text:
ICT classes in school should be binned – IT biz body
Schools should stop teaching ICT lessons in their current form as the subject is failing both pupils and employers, according to trade bod Intellect. "We believe that ICT in its current form should not be a statutory programme of study," says John Hoggard, Intellect education honcho. "Takeup of ICT courses is falling – GCSE …
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Thursday 21st April 2011 08:45 GMT Real Ale is Best
To be honest...
It would be much better to give children typing lessons.
They would have a huge advantage later in life if they left school being able to touch type.
Thursday 21st April 2011 08:45 GMT Jon 52
its bollocks
When I was in high school 15 years ago they made the french teacher do ICT as she had some computer experience ( i think she had one of those word processor units). Meanwhile we had been programming our BBC micro in primary school, she asked me one day how I got the little * above the 8, so I showed her the shift key.
I stopped caring at that point and just rushed the whole years work off in about 1 week and still got top marks. A bunch of us formed our own computer "club" in lessons and taught ourselves programming and advanced office techniques from books and computer magazines. While the other half the class struggled with copy/paste.
To be fair to the teacher she recognised the status quo was rubbish and encouraged us to do this.
Thursday 21st April 2011 08:45 GMT mittfh
Sensible idea...
Having spent time in the past working as both a school ICT technician and (briefly) as an ICT teacher, the majority of pupils found the concept of applying the same skill across multiple contexts an alien idea (probably because it's a skill they didn't need to apply in almost any other subject, apart from say English, where the skills would have been embedded at primary level where skills / subjects aren't so highly compartmentalised). And cross-curricular IT generally fails to make best use of the technology, as the teachers themselves aren't familiar with it. If it can be properly embedded in the curriculum, so much the better. And *please* dump the emphasis on spreadsheets and database design, which tend to make up a significant portion of most GCSE-level ICT curricula but are a huge turn-off for all but the brightest, because whatever context you use, they have the preconception that spreadsheets and databases are hard. And let's face it, how many of them are going to be using nested IF statements or designing databases in their eventual career? I guess not many. Currcula involving ICT across both dedicated subject ICT and cross-curricular ICT need to be designed to teach skills that *will* be useful to the pupils, regardless of their chosen career. One simple example: sourcing images that are free to use and quoting the correct URL, rather than images dot google.
Several schools I worked at had ICT suites that were more-or-less dedicated to cross-curricular ICT (i.e. virtually no subject ICT was taught there). Needless to say, they were the most 'unloved' rooms, especially as they were favourite locations to dump the "alternative curriculum" pupils (i.e. those for whom a full GCSE course would be too demanding) - and consequently they were the most vandalised rooms as well, vandalism ranging from creatively rearranging the keys on the keyboard to spell out expletives to removing blanking plates to castrating the mice (in the days when optical mice were significantly more expensive than the other sort)... not to mention swapping the cables from computers placed back-to-back and flipping the voltage selector on the PSU.
And even if the teachers are reasonably familiar with ICT, the entire class has to be watched like a hawk, as little Johnny who looks so studious might actually be playing Line Rider...
Thursday 21st April 2011 09:42 GMT Marvin the Martian
Even more incredibly,
The first generation of programmers never followed any computing course!
Thursday 21st April 2011 10:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
Likewise ...
the first doctors, pilots, surgeons, dentists, builders, architects, engineers, ...
Let's save money and time and do away with all training. Learn on the job.
Personally, I find most "self-taught" "programmers" dreadful, with no idea of design, testing, standards, clean code, comments or working with others. But it is amazing the amount of cockiness it gives them. Shame they do not teach themselves humility.
Minor gripe, when did British people start poncing up from primary to "high school" instead of "secondary"? Ugh, yanky-isms. Do they go to proms at the end of term and watch cheer leaders from the bleachers while wearing baseball caps and swallowing hamburgers? Sadly, I fear they do.
Thursday 21st April 2011 10:35 GMT Sarah Bee
Re: Likewise ...
My secondary was called [place name] High School. So I say high school. It's shorter, anyway, saves a few syllables. Nothing to get upset about.
@Likewise
"I find most "self-taught" "programmers" dreadful, with no idea of design, testing, standards, clean code, comments or working with others"
In my experience, as an employer, I find that self-taught programmers actually enjoy and care about the job and produce better results, as opposed to those churned out from higher education who are mainly in it for the money and don't care how shoddily they do the job as long as it just about works.
As an employer, I'll take the former over the latter every time.
same time as....
They started renaming Comprehensive Schools, Community Colleges. I went to a Comp, it's now called a community college. STOP BULLSHITING THINGS call a spade a spade, it's a fecking school not a college. A college is somewhere you go after you finish school.
I think it was a new labour thing, they did their usual, call something a fancy name to try and fool the voters.
I went to a "High School" way back in 1977, and they'd been around in my area some time before that. It largely depends on the system the LEA implements. Its either Primary (5-10), Secondary (11-19) or Primary (5-8), Middle(9-12), High(13-19).
We never did "proms", graduation ceremonies, etc.
Thursday 21st April 2011 11:47 GMT The Alpha Klutz
anybody who knows anything worthwhile is self taught
"""Personally, I find most "self-taught" "programmers" dreadful"""
Personally, I find most "self-taught" "managers" dreadful. Shame they do not teach themselves humility.
Thursday 21st April 2011 12:56 GMT Vic
Re: Likewise
> Let's save money and time and do away with all training. Learn on the job.
Without wanting to detract from your irony, it does rather fail in the IT sector because the formal training is so often crap.
I've interviewed hundreds[1] of grads who claim all sorts of coding capabilities, and can quote verbatim from the text books on demand - but when given a simple design problem, just cannot do the job. They all seem to be educated to pass exams, not to solve real-world problems.
> when did British people start poncing up from primary to "high school" instead of "secondary"
It's quote common these days.
> Do they go to proms at the end of term
Vic.
[1] No, I'm not exaggerating.
Education ain't what it used to be...
Primary / Secondary
First / Middle / High
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-tier_education
Thursday 21st April 2011 14:51 GMT sandman
I think you'll find that the term High School has been around for quite a while in the UK, the one in Stamford, Lincolnshire since 1877 for example.
Thursday 21st April 2011 16:26 GMT fatchap
High School?
I went to public school like a proper Englishman should.
Bloody commoners.
Nothing Wrong With The Name "High School"
From where I'm from the local L.E.A ran a three school system. Therefore we had, primary, middle and High Schools.
Thursday 21st April 2011 09:47 GMT __PB__
Couldn't agree more...
The qwerty keyboard is now one of the main input devices for most things in modern life - being able to use it quickly and efficiently is a great skill (one I don't have) but the fact that it is no longer taught in school is kind of rediculous...
Thursday 21st April 2011 10:38 GMT Disco-Legend-Zeke
Touch Typing Should Be...
...required as soon as the student's hands are big enough.
Word processing should integrated into Writing Class, Spreadsheeting into maths, etc.
By the 8th or 9th year, students would not only have career enhancing USER skills, but those with a knack could take specialist courses.
"rediculous"
Spelling is similarly ill-taught, it appears.
Thursday 21st April 2011 11:47 GMT Naughtyhorse
how many of them...
are going to be using nested IF statements or designing databases in their eventual career?
well prolly none of them with that attitude!
maths, physics, chemistry, and code herding are all hard.
bloody hard
'cos if it was easy then everybody would be doing it.
that is kinda the point in aspiring to be a 21st century, high tech, high value, high employment economy.
but if as you say all our kids are thick as pigshit and cant be arsed to apply themselves, then i guess closing all those factories in the 70's and 80's was a really dumb move.
cos stuffing washers into the top of a shock igzorber for 8 hours a day 5 days a week, 48 weeks a year is a piece of piss
Thursday 21st April 2011 12:37 GMT Pinkerton
Be nice if we could get them able to read and write properly, first.
"Mum! Mum! We learnt typing at school today."
"That's nice, dear, what did you type?"
"Dunno, can't read!"
"GCSE courses in ICT show a 57 per cent decline in numbers between 2005 and 2010."
Because schools aren't letting kids take the GCSEs, opting instead for easier more worthless courses (that of course the schools claim are worth some ridiculous number of GCSEs, such as 10 or 20).
Even in the early 90's
My ICT lessons did not cover general computing! Just using a acorn to paint pictures and write vector drawings... with a demo of prestel! All for a GCSE.....
Thursday 21st April 2011 08:50 GMT googolplex
Keep compulsory IT, but review the syllabus
Having seen the compulsory GCSE half course 6 years ago when I did my GNVQ, it's not really IT skills, it's "how to use Microsoft Office" skills. My siblings are currently doing the compulsory IT element in school, and it seems to be much of the same.
I do think these basic skills can be useful in business, as otherwise people can be somewhat lost, and students would need these skills for the other lessons.
However, the coursework for these qualifications typically requires students to churn out vast amounts of stuff like posters and letters and websites (using a WYSIWYG editor of course), which seems rather pointless as they must contain mostly pre-set text.
Looking at it, I think keeping compulsory basic IT training in schools up to GCSE level is worthwhile, as it should remove the idiocy some users show before they enter the workplace, but perhaps the syllabus should be reviewed, as things like staying safe online (i.e. why you shouldn't download this program even though it says your computer is full of viruses) are likely to be of more benefit than churning out posters and websites.
Thursday 21st April 2011 09:42 GMT Yamikotai
It still is
I finished my GCSE in ICT only the year before last, and it still consists of exactly that. How to use Microsoft Office (with not even the slightest mention of any other office suite options).
Thursday 21st April 2011 09:42 GMT Dave Bell
Seeing the results...
I took a very basic IT course, a few years ago, so as to have a piece of paper to wave in front of HR departments.
About half those taking the course were fresh out of schooi, and still struggling with the basics.
One problem seems to be that the curriculum development process can be so much slower to respond to changes than the real world of computer use. It wasn't quite so ridiculous to talk about Netscape in 2004, but there were a couple of obsolete search engines listed in the notes.
The computer graphics test--lay out a CD cover--was simple enough (and I was getting bored) that I did it without touching the mouse.
I obviously don't know about the current standards, but it struck me then that something such as the EDCL was a useful target for every school leaver, and a minimum standard of knowledge for every teacher, while a GCSE should be reserved for something a bit more advanced.
Somebody earning an ICT GCSE should have some idea about programming. That's a step up from the computer literacy everyone should have if they can get a good GCSE pass.
Thursday 21st April 2011 12:31 GMT John Angelico
"How to use MS products"
The same applies in the colonies.
And naturally, the next time MS releases a new version, the revised placement of menu items will render all that painstaking memorisation useless.
Australian OS/2 zealot...
But what do the teachers know?
It's not that far from the ICT skills demanded of all newly qualified teachers...
http://www.tda.gov.uk/trainee-teacher/qts-skills-tests/ict/practice-materials.aspx
(ICT is one of three tests, others are maths -- in the sense of reading histograms and calculating averages -- and language):
Thursday 21st April 2011 08:51 GMT Kyoraki
What else would you expect...
... When the blind are leading the blind? Most teachers in secondary schools know no more about computers than the students themselves, with the exception of those 1 day seminars they have on inset days.
Get some specialist teachers in there, who know what they are actually on about.
ICT is taxpayer sponsored Microsoft product training, it creates no understanding of how software works only where M$ hide the functions.
I say bring back RSA typing for those that want to be typists and Computer Science for those that want to be more than just users.
hiding functions
Yep once failed a section on an automated test in "IT" as it asked me to copy paste.
Ctrl+c ... computer gave me a fail
Ok go to edit menu as it is always there (showing my age before ribbon)... fail
I had failed my two attempts.
aparently I had to use the old toolbar and click on the icons.
School may have changed since your days.
There's very strong pressure on subject-qualified teachers now; the days of the physics teacher/nerd also doing ICT is mostly over...
Not changed that much
My 12 year old daughter ended up, effectively, giving a lesson on Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu/) because the teacher didn't have a clue on either the application or general programming principles.
Thursday 21st April 2011 12:31 GMT mamsey
Trouble is
Anyone with decent skills in I(C)T isn't goign to want to teach a bunch of school kids for peanuts...
Thursday 21st April 2011 08:57 GMT Danny 14
The problem is support. ICT is seen as a geeky subject, then when students get to university and cannot use stylesheets in word to format their thesis they fall over.
All other subjects expect ICT knowledge such as PE making movies of performances or Drama editting sequences. Music, Physics, even Art all need ICT skills. Having a curriculum run around spreadsheets and databases is stupid. At least the ICT iGCSE has a lot of practical information in there and actually applies to the modern world. It didnt help that the previous AQA chief examiner was a 60 year old maths tutor who simply used PCs to make spreadsheets. I wonder what those exams revolved around...
Thursday 21st April 2011 08:57 GMT DN4
interactive and multimedia technology
Interactive and multimedia technology across all lessons. Yeah, that's exactly what you need if you want the pupils to *learn* something in the lessons.
Thursday 21st April 2011 09:08 GMT Aldous
or at least it was when i did GCSE ICT/DT in the tail end of the 90's. completely pointless basic word processing and very basic excel. It would be so much better if they changed it up to include some basic programming (what ever language, variables loops basic OO etc) they could even make it related to Jesus phones/androids and get students interested.
Throw in a bit of network theory (ISO model, basic tcp/ip) and you'd have kids with a bit more of a clue as to if they want to go into IT and not just think everyone in IT is a MS word jockey
Thursday 21st April 2011 09:29 GMT Ian Yates
I think "ICT" (having taught it and know people that do) should be dropped and a proper Computer Science syllabus be added as an optional GCSE.
I learnt how to use Office at school and how to program VBA at A-level. It wasn't until Uni that I really got in to memory structure and OOP. I'd have loved proper CS courses at GCSE/A-level, but they just weren't/aren't there.
Thursday 21st April 2011 12:59 GMT Francis Fish
Sounds ideal, but
Anyone with those skills is either working in a job that doesn't require all the form filling and govt BS, or is teaching at Uni level.
They can't afford people who can teach that stuff. So they teach MS and trivial web design (using MS tools, so you don't get to understand HTML).
No idea how to fix this one.
teach logic, teach learning...
...meanwhile, back in the 80's my weekly college computing class was a 40 minute snooze to the dull drone of a computer technician... no-one learned anything. Fortunately, having taught myself BASIC at home as a teenager I not only got awarded full marks before handing in the final coursework or sitting the exam; but lots of experience teaching the rest of my classmates how to solve that weeks practical exercise.
It would seem that nothing much has changed in almost 30 years.
Thursday 21st April 2011 09:42 GMT Paul Powell
It's the marking that's the problem
In order to enforce a curriculum and have measured 'standards' ICT (or cumputer studies as it was in my day) is getting killed.
The reason a class is asked to turn in near identical posters is because that's a lot easier to compare, mark, and show that we have reached a standard.
Children then become like dogs doing tricks - with little comprehension of why except they get a treat of approval at the end of it.
I wouldn't mind the MS Office stuff as people desperately need educating. The problem is that it is stuck in the 90's teaching bold, italic, underline, and font sizes rather than styles which amount to semantic markup. In excel people really need to understand how to construct a formula that matches a given equation. They need to understand how to aggregate data, use pivot tables etc. These are the things which will make you an invaluable employee.
Thursday 21st April 2011 09:42 GMT Colin Brett
Nice report
Short and to the point and I quite agree with its conclusions. I note with interest the members of the Intellect Group (HP, Intel UK, Oracle UK, MS, Accenture, Logica, LinuxIT to name a few). These companies should at least know what IT is all about and want to recruit the best and brightest, rather than the "I can do spreadsheets me" ICT experts the UK school system churns out. They don't want to spend all the money retraining these people.
The question is: can Intellect Group get anyone with real influence to read it and change the curriculum?
Somewhat off topic, though. As the father of a 7 year old, you could easily take Intellect's report and global search-and-replace ICT with just about any subject area to accurately describe the education system in the UK.
Icon says it all: Where's the IT angle? Because it's definitely NOT in the UK school system.
Thursday 21st April 2011 09:46 GMT Alastair Dodd 1
stop calling it ICT
would help - I mean Information Communication Technology? Communication IS information so just call it IT - rather than use a redundant word... virtually nobody but schools call it ICT anyway
Thursday 21st April 2011 09:46 GMT Matt Brigden
It was plain old IT when I did it . Showed me word processing,databases and spreadsheets,DTP etc . Fair enough I loved computers so it was all gravy to me . Was more shocked when doing it in college I knew more than the tutor who was oblivious to things like shortcut keys and thought the easiest way to open a file was open the application and then click file and browse for it . Very funny when you see the light of realisation dawn on someone that just double clicking the file itself is faster and they have been doing it the long way for years . Piqued my interest enough to want to go further though and get at the actual hardware underneath .
The problem now is most kids have an almost innate understanding of computers so traditional IT teaching needs to be updated to reflect this . The "This is the power button approach" wont cut it any more .
Unredundant. Also, nuance and shit.
(i) Information need not be communicated, and communications need not be informative.
(ii) Huh. One concept appears to be countable, the other not. Ponder on't.
(iii) Redundancy is good.
(iv) Can't remember the last time I heard anyone invoke either IT or ICT.
(v) Lazy taxonomies. We had orthography and logic in the ink age ...
Thursday 21st April 2011 09:47 GMT Elmer Phud
What's the pont?
As computers are now so enmeshed with our daily lives treating it as a separate subject is pointless. Loads of people drive these days but I've never seen a school with car mechanics or driving skills on the curriculum.
I don't see how it's so 'special', primary kids do a lot of stuff with computers and don't see it as anything other than 'normal'. Turtles have been replaced with Lego and programmable cars. Adding the term 'computer' tends to muddy things - let's start with adults instead. Let's begin by insisting that none of the devices at home are anything but computer-driven machines that we programme (albeit on a very simple level). "I don't know anythng about computers!" is the wail while they use the iPhone at work to set the recorder for telly. How many kitchens would fall silent if the computers were taken away? would anyone have central heating?
ICT needs to be dragged screaming in to the 20th century - I bet there are ICT courses that spend time discussing fax machines when the pupils will never use one, ever. (yes the 'fax machine' predates the telephone but so what?). Mobile data transfer is what they are familiar with, that and downloading 'codecs'.
This isn't a troll but how about even giving them Scratch to play with? - especially as it's free. (cue the 'you can't teach programing like that etc. etc.)
Thursday 21st April 2011 10:23 GMT san1t1
It's a shame that it's so MSFT sponsored, especially when really cool software like Scratch exists http://scratch.mit.edu/ (which my daughter could use at age 8) and when the basics of putting together a website really aren't difficult.
I mean, how hard would it be for every school to give every child who wanted one a subdomain on their school website, with reasonable Ts&Cs of course?
I got my first compsci training back in the early eighties at primary school - and at that point I was programming - in school - in Logo - to move a Turtle on the floor to draw circles - we were queueing up to have a go! i guess it was a golden age.
Seriously, create a new discipline of office skills, and use that to teach productivity suites. Get every ICT room a couple of Nabaztags, some Arduiono kits, or some other kind of programmable hardware, and get the kids to build things. Learn about software from hardware. You don't learn anything from nested if statements in Excel except that you don't want to do them, a fact which remains true for most software professionals!
Thursday 21st April 2011 10:26 GMT Magnus_Pym
upskilling?
I know the current curriculum may not be up to par but 'up-skilling' FFS.
"Our member companies tell us that they often have to spend considerable time up-skilling employees"
Yes. it's really called training or at least it used to be when investing in business wasn't just about buying a new machine. At one time companies took on apprentices and would 'up-skill' them for a considerable time until they were ready to take on the work. It's what companies are supposed to do to get the work force they want rather than whinge about how the lack of ready trained/fully qualified staff is holding back their business.
Re: upskilling?
> At one time companies took on apprentices
Yes, but few new employees *are* apprentices any more.
> It's what companies are supposed to do to get the work force they want
But when you're employing someone who's *supposed* to be trained already, it's something of a disappointment to find out they don't even know the basics of the job.
Apprentices are expected to have a lot to learn. Graduates and - even worse - seasoned professionals are supposed to have covered the bulk of it already.
Wednesday 27th April 2011 12:42 GMT Magnus_Pym
... they are not talking about graduates or professionals. They are talking about IT lessons in schools.
Thursday 21st April 2011 10:32 GMT R J Tysoe
Have they tried...
... turning it off and on again?
Separate the issues out.,...
Computer literacy is different from Technical ability - make basic Computer Use a part of the English curriculum and make Technical practices part of the Science curriculum.
Office, basic Mobile Phone Use, Setting Timers / Clocks, Email, "Multimedia" (ugh) = Computer Literacy
Programming, Data Comms, Cabling, Hardware Maintenance, Mobile phone config = Technical Practices
This way everyone gets the basics but the geeks can specialise. Simples.
Are schools for education or training?
Ever read that story, "The Machine Stops", by E.M. Forster? He seems to have been very prescient and we are not so far from his vision.
The nub of the matter is, schools were, originally, meant to equip one for life and further development. Job-specific training came later, at a time when one had got the basic education to make reasonably informed choices and still to have choices, while being educated in the culture and basic, general skills of one's society.
Schools should educate, not train, not dragoon children into being little workers. So, teach culture, literacy, numeracy and a problem.solving, questioning attitude to the world around them, rather than forcing them into "work-related" lessons on computing, accountancy, brick laying or whatever. Open their minds to the possibilities to come, that will certainly differ from those today.
Computing has got a place as a tool, just as pen and paper. But do not treat it as a universal, essential panacea for all subjects at all levels. Does one really need a computer to study history, English or basic arithmetic, algebra and geometry? I would argue that a child should master the basics of literacy and numeracy before a computer is even allowed in the classroom. A student should understand searching the literature, writing to and visiting peers and researchers for papers and so on before sitting in front of a search machine that limits him to what is on-line and matches the algorithm of Google or Yahoo or Bing.
Oh well, suppose even reading is out now: just let the machine read it out to you; exercise? Let the machine massage you and move your limbs. Drama? Surely the machine can do a better job of designing and making sets, costumes and lighting than a mere human.
I was the last year of 'O' Levels (class of 87) and did 'O' level computer studies as it was called then. The course was actually ok, you did do programning, BBC basic, and did some logic stuff and how systems worked etc
Thursday 21st April 2011 10:57 GMT bazinsane
let's learn micro$0ft
I taught adult ed in manc for a couple of terms. The ICT course as they put it was based on CLAIT and it has nothing to do with IT. What the course is used for is to teach the latest version of microsoft office products ( preferably 2 versions behind) on clapped out PCs which aren't up to the job.
ICT is not relevant - windows is not relevant. What we have is a bunch of kids who are brilliant at social networking but couldn't fight their way out of a command line.
Thursday 21st April 2011 11:17 GMT Eponymous Cowherd
Its badly named in the first place.
From hearing what my kids are taught in what are laughably called "information and communications technology" classes, it appear to be more secretarial skills than anything else.
It a bit like calling driving lessons "Automotive and Engineering Technology".....
Thursday 21st April 2011 11:23 GMT InITForTheMoney
I couldn't agree more...
I'm a 28 year old self employed Infrastructure Architect, I'd like to show you where education gave me a leg up and where it let me down on the way to where I am now.
I started secondary school in 1993 at what was the 13th and last City Technology College ever built, it was brand new and my year group was the first and (to start with) only year group... it gradually opened year by year as we progressed. It took in a cross section of pupils from different backgrounds and eventually became one of the first Academies. It is now the biggest Academy in the Bristol area.
During my first year, we were given touch typing lessons (I've never met anyone else of my generation who was taught to type at school... why?) and basic lessons in Desktop Publishing (using Clarisworks) on Macs, twice a week for 30 minutes (outside of the normal curriculum), at the time we had the largest network of Mac's anywhere in europe. The use of IT was central to every lesson that we had, up to the point where we began GCSE study, at this point the curriculum was more strict and we were only able to use it for certain things. Every student had what we would now consider to be basic skills in DTP, spreadsheets, databases (Filemaker Pro) email and using the internet (via our JANET connection) by the age of 13. At the time this was almost unheard of in the local area.
I took nine GCSE's and a part one GNVQ in Information Technology (by this time we had a suite of Windows NT4.0 PC's as well). The IT subject matter taught in the IT course was woefully inadequate... almost the entire time the class thought it was being taught to suck eggs. Most of us that took it had taken a strong interest in IT (as you might expect given we were surrounded by it) and would help with maintenance of the IT systems and computer rooms around the school, we were expecting to learn things that would be a bit more advanced. The network admin at our school, while not being incredibly strong in IT used us extensively and encouraged us to learn, we would do builds, installs and patches on workstations (Mac & Windows) for her. Some of us also did things with Linux, SunOS and SGI Irix.
Of the group of 48 who took the Part 1 IT GNVQ, 2 actually finished the coursework, not because it was hard, but because it was so useless and boring, we could have proved all of our skills in all of the areas the GNVQ required in the first week by going through work we had produced over the previous 3 years, however, the format of the course insisted that we follow planned exercises in sequence that added up to a lot less than we were capable of. Worst of all... we had to submit all of our completed activities in PRINTED form, not on floppy or CD... printed. You could pass with distinction if you just made it look like it worked, the examiner never got a floppy copy and would never know.
What the course taught was how to use Excel, Word, Powerpoint and how to create a basic database in MS Access 97.
I then went on to A-Level, I'd been told the Advanced GNVQ in IT would be more my thing, since it would teach more advanced IT subject matter. I started it, realised it was going over old ground for at least the first year and that it was going to be equally useless. I quit the course and took an A-Level in computing as an evening class at another College, this again focused on MS Office and Access 2000 (I at least learned some VB this time), but because it wasn't a GNVQ you could be more creative with your coursework and rather than multiple choice questions you could give proper answers for the exams. It was better than the GNVQ but it still covered a lot of old ground and I question the value of most of it.
After VIth form I did a gap year with an organisation called the year in Industry, working in an IT department of an engineering consultancy, where frankly they were amazed that I could type, knew what a CAD package was, could build web pages and knew something of linux. I cant thank everyone at "Scott Wilson" enough for their nurturing attitude while I was with them, without doubt one of the best decisions I ever made was to do my gap year with them.
I then went to university... where what I was taught for the 1st year was effectively the computing A-Level again (I'd used none of it in my gap year), but with some Java (taught very badly), some C (taught slightly less badly), some completely useless maths about matrices and something about logic gates, which I have yet to find any practical use for. However, the university was a Cisco academy and I did learn some useful stuff about IP and routing, which I still use. I dropped out after the first year.
The system fails because:
* Each stage of the education process repeats the last rather than extending it, this means if you start on the track early there is no incentive at the later stages, since you wont learn much new
* All IT courses assume no knowledge and don't allow you to start further along and prove your ability
* IT teachers and university lecturers seem to have very little knowledge of the needs of businesses or the IT industry
* Schools don't have the right equipment or software to teach, they don't adapt with industry and are often left behind the curve
* The system teaches students to use specific products (generally MS Office) this means that when confronted with other packages the students are lost
On the last note, in our case all students knew Clarisworks and the Windows machines were largely neglected until Clarisworks was junked by the school in favour of MSOffice - many found MSOffice confusing, but in the modern world, students learn MS Office and then have trouble with newer versions (e.g office 2007's ribbon interface) or competing packages like OpenOffice.
Friday 22nd April 2011 00:15 GMT Anonymous Coward
"useless maths about matrices"?!
Simultaneous equations! Tranformations!
Matrices are useful and applied in computing in lots of places just not in a GUI interface.
Thursday 21st April 2011 12:32 GMT Chris Harries
Too easy
In maths you need to learn things like trigonometry, statistics models like rank correlation, quadratic equations etc etc all of which are slightly harder then 1 + 1, however IT in schools really is just 1+ 1. A-Level IT is shit as well, I did computer science and AVCE IT at A-Level and it was SHIT. It didn't really teach me anything I didn't know already or could work out by reading a website in 2 minutes. I see some schools have introduced courses such as CCNA which is also a terrible idea. From my perspective it either seams to low level (teaching pascal, why bother, there are other languages that people could have more revelance too like PHP, C~ etc (I'm sure someone will disagree with me) or they are too high level and just focus on using MS Access or if statements in Excel like that is challenging our brains. Too easy and too bull shit, that's what it was 5 years ago, I doubt much has changed
Thursday 21st April 2011 12:37 GMT Alan Ableson
Remember: acronyms are not universal!
Just a quick journalistic note. Many of your readers come from outside the UK, and in our education debates we don't use the acronym "ICT". I don't mind the use of the acronym in the headline for brevity, but the term should be written out in full the first time it is used in the article itself. Readers shouldn't have to resort to a Google search outside the article to determine whether the "C" is for "computing" or for "communication"...
Speaking as a "lecturer"...
Speaking as a professionally young "college lecturer" who happens to deliver what is essentially key skills ICT, I can pretty much state with a lot of firm conviction that a lot of students still simply are not au fait with technology as a whole. A lot of my students don't even know how to use their phones properly and we're talking basic Symbian here (Don't get me started on the ones with Crackberries...) let alone how to use a computer properly. Sure, there are a lot of smart kids not far from my age whom I lecture who know stuff... But there are a horrendous amount who do not know the first thing about ICT despite years of education prior.
It's easy for us to sit here in our towers and proclaim that the schools should be implementing it into their lessons and the GCSE's should be rehashed (It'd put me out of a job if they could all qualify under 16, but I wouldn't complain if it meant a tech-savvy generation), but bear in mind that there are a significant number of students who simply find it hard to understand the mechanics of Excel and that is all they'll require for their careers. Sure, make the GCSE harder, but make sure that the students who need it are getting their Microsoft Office courses and perhaps we should be dishing out ECDL's, Functional Skills or Key Skills for the students who will only grasp Office with exceptional amounts of guidance.
I'd be curious to discover peoples experiences of education, because in the Functional Skills syllabus for example they cover basics like anti-virus and security, copyright\fair use, search skills, basic fundamentals of the actual computer itself... But when you bear in mind you have perhaps an hour a week with students over 36 weeks (If you're lucky and they all attend) and a lot of them will require an extensive amount of time to cover Excel alone (You have no idea how complex most students who know nothing of ICT by this point find Excel, it's exactly the same as teaching an older individual who's not had to touch a computer for 30 years of their working life)... Well you get the idea and it's understandable that perhaps some teaching staff (whatever the qual) skip the syllabus and focus on what is going to be tested in the final paper.
Not that kids want to do ICT anyway. A lot of the ones I teach weren't actually aware of how much ICT affects them or what ICT entails, so I like to steal the more simple to understand stories from El Reg and BBC and talk about them in sessions just to make them aware of what exactly ICT encompasses. At the start of year, 1/20 of my students perhaps knew what the point of anti-virus was, let alone malware. Now almost all of them know at least of keyloggers, the risks involved when breaking copyright, how to look after a computer and safely use them and most importantly that technology is in general for more than a nice word processor and perhaps drawing indecent images in MS Paint... Better that than let them just go away thinking that MS Office is the extent of knowledge they'll ever need and it's a shame that all their final exam will ask them to do is find some information on a website and know how to use Autosum...
Thursday 21st April 2011 22:12 GMT E 2
Guess what else does not belong in universities?
Business schools do not belong in universities.
IT teaching in NZ schools crap too
My son recently earned credits to pass computing at NCEA Level 2. The work arrived on a 3.5" floppy disk. . We didn't even have a machine in the house that still had a working floppy drive. To pass involved not much more than a little copy and paste and nesting some folders. What a joke.
MS office for 12 year olds
As someone who has recently stumbled into ICT teaching after 20 years in mainstream IT I'm shocked to see how easy, deficient and largerly irrelevant it is. It's no wonder that several leading university's now black list ICT A levels as being not academically rigourous enough.
When I did Computing O'level way back when in 1979 topics included practical programming assesments (BASIC), logic circuits, processor components (ALU's registers etc). Now ICT spends several lessons teaching kids how to make the background a nice shady blue in powerpoint.
And they say the exams haven't been dumbed down .........
And the penguin because real operating systems still have a command prompt
A level fail
My lad did ICT GCSE - but never got the results despite numerous requests to and assurances from the school.
Went on to A level was ranked as "best student" and told he was doing well and should expect "better than C" half way through year one. End of year exam "AS" level he was still the best, the only one not to get "U" (effectively fail), he got "E" (officially a pass but might as well be a fail).
As a result the school decided not to run year 2 of the course so blowing his prospect of completing the course he signed up for and perhaps getting an improved grade. This is in the best state school in the area and he's not thick.
GCSE course work was garbage. For example, he made a website and used CSS for navigation buttons, that got rejected by the teachers who told him to use Flash instead!
They were supposed to use Dreamweaver but that's a product designed for professionals who would expect a few days full time commercial training. The kids got "here's the program, get on with it". It's like saying: nuclear physics is on the curriculum for A level physics so let's fire up the school's particle accelerator.
Apart from that there was a strong bias towards Microsoft Office Suite - but the teachers only had superficial knowledge, my lad ended up showing teachers how to use Excel.
"A" level material was extremely dull, I'm sure some smart educationalists would defend it as "highly relevant to a real workplace environment". They are wrong but even if it were true, if it's so dull the students don't get engaged and enthusiastic you'll never get the best out of them.
Like just about everyone else in public sector, the teachers have been feather-bedded, allowed to get lazy on high salaries/benefits packages. Very few would last long in a real job. And I'd not last a day in a teaching job now they've let standards of discipline fall so low that the teachers primary role has become keeping order - so they don't need to know much about the subjects they're supposed to be teaching.
Friday 22nd April 2011 20:40 GMT JB
Times change
It was called Computer Studies when I did it back in the 80s. We had a two-speed class then, the brighter kids wrote programs, the other kids played hangman or Elite.
I think teaching school kids programming is useless, that's something they should be encouraged to discover rather than having shoved down their necks. ICT should be about how to use computer to solve everyday problems, and should be incorporated into every lesson.
Friday 22nd April 2011 21:51 GMT RW
Training vs education
In every discussion of education that I've read, there's no distinction made between training and education sensu strictu. You can train a monkey, but you can't educate him.
Learning to touch type is a form of training. Learning that in Algol, statements end with semicolon is training. But learning that sometimes a bubble sort is appropriate, but other times a QuickSort, is education.
Learning to wear underpants is training. Becoming familiar with the Classics is education because of the general lessons to be drawn from them.
Learning to "do typography" in Wurd is training, but internalizing Bringhurst's "The Elements of Typographic Style" is education.
Learning to spell is training (for the most part). Learning to write coherent prose is education.


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text:
Tag: a/h9n2
Prevailing I292V #PB2 #mutation in #avian #influenza #H9N2 virus increases viral #polymerase function and attenuates IFN-β induction in human cells (J Gen Virol., abstract)
[Source: US National Library of Medicine, full page: (LINK). Abstract, edited.]
J Gen Virol. 2019 Jul 15. doi: 10.1099/jgv.0.001294. [Epub ahead of print]
Prevailing I292V PB2 mutation in avian influenza H9N2 virus increases viral polymerase function and attenuates IFN-β induction in human cells.
Gao W1, Zu Z1, Liu J1, Song J1, Wang X1, Wang C1, Liu L1, Tong Q1, Wang M1, Sun H1, Sun Y1, Liu J1, Chang KC2, Pu J1.
Author information: 1 Key Laboratory of Animal Epidemiology, Ministry of Agriculture, College of Veterinary Medicine, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, PR China. 2 School of Veterinary Medicine and Science, University of Nottingham, Sutton Bonington Campus, Loughborough, UK.
Adaptation of PB2 protein is important for the establishment of avian influenza viruses in mammalian hosts. Here, we identify I292V as the prevalent mutation in PB2 of circulating avian H9N2 and pandemic H1N1 viruses. The same dominant PB2 mutation is also found in most human isolates of emergent avian H7N9 and H10N8 viruses. In human cells, PB2-292V in H9N2 virus has the combined ability of conferring higher viral polymerase activity and stronger attenuation of IFN-β induction than that of its predecessor PB2-292I. IFN-β attenuation is accompanied by higher binding affinity of PB2-292V for host mitochondrial antiviral signalling protein, an important intermediary protein in the induction of IFN-β. In the mouse in vivo model, PB2-292V mutation increases H9N2 virus replication with ensuing increase in disease severity. Collectively, PB2-292V is a new mammalian adaptive marker that promotes H9N2 virus replication in mammalian hosts with the potential to improve transmission from birds to humans.
PMID: 31305236 DOI: 10.1099/jgv.0.001294
Keywords: Avian Influenza; H9N2; Viral pathogenesis.
Posted on July 16, 2019 Categories UncategorizedTags a/h9n2, abstract, avian influenza, research, viral pathogenesisLeave a comment on Prevailing I292V #PB2 #mutation in #avian #influenza #H9N2 virus increases viral #polymerase function and attenuates IFN-β induction in human cells (J Gen Virol., abstract)
#Respiratory disease due to mixed viral #infections in #poultry flocks in #Egypt between 2017 and 2018: #Upsurge of highly pathogenic #avian #influenza virus subtype #H5N8 since 2018 (Transbound Emerg Dis., abstract)
Transbound Emerg Dis. 2019 Jul 11. doi: 10.1111/tbed.13281. [Epub ahead of print]
Respiratory disease due to mixed viral infections in poultry flocks in Egypt between 2017 and 2018: Upsurge of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus subtype H5N8 since 2018.
Hassan KE1,2, El-Kady MF2, El-Sawah AAA2, Luttermann C3, Parvin R1,4, Shany S2, Beer M1, Harder T1.
Author information: 1 Institute of Diagnostic Virology, Friedrich-Loeffler-Institute, Greifswald-Riems, Germany. 2 Department of Poultry Diseases, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Beni-Suef University, Beni-Suef, Egypt. 3 Institute of Immunology Virology, Friedrich-Loeffler-Institute, Greifswald-Riems, Germany. 4 Department of Pathology, Faculty of Veterinary Science, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, Bangladesh.
For several years, poultry production in Egypt has been suffering from co-circulation of multiple respiratory viruses including highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAIV) H5N1 (clade 2.2.1.2) and low pathogenic H9N2 (clade G1-B). Incursion of HPAIV H5N8 (clade 2.3.4.4b) to Egypt in November 2016 via wild birds followed by spread into commercial poultry flocks further complicated the situation. Current analyses focussed on 39 poultry farms suffering from respiratory manifestation and high mortality in six Egyptian governorates during 2017-2018. Real-time RT-PCR (RT-qPCR) substantiated the co-presence of at least two respiratory virus species in more than 80% of the investigated flocks. The percentage of HPAIV H5N1-positive holdings was fairly stable in 2017 (12.8%) and 2018 (10.2%), while the percentage of HPAIV H5N8-positive holdings increased from 23% in 2017 to 66.6% during 2018. The proportion of H9N2-positive samples was constantly high (2017:100% and 2018:63%), and H9N2 co-circulated with HPAIV H5N8 in 22 out of 39 (56.8%) flocks. Analyses of 26 H5, 18 H9 and 4 N2 new sequences confirmed continuous genetic diversification. In silico analysis revealed numerous amino acid substitutions in the HA and NA proteins suggestive of increased adaptation to mammalian hosts and putative antigenic variation. For sensitive detection of H9N2 viruses by RT-qPCR, an update of primers and probe sequences was crucial. Reasons for the relative increase of HPAIV H5N8 infections versus H5N1 remained unclear, but lack of suitable vaccines against clade 2.3.4.4b cannot be excluded. A reconsideration of surveillance and control measures should include updating of diagnostic tools and vaccination strategies.
© 2019 Blackwell Verlag GmbH.
KEYWORDS: Egypt; Highly pathogenic avian influenza; co-infection; control; diagnostic tools; reassortant viruses
PMID: 31297991 DOI: 10.1111/tbed.13281
Keywords: Avian Influenza; H5N1; H5N8; H9N2; Poultry; Egypt.
Posted on July 13, 2019 Categories UncategorizedTags a/h5n1, a/h5n8, a/h9n2, abstract, avian influenza, egypt, poultry, researchLeave a comment on #Respiratory disease due to mixed viral #infections in #poultry flocks in #Egypt between 2017 and 2018: #Upsurge of highly pathogenic #avian #influenza virus subtype #H5N8 since 2018 (Transbound Emerg Dis., abstract)
#PB2 #mutations arising during #H9N2 #influenza #evolution in the Middle East confer enhanced #replication and growth in #mammals (PLoS Pathog., abstract)
OPEN ACCESS / PEER-REVIEWED / RESEARCH ARTICLE
PB2 mutations arising during H9N2 influenza evolution in the Middle East confer enhanced replication and growth in mammals
Yasuha Arai, Norihito Kawashita, Madiha Salah Ibrahim, Emad Mohamed Elgendy, Tomo Daidoji, Takao Ono, Tatsuya Takagi, Takaaki Nakaya, Kazuhiko Matsumoto, Yohei Watanabe
Published: July 2, 2019 / DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1007919 / This is an uncorrected proof.
Avian influenza virus H9N2 has been endemic in birds in the Middle East, in particular in Egypt with multiple cases of human infections since 1998. Despite concerns about the pandemic threat posed by H9N2, little is known about the biological properties of H9N2 in this epicentre of infection. Here, we investigated the evolutionary dynamics of H9N2 in the Middle East and identified phylogeny-associated PB2 mutations that acted cooperatively to increase H9N2 replication/transcription in human cells. The accumulation of PB2 mutations also correlated with an increase in H9N2 virus growth in the upper and lower airways of mice and in virulence. These mutations clustered on a solvent-exposed region in the PB2-627 domain in proximity to potential interfaces with host factors. These PB2 mutations have been found at high prevalence during evolution of H9N2 in the field, indicating that they have provided a selective advantage for viral adaptation to infect poultry. Therefore, continuous prevalence of H9N2 virus in the Middle East has generated a far more fit or optimized replication phenotype, leading to an expanded viral host range, including to mammals, which may pose public health risks beyond the current outbreaks.
Author summary
The G1-like clade of H9N2 influenza viruses can undergo genetic reassortment with other influenza virus subtypes to produce novel zoonotic viruses, such as the Gs/GD lineage H5N1, H7N9, H10N8, and H5N8 viruses. Since 1998, the G1-like subclade of H9N2 influenza virus has been widely circulating in birds in Central Asia and the Middle East and a number of human cases have been reported. However, little is known about the biological properties of H9N2 viruses in this epicentre of infection. Our data showed that, during about two decades of evolution in nature, G1-like subclade strains evolved to produce strains with appreciably higher replication phenotypes in Central Asia and the Middle East, which led to their expanded host range, including to humans. Therefore, G1-like subclade strains in these areas may accumulate mutations to produce novel viruses and the large gene pool in these areas would enable reassortment with other influenza viruses. This study indicated the need for studies of H9N2 viruses in such areas to monitor their evolutionary dynamics and possible genetic changes.
Citation: Arai Y, Kawashita N, Ibrahim MS, Elgendy EM, Daidoji T, Ono T, et al. (2019) PB2 mutations arising during H9N2 influenza evolution in the Middle East confer enhanced replication and growth in mammals. PLoS Pathog 15(7): e1007919. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1007919
Editor: Adam S. Lauring, University of Michigan, UNITED STATES
Received: March 11, 2019; Accepted: June 14, 2019; Published: July 2, 2019
Copyright: © 2019 Arai et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Data Availability: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.
Funding: This work was supported by CREST (to KM) from Japan Science and Technology Agency (http://www.jst.go.jp/kisoken/crest/en/index.html; Grant Number JPMJCR15F4), partly by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research B (to YW), Young Scientists B (to YA) and Scientific Research on Innovative Areas (to YW) from Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (https://www.jsps.go.jp/english/index.html; Grant Numbers 15H05295, 18K15171 and 19H04841, respectively), and partly by grants from the Takeda Science Foundation (http://www.takeda-sci.or.jp/; [to YW]), the Heiwa Nakajima Foundation (http://www.hnf.jp/; [to YW]), and a Sasakawa Scientific Research Grant from The Japan Science Society (https://www.jss.or.jp/en/; [to YA]), and partly by the JSPS Core-to-Core Program (https://www.jsps.go.jp/english/e-c2c/index.html; [to TN]). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Keywords: Avian Influenza, H9N2.
Posted on July 2, 2019 Categories UncategorizedTags a/h9n2, abstract, avian influenza, researchLeave a comment on #PB2 #mutations arising during #H9N2 #influenza #evolution in the Middle East confer enhanced #replication and growth in #mammals (PLoS Pathog., abstract)
#Pathogenicity and Full #Genome Sequencing of the #Avian #Influenza #H9N2 #Moroccan Isolate 2016 (Avian Dis., abstract)
Avian Dis. 2018 Nov 16;63(1):24-30. doi: 10.1637/11941-080418-Reg.1.
Pathogenicity and Full Genome Sequencing of the Avian Influenza H9N2 Moroccan Isolate 2016.
Boumart Z1, Bamouh Z2, Jazouli M2, Zecchin B3, Fusaro A3, Salviato A3, Monne I3, Tadlaoui KO2, Harrak ME2.
Author information: 1 Research and Development Department, Multi-Chemical Industry, Lot 157, Z I, Sud-Ouest (ERAC) B. P. 278, Mohammedia 28810, Morocco, z.boumart@mci-santeanimale.com. 2 Research and Development Department, Multi-Chemical Industry, Lot 157, Z I, Sud-Ouest (ERAC) B. P. 278, Mohammedia 28810, Morocco. 3 Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie, Padua, Italy.
Abstract in English, Spanish
In Morocco in early 2016, a low pathogenic avian influenza virus serotype H9N2 caused large economic losses to the poultry industry, with specific clinical symptoms and high mortality rates on infected farms. Subsequent to the H9N2 outbreak, the causal agent was successfully isolated from chicken flocks with high morbidity and mortality rates, propagated on embryonated eggs, and fully sequenced. The phylogenetic analysis suggested that the Moroccan isolate could have derived from the Middle East isolate A/chicken/Dubai/D2506.A/2015. This study was designed to assess the pathogenicity of the Moroccan isolate H9N2 in experimentally infected broiler and specific-pathogen-free (SPF) chickens. At 22 days of age, one broiler and two SPF chicken groups were inoculated by dropping 0.2 ml of the H9N2 isolate (107.5 EID50/ml) in both nostrils and eyes. Clinically inoculated chickens with H9N2 displayed mild lesions, low mortality rates, and an absence of clinical signs. The H9N2 virus was more pathogenic in broiler chickens and produced more severe tissue lesions compared to SPF chickens. The viral shedding was detected up to 6 days postinoculation (pi) in oropharyngeal and cloacal swabs in infected birds with a maximum shedding in the oropharynges of the broiler group. All experimental chickens seroconverted and registered high hemagglutination inhibition titers as early as day 7 pi. The present study indicates that the H9N2 virus isolated from a natural outbreak was of low pathogenicity under experimental conditions. However, under field conditions infection with other pathogens might have aggravated the disease.
KEYWORDS: H9N2; SPF; broiler; isolate; pathogenicity; serology; shedding
PMID: 31251516 DOI: 10.1637/11941-080418-Reg.1
Keywords: Avian Influenza; H9N2; Poultry; Morocco.
Posted on June 30, 2019 Categories UncategorizedTags a/h9n2, abstract, avian influenza, morocco, poultry, researchLeave a comment on #Pathogenicity and Full #Genome Sequencing of the #Avian #Influenza #H9N2 #Moroccan Isolate 2016 (Avian Dis., abstract)
Emergence of #waterfowl-originated #gene cassettes in HPAI #H7N9 viruses caused severe #human #infection in #Fujian, #China (Influenza Other Respir Viruses, abstract)
Influenza Other Respir Viruses. 2019 Jun 11. doi: 10.1111/irv.12657. [Epub ahead of print]
Emergence of waterfowl-originated gene cassettes in HPAI H7N9 viruses caused severe human infection in Fujian, China.
Yang L1, Xie J2,3, Zhang Y1, Zhu W1, Li X1, Wei H1, Li Z1, Zhao L2, Bo H1, Liu J1, Dong J1, Chen T1, Shu Y1,4, Weng Y2,3, Wang D1.
Author information: 1 National Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, China. 2 Fujian center for disease control and prevention, Fuzhou, China. 3 Fujian provincial key laboratory of zoonosis research, Fuzhou, China. 4 School of Public Health Shenzhen, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangdong, China.
Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A(H7N9) virus emerged and caused human infections during the 2016-2017 epidemic wave of influenza A(H7N9) viruses in China. We report a human infection with HPAI H7N9 virus and six environmental isolates in Fujian Province, China.
Environmental surveillance was conducted in live poultry markets and poultry farms in Fujian, China. Clinical and epidemiologic data and samples were collected. Real-time RT-PCRs were conducted for each sample, and H7-positive samples were isolated using embryonated chicken eggs. Full genomes of the isolates were obtained by next-generation sequencing. Phylogenetic analysis and antigenic analysis were conducted.
A 59-year-old man who raised about 1000 ducks was identified as HPAI H7N9 infection. Six HPAI H7 viruses were isolated from environmental samples, including five H7N9 viruses and one H7N6 virus. Phylogenetic results showed the human and environmental viruses are highly genetically diverse and containing significantly different gene constellation from that of other HPAI H7N9 previously reported. The internal genes derived from H7N9/H9N2, H5N6, and the Eurasian wild-bird gene pool, indicating waterfowl-originated genotypes, have emerged in HPAI H7N9/N6 viruses and caused human infection.
The new genotypes raise the concern that these HPAI H7 viruses might transmit back into migratory birds and spread to other countries as the HPAI H5Nx viruses. Considering their capability of causing severe infections in both human and poultry, the HPAI H7 viruses in this study pose a risk to public health and the poultry industry and highlight the importance of sustained surveillance of these viruses.
© 2019 The Authors. Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
KEYWORDS: H7N9 virus; avian influenza; genetic diversity; infection
PMID: 31187583 DOI: 10.1111/irv.12657
Keywords: Avian Influenza; H5N6; H7N6; H7N9; H9N2; Reassortant Strain; Wild birds; Human; Fujian; China.
Posted on June 13, 2019 Categories UncategorizedTags a/h5n6, A/H7N6, a/h7n9, a/h9n2, abstract, avian influenza, china, fujian, human, poultry, research, wild birdsLeave a comment on Emergence of #waterfowl-originated #gene cassettes in HPAI #H7N9 viruses caused severe #human #infection in #Fujian, #China (Influenza Other Respir Viruses, abstract)
#Infection of #chicken #H9N2 #influenza viruses in different species of domestic #ducks (Vet Microbiol., abstract)
Vet Microbiol. 2019 Jun;233:1-4. doi: 10.1016/j.vetmic.2019.04.018. Epub 2019 Apr 12.
Infection of chicken H9N2 influenza viruses in different species of domestic ducks.
Wang C1, Wang Z1, Ren X1, Wang L1, Li C1, Sun Y1, Wang M1, Tong Q1, Sun H2, Pu J3.
Author information: 1 Key Laboratory of Animal Epidemiology of the Ministry of Agriculture, College of Veterinary Medicine, and State Key Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China. 2 Key Laboratory of Animal Epidemiology of the Ministry of Agriculture, College of Veterinary Medicine, and State Key Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China. Electronic address: shlei668@163.com. 3 Key Laboratory of Animal Epidemiology of the Ministry of Agriculture, College of Veterinary Medicine, and State Key Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China. Electronic address: pujuanzgz@126.com.
Domestic ducks are considered as the interface between wild aquatic birds and terrestrial poultry and play an important role in the transmission and evolution of avian influenza viruses (AIVs). However, the infectivity of H9N2 AIVs in different domestic duck species has not been systematically evaluated. Here we investigated the infectivity of various genotypes of chicken H9N2 AIVs in Pekin duck (Anas Platyrhynchos), Mallard duck (Anas Platyrhynchos) and Muscovy duck (Cairina Moschata) through intranasal inoculation. We found that Pekin ducks and Mallard ducks were generally resistant to chicken H9N2 virus infection, while Muscovy ducks were relatively susceptible to H9N2 AIVs. All the tested viruses were isolated from oropharynx, trachea and lung tissues of Muscovy ducks. Additionally, genotype 57 (G57) H9N2 AIVs, which was predominant in chickens since 2010, showed increased virus replication in this duck species, indicating an improved interspecies transmission ability of recent H9N2 viruses from chickens to ducks. Our results demonstrated the role of Muscovy ducks in the ecology of H9N2 AIVs. More attentions should be paid to this host during viral surveillances. Additionally, inactivated H9N2 vaccine may be unnecessarily used in Pekin and Mallard ducks.
KEYWORDS: Avian H9N2 influenza virus; Duck; Replication
PMID: 31176393 DOI: 10.1016/j.vetmic.2019.04.018
Keywords: Avian Influenza; H9N2; Poultry.
Posted on June 10, 2019 Categories UncategorizedTags a/h9n2, abstract, avian influenza, poultry, researchLeave a comment on #Infection of #chicken #H9N2 #influenza viruses in different species of domestic #ducks (Vet Microbiol., abstract)
A new #reassortant clade 2.3.2.1a #H5N1 highly pathogenic #avian #influenza virus causing recent #outbreaks in #ducks, geese, #chickens and turkeys in #Bangladesh (Transbound Emerg Dis., abstract)
Transbound Emerg Dis. 2019 Jun 6. doi: 10.1111/tbed.13264. [Epub ahead of print]
A new reassortant clade 2.3.2.1a H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza virus causing recent outbreaks in ducks, geese, chickens and turkeys in Bangladesh.
Nooruzzaman M1, Mumu TT1, Hasnat A1, Akter MN1, Rasel MSU1, Rahman MM1, Parvin R1, Begum JA1, Chowdhury EH1, Islam MR1.
Author information: 1 Department of Pathology, Faculty of Veterinary Science, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, 2202, Bangladesh.
A total of 15 dead or sick birds from 13 clinical outbreaks of avian influenza in ducks, geese, chickens and turkeys in 2017 in Bangladesh were examined. The presence of H5N1 influenza A virus in the affected birds was detected by RT-PCR. Phylogenetic analysis based on full length gene sequences of all eight gene segments revealed that these recent outbreaks were caused by a new reassotant of clade 2.3.2.1a H5N1 virus, which had been detected earlier in 2015 during surveillance in live bird markets (LBMs) and wet lands. This reassortant virus acquired PB2, PB1, PA, NP and NS genes from low pathogenic avian influenza viruses mostly of non-H9N2 subtypes but retained HA, NA and M genes of the old clade 2.3.2.1a viruses. Nevertheless, the HA gene of these new viruses was 2.7% divergent from that of the old clade 2.3.2.1a viruses circulated in Bangladesh. Interestingly, similar reassortment events could be traced back in four 2.3.2.1a virus isolates of 2013 from backyard ducks. It suggests that this reassortant virus emerged in 2013, which took two years to be detected at a broader scale (i.e. in LBMs), another two years until it became widely spread in poultry and fully replaced the old viruses. Several mutations were detected in the recent Bangladeshi isolates, which are likely to influence possible phenotypic alterations such as increased mammalian adaptation, reduced susceptibility to antiviral agents and reduced host antiviral response.
This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
KEYWORDS: Bangladesh; H5N1 HPAIV; clade 2.3.2.1a; domestic poultry; new reassortant
Keywords: Avian Influenza; H5N1; H9N2; Reassortant Strain; Poultry; Bangladesh.
Posted on June 7, 2019 Categories UncategorizedTags a/h5n1, a/h9n2, abstract, BANGLADESH, poultry, reassortant strain, researchLeave a comment on A new #reassortant clade 2.3.2.1a #H5N1 highly pathogenic #avian #influenza virus causing recent #outbreaks in #ducks, geese, #chickens and turkeys in #Bangladesh (Transbound Emerg Dis., abstract)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


At the 2018 Roper Cup, the organizers from St Georges College honored KC Old Boy and multi-sport legend Errol "Sala" Lewis.
Errol "Sala" Lewis was born in Rockfort, Kingston in 1968. He is the youngest of eight children born to Mr. Joslyn Lewis and Ms. Sadie Phillips. In 1975-1980 he attended Windward Rd All Age School. In 1980 he passed his Common Entrance Exam for Kingston College where he attended for seven years.
In 1989 he was granted a football scholarship to Bellhaven University in Jackson, Mississippi where he studied Business Administration. He later continued his studies at St. Francis College in Brooklyn, NY.
Errol's sports career started out in Rockfort where he played football for Windward Rd All Age School and Springfield United. His most memorable years were at KC where he played on their 1980 and 1981 Pepsi team, 1982 and 1983 Colts team and from 1983 to 1987 the Manning Cup team.
He was also a part of their track team from 1982 to 1986. While at KC, he won football competition every year and was the class II long jump champion at Boys' Champs for two consecutive years. He was selected to the all Manning team from 1984 to 1987.
Errol went on to represent Jamaica at the junior level in football and the Carifta Games in track and field in the Bahamas where he competed in the 100m and long jump. In addition to playing football at KC, Errol also played for Meadhaven Football Club, Jones Town Football Club, Central Kingston, Nannyville Gardens and the semi-pro team Swallowfield United with Israeli coach Mark Mendel.
Errol Lewis is presently the founder and director of coaching at Northside United Sports Academy in Jacksonville, FL.


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Whipple Database
Another view of the Whipple Genweb
Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England
Latitude: 51.8721635, Longitude: 0.1536502
Christened
Last Name, Given Name(s) Christened Person ID
1 Gary, William 2 Feb 1615/1616 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106486
2 Gary, William 6 Oct 1611 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106484
3 Gary, William 9 Jan 1575/1576 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106482
4 Gary, William 16 Dec 1570 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106471
5 Gary, Thomas 5 Sep 1629 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106490
6 Gary, Nathaniel Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106473
7 Gary, Mary 8 Feb 1618/1619 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106487
8 Gary, Margaret 10 Oct 1624 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106489
9 Gary, Margaret 18 Mar 1580/1581 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106493
10 Gary, Luce 15 Feb 1566/1567 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106425
11 Gary, Jonas 14 Dec 1578 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106492
12 Gary, John 29 Nov 1601 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106480
13 Gary, Elizabeth 30 Jun 1613 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106485
14 Gary, Arthur 20 May 1599 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106475
15 Gary, Anna 24 Aug 1622 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106488
Last Name, Given Name(s) Buried Person ID
1 Whipple, Sarah 23 Aug 1582 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106464
2 Whipple, Helen 22 Jan 1615/1616 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106459
3 Thurgood, Thomas 21 Aug 1582 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106465
4 Thurgood, George 21 Aug 1582 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106466
5 Gary, William 18 May 1612 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106484
6 Gary, William 1 May 1611 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106460
7 Gary, Samuel 3 Aug 1582 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106494
8 Gary, Nathaniel 14 Aug 1646 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106473
9 Gary, Margaret 25 Jul 1582 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106493
10 Gary, Luce 17 Aug 1582 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106425
11 Gary, Jonas 8 Aug 1582 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106492
12 Gary, John 25 Feb 1633/1634 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106491
13 Gary, John 14 Aug 1582 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106496
14 Gary, James 4 Aug 1582 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106495
15 Gary 2 Jul 1573 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106472
16 Joan 13 Sep 1615 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England I106474
1 Grave / Whipple 15 Oct 1565 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England F42668
2 Goodday / Whipple 25 Sep 1569 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England F42670
3 Gary / Warman 18 Apr 1625 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England F42673
4 Gary / Poynings 1 Jan 1628/1629 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England F42674
5 Gary / Newman 25 Mar 1611 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England F42675
Maintained by Whipple Website.


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Blog / Production Stories / Large Sensor Cinematography
Olive Green – The World's First Interactive Feature Length Film for English Language Learning
The jump from producing adverts, training videos and corporate films to shooting a feature length movie is a daunting prospect. However, this was not the only challenge that production company Ekstasy set itself.
Producer Mike Saraswat encouraged his client, the Polish online language tuition specialist SuperMemo World, to break every rule in the distance learning book by commissioning a full length, interactive educational feature film. And despite being destined initially for online delivery, he shot "Olive Green" with a state of the art ARRI Alexa, paired with Cooke S4 lenses.
"We knew from the outset we were acting as real pioneers," says producer Mike Saraswat, "and that we could be setting a new agenda for computer based training. So it was a case of no half measures, no corners cut and no compromise, either technically or artistically."
With up to 50 actors, 25 separate locations, 30 days of shooting, Ekstasy`s ambitions were set high. However, a highly experienced crew led by DOP Chris Fergusson ensured that technically the shoot was flawless.
The results are astonishing. This is an educational film like no other, far removed from the low budget productions typically associated with the genre. Technically and creatively it is truly ground-breaking. Saraswat notes:
"We could not have done this without the passion and vision of SuperMemo's CEO Krzysztof Biedalak and his Editor-In-Chief, Alicja Wiacek. Their support and encouragement was pivotal in pushing the boundaries and creating Olive Green."
In consultation with the VMI Camera Hire, Chris selected the Alexa, both for its truly cinematic look and reputation for total reliability. The camera`s speed of use meant that the production was completed on time, with the production team able to shoot in a variety of styles including on the shoulder to capture fight sequences filmed in underground tunnels and cinematic tracking shots.
"There's no question that it`s a big camera, but that didn't stand in our way once. It handled very fluidly to produce great looking pictures. It never let us down." Saraswat continues.
The DIT was tasked with backing up each of the six SxS cards onto hard drives on-set and dual replicating the data in the studio in order to secure the ProRes files. In post production, the decision to shoot ProRes444 was vindicated. With the production relying on practical and natural lighting for much of the shoot, DaVinci was used to match each shot and remove colour casts as necessary.
"The flexibility the ARRI files gave us is a huge advantage. Initially we've been able to grade the material for use on computer screens; the files are so rich and detailed that re-grading for the big screen is no issue." Concludes Saraswat.
The end result is a 2 hour 50 minutes feature length film composed of 60 parts with multiple cliff-hanger games and increasingly complex language to keep learners engaged.
The interactive version includes quiz questions and dexterity games to keep concentration levels high and ensure that the film is achieving its educational goal.
Ekstasy`s ambition is to re-cut the film for cinematic release in the near future.
Olive Green Film Trailer
Watch and Play Olive Green Online – www.olivegreenthemovie.com
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The players of FC Barcelona get inspired from the durability of Lassa tyres when improving their durability, agility and ability. Here is the players of FC Barcelona and their personal trainers Lassa tyres.
It is durable against potholes, bumps and other bumpiness, thanks to its special construction and it allows you to use your tyre safely for a longer time.
It offers superior performance on snowy and wet ground, thanks to the improved special simulation technologies. It has an excellent balance between snowy and wet ground performances. You will be on safe side with this balance even under tough winter conditions.
Greenways has 25% longer service life compared with its competitors and you can take the road safely with it. It not only consumes low fuel, but also presents longevity thanks to its nano-pro technology. Both your tyre and your wallet will be sound and safe during your travels.
The tread pattern that can clean itself and wide shoulder channels prevent the tyre from holding mud. Angled shoulder blocks enable optimum traction on wet and muddy ground and short and fine channels on tread pattern support traction on wet ground. It is durable and safe thanks to its special construction's endurance against cutting and abrasions.
Designed for sport cars and sporty drivers, Phenoma enables excellent handling on both wet and dry ground, reaching up to the limits. Phenoma has the capability of fascinating its user with its fast responses to quick maneuvers and excellent braking.


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CA Obamacare implementation funds activist groups
24 Sep, 2013 by Katy Grimes
This is Part 1 of a two-part series.
As California continues taking the lead in implementing Obamacare, officially called the Affordable Care Act, the state's health care insurance "exchanges" are expected to serve as a model for exchanges in other states. The exchanges are being set up under legislation signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2010.
But not all the money is going for doctors, pills and operations.
The California Legislature and the new Covered California health insurance exchange are handing out more than $500 million in taxpayer dollars to contractors. Much of the money is going for "outreach" and "education programs" connected to voter registration drives through the health exchanges.
In 2012, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 35, by Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Pacoima, requiring that voter registration be part of the health insurance exchanges.
Covered California announced in May it would be awarding $37 million to 48 organizations to "conduct outreach and education programs" on how Californians can access "affordable health care coverage."
Covered California is calling these "partnerships," and the goal is to "increase awareness about the new benefits, to educate targeted audiences, and motivate consumers."
$37 million in grants for outreach and education
According to Covered California, they are "developing educational partnerships that anchor outreach and education programs in communities where likely enrollees live, work, pray, shop, and play."
The breakdown is:
* California's Latino community, the largest group of potentially subsidy, will receive 37 outreach and education grants.
* Caucasians, the next largest group, will receive 24 grants;
* 32 grants will go to African American outreach;
* 11 grants target the Middle Eastern community.
* 20 grants specifically target outreach to the diverse Asian-Pacific Islander communities, including:
– 19 organizations targeting the Vietnamese communities;
– 18 targeting the Chinese community;
– 18 targeting the Filipino community;
– 16 targeting the Korean community;
– 11 targeting the Hmong community;
– nine targeting the Laotian community;
– eight targeting the Japanese community;
– eight targeting the Cambodian community.
Where did the money come from?
"The Obama administration granted a whopping $910 million to California to set up its insurance exchange," according to Betsy McCaughey, Ph.D. McCaughey is a constitutional scholar, a patient advocate and health policy expert, and a former lieutenant governor of the state of New York.
She explained, "That money is not for bandages, surgery, nurses and doctors to care for the sick. Nor is it for insurance plans, though $910 million could buy generous coverage for at least 113,000 people!"
The $910 million was targeted not for actual health care, but for bureaucratic spending. McCaughy said this included $360,000 a year for the executive director, and other rich compensation packages for exchange employees.
Anything and everything can be defined as "outreach."
$37 million goes to 48 contractors
Recently, Covered California announced $37 million in grants to 48 organizations to build public awareness about the opening of the health exchange on Oct. 1.
The 48 organizations received grants, but only some of the grant recipients are even health-related. Each of the grant recipients had to present an outreach plan, and list their targeted population.
Here is a partial list:
* Asian Americans Advancing Justice received $1 million for outreach to nail salon owners, targeting Asian Americans, Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders.
* Cal State Universities received $1.25 million for outreach to student orientation and faculty events.
* The California NAACP received $600,000 for door-to-door canvasing throughout the state targeting African Americans.
* Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, Inc. received $694,000 for outreach at youth events, health fairs and community events, targeting young adults, young "invincibles" and members of young families. Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, Inc., serves 29 counties throughout mid-California and 13 counties in Northern Nevada, with 36 health center locations and 11 community sites.
* Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles received $940,000 for outreach to community, cultural and recreational events, targeting Latino and college students.
* The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, the Central Labor Council for affiliated labor unions in LA County, received $500,000, for door-to-door education, targeting Latino students and low-income families.
* Los Angeles Unified School District received $990,000 for outreach calls to families, meetings with part-time and contract employees, targeting individual consumers, full-time adult education students and the part-time and contract employees.
* Sacramento Employment and Training Agency received $1 million for outreach to limited English proficiency individuals, low-wage, part-time workers and families transitioning from welfare to work.
* Service Employees International Union, Local 521 in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, received $1 million for phone calls, door-to-door, community and group events, SEIU-sponsored events targeting uninsured SEIU member households, Asians, Pacific Islanders and Latinos. They will subcontract to SEIU Local 99 to do this.
* Another SEIU unit received $500,000, targeting long-term care workers' households, multi-racial populations.
* The Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center received $1 million for outreach to social justice organizations targeting LGBT communities, primarily people of color.
* The regents of the University of California received $1 million, going to the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. They are planning outreach to consulate offices targeting Latino adults. But this will be done through 13 Latino organization subcontractors.
* Vision y Compromiso received $1 million for outreach in Spanish at ESL and GED classes at adult schools.
* This $37 million in grants is only the first chunk of California's $190.4 million slated to be spent on "outreach."
The full list of grant recipients is available through Covered California.
Part 2 tomorrow
The Ted Steele Conceptual Abstraction Unit 24 September, 2013, 15:50
Geezo Republi-conserva-baggers—–let's throw all of obamacare out rather then fix what isn't working after a few years?
…and you wonder why you are out of power?
Reply this comment
ExPFCWintergreen 24 September, 2013, 19:23
LOL to the smug leftists who think that obamacare was actually designed to do anything besides FAIL. And it doesnt take effect till october 1 and hasn't even been implemented anywhere except in the dumbest state of all — california. LOL indeed
jimmydeeoc 24 September, 2013, 19:12
Katy's stories are always so depressing (not a reflection on Katy, of course, but the subject matter she has the nerve to cover).
The rank Balkanization, slicing and dicing of ethnic groups, sexual orientation, ad infinitum is what is so depressing.
Melting pot my a**. In another generation we will be little more than dozens of warring camps who have nothing in common but occupying the same geography.
Thanks, libs. Your Alinsky-based assault has succeeded. You won, at least in this state. Happy now? But do you REALLY think this is the path to a bountiful future? Do you REALLY think that, thanks to all your "progressive" efforts, things will be better in 10 years? Do you think that a state of nearly 40 million will prosper solely on the efforts of relative handful of people who live in a 15 mile radius of Sunnyvale?
Queeg 24 September, 2013, 20:17
How ya fix a $333.00 premium going to $965.00 per month? This turkey will not die from a thousand cuts. It we be unmerciful quick, sorta dull sudden!
us citizen 25 September, 2013, 11:36
Ted……you cant FIX BO care. It is full of pork and bad laws. This is like trying to make flat beer have bubbles again. It aint gonna happen. Throw it out and start over. Tort reform, selling policies over state lines and self health care. Keep the damn govt out of it.
Relax boys and girls— doomsayers said the sam eabout the civil rights act when it was passed—-and on and on and on——–stop the whining, it's the law of the land– let's make it work and after a few years Hillary will fix it!
Ulysses Uhaul. 28 September, 2013, 21:43
The civil rights act solved little….laws do not change hearts…..
john 30 September, 2013, 14:25
The outreach effort will pay off. It will bring in both people who are in need as well as healthy people who are too used to going without. The latter will help pay for the former, and overall, having people on a regular HMO will be better than having them use the emergency room.
Queeg – yes, rates will rise for some families that have somewhat high incomes, and presently get coverage through some kind of group scheme. For example, recently, Trader Joes was in the news about kicking part timers off the group plan. People were upset. But the only people really affected with higher rates were those with high household incomes. For example, according to one calculator, the maximum premium for a family of 4, 2 kids, with an income of $90,000 per year is $713, after a tax credit.
Is that similar to your situation?
Basically, the deal is, these families were getting a good deal in the old system, where a company's full timers basically subsidized insurance for part-timers and their families. Now, they may not get that deal, and have to buy in the market.
Arnold SchwarzeneggerPublic Employee Unionsbudget deficitregulationsCaliforniaunionsCalifornia budgetCovered CaliforniaDemocratshealth exchangesJerry BrownKaty GrimesObamacarePresident Obama
40 Taxes 8 years ago
Kiplinger: CA taxes highest — and state hostile to retirees, too
Over the years, when I've reported that the nation's CEOs continue to rank California as the most anti-business state in
31 Regulations 10 years ago
California Coastal Commission keeps grabbing land
Oct. 23, 2012 By Katy Grimes What do you get when you have a powerful state commission of 11 unremarkable
0 Regulations 13 years ago
40,697 new commandments
H.L. Mencken once quipped, "Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, at least there are only ten of them."
Los Angeles County plagued by local corruption


Happy hump day fashionistas! For today's outfit of the day I picked this vibrant mustard crop top paired with cargo pants and a leather cabbie hat. Throw on a leather jacket for a more edgier look and you're good to go. Rock this look to the next brunch with your girls or a weekend adventure with your hunny. Check out the links below to get this similar look.


With 2014 being Intel's 20th anniversary its only to be expected that they release something really special before the release of their broadwell processors in 2015, with the release of Intel's 3rd generation 'ivy bridge' processors leaving a lot to be desired in the overclocking world, what can we expect in from the upcoming additions to Intel's arsenal?
The core i5 Sandy Bridge was an amazing CPU that left many of us frothing at the mouth, 90% of the chips could easily achieve stable 5 – 5.2ghz speeds even on air cooling, however with the 3rd generation ivy bridge, overclocks were lower across the board and more of a silicon lottery with the average clocks coming in at 4.8 – 5ghz.
It's all set to change with Intel's new 4th generation Haswell processors codenamed devils canyon which according to Intel will be released in middle of 2014.
March saw Intel hold a press conference where it showed off it's plans for the Haswell set of processors which will come with various overclocking enhancements that will really benefit us across the board.
The new CPU codenamed devils canyon will come complete with an unlocked multiplier which is great news for us overclockers, improved thermal interface materials to help heat transfer, updated packaging and support for the new 9-series chip sets.
Intel is telling us to expect a launch in the second half of 2014 while motherboard manufacturers say August is looking like a good candidate.
Though Intel only brushed on cpu codenamed Broadwell launch a few times, the company explained that it would not be announcing a launch date or pricing tables any time soon, however motherboard sources have estimated that we can not expect anything pre 2015.
The new addition due in 2015, will come with a 14nm core, Unlocked multiplier running on the 9-Series chipset and will also see the debut of Intel's Iris Pro Graphics for the first time.
Intel's Broadwell: Incredible efficiency, at the 14 Nm process!


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PEF Advisors Acquires Senior Affordable Housing Rainier Vista in Pacific, Washington
IRVINE, Calif., Oct. 04, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE)
Preservation Equity Fund Advisors, LLC (PEF Advisors), a real estate private equity group focused on preserving existing affordable housing in high-cost markets, has announced its acquisition of Rainier Vista in Pacific, Wash.
Originally developed in 2003 with low-income housing tax credits, Rainier Vista comprises one three-story building of 75 units of affordable housing for seniors 55+ with a mix of 57 one-bedroom units and 18 two-bedroom units. The development includes 20 units at 30% area median income (AMI), 25 units at 50% AMI and five units at 60% AMI, while 25 units are market-rate.
The property is 96% occupied and 96% leased and includes a leasing office, clubhouse, library, fitness center, salon, elevator service, three on-site laundry facilities, knitting room, courtyard community garden and BBQ area. Parking consists of 75 open spaces, including six handicapped spaces. The unit amenities include a refrigerator, self-cleaning oven, microwave, dishwasher, garbage disposal and an additional storage locker per unit.
Currently, Rainier Vista works closely with the adjacent Pacific Algona Community Center, which houses the City's Senior Center and offers residents substantial services such as free hot meals, medical clinics and social activities. The property also coordinates numerous social activities like bingo, coffee breaks, crafts and more. PEF Advisors is committed to maintaining the affordability of the property and continuing resident services.
About 19-years-old, the property needs standard deferred maintenance to preserve the asset and continue attracting high-quality tenants. PEF will address deferred maintenance such as roofing, window repairs, wood replacement and paint, asphalt slurry, and interior common area upgrades like flooring, paint and furniture. Additionally, PEF Advisors identified energy efficiency replacements for the toilets to help reduce water consumption in the units.
"Through our preservation investment strategy, PEF Advisors continues to address the serious issue of sustained demand and reduction in the supply of affordable housing, which is leaving too many families, senior citizens and veterans without the ability to find affordable housing options," said Ann Caruana, president and chief investment officer at PEF Advisors.
About Preservation Equity Fund Advisors, LLC
Since 2017, Preservation Equity Fund Advisors, LLC (PEF Advisors) has focused on acquiring and preserving existing affordable housing in high-cost markets through private equity funding. PEF Advisors is an affiliate of WNC. PEF Advisors has access to WNC's more than 50 years' experience in acquiring more than 1,650 properties representing $13.7 billion in affordable housing nationwide, including through tax credit and/or preservation equity strategies.
Media Contact: IDEA HALL Angela Fentiman 818.510.1202 angela@idealhall.com
PEF Advisors
17782 Sky Park Circle
Irvine, California 92614-6404
E. pefinfo@pefadvisors.com
© 2022 Preservation Equity Fund Advisors.
Legal Disclaimer: Preservation Equity Fund Advisors, LLC (PEF Advisors) is an affiliate of the WNC & Associates, Inc. (WNC) family of companies. While PEF Advisors may draw on the resources of WNC and its subsidiaries and/or affiliates through services agreements, PEF Advisors is responsible for all investment, fund management and related decisions and actions of the investment vehicles it manages, independent of WNC and its subsidiaries and/or affiliates.
This web site does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy an interest in any investment vehicle managed by PEF Advisors or its affiliates. The information set forth herein is preliminary, projected, based on assumptions regarding future events that may not occur and does not purport to be complete. Solicitations of offers to buy interests in an investment vehicle managed by PEF Advisors will be made only pursuant to a confidential private placement memorandum, which will contain a complete description of PEF Advisors, the risks inherent in such an investment and investor eligibility standards, and which will qualify this web site in its entirety. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. All investment has a risk of loss.


LSDiscs will ship one disc for $3, or you can ship unlimited items in our HUGE STORE anywhere in the continental 48 states for a flat rate of $5. LSDiscs has one of the largest disc golf selection on eBay. We also have unlisted inventory Thanks for shopping with lsdiscs.com!