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Maternal fetal stress transfer describes the physiological phenomenon by which psychosocial stress experienced by a mother during her pregnancy can be transferred to the fetus. Psychosocial stress (or simply social stress) describes the brain's physiological response to perceived social threat. Because of a link in blood supply between a mother and fetus, it has been found that stress can leave lasting effects on a developing fetus, even before a child is born. According to recent studies, these effects are mainly the result of two particular stress biomarkers circulating in the maternal blood supply: cortisol and catecholamines.

Mechanism of action
Cortisol is type of hormone called a glucocorticoid, which glucose usage in the body and tends to be activated during a fight-or-flight response. Cortisol is produced in the adrenal gland, whose activity is mediated by the hypothalamus and pituitary glands of the brain. Together, the collective signaling of the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, and adrenal gland is known as the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. During a period of psychosocial stress, cortisol is released, leading to physiological manifestations of stress such as increased maternal blood pressure (MBP) and maternal heart rate (MHR).

In the case of a pregnant woman, the release of cortisol from the adrenal glands also has an effect on the fetus being carried in the womb. Cortisol is a steroid hormone, and, like all steroid hormones, the receptors for cortisol are located intracellularly. In other words, cortisol does not need an extracellular receptor in order to enter the nucleus of cells and affect their gene expression. Because of this feature of steroid hormones, cortisol diffuses directly across the placenta, the barrier that separates the fetus from the mother. Luckily, the fetus has a protective mechanism against the inundation of cortisol from a stressed mother. There is an enzyme in the placenta called 11beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 2 that is capable of inactivating the vast majority of the cortisol passing through the placental barrier to the fetus.

In cases of very high levels of maternal cortisol, this placental enzyme's expression and activity are greatly reduced, thus buffering the fetus less from the mother's high cortisol levels. There are detrimental effects to this loss of placental enzymatic activity. One such effect is a change in the set point for the HPA axis. Myriad studies in animal models indicate that, if fetal cortisol levels are high, then the HPA axis will be more active postnatally.

High levels of fetal cortisol induce higher CRH expression in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVN) and the central nucleus of the amygdala. In other words, excessive cortisol crossing the placental barrier causes the hypothalamus and amygdala to increase transcription of CRH, which in turn stimulates HPA axis activity early in postnatal life. With such an overactive HPA axis, glucocorticoid receptor expression in the brain increases, making it so that the release of minimal levels of cortisol elicit a substantial response at developing synapses. It is speculated that the HPA axis will more rapidly develop its neural circuitry as a result.

Etiology

Susceptibility of Foetus' to Exogenous Influences
During the pregnancy, a foetus' brain is extremely malleable as it is in its prime developmental phase. The parts of the brain which are most susceptible to extraneous influences are those responsible for the stress response: the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland. This is due to the fact that the stress response in humans forms very early in our foetal stage, therefore is vulnerable to the mother's mental, physical and emotional state during the gestational period.

If the mother herself experiences unusually high levels of stress, her body would respond by increasing cortisol levels to an abnormal standing. These hormones would then be passed from the mother's bloodstream into the foetus'.  The reason that this phenomenon only occurs when the mother is experiencing an excessive amount of stress, and does not occur from the usual, everyday stress that many individuals experience, is due to one protective mechanism that takes place in the placenta.

This mechanism can be understood by first comparing cortisol concentrations in mother and foetus.

Cortisol concentrations in the mother are five to ten times higher than the concentration in the foetus. This ratio of maternal : foetus cortisol concentration is maintained by an enzyme in the placenta which alters the cortisol molecule into an inactive metabolite (11-keto products), called Placental 11 β-hydroxysteroid-dehydrogenase. The problem lies in the multiplying factor arising from this ratio, i.e., if maternal cortisol levels rise by 10-20% it could cause foetal cortisol levels to double, which is what occurs when the mother experiences psychological distress.  Additionally, persistent antenatal stress experienced toward the end of the gestation period is shown to inflict severe and permanent damage on the foetus' physiological development, potentially leading to early growth retardation, aka intrauterine growth restriction, preterm labour and delayed motor development in infancy.

Studying the foetal stress response in vivo is not commonly done due to various ethical considerations, but the few studies which have managed to conduct research into this phenomenon during a human pregnancy have reached similar conclusions. This is that maternal-foetal stress transfer occurs through the mechanism of cortisol moving from mother to baby through the placenta. This means that a mother's stress levels become her child's stress levels as she passes down her own over-sensitive stress response, through non-genetic means.

Alcohol
This biological phenomena is problematic due to the impact that an increased level of cortisol has on the foetal HPA axis. The major source of a cortisol increase are stimuli which provoke consistently high levels of psychosocial stress, but another source of high cortisol concentrations that is often overlooked is the ingestion of alcohol. It is already well-known that women who drink alcohol during pregnancy are more likely to give birth to children with physical or neurological defects, but this occurs with large amounts of alcohol intake. Smaller but still significant portions of alcohol intake can trigger a rise in cortisol levels in the mother's bloodstream, hence causing the cortisol levels to rise in the foetus as well, resulting in the same consequences as maternal-foetal stress transfer.

Obesity
Obesity later in life is linked to the changes in the HPA-axis activity in the fetus. As mothers experience increased stress, they may begin to participare in risky health behaviors such as poor dietary habits. This increases the chance of obesity in the mother and the fetus. The fetus has an increased chance of obesity as high stress is used to predict the potential environment the fetus lives in. Two specific types of glucocorticoids, dexamethasone and betamethasone, are transferred to the fetus. CRH as well, also influences the fetus' health and disease.This exposure, in addition to a higher energy diet, increase the likelihood of obesity later on in life. This is due to glucocorticoids not only regulating stress in the fetus, but also appetite, obesity and metabolism in animals and humans.

Consequences and Long-Term Effects
A mother's antenatal stress is correlated with detrimental neurobehavioural outcomes in the child. There are a myriad of consequences on a child after birth, such as psychiatric disorders, behavioural abnormalities, dysfunctional emotional regulation and delays in motor production.

Exposure during important neurodevelopment periods increase risk of metabolic disorders  including obesity, Type 2 diabetes , and a poor lipid profile. This risk is most present at a later stage of pregnancy and can be seen as early as six months of age. The likelihood further increases when children experience high levels of stress.

The most commonly occurring psychiatric disorders which develop are attention-deficit / hyperactivity disorder, minor depressive and neurotic symptoms, schizophrenia, a tendency toward alcoholism/drug-addiction and criminal behaviour. These psychiatric disorders can, in turn, either lead to or exacerbate behavioural irregularities such as hyperactivity, an unusually low threshold for irritation or frustration, antisocial and inconsiderate behaviour, as well as profuse clinging or crying (especially at a younger age). Furthermore, the feminisation of male behaviour and an increase in timidity has also been observed in children born out of a stressful antenatal environment.

Biologically speaking, this phenomenon can also cause the hippocampus, a very important component of the stress response, to be defective and not function as it should. The reason being that the hippocampus is one of the parts of the brain which is seen to be most vulnerable to maternal stress hormones. Some may believe that this physiological consequence of maternal-foetal stress transfer can be said to be the cause of the psychiatric disorders and behavioural abnormalities outlined above, alongside other factors.

Moreover, an overexposure to cortisol during infancy can lead to the extreme response of desensitisation to cortisol in the child. Desensitisation or the blocking of cortisol receptors can occur because of irregularities in the HPA axis, which form in utero due to the passing of cortisol through the placenta from mother to baby. The conversion from extremely high to low cortisol levels can be said to be a defence mechanism of sorts, as one (unconsciously) experiences withdrawal, avoidance and denial in an effort to disengage with any challenging or discomforting stimuli, sometimes manifesting in alexithymia. People are often left feeling empty and isolated due to their state of emotional numbness and dissociation.

The continuity of maternal stress from during to after pregnancy is a progression of maternal-foetal stress transfer which is significant in impacting the infant's overall wellbeing. Postnatal maternal stress, such as postpartum depression, has an enormous impact on the emotion, mental and behavioural growth of a child, hence can aggravate and intensify the impacts of maternal-foetal stress transfer. Roughly 13% of women experience at least one depressive episode during or directly after pregnancy, thus encouraging the increased interest in identifying the effects of antenatal maternal stress on the development of an individual during the foetal and infancy stages of life.

Reversal of Consequences
As stated by epigenetics and one of the conclusions of the nature vs. nurture debate, most behavioural and psychological problems arise due to a combination of biological and environmental/sociocultural factors. Therefore, environmental factors such as parental care and nutritional availability, alongside help given to the child such as psychotherapy can aid in the reversal of the impacts of maternal-foetal stress transfer.

See also
 Prenatal stress
 Stress (biology)

References

Human pregnancy
Stress (biology)


Close up on a painting I'm working on to show details. When my iPhone wasn't working, I noticed there was detail needed in this painting I've been working on for the past two days.
IPhone Addiction… how to know?
Here is a list of my own life events and my own reactions to a day without my iphone.
This wonderful technology I haven't had that long in the scheme of my life… It was born in 2001. YouTube 2006, WordPress 2003, Siri 2011. I use it to find the word of the day, the verse of the day, and look up words … I love etymology! Breaking news, traveling the Google Earth to find that place they are talking about on the news, writing my blog, and poetry, and reading, keeping up my blog readers, checking arrival of Amazon prime orders, YouTube for learning about anything and everything, and using Siri for text, reminders, putting things on my calendar. The iPhone has reached in and gripped my entire life. And when I didn't have it, I felt at a loss. I think I might feel that the iPhone is my friend. Granted, it wasn't just the iphone, but my internet and cellular were also out at my house. So, a triple whammy!
I was locked out of my phone first thing in the morning. Because, of course, what is the first thing I do every morning? I simply didn't enter the passcode correctly that I had just set up less than a day ago so got locked out.
1. I was frantic about it beyond normal and couldn't eat because I was trying to solve the problem.
2. Spent all day watching YouTube videos to figure out how to reset my phone and trying all of the things they said to do. None of those "hard reset" hacks worked.
3. Spent hours and energy into iTunes (which by the way could be more helpful).
4. Bought a brand new phone instead of waiting to go to the apple store where I was told they could restore my phone.
5. When I got home with my new phone there was an internet outage in my area until the next morning so I ate a cupcake and went to bed with my book, The Distant Mirror, The Calamitous 14th Century, a difficult read that I usually read with Wikipedia at the ready. No Wikipedia. So, I couldn't really even read my book.
6. Upset that I couldn't answer comments on my blog.
7. Couldn't set up my new iPhone because I couldn't go on the internet or the cellular service. And, just like a person whose power goes out who keeps trying to flick on the light switch, that's what I kept on doing with my phone. It was on… I could see the apps, but I couldn't actually get in. I kept going to the weather app and the news app… For some reason, I wasn't able to use the cellular data for internet either. It was tough for an information junkie.
8. Woke the next morning and my heart skipped a beat when I saw the internet on so I could set up my new phone.
I was refreshed because I got a good night's sleep … with no YouTube to distract me and I thought about trying to fight the iPhone addiction. So, I looked up, on the iPhone, "how to fight iPhone addiction". Of course.


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< Home < Mission in Syria < Fight Against International Terrorism < Information materials < News < More
Su-34 planes struck a mock enemy at the CSTO Unbreakable Brotherhood exercise
Su-34 bombers bombed the positions of mock militants who captured the settlement during the main draw of the peacekeeping exercises of the Collective Security Treaty Organization Unbreakable Brotherhood - 2021. The final stage with the participation of servicemen of the six countries is taking place today at the training ground in Kazan.
"In order to defeat critical enemy targets, Su-34 fighter-bombers of the Central Military District were involved. For comprehensive protection against air defence, the aircraft are equipped with Khibiny group protection complexes, a bombing strike was carried out on different targets simultaneously with the use of high-explosive fragmentation bombs OFAB-250. Then two pairs of Mi-24 helicopters delivered a conditional strike on the firing points of the bandit groups in the captured settlement. In addition, the crews of Mi-8 helicopters delivered humanitarian cargo and evacuated a conditionally seriously ill refugee. In total, during the exercise, the aviation group carried out seven operational tactical tasks, " the press service said.
The joint exercise Unbreakable Brotherhood-2021 is held from November 8 to 12 at the training ground of the Kazan Higher Tank Command School under the overall leadership of the commander of the Central Military District, Colonel-General Alexander Lapin. It is attended by military contingents of six CSTO member countries as part of peacekeeping units, military police units, operational groups of the CSTO Joint Staff and Secretariat, formations of internal affairs bodies (police), national guards, as well as authorized bodies in the field of emergency prevention and response. In total, about 1,800 people and up to 300 pieces of equipment are involved, including Mi-8 and Mi-24 helicopters, Su-34 multifunctional fighter-bombers of the Central Military District.
Press Service of the Central Military District
Aviation , Exercises , International exercises

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Group accountants typically work at the head office of a group of companies.
providing the information that is needed for group reporting purposes.
In some companies, the group accountant may also be involved in the production of management accounting information at group level.
The group accountant is an important position which makes accounting and reporting happen in complex organisations. Accuracy, multi-tasking and hitting deadlines are requisites for these roles.
A group accountant is a professional who has qualified with, and is a member of ACCA, or other accountancy bodies.
Those who are hired to start work in group accounting may be completing their professional exams and have gained relevant experience in finance.
ACCA develops the skills and knowledge required by forward thinking professional accountants, including group accountants.
Remember it's not just about exams. You need to have the right experience so that you are competent – you have the experience and knowledge – to start and continue your group accountant career.
B. Advises on business asset valuations, capital projects and investments using appropriate analytical qualitative and quantitative techniques.
C. Identifies, evaluates and advises on alternative sources of business finance and different ways of raising finance.
B. Communicates and gains commitment from internal and external stakeholder.


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Snippy The Horse: The Birth of a Meme
by Christopher O'Brien
A notable 50-year anniversary passed by this week with not even a whisper. Anniversaries of the weird and the macabre are not normally celebrated, but in this case, I thought it was appropriate to revisit one of the most perplexing and iconic unsolved mysteries of all times: The "Snippy the Horse" case.
The most well-known unexplained livestock death ever reported, the so-called "Snippy the Horse" case is considered to be the first widely publicized unexplained livestock death. The horse probably died (or was killed) and disfigured on the night of September 7th, 1967. Peripheral to the case were the dozens of UFO sightings that were also reported during that eventful fall that have inexorably linked mysterious livestock deaths with the UFO phenomenon.
The "Snippy Case," has become a thing of legend among paranormal enthusiasts and in the two months following the horse's unfortunately horrific demise, the news item was picked up by the wire services and it became a sensational international news story. Reporters from as far away as England, France, Germany joined North American journalists at the site in the San Luis Valley during that fall 50-years ago. The site attracted the curious who flocked to the remote King Ranch location by the hundreds. Today, if you gaze down on the meadow where the horse lay that Fall of 1967, on Google Earth, you can still see the hardened dirt path that led out to the location—a quarter-mile west of county road 150. I am indebted to David Perkins and the late Tom "Godfather of Mutology" Adams for much of my research into this iconic case.
Snippy about six weeks after death
First a little history and some background on the location and the principles involved: The case occurred in south-central Colorado's San Luis Valley. I spent 13 years there—much of my time was spent investigating current reports and researching the regions' colorful history. The SLV is the world's largest alpine valley and the valley floor sits at over 7,000 in elevation. Completely surrounded by mountains—some that rise to over 14,000-feet—I consider this remote, majestic region to be a perfect cultural petrié dish of sociological study. Isolated physically and culturally from the culture-at-large, the SLV is the subject of my first three books, The Mysterious Valley, Enter the Valley, and Secrets of the Mysterious Valley.
The Mormon Urraca pioneers settled the western slope of the 14,000-foot Blanca Massif (which dominates the mid-eastern part of the SLV) in the late 1870s and one of those hardy families was the Kings, who homesteaded a 2,000-acre cattle ranch that extended down from the foot of the mountains out onto the valley floor. The upper ranch had a small cabin on the original homestead site and the main ranch house was located five miles away out in the valley, ten miles southeast of the Great Sand Dunes. The King Ranch sat on some of the earliest meadows known to have been visited by humans in the lower 48 states.
The Kings were a hard-working cattle family, putting in long hours sun-up to sun-down in one of the valley's most picturesque areas. Eighty-five-year-old widow Agnes King was the King Family matriarch and she lived with her two sons, Harry and Ben and a daughter named Nellie. Ben King was a self-styled mountain man who could identify every animal and plant in the San Luis Valley and name every creek that flowed down the western slope of the Sangres. Harry was the King Ranch boss, running cattle and tending to the ranch's daily affairs. Nellie, married to Iowa native Berle Lewis, lived with her husband in the cabin on the upper ranch.
The Kings and Lewis were truly salt-of-the-earth ranchers with a documented family history of witnessing unusual celestial events, i.e., sighting by C.M. Lewis, Agnes' deceased husband, of the spectacular Alamosa Aereolite strike in the fall of 1898 on the Baca Ranch—about 20 miles north of the Snippy site.
What on Earth Happened?
Here is what we know about the demise of the horse dubbed by the press as "Snippy." It was a blustery morning, September 8, 1967, and Harry King noticed that only two of their three horses were outside waiting for grain and water. Thinking this unusual, he headed out to feed them. He claimed later that he had sensed something was wrong and he was right: Lady, Nellie's three-year-old young mare, was nowhere to be found.
Snippy Site: Investigators Don & Alice Richmond, Berle & Nellie in the back
After waiting until the following morning for her to show up, Harry went searching for the missing horse. After an hour, he spotted something laying in a meadow a quarter-mile north of the main ranch house and it raised the hair on his neck. Lady's corpse was missing all the tissue from her shoulders to the tip of her nose, the exposed bones glistening, bleached white, like they had been in the desert sun for years. The flesh, muscles, tendons, meat and hide were missing from the tip of the nose to a wide circular cut just above the horses' shoulders. Atypical, no other case to my knowledge before, or since, has featured this description of complete cranial and neck disfigurement. According to Berle Lewis, the skull and neck bones were "as white a sheet of paper…as if they'd laid out in the desert sun 30-years." The animal lay on its left side, facing east in a damp meadow located about one-quarter-mile west of Road 150, a two-lane, heavily traveled dirt road that went north another six or so miles to the Great Sand Dunes National Monument. There were no scavenger or predator tracks, bird-droppings or evidence of how the horse had died and then was subsequently disfigured. Over the next month or so the bones began to turn a rosy pink color and the bleached white appearance faded. This is the time frame when the most famous photographs of Snippy were snapped.
It had rained off an on during the first week of September and the ground was still soft and muddy in places. This made ascertaining track evidence relatively easy. Harry King determined that the three horses had been running full speed headed southeast toward the ranch house and Lady had been "cut from the herd," then veered away from the other two, who continued on toward the house. Lady's tracks continued galloping for several hundred yards, by King's estimate, where they then inexplicably stopped in full gallop.
Ii is interesting to note that the "official" story diverges at this point into two distinct versions. Version one is supported by several newspaper articles; Coral Lorenzen's Fate article and Berle Lewis' account. It says the carcass was found over 100 feet farther along the meadow. Version two, supported by several articles and Don Richmond's original Aerial Phenomenon Research Organization's (APRO) investigation, stated that the tracks went in a tight circle several times, like something was circling around the horse, and that the corpse was found only 20 feet away from Lady's circling tracks. This discrepancy has never been resolved one way or another to my knowledge.
A careful examination of the area a week later by Nellie, Harry, Berle and friends, found what appeared to be four burned areas in the ground at four, nine, 13 and 21-feet away from the carcass to the northwest. Shaped like an upside-down question mark, the burn marks in the ground were found to the southeast ranging 40 to 50 feet from the body. Five 18-inch-wide, by 8-inch-deep "giant horse tracks" were punched into the ground and were found among some flattened appearing chico bushes located near the body.
Nellie called Alamosa County Sheriff Ben Phillips to report the strange death of her horse. Phillips immediately upon hearing the description branded the horse's death a "lightning strike" and didn't bother to drive out to the scene to investigate. He later admitted that it was odd that the horse had no evidence of burn-marks usually associated with a lightning strike.
Nellie and the rest of the family, however, were convinced that something highly irregular had happened to her horse. She was well aware of the several UFO sightings in the weeks prior to her horse's demise and she and Berle, and close friends, had experienced sightings that previous spring.
The UFO Connection
The day before the horse disappeared, Agnes King had reported seeing a large bright object flying over the King Ranch corrals that allegedly sheared off the top of one fence post before flying off. Elderly Agnes had been doing the dishes in the kitchen during the day when she glanced out the window and saw the silvery object. She didn't have her glasses on so she wasn't able to get a clear, focused look at whatever-it-was. One would think the Nellie would have been impressed by her mother's claim. And she was. A regional paper quoted Nellie as saying, "Flying saucers killed my horse!" The publicity generated by the horse's death really brought the UFO watchers and the generally curious into the San Luis Valley in droves. A group of Adams State College students even repainted a billboard outside of Alamosa to read, "The Flying Saucer Capital of the World."
Large, Unidentified light over the Dry Lakes, south of Snippy site.
Nocturnal lights proved extremely elusive but more photographs were captured during the fall of '67. In October, two college students from Pueblo, Colorado, Bill McPhedries and a friend, with the help of APRO investigator, Don Richmond, photographed mysterious lights over the Great Sand Dunes as they stood on the porch of the Lewis cabin, high above the valley floor. They had first noticed them in the Dry Lakes area, five miles due west of their vantage point. They seemed to hover close to the ground before flying off toward the dunes—passing just to the west of the Snippy site. Brilliant white and red, they seemed to the three observers to be under intelligent control. The photographs appeared in the Pueblo Chieftain along with a story by Pearl Nicholas.
Nellie was positive the strange lights and objects she and others had seen, and reported, were somehow involved. I have noted many of these San Luis Valley, CO reports in my 'Mysterious Valley' books that didn't garner the same attention as Snippy's death. But, at the end of the first week of October 1967, Nellie's longtime friend Pearl Mellon Nicholas, society editor for the Valley Courier let the strange death of the horse out of the barn. During the next four weeks, the "Snippy" the horse story emerged quickly from the local to the regional, national and international newspaper press.
From the Horse's Mouth
On March 12, 1993, I down with Berle Lewis, Nellie's husband, for a video tape interview when he agreed to meet with me at the Great Sand Dunes Country Club maintenance shop where he worked. This was my first full-length video interview conducted for my first book, The Mysterious Valley and is the only full-length interview conducted with him. I found him to be very credible and matter-of-fact—a straight shooter and was immediately struck by his colorful, casually humorous demeanor. This was offset by the honest and matter-of-fact way he described many unusual and some downright unbelievable stories from the late 1960s.
"Berle, when did you first start hearing about UFOs and strange lights being seen around here?" I began.
"After '67, in August."
"So all the sightings started just before the whole Snippy episode?"
"It all started right there. I never paid no attention to it 'till after the horse was killed."
"Until it happened right in your back yard?"
"You might say the backyard, it happened right out back of the house." Berle laughed.
"Ok, lets get in a little bit and talk about Snippy, or Lady, I mean. The press changed the horse's name, I guess Snippy was a more colorful name?"
"I never corrected them when it came out. I kinda smiled and said hell, Snippy's all right with me, Snippy was the horse I rode on, Lady was her colt [sic], so it's kinda funny the way it turned out. They called the colt "Snippy," and the horse I had Lady, so I never corrected them."
Bewrle & Nellie Lewis, 1966
"What did you, Nellie and Harry think when you found the horse?"
"We had no idea what caused it because I know nobody with a knife could cut that meat so smooth and nobody could ever take the meat off the bones where it was as white as that piece of paper over there. Now I don't give a darn who you are, there's not a butcher of any kind that can make that bone look like it's sat there for years! The eyeballs were gone, the tongue was gone, the esophagus was gone, and the windpipe was gone. All the hair, the mane hair and hide on the neck, clear down to where the collar fit. But that cut, completely around, was smooth! It's just impossible to cut it that way!" I inquired about the smell.
"Well, it just hung over the horse really, it seemed to be floating in the area."
"Nellie was quoted as saying it smelled like embalming fluid."
"Naw, I wouldn't say it was embalming fluid, I've smelled plenty of that. It was like medicine. That's the way I'd put it but I don't know what kind of medicine."
"Do you have any idea how they removed the brain out of the skull?"
"Hell, I know how the skull got cut open, I was there and I held the light for the guy that cut it open."
"And there was no brain in there?"
"It was dry!"
"So there was no opening in the cranial cavity?"
"The was no opening of any kind."
"How about the green glob that looked like a chicken liver that Nellie found?"
"Well, I don't know what that was, I'll be darned if I do. [She touched and got burnt.] It was like an acid burn, but there was no smell of acid or burnt hair."
"When you look back at the Snippy incident, and understand that Snippy was the first [publicized] livestock mutilation from all over the world, what do you think about that?"
"Well, I never thought nothing about it." Berle lifted his hat and scratched his head quizzically. "I guess, with the whole deal, I thought sooner or later I would learn what happened but hell, it's been almost 30 years."
"I read somewhere that Harry found a bull and calf he owned blinded right around the time of Snippy."
"He had a bull that was blind all right, it happened about a month or so before."
"A month before Snippy?"
"Yes, it just went blind. It was never tied to anything… but this one calf, his head looked like a basketball. His nose, off the end of a basketball, if you can figure out what that looked like. His hooves were about that long (he extended his hands about a foot apart) and they looked like sled runners. He had an awful time walking. The ears looked like they'd been frosted off, and his body didn't look like it had developed like it should have. We never tied the calf in with anything else."
"Did he ever have a vet look at it?
"I don't think he ever did."
"Was it born that way?"
"Well, not really, I don't think so, nobody ever said anything about it. But as he got older, why he just got worse. So, that one time, he just shot the thing and I drug it off into the bushes."
I was impressed by Berle's amazing recall of the events that had taken place over 25 years before. I asked him why his wife Nellie told reporters she was convinced that flying saucers had killed her horse.
"I don't think she was convinced it was UFOs or anything like that, but she knew it was something that we don't know about killed the horse. Now, I know it was something we, I don't know about, killed the horse. I figured after all these years I'd have the answers to it, but I don't have any answers. As far as I'm concerned, an unidentified object killed the horse! It wasn't anything natural. Couldn't be natural."
The Story Gets Out
The Lewis' were initially reluctant to go public with the story. Word about the case spread like wildfire locally during the first three weeks after the horses discovery, and curious locals began showing up at the site. Initially, Harry tried to confine the visitors to a small area near the body to maintain the integrity of the scene, but this proved impossible as first dozens and then hundreds of onlookers made the trek out to the meadow to see the horse.
Nellie's nephew Don Hard, a high-school student at the time, was one of the first family members to hear of the strange death of Nellie's horse and he went out to see for himself "what all the fuss was about." He is still impressed at what he saw:
"It looked like the horse had been picked up or something because tracks were quite a ways from where it was lying. It was found in a meadow under real strange circumstances. The flesh was missing from its head up. Its spinal cord was missing; its brains were missing. Organs were missing; the bones were white like they'd been layin' a long time. The meat was totally cleaned off the bones. Anybody that's ever butchered something, you can't scrape the meat off clean out in a field… I guess what impressed me was the esophagus was cut clean also and that's kind of a hard, bony type thing. We've butchered cattle before and it didn't look like something just anybody could do. The bones were still clean and white as if they'd been on the desert or in the sun for quite a while."
Later on I returned to look at it. We'd looked at it several times, but later on it kind of grew a black growth around the ground. We didn't see any other incisions on the horse, yet they say the blood was missing and the organs were missing. I didn't see any scavengers or birds or anything on it. On our ranch we have cattle and if a cow dies pretty quick the coyotes dig a hole in it and eat it
It seemed to [Nellie] like some kind of high technology had done it, rather than something someone could pull off as a prank. I didn't think it was a prank. I don't see how something could be done that precisely, to use precision to cut the flesh and the esophagus; take the spinal cord without damaging the bones. It just seems like something out of this world.
I've had a theory that maybe the government has such technology. It could be the government experimenting with new weapons because they did fly around the Valley at low altitude trying to evade radar. It was just practice flying, but you could imagine the pilot with a new weapon sayin' 'let's try this out and see what happens.'
The extent of the "flap" of 1967 through 1969's UFO, military and mute activity in the San Luis Valley and elsewhere has become blurred through time. I tried for years to gain access to Valley Courier editor Pearl Nicholas' extensive listing of UFO reports from the 1967-1970 time periods when hundreds of sightings occurred, but surviving family members have resisted my requests for access. As a result, a vast majority of these strange events have become lost effectively beyond our reach, surviving within word-of-mouth tales and family legends. Facts have been mixed-up, added upon, deleted, forgotten and inexorably altered. Even the primary eyewitnesses, who should be able to effectively clarify the events they witnessed, may have contributed inadvertently to creation of mythos, folklore or a cultural meme by their fuzzy recollection of these unusual events.
Again, I would argue that the Snippy The Horse case is our ground zero—located at the beginning of the cultural meme called "the cattle mutilation phenomenon"— the initial ingredient fueling the fodder of a new myth and legend. Is this a classic example of a primary meme, or building block in an aspect of culture? A keystone in the building of the edifice of religious and/or mythological belief, or a "memeplex."
As late Fall of '67 word of the Snippy case faded in the culture, it was replaced by a bucolic glow brought on by a rapidly changing culture tuning in turning on and dropping acid. The baby boomers were being awakened to new possibilities, the Beatles were recording Magical Mystery Tour, and a contentious US presidential election of 1968 was heating up as a meat-grinder war was being escalated in SE Asia. And cattle and other animals continued to be reported as "mutilated." By 1975 cases were being reported nightly across the Mid-West and Rocky Mountain states, and 50-years later, no one has convincingly explained who or what has been perpetrating tens-of-thousands of livestock deaths on grazing lands around the world.
Snippy is for sale. The articulated bones have been preserved and are being offered for sale. Would make a great lawn ornament or maybe a neck-tie rack…
For a complete examination of the case and extended interviews w/ Berle and Nellie Lewis, read Stalking the Herd, chapter three: "Oh Lord defend us from our defenders."
Filed Under: Archive, Latest Posts, Secrets of TMV, SLV, UFOs
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8 Responses to 50-Year Anniversary of the Snippy Case
One Man's $100,000 Search for UFOs – News Australia | We Seek the Truth! says:
[…] clouds of Saturn today. Chris O'Brien makes note of a macabre end that marked a beginning in Snippy the Horse: The Birth of a Meme. The animal mutilation expert discusses the background to the now 50-year-old story of "the […]
Rick Tompkins says:
Interesting, because Dec 31, 1968 we had a colt killed and our horses terrified. The colt was in the center of a corral with no access and it busted through fencing to get there. It had been snowing and there was no blood around the corpse. The chest cavity was open and the lungs and heart was gone. The rib cage looked like it was cut open and the outer part of the chest was gone. There were absolutely no tracks around the body in the snow except for the colts tracks. The other horses refused to come back to this area for over two weeks. As it was early afternoon and I could see completely around me, I had the feeling of dread and foreboding, I felt I was being watched. This took place in Indiana. Never found any answers and the police refused to check it out.
Where in Indiana did this occur?
UFO Article: "Snippy The Horse: The Birth of a Meme" | Very Top Secret Information says:
[…] Colorado (San Luis Valley) in early September 1967. The real name of the horse was Lady. https://www.ourstrangeplanet.com/50-year-anniversary-of-the-snippy-case/ Related posts: […]
Robert E Ellsworth says:
The first time I heard about Snippy, someone said that it really was a mare, and reporter made a mistake with name after horse's owner told him that it's father's name was Snippy. Real name–Lucy. (what I recollect). Strange valley-camped out many summers near Lake Platoro. Shirley McLaine had a UFO observation Platform around Crestone, Colo.
The filly's real name was Lady. And the UFO WatchTower is owned by Judy Messoline, and it is located between Moffat and Hooper on Highway 17. Erroneously, Crestone is northeast of the WatchTower by quite a bit.
gerry malmberg says:
who has possession of Snippys' mounted skeleton?
Just a thought, maybe they are so far advanced that their so "machines"are more like living things, or biomechanical technology. So when that technology inevitably breaks down or parts wear out they must be replaced. So it's like going to auto zone and picking out the parts one would need to "make repairs", i.e, connective tissue, spinal cells and fluid for information transmition similar to fiber optic cables, etc, etc,.. When unnatural events happen, they tend to require unnatural explainations or outlandish theories. Who knows, what we call sci-fi and magic could just be some seriously advanced shit. So If we could rationally explain it, that would mean we are on that same level of advancement… and we are not. At least not publically anyway. Try to be open minded, because just cuz we can't explain something, does not mean that it did not happen. Trust you're gut feeling and I think you might find you're answers.


Champoluc is situated in the Monterosa Ski Area and is one of Europe's best kept secrets. A real gem of a resort and ski area, with perfectly groomed and extensive slopes, best for intermediates and those more confident on and off piste.The BIG plus of Champoluc, apart from the pretty village, is the height as the mountain range goes up to 3550m ensuring snow, all the ski season and beyond! There is the attractive old village centre complete with church and river. Most of Champoluc's accommodation is situated along the main road, but there are a few options on the slopes.
The Monterosa ski area offers extensive skiing and the links to the other valleys enable even the most moderate skier to explore further afield, getting plenty of ski miles under the belt. Beginners are fairly well served here! With an open bowl and a variety of nursery slopes at the top of the Crest Gondola, by the end of the week confident beginners will be able to ski the relatively easy red run that enables them to reach the easier blues on the Frachey slopes. A Safe haven also for families wishing to enjoy each other's company in a relaxed informal resort in the centre of some of the most marvellous scenery in the Monterosa Ski area. There is a new children's The runs are varied, well groomed and generally uncongested. Champoluc also offers some of the most varied skiing for the intermediate skier in the most spectacular of settings. The valley links make it possible to ski for long distances trying out various different routes through trees and open bowls, and the neighbouring Gressoney valley offers equally varied intermediate terrain. And there are 32 mountain restaurants to enjoy lunch in!
After a hard day on the slopes the après ski is quiet and uncomercialised – there are a few bars and cafes at the bottom of the last run home and nightlife later on in the evening centres on the hotels, a couple of late night bars and two discos. You can also organise an evening meal in one of the the mountain restaurants. There is also an ice rink and ice climbing amongst other energetic activities and a small number of shops to sample, but really party goers and shopoholics are best served elsewhere in Italy.This is a resort more for families,skiers and boarders and those who like a more sedate life style, though there are 2 discos for those who want to dance away until the early hours.


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Fashion La marinière: the story of the French stripe
If you are interested in French fashion and culture, you have probably wondered why the striped sailor, called the Marinière in French, became such a quintessential symbol in French culture. The striped sailor is a timeless motif that each French woman has in her wardrobe.
In 1858, a decree issued by the Bulletin Officiel des Armées stated that the tricot (knitting) was to become the official uniform of the French Navy. The decree was as serious as it could get; it even defined the stripes that the sailors have to wear down to the millimeter. "21 white large stripes of 20mm and 20 or 21 large blue stripes of 10mm" was the guideline given. The idea was that this simple knit would make it easy to spot the sailors who'd fell into the sea.
Since 1889, this t-shirt is still made by Saint James, a fashion brand from Normandy who has made the knitted stripes as its signature.
© Alice Bertrand, Saint James
At that time and even earlier before, the stripes had some very negative connotations. It was commonly identified with convicts, the mentally unstable, prostitutes and people from lower social classes. In the Middle-Ages, stripes were even associated with the devil. In short, the wearer of the stripe was synonymous with one who upsets the proper order of society. It would only be a few years later that the tricot rayé (striped knitting, as it was originally called) would take on a positive side and would go public in the prêt-à-porter world, thanks to the clever eye of a pioneer in fashion, Gabrielle Bonheur, who you might know under the pseudonym of Coco Chanel.
Coco Chanel makes everything better. Yup, we'd said it.
In 1913, Coco Chanel spotted the sailors on the coasts in Normandy and was inspired when she walked with her lover Boy Capel in Deauville. Her inspiration gave rise to a new image for the marinière. She was also the first one to wear it, touting the design as a perfect ambassador of her brand. Her creativity and audacity seduced the high society and allowed the stripes to enter the world of bourgeoisie. She shortened the waist, giving the garment a comfortable feel and in particular she adapted it to the female silhouette by using silk, which is a delicate material. From that point onwards, a true revolution had started.
Coco was not the last one to be inspired by the striped sailor. With the Nouvelle Vague, a French cinematographic movement at the end of the 1950, the marinière plays the star in particular within Jean-Luc Godard's movies. In 1963, Le Mépris (Contempt) showed Brigitte Bardot posing with her marinière, giving it more glamour. Effectively, during that time it was only Bardot who could carry it right.
Brigitte Bardot who puts her own unique twist to every trend and style she dons.
The striped sailor also crossed the ocean and headed to Hollywood, making appearances in American cinema, such as The Wild One with Marlon Brando. Even more memorable is the charm of the stripes with James Dean in Rebel without a cause. Even Marilyn Monroe will give up her sexy dresses for a day just to wear the emblematic t-shirt.
On the couture side, Yves Saint-Laurent introduced his nautical themed collection in the 1960's. However, it would be Jean-Paul Gaultier to highlight the success of the striped sailor, with his 1983 "Boy Toy" collection. Playing with shapes and textures, Jean-Paul Gaultier drew inspiration from his childhood memories when he himself was wearing the marinière. It then becomes a real tool of seduction for the "Male", He has gone as far as turning stripes into the face of his perfume bottle.
Even the Jean-Paul Gaultier wax figure wears stripes.
Of course, numerous designers have been inspired by the stripes including Hermès, Prada, Comme des Garçons. The symbol extends as far as into the realm of sports; Nike's collection for the French soccer team in 2011 is a prime example. There are also many artists such as Picasso, Colette, Marceau who were the perfect ambassadors for the quintessential stripes. We can be sure that the striped sailor will continue to inspire, be renewed and surprise the world. It is a true timeless piece of fashion that has reached the heart and the wardrobe of French people.
Pas Son Genre (Not My Type) – Lucas Belvaux
Based on the novel by Philippe Vilain, Belvaux carefully dissects the chemistry between two people at opposite ends of the intellectual and social scale to demonstrate the unpredictable nature of l...


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March 4, 2019 6:08PM ET
How Luke Perry's Rodeo Movie '8 Seconds' Illuminated Life Outside the 90210
The actor, who died Monday at 52, may be synonymous with 'Beverly Hills 90210,' but his role as bullrider Lane Frost validated daily life in dustier zip codes
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Luke Perry starred as bullrider Lane Frost in the 1994 rodeo biopic '8 Seconds.'
New Line/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock
When Luke Perry died on Monday at age 52 after suffering a stroke last week, most fans instantly thought of his role as the heartthrob Dylan McKay on the Nineties megahit and cultural phenomenon Beverly Hills 90210. It was as iconic a role in modern television as they come and one Perry would be synonymous with, however reluctantly, throughout his life.
Still, despite the overall significance of Beverly Hills 90210, Perry's roles in cult films like 1992's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 1997's The Fifth Element and, especially, 1994's 8 Seconds have had a lasting impact on smaller portions of the population.
While most TV fans of a certain age understandably view Perry as the sideburned Dylan (younger viewers knew him as Archie's dad on Riverdale), kids across Texas, Oklahoma, the American West and even Western Canada are just as likely to identify him with Lane Frost.
In the rodeo biopic 8 Seconds, Perry starred as the famed bullrider Frost, who died tragically July 30th, 1989, as a result of injuries sustained after being rammed by a bull known as Takin' Care of Business while competing at the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo. Only 25 when he died, Frost was one of the biggest stars on the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) circuit. In 1987, he was crowned World Champion of the PRCA. A year after his death, Frost was posthumously inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame.
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As a child of both the Nineties and of West Texas, Perry's impact as Lane Frost is immeasurable. Even while my mother was a diehard 90210 fan, 8 Seconds' shadow loomed larger in the Lone Star State. Cruise through nearly any rural town in the region and you're bound to run into some child named after Frost.
I wasn't personally involved in rodeo, but I was connected to that world in adjacent ways — my father was a horse-trailer manufacturer, one grandfather was a veterinarian, another was an amateur rodeo and ranching cowboy in the Sixties. And my grandmother was a lifelong fan of the circuit, often dragging me and my cousins to rodeos in Pecos, Del Rio, Odessa, Midland and other West Texas towns.
Before 8 Seconds, those small rodeos felt isolated and cut off from the world. But after the spring of 1994, they somehow became important, something that, at least during the run-up to the film, everyone was talking about. It was a national spotlight illuminating the most local of pastimes, and watching Perry portray Frost (not as some hero cowboy archetype, but as a flawed real-life everyman) felt like the world learning what a cowboy's life was really like.
This is largely due to Perry's dedication to the role: his portrayal of Frost was raw, visceral and, above all, sincere. Perry brought to life someone you'd only heard about in story. The character's vitality was also due in part to the leading man's chemistry with Stephen Baldwin, who played Frost contemporary and friend Tuff Hedeman. The actors, who both learned to ride themselves and studied with rodeo professionals, captured the candid camaraderie and restless spirit not only shared by Frost and Hedeman, but by the rodeo world at large. It felt real because it was.
Despite not being a box office success — the film grossed more than $19 million domestically — 8 Seconds' impact was similar to that of Urban Cowboy in the 1980s. While Urban Cowboy saw waves of people learning to dance in their freshly bought cowboy boots and brushpopper pearl snaps, 8 Seconds witnessed a new round of rodeo fans punching their tickets to see what real cowboys did. If Urban Cowboy was a city slicker, 8 Seconds was its twangy, rural cousin who'd actually been bucked off a horse a time or two.
Like Urban Cowboy, the film also arrived with a bona fide soundtrack featuring Nineties country megastars Brooks & Dunn, Reba McEntire, Vince Gill and a host of others. In a strange way, their inclusion was just another confirmation — like Garth Brooks' 1991 hit "Rodeo" before it — that this world of cowboys, bulls, blood and dirt was relevant and worthwhile.
8 Seconds depicted folks not too dissimilar to those who inhabited dusty, small towns around the country. Perry may have been at the height of his 90210 stardom at the time, but as Frost, he felt like he was one of our own — even if only for a few fleeting seconds.
In This Article: Brooks & Dunn,	Luke Perry


Step Up For Students was created to help alleviate the enormous educational challenges faced by children in Florida who live in or near poverty.
The program provides Tax Credit Scholarships to students in K-12 who come from low-income families. These scholarships allow the students to consider a participating private school or an out-of-district public school that may better suit their individual needs, an option which already is available to families of greater financial means.
This choice is not based on whether the public school is judged as succeeding or failing. Rather, it recognizes that different children learn in different ways and that our collective struggle is to help the students who often are at the greatest disadvantage in modern education.
The statistics in Florida tell a painful story, where only 37 percent of African-American males graduate from high school and only 53 percent of economically disadvantaged children read at grade level. The mission of Step Up For Students is to be a partner in the larger solution.
These scholarships allow students, who meet the academic and behavioral standards of admission to Premier Academy, to gain the advantage of a Premier Academy education that may better suit their academic potential and educational needs. This choice recognizes the importance of helping capable students who often have an economic disadvantage in obtaining a private school education.
** Applicable for books and uniforms sold by the school, not a third party vendor or $500 to help cover transportation costs to attend a public school in another district, typically another county.
Click here to view the eligibility guidelines and complete the online applications at the Step Up For Students website.
The McKay Scholarship for Students with Disabilities Program permits Florida students with special needs the opportunity to attend a participating private school.
A parent of a special needs student, who meets the academic and behavioral standards of admission to Premier Academy and is dissatisfied with the student's current school may, once accepted for enrollment, choose to transfer the student to Premier Academy.
If your child meets the eligibility requirements, you may apply for a scholarship by completing the McKay Student Intent application on the Florida Department of Education's website or providing the necessary information here.
If your child does not meet these requirements but has an IEP or 504 Accommodation Plan and is a dependent child of a member of the United States Armed Forces who transfers to a school in Florida from out of state or from a foreign country pursuant to a parent's permanent change of station orders, the child may be eligible for a McKay Scholarship. Please contact the Florida Department of Education at 1-800-447-1636 for additional information.
The AAA Scholarship Foundation awards scholarships only to qualifying low-income and disadvantaged students (disabled and/or foster children) thus empowering parents to choose the best learning environment for their child. Eligibility is determined through a stringent application process using best-practices benchmark practices.
Step 1) Apply with us.
In order to prove their eligibility, households must complete AAA's application and provide supporting documentation by the stated deadline. The households must meet both the state and AAA's requirements (click here for current Florida income chart). Each household member is required to provide proof of income. AAA does not rely on a household's enrollment in a state food assistance or TANF program as proof of eligibility, a process sometimes referred to as "direct certification," since those programs audit less than 3 percent of their recipient households.
In Florida, Georgia and Nevada, the household must reapply annually by the stated deadline. In Arizona scholarships may be automatically renewed for multiple years without reapplying.
Step 2) We notify you of your eligibility determination.
Processing of applications is typically completed within ten to twleve weeks once ALL required documentation has been received. Parents can check the status of their application by clicking on the "Check the Status of your Application" link. Once applications are in the "Completed" status, a determination letter will be mailed to the address on file within four to six weeks.
Households that are determined eligible AND have received funding for the upcoming school year will receive 1) a Scholarship Award Letter and 2) a School Commitment Form (SCF) in the mail directly from AAA. Those that are determined ineligible will receive a denial letter in the mail directly from AAA.
Please DO NOT enroll your student into a private school until you have actually received an AAA Scholarship Award Letter and SCF. Funding is not guaranteed. If you enroll your student before receipt of an SCF, you will be responsible for their tuition and fees and you may not qualify for future scholarship funding.
Step 3) If eligible, you tell us that you accept the scholarship.
The use of a scholarship cannot be postponed. The household must find an eligible private school for their student(s) as soon as they receive a scholarship award letter and SCF. Failure to meet the deadline stated on the SCF will result in the forfeiture of the awarded scholarship. Families should make a copy of the blank SCF before taking it to an eligible private school in case they decide to transfer to a different eligible private school later in the year. By completing the school enrollment form, both the parents and the schools agree to abide by the terms of the AAA Parent/School Handbooks.
Schools should not accept any students without an SCF unless the household: 1) is willing to self-pay their tuition and fees until they are awarded a scholarship and 2) will self-pay if they are not. If a household receives a SCF in error or their eligibility is revoked, the private school that has enrolled the student will be notified as soon as possible. By accepting the scholarship student(s) and scholarship payment(s) the private school agrees to repay any incorrectly made or overpayment of funds on behalf of the student(s), regardless of the reason. Households that document eligibility but are placed on a waitlist do not have a scholarship unless they receive a Scholarship Award Letter and SCF at a later date.
Step 4) Scholarship payments are disbursed during the year.
Four times during the school year, AAA sends the school a verification form to ascertain whether the student remains enrolled and is current on any funds personally owed to the school. If the verification report is returned to us by the deadline, AAA then disburses one quarter of the scholarship award in the form of a check, made payable to the parent/guardian but for deposit only by the school. The parent/guardian must restrictively endorse the check over to the school before it can be deposited.


Low Level Laser Therapy (LLLT) has gained foothold as a valuable tool for chronic pain, musculoskeletal-skeletal injuries and wounds (contaminated and otherwise). It is used routinely at East Midlands Referrals postoperatively to assist healing and reduce the risk of sepsis.
There is a growing bank of data in the human field showing proof of benefit in many applications (most recently in healing of indolent ulcers but established in rotator cuff injuries, for example). Like ECSWT it promotes neovascularisation but also has an immediate analgesic effect and biochemically increases tissue oxygen and energy availability.


Western Digital has officially unveiled recently one of its latest storage solution for Android called the Sandisk Ultra Dual Drive m3.0.
The new product is a stylish flash drive that's designed for Android users who want easy and instant way to free space or expand the storage of their OTG enabled Android smartphones. The Sandisk Ultra Dual Drive m3.0 has a retractable design, featuring both a micro-USB and USB 3.0 connector plus it is so small.
The Sandisk Ultra Dual Drive m3.0 is available in capacities ranging from 16GB to 128GB of storage. Also the device is capable of READ and WRITE speeds up to 150MB/s which will make it super fast to transfers files.
The Sandisk Ultra Dual Drive m3.0 is offered with a 5-year warranty and is available in 16GB, 32GB, 64GB and 128GB with the suggested retail price of Php499, Php799, Php1399 and Php2699. It will be exclusively available at Lazada PH store here.


Citation: Narayanan, J.,Liu, X.Y. (2003-01-01). Protein interactions in undersaturated and supersaturated solutions: A study using light and X-ray scattering. Biophysical Journal 84 (1) : 523-532. ScholarBank@NUS Repository.
Abstract: Protein interactions in undersaturated and supersaturated solutions were investigated using static and dynamic light scattering and small angle x-ray scattering. A morphodrom of lysozyme crystals determined at 35°C and pH = 4.6 was used as a guideline in selecting the protein and precipitant concentrations. The osmotic second virial coefficient, B22, was determined by static and dynamic light scattering. At low ionic strengths for which no crystals were formed, B22 was positive indicating repulsive interactions between the protein molecules. Negative B22 at higher ionic strengths corresponds to attractive interactions where crystallization becomes possible. At two extreme salt concentrations, small angle x-ray scattering data were collected and fitted with a statistical mechanical model based on Derjaguin-Landau-Verwey-Overbeek potential using Random Phase Approximation. This model accounted well for the small angle x-ray scattering data at undersaturated condition with constant potential parameters. At very high salt concentration corresponding to supersaturated solution this model seems to fail, possibly due to the presence of non-Derjaguin-Landau-Verwey-Overbeek hydration repulsion between the molecules.


The number of tech employment opportunities is expected to increase by 12% by 2024, according to a recent report by Modis, which will lead to more and more jobs becoming available to IT professionals looking to get into the space. Now that we are about a third of the way into 2018, the IT job market is well established, but that doesn't mean you still can't get in on the hottest new positions for this year. If you're not quite sure what field of IT your looking to get into, you're in luck! We have done the heavy lifting for you and discovered the Top 10 hottest new IT skills for this year. Investing in learning any of these skills will provide you with the perfect launching pad to achieve the IT Job of your dreams in 2018.
AI has been a buzzword within the world of IT for quite some time now, but it is now forecasted to be the most important technological innovation within our lifetime. If you are unsure of what AI is, it simply enables computer systems to perform certain tasks that would have previously required human interaction, like speech recognition, chess-playing, or self-driving cars. The benefit of getting into AI now is that the possibilities for this technology are pretty much limitless, and it can be applied to virtually any industry.
Pursuing a career as a full stack developer requires you to possess a very wide range of different IT and programming skills. The term "full stack" simply means that you are engaged on every level of the programming system, and that you understand the big picture when it comes to development of major projects. There are no specific requirements that are needed for each project you may be assigned to, but rather you need to know what needs to be done at every level of a project or system, from the front end to the back end.
Project Management is a rapidly growing profession in the IT space and beyond. In a recent study done by the Project Management Institute, it is projected that 87.7 million project managers will be needed by 2027. IT Project Management includes the process of planning, organizing, and delineating responsibility for the completion of an organization's specific IT goals. This position cannot be done by just any individual, since it requires a person who exhibits strong communication, leadership, and subject matter expertise skills.
In the technology dependent world that we live in today, there is a hacker attack or data breach that occurs about every 39 seconds. In response to this startling number, there has become an increased need for cyber security analysts. Cyber security analysts help prevent cyber-attacks from happening with their immense knowledge and expertise of databases, networks, hardware, firewalls, and encryption software. The world of cybersecurity is constantly evolving and changing, so cybersecurity analyst's responsibilities are constantly changing as the number of cyber-attacks continue to increase.
Cloud computing is the process of using a network of remote servers hosted on the internet to store, manage, and process data, instead of having it hosted on a local server or personal computer. According to the MIT Technology Review, some accounts trace this technology all the way back to 2006, when companies such as Amazon and Google began using "the cloud" as their place for online storage. As of 2018, knowing the skills needed to perform cloud computing can take you a long way. Several skills needed for this include database skills, Linux (open source operating system), DevOps (method of software development), and information security (which is crucial in the world of cloud computing).
Biomedical is the perfect intersection between 2 booming industries: healthcare and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). Both industries require a degree of technical expertise and knowledge of biology, which has changed the game in terms of how doctors examine and diagnose their patients. If someone were to want to pursue a career in this field, they must have research skills (to discover and make medical advancements), technology skills, and medical software skills (such as visual instrument software, gait analysis software).
A neural network is a technology system that is patterned after the operation of neurons in the human brain. The purpose of a neural network in data mining is to help recognize any sort of pattern that may exist within your data set, and to react to that certain pattern in a "humanlike way." To "train" this technology, you must present it with a wide variety of different scenarios and teach it how to react, and it will eventually reach a point where it knows how to respond on its own, similar to a human. Commercial applications for this technology range anywhere from signal processing, to weather radar systems, to even security networks (credit cards and debit cards).
Data scientists are employed to analyze and interpret complex to help business make decisions. Data scientists tend to be part mathematician, part computer scientist and part trend-spotter. Most people that choose to pursue a career in this field tend to come from a statistics or data analytics background, which allows them to use both their skills in computing in combination with their skills of data mining and analytics. Skills needed to be a data scientist often include data visualization, machine learning (branch of AI based on algorithms and automation), pattern recognition (recognize patterns in data), and data preparation (process of converting raw data into another format to be more easily consumed).
UX design is short for a User Experience Designer. Someone who works this job is primarily concerned with "the feel" of a given product, whether that is how visually appealing the product is, or how the product psychically feels (all of these things play together to create the overall user experience). The general responsibilities someone in UX design differs from company to company, and even from project to project. With that being said, their broad responsibility is always simple: to ensure that the product flows logically from one step to the next.
In the world of Information Technology, it is incredibly common for outstanding candidates to lack the soft skills necessary for the jobs they are applying for. Soft skills include anything from verbal and written communication, to listening skills, to basic emotional intelligence. Most scientists and engineers are hardwired to pursue logical reasoning based on the scientific method, and they often lose their ability to use their "people" skills to manage online projects and diverse teams, so that is why this skill is so important.
In the ever-changing modern world of IT, there are almost always new technologies and processes being developed each day. Although that may seem overwhelming, it is actually a strong positive for someone who is trying to gain access into the world of IT. So, take a class, intern at a new company, or even give us a call at Agile to see what position within the IT universe will best suit your unique skill set.


Baeza, Immaculada; Correll, Christoph U; Saito, Ema; Amanbekova, Dinara; Ramani, Meena; Kapoor, Sandeep; Chekuri, Raja; De Hert, Marc; Carbon, Maren. Frequency, characteristics and management of adolescent inpatient aggression. Journal of Child & Adolescent Psychopharmacology. 2013:23(4):271-281.
Chun, Thomas H; Katz, Emily R; Duffy, Susan J; Gerson, Ruth S. Challenges of Managing Pediatric Mental Health Crises in the Emergency Department. Child & Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America. 2014:24(1):21-40.
Foubister, Nicole; Tedeschi, Frank K. Criminal culpability: A developmental approach. Psychiatric Expert Testimony: Emerging Applications by Weiss, Kenneth J [Ed]; Watson, Clarence [Ed].. New York, NY : Oxford University Press; US, 2015. ISBN: 978-0-19-934659-2.
Garrett, Michael; Singh, Amar; Amanbekova, Dinara; Kamarajan, Chella. Lack of insight and conceptions of "mental illness" in schizophrenia, assessed in the third person through case vignettes. Psychosis: Psychological, Social & Integrative Approaches. 2011:3(2):115-125.
Gudino, Omar G; Weis, J Rebecca; Havens, Jennifer F; Biggs, Emily A; Diamond, Ursula N; Marr, Mollie; Jackson, Christie; Cloitre, Marylene. Group Trauma-Informed Treatment for Adolescent Psychiatric Inpatients: A Preliminary Uncontrolled Trial. Journal of Traumatic Stress. 2014:27(4):496-500.
Haddad, Fadi [Ed]; Gerson, Ruth [Ed].. Helping Kids in Crisis: Managing Psychiatric Emergencies in Children and Adolescents by Arlington, VA : American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc.; US, 2015. ISBN: 978-1-58562-482-9.
Marr, M; Surko, M; Storfer-Isser, A; Havens, J F; Richardson, L; Horwitz, S M. Think Trauma Evaluation Questionnaire: Factor Structure and Feasibility of Large Scale Administration. Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma. 2015:8(4):229-235.
Mazgaj, Robert; Gerson, Ruth; Khakoo, Yasmin; Petriccione, Mary; Haque, Sofia; Haddad, Fadi. Command hallucinations to harm self in a child with recurrent right temporal astrocytoma: a case report. Psycho-Oncology. 2015.
Saigh, Philip A; Yasik, Anastasia E; Halamandaris, Phill V; Bremner, J Douglas; Oberfield, Richard A. The parent ratings of traumatized children with or without PTSD. Psychological Trauma : Theory, Research, Practice & Policy. 2014:7(1):85-92.
Shah, Lesha D; Coffey, Barbara J. Callous-unemotional traits in a child with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and oppositional defiant disorder: managing medication and expectations. Journal of Child & Adolescent Psychopharmacology. 2015:25(3):272-275.
Sharma-Patel, Komal; Filton, Beryl; Tebbett, Alison; Tahilani, Kavita; Swiecicki, Carole L; Brown, Elissa J. Patterns in blame attributions in maltreated youth: Association with psychopathology and interpersonal functioning. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma. 2014:23(6):567-588.
Tedeschi, Frank; Ford, Elizabeth. Adolescents that commit crime: A review. Forensic Psychiatry: A Public Health Perspective by Sher, Leo [Ed]; Merrick, Joav [Ed]. Hauppauge, NY, US: Nova Science Publishers, 2015. ISBN: 978-1-63483-339-4.
Tedeschi, Frank; Ford, Elizabeth. Outliers in American juvenile justice: the need for statutory reform in North Carolina and New York. International Journal of Adolescent Medicine & Health. 2015:27(2):151-161.
Weis, J Rebecca; Greene, Judy A. Mental Health in Pregnant Adolescents: Focus on Psychopharmacology. Journal of Pediatrics. 2015:169:297-304.
Weis, J. Rebecca; Ross, Stephen. Substance use: Helping teenagers and families work through a substance use crisis. Helping Kids in Crisis: Managing Psychiatric Emergencies in Children and Adolescents by Haddad, Fadi [Ed]; Gerson, Ruth [Ed].. Arlington, VA : American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc.; US, 2015. ISBN: 978-1-58562-482-9.


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This page reviews Fully Developed Claims for VA benefits from the perspective of an elderly individual who requires care. Therefore, it is most relevant to the VA Aid and Attendance Pension Benefit. While much of it is accurate and relevant to younger or healthy veterans, this page has not been written with that audience in mind.
What is a Fully Developed Claim for VA Benefits?
A Fully Developed Claim (FDC), also called a Fast Track Claim, is a type of application for VA benefits. This type of application greatly reduces the time required to receive an approval / denial decision. Therefore, for those who are approved, it means they will begin receiving financial assistance much sooner. Instead of taking 12 - 18 months to reach a decision, the VA decides on Fully Developed Claims in approximately three months.
The alternative to a Fully Developed Claim has no official title. It is simply referred to as a "standard" or "regular" or "normal" claim process.
When an individual files a regular claim, the VA has a "duty to assist" them in making sure they file it correctly. The VA helps in acquiring all of the necessary supporting documents (service and health records, marriage and death certificates, etc.). This assistance, though helpful, is time-consuming. When one files a FDC, the applicant is basically telling the VA, "I don't need your assistance. I'm taking responsibility for my claim. I've got everything you need. Now make a decision."
Fully Developed Claims are important to elderly veterans or families caring for elderly veterans for two major reasons.
Reduction in Time to Receive Benefits - Since a FDC receives an approval / denial decision within approximately 90 days, instead of up to 18 months, families can begin receiving financial assistance to pay for elderly care sooner than if they file a standard claim. Both FDC and regular claims are paid retroactively upon approval, allowing the claimant to receive benefits back to the month of the effective date of the application or informal claim / intent to file form. So with either type of claim a veteran will receive the same amount of money, but with a Fully Developed Claim, they will receive it sooner. This means a family can start using the VA pension earlier to pay for assisted living or home care, rather than waiting up to 18 months.
This is especially important when elderly individuals have limited life expectancies. Should an applicant die during the 18 month wait for a decision, an eligible beneficiary could receive the claimant's accrued benefits. However, they would have to begin a new application process and wait several more months for approval.
Responsibility for the Collection of Supporting Documents - With a standard claim, the VA will assist the applicant in the collection of certain documents (duty to assist). Unfortunately, due to it's backlog of claims, the VA can be very slow to respond (and in some cases, according to expert VA planners, unreliable). So the claimant might suffer an endless back and forth in communication using their assistive service.
By filing an FDC, the applicant is waiving their right to the VA's duty to assist and is taking responsibility for collecting all of the needed supporting documents that the VA may require to make a decision. This is important because it puts both the responsibility and the control in the hands of the applicant. That being said, the VA will assist applicants filing a FDC in obtaining documents held by a Federal facility, but they will not assist in obtaining documents held by state agencies, private doctors, or local agencies. However, experienced VA planners do not advice having the VA assist in obtaining Federal documents, as it can significantly hold up the process.
Should the applicant fail to file correctly or to provide the needed supporting evidence, the Fully Developed Claim will revert to the "regular" or "standard" claim processing time. Meaning, the claim will move from the fast lane to the slow lane. Therefore, it is critical that when one files a FDC, they do so correctly.
Not every type of veterans claim application can currently use the Fully Developed Claim approach. However, the most common and relevant types of assistance available to elderly veterans and their spouses can utilize it. As of 2017, the following types of claims can be treated as a fully developed claim.
Application Assistance Not provided by VA.
There are situations when a family should choose not to file a Fully Developed Claim. There are two difficult aspects to filing a Fully Developed Claim. First, one must make certain they complete the often confusing paperwork correctly. Remember that a FDC does not rely on the VA to build a case for you. If the VA receives insufficient or unclear information then it can hold up the process considerably.
Second, one must gather, organize, and provide the supporting evidence (documents). Since collecting evidence can be a confusing, time-consuming, bureaucratic challenge (or some may say "nightmare"), the applicant must have sufficient time, persistence, and patience during this process. If one does not feel confident in their ability to overcome these challenges, they should not file a Fully Developed Claim or they should seek outside assistance to help them file correctly.
Additionally, in the case of elderly veterans, perhaps with failing cognitive skills, the task of collecting evidence may prove to be too difficult. In cases where the applicant's adult children have taken on the role of helping collect all of the information, it may also prove to be a too time consuming challenge.
A Fully Developed Claim puts the responsibility of gathering sufficient evidence to support the claim on the claimant (the individual or their family members who are making the claim). The one exception is that the VA will assist with gathering documents from Federal facilities, such as VA medical centers. Applicants are also responsible for completing the application correctly. With Fully Developed Claims, the VA does not provide assistance (they do not have a "duty to assist"). Therefore, it is essential that the applicant does this correctly or it is likely their claim will be moved to the slow track. Fortunately, assistance from outside the VA is available.
Veterans Service Officers (VSO) – Most of the time, VSO's assisting with Fully Developed Claims are part of a veterans group, such as the VFW or the American Legion. These individuals provide assistance free of charge, and their focus is on the process. Applicants who are very confident they are eligible for the claim they are making may be better suited to work with a VSO.
Veterans Planners - These individuals also provide assistance with the Fully Developed Claim application process, but their focus is on eligibility, planning, and reducing the time to receive benefits. They help families to understand the rules, conform to eligibility requirements, and receive the maximum benefit amount in which they are due. They do all this while working to minimize the time to receive benefits. Veterans planners charge for their planning assistance. Persons uncertain about their eligibility and those for whom time to receive benefits is of importance, may be better suited to work with a professional veterans planner. Read more or find a planner here.
There is no cost to file a Fully Developed Claim, nor is there a cost to file a regular claim.
Some professional veterans benefits advisors charge for their planning services but do not charge for application assistance. Admittedly, there is some gray area surrounding these fees. Read more about VA planners and the services they offer.
Sometimes there are also fees, in the tens of dollars range, charged by doctors' offices to copy one's medical records. This is also a gray legal area. However, in the interest of timely evidence collection for one's application, it may be better to simply pay these fees out-of-pocket.
Fully Developed Claims can be filed by mail by sending to the VA Pension Management Center for your state. To locate the appropriate PMC for your claim click here. In order to file by mail, the veteran must fill out VA Form 21-527EZ, and the surviving spouse must complete VA Form 21-534EZ.
Fully Developed Claims can also be filed electronically here. The VA offers a downloadable PDF, which describes the process here.
IMPORTANT* Regardless of paper or electronic filing, it can take time to gather the paperwork for a FDC. Applicants should file an "intent to file a claim" immediately upon making the decision to file a Fully Developed Claim. Doing so will set a claim effective date. Once approved, the VA will provide Fully Developed Claim back pay to the claim effective date. Learn more about filing an intent to file a claim here.


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Avril Lavigne – "Dumb Blonde" ft. Nicki Minaj | Review
Avril Lavigne sounds just like you'd think a 2019 Lavigne would sound on her Nicki Minaj assisted track, "Dumb Blonde."
Lavigne is making sure everyone knows she's releasing her new album, Head Above Water" this Friday (15th), revealing the most 'Avril' song she's given us this ear.
Following the impressive "Head Above Water" and "Tell Me It's Over" is no small feat, so what's the best thing to do? Flip the script of course.
"Dumb Blonde" is the kind of track you'd expect from Lavigne in 2019 – in the best way possible. It brings a new lease of life to the album campaign, one that was shaping up to be an all-around mature affair.
The punchy track takes us back to the days of "Girlfriend" with its attitude filled lyrics and ballsy delivery, something that's usually a staple in a pre-album single for the eight-time Grammy nominee.
The chorus is catchy as hell and will be stuck in your head from first listen with its easy flow and empowerment statements for strong women.
"I'm a babe, I'm a boss and I'm makin' this money/I can flip like a switch and I cut like a blade/I can sting like a bee, but I'm sweeter than honey/And I'm quick as a whip so get outta my way"
Oh yes, and Minaj is here for a moment.
The rapstress is always a joy to have on a song, but recently, her pop features seem less inspired than usual, like she's just going through the motions, sounding bored – although her verses are still a moment!
Will it be a "Girlfriend" sized hit? Unlikely. But it will please fans of the star!
Check out the track below and let us know what you think in the comments!
February 13, 2019 Avril Lavigne, Nicki Minaj, Single Reviews
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Games4King - G4K Jolly Foxy Escape is another point and click escape game developed by Games 4 King. There were a few houses in a mysterious forest surrounded by a gigantic darkness. The place is very intimidating to see. A jolly fox lived in that forest. One day, that jolly fox was unexpectedly stuck in a house. It is your duty to rescue the jolly fox. It will help you to find the hidden clues and items where the jolly fox is to save the animal. Find them all and free the jolly fox. Good luck and have fun!