text:
Phils top Mets 2-1 in bench-clearing, trash-talking opener
DAN GELSTON
Phillies reliever José Alvarado thumped his glove and gestured at Dominic Smith after a strikeout ended a rally. Smith pulled off his helmet and the Mets left fielder seemed ready to fight back against the jabbering pitcher until both teams spilled out of the dugout and broke up the dust up before punches were thrown.
Miguel Castro responded with a pair of inside heaters that had Phillies slugger Rhys Hoskins momentarily steamed.
The Mets and Phillies turned the eighth inning into a bench-emptying, trash-talking, finger-pointing commotion that spiced up a routine game — and could ignite more sparks this weekend — in the Phillies' 2-1 win on Friday night.
"He made a big pitch, he got me out and he wanted to express his emotions," Smith said.
Mets manager Luis Rojas said Alvarado — who hit Michael Conforto and riled up Smith and the Mets with gestures earlier this month — was to blame.
"You could tell that it was instigating. he was trying to get his attention, trying to start things," Rojas said. "That's what got Dom turning back and walking toward him."
Hoskins said emotions where high and he didn't expect any carryover into Saturday.
"A couple of balls were a little close and nobody likes that. But it was nothing, man," Hoskins said. "That's how these division games are."
The fireworks fizzled faster than a Mets' rally: New York has scored an MLB-low 58 runs, including two or fewer in nine of 20 games this season.
Sam Coonrod worked a scoreless ninth for his first save.
Chase Anderson swung and missed at a passed ball on a third strike that let two runs score, and he tossed five solid innings to lead the Phillies.
Odúbel Herrera received a smattering of boos in his first game in Philadelphia since his arrest on domestic violence charges two years ago. The former All-Star center fielder was recalled this week against St. Louis and played in his first major league game since May 26, 2019.
Herrera, who had last played on May 26, 2019, was suspended for the remainder of that season under Major League Baseball's domestic violence policy. The charges against Herrera were dismissed, and he was assigned outright to Triple-A Lehigh Valley on Jan. 16 last year and wasn't part of the 60-player pool for the shortened season.
He hit eighth and was booed — not heavily among a crowd much lighter than the 10,914 fans announced on a chilly, blustery night — and walked to load the bases. Anderson swung on a pitch from Marcus Stroman (3-2) that darted away from catcher James McCann and sent two runners home. The Phillies had a second straight game decided by bad pitch: David Hale's game-ending wild pitch in the 10th inning cost them Thursday in a 4-3 loss against the Cardinals
Anderson (1-3) struck out six in five-plus innings and left after Pete Alonso's leadoff single in the sixth. Smith added an RBI single to make it 2-1.
Stroman left with a tight right hamstring after he struck out eight in five innings. In a sign of the times, Stroman's injury was announced by new Mets owner Steven Cohen on Twitter. Stroman was optimistic he would make his next start.
SHORTHAND PHILLIES
Phillies manager Joe Girardi missed the game to attend his daughter's college graduation. Bryce Harper missed a second straight game after he took a 97 mph fastball to the face in St. Louis; shortstop Didi Gregorius was placed on the COVID-related injury list; catcher JT Realmuto was a late scratch with soreness in his catching hand; and second baseman Jean Segura remained sidelined with a quad strain.
Bench coach Rob Thomson subbed for Girardi.
"I think it's over and we'll move on to tomorrow," Thomson said of the yapping.
TRAINER'S ROOM
Mets: Manager Luis Rojas said he could go with a bullpen game Monday in St. Louis and give ace RHP Jacob deGrom an extra day of rest. … INF Luis Guillorme was placed on the 10-Day IL with a right oblique strain. INF José Peraza was recalled from the team's Alternate Training Site.
Phillies: Segura could return from the 10-day IL on Saturday. … Harper said he was thankful he wasn't seriously hurt after he was beaned by Genesis Cabrera. Harper said he was in a lot of pain and replayed the hit in his mind. "You're talking a couple of inches up or a couple of inches over on either side and we might be having a different conversation," Harper said. Harper, who has six home runs, said he won't rush back to the lineup. He did suffer a sore right wrist when the ball hit him. Harper said he had no ill will toward Cabrera and realized the beanball was not intentional. "It hit me and I'm just very lucky to be sitting here talking to you guys right now," Harper said.
The Phillies send RHP Zack Wheeler (2-2, 3.13 ERA to the mound against New York RHP Taijuan Walker (1-1, 2.14 ERA).
More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports


Hotel is the most personal choice in travel. Get it right and you will feel like home. Make the wrong choice and your travel experience will be anything from uncomfortable to disastrous. More importantly, the hotel you stay in can affect the efficiency of your trip with long commutes or the addition of unnecessary stress in the morning. To ease your decision-making process, we've listed a few things to consider when choosing your business hotel.
Many business bookings are made based on price, but location matters the most when you want to have a productive stay. Else, you might spend much idle time on taxi rides and commuting. If you want a shorter commute in the morning, search hotels that are near the exact location you are working. Use the map option to better visualize where the hotels are located.
Make sure your hotel is easy to reach from the airport, conference center or any other location you're visiting. Note if there are any train stations or bus stops nearby or whether taxis are usually available at the entrance. Get an estimate on traffic to avoid any surprisingly long commutes.
Your business trip is likely to have a packed agenda and by the time you arrive to the hotel, you might be too exhausted to make any other efforts. When choosing your business hotel, don't ignore the food offerings at the hotel and in the surrounding areas. Are you meeting any clients? It might be a good idea to have quality restaurants and bars nearby in case you suddenly need to arrange a business meeting.
In this day and age, a reliable and free high-speed wireless internet connection is taken as a given, but the frustrating reality is that many hotels are lacking. Considering the premium price of many business hotels, don't settle with a painfully slow connection.
Yes, we know. You've never used one, right? We often underestimate the importance of a working space at the hotel. However, what if your computer chooses to have an unexpected meltdown during your trip. Or if you need to print documents for next day's meeting. You'll appreciate a basic business center in those occasions.
If your company has a travel policy in place, stick to it. It is likely your company has already selected a few good hotels for you, and you'll be booking in-policy rates. Plus, preferred booking channels like Hotelzon can easily help you find the hotels closer to your company locations. Choosing your business hotel will be simple and you'll keep your travel manager happy.
Do you still have any doubts? Word of mouth might still be the easiest way to find the right hotel. Ask your colleagues how clean the rooms are or whether the Wi-Fi actually works.
Would you let a robot book your hotel?


Antec has decided to go with rails for DVD or CD drive installation. The rails are screwed directly onto the drives and then inserted in one of the empty drive bays. The solution is an elegant one - unless you want to install a 2" deep fan speed controller without any additional perforations. In that case, the controller droops down, marring the appearance of your front panel.
5.25" drives like DVDs or burners are attached to the case using rails.
Small displays - like our test one here - don't get much support from these drive rails.


text:
New Faces Exhibition- London
A World of Your Own
The Illustration Cupboard is showing the work of six women artists in an exhibition entitled New Faces which opens today. I am very excited to be exhibiting alongside:
Laura Carlin: based in London, has achieved a great deal in a very short space of time. She gained a Masters from the RCA, at which she won the Quentin Blake Award and has gone to win the Uniqlo Fashion Illustration Award, resulting in her book Ten Days in Tokyo. She has published extensively with Walker Books, notably Ted Hughes's Iron Man as well as The Folio Society. She is also in high demand for commercial work for leading brands both here and in the US. Laura has been voted by the Art Director's Club of America as one of the 50 most influential creative's under 30 years of age. The artwork in this show produced for A World of Your Own sees Laura both as an illustrator and an author for the first time.
Eva Montanari: from Rimini in Italy, graduated from the State Institute of Art and the European Institute of Design in Milan but started out as a picture book author and illustrator whilst still studying. Widely regarded as one of the leading illustrators in Italy her work has been published and exhibited the world over, including several contributions to the Original Art Show of The Society of Illustrators in New York as well as at the Ragazzi International Exhibition at the Bologna Book Fair. Her work for the recently published Italian classic Pinocchio is on show.
Emily Sutton: graduated in 2008 with a BA in illustration from Edinburgh College of Art, having also studied at York College, and for a semester at the Rhode Island School of Design. Her work incorporates a love of pattern and design strongly influenced by the flora and fauna of the Yorkshire countryside, as well as a passion for folk art. Further inspiration is taken from 20th century illustrators such as Edward Bowden and Eric Pavilions, as well as the American lithographed children's books of a similar era. Working within the commercial arena Emily is now venturing in to illustrated books for the first time this year with the forthcoming publication of The Christmas Eve Tree (Walker Books) later this year.
Louise Yates: is both a writer and illustrator of pictures books. Having read English at Christ Church, Oxford she went on to study drawing at The Royal Drawing School, London. This has led on to her winning the Prince of Wales's Award for Portrait Drawing at the Royal Society of Portrait Painter's Annual Exhibition. She has published picture books since 2009 and has achieved notable success with Dog Loves Books both in the USA and the UK where it won the Road Dahl Funny Prize. This and subsequent books in this series have been nominated for The Kate Greenaway Medal and are currently being turned in to animation for television.
Helen Ward: is already known to many as a leading illustrative talent, and has reached high acclaim on many occasions being short-listed for the Kate Greenaway Award for The Cockerel and The Fox, in 2003 as well as being twice runner-up for The National Art Library Award (Victoria and Albert Museum) in 1999 and 2001. She has worked extensively with Templar Books contributing to their best-selling Ology series over a number of years.
New Faces Exhibition runs from the 8th April to 2nd May 2015
Open Monday – Friday 9:30am – 6.00pm
Saturdays 11:00am – 5:00pm
Illustration Cupboard Gallery
22 Bury Street
SW1Y 6AL
Posted in Drawing
Line Caught and Local: documenting Cornwall's inshore fisheries
Rachel Gannon
Sarah Ellis on Facebook	 08/04/20154:49 pm
I still love your work. Love, love, lovity, love. 🙂
Anna Cattermole Reportage Illustration on Facebook	 08/04/20154:53 pm
Oh thank you x
I still have the pictures you gave me when you left the Twist and Shout studio. 🙂

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Change what is displayed in comments in the code? I recognize that LaTeX is unlikely to be able to do this, so this probably boils down to "Is there any third-party LaTeX editing software that..."
As a college instructor, I write exercise sets for my students that become quite lengthy.  In order to find my way around the documents easily, I try to include appropriate labels and explanations in comments.  For example
% Question 5: Differentiate a product
\item <question>
<worked out solution>

% Question 6: Differentiate a quotient
\item <question>
<worked out solution>

The problem is when I have a long list (50 or more questions) and I decide to add some questions into the middle of the list.  Now my numbering in the comments is off.  In order to fix them, I have to go through the entire file manually changing each one.
So, is there a way to define some kind of counter or tag that will allow me to drop in new questions and have the comments renumber?  Again, this is when I'm looking at the code, so that I see:
% Question 5: Differentiate a product
\item <question>
<worked out solution>

% Question 6: NEW QUESTION
\item <question>
<worked out solution>

% Question 7: Differentiate a quotient
\item <question>
<worked out solution>

And the comments in the code have renumbered themselves.

A: This is an AWK solution, not a LaTeX solution, so maybe it should be moved to another forum.
If you have an AWK or GAWK interpreter on your system, you can use the following script to automatically renumber your source file.
BEGIN { questionNum = 1; }
{
    if ($1 == "%" && $2 == "Question")
    {
        out = $1" "$2" "questionNum":";
        for (i = 4; i <= NF; i++) { out = out" "$i; }
        print out;
        ++questionNum;
    }
    else { print $0; }
}

ORIGINAL FILE:
% Question 5: Differentiate a product
\item <question>
<worked out solution>

% Question x: NEW QUESTION
\item <question>
<worked out solution>

% Question 7: Differentiate a quotient
\item <question>
<worked out solution>

PROCESSED FILE:
% Question 1: Differentiate a product
\item <question>
<worked out solution>

% Question 2: NEW QUESTION
\item <question>
<worked out solution>

% Question 3: Differentiate a quotient
\item <question>
<worked out solution>

A: You can do this as a 'one-liner' with perl; for example, you can use:
perl -p -e 's/(?<!\\)%(\h*Question\h*)\d+/$i++;"%$1$i"/e' htg.tex

where htg.tex is, for example:
% Question 5: Differentiate a product
\item <question>
<worked out solution>

% Question 6: NEW QUESTION
\item <question>
<worked out solution>

% Question 7: Differentiate a quotient
\item <question>
<worked out solution>

%Question 4: Differentiate a quotient
\item <question>
<worked out solution>

%Question5: Differentiate a quotient
\item <question>
<worked out solution>

this one has a percentage symbol, \%     Question 5: Differentiate a quotient
\item <question>
<worked out solution>

%Question6: Differentiate a quotient
\item <question>
<worked out solution>

The output when (carefully!, at your own risk) using perl -p -i.bak -e 's/(?<!\\)%(\h*Question\h*)\d+/$i++;"%$1$i"/e' htg.tex is
% Question 1: Differentiate a product
\item <question>
<worked out solution>

% Question 2: NEW QUESTION
\item <question>
<worked out solution>

% Question 3: Differentiate a quotient
\item <question>
<worked out solution>

%Question 4: Differentiate a quotient
\item <question>
<worked out solution>

%Question5: Differentiate a quotient
\item <question>
<worked out solution>

this one has a percentage symbol, \%     Question 5: Differentiate a quotient
\item <question>
<worked out solution>

%Question6: Differentiate a quotient
\item <question>
<worked out solution>

A few notes:

*

*-p tells perl to process the file (htg.tex) line by line, and print the output

*-e is the execute flag that allows us to run the perl code within the quotes

*-i.bak is only to be used once you're confident the thing works; it overwrites htg.tex and creates htg.tex.bak as a backup.

*s/this/that/ substitutes this with that.

*(?<!\\)%(\h*Question\h*)\d+ means a %, not pre-ceeded by a \, and then followed by zero or more horizontal spaces, then Question, then zero or more spaces, then one or more digits; the () are 'capturing' parenthesis, the result of which is stored in the special variable $1;
-$i++;"%$1$i" increments a counter, $i, and then, finally, outputs % together with the result of $1, and the new value of $i;

*

*the /e modifier at the end allows us to do the stuff in the replacement (extended mode).

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Q: Alternative definition of the determinant of a square matrix and its advantages? Usually, the definition of the determinant of a $n\times n$ matrix $A=(a_{ij})$ is as the following:
$$\det(A):=\sum_{\sigma\in S_n}\text{sgn}(\sigma)\prod_{i=1}^na_{i,\sigma(i)}.$$
In Gilbert Strang's Linear Algebra and Its Application, the author points out that it can be understood as the volume of a box in $n$-dimensional space. However, I am wondering if it can be defined in this way.
Here are my questions:

*

*[EDIT: Can the determinant be defined as the volume of a box in $n$-dimensional space?]

*Are there other definitions of the determinant for a square matrix?

*What is the "advantages" of the different definition? [EDIT: For instance, as Qiaochu said in the comment, how easy is it to prove that $\det(AB)=\det(A)\det(B)$ with that definition?]

A: You can define the determinant to be the signed sum of weights of non-intersecting paths in a graph between "source" vertexes $a_1,\ldots,a_n$ and "sink" vertices $b_1,\ldots,b_n$. See Qiaochu's blog post. The $(i,j)$ entries of the matrix are the sums of weights of all paths from $a_i$ to $b_j$.
This definition is nice because it's entirely combinatorial, and it makes clear why determinants should be relevant to discrete mathematics and to physics. And it genuinely provides new insights relative to the "algebraic" definitions, I think. It also provides a nice avenue to prove (and to properly understand) various standard results such as the Cauchy--Binet formula, Dodgson's condensation formula, the Plucker relations, Laplace's expansion and  Dodgson's condensation formula. See this paper by Fulmek for details.

A: I would classify your first one as merely a method of calculating the determinant. I would call the second (Strang's) merely a property, albeit useful, of determinants. But I think that there is one sort of 'lower-level definition' that is better than the others: the determinant is the only function on a square matrix satisfying certain properties (a note on this).
In particular, if a function is linear in each row of a matrix, is 0 if two rows are the same, and is 1 if the matrix is the identity matrix, then it is the determinant function.
NOTE - Mariano has just uploaded an even better answer, but it's more basic (not in the elementary way, but rather in the It Takes Much More Math Way, so I keep my answer as is).

A: Let me emphasize that in the following discussion $V$ denotes a complex vector space and $T$ denotes an operator on $V$.
Definition: Let $T$ be an operator on $V$ and choose a basis of $V$ such that the matrix of $T$ (with respect to this basis) is upper triangular. If $\lambda$ is a complex number, then the multiplicity of $\lambda$ as an eigenvalue of $T$ is defined to be the number of times $\lambda$ occurs on the diagonal of the matrix of $T$.
Exercise 1: In this exercise, we will prove that the multiplicity of a complex number $\lambda$ of $T$ as an eigenvalue of $T$ is well-defined. Firstly, prove the following result:

If $\lambda$ is a complex number and if ${\cal B}$ is a basis of $V$
  such that the matrix of $T$ (with respect to ${\cal B}$) is upper
  triangular, then the number of times $\lambda$ occurs on the diagonal
  of the matrix of $T$ equals $\text{null}(T-\lambda I)^{\dim{V}}$.

Deduce that the number of times $\lambda$ occurs on the diagonal of an upper triangular matrix of $T$ does not depend on the basis with respect to which $T$ has an upper triangular matrix. Therefore, the multiplicity of a complex number $\lambda$ as an eigenvalue of $T$ is well-defined.
Exercise 2: Prove that the sum of the multiplicities of the eigenvalues of $T$ equals the dimension of the vector space $V$ on which $T$ operates.
Definition: Let $T$ be an operator on a complex vector space $V$. The determinant of $T$ is defined to be the product of the eigenvalues of $T$ (counting multiplicity).
Exercise 3: Prove that an operator $T$ is invertible if and only if the determinant of $T$ (as defined above) is non-zero.
We will now prove that the determinant of $T$ as an operator equals the determinant of a matrix of $T$ (with respect to any basis of $V$).
Exercise 4: Prove that if $T$ has an upper triangular matrix with respect to a basis of $V$, then the determinant of $T$ equals the product of the diagonal entries of this matrix. Deduce that the determinant of $T$ equals the determinant of this matrix.
Exercise 5: Prove that if $A$ is the matrix of $T$ with respect to a particular basis of $V$ and if $B$ is the matrix of $T$ with respect to another basis of $V$, then there is an invertible matrix $C$ such that $C^{-1}AC=B$.
Exercise 6: Prove that if $A$ and $B$ are $n\times n$ square matrices, then $\det{AB}=\det{A}\det{B}=\det{BA}$.
Exercise 7: Prove that if $A$ is the matrix of $T$ with respect to a particular basis of $V$ and if $B$ is the matrix of $T$ with respect to another basis of $V$, then $\det{A}=\det{B}$ as matrices.
Exercise 8: Finally, prove that if $A$ is a matrix of $T$ with respect to any basis of $V$, then the determinant of $T$ as an operator equals the determinant of the matrix $A$, i.e., the product of the eigenvalues of $T$ (counting multiplicity) equals the determinant of the matrix $A$.
We will now prove the famous Cayley-Hamilton theorem:
Definition: If $T$ is an operator $V$, if $n=\dim{V}$, and if $\lambda_1,\dots,\lambda_n$ are the eigenvalues of $T$ (counting multiplicity), we define the characteristic polynomial of $T$ by the rule $p(z)=(z-\lambda_1)\cdots (z-\lambda_n)$ if $z$ is a complex number.
Exercise 9: Prove that $p(T)=0$ where $p$ is the characteristic polynomial of $T$. (Hint: choose a basis of $V$ with respect to which $T$ has an upper triangular matrix.)
Exercise 10: If $p$ is the characteristic polynomial of $T$, prove that $p(z)=\det{(zI-T)}$ for all complex numbers $z$. (Hint: prove that the eigenvalues of $zI-T$ are precisely the numbers of the form $z-\lambda$ where $\lambda$ is an eigenvalue of $T$. Furthermore, prove that the multiplicity of $z-\lambda$ as an eigenvalue of $zI-T$ equals the multiplicity of $\lambda$ as an eigenvalue of $T$. Use Exercise 3 and the definition of the characteristic polynomial given above.)
I hope this helps! (Please see Linear Algebra Done Right by Sheldon Axler for a more elaborate discussion of the determinant along the same lines as my answer.)

A: Given a vector space $V$ of dimension $n$, one can prove that there is a unique (up to a normalization factor) non-trivial alternating $n$ form
$$
F:V\times\cdots\times V\longrightarrow{\Bbb R}\qquad\hbox{$n$ factors}
$$
(I'm pretending that $V$ is a real vector space, but in fact the result is more general). Alternating means that for a permutation $\pi\in{\cal S}_n$ one must have
$$
F(v_{\pi(1)},\ldots,v_{\pi(n)})={\rm sign}(\pi)F(v_1,\ldots,v_n)
$$
for all $(v_1,...,v_n)\in V^n$. If you fix a basis $\{e_1\ldots,e_n\}$ of $V$  you can choose the normalization factor by declaring that $F(e_1\ldots,e_n)=1$. Then $F$ is exactly the determinant.
Further, if you endow $V$ with an euclidean norm such that the fixed basis is an orthonormal basis, the value of $F(v_1,\ldots,v_n)$ is precisely the signed volume of the parallelotope defined by the ordered $n$-ple $v_1,\ldots,v_n$.

A: For the second question, Friedberg's Linear Algebra offers an axiomatic approach to determinants by showing how to characterize the determinant in terms of three key properties.
Definition. A function $\delta:M_{n\times n}(F)\to F$ is called an $n$-linear function if it is a linear function of each row of an $n\times n $ matrix when the remaining $n-1$ rows are held fixed. $\delta$ is called alternating if, for each $A\in M_{n\times n}(F)$, we have $\delta(A)=0$ whenever two adjacent rows of $A$ are identical.
Theorem. If $\delta:M_{n\times n}(F)\to F$ is an alternating $n$-linear function such that $\delta(I)=1$, then $\delta(A)=\det(A)$ for every $A\in M_{n\times n}(F)$.
To summarize, the three properties are:

*

*The determinant of the identity matrix is $1$.

*The determinant changes sign when two rows are exchanged.

*The determinant depends linearly on the first row.

For the third question, now we sketch the proof of $\det(AB)=\det(A)\det(B)$. (Cf. Gilbert Strang's Linear Algebra and its Applications)
Assume that $A$ and $B$ are nonsingular, otherwise $AB$ is singular, and the equation $\det(AB)=\det(A)\det(B)$ is easily verified. The key point is that we prove that the ratio $d(A)=\det(AB)/\det(B)$ has the three properties. Then $d(A)$ must equal $\det(A)$.

A: Most properties of determinants follow more or less immediately when you use the following definition.
If $f:V\to V$ is an endomorphism of a vector space of finite dimension $n$ and $\Lambda^nV$ is the $n$th exterior power of $V$, then there is an induced morphism $\Lambda^n(f):\Lambda^nV\to\Lambda^nV$. Now $\Lambda^nV$ is a one dimensional vector space, so there is a canonical isomorphism of $k$-algebras $\operatorname{End}(\Lambda^nV)\cong k$. The image of the map $\Lambda^n(f)\in\operatorname{End}(\Lambda^nV)$ in $k$ under this isomorphism is the determinant of $f$.
If one wants to define the determinant of a matrix $A\in M_n(k)$, then one considers the corresponding map $k^n\to k^n$ determined by $A$, and proceeds as above.
Of course, in this approach one has to prove the properties of exterior powers and maps induced on them—but this is neither conceptually nor practically  complicated.

A: My favorite definition of the determinant I found in this paper, although it's not the citable reference for the definition.
I like it because it expresses everything in terms of traces, which are important, for example, in NMR Quantum Computing. There $\text{tr}(M^{\dagger} \rho)$ is related to the expected measurement result of spin system with density operator $\rho$.
So here it is:
$$
\det(A − λ\mathbb{1}) = λ^n − S_1λ^{n−1} + S_2λ^{n−2} − +... + (−1)^nS_n
$$
with
$$
S_k=\sum_{1\leq i_1\leq \cdots \leq i_k\leq N} \prod_{j=1}^k p_{i_j}
$$
which can be written in terms of $[\text{Tr}(A^n)]^m$ as
$$
S_1=\text{Tr}(A),\, \, S_2=(1/2)\left(\text{Tr}(A)S_1-\text{Tr}(A^2)\right),
$$
and
$$
S_k=-(1/k)\left(\sum_{j=1}^k (-1)^{j} \text{Tr}(A^j)S_{k-j}\right)
$$

A: One interesting way to define determinant is, indeed as volume.
Let P be the parallelepiped defined by the columns of matrix $A$.
We want to calculate its volume, so I list here three necessary properties of any function that gives its volume:

*

*The volume of the unit box is one;

*If there are LD columns in $A$, the volume should be zero;

*The function giving the volume is multilinear on the columns of $A$: if you multiply one of the vectors by $k$, the volume is also multiplied by $k$.

You can prove that there is one single function that satisfies these properties, and it is the determinant function. One caveat: you can multiply a column by $-1$, so you need to use the concept of oriented volume, so you need the full definition of basis orientation here, and to prove existence and uniqueness you'll need also to prove that swapping columns changes the orientation.
The only advantage I see in dealing with determinants this way is that it's quite intuitive as a motivation and starting point -- it's pedagogically interesting...
If I remember correctly, that is the approach Peter Lax uses in his book (Linear Algebra and its Applications), but I may be wrong.


In 1995, a portfolio made up wholly of bonds would return 7.5% a year with a likelihood that returns could vary by about 6%, according to research by Callan Associates Inc., which advises large investors. To make a 7.5% return in 2015, Callan found, investors needed to spread money across risky assets, shrinking bonds to just 12% of the portfolio. Private equity and stocks needed to take up some three-quarters of the entire investment pool. But with the added risk, returns could vary by more than 17%.
Nominal returns were used for the projections, but substituting in assumptions about real returns, adjusted for inflation, would have produced similar findings, said Jay Kloepfer, Callan's head of capital markets research.
"Not nearly enough attention has been paid to the toll these low rates—and now negative rates—are taking on the ability of investors to save and plan for the future," BlackRockInc. Chief Executive Officer Laurence Fink said in a recent letter to shareholders.
Some investors such as David Villa of the $100 billion State of Wisconsin Investment Board argue that at near zero, rates are artificially suppressed, and it's creating bubbles in asset prices.
The risk dilemma for investors has real-life consequences. Retirement plans, including Calpers and the New York State Common Retirement Fund, are lowering what they predict they can earn on their investments, a move that means workers and cities likely face higher contributions and taxes. For insurers, lower bond returns mean life-insurance policyholders pay more for coverage.
It wasn't always this complex. Two decades ago big investors had their money sitting primarily in U.S. stocks and bonds. Inflation was 4% and yields on investment-grade bonds roared upward at double that rate.
After the 2008 financial crisis, central bankers pushed down rates to stimulate growth, dropping real returns close to zero for higher-quality debt. Government bonds in Japan and Europe now have nominal yields below zero.
That has pushed down the "neutral rate," or the real rate of interest that neither accelerates nor decelerates the economy. It is now basically flat, compared with 4% or 5% in prior decades, said Roberto Perli, a partner at Cornerstone Macro, a macroeconomic research firm.
While some investors are loading up on traditionally risky assets as a way of hitting ambitious targets, others—concerned about a slowing global economy—are wrestling with how to reduce risk without piling into bonds.
The nation's second-largest public pension plan, the California State Teachers' Retirement System, has shifted a significant amount of money away from some stocks and bonds to protect against a downturn. It moved assets into U.S. Treasurys and so-called liquid-alternative funds, which mimic hedge-fund strategies. Calstrs, as the pension is called, reported gains of 1.5% during a choppy 2015, with returns on its fixed-income investments up just 0.6%.
For instance, in 2002, safer corporate bonds returned about 11%, while U.S. stocks fell roughly 22%, according to a Segal Rogerscasey analysis of the Russell 3000 stock index, plus historical bond returns tracked by Barclays and Citigroup. But during the 2008 crisis, stocks fell more than 37% and higher-quality bonds declined 3.3%, according to the Segal Rogerscasey analysis. More recently, those types of bonds fell during stock-market tumbles in August and December, Segal Rogerscasey said.
Others are willing to accept lower returns for now and wait for better days ahead. The Wisconsin pension sold off trophy real-estate and private-equity holdings when it believed prices were high over the past two years and switched into publicly traded stocks and bonds that can be sold quickly, Mr. Villa said.
Not all investors have the luxury of avoiding bonds. New York Life Insurance Co., which has about 89% of its $220 billion in assets in bonds and other fixed-income securities, once could find what it needed among well-known, plain-vanilla securities. Insurers typically have large holdings of high-quality government and corporate bonds, because of state-regulatory guidelines encouraging safe investments.
But now the insurer has to scour the globe for suitable bets in assets in which it had never before dabbled—such as complex bond deals involving railcar leases, shipping containers and legal-settlement payouts.
The insurer has "looked under rocks, far and wide" to find suitable fixed-income investments, said Tom Girard, who leads New York Life's fixed-income team.


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Pfizer wins Indian patent to Prevnar 13, draws cries of 'monopoly' from MSF
by Angus Liu |
MSF said a patent Pfizer just got for Prevnar in India is "just a way to guarantee an extended market monopoly."
Despite strong oppositions from international nonprofit group Médecins Sans Frontières and local company Panacea Biotec, India's patent office has granted Pfizer a patent for its blockbuster pneumococcal vaccine Prevnar 13.
The Indian patent, originally filed by Wyeth in 2007, would block other companies from selling cheaper versions of the vaccine in India or manufacturing one in the country for exports until 2026.
"The method Pfizer is trying to patent is too obvious to deserve a patent under Indian law, and is just a way to guarantee an extended market monopoly for the corporation for many years to come," Leena Menghaney, South Asia head for MSF's Access Campaign, said in a statement.
Pfizer's patent involves the methods of conjugating 13 serotypes of streptococcus pneumoniae into a single carrier protein. An equivalent patent was revoked by the European Patent Office in 2014 and is being challenged in South Korea and before the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board, MSF said.
Pfizer is currently offering the shot at as low as $3.05 per dose in a four-dose presentation to GAVI through UNICEF, which provides access to vaccines in the world's least resourceful countries, including India. But that is still higher than the $6 per course (three doses) price MSF said the Serum Institute of India had agreed to offer.
In a statement to FiercePharma, Pfizer says that the multidose presentation reduces the cold-chain requirements, shipping and storage costs by 75% compared to the standard presentation in mass immunization settings.
"Pfizer remains committed towards further enhancing access of this vaccine in India, both in the market as well as through partnership with the Government to expand introduction in the public program," the big pharma said in a statement. "We are committed to creating an affordable and sustainable program to support the availability of Prevenar 13."
Launched in India in 2010, Prevnar was recently included in India's public immunization program in select states, but Reuters reported that under this phased program, currently only about 2.1 million of the 25 million eligible people in the country will get it this year. Outside of the GAVI-supported government program, which gives out the vaccine free of charge, a full course of the vaccine costs about $170 on India's private market, according to Reuters.
Last March, MSF filed a pre-grant opposition against what it called an "unmerited" patent application after "years of fruitless negotiations with Pfizer to lower the vaccine's price for use in its projects." MSF now worries that manufacturers will have to find new ways to develop noninfringing pneumococcal vaccines, delaying availability of cheaper, competing shots.
MSF and Pfizer are constantly at odds with each other over Prevnar 13, the world's best-selling vaccine, but whose sales have dropped dramatically in recent years.
Back in 2015, MSF dumped $17 million in fake cash in front of Pfizer's New York headquarters as the initiation of its "A Fair Shot" campaign that called for Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline to lower the prices of their pneumococcal vaccines in emerging markets to $5 per child for the entire course. Last October, the charity group rejected Pfizer's offer of a million free Prevnar doses, arguing that accepting such donations can "undermine long-term efforts to increase access."
Perhaps the only break to that growing tension happened last November, when Pfizer offered a discount to Prevnar for children caught in humanitarian emergencies, following GSK's footsteps. A Pfizer spokeswoman told FiercePharma that "Pfizer will donate all sales proceeds from this program to selected humanitarian groups undertaking the difficult work of reaching vulnerable populations facing humanitarian emergencies."
pneumococcal vaccine Pneumonia Vaccine Streptococcus pneumoniae Patent Application Pfizer Prevnar Médecins Sans Frontières India Serum Institute of India
Angus Liu
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Ramada Hotel, Ballina
In the 1990's the Ballina Chamber of Commerce, together with certain Government Departments and Ballina Shire Council carried out strategic research in relation to creating a sustainable economic base for Ballina. The resultant plan, The Port of Ballina Concept, had as its cornerstone, the establishment of an 'international standard' hotel of 100 rooms as an enticement to Ballina.
Frustrated at the slowness of the market to recognise the potential advantages of Ballina as an international standard resort hotel location, a group of families in Ballina put 'the bit between their teeth', purchased a key waterfront site, liaised with and obtained the support of Ramada. In 2003 development consent was granted for a hotel of the kind referred to in the Port of Ballina's strategy.
After further research, the Council published a paper about the Ballina Central Business District in October 2005. That paper superseded the Port of Ballina Concept. In August 2006, Council adopted its Town Centre DCP. This DCP introduced a concept of mixed residential and tourism use and Slipway Properties lodged a Development Application for mixed-use- ground floor commercial and hotel above, with Council in June 2009 in accordance with the new DCP. Today, the Ramada Hotel Ballina is highly regarded as a tourism facility servicing Ballina and the region.
Location – Ballina, NSW Australia
Client – Slipway Properties Pty Ltd
PLANNERS NORTH, Town Planners, Northern Rivers, NSW


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Malaysia's real-time payments transactions surge by 864% in 2020: ACI Worldwide
Malaysia recorded more than 69 million real-time payments in 2020
Is third-fastest growing country in terms of RTP, with CAGR of 83.9%
MORE than 68 million real-time payments transactions were processed in Malaysia in 2020 – a surge of 864% compared to the 7 million of 2019, according to a new global report from real-time payments company ACI Worldwide and data analytics and consulting firm GlobalData.
The report, the second instalment of "Prime-Time for Real-Time" (first launched in 2020), analyses global real-time, account-to-account payment volumes and forecasts across 48 global markets. It projects a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) for real-time payments of 83.91% in Malaysia from 2020 to 2025.
According to the report, although Malaysia's real-time payments network is less than two years old, it already boasts a robust infrastructure and numerous supporting banks, PSPs and merchants.
DuitNow, which enables users to transfer funds instantly with a mobile number or national ID, was launched in 2018 by the national payments network and central infrastructure provider, Payments Network Malaysia (PayNet), in collaboration with ACI Worldwide.
The surge is driven largely by the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting shift in payment preferences and consumer lifestyle. According to the report, mobile wallet transaction volume rose 171% in 2020 in Malaysia.
Interestingly, the report found that countries like Brazil, Mexico and Malaysia, where many people historically relied on cash, are now some of the fastest adopters of mobile wallets.
"The pandemic has cast the spotlight on the importance of digital payments and robust payment infrastructures, condensing a decade of anticipated innovation into one year and creating human behavioural changes that will not reverse as we emerge from the crisis," Jeremy Wilmot, chief product officer of ACI Worldwide (pic, left), commented in a statement.
"Countries with a robust digital payments infrastructure already in place have coped better than those without when it comes to containing the economic impact of the pandemic. Real-time payments have enabled governments, working jointly with financial institutions, to accelerate much-needed disbursements and economic stimulus payments to their citizens. They have also enabled real-time liquidity to businesses that had to adapt to disrupted supply chains."
Notable trends
Samuel Murrant, lead analyst, Payments, GlobalData, said that real-time payments are still in a nascent stage worldwide, with focus largely placed on P2P payments in many countries. The Covid-19 pandemic, however, has provided an opportunity to accelerate the growth path for these instruments.
"As consumers become used to the speed of real-time settlement for P2P payments, they will naturally move to using them for e-commerce over the relatively slower and less convenient process of using cards online. From there, there is potential to move into in-store payments, once enough consumers recognise real-time payment brands and the user base is high enough to deliver sufficient value to merchants," Murrant explained.
The report added that the total number of real-time transactions in Malaysia is expected to grow to 1.45 billion b6 2025. The real-time share of Malaysian electronic transactions in 2020 was 1.9%, up from 0.2% in 2019. It is predicted to be 16.5% by 2025
Additionally, the value of real-time transactions in Malaysia was up by 908% from 2019, rising from US$550 million to US$5.55bn. The expected CAGR by 2025 is 96.04%, the report noted.
At the same time, mobile wallet transaction volume rose 171% in 2020 in Malaysia.
This places Malaysia as among the fastest growing countries in terms of real-time payments. The top spot goes to Croatia, with an expected CAGR of 374.4% between 2020 and 2025. This is followed by Colombia (112.7%), Malaysia (83.9%), Peru (74.4%) and Finland (71.4 %).
India is the country with the highest number of real-time transactions in 2020, with 25.5 billion transactions. This is followed by China (15.7 billion) and South Korea (6.0 billion). Thailand takes fourth place with 5.2 billion transactions.
Total number of real-time transactions in 2020 were 70.3 billion, up 41% from 50.0 billion in 2019.
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For more technology news and the latest updates, follow us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn
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'We are confronted by the threat of civil war'
Edgardo Lander talks to Red Pepper about the mounting tensions in Venezuela
February 14, 2019 · 21 min read
Photo by Fotografías Emergentes (Flickr)
Edgardo Lander, Professor of Sociology at the Central University of Venezuela and previously the negotiator representing the Chavez government in negotiations over the Free Trade Agreement of the America. He since became a 'critical Chavista'. He talked with Red Pepper from a perspective critical of both the Maduro government and US intervention in Venezuela.
The situation in Venezuela is extremely difficult: on one hand we have a government that's become more and more authoritarian, corrupt, and inefficient. For most Venezuelans, life today is more difficult even than it was before the beginning of the Chavez period, almost 20 years ago. The sanctions by the Trump government, that started a year and a half ago have made the crisis even deeper. US sanctions and all the different economic decisions that have been made to blockade Venezuela – the latest being the blocking of the state oil company from selling oil to the US and from buying the necessary chemicals for oil processing from the US – are having a huge impact. But these sanctions are certainly not the cause of the crisis. Now we have both the internal issues of corruption and inefficiency and reinforcing these, the very damaging US sanctions. So there's an incredible amount of discontent among the population.
There's still a solid core of backers for Maduro in the popular sectors. But that's certainly a minority. There have been massive rallies against the government, not only just middle class rallies as had been the case in previous years. There have also been many 'cacerolazos' – the banging of pots and pans to show opposition to the government. These have been concentrated amongst the poorer sections of the population.
On the other hand, it is a fact that this attempted coup – to replace President Maduro is something that has been orchestrated in every detail by the U.S. government. This has been a process in which the US government has been backing politically and financially the more radical right-wing sectors of the Venezuelan opposition. They have orchestrated the statement by the Lima Group (an informal pressure group of the many right wing and centre right Latin American countries plus Canada. The US does not directly participate but effectively pulls the strings) in which they decided not to recognise Maduro . Basically, it's an attempt to orchestrate a displacement of Maduro by any means possible.
Juan Guaido from a small opposition party, president of the National Assembly, has proclaimed himself as president. The different opposition parties have come together through the National Assembly and have cleverly made that their base. There's nothing in the Constitution that allows him to declare himself president – even other opposition parties were not aware of what he was going to do. But the US government clearly was. The US Vice President Pence called on the Venezuelan population to go out in the streets against Maduro on the 23rd, -an important anniversary in Venezuela– date of the ousting of the last military dictatorship. In that rally, Guaido proclaimed himself as president. And literally a few minutes after that the official statement by the Trump government came out, backing Guaido. Which shows that the connection with the US wasn't a conspiracy theory. It's very clear that this was coordinated in much detail.
So for people in the left in Venezuela today, we are faced with an extremely difficult situation. On one hand, we reject the Maduro government as it becomes more and more authoritarian, and all the political, electoral, constitutional ways of approaching the crisis are being denied by him and his government. But on the other hand, we are facing a direct imperial intervention in Venezuelan affairs with strong geopolitical interests. The US interest is to get back control of a country where Chinese and Russian investments have been growing over the last few years. Latin America had already become a continent at the centre of this geopolitical struggle and with the shift to the right in Brazil, in Argentina and elsewhere, the US has been effectively getting back its control over its backyard. Venezuela was the last important block to advance this agenda of getting back absolute control, and pushing back leftist governments, and the presence of China, Russia.
So the threat right now is of confrontation between, on one hand, the Maduro government which, although it doesn't have popular support, and is in a minority in terms of electoral votes , does have the solid support so far of the armed forces. And the other hand is the right-wing opposition that's coming out as the head of a massive, popular discontent. This was shown in the rallies that were held across the country January 23. We had the biggest rallies in a very long time, not only in Caracas but across the country. But this opposition is backed and financed by the United States, and there's all sorts of threats, including the threat of military intervention.
There's a need to find some alternative way of negotiation that brings down this level of intensity of the confrontation, because there is a severe risk of a civil war.
Over the last three or four years a few leftists critical of the Maduro government many of whom were also critical of Chavez , have been meeting to work out what can be done to find a basis of such a negotiation. Some of the participants were ministers in the Chavez government who left because they found a lot a reasons for discontent, mainly corruption. There are a few ex-ministers, there is a small leftist party that's called Marea Socialista—that means socialist wave—there is a very well-known Venezuelan linguist, a very important anthropologist, some labour activists. It's not much more than a dozen people so it's more of an opinion group but it has been quite effective in putting issues into the national political debate.
We call ourselves 'Platform in Defence of the Constitution' because we realised that we didn't want to have a third way, a Blair 'third way'. Instead, we believed that the constitution provided a possibility of finding a common ground for alternatives in Venezuela. Moreover, the constitution was being attacked, or cut down, by both sides–by the right-wing opposition and the government. The government was no longer governing within the constitution, it was against the constitution in many ways. At the same time, the right-wing opposition confronted the constitution because it was state-centred, anti-market, in other words because it was a Chavista constitution. If you hear them now, they are the great defenders of the constitution, just because they want to present themselves as democratic, but obviously they reject the constitution. One of the first things they did during the coup in 2002 was to announce that the constitution was no longer valid. We argue that we have a situation in which both the government and the right-wing opposition are confronting the constitution. The constitution can be the common ground for democratic for Venezuela.. We aren't a party, we don't have a lot of people we can call upon to rally but we manage to have some impact in terms of public opinion. We are recognised as a national opinion group.
We have a very close relationship with the most important leftist website in the country, Aporrea. This is a very popular web page, basically the place where debates on the left are carried out. It emerged during the 2002 coup and lockout of the oil industry in the beginning of the Chavista government. It was basically a Chavista page but has evolved into the most important venue for critical debates and confrontations in the left. Now it's more critical of the government but still open to anybody that's willing to participate. It's the main place for critical leftist analysis of Venezuela.
One important aspect of our impact is that our arguments and very existence demonstrate that there are leftist alternatives to the Maduro government. The government is certainly not the left – which is how it tries to portray itself. So against the current polarisation in Venezuela, the very existence of the Citizen's Platform for the Defence of the Constitution, as well as other leftist groups critical of the government shows that it is possible to have leftist perspectives, that are very critical of Maduro, and still self-identify and work as left, and not go to the right. In this context of extreme polarisation, it is usually assumed that if you aren't with Maduro then you go to the right. By contrast, we (and others) show that It's possible to have left-wing alternatives and left positions that don't identify with the right and don't identify with Maduro. Some of these groups are identified as democratic Chavistas, some are called critical Chavistas, but the important point to highlight here is that there is a left wing opposition to the Maduro government.
The danger now is a serious threat of violence which could even lead to a civil war. The government just absolutely refuses to carry out any significant negotiations which might open up democratic alternatives.
The government is today highly isolated both internationally and nationally. It has lost most of the popular support it once had. For legitimacy it appeals to the presidential elections that were carried out in May 2018. These were not however, legitimate, and free elections. Most of the opposition parties had been outlawed and could not participate. It's main support today come not from popular backing or constitutional legitimacy, but from its control over the armed forces. Thus the government continually emphasises the military option in defence of "the Revolution" and the fatherland, increasing the threat of a violent confrontation.
Maduro has announced that the best Russian military technology has been arriving in Venezuela. He is constantly repeating a militaristic discourse going around the country talking to the military about defence of the country against US imperialism. So far, the armed forces seem to be united in backing Maduro. This is a result of many, many years of Chavez working with the armed forces on this notion that it is a Bolivarian armed force and not an imperial armed force. He completely cut ties from the School of the Americas to free the Venezuelan armed forces from US influence. So far no cracks have appeared in military backing for the government. Time will tell whether increased popular anti-government mobilizations and increased pressure and threats from de United States government will change this.
Some of the 15% or so of the population who support Maduro is highly militant. There are different armed groupings within this core. The Venezuelan population is highly armed. We have the second highest homicide rate in the world today. Guns are so easily available that many personal problems are solved with guns. Some of the Colombian guerrillas operate in Venezuela and are likely to become more involved as the confrontation increases.
That's one side of the confrontation. On the other hand, the opposition doesn't control many institutions in the country except for, a few governors and the National Assembly, but they obviously have the unconditional backing of the United States government. And the United States government has announced that it will overthrow Maduro. Trump has insisted once and again that no options are off the table, including a military intervention. This will probably not be their first option because the economic sanctions are being so effective at destroying what's left of the economy, that it's possible that the government will collapse. However the arrival of USAID "humanitarian" aid at the Colombian frontier with Venezuela, and the attempt to introduce it into the country in spite of the opposition by the Maduro government could be the spark that leads to armed confrontation. . Supporter of the radical right opposition are armed too. Colombian right wing paramilitary groups operate on both sides of the frontier between Venezuela and Colombia. The situation, I insist, is tense and dangerous.
Here I'll point to one basic fact: four years ago Venezuela had imports of $52 billion. Venezuela is highly, highly dependent on imports for everything –for food, medicine, spare parts, whatever. Last year the total imports were something like $12 Billion That's an incredible collapse in just four years. That means that there is less food available, less medicine available, less spare parts. The transportation system is collapsing because of the lack of batteries, tyres and spare parts for cars, buses and trucks. Significant parts of the economy have been approaching a standstill. The whole of the economy has slowed down. Industry lacks basic inputs as well as access to spare parts and new machinery. This is also the case public enterprises, large and small. The spokespeople for the private sector argue that something like 30 per cent of industrial capacity is being used in Venezuela today. So something like 70 per cent of the industrial capacity cannot be used because of a lack of imports and new investments. Militarily there is no way that Venezuela can confront the United States.
The Citizens Platform has put out a statement, along with a few of the other left groups that have come together around this issue saying that the biggest threat to Venezuela today is the threat of a civil war. Our most important challenge is to guarantee that there is no war. How can we do that? I would say two things. There has to be some sort of institutional negotiation between the government and the National Assembly. But there is deep distrust of negotiations, all previous attempts have failed miserably. That's one problem. There have been a few efforts towards negotiations over the past three or four years which have achieved absolutely nothing. Secondly, who will participate in the negotiations? It's critically important that governments of Mexico and Uruguay called for negotiations, and convened an international conference on Venezuela in order to facilitate a non-violent outcome. Pepe Mujica the widely respected ex President of Uruguay, has made a statement saying that the only solution for Maduro is to be willing to call elections. On the other hand, we are calling for a referendum, with a new consensual National Electoral Council. This is part of the participatory democracy present in the Venezuelan constitution: a referendum calling for people to decide whether they want to have new elections for every elected government official in the country, in the short term. This could be called by the National Assembly, it could be called by the president, or it could be called by citizens gathering 10 per cent of the national electoral register. So we're saying to people: 'get together and call this referendum, we are confronted by the threat of civil war, let people have a voice and decide what they want'. Maduro says that he has the backing of the population. Ok, if you have the backing of the population then consult the population. Otherwise, we are willing to start a movement to collect signatures and try to get 10 per cent of the national electoral register. That's obviously an uphill battle. For many people this is just too slow, and consider that it is not an adequate response to the desperation for getting rid of Maduro.
On January 23, there were massive, massive mobilisations across the country. These massive mobilisations can't be identified with the political right. It involved a great diversity of people both socially and politically who agreed on just one thing: Maduro out! 'Let's get him out and then we'll see.'
People are desperate, and want some very short term solution. At times it seems like people are expecting a magical solution 'Let's get rid of Maduro and then…' It is however clear that it's impossible to even start the reconstruction of the country if Maduro stays in power. In spite of all the evidence, he continues to argue that there is no such thing as a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela.
As I've said, an overwhelming majority of the population wants Maduro to leave. Whether that means that they back Guaidó or they will back any of the political parties in the opposition is another question. A huge majority of the population wants Maduro out, as soon as possible. That's become a widespread a sentiment. A lot of left-wing people in Venezuela, some of my friends, say: 'We'll solve the problems afterwards, but first we have to get rid of Maduro. This is a feeling that is hard to convey to people outside of Venezuela.
To be honest, the Citizen's Platform itself has no mass capacity to mobilise to collect the signatures to call for a consultative referendum. But over the last few months there has been a new convergence of labour unions and other types of organisations that have come together to create a very heterogeneous and plural coalition to fight for basic rights. Some of those who participate are Chavista, some belong to right-wing parties: they have all withdrawn themselves from the day-to-day political confrontation and have been working on people's rights: human rights, working rights, the right to labour negotiations on salary, access to food, water, medicines, etc. This is quite an interesting experience because it's a convergence of different struggles – struggles of the nurses, the university professors, people who work in the electricity company, the Caracas Metro. Diverse groupings have come together, and have been quite active. The nurses' struggle has been very, very important because they put the public health system as a whole into question. They are confronted with seeing both sides of the problem. As nurses they don't have salaries that allow them to keep their families and, at the same time, as nurses they don't have the resources to be able to attend their patients in the hospitals. They got a lot of sympathy from the population, a lot of backing. The Platform is present there through this small leftist party that I mentioned.
Students are basically in the opposition. One of the things that the Bolivarian revolution has caused in Venezuelan society is the displacement of society to the right. In the case of students, and universities in general, the displacement to the right has been just incredible. In Venezuela, universities at all levels—I mean professors, students, workers—were tended to lean to the left. That is no longer the case. The majority of members of the university community are far more conservative than was historically the case.
As to the armed forces, for civilians, in general, the armed forces are a black box. So far, the armed forces continue to present themselves as completely unified but it's hard to tell to what extent this incredible pressure from the outside will make them change their minds and break from Maduro. That's critical, if the armed forces crack, that's the end of it. But, as I said before, Chavez did a tremendous job on the education and ideology of these national, anti-imperialist armed forces at the service of the people. Whether they are really at the service of the people is another question; some of their actions are extremely regressive and have killed a lot of people. But the discourse is that the armed forces are the servants of the people. Apart from that, the armed forces have much to lose with a change of government. The top brass are deeply involved in corruption and in a process of increasing corporativization, they directly control many important industries.
In this context, there were high hopes that the initiative of the Mexican and the Uruguayan governments could open up other options and possibilities. However the international conference on Venezuela was basically highjacked by the European Unión ad no real space for credible negotiations was created.
As of this moment, the possibilities for a negotiated non-violent outcome are quite limited. Maduro is not willing to even consider the possibility of new presidential elections. Guaidó is so convinced that, with firm US backing, the ousting of Maduro is just around the corner and thus there is nothing to negotiate. These are precisely the conditions that make a violent outcome more likely.
I think it's very important for people on the left in Europe not to fall into the trap of saying: 'Ok, we don't like Maduro, he's made some errors, there is some corruption, etc., but at this moment the most critical issue is US imperialism, the need to oppose United States intervention. ' The problem with this is that this fails to recognise the need for solidarity with the Venezuelan population that is suffering the simultaneous impact of an authoritarian, corrupt , repressive government that has destroyed the economy and caused a deep social crisis, and the imperial blockade and threat of military intervention that has made the situation much worse and brought the country to the verge of a civil, war. There is a serious problem if the left fails to recognise the fact that the great majority of the population in Venezuela blame Maduro for the dire situation they are facing and want Maduro out as soon as possible. If this population sees that a significant proportion of the international left continues to back Maduro and continue to identify him as part of the left, they will not, now or in the future, want to do anything with the left. It's important for the left outside of Venezuela to try and understand the complexity of the situation, try to understand that just because it is rightly, opposed to US imperialism that doesn't mean that it has to back Maduro. The majority of the population is suffering from the consequences of the US blockade on one hand, and government corruption, inefficiency and repression on the other. And they will be the victims if there is a civil war or a military intervention. So I would urge the need to defend the Venezuelan population, to have solidarity with the Venezuelan people, not solidarity with the Maduro government. We have to both confront the threats of US intervention and ask for a democratic outcome to a situation that's simply unbearable for the majority of the population. That's complex situation to deal with, but that's the reality of the country today. Above all, we must confront the escalation of violence and the threat of a US military intervention and a civil war.
The two main internal actors in this dangerous confrontation are the National Executive, headed by Nicolás Maduro, and the National Assembly controlled by the opposition parties. Since the possibility of avoiding a civil war is today in their hands, the Citizens Platform in Defence of the Constitution decided to talk to both in other to request an urgent basic agreement in order to avoid a violent outcome, otherwise they would be responsible for the possibility of a civil war. We met with Juan Guaidó as president of the National Assembly, not as president of the country, since we do not recognise him as such. We have been accused by many in the left of recognising Guaidó as president. That was certainly not the case. In spite of many efforts, we are still waiting for a meeting with Maduro.
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When I look back at the year I wonder how I made it this far. Not just mentally but physically and emotionally. It will certainly be one I hope never to top in excitement, fear or magic.
It started in February when I could finally stop taking the medications that put my body into a medically induced menopause at the ripe old age of 29. That was six months of interesting! So in February I had a hysterectomy. Woohoo! If you're a long-term reader of my blog, you'll know that I suffered from debilitating Endometriosis. Si weeks later I went back to work and I could concentrate on what was next on the list.
Overseas trip! I know, I'd never been. So on the day of my husband's 32nd birthday, we boarded a plane for Singapore and then onto Phuket, Thailand. To say that our honeymoon was perfect would be an understatement. I kept waiting for the bottom to fall out of it thinking how many people get a perfect wedding and then a perfect honeymoon as well? And then the bottom did fall out of it.
But first I turned 30. Which meant absolutely nothing at all. It really was just another day compared to the weeks before it. And then I became the bakery manager in my day job and went to five days a week.
Now, back to the bottom falling out. When we got home from our honeymoon, my hubby got really, really sick. We went to the doctor for all kinds of tests for tropical diseases (knowing full well that said hubby did not have the shots you're supposed to have before going to Thailand). A few torturous weeks later, he was diagnosed (rather out of the blue) with type 1 diabetes. So came a lifestyle change. Well, it was supposed to but I'm still waiting for him to realise how much things have to change.
Then came another humongous milestone but this time in my career. With August and the changing of the leaves came my debut book release! Scandal's Mistress came out with Carina Press the same week I travelled interstate for the annual Romance Writer's of Australia conference. Never again will I let two things like this coincide. It was so hard to think about the conference and knowing I was going to be away from home made it difficult to do things like blog tours and the such. Also, by this stage of the year I was exhausted. Then I overcommitted to having a book finished which still isn't and it's now the end of December.
But most of all bring on more time with my family and my friends and fill it with happiness!!
Why don't you come up with the next 50 shades of awesome?
My answer to that is why don't you?
Why don't you write the next Twilight or Harry Potter Doppleganger? (yes I have been watching waaaay too much Vampire Diaries.) These are the questions I cop from my brain every other day and every time I open a word document. But I just can't find it. I want to, believe me I do. I'm not sure if my brain is too overloaded right now (and for the last forever) or if I'm too romance oriented but I just can't seem to find that next big thing and it frustrates the hell out of me and every other person out there who wants the zeros in the bank to have a digit in front of them!
An artist wants to paint the next Mona Lisa and a sculptor wants to create the next David but it just isn't like that. My question to you is how do you know you've got the next big thing anyway? JK didn't know she was sitting on millions, neither did EL or Stephanie.


text:
Gordon B. Hinckley
"So Glorious a Record"
Robert L. Millet
Opposition, Joy, and the Nice Life
Bruce C. and Marie Hafen
Hope in Christ
Kathryn Wood
Prayer on a Dark Tuesday
Corrie Lynne Player
Gifts from a Stranger
Nita D. Milner
Orchestrating Family Memories
Michael F. Moody
Why do Latter-day Saints celebrate Christmas on December 25 instead of on April 6?
Roger A. Hendrix
Why is the phrase "and it came to pass" so prevalent in the Book of Mormon?
Donald W. Parry
What can I do to help my family grow spiritually?
Thomas A. Holt
Home Sets the Tone
Betty Jo N. Jepsen
"Good Tidings of Great Joy"
The Camel Had Wandered
Janet Eyestone Buck
Symbols of Reconciliation
Jan U. Pinborough
Something in My Heart Changed
Gayle Groberg
Mormon Journal
The Grinch of Marshall Road
Geri Christensen
They Couldn't Steal the Yuletide Spirit
Debbie Pfotzer
The Secret Dolls
MarGene B. Lyon
Christmas Scribbles
Stephanie B. Potz
Young and Healthy
Burton C. Kelly
The Donna Carson Story: A Legacy of Love
Marilyn Whyte and Dorothy Casper
Joyful Service to Others
Single Threads in the Gospel Tapestry
Kellene Ricks Adams
Matters of Balance
Renon Klossner Hulet
Side by Side by Side
His Standing Joke
Nancy Johnson
Eight Stockings of Love
Cailynn Brinkerhoff
Is Your Family Fireproof?
More Than Just Ornaments
Carolyn Johnston
News of the Church
New Missionary Video Released
Members Dine with President of Mexico
Second Temple for England Announced
Strength in the South America South Area
Lynn A. Mickelsen, Horacio A. Tenorio, and John B. Dickson
Saints in "the City without Limits"
Julie Kimble
Why is the phrase 'and it came to pass' so prevalent in the Book of Mormon?
"Why is the phrase 'and it came to pass' so prevalent in the Book of Mormon?" Ensign, Dec. 1992, 29
Donald W. Parry, instructor in biblical Hebrew, Brigham Young University, and Gospel Doctrine teacher, Grandview Fourth Ward, Provo Utah Grandview Stake. Mark Twain once joked that if Joseph Smith had left out the many instances of "and it came to pass" from the Book of Mormon, the book would have been only a pamphlet. (Roughing It, Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Co., 1901, p. 133.) There are, however, some very good reasons behind the usage of the phrase—reasons that further attest the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.
The English translation of the Hebrew word wayehi (often used to connect two ideas or events), "and it came to pass," appears some 727 times in the King James Version of the Old Testament. The expression is rarely found in Hebrew poetic, literary, or prophetic writings. Most often, it appears in the Old Testament narratives, such as the books by Moses recounting the history of the children of Israel.
As in the Old Testament, the expression in the Book of Mormon (where it appears some 1,404 times) occurs in the narrative selections and is clearly missing in the more literary parts, such as the psalm of Nephi (see 2 Ne. 4:20–25); the direct speeches of King Benjamin, Abinadi, Alma, and Jesus Christ; and the several epistles.
But why does the phrase "and it came to pass" appear in the Book of Mormon so much more often, page for page, than it does in the Old Testament? The answer is twofold. First, the Book of Mormon contains much more narrative, chapter for chapter, than the Bible. Second, but equally important, the translators of the King James Version did not always render wayehi as "and it came to pass." Instead, they were at liberty to draw from a multitude of similar expressions like "and it happened," "and … became," or "and … was."
Wayehi is found about 1,204 times in the Hebrew Bible, but it was translated only 727 times as "and it came to pass" in the King James Version. Joseph Smith did not introduce such variety into the translation of the Book of Mormon. He retained the precision of "and it came to pass," which better performs the transitional function of the Hebrew word.
The Prophet Joseph Smith may not have used the phrase at all—or at least not consistently—in the Book of Mormon had he created that record. The discriminating use of the Hebraic phrase in the Book of Mormon is further evidence that the record is what it says it is—a translation from a language (reformed Egyptian) with ties to the Hebrew language. (See Morm. 9:32–33.)


Every year, more than 150,000 children around the world are diagnosed with cancer. Nineteen-year-old Katharina Pohlenz is one of those struggling with the disease. For seven years now, the fight to recover has dominated her life.


Starting a nonprofit can be very rewarding, but there are a lot of details that go into it. You may benefit from hiring a professional company to ensure it is done correctly.
Should you make a nonprofit?
Sometimes it is more helpful to volunteer at an existing organization than to create a new one. That may sound discouraging, but volunteers are also appreciated, and your skills and knowledge can go towards improving one that is already on its feet.
Choose a name. Your organization's name must not be too similar to another's, though some states will let you contact them and request to use a similar name.
Appoint a Board of Directors. Less than half of these directors may be related or compensated, in order to prevent a conflict of interest when deciding pay, voting for Board members, and so on.
You'll need to file articles of incorporation (code) and have a copy of your company's bylaws on hand.
Apply for a Federal Employer Identification Number (EIN). This may be done online and should take less than an hour. Be sure to select receive letter online to get your EIN as soon as possible. Please note that having an EIN does not mean you are incorporated.
Apply for tax-exemption. This means becoming recognized as a 501(c)(3) by the IRS and filing any state tax and charity paperwork. Each state is different in what they require.
More in-depth guides may be found via CalNonprofits and the Digital Media Law Project.
For more information on starting a nonprofit organization, please visit our web page or Contact Us at 407-857-9002.
Article submitted by Shannen Constable, BizCentral USA service consultant.


A recent fatal accident on Palmetto Park Road was allegedly caused, at least in part, by a driver who the Palm Beach County Sheriff's office reports was under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs.
According to Boca News Now, the 22-year-old driver in question was allegedly under the influence when the accident happened around 11:00 p.m. The accident report indicates that the young driver was heading west on Palmetto Park Road when he sideswiped a car stopped for a red light, and then proceeded through the red-light intersection. He went on to hit another vehicle before coming to rest after crashing into a tree.
Our Boca Raton car accident lawyers understand that people tend to drink the heaviest in their late teens and early to mid-twenties. These twenty-somethings are also more likely to binge drink and to drink heavily, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Such risky drinking oftentimes results in tragic consequences — most notably alcohol-related traffic deaths. As a matter of fact, close to a third of drivers between 16 and 20 who were killed in traffic accidents in 2003 had a measurable amount of alcohol in their blood. Likewise, more than half of drivers between 21 and 24 who were killed in these tragic accidents tested positive for alcohol.
In a recent year, people aged 16 to 24 were involved in 28 percent of all alcohol-related driving accidents, although they make up only 14% of the U.S. population. As colleges classes resume, and we enter the height of football season in South Florida, we see increasing risks in the coming weeks.
More than 6,600 impaired drivers are involved in fatal accidents every year, causing about 10,000 deaths. About half of those accidents are caused by drivers with blood-alcohol levels at or below 0.16 percent.
For young drivers, alcohol involvement in fatal crashes is higher among male drivers than their female peers – more than 25 percent among males compared to roughly 15 percent among females.
We're asking parents and guardians to step in and to help combat this problem. Adults are asked to talk with the young drivers in their lives about the risks and the consequences involved with drinking and driving.
Officials with Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) are here to help parents. Alcohol can seem so common and familiar that parents might forget how risky drinking is for young people. Alcohol kills more teens than all other illegal drugs combined.
Help your young driver to develop better thinking and better decision-making skills about both short- and long-term consequences of alcohol use, even if your young driver shows no interest. You'd be surprised by how powerful your influence.
Take an active role in teaching teens and young adults responsibility. Set clear expectations for their behavior and enforce consequences when these expectations are not met. Consider creating a parent-teen driving contract so both these expectations and consequences are laid out and in stone for the both of you. Stay true to this contract. Your influence and your guidance can save their life.
If you or someone in your family has been involved in a traffic accident, contact the Hollander Law Firm at 888-751-7770 for a free and confidential consultation. There is no fee unless we win.


Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna - The Golden Country story expansion has just been announced and is coming out September 2018.
Today, Nintendo announced Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna – The Golden Country story expansion during Nintendo's E3 2018 Direct. The game will be releasing for Switch in September 2018.
We can only expect to see more of Jin's history and that of his country coming to this particular expansion, which will be the last listed expansion on the game's site. If you have the expansion pass, you will be getting the expansion as it comes out; additionally, you can also purchase the story content separately if you so wish.
The game expansion will be releasing Switch sometime in September of this year, though you can pick up Xenoblade Chronicles 2 right now for the Switch if you so choose.
If you want to see more from Nintendo's E3 2018 Direct, then you can watch the recording of the full press conference here.


What is a garden without flowers? A few fresh blooms along the garden path or on the kitchen table brighten our days and help to lure the pollinators that ensure our gardens are fruitful.
Annuals are flowers that bloom and go to seed in the same year. With the exception of those that self-sow (re-seed on their own in the garden bed), these last only one year. Saving seeds from annual flowers is a great way to ensure you have them around every year.
All annual flowers are available in 6-packs for $5.
Annual, up to 1'. Spreading groundcover with grey-green leaves and sweet-scented purple flowers. Enjoys full sun with some afternoon shade and tolerates dry soils. Cut plants back in mid-summer for fresh blooms in the fall.
Annual, up to 3'. Also called cornflower, these light bright blue flowers bloom from May to early July. Plant in full sun and well-drained soil for the sturdiest plants. Lovely as a cut flower or in the border of a cottage garden. Edible. Can be used in teas or added to brighten up salads. Endangered in it's native European habitat; naturalized in much of the US.
Annual, vining up to 8'. 70 days. Twining vine native to east Africa. The blooms are reminiscent of Black-eyed Susans, hence the common name. Can be trimmed and moved indoors to over winter, or take cuttings to overwinter in fall. Enjoys full sun with afternoon shade, well-drained soil.
Annual, up to 3'. 60 days. Fuzzy green plants bear hundreds of beautiful blue edible flowers, occasionally a pink or purple. The flowers have a mild cucumber flavor and are a guaranteed crowd pleaser in salads, look lovely with fresh fruit, and take cake decorating to the next level. Flowers are also popular with pollinators, especially bumble bees. Continues to bloom until frost. Also has a tendency to self-seed and pop up in a new place in the garden. Space plants 12" apart in full to partial sun.
Annual, 2-3'. 55 days. Minty green foliage topped with bright orange double blooms. Calendula's resinous leaves and flowers can be used to make salves. The flowers are edible and are a bright addition to salads. The unique c-shaped seeds of calendula are easy to collect and save for planting next year. Some may self-seed on their own.
Annual, 2-3'. 55 days. Minty green foliage topped with loads of orange ruffled blooms with salmon pink centers. Calendula's resinous leaves and flowers can be used to make salves. The flowers are edible and are a bright addition to salads. The unique c-shaped seeds of calendula are easy to collect and save for planting next year. Some may self-seed on their own.
Annual, up to 2'. 70 days. Attractive blue-green foliage with little cup-shaped orange flowers. The state flower of California and native to much of the West Coast. Enjoys full sun and average or sandy soils. Blooms in June and July. Remove spent blooms to promote additional blossoms, but leave some seedheads so that it can self-sow in the garden.
Annual, up to 4-5'. 75 days. A beautiful mix of magenta, purple, and white blooms. Cosmos are excellent cut flowers and perform nicely in the back border of flower beds or interspersed in the vegetable garden. Space seedlings 9-12" apart and pinch back the central stalk to promote more branching. Use as a cut flower when first flower on a branch is just opening. Remove spent blossoms to promote continuous blooms. Well-drained soil and full sun.
Annual, up to 2-3'. 75 days. Delicate pink and white blooms with slightly frilled picotee edges. Shorter than Sensation Mix. Space seedlings 9-12" apart and pinch back the central stalk to promote more branching. Use as a cut flower when first flower on a branch is just opening. Remove spent blossoms to promote continuous blooms. Well-drained soil and full sun.
60 days. A garden standard. Beautiful dark orange flowers trimmed in gold, a bit like burning embers. Space plants 6-12" apart. Remove spent blossoms to encourage more blooms. Pinch back to create a bushier plant (cut back the central stem when plant is well-established in the garden but not yet blooming, ~8" tall). Flowers are edible, just remove the green from the base of the blossom because it can be bitter. Some say these ward off deer and insect pests in the garden.
Annual, up to 4'. 60 days. The most majestic of marigolds. Tall plants produce prolific bright yellow and orange blossoms with some creamy yellow blooms that fill the garden from mid-summer through fall. Space plants 6-12" apart. Remove spent blossoms to encourage more blooms. Pinch back to create a bushier plant (cut back the central stem to about 2/3 height when plant is well-established in the garden but not yet blooming, ~12" tall). Flowers are edible, just remove the green from the base of the blossom because it can be bitter. Save the seeds from dried blossoms for next year's garden.
Annual, up to 6'! 90 days. A farm favorite. These bodacious plants love the heat and produce hundreds of bright orange 3" blooms from mid-summer to frost. They are excellent along a fence or the back edge of a garden. They can also be planted in the middle of the garden to provide some shade to heat sensitive plants grown in the summer like fennel or lettuces. On cool dewy mornings in fall we often find bumble bees sleeping on the blossoms.
Annual, up to 1', 2' spreading. 65 days. Beautiful blend of red, orange, yellow, and creamy white flowers. The leaves, flowers, and green seed pods of nasturtiums are all edible and add a peppery punch to salads and omelets. The flowers are especially stunning arranged atop a summer cake or ringed around a berry pie with ice cream. Plants are sprawling and can be hand-trellised, though they do not have tendrils to climb on their own. Thrive in well-drained soil and full sun, but will also tolerate some afternoon shade.
Annual, up to 1', 2' spreading. 65 days. Bright beautiful red flowers. The leaves are green with creamy white variegation. The leaves, flowers, and green seed pods of nasturtiums are all edible and add a peppery punch to salads and omelets. The flowers are especially stunning arranged atop a summer cake or ringed around a berry pie with ice cream. Plants are sprawling, and be hand-trellised, though they do not have tendrils to climb on their own. Thrive in well-drained soil and full sun, but will also tolerate some afternoon shade.
Annual, up to 3'. 100 days. Also called 'Pincushion flower'. These lovely blue-purple blooms are excellent fresh or dried. They stand like little drumsticks on slender stems and dance in the breeze. Cut and hang upside down for a dried flower. Plant 9" apart in full sun and well-drained soil.
Semi-hardy annual, 2-3'. 110 days. The classic mix of colors ranging from magenta, yellow, white, salmon, and rose with some bi-color blooms. Snapdragons are excellent and long-lasting cut flowers. They are also a great addition to the garden border. Can self-sow and appear in new places, but they're always welcome wherever they travel in our gardens. Well-drained soil and full to partial sun.
Semi-hardy annual, 2-3'. 110 days. Snappy Tongue is a new-to-us variety with a distinct tongue protruding from each bloom. The flowers have a more complex, orchid-like appearance than traditional snaps. A mix of colors. Snapdragons are excellent and long-lasting cut flowers. They are also a great addition to the garden border. Can self-sow and appear in new places, but they're always welcome wherever they travel in our gardens. Well-drained soil and full to partial sun.
Annual, up to 4'. 90 days. Cheerful double-blooms from mid-summer to frost. A mix of red, yellow, and white with red splashes on many of the petals. Zinnias produce more blooms with sturdier stems if pinched back a few weeks after transplanting. When the plants are 8-12" tall, snip the top 3-4" of the plant, above a set of leaves or branches. Space plants 9-12" apart in full to filtered sunlight and well-drained soil.
Annual, up to 3'. 90 days. A two-toned riot in the garden, these double blooms are crimson in the center with a gold edges, slightly stockier than other varieties. Zinnias produce more blooms with sturdier stems if pinched back a few weeks after transplanting. When the plants are 8-12" tall, snip the top 3-4" of the plant, above a set of leaves or branches. Space plants 9-12" apart in full to filtered sunlight and well-drained soil.
Annual, up to 4'. 90 days. Cheerful double-blooms from mid-summer to frost. A mix of white, yellow, salmon, pink, and scarlet. Zinnias produce more blooms with sturdier stems if pinched back a few weeks after transplanting. When the plants are 8-12" tall, snip the top 3-4" of the plant, above a set of leaves or branches. Space plants 9-12" apart in full to filtered sunlight and well-drained soil.
Perennials are plants that will continue to bloom for many years after they are planted. They store energy in their roots, bulbs, or tubers and re-emerge each spring.
All perennial flowers are available in 3″ pots for $4.
Perennial, up to 2'. Native to Ohio and many other parts of North America. Also called Wild Bergamot. Aromatic leaves have been used medicinally for poultices and in teas. The purple flowers are very attractive to pollinators. Member of the mint family, can slowly spread by rhizomes. Susceptible to powdery mildew.
Perennial, up to 3'. Bright yellow flowers with dark brown centers bloom late summer through fall. These are a domesticated version of the native wildflower, with larger blooms (up to 5") and sturdier stems for harvest. Enjoys full sun to partial sun, tolerates heat and drought. Space plants 12" apart.
Tender perennial, up to 3'. An eye-catching mix of yellow, reddish brown, and bi-color daisies with the classic brown "eye" of a Black-eyed Suan. Sturdy stems for cutting. Flowers can be up to 6" in diameter. Enjoys full sun and poor soils. Blooms late July through frost. Space plants 12" apart.
Perennial, up to 2'. 90 days. Native to the dry meadows and prairies of Ohio. Lush green lance-shaped leaves with bright yellow daisy-like flowers 2-4" in diameter that dance in the breeze. Prefers full to partial sun in well-drained soil. Remove spent blooms to promote additional blooms. Also called Tickseed for the spiny seeds that some say resemble ticks.
Perennial, up to 2'. 90 days. A well-loved native to Ohio. Long purple petals hang from large copper-colored cones. The blooms attract a wide variety of pollinators and the seed heads bring in songbirds. Used medicinally to boost immune function. Blooms summer through fall, sometimes with a second bloom if first blossoms are removed early. Enjoys full to partial sun, and is well-adapted to heat and drought. Space plants at least 12" apart, divide clumps every 2-3 years.
Tender perennial, sometimes treated like an annual in Ohio, up to 3'. 90 days. A compact variety with beautiful creamy champagne-colored double blooms. Enjoys full sun. Slightly rough foliage grows tall with lots of blooms; plant along fences or the back edge of the garden.
Perennial, 2'. 60 days. Warm salmon-pink petals with black centers. Poppies prefer moist, well-drained soil and full or filtered sunlight. Oriental poppies have ferny foliage covered in lots of resinous hairs. A single plant can send up multiple nodding blooms over several weeks. If flowers are left to go to seed they can self-sow in the garden. To use poppies as a cut flower you must sear or boil the bottom of the stem first to keep from wilting in water.
Perennial, up to 2'. 90 days. Found throughout much of the United States in prairies, field edges, and old pastures. Ferny grey-green leaves have a spicy sage aroma and are topped by a cluster of tiny flowers comprising a larger flat-topped flower head. Colorado Mix blooms in shades of peach, cream, rose, salmon, and white. Flowers from mid-summer to early fall. Yarrow has been used medicinally as a poultice on wounds and as a digestive aid. Spreads modestly through divisions. Love full sun and dry soil.
Perennial, up to 3'. 90 days. Native to the prairies of Ohio. Long drooping yellow petals surround a tall brown central cone on slender 3' stalks. It's common name "Mexican Hat" comes from it's resemblance to a tall sombrero. Loves full sun and is unfazed by heat and drought. Space plants 12" apart.


Melanie Przybyla remembers the day she passed out and died all because of a pulmonary embolism (PE) or blood clot in the lung. She remembers passing out in front of her house, and thankfully was able to call her mom in time for her to arrive and call an ambulance.
"I couldn't breathe, and my heart kept trying to beat but couldn't and the doctor said it was due to a PE," says Melanie, who is in her late 30s and works as a program assistant for the Army's substance abuse program in Bavaria, Germany. "They finally managed to get my heart to beat thanks to CPR and blood thinners."
Melanie remained in a coma for 12 days and experienced multiple organ failures and toxic shock. She says her blood was so thin that she had a bruise on her ribs caused by the weight of her heart.
Melanie says this started about four years ago when she switched her birth control pills. After this, she felt constantly dizzy and had problems with balance and walking. Her heart was also beating very fast. She went to the doctor who told her it was panic attacks and gave her anti-depressants, which did not help much. Fast forward two years later, Melanie began to experience trouble breathing -- even bending over to tie her shoes was challenging.
Eventually Melanie did go to the doctor as her difficulty breathing did not dissipate. They drew blood and conducted other tests but found nothing out of the ordinary. And then the next day she died.
Says Melanie, "When the doctors brought me back and I woke up from the coma, I was only able to move my head in one direction and could barely hold my phone with two hands or squeeze a soft ball. I celebrated my 35th birthday in the hospital."
It's been almost three years since Melanie's brush with death and she still lacks feeling in her legs, but has no trouble walking. Her balance is still not back to normal and she recently tested positive for the blood clotting disorder Factor V Leiden. Despite her physical struggles, Melanie tries to help educate others about blood clots through her Facebook group, and will be celebrating her life on World Thrombosis Day while working to spread awareness about the risks, signs and symptoms of this potentially deadly disorder.
"When I heard about World Thrombosis Day, my first thought was it's about time," says Melanie. "This day is so needed. People need to know their family's medical history so they can be aware of any potential problems."