Waikato District Council staff have joined others around the country today in breaking all fashion rules and wearing their loudest shirts.
The cause? The Hearing House and the Southern Cochlear Implant Programme, who help deaf kids to listen and speak.
By staff wearing their loudest shirts, or super hero themed as is the case this year, Waikato District Council is supporting the great work these charities do and Waikato district young people who need the support of these organisations.
Staff have also raised over $500 for the organisations through their own donations.
This isn't the first time Council staff get behind valuable causes. Each month staff donate to a different Waikato charity in exchange for wearing casual clothes on a Friday.
In the past two years, Council has donated to a wide range of organisations including the district's foodbanks, Surf Lifesaving, Bellyful and North Waikato Plunket to name just a few.
This act of giving forms a culture at Council that everyone can be proud of, Chief Executive Gavin Ion says.
"It is also demonstrating to our communities that we care and will partner with them to get the best outcomes we can for our people. Donating to these organisations is also our 'liveable, thriving and connected communities' vision in action. We are a part of these communities and we want to give back. We want to see them succeed and we really enjoy partnering with these organisations which provide such a valuable service to our communities," Mr Ion says.
The Dirty Dog Challenge is back!


text:
#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
#import <Cordova/CDV.h>
#import <Cordova/CDVPlugin.h>

@interface OneSignalPush : CDVPlugin {}

- (void)init:(CDVInvokedUrlCommand*)command;
- (void)getTags:(CDVInvokedUrlCommand*)command;
- (void)getIds:(CDVInvokedUrlCommand*)command;
- (void)getIds_GameThrive:(CDVInvokedUrlCommand*)command;
- (void)sendTags:(CDVInvokedUrlCommand*)command;
- (void)deleteTags:(CDVInvokedUrlCommand*)command;
- (void)registerForPushNotifications:(CDVInvokedUrlCommand*)command;
- (void)enableInAppAlertNotification:(CDVInvokedUrlCommand*)command;
- (void)setSubscription:(CDVInvokedUrlCommand*)command;
- (void)postNotification:(CDVInvokedUrlCommand*)command;
- (void)setLogLevel:(CDVInvokedUrlCommand*)command;
- (void)promptLocation:(CDVInvokedUrlCommand*)command;
- (void)setEmail:(CDVInvokedUrlCommand*)command;

// Android Only
- (void)enableVibrate:(CDVInvokedUrlCommand*)command;
- (void)enableSound:(CDVInvokedUrlCommand*)command;
- (void)enableNotificationsWhenActive:(CDVInvokedUrlCommand*)command;

@end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


THE owners of a Monmouthshire caravan park have launched a fresh bid for permission to stay open for longer during the year.
Visitors have been pitching up at the Glen Trothy Caravan and Camping Park in Mitchel Troy, near Monmouth, for more than 30 years.
The site alongside the River Trothy includes spaces for 74 motorhomes, 50 tents, 74 touring pitches and has a reception building and toilet block.
But when planning permission was granted by the former Monmouth District Council, the site was restricted from opening between October 31 and January 1 the following year.
The condition also required that all caravans be removed on or before October 31.
In 2016, an application to change the condition to November 30 – allowing an extra month of trading – was rejected by Monmouthshire County Council.
Officers said existing flooding issues, coupled with the amended condition, would lead to an "increased level of risk to life and property".
There were also concerns that allowing additional time to use the site and not remove caravans would result in permanently sited caravans at the site, leading to an "adverse impact" on the area's character.
But a new application submitted by Maguire Developments says the proposals would satisfy current visitor demand for extended holidays periods whilst touring through Monmouthshire.
A supporting document says: "The park was originally approved in 1987 for touring caravan and tent purposes.
According to the report, the site owners have spent more than £300,000 redeveloping the park and have opened it up for use by the community.
It claims that some Mitchel Troy residents use the park's laundrette while the showers are used regularly by a "well-known homeless gentleman" free of charge.
Around £75,000 has also been spent installing a flood barrier fence on the east bank of the River Trothy, and there are plans to spend more than £30,000 upgrading the existing play area.
"The applicant continually invests in the park infrastructure to make the business economically sustainable and attractive to the park's visitors," says the report.
The application will be considered by the council in the coming months.


Cadettes turn off the electricity and turn on your senses. Go out into the night and see if what you experience challenges what you know about the world after the sun goes down.
Take a trip, maybe even overnight to a center of some kind that can help you learn more.
Go outside and explore the world around you in the dark. Make a journal of some kind, audio, video, or paper of what you experience.
Find out what it is like to be working while everyone else is sleeping.
Some things can only be seen at night. Become more familiar with the natural world after dark.
Have a nighttime or slumber party!


text:
Q: Как автоматически при открытии книги запустить макрос в excel? Как автоматически при открытии книги запустить макрос в excel?
A: Вставляете это в код:
Private Sub Workbook_Open()
'Вместо EntryPoint вставьте название Вашего главного метода'
    Call EntryPoint
End Sub

Правда это не сработает в том случае, если у пользователя в настройках включена блокировка макросов (это включено по умолчанию). Нужно еще помочь ему отключить эту опцию. На самом деле более интересный вопроса как это сделать простым программным методом. Ума не приложу. Наверное через реестр или может есть какая-то встроенная VBA функция для этого.
Код для автозагрузки при открытии Word:
Private Sub Document_Open()
'Вместо EntryPoint вставьте название Вашего главного метода'
     Call EntryPoint
End Sub

A: Добавлю к ответу igumnov.
Код необходимо вставить в модуль ЭтаКнига (Для Word - ThisDocument)
Alt+F11 - открываем проект VBA.
Слева - окно проекта, модуль находится там, в папке Microsoft Excel Objects
Исполняемый макрос записывается в общий модуль (в папке Modules).
Если модуля нет, его нужно создать: в редакторе VBA вкладка Insert-Module
Если окна проекта нет, открыть - меню Viev-Project Explorer (Ctrl+R)
Если макросы запрещены, никакими внутренними встроенными средствами поменять уровень безопасности нельзя. В VBA тоже нет такой команды. Это противоречило бы логике защиты: запрещаем макросы, но тем же макросом их разрешаем.
Поменять уровень безопасности вручную:
Для Excel-2003: меню Сервис-Макрос-Безопасность
Для Excel-2010 глубже: закладка ленты Файл-Параметры-Центр_управления_безопасностью-Параметры_центра_управления_безопасностью-Параметры_макросов
Программно менять уровень безопасности можно, но перед этим нужно установить на компьютер скрипт, который "умеет" менять уровень безопасности. Такие программы есть в свободном доступе.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


SeniorHousingNet.com provides all the available details for facilities or services that Avalon Memory Care - Fort Worth provides at 4551 Boat Club Rd, Fort Worth, TX, 76135. Avalon Memory Care - Fort Worth provides an Assisted Living, Alzheimer's Care for seniors in Fort Worth, TX. We invite you to contact Avalon Memory Care - Fort Worth for specific questions. However, for a quick overview, explore the above community details like amenities and room features to get a sense of what services and activities are available. After you browse the community photos, read the latest articles related to senior living. Search SeniorHousingNet.com for additional senior housing options near 4551 Boat Club Rd.


text:
Hundreds of people benefit from implementation of wide-ranging health and care innovations across Greater Manchester
Health Innovation Manchester is working to spread innovation programmes designed to improve health outcomes for our citizens
Innovations include med-tech to spot life-threatening heart conditions, treatment to reduce the chance of cerebral palsy in pre-term babies and digital solutions to improve medicine safety for patients leaving hospital
Health Innovation Manchester is part of the AHSN Network, the key innovation arm of the NHS working to spread innovation at pace and scale across England
Hundreds of people have benefitted from innovative health and care projects across Greater Manchester and East Cheshire.
Over the past year, Health Innovation Manchester, the organisation responsible for accelerating proven innovation into the region's health and social care services at pace, has worked on several national innovation programmes designed to improve health outcomes for our residents.
The programmes, which include implementation of med-tech, surgical care pathways and digital solutions to improve medication safety, have been selected for spread by NHS England through Academic Health Science Networks, including Health Innovation Manchester.
Julie Halliwell, Associate Director Programmes & Performance at Health Innovation Manchester, said: "We work collaboratively with partners across the health and care system to bring new products and services into the NHS that will improve patient care, support people to live well and increase productivity for all.
"Hundreds of people have already benefitted from the adoption and spread of innovation programmes across Greater Manchester, including the introduction of new med-tech devices to detect life-threatening heart condition, a treatment to reduce cerebral palsy in pre-term babies and the implementation of digital solutions to improve medication safety for patients. These are just some of the innovations we are currently deploying into local services."
Detection of Atrial Fibrillation
The deployment of mobile ECG devices to local GPs, practice nurses and practice-based pharmacists, as well as members of the community, has seen 153 people in Greater Manchester and East Cheshire diagnosed with a life-threatening heart disorder known as Atrial Fibrillation (AF).
AF is the most common heart rhythm disorder and is a common contributing factor for stroke. In AF, the heart's upper chambers contract randomly and sometimes so fast that the heart muscle cannot relax properly between contractions. This reduces the heart's efficiency and performance.
The portable, credit card-sized device uses a person's fingertips to records the electrical activity of the heart and deliver a reading to a smartphone or tablet app in just 30 seconds. So far, the devices have been used at GP practices, community groups and even festivals to detect AF.
Health Innovation Manchester has deployed more than 400 devices across GP practices and community-based services over the last 12 months.
Protecting pre-term babies from cerebral palsy
Through the national PReCePT programme, maternity units are offering eligible mothers in pre-term labour a treatment to reduce the chance of their baby developing cerebral palsy.
The magnesium sulphate treatment, which is given to mothers via an intravenous drip in their arm during the 24 hours before birth, has been proven to protect preterm babies' brains and reduces the risk of developing cerebral palsy by around 30 per cent, with no increased risks to the baby.
Since the launch of the programme, 76% of eligible mothers are now being offered the treatment in maternity units across Greater Manchester and Eastern Cheshire.
Reducing medication errors
More than 120 GP practices are now using a pharmacist-led digital intervention designed to reduce clinically important medication errors in primary care.
PINCER is an audit tool that searches the GP Practice computer system and identifies patients who are being prescribed medicines that are commonly and consistently associated with medication errors. This enables action to be taken to reduce the risk of these errors occurring.
In Greater Manchester, we are aiming to deliver the PINCER intervention through an innovation developed a team at the University of Manchester and implemented across the Salford locality, the SMASH Dashboard.
SMASH is innovative in that it updates daily on the GP practice records and so highlights any new medications prescribed that could increase risk of harm, enabling the pharmacist to alert the clinical team and review a patient's needs.
Our aim for this year is to enable all GP practices across Manchester to use the PINCER medicines safety tool through the SMASH platform, helping to sustainably improve patients' medications and safety
Pharmacy support helps patient stay safe after leaving hospital
Patients leaving hospital are now being offered extra support taking their prescribed medicines as part of a new digital health project designed to keep them safe from harm after a hospital stay.
The Transfers of Care Around Medicines (TCAM) electronic pharmacy referral system aims to help patients who need additional support taking their prescribed medicines following a hospital stay. This may be because their medicines have changed or they need a bit of help taking their medicines safely and effectively.
The new system provides information about a patient's stay at hospital, along with details of medications provided and prescribed, direct to their nominated local community pharmacy. This ensures that a person's prescription is up to date when collected and also allows the pharmacist an opportunity to arrange a consultation with the patient in order to review their medications and provide support to reduce avoidable harm following discharge.
Since the project launched in Salford in February this year, more than 350 patients have been included in the TCAM system, with 230 patients already completing a medication review with a pharmacist. Health Innovation Manchester are working to spread TCAM to more areas in Greater Manchester.
Supporting patients with chronic joint pain
A pioneering collaboration between healthcare professionals, leisure centres and physiotherapists has helped 147 people suffering with osteoarthritis to cope with chronic joint pain.
ESCAPE-Pain (Enabling Self-management and Coping with Arthritic Pain using Exercise) is a six-week rehabilitation programme for people with chronic joint pain which combines simple education, self-management and coping strategies with a personalised exercise regimen.
The programme, which has been described as "life-changing" by attendees, has shown a marked improvement in mobility and pain reduction as well as impacts on mood-based anxiety for those completing ESCAPE-pain.
Health Innovation Manchester provides funding to train those who deliver the ESCAPE-pain programme in local communities and for class venues. HInM supports the integration of this service into local pathways by facilitating partnership-working with potential referral sources. HInM also enables local ESCAPE-pain providers to develop sustainable services through supporting discussions with commissioners
Improving standards of care in surgery
Health Innovation Manchester has also been dedicated to improving standards of care in the health and care sector.
More than 900 emergency laparotomies, a surgical procedure that is used for people with severe abdominal pain to find the cause of the problem and in many cases treat it, have been performed using a new surgical pathway.
Emergency Laparotomy a major surgical procedure, with 30,000 to 50,000 performed every year in the UK. However, around 15% of patients are reported to die within 30 days of surgery, rising to 24% for those over the age of 80.
The Emergency Laparotomy Collaborative care bundle seeks to reduce mortality rates and complications for patients undergoing the surgery while encouraging a culture of collaboration and embedding quality improvement skills.
Multi-agency, integrated crisis intervention teams supporting high intensity service users
NHS England has advocated the Serenity Integrated Mentoring (SIM) model to bring together integrated high quality mental health care and specialist police officers to help reduce the level of risk, impact and behavioural intensity displayed by a small number of mental health service users who are struggling with unhealthy crisis behaviours. Implementation of a service to meet this need gradually reduces avoidable demand on frontline crisis care teams.
The key components of an integrated service model to support this cohort have been identified such as co-production of a crisis response plans that is safer and more realistic. SIM is not in place in Greater Manchester and East Cheshire however Health Innovation Manchester are working with all localities to understand the models of integrated partnership working being developed to meet local strategies.
The aim is to learn about local models already in place which are achieving the desired outcomes for this cohort of individuals and how they are addressing the integrated approach identified as key by NHS England.
In 2018, the integrated place based services delivered in the Wigan locality have been assessed by NHS England as providing high quality care for high intensity users and equivalent to SIM.
The AHSN Network to host "Bridging the gap 3" in London
On Tuesday 4 June The AHSN Network will host the third "Bridging the gap" in this series of events at Wellcome Collection in London.
Spotlight on the AHSN Network's collective impact and future plans
A new guide to the AHSN Network is published detailing the impact to date of England's 15 Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs)
AHSNs bring together industry and NHS to stimulate economic growth

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Home Muqaalo "State Building & Non State Armed Actors in Somalia," with Ken Menkhaus.
"State Building & Non State Armed Actors in Somalia," with Ken Menkhaus.
STN TV:-MAXA KA QABSOOMAY BALLAMIHI UU QAADAY MADAXWEYNE FARMAAJO MUDADA LABADA SANO AH E UU XILKA HAYO.


This article is based on my speech in Council on 28 Jan. I said that the CTICC report purposefully and illegally omitted vital information on the procurement irregularities relating to the architectural tender for the much needed expansion – and the findings of the City's damning Forensic report in this regard; it gave no details of the nature of litigation currently facing the CTICC, the legal implications thereof and the risk implications thereof. It ignored that there's been a lot of media attention (and it's growing) on the CTICC's problems) and that this demonstrates the matter is of huge public importance.
By ignoring these, the report succeeds in purposefully misleading Council and the ratepayers of Cape Town – who own a majority shareholding in the CTICC through the City investing public money in it.


text:
Netherurd
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Home > What we say > News > Girlguiding Scotland makes #iwill pledge to increase youth social action
Girlguiding Scotland makes #iwill pledge to increase youth social action
Girlguiding Scotland has joined #iwill, the national campaign promoting youth social action.
The charity's pledge – which you can read on the campaign's website – comes on the second anniversary of the campaign, being marked from Monday 23 to Friday 27 November by #iwill week.
Girlguiding Scotland is aiming to involve new girls and volunteers in guiding and to ensure Scottish guiding units take thousands of social actions each year.
The #iwill campaign is an independent project that has cross-party support and backing from a range of sectors including business, education and charities. It aims to increase the number of 10 to 20-year-olds taking part in social action by 50 per cent by 2020, strengthening communities and enhancing the skills of young participants. Find out more on their website or Twitter feed.
Denise Spence, Chief Executive of Girlguiding Scotland, said:
"Each year Girlguiding Scotland helps our 50,000 members grow in confidence, reach for the stars, have fun and be a powerful force for good.
"The guiding programme encourages community involvement and making a real difference in others' lives.
"We are aiming to increase this positive impact by bringing thousands of new girls and volunteers into Scottish guiding and helping them make a real difference in their communities and the wider world."
Charlotte Hill, CEO of the charity Step up to Serve which runs the #iwill campaign, said: "We are delighted that Girlguiding Scotland has pledged to support our work and is sharing their pledge during #iwill week to inspire others to take part also.
"If we are to make involvement in social action the norm for 10 – 20 years olds we need partners to commit to tangible actions just as they are doing.
"The involvement of Girlguiding Scotland will undoubtedly help us progress towards our goal."
Resources for making guiding happen in your area
Rainbows (age 5-7)
Brownies (age 7-10)
Guides (age 10-14)
Rangers (age 14-18)
© The Guide Association Scotland known as Girlguiding Scotland is a registered Scottish charity No. SC005548


A practical question for those engaging in Bible and Mission: How do we relate verses like the following with the MTV Exit video below? Check out Stop the Traffik as well.
I actually think the best passage in the fight vs human trafficking is Psalm 10 which accurately describes the traffickers and the victims.
Arise, LORD! Lift up your hand, O God. Do not forget the helpless. Why does the wicked man revile God? Why does he say to himself, "He won't call me to account"? But you, God, see the trouble of the afflicted; you consider their grief and take it in hand. The victims commit themselves to you; you are the helper of the fatherless. Break the arm of the wicked man; call the evildoer to account for his wickedness that would not otherwise be found out.
The LORD is King for ever and ever; the nations will perish from his land. You, LORD, hear the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, so that mere earthly mortals will never again strike terror.
Hi Andy, I'd not read Psalm 10 from that perspective before but it was very powerful to do so. A great insight, thank you!


text:
← The heart bleeds for OpenSSL
The end of 3rd-class medical certificates? →
Y ahora, El Niño
Tuesday, 08 April 2014 15:42:52 CDT David-Braverman Chicago, Weather (0)
Via Illinois State Climatologist Jim Angel, Australia's weather service has observed a growing ENSO event that has implications for the U.S.:
It is now likely (estimated at a greater than 70% chance) that an El Niño will develop during the southern hemisphere winter. Although the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is currently neutral, surface and sub-surface ocean temperatures have warmed considerably in recent weeks, consistent with a state of rapid transition. International climate models surveyed by the Bureau indicate continued warming of the central Pacific Ocean in coming months. Most models predict sea surface temperatures will reach El Niño thresholds during the coming winter season.
Accuweather says not to worry:
While El Niño will not have an impact on this spring and summer's severe weather, it may come on early enough and strong enough to have impact on the upcoming hurricane season in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific.
Disruptive winds, known as wind shear, often develop off the Atlantic coast of the United States and sweep over a large part of the basin during El Niño.
The greatest effects on the weather pattern in the Lower 48 states, including California, occur during the cold season.
El Niño winters are noted for wet and stormy conditions in the South and less-frequent, less-severe cold episodes in the Northern states.
There is a tendency toward dry conditions in the Northwest and North Central states during an El Niño winter.
A nice, warm, dry winter next year would be super. Here's hoping.
e811ca97-f8a3-4e12-b2c2-ed0f0040daaf|0|.0|27604f05-86ad-47ef-9e05-950bb762570c
The Smithsonian on our history of religious tolerance
Via Sullivan, Kenneth Davis at the Smithsonian sets the record straight on our history: From the ea
Via Illinois State Climatologist Jim Angel, Australia's weather service has observed a growing ENSO
Fuel dumped on a schoolyard? Really, Delta?
A Delta 777 en route from LAX to Shanghai declared an emergency and had to dump thousands of kilogra


text:
Q: Rapid Application Developer - difference between "Publish" and "Republish" I am new to working with RAD for Websphere. After making some Java code changes I notice the server and the EAR deployed on it will say something like "Started, Publish". Today I started my server and it says "Started, Republish" (on both the server and EAR). Can someone give me a simple explanation of what is meant by "Publish", "Republish", and any other status(es) I may come across while working on a Java web app with RAD for Websphere? Also, what is the appropriate action to take for each status if I want my Java changes to be picked up? I tried bouncing the server without doing a new build and it doesnt appear to have made any difference.

A: Started is the state in which your server starts deploying applications.
Publish is the state in which your server publishes a new application that was not already deployed. So, new deployment is Publish
Republish is the state in which your server already has published the application but there are few changes which need publishing again. So, instead of Publish since application is already deployed, server Republish the application to make sure that changes are published as well.


To subscribe to a Yahoo Groups mailing list simply send a message from the address you you wish to subscribe to listname-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. The same trick works for Google groups, except you send the message to listname-subscribe@googlegroups.com.
Neither company advertises this feature since they really want to get you to agree to their terms and collect as much personal information from you as possible. However at least for the moment you don't need to provide it.
This entry was posted on Sunday, March 19th, 2006 at 12:31 am and is filed under Privacy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the Atom feed. You can make a comment, Digg this story, or trackback from your own site.
There are some handy features of Y!G you don't get if you aren't signed up with them, though, such as the file section of the group.
This site doesn't require that, as you know since I tend to doubt that Peter Privacy is your real name. Leaving your real name, e-mail address, and URL is completely optional. You're welcome to do it if you want people to see it, but you don't have to.
I am all for it. I wonder how many folks actually use these. I built a small store that grew into over 100 thousands items. Its crazy how fast it grows!. Anyway. I agree!
I don't see the problem with Yahoo's terms. Why shouldn't you be legally responsible for your actions? Why should Yahoo pay the costs of your actions?
Ask your attorneys about indemnification clauses sometime. Tell them you've signed a few hundred. Watch their faces turn white.
The problem with indemnification clauses is that there's no limit on liability and no requirement that you actually be culpable for any misdoings before becoming liable. What this clause means is that someone can sue Yahoo for a million dollars, and Yahoo can agree to the settlement, then send you the bill for the million dollars plus their attorney's fees.
It doesn't matter whether the suit is baseless. Indemnification makes it much cheaper for a company to settle a nuisance suit than to fight it. Indeed, if they collude with their attornies they can even turn it into a profit center.


West Coast Elope! Relaxed, intimate, romantic and fun…these couples chose to say 'I do' in Tofino/Ucluelet! We love how happy every couple looks as they take their vows on the beaches, forests and rocky shores that make up the Tofino area.
Tofino is the Mexico of Canada when it comes to weddings and elopements. Thousands of couples a year tie the knot on the west coast of Vancouver Island. The venues, resorts and wedding professionals in Tofino are experienced with the weather and locations. Their experience is invaluable to having a smooth day.
A great up to Tofino are the endless places to visit and adventures to be had. Couples can always find the perfect place for their nuptials. The ever changing weather can be challenging at times but many couples are in Tofino to embrace the weather. West Coast Elope is certainly the way to go for adventurous couples looking for memories that will last a lifetime!


From Gent we took a train and arrived at Brugge in the evening. We were lucky we found a host in the last minute, despite she just moved in probably a week ago. She has a nice flat and two cats. While our host was out for dinner, we spent the night healing ourselves with an Art Therapy colouring book Aukse bought from FNAC. (I think FNAC has become one of the main concepts in our journey. We loved it and we hated it. It is a symbol of irresponsible lavishing …) From time to time there were trains passing by the main window in the living room, so we waved to the passengers on every train. It was a really fun activity to do, especially during the night when the adult (host) is gone and two kids (guests) were left home alone … hehe. We had a really good laugh and we hope we brought at least some fun to the passengers on the train.
The next day we walked around and explored the city. It is not a very big city so a day sufficed for us. It was really well preserved and it was the first time I have seen such a medieval city like this. Plus there were canals in the city and so we really enjoyed it. Both Aukse and I love cities with waters. But at that time Aukse loves waters more than I do.
Like any other Couchsurfing experience, I cooked dinner for our host and it was surprisingly good. We talked with our host and she kindly offered to show us around the city at night. She told us the history of the buildings, showed us a museum only locals know, and shared with us authentic Belgian fries. I feel so lucky because I wouldn't have known so much more and seen such beautiful sceneries of the city at night if we weren't staying with our host.
Sometimes when I am on a multi-city journey, not a single-destination trip, some cities serve as a buffer so I slow down my pace for a little bit, stop when I need to, spend some time with locals and experience a different way of travelling. I call these "charger cities". I recharge myself in these lovely small towns. Brugge is one of them. I don't have a list of attractions I want to see, I don't do touristy things, I don't even write a postcard from these cities. But they are there on my travels and I have had great, relaxing moments there.
So here you have a short entry for a small but lovely town. It is short, but it is precise and genuine.


Michael Vickers of West Sussex is the winner of this year's World of Animals photo contest.
Michael's stunning photograph of a tiger was shortlisted from all of the beautiful images received from around the world and then selected by IFAW supporters online.
Michael says he has always been an animal lover. His family home was never without a much-loved cat, which developed into a life-long passion for big cats and particularly tigers.
Michael has been such a long-term and loyal supporter of IFAW for more than 35 years primarily because of our work to save the last of the world's tigers as well as our efforts to save individual animals, animal populations and wildlife habitats.
The photo will be featured in IFAW's 2016 World of Animals calendar.
If you are interested in making a submission for the next contest, stay tuned for the announcement of it in the next World of Animals with a deadline in March 2016.


text:
Doctor's gingerly posed Q: 'Are there guns in your home?'
If your primary care physician asked whether there's a gun in your home, how would you feel? Astounded? Spitting mad? Freshly aware of the potential risk? Unsure? Pam Pentin, a family physician at...
Study: Weapon use predicts repeat domestic violence
Men who used a weapon against their female partners were more likely to commit a follow-up act of violence, according to a new study from the University of Washington School of Public Health and...
Gang membership has lasting consequences
Joining a gang in adolescence has significant social consequences in adulthood beyond criminal behavior, even after a person leaves the gang. The research, published in the American Journal of Public...
Shooting injuries carry peril years into the future
People hospitalized with a firearm injury are 30 times more likely to return to the hospital with another firearm injury than people hospitalized for other reasons. And they're 11 times more likely...
Colombia mayor wins Roux Prize for using data to stem violence
Dr. Rodrigo Guerrero, a Harvard-trained epidemiologist and mayor of Cali, Colombia, is the first winner of the Roux Prize, a new US$100,000 award for using rigorous statistical evidence in designing...
Specter of suicide could be a bridge in gun-control debate
The gun-control debate is narrowly framed around criminal homicides and school shootings, which ignores the huge proportion of suicides that involve firearms. Calling public attention to firearms'...
Public health rises to top of civic agenda
Reducing obesity among children. Investing in early childhood programs. Devising strategies to reduce gun violence. These three efforts illustrate how public health has risen to the top of the civic...
Study: Teens have easy access to guns, despite suicide risk
Forty-one percent of teens who live in a home where a firearm is kept reported having easy access to it. Teens with additional risk factors for suicide are just as likely to have such access as those...
Managing feelings of sadness, vulnerability after shooting
In the aftermath of the slayings of nine people at Umpqua College in Oregon, Doug Zatzick shares advice on how to cope with tragedy and talk with family members about it. Zatzick is a professor of...
Initiative seeks to prevent full spectrum of gun violence
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← Samples of Greek & Latin, Restored Pronunciation
Ideology & Human Development →
Debate with Matt on India, China, Cuba, Korea, etc.
Below I quote the lengthy exchange I had with Matt on India, China, Cuba, South Korea, etc. in the comments section of another blog. Since our debate was off-topic, Matt and I have agreed to move it here. My latest reply to Matt is contained in the separate blogpost, "Ideology & Human Development". Note : Matt had already been arguing with others about something else, so below I merely extract that part of the debate relevant to ours.
…Kerala has been studied a lot. Read Amartya Sen, for example. The (proximate) reason Kerala has high HDI for its income class is that it has had a strong Marxist party in electoral politics which caused the state to invest more in health & education than other states. In independent countries Marxist regimes normally nationalised private property and redistributed incomes to things like health and education. So, on average, other poor non-communist countries with comparable levels of income will usually have lower HDI. Now, I say this is "proximate" because the real question is why Kerala has such a strong Marxist party. Emmanuel Todd argues in several books it's about the family structure.
I'm aware of Sen's work, and I agree with his/your explanation for this. My point in bringing up Kerala was that to show that even polities with high levels of diversity can have robust, effective social democracy if the government is competent, treats each group fairly, and is dedicated to improving social conditions (see the Bo Rothstein article in my comment above for more details). Diversity is not necessarily incompatible with social cohesion or a welfare state.
Sen also does a good job of explaining why Maoist China, for all its many evils, did much better than India at raising life expectancy over the same period. Short answer: because China was Marxist. See, e.g., "Indian Development: Lessons and Nonlessons," Daedalus Vol. 118, No.4, 1989….
…I actually don't believe the Marxist explanation for Kerala in any deep sense. After all West Bengal has also had a strong communist party and its HDI scores are abysmal… Which is also why Sen's assertions about China are ultimately shallow : East Asia in general stresses education, health and egalitarian growth much more than other countries.
This shows up in land reform. Many have observed that Japan's land redistribution in 1946, which created a large class of small proprietor-farmers out of what had been closer to a Latin-America-like latifundist system, was the work of the Americans. That is true. However, the very similar land reforms in South Korea and Taiwan were not the work of the Americans. [Note : I meant, these were not compelled by the Americans, as with Japan.] More importantly, all three succeeded. And China has also succeeded with small-holder agriculture since decollectivisation. But the record of land reform in most other places is truly abysmal.
Democratic India in the 1950s and 1960s had a "zamindari abolition commission" yet the number of small holders in India is still fairly low because the process was strangulated by bureaucratic delays, corruption, repartition into smaller within-family plots, etc. There's more going on here than mere redistribution of wealth. Well, I think you know what I'm getting at : even if we allow that certain political regimes will invest more in people all things equal, redistribution still requires a certain amount of social competence that is not uniformly distributed in the world. Some people appear to do better under socialism and communism than others.
[Emmanuel Todd argues] that Kerala is an extreme example of the matrilineal family system found in the South in general which produces better HDI than the north. Todd explains the unusual predilection for Marxism in Kerala as a reaction to the slow erosion of that family structure. I think Todd supplies good descriptions, but not very good explanations…
Sen also points to Sri Lanka ("Indian Development," p. 376), which although non-Communist, carried out similar investment in education, health and welfare, and now has an HDI of 0.715. Sen (ibid, p. 380-82) also mentions post-1975 Communist Vietnam (current HDI 0.617; higher than India (0.554), higher than Cambodia and Laos (both 0.553); I also think we need to account for the impact of the war in these countries).
I would also point to Cuba, with an HDI of 0.780, close to Kerala's and well above the demographically similar Dominican Republic (0.702). Also the Seychelles, another diverse Marxist country with the highest HDI score in Africa (0.806, even above Kerala).
But I think Sen's argument is strongest when he points to differences within China over time. Thus, life expectancy in China underwent a sharp downturn following the market-based reforms of Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s (ibid., pp. 385-87).
This was because the breakup of the communal farms dismantled the system of healthcare provision in place. Sen explains here (p. 2):
"[T]he economic reforms of 1979 greatly improved the working and efficiency of Chinese agriculture and industry; but the Chinese government also eliminated, at the same time, the entitlement of all to public medical care (which was often administered through the communes). Most people were then required to buy their own health insurance, drastically reducing the proportion of the population with guaranteed health care….
…The change sharply reduced the progress of longevity in China. Its large lead over India in life expectancy dwindled during the following two decades—falling from a fourteen-year lead to one of just seven years.
The Chinese authorities, however, eventually realized what had been lost, and from 2004 they rapidly started reintroducing the right to medical care. China now has a considerably higher proportion of people with guaranteed health care than does India. The gap in life expectancy in China's favor has been rising again, and it is now around nine years; and the degree of coverage is clearly central to the difference."
HBD doesn't do a very good job of explaining these changes.
You misunderstand me. I have no problem with the view that, all else equal (such as demographic characteristics), a redistributionist political regime in a poor country is more likely to improve HDI than a non-redistributionist one. That was my point about East Asia. The [sociobiological] angle would address who is more likely to adopt redistributionist policies, and who is more competent at them once they are adopted.
So I think that easily covers Cuba vs [the Dominican Republic] (fairly similar demographics) — though you do not consider that Soviet subsidies to Cuba were on the order of 1/3 of GDP (via purchase of inflated price of sugar) and that helped a lot in Cuba's human development… In fact most of your examples are pretty bad. The Seychelles compared with the rest of Africa ? Why ? The Seychelles are a mixed-race Franco-East-African country with about 80,000 people and a GDP per capita comparable with the Czech Republic. I should hope they would have decent HDI !
As for China and life expectancy, see the chart I've uploaded here :
Don't see any big drop. The rate of increase slowed, but that's normal especially in a country like China with a big divide between the coasts and the interior. Besides, life expectancy is not strongly correlated with access to medical care in the broadest first-world sense, and only weakly correlated with income. (You don't need huge jumps in income to improve HDI.) The post-war global increase in life expectancy (as well as the global fall in infant mortality) is best explained by greater food availability, more balanced micronutrient intake, innoculations, public health measures (such as sanitation), etc. Most of these measures don't require high incomes.
Re: Cuba.
It's been [23] years since Cuba received those subsidies, and the DR still hasn't caught up. Also, we have to factor in the embargo against Cuba from 1959. Remember, from 1964 until 1975, that embargo wasn't just from the United States, it was from the entire Organization of American States, except Mexico. There's also the fact that Cuba needed to divert spending to its military in order to deter the very real threat of an American invasion (which happened of course in 1961) and the near-constant terrorism directed from Miami and Langley. Finally, if we're going to look at subsidies, we'd also have to look at the massive U.S. subsidies to South Korea during the Cold War.
Re: China
I'll quote Sen directly:
"While the gross value of agricultural output doubled between 1979 and 1986, the death rate firmly rose after 1979, and by 1983 reached a peak of being 14 percent higher than in 1979 (in rural areas, the increase was even sharper: 20 percent). The death rates have come down somewhat since then, but they remain higher than before the reforms were launched" ("Indian Development," p. 385).
See also the chart on p. 383 of "Indian Development" and p. 26 of Sen's "Hunger and Entitlements." He takes the Chinese part of the chart from Judith Banister's "An Analysis of Recent Data on the Population of China," Population and Development Review, 10 (1984). It shows a noticeable drop from 1979.
Bannister (ibid., 254) says that China's life expectancy, after having risen every year from 1960 to 1978, fell from 65.1 to 64.7 from 1978-1982. The Google chart (which says it came from World Bank data) says that life expectancy rose from 66.51 to 67.57 during the same years. I don't know why the discrepancy exists.
Sen repeats his claim about the China-India gap falling from 14 to 7 from 1979 to the early 2000s, then rising from 7 to 9 after 2004 (when the Chinese reinstituted the public health system) in "The Art of Medicine: Learning from Others," The Lancet, Vol 377 (2011), but he doesn't give a source.
What do you think about Sri Lanka?
P.S. Sen also mentions this paper by Athar Hussain and Nicholas Stern, and his own paper "Food and Freedom." See Table 5 on p. 16 for data on the rise in the death rate from 1979, and Table 6 on p. 17 for data on the decline in the number of "barefoot doctors" from 1980.
Why do you keep talking about the Dominican Republic ? I have already agreed with you that redistributionist policies are more likely to result in better HDI than otherwise.
However, you are looking at it the wrong way. Cuba had to expropriate nearly all private assets and receive large external subsidies to get it done. The Dominican Republic didn't exproproriate and its foreign assistance was much more limited, but its HDI score today is not that much lower than Cuba's…
No need to "factor" in [the US & OAS embargo] at all [in the case of Cuba]. What ever Cuba lost via the embargo, it was much more than made up for by sugar purchases by the Soviet Union and the rest of the East bloc at inflated prices — especially after 1972, when the Soviet Union agreed to pay not the international price, but nearly four times the international price.
Also, Cuba never lost export markets for sugar outside the East bloc. At any given time between 1960 and 1990, exports to non-communist countries were between 20% to 50% of the total volume. Western Europe and Japan never observed any embargo against Cuba.
By the way, the OAS dropped its embargo in 1975. Besides, that never stopped anyone from having trade relations unilaterally with Cuba if they wanted, like Argentina before 1976…
Castro built up the Cuban armed forces to such an extent that he could send thousands of troops to Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, etc. Now you can say this was tit-for-tat against US support of the opposing side, but these luxury foreign adventures belie the claim of Castro's "having" to divert spending anywhere.
[Re South Korea] At the peak of US aid to South Korea in the late 1950s and early 1960s, it amounted to less than 5% of South Korean GDP. [Note : This was intended as net of military assistance, I will address this later.] This was not trivial but never approached the vicinity of Cuba's dependence on the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s. Besides, no sensible person believes South Korea's explosive growth has much to do with external assistance.
As for Sen, I've looked into his claims a little more, and, yes, there was a drop in Chinese life expectancy after 1979 which gets reversed in the late 1980s. But in the Bannister data the drop is trivial. Hussein & Stern's argument is more interesting : the life expectancy data appear to be driven by rising infant mortality in the first half of the 1980s, which are substantial enough to be interesting. But there must be more happening than is implied by Sen's argument, because China's crude death rate hit its low in 1979 and still remains higher than then… So the age-structure effects of the population must be important — something Hussein & Stern do not discount.
Matt [sent to me by email]
I think you're understating the disparity [between Cuba's and the Dominican Republic's HDI scores].
First of all, the difference between the two countries' HDI is 0.078, which is 10% of Cuba's score. If we add 10% to Cuba's score, we almost get to Greece (0.860; not the best place in the world, but better than Cuba). If we subtract 10% from the DR's score, we get Honduras (0.632; one of the worst places in Latin America), and a little worse than Botswana (0.634; one of the best places in sub-Saharan Africa). If we subtract 10% from the U.S.'s score of 0.937, we somewhere between Slovakia (0.840) and Andorra (0.846).
Secondly, if we look at non-income HDI (which we should be able to, given that Cuba's and DR's per capita GDPs are comparable), we find that Cuba's is 0.894 and DR's is 0.726, a difference of 0.168. Cuba not only does much better than DR on this measure, it actually scores within the same range as the UK (0.886) and Hong Kong (0.907), despite far lower per capita income.
https://data.undp.org/dataset/Non-income-HDI-value/2er3-92jj
Next, we should look at the Inequality-Adjusted HDI values. When adjusted for inequality, DR's score drops to 0.510 (a fall of 27.3%), putting it with Tajikistan and Guyana. I can't imagine that Cuba's IHDI score falls further than DR's, but unfortunately, we have no data on Cuba's total IHDI value. However, we do have Cuba's Inequality-adjusted Life Expectancy Index (LEI) value, which is 0.882 (a drop of 5.4%). This not only puts Cuba far above DR (0.708, a drop of 16% and a difference with Cuba of 0.174), it actually makes Cuba almost exactly the same as Denmark on this measure (ILEI 0.887). That's remarkable. If Cuba's Inequality-Adjusted LEI gives us any indication of its overall Inequality-Adjusted HDI, then the latter should be within the range of the developed world, and of course far above the DR.
https://data.undp.org/dataset/Table-3-Inequality-adjusted-Human-Development-Inde/9jnv-7hyp
And again, it has been a quarter-century since the Soviet spigot was shut off. I suppose Soviet aid has been to some extent replaced by Venezuelan aid, but it's still not even close.
[I also forgot to mention something: about 10% of Cuba's population left the island in the decades following the Revolution, encouraged by, among other things, special privileges granted to them in the US immigration system. These emigres are wealthier and more educated than the average Cuban. Nothing remotely comparable holds for the Dominican Republic; if anything, emigration from the DR has been disproportionately unskilled.]
[Quoting PE] Castro built up the Cuban armed forces to such an extent that he could send thousands of troops to Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, etc.
He never actually sent combat troops to Mozambique; only a few hundred advisors. By that standard, you could say that the U.S. "sent troops" to El Salvador in the 1980s, or is "sending troops" to Iraq again today. Cuba did, however, send a few thousand troops to Syria during the Yom Kippur War, and engaged in at least some combat with the Israelis.
[Quoting PE] Now you can say this was tit-for-tat against US support of the opposing side, but these luxury foreign adventures belie the claim of Castro's "having" to divert spending anywhere
At least in the case of Angola, Cuba was engaging in collective self-defense (which is a guaranteed right in Article 51 of the U.N. Charter) against a South African/Zairean attack. Ethiopia, too, was attacked by Somalia, though you could make the argument that the regime in Ethiopia was so heinous that it would have been better had Cuba stayed out of it. With the Yom Kippur War, the situation was more complicated, since, unlike in 1967 and virtually every other Arab-Israeli war, the Arabs actually fired the first shot that time, though they were only trying reacquire their own conquered territory (Sinai and Golan). In any case, Cuban intervention in that war wasn't very consequential.
So in the two major cases of Cuban intervention, the Cubans could argue that they were only exercising their right of collective self-defense in accordance with the U.N. Charter, and that they needed to do this in order to deter American aggression and interventionism which could very easily have turned its sights on Cuba (and did, in fact). The United States has similarly exercised (what it described as) "collective self-defense" in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Kuwait, all of which cases were at least as complicated as Cuba's interventions in Angola, Ethiopia, and Syria (and, I would argue, much more so, in each case).
But let's examine the presuppositions of your argument. Imagine we were having a discussion about the distortions to South Korea's development caused by South Korea's military spending, needed in order to deter a North Korean/Chinese invasion, which of course happened in 1950). [Leave aside the fact that this war was far more complicated than it appears from how it is usually discussed (it followed frequent border clashes, most of which were initiated by the South; not to mention a virtual civil war from 1945-50 within the South, for example on Jeju)]. Clearly there's something to this: South Korea's actual performance has been impressive, but it would have been arguably better in the absence of the North Korean threat. But imagine I were to respond by saying:
"The South Korean generals built up the South Korean armed forces to such an extent that they could send thousands of troops to Vietnam. Now you can say this was tit-for-tat against Soviet/Chinese/North Korean support of the opposing side, but these luxury foreign adventures belie the claim of South Korea's 'having' to divert spending anywhere."
Clearly this isn't a good response.
Even if you think that Cuba didn't "have" to intervene in Angola, etc., that doesn't mean that they weren't driven to spend on their military by the very real threat of U.S. attack. After 9/11, we invaded Iraq, which we definitely didn't need to do. But it wouldn't have happened if it weren't for 9/11. Cheney, Wolfowitz, et al may still have wanted to do it, but they wouldn't have gotten away with it. Now imagine that this country experienced multiple 9/11s (which is the equivalent of what we've done to Cuba over the years once you control for population size). Imagine that Al Qaeda tried to kill the president dozens, maybe hundreds of times. Imagine that there was a Taliban-backed rebellion in the interior of the U.S. How ape-shit do you think we would have gone? How much would we have diverted away from health, education, and welfare to spend on war, the military and the national security state?
[Quoting PE] At the peak of US aid to South Korea in the late 1950s and early 1960s, it amounted to less than 5% of South Korean GDP.
Actually, at its peak in 1957, total foreign aid (most of it from the US) to South Korea hit 16% of GNP, and averaged 8-9 percent from 1959-1962. See the following article by Susan M. Collins and Won-Am Park:
http://www.nber.org/chapters/c9033.pdf
The following paper by Marcus Noland says that foreign aid reached over 20% of GDP, and over 80% of imports, at its peak (see Figure 2, p. 36):
http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/handle/10125/22215/econwp123.pdf
However, as Collins and Park point out (p. 178), this is a significant underestimation, because it does not include subsidized loans from the US and Japan, which continued well after aid had slowed.
Also see Figure 3 (p. 37) of Noland's paper, which shows that in the early 60's, US aid financed almost all of South Korea's investment, since domestic savings net of aid was near 0.
Going back to your post on Kerala/West Bengal/East Asia/Land reform, I noticed that you ran together two slightly different topics: HDI and land reform. It's true that West Bengal has abysmal HDI, but it actually did very well compared with the rest of India in terms of land reform. According to Maitreesh Ghatak and Sanchari Roy, West Bengal and Kerala
"accounted for 11.75 and 22.88 per cent, respectively, of the total number of tenants conferred ownership rights (or protected rights) up to 2000, despite being only [7.05] and 2.31 per cent of India's population, respectively…. West Bengal's share of total surplus land distributed was almost 20 per cent of the all-India figure… although the state accounts for only about 3 per cent of India's land resources….." (p. 253).
http://www.academia.edu/157203/Land_Reform_and_Agricultural_Productivity_in_India_A_Review_of_the_Evidence
I don't know why West Bengal seems to have done well with land reform and poorly with HDI. Any ideas?
Pseudoerasmus [responding re China only]
In my last reply to Matt, I conceded his/Sen's argument that China's market reforms of 1979 may have disrupted or undermined the "barefoot doctors" programme, which could have had adverse consequences for Chinese infant mortality. However, Matt's own source points out the increase in China's infant mortality started before the market reforms of 1979 :
[Hussain & Stern] click to enlarge
Moreover, the above analysis is powered by scepticism about China's official statistics for 1979-1989. The World Bank's data on infant mortality at birth and child mortality under age 5, which are based on official statistics, do not show a deterioration in either indicator for the years at issue. (There is, however, a general discrepancy between the World Bank's and the WHO's data, although the latter only go back to 1990. But the World Bank and the UN are consistent.) Nonetheless, the PRC's current infant mortality rate is considerably higher than that of the rich countries (and Cuba's), although at least according to official statistics, that appears to be in large part because of the divide between the cities and the rural interior.
The rest of my reply is contained in the separate blogpost, "Ideology & Human Development". Please post any comments regarding the above over there.
This entry was posted in Human Development, Sociometrics and tagged Cuba, HDI, human development, Kerala, South Korea. Bookmark the permalink.


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Venturing into new clinical territory, particularly with technology, offers many possibilities and opportunities. This venue allows counselors to provide counselling services to a much larger pool of clients and their families, unhindered by geography, time zone and other limitations inherent by the counselor's local office and community. The overall challenge of video counselling is to acknowledge it as more than a technological novelty. As the newest tool to one's service offering, it is here to stay. Our challenge is to make use of it, while respecting that wisdom rests with the counselor by how effectively it is used. The success of this initiative is evidenced by the ability to offer video counselling to all clients, both as a main modality and as an adjunct to the face to face approach.
The technological infrastructure that makes video counselling possible, usable and worthwhile, is greatly acknowledged, but will not be expanded upon here. However, I would like to mention that without this technology, counselors would not have the clinical flexibility to expand the ways we can support and benefit our clients with increasing confidence.
The majority of the clients in my video counselling caseload consist of adult females ranging from 20 to 60 years old, with couples making up the remainder with an even smaller representation of male adult clients. Almost all clients have demonstrated a significant comfort level with computer technology, as a way of receiving video counselling. To date, I have had only one client switch out of video counselling and to the face-to-face modality because they felt uncomfortable mixing technology with the traditional face-to-face mode of relating.
• The fixed and stationary position of the computer screen.
• The relative narrowed visual field captured by the video camera.
• The narrowed view of the individual, limited mostly to their head and upper torso. This can limit the view of whole and partial body movement, behavioral cues and response patterns.
• The difference between the upper location of the video camera and the lower location of the viewed image on the screen minimizes eye contact.
• The approach to and ease of use of technology and video mode of counselling may manifest itself in emotional issues expressed through anger, frustration, anxiety, rejection and feelings of inadequacy. These can create and perpetuate triggers for other issues.
• The struggle for greater connection or inability to engage in more fully connected ways.
• The issue with the technical aspects of the video counselling may be an indicator of issues in other areas.
• All aspects, roles, functions and dynamics of the video counselling technology useful in providing the service can be used as representations of the therapeutic experience conveyed through stories, anecdote, analogies and parallels toward a solution to the client's presenting problem and ongoing challenges.
The fundamental challenge presented by video counselling—and all forms of therapy—is how to transfer therapeutic (emotionally corrective) relational experiences with the purpose of enabling the client to learn how to manifest such corrective experiences by their own choice outside and beyond the counselling context. With video counselling, there is the obvious inherent absence of the mutual presence in the same physical room. Connectedness is technically facilitated through the aid of a computer and phone to access the visual and auditory components of the interaction.
I have found that establishing and maintaining a sense of relatedness and emotional presence in the therapeutic interaction can be a major task. This can become an even greater challenge in a video counselling session. Effective use of the physical proximity to the computer screen, attaining the desired visual experience captured by the observer, and reducing the distance between the video capture and video display for maximum eye contact, can maximize the sense of that relatedness and emotional presence.
The process of establishing, maintaining and interrupting eye contact in a video session can be experienced both as a relational and a therapeutic limitation. This is particularly evident when clients present with feelings of disconnectedness. Literally, coming face-to-face with it in the context of seeking and obtaining support is a recurring issue for some clients. The therapeutic challenge of make counselling even more useful and beneficial in a video session rests with the "the look"—the dynamic of looking at being looked at. Attaining and sustaining eye contact initially involves guiding and teaching the client to either look directly at the video camera or to resize and move the window with the counselor's video image positioned on the screen just below the video camera. The client will experience a greater connection when the counselor looks directly at them. The counselor might also also gage his effectiveness based on the client's eye contact.
Being close in face-to-face encounters creates and supports a direct and likely intense interaction between individuals. Moving further away from each other likely diminishes the intensity of the interaction. Video counseling allows the counselor similar yet unique access to the client's personal space within their home (or other location) compared to what occurs in face-to-face interactions in the counselor's office. The inherent limitations and restrictions of position, proximity and movement are in terms of flexibility and range of movement within and outside the computer screen. Some influence can be exerted in terms of closeness to the screen, emphasizing facial features, partial or full body movements and what the client and the counselor can view in the background behind and around their respective computer screens.
As with face-to-face sessions, the number of individuals in the video session increases the level of complexity and dynamics. The difficulty in capturing these relevant levels of dynamics increases proportionally with the number of participants in the session; from one counselor and one individual client at one end of the spectrum, to a couple, then to a family or group of individuals (as in a case conference) at the other end of the spectrum. A wide-angle lens on the video camera would improve the video capture, and thereby enhance the experience of the session with couples, families and groups. On the other hand, by visually capture an increasing number of participants, you forgo proximity, increase distance from the screen—and the individuals on the other side of the screen—and thus reduce the resulting interactional intensity in the session.
• Can offer a sense of safety when addressing emotionally charged and intense experiences, memories and encounters, such as abuse and trauma • Can provide transitional phase to future face-to-face sessions for such issues as social isolation, phobias, anxieties, depression, etc.
I recently saw a couple who requested video counselling to help them solidify their marriage following a two-year separation. Their main issue was that the wife wanted her husband to become more involved in the family and to take more initiative in co-parenting their two children, ages 6 and 8.
During the third video counselling session with the couple, I noticed the wife sitting close to the screen and leaning forward, while the husband was sitting behind and back, in a reclined and more relaxed position. This had been consistent with their sitting arrangement in the previous two sessions. Their sitting arrangement was viewed as an elegant metaphor for their respective roles in their marriage and their need for greater balance. Their challenge was that they had become comfortable with their previous roles during the separation, while also recognizing that they needed to become more flexible about switching and sharing their familial and parental responsibilities and responsibilities.
Their consistent sitting arrangement over the three sessions was brought to their attention. This maneuver was used as a therapeutic opportunity to gage their willingness to reverse their physical and symbolic sitting positions. They were encouraged and supported in assessing their level of comfort occupying their respective spouse's preferred positions. I assisted the couple to choreograph their new sitting positions and discussed the necessary adjustments to succeed in making the switch. The parallel between their sitting arrangement and their marital relationship was then discussed with greater emphasis on their need greater flexibility and jointly deciding when and who was going to be "on duty" and "off duty".
Video counselling, as a newer modality of therapy, provides many opportunities to deliver counselling services and do effective therapeutic work. It can be a useful metaphor for both the counselor and the client. This can be in the form of training a client to use video counselling effectively or in how to enhance the therapeutic encounter through the use of its varied aspects of video technology. The therapeutic process can parallel the teaching process of familiarizing the client with new technical or technological skills. Through the use of video counselling, clients can be supported to attain context-specific insights, skills and perspectives. This mode of counselling greatly adds to the counselor's toolbox. It allows one to guide the client on how to use video counselling to enhance their experience and relationships, and to attain their goals.


Your home is designed to be your sanctuary from the rest of the world. You want to feel safe and secure there and not worry about pesky invaders that are just waiting for the right opportunity to take over! Termites have the distinct ability to enter into a home unnoticed and slowly destroy it. Your best line of defense if termite control measures. There are several ways you can contain and destroy a termite infestation some of which include physical, biological, and chemical methods.
One of the things that should always be noted s that it is never too soon to look into termite control measures. In fact, many people wait until it is too late to eradicate termites. One of the best forms of termite measures is an annual inspection. If you are building a new home from the ground up, you can get a head start on stopping termites by ensuring that the materials used in the building process are termite proof. Termites are drawn to damp and soft wood, so it is essential to keep your home dry and cut off any potential food source.
Many homeowners will try to take on the task of dealing with termites on their own and this is usually met with mixed results. Depending on the infestation and amount of damage it may be successful. However, in moderate to extreme conditions, it is best to consult with a professional. They will be able to walk you through the process and ensure that the right steps are followed. In truth, it is best to have a professional on hand for even the mildest of cases. If you perform a DIY method for a mild termite infestation, it is still a wise choice to call upon a professional for a proper inspection.
Many people will tend to shy away from effective termite control measures as they are fearful of spending too much money. However, by letting the problem go unchecked for months or years is a true recipe for disaster. In fact, never think that an inspection is a waste of money, it is quite possibly the number one way to save money.
As you can see, it is essential to get ahead of a termite problem before it becomes a massive problem. It is quite possible to end up spending thousands of dollars on an unchecked problem or even losing your home. Take the time to consult with a professional before the problem gets out of hand.


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Home » WLAN » Cover » Ruckus Wireless
Ruckus Wireless: [RKUS] Unleashing Smart Wireless Technologies for a Mobile World
Selina Y. Lo, CEO The significant spike in wireless traffic of late has been close to impossible to deal with. With unstable connections and erratic performance, users today require a smarter Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) system for better coverage, capacity, and reliability. They insist on having all the bells and whistles of high-end WLAN in a system that's more economical and easier to deploy and manage. Such a system was hard to detect until early 2004, when an 'Elastigirl' entered the scene. With a bag of management tools, extraordinary willpower, and an aggressive personality like Pixar's Elastigirl, the belligerent entrepreneur, Selina Lo transformed a Sunnyvale, CA based start up—Ruckus Wireless [NYSE:RKUS]—into a global supplier of carrier-class Wi-Fi solutions. The firm now deploys next-generation Wi-Fi access points that maximize efficiency and connectivity throughout surrounding mixed-use development. Grappling with the air waves, Ruckus breaks the conventional barriers that have prevented the reliable transmission of wireless voice, video, and data over standard 802.11 technology.
"Our WLAN combines smart meshing, dynamic user security, adaptive Radio Frequency (RF) signal routing, and centralized management, all within a secure, scalable, and simple-to-use platform. It adds up to high performance everywhere, everytime, enabling customers to take full advantage of our solutions," explains Selina.
A Pervasive Performance in Wireless
Today, the reliability hindrance of Wi-Fi is aggravated with increasingly sophisticated devices and greater demand for video and high-bandwidth applications. Wireless carriers also face the additional challenge of exponential growth of mobile devices as they are already stretched to handle volumes of traffic consistently.
"We are a supplier of carrier class Wi-Fi equipment to enterprises and service providers worldwide with over 25,000 end customers and 75 service provider customers, deploying Wi-Fi in their infrastructure"
Being a pioneer in the wireless infrastructure market, Ruckus allows carriers and enterprises to stay ahead of the exploding demand for high-bandwidth applications and services. While most companies try a mundane approach, Ruckus tackles it differently by using intelligence to steer clear of any interference and slip past the obstacles. The Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi technology redefines what's possible in wireless network performance with flexibility, reliability, and affordability. Smart Wi-Fi has the unique ability to extract unmatched capacity. It leverages high-gain adaptive antenna technology and sophisticated best-path selection algorithms to direct Wi-Fi signals over the highest performance path to every client. Through Smart Wi- Fi, Ruckus delivers longer range and more reliable connections to client devices instantly. Smart Wi-Fi constantly directs signals around obstacles, mitigates interferences, and focuses RF energy only when it is required to ensure unprecedented coverage and consistent performance at longer ranges.
Most importantly, Ruckus's advantage is its ability to deliver pervasive performance in wireless since its inception. The company then continued to lead the industry in performance innovation. Never relying on off-the-shelf, reference design radio technology, the firm has a team of the brightest minds to deliver creative solutions needed to realize their pervasive performance vision. This unprecedented level of wireless performance consists of several components that include adaptive signal control, interference mitigation, capacity-driven channel assignment, dynamic polarization diversity, maximized signal strength, and network capacity optimization.
The firm's flagship product line, ZoneFlex Smart WLAN systems gives enterprisers and carriers a complete range of indoor and outdoorWi-Fi solutions for every application. This starts from streamlining IP-based video over Wi-Fi to 3G offloading, wireless broadband, and access to high-speed 802.11n wireless LANs. ZoneFlex is a centralized Smart WLAN system that combines Smart Wi-Fi and Smart Mesh Networking Technology with a single, powerful, wallet-friendly solution. This system is fully pluggable, meshable, and easy to install, with automatic client administration and advanced security.
Leading the Charge to Deliver Connectivity
Ruckus delivers novel solutions to the most critical issues of inconsistency. The company's hardware, software, and services help enterprises and carriers increase the range and reliability of their Wi-Fi networks, reduce the cost of deployment, and ensure consistent performance even in the most challenging environments. "We are a supplier of carrier class Wi-Fi equipment to enterprises and service providers worldwide with over 25,000 end customers and 75 service provider customers, deploying Wi-Fi in their infrastructure," says Selina.
Our WLAN combines smart meshing, dynamic user security, adaptive Radio Frequency (RF) signal routing, and centralized management, all within a secure, scalable, and simple-to-use platform
Over the years, the firm has worked with various higher-education institutions to help students and faculty to attain effective Wi-Fi services. In one case, it was noted that University of Georgia's (UGA) Continuing Education IT staff wanted to provide ubiquitous, free Wi-Fi to hotel guests and visitors for years. However, rewiring and adding more wires wasn't an option and it was not viable for the client to find a Wi-Fi system that could cost effectively replace the hotel's wired cable network, while delivering stable and long range connections. "We wanted to go all Wi-Fi for the longest time in the hotel but hadn't found a solution that was reliable and secure enough to become a primary means of network access for the hotel," recollects Corey Doster, Associate Director for IT at Georgia Center. When Georgia Center was introduced to Ruckus Wireless and the Ruckus Zone FlexSmart WLAN System, Doster quickly added up the savings.
The customer noted that the Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi solution was less than half the cost of what the Center paid for the hotel cable data network four years ago.
The client now has a reliable Wi-Fi system that helps them provide their guests with strong and fast connections everywhere.
Addressing Interferences and Obstruction
The Georgia Center success story also brings into limelight the contrasting scenario of the challenges faced by basic Wi-Fi products, across the globe, due to its inadequacies for addressing today's wireless challenges. By offering better levels of performance and integration capabilities, Ruckus proffers BeamFlex—an advanced Wi-Fi smart antenna implementation. Combining a compact internal antenna array with expert control software, BeamFlex continuously ranks the antenna configurations for each receiving device and reconfigures itself in real-time to choose the best performing antenna configurations. BeamFlex adapts Wi-Fi signals to interference conditions to deliver predictable performance at greater ranges. It also reduces dead spots, increasing the range and performance of the Wi-Fi network up to 300 percent.
"Ruckus's advantage is its ability to deliver pervasive performance in wireless since its inception"
Apart from BeamFlex, the company is adept at identifying new opportunities and creating products to capitalize on specific markets. Selina's leadership and inventive foresight has helped Ruckus build a unique collection of security capabilities that automate client side security, making it easy to use. RuckusSmartSec is one such example. Ensuring smart security—a vital component in wireless LANs— Ruckus SmartSec provides a patent-pending mechanism that generates, configures, and installs encryption keys on client devices in a process that is completely transparent to the user. The process comprises of an intelligent indoor mesh that reduces cumbersome RF planning and expensive cable backhauls. Enterprise WLAN deployment hence becomes dramatically faster, simpler, and cost effective—as access points are simply plugged into any conventional power source.
Driven by a Multi-Prolonged Business Strategy
By spearheading the company's creative, multi-prolonged business and marketing strategies, Selina's willpower to excel has resulted in deals with major networking equipment manufacturers and telecommunication providers—driving the firm's current success in the market. Her transparency about all aspects of performance has been wholesome for Ruckus's growth. "I no longer compete with the people inside; my mission is to focus all that energy against my competitors," Selina asserts.
With more companies now envisioning Wi-Fi as a revenue opportunity, Ruckus is working on building new software to fuel its business in the upcoming months. During the recent Wi-Fi Global Congress event, in San Jose, CA, the firm announced to deploy a hotspot 2.0 network for a Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA). This new technology enables automatic and secure Wi-Fi roaming onto participating Wi-Fi hotspots for subscribers from over 30 operators around the world. In addition, the company is also focused on international growth, offering all of the Latin American businesses indoor access to the internet. "This is an explosive market. We are just at the knee of the curve," Selina concludes.
- Aishwarya Kannan
wlan.enterprisenetworkingmag.com/vendor/ruckus-wireless-rkus-unleashing-smart-wireless-technologies-for-a-mobile-world-cid-13-mid-6.html


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Catherine Hardwicke Movies
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The film follows the surf and skateboarding trends that originated in Venice, California during the 1970's.
Director: Catherine Hardwicke
Actor: Emile Hirsch, Victor Rasuk, Rebecca De Mornay, John Robinson, Michael Angarano, Nikki Reed, Johnny Knoxville, Heath Ledger, Vincent Laresca, William Mapother
Lords of Dogtown DVD
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Miss You Already
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Red Riding Hood
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Set in a medieval village that is haunted by a werewolf, a young girl falls for an orphaned woodcutter, much to her family's displeasure.
Genre: Fantasy, Horror, Mystery
Actor: Amanda Seyfried, Gary Oldman, Billy Burke, Shiloh Fernandez, Max Irons, Julie Christie, Lukas Haas, Virginia Madsen, Shauna Kain, Michael Hogan
Thirteen HD
A thirteen-year-old girl's relationship with her mother is put to the test as she discovers drugs, sex, and petty crime in the company of her cool but trouble..
Actor: Evan Rachel Wood, Nikki Reed, Vanessa Hudgens, Holly Hunter, Brady Corbet, Jeremy Sisto, Ulysses Estrada, Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, Jenicka Carey, Sarah Clarke
Twilight HD
A teenage girl risks everything when she falls in love with a vampire.
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Romance
Actor: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Billy Burke, Taylor Lautner, Peter Facinelli, Ashley Greene, Jackson Rathbone, Elizabeth Reaser, Kellan Lutz, Nikki Reed