one week from today my brother, 7 years younger than i, will arrive with his youngest son.
From Minnesota. Wish i still had the atlas for that.....where the train will wander, before bringing them to Albuquerque. They will be here some days then go off to Arizona to visit his longstanding friend and then return a few days before heading back by train to Minnesota. Travel. Seems it's in the Wind. I think about my brother and in my head he is maybe 20 or at most 30. When he was trouble. Riding his motorcycle from Minnesota to Michigan. He's an old man now. Funny, that. Not trouble anymore. Brother. My brother. hmmmmm. His youngest son who doesn't believe he has a sister.
but it's interesting that they haven't forgotton. The sight of me coming out the door of the Room with that bucket is still imprinted in their minds. More than anything, Goats love food. Foodies. Goats are Foodies. So to get ready to convince them that getting in to the trailer is a good thing, i do this. Small amounts. like small. but enough to give them that EDGE of wanting. I am trying too, to bring Onday to the position of Lead Goat. Since Snow Bunny is gone, no one has taken this position and it's an important position for a goatherd to rely on. But no one has. I don't know why. I guess, because there isn't a NEED? Don't know. Tonight when i called them for the evening feed, it was Karma that came first. All it takes is one of them to come first and the rest follow. Tonight Karma....who is somewhere in the middle realm of the Order....????
and i'm also working with the buck goats and pellets. Sunny Ray is very changed since his stay at Jan's to breed her does. He is stand offish and wary...runs. No longer the baby stinky boy he was when he left here. He was there past one year. And pretty much left without human contact. Before he left he was looking for it. Easy to brush and love. But he came back a proven buck. Different. He and his friend Jack Flash, play at running away. It's not fear, but a kind of playfulness but still will be less easy to load them for the Trip. So them too. i take the stainless steel bucket that makes the rattle sound with the pellets and offer them to them by hand. Sunny Ray came and accepted that. Jack Flash came and sniffed. He doesn't know pellets. He is a wether from Jan. But he watched Sunny Ray gobble them up. In a few days, he will come for them too.
then over to TenZen and Nogal. Tenzen was easy...he remembers. Nogal not so easy, but he will be. Just takes some days. And i don't want it to become something they Expect. But rather something that falls like the Grace from Heaven...out of nowhere, unexpected.


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Defining and differentiating your brand is incredibly important to content marketing. More businesses than ever before are creating content, so content marketing is much more than having content and getting it out there. It's also about creating content that reflects your brand, that addresses the needs of your potential customers, and that tells the story of your business. To help define and differentiate your brand so that your content marketing reflects your brand and is on message, take the time to answer the following questions. We took these questions from chapter 5 of The Marketing Agency Blueprint: The Handbook for Building Hybrid PR, SEO, Content, Advertising, and Web Firm. We've also taken the time to answer these questions ourselves as an example (as well as a definition and differentiator for us).
Who are we, in 160 characters or less, and without meaningless jargon? - We help businesses manage their online presence and put their best selves forward. By stirring the media pot, we'll cook a stew with the flavors of your brand.
What are our greatest opportunities for growth? - Our greatest opportunities for growth are with marketing agencies that need help with their own content marketing, or with marketing agencies that want to offer content marketing to their clients.
What keywords would people search to find our agency services (or your own products/services)? - St. Louis content marketing, St. Louis marketing agency, content marketing services, business blogging services, blogging agency, online presence management, managing your online presence etc.
What makes us different? - We are different in two ways. First, we create content with the client's customer in mind, so we ensure that the content we create is of value to people instead of search engines. Second, our retainer model allows us to work with clients on a long-term, personal level. We get to know them and to create long term content strategies that consider growth and the bigger picture.
How do we express that differentiation in words, images, and actions? - We practice what we preach, which is a motto of our company. We follow the same content marketing best practices that we incorporate into all of our client work and that we discuss in our own lead generation content.
What is our sustainable competitive advantage? - Our sustainable competitive advantage is our increasing experience and specialization in content marketing. Since we've been doing content marketing longer than most, it'll be hard for marketing agencies and businesses incorporating content marketing now to match what we know and do.
What value - expertise, resources, guidance, and tools - can we bring to our audiences? - Our value is in the fact that we've been specializing in content marketing well before content marketing became a buzzword and became something that everyone is doing. Therefore, we understand how content marketing has changed over the years and what needs to be done today to be successful. We also know how our audience is struggling with content marketing, and what's necessary to get started, to find value in content marketing, and to take these specific marketing efforts to the next level.
What are we doing to innovate and move the industry forward? - We're specializing in content marketing at a time where businesses and marketing agencies We are also working on ideas that will add value to content by coming up with additional ways to amplify content and to help tell our clients' stories.
What problems and pain points do we solve? - We're trying to solve two specific pain points: creating enough content and creating engaging content.
What makes clients buy from us the first time (acquisition)? What keeps them coming back (retention)? - Clients buy from us because of our proven record and experience. They keep coming back because we deliver results and they become part of that proven record and experience that has made us successful. They also know that we do our best every time, and that we create content that the audience of our clients would find valuable, no simply stuff to meet quotas or to rank for keywords.


Do you ever find it hard to do things by yourself?
Have you ever wondered why Jesus didn't just stay on earth to help make things better?
Why do you think Jesus found it to be important for Him to leave and the Holy Spirit to come in His place?


text:
Michael Brennan
Like many of us, I have spent the last 6 months of lockdown consumed by news about the coronavirus pandemic: with daily updates about the spread and containment of the virus, alongside heart-breaking human interest stories – about families unable to comfort their loved ones in their dying days because of the risk of contagion, unable to grieve properly because of restrictions limiting numbers and social practices surrounding funerals.
In the social confinement of lockdown we learned much about health-related concerns central to the virus: about the rate at which the virus reproduces (its R-value), about exponential growth, as well as practical advice on social distancing and better hand hygiene. Overnight, we became armchair epidemiologists.
We learned much also about the social fallout from the pandemic: about disparities in health outcomes between different social groups, about the vastly different experiences of COVID and impact of lockdown by class, gender and ethnicity, and what society might look like after the pandemic. Issues that have been the mainstay of sociologists and social scientists for decades were suddenly mainlined into our news and current affairs media surround.
Reports that Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups (BAME) are more likely to contract and die of the virus than their white counterparts; that women – regardless of their employment status – have shouldered a disproportionate share of childcare and homeschooling during lockdown in comparison to their male partners; or that residents of care homes were discharged from hospitals without being tested for coronavirus, thereby revealing the low regard in which the elderly in our society are held, will come as no surprise to social scientists.
Such differences – or social divisions – merely confirm what sociologists already knew: that the inequalities exposed by COVID-19 only compound already existing inequalities by class, gender, ethnicity, disability and so on. The COVID pandemic, as Jacquline Rose (2020) puts it, brings the 'the hidden truth of a corrupt world to the surface', exposing the fault lines in society and amplifying inequalities.
Unleashing the Power of the Social
Fairly recently, I wrote about resilience following tragedy and disaster (Brennan 2020). In doing so, I sought to reclaim notions of resilience – as having social moorings – from psychology, and the implication that resilience is somehow a property of our individual make-up. Aside from exposing the social divisions that are a staple of sociological analysis, the lockdown has also reminded us of the power of social forces.
The pandemic has reinforced the global interconnectedness of our society – our interdependencies upon others in far away places with whom we will never meet. It has also reinforced our fundamental need, closer to home, for genuine face-to-face contact with others upon whom we depend – friends, family, neighbours and a wider sense of community. As useful as they have undoubtedly been, the simulacra of virtual technologies that have helped bring us together while keeping us safely apart, are ersatz; a poor substitute for the embodied human interaction and touch that are a cornerstone of our humanity.
The very idea of social distancing is anathema to most of us and runs anathema to our shared understanding of the good society. Self-care, as we have learned from the pandemic, is essential but on its own is not enough. We also need the help, support and touch of other people. Community, as former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks suggested before the coronavirus, relies upon face-to-face contact, upon human touch in comforting others who are in need. This is what makes COVID-19 doubly hard for us, robbing us of our desire to reach out to others in socially embodied ways when they need our help most.
And never is community invoked more than in times of death and disaster, which cruelly rips people from society while simultaneously generating a desire to be together – for social solidarity. The power of social ritual in lifting people's spirits, embodied in the work of nineteenth century French sociologist Emile Durkheim (Brennan 2017), was evident in the weekly 'clap for carers' event during lockdown, and was also revealed in the absence of funerary rituals and deathways that help provide support to the bereaved but without which have hampered their grieving in conditions of social distancing.
The policing of social distancing, of mask wearing, and general disorientation surrounding behavioural expectations during 'the new normal' of life in a time of pandemic reveal the social and societal implications of COVID-19. The reported abuse of shop workers charged with enforcing mask wearing raises questions about whose responsibility this should be. The confusion provoked by sudden shifts in normative expectations speak also to sociological ideas; especially the concept of 'anomie' that Durkheim used to describe the anxiety generated by rapid social change in which the old rules no longer apply.
Futurologists Beware
The pandemic has also given rise to a new wave of futurology. Some of this has felt rather Panglossian, with grandiose predictions about how it will lead to less traffic congestion, more home working and a rise in rural living, as we flee the city. The corona crisis has undoubtedly provided new and exciting opportunities to renvision and reshape our current, and often failing, ways of living and working; to rethink what the future might look like after the COVID-19 pandemic has passed. But it also prompts a more sober and critical analysis.
The advent of electronic technologies in the early 1990s generated a wave of optimism about the future that never fully materialised. The emergence of email, we were assured, would make good on Alvin Toffler's (1970) earlier predictions of the home as a hub; where the electronic cottage would prevail in the third wave of – post-industrial – societal development. Yet reluctance among senior managers within many organisations towards home-working – until the coronavirus forced their hand – meant this never really happened.
A more worrying trend amid the pandemic is the opportunity it presents for organisations and employers to exploit a crisis situation in ways resonant of the 'disaster capitalism' described by Naomi Klein (2010). Here there is a genuine and well-founded fear among many that COVID will be used cynically to roll through unpopular neoliberal policies undreamt of in less exceptional circumstances, redrawing established working practices and implementing cost-saving measures to the detriment of workers.
And What Role for Sociology?
A more sanguine reading of the situation is that it provides an opportunity for sociologists and social scientists to provide creative, 'people-first' solutions to our present problems. It is this vision, I think, that we must cling to, while remaining critical about the exploitative potential the crisis presents, holding those in positions of power to account. It is this dual vision that is embodied in the sociological imagination envisioned by C. Wright Mills – part of the promise and task of sociology to help create a better world (Mills 1959).
The coronavirus has enlarged issues of sociological relevance like never before. What sometimes appear as abstract or esoteric debates about 'society', globalisation, and networks of interdependence, have been made real and brought home to us during the pandemic. Shadow pandemics unleashed by the corona crisis – of mental health, domestic abuse, loneliness – are all part of the 'sociological private'. They are also 'public issues' requiring social intervention. This was acknowledged before the coronavirus by the government's appointment of a 'loneliness Tsar' and publication of a report revealing that loneliness is a public health issue as damaging to our physical health as smoking.
Sociology has a big part to play in shaping public policy. Never more so than now, following the coronavirus pandemic. Modern societies, as Anthony Giddens (1990) has suggested, imbibe the information and knowledge generated in the academy in order to improve themselves; part of what he calls 'institutional reflexivity'. To paraphrase Giddens, only by reflexively modifying our policies and practices in light of the knowledge generated by COVID-19 will we be able to confront the future with any degree of confidence.
Brennan, M. (2017) 'Emile Durkheim', in Thompson, N. and Cox, G. (eds.) Handbook of the Sociology of Death, Grief and Bereavement (pp. 13-30). London and New York: Routledge.
Brennan, M. (2020) 'Tragedy and Injustice', in Thompson, N. and Cox, G. (eds.) Promoting Resilience: Responding to Adversity, Vulnerability and Loss (pp. 48-54). London and New York: Routledge.
Giddens, A. (1990) The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity.
Klein, N.. (2010) The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. New York: Henry Holt & Co.
Mills, C. W. (1959) The Sociological Imagination. New York: Free Press.
Rose, J. (2020) 'Pointing the Finger', London Review of Books, 42(9): 3-6.
Toffler, A. (1970) Future Shock. New York: Random House.
Michael Brennan is Associate Professor of Sociology and head of the Sociology programme at Liverpool Hope University
Image credit: Leeds, UK, 17 May 2020. Gary Butterfield
Can this social issue be related to STEM strand?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


HONIARA, Solomon Islands (Solomon Times, August 25, 2016) – As the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) plans its exit, government is again seriously exploring the possibility of re-arming the police force.
Government sources say that plans to re-arm the police is unrelated to recent rumors of renewed trouble. Several postings on social media, including posts in the name of one of the country's most notorious militants, have caused concerns among Honiara residents.
"Let me just say that these are all rumors, investigations are ongoing, and this is part of overall policing efforts to get to the bottom of such rumors.
He says that plans to re-arm the police has been an ongoing discussion, done at the highest levels in government, the police and RAMSI.
"We have carried out several consultations with the community as well, so it is ongoing and the approach is one that considers the sensitivities out there in the community."
The Solomon Islands government is in talks with Australia over future security arrangements after more than $2.6 billion was spent on maintaining the peace and rebuilding the Pacific island nation since 2003.
"We have mixed feelings on this (RAMSI leaving). Some of us think it is too early, for me it's okay. We have reconciled the difficult parts and the real threat is over," said Father John Patteson Ngalihesi, chief advisor to the Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare.
"They have done great. The perspective ... is Australia is a saviour, they came in and saved this country, restored this country.
"Australia has done something, we need to pick up," Father Ngalihesi said.
The mission is due to end in June next year and one of its last goals is to oversee the rearmament of the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force (RSIPF).
"There are still concerns about the police force, and there are bound to be. We are slowly regaining the trust of the community," said RSIPF Commissioner Frank Prendergast, who will return to his post with the Australian Federal Police in Canberra later this year.
"The bulk of the Solomon Islands are supportive of rearmament in some form, because they recognise the need for an armed capacity.
"We're involved in limited rearmament of the RSIPF and that really is the final piece in the puzzle for us to say, 'We can police without assistance'," Commissioner Prendergast said.
Solomon police received extensive training from the RAMSI and now perform operational policing in the country, three years after the military component of the peacekeeping mission withdrew.
It is planned that only the public order and VIP protection units will be rearmed.
"We're talking pistols, shotguns and a very limited number of rifles, which are mainly for controlling crocodiles when they threaten communities," Commissioner Prendergast said.


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text:
Materials Research Science and Engineering Center
MRSEC
IRG1
Seed-Projects
MRSEC Supplements
WoPhyS
Gradstudents
Research - IRG2
IRG2 - Polarization-Enabled Electronic Phenomena
The IRG is aimed at exploring and exploiting ferroelectric (FE) polarization as a state variable that allows realization of polarization-controlled electronic, transport, and other functional properties of oxide, organic, and hybrid FE-based structures. This involves ferroelectrically induced resistive switching phenomena and the associated memristive behavior, FE modulation of electronic confinement at the hybrid FE/semiconductor and organic interfaces, as well as development of novel functional systems based on newly synthesized organic ferroelectrics where molecular interactions are responsible for macroscopic dipole ordering. These scientifically rich problems comprise the involvement of multiple degrees of freedom, the critical role of interfaces, and the interplay between physical and chemical properties at the nanoscale. They require comprehensive fundamental understanding and hold a lot of promise for technological innovations, including new paradigms for data storage and conceptually novel photovoltaic applications.
IRG 2 Researchers
Alexei Gruverman (coordinator) - PFM, CAFM
Vitaly Alexandrov - theoretical physical chemistry
Stephen Ducharme - Langmuir-Blodgett, dielectric testing
Chang-Beom Eom - PLD
Xia Hong - Oxide sputtering, nanofab
Jinsong Huang - Phototransport
Alexander Sinitskii - Chem. synthesis, devices, Raman
Evgeny Tsymbal - Theory spin transport and oxide FE
Xiaoshan Xu - Laser MBE
Xiao Cheng Zeng - Theory organic FE
Research Thrust 1:
Polarization-controlled Electronic Transport
Thrust 1 is focused on the electrically controlled transport properties in tunneling systems where FE polarization drives giant resistive switching effects through the modulation of the tunneling barrier and induced metalinsulator transitions at the interface.
Switchable interface resistance
TER driven by interfacial phase transitions
Interface chemistry effect on TER
Voltage-free control of TER
Polarization-enabled Functional Hybrid Structures
Thrust 2 is centered on polarization-enabled electronic properties of hybrid FE interfaces where electronic confinement gives rise to novel phenomena, which are promising for unconventional electronic devices with new functionalities.
Polarization-mediated modulation of graphene electronic properties
Polarization-induced phase transitions in shape-memory alloys
Polarization-enhanced photovoltaic effects
Low-dimensional Molecular Ferroelectrics
Thrust 3 is focused on polarization states in novel low-dimensional molecular ferroelectrics where macroscopic ordering is controlled at the molecular level providing new approaches towards polarization-functionalized heterostructures.
Charge transfer complexes
Planar proton-transfer systems
Molecular toggling systems
IRG 2 selected publications:
» JACS 2019
- S. Yang, J. Dai, Z. Yu, Y. Shao, Y. Zhou, X. Xiao, X. C. Zeng, and J. Huang, "Tailoring Passivation Molecular Structures for Extremely Small Open-Circuit Voltage Loss in Perovskite Solar Cells," J. Am. Chem. Soc. 141, 5781-5787 (2019).
- L. Ma, Y. Jia, S. Ducharme, J. Wang, and X. C. Zeng, "Diisopropylammonium Bromide Based Two-Dimensional Ferroelectric Monolayer Molecular Crystal with Large In-Plane Spontaneous Polarization," J. Am. Chem. Soc. 141, 1452-1456 (2019).
» Science 2018
D. Lee, B. Chung, Y. Shi, G.-Y. Kim, N. Campbell, F. Xue, K. Song, S.-Y. Choi, J. P. Podkaminer, T. H. Kim, P. J. Ryan, J.-W. Kim, T. R. Paudel, J.-H. Kang, J. W. Spinuzzi, D. A. Tenne, E. Y. Tsymbal, M. S. Rzchowski, L. Q. Chen, J. Lee, and C. B. Eom, "Isostructural Metal-Insulator Transition in VO2," Science 362, 1037-1040 (2018).
» ACS Nano 2018
A. Lipatov, M. J. Loes, H. Lu, J. Dai, P. Patoka, N. S. Vorobeva, D. S. Muratov, G. Ulrich, B. Kästner, A. Hoehl, G. Ulm, X. C. Zeng, E. Rühl, A. Gruverman, P. A. Dowben, and A. Sinitskii, "Quasi-1D TiS3 Nanoribbons: Mechanical Exfoliation and Thickness-Dependent Raman Spectroscopy," ACS Nano 12, 12713-12720 (2018).
» Nature Nanotechnology 2018
- K. Song, S. Ryu, H. Lee, T. R. Paudel, C. T. Koch, B. Park, J. K. Lee, S.-Y. Choi, Y.-M. Kim, J. C. Kim, H. Y. J., M. S. Rzchowski, E. Y. Tsymbal, C. B. Eom, and S. H. Oh, "Direct Imaging of the Electron Liquid at Oxide Interfaces," Nat. Nanotechnol. 13, 198-203 (2018).
- L. Zhang, H. Lu, L. Xie, X. Yan, T. R. Paudel, J. Kim, X. Chen, H. Wang, C. Heikes, L. Li, M. Xu, D. G. Schlom, L.-Q. Chen, R. Wu, E. Y. Tsymbal, A. Gruverman, and X. Q. Pan, "Anisotropic Polarization-Induced Conductance at the Ferroelectric-Insulator Interface," Nat. Nanotechnol. 13, 1132-1136 (2018).
» Nano Letters 2018
H. Lu, D. Lee, K. Klyukin, L. L. Tao, B. Wang, H. Lee, T. R. Paudel, L.-Q. Chen, E. Y. Tsymbal, V. Alexandrov, C. B. Eom, and A. Gruverman, "Tunneling Hot Spots in Ferroelectric SrTiO3," Nano Lett. 18, 491-497 (2018).
» Advanced Materials 2017
Y. Lin, L. Shen, J. Dai, Y. Deng, Y. Wu, Y. Bai, X. Zheng, J. Wang, Y. Fang, H. Wei, W. Ma, X. C. Zeng, X. Zhan, and J. Huang, "π-Conjugated Lewis Base: Efficient Trap-Passivation and Charge-Extraction for Hybrid Perovskite Solar Cells," Adv. Mater. 29, 1604545 [6pp] (2017).
T. Li, P. K. Sharma, A. Lipatov, H. Lee, J.-W. Lee, M. Y. Zhuravlev, T. R. Paudel, Y. A. Genenko, C.-B. Eom, E. Tsymbal, A. Sinitskii, A. Gruverman, "Polarization-Mediated Modulation of Electronic and Transport Properties of Hybrid MoS2−BaTiO3−SrRuO3 Tunnel Junctions," Nano Lett. 17, 922 (2017).
- H. Lu, B. Wang, T. Li, A. Lipatov, H. Lee, A. Rajapitamahuni, R. Xu, X. Hong, S. Farokhipoor, L. W. Martin, C.-B. Eom, L.-Q. Chen, A. Sinitskii, and A. Gruverman, "Nanodomain Engineering in Ferroelectric Capacitors with Graphene Electrodes," Nano Lett. 16, 6460-6466 (2016).
- H. Lee, T. H. Kim, J. R. Patzner, H. Lu, J. Lee, H. Zhou, W. Chang, M. Mahanthappa, E. Tsymbal, A. Gruverman, and C.-B. Eom, "Imprint Control of BaTiO3 Thin Films via Chemically-Induced Surface Polarization Pinning," Nano Lett. 16, 2400-2406 (2016).
- M. Wu, S. Dong, K. Yao, J. Liu, and X. C. Zeng, "Ferroelectricity in Covalently functionalized Two-dimensional Materials: Integration of High-mobility Semiconductors and Nonvolatile Memory," Nano Lett. 16, 7309-7315 (2016).
Q. Dong, J. Song, Y. Fang, Y. Shao, S. Ducharme, and J. Huang, "Lateral-Structure Single-Crystal Hybrid Perovskite Solar Cells via Piezoelectric Poling," Adv. Mater. 28, 2816-2821 (2016).
D. Lee, H. Lu, Y. Gu, S.-Y. Choi, S.-D. Li, S. Ryu, T. R. Paudel, K. Song, E. Mikheev, S. Lee, S. Stemmer, D. A. Tenne, S. H. Oh, E. Y. Tsymbal, X. Wu, L.-Q. Chen, A. Gruverman, and C. B. Eom, "Emergence of Room-temperature Ferroelectricity at Reduced Dimensions," Science 349, Issue 6254, 1314-1317 (2015).
H. Lu, T. Li, S. Poddar, O. Goit, A. Lipatov, A. Sinitskii, S. Ducharme, and A. Gruverman, "Statics and Dynamics of Ferroelectric Domains in Diisopropylammonium Bromide," Adv. Mater. 27, 7832–7838 (2015).
A. Lipatov, P. Sharma, A. Gruverman, and A. Sinitskii, "Optoelectrical Molybdenum Disulfide (MoS2)--Ferroelectric Memories," ACS Nano 9, 8089–8098 (2015).
310C Jorgensen Hall
Email: vskomski@unl.edu
Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience (NCMN)
NSF MRSEC
Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC)


text:
Insights from Regional Plan Association
RPA Lab
RPA News
It's Time For Our Airports To 'Upgrade To World Class'
By Chasity Cooper.	 Published on June 11, 2018. June 11, 2018 0
Today we released our newest report, "Upgrading to World Class – The Future of the Region's Airports Revisited," alongside Mayor Ras Baraka, to call attention to the investments needed to bring our airports up to the level that befits one of the world's largest regional economies.
A thriving regional economy depends on airports that work. That means passengers can get to and from airports with ease, flights leave relatively on-time, and there is enough capacity for commercial air traffic, cargo, and private business jets.
The problem is, our region's airports are increasingly not living up to those standards. Rising numbers of passengers without an increase in capacity have led to Newark Liberty International (EWR), LaGuardia (LGA) and John F. Kennedy International (JFK) ranking 1st, 3rd, and 4th for having the worst delays in the nation.
These airports are also increasingly challenging to reach. As the number of passengers rise, and with most still accessing the airports by private car or on-demand vehicle, traffic delays plague travelers. JFK and LGA have mitigated this somewhat by investing in more robust transit connections, with JFK reaping greater gains with the addition of an Airtrain that connects with the subway and commuter rail, and LGA seeing lesser but still significant gains with the addition of two Select Bus Service lines. But there is still much room for improvement.
And finally, climate change threatens many of our region's airports, including the three largest. But none will be as hard-hit as Teterboro. By late this century, the region is expected to see three feet of sea level rise. This will leave Teterboro airport inundated. TEB served over 167,000 aircraft in 2016, the region needs to begin planning now for how to transition these planes, since it will likely put additional stresses on the big three airports which are already constrained.
At today's event Mayor Baraka highlighted the importance of Newark Airport to the City of Newark's economic resurgence. The City of Newark is also soon to begin a community planning process to think about the future of the neighborhoods closest to the airport.
"Newark International Airport is already a major driver of Newark's exponential growth in economic development and jobs," says Mayor Baraka. "The airport's success has created the need for a serious makeover to make it more convenient, user-friendly and accessible. The Regional Plan Association's proposals for better transit connections, increased capacity and preparations for climate change reinforce the City of Newark's efforts to create an airport second to none."
Our president Tom Wright echoed the mayor's sentiments, stressing the the difficulty for air travelers getting to and from our region's airports. "We need to invest to build a modern airport system for our growing region," he said. "This includes expanding runway capacity, providing transit connections, and continuing to improve the customer experience."
"As part of our research we looked at what cities around the world are doing to make their airports work better for passengers. London has repeatedly invested in upgrading transit connections to Heathrow. They're also about to embark on an ambitious expansion of that airport," says RPA Vice President of Transportation Rich Barone. "We need to continue to innovate to keep up with other global cities."
RPA's new report calls for upgrades to the regions airports at an annual investment of $1.5 billion to achieve the following:
New capacity: two new runways at JFK and one new runway at Newark
Better transit connections: improved Airtrain and a new one-seat ride rail service to JFK, a new front-door for Newark Airport which would give passengers seamless access to the airport from PATH, NJTransit and Amtrak, and an Airtrain alignment for LGA that would allow for connection to the #7 line at Willets Point as well as LIRR.
Increased preparation for climate change and sea level rise: beginning to plan now for the eventual phasing out Teterboro Airport, which is likely to be partially flooded at one foot of sea level rise (predicted by 2050) and fully flooded at three feet of sea level rise (predicted to by the end of the century or sooner), and reinforcing efforts to protect the other airports from both sea level rise and storm surge.
This report was developed as part of RPA's Fourth Regional Plan, its long-term vision for the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut metropolitan area.
Click here to view the full report.
Click here for graphics from the report.
Categories RPA NewsTransportation
Tags JFK AirportLaGuardia AirportNewark Airport
Chasity Cooper
About RPA Lab
Real-time news, analysis and community engagement with the staff and friends of Regional Plan Association. Planning the future of the New York metropolitan region. To learn more, visit www.rpa.org
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HUD Undermining the Fight Against Housing Discrimination
Fourth Plan
Regional Plan Association
Regional Plan Association is an independent, not-for-profit civic organization that develops and promotes ideas to improve the economic health, environmental resiliency and quality of life of the New York metropolitan area. We conduct research on transportation, land use, housing, good governance and the environment. We advise cities, communities and public agencies. And we advocate for change that will contribute to the prosperity of all residents of the region. Since the 1920s, RPA has produced four landmark plans for the region, the most recent was released in November 2017. For more information, please visit www.rpa.org or fourthplan.org.


Taking care of your heart is one of the most important things that a person can do to maintain their health. Diet, exercise, removing unnecessary stress, and sleeping well are all part of the steps that a person needs to take if they're going to keep their heart strong. However, even if you do all of these things, you can still develop heart disease. If you are a Gainesville, FL resident and you are concerned that you might have heart disease, visit the office of Dr. James DeStephens.
You have to understand that heart disease exhibits itself in a number of ways. There are different types of heart disease. So, what our doctor will need to do is create a series of tests based on the condition that you may have. Regardless of the type of heart disease you have, our doctor will need to ask you about some very basic health issues. He will want to know about your medical history and the medical history of your family. He will be interested in examining your chest using X-rays and other tools and will ask for blood tests.
One of the tests that our doctor may use is an electrocardiogram. An electrocardiogram is designed to look at the electrical signals that your heart is putting out. They determine if your heart is beating regularly or if there are any irregularities in the rhythm of your heartbeat or your heart's structure. Depending on the issue that you are dealing with, our doctor in Gainesville, FL may ask for an ECG while you are resting, or he may ask for one while you are exerting yourself, such as a stress test.
Our doctor in Gainesville, FL may also ask for an echocardiogram. An echocardiogram provides an ultrasound of your chest. This allows our doctor to get a real-time image of how your heart is functioning and how integral the structure of your heart is.
These are just a few of the many options that you will be presented with when our doctor is evaluating you for heart disease. Dr. James DeStephens in Gainesville, FL proudly provides clients in the area with state-of-the-art cardiac care, as well as other services. Your heart is one of the most important things that you have. It is essential that you are particular about who you trust your heart's care to. Contact us today to schedule an appointment to learn more.


Why do we want to overcome the barrier?
How do we overcome the barrier?
In the rest of this post we will try to answer each one of these quandaries.
Resistance to moving away from CAPEX essentially falls into 2 categories: Business Resistance and Finance Rules.
As we've seen with the move to virtualization, one of the biggest obstacles to adoption is resistance from the business because of their sense that they are losing control. In the days of old, the business was used to having a ring-fenced domain where its developers, production support, and users had complete control over its every detail. IT was there to just make sure that the network and server were up and running. The idea of sharing was a completely foreign concept. They had a CAPEX budget and they wanted complete control over how it was used. Going to a completely shared environment is just one of the last steps of a process that started many years ago, but is still no less difficult.
Invariably when we discuss OPEX, the topic of show back and charge back come up. In an effort to use resources more efficiently, many organizations attempt to instrument first show back (or shame back as its known in some circles) and then charge back. Like above, the business is not used to having to justify the use of resources it paid for and is, not surprisingly, resistant to the idea of starting.
Although various elements of the business will resist going to an OPEX model, the biggest challenge to moving to an OPEX model is an organizations finance rules. Given that this level of effort is not trivial and will certainly involve C-Level people and probably the board, it's no wonder that organizations are hesitant to address this conundrum.
Probably one of the biggest reasons to adopt an OPEX model is to change how the Business consumes IT. In an environment without chargeback or an OPEX model, the business is used to "squatting" on as many resources as possible due to the fact that getting new ones often has to wait until the next fiscal year. Under the traditional way of delivering IT, the business wants as much as they can get all of the time.
An example of this was at a large East Coast bank where before any form of OPEX or chargeback, every business unit had every environment backed up every night. This included even test and development systems. Trying to get business units to consume less backup resources was largely unsuccessful. However, once an OPEX chargeback cost was introduced, this behavior changed almost over night. Very quickly when business units saw how much it cost them for just backups, they slashed their use of backups to mostly just production databases. All other things such as development and production environments were expected to be backed up through other means by the developers and production support teams.
Traditionally, IT has tried to restrain the use of resources of the business units, which has been largely unsuccessful. By charging businesses for what they use, the business now controls its own usage to maximize their OPEX value.
As part of changing behavior, giving the business the ability to choose what they consume with their OPEX payments, allows them to save money on things they really don't need. It also allows IT to offer multiple types and levels of service depending on what the business needs. Common examples of this are the silver, gold and platinum levels of service for virtualized workloads, but can also include things such as backups and storage tiers.
Another example of this was at the same large East Coast bank where before choice was in place, performance of production VMs had to be guaranteed at all times no matter what. This led to IT providing their platinum service that had no over commitment and was as a result fairly expensive. However, IT also offered a gold service that had some degree of performance guarantee, but was much cheaper. As a result, over time many business units elected to go with the gold level of service by improving the resiliency of their applications and planning for scale out when needed. This saved them quite a bit of money that then they could use on other projects.
If you combine the granularity and choice available with an OPEX model with automated provisioning, the business can innovate like they haven't been able to in the past. Between technical restrictions that require new resources to be manually provisioned over the course of several weeks and financial rules that don't allow much flexibility to change allocations quickly, many projects don't take flight because they take too long and are too much trouble.
However, when a project can be launched in a matter of hours because automation allows a new environment to be spun up quickly and the OPEX model allows discretion on how funds are applied, many new opportunities are open to the business that weren't worth it in the past.
Traditional IT is essentially a form of rationing in how resources are allocated. Users are encouraged to hold on to resources they don't need because they know they may not be able to get them when they need them. This of course assumes that they can give them back, which in many CAPEX models, they can't.
By going to a shared resource OPEX model, business units can consume what they need and give back what they don't.
One of the biggest drivers for IT moving to an OPEX model with the above advantages is that, like it or not, IT is competing with the open market. Many Business units today are just pulling out a credit card and buying resources directly from hosting and cloud providers because IT isn't responsive or competitive. As offerings on the Internet continue to improve, shadow IT is likely to increase as a result.
To be relevant, IT needs to start operating as a business. Traditionally IT has provided resources to business units by essentially "throwing it over the wall". Unless it breaks there is very little effort spent of the resources. Successful IT departments now define services that they offer to their customers with defined service definitions that describe not only the technology provide, but any SLAs provided along with other non-function requirements that have been included. As part of that, IT can highlight the value added that they provide above what hosting or cloud providers offer. IT has to also start doing customer relationship management to make sure that the right services are being offered, at the right time, and at the right price.
Many finance departments resist going to an OPEX model because it is presented as either CAPEX or OPEX. In reality this doesn't have to be. In order for IT to realize the benefits outlined in this article, OPEX only has to exist in the relationship between IT and the business. CAPEX can still exist in the bowels of IT somewhere; it would just need to be converted to OPEX according to rules set up by finance.
A good example of this is how some private clouds operate today. They assume the CAPEX budget of the business unit in return for OPEX credits that the business can use over a predetermined time period.
By answering the questions above regarding moving to an OPEX model, IT departments can become enablers to the business instead of a hindrance.
Richard Benoit is an Operations Architect with the Operations Transformation Services practice and is based in Michigan.
This entry was posted in CloudOps, Friday Reading Topic, IT Transformation, Operations Transformation and tagged CAPEX, chargeback, it as a business, operations transformation, OPEX, Richard Benoit, shadow IT on December 4, 2015 by Sarah Butler.
A couple of years ago when I was working in Australia, one of my customers was starting to deliver cloud services to its external customers—mainly infrastructure as a service (IaaS). It was not a very mature market at that time though they knew what they had to do to promote those services: enable a marketing capability with a strong customer focus. As the IT organization was evolving its cloud service offering from a technology point of view, that marketing function was driving the change and ensuring customers recognized the value of their cloud.
One key takeaway from the recent Computerworld Forecast Study 2015 is that companies like yours are now investing (or are planning to invest) large portions of their IT budgets to enable a cloud service offering. In my previous blog entry, I briefly mentioned the key steps to define a process for marketing your cloud services within your organization in order to maximize ROI.
Now let´s take those steps to the next level of detail by considering the lessons learned and the critical success factors from those early adopters of cloud. Take a look at this brief: Top 5 Tips for Marketing Your Cloud Services. I think you'll find some very useful tips for building a marketing capability for your cloud service offering.
Alberto Martinez is an operations architect with the VMware Operations Transformation global practice and is based in Spain.
This entry was posted in Informational, IT Transformation, Operations Transformation, Thought Leadership and tagged alberto martinez, cloud, cloud services, IaaS, IT marketing, shadow IT on May 8, 2015 by Heidi Pate.
Successful cloud providers invest in marketing their services: promoting them, showing the value to customers, implementing strong pricing campaigns—and they understand how to rapidly adapt to changing market demands. But what prevents your internal IT organization from defining an effective marketing strategy to be more competitive and foster your cloud investments? And more importantly, how should you approach this effort to ensure success?
When moving to a cloud environment, most of the IT organizations that I work with focus on defining processes such as provisioning, support, or capacity, but forget about how to market the services they will be delivering and communicate their value to their customers. The same IT organizations end up with a private cloud infrastructure without clear target customers or, even worse, their cloud services are not used by the lines of business, resulting in a poor return on investment (ROI).
To realize the full ROI that enterprises are looking for from their cloud investments, the IT organization needs to drive the uptake of those services and persuade the lines of business away from using external service providers (shadow IT) or alternative legacy internal service provision options.
In order to mitigate those situations and increase their integration with the business, I advise my clients to define a consistent approach—as outlined below—to market their (internal or external) cloud services.
The approach to defining a cloud service marketing strategy must be innovative and not follow the traditional approaches. You need to apply a special focus on your customers in order to build a stronger relationship between your IT organization and the lines of business. That innovative approach has to contain similar characteristics as those of your cloud environment —simple and agile while powerful and impactful.
Define a service marketing strategy. As an essential initial activity, the key elements of the marketing strategy have to be defined with your CIO and leverage the expertise of your CMO and his/her marketing organization (experience, models, tools, and so forth). Those elements include market research, branding, pricing, differentiation, and competition.
Create a communications plan. As my colleague Alex Salicrup wrote recently in this blog, communication is the key pillar to a successful IT provider. Define an effective communications plan for your cloud that will communicate its unique value to your customers and why they have to believe that differentiation is real ("reason to believe"). Your plan must define at a minimum what information will be communicated, how it will be communicated, as well as when it will be distributed and to which audience. Always keep in mind to exclude any technical information from the marketing materials.
Develop marketing campaigns. One mechanism to create new favorable consumer perceptions of your cloud services is the marketing campaign. When developing tailored campaigns, you must identify what you are expecting from the campaign, what your customers can expect, what the impact will be on the audience, and how you will measure success. Measuring the success of your marketing campaigns is key to knowing the impact they had on your targeted audience.
Measure. Benchmark your cloud environment against your competition, and set achievable actions to improve the value to business (always provide the best to your customers!).
Executive level: While defining the marketing strategy for your cloud environment, both your CIO and CMO have to work in tandem to ensure consistency with the business strategy. This will lead to the cloud services vision or value proposition, its unique value including differentiating factors, and the four steps previously described.
Departmental lead/individual contributor level: Once you have defined your strategy, your IT organization—through cloud tenant operations—will have to work together with at a minimum two teams: 1) the marketing communications team to execute your cloud services communications plan, and 2) with the field marketing team to develop the marketing campaigns and success measurements.
Bridging the gap between the IT and marketing organizations will encourage an open environment of collaboration. I recommend to assign champions to integrate both areas, whose responsibility will be to support the promotion of the cloud services whilst leveraging the IT organization´s functions and expertise.
In summary, an effective cloud services marketing strategy promotes the value of your services and drives the adoption of those services within the lines of business. Start your effort early and with a consistent approach, so you can compete effectively against other cloud providers and achieve the ROI the business is looking for from its cloud investments.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged alberto martinez, cloud, cloud services, IT Services, marketing IT, service provider, shadow IT on February 27, 2015 by Heidi Pate.


(2017/Crazy Love) 14 Tracks - After a break of 16 years Pitmen are back with a brand new hot platter that keeps the wax melting. Half of the band's lineup is backing up Sparky within Demented Are Go! Ain't that somethin'?
Customer evaluation for "Back To The Pit (LP, Clear Yellow Vinyl)"


COLUMBUS, Ohio – The nationally ranked, unbeaten and dual meet-dominant Ohio State swimming and diving team will host Top 20 team Indiana at noon Saturday in the McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion. Admission is free.
Indiana, fifth at the 2009 Big Ten championships, will unquestionably provide the Buckeyes' with their most difficult test of the season to date. The Hoosiers come into the meet with a record of 1-3 but have faced the nation's No. 1 and No. 7 teams in dual meets already. IU lost to No. 1 Texas in September, 179-149, and it is coming off a 158-82 loss at No. 7 Michigan this past Saturday.
Major General is Honorary Coach Major General John Peabody will speak to the Ohio State team about leadership prior to the meet, and then he will stay and serve as the team's honorary captain. MG Peabody is Commander and Division Engineer of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Great Lakes & Ohio River Division. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy, the Command and General Staff College, and the Army War College with a Master's degree in Strategic Studies. He also holds a Master of Public Administration from Harvard University.
Live Meet Scoring/Results Access to "live results" of the Ohio State vs. Indiana meet is available on the main men's swimming home page at OhioStateBuckeyes.com.
Here's Where to Park Parking is available at an hourly rate in the Neil Avenue Parking Garage just south of theMcCorkle Aquatic Pavilion and the Tuttle Park Place Parking Garage north of the facility. Pay to park – $1 per hour – is also available in the surface lots next to Ohio Stadium. Just remember to pay to park.
Toss Out Last Year Although this is a matchup of teams that each finished among the top five at the 2009 Big Ten championships – Ohio State was second and Indiana was fifth – Wadley said last year's finish has no bearing at all on this meet.
And the Stakes are Higher Wadley expects the meet to be one featuring plenty of close races that come down to the last five yards with the victors being the swimmers who have the best race strategy and who are most confident.
200 Free – Ohio State boasts senior Andrew Olson, who has the fifth-fastest time in the Big Ten (1:37.33) while Indiana will counter with Titus Knight, who was 13th at the U.S. Short Course Nationals in December in 1:37.65. Knight was second in the event last week vs. Michigan; an impressive feat considering the Wolverines have the top four times in the conference to date.
500 Free – Knight, a junior from Austin, Texas, also leads the Hoosiers in the 500. The Buckeyes counter with Stefan Sigrist and George Markovic, who have the fastest and fourth-fastest times in the conference to date at 4:20.36 and 4:23.18, respectively.
Breaststroke – Ohio State has the top four times in the conference in the 200 (and four of the top six in the 100), led by defending Big Ten champion Sam Pelkey's 1:58.99. Indiana counters with 2009 Big Ten runner-up Aaron Opell, who earned a spot on the U.S. National Team this summer after a fifth-place swim in the event at the World Championship trials in Indianapolis.
Backstroke – Indiana's Doug Spraul has multiple wins in the event this season and is coming off a 10th place effort in the 200 at the 2009 Big Ten championships. Ohio State is led by Andrew Elliott, who has eight wins in the backstroke events this season and has Top 4 times in the Big Ten at both distances. OSU's Phil Seleskie has the third-fastest time in the 200 at 1:45.26.
One talented backstroker we won't see Saturday is IU's Eric Ress. The Hoosier sophomore, a runner-up in both the 100 and 200 backstrokes at the 2009 Big Tens, is red-shirting the 2009-10 season.
Diving will be Delightful, Too Ohio State's divers – seniors Wes Wieser, Ryan Jefferson and Burkley Showe; Sean Moore is injured – will face formidable competition from Hoosiers David Piercy, who swept the springboard events last weekend vs. Michigan, and Casey Johnson, who won on platform.
A Week Off Ohio State will take next week off before hosting Michigan, Penn State and Northwestern in a two-day quadrangular meet Jan. 29-30, just one month from the Big Ten championships.


text:
20 May 2022 / SF News / Joe Kukura
30-Acre Brush Fire Raged in Contra Costa County for Two Hours Friday, Now Fully Contained
A grassy hill brush fire between Concord and Bay Point forced several evacuations early Friday afternoon and eventually grew to 30 acres, but Cal Fire had it fully contained by 2 p.m.
We'd worried this week's combination of warm weather and high winds could be a wildfire risk, and indeed, that came to pass at Willow Pass Road and Willow Pass Court near Highway 4 between Bay Point and Concord. KRON-4 reports, and has some video too, of a brush fire that grew to 30 acres Friday afternoon. But while there were some evacuations, the fire has since been fully contained, with no damage to anything except the grass.
Image: Cal Fire
According to Cal Fire, the blaze started around 12:08 p.m. Friday afternoon, and very quickly spread to about 30 acres in size.
UPDATE: Fire authorities have confirmed that the fire is in Bay Point and has spread to 30 acres. Crews are on the scene.
LATEST: https://t.co/5jdB1fhrxX pic.twitter.com/lgipNMkgDZ
— KRON4 News (@kron4news) May 20, 2022
The Bay Area News Group notes that "The blaze initially threatened businesses, and the district evacuated some commercial businesses in the area."
#UPDATE: This fire is now 80% contained and the forward progress has been stopped. Businesses are no longer threatened. https://t.co/JccuxHw6Ma @EastBayTimes https://t.co/F88bhNashK
— Rick Hurd (@3rdERH) May 20, 2022
By about 1:15 p.m., Cal Fire personnel on the scene had the blaze about 80% contained.
#UPDATE: This fire is now fully contained. https://t.co/JccuxHw6Ma @EastBayTimes https://t.co/wT6BXuUZVQ
And by 1:45 p.m., this brush fire was fully contained. So we appear to have dodged a bullet on this one, but per the Chronicle, parts of Solano County are still under a red flag warning, and will remain so until 8 p.m. Friday night.
Related: Someone Started a Brush Fire in Santa Rosa. A Group of Good People Stopped It From Getting Worse [SFist]
Image: AlertWildfire.org
Day Around the Bay: Deadly Half Moon Bay Shooting Was Second Gun Violence Incident at Same Farm in Past Year
One of the Painted Ladies That Changed Hands Two Years Ago Is Back on the Market
One of San Francisco's famous Seven Sisters is back on the market. Leah Culver, the current owner, bought the Victorian house in 2020 for $3.55 million and she's now listing it for the same price.
Unhappy That He Hasn't Been Mentioned Lately In Abortion Fight, SF Archbishop 'Bans' Nancy Pelosi From Receiving Communion
Here we go again with SF's unhinged Catholic conservative archbishop trying to get attention.


Holger Quast is responsible for the speech recognition and natural language understanding strategy for consumer electronics devices as product manager for the VoCon recognizer in Nuance's Mobile division. Previously, he started and led the automotive natural language understanding research group and managed the Dragon Drive UI team at Nuance. He is passionate about creating smart personal assistants that aid their users wherever they are, understand who they are, and know how to best help them. Holger studied physics and neurocomputing in Göttingen and at UC San Diego and holds a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Göttingen. He is also a scuba instructor and enjoys photography, both in and out of the water. A father of three, he lives with his family close go Ghent, Belgium.


text:
package org.auslides.security.shiro.util;

/**
 * This simple wrapper class allows us to return status messages from the Google App Engine Cloud Endpoints.
 */
public class MessageBean {

	public static final String STATUS = "status";
	public static final String MESSAGE = "message";
	public static final String FAILURE_REASON = "failureReason";

	public static final String TOKEN = "token";
	public static final String EMAIL = "email";

	public MessageBean(Integer status, String message) {
		this.status = status;
		this.message = message;
	}

	public MessageBean(Integer status, String message, String failureReason) {
		this.status = status;
		this.message = message;
		this.failureReason = failureReason;
	}

	public MessageBean(Integer status, String message, String email, String token) {
		this.status = status;
		this.message = message;
		this.email = email;
		this.token = token;
	}

	private Integer status;
	private String message;
	private String failureReason;
	private String email;
	private String token;

	public Integer getStatus() {
		return status;
	}

	public void setStatus(Integer status) {
		this.status = status;
	}

	public String getMessage() {
		return message;
	}

	public void setMessage(String message) {
		this.message = message;
	}

	public String getFailureReason() {
		return failureReason;
	}

	public void setFailureReason(String failureReason) {
		this.failureReason = failureReason;
	}

	public String getEmail() {
		return email;
	}

	public void setEmail(String email) {
		this.email = email;
	}

	public String getToken() {
		return token;
	}

	public void setToken(String token) {
		this.token = token;
	}
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub