text:
(123rf.com)
Together for Hope partnership steps up the drive for hunger relief in Mississippi
NewsJeff Brumley | December 17, 2020
Together for Hope is venturing full force into the realm of proposing legislation and lobbying to finance an expansive anti-hunger initiative in Mississippi.
"I've never participated in a grassroots campaign quite like this," said Jason Coker, national director of Together for Hope, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship's rural development effort.
The organization has forged alliances with the American Heart Association, the Therizo Foundation and other individuals and groups in an effort to secure $700,000 a year in state funds to boost spending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP.
The new campaign, which will include lobbying at the state Capitol, is being financed by a $198,000 grant from Voices for Healthy Kids.
Jason Coker
The grant application was co-written by Together for Hope and the American Heart Association, marking a first for the CBF organization, said Coker, who also serves as coordinator of CBF Mississippi. "We certainly never participated in a grant co-written to get nearly $200,000."
Building a coalition of grocery store, farming and food groups across the state is another hallmark of the campaign, whose leaders are writing model legislation for which there already is bipartisan support, Coker said.
The economics of the approach — including $1.5 million pumped into local economies across the state — is what helps sell it.
"It's just connecting the dots between the people and the politicians by saying if you are a SNAP recipient, you can go to a participating store and for every vegetable you buy, you get another one free. It's the same for fruit, dairy and meat," Coker said.
Farmers and grocers will sell more food, while customers stretch their dollars and increase their intake of healthy food, he explained. "Every SNAP dollar translates into $1.70 for local farmers and grocers."
A CBF post about the project predicted the campaign will have a "butterfly effect" throughout the state's economy, beginning with farmers and farmers' markets, followed by local communities. It said: "The hope is that these communities could then have a much heavier reliance on their local farmers for their food-related supply needs as opposed to relying on importation of goods from bigger farming businesses."
Further positive economic impacts are expected in the transportation, distribution and grocery industries. Altogether, these gains would help systematically reduce food insecurity, according to the post.
L'Nicole Stringfellow
"Around 80% of what is grown is exported, and a lot of the food for people is imported," L'Nicole Stringfellow, vice president of Together For Hope's Delta region, said in the post. "If we can figure out what farmers are able to grow, and give them access to do so, that will keep money in the area."
The health need is pressing. Mississippi is listed among the top 10 states with households experiencing hunger and an adult obesity rate of more than 35%.
"The Mississippi Delta is a food desert, and some people have to drive 15 to 45 minutes one way to get to a grocery store," Stringfellow said. "For lots of people, convenience stores are their grocery stores, and that's not a good thing."
What is a good thing is the coalition approach to attacking hunger, Coker said. "This is a great model for other state regional organizations. It's a first-of-its-kind for us, and I am going to use it as a model going forward."
Tags:Jason CokerTogether for Hopehungerfood insecurityMississippi CBFfood desertNicole Stringfellow
Jeff Brumley

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
E.F.Crabb
Name: Earl Frederick Crabb
Born: 27 March 1899
Joined 92: 1918
Left 92: 1919
Died: 18 October 1986
Crabb was born in Delhi, Ontario, Canada. He served in 92 Squadron under the command of fellow ace and future Air Marshal Arthur Coningham. Crabb flew a Royal Aircraft Factory SE.5a to score all six of his victories. They took place between 22 July and 29 October 1918. Crabb downed five German Fokker D.VII fighters and a DFW reconnaissance plane; the latter kill was shared with fellow ace Thomas Stanley Horry and another pilot.
Crabb was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross on 8 February 1919. After World War I, he was an aviation pioneer and bush pilot. . He barnstormed. He flew air mail from Boston and New York to Detroit during the 1920s. In the early 1930s, he was the first pilot hired by the U.S. Forest Service in Maine.
Crabb returned to duty for World War II as a major, joining the U.S. Army Air Corps and serving in Training Command. After his discharge in 1945, he returned to his civilian flying job. He retired as Chief Pilot with the Forest Service at age 65, circa 1964. He continued to fly as a commercial pilot until about 1971.
Above the Trenches: a Complete Record of the Fighter Aces and Units of the British Empire Air Forces 1915-1920. Christopher F. Shores, Norman L. R. Franks, Russell Guest. Grub Street, 1990. ISBN 0-948817-19-4, 9780948817199.


text:
How Should Trump Address Syria?
Politics, Uncategorized May 5, 2017 Roy Rivers
In the evening of Thursday, April 6 (early Friday morning in local time), the United States fired 59 cruise missiles at Syria's Al Shayrat airfield in retaliation against the chemical strikes on Syrian people by Assad regime. Many people commended this move, from neocon hawks to "peace and love" millennials —before they retake their typical stance claiming the U.S. invaded Syria for oil. Many others—mainly libertarians—criticized this "U-turn" on Syria, advocating restraint when it comes to foreign policy.
There is no need to worry that we are starting a new, costly war in the Middle East—or even World War 3. Compared with the 24,287 bombs U.S. dropped in 2016 in Syria and Iraq , mostly in routinely airstrikes against ISIS, the air strike on April 6 is not a big deal at all. It does not signal the start of a series of large military operations. In fact, its result will likely be a restricted, focused attack—a one-time operation against Assad. The reasons are simple: "no boots on the ground" has been an unchallengeable line with a broad consensus after costly lessons from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to interventions in Libya; U.S. and Russia will both be cautious not to come close to direct conflicts.
The limited scale of an air strike is a positive thing as it shows the world that American leadership is back. Trump actually enforces the red line on chemical weapons which, ironically, was drawn by Obama in 2013. The air strike will also send warnings to Assad as well as his Russian, Iranian and Chinese supporters. Trump chose this specific time for the strikes when he was dining with the Chinese President Xi Jinping, which demonstrates a strong psychological deterrence by showing the muscle of U.S. directly to his face.
Many argue that attacking Assad will only benefit ISIS, especially at a time when a collaborative effort with Assad and Russia to defeat ISIS remains possible. ISIS is evil and deserves to be wiped out, but dictators like Assad are not much better. Actually, the despotism of "secular" dictators like Saddam Hussein and Assad is one of the main reasons for radicalization, causing a lack of self-organized civil society, making it easy for radicalized Islamic groups to expand. That is why the Jihadist "Caliphate" appeared in Iraq and Syria first. Assad is not someone we can count on to defeat ISIS and bring acceptable orders to the region. Yes, we should not fight for Al Qaeda against Assad in the Syrian Civil War, and thus we should not fight for Assad against multiple Islamic militia groups in Syrian civil war either. We are following neither policy if we restrict operations like this to focused air strikes. A one-time retaliation like this shows America's strength and ability to respond without being deeply involved in a foreign country
Syria is doomed to remain a fragmented, failed state no matter what U.S. does or does not do, since these conflicts are deeply rooted and have complicated social and historical implications. Actually, not a single side in the mess of Syrian Civil War is truly just. A real "good" power, which shows the potential to maintain basic orders for the region, has not emerged. So simply bidding on any side will only foster regret in the future. Too much intervention can only lead to heavy financial burdens, casualties of served men and women, and a broken American image—since it is unlikely to totally avoid civilian casualties when many Middle East powers are notorious for using human shields to play the victim card—which gives the international community even more excuses to blame America for problems in the Middle East.
A reasonable way to gradually bring order to the region while limiting American involvement to encourage and support each respective ethnic and religious group to build their own nation states. Kurdistan is a good example. It rose as a de facto independent nation with stable economic growth and a reliable military power, bringing order to Northern Syria. Conflicts and despotism in Syria and Iraq come largely from the fake nation states themselves, since they forcefully bind many different groups of people into one nation. Additionally, Kurdistan's different fate from other parts of Syria and Iraq during the past decade provides excellent proof that gaining independence is the first step towards peace and stability. If Kurdistan becomes a robust ally able to bring order to surrounding areas, it will necessarily share some responsibilities in fighting against terrorism and tyrannies nearby, which in result, will make it easier for other qualified groups to build their own independent nations. Then stability may come southward gradually, albeit slowly.
Like the crystallization process in Chemistry, this wave of nation building may gradually expand and lead to a benign circle. And if successful, the refugee crisis will be solved. The U.S. only needs to provide critical help in the form of airstrikes on some challenging targets, training and technical support to make it easier for local people to build their nations and give them more incentives to cooperate with the U.S. We do not need to singlehandedly embark on nation building work in a society we are not familiar with, but rather to establish an incentive mechanism made of U.S. support and local self-determination. This spontaneous nation building process may have positive results while slashing military expenditures to a surprising degree. Of course, it would be a long and tough process and cannot succeed without broad cooperation, and will be a huge test to the virtues and "mores" of local people. After all, this is their problem.
america, atrocity, attacks, chemical, civil war, peace, refugee, Sryia, trump, war
About Roy Rivers
Roy Rivers (Shan He), Columnist. UMich '16, economic major, foreign affairs & history enthusiast, value investor. Trying to draw my picture of the world we know. Twitter: https://twitter.com/royrivers9206	View all posts by Roy Rivers →
My Israel Experience and My Michigan Legacy


text:
Q: multiple where clause in android String slctsummary = "select   Reminder_Id,Reminder_Type,Reminder_Date,Reminder_Time,Reminder_Alert from Reminder_Main where Car_ID="
                +summaryid
                +"AND"
                +Reminder_Date
                +"="
                +currentdate1;

        Cursor c = sdb.rawQuery(slctsummary,null);

i want all the records which satisfy both conditn but it through error.
plz help me to com out of ths
thnx...
the log cat error........
> 12-17 11:48:05.250: E/AndroidRuntime(1245):
> java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start activity
>ComponentInfo{com.curious.solutions.finalautoistdiary/com.curious.solutions.finalautoistdiary.ReminderSummary}:
> android.database.sqlite.SQLiteException: unrecognized token:
> "1ANDReminder_Date17": , while compiling: select
> Reminder_Id,Reminder_Type,Reminder_Date,Reminder_Time,Reminder_Alert
> from Reminder_Main where Car_ID=1ANDReminder_Date17-NOV-2012

A: Put some spaces around AND and add these "'" around after =:
String Reminder_Main="Reminder_Main",Car_ID="Car_ID",Reminder_Date="Reminder_Date";
 Cursor c = sdb.rawQuery("select Reminder_Id ,Reminder_Type,Reminder_Date,Reminder_Time,Reminder_Alert from " + Reminder_Main
    +" where " + Car_ID + " = ? AND " + Reminder_Date + " = ? " , new String[] { summaryid,currentdate1});
c.moveToFirst();
c.moveToFirst();
int summarycount = c.getCount();

If this is not enough to fix the problems, please refer to here https://stackoverflow.com/a/9061437/1503155 to clear up the remaining problem.

A: Here is my try u just focus on whereClause
    public List<ModelGps> gellTripByName(String tripName) {
        List<ModelGps> gpses = new ArrayList<>();
        SQLiteDatabase database = dbHelper.getReadableDatabase();
        final String columNames[] = {DBHelper.COLUMN_ID, DBHelper.COLUMN_NAME, DBHelper.COLUMN_LATITUTE, DBHelper.COLUMN_LONGITUDE, DBHelper.COLUMN_ALTITUDE, DBHelper.COLUMN_DATE, DBHelper.COLUMN_TYPE, DBHelper.COLUMN_TRAVEL, DBHelper.COLUMN_SPEED};
        String whereClause = DBHelper.COLUMN_TYPE + " = ? AND " + DBHelper.COLUMN_NAME + " = ? ";
        String[] whereArgs = {"Trip", tripName};

        Cursor cursor = database.query(DBHelper.TABLE_NAME_GPS, columNames, whereClause, whereArgs, null, null, DBHelper.COLUMN_NAME + " ASC");
        while (cursor.moveToNext()) {
            ModelGps gps = new ModelGps();
            gps.setId(cursor.getLong(cursor.getColumnIndex(DBHelper.COLUMN_ID)));
            gps.setName(cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndex(DBHelper.COLUMN_NAME)));
            gps.setLatitude(cursor.getDouble(cursor.getColumnIndex(DBHelper.COLUMN_LATITUTE)));
            gps.setLongitude(cursor.getDouble(cursor.getColumnIndex(DBHelper.COLUMN_LONGITUDE)));
            gps.setAltitude(cursor.getDouble(cursor.getColumnIndex(DBHelper.COLUMN_ALTITUDE)));
            gps.setDate(cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndex(DBHelper.COLUMN_DATE)));
            gps.setType(cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndex(DBHelper.COLUMN_TYPE)));
            gps.setTravel(cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndex(DBHelper.COLUMN_TRAVEL)));
            gps.setSpeed(cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndex(DBHelper.COLUMN_SPEED)));
            gpses.add(gps);
        }
        database.close();
        cursor.close();
        return gpses;
    }

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


"#42 overall, #8 for 2015"
"4 Little Mice" was an adorable, warm game that immediately captured my heart and attention. Written in a poem format, it sounded similar to a children's story and reminded me of the popular nursery rhyme "Three Blind Mice", only this story had a modern, slightly macabre twist. The game offered a variety of different scenes and endings that were all fun to discover, and I admit that I purposely chose the paths that would kill the mice, just so I could see what inventive deaths that were laid out for them. The cast of characters were all endearing, each having their own unique abilities and personalities that made them stand out. It saddened each time I failed to save a mouse, which pushed me to replay the game so that I could help the entire family escape. It was surprising that giving the needle to the foolish mouse would save one of the siblings, and it warmed my heart to see that the mouse who appeared "useless" turned out to be a hero.
Overall, "4 Little Mice" successfully grabbed my interest with its endearing story and multiple endings, and it left me smiling at the end. It definitely wouldn't be an appropriate game for younger kids, despite the cheerful tone the narrator adapted throughout the story (which somehow made the death scenes even scarier). I'm glad that I chose to play this game and would definitely recommend it for those who love cute stories and adorable mice.
I really liked it! The story was interesting and it made me feel the ways of fighting with friends. It was a bit saddening, but I really appreciate it!
Not everyone can pull off storytelling through poetry. I loved the grim tone that was combined with a sort of dissonant childlike cheeriness (that made the deaths horrible. Sad, horrible, but very well-done).
Certainly very unique compared to other CYOA. Only wish the outcome of certain decisions seemed less random. Very likable characters and well written poetry.
I got mad at myself so many times but this story is great, it's very well written.
Charming and an absolute joy to play. I ended up with all 4 mice surviving which was slightly strange as the original poem had all mice dying. But still fun and worth your time.
I actually really enjoyed this story. This is admittedly my first choose your own adventure story that I've read in general. I used to see them in my old school's library, but they never interested me much.
This one caught my attention, however. I'm weak for animal stories and this was no exception. Definitely a very creative story. I've seen this kind of formula in other fantasy books I've read before, but the spin on it is refreshing.
133 guests and vaderence, ParishinFire, SapphireLiv, Mathias, DerPrussen, Ogre11, ThatBlondGuy, Vernon, Ficsean_Chef, Zake, blazice, timmytohns, ninjapitka, Ztoxicanime, Lurkinator, The_Broken_God, ISentinelPenguinI.


[63% OFF] 2019 Striped Patched Cami Romper In RED WINE | ZAFUL ..
This casual romper features adjustable spaghetti straps, a flattering high waistline, and striped patchwork design at both sides, as well as a drawstring waist. The side-button detail gives an easy fit.


text:
City Home Government Bureaus & Offices of the City of Portland
Always Ready, Always There
55 SW Ash Street, Portland, OR 97204
55 SW Ash Street
Inside PF&R
Join PF&R
Budget & Reports
Fire Blog
Social Media Terms of Use, Prohibited Content and Disclaimer
MULTNOMAH FIRE DEFENSE BOARD LIFTS BURN BAN EFFECTIVE OCT. 1, 2022
Multnomah Fire Defense Board Issues Immediate Burn Ban Effective July 25, 2022
Portland Enacts Immediate Burn Ban as of 9:00 pm July 22, 2022
Portland Fire & Rescue launches new program to address health and social needs of individuals calling 9-1-1 for non-emergent health concerns
2 PF&R Firefighters suffer minor injuries at 3-Alarm fire in SE Portland
Burn Ban Lifted September 27, 2021
PF&R ISSUES IMMEDIATE BAN ON ALL FIREWORKS -- PLEASE DO NOT CALL 911 TO REPORT
Fire Marshal Permit Office Closure
Burn Ban Issued for Multnomah County Effective June 23, 2021
INTERIM Burn Ban Lifted for Multnomah County Tuesday April 22, 2021
INTERIM Burn Ban Issued for Multnomah County Tuesday April 13, 2021
Portland Fire & Rescue Awarded Over $2 Million in Grants from Federal Government to Assist in Prevention, Community Risk Reduction, and Emergency Response
Burn Ban Lifted Oct. 8, 2020 for Multnomah County
Fire Prevention Week: Cooking Safely
VIDEO: How to Prep Like a Firefighter
VIDEO: PF&R Returns from Wildfire Response
PF&R Responds to Over 500 Fire Incidents During Red Flag Fire Weather Event & Deploys 70 Firefighters to Regional Wildfires
The Different Levels of Emergency Evacuation
Learn about the levels of emergency evacuation
PF&R Reduces Overtime $747,000 for FY 2012-2013:
Now that the final tally for Portland Fire and Rescue's fiscal year 2012 – 2013 expenditures are in, PF&R Chief Erin Janssens reports that through tight controls, the bureau decreased overtime spending by $747,000. That's an 9.3% decrease from last year. Over the past four years, the bureau has reduced overtime costs by 21% (adjusted for inflation).
"Everyone knows we strive to keep people safe and provide excellence in emergency services, but we are also good stewards of taxpayer dollars; we work hard to be as efficient as possible while continuing to be one of the most effective and aggressive urban fire & rescue departments in the nation." says Janssens. "It was a tough budget year, but by tightening overtime policies and having a cost-effective 'traveler pool,' we were able to make a significant dent in these kinds of expenditures."
Overtime in a fire department is often a complicated manner. Each fire apparatus has minimum staffing requirements (established nationally) in order to respond safely, and effectively to emergencies. This means that if any one of four firefighters at a neighborhood station is sick or on vacation (on approved leave creating a vacancy), that position needs to be filled in order to operate safely and effectively. PF&R utilizes an efficiency called a "traveler pool" – a group of trained firefighters whose assignment is to fill these vacancies from approved earned leave. Through number crunching and modeling, PF&R was able to determine that this is the most cost-efficient approach to staffing at fire stations.
"Portland Fire & Rescue is responding to our city's need by becoming the sort of modern and efficient fire & rescue department that these economic times call for," says Fire Commissioner Dan Saltzman. "PF&R continually gets high marks from our citizens for response excellence, so I'm happy to see them also demonstrate the tough fiscal responsibility Portlanders need."


text:
Gainesville Sun - January 3, 1990
Tom Petty and Co. return in January
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers last played here in 1983.
There will be a Gator Homecoming in the literal sense.
The concert by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers -- Saturday, Jan. 27 in the O'Connell Center -- will be the hometown boys' first appearance in the university city since February, 1983.
As everybody knows, Petty was born and raised in Gainesville, as was pianist Benmont Tench (he's the son of Circuit Court Judge Benjamin Tench).
Drummer Stan Lynch lived in Gainesville from the age of 5, and guitarist Mike Campbell moved here as a youngster, too. Three of them -- Petty, Tench and Campbell -- have been playing together since the late '60s. They were frat-party favorites.
In the years since leaving Florida, this motley crew of musicians has released a handful of critically-acclaimed albums, toured the world with Bob Dylan, played Live Aid and Farm Aid and collected titles like "the best rock 'n' roll touring band in America."
And Petty was assured of a place in the rock history books with his participation in the Traveling Wilburys.
Petty had resisted returning to Gainesville (although he did sing, unannounced, at a downtown club a couple of times in early '84).
As a rule, he and the Heartbreakers are on the road during the summer, when Gainesville isn't much more than a ghost town. Such a homecoming would be half-baked, which nobody wanted; besides, promoters (the people with the money) wouldn't risk booking them here if the audience might be a small one.
That shouldn't be a problem in January.
The band is hitting the road yet again in support of "Full Moon Fever," the phenomenally successful solo album Petty produced last spring. It has surpassed even the landmark "Damn the Torpedoes" in national sales, going platinum within six months of its release.
The third single, "Free Fallin'," is at No. 14 this week and will probably be a bigger smash than "Don't Do Me Like That," which reached No. 9 in 1979.
The Heartbreakers toured the States during July and August -- even playing a quartet of Florida shows -- but today, the album is still so high on the charts (No. 12) that a second leg is justified.
The tour begins Jan. 26 at the USF Sun Dome in Tampa.
Petty's homecoming is a nice feather in the cap of Raul Mateu, the new chairman of Student Government Productions -- it goes on the record as his first show. But much of the credit belongs to former SGP head Marisa Gonzales, who had been making overtures to the Petty camp for months. O'Connell Center director Lionel Dubay, who knew what a good deal it would be for Gainesville, and laid out the red carpet, and promoter Marjorie Sexton, whose Silver Star Productions has booked almost every Petty show in Florida during the '80s.
Sexton helped SGP get the contracts negotiated; Silver Star is officially the concert's co-promoter.
The opening act will be rocker Lenny Kravitz, whose claim to fame is that he's the husband of "Cosby Show" actress Lisa Bonet.
Originally, the original Byrds were going to open on the tour. But then David Crosby began recording sessions with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash, Chris Hillman went in to finish a new Desert Rose Band album, and Roger McGuinn started work on his first solo album for Arista. Suddenly, they were all too busy.
Tickets will be $14 for University of Florida students, at the UF Box Office only, and $18 for the public, at Ticketmaster outlets. They're scheduled to go on sale Wednesday, Jan. 10, but that date may change -- watch this space for updates.


Have you recently located what appears to be some kind of pest infestation in your Lacey home or office? If so, then you deserve to work with an affordable, reliable pest control company to rid your property of troublesome insects and rodents. At PestLock, our local, experienced exterminators provide effective pest control services that will lock pests out of your property once and for all. Call our friendly team at (360) 218-2012 today to request a free pest inspection of your residential or commercial property!
If you are concerned about what might be lurking in the space under your home, have no fear. We also specialize in crawlspace restoration services that will leave your crawlspace sanitized and free of pests. We also take preventive measures to deter them from returning again in the future.
When you are searching for a local pest control company in Lacey, you want one that provides services that are not only affordable, but also safe and effective for people, pets, and the environment. Our exterminators aim to provide non-chemical pest solutions when it is possible to do so. If we feel that your pest infestation would be better eradicated with the use of chemicals, we will discuss this with you and provide any necessary safety precautions related to our reduced-toxicity products.
No matter which method of pest control our exterminators use for your property, you can rest assured that they will perform routine inspections to ensure the efficacy of our services. Our pest control company has been helping property owners just like yourself for more than 20 years, and we call the Lacey area home just like you do. We are well accustomed to the breeding, foraging, and nesting habits of native pests, allowing us to provide extermination services that have proven to be effective.
Are you in need of residential or commercial pest control for your Lacey property? Contact the local exterminators at PestLock to learn more about our services and current special offers!


Network Rail has formally responded to the issues raised during the public consultation held earlier this year into the Western Rail Link to Heathrow. Over 1,000 responses were received providing comments about the plans for the 6.5km rail link. Concerns were raised about the impact of closing a local road (Hollins Lane) permanently.


text:
'Good' Cholesterol Doesn't Always Lower Heart Attack Risk
By newspaperport on March 11, 2016 • ( Leave a comment )
Some people with high levels of 'good' high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) are at increased risk of coronary heart disease, contrary to earlier evidence that people with more HDL-C are usually at lower heart disease risk. This finding comes from an international study involving researchers at the University of Cambridge, funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF).
Role of good cholesterol (HDL) challenged by Cambridge study.
The discovery, published today in Science, could move researchers away from potentially ineffective HDL-raising drugs to treat coronary heart disease, and lead to the development of new treatments, helping to reduce their risk of heart attack.
The researchers studied people with a rare genetic mutation in the SCARB1 gene, called the P376L variant, which causes the body to have high levels of 'good' HDL-C. High levels of 'good' cholesterol are commonly associated with reduced risk for coronary heart disease. Challenging this view, the researchers unexpectedly found that people with the rare mutation, who had increased levels of HDL-C, had an 80 per cent increased relative risk of the disease – a figure almost equivalent to the increased risk caused by smoking.
Coronary heart disease is responsible for nearly 70,000 deaths every year, almost entirely through heart attacks, making it the UK's single biggest killer. The disease involves the build-up of fatty material, or plaque, in the coronary artery walls. If large quantities accumulate in the vessel walls, blood flow to the heart can become restricted or blocked, increasing risk of a heart attack.
The international team of scientists included BHF-funded researchers Professor Sir Nilesh Samani at the University of Leicester and Professor John Danesh at the University of Cambridge. They initially looked at the DNA of 328 individuals with very high levels of HDL-C in the blood and compared them to 398 people with relatively low HDL-C. As the P376L variant they found was so rare, they then looked at its effects on HDL-C and heart disease in more than half a million additional people.
Dr Adam Butterworth, from the Cardiovascular Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge, and co-investigator of this study, said: "We found that people carrying a rare genetic mutation causing higher levels of the so-called 'good' HDL-cholesterol are, unexpectedly, at greater risk of heart disease. This discovery could lead to new drugs that improve the processing of HDL-C to prevent devastating heart attacks.
"Large-scale collaborative research like this paves the way for further studies of rare mutations that might be significantly increasing people's risk of a deadly heart attack. These discoveries also give researchers the knowledge we need to develop better treatments."
Professor Peter Weissberg, Medical Director at the BHF, added said: "This is an important study that sheds light on one of the major puzzles relating to cholesterol and heart disease, which is that despite strong evidence showing HDL-C reduces heart disease risk, clinical trials on the effects of HDL-C-raising drugs have been disappointing.
"These new findings suggest that the way in which HDL-C is handled by the body is more important in determining risk of a heart attack than the levels of HDL-C in the blood. Only by understanding the underlying biology that links HDL-C with heart attacks can we develop new treatments to prevent them. These unexpected findings pave the way for further research into the SCARB1 pathway to identify new treatments to reduce heart attacks in the future."
Additional funding for the study in the USA came from the National Center for Research Resources and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institute of Health.
Zanoni, P et al. Rare Variant in Scavenger Receptor BI raises HDL Cholesterol and Increases Risk of Coronary Heart Disease. Science; 10 Mar 2016; DOI: 10.1126/science.aad3517
Source: Cambridge University
Categories: Breaking News, Leadership in Health
Tagged as: British Heart Foundation, Cambridge University, Cholesterol, coronary artery walls, fatty material, HDL, LDL, P376L variant, plaque, SCARB1 gene
Lines of Thought: Discoveries That Changed The World
American Devotion To Religion Is Waning, According To New Study


Welcome to the Challenge Day 11.
OK- one of the biggest mistakes speakers make is omitting the importance of creating a 'signature system'. No matter how inspiring or entertaining your story is, you'll always be trapped as a fee for speech speaker with no passive income unless you take your knowledge and experience and create a system from it.
What is a Signature System and who has them?
Grab some posit notes – the creator's best friend!
Ask yourself what is the RESULT my ideal client wants or needs, that I believe I can get them.
Get creative about how you could deliver your system as per suggestions in the video!
Share your system here if you have one for feedback. If not- what ideas have you had?
2 Days to Enter the Competition.
WHAT'S THE PRIZE? A signed copy of my brand new book the Presentation Profits Blueprint, and 2 tickets to our 1-day Jam-Packed Training Event: Presentation Secrets (in Australia 6-21st March & in London 11th-26th of May). The value of this price is over $224. WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO DO?: Simple- just participate in the Challenge. And BY 11:59 PM ON SUNDAY THE 4TH OF MARCH, film a response. Tell us how you're doing, what you're implementing, what results you're hoping for. Put a comment here on the blog with a link to your video on youtube. I'll be picking the winner before the final video on day 14. You have to be in it to win it!
Joanna – the most powerful statement for me from this video is the reason that I'm compelled to tell my story about being fantastic for our customers is that there are people out there waiting to hear my version of this message – for me to articulate my 'spin' on creating a WOW customer experience. That's really spoken to me today! Thank you so much!


text:
WakeUp
======

The game where you have to wake up.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
A Potential Breakthrough in Harnessing the Sun's Energy
New solar thermal technology overcomes a major challenge facing solar power: how to store the sun's heat for use at night or on a rainy day. As researchers tout its promise, solar thermal plants are under construction or planned from Spain to Australia to the American Southwest.
By David Biello • April 27, 2009
In the high desert of southern Spain, not far from Granada, the Mediterranean sun bounces off large arrays of precisely curved mirrors that cover an area as large as 70 soccer fields. These parabolic troughs follow the arc of the sun as it moves across the sky, concentrating the sun's rays onto pipes filled with a synthetic oil that can be heated to 750 degrees Fahrenheit. That super-heated oil is used to boil water to power steam turbines, or to pump excess heat into vats of salts, turning them a molten, lava-like consistency.
The salts are just fertilizers — a mix of sodium and potassium nitrate — but they represent a significant advance in the decades-old technology of solar thermal power production, which has traditionally used mirrors to heat water or oil to generate electricity-producing steam. Now, engineers can use the molten salts to store the heat from solar radiation many hours after the sun goes down and then release it at will to drive turbines. That means solar thermal power can be used to generate electricity nearly round-the-clock.
The plant in southern Spain, known as Andasol 1, began operating last November and now provides 50 megawatts of power, enough electricity to supply 50,000 to 60,000 homes year-round. Andasol 2 will come online later this summer, with Andasol 3 already under construction. When the entire Andasol complex is completed in 2011, it is expected to generate enough electricity to power 150,000 households — about 600,000 people.
In the face of mounting concern about climate change, developing alternatives to coal and natural gas combustion has taken on a new urgency, and the construction of utility-scale solar thermal power plants in
At this 11-megawatt power tower outside Seville, Spain, sunlight reflects off 624 moveable mirrors to heat water pipes atop the 40-story tower, creating steam that drives a turbine.
deserts and arid areas is looking like an increasingly promising option. In the United States alone, solar thermal power projects are now being built near fast-growing centers of electricity consumption, such as Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. The first major solar thermal plant to be completed in decades, dubbed Nevada Solar One, started providing 64 megawatts of power to the neon lights of Las Vegas in 2007, although it lacks the latest molten-salt technology. Across the globe, utilities are currently building or planning solar thermal projects in North Africa, Spain, and Australia, among other regions.
Some of the recent claims for solar thermal power have been stunning. Researchers at the German Aerospace Center have estimated that 16,000 square kilometers of solar thermal power plants in North Africa — paired with a new infrastructure of high-voltage, direct-current transmission lines — could provide enough electricity for all of Europe. And scientists have estimated that constructing solar thermal power plants on less than 1 percent of the world's deserts — an area roughly the size of Austria — could meet the entire world's energy needs.
Of course, solar thermal has been here before, experiencing a boom in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Its progress then was stalled by collapsing fossil fuel prices, as well as a lack of government support. Today, some critics of the technology fault it for taking up acreage in fragile deserts.
In the U.S., some 3,100 megawatts of solar thermal power are planned by 2012.
The case for solar thermal power hinges on economics. The sun bathes the Earth with an average of 6 kilowatt-hours of power per square meter over the course of a day, and a concentrated solar power plant like Andasol is the cheapest way to harvest a portion of that. Photovoltaics — semiconductor panels that convert sunlight to electricity — deliver power at roughly 40 cents per kilowatt-hour, while conventional solar thermal power plants can do so for around 13 cents per kilowatt hour, according to the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory. This is only marginally more expensive than the average U.S. price for coal-generated electricity in 2008 of 11 cents per kilowatt hour. The cutting-edge technology of using molten salts to store solar-generated heat is considerably more expensive, but experts expect that price to fall steadily as the technology improves and is mass-produced.
Roughly 612,000 megawatt-hours of electricity from the sun were produced in 2007, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), and solar thermal collectors sufficient to cover more than 15 million square feet were shipped and ready for installation that year — more than double the amount in 1998.
In the United States, some 3,100 megawatts of solar thermal power are planned by 2012, and capacity worldwide is expected to reach 6,400 megawatts within 3 years — roughly 14 times the current amount. Still, electricity from the sun contributes just 1 percent of the renewable energy generated in the U.S., and all renewables taken together only provide 7 percent of U.S. energy needs.
Traditionally, solar thermal power plants have been built two ways — using trough-like mirrors to focus the sun's heat on water or oil in nearby pipes, or using mirrors to focus solar radiation on a central spot, such as a liquid-filled "power tower."
Using molten salts overcomes a drawback of solar energy generation — that when the sun sets, the lights go out.
Since 1984, vast arrays of curved mirrors have concentrated the sun's rays on regimented lines of pipe filled with a synthetic oil at the Solar Energy Generating Systems (SEGS) power plant in the Mojave Desert of California. The SEGS plant was part of a brief boom in alternative energy projects in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when enthusiasm for the technology ran high in the wake of the first energy crisis. But the Reagan administration phased out research and development funding for solar thermal technology, as well as delaying tax credits that had driven the creation of projects like SEGS. Coupled with cheap fossil fuel prices in the late 1980s and 1990s, solar thermal power could not compete — although it still grew by roughly 4 percent a year from 1986 to 2000, according to the EIA.
Given its long operation record, developers are now copying SEGS and its parabolic trough collectors. In the U.S. alone, nearly 1,800 megawatts of such power plants are scheduled to be completed — mainly in the desert Southwest — by 2011, according to investment research from Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co.
Palo Alto, Calif.-based Ausra will employ compact linear Fresnel reflectors — flat mirrors that deliver the same focus — to heat water at a planned 177-megawatt solar thermal plant named Carrizo Plains in central California by next year. Already, the company opened a 5-megawatt demonstration plant last October near Bakersfield, Calif.
Nor is the technology confined to the southwestern U.S.: Florida Power & Light will build a 75-megawatt solar thermal trough plant north of Miami. Hurricanes are not a major concern; Ausra's chief scientist and founder, David Mills, notes that in testing their mirrors have withstood winds of more than 91 miles per hour.
But the most promising technology is one using molten salts, as it overcomes one of the chief traditional drawbacks of solar energy generation — that when the sun sets, the lights go out. The Andasol power plant uses more than 28,000 metric tons of sodium and potassium nitrates to store some of the sun's heat for use at night or on a rainy day. The molten salts are stored in enormous hot and cold vats, able to be employed on command to soak up extra heat or drive the generation of electricity.
"The turbine is running more hours every day because we have storage and we have the possibility to plan our electricity production," said Sven Moormann, a spokesman for Solar Millennium, the German company building Andasol.
Abengoa Solar and Arizona Public Services are now using the molten salts technology in portions of the Solana — or "sunny place" — power plant, located 70 miles southwest of Phoenix on nearly 2,000 acres of land. The plant will ultimately produce enough electricity to power 70,000 Arizona homes.
"One of the great things about molten salt technology is that you can get more energy out of the same facility," says Barbara Lockwood, manager for renewable energy at Arizona Public Services.
"We're not going to solve the problem without putting large-scale, concentrated solar facilities in the American Southwest."
But molten salts don't have to be just used for storage, as they are at Andasol and will be at Solana. They can also be used directly as a fluid in solar thermal power plants that operate at a much higher temperature, replacing the synthetic oil or water used in power towers. In this variation of the solar thermal technology, large fields of mirrors concentrate the sun's heat on a central tower that glows with intense light.
Such plants operate at more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit — closer to the temperatures employed at a coal-fired power plant — and therefore can use the salts directly as a heating medium. At night, when temperatures begin to drop, the cooling salts that have already transferred their heat to drive a turbine simply drain to the bottom of the tower, where they are stored in tanks, ready to be heated again the next sunny day.
Cheaper power towers that do not employ the molten salts are also being built: an 11-megawatt power tower that employs steam directly — built by Abengoa — now operates outside Seville, Spain. Southern California Edison has contracted for 1,300 megawatts of such direct steam solar thermal power towers with developer BrightSource.
Some utility-scale solar thermal projects have provoked opposition due to the large land area occupied by the arrays in Bakersfield, Los Angeles, San Diego, and elsewhere in California. But proponents of solar thermal power argue that the benefits of the carbon-free technology far outweigh any local impact.
"We're not going to solve the [climate change] problem without putting large-scale concentrated solar facilities in the American Southwest," SolarReserve's Murphy says. "It doesn't take that big a footprint to make a pretty big impact."
In addition, there is another way to use this technology for capturing the sun's heat — cleaning up existing fossil fuel-fired power plants or other operations that burn a lot of CO2-emitting fossil fuels.
By employing the mirrors of a solar thermal array to pre-heat steam, the amount of natural gas, oil, or coal that must be burned can be reduced. In fact, Ausra's first installation boosted the efficiency of a coal-fired power plant in Australia by providing 9 megawatts of steam to the 2,000-megawatt Liddell Power Station. The company also hopes to work with some California oil producers that currently inject steam — generated by burning natural gas — into the old reservoirs to enable more oil to be pumped to the surface. Ausra argues that it can generate the same steam without any CO2 emissions by employing its solar thermal technology.
The Electric Power Research Institute, a utility-funded consortium, will study the potential of the technology to reduce fossil fuel-burning at power plants in Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and North Carolina.
"People need to look at this as a hedge against fossil fuel prices," says Murphy. "You could start deploying a new type of power plant. We used to burn coal and natural gas — now we can use the sun to make steam."
David Biello is the author of The Unnatural World: The Race to Remake Civilization in Earth's Newest Age. He has been covering energy and the environment for more than a decade and is the science curator for TED as well as a contributing editor for Scientific American. More about David Biello →
Join the conversation: A Potential Breakthrough in Harnessing the Sun's Energy Show comments →


If your jaw pain is getting worse, it's important to schedule a visit with our practice.
As your oral health experts, we care about more than just your teeth and gums. Have you ever woken up with a locked jaw that is difficult to move? Or how about jaw pain that seems to be deep and only getting worse? It's important to get ahead of a serious jaw problem before it's too late.
Take a look at these five common causes of jaw pain.
1. Teeth grinding. A popular problem that many people don't know they have because it can take place during sleep, teeth grinding involves tightly clenching and moving your jaw. Causes include stress or anxiety, specific diseases and even side effects of medication. If you suspect you may be grinding your teeth, try sleeping with a mouthguard specially designed for nighttime grinding.
2. Temporomandibular joint disorder (TMD or TMJD). If your jaw pain is associated with restricted jaw movement, you may be dealing with temporomandibular joint disorder. Other symptoms include tenderness in the jaw joint, face, ear and even the neck and shoulders as well as a "clicking" sound upon opening or moving the jaw. An oral exam can diagnose TMD.
3. Impacted wisdom teeth. Typically, wisdom teeth erupt between the ages of 17 and 25 and can cause trouble in your jaw—especially if they are impacted. Wisdom teeth can become infected and bring on acute swelling and pain.
4. Untreated cavities. Experiencing a cavity in one tooth doesn't mean the pain will remain in that specific area. If a cavity goes a long time without being filled, an infection can develop and spread, causing pain in the jaw and other teeth.
5. Gum disease. Gum disease is often caused by poor oral health and as it progresses, can lead to problems with the tissues and bones that support the teeth.
If you're experiencing jaw pain that isn't subsiding, we recommend scheduling a visit to our practice. We'll help identify the problem and recommend a solution that's effective for your needs.


Issue of Waste Management has been mainstream issue in city area these days as waste has made negative impact on local people's health. The concern of waste management was raised in the Common Assembly meeting of Gorkha municipality-8 since most of the members were confused about what to do with the home based waste, which was lying stinky every day.
Considering the concern raised by CA members, SOCH Nepal initiated a wakeup call to organize skill training on waste management. Local Ama Samuha and Youth group joined the hand with Common Assembly and SOCH Nepal.
SOCH Nepal requested the Gorkha Municipality for organizing waste management training in collaboration with SOCH Nepal. Municipality was happy to provide experts for the training since it was request by local Ama Samuha and youth group. Mr. Dhurba Ghimire, Environment Officer of the municipality delivered the training to local residents in August 18, 2018. The program facilitated by Mohasin Alimiya the Gorkha District Officer of SOCH Nepal who shared the examples of other municipalities on effective waste management.
The participants learned the process of separating biodegradable and non-degradable waste. Further, Ghimire trained all the participants to separate biodegradable and non-degradable waste. He said, "at least 40% of waste can be reduced just by separating of bio-degradable and non-degradable waste". Participants also learn to make handicrafts utilizing non-degradable waste.
The training went so well that participants immediately decided to start scientific waste management initiation in the village. On the same day, the participants made a schedule to clean their village once in a month.
After a week of the orientation a cleaning campaign was launched in the presence of ward no. 8 chief Mr. Krishna Bahadur Khatri. Mr. Khatri committed to help the campaign in any kind if necessary. They decided to make the ward no. 8 a model ward as model ward in Waste management and Environment friendly.
The session was followed by the orientation of Mr. Bijaya Bhakta Upadhya, Social Development Officer of the Municipality on the process and procedures of receiving budget through users group Upabhokta Samiti. This orientation helped to empower the Ama Samuha to get the fund for the development of their locality.


Okay, this is my last Paper Pumpkin alternative card for a few days. I have a few more ideas but I want to work on some other fun sets for a little while. I'll come back to this in a few days. I have a couple more ideas but maybe by then I will have even more!!! And if I don't, then I will be making duplicates of the ones I already created so I can use up the supplies in the kit!
So let's talk about this card. It's SUPER easy. I just took the stack of leaves and tied the Baker's Twine into a bow. That came in the kit. I took a 4" x 5-1/4" piece of Very Vanilla card stock and wrapped the Baker's Twine around it 3 times and tied it in a knot.
Next I stamped the words from the "Beautiful Bouquet" set using Old Olive ink. I added Dimensionals to the leaf bunch and set them in place over the Baker's Twine.
I added Dimensionals to the back of the focal piece and set it in place on a folded half-sheet of Very Vanilla card stock and that was it. The card was done in no time at all! Super simple, quick and fun!


Shirts With Random Triangles: Orphan Black Gets A Teaser Trailer For Its Fourth Season.
According to BBC America, season four will see Sarah "reluctantly return home from her Icelandic hideout to track down an elusive and mysterious ally tied to the clone who started it all — Beth Childs." Sarah saw Beth, a police detective, commit suicide in the first episode of the series, and took on her identity. Sarah's new quest will reportedly cause her to fall back into "old habits," and pull her and her sister clones into "disparate directions."
Season four of Orphan Black is scheduled for an April, 2016 premiere on BBC America.


I spent a couple of hours or so today removing some pages from a Quark booklet. That's right, a couple of hours!
The job was created some years ago (not by me) as a 44-page booklet laid out in printers pairs - these days that's often called printers spreads: Quark spread 1 was page 44 on the left, page 1 on the right (ie back and front covers); Quark spread 2 was page 2 on the left, page 43 on the right, and so on until you reach the final Quark spread which is always the centrefold spread of the stapled booklet.
In the end I removed just the contents of the pages which the client didn't want, apart from a frame with an exclamation mark so Quark could see they weren't empty, and Distilled the file as pages instead of spreads. The page order of the PDF was all muddled up, so I extracted all the pages in Aggro-- sorry, Acrobat, and renamed them in Bridge (where I could see previews large enough for me to work out which page was which.) I then opened page 1 in Acrobat, inserted all the rest individually in order, and saved the file as individual pages because Sharon, my printer lady, is happy to impose from pages and doesn't insist on receiving printers spreads.
So it worked but, crikey - it was a damn long-winded palaver! When I do booklets of more than 4 pages myself, I lay them out as facing pages readers spreads then Distill as individual pages - it makes future changes easy. But not this designer: she was definitely old school.
Could I have done the job more simply? I'd like to know what you think, as the charge for my work is greater than the reduction in print cost from 44 pages to 36 pages!


text:
Q: Multiple `login` endpoints for `Flask-User`? I'm working on a Flask app that needs user management. However, I have multiple parts of my site, let's call them /site/<name>/ with each of them having their own users (linked in the DB to name).
So, what I want to achieve is:

*

*Any unauthorised access to anything /site/<name>/<path> gets redirected to /site/<name>/login (so, I cannot simply redefine login_view_function).

*When the user logs in, the argument name is also used (so, a user from /site/name1/ cannot log in at /site/name2/).

*A login from /site/name1/login works inside /site/name1/<path>, but not in /site/name2/<path> (the user is unauthorised there; can also get logged out of name1... I don't particularly care what exactly happens).

*Whatever happens outside of /site/<name>/ (or for invalid name) is irrelevant for now.

I tried redefining URL rules in a before_request decorated function:
site_manager = UserManager(db_adapter, app)
...
@app.before_request
def config_flask_user():
    m = re.match(r'https?://[^/]+/site/(?P<name>[^:/]*)', request.url)
    if m:
        name = m.group('name')
        flask.g.app_theme = name
        if not name_ok(name):
            flask.abort(404)
        # Make a no-arguments node for the current site
        app.debug = False
        app.add_url_rule(
            '/site/%s/' % name,
            'site.current',
            site,
            methods=['GET', 'POST'],
            defaults={'name': name},
        )
        app.debug = DEBUG
        # Use it as the post-logout endpoint, so that it leads to a page
        # where re-login works properly
        site_manager.after_logout_endpoint = 'site.current'
        # Override existing `login_url` and `logout_url` routes, to fit
        # the current site path
        for action in ('login', 'logout'):
            rule = '/site/%s/%s/' % (name, action)
            endpoint = getattr(site_manager, action + "_url")
            view_func = getattr(site_manager, action + "_view_function")
            for r in app.url_map._rules:
                if r.rule == endpoint:
                    print("Redefining rule", endpoint, "as", rule)
                    r.rule = rule
                    r.refresh()

This seemed to work fine, but it actually breaks if the server is restarted between loading the Login page and actually submitting user's login and password, seemingly due to that spot being too late to redefine these paths, and I'm worried that it's the wrong approach (maybe it can cause collisions between different requests to different "sites"?), especially for the intended multi-worker environment.
TL;DR: How to get /site/<name>/ paths to have Flask-User login dependent on the name argument?


This entry was posted in Learning & Teaching, Modeling Instruction, Pedagogy. Bookmark the permalink.
3 Responses to What's in a model?
I like the approach. I'm heading into my first year teaching MI, and it already bothers me that constant velocity and accelerated motion are treated as separate models. Isn't constant velocity just a special case of the more general kinematics model? The obvious problem is that we're trying to get the ideas across to people with very naive notions. Lumping too many ideas into a single model could backfire by no longer being specific enough for students to use. The ultimate question has to be: will this better enable someone new to physics to understand and predict the behavior of a system? Which misconceptions will students likely have if you unify gravitational and electric forces into a single model? Which will they likely have if you treat them separately? Could you get the same benefit by having them find the similarities and differences between the two models?
Please keep writing about it. I'd love to hear what you learn.
In a way, the Constant Velocity Particle Model gets rebuilt when you start looking at the Constant Acceleration Particle Model. It's a special case, to be sure. Balanced Forces are also a special case of Unbalanced Forces. And Projectile Motion and Central Force are also special cases of Unbalanced Forces.
The cool thing is that it makes sense to build them as separate models from the perspective of encountering and constructing these ideas for the first time. But then it also makes sense to collapse some of them from the perspective of understanding it and having used it for a while. And students get to experience both perspectives during the year. At some point in the spring, I like to ask them: If we were going to play Model Survivor, which Model would you vote off the island? So far, every class has voted off Projectile Motion. (I think Constant Velocity would be their next choice.) They totally get that it isn't anything new, once they've used it a bit.
Anyway, I guess my thinking here is that you have to look at both perspectives when you're thinking about what's going to make sense for students. If you look at it too much from the expert side, the chunks might get too big for a novice. Of course, on the novice side, the chunks might not always get glommed together correctly, and every problem seems totally different from the last (let alone big ideas), so there needs to be some guidance and direction about how to do the chunking (hence the guided inquiry part of MI). I think I might have stopped making sense there, so I'll stop now.
+1 with everything above about keeping them a little more separate than an expert would for the benefit of students, the ability to unify a bit more later, etc.
Another pro, in my mind, for initial separation – forcing 'the choice'. For most of the year, I set up motion as a choice between constant v and constant a (with a possible third choice of non-constant a), forces as a choice between balanced an unbalanced, momentum and energy as a choice between conserved (for a given system) or having transfer in or out of the system. While you can explain all of those pairs under a single model (and we eventually do), making the process of choosing a model explicit is one of the best things that you can do to get across the idea of science as a modeling activity. OK, I'm going to try to make this prediction. The real system's super-complex, so I need to make some approximations, simplifications, and choices. Without having to consciously choose how to model it, it's just back to procedures ("oh – everything something hits something, I need to follow these steps" ickiness).


text:
Q: Python - How to get the corresponding area of a PDF from a JPEG? If I create a jpeg copy of a pdf and then use an algorithm to select an area on the jpeg, is there a way to find what part of the pdf my selected jpeg area corresponds to? I want to use my calculated area in tabula's read_pdf function and plug it into the area parameter so I need the corresponding top, left, bottom, and right points of the pdf. I am using pdf2image's convert_from_path to convert from a pdf to a jpeg.
from pdf2image import convert_from_path

pdf = "file.pdf"
page = convert_from_path(pdf, dpi = 300)
page.save("file.jpg", "JPEG")

#Calculation to find area on file.jpeg

image = cv2.imread('file.jpg')
c = [(119, 2434), (2450, 3897)] #selected area
cropped_image = image[c[0][1]:c[1][1], c[0][0]:c[1][0]]

#What area (top,left,bottom,right points) on the pdf does cropped_image correspond to?

I tried plugging the coordinates from the selected area on the JPEG in, but the resulting dataframe from tabula was empty.
test = tabula.read_pdf("file.pdf", pandas_options = {'header': None}, area = [c[0][1], c[0][0], c[1][1], c[1][0]])

I also tried adjusting the dpi when I used convert_from_path, but that also didn't work and I can't figure out what the correct dpi would even be since PDFs can contain vector objects.
Edit: I am using cv2.boundingRect() to get the points on the jpeg file. So the selected area in c are coordinates in from that operation. Thanks in advance.


I quit using an amazing and very simple method. I suffered no nicotine withdrawals, in fact no bother at all! I just didn't feel like smoking from one moment to the next!
The method is called EFT and has to do with enabling the correct flow of energy, it's really simple and anyone can do it. All you need to do is tap on certain key energy points of the face and body while focussing on the issue you're dealing with, in my case smoking.
I hope it works for you as good as it did for me, best of luck!
Mod edit - spammy link removed.
Thanks for helping others, even though I myself don't smoke. Nasty habit I'm glad you were able to pull through getting over it.
Is this related to Chinese Accupuncture a bit? Like the pressure points etc..
They say that when you die, your life flashes in front of you. Make it worth watching!
however if it stops people from smoking.. there's probably no harm done.
So loud silence can be.
Nothing is absolute. It takes a thousand people to make a stereotype, only one to grind it into the dust.
"enabling the correct flow of energy"
Energy is clearly defined as the capacity to do work and that's not what's happening here.
I also think it's a bit near to advertising.
Nope - it wasn't BUT I understand you're getting old and cranky.
Strange. I'm getting "web page cannot be found".
It don't matter anymore - perhaps I just got lucky!
Perhaps seeing someone coming towards you with a handful of needles is enough to induce one to quit!!!!!!!!!
Hi..Thanks a lot for sharing..I think generic zyban is also best anti smoking treatment..
Hi..Thanks a lot for sharing..I think generic SPAM is also best anti smoking treatment..
Zyban and Wellbutrin (Bupropion hydrochloride) have been demonstrated to reduce the cravings for smoking. Yes, demonstrated with published scientific studies, although I don't remember the magnitude of the effect. They are two names for the same drug, marketed for different purposes (smoking cessation and as an antidepressant). However, I have heard that some insurance companies may choose to reimburse for one and not the other, despite them being identical. The question might be whether a prescription of Wellbutrin for smoking would be the same as reporting a misdiagnosis of the patients condition.
If a person is serious about wanting to quit, the medications should be considered as a treatment alternative.
I know some people here think that this method described is bogus but I have personally seen it work. Not for smoking but for pain. My father recovered from cancer but was left with severe headaches. The doctors tried several types of pain medication but nothing really helped. A family member got my father this CD which described how to do this method. It basically works for pain or any habit one has. My father tried it and got relief from his headaches. He quit taking pain medication altogether. It worked for a few years but he said that now it does not work as well. The point is that it did work at one point.
Hello everyone on the forum. You're doing great to find a good way to get rid of smoking. It's a shame that I did not read this message more thinly.
I know the danger to health - we all do it.
I committed myself not to smoke anything, and that I will listen to what other people had to say.
I was convinced that I have a refrigerator full of fresh and raw vegetables (I always ate a lot of vegetables, so for me it was not something new). I also have a lot of peaches, berries, bananas, grapefruits, apples, etc. At hand.
Use the online journaling / exercises tool. There are many good options, and this will help you realize calorie intake. I also do not want to gain weight, and if I watch what I eat and what I do, I should be okay. You too must be.
I have a bottle of water filled all the time that I carry with me everywhere, including the car. Water is a good thirst, and proper hydration keeps me in my power.
My exercise program is in place, and I go to the gym at least once a day for classes or just lift the weight. If you do not exercise regularly, think about starting something. Walking is good, but consult your doctor if you have not been active for a while.
Every time I want a cigarette, I do deep breathing exercises.
The tips given above work for me. I can combine them with your advice. I think they will help many people. Do not be afraid - you will not leave a friend here, you run away from the murderer!
Is there an easy way to make oxalic acid at home without nitric acid?
Does smoking prior to pregnancy pose a threat to a future child's health?
Reducing Teen Smoking -- would a spray showing if someone smoked help?
Why don't the Germans die young with their smoking beer drinking and autobahns?
Page created in 0.258 seconds with 90 queries.


text:
Lesbian Historic Motif Project: #110b Borris 2004 - Same-Sex Desire in the English Renaissance (Chapter 2)
The introduction notes the extreme variation in how female same-sex relationships were treated, in terms of penalties, liability, and the means and extent of enforcement, including differing legal theories of whether the term "sodomy" could apply. As a generalization, consensual same-sex behavior was least prosecuted in England, while Florence may have regularly prosecuted relations between men but the penalties were relatively light, while in Spain penalties were regularly quite severe including execution, and similarly severe were those recorded in Geneva.
Lesbian Historic Motif Project: #22 – Benkov 2001 "The Erased Lesbian: Sodomy and the Legal Tradition in Medieval Europe"
Benkov reviews how the squeamishness of medieval legal texts in indicating how the word "sodomy" is applied to women's acts effectively erases the lesbian nature of their activity: "women with each other by detestable and horrible means which should not be named or written about." Which text is placed beside for more simple and clear descriptions of men participating in anal intercourse. Crompton (1980) addressed the question of prosecutions of women for sodomy up to the French revolution, but little additional material has been added since.


text:
NDA Hotline Single View
M&A Hotline, Regulatory Hotline March 13, 2015
49% FDI in insurance: A long successful battle
The amendments to the insurance laws in India to increase foreign investment limits to 49% from the existing 26% in the insurance sector has been subject to many a political debate. The new government was keen to push through this economic reform which had been languishing since 2008 but received strong opposition in the various houses of parliament. Despite the opposition, ordinances and rules were passed by the Government of India proving temporary legal backing to the amendment. However the logjam has been put to rest with the upper house of parliament assenting to the amendments proposed by the Government on March 12, 2015. In this hotline we have analysed the various events which finally led to the increase of foreign investment in India and the implications on the industry at large. The Government of India ("GoI"), by a notification dated February 19, 2015 has notified the Indian Insurance Companies (Foreign Investment) Rules, 2015 ("Rules") permitting investment of up to 49% in the insurance sector, with any investment above 26% being under the approval route.
Under the Insurance Act, 1938 ("Insurance Act"), an 'Indian Insurance Company'1 was permitted to have foreign investment of up to 26% of the equity share capital of the company. Out of 23 private life insurers, more than 20 had foreign investment of above 22%. Additionally, out of 17 non-life insurers in the private sector, 14 had more than 22% foreign investment2. The Indian insurance sector has seen low penetration in the country essentially because of dearth of funds to permit growth and accordingly, it was felt that there was need for permitting additional foreign investment into the insurance sector.
Realizing this requirement, the amendment to the Insurance Act to increase the maximum permitted foreign shareholding to 49% was introduced in 2008, and has been pending since, when the Insurance Laws (Amendment) Bill ("2008 Insurance Bill") was tabled in the Rajya Sabha on December 22, 2008. An amendment of the Insurance Act is required, since unlike other sectors, the Insurance Act lays the maximum foreign shareholding permitted in an Indian insurance company. Accordingly, a notification by the Central Government or a notification under the exchange control regulation would not be sufficient. This 2008 Insurance Bill was referred to the Standing Committee on Finance, which submitted its report on December 13, 2011. Subsequently, some amendments to the 2008 Insurance Bill were introduced in July 2014. These amendments were then referred to the Select Committee in the Rajya Sabha who submitted a report on December 11, 2014 which included a revised Insurance Laws (Amendment) Bill.
The 2008 Insurance Bill could not be passed in the winter session of the Parliament in 2014. To clarify its intent to bring in the changes, the Central Government notified the Insurance Laws (Amendment) Ordinance, 2014 on December 26, 2014 ("Ordinance") to amend the Insurance Act giving interim legal standing to the new amendments. Under the Ordinance, the foreign investment permitted in an Indian Insurance Company was increased from 26% to 49% of the company. However, the insurance company would necessarily be required to be Indian owned and controlled.
The Ordinance required the approval of both the houses of the Parliament in the ongoing session. If the Ordinance was not cleared by both the houses of the Parliament, the Ordinance would have lapsed on April 5, 2015. Notwithstanding that the Ordinance still required the approval of the Parliament, the Government and its departments in the interim brought about the following:
The Government of India ("GoI"), by a notification dated February 19, 2015 notified the Indian Insurance Companies (Foreign Investment) Rules, 2015 ("Rules") permitting investment of up to 49% in the insurance sector.
The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Ministry of Commerce ("DIPP") on March 2, 2105 issued Press Note No. 3 of 2015 ("Press Note") affecting changes in the exchange control laws to give effect to the increased foreign investment limits.
The Insurance Law (Amendment) Bill 2015 ("2015 Insurance Bill") was finally tabled on March 3, 2015 in the Lok Sabha.
The 2015 Insurance Bill has been passed by the Lok Sabha on March 3, 2015 and by the Rajya Sabha on March 12, 2015. The Ordinance shall now be replaced by the 2015 Insurance Bill once it receives the assent of the President.
Changes brought about by the amended legislation and analysis
Foreign investment: 26% to 49%
The 2015 Insurance Bill the Rules and the Press Note clarify that the maximum foreign investment permitted in the equity shares of an Indian Insurance Company shall be 49% (forty nine percent) compared to 26% (twenty six percent) earlier.
Foreign investment would be under the automatic route up to 26% and under the government or approval route for any investment above 26% till 49%.
The cap of 49% shall include direct and indirect foreign direct investment as well as foreign portfolio investment. Foreign portfolio investment has been defined to include investments by foreign institutional investors, qualified financial investors, foreign portfolio investors and non-resident investors.
The mechanism for calculation of indirect foreign investment continues to remain the same.
The Press Note clarifies that the company bringing in capital would be required to obtain necessary licenses from the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority of India ("IRDAI") for undertaking insurance activities.
The changes introduced are in line with the budget speech of 2015 and the Ordinance, increasing the foreign investment limits from 26% to 49%, with any investment above 26% being under the approval or government route.
The calculation of foreign investment into insurance companies has been explained to include foreign direct investment and portfolio investment (which includes non-resident Indian investment). This is similar to the mechanism for calculation of foreign investment into insurance company till now, which was capped at 26%. Additionally, foreign investment also includes any investment in the promoter entities of such insurance companies, by the foreign companies (or its subsidiaries), non-resident investors or other foreign investors who hold shares in the insurance companies.
Under the Insurance Act, insurance companies were permitted to have issue only one class of equity shares, and no other form of share capital was permitted. This made structuring of investments in the form of preference shares or other instruments difficult.3 The Ordinance, however, permitted the IRDA to prescribe such other classes of shares which may be issued by the insurance companies. However, IRDAI has not made any change to the existing regulations, and the share capital of an Indian insurance company can only contain equity shares currently.
Control and ownership
The Indian Insurance Company shall at all times ensure that its ownership and control is with Indian residents. Indian ownership is defined to mean more than 50% (fifty percent) of the equity share capital being held by Indian residents. Control is defined to include the right to appoint majority directors on the board of the company or to control the management or policy decisions, including by virtue of shareholders or management rights or shareholder agreements or voting agreements. The definitions of 'ownership' and 'control' are in line with the definitions of 'control' and 'ownership' under the foreign direct investment ("FDI") policy 2014 ("FDI Policy").
The Insurance Act earlier did not provide for control and ownership of an Indian insurance company to be with resident individuals. As a consequence, it was possible for offshore strategic partners in the insurance sector to have substantial control rights, including reserved matters or veto rights on operational and financial policy decisions of the joint venture.
This may be a concern for offshore partners in joint ventures. The definition of 'control' under the Rules is similar to that under the FDI Policy and SEBI (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations, 2011. The Foreign Investment Promotion Board ("FIPB") had raised concerns with Etihad Airways enjoying veto and quorum rights under its investment agreement with Jet Airways, and these rights were made to be watered down. Similar instances of reducing extent of rights in Indian insurance companies by offshore partners may be seen in future.
There is no precedent as to how IRDAI interprets the requirements of control and ownership being in the hands of Indian residents. Having said that, extensive veto rights, which offshore joint venture partners in the insurance sector have traditionally enjoyed, may now not pass the FIPB test of 'control', and may have to be curtailed.
Applicability of the 49% foreign investment
The increase in foreign investment in the insurance sector would be applicable to insurance brokers, third party administrators ("TPA"), surveyors, loss assessors and other insurance intermediaries appointed under applicable IRDAI regulations.
The FDI Policy included the limit of 26% (twenty six percent) for insurance companies, insurance brokers, third party administrators, surveyors and loss assessors. The appropriate regulations for certain intermediaries clarified that the limit of foreign investment in the relevant intermediary would not be more than 26% (twenty six percent) - such as for TPAs under the IRDA (Third Party Administrators- Health Services) Regulations, 2001, for insurance brokers under the IRDA (Insurance Broker) Regulations, 2002 and for insurance surveyors under the Insurance Surveyors and Loss Assessors (Licensing, Professional Requirement and Code of Conduct) Regulations, 2000.
There was certain ambiguity as to whether 100% FDI was permitted in other intermediaries which did not fall under the categories specifically mentioned under the FDI Policy, such as corporate agents. For instance, Berkshire India Private Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. acted as a corporate agent in India. It was argued that since there is no specific restriction on foreign investment on corporate agents under the IRDA (Licensing of Corporate Agents) Regulations, 2002 or under the FDI Policy, 100% FDI was permitted in these intermediaries.
The Rules now clarify that the restriction on foreign investment shall also be applicable to 'other insurance intermediaries appointed under applicable IRDAI regulations', thereby plugging the necessary gaps.
However, there is some ambiguity about the status of those intermediaries which already have more than 49% foreign shareholding. Since they were not required to restrict their foreign shareholding, it is unclear whether they would be asked to bring down their foreign shareholding, or would a status quo be granted.
An exception from the 49% restriction on foreign investment has been for a bank which is functioning as an insurance intermediary. In case the revenue of such bank from non-insurance related business is in excess of 50% (fifty percent) of the total revenue in any financial year, the foreign equity limit as applicable in the banking sector would apply to such banks.
The Press Release has further clarified that Clause 6.2.17.2.2 (i) (c) shall be applicable for banks having a joint venture/ subsidiary in the insurance sector. Accordingly, all applications for foreign investment by private banks shall be addressed to the Reserve Bank of India, which shall consider the same in consultation with the IRDA.
The passage of the 2015 Insurance Bill indicates a welcome intent of the Indian Parliament towards the economic development of the country. With the recent changes, the Indian insurance industry is finally ready to take off. The change was the demand of the industry for long. Greater economic rights would encourage foreign partners bring more insurance products in the Indian market. Additional investment of an estimated USD 3.2 billion is expected in the insurance sector4, which shall provide Indian insurance companies much required funds, and discussions between the joint venture partners have already commenced.5 The future of the insurance industry seems to be secured, for now at least.
– Abhinav Harlalka, Sahil Shah & Simone Reis
You can direct your queries or comments to the authors
1 Under Section 2C of the Insurance Act, 1938, no insurer other than an 'Indian Insurance Company' is permitted to commence or carry on any class of insurance business after the commencement of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority Act, 1999
2 IRDA Annual Report for the year ended March 31, 2014, available online www.irda.gov.in
3 Investing through preference shares, is preferred, especially for foreign shareholders, since preference shares gives priority with respect to payment of dividend and payments at the time of liquidation.
4 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-13/indian-insurance-bill-may-attract-3-2-billion-from-foreigners
5 http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2015-01-05/news/57705481_1_max-bupa-max-india-health-insurance-venture
Vaccine for your employees?: FAQs for HR Managers in India
HR Law Hotline : January 14, 2021
Institution of Eminence Regime – More autonomy given, foreign campuses permitted, online education liberalised
Education Sector Hotline : January 13, 2021
Opportunities in GIFT City – Setting up Funds in India's New Offshore Financial Center
NASSCOM HR Forum: An interactive workshop on "The Code on Wages 2019"
Indian Infrastructure Sector – Decoding InvITs
Nishith Desai Associates announces new leave policy for entire firm
Women in Silicon Valley: Corporate America's Gender Paradox
How can India become a global financial centre?
NIIF Final Close
M&A Lab
Don't Mind: You've been Acquired!
Madras HC holds transfer of shares without consideration is not "gift" absent voluntariness, upholds levy of capital gains tax


This Arizona wedding story begins with two people who share a profound love of art and music. It was thrilling to witness how they expressed their emotions and love for one another, through music and ambiance, on their September wedding day at Soho63.
The wedding day began with Terri and Todd getting ready in the spacious bride and groom's rooms, respectively. Terri wore a stunning lace and tulle wedding dress that appeared to delicately wrap over her shoulders like growing vines.
Todd rocked his bright fuchsia vest, tie, and pocket square, which complemented the cool tones of his succulent boutonniere.
The ceremony took place in the open-air Tribeca Terrace courtyard, a beautiful outdoor space that captures Arizona's afternoon light perfectly.
The procession commenced in a very romantic and personalized way; Todd serenaded his bride with a serene and lovely performance on the piano as she walked down the aisle. All were delighted to hear this unique song that he composed just for his bride!
During the ceremony, while Terri and Todd shared personal marriage vows with each other, a glass jar of colorful minerals was passed around, and each guest selected a unique stone. To create a unique twist on their sand ceremony, Terri and Todd first poured brown and blue sand into a glass vessel, and then each guest walked up and added their minerals and positive energy into the same vessel on top of the sand. To conclude, Terri and Todd blended two vessels of wine together into a single glass, and then shared a drink to mark their new beginning!
After the ceremony, we just had to take advantage of the evening backdrop of historic downtown Chandler to create some stunning bride and groom portraits! We started in front of the adobe and wood facade of Soho63, and then headed over to Arizona Avenue to capture the light trails of busy Saturday night traffic!
The reception was equally magical. Terri and Todd wowed their guests with their grand entrance, a lovely choreographed dance in the clouds. Lighting and fog magic was provided by the talented Karma Event Lighting. It was an all-around beautiful evening and celebration. Terri and Todd danced, dined and chatted the night away with their family and friends in the spacious and modern Gramercy Ballroom.
Before I go, I just had to share a few more wedding details I'm obsessed with!
Terri and Todd's invitations were styled in the fashion of a 45 record, complete with sleeve, track listings, and a tape cassette RSVP card.
Soho63 has a lock and key frame in the groom's room, where wedding couples can affix their own personalized love key or lock the day of their wedding.
How cool is the leafy green "love" wall in the ceremony space, draped with pink flowers! It's a nice way of bringing a touch of nature into the courtyard, and also makes a perfect backdrop for taking memorable images!