text:
What's Your Deed?
By David Jacobs and Beau Brincefield*
Question: Paragraph 16 of the Regional Sales Contract requires the seller to convey the subject property "by General Warranty Deed with English with Covenants of Title". What does that mean and how does such a deed differ from other types of deeds?
Answer: There are several different types of deeds that are used for different purposes. All deeds convey some form of title to real estate from a grantor to a grantee. The types of deeds that most REALTORS® see and work with most often are deeds of bargain and sale (which transfer title to real estate from a seller to a purchaser) and deeds of trust (which convey title to real estate from the owner of the real estate to a trustee who holds title in trust, usually for the benefit of the lender, to secure the repayment of some obligation by the owner of the property).
Whenever real estate is transferred by deed, it is important, for both the grantor and the grantee, to understand what their respective rights and responsibilities are with respect to the quality of title that is conveyed by the grantor. In other words, is the grantor conveying a "good and marketable title" and, if the title is challenged, who bears the cost of defense and, ultimately, the risk of any loss?
A properly drafted deed defines the respective rights and obligations of the grantor and grantee by specifying the type of warranty that the grantor gives the grantee. Basically, there are three mutually-exclusive possibilities: a General Warranty Deed, a Special Warranty Deed and a Quitclaim Deed.
GENERAL WARRANTY DEEDS
A General Warranty Deed is a deed in which the grantor warrants generally the title to the property conveyed to the grantee. That General Warranty of Title is a promise and representation by the grantor that the grantor will defend the title which the grantor conveyed to the grantee against the claims and demands of all persons whomsoever, back to the beginning of time. If anyone else (other than the grantee) comes along claiming any interest in the title conveyed, the grantor is obligated to defend the title of the grantee against any and all such claimants.
SPECIAL WARRANTY DEEDS
A Special Warranty Deed includes a promise and representation from the grantor to the grantee that the grantor will defend the grantee's title against any person who claims any interest in the title by, through, or under the grantor. In other words, the grantor does not warrant the quality of the title back to the beginning of time but warrants only that nothing has occurred during the grantor's time of ownership that would defeat or diminish the grantee's rights in the property. Obviously, the Special Warranty is more limited than the General Warranty. If a grantor conveys property with a Special Warranty and a claim later arises as a result of some circumstance that existed before the grantor's ownership, the grantor has no obligation to defend the grantee's title against such a claim.
"ENGLISH COVENANTS OF TITLE"
When a deed includes the phrase "with English Covenants of Title" or words of similar import, the effect of those words is to incorporate by reference certain very specific promises and representations by the seller. These specific promises and representations are defined in the Virginia Code in Sections 55-70 through 55-74.
To some extent, the English covenants of title merely reiterate, or provide further definition of, the promises and representations already expressed in the deed in the General or Special Warranty (legal scholars love to debate questions like "if the grantor gives a General Warranty of Title, what additional representations or promises do the English Covenants of Title add to the General Warranty"? Fortunately, for the practical purposes of this article, we don't have to deal with such issues).
For our purposes, incorporating the phrase "with English Covenants of Title" into a deed means that the grantor makes the following warranties and representations to the grantee with respect to the quality of title being passed by the grantor to the grantee:
1. The grantor owns all of the rights and interests in the property in their totality without any limitation or condition whatsoever.
2. The grantor has not done anything, or allowed anything to happen, that would create any encumbrance on the title to the property.
3. The grantor has the absolute right and authority to convey the property to the grantee.
4. The grantee shall be entitled to quiet possession of the property against the claims of all other claimants.
5. The grantor shall, upon any reasonable request, execute, or cause to be executed, such further documents as may be reasonably required to confirm the conveyance to the grantee.
QUITCLAIM DEEDS
Simply stated, a Quitclaim Deed is a deed that contains no warranty or covenant of title whatsoever. The grantor merely conveys such title as the grantor has, if any, without making any warranty or representation as to what it is.
Obviously, it is best for a grantee to receive a General Warranty Deed that incorporates the English Covenants of Title rather than either a Special Warranty Deed or a Quitclaim Deed. In Virginia, this is the customary way in which residential resale property is conveyed. Paragraph 16 of the Regional Sales Contract reflects this custom. In some other states (like Maryland, for example), Special Warranty Deeds are the more common practice.
When trustees or builder/sellers transfer title to real estate in Virginia, they typically use Special Warranty Deeds in order to reduce their exposure to later title claims.
David Jacobs and James C. "Beau" Brincefield, Jr. are attorneys with the Alexandria law firm of Brincefield Hartnett Maloof & Paleos, P.C. they can be reached at www.brincefield.com.


504-page hardcover cookbook that features 138 original recipes developed by 60 local chefs. The book includes 40 farmers' and artisans' stories, an essay on the culinary evolution of our city, a seasons chart, a full culinary glossary and tips on how to get more efficient in the kitchen. It is a tribute to London that provides the opportunity to discover our local flavours by the hand of our local culinary talent.
The book was developed over the course of 20 months and it was entirely crowdfunded. The recipes are divided in three difficulty levels and three different lifestyles that include: easy, intermediate, advanced, traditional, vegetarian and vegan. Offering a wide range of options for small plates, mains, desserts, snacks and drinks.
Made with love from farm to table to page by Alieska Robles.
*A rebate of 8% will be issued for all hardcover copies ordered online.


When width is an issue our 730mm wide towers with platform height from 1.5m to 6.0m gives a massive 8.0m reach and the mobility to push around on a flat surface. All machines and attachments available for long or short term hire with transport across greater Sydney and surrounds including Badgerys Creek, St Marys, Ryde, Coogee, Frenchs Forest, Penrith, Mascot and Liverpool to name a few.
Our Narrow towers give you safety and a great work space. Towers can be built without a licence up to 4m. These towers are easy to build and handle. They are suitable for work on civil & construction sites, residential and commercial buildings.


Dr. Paul Silveri is excited to join the Manchester office of Family Medicine Associates. Though raised and educated in Arkansas, Dr. Silveri developed an early desire to live in New England after spending his childhood summers with his grandparents in Holden, MA and Ogunquit, ME.
Dr. Silveri completed his B.S. in Biology at Arkansas State University, graduating with Honors in 2007. After a gap year, he attended medical school at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and graduated in 2012. Dr. Silveri then completed a family medicine residency at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences regional program in Jonesboro, AR, graduating in 2015. He is board certified in Family Medicine.
Dr. Silveri spent his first year out of residency working as an emergency physician at a community hospital in Jonesboro, AR. He enjoyed the excitement but missed the close patient-doctor relationships of the primary care setting. At FMA he hopes to uphold the tradition of providing quality care for the entire family. He has a particular interest in preventive care, urgent care, and wilderness medicine.
Outside of medicine, Dr. Silveri enjoys hiking, swimming, SCUBA diving, and most other aquatic activities. He especially enjoys those activities in the company of his best friend and wife, Dr. Alison Green.
We are excited to have Dr. Silveri join our FMA family! Please call (978) 526-4311 to schedule an appointment.


text:
The liquidators of Fukushima
Paul Jobin
There are many signs that Tepco is facing great difficulties in finding workers in the titanic struggle to bring to contain the dangerous situation at Fukushima. At present, there are nearly 700 people at the site. As in ordinary times, workers rotate so as to limit the cumulative dose of radiation inherent in maintenance and cleanup work at the nuclear site. But this time, the risks are greater, and the method of recruitment unusual.
Job offers for Fukushima come not from Tepco but from Mizukami Kogyo, a company whose business is construction and cleaning maintenance. The description indicates only that the work is at a nuclear plant in Fukushima prefecture. The job is specified as three hours per day at an hourly wage of 10,000 yen (US$123 or 86 euro). There is no information about danger, only the suggestion to ask the employer for further details on food, lodging, transportation and insurance.
Those who answer these offers may have little awareness of the dangers and they are likely to have few other job opportunities. A rate of US$122 an hour is hardly a king's ransom given the risk of cancer from high radiation levels. But Tepco and the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) keep diffusing their usual propaganda to minimize the radiation risks.
Rumor has it that many of the cleanup workers are burakumin (a minority group dating from Japan's feudal era and still often associated with discrimination). This cannot be verified, but it would be congruent with the logic of the nuclear industry and the difficult job situation of day laborers. Because of ostracism, some burakumin are also involved with yakuza, or organized crime groups. Therefore, it would not be surprising that yakuza-burakumin recruit other burakumin to go to Fukushima. Yakuza are active in recruiting day laborers of the yoseba (communities for day laborers): Sanya in Tokyo, Kotobukicho in Yokohama, and Kamagasaki in Osaka. People who live in precarious conditions are then exposed to high levels of radiation, doing the most dirty and dangerous jobs in the nuclear plants, then are sent back to the yoseba. Those who fall ill will not even appear in the statistics.
On March 14, three days after the earthquake and tsunami that caused the damage at Fukushima, the Ministry of Health and Labor raised the maximum dose for workers to 250 mSv a year, where previously it was set at 100 mSv over five years (either 20 mSv a year for five years or 50 mSv for two years, which is in itself a strange interpretation of the recommendations of the International Commission on
Radiological Protection's guideline stipulating a maximum of 20 mSv a year. The letter that the ministry sent the next day to the chiefs of labor bureaus to inform them of the decision justifies it on the grounds of the state of emergency, ignoring the safety of the workers.
This could be a measure to avoid or limit the number of workers who would apply for compensation. Stated differently, it has the effect of legalizing illness and deaths from nuclear radiation, or at least the state's responsibility for them. Usually, in case of leukemia, a one year exposure to 5 mSV is sufficient to obtain occupational hazards compensation. The list of potential applicants could be very long in light of the number of workers already on the job, or who are likely to be recruited to dismantle the reactors. The project proposed by Toshiba to close down and safeguard the reactors would take at least 10 years.
In short, the state's concern appears to be less the health of employees and more the cost of caring for nuclear victims. The same logic prevailed when, on April 23, the government urged children back to the schools of Fukushima prefecture, stating that the risk of 20 mSv or more per year was acceptable, despite the high vulnerability of children. Can the state be prioritizing the limitation of the burden of compensation for TEPCO and protection of the nuclear industry at large over the health of workers and children?
Source: Paul Jobin, Asia Times Online, 4 May 2011
Fukushima-Daiichi-1Fukushima-Daiichi-2Fukushima-Daiichi-3Fukushima-Daiichi-4Fukushima-Daiichi-5Fukushima-Daiichi-6
‹ TEPCO: 'leakage has not stopped completely' up No fake stress test! ›
liquidators
TEPCO

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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text:
A Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública (ENSP) - Portugal situa-se no Lumiar (Lisboa), e é a unidade de ensino superior público da Universidade Nova de Lisboa vocacionada para estudos pós-graduados e investigação nas áreas da saúde. Foi fundada em 1966, tendo as suas origem no Instituto Central de Higiene fundado em Lisboa em 1902.

A Universidade NOVA de Lisboa é a 21ª entre as universidades europeias com menos de 50 anos de acordo com o ranking QS under 50, que avalia critérios como a reputação e a internacionalização.

Objectivos
A Escola tem como objectivos:

 Promover um processo de ensino/aprendizagem em Saúde Pública centrado no aluno e numa visão integrada, dinâmica e prospectiva do sistema de saúde e das ciências da Saúde Pública;

Dedicar-se à descoberta científica, à produção do conhecimento e à inovação das práticas da Saúde Pública;

Articular a investigação e o ensino com a acção e a inovação em Saúde Pública, de forma a constituir-se como influência efectiva da sociedade do conhecimento emergente.

Com a finalidade de promover e desenvolver a investigação em áreas do conhecimento científico que se identifiquem como relevantes para o desenvolvimento da Saúde Pública, a ENSP criou recentemente o CISP (Centro de Investigação em Saúde Pública), estrutura que visa a promoção e a coordenação da investigação científica em Saúde Pública e domínios afins.

Ligações externas
Página Oficial

Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Fundações em Portugal em 1966

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Lovely and Unique Navy Blue Vintage Chanel Bag in soft lambskin leather with an attached chain shoulder strap. This bag is very rare and from the 1989 - 1991 collection. It is in fantastic condition for its age. The bag can be worn by holding the handle, clutch or as a shoulder bag. The bag has a zippered closure as well as a CC tassel. The interior includes a side interior zippered pocket. The color of this bag is a bright navy. The leather shows few scratches, the corners look great and the strap is in good condition. The bag wrinkles slightly at the midsection, common with lambskin leather Chanel bags. Authenticity seal is still intact, #1313103. Dimensions: 9.8 x 5.9 x 2.4".
We are honored to provide designer items of excellent condition and quality. The designers we feature are masters of their trade. If taken care of, these treasures will hold their value and remain beautiful, just as the designers had intended.


What is National Medicare Education Week?
Several years ago, UnitedHealthcare created National Medicare Education Week (NMEW), which is celebrated annually from September 15-21. The week was invented to help Medicare beneficiaries understand the basics of Medicare and Medicare insurance options. It always begins exactly one month before the start of the Medicare Open Enrollment Period (October 15- December 7), when beneficiaries can make changes to their coverage.
When is National Medicare Education Week?
Check out the Medicare Made Clear website to see if there will be events near you!
The UnitedHealthcare Agent Toolkit has materials and resources to help you execute your own NMEW event*! These materials are made with you in mind. Create your own pieces to help you develop connections within your market while drawing from the widespread "buzz" around NMEW. Go to the Medicare Made Clear folder in the toolkit to view the "NMEW Event-In-A-Box" materials.
Where do I find the marketing pieces?
Here you will find multiple customizable materials focused specifically on National Medicare Education Week! If you would like us to customize some of these pieces for you, please give Senior Marketing Specialists a call!
*Note: As a reminder, all NMEW events must be reported and conducted as educational events. Refer to the Agent Guide, available on the Distribution Portal for guidelines that must be followed when conducting and educational event. Agents must pass the Events Basics module prior to reporting and conducting any educational or marketing/sales event.


BMW M Performance Parts for the BMW X5.
Boundary-breaking Performance.BMW M Performance Parts for the BMW X5.
With an extensive range of M Performance Parts, the sporty character of the fourth generation BMW X5 can be emphasised even further. Drawing on the extensive motor racing expertise of BMW M, the BMW M Performance Parts ensure a more striking, dynamic appearance and improved aerodynamics. For ambitious off-road drivers, all-terrain wheels are available as M Performance Parts for the BMW X5 for the first time. The entire range of components will be available right on time for the worldwide market launch of this premium SAV in March 2019.
The M Performance exterior components in carbon fibre create a particularly striking look for the BMW X5 that is clearly inspired by motor racing. Finished by hand and sealed with a clear finish, the components are given a final high-gloss polish for an impressive depth effect. The air intake trim element for the standard bumper and the front winglets not only enhance the front section visually, they also highlight the breadth of the SAV model. At the rear, the same applies to the rear winglets and the rear diffuser.
The weight-optimised M Performance sports brake, with 4-piston fixed callipers made of aluminium on the front axle, aren't the only component that improves the BMW X5's performance. The inner-vented and perforated M Performance brake discs – which are larger than in the standard brakes (19 inches) – ensure improved thermal resilience and an increased braking effect, even in extreme conditions. Thanks to a special manufacturing process, the 22-inch M Performance light alloy wheel Start Spoke 749 M with rolled rim well is about one kilogram lighter than a comparable wheel of the same size, impacting positively on driving dynamics and making the BMW X5 even more agile. The sporty matt black 20-inch M light alloy wheel Star Spoke 748 M with all-terrain tyres also offers good ride comfort and is approved for use in winter.
A wide selection of M Performance components derived from and inspired by motor racing is also available for the interior of the new BMW X5, providing both visual and functional enhancement. The M Performance steering wheel ensures the driver has secure control over the dynamic SAV at all times, due to the extremely high-grip Alcantara handling area with large thumb rests and special underlining for excellent stability and direct steering feel. In addition to standard details like the red centre marking at the 12 o'clock position and the silver grey, hand-sewn cross-stitch, the M Performance steering wheel is also available with M Performance steering wheel trim in carbon fibre with M Performance inscription and Alcantara insert. To match this, the shift paddles can also be selected in an M Performance finish featuring carbon fabric instead of the standard chrome surface.


What are the best Medical Assistant Schools in Ann Arbor, MI?
Ann Arbor has a general population of 114,024 and an overall student population of 57,615. Approximately 103 of Ann Arbor's students are enrolled in schools that offer medical assistant programs.
Ann Arbor's largest medical assistant school is Ross Medical Education Center-Ann Arbor. In 2010, Ross Medical Education Center-Ann Arbor graduated approximately 195 students with credentials in medical assisting.
A total of 195 students graduated with credentials in medical assisting from medical assistant schools in Ann Arbor in 2010.
After graduating with your credentials in medical assisting, if you decide to work as a medical assistant in Ann Arbor, your job prospects are good. In 2010, 1 out of every 22 medical assistants in Michigan were working in the greater Ann Arbor area. The number of medical assistants in Ann Arbor is expected to increase by 25% by the year 2018. This anticipated change is slower than the projected nationwide trend for medical assistants.
As a medical assistant in Ann Arbor, you can expect to make an average salary of $29,500 per year. This is higher than the average salary for medical assistants in the state.


Cold-pressed from the seeds of the tropical castor plant, castor oil has a light, pale yellow appearance. It is known for preserving moisture while its fatty acids leave the skin feeling nourished.IngredientsOrganic Rincinus communis (Castor) Oil.
Cold-pressed from the seeds of the tropical castor plant, castor oil has a light, pale yellow appearance. It is known for preserving moisture while its fatty acids leave the skin feeling nourished. Ingredients Organic Rincinus communis (Castor) Oil.
Sourced from non-GMO seeds (primarily soy), vegetable glycerin is the non-fatty component of vegetable oils. It is a clear, odorless liquid with powerful moisture-attracting properties and is a common ingredient used in formulating natural soaps, creams and lotions.IngredientsOrganic Glycerin.
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text:
(n. 942 - d. 6 iulie 1017) a fost un călugăr budist japonez foarte influent, care a fondat Budismul Pământului Pur. Inițial Genshin a fost practicant al școlii budiste Tendai, dar din cauza războaielor civile ce cuprindeau Japonia în aceea perioadă a înființat școala Budistă a Pământului Pur, o școală ce îl venera mai presus de toate pe Buddha Amida , considerat ca singurul buddha capabil să salveze Japonia și să ducă oameni pe calea luminii. În sectele Jōdo-shū și Jōdo Shinshū, Genshin este considerat a fi al șaselea patriarh budist.

Nașteri în 942
Budism
Călugări budiști japonezi
Decese pe 6 iulie
Decese în 1017


Hello and a huge welcome back!
As promised I have my second layout designed for design teams 49andMarket and the Dusty Attic.
This is ....................."Never Stop DREAMING" I hope you enjoy it !!
My inspiration from this project grew from one sheet of paper in the Tattered Gardens collection, the Playground. Of course there are many beautiful pieces as with all of Janene's collections, but this one I really gravitated to.
I used two sheets of Playground, using some of the B side for the layering of my photo.
Ok so I really love my chipboards and I have used a number of pieces some of the my older favourites and some new releases. I just couldn't decide on the colour for my chippies. It really was difficult but in the end I just threw my hands in the air and used them all. I had some previously dressed and decided that I would just use all of the Ornamental Trims. I have cut them and layered them amongst the layers of paper and flowers as you will see in the close-ups below.
My background work was stencilled I promise. I used the Numbers Stencil below. You can see the 3 peeping through on this close-up above. I just go carried away with my embellishing that the stencilling are became less. Well that happens often but I really do like this stencil. Will be using it again.
I have also done some random stamping using Gabrielle's Crackle Stamp Set.
And I know I love my flowers but who could resist. I have used many collections to complete this project. I wanted it to be as pretty as my girl.
I have used lots of flowers here from the new release flowers of 49andMarket in many different colours. And I simply couldn't stop adding as you can see.
And I also have some more close-ups for you below.
The French Flourish that you can see here above really is an old favourite. It is so elegant and very easy to use. I have layered this piece here with two other pieces of the Ornamental Trim. I just cut these pieces of chippies and tucked them into my flowers.
And how cute is the Watering Can. I love this it is just the perfect addition to any floral layout I think. For this project I simply primed my piece with gesso and then I did some inking with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.
I also tucked in some DA branches.
Well that is all from me for today! I hope you enjoyed my project.


Digital marketing is the trend in marketing and that goes without saying. The year 2016 witnessed a great deal of innovation and success in the field of digital marketing, where marketers explored many ideas and platforms in this regard. And best of all, it was all successful. Let us now take a look at what will the top trends of Digital Marketing in 2017. If you are thinking of digitally market your product, this is everything that you need to know before the start of new year so that you can devise the perfect strategy.
In the last three years, content marketing has been in the top three digital marketing trends and that will be true in the coming year too. It will be the most popular medium of digital marketing.
Big data applications will be among the top digital marketing trends. This is because there is much more being done on big data application to make it more worth while. Big Data application are very closely tied to machine learning, thus, it makes them very useful for organizations to process large amounts of data and extract meaningful information out of it. Big Data helps organizations a lot to understand the dynamics and behavior of their customers. Thus, enabling them to work more on customer satisfaction.
Marketing Automation includes CRM, behavioral email marketing and web personalization. Marketing automation has been in the top 5 marketing trends for the last 5 years and the coming year it is believed that it will be in the top three with more and more organizations successfully using marketing automation.
Mobile marketing peaked in the previous year but it has gradually been on a decline. This does not mean that it has completely declined; because there are still a huge number of organizations that even today use mobile marketing. The decline of mobile marketing started when organizations started to focus more on mobile responsive web designs. Although mobile marketing is a very good and easy means to reach your customers, there have not been many new innovations in this trend.
Social media is a very powerful tool to communicate your thoughts across millions of people. It not only enables organizations to convey their message to customers, but also allows them to build engaged and interactive audience. Through social media, people give their feedback about everything whether they like or dislike it. This is a very beneficial element for businesses. There is continued growth in social media usage overall. Social Media marketing is not in the top three in the list because it still needs to be explored. There are many social media platforms that are banned in many countries. Organizations have a lot to work on in the realm of social media marketing. However, once there is more information available about how to control it, it may become of the most powerful and successful tools. There is still a long way to go for social media marketing.


A soon-to-be-released report by the National Institute of Corrections on the jail`s overcrowding is expected to recommend that judges, not Cook County jail personnel, decide which inmates are released on individual recognizance bonds, jail officials said Tuesday.
In an attempt to relieve chronic overcrowding, the jail has released thousands of inmates on the controversial I-bonds in the last year, but the practice has drawn fire because many of those freed without posting bond have committed more crimes.
Even though computers linking the jail to the Circuit Court clerk`s records were recently installed, Sheriff James O`Grady complained at a meeting on the overcrowding that jail staffers have less access to data about defendants than do judges.
The meeting, convened by presiding Criminal Court Judge Thomas Fitzgerald, also attracted newly appointed State`s Attorney Cecil Partee, Public Defender Randolph Stone, Circuit Clerk Aurelia Pucinski, Police Deputy Superintendent Matt Rodriguez and John Robinson, head of the county`s Adult Probation Department.
Criminal Court Judge Thomas Fitzgerald convened the meeting, where Robert Glotz, the jail`s assistant director, disclosed that a team from the National Institute of Corrections recently toured the jail and is expected to submit recommendations any day.
Glotz, though, pointedly noted that Cook County officials ignored a 1983 study by the corrections` group, including a recommendation that a 1,000-bed addition be built.
That same study predicted the jail`s overcrowding would worsen by 1989 to the point that the number of inmates would reach 6,300, jail officials said.
In recent weeks, the jail`s population has exceeded 6,500 for the first time, even though the jail continues to release close to 100 inmates a day on I-bonds. And still, 450 inmates are forced to sleep on mattresses on the floor in violation of a federal court order.
''There are people out there we might not have released if we had all the information,'' Spencer Leak, the jail`s executive director, said after the meeting.
Fitzgerald asked a subcommittee headed by Circuit Court Clerk Aurelia Pucinski to determine whether more information could be provided to the sheriff.


text:
\section{Introduction}
There are a range of astronomical phenomena that are known to be transient
or highly variable at low frequencies ($<1$~GHz).
For example, flares from brown
dwarf stars \citep[e.g.][]{berger06,jaeger11}, flares from Jupiter \citep{zarka01}, and by extension,
potentially from exoplanet emission \citep{hess11,murphy15}, and
intermittent pulsars \citep[e.g.][]{sobey15}. In other cases, propagation effects such as
interplanetary scintillation \citep[e.g.][]{kaplan15} can cause compact
background sources
such as quasars and pulsars to vary in flux density. There are also more local
causes such as ionospheric distortions. Although these are typically
small effects at a few hundred megahertz at the resolution of the Murchison
Widefield Array \citep{loi15b} they can be significant for higher resolution
instruments \citep{intema09,vanweeren16}. The range of physical phenomena that cause
radio variability is summarised by \citet{cordes04} and by \citet{bowman13} for low
frequencies in particular.

Most studies of low frequency variability have targeted known objects, however
there have been a small number of transients discovered through limited blind searches \citep[e.g.][]{hyman05}.
In recent years large-scale blind transient surveys have become possible due to
new instruments such as the Long Wavelength Array \citep[LWA1;][]{taylor12},
the Low Frequency Array \citep[LOFAR;][]{vanhaarlem13}, the Murchison Widefield
Array \citep[MWA;][]{tingay13} and the Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) Low Band
Ionospheric and Transient Experiment \citep[VLITE;][]{clarke16}. A range of
low-frequency surveys for radio transients have been conducted on these
instruments
\citep[e.g.][]{bell14,obenberger15,polisensky16} in part as
preparation for the Square Kilometre Array \citep[SKA; e.g.][]{fender15}.
In addition there have been a number of
surveys using archival low frequency data from the Very Large Array
\citep{jaeger12} and Molonglo \citep{bannister11} telescopes.

So far, most surveys for radio transients at low frequencies \citep[e.g.][]{lazio10,bell14,polisensky16} have not found any astrophysical sources,
resulting in upper
limits on the rate of transient and highly variable sources as summarised by
\citet{rowlinson16}. However, there are a few surveys that have resulted in detections.
One is the archival search of 325~MHz Very Large Array observations by \citet{jaeger12}.
They found a single candidate in 72~hours of observations in the Spitzer-Space-Telescope Wide-area Infrared Extragalactic Survey (SWIRE) Deep Field. This source was detected
over a 6 hour period with a flux density of $1.70\pm0.25$~mJy.
Another example is the recent result by \citet{stewart16} who found
a single candidate astrophysical transient in 400~hr of LOFAR monitoring of the North Celestial
Pole. Their candidate had a duration of a few minutes and a 60~MHz flux density of $15-25$~Jy.
The nature of this object is still unknown, but it suggests that we might now be approaching
the survey parameters required to detect low-frequency radio transients in blind surveys.
\citet{metzger15} present model predictions for the rates of extragalactic synchrotron transients
which are significantly lower than the rates that current low-frequency blind surveys probe. However,
these do not cover all the classes of objects we expect to see at low frequencies, in particular
Galactic objects or coherent emitters such as intermittent pulsars.

In this paper we present a search for radio transients at $\sim 150$~MHz, over
typical timescales of three years, to a flux density cutoff of 100--200~mJy. We
conducted the search using the GLEAM survey \citep{wayth15} survey and the
first Alternative Data Release of the 150 MHz TIFR GMRT Sky Survey \citep[TGSS~ADR1;][]{intema16}.  Unless stated otherwise, all flux density limits are at 3$\sigma$ confidence.

\section{Data analysis}
\subsection{The GLEAM Survey}

The Murchison Widefield Array \citep{tingay13}
is a 128-tile low-frequency radio interferometer located in Western Australia.
One of the major MWA projects is GLEAM: The GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky MWA
survey \citep{wayth15}. GLEAM is a survey of the radio sky south of declination
$+30^\circ$ at frequencies between 72 and 231~MHz. The observations used in this work
were carried out between 2013 June and 2014 July.
At 154~MHz the image resolution is approximately $2.5^\prime \times 2.2^\prime/\cos(\delta + 26.7^\circ)$. The
typical sensitivity of GLEAM snapshot images ranges from 40 to 200\,\ensuremath{{\rm mJy\,beam}^{-1}}\ between
231~MHz and 72~MHz respectively.
The final catalogue is $92.6\%$ complete at 200~mJy and $79.5\%$ complete at 100~mJy.

The observation and data reduction strategy for GLEAM is described in detail by \citet{hurleywalker16}.

\subsection{The TGSS ADR1 Survey}
The Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope \citep[GMRT;][]{swarup90} is an array of 30 antennas, each
with a diameter of 45~m. The GMRT has a maximum baseline of 25~km and
operates at frequencies between 150 and 1500 MHz.
Between 2011 April and 2012 March the GMRT was used to carry out a 150~MHz survey
of the sky north of declination $\delta = -55^\circ$.

Until recently, the bulk of the data collected by the TGSS was unpublished.
Motivated by recent improvements in low-frequency calibration and imaging,
\citet{intema16} have re-processed the TGSS observations and released both the
resulting Stokes I continuum images and a catalog of 620\,000 radio
sources down to  the 7$\sigma$ level (TGSS~ADR1). The TGSS~ADR1 data release covers
the sky north of declination $\delta = -53^\circ$, excluding the most southern (lowest elevation) pointings.
The images have a median RMS of 3.5\,\ensuremath{{\rm mJy\,beam}^{-1}}\
and an approximate resolution of $25^{\prime\prime} \times 25^{\prime\prime}$ or
$25^{\prime\prime} \times 25^{\prime\prime}$/$\cos(\delta - 19)^\circ$ for declinations south of
$\delta = +19^\circ$.

\subsection{Search strategy}
We conducted our search using the GLEAM first data release catalogue \citep{hurleywalker16} and the
TGSS ADR1 7-sigma source catalog \citep{intema16}.
The two surveys cover a common area of sky between $-53^\circ \le \delta \le +30^\circ$.
The GLEAM survey has significantly lower
completeness above $\delta = +10^\circ$ so we excluded these northern declinations from our
comparison.
The GLEAM catalogue excludes the Galactic plane region
$|b|<10^\circ$ and a 1289 sq deg area centred on $22.5^h$, $+15^\circ$ that was
ionospherically distorted. There are also several small regions that are masked around the
bright radio galaxy Centaurus A. Figure~\ref{sky} shows the regions used
for the analysis in this paper; the total area surveyed is 16\,230 sq deg (39.3\% of the sky).

\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=1.05\columnwidth]{images/surveyarea_crop}
\caption{The sky coverage of our survey (in Aitoff projection); the grey shaded area shows the overlap region between
GLEAM and TGSS, excluding the sky north of $\delta = 10^\circ$. The masked regions, described in the text,
 are shown in white.}
\label{sky}
\end{figure}

On average the TGSS observations took place about three years before the GLEAM survey observations.
The GLEAM survey includes a sub-band centred on 154~MHz, which is close to the TGSS frequency
of 150~MHz, so they are well matched. Due to the different properties of these surveys, as discussed
below, we searched for transients using two approaches. We crossmatched sources in the GLEAM survey with
TGSS, and looked for those with no match, and we crossmatched sources in TGSS with the GLEAM catalogue
and looked for sources with no match.

In conducting these searches there are two main differences between the survey catalogues that need to be
accounted for (i) the sensitivity limit and completeness of GLEAM compared to TGSS; and
(ii) the lower resolution of GLEAM compared to TGSS.

(i) The typical RMS sensitivity of TGSS is 3.5\,\ensuremath{{\rm mJy\,beam}^{-1}}, and the TGSS catalogue was constructed using
a $7\sigma$ source-finding cutoff, which gives a limiting flux density of 24.5~mJy. The GLEAM survey
is less sensitive; the catalogue is $92.6\%$ complete at 200~mJy, whereas TGSS is close to $100\%$ complete
at 200~mJy.
To account for this we used a relatively high flux density cutoff of 100~mJy for
our GLEAM to TGSS comparison. For the reverse comparison we applied a flux density cutoff of
200~mJy to the TGSS sources,
to avoid false positive transient candidates due to incompleteness in the GLEAM survey.

(ii) The resolution of the TGSS is $25^{\prime\prime}\times25^{\prime\prime}$ for $\delta>19^\circ$ and
$25^{\prime\prime}\times25^{\prime\prime}/\cos{(\delta-19^\circ)}$ for $\delta<19^\circ$, compared
to $2.5^\prime \times 2.2^\prime/\cos(\delta + 26.7^\circ)$ for GLEAM. The lower resolution
of GLEAM means we would expect to see a significant number of objects that have extended
emission that is resolved out in TGSS, which produces a large number of false positives when
crossmatching GLEAM to TGSS. A related issue is multi-component radio galaxies in which the
catalogued position is offset between the two catalogues.

We addressed these issues firstly by restricting the crossmatch sample to sources that were
compact in GLEAM (using the criteria discussed in Section~\ref{s_g2t}); and secondly by searching for GLEAM sources that had no match in TGSS or in
three archival catalogues: the NRAO VLA Sky Survey \citep[NVSS, at 1.4\,GHz;][]{condon98}; the Sydney University Molonglo
Sky Survey \citep[SUMSS, at 843\,MHz;][]{mauch03}; and the VLA Low Frequency Sky Survey, redux \citep[VLSSr, at 74\,MHz;][]{lane14}.

\subsection{Flux density scale}
Before we conducted our search we checked that the flux density scales of the two catalogues
were aligned.
To do this we selected bright sources ($> 900$~mJy) in our survey region that were compact in both GLEAM
(using the criterion $(a \times b)/(a_{\mathrm{psf}}\times b_{\mathrm{psf}}) < 1.1$ where $a$ and $b$ are the
major and minor axis of a Gaussian fit to the source) and TGSS (using the criterion that the object was fit
by a single Gaussian).

We cross-matched these objects, and compared their flux densities as shown in Figure~\ref{fluxscale}.
We fit these data using orthogonal distance regression, with the uncertainty in $S_{\rm TGSS}$ and $S_{\rm GLEAM}$ as weights.
The uncertainty on $S_{\rm GLEAM}$ was the RMS noise combined in quadrature with the systematic uncertainty.
For the $\sim3000$ sources plotted, the best fit ratio of TGSS/GLEAM was 0.97, demonstrating the systematic
difference between the measured flux densities in these catalogues is $\sim$\,$3\%$. This difference is
to be expected since the GLEAM survey is on the \citet{baars77} flux density scale, while TGSS is on
the \citet{scaife12} flux density scale.

Although the overall agreement is good, there is some scatter around the mean ratio, with a
small fraction of sources showing significantly different flux densities in both surveys.
The likely cause of these differences is a combination of
the difference in resolution between the two surveys; the better low surface brightness sensitivity of GLEAM;
errors in the local calibration and flux scale in each survey; and some variability in the source
population.
In particular the flux scale agreement is different in different regions of the sky: we
discuss this further in Section~\ref{tanalysis}.

\begin{figure}
\includegraphics[width=\columnwidth]{images/flux_density_scale_comparison_bright_v4}
\caption{TGSS 150~MHz flux density versus the GLEAM 151~MHz sub-band flux density for bright, compact sources
in our survey area. The line of best fit, shown as a solid line, gives a TGSS/GLEAM flux density ratio of 0.97.}
\label{fluxscale}
\end{figure}

\section{Results}

\subsection{GLEAM to TGSS comparison}\label{s_g2t}
There are a total of 234\,333 GLEAM catalogue sources in the overlap region
between the two surveys. We did an initial exploration of the data by cross-matching the GLEAM catalogue with the
TGSS, SUMSS, NVSS and VLSSr catalogues, and visually inspecting all GLEAM sources that did not have a match
in any of these catalogues (a total of 2\,219 sources). A majority of these sources were either extended, or had
a match in the survey images that was below the formal catalogue limits for a given survey.

From this exploration we developed the criteria below to search for GLEAM sources that had no TGSS counterpart:
\begin{enumerate}
\item Applied a GLEAM 200~MHz flux density cutoff of 100~mJy ({\it leaving 133\,686 sources});
\item Excluded sources that were extended in GLEAM, using the criterion $(a \times b)/(a_{psf}\times b_{psf}) \ge 1.1$ where
$a$ and $b$ are the major and minor axis of a Gaussian fit to the source ({\it leaving 99\,658 sources});
\item Cross-matched the GLEAM catalogue with the TGSS catalogue, using a search radius of $1.0^\prime$ and
selected sources with no match ({\it leaving 1\,371 sources});
\item Cross-matched the sources with no TGSS counterpart with the SUMSS, NVSS and VLSSr catalogues, using a
search radius of $2.5^\prime$ and selected sources with no match ({\it leaving 15 sources});
\item Visually inspected the sources and excluded a small number of sources that were GLEAM processing artefacts.
\end{enumerate}
This resulted in two candidate transients above our 100~mJy limit, GLEAM J153424$-$114947 and GLEAM J153653$-$115052,
which we discuss below.

The sources that did not have a match in the TGSS catalogue, but that did have a counterpart in NVSS or SUMSS
(excluded in step (iv) above) were typically multiple-component radio galaxies. These were unresolved in GLEAM,
but resolved into
multiple components in TGSS, and hence had a catalogued position or positions that were more than $1.0^\prime$ from
the GLEAM position.

The small number of GLEAM imaging artefacts that we discovered in the manual inspection process have now been
removed from the final GLEAM catalogue.

\subsubsection{Analysis of GLEAM candidates}
GLEAM~J153424$-$114947 has a 200~MHz flux density of $204\pm10$~mJy. There is no detection in TGSS,
with a $3\sigma$ limit of 8.4~\ensuremath{{\rm mJy\,beam}^{-1}}. There are no detections in the VLSSr ($3\sigma$ limit of
330~\ensuremath{{\rm mJy\,beam}^{-1}}) or NVSS ($3\sigma$ limit of 1.4~\ensuremath{{\rm mJy\,beam}^{-1}}) surveys.

GLEAM~J153653$-$115052 has a 200~MHz flux density of $134\pm10$~mJy. There is no detection in TGSS,
with a $3\sigma$ limit of 6.2~\ensuremath{{\rm mJy\,beam}^{-1}}. There are no detections in the VLSSr ($3\sigma$ limit of
231~\ensuremath{{\rm mJy\,beam}^{-1}}) or NVSS ($3\sigma$ limit of 1.3~\ensuremath{{\rm mJy\,beam}^{-1}}) surveys.

These detections appeared to be robust (no sign of nearby bright sources or other apparent causes), however their close proximity on the sky raised concerns and so we
inspected the individual snapshot images from which the GLEAM mosaics are constructed.
In the snapshot images, each source only appears only in one image.  We realized from examination of these
and at least six additional snapshot images that there was just a single source that appeared to move across
the sky with time, shifting by approximately $0\fdg 6$ in right ascension between adjacent images taken
10\,min apart, with minimal motion in declination.
The source is very close to the edge of the images ($y>3880$, with an image size of 4000\,pixels) in
the region where deconvolution is disabled.

We reprocessed the individual snapshot images using different imaging parameters: we used the same pixel scale of
$25\farcs2$~pixel$^{-1}$, but with an image size of 6144 pixels.
This meant that
the imaged area was $43^\circ$ compared to $30\fdg 34$, and the source was only 85\% of the way to the edge
rather than 97\%.  Otherwise the imaging parameters were similar.  We found no source at the position of
GLEAM~J153424$-$114947 or GLEAM~J153653$-$115052 in either of the reprocessed snapshots where they
previously appeared (see the right hand panels of Figure~\ref{f_artefacts1}), while the other sources
remained, demonstrating that the potential transients are likely to be imaging artefacts. The most likely
explanation is that they are a form of aliasing in which a bright source outside the field has been aliased
in.

\subsubsection{GLEAM artefacts}
As a result of this analysis these two candidates were established as artefacts and removed from the main GLEAM catalogue.
In the GLEAM pipeline processing the primary field-of-view is imaged down to at least $10\%$ of the primary beam, leaving,
for every observation, approximately 100 square degrees of sky
with a primary beam response between $0-10\%$ outside the imaged
field-of-view. The 7 brightest sources in the sky are peeled where
possible, but in two cases, the sources could not be peeled due to
contamination from other bright sources. In one observation, Hercules A
lay just outside the field-of-view, and was not peeled, due to the
confounding presence of 3C353 in a side lobe, resulting in an alias inside
the imaged field-of-view. In 19 further cases, Centaurus A could not be
peeled due to contamination from the Galactic Plane, resulting in 19
further aliases. These were manually removed from the final catalogue. For
images which form the source-detection mosaics across 170--231\,MHz, all
other cases of potential unpeeled source contamination were checked and no
aliases were found. There are a small number of aliases in the
lower-frequency mosaics, but these are not used for source-finding, and
the aliases do not coincide with other sources.

It is possible that sources of flux densities comparable to 3C444
($S_\mathrm{200MHz}\approx60$\,Jy), the faintest peeled source, could be
just outside the field of view and cause aliases inside it. However, the
chances of this are very small, as the source must lie at a Declination
within five degrees of one of the GLEAM pointing centres, in order to fall
on an image edge rather than a corner, and fall just outside the
field-of-view. Because the GLEAM mosaics are formed by weighting snapshots
by the square of their primary beam responses, the contribution of such an
alias to the mosaic would be down-weighted by at least a factor of 100,
effectively reducing its flux density by that factor. Therefore, we do not
expect sources fainter than 3C444 to contribute detectable sources to the
mosaics, as they would appear with $S<6$\,mJy, which is below the
detection limit across the sky.

Hence, as a result of the extensive quality control done as part of the GLEAM survey,
we do not think it is likely that similar
artefacts would have a significant impact on the overall reliability of the GLEAM catalogue.

\begin{figure*}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=17cm]{images/david_artefact}
\caption{{\it Left:} GLEAM snapshot images showing the two transient candidates GLEAM~J153424$-$114947 and GLEAM~J153653$-$115052. {\it Right:} The reprocessed images in which the candidates no longer appear, demonstrating that these are imaging artefacts.}
\label{f_artefacts1}
\end{figure*}

\subsection{TGSS to GLEAM comparison}
There were a total of 275\,612 TGSS sources in our survey region.
To do the reverse comparison, crossmatching TGSS sources with GLEAM, we followed the steps below:
\begin{enumerate}
\item Selected TGSS sources above 200~mJy ({\it leaving 74\,876 sources});
\item Selected compact sources by choosing those that were fit by a single Gaussian, marked `S' in the
TGSS ADR1 catalogue ({\it leaving 38\,978 sources});
\item Crossmatched these with the GLEAM catalogue, using a radius of $1^\prime$ and selected sources with no
match ({\it leaving 640 sources});
\item Visually inspected all sources with no match and excluding those that were multi-component sources (generally
double and triple radio galaxies) that are resolved in TGSS but not in GLEAM;
\item Excluded sources that are in regions of poor image quality in the TGSS mosaics.
\end{enumerate}
This resulted in a single candidate transient, TGSSADR~J183304.4$-$384046, which we discuss below.

\subsubsection{Analysis of the TGSS candidate}\label{tanalysis}
TGSSADR~J183304.4$-$384046 has a 150~MHz flux density of 304~mJy, but was not detected in GLEAM ($3\sigma$ limit of 41~\ensuremath{{\rm mJy\,beam}^{-1}}), SUMSS ($3\sigma$ limit of 4.9~\ensuremath{{\rm mJy\,beam}^{-1}}), NVSS ($3\sigma$ limit
of 1.4~\ensuremath{{\rm mJy\,beam}^{-1}}) or AT20G ($3\sigma$ limit of 30~\ensuremath{{\rm mJy\,beam}^{-1}}). We also searched archival radio surveys ATPMN \citep{mcconnell12} and the Molonglo 408~MHz
survey (Hunstead, private communication) and found no detections. These limits are summarised in
Table~\ref{t_can3} and Figure~\ref{sed}. We did not detect the source
in any of the 20 GLEAM sub-bands, and we have included 4 representative sub-band limits on the flux density in the table and SED.
The TGSS and GLEAM images are shown in Figure~\ref{f_can3}.

\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=\columnwidth]{images/TGSS_J1833_SED_big.pdf}
\caption{Radio spectral energy distribution (SED) of TGSSADR~J183304.4$-$384046, based on the data in Table~\ref{t_can3}. We have used the scaled TGSS flux density, as discussed in the main text. Note that these are not based on contemporaneous observations.  For the presumed quiescent emission (ignoring the TGSS detection), the most constraining measurement for typical spectral indices is the ATCA 9\,GHz observation.  We show model SEDs for spectral indices of $\alpha=-0.8$ (typical for extragalactic GLEAM sources; \citealt{hurleywalker16}) and $\alpha=-1.6$ (the steepest spectral index that matches all of the limits).
}\label{sed}
\end{figure}

\begin{figure*}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=15cm]{images/tgssJ1833_radio}
\caption{TGSS~ADR1 (left) and GLEAM (right) images of the transient candidate TGSSADR~J183304.4$-$384046 (shown with a red circle). On the TGSS~ADR1 image, the blue circles show the location of NVSS sources with a 1.4~GHz flux density greater than 5\,mJy. The GLEAM image is overlaid with a TGSS contour at 80\,\ensuremath{{\rm mJy\,beam}^{-1}}\ to show the position
of TGSS sources.
}
\label{f_can3}
\end{figure*}

\begin{table}
\centering
\caption{Summary of radio measurements and limits for TGSSADR~J183304.4$-$384046.}
\label{t_can3}
\begin{tabular}{lrccl}
\hline
Survey & Freq  & Date & S$^\dagger$ &  Ref\\
       & (MHz) &      & (mJy/bm)   &  \\
\hline
GLEAM & 99    & 2014 Jun 09 & $\phantom{0}<99\phantom{.}\phantom{0}\phantom{0}\phantom{0}$ & * \\
GLEAM & 143   & 2014 Jun 09 & $\phantom{0}<92\phantom{.}\phantom{0}\phantom{0}\phantom{0}$ & * \\
TGSS  & 147.5 & 2011 Apr 27 & $182\pm26^\ddagger$ & I16 \\
GLEAM & 200   & 2014 Jun 09 & $\phantom{0}<41\phantom{.}\phantom{0}\phantom{0}\phantom{0}$ & * \\
GLEAM & 219   & 2014 Jun 09 & $\phantom{0}<75\phantom{.}\phantom{0}\phantom{0}\phantom{0}$ & * \\
M408  & 408   & 1972 Jul 15 & $<9\phantom{.}\phantom{0}\phantom{0}\phantom{0}$ & Hpc \\
SUMSS & 843   & 2005 Aug 03 & $<5.7\phantom{0}\phantom{0}$ & M03 \\
SUMSS & 843   & 2006 Mar 09 & $<4.9\phantom{0}\phantom{0}$ & M03 \\
NVSS  & 1400  & 1993 Oct 07 & $<1.4\phantom{0}\phantom{0}$ & C98 \\
ATCA  & 2100  & 2016 Apr 01 & $<0.75\phantom{0}$ & * \\
ATPMN & 4800  & 1994 Mar 14 & $<4.5\phantom{0}\phantom{0}$ & M12 \\
ATCA  & 5000  & 2016 Apr 01 & $<0.24\phantom{0}$ & * \\
ATCA  & 9000  & 2016 Apr 01 & $<0.045$ & * \\
AT20G & 20\,000 & 2004 Aug 11 & $\phantom{0}<30\phantom{.}\phantom{0}\phantom{0}\phantom{0}$ & H11 \\
\hline
\end{tabular}\\
$\dagger$ Flux density or 3$\sigma$ upper limits.\\
$\ddagger$ See Section~\ref{tanalysis} for discussion of the flux scale. \\
References: * (This work), C98 \citep{condon98}, Hpc (Hunstead, private communication), H11 \citep{hancock11}, I16 \citep{intema16}, M03 \citep{mauch03}, M12 \citep{mcconnell12}
\end{table}

Based on these non-detections we observed this source with the Australia Telescope Compact Array on 2016 April 1. We had a total
time of 1.5 hours on source at each of 2.1, 5.0 and 9.0~GHz in the
H214 array. We did not see any emission at the position of TGSSADR~J183304.4$-$384046,
obtaining limits of 0.75~\ensuremath{{\rm mJy\,beam}^{-1}}\ at 2.1~GHz, 0.24~\ensuremath{{\rm mJy\,beam}^{-1}}\ at 5~GHz and 0.045~\ensuremath{{\rm mJy\,beam}^{-1}}\ at
9~GHz. This suggested the source was either a transient that had faded since the TGSS observations, or an artefact.

We considered the possibility that this source was an imaging artefact from the TGSS processing, for example a CLEAN artefact
caused by the bright source approximately $6^\prime$ to the south west. This neighbouring source has a GLEAM 151 MHz flux density of $1.75\pm0.04$\,Jy (GLEAM~J183318$-$384608), and a 147.5~MHz flux density of $3.0\pm0.3$\,Jy (TGSSADR~J183317.7$-$384613) in the TGSS~ADR1.

The significant difference in the measured flux density of this neighbouring source led us to do further analysis of the flux density
scale in the region of the transient candidate. We selected all bright
compact sources within a 1~degree radius of the candidate and found the
mean flux ratio of the GLEAM 151~MHz flux density to the TGSS 147.5~MHz flux density was 0.6. This is due to flux scale uncertainties in the
TGSS~ADR that are currently being rectified. Based on this analysis, the
flux density of the candidate transient may be $0.6\times 304 = 182\pm26$~mJy rather than the catalogued value. We have used this scaled value in the spectral
energy distribution in Figure~\ref{sed}. We have also scaled the TGSS image in Figure~\ref{f_can3} by a factor of 0.6.  We estimate that this scaling has an additional uncertainty of 10\% based on the scatter of the flux ratios.

We looked at the uncombined TGSS pointing images, before primary beam
correction and found that the transient candidate appears in two images (R56D08 and R57D09). These pointings were observed on the same night, but with slightly different
{\it uv}-coverage. Each pointing was processed independently. Although the transient
candidate is well beyond the half-power point of the primary beam in image R57D09, it
is still clearly visible, which makes it unlikely to be an artefact. In addition, we
did not find evidence of similar artefacts around other sources of similar brightness to this candidate's neighbour, making it unlikely that the candidate is a result of the CLEAN process. Finally, Figure~\ref{f_can3} shows that much fainter sources in the same region have matches in NVSS
(blue circles) demonstrating the high image fidelity.
Hence after this analysis we concluded that the transient is likely to be real.

\subsubsection{Multi-wavelength Search}
\label{s_mw}
We found no obvious infrared counterparts in the four \textit{Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer} \citep[\textit{WISE};][]{wright10} bands (see Figure~\ref{f_skymapper}) or in the three 2-Micron All-Sky Survey \citep[2MASS;][]{twomass} bands, with 5\,$\sigma$ upper limits in  Table~\ref{t_oir}. We also found
no likely counterparts in SIMBAD and NED searches. The position
of the source rules out solar system planets.

We observed the location of TGSSADR~J183304.4$-$384046\ with the 1.3\,m SkyMapper survey telescope \citep{keller07} on 2016~April~07, with $3\times 100\,$s exposures in the $g$ filter, $5\times 100\,$s exposures in the $r$ filter, and $10\times 100\,$s exposures in the $i$ filter.  The seeing was about $2\farcs5$ in all bands.  The data were processed with the standard SkyMapper pipeline and the individual images coadded.  As shown in Figure~\ref{f_skymapper}, we see only a single source within the $3\,\sigma$ radius ($6\arcsec$) error circle, down to $5\,\sigma$ limiting depths of 21\,mag in all bands.  The source appears unresolved, and has $g>21$, $r=19.80\pm0.07$, and $i=18.73\pm0.03$ (Table~\ref{t_oir}).  Using the extinction model of \citet{drimmel03} we estimate the extinction to be $A_V\approx 0.5\,$mag for distances $\gtrsim 1\,$kpc.

\begin{table*}
\centering
\caption{Summary of optical and IR measurements for TGSSADR~J183304.4$-$384046.}
\label{t_oir}
\begin{tabular}{lccccccccccccc}
\hline
& \multicolumn{3}{c}{SkyMapper$^*$} & & \multicolumn{3}{c}{2MASS$^\dagger$} & & \multicolumn{4}{c}{$WISE$$^\ddagger$}\\ \cline{2-4} \cline{6-8} \cline{10-13}
Filter & $g$ & $r$ & $i$ & &$J$ & $H$ & $K_s$ && W1 & W2 & W3 & W4\\ \hline
Wavelength ($\mu$m) & $0.48$ & $0.63$ & $0.77$ && 1.24 & 1.66 & 2.16 && 3.35 & 4.60 & 11.6 & 22.1 \\
Magnitude & $>21$ & $19.80 \pm 0.07^\S$ & $18.73 \pm 0.03^\S$ && $>16.9$ & $ >16.2$ & $>15.5$ && $ >15.7 $ & $ >15.4 $ & $ >11.6 $ & $ >8.2 $ \\
Flux Density ($\mu$Jy) & $<14$ & $44\pm3^\S$ & $117\pm3^\S$ && $<277$ & $<339$ & $<421$ && $<162$ & $<119$ & $<726$ & $<4408$ \\
\hline
\end{tabular}\\
$*$ Magnitudes are defined on the AB system.\\
$\dagger$ Magnitudes are defined on the Vega system.\\
$\ddagger$ Magnitudes are defined on the Vega system.\\
$\S$ Assuming the source discussed in the text is the counterpart. If not, the source is $r > 21$ and $i > 21$, or $F_\nu,r<15\,\mu$Jy and $F_\nu,i<15\,\mu$Jy.\\
\end{table*}

\begin{figure*}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{images/tgssJ1833_skymapper_WISE}
\caption{Multi-wavelength images of TGSSADR~J183304.4$-$384046, showing SkyMapper $g$, $r$, and $i$ from left to right, along with \textit{WISE} $W1$ at the right.  All images show the same field-of-view.  The contours mark 100\,\ensuremath{{\rm mJy\,beam}^{-1}}\ and 200\,\ensuremath{{\rm mJy\,beam}^{-1}}.  The cyan circles show the 3$\sigma$ radius ($6\arcsec$) region searched for counterparts, and the ticks mark the single stellar source identified within that region.
}
\label{f_skymapper}
\end{figure*}

\section{Discussion}\label{s_discuss}

\subsection{Interpretation of TGSSADR~J183304.4$-$384046}
There are a number of possible interpretations of this object, which we will briefly discuss here. Further analysis
is left for follow-up work once more observations have been conducted.

We have a single detection of this source, at $182\pm26$~mJy at 147.5~MHz. The non-detection in GLEAM 3 years later
implies the source has at least faded to $<41$~\ensuremath{{\rm mJy\,beam}^{-1}}.
We show the spectral energy distribution in Figure~\ref{sed}.  Assuming a typical spectral index of $\alpha=-0.8$ (where $S_\nu \propto \nu^\alpha$), the non-detection with the ATCA at 9\,GHz implies a 151\,MHz flux density of 1.2\,mJy, which would require considerably deeper observations to confirm.

 The Galactic latitude of $b=-13.2^\circ$ means we must consider both Galactic and extragalactic origins for TGSSADR~J183304.4$-$384046.
We can estimate the brightness temperature $T_B$ for both scenarios: assuming variability on timescales of $\sim 1\,$yr and no relativistic beaming, we find $T_B\approx 3000\,K$ at a distance of 1\,kpc (Galactic), or $T_B\approx 3\times 10^{15}\,$K at a distance of 1\,Gpc (extragalactic).  The former is consistent with a wide range of progenitors. In contrast, the latter exceeds the $10^{12}\,$K limit \citep{readhead94}, suggesting that if extragalactic the source is relativistic or the variability is not intrinsic.

 \subsubsection{Galactic source types}
At low frequencies, most potential Galactic transients emit via coherent processes that
 exhibit variability on
short timescales of seconds, minutes or hours: for example, giant pulses from pulsars, intermittent pulsars or flares from cool
stars or exoplanets \citep[e.g.,][]{bowman13}. For example, to have coherent emission with brightness temperature $>10^{12}\,$K would require emission on timescales $\lesssim 2000\,$s.
Given the timescales our search probes (15\,min for the TGSS observations, and a few hours for GLEAM), discovering a source with such short timescale variability would be very unlikely unless the duty cycle were quite large, and the unknown  timescale also means that any limits on brightness temperature are unconstraining.

\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=\columnwidth]{images/TGSS_J1833_OIR_big.pdf}
\caption{Optical/infrared spectral energy distribution of TGSSADR~J183304.4$-$384046, based on our SkyMapper $g$, $r$, and $i$ data long with archival 2MASS and \textit{WISE} upper limits (Tab.~\ref{t_oir}).  We show both the detected $r$ and $i$ measurements of the potential stellar source from Fig.~\ref{f_skymapper} as well as upper limits for the rest of the error region.  We  show a reddened M2 star from \citet{castelli04} at a distance of 1.1\,kpc (red curve), which passes through the $r$ and $i$ detections.  We also show an early-type galaxy (model ``Ell13"; green curve), a Seyfert galaxy (model ``Sey2"; cyan curve), and a QSO (model ``QSO2"; magenta curve) from \citet{polletta07}, all at redshift of 1.5 and normalized to $K_s=18\,$mag (following the $K-z$ relation of \citealt{willott03}).
}
\label{f_oir}
\end{figure}

If the optical source from \S~\ref{s_mw}  is not the counterpart of TGSSADR~J183304.4$-$384046, we can exclude a range of  stellar \citep{covey07} or sub-stellar \citep{hawley02} counterparts.  Main-sequence stars with spectral types earlier than G8 can be excluded out to distances $\gtrsim20\,$kpc, and even stars as late as M6 can be excluded out to 1\,kpc.  Brown dwarfs can be excluded to distances of almost 1\,kpc (late M/early L) down to $\approx 10\,$pc (late L/early T).

If the source is the counterpart, the $r-i$ color implies a spectral type of roughly M2 at a distance of about 1\,kpc.  This is largely consistent with the 2MASS near-infrared upper limits (Fig.~\ref{f_oir}).  Such an association is plausible: while most low radio frequency observations of the lowest-mass stars and brown dwarfs have not seen any emission to much deeper limits \citep[e.g.,][]{jaeger11}, bright, short-duration flares have been seen from some higher mass M-dwarf stars \citep[e.g.,][]{spangler76}.  If a stellar flare, the implied luminosity density is about $4\times 10^{20}\,{\rm erg\,s}^{-1}\,{\rm Hz}^{-1}$, which is not out of line with observed flares \citep[e.g.,][]{nelson79}.
Yet given the flare rates of even the most active M dwarfs, and assuming the probability of burst emission follows Poisson statistics, the likelihood of observing a flare in the 15 minute TGSS observation is low ($<$20$\%$) \citep{abada-simon97}, and it is even more unlikely given the lack of flaring in the multiple epochs of MWA data we investigated.  In addition, this source is otherwise undistinguished, and we find a density of sources with $i<18.7$ of $0.0035\,{\rm arcsec}^{-2}$ implying $0.4$ sources within $6\arcsec$ by chance.    Searches for further flares from this source as well as more detailed investigations of the potential stellar counterpart are needed.

Another possibility is coherent emission from the magnetosphere of a Jupiter-like exoplanet \citep{zarka01}. The frequency of this type of emission is strongly tied to the magnetic field strength of the planet's magnetosphere: emission at 150\,MHz implies a magnetic field of about 50\,G.
Therefore, the observed radio emission could extend over a small bandwidth and  explain the non-detections at higher frequencies. However, recent modeling of the radio emission expected from Jupiter-like exoplanets predict flux densities of a few mJy \citep{fujii16, griessmeier11}, several orders of magnitude lower than the flux density measured for TGSSADR~J183304.4$-$384046.

\subsubsection{Extragalactic source types}

In contrast to the Galactic sources,
the sources expected to appear or disappear on the yearly timescales we probed in this survey are most likely to be extragalactic
synchrotron sources, such as afterglows from gamma-ray bursts or tidal disruption events, which tend to be
relatively faint at low frequencies \citep{burlon15,metzger15}.  Note that synchrotron emission is also seen from Galactic X-ray binaries \citep[e.g.,][]{fender06}, but the lack of any high-energy counterpart makes this very unlikely.

The best predictions for the rates of extragalactic synchrotron transients are given by \citet{metzger15}. For
flux densities normalised to $z\approx0.55$, all the main categories of sources they consider (short gamma-ray
bursts, long gamma-ray bursts, radio supernova, tidal disruption events and neutron star mergers) are expected to have flux densities of less than 0.1~mJy on timescales of 1 to 3 years. Note that we do not see any gamma-ray burst from either \textit{Swift} or \textit{Fermi} with a position consistent with TGSSADR~J183304.4$-$384046.
If the object we have detected is an extragalactic synchrotron source
this could suggest a higher rate of these sources than predicted by \citet{metzger15}.

Another possibility is that the emission we see is related to an active galaxy, either intrinsic variability from an AGN flare \citep[e.g.,][]{hughes92,croft13,bignall15} or extrinsic variability caused by interstellar scintillation.  Given the large modulation implied by the GLEAM upper limit and the non-detections at other radio frequencies we can rule out refractive scintillation as the origin of the variability,
but diffractive scintillation is possible. The NE2001 electron density model \citep{cordes02} predicts a scintillation bandwidth of $<0.1\,$kHz at 150\,MHz, suggesting that any scintillations are likely to be washed out.
Scintillation by discrete structures like Extreme Scattering Events \citep[e.g.][]{fiedler87b} is still possible, but the degree of modulation needed to accomodate our 9\,GHz limits with a standard extragalactic SED (roughly 10) is significantly higher than is seen in most ESEs ($\sim 2$).

Assuming an extragalactic origin, we can use the photometry in Table~\ref{t_oir} to put limits on the host galaxy. Radio-loud AGN tend to be hosted by massive galaxies, and follow a rather tight relationship between $K$-magnitude and redshift \citep{willott03}. To be consistent with all of our data and upper limits requires models with $K \gtrsim 18$ (Fig.~\ref{f_oir}), which implies $z \gtrsim 1.5$ for typical (few $L_\star$) AGN hosts.
 The \textit{WISE} W1 photometry is suggestive of a similar lower bound in redshift \citep{gurkan14}, and the optical upper limits are also consistent with  a radio-loud AGN at moderate to high redshift \citep{stern12}. Overall we see a consistent  interpretation as  a $z \sim 1.5$ radio galaxy somewhat above  the break in the radio luminosity function \citep{vardoulaki10},
  although a less massive host could be at somewhat lower redshift.  Deeper near-IR imaging could help to identify any host galaxy, and deeper radio imaging could be used to search for a quiescent counterpart.

We plan to conduct further follow-up observations to establish whether
our candidate is an extragalactic synchrotron source. For example, we would expect
to detect the quiescent emission of a flaring AGN with deeper radio
observations, or the host galaxy of a gamma-ray burst or supernovae with deeper
optical and infrared observations.

\subsection{Transient rates}
The total area covered by our search is 16\,230 sq deg. We detected a single
transient above 100~mJy over this area, which results in a surface density
estimate of $\rho = (6.2\pm6) \times10^{-5}$~deg$^{-2}$.
Figure~\ref{rates} shows our new result (red star) compared to other results
from the literature.
The timescales explored by our survey range from 1 to 3 years (TGSS was
conducted between 2011 April and 2012 March, and GLEAM was conducted between
2013 June and 2014 July). To accommodate this uncertainty we have
plotted our point at 2 years, with an error bar of $\pm1$~year.
\begin{figure*}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=19cm]{images/rates}
\caption{Limits on the transient rates from our survey compared to previously published results at
low frequency ($<1$~GHz). The result presented in this paper is shown as a red star. The red error bar
shows the uncertainty in timescale, as our data spans 1 to 3 years. The coloured lines show the sky density of sources
above flux density $F_\nu$ for frequency $\nu = 150$~MHz. We have included predicted source rates for various source classes from Figure~3 in \citet{metzger15}, specifically: magnetars (blue); off-axis tidal disruption events (red); long GRBs with $\theta_{\rm obs} = 1.57$ (green); off-axis short GRBs (orange); and neutron star merger leaving black hole (black). See \citet{metzger15} for a detailed description of how these model
predictions were calculated.}\label{rates}
\end{figure*}
\nocite{obenberger15}
\nocite{bell14}
\nocite{carbone16}
\nocite{cendes14}
\nocite{jaeger12}
\nocite{bannister11}
\nocite{lazio10}
\nocite{hyman09}

In terms of long timescales, the best limits in the literature are by \citet{rowlinson16} who found a
surface density of $\rho < 6.6\times10^{-3}$~deg$^{-2}$ on yearly timescales. Our detection is
an order
of magnitude lower than this and so is consistent with previous results.
To date, most low-frequency surveys have been limited in sensitivity, something the expanded MWA, the JVLA and LOFAR will help overcome.

Figure~\ref{rates} also shows the predicted rates for a range of phenomena, as calculated by \citet{metzger15}. The coloured lines show the sky density of sources
above flux density $F_\nu$ for frequency $\nu = 150$~MHz. We have included a selection of results from Figure~3 in \citet{metzger15}, specifically: magnetars (blue); off-axis tidal disruption events (red); long GRBs with $\theta_{\rm obs} = 1.57$ (green); off-axis short GRBs (orange); and neutron star merger leaving black hole (black). See \citet{metzger15} for a detailed description of how these model
predictions were calculated, and their associated uncertainties, which can be up
to an order of magnitude. From plot we can see that our current results and
the limits set by \citet{rowlinson16} are now approaching the point of being able
to test these predictions.

\subsection{Search completeness}
It is possible that other transient sources were overlooked due to them being a single source at the resolution of
TGSS but blended with another source at the resolution of GLEAM (in other words it is close, in sky projection,
to a steady source). Alternatively, a transient source could be overlooked in our search if it occured at
the same location as a persistent source: a recent example of this situation is the claimed host galaxy of a
fast radio burst \citep{keane16} (but see \citealt{williams16} for further discussion).

This would have the effect of increasing or decreasing the flux density of
a GLEAM source, but it would not be detected in the analysis we have done here. To formally account for
this in our transient rate calculation we could exclude the area around each unresolved GLEAM source
in our survey region. This is equivalent to $A = 267\,860 \times 2.2^\prime \times 2.5^\prime = 409$~deg$^{-2}$, which is less than $3\%$ of the survey area.

Another possibility is that some of the GLEAM sources with a TGSS match were false matches due to positional coincidence
of the source in the TGSS catalogue. To evaluate this we shifted the positions of the GLEAM sources by a random offset
in right ascension and declination of between 5 and 10 arc minutes. We then repeated the cross-matching with the TGSS
catalogue and found that of the 99\,658 compact sources above 100~mJy in our survey region, 1371 had a match.
This implies that up to $\sim 1.3\%$ of the sources ruled out in our process could have been transients.
However, since the total number of transients in our survey is $\ll 1$, this means that the expectation is that
the number of sources we would miss due to this issue is less than one. The caveat here is that many classes
of physical transient (e.g. radio supernovae) will occur at the same location as a persistent radio source
(the host galaxy) and this is not accounted for in this analysis.

\subsection{Catalogue reliability}
The small number of candidate transient sources detected in our search reflects the high reliability
of both the GLEAM and TGSS catalogues for point sources with flux densities above $100-200$~mJy. The two GLEAM
candidates
GLEAM~J153424$-$114947 and GLEAM~J153653$-$115052 have been removed from the publicly available
GLEAM catalogue. We note that this introduces a small bias in the GLEAM catalogue, since there will be
similar artefacts that are weaker than our flux density cutoff that have not been removed.

The importance of rigorous analysis of
imaging data to confirm or rule out candidates was demonstrated by \citet{frail12} who re-analysed
VLA archival data to rule out the long-standing \citet{bower07} candidates.
Our work provides a good example of this; in an attempt to confirm our transient candidates we
reprocessed the relevant data for both GLEAM and TGSS, and in two cases established that the
candidates were imaging artefacts.

\section{Conclusions}\label{s_conclusion}
We have conducted a blind search for low frequency radio transients by comparing the GLEAM and TGSS~ADR1
surveys at 200 and 147.5~MHz respectively.
From a total sample of 234\,333 GLEAM sources and 275\,612 TGSS ADR1 sources in the overlap region
between the two surveys, there were 99\,658 GLEAM sources and 38\,978 TGSS ADR sources that passed our
flux density cutoff and compactness criteria.
From this sub-sample we found three candidate transient sources, but further analysis
identified two of these as imaging artefacts.
We present one candidate transient: TGSSADR~J183304.4$-$384046, that has a flux density of 304~mJy at 147.5~MHz (scaled to $182\pm26$~mJy
based on a flux scale comparison with GLEAM in the region of the source). This source was not detected in the GLEAM
survey 3 years later, implying it had faded to below $<41$~mJy.
It was also not detected in other archival radio data, or in our ATCA
observations.

Based on this detection we calculated a surface density
estimate of $\rho = 6.2\times10^{-5}$~deg$^{-2}$ for low-frequency radio transients
on timescales of 1 to 3 years.

It is worth noting that the distinction between transients and extremely variable sources can be merely
a selection effect due to the limited sensitivity and sampling of a given survey. A more comprehensive
analysis of variability in this dataset is ongoing. We are also conducting
further follow-up observations of TGSSADR~J183304.4$-$384046\ in order to classify it.

\section*{Acknowledgments}
We thank David McConnell and Richard Hunstead
for providing archival radio data from the ATPMN and Molonglo 408~MHz surveys, respectively. We also thank Brian Metzger for providing the
model predictions for Figure 8.
This research was conducted by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO),
through project number CE110001020.
DLK and SDC are additionally supported by NSF grant AST-1412421.
This research work has used the TIFR GMRT Sky Survey (http://tgss.ncra.tifr.res.in) data products. We thank the staff of the GMRT that made these observations possible. GMRT is run by the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.
The national facility capability for SkyMapper has been funded through ARC LIEF grant LE130100104 from the Australian Research Council, awarded to the University of Sydney, the Australian National University, Swinburne University of Technology, the University of Queensland, the University of Western Australia, the University of Melbourne, Curtin University of Technology, Monash University and the Australian Astronomical Observatory. SkyMapper is owned and operated by The Australian National University's Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

This scientific work makes use of the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory, operated by CSIRO. We acknowledge the Wajarri Yamatji people as the traditional owners of the Observatory site. Support for the operation of the MWA is provided by the Australian Government (NCRIS), under a contract to Curtin University administered by Astronomy Australia Limited. We acknowledge the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre which is supported by the Western Australian and Australian Governments.

\bibliographystyle{mn2e}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


High school football referees in Iowa can wear 2 1/4" stripes with the IHSAA logo centered above the pocket and a USA Flag on the left sleeve.
Great shirt. Much cooler than old polyester football referee shirts. Sublimated patches much nicer. Don't have to worry about them curling up or loose stitching. Highly recommend.
This is the first year where the state office has allowed the IHSAA patch to be sublimated by major manufacturers. This is a welcomed change as there is no longer any sewing required for our high school football shirts. Both are printed in fine detail on a standard Smitty offering. My crew will be wearing these for the foreseeable future. Here's to hoping we do not need to buy any more referee shirts for a long time!


text:
package org.apache.storm.trident.testing;

public interface IFeeder {
    void feed(Object tuples);
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Posted inElection 2010, Labor
Wooing Labor
by Christine Stuart March 22, 2010, 10:19 pm January 21, 2021, 5:20 pm
Six candidates running for governor attempted to woo 200 members of the state's largest labor union Monday.
The AFL-CIO hosted five Democrats and one Republican at its 2010 legislative conference Monday at the Hartford Hilton.
With a $3.8 billion budget deficit on the horizon and the likelihood that the state labor unions will be asked for further concessions, labor is eager to find a friendly face in the governor's office next year. And with more than 300,000 active and retired members, and a fair share of delegates to the Democratic State Convention, labor support goes a long way for a candidate.
Early polling shows Ned Lamont, president of Lamont Digital Systems and a professor at Central Connecticut State University, with a 10-point lead over former Stamford Mayor Dan Malloy. None of the other Democratic candidates received over four percent and the majority of voters are still undecided.
But Lamont, who spent $17 million of his own money in his 2006 race against U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, may have more of an uphill climb in garnering union support.
"Let's face it four years ago I was not a darling of the political establishment," Lamont said. "I've got some uphill climbing to do when it comes to the state convention."
Unlike four years ago, "I think people know where I stand," Lamont said Monday following the forum. "They know who I am…they also know where my heart is."
But "I don't say anything different to the AFL-CIO than I do to the chamber of commerce," Lamont said.
Malloy, the only other declared Democratic candidate for governor, talked about his mother's fight to create a labor union for her fellow nursing colleagues.
"I understand what you've done," Malloy told union members. "Together with the people in this room we're going to build a new Connecticut."
The third floor ballroom where Monday's forum was held was the same room where Malloy's 2006 bid for governor ended when New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr. won the Democratic primary.
"Life is a continuum," Malloy said. "This was a room where I spoke honestly on the night of August 8 to Connecticut citizens and asked them to support John DeStefano."
When asked how important it is to have labor's support, Malloy said, "I want everyone's support. Obviously it's important because we're here."
Generally union support doesn't come until after the primary, but Malloy said the Communication Workers and Operating Engineers, two statewide unions represented at the event Monday, have already endorsed him.
The candidates, including Lamont, Malloy, Simsbury First Selectwoman Mary Glassman, First Selectman Rudy Marconi, Juan Figueroa, and Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, the lone Republican, were asked six questions Monday by AFL-CIO President John Olsen.
The questions centered around issues that labor cares about like the state's prevailing wage law, project labor agreements, and retention of manufacturing jobs in the state.
As expected most of the Democratic candidates expressed support for organized labor, but Boughton surprised a few of the union members by voicing his support for project labor agreements and prevailing wage laws.
In addition to supporting project labor agreements and prevailing wage laws, Boughton said there should also be a state law that requires the state to use Connecticut labor on all its infrastructure projects. The room applauded the statement.
He said he was disappointed when the state's Transportation Strategy Board contracted with a Massachusetts company for a study of tolls on Connecticut's highways last year.
"We're all stakeholders," Boughton said on his way out of the ballroom Monday. Boughton said he was disappointed in his other Republican opponents for not taking the union up on its offer to attend Monday's forum.
Chester First Selectman Tom Marsh, another Republican candidate, attended the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition meeting in West Hartford this past weekend.
Figueroa, former president of the Universal Health Care Foundation, talked about how he successfully worked with a group of labor leaders and businessmen to help pass the state's landmark SustiNet health care legislation.
Glassman talked about how the state needs an economic development plan, needs to streamline the regulatory process for businesses, and needs to lower the cost of energy to help retain manufacturing jobs in the state.
Marconi talked about highway tolls and how he was able to convince the Ridgefield Planning Commission to change its regulations to make sure a large pharmaceutical company expanded and stayed in town.
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Week 30: Have an Eco-friendly Holiday!
It's that time of year again! Tonight we light that last light on the menorah and go back to business as usual! Yep...your neighborhood Jew is writing a post about the holidays. Even though I don't celebrate Christmas, and Hannukah is not traditionally about gift giving, I still get roped into a lot of the… Continue reading Week 30: Have an Eco-friendly Holiday!


text:
UNHCR - Nansen Refugee Award
Formerly known as the Nansen Medal, this award is named after the late Norwegian polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen, the first League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the 1922 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Instituted in 1954, the Nansen Refugee Award is given annually to an individual or an organization in recognition of extraordinary and dedicated service to refugees and is the most prestigious honour conferred by UNHCR. The award consists of a commemorative medal and a US$100,000 monetary prize donated by the governments of Norway and Switzerland.
Anybody can nominate someone or some organization for the Nansen Award, but a special committee selects the annual winner. Recipients have been chosen from many different areas. Whatever their creed, colour, age or profession, every winner put in extraordinary effort and time to help the forcibly displaced around the world.
The monetary prize that accompanies the Nansen Award is intended to enable the recipient to pursue refugee assistance projects drawn up in consultation with UNHCR. To date, so-called Nansen Fund projects have benefitted refugees in places such as Cambodia, Botswana and Venezuela.
They have contributed towards the setting up of a special ward for refugee children in Pakistan, the building of schools at Katumba in Tanzania and income-generation projects for people displaced by landmines in southern Lebanon.
Original post by http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c461.html


I once sat in a federal courtroom where I�d been herded along with many others who had been summoned to a call for grand jury duty on that day. I watched as several people approached the bench one by one when the proceedings turned to excusing prospective jurors.
I saw a Catholic nun patiently waiting for her turn. She told the court that she could not sit in judgment of others and then she was excused.
I thought of that nun this week as I read about the coverage of Pope Francis� triumphant trip to South America, during which he met with prison inmates and drug addicts, heard confessions in a public park and rattled his security guards by wading into crowds to connect with individuals. Pope Francis talked about shaking up the stuffy church hierarchy, though while he called for expanding the role of women in the church, he stopped short of saying they could be ordained as priests. But he also spoke openly about not sitting in judgment of gays and lesbians. His frank talk about forgiveness was welcomed by many. A new leader is bringing some fresh air to the Catholic Church and giving hope to a lot of people who would like to see reform. This pope is a great communicator, open and honest.
You will see that fresh air travel from the Vatican right down to our local level with this week�s Off the Lip Q&A interview with Father Kris von Maluski, newly installed pastor at Newport�s St. Mary�s Church. He�s younger than many other priests and has a good rapport with college-aged students through his work as chaplain at Salve Regina University. Many admire Father Kris� personal style and communication skills. He�s open, approachable and warm. I think that comes through in his conversation with writer Mary Stuart.
It�s so easy to dwell on sin itself. Forgiving and forgetting � and moving on � takes so much more psychological work. But just as church leaders participate in this process, so too must those lapsed Catholics who might want to come back to the flock. It�s nice to know there are people there like Father Kris who, instead of passing judgment, is actively working to heal the wounds of the past, inspire the parishioners of the present and welcome newcomers to be part of the church�s future.