I have been away since Saturday morning. I needed to think. I took a bus up to Donegal, hitched a ride with an acquaintance out to the beach, pitched my tent and spent a day and a half on my own, with just the rocks and the sea.
It was important to get so far away from the things that plague my everyday mind. It reminded me that once, I had a purpose beyond finding out about my father's past, beyond piecing together Belfast's history, and away from the surveillance of others. Not that long ago, I was just making my way along, trying to find my peace. I wasn't anyone's Protagonist.
Then I returned late this afternoon, to see the video posted by David. I hadn't seen his face nor heard his voice in almost a year. Ripe from a day of quiet reflection, of course it has moved me. I must admit, I'm looking forward to finding the end of this labyrinthine tunnel, that seems to endlessly lead us through a world I once considered private … Yet, I continuously appreciate the contributions and talents of those who are involved. We often can't solve problems alone. David's interjection is appreciated as well. If he's reading this, I'm thankful to him.
I think we were very much correct that the labyrinth seems to lead toward Ciaran Carson. You've posted plenty of evidence supporting the suggestion that he is involved, and you know I believe it now myself. I've tried emailing him and phoning his office, but still no answer. But today after seeing David's video, I rang my mom again to ask for any information she might have on Arie, Sr. (my dad's father) and his relationship with Liam Carson.
It seems that Arie, Sr. was actively in touch with many Esperanto speakers via post over his lifetime, and talked about it enthusiastically whenever she remembers meeting him. Apparently Arie, Sr. meant Dad to take over his correspondences when he died, but Dad never learned to speak Esperanto, so he couldn't do it in the end. Mom also said that occasionally, after his father's death, Dad would receive random postcards or letters from friends of Arie, Sr., usually in broken English and often from far-flung places—people trying to maintain the links, keep the network alive.
One of these letters, Mom said, was from a man in Belfast named Carson. She found it after Dad's death, in among the things that were sent to us in Canada. The letter was dated during time before we moved to Belfast, and from the sounds of it this Carson hoped to meet my Dad, claiming that their fathers were lifelong pen friends and even wrote some kind of treatise together by correspondence. But the treatise was a puzzle missing a piece, my mom remembers the letter saying—a piece to be supplied by a future generation. The letter stated that Carson hoped my dad would help him complete the philosophy that their fathers once collaborated to build.
Of course I asked for the letter, but Mom said it's long gone by now. She doesn't know anything else; there were no other letters related to this.
All of this links up with what we already know. Knowing my dad, I'm sure that he would have read that letter from Carson, thought it was slightly bonkers, and then tossed it aside … yet he saved it for some reason, even if he never contacted Carson. And if they met again in Belfast, as the suicide note suggests, it may be that Carson never revealed his name. Maybe he was simply looking for the puzzle piece.
This arrived in the post this morning.
The envelope is empty (I'm guessing there was never a real letter inside). Thoughts?
I'm tired of letting a stranger, ie. invisible belfast, scare me. The past few weeks have brought up a lot of my own issues with my past, and what I've learned so far is that, although I don't trust invisible belfast's motives, I can trust the conspirators. Thank you for that.
I think that this person, or group of people, is located at the 'heart of Belfast', and when we find that center we will also find out who those people are. I'm not entirely sure that the center is a geographic one, although we have been sent to various places. Invisible belfast is all about playing with the city's many layers; maybe the center is more than a place. Just a thought.
I know it might seem unexpected to some of you that I contacted invisible belfast about the video task. I thought about it for a few days before I did, considering whether it would seem disloyal, like conspiring with the enemy. But I need you to give us your perspective, your story, of what has happened so far. You see my version in my vlogs and blogs every day … but it's hard to keep on top of what's happening when you're in the middle of things. If we can speak out to each other about what the mystery is from each of our perspectives, maybe it will yeild some progress. I think it will.
And we can use these videos to draw more people in as conspirators. I feel like we might have a limited amount of time to solve the mystery. I feel like time is running out.
I received the following from my mom last night. I'll paste her email, and then attach the letter as images. Please treat this with sensitivity; the decision to share it wasn't easy.
From our phone call I can tell that you're doing a lot of soul searching these days. And I can guess from the questions you asked about your father, that living in Belfast is stirring up the past for you. Just be careful. As you know, analyzing too much can be a dangerous thing.
Anyway. It's quite interesting, everything you told me about the Pleiades play. Quite a coincidence that it's the same subject as your dissertation, isn't it? I have a feeling you may have chosen Messier 45 because of your father. When you were about five or six he used to speak about those stars; do you remember that? It was a difficult time with him, so I do my best to forget it. But maybe it's relevant now.
In those days, I think his work wasn't absorbing him enough, and his mind started going. He became obsessed with ancient Talmudic scripture, historically I mean, and apparently the Pleiades has some significance there. Your dad was quite low at the time, a bit off the rails if you want the truth. He was obsessed with the number seven, obsessed with maps. But then, after a while, he found a new job and we moved to Belfast and it turned. We were fine for a short while again.
Oh, Ana. All this has me worried about you. I'm sure you'll be fine, and yet, sometimes I think you have his nature in certain ways. I think I can spot the signs now, and something in our phone call today reminded me of your father. But maybe I'm just worrying too much.
Still. I'm attaching a letter from your father. Not because I especially want to, but because I think it's time. I don't know what you'll make of it. I hope it helps you through what you're dealing with right now, gives you some insight. As a protective mother, I admit I hope it turns you away from this mystery. Think of what happened to your father, Ana.
I love you, and please phone me again if you need anything at all.
As you can imagine, or as you know if you were there, last night was a strange one.
The Water Clock was on at the QFT/Brian Friel Theatre. I was running late due to all the bomb scares around Belfast; does anyone know the significance of these? Why yesterday? Anyway, I got there just before it started.
The show seemed to be a sort of walk through the imaginations of four sisters, five if you count the one who spoke at the opening, that told a story about their past, including the loss of their youngest sister Taygeta. The sisters are named for the Pleiades, which was evident by their names in the program, if not by their nicknames (Ty, Ellie, etc.). One of the sisters was nicknamed Meri, and although I haven't seen her in person in a few years, looked to be my old friend Meri Cain, and spoke about a boyfriend named David (the name of Meri Cain's boyfriend). As if she was playing herself on stage.
I knew from her recent blog posts that Meri was coming back to Belfast, and she has been following [in]visible belfast with us, but she said nothing about having any involvement in The Water Clock, which is somehow connected with the mystery … I'm certain she is lying about some things. The question is why. I've been ringing Meri's mobile number since last night after the play, but she's not answering.
I was handed a camera at the start of the play, right when I was seated, and told by the person who handed it to me (a "guide"?) to record everything I saw. I did my best. Then, at the end of the show, the guide took it off me again, and never explained why I was filming. Other people seemed to have been given handheld cameras as well. Were any of you?
I was so focused on watching the play and trying to film it that I completely forgot the task of picking up the letter from Aster's scene. Did anyone pick it up?
As for the story of the play, my take on it is this. A Narrator introduced us to the story, about seven sisters who have a painful history. He told us that this would be a trial, and that the opinions of the audience would count for something. Then he opened the floor to the sisters.
There were six sisters in the play. In age order I would guess: Maia, Ellie, Alce, Meri, Ty. Each of them had part of a story to tell, and each of them had some sort of residual cross to bear, related to her father. The play really began when the oldest sister Maia wrote a letter inviting the other sisters to her home (their childhood home) to honor the 20th anniversary of the death of the youngest sister. Then you see each of the other sisters, getting a sort of glimpse into her life or her mind, traveling from one backstage space to another, led by the guides.
The second act was more traditional, as we were seated in the Brian Friel Theatre. I sat with a girl from my course who I ran into during the intermission, and afterwards we discussed what we think the father's crimes were. The father killed the youngest, Ty, by using her as a "human shield" when his paramilitary cronies were after him. There also seemed to be the possibility of the girls being abused somehow, hinted at in a couple of the early scenes and then quite strongly in the second half. The father never showed up, giving it a sort of Godot-esque quality, but there still had to be a trial, according to the Narrator. So he put Maia on trial; it is revealed that the father was never coming.
Maia was made to give a testimony. Then the Narrator stopped the storytelling and demanded that the audience vote Guilty or Innocent, and votes were taken. The majority vote was innocent. The Narrator attempted to overturn this somehow, and the sisters overpowered him. In the final bit of the play, the Narrator seemed to stand in for the father, and pay for his crimes in some sense.
Things that caught my eye, beyond the obvious … Meri had the book Invisible Cities sticking out of her bag; the Faulkner quote in the second act about time; that fact that there was no seventh sister (Celaeno).
I don't know what else to say right now. I left the theatre feeling very confused; it was all a bit surreal. Any thoughts from any of you?
I'm a postgrad student in Belfast, recently transplanted from overseas.


Regular readers will recall that I am a big fan of the work of Sherry Turkle (though, shamefully, I haven't read, or even purchased, her latest book Alone Together yet; I might download a copy if someone gives me a Kindle for Christmas.) I've been particularly influenced by her 1997 paper Multiple subjectivity and virtual community at the end of the Freudian century, in which she advances the idea that online interaction allows one to dis-integrate the various strands of one's personality, in a way that allows one to gain greater insight into one's internal mental landscape, and, in theory at least, escape the restrictions of a unitary conception of the self.
This was in my mind the other day, when my Second Life Premium membership came up for renewal. I duly handed over the $80 or so, which is small beer in comparison with what I spend on other types of entertainment, but enough to set me thinking about how many different online identities I have, and how much they cost me each year.
The answers to those questions depend on what one considers as a separate identity; my virtual presence divides into four main groupings which have no overlap at all, but within these there are multiple blogs, web-pages, Twitter, Facebook and forum accounts, and, of course, virtual world avatars. Most of these are free, but I must pay out about $200 annually in hosting and subscription fees, not to mention all the valuable time I spend maintaining the whole show.
Is this worth it? Have I become more self-aware by disaggregating my personality traits? Do each of my four core online identities represent a pure strand of my self, uncontaminated by the other three, and better for it?
Not really. I certainly appreciate the freedom to express myself in certain contexts without having to worry too much about how people who know me through different channels would react, and this has sharpened my understanding of how I function internally, highlighting some strengths, but also a lot of flaws. In each guise I do, in some ways, feel more like my "real" self, but also that there are important parts of "me" missing.
The main thing I have learned, if that's not too grand a phrase, is that I actually like my messy, complicated, contradictory, every-day, real-life self a lot better than any of my supposedly idealised avatars. Maybe it's because I started off from a good place; if my self-esteem was lower I might be more inclined to identify with my virtual representations. Perhaps it's harder to reinvent oneself online than it might appear, and I'm actually just reproducing myself over and over, and delusionally believing that each time I'm somehow different. Or it could be that I am at heart a conformist, and I'm subconsciously inhibiting myself from embracing the full liberating potential of virtual life.
Whatever. It seems unlikely that, at this point in my life, I'm going to be changing much, so I guess that you, my dear readers, the parallel audiences for my other projects, and those fortunate enough to know me in real life, will have to go on putting up with the same old nonsense.
I must admit to having rather mixed feelings about the ongoing Eurozone crisis. From my leftist point of view the difficulties besetting the neoliberal Euro project should be encouraging, since they expose the democratic deficit at the heart of the EU, which one might imagine would raise public consciousness about the need for progressive social change, but, on a more personal level, the prospect of the European economy entering a prolonged period of recession, with the accompanying political turmoil, is rather unsettling.
People have been comparing the current crisis to the situation in Europe during the inter-war period, which obviously didn't work out too well, what with the rise of Fascism and the mass destruction of the Second World War. That may have sounded a bit hyperbolic a few months ago, but events since then on both sides of the Ionian Sea have added to the general sense of gloom, and the transparent inability of our political leaders to address the problems hardly inspires confidence.
Things went badly wrong the 20s at least in part due to the mishandling of the situation by the Comintern, but at least back then there was an international Communist movement, with influential mass parties in most European nations, and the still-fresh example of the Bolshevik revolution to provide inspiration. Today the organised left is much weaker, and such opposition as there is tends to coalesce around disparate formations like the "Occupy" movement, which are all over the place politically, and in some ways openly reactionary.
So I'm finding myself hoping that the Eurozone leaders will pull some sort of rabbit out of the hat, probably involving the ECB issuing Eurobonds to relieve the difficulty Italy is having accessing credit at affordable rates. As these will be underpinned by the German economy, the quid pro quo will be Berlin taking over control of financial policy for the Eurozone as a whole, since the prospect of the ECB printing money to bail out the Greeks and Italians terrifies the Germans who remember the hyperinflation of the Weimar era.
It probably won't take a great deal of time for the populations of Italy, Greece and the other peripheral economies of Europe to wake up to the fact that they are being forced to endure severe austerity by politicians over whom they have no democratic influence. What will happen then is the big question; the stage would be set for a populist neo-fascist movement, but hopefully the left will have enough time to formulate a coherent response, and to get sufficiently organised to withstand the troubles that lie ahead.
Tonight is the night that we in the UK display our liberal values of tolerance and inclusivity by letting off fireworks to celebrate the fact that Roman Catholics are constitutionally barred from becoming Head of State.
I quite like pyrotechnics, but in recent years the ubiquity of cheap Chinese imports has meant that, in the run-up to Bonfire Night, even a quiet middle-class neighbourhood like mine reverberates with explosions for half the night. Obviously it's nothing like living in an actual war-zone, but it does get to me a bit. Another sign I'm getting old I guess.


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Omicron reinfection is three times as often than any other variants
By Owl24/7 (self media writer) | 1 month ago
According to a South African analysis of infections since the start of the pandemic, the risk of reinfection from the Omicron coronavirus variation is three times higher than any preceding version.
According to the authors, Juliet Pulliam of the South African Center for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis and Harry Moultrie of the National Center for Communicable Diseases, the discovery demonstrates omicron's "ability to elude immunity from prior infection."
The authors noted in an emailed statement that the study was based on data acquired from South Africa's health system on around 2.8 million confirmed coronavirus infections between March 2020 and November 27. There were 35,670 suspected reinfections out of that total.
"Our first priority right now is to determine the degree of omicron's immunological escape for both natural and vaccine-derived immunity, as well as its transmissibility and impact on illness severity," they stated.
On November 25, South Africa announced the discovery of a novel variety, later dubbed omicron, as cases continued to rise and the strain spread over the world. On Wednesday, national daily cases nearly doubled, only days after governments around the world suspended flights to and from southern Africa.
Scientists working with the Gauteng provincial government, the South African province in the center of the omicron coronavirus outbreak, want to finish a study on the virus's pathogenicity by Tuesday.
The province, which is home to the majority of South Africa's population, has been in the spotlight since the government and scientists with whom it collaborated announced on Nov. 25 that the new variation had been discovered in samples from the area. Southern Africa was subjected to travel limitations as a result of this upheaval in global markets.
"Does this variation have a lower virulence?" In an interview on Thursday, Bruce Mellado, the head of the Gauteng Premier's Advisory Committee, said, "We don't have the answers to that yet." "Our advisory committee is working on it right now." On Tuesday, we'll most likely have a closed-door presentation before the command council."
Mellado, a professor at Johannesburg's University of The Witwatersrand who employs mathematical modeling to predict the trajectory of illnesses, said the study's findings would be released to the public later.
So far, he noted, hospitalizations and mortality have been fewer than projected.
According to a report from the South African Medical Research Council, the number of excess fatalities in Gauteng were 62 below normal in the week ended November 21, a measure of deaths evaluated against a historical average.
Excess fatalities are seen to be a better indicator of Covid-19's genuine impact than official deaths. South Africa's official death toll from the epidemic is over 90,000, accounting for nearly a third of the entire excess death toll.
"We're shocked," he said, adding that previous infections and immunizations may have provided some protection as the number of cases increased. "Even if this strain is less virulent, it will still cause a lot of death and misery."
What are your thoughts on the subject? Please share your thoughts in the comments box below, and remember to follow my account for more health and fitness advice. Please forward this article to your friends and family so they don't miss out on this important information.
Source: https://businesstech.co.za/news/business/543656/reinfection-from-omicron-three-times-higher-than-for-any-previous-variant/
Content created and supplied by: Owl24/7 (via Opera News )
Juliet Pulliam Omicron South Africa South African South African Center for Epidemiological
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


We are holding a learning and networking event on the 27th Sept for Civil Servants working in or close to Bristol. Meet the Neighbours is open to Civil Servants at all grades.
The event will be based around the vision for a 'Brilliant Civil Service' which encourages departments to be connected and innovative, promoting the Civil Service as a great place to work. The aim is that attendees get a better understanding of the wider Civil Service presence in the locality and the role they have, an opportunity to network with colleagues and share ideas that help us all to 'see the big picture'.
The event will be opened by senior leaders and we have 26 departmental and network stands for you to visit .We have a variety of CS departments taking part, so that you can find out more about those departments and ways you can connect. When at the event you will also be able to book on to various smaller presentations, such as career stories and success profiles.
This event can count towards your 5 a year learning and development days. You will need to seek authorisation from your line manager in order to attend and any travel and lunch expenses must be met by your home department. Please note that lunch/refreshments won't be provided and you must bring a Civil Service pass with you.
Please also be aware there is no parking available at the venue, but the office is a short walk from Temple Meads train station and there are public car parks nearby.
Civil Service Local are committed to ensuring that wherever possible our events are accessible to all participants. If you have any specific requirements that will enable you to fully participate, please let us know and we will endeavour to make any reasonable adjustments.


Great, easy salad to make when hosting someone for dinner and making pizzas or calzones.
Use truffled mustard for this.
Use a scant amount of fennel.
Can easily be turned into a mini sammie for parties.
Would make a great light lunch with a small salad. Also could be easily turned into mini size for an app.


Also visit our schedule for our other Co-Op Teacher's classes – See home page for more details.
Kathy began practicing yoga over 30 years ago due to constant lower back pain. She just knew at that time her lower back needed gentle exercise to alleviate her own chronic pain. She faithfully practiced Yoga once a week and was so impressed with the results that she went on to receive her Yoga Teacher 500 hours Certification. She has also been a certified MELT method instructor for over 5 years and has helped many students relieve tension in their bodies as well as stuck stress.
Kathy has been teaching gentle yoga classes for over a decade for students at least 50 years or older.
Her classes take on a soft, healing energy, using soothing postures for low back, neck and shoulders. She finds it most rewarding that in her classes, her students love to relax, close their eyes and go within their own bodies, while following their breath. This enables them to release tension in these areas by increasing oxygen flow with internal focus. Kathy believes that moving into the parasympathetic nervous system is the beginning for true healing on so many levels.
Kathy loves to introduce people to Yoga, and show how Yoga can bring vitality and rejuvenation into the body at any age!
I noticed many changes. I also felt water sloshing inside me on Saturday.
1. I slept an hour after I got home Saturday afternoon and then 9 hours on Saturday night. My body felt heavy and relaxed.
2. I found I was stretching even before I was fully awake on Sunday morning.
3. I wasn't stiff when I got up on Sunday morning.
4. I went for a 3 mile walk on Sunday. It's the longest walk for me since July or August when I hurt my leg and I had energy all day.
5. I am flexible even before I stretch. I have been stiff and achy for years.
It is okay with me to share my results. Also…I remembered today that I can breathe deeper easier. You can add that to my list if you want to.
I continue to melt every morning and I find that the rebalance on the roller is helping me with my standing balance during the day. Is it realistic to think that some day I can do the rebalance on the roller with 1 foot raised without wobbling? I sure can't do it now.
I am so grateful that we are fortunate enough to have you in Prescott to teach us proper formation in Melting.
I took Kathy's MELT workshop a few months ago and have been benefiting from it ever since. I bought the MELT balls during the workshop and with a little commitment (10 minutes, 3 times per week in my home) my wrists are stronger and my knees do not hurt when I walk. In fact, I'm starting to jog again after not being able to without pain for about ten years. Between taking Kathy's MELT workshop and doing her Yoga class 2 times per week, I feel wonderful!
I highly recommend Kathy's MELT workshops and her yoga classes. Kathy's passion for helping people live better and more fully is evident whenever I see her. She has a gift for teaching the 'how and why' of both MELT and Yoga.
Kathy has been my yoga instructor for many years and most recently my Melt teacher. She is always current on new techniques to help her students maintain a healthy body and peace of mind. I have complete trust and faith in her abilities as a caring and professional instructor.
I have been a yoga student of Kathy's for several years, which is my testimony to her skill, gentle demeanor and inspirations on the mat. I have recently taken some MELT classes from Kathy and am finding them wonderfully beneficial. I deeply appreciate having such a skilled and sincere teacher. Bravo to you, Kathy, for your continued inspirations.


Reserve Your Room A Few Steps Away From The Whitman Baltimore Expo!
Will you be at the Whitman Baltimore Summer Expo? We have a special relationship with several hotels – all of which are just a short distance from the Expo – that are ready to welcome Expo attendees! Click the link below to explore your options, but be aware that the reserved blocks often sell out. Don't miss out – reserve your room just a few steps away from the Baltimore Convention Center today!


text:
function [TW] = hpe2TW(hpe)
% Convert power from electrical horsepower to terawatts.
% Chad A. Greene 2012
TW = hpe*746e-10;

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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ABC's 'Dancing with the Stars' Still Dances with Emotion
March 30, 2015 | By Ed Martin
Anyone who thinks ABC's Dancing with the Stars has worn out its welcome – that there isn't a compelling reason to continue watching this veteran competition program – must be prompted to reevaluate his or her assertion after last week's show...
After all, when was the last time a network television series packed the kind of emotional power we saw Monday on Dancing (televised at 8 p.m. ET) when Iraq War veteran and double amputee Noah Galloway – one of this season's more popular competitors – was surprisingly reunited with his girlfriend Jamie Boyd, whom he hadn't seen in six months. Extra emo bonus: The reason Galloway hadn't seen her in so long is because she has been in Army Reserve training, preparing to serve her country!
When Boyd was brought into the ballroom after Galloway danced with partner Sharna Burgess and a stunned Galloway grabbed her and held her close, there wasn't a dry eye in the ballroom. I'll wager there weren't many dry eyes among the millions watching at home, either.
What a moment of spontaneous and unexpected emotion – one that likely took viewers at home as much by surprise as it did Galloway. Television moves people in many ways much of the time, as do so many of those videos on YouTube and elsewhere that capture moments of heart-rending happiness and compassion, but those moments rarely feel as true as this one. I think it was something about the way Noah held onto Jamie that made it so special.
The Galloway-Boyd reunion got me to thinking about this particular kind of unplanned, unrehearsed and unexpected display of pure joy and its relative rarity in a medium that prides itself on establishing and sustaining every kind of emotional connection imaginable.
The only other recent example that came to mind was the Oscar moment during The Theory of Everything star Eddie Redmayne's lovely acceptance speech at the Academy Awards, when he was suddenly overcome by everything that was happening to him. He stopped talking, stared at the Oscar clutched in his hand, and let out a little scream or cry or whatever that sound was. There were many beautiful, heartfelt speeches during that overlong show, but there was something about Redmayne's spontaneous reaction that burst through it all and resonated long after the Awards ended.
With so much content coming at us from so many different directions — much of it in the form of millions of videos shot by everyday people who happen to capture unplanned moments and post them on YouTube for all to forever see – it has become increasingly rare for viewers to experience such moments of genuine emotional truth in the media, especially on television, where plotted responses and reactions are the norm. Think of the intense planning and plotting that goes into so many of those unscripted "observational reality" programs.
It's the pre-programmed anticipation and expectation that often form a bit of a barrier between a sudden expression of emotion and the experience of witnessing it as it happens. For example, one doesn't watch an important football game without expecting to respond to the action, or to watch as the players on screen do the same. Depending on the outcome of the play, the athletes involved cheer, high five each other, jump around or swear under their breaths and growl a bit. The same is true in all professional sports games on the field, in the seats and in living rooms across the land.
Similarly, one doesn't watch an overtly manipulative show like ABC's The Bachelor without expecting to be overtly manipulated. It's the raison d'etre of the franchise.
With all that emotion making itself felt on both sides of every screen with ever growing frequency, I find that truly unexpected moments of a certain power are increasingly few and far between. This isn't easy to explain, but to begin I think that real reactions can only come during a live shared experience. Everything else on television (and on the Internet) has been produced or edited, or somehow packaged and displayed, to generate a certain response.
There is no shortage of emotional connectivity in television and video content, to be sure. But those moments that can't be planned, or likely even imagined, are becoming harder to find, or perhaps to identify. The amazing and inspiring Noah Galloway and his girlfriend Jamie Boyd reminded us last Monday night that nothing is impossible, that we aren't necessarily as jaded as we might believe and that there are wonderful surprises still to be enjoyed simply by watching television.
It certainly made my week, and I don't think I'm alone in my reaction.
This column was first published in the Planet Ed blog at MediaBizBloggers.
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1990: Michael Caine Stars in ABC's 'Jekyll & Hyde'
By TV WW


During renewal time last year, Lauren Hefner, director of membership, marketing, and communications at the Laboratory Products Association, along with her boss, realized that a longtime member of their trade association was given a discount on membership dues years ago by a former employee—and that the discounted rate was still in effect. "It was less than half of what other organizations the same size were paying," she says.
As newer employees to the two-staff organization, the pair was faced with the tough decision of whether to battle a 50-year member over $1,000. "We didn't want to lose them as a member, but we were also afraid that another member would find out. In addition, despite years of effort, this member company had become largely uninvolved due to an aging executive staff—not attending meetings or even responding to most emails," Hefner says.
Saying "no" is not only difficult when it comes to members; imagine having to say it to your coworkers, volunteers, or even your boss. While saying no may never be easy, you can say it in ways that will make it clear that you have the best intentions in mind and will avoid negative consequences.
People say no, but they do so weakly and they end up accommodating. "In other words, we turn our no into a yes," he says.
They say no in a destructive or angry way. "This is detrimental and will undermine the relationship, whether with a boss, colleague, board member, or volunteer," Ury says.
They avoid conflict and say neither yes nor no. "We leave people hanging, which doesn't do a service to either us or them," he says.
Saying no can be particularly difficult in associations. "We exist to serve our members, so when a member asks for something, you don't want to tell them no," says Becky Granger, CAE, director of information technology and member services at Educause. "But our job is to provide the most impactful items to our members, so we have to apply a critical lens and select what makes the most sense" for the organization.
While most people would like to avoid saying no, it's unavoidable. "Just remember for every yes you say, you are going to have to say no to something else," says Newman.
He suggests sandwiching the no: Begin with a yes, put your no in the middle, and then end with a yes. "A true positive no is a no where you're actually saying yes to something more important. Your yes is your values and core needs and what's best for the organization's values and mission," he says.
After you deliver your no, Newman says, as bad as you may feel, it's important to keep in mind that the person you said no to most likely isn't thinking about you. "They're really moving on to finding someone who can help them. Sure, the person may be panicked initially, but the asker moves on and is not sitting there thinking you're a terrible person," she says.
But what should you do if the person you have to say no to is one of your association's volunteers or your boss?
What If You're Told No?
However, persuading to the point that a person feels like she has no option but to say yes is not a good approach. Instead, you may want to ask what else is on her plate and work together to see if projects and priorities can be adjusted.
Ury says the common ground between saying no and receiving no is respect. "Respect is the cheapest concession you can make in any negotiation because it costs you nothing and gains you everything," he says.
While the ability to say no is important in associations, so is having an environment that accepts no and understands when someone is saying it for the right reasons.
To decide which ideas to pursue, the organization has core teams that look at whom the idea would benefit and how much. "Ideas that would benefit a large number of members in a big way will be prioritized over other ideas, and some ideas just don't make the cut," she says.
Additionally, Granger says some staff have personal preferences about how they like to use technology tools and sometimes ask for special access to the team or help on apps that her team wouldn't usually support.
Sometimes just hearing the word "no" can put a person on the defensive. Try these phrases instead to keep the conversation open.
No Replies to "Know how to Say "No""


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text:
Court decision opens door to right to buy for tenants of bank of repossessions
Leave a Comment	/ Legal News, Property News / By Maria Luisa Castro
A recent court sentence sets innovative precedence for tenants in properties owned by Spanish banks. Under the ruling, tenants may exercise their first right to buy the property even if the bank has transferred ownership of it to another company. Legal experts believe that the sentence reinforces the rights of tenants renting bank-owned properties.
Background to First Right to Buy Claim
The tenant in question first rented the property on the island of Fuerteventura in the Canaries in 2015. Under the terms of her contract, she had first right to buy should the property go on the market.
The recent court sentence specifically cites this clause in the contract (article 25 in Spanish law), underlining that if a rental property is to be sold, the tenant has first right to buy it. Furthermore, the owner of the property must inform the tenant of their intention to sell and the tenant in turn has 30 days in which to make an offer.
Transfer of Property From Bank to Company
The rental property in Fuerteventura belonged to the Spanish bank, BBVA. The bank created a new company called Divarian Propiedad to hold its repossessed properties in Spain. This company incorporated the said rental home in 2018 without informing the tenant.
The tenant made repeated offers to buy the property, none of which received a reply from the owner, Divarian Propiedad. "The new company owner refused to sell despite offers from my client," said the tenant's lawyer, "and did not even deign to reply."
Need help with the legal aspects of a property in Spain? Get in touch for a free consultation with our expert team.
Court Sentence
The tenant took the case to court, which made a ruling at the end of last year. The sentence states that the transfer of the property from BBVA to Divarian Propiedad was a transaction "for financial gain".
The ruling argues that the transfer is not an incorporation, but a sale. Under usual practice, Spanish banks base their actions on law and notary doctrine that do not consider the transfer to be a financial transaction. This interpretation exonerates banks from informing tenants, therefore prohibiting them from exercising their right to first offer to buy.
Consequences of the Ruling
The new interpretation of the transfer as a transaction for financial gain opens the door to the consolidation of rights for tenants. If the sentence is confirmed by a higher court, banks will have to observe the first right to buy awarded to tenants of repossessed properties. Or "look for alternative ways of eluding tenants' rights," said the case lawyer.
At Costaluz Lawyers, we believe this latest sentence represents a victory for tenants who should always enjoy full respect of their contract regardless of who the property belongs to. It also confirms that Spanish law is siding more and more with consumers who are gradually seeing their rights confirmed by court rulings.
Over the last few months, we have seen a succession of court sentences favouring the consumer over the bank. For example, a ruling recently forced a bank to pay huge compensation for a renewed contract.
And another sentence ruled that banks must pay for the paperwork involved in mortgage loans.
Problems with Spanish Banks?
At Costaluz Lawyers, we are pioneers on the Spanish legal scene in fighting for consumer rights against malpractice by banks. Over the years, we have helped dozens of clients successfully sue banks and gain access to rightful compensation and/or refunds. If you have a legal problem with a Spanish bank, contact us now – we're only to happy to help.
A summary of the new Royal Decree of 6 March 2019 on housing rentals:
Your Guide To The New Andalusian Law On Illegal Properties
Bank to pay huge compensation over renewed contract


-Have you ever heard of "Sitting disease"?
When I first heard about it, the name really didn't sound like something I'd ever want to know anything more about.
It's just another term for a sedentary lifestyle.
Sit on the couch when you come home from work ...then you too probably have this sitting problem.
...Exercising for twenty to thirty minutes a day isn't enough.
Your body was designed to move. Movement triggers many beneficial functions in your body including hormone release, a balanced metabolism, better brain function and longer and much improved sleep.
-The good news is that you don't have to engage in intense physical activity. In fact, continuous moderate activity is preferred, and less stressful on the body as well.
-Simply walking places instead of driving each day can help.
Take breaks from your desk and walk. When you talk on the phone, stand up instead of sitting. If you can walk on a treadmill (or an exercise bike) at home sometimes while you watch T V – it can work wonders!
One great way to prevent a sedentary lifestyle is to get a pedometer. This simple five-dollar device counts your steps. If you can swing 10,000 steps each day, you'll be in a great position to avoid chronic sitting.
And those 10,000 daily steps will not only help you to lose weight and keep it off for good, but even more importantly, they'll help to keep you physically fit and healthy, ready for the long and happy life ahead!


text:
European Forums
Euroscrapers
Nordic & Baltic
ÍSLAND | Járnbrautir | Railroads
Bjarki
Discussion Starter · #101 · Sep 17, 2015
alexanderlyd said:
Where did you get these plans? It´s probably a very interesting read.
In June/July of this year, Samtök Steitarfélagana á Höfuðborgarsvæðinu (the collaberation between the councils in the capital area) released the new city plans from 2015. They outline how the city should grow, and shows development areas. The Mayor of Reykjavík has signed under this plan, among other officials.
ssh.is/svaedisskipulag - In icelandic
In this report, they outline a light rail system, called ´Borgarlína´, which seems to be the same system that Bjarki posted. This means that light rail transport is ´on the agenda´ for Reykjavik, but preemptive studies are still in the works. It will be interesting to see where this will head.
I don't remember the particular document I got these plans from but it was in relation to SSH regional plan, probably a special transportation annex to the SSH plan. I was pleasantly surprised to see the plan being approved unanimously by the seven municipal authorities that form the SSH. This general outline seems to have support in different municipalities and across party lines so I guess it will move forward in some form. I consider BRT more likely than light rail though, at least to begin with.
Jacky93
Any news on the Keflavík-Reykjavík rail line? Haven't seen any articles for a while
whatsuplucas
Jacky93 said:
This is the latest I could find:
Investors hope to set plans of a high-speed rail link between Reykjavík and Keflavík Airport into motion in 2018
A group of investors hopes to set plans of a high-speed rail link between Reykjavík and Keflavík Airport into motion within the next three years. Fréttablaðið newspaper reports that a high-speed rail link would cost 105 billion ISK (37.5 million Euros) to construct. In addition to private investors, Reykjavík, Kópavogur, Hafnarfjörður, Reykjanesbær and Garðarbær municipalities will partake and contribute to the challenging project.
"We are confident that we will be able to provide funds to launch the project in February [2016]. The next three years will devoted to assess the impact a rain link will have on the environment and to prepare preliminary designs and plans. Our hopes are that construction can begin in 2018," Runólfur said.
Source: http://icelandmag.visir.is/article/...l-link-between-reykjavik-and-keflavik-airport
Looks brilliant, would bring so much investment to the areas around the rail corridor!
Sanlucar-Playa
When in 2009 my daughter sent me from Iceland this link, I thought it was a joke of Étienne de France...
Sanlucar-Playa Jan 8, 2017


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Should The New York Times Investigate Wal-Mart Or Carlos Slim?
by Paul Gregory | May 24, 2012 | Economy, Research & Commentary, Website
The New York Times's Vast Mexico Bribery Case Hushed Up by Wal-Mart After Top-Level Struggle suggests that Wal-Mart violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The smoking gun: Seven years ago, Wal-Mart de Mexico hired two outside lawyers for $8.5 million to "facilitate" store permits.
The lawyers were effective: "Legal and bureaucratic obstacles melted away after payments were made to minor officials who could thwart Wal-Mart's growth." Wal-Mart executives, the article charges, did not take appropriate action after an internal investigation.
No believer in free enterprise should excuse or make light of violations of laws by Wal-Mart or any other private company. We hope that Wal-Mart moves forcefully to put this business behind it.
In its anti-Wal-Mart fervor, the Times inflates the $8.5 million into an "orchestrated campaign of bribery to win market dominance" that erected Wal-Marts on "virtually every corner of the country." No mention of the possibility – if not probability – that local officials could not pass up a once in a lifetime opportunity to extort Wal-Mart. A Wal-Mart success story explained by its "everyday low prices" does not fit the Times' political agenda. Greasing the palms of local officials with a few dollars is a more convenient explanation.
A few blocks away from 620 Eighth Avenue, Carlos Slim, the Times' second largest shareholder behind the Sulzbergers, oversees his sprawling Telmex and Latin American telecommunications empires from atop Rockefeller Center. Slim is a welcome guest at the most exclusive of Manhattan cocktail parties. Wal-Mart's hillbilly executives from Bentonville, Arkansas would simply not fit in.
Economics 101 teaches that only efficient businesses survive and prosper in competitive markets. They compete, customer living standards rise, and prices fall. Monopolies, in contrast, earn extraordinary profits, provide poor customer service, charge monopoly prices, and lower living standards. Economists of all stripes favor competition and warn against monopoly.
Carlos Slim, the world's richest man and owner of Mexico's telephone monopoly (Telmex), single-handedly retarded Mexico's economic development and reduced its standard of living, while Wal-Mart de Mexico raised Mexican living standards, particularly among the poor as following quotes from local Mexican websites suggest:
"(Mexico's) monopolized telephone system charges outrageous prices causing people to avoid using the phone." (from a Mexico retirement website)
"With the money I save at Wal-Mart, I take my family to the movies." (Interview with a Mexican plumber.)
"Until recently, relatively few people had a private home telephone line due to the high cost of installation." (Vallarta online)
"Spam goes for 26.00 at Wal-Mart, 28.50 at Soriana, and 37.50 at SuperLake. U.S. brand peanut butter is consistently cheaper at Wal-Mart and Soriana than at SuperLake. For cheese lovers, Soriana's mild cheddar is a steal at 84.90 per kg." (Guadalajara online)
Carlos Slim was the highest bidder for Mexico's dilapidated national telephone company, when it was privatized in 1990. Slim was wealthy at the time, but he was not in the top 100. Telmex made him the world's richest man, quite a feat for someone from a desperately poor country.
Slim's story is "business-as-usual" in a crony-capitalist country. Using his close ties to the ruling PRI party, Slim arranged to pay for Telmex out of company profits. He gained a seven-year anti-trust exemption that left him free to operate Telmex as a monopoly. He arranged a deal that was in his interests and contrary to the interests of the people. Slim's monopoly gave Mexico one of the worst connection rates in the world, and its customers pay among the highest rates for telephone service. Telmex's forty percent plus profit rate caused Slim's personal wealth to soar. It was not until August of 2011 that Mexico's antitrust watchdog began breathing down his neck.
A 2012 OECD report entitled Telecoms reform would boost competition and growth in Mexico reveals the damage that Carlos Slim's Telmex wreaked on the Mexican economy:
"From 2005 to 2009, Mexican consumers paid $13.4 billion a year excess for phone and internet services, with high fees disproportionately hitting the poor. In total, overcharging cost the economy $129 billion over the five-year period, nearly 2 percent of the country's economic output… Mexico cannot reach its growth potential until the cost of phone and internet access comes down and more people have easy access to telecom services."
Carlos Slim's $13.4 billion overcharge cost the average Mexican household some $600 per year, or over six percent of household income! It seems Carlos Slim became the world's richest man at the expense of an entire country!
Wal-Mart de Mexico is a quite different kettle of fish.
We do not have special studies of the "Wal-Mart effect" on Mexico's retail market, but it must have been as great or greater than in the United States. Wal-Mart directly saved American households more than $200 per year in lower prices – a gross underestimate that does not count Wal-Mart's contribution to increasing competition. Wal-Mart also raised productivity throughout the economy. McKinsey, in its exhaustive study of U.S. productivity, concludes that:
"Wal-Mart directly and indirectly caused the bulk of the productivity acceleration through ongoing managerial innovation that increased competitive intensity and drove the diffusion of best practice (both managerial and technological)."
Wal-Mart de Mexico is the largest private employer in Mexico, with over 200,000 employees in its more than 2,000 retail outlets. It has applied its winning business model to Mexico, where it has had the same positive effects on Mexican living standards and productivity. Wal-Mart de Mexico's rivals — Comercial Mexicana, Soriana and Gigante – have overhauled their purchasing and pricing strategies, revamped their stores, introduced new products and spent heavily on computer systems and distribution centers. They are giving Wal-Mart a run for its money.
Carlos Slim became rich at the expense of Mexico. Wal-Mart de Mexico earns a competitive profit and has made Mexico richer.
The Times is less voluble about Mexico's growing distaste for its illustrious shareholder. The sensational news of a $1 billion fine against Carlos Slim and the approval of a new anti-monopoly law that calls for prison terms ended up as a short piece on page B1 of its May 9, 2011 edition. Since then we have heard little on this matter from the Times.
As an observer of Russia in the 1990s, I was an eyewitness to the transition from street-mafia corruption to crony capitalism. Up until the mid 1990s, crew-cut young thugs dressed in jogging outfits shook down store owners. Without their "protection," they could not stay in business. In the second half of the 1990s, I saw health, tax, and fire inspectors displacing the street thugs, but now the shakedown was by state officials. Under Putin, the mafia game moved to the highest levels. Putin's KGB state now hands out monopolies to favored billionaire oligarchs and state officials.
Wal-Mart de Mexico was captive of the state inspector, without whose permission it would not be possible to do business. The level of competition and normal profit rates tell us that Wal-Mart did not freeze out competitors. All it wanted was a chance to compete.
We will never know what deals Carlos Slim made to gain the Telmex monopoly. But we know this was crony capitalism in its most destructive form. The damage to the Mexican standard of living was colossal (in contrast to Wal-Mart's which was probably victimless).
If the venerable Times is interested in ferreting out corruption in Mexico that harms ordinary people, why not investigate a case right under its own nose and mega times more consequential? Such coverage of state-sanctioned monopoly would show its readers the huge harm that flows from crony capitalism – excuse me, I meant to say government-private partnerships.
Paul Roderick Gregory's latest book, "Politics, Murder, and Love in Stalin's Kremlin: The Story of Nikolai Bukharin and Anna Larina, " can be found at amazon.com.
Paul R. Gregory is a Research Fellow, Hoover Institution Cullen Professor of Economics, University of Houston. Gregory has a regular blog //blogs.forbes.com/paulroderickgregory/at Forbes.com


text:
Q: Finding solution to matrix equation over GF(2) with minimal true variables I am looking for a general way to find a solution to a system of equations in GF(2) such that the solution has the least amount of true variables. After Gaussian elimination I get a matrix like such:
$$ \left[
    \begin{array}{ccccccccc|c}1&0&0&0&1&1&1&0&0&1\\
0&1&0&0&1&0&1&0&1&1\\
0&0&1&0&0&1&1&1&0&0\\
0&0&0&1&1&1&1&1&1&1\\
0&0&0&0&0&0&0&0&0&0\\
0&0&0&0&0&0&0&0&0&0\\
0&0&0&0&0&0&0&0&0&0\\
0&0&0&0&0&0&0&0&0&0\\
0&0&0&0&0&0&0&0&0&0\\
    \end{array}
\right] $$
Finding a solution is trivial. If the variables are named $a$, $b$, ..., then $\{a, b, d\} = 1$ is a valid solution. However, $\{e\} = 1$ is also a valid solution, and only uses a single true variable.
In this example we got 'lucky' because it's easy to spot the minimal solution, but this obviously doesn't generalize. Is there a fast general method to find a solution that minimizes the number of true variables?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Randaträsket är en sjö i Gällivare kommun och Jokkmokks kommun i Lappland och ingår i . Sjön har en area på  kvadratkilometer och ligger  meter över havet. Sjön avvattnas av vattendraget Randträskbäcken.

Delavrinningsområde
Randaträsket ingår i det delavrinningsområde (737117-174252) som SMHI kallar för Utloppet av Randaträsket. Medelhöjden är  meter över havet och ytan är  kvadratkilometer. Det finns inga avrinningsområden uppströms utan avrinningsområdet är högsta punkten. Randträskbäcken som avvattnar avrinningsområdet har biflödesordning 3, vilket innebär att vattnet flödar genom totalt 3 vattendrag innan det når havet efter  kilometer. Avrinningsområdet består mestadels av skog (76 procent). Avrinningsområdet har  kvadratkilometer vattenytor vilket ger det en sjöprocent på  procent.

Se även
 Lista över insjöar i Jokkmokks kommun

Källor

Externa länkar

Insjöar i Råneälvens avrinningsområde
Insjöar i Lappland
Insjöar i Gällivare kommun
Insjöar i Jokkmokks kommun
Insjöar i Sverige om minst en kvadratkilometer

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Oak ba furniture sets intended for household furnitures with regard to nursery furnitures in HD resoutions for free. This wallpaper was added in Friday, 06 April 2018 which is part of the Nursery Furniture collection. It's native resolution is 1024x1024 pixels.


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text:
King Endorses Cruz for President
Iowa Public Radio
Published November 16, 2015 at 2:16 PM CST
Iowa Public Radio / Clay Masters
Republican presidential hopeful, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas speaks at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition Summit in January 2016. The event was hosted by Rep. Steve King (IA-4.)
Congressman Steve King (IA-4) is endorsing Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for the Republican presidential nomination. The Iowa Republican said Cruz was a "constitutional originalist" and the answer to his prayers. King cited the Texan's views on faith, the military, and immigration policy in his endorsement speech.
Both men are firebrands and often at odds with establishment colleagues in their own party. But King, who is well-liked among evangelicals and the tea party in his state, says the senator will be able to appeal to libertarian, evangelical, and mainstream Republican voters.
"I think he gives the establishment everything they want, he just gives them more than they want," says King.
Another candidate polling well with Iowa evangelicals is neurosurgeon Ben Carson. When asked why he wasn't endorsing the physician, King said he respects Carson's vision and intellect, but doubts he would be able to take on inside-the-beltway politics.
"The zone of Washington, D.C. is not an area that's he's familiar with, and so that give me pause," says King. "You need to know what's going on in that organism to do something about it."
In 2012 King didn't endorse a candidate, and in 2008 he supported Fred Thompson.
The first-in-the-nation Iowa Caucuses are less than three months away. According to a recent CNN poll Carson ranks second and Cruz in fourth place among likely Republican Caucus-goers.
Political NewsSteve KingTed Cruz2016 ElectionsIPR NewsBen Carson
How Ted Cruz's Father Shaped His Views On Immigration
The Young Iowa Voter's Role in 2016


text:
Tackling Grand Challenges with Competition Law: Lessons from the Pandemic
Ioannis Lianos
Minssen, Timo
Kollmar, Christy Lynne
All across the globe antitrust authorities responded quickly, determined to tackle the worst impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak. While regulators and courts can apply competition and antitrust rules both as enforcing "swords" to achieve public health goals and "enabling" shields to promote specific collaborations, it appears that the "enabling collaborations" function has been particularly important to rapidly facilitate much needed pandemic responses. This chapter describes these developments from a past, present and future perspective. Specifically, it analyses (1) the interaction between competition law and public health, (2) the immediate response of antitrust authorities during the crisis, and (3) new approaches and solutions models. Special emphasis will be placed on the question of whether current pandemic responses could provide competition authorities a future blueprint and toolkit for action and a new role in the public ecosystem to implement needed sustainable development objectives.
EU Competition Law and Pharmaceuticals
Wolf Sauter, Marcel Canoy, Jotte Mulder
https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3985344
E-pub ahead of print - 2021
Faculty of Law - competition law, sustainable pharma, grand challenges, public health, coopetition, collaboration, regulatory sandboxes


Various types of nanopores are encountered in many different engineering and science applications. Due to incomplete understanding of the phase behavior of fluids in nanosize confined space, the improvement of such applications has been largely based on experience and empirical approaches. Therefore, experimental studies on the phase behavior of confined fluids that are simple but accurate are still urgently needed. We recently developed a new isochoric procedure using a Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC) to measure the onset of vapor–liquid phase transitions, which has been successfully used in experiments measuring the vapor pressures of pure substances and the dew points of a bulk mixture in the absence of nanopores [Qiu et al., Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2018, 20, 26241–26248]. It is the purpose of this work to extend the new method to confined fluids. To demonstrate the superior ability of the new method, we measure the capillary condensation of CO2 and the dew points of a binary methane/ethane gas mixture confined in SBA-15 with different pore diameters.
Different types of nanoporous media are encountered in many different practical applications, including catalysis,1 carbon dioxide sequestration,2 drug delivery,3 enhanced coalbed methane recovery,4 pollution control,5 and separation,6 as well as hydrocarbon production from shale and other tight formations.7 At the moment, due to an incomplete understanding of the phase behavior of fluids in nanosize confined space, the improvement of such applications has been largely based on experience and empirical approaches.
Most experimental studies on confined pure compounds that have been done are based on the adsorption–desorption experiments using different porous media.14–18 In addition to these experiments, other experimental methods have also been used, for example, neutron scattering,19 small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS),20 positron annihilation spectroscopy,21 micro/nanofluidic chip,22 and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC).23 Experiments for fluid mixtures in confined space, on the other hand, are done less often due to their more complex nature. Consequently, several important features such as the dew points and critical points of confined fluid mixtures have hardly or even never been experimentally explored at all, the fact of which makes the fundamental understanding of such systems far from complete.
There have been a few studies to date that dealt with the measurement of phase transition for mixtures in nanopores. Recently, Cho et al.24 and Liu et al.25 applied the conventional P/V isotherm using a PVT cell to locate the bubble points of confined binary mixtures: n-decane/methane and n-octane/methane in SBA-15 and SBA-16 for the former, and nitrogen/n-butane for the latter. Though both research groups applied similar methods, with some different details, they reached opposite conclusions. Compared to the bubble point in the bulk, the confined bubble point was found at lower pressures by Cho et al. but higher pressures by Liu et al. Adsorption experiments have also been done as early as that by Yun et al.5 using an open-flow apparatus at constant pressures and compositions for the adsorption and capillary condensation of methane/ethane in MCM-41. More recently, using gravimetric adsorption–desorption experiments, Barsotti et al.26 investigated the capillary condensation of binary and ternary mixtures of CO2, n-pentane, and isopentane in MCM-41.
For other methods, Goh et al. investigated the phase separation of binary n-hexane/perfluorohexane in nanoporous glass using light scattering,27 while Valiullin and Furó used nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to investigate the phase separation of hexane/nitrobenzene also in nanoporous glasses.28 Alam et al. isobarically measured the capillary condensation of binary argon/nitrogen in 4 nm Vycor glass using positron annihilation spectroscopy at various compositions.29 Recently, Luo et al. studied the phase behavior of hydrocarbon mixtures in nanopores at atmospheric pressure using isobaric DSC measurements.30 However, in the isobaric procedure using DSC, i.e., an extension of ASTM E1782 (Standard Test Method for Determining Vapor Pressure by Thermal Analysis), the vaporization and escape of sample through a pinhole in the lid of the sample pan change the mixture composition before reaching the bubble point of the fluids in the pore. This method obviously will not work if the mixture contains very volatile components and it would be hard, if not impossible, to accurately measure the phase transition of mixtures at high pressures due to the dissolution of the inert gas used. Furthermore, it also suffers from difficulties in determining several measurement parameters, i.e., the size of the test sample and the size of the pinhole, both of which should also be optimized together with the scanning rate.
In summary, experimental studies on the phase behavior of confined fluids that are simple and accurate are still urgently needed. We recently developed a new simple isochoric procedure using a Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC) to measure the onset of vapor–liquid phase transitions, which has been successfully used in experiments measuring the vapor pressures of pure substances and the dew points of a bulk mixture in the absence of nanopores.31 It is the purpose of this work to extend the new method to confined fluids. To demonstrate the superior ability of the new method, we measure the capillary condensation of CO2 and the dew points of a binary methane/ethane (CH4/C2H6) gas mixture confined in SBA-15 with different pore diameters.
The article is organized as follows. First, Materials and the experimental procedure, including Characterization of SBA-15 and Capillary condensation measurements, are explained. Thereafter, results for the Capillary condensation measurements of carbon dioxide and Dew-point measurements of a gas mixture (CH4/C2H6), both in SBA-15, are discussed. Finally, our Conclusions and remarks are presented.
In this work, SBA-15 mesoporous silicas with three different pore diameters are purchased from Sigma Aldrich (referred to as samples S1 and S2) and Advanced Chemicals Supplier (referred to as sample S3), and used without further treatment. The CO2 gas is UHP grade with a purity greater than 99.97%, purchased from United States Welding, Inc. The UHP-grade gas mixture of CH4 and C2H6 is purchased from Airgas and Air Liquide, with a mole percentage of 15 ± 0.3% CH4 and 85 ∓ 0.3% C2H6. For pore characterization purposes, the UHP-grade nitrogen gas is purchased from United States Welding, Inc., with a purity greater than 99.9%.
SBA-15 mesoporous silicas with different pore diameters are characterized using BET (Brunauer, Emmett and Teller) analysis. The surface properties of the adsorbents are obtained using an automated surface area and pore size analyzer (QUADRASORB evo, Quantachrome Instruments). To ensure the reliability and repeatability of the BET test, a sample preparation procedure before the analysis is implemented and described as follows. Firstly, a sample mass is measured using an analytical balance (TE214S, Sartorius). Generally, the amount of sample should be sufficient for the subsequent analysis and according to the operating manual provided by Quantachrome Instruments, a total area of at least 2–50 m2 is recommended. In this work, ca. 100 mg of SBA-15 is used. Then, the sample is degassed under vacuum conditions (till 2 × 10−2 Torr) while being heated to 200 °C for 5 hours using a sample preparation unit (FloVac Degasser, Quantachrome Instruments) to remove (desorb) the moisture and other volatile contaminants that would otherwise interfere with the analysis. After preparation, the sample is cooled to a cryogenic temperature of 77.35 K, and exposed to nitrogen gas.
Fig. 1(a) shows the nitrogen adsorption–desorption isotherms of three different SBA-15 samples. The isotherm is recorded as the volume of gas adsorbed versus relative pressure (P/P0), which is the ratio of the gas pressure to its saturation pressure. These isotherms are of type IV adsorption isotherm with a H1-type hysteresis loop typical of mesoporous materials with uniform pore structure (i.e., cylindrical channels in a hexagonal arrangement). Since each isotherm has a well-defined plateau at high P/P0, it is possible to obtain an unambiguous assessment of the mesopore total volume.32 The total pore volume is calculated as the amount (volume) of nitrogen adsorbed at a relative pressure of ca. 0.99. As seen in Fig. 1(a), the total pore volume of S3 is much higher than those of S1 and S2. The BET specific surface areas of SBA-15 samples are obtained from the adsorption isotherms in the relative pressure range of 0.1–0.2.
Fig. 1 (a) Nitrogen adsorption–desorption isotherms of three different SBA-15 samples, (b) BJH desorption pore size distributions of three different SBA-15 samples.
Note: SBET, multipoint BET surface area; Vtotal, total pore volume; DBJH, pore diameter, obtained from the BJH method desorption branch.
The capillary condensation of CO2 and the dew points of a gas mixture (methane/ethane) in SBA-15 mesoporous silicas with different pore diameters are measured using an isochoric DSC cooling procedure introduced in our previous work.31 The test principles, procedure, and apparatus needed can be found in the paper. The only difference is that for tests containing adsorbent, a certain amount of SBA-15 is first introduced into the test vessel using a small spatula. The adsorbent used in our test is kept in a drying oven at 120 °C for at least 24 hours before the test.
As noted in our previous work,31 the cooling paths of our DSC procedure in the one-phase region are in general different from the ideal isochores due to the non-uniformity of temperature outside the test vessel. Fig. 2 shows a generic P–T diagram for a bulk fluid depicting the cooling path of the DSC measurement compared to the ideal isochore. With the current setup of apparatus, the uniform density in the test system that is initially achieved at (T0, P0) cannot be maintained after the cooling process starts. The lower temperature in the test vessel causes the non-uniformity within the system, with denser vapor in the vessel. This in turn makes the cooling path in the P–T diagram deviate from the ideal isochore and shift to higher densities following the local condition in the test vessel. As the vessel contains vapor with a higher density than that at the initial condition, the condensation occurs earlier at a higher temperature T2 as indicated in Fig. 2. If the temperature was uniform throughout the system, the condensation should have occurred at T1 on the ideal isochore. Nonetheless, this is not an issue for this method as far as the measurement of phase transition is concerned, as shown in our previous work31 and later in this work.
Fig. 2 Cooling path of the isochoric DSC measurement.
The capillary condensation of CO2 in SBA-15 samples is measured using the isochoric dew-point measurement.31Fig. 3 shows a typical thermogram of such a measurement, which clearly displays a small exothermic peak due to the phase transition occurring in the pores and a larger exothermic peak due to the bulk condensation. Before the phase transition occurs in the pores, the pressure of the test vessel decreases gradually because of the decreasing temperature in the closed system. When condensation occurs within the pores, heat is released from the test sample, leading to a small exothermic peak in the heat flow curve, and the pressure of the system decreases more quickly to a lower level. As the cooling process continues, again, the pressure decreases gradually due to the decreasing temperature in the system. When the bulk condensation eventually starts to occur, the pressure again decreases faster and at the same time a larger amount of heat is released, leading to a sharp increase of the heat flow curve. Note that in a single run, the isochoric DSC procedure is able to measure both capillary and bulk condensation. Along a cooling path, the phase transition of confined fluids in nanopores is encountered first before that of the bulk fluid.
Fig. 3 A typical thermogram of the measurement of capillary condensation in SBA-15 and bulk condensation of CO2.
As usual, the onset of the bulk phase transition is determined from the intersection point between the baseline and the tangent line of the rising part (the almost linear part) of the exothermic peak (point A). Drawing a vertical line through point A gives us the corresponding temperature (point B) and pressure (point C), which are the condensation temperature and vapor pressure, respectively. It is not surprising that point C is the pressure at which the slope of the pressure curve changes abruptly.
On the other hand, for capillary condensation, unlike the determination of the bulk phase transition, we do not take the intersection point between the heat flow baseline and the tangent line of the rising part of the peak to define the capillary condensation because such an intersection point gives us the conditions of condensation that occurs in the smallest mesopores only, not the entire mesopores that have an effective diameter corresponding to the peak of pore size distribution, i.e., DBJH. Therefore, instead we take the vertical dashed line that passes through the maximum of the thermogram peak A′ to give us the temperature (point B′) and pressure (point C′) of the condensation. For the record, the maximum of this thermogram peak occurs simultaneously with the largest time rate of change of the system pressure during the capillary condensation, which indicates that with the amount of adsorbent and cooling rate used, there is no apparent time lag between the heat flow and pressure measurements.
As described in our previous work,31 in the DSC measurements of bulk-phase boundaries, a slow scanning rate is needed so that the system can be assumed at equilibrium throughout the process, and thus the recorded pressures corresponding to the controlled temperatures represent the equilibrium pressures. In that work, we used a scanning rate of 0.03 °C min−1, although we also indicated that a scanning rate of up to 0.1 °C min−1 would still be satisfactory for bulk-phase measurements.
Here, we also cautiously investigate the effect of scanning rate on measurements in the presence of the adsorbent. Measurements with S3 using two different cooling rates are shown in Fig. 4. We find that using these cooling rates, the measured vapor pressures of bulk CO2 are in agreement with the NIST data and the measured conditions for capillary condensation are consistent and fall on the same curve. It turns out that a lower scanning rate does not improve the accuracy of the measurements. Note that the ability of the procedure to measure the bulk phase transition provides us with a robust way of verifying the accuracy of the measurements. Therefore, for faster measurements, the higher scanning rate of 0.1 °C min−1 is used to generate the data for all SBA-15 samples.
Fig. 4 The effects of scanning rate and the amount of adsorbent used on the DSC measurements of the capillary condensation in SBA-15 (S3) and bulk condensation of CO2. The dashed lines are just a guide to the eye. The cooling paths are shown only for some measurements for clarity.
Meanwhile, as shown in Fig. 4, the amount of adsorbent used in these measurements does not have any effect on the capillary condensation, which is not true for confined mixtures as discussed later.
Fig. 5 shows the results of the isochoric DSC measurements of the capillary condensation in SBA-15 samples and bulk condensation of CO2, which also demonstrates that the phase transition in the pores occurs at a higher temperature than that in the bulk on a cooling path, as expected. In other words, the phase transition boundary of the fluid in the nanopores is below that of the bulk fluid on the phase diagram. Again, it should also be noted that the bulk vapor pressures obtained using the isochoric dew-point measurements are in an excellent agreement with the NIST data. These results also confirm that the phase transition curve of fluids confined in a smaller pore is below that in a larger pore on the phase diagram. For comparison, the results of Morishige et al.15 and Barsotti et al.26 using MCM-41 are included in Fig. 5. The capillary condensation in SBA-15 is quite different from that of MCM-41, the fact of which could be attributed to the existence of micropores in SBA-15.
Fig. 5 Isochoric DSC measurements of the capillary condensation in SBA-15 and bulk condensation of CO2. Literature data of the capillary condensation of CO2 in MCM-41 (4.4 nm and 3.7 nm) are taken from Morishige et al.15 and Barsotti et al.,26 respectively. The dashed lines are just a guide to the eye. The cooling paths are shown only for some measurements for clarity.
In the experimental investigation of the phase transition of a mixture in nanopores, one obvious difficulty is that we cannot measure the real composition of the mixture in the pores. Therefore, it becomes a common practice to report the conditions of confined phase transition based on the composition of the bulk mixture surrounding the pores, which is measureable. Thus, the dew point of the confined mixture here is defined as the onset of phase transition in the pores at a fixed composition of the surrounding bulk gas mixture.
The same isochoric procedure as that for pure fluids is applied to measure the dew points of a CH4/C2H6 gas mixture in nanopores at a bulk composition of 15 ± 0.3% CH4/85 ∓ 0.3% C2H6. Fig. 6 shows a typical thermogram for such a measurement. The thermogram analysis of this dew-point measurement is also the same as that of the capillary condensation measurement of CO2.
Fig. 6 A typical thermogram of the capillary condensation in SBA-15 and bulk condensation of a gas mixture (CH4/C2H6).
It is well known that the presence of nanopores may alter the bulk gas composition by selective adsorption. Consequently, the measured phase transition in the pores would not represent that of the confined mixture surrounded by a bulk having the initial composition. Since the bulk composition is not monitored in our experiments, we further require that the bulk composition change is also negligible during and after the capillary condensation, so that the subsequent bulk condensation that occurs upon further cooling can be compared with that of the bulk without the adsorbent. A match between them provides evidence that the bulk composition is effectively unchanged. One way to minimize the alteration of the bulk composition is to employ a small amount of the adsorbent.
The suitable amount of adsorbent is system-specific, thus varies for different fluids and adsorbents. If a relatively large amount of adsorbent is used, the thermogram peak at the dew point of the gas mixture in the pores will be obviously higher, and thus easy to identify, but the bulk gas composition will significantly change due to the selective adsorption in the pores during the cooling process. On the other hand, if a smaller amount of adsorbent is used, the change in the bulk gas composition is negligible, but the thermogram peak might not be detectable. Therefore, a compromise is needed, i.e., an optimum amount that can introduce both the detectable thermogram peak and negligible change in bulk composition.
Fig. 7 shows the effect of the amount of S3 used on the measured dew points of the confined and bulk mixtures. Even an adsorbent amount as little as 2.5 mg changes the bulk gas composition appreciably. The presence of nanopores shifts the measured bulk dew points to lower temperatures because ethane is preferentially adsorbed during the process, and the measured dew points of the confined mixtures do not represent those surrounded by the 15 ± 0.3% CH4/85 ∓ 0.3% C2H6 bulk gas mixture. With 1.3 mg of adsorbent, on the other hand, even after capillary condensation, the change in the bulk gas composition is not noticeable, i.e., the original bulk dew points can still be reproduced. Therefore, we use 1.3 mg of adsorbent to generate accurate data for S3. In a similar manner, accurate data are generated by using adsorbent amounts of 2.2 and 2.0 mg for S1 and S2, respectively.
Fig. 7 The effects of scanning rate and the amount of adsorbent used on the DSC measurements of dew points of a CH4/C2H6 gas mixture in SBA-15 (S3) at a bulk composition of 15 ± 0.3% CH4/85 ∓ 0.3% C2H6. Literature data of bulk bubble and dew points are taken from Bloomer et al.36 The dashed lines are just a guide to the eye. The cooling paths are shown only for some measurements for clarity.
Fig. 7 also shows the effects of scanning rate on the DSC measurements of dew points of the CH4/C2H6 gas mixture in 1.3 mg of S3 at a bulk composition of 15 ± 0.3% CH4/85 ∓ 0.3% C2H6. We find that the measured bulk dew points using two different scanning rates fall on the dew-point curve obtained from the literature.36 Similar to capillary condensation measurements of CO2, a lower scanning rate than 0.1 °C min−1 does not improve the accuracy of the measurements of this system, and thus, a higher scanning rate of 0.1 °C min−1 is used to generate the data for measurements with any SBA-15 sample.
Fig. 8 shows the results of the dew-point measurements. We find that, similar to the capillary condensation of pure fluids, the dew-point curve of the fluid mixtures confined in nanopores is also below that of the surrounding bulk fluid, and the curve is even lower for smaller pores on the phase diagram.
Fig. 8 Isochoric DSC measurements of the dew points of a CH4/C2H6 gas mixture in SBA-15 at a bulk composition of 15 ± 0.3% CH4/85 ∓ 0.3% C2H6 and its corresponding bulk dew points. Literature data of bulk bubble and dew points are taken from Bloomer et al.36 The dashed lines are just a guide to the eye. The cooling paths are shown only for some measurements for clarity.
The recently developed isochoric DSC procedure has been successfully extended to measure the phase transition of a pure fluid and a fluid mixture in nanopores. As in the case of bulk-phase transition,31 the procedure introduces simple and accurate measurements of CO2 capillary condensation and the dew points of a methane/ethane gas mixture in three different SBA-15 samples. The results of this work confirm that the phase transition boundaries of the fluids in nanopores are below those of the bulk fluids and that the boundaries of fluids in a smaller pore are below those in a larger pore on the phase diagram.
For all measurements, we find that a scanning rate of 0.1 °C min−1 is sufficiently low to ensure equilibrium conditions during the cooling process. A lower scanning rate does not improve the accuracy of the measurements. In the measurements of dew points of the fluid mixtures in the pores, the change in the bulk gas composition due to selective adsorption and capillary condensation can be mitigated using a suitable amount of adsorbent that varies for different fluids and adsorbents. For measurements of dew points of a CH4/C2H6 gas mixture in S1, S2, and S3 at a bulk composition of 15 ± 0.3% CH4/85 ∓ 0.3% C2H6, accurate data can be obtained by using 2.2, 2.0, and 1.3 mg, respectively.
Morteza Dejam is gratefully appreciative of the financial support from the Department of Petroleum Engineering in the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Wyoming.
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Acquire a shopping mall in one of the Tier II cities in Kerala. It is situated in the heart of the city. It is structured on a 2.5 acre land with built up area of 5,00,000 Sqft. It has 5 floors and 100 branded shops and fetches very good income which we can disclose to only genuine buyers. All shops are full and rented out. The mall made an approximate revenue of Rs. 50 Cr. last year. Asking Price is INR 460 Cr.


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Policy Advisors
Vision & Principles
Media & Outreach
Op-Eds & Articles
Nadim Bawalsa
Nadim Bawalsa is Al-Shabaka's Commissioning Editor. He is a historian of modern Palestine and has written on the emergence of Palestinian diaspora communities across Latin America in the early twentieth century. His work appeared in the Jerusalem Quarterly, the Journal of Palestine Studies, and NACLA Report on the Americas. He earned a joint doctorate in History and Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies from New York University in 2017, and a Master's in Arab Studies from Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies in 2010. In 2019-2020, he completed a PARC-NEH fellowship in Palestine related to his forthcoming book, Transnational Palestine: Palestinians in their First Diaspora.


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Q: How to lock down pandas dataframe structure Simply put, what are the preferred practices for writing larger python applications that use pandas dataframes as its primary method for data representation?
I often find myself struggling to maintain inconsistencies in dataframes, sometimes invariants leak through in data, datatypes are not what you expect etc.
I'm wondering just what are the best practices for writing larger, stable applications in pandas? I want to take advantage of array-representation in data for speed, but I also want to make sure that there's a way to further define the "bounds" of dataframe, what it should have in it, in a clean way.

*

*Assertions on receiving a dataframe from a caller.

*Forcing a dataframe parameter to have specific dtypes.

*Defining a dataframe "type" based upon the columns it has.

*Opportunities for OOP, at the dataframe level

Also, sorry for the vague nature of this. I'm starting on a project, and I want to ask this question before I get too far off course. I've been burned in the past with regards to not enforcing enough of a structure when it comes to dataframes.


Fayette County PVA David O'Neill has been appointed to the Community Action Council board of directors by Mayor Jim Gray. His appointment was approved by Lexington-Fayette County Urban Government Council on June 23, 2011, for a term that will expire December 31, 2014.
Community Action Council is a member of the Community Action Partnership, a national organization that fights poverty on the local level. "I am humbled by the opportunity to further serve Fayette County and its residents. I look forward to working toward positive solutions to the problems facing those most in need," said Fayette County PVA David O'Neill upon his appointment.
This is not O'Neill's first board appointment in Fayette County. In 2003, he was appointed by Mayor Isaac to serve on the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government Greenspace Commission.
For further information, visit www.commaction.org.