Fathi Sorour, an expert of criminal and comparative law and former Speaker of the People's Assembly in Egypt, pointed out that he submitted to the United Nations a draft law to punish contempt of religions. This initiative did not receive any attention for a number of reasons. First, the blasphemy as well as insulting sanctities were popular practices in the Middle Ages and ended with the beginning of the modern era.
Second, the propaganda machine of insulting sanctities is continually beating the Islamophobia drums, as the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei emphasized in his letter to the western youths, to tarnish the image of Islam and present a falsified depiction of Muslims. They are trying to portray Muslims as inferior and want to return the people to the darkness of the Middle Ages.
Third, those who reject this proposed law of punishment claim that contempt of religions is a vague charge and is difficult to verify.
Fourth, they also argue that if the law can prevent the harm of others in their body and property, it will be difficult to prevent injury of the feelings because this depends on morality which is a personal matter, and again is difficult to verify.
This is a clear indication that there are some organizations which see their interest is in insulting Prophet Muhammad and the symbols of Islam. Therefore, Western thought about Islam, in general, and the Prophet Muhammad, in particular, is problematic and includes a great deal of misunderstandings. This is a recurring problem and comes to the fore from time to time. The violent attack on the personality of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) is an example which denotes a twisted mentality and twisted thinking. Some consider the attack as an individual case, and some others cast the blame on what they see as a conspiracy theory, while the third group blames Muslims and even call upon them to behave themselves.
This view, however, does not consider the static attitude of the Western observation toward the Muslim symbols, in general, and toward Prophet Muhammad, in particular. Unfortunately, this Western view remained unchanged for centuries. It has always been dominated by the dye hostility, though one might see and read a variety of disinclined expressions among the various categories of Western society.
Q: What do you think is the root of attacks being constantly unleashed on the Muslims, their holy prophet, their religious beliefs and their social freedoms? Why has the mentality of the Western societies become replete with Islamophobic sentiments in such large extents?
A: There are those who argue that the attack on Islam or Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, usually comes from those who desire fame, or hold grudges against Islam. They also might list some of these medieval or contemporary Western thinkers who praise the prophet. They consider the presence of those Westerners who praise the prophet as a point of reference against the Muslim claim of Western intellectual hostility towards Islam and the Prophet. It is true that there is compelling evidence that some Western thinkers admired Prophet Muhammad in their writings. Here we should be aware that, their admiration is also not because they liked Muhammad, as such, but because they were honest with themselves and dealt with the truth of Muhammad honestly. While appreciating their honesty, one should be aware that Western thought about Islam and Prophet Muhammad is moving in line with a set of some basic roles which stand against Muslim beliefs and conceptions. Thus, the origin of the intellectual relationship between the West and Islam was not of what can be called compatibility, but rather of superiority and inferiority which has led to disagreements and confrontations. We have witnessed this in the West's negotiations with Iran concerning Iran's nuclear program. Here, Iran benefited from its history and rejected the Western approach and emphasized that the negotiations must begin on the basis of mutual respect and without pre-conditions.
Having outlined the opinions, one should focus on the principles in order to succeed in understanding the Western intellectual relations with Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. The opinions are but expressions of the ideas that exist in the personality of Western thought, which was formed through the long centuries of intellectual impact that resulted in western convictions of the relations between the Creator, the creation of the universe, life and humanity. These convictions strongly collide with the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, so they developed hostility, which is not expected to end in the foreseeable future.
Interview by Kourosh Ziabari
Imam Khamenei Blasts West's View of Women 1 view
Islamic Unity Means to Focus on Common Aspect 1 view

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


again how you grooved across my brother's face.
tongues flapping like surrender, hair in Albion curls.
do not hope for a minute I would not turret, moat and knight for you.
I would Harvester and John Deere and Pioneer for you.
for you: preordain, prehensile, prepay, prescient, predate.
(larks) I would catfish. I would bass boat. I would cast a fly.


If you live in the South, you have probably have had your share of muscadines and scuppernongs, our native wild grape. In Georgia, a walk through the woods in late summer and early fall will usually yield at least a handful of the Southern wild grapes to enjoy. You can often find them along the ground, where they've fallen from their high perch in the trees. I usually eat them where I find them, but sometimes we're lucky enough to come upon low-hanging vines that make picking a couple of pints an easy chore. They are fragrant, juicy and sweet. Like pears or apples, the muscadine signals Fall in the South. They are my inspiration this week for a Southern Fall Muscadine Cocktail.
For about half the year, starting in June, we have access to beautiful, fresh shrimp from the the Gulf and from the Georgia coast. If you're lucky enough to live in Savannah or Brunswick, you can get down to the dock in mid-morning and get them fresh off the boat. If you come across a couple of pounds of big, fresh shrimp, you should try this traditional Lowcountry party food – Pickled Shrimp.
Not to point fingers or anything, but there are a lot of people who think Southern food is just about eating pig and frying things. Not that there is anything wrong with some pulled pork or an occasional piece of fried chicken, but I think that it's the side dishes that make the Southern table different. And no matter what Food Network might be showing you, most Southerners do not just eat deep-fried macaroni & cheese for dinner. We are blessed with a very long growing season, so we have access to lots of great vegetables most of the year. Most Southern cooks know how to cook veggies – green beans, cream corn and squash casserole, etc. One vegetable dinner I make in the summer is a Southern summer vegetable succotash. It's a great way to use up all those veggies in your CSA box this week.
Last month, my sister-in-laws came for a visit and brought with them 5 pounds of beautiful, jumbo shrimp, fresh off the boat in Ocean Springs, Mississippi that morning. Squeee! What a treat! To do justice to that treat, we decided to get out the turkey fryer and do a little cooking outside – a Carolina-style Low Country Shrimp Boil!


text:
Consulting and Implementation ServicesLearning Resource DevelopmentSkillBuilder® LMSAssociations Management
LearningProfessional AccreditationeLearning DevelopmentOnboardingOn-the-Job TrainingRegulated Certifications
ManagementTracking and ReportingAdministrative SupportAssociations ManagementGovernance
Who We AreOur TeamOur SkillBuilders
Trial Run
Top 6 Features of Successful Game-Based Learning
Shauna Carson
What better way is there to learn than by playing a game? Very few, unless the game is boring, silly or fails to deliver on that learning promise.
Game-based learning, or serious games, have great potential. While there haven't been many studies of the effectiveness of this type of learning, some of those that have been done are promising.
Unfortunately, their potential isn't always realized. All too often, learners find serious games to be dull, irrelevant or even demeaning. So how do you design a good game? Read on to find out how to develop games that keep your learners rolling the dice, not rolling their eyes.
What is Game-Based Learning?
Wikipedia defines game-based learning (GBL) as a type of game play that has defined learning outcomes. Generally, game-based learning is designed to balance subject matter with gameplay and the ability of the player to retain, and apply said subject matter to the real world.
In other words, game-based learning is playing a game in order to learn specified skills or information. Game-based learning games are often called serious games or educational games. They're sometimes mistakenly called gamification.
Gamification means using game mechanics and design features in non-game contexts. Assigning points for completing a traditional-style learning module is gamification. GBL, on the other hand, involves playing an actual game.
What Types of Games Are Serious Games?
Serious games can be any type of game.
Simple games involving matching, sorting and trivia are often used to impart declarative knowledge.
Scenario-type games
More complex skills and behaviors tend to be better taught through scenario-type games. Learners progress through a scenario, making decisions and taking actions as they go. They succeed by demonstrating the behaviors or skills desired by the game designer.
They may learn these skills and behaviors in a traditional learning environment before playing the game, or in the game through experimentation and experience.
The first modern scenario experiences or games arose in the aviation, military and policing fields. Flight simulators are probably the best known example. These industries were able to establish the genre because the high stakes involved justified the enormous expense of developing realistic simulators.
Modern technology combined with the less complicated needs of other domains have brought scenario games into the realm of the average organization. Let's take a look at how to make the most of this opportunity.
How to Make a Great Game?
1. Develop good learning objectives, and stick to them
The foundation of effective learning content is always the learning objectives, and this applies as much to games as it does to more traditional learning materials. A game has no chance of teaching what you want it to if you don't define your goals from the beginning. Learning objectives should shape the game, determining its format, content and execution.
A good learning objective has three parts:
Performance (what learners must be able to DO or perform)
Condition (in which the learner must complete the performance)
Criteria (identifies how the learner is evaluated or how well the learner must perform)
Each part of the learning objective must be considered. If a condition states that learners may use reference material to complete their performance, that reference material has to be available in the game.
Keeping your objectives in mind throughout the development process not only keeps your focus on your goals, but is a major factor in designing a game that will keep learners interested. Learners will only engage with the activity if they feel that it's relevant to them.
2. Interactivity - make the learner the actor
Players are the actors in a game. To keep your learners involved, make sure that passive activities are minimized and the game is as interactive as possible.
For example, asking learners to watch a video and identify things done correctly and incorrectly may be more interactive than traditional instruction, but it's much too passive for a game. Instead, have the learner/player walk through a scenario and decide what to do and how to do it.
3. Environment - simplify the real thing
The environment of a serious game should be relevant and recognizable to the learner, but it should also be simplified, with elements extraneous to the learning objectives removed.
Consider a game designed to train clothing salespeople in customer service. It should include a believable manager and coworkers, but it doesn't need an hour of folding shirts before the first customer walks in.
And the customers? Each customer should be plausible, but the assortment of customers will be more challenging than would be strictly realistic. The simple interactions where a customer is easily satisfied are omitted in favor of scenarios that provide new learning opportunities.
4. Experimentation - let learners work through failure
When there's only one right way to do things all the way though the game, learners can quickly get frustrated. They might feel like they're completing an assessment, not playing a game.
The most successful games often provide multiple paths to success. In our customer service training game, the first mistake by a learner shouldn't send an irate customer out the door; it should lead to another opportunity. If the learner upsets the customer by not offering assistance at the beginning, it sets up the perfect chance to explore methods for appeasing an annoyed customer. The mistake does have consequences as the once happy customer is now cross, but it doesn't send the learner back to the beginning to repeat the same scenario until they get it "right".
Of course, it's also necessary to provide opportunities for in-game failure. Failure is part of the process of experimentation and learning. It also plays a role in creating the realism that engages learner interest. If the salesperson doesn't do something to placate the customer, he might well storm out the door or ask to speak to a supervisor.
Part of the value of game-based learning is that it allows learners to experiment with different actions and different decisions in a safe environment.
5. Consequences - Provide customized feedback
For experimentation and failure to provide learning opportunities, there has to be a consequence for learner actions and choices. The easiest way to assign a consequence in a game is to deduct points, but it's not usually the most effective. It's far better to show the possible real-world results of an action.
Which of these would have a more memorable effect on learners - and make for a more interesting game?
Provide feedback at the end of the game
A lab technician character overlooks the opportunity to don safety goggles. At the end of the game, a summary screen shows 50 points deducted for failure to use personal protective equipment (PPE).
Make the game evolves
Shortly after failing to put on the goggles, the tech character is sprayed by a caustic chemical. She then has the chance to run to an eyewash station, but loses time/points/resources while doing so.
6. Challenge the learner - build on learning
A key factor in maintaining learner engagement is to keep them challenged. Challenge must be carefully balanced; an easy game is little more interesting than a traditional course, and the game elements may seem like needless bells and whistles, while a game that's too difficult is frustrating, annoying work.
There are two keys to maintaining the right level of challenge:
Build on the learning
Start with simple requirements. When learners have demonstrated mastery of the initial requirements by succeeding in the game, move on to more advanced requirements.
Test the game
As you would with any learning material, make sure to test the game at various stages of development with representative user groups to ensure you're setting it at the right level.
Game-based learning has tremendous potential for teaching and promoting skills and behaviors, but like every other approach to learning it has its pitfalls too. Keep your eye on the objective, keep your audience in mind and remember the three C's: challenge, choice and consequence, and you can create a game that entertain, engage and even instruct your learners.
For more ideas on designing game-based learning, check this podcast out: Learning Games, What Works and What Doesn't by eLearning Coach.
TopicsChoose Topic
Consulting & Implementation
ELearning Design & Development
Learning Resource Development
SkillBuilder
Shauna graduated from the University of Toronto in 2002 with a Master of Arts in English before moving home to Calgary to work in the fast-paced, detail-oriented oil and gas industry. Now certified as a technical writer, Shauna is comfortable writing in a variety of styles, and for a variety of audiences.
SkillBuilder® by BaseCorp Learning Systems provides everything you need to implement a competency-based learning program. It includes learning processes, courseware development and technology.
Who We AreTerms of ServicePrivacy PolicyBlog ArticlesRelease Notes
sales@skillbuilderlms.com
Copyright © 2023 SkillBuilder LMS by BaseCorp Learning Systems.


text:
Ernst Mayr on Advent of Molecular Biology
Oral History -> CSHL -> History -> Ernst Mayr on Advent of Molecular Biology
Advent of Molecular Biology (Ernst Mayr)
Ernst Mayr Biography
Recorded: 31 Mar 2002
Molecular biology was the developing thing in my younger years particularly in Cold Spring Harbor. I couldn't help getting interested because that's what everybody talked about. And furthermore I was always interested just about in all branches of biology. For instance, I followed the anthropologic—the history and the whole literature on human origins I always followed carefully. I followed the literature on paleontology I knew all the major writings of what everybody did. [I had a] voracious interest in just bout everything. And so I had never any objections contrary to claims by people like [Michael] Ruse against molecular biology. I had objections to a few molecular biologists who were trained as chemists and were still working in chemistry departments and then came into biology and they—for instance, when they became head of the biology departments—this happened in three or four American universities—they fired every biologist and replaced them with biochemists. That I objected to. But otherwise, I was a very good friend with people like Phil Handler who later became, I think, the first leader of the National Academy of Sciences. And he was a good friend of mine. I was summertimes invited to the molecular symposia—a speaker who sort of connected molecular together with the more organism biologies. I never was in opposition to molecular biology as such.
There weren't any molecular journals in existence. Well, you know, how these fields are new. Most people don't realize, but when I started in 1947 the journal Evolution; I had great trouble getting enough material. I had to combine two issues of the first four in the first volume. I had to desperately write papers myself to help fill in the volume. Nowadays, look at the 4,000 pages of a volume of evolution and that is because that field had grown so much. Evolution was not a subject that was—those were the days when departments of biology in America were still the department of botany and the department of zoology. Such things like "molecular biology" was unheard of. And if there was any splitting then they had a subject called physiology. But I mean zoology and botany, a good deal of the emphasis was simply learning the major types of animals and plants. I mean biology of 2002 is something very different from the biology of 1950.
Ernst Mayr has been universally acknowledged as the leading evolutionary biologist of the twentieth century. He earned his Ph.D. in ornithology at the age of 21 from the University of Berlin in 1926. During his tenure at the Berlin Museum, from 1926 to 1930, Mayr led ornithological expeditions to Dutch New Guinea and German Mandated New Guinea. In 1931, he was hired by the American Museum of Natural History, Department of Ornithology. During his 20-year AMNH tenure, Dr. Mayr described 26 new bird species and 410 subspecies, more than any other living avian systematist.
In 1953, Mayr became Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology at Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology, and served as Director of the Museum (1961-1970). He has published hundreds of papers and eight books, including Systematics and the Origin of Species (1942), which became a landmark of evolutionary biology.
Mayr has been honored with more than 25 major scientific awards and honors and many honorary degrees, including the National Medal of Science (1970), the Balzan Prize in Biology (1983) and the Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1999) with John Maynard Smith and George C. Williams "for their fundamental contributions to the conceptual development of evolutionary biology."
In 1995, Harvard's Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology was rededicated as the Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. Mayr has been a longtime friend and mentor to Jim Watson.
Bruce Wallace: Photograph
Jared Diamond: The New Guinea Expeditions
Theodosius Dobzhansky
Physics vs. Biology
Jim Watson, "Lucky Jim"
Jim Watson and the Double Helix
Bringing Jim Watson to Harvard
A Personal Message to Jim Watson
Ed Wilson and Jim Watson
Influence on Jim Watson
Charles Darwins's Books and Letters
Science & Writing
Advent of Molecular Biology
A Summer Day at CSHL: 1940s.
Avery's Experiment: DNA is the Hereditary Material
G.G. Simpson: Photograph
Historian: Michael Ruse
Russia, 1972
Harvard Biology Department
Harvard University.
Max Delbruck
Non-scientific Interests
CSHL: Drosophila Research
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory: Atmosphere
1950 CSHL Symposium: "Origin and Evolution of Man"
1955 CSHL Symposia: "Population Genetics"
SCIENTISTS SPEAKING ABOUT HISTORY
Sydney Brenner
Richard Burgess
Don Caspar
Renato Dulbecco
Peter Little
Maynard Olson
Alex Rich
Matt Ridley
Klar & Strathern
Peter Vogt
Elizabeth Blackburn Sydney Brenner Ann Burgess Richard Burgess Don Caspar Myers & Cox Paul Doty Renato Dulbecco Raymond Gesteland Richard Gibbs Jim Hicks Mahlon Hoagland James Kent Edward Lewis Peter Little Tom Maniatis Ernst Mayr Jeffrey Miller Karin Moelling Maynard Olson Ron Plasterk Alex Rich Matt Ridley Merilyn Sleigh Klar & Strathern Peter Vogt Robert Waterston Evelyn Witkin


text:
Beach House Self-Catering Cottage, Isle of Mull
Getting to Mull
Mull History
Mull Wildlife
Places to Visit on Mull
Useful numbers for Mull
Mull Links
Tag Archives: mull
A new Mull & Iona Flickr group
September 8, 2011 ralph
Just discovered another photo group specialising in images of this part of the world on the website Flickr. Called, appropriately enough, the Mull & Iona Group, it's full of some very good snaps taken by professional and amateur alike, though it does seem to be backed, directly or indirectly, by Scotland's tourist board via Visitscotland.com?
If you have time it's well worth checking out some of the shots already in the group. But the thing that really caught my eye came from a tweet from Mull&Iona saying "Mull & Iona Flickr map is coming together. Always need more so join in."
Continue reading A new Mull & Iona Flickr group →
Mapmemoriesmullphotographypicturesself-catering
The Japanese Knotweed saga continues at Beach House
April 23, 2011 ralph
We were expecting as much. Sure enough, despite blitzing the forest of Japanese Knotweed last year, a bit of warmth and sunlight saw shoots appearing in what feels like a blink of an eye. So we're up at Beach House just now, doing a bunch of bits n pieces, but our main target is this iniquitous invader.
We've still no idea how or where this plant made its way into the grounds of Beach House, our self-catering farmhouse on the Ross of Mull (that's the bit that juts out to the south going towards the island of Iona). Our best, and only, guess is that the seed was transported to our ground by a bird as there's no other known outbreaks of this foreign invader close by.
Anyway, this video gives you the update….
accommodationaccomodationaprilBeach HouseEasterfarmhouseKnotweedmullself-catering
mull self catering blog
We've changed the booking days
March 21, 2011 ralph
If you've visited Beach House before you might have found the Friday changeovers a bit of a pain. That's understandable as, usually, most people like to arrive and depart on the weekend.
Previously it was impossible for us to do the changeovers on a Saturday or Sunday. But as of now that's all changed. If you were put off because of the Friday changeover, that's now a thing of the past.
So if you liked the idea of our self catering former farmhouse but didn't like the Friday to Friday week, it's from Saturdays from now on. Just go check out our availability calendar and see for yourself.
BookingchangeoverFridayholidayIsle of mullmullSaturdayself-catering
More of Mull on the TV this Xmas
December 31, 2010 ralph
Mull and TV is the same as feast and famine… or buses. You wait ages for yours to arrive and then two or three of them all turn up at the same time! Just a few months back we had a slew of programmes which featured aspects of the Isle of Mull. Geologist Iain Stewart was crawling all over Scotland looking at the history and geology, whilst the BBC's AutumnWatch was focusing on the wildlife.
Then nothing…
But you can't keep a good subject out of the media for long, so it was little surprise to see Mull and its islands reappear on last night's "Three Men go to Scotland". It was a bit of a rambling show where the editor had clearly played pretty fast and loose with the order of the footage. It seemed to allow the presenters, Rory McGrath, Griff Rhys-Jones and Dara O'Briain to hop between Mull and the mainland as if they were in a Tardis rather than a beautiful old sailing boat.
But in the limited time available for the show the three protagonists managed to spend time in Duart Castle learning about Clan MacLean. It then jumped back to the mainland to visit Inverawe smokery and a spot of scallop diving just outside Oban harbour before returning to Mull to go check out the always impressive Fingal's Cave on the island of Staffa.
It was then on to the Ledaig Distillery (or Tobermory Distillery if you prefer). Rory McGrath was on a blagging mission to ensure an (un)healthy supply of the local brew, before heading off from Tobermory and around the Ardnamurchan headland to the north, despite a false start when they caught the boat's propeller in a local lobster pot just outside Tobermory bay.
Clearly they shot quite a bit of footage on Mull that didn't make it to the finished programme as Griff Rhys-Jones mentioned visiting Ulva which didn't make it into the final edit. It would be nice to be able to see the material that never makes it to the final cut on the BBC's iPlayer website, rather than being forever lost for lack of time in the main TV show.
But, just like the buses, there was more on Mull this festive season in the form of the Springwatch Christmas Special. Towards the end of the 90 minute show the programme revisited RSPB Warden Dave Sexton who monitors the eagle population on Mull.
It seems that the BBC has a wildlife fund which contributed cash in 2007 towards the eagle revival programme on the island and Dave explains how the money has helped towards the overall success of the project. It's well worth viewing this segment before the catch-up service on the BBC iPlayer site expires.
BBCDara O'BriaineaglesFingal's CavefishingGriff Rhys-JonesLedaigmullRory McGrathStaffaTobermoryTVwildlife
The closure of Ulva Primary on Mull… how bankers blew up island life
November 23, 2010 ralph	7 Comments
We're pretty fortunate that loads of people visit Mull, not just in the summer but all year round. But for locals the more mundane aspects of everyday life still have to be completed. As an island, simple tasks such as shopping, transport and access to services like health and education can be a bit more challenging. It's just the reality of island life.
But as we complete the first decade of the 21st century, you'd think that forcing kids to commute for over an hour to get to school would be a little much to expect when they already have a perfectly functional classroom in their community. Yet that's precisely what's about to happen as the Ulva Primary School (which is on Mull but right next to the island of Ulva) is slated for closure, meaning kids will now have to take a school van up hill and down dale to go to the next nearest in Dervaig, itself eight miles from Tobermory.
It's a fairly arduous daily task for both driver and kids. Potentially over two hours of round-trip commuting to and from the school via a route that Argyll and Bute Council thinks will be passable in winter — which is a whole debate in itself.
View A Route: Kellan to Dervaig, via Burg in a larger map
This issue has been very smartly highlighted by the Save Ulva Primary School campaign, who decided to illustrate the issue by filming (and speeding up) just what's involved in transporting kids all the way from their homes up to Dervaig… and it was captured on a good day with little traffic. What would it be like, you have to wonder, when it's snowed under or there's a lot of traffic on these single track, poorly maintained sections of road?
Now let's just think about this from a cost/benefit perspective for a second. There's the cost in fuel and in paying for the time of the driver. That must all surely add up? There's also the loss of part-time employment to the area of three staff. Then there's the environmental and very obvious safety issues of sending a van full of small kids up and down a less than ideal road. Then there's the question of how the loss of this amenity will affect the local community it currently serves. That's one that's impossible to put into financial terms.
It does make you wonder if the council, in its enthusiasm to close a vital rural school to 'save money', may actually just be shifting around the numbers from various spreadsheets but, in the end, not actually saving enough to justify the closure of a vital community resource? It may save on the education budget, only to pop up on the transport one or some other line item in other departments. Have the wider implications of this decision really been thoroughly considered in this plan?
OK, so this isn't so much about why the island of Mull is a beautiful holiday destination (which it is!). But part of Mull's popularity lies in the people that choose to live there and have helped to make the island the appealing holiday destination that it is. If the council takes a short-term view on ways to save money and cut costs — which may be smoke and mirrors in any event — then it could be damaging a vital part of what helps maintain the vibrancy and appeal of the island for residents.
Maintaining services in rural island communities is always going to be more expensive than in a densely populated city. But if we want our islands to have a healthy future, it won't be helped by short-term cost-cutting of services that are a vital lifeblood and part of the solid foundations of wider island life where the knock-on effects of any cuts will be much more keenly felt.
Anyway, if you've ever visited the Isle of Mull or you agree that there's real reason for Argyll & Bute Council to reconsider this closure, you should head over to the campaign website and sign the online petition, which is currently at 395 signatures.
And all because some bankers wanted to make a quick buck and very nearly brought our economy to the brink of disaster. We now own these banks but have no money to pay people who actually contribute something to society and our future generations. Everyone else is footing the bill, including, it seems, the kids of Ulva Primary School.
amenitiesArgyll & ButeCommunitymullschoolsUlva School
Richard Peters' Otter shots on Mull
November 18, 2010 ralph
I've been meaning to mention Richard Peters for a few weeks. I came across his photography website after someone tweeted about his otter photos from Mull, around about the time the island was being splashed across the TV in Autumnwatch.
Following that link I discoved some beautiful images that Richard had captured back in 2009 of otters doing what they like to do. Mind you, they are nothing if not elusive and usually difficult to spot as you drive by the coastline, often missing them gamboling on the shoreline unless you're particularly eagle-eyed. Yet Richard perservered and found his target, capturing some fantastic images in the process.
His account of how he came to be on Mull is well worth a read, as he mentions that it was through pure fluke that he first spotted otters eating at Craignure, just as they waited to leave Mull at the end of their holiday, back in 2007. But that experience made him want to revisit Mull to capture these beautiful mammals on camera, which he realised upon a return trip in 2009.
You can see the results of his return to Mull on this blog entry.
mullotterOttersphotographyRichard Petersweblinkwildlife
Reporter recounts cruise round Mull in former fishing trawler
Until today I didn't even know that the town of Coventry could still muster up a local paper of its very own. But, for the fortunate folks of that town, it seems there's still some life left in the local rag… called the Coventry Telegraph.
Why am I mentioning this? Well local reporter Darren Parkin was recently up on, in and around the Isle of Mull for a seven day cruise on the Glen Tarsan, courtesy of The Majestic Line, owned by Andy Thoms and Ken Grant. Based in Oban and Dunoon the company runs a number of cruises around Argyll waters, one of which encircles Mull over six nights in, of all things, a converted fishing trawler!.
It's certainly a far cry from the larger ocean-going cruisers which can really only dock at fairly large berths. With a converted fishing boat, it's much easier to pop in and out of the ragged Mull coastline, stopping at the many smaller piers along the way. This is the trip Coventry Telegraph reporter Darren Parkin took and reports on for the paper.
It's a good report, excepting the tired and over-used story about how Tobermory is also known as Balamory… yeah yeah enough already. But Darren then gets into his stride, writing an enjoyable piece that even made me wonder if I couldn't squeeze in a cruise sometime. "Skirting the top side of Mull during the afternoon, the boat anchored in Loch Sunart later in the day as the sun was beginning to drift towards the horizon. There was time for a walk from rocky coastline, through shaded woodland and up a relatively easy ascent to behold spectacular views from the hills."
So, if you're planning to holiday on Mull, you could spend part of your time getting a quite unique view of a unique island, in an fairly unique manner… apparently the boats don't even smell of fish any more 🙂
Beach House Self Catering, Isle of Mull
Twitter: mullescape
coastlinecruisesDarren Parkinfishing trawlermullObansailingsealifeThe Majestic Linewildlife
Autumnwatch returns to Mull to report on… Robins!
It's quite amazing how much attention the BBC is giving the Isle of Mull of late. As if the marathon wildlife report from the island on last week's Autumnwatch wasn't enough, they had even more in this week's show.
Presenter Kate Humble told TV audiences during Thursday's programme, "One of my favourite places in Britain is Mull," adding "and where did you go last week without me? You went to Mull!". That was the preamble to a further report on Dave Sexton of the RSPB on Mull, not talking about sea eagles but, somewhat surprisingly, the often overlooked garden birds like the little Robin.
You can view the clip here until next Thursday on the BBC's iPlayer catch-up service or download the WMV version and you have up to 30 days to watch it.
AutumnwatchBBCbirdsDave SextoneaglesGarden BirdsKate HumblemullRobinRSPBSea Eaglewildlife
The hackneyed hulls on Mull's Salen shoreline still surprise
November 8, 2010 ralph
It's been shot a gazillion times before so this is hardly a surprising subject for budding snappers. But perhaps what is, is the unique take by Paul Corica of this oft-taken scene of the ruined old fishing boats on Salen's shoreline.
Just north of Salen, on the road between Tobermory and Craignure, these decaying hulls on the Isle of Mull's shoreline are rarely ignored by holidaying cameraphiles. But it takes a special bit of something (I know not what as I do not have it) to take a picture that's been done to death, yet somehow bring a whole new perspective to it. Taken back in 2008, I only happened across it as the snap was mentioned/linked-to from Twitter.
I think that what Paul's done here is a really striking take on the two rotting hulls, done in black and white.
As Paul explains on his Flickr profile:
"I took up photography in 2002 when I bought my first SLR (a cheap Canon). At about the same time my wife bought me a Canon IXUS V and I used the two in conjunction (one for serious shots the other for snaps). Although the film Canon was more versatile I preferred the instant feedback from the digital Canon and so slowly made the transition from film to digital.
I ditched film in 2005 and now only shoot in digital. When the Canon 400D came out I decided to make the leap into D-SLR and haven't looked back.The 400D has subsequently been upgraded to a Nikon D300
I mainly take landscape shots around Yorkshire and Staffordshire, which are the two locations I live and work in, although whenever I visit other UK locations I always take a camera."
What Paul's managed to do is capture an image that you just can't imagine can ever have anything original done to it. So congratulations to him for proving there's always a new perspective, however hackneyed the subject!
Oh, and if you like the image as much as I do, you can have it professionally printed on various size boards here.
mullPaul CoricaphotographySalenweblink
Mull 'Raptor Island' says BBC's Autumnwatch
No doubt, if you're a fan of all things nature-related you probably caught last week's episode of Autumnwatch on the BBC. Presenters Chris and Martin headed up to Mulll, ostensibly for the sea eagles, but it was actually quite a bit more than that. They also checked out the coastline and other interesting fauna dotted across Mull's shoreline.
If you missed it, you have seven days to catch it on the BBC's iPlayer service after it's broadcast or, if you download the WMV file instead (under the Download button and click for Windows Media Player) you can view it up to 30 days after.
News to me, they mentioned that Pine Martens have been verified as back on the island and breeding, possibly sneaking back on Mull courtesy of a lorry and the CalMac ferry. Unfortunately badgers and foxes are totally absent on Mull, the presenters explaining that they were probably there until they were eradicated in the Victorian era. It's odd that such recent events as what happened on the island during the Victorian era were never recorded for posterity.
Presenter, Martin Hughes-Games explained why he felt Mull was such a good place to visit for Wildlife watching. "I can honestly say I haven't see so much wildlife in such a short space of time ever," adding, "Now is a really brilliant time to go up there and do wildlife watching. There are three reasons for that. One is the midges aren't there. The other is there are less people so it's much easier to get around and the third thing is that the days are much shorter and the animals have to pack in their lives into a much shorter space of time. So they're more obvious. They're feeding, they're playing."
So, if you thought a holiday on Mull was limited to the summer months… well think again. Certainly not if one of your reasons for visiting are to see the raptors like the eagle and hen harrier, plus many other birds, deer and otters.
AutumnwatchBBCChris PackhamdeerHen HarrieriPlayerIsle of mullMartin Hughes-GamesmullOttersPine MartenRaptorsSea EagleTV
A spacious self catering house on the Isle of Mull with spectacular views and superb visitor reviews, Beach House is a must for your holiday in Scotland.
Have a question? Call +44 (0)131 669 3082. Or send a message via our 'Contact Us' page. Click to email directly here.


text:
Novomîkolaiivske (în ) este un sat în comuna Dobrojanivka din raionul Vradiivka, regiunea Mîkolaiiv, Ucraina.

Demografie

Conform recensământului din 2001, majoritatea populației localității Novomîkolaiivske era vorbitoare de ucraineană (%), existând în minoritate și vorbitori de română (%) și rusă (%).

Note

Novomîkolaiivske, Dobrojanivka, Vradiivka, Mîkolaiiv
Novomîkolaiivske, Dobrojanivka, Vradiivka, Mîkolaiiv
Novomîkolaiivske, Dobrojanivka, Vradiivka, Mîkolaiiv
Românii de la est de Nistru

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
The Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company (PRIDCO) — (or simply Fomento)— is a government-owned corporation of Puerto Rico authorized and empowered to induce private capital into Puerto Rico in order to establish trade, cooperatives, and industrial operations in Puerto Rico. As its primary function, PRIDCO is known for providing incentives to both native and foreign companies that either manufacture in Puerto Rico or export from Puerto Rico.

History
PRIDCO was created by the government of Puerto Rico in 1942 along with the Puerto Rico Government Development Bank (GDB) during the governorship of Rexford G. Tugwell. Its purpose was to finance the construction and operational management of industrial parks where stateside manufacturing companies could find low-rent venues for their operations.

For decades, PRIDCO operated as a subsidiary of the Puerto Rico Economic Development Administration (PREDA); the agency that oversaw the systematic operation which transformed the economy of Puerto Rico from an agricultural economy into an industrial one known as Operation Bootstrap. Bootstrap was the brainchild of PREDA's first administrator, Teodoro Moscoso. Other notable industrialists served in PREDA as well, such as Hugo David Storer Tavarez who served as the director of promotion for some years, and William Riefkohl who served as its deputy administrator from 1988 to 1992.

As PREDA continued to transform Puerto Rico, PRIDCO eventually became an independent agency. A government reorganization eventually merged PREDA into PRIDCO, establishing PRIDCO as the focal agency for all manufacturing in Puerto Rico while PREDA ceased to exist.

Today, PRIDCO also oversees the program to promote Puerto Rican rums which enjoy cover-over subsidies when sold in the United States. The agency is also now under the umbrella of the Department of Economic Development and Commerce of Puerto Rico (DDEC), an executive department.

In 2019, the agency was tasked with creating a database of business owners who are veterans of the United States military with a mandate to adhere to a law that requires supporting and helping veteran business owners.

Along with the Puerto Rico Department of Agriculture, in 2019, the organization discussed plans to import coffee beans from different locations in order to mix and cultivate new coffee plants in Puerto Rico.

In August, 2019 employees of PRIDCO protested against the direction of PROMESA, the non-elected board working on restructuring Puerto Rico's debt. PRIDCO employees demanded more transparency and more consideration for the work PRIDCO has been doing for decades.

In early 2020, the police were investigating the illegal transfer of funds by PRIDCO to overseas accounts.

Executive directors

As PREDA
Teodoro Moscoso
José Madera
Manuel Dubón
Xavier Romeu

As PRIDCO
Enrique Rodríguez Negrón
Xavier Romeu
Jaime Morgan Stubbe
William Riefkohl
Jorge Silva Puras
Boris Jaskille
Javier Vazquez Morales
 2011–2013: José Pérez Riera
 2013–present: Antonio Medina Comas
Rafael L Ignacio Torres 1961-1965 vice-president PRIDCO
Rafael L Ignacio Torres 1984-1990 President of PRIDCO

References

1942 establishments in Puerto Rico
Financial services companies established in 1942
Government-owned corporations of Puerto Rico
Industrial development agencies
Manufacturing in Puerto Rico


Hostel hopping can be great fun, but it definitely has its downsides. Like when you want to go to the toilet at 4am but you have to navigate an obstacle course of backpacks in the dark, or you have an annoying bed neighbour who demands lights off at 9pm when you're trying to read. Step in our range of night lights, like Milk Light or Camera Light – perfect for those situations when you don't want to wake up the entire room with your iPhone torch.
Going it alone can be hard, especially when you're in a different continent, with nothing but your phone to keep you company. So if you know someone that's braving the world on their own, why not get them our Pocket Tin Speaker – the perfect unusual travel gift that breaks the ice in any hostel room…Or if you know they're taking their laptop for those long-distance Skype calls, why not try Undercover Laptop Sleeve? The perfect travel accessory to help keep their goods away from prying eyes.


Maxwell Mthunzana is a Zimbabwean politician and a member of the MDC-Welshman Ncube party. In the 2018 harmonized election he contested for the National Assembly seat for Lupane East under the MDC Alliance.
Please visit the following to contribute to the profile of Maxwell Mthunzana.


WinSteel Test with Sentinel SuperPro Dongle Emulator / Clone .
and machine utilization direct to the creation or Workshop manager's pc.
industry or working practices, thereby gaining the highest financial benefit.
their charges and increase their profitability.


Where is Oklahoma City located in United States?
Travelling to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States? Find out more with this detailed interactive online map of Oklahoma City downtown, surrounding areas and Oklahoma City neighborhoods.
Travelling to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States? Find out more with this detailed online map of Oklahoma City provided by Google Maps.


text:
The Federal High Court, sitting in Ilorin, on Friday sentenced six persons to various jail terms for the offence of internet fraud.
The Ilorin Zonal Command of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, secured the convictions of Abdulrahman Ridwan, Yinus Shola, Jimoh Adeola, Yinus Iyanda, Ridwan Oladimeji and Gideon Thomas.
In his judgment, Justice Muhammed Sani said the court was satisfied with the evidence of the prosecution and the plead of guilt entered by the defendants to their respective charges.
Sani sentenced Ridman, Iyanda and Thomas to six months in prison, with an option of fine of N200,000 each.
The court also imposed a jail term of one year, with an option of a fine of N250,000 each on Adeola, Shola, and Oladimeji.
Sani ordered that all their properties such as vehicles, phones and laptops purchased with proceeds of the crime, as well as the money in their possession be forfeited to the federal government.
The defendants, who were arraigned on separate charges pleaded guilty to their respective counts.
Following their pleas, the prosecutors, Aliyu Adebayo, Sesan Ola, and Rasheedat Alao drew the attention of the court to the admittance of guilt by the defendants and also, their confessional statements, as well as the plea bargain agreements, entered by both the EFCC and the defendants.
The counsel urged the court to convict and sentence the defendants in line with the plea bargain agreements.
Edo police arrest kidnap gang, fraudsters


Sets the number of threads that are used by parallelized OpenCV functions.
The number of threads that are used by parallelized OpenCV functions. When the argument is zero or negative, and at the beginning of the program, the number of threads is set to the number of processors in the system, as returned by the function omp_get_num_procs() from OpenMP runtime.


text:
Glas goes to court Tuesday for pre-trial hearing
Aug 27, 2017 | 1 comment
Vice President Jorge Glas will make his first court appearance Tuesday morning along with 10 others accused of illegal enrichment and illicit association in the Odebrecht corruption scandal. Glas faces a 10-count charge for his meetings and consultations with Odebrecht officials regarding government contracts.
Jorge Glas talks to reporters on Saturday. (El Telegrafo)
The vice president and the other defendants will appear in a pre-trial hearing before National Court Judge Miguel Jurado Fabara, who last week requested and received the permission of the National Assembly to bring the vice president to trial. Federal prosecutors will present the charges against the defendants at the hearing.
Glas expressed confidence Saturday that his legal team will disprove the charges against him. "I have the best lawyers on my side and they will challenge the merits of the prosecutor's claims," he said in Guayaquil. Glas repeated his claim of innocence, as well as his confidence in his legal team, Sunday after a meeting with Ecuadorian expats in Miami.
When asked by a reporter if he would return to Ecuador for Tuesday's hearing, Glas said, "Jorge Glas does not run, Jorge Glas does not hide, I will be in court on Tuesday in Ecuador."
Glas' legal team includes Vicente Peralta, the former legal advisor to the vice president, Patricia Rodríguez, and Eduardo Franco Loor, an ex-National Court judge.
Among the other defendants ordered to appear Tuesday are Carlos Pólit, the former federal comptroller who is out of the country and considered a fugitive from justice, and and five officials of the Odebrecht corporation. Pólit's taped conversation with an Odebrecht official, in which Glas was mentioned, is a key piece of evidence for the prosecution against the vice president.


text:
Grab a glass of lemonade to help veterans at local VA clinic
Army identifies special forces soldier who was killed in Afghanistan
Story of Medal of Honor recipient TSgt John Chapman headed to Hollywood
You can support veteran-owned small businesses this Amazon Prime Day
Vets of Cajun Navy, Stronghold Rescue ready to battle Tropical Storm Barry
Repeal of 'Widow's Tax,' prohibition on military malpractice lawsuits make it into House defense bill
Abbie Bennett
Photo by Elizabeth Fraser/Arlington National Cemetery
Gold Star families could access more benefits and service members could sue for medical malpractice -- two controversial policies advocates have been fighting for years -- if the House defense bill passes.
Amendments to repeal the so-called military "Widow's Tax" and to overturn the controversial Feres Doctrine, which blocks military malpractice suits, were included in the National Defense Authorization Act, the night before the $733 billion bill went to the floor for debate, with 439 total amendments.
Democrats made the additions, and House Republicans were critical of the decision, saying repealing both were potentially expensive changes and Democrats did not provide plans to offset those expenses. The White House already threatened to veto the House version of the defense spending bill over border wall funding,
Both amendments could have a rough road ahead. In the Senate, Republican leadership already advanced their own version of the NDAA that specifically excluded the Widow's Tax repeal and lacked any measure on the Feres Doctrine.
The Widow's Tax affects more than 65,000 military families across the U.S., costing them each an average of about $11,000 per year. Those Gold Star families are entitled to receive two types of compensation -- the Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) program which provides about $15,000 per year to families of service members or veterans who die of service-related causes.
The second compensation type is the Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) which service members can enroll in to give families of retirees up to 55 percent of their veterans' retirement after their death, similar to private life insurance. While the Department of Defense subsidizes the payments, the service members pay into the program using part -- up 6.5 percent -- of their retirement benefits in order to be eligible for the program.
But when a service member or veteran dies of service-connecting causes, current law says their families can't get the full amount of both payments -- every dollar paid out under DIC reduces the SBP payments by a dollar. The inability to collect both sets of benefits is often referred to as the "widow's tax."
An attempt to repeal the tax in the Senate in June was blocked.
The Feres Doctrine refers to a 69-year-old Supreme Court ruling that resulted in a block of military medical malpractice lawsuits. Only an act of Congress or SCOTUS can overturn the decision.
The House is expected to pass its defense bill later this week, followed by negotiations between both chambers for the remainder of the summer, with a goal to craft a compromise defense spending package later this year.
Both the Feres and Widow's Tax provisions made it into the House defense bill for consideration on the floor through a self-executing amendment, which also included a 3.1 pay raise for troops. Because it was a self-executing amendment it was included in the bill without a separate vote, causing criticism from Republicans.
Lawmaker tries to end military 'widow's tax' but is blocked by Senate leadership
Service members may soon be able to sue the government for medical malpractice
Want to get more connected to the stories and resources Connecting Vets has to offer? Click here to sign up for our weekly newsletter.
Follow Abbie Bennett, @AbbieRBennett.
Widow's Tax
Gold Star families


The world's first wine has been produced in Armenia over 6,000 years ago. Winemaking has played an important role in Urartu. The Assyrian sources also point to this.
"During the invasion, the Assyrian kings pointed out the types of wine in their lists and also the number of grape gardens destroyed. The most demanded captives for them were winemakers," tells Frunze Harutyunyan, a lecturer at the Wine Academy, and the main wine-maker of "Maran" wine factory.
The kings of Urartu of the 8th century BC referred to Armenia as "the land of the vineyards." The Urartian cuneiform inscriptions, in addition, refer to what has been created and planted in the honor of the god Khaldi. Grape planting was something like a feat. Famous historians and scholars Herodotus, Strabo, and Xenophon have also referred to the Armenian winemaking.
According to the writings of Herodotus, Armenians had commercial ties with Babylon and sold wine to them. The winemaking culture passed from the Armenian Highland to Georgia, Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome.Herodotus also noted that at that time, Assyria also made wine, but Babylon received wine from Armenia. This means that the Armenian wine was a lot better.
The revival of winemaking in Armenia always depended on the existence of statehood. Winemaking has once again developed during the reign of the Bagratuni dynasty when Armenia was independent.
In the pagan times, there was a tradition in Armenia. People boiled flavored liquid from thousands of plants. During the 1st century BC, a wine-maker Pargev, who lived in the royal palace of King Trdat, learned to distill alcohol from that liquid.
Trdat together with royal retinues and gifts, and also carrying that flavored liquid, visited the Roman Emperor Nero. According to Roman historians, when Nero tasted the liquid, he became happy and delightful.
Aside from the legends, it is scientifically proven that the ancient Armenian winemaking has a history of 6,000 years.
The studies of grape seeds found during archaeological excavations have proved that during the 6-5th millennium BC, Armenians have adapted wild grapes and have also conducted selective breedings.
Some ethnographers and archeologists, exploring wine-cultural biography discovered near the village of Areni in Vayots Dzor, close to the bridge leading to the Noravank complex, in the "Bird's Cave", various monuments dating from the Old Stone to the late medieval periods.
This proves that people have lived there and have also engaged in grape cultivation. Even beyond the Noravank canyon, there are traces of medieval vineyards.
In 2011, the world's oldest winery was discovered during the excavations in the Areni Complex in Armenia. The winery is 6000 years old.
In 2007-2008, due to the excavations, it became possible to discover the remains of material culture belonging to the period of copper and stone age. Among them, inside the cave's first hall, they found a complex consisting of clay structures.
The natives of the Armenian Highland have used and preserved winemaking traditions. This indicates that ethnic Armenians are the economic and cultural heirs of the residents of Van Kingdom.
About the vineyards of Van, the King of Assyria, Sargon the Second says: "The grapes were falling down like rain, and the wine was flowing like the water of a river." In the oldest historical information which reached to us, mentions of various manufacturing techniques of wine and beer. Xenophon, in particular, mentions that the Armenian wines were of high quality, old and of a great variety. The methods and technologies of viticulture and winemaking have spread from Armenia to neighboring countries thousands of years ago. During the raids and control of Arabs, Turks, and also Seljuks, many grape gardens have been destroyed.
Picture: This complex includes various types of storage facilities. The winery found there caused great interest. Near the winery, there were also the remains of grape seeds. During the excavations, they also found grape-crushing tools, clay pot surrounded by grape clusters and dried vines, and even wine-drinking cup. Studies have revealed that besides Areni, there are no more places in the world where such a complex of wine exists.
Nearly 2,000 of the 6,000 grape varieties in the world were found in Armenia.The most popular varieties are the Voskehat, Garran Dmak ("lamb rump"), the Black Areni, Karmrahyut ("red juice"), Nrneni ("pomegranate tree"), Azateni, Mskhali, Kangun, Meghraghbyur ("honey aroma"), Nerkarat, Ararat, Shahumyani, Anahit, Armenia, and several varieties with Muscat scent which are currently being cultivated in the Ararat valley.
Areni Black is a strong and sustainable type which grows on high, mountainous elevations, hence has extremely unique taste characteristics. DNA analysis has shown that this type has no genealogical connection to any of the currently known other vines. Wines from Areni Black are distinguished by elegance and freshness, the typical aromas are cherry, black pepper, and black tea. The Armenian grapes have never been crossbred or changed due to the geographical isolation and traditional methods of cultivation in the past 6000 years.
In the 19th century, an invasive species - phylloxera (brought in from America) destroyed the vineyards of Europe, leaving the continent with almost no grapes. The ones that survived were mostly the American types that were resistant to the insect.Almost all of the famous wines today - Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Spanish Rioja or Italian Montepulciano have American origins because their roots were unable to resist and survive the parasite. In Armenia, the native vines remained intact. The insect simply didn't reach its highlands. Therefore, the authentic, ancient roots were preserved as was the case for thousands of years.
Since regaining its independence in 1991, the young Republic of Armenia revives its legendary wine industry throughout the country. Some of the biggest markets where Armenian wines enjoy great success and a new wave of recognition are USA, China, Italy, Canada, Switzerland, France, Belgium and Russia. Armenian wines have been presented in multiple international exhibitions and competitions in Strasbourg, Amsterdam, Shanghai, Dusseldorf and Moscow and have won various awards and medals. The ancient Armenian church – the oldest official Christian church in the world has a dedicated major holiday - The Consecration of Grapes and the Transfiguration of the St. Virgin Mary. It is one of the 5 pillar-holidays of the Armenian Apostolic Church. The Armenian grapes also feature in thousands of medieval manuscripts, murals and the famous Khachkars – the only-Armenian cross-stones that dot every Armenian historical monument in the world.
"Heres Wine" is the exclusive representative of the most notable wines from six well-known Armenian boutiques and exclusive winemakers: The Old Bridge Winery, Trinity Wines, Koor Wines, Keush Wines, Kataro Wines and Van Ardi Wines. They embody the unique characteristics of the crème-de-la-crème of Armenian winemaking and grapes cultivation and present an absolutely amazing, unchallenged bouquet of ancient but most sensual flavors of the Armenian wines.


How to add RETWEET to your blog?
Do you wish you could be more organized?
"To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did" When God takes something from your grasp, He's not punishing you, but merely opening your hands to receive something better. Concentrate on this sentence. "The will of God will never take you where the Grace of God will not protect you." Something good will happen to you today, something that you have been waiting to hear. Please do not break. Just 27 Words, 'God our Father , walk through my house and take away all my worries and illnesses and please watch over and heal my family in your name, Amen.' This prayer is so powerful. Pass this to 12 people including me. A blessing is coming to you in form of a new job, a house, marriage or financially. Do not break or ask questions. This is a test. Does God come first in your life? If so, stop what you're doing & send it to 12 people now. Watch what He does!
Mahatma Gandhi "Be the change you want to see in the World"
Jackie has read 9 books toward her goal of 53 books.
Quick Writing Tip: Feeling Stuck?


Medicare covers doctor visits and prescription drugs.
Medicare Advantage is an alternative Medicare system from the Bush 43 Administration. It is usually lower cost, but often with restricted provider networks. It moves the administration from the government to the insurance company.
I use traditional Medicare, with Blue Cross "supplemental" to augment the Part B (non-hospital services), and another company for the prescriptions (Part D - which is also a Bush 43 program, also run by private companies).