text:
class MovieRater
{
private:
	NeuralNetwork* _neuralNet;
	bool _isBasic; // if true, use less criteria for movie rating
	double* _movieCriteria; // what the movies are rated based on
public:
	MovieRater(const int netLayers, const int* netTopology, const bool isBasic);
	~MovieRater();
	NeuralNetwork* getNeuralNetwork() const;
	double rateMovie(const Movie* movie);

	static const int BASIC_CRITERIA_AMOUNT = 8; // the amount of criteria used if basic
	static const int COMPLEX_CRITERIA_AMOUNT = 25; // the amount of criteria used if not basic
	double ErrorRate;
};

#endif

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


New York, NY - May 22, 2014 - As the beach season is about to begin with summer unofficially kicking off this Memorial Day weekend, the Long Island Rail Road is offering special fare packages to get you to 12 of Long Island's sandy destinations. These special beach package tickets are available throughout the summer.
With a brand new boardwalk and new food vendors, beachgoers can enjoy the ambiance of a seaside resort, just a short train ride from Penn Station, Brooklyn or Jamaica. Just a few blocks from the LIRR's Long Beach Station, Long Beach offers unsurpassed ocean swimming, summer concerts and Arts & Crafts Festivals. The discounted package ticket includes one-day round trip rail fare to Long Beach, free shuttle buses, admission to the beach and a voucher for discounts at local merchants.
The special package fare is $22.00 from New York and Brooklyn, and $18.75 from Jamaica. Hourly service is available from Penn Station, Brooklyn and Jamaica with direct weekend service from Penn Station. Weekend service starts May 24. LIRR weekday service begins June 23 and continues through Labor Day, September 1.
Jones Beach State Park offers miles of sandy beaches and refreshing ocean surf. A two-mile-long boardwalk, games, playgrounds, and swimming pools are also available at the park.
The discounted package ticket includes round trip rail fare to and from Freeport and bus service via the NICE N88 to and from the Central Mall, and the East and West Bath Houses at Jones Beach. Train service is available approximately every half hour. For bus schedules, visit www.nicebus.com.
The special package fare is $18.75 from New York and Brooklyn, and $15.25 from Jamaica.
Weekend service starts May 24. Weekday service begins June 23 and continues through Labor Day, September 1.
Customers can save on a Jones Beach concert experience by using LIRR beach packages.
The Jones Beach Theater 2014 summer lineup is once again packed with the hottest superstar musical acts today! Bus service is available before and following each performance and the package will remain available through the final concert date (September 4).
The LIRR offers special packages to ten Fire Island beach locations. Fire Island provides an opportunity to leave the car behind and enjoy miles of boardwalk, trails and pristine beaches. Packages are for same day use only.
Intensely informal, carefree and easygoing, Kismet is known as a great community with something for everyone. Amenities include a couple of full service restaurants, two public tennis courts, a basketball court, and playground area. Just a half-mile from the beach is the 150 year-old-plus Fire Island Lighthouse. General admission to the Lighthouse is included in the package. For information and events visit fireislandlighthouse.com. The special package fare is $36.75 from New York and Brooklyn and $36.25 from Jamaica. For children 5-11 years of age the fare is $20; Children must be at least 42" tall to climb the lighthouse. The LIRR package begins May 24 and continues daily through Labor Day, September 1.
Home to over a dozen restaurants, hotels, and endless attractions such as sidewalk sales, live bands, and innumerable shops and boutiques, Ocean Beach is truly the 'cosmopolitan' center of Fire Island. For the ultimate seafood experience by the water, or to just unwind and take in the charming atmosphere, Ocean Beach has it all and it's a great family destination. The special package fare is $32.75 from New York and Brooklyn and $32.25 from Jamaica. For children 5-11 years of age the fare is $16. The LIRR package begins May 24 and continues daily through Labor Day, September 1.
One of the most relaxed of the Fire Island communities, Ocean Bay Park has a mix of families and singles. Bay-front dining is available at two of the four restaurants. There is also a grocery store, two pizza places and a bagel shop. The special package fare is $32.75 from New York and Brooklyn and $32.25 from Jamaica. For children 5-11 years of age the fare is $16. The LIRR package begins May 24 and continues daily through Labor Day, September 1.
For a schedule of Bay Shore Station ferry departure times visit http://www.fireislandferries.com/.
Known for its fun, party scene, Cherry Grovers enjoy dancing, dining and indulgence. The shops and restaurants are all brilliantly colored and built on multi-levels, so you can find something for everyone. The special package fare is $32.75 from New York and Brooklyn, and $32.25 from Jamaica. The LIRR package begins May 24 and continues daily through Labor Day, September 1.
"The Pines" named for the beautiful wind-sculpted pine trees, is truly an architectural paradise and the largest community on the Island. When you approach from the bay side, you are reminded almost of Monte Carlo or the South of France. Populated in good part by members of the world of fashion and design, it is well known for its upscale social life and beautiful harbor. The special package fare is $32.75 from New York and Brooklyn, and $32.25 from Jamaica. The LIRR package begins May 24 and continues daily through Labor Day September 1.
Sailor's Haven, considered the crown jewel of the Fire Island National Seashore, is home to the Sunken Forest – the botanical home to a vast eco-system of plants and wildlife. Sunbathe on a pristine ocean beach or take a walk on the beautiful 1.5 mile nature trail. Guided tours of the forest are provided by the Fire Island National Park Service. A visitors' center with nature exhibits, picnic areas, a snack bar and a gift shop are located on the bay front near the marina and ferry dock. The special package fare from New York and Brooklyn is $30.75, and $30.25 from Jamaica. For children 5-11 years of age the fare is $17. The LIRR package begins May 24 and continues daily through Labor Day, September 1.
For a schedule of Sayville Station ferry departure times visit sayvilleferry.com.
On one end, a huge boat-filled marina, on the other magnificent ocean waves form this community's great landscape. After sunbathing, enjoy the local popular restaurant and bar, with live music and dancing on the weekends. The special package fare is $36 from New York or Brooklyn and $35.50 from Jamaica. For children 5-11 years of age the fare is $26. The LIRR package begins May 24 and continues daily through Labor Day, September 1.
Lounge in the sun on a peaceful beach on the secluded shores of Fire Island or walk the nature trails. It's a relaxing spot for singles and families. The special package fare is $30.25 from New York and Brooklyn and $24.25 from Jamaica. For children 5-11 years of age the fare is $16. The LIRR package begins May 24 and continues daily through Labor Day, September 1.
For a schedule of Davis Park ferry departures, visit http://www.davisparkferry.com/.
Located on the western tip of Fire Island, Robert Moses State Park offers world-class sand and surf in a casual, less-crowded atmosphere. The Park has five miles of ocean beach, picnic areas and an 18-hole pitch & putt golf course. The special package fare from New York and Brooklyn is $23, and $18 from Jamaica. The connecting S47 bus service, provided by Suffolk Transit, from Babylon Station to Robert Moses operates approximately every half-hour on weekends; hourly on weekdays. The last bus departs Robert Moses at 6:30 PM. For Suffolk bus information, visit http://sct-bus.org/. Daily service begins June 16 and continues through Labor Day, September 1.
Captree is a fisherman's haven and a picnicker's delight, so pack a lunch and enjoy a day of fishing while taking in the beautiful views. And no need to bring fishing gear, it's all part of the package price which includes discounted one-day round-trip rail fare, bus transportation and admission on one of Captree's fishing boats. For a schedule of boat departures visit captreefleet.com. The special package fare is $47 for adults and $30 for children 5-11 years of age.
Trains depart Penn Station at approximately 7:10 a.m., 9:05 a.m. and 11:05 a.m., weekdays and 6:57 a.m., 8:57 a.m., and 10:57 a.m. weekends. The trains will depart Babylon Station at approximately 2:36 p.m., 4:35 p.m., and 7:09 p.m. weekdays, and 3:10 PM, 4:58 p.m. and 6:58 p.m. weekends. Daily service begins June 16 and continues through Labor Day, September 1.
Click here to see the LIRR Beach brochure.
Press the "Getaways/Packages" button on the first screen, then select "Beach Getaways," then the button for your package or deal. Pay with credit cards or ATM/debit cards. Gray and green machines also accept cash.
For additional information on beaches and other LIRR getaway packages customers can log on to: web.mta.info/lirr/getaways or contact the LIRR's Customer Services Center by calling 511, the New York State Travel Information Line, and say: Long Island Rail Road. If you are hearing impaired, use your preferred relay service provider for the free 711 relay to reach LIRR at 511.
Subject: LongIsland.com - Your Name sent you Article details of "LIRR Offering a Dozen Beach Getaway Packages"


text:
Балуджа () — упразднённое село в Ахтынском районе Дагестана.

География
Балуджа расположена в Ахтынском районе Дагестана, у правобережья низовий реки Муглахчай, в 5 километрах от её устья. Само село располагается на основании внутренней части западных отрогов Шалбуздагского хребта. Ближайшие населённые пункты: Курукал, Ахты, Ухул. Кварталы села: Агъа мягьле, Вини мягьле, Юкьван мягьле, Ахцагьрин мягьле. У села мало пашен, много пастбищ и два родника.

История
С начала XVI века по 1839 год Балуджа входила в Докузпаринское вольное общество. В 1839 году село было присоединено к Российской империи. Балуджа относилась к Докузпаринскому наибству Самурского округа. Вместе с сёлами Филидзах и Ялджух образовала Ялджухское сельское общество. В середине XIX века, как пишет профессор Хидир Рамазанов, треть жителей Балуджи из-за безземелья переселилась на территорию нынешнего Азербайджана.

В 1869 году в селе проживало 377 человек, из них мужчин — 212, женщин — 165. Село состояло из 60 дымов. В Южной Балудже проживало 114 человек (68 мужчин и 46 женщин), в селе было 29 дымов. Тухумы села: Билбилар, Назарар, ИкIияр, Прысар.

В 1886 году в селе проживал 381 человек.

В 1929 году Балуджа была включена в состав новообразованного Ахтынского района. В 1952 году жителей балуджи переселили в село Бамматюрт Хасавюртовского района. А после возвращения чеченцев в село, балуджцев вновь переселели - в село Новый Куруш в Хасавюртовском районе.

Население

Известные уроженцы
 Исмаилов Абдурахман Феталиевич (1893—1919) — активный революционный деятель, член Дагестанского областного Исполкома РКП(б).
Ферзалиев Рамазан Селимович — Спортсмен, борец вольного стиля.

Примечания

Упразднённые населённые пункты Ахтынского района

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Chevy's new Silverado will have a role in the 'The Lego Movie 2'
The model features in ad ahead of film's release
E.J. Schultz
Chevrolet's newest product placement was built brick-by-brick, Lego-style.
The brand today announced that a Lego version of its redesigned 2019 Chevrolet Silverado will appear in "The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part," which hits theaters Feb. 8. Chevy today also released a new ad showing two characters from the movie, Emmet and Lucy, riding in a Lego-ized Silverado. Emmet fires off a few intentionally obvious plugs, prompting Lucy to quip, "I think we are in a promotional tie-in."
Elizabeth Banks voices Lucy, while Emmet is voiced by Chris Pratt. The Lego-sized pickup truck will also be featured in social media ads on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. "The new ads are a fun addition to our Silverado campaign and will hopefully attract the next generation of truck buyers to Chevrolet," Paul Edwards, U.S. VP for Chevrolet marketing, said in a press release..
The ads, by Commonwealth/McCann, follow the same lighthearted approach Chevy took in 2017, when it aired an ad for its tie in with "The Lego Batman Movie."
The new ads are part of a marketing blitz for 2019 Chevrolet Silverado, one of the most important vehicles in the General Motors fleet. The broader effort debuted earlier this month with a much more serious spot showing a cast of diverse Silverado drivers reciting lyrics from the song, "A Little Bit Country, a Little Bit Rock 'N Roll."
Chevy has an aggressive media plan for the campaign that includes a product placement deal with NBC's "This Is Us." But the media buy does not include a Super Bowl ad, a Chevy spokeswoman confirmed today. She also confirmed that no other General Motors brands will run in-game ads. The last time GM aired a Super Bowl spot was in 2017, for Buick.
Chevy's ads follow the release earlier this month of Discover's Lego campaign, which marked the company's first co-branded ad campaign with a major movie. The Martin Agency handled the ads.
HP 'prints' trees in environmental push highlighting its forest planting efforts
BetterHelp likens therapy to electricians, gym spotters and parachutes
Mekanism rolls out series of New Year's spots for Peloton
Client :
Agency :
Commonwealth/McCann-Detroit
Need a credit fix? Contact the Creativity Editors
Chevrolet: Watch this Chevrolet holiday ad if you want to cry
Chevrolet: Chevy reimagines 'baseball, hot dogs, apple pie' jingle in the form of a Guy Fieri dish
Chevrolet: A Chevy truck has big competition in the form of a supercat
Chevrolet: Chevrolet celebrates an Opening Day for the ages as baseball tries to get back in the game

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


A year of planning, searching, and preparing have gone into this catalog. For this once-a-year sale we search out the most interesting, important, exciting things we can find to offer you.
This is a "collector's sale." We approach the sale with the enthusiasm that led us into professional numismatics in the first place. There are expensive pieces included, but our main focus is on pieces of value, regardless of cost. "Value" in this context means exceptional condition, style, historic significance, "clang response" appeal -- all those aspects of a piece that excite and satisfy. Many of the better pieces have historic pedigrees.
For this, our 37th major auction, we have many outstanding coins and some consignments that meet these standards. Beginning with the ancient sections, watch for exceptional style and condition, and important provenances. We are continuing with the choice material that Frank Robinson acquired in a life-time of collecting, covering maundy sets, sixpences, and shillings this time.
Douglas Bayern was born in Minnesota but grew up on the east coast. He and his wife came back for eight years in the 1980's, and I got to know him then. After they moved to Oregon, he and I stayed in touch. He passed away last year from that scourge of a disease, ALS. He and I talked many times about his collecting. On a limited budget but with a keen eye he built a small but select collection of coins of medieval Britain and France.
Another consignor who has been a client of ours for many years also patronized Seaby in London. A few of the most valuable hammered coins in the sale are from his collection.
The Irish section was notably enhanced by the collecting efforts of Bruce Ormond, a knowledgeable specialist collector we know. His enthusiasm for the Ireland and Ormond issues stems from his descendance from the Ormonde namesake for this complex issue of siege pieces.
The catalog is rounded out by other purchases, items picked up in auctions and shows, material from our own longer term holdings, two old collections, pieces from one discriminating collector with a "good eye," and a few small consignments.
Valuations come from careful study of recent auction and sale records. You should find that our estimates are on the moderate side of the current market, with the quality exceeding what is typically offered in this era.
In the Greek section, what stands out is fine artistic style of a quality seldom offered, along with important provenances, coins from important old collections that contained the best of the best. There are many particularly choice coins in this section.
In Roman coins we offer brilliant iridescent mint state denarii and siliquae, helped by a purchase of a mid-20th century European collection with brilliant minty surfaces and gorgeous iridescent toning. Also look for a half dozen denarii from the Knobloch Collection of Roman Imperial coins, auctioned by Stack's on May 1, 2, 3, 1980 -- Roman denarii of exceptional quality. Denarii are plentiful; few are exceptional. We sought out the exceptional.
Groats: Tournai was a short event during Henry VIII's reign; coins were minted with the "T" m.m. a particularly artistic and scarce type. Two ex-Carlyon-Britten rarities round out this fascinating three-coin section.
It has been a pleasure to put all this together. We hope you enjoy it as well.
Marnie and Lief join me in thanking you for your interest and support, and we wish you a healthy and prosperous 2018.


"Serving the Rocky Mountain Region."
Check out the new NACRA 17 - Olympic Mixed Multihull, specifically designed to meet the ISAF criteria for the mixed multihull trials!
If you have any questions or would like to place an order, give us a call!
© 2009 Icarus Sports USA — CSS derived from featuring.


Boasting generous proportions and presented in fantastic condition, throughout is this second floor, ex local authority maisonette. The property benefits of a large reception room leading to a private balcony, separate fitted kitchen/diner, two double bedrooms and a newly refurbished family bathroom. Situated within close proximity to both Limehouse and Shadwell Stations. Viewing recommended.


text:
Tag Archives: markets and universities
by Paul Temple
January 2020 marks the second year of the Office for Students' (OfS) operations. The OfS represents the latest organisational iteration of state direction of (once) British and (now) English higher education, stretching back to the creation of the University Grants Committee (UGC) in 1919. We therefore have a century's-worth of experience to draw on: what lessons might there be?
There are, I think, two ways to consider the cavalcade of agencies that have passed through the British higher education landscape since 1919. One is to see in it how higher education has been viewed at various points over the last century. The other way is to see it as special cases of methods of controlling public bodies generally. I think that both perspectives can help us to understand what has happened and why.
In the post-war decades, up to the later 1970s, central planning was almost unquestioningly accepted across the political spectrum in Britain as the correct way to direct nationalised industries such as electricity and railways, but also to plan the economy as a whole, as the National Plan of 1965 showed. In higher education, broadly similar methods – predict and provide – were operated by the UGC for universities, and by a partnership of central government and local authorities for the polytechnics and other colleges. A key feature of this mode of regulation was expert judgement, largely insulated from political pressures. As Michael Shattock and Aniko Horvath observe in The Governance of British Higher Education (Bloomsbury, 2020), "In the 1950s it had been the UGC, not officials in the ministry, who initiated policy discussions about the forecast rate of student number expansion and its financial implications, and it was the UGC, not a minister, that proposed founding the 1960s 'New Universities'" (p18).
Higher education, then, was viewed as a collective national resource, to be largely centrally planned and funded, in a similar way to nationalised industries.
The rejection of central planning methods by the Thatcher governments (1979-1990) affected the control of higher education as it did other areas of national life through the 'privatisation' of public enterprises. Instead, resource allocation decisions were to be made by markets, or where normal markets were absent, as with higher education, by using 'quasi-markets' to allocate public funds. Accordingly the UGC was abolished by legislation in 1988, and (eventually) national funding bodies were created, the English version being the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). Whereas the UGC had a key task of preserving academic standards, by maintaining the 'unit of resource' at what was considered to be an adequate level of funding per student (as a proxy for academic standards), HEFCE's new task, little-noted at the time, became the polar opposite: it was required to drive down unit costs per student, thereby supposedly forcing universities to make the efficiency gains to be expected of normal market forces.
The market, then, had supplanted central planning as an organising principle in British public life (perhaps the lasting legacy of the Thatcher era); and universities discovered that the seemingly technical changes to their funding arrangements had profoundly altered their internal economies.
HEFCE's main task, however, as with the UGC before it, was to allocate public money to universities, though now applying a different methodology. The next big shift in English higher education policy, under the 2010 coalition government, changed the nature of central direction radically. Under the full-cost fees policy, universities now typically received most of their income from student loans, making HEFCE's funding role largely redundant. So, after the usual lag between policy change and institutional restructuring, a new agency was created in 2018, the Office for Students (OfS), modelled on the lines of industry regulators for privatised utilities such as energy and telecoms.
In contrast to its predecessor agencies, OfS is neither a planning nor a funding body (except for some special cases). Instead, as with other industry regulators, it assumes that a market exists, but that its imperfect nature (information asymmetry being a particular concern) calls for detailed oversight and possibly intervention, in order to 'mitigate the risk' of abuses by providers (universities) which could damage the interests of consumers (students). It has no interest in maintaining a particular pattern of institutional provision, though it does require that external quality assurance bodies validate academic standards in the institutions it registers.
As with utilities, we have seen a shift in Britain, in stages, from central planning and funding, to a fragmented but regulated provision. The underlying assumption is that market forces will have beneficial results, subject to the regulator preventing abuses and ensuring that minimal standards are maintained. This approach is now so widespread in Britain that the government has produced a code to regulate the regulators (presumably anticipating the question, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?).
Examining the changing pattern of state direction of higher education in England in the post-1945 period, then, we see the demise of central planning and its replacement, first by quasi-markets, and then by as close to the real thing as we are likely to get. Ideas of central funding to support planning goals have been replaced by reliance on a market with government-created consumers, overseen by a regulator, intervening in the detail (see OfS's long list of 'reportable events') of institutional management.
Despite every effort by governments to create a working higher education marketplace, the core features of higher education get in the way of it being a consumer good (for the many reasons that are repeatedly pointed out to and repeatedly ignored by ministers). Central planning has gone, but its replacement depends on central funding and central intervention. I don't think that we've seen the last of formal central planning in our sector.
SRHE member Paul Temple is Honorary Associate Professor, Centre for Higher Education Studies, UCL Institute of Education, University College London. See his latest paper 'University spaces: Creating cité and place', London Review of Education, 17 (2): 223–235 at https://doi.org/10.18546
Categories: Policy and HE, Quality | Tags: central planning and universities, Governance of Higher Edcuation, HE and markets, HEFCE, Marketisation of HE, markets and universities, OfS, the state and higher education, UGC | Permalink.
by Phil Pilkington
"…problems arise when language goes on holiday. And here we may indeed fancy naming to be some remarkable act of mind, as it were a baptism of an object."
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, para 38 (original emphasis)
The paradigm shift of students to customers at the heart of higher education has changed strategies, psychological self-images, business models and much else. But are the claims for and against students as customers (SAC) and the related research as useful, insightful and angst ridden as we may at first think? There are alarms about changing student behaviours and approaches to learning and the relationship towards academic staff but does the naming 'customers' reveal what were already underlying, long standing problems? Does the concentrated focus on SAC obscure rather than reveal?
One aspect of SAC is the observation that academic performance declines, and learning becomes more surface and instrumental (Bunce, 2017). Another is that SAC inclines students to be narcissist and aggressive, with HEI management pandering to the demands of both students and their feedback on the NSS, with other strategies to create iconic campus buildings, to maintain or improve league table position (Nixon, 2018).
This raises some methodological questions on (a) the research on academic performance and the degree of narcissism/aggression prior to SAC (ie around 1997 with the Dearing Report); (b) the scope and range of the research given the scale of student numbers, participation rates, the variety of student motivations, the nature of disciplines and their own learning strategies, and the hierarchy of institutions; and (c) the combination of (a) and (b) in the further question whether SAC changed the outlook of students to their education – or is it that we are paying more attention and making different interpretations?
Some argue that the mass system created in some way marketisation of HE and the SAC with all its attendant problems of changing the pedagogic relationship and cognitive approaches. Given Martin Trow's definitions of elite, mass and universal systems of HE*, the UK achieved a mass system by the late 1980s to early 1990s with the rapid expansion of the polytechnics; universities were slower to expand student numbers. This expansion was before the introduction of the £1,000 top up fees of the Major government and the £3,000 introduced by David Blunkett (Secretary of State for Education in the new Blair government) immediately after the Dearing Report. It was after the 1997 election that the aspiration was for a universal HE system with a 50% participation rate.
If a mass system of HE came about (in a 'fit of forgetfulness' ) by 1991 when did marketisation begin? Marketisation may be a name we give to a practice or context which had existed previously but was tacit and culturally and historically deeper, hidden from view. The unnamed hierarchy of institutions of Oxbridge, Russell, polytechnics, HE colleges, FE colleges had powerful cultural and socio-political foundations and was a market of sorts (high to low value goods, access limited by social/cultural capital and price, etc). That hierarchy was not, however, necessarily top-down: the impact of social benefit of the 'lower orders' in that hierarchy would be significant in widening participation. The 'higher order' existed (and exists) in an ossified form. And as entry was restricted, the competition within the sector did not exist or did not present existential threats. Such is the longue durée when trying to analyse marketisation and the SAC.
The focus on marketisation should help us realise that over the long term the unit of resource was drastically reduced; state funding was slowly and then rapidly withdrawn to the point where the level of student enrolment was critical to long term strategy. That meant not maintaining but increasing student numbers when the potential pool of students would fluctuate – with the present demographic trough ending in 2021 or 2022. Marketisation can thus be separated to some extent from the cognitive dissonance or other anxieties of the SAC. HEIs (with exceptions in the long-established hierarchy) were driven by the external forces of the funding regime to develop marketing strategies, branding and gaming feedback systems in response to the competition for students and the creation of interest groups – Alliance, Modern, et al. The enrolled students were not the customers in the marketisation but the product or outcome of successful management. The students change to customers as the focus is then on results, employment and further study rates. Such is the split personality of institutional management here.
Research on SAC in STEM courses has a noted inclination to surface learning and the instrumentalism of 'getting a good grade in order to get a good job', but this prompts further questions. I am not sure that this is an increased inclination to surface learning, nor whether surface and deep are uncritical norms we can readily employ. The HEAC definition of deep learning has an element of 'employability' in the application of knowledge across differing contexts and disciplines (Howie and Bagnall, 2012). A student in 2019 may face the imperative to get a 'degree level' job in order to pay back student loans. This is rational related to the student loans regime and widening participation, meaning this imperative is not universally applied given the differing socio-economic backgrounds of all students.
(Note that the current loan system is highly regressive as a form of 'graduate tax'.)
And were STEM students more inclined toward deep or surface learning before they became SAC? Teaching and assessment in STEM may have been poorand may have encouraged surface level learning (eg through weekly phase tests which were tardily assessed).
What is deep learning in civil engineering when faced with stress testing concrete girders or in solving quarternion equations in mathematics: is much of STEM actually knowing and processing algorithms? How is such learnable content in STEM equivalent in some cognitive way to the deep learning in modern languages, history, psychology et al? This is not to suggest a hierarchy of disciplines but differences, deep differences, between rules-based disciplines and the humanities.
Learning is complex and individualised, and responsive to, without entirely determining, the curriculum and the forms of its delivery. In the research on SAC the assumptions are that teaching and assessment delivery is both relatively unproblematic and designed to encourage deep, non-instrumental learning. Expectations of the curriculum delivery and assessment will vary amongst students depending on personal background of schooling and parents, the discipline and personal motivations and the expectations will often be unrealistic. Consider why they are unrealistic – more than the narcissism of being a customer. (There is a very wide range of varieties of customer: as a customer of Network Rail I am more a supplicant than a narcissist.)
The alarm over the changes (?) to the students' view of their learning as SAC in STEM should be put in the context of the previously high drop-out rate of STEM students (relatively higher than non-STEM) which could reach 30% of a cohort. The causes of drop out were thoroughly examined by Mantz Yorke(Yorke and Longden, 2004), but as regards the SAC issue here, STEM drop outs were explained by tutors as lack of the right mathematical preparation. There is comparatively little research on the motivations for students entering STEM courses before they became SAC; such research is not over the long term or longitudinal. However, research on the typology of students with differing motivations for learning (the academic, the social, the questioning student etc) ranged across all courses, does exist (a 20 year survey by Liz Beatty, 2005). Is it possible that after widening participation to the point of a universal system, motivations towards the instrumental or utilitarian will become more prominent? And is there an implication that an elite HE system pre-SAC was less instrumentalist, less surface learning? The creation of PPE (first Oxford in 1921 then spreading across the sector) was an attempt to produce a mandarin class, where career ambition was designed into the academic disciplines. That is, 'to get a good job' applies here too but it will be expressed in different, indirect and elevated ways of public service.**
There are some anachronisms in the research on SAC. The acceptance of SAC by management, by producing student charters and providing students places on boards, committees and senior management meetings is not a direct result of students or management considering students as customers. Indeed, it predates SAC by many years and has its origins in the 1960s and 70s.
I am unlikely to get onto the board of Morrisons, but I could for the Co-op – a discussion point on partnerships, co-producers, membership of a community of learners. The struggle by students to get representation in management has taken fifty years from the Wilson government Blue Paper Student Protest (1970) to today. It may have been a concession, but student representation changed the nature of HEIs in the process, prior to SAC. Student Charters appear to be mostly a coherent, user-friendly reduction of lengthy academic and other regulations that no party can comprehend without extensive lawyerly study. A number of HEIs produced charters before the SAC era (late 1990s). And iconic university buildings have been significantly attractive in the architectural profession a long time before SAC – Birmingham's aspiration to be an independent city state with its Venetian architecture recalling St Mark's Square under the supervision of Joseph Chamberlain (1890s) or Jim Stirling's post-modern Engineering faculty building at Leicester (1963) etc (Cannandine 2002).
Students have complex legal identities and are a complex and often fissiparous body. They are customers of catering, they are members of a guild or union, learners, activists and campaigners, clients, tenants, volunteers, sometimes disciplined as the accused, or the appellant, they adopt and create new identities psychologically, culturally and sexually. The language of students as customers creates a language game that excludes other concerns: the withdrawal of state funding, the creation of an academic precariat, the purpose of HE for learning and skills supply, an alienation from a community by the persuasive self-image as atomised customer, how deep learning is a creature of disciplines and the changing job market, that student-academic relations were problematic and now become formalised 'complaints'. Students are not the 'other' and they are much more than customers.
Phil Pilkington is Chair of Middlesex University Students' Union Board of Trustees, a former CEO of Coventry University Students' Union, an Honorary Teaching Fellow of Coventry University and a contributor to WonkHE.
*Martin Trow defined an elite, mass and universal systems of HE by participation rates of 10-20%, 20-30% and 40-50% respectively.
** Trevor Pateman, The Poverty of PPE, Oxford, 1968; a pamphlet criticising the course by a graduate; it is acknowledged that the curriculum, 'designed to run the Raj in 1936', has changed little since that critique. This document is a fragment of another history of higher education worthy of recovery: of complaint and dissatisfaction with teaching and there were others who developed the 'alternative prospectus' movement in the 1970s and 80s.
Beatty L, Gibbs G, and Morgan A (2005) 'Learning orientations and study contracts', in Marton, F, Hounsell, D and Entwistle, N, (eds) (2005) The Experience of Learning: Implications for teaching and studying in higher education, 3rd (Internet) edition. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh, Centre for Teaching, Learning and Assessment.
Bunce, Louise (2017) 'The student-as-consumer approach in HE and its effects on academic performance', Studies in Higher Education, 42(11): 1958-1978
Howie P and Bagnall R (2012) 'A critique of the deep and surface learning model', Teaching in Higher Education 18(4); they state the distinction of learning is "imprecise conceptualisation, ambiguous language, circularity and a lack of definition…"
Nixon, E, Scullion, R and Hearn, R (2018) 'Her majesty the student: marketised higher education and the narcissistic (dis)satisfaction of the student consumer', Studies in Higher Education 43(6): 927-943
Cannandine, David (2004), The 'Chamberlain Tradition', in In Churchill's Shadow, Oxford: Oxford University Press; his biographical sketch of Joe Chamberlain shows his vision of Birmingham as an alternative power base to London.
Yorke M and Longden B (2004) Retention and student success in higher education, Maidenhead: SRHE/Open University Press
Categories: Government & Higher Education Policy, Leadership Governance & Management, Quality | Tags: graduate tax, loan system, Marketisation of HE, markets, markets and universities, SAC, student support, students, students as customers | Permalink.
by SRHE News Blog	1 Comment
There has been widespread discussion and outrage about the pay and reward of Vice Chancellors and their accountability to their governing bodies. In addition, there is discussion about the need to provide greater support for the lay members who govern universities, and the related need for the reform of institutional management to be less dependent upon an individual's abilities as manager-leaders in a complex environment ('less analogue and more digital', Mark Leach, WonkHE).
A recent concern was whether ex-VCs should be encouraged to join the governing boards to provide some empathetic support for the management, and perhaps an independent but expert view of management in HE for the benefit of lay governors.
Another complaint has been the lack of gender balance and BAME representation on Boards of Governance, with women comprising 32% of board members (Sherer and Zakaria, 2018). There are other critical matters: civic engagement and the relationship with the local community; disproportionate pay increases for VCs and the consequent demoralisation of staff; the worsening conditions of all employees in pay and 'contracting out' to global corporations; calls for the democratisation of universities; and strategic engagement with political change. Issues such as freedom of speech, Prevent, institutional autonomy, public understanding of science to international partnerships and more are all directly or indirectly connected to the nature of governance. The governance of US universities is said to involve the triple duty of fiduciary, academic and moral responsibilities; there may be no limit to the responsibilities of governors.
A recent colloquium on governance focussed on the need for creativity in the global market of higher education and the needs for science innovation and pedagogic development (University Governance and Creativity, European Review, Cambridge, 2018). Whatever the limited pool of talent available for the lay governance of universities the UK stands strong in the league table for sectoral autonomy, scoring top at 100% in the European University Association (EUA) review in 2017. This is nonsense. Or rather, the concept of autonomy is nonsense for universities. It is an enlightenment concept out of Kant as a condition for moral agency and the categorical imperative. 'Independence' may be a better term to be used for organisations, but independence from what or whom? No organisation (or person) is context free or without history.
Explanations of university autonomy often appeal to von Humboldt and/or Newman; both had contextual arguments for independence from. In the first case, independence from crazed minor princes in the Holy Roman Empire or a Prussian king seeking fame as an enlightened autocrat making whimsical appointments; in the second, independence from the strictures of a bone-headed clergy in Dublin. (Interestingly, public state universities in the USA have senior appointments made by the state governor, boneheaded creationist or not.) Given the constraints and historical conditions for universities the question arises: is the governance what is needed? A related question then is what are universities dependent upon?
The EUA review of degrees of autonomy is flawed in assessing governance as either unitary or binary. In a unitary model the board of governors receives a strong or determining input from a senate or academic board. In the binary model the academic receives instruction from the governance/ management. The UK is assumed by the EUA to be a unitary model, but any academic input is strongly mediated by the management/executive, which to a large degree determines the agenda for the boards of governance and also sets the conditions for academic performance and structures. How can autonomy be graded? In the same way we might ask: how can uniqueness be conditional?
The end of the public sector higher education (PSHE) sector ended not just the polytechnics (and the soon to be promoted colleges of HE), it ended an accountability regime linked to local democracy. The Education Reform Act 1988 not only abolished that mechanism for local accountability (and, for good measure, the architecture of accountability with the abolition of the Inner London Education Authority and regional advisory councils), it put in place a system for the self-replication of governing bodies once Secretary of State Kenneth Baker had approved the initial tranche of governors. 30 years later we have a uniform system of accountability dominated by a specific professional outlook and culture.
A sample of the experiences of governors, if we ignore the small minorities of academic and student governors, is salutary*.
There are minor differences in board membership between Russell Group and post-92 institutions, but the similarities seem more important. The striking feature of governing bodies is the preponderance of accountants, or rather senior executives of the major accounting firm. In my sample one Russell board has four members with current or recent professional experience with the big four accountancy firms. This is not unusual; another Russell has three members similarly engaged. 'High powered' accountancy skills are of course useful in overseeing a £multi-million business such as a university.
However, the political and social values that go with the high-level accountancy skills are now intricately connected to external political discourse and practice: the governor who advised on the privatisation of the railways, or the advisor on the HBOS-Lloyds merger; the advisor to the government on deregulation in HR, the directors (regional or national) of the CBI. There are others: financiers, bankers, corporate lawyers, big pharma directors, entrepreneurs in a range of consultancies, a smattering of retired senior civil servants and even a lead figure in the Student Loans Company. Any concern about the impact of the REF and TEF on academic staff would be overridden by a priority to ensure that targets are delivered.
The values and ethos of the individuals who comprise the governance of universities are not left outside the boardrooms. Why would they enter governance if they did not bring with them the normative values of their competences? And such competencies, if they can be described as such, carry with them a world view of how others should be and do.
Post-92 governors are less elevated; not as many MBEs, OBEs or knighthoods as the Russell Group. And there are more public sector roles such as youth justice, charities, health service executives, housing associations, media executives and senior local government or police service officers. There are some interesting outliers in the post-92 sector with senior women executives in industry, but – albeit to a lesser extent – the bankers and senior accounting partners are still there.
The concern for diversity – there is some ethnic and gender diversity in the post-92 group, less so in the Russell Group – is diminished by the uniformity of seniority and positions of power that all board members have in the private or public sectors as CEOs, partners, and chairs of boards, with what is likely to be a uniform ideological outlook on the world. It has been suggested that remuneration (£20K pa has been mooted by the Committee of University Chairs (CUC)) would encourage more to volunteer their time and expertise on boards of governors, but the current incumbents are similar to those great and good who always seem to have volunteered in the past; they can afford to volunteer, others will be providing the work/value while they sit on the boards.
Remuneration would be appropriate if the board members needed the money to enable them to attend board meetings. The suggested amount from the CUC is more than annual wages for many.
Halting the self-replicating nomenklatura of these boards would be difficult, requiring an external intervention to put forward board members of a different character and set of values; perhaps those who are antithetical to the interests of the Student Loans Company, to privatisation of public services and the burdens taxpayers suffered with the banking crisis of 2008. But there have been interventions on board membership before – in the 1988 Act which ended 'donnish dominion', thanks to the groundwork in the Jarratt Report. Some may protest that this would be an attack on institutional autonomy, but autonomy is not an unqualified condition of the success of universities in the UK, notwithstanding the glowing report from the EUA.
The CUC code of conduct requires governors to have the interests of the HEI at heart, but governors' perceptions, values and interests will determine assessments of current and future positions. Given the monoculture and common discipline background, there may not be enough disagreement. Such uniformity calls for more creativity in governance. The focus will be on the operational imperatives of performing well within the current context, a context of 'academic capitalism', with a well-known critique which may not be accessible in governance or top down management. The lineaments of such a regime are: funding via student enrolments; quality assurance regulatory systems; marketisation; the OfS regulatory framework; financial viability standards; league tables; branding and consumerisation of education.
The freedom of the market is an ideological position: the market is externally created and freedom for action and conscience is limited by the external impositions. These conditions are not only handed down by the OfS but from 'advisory' instructions from government on an annual basis to consider participation rates, schools links, the green agenda, grade inflation, freedom of speech (yet again), consumer rights for students, et al. The fiduciary responsibilities of governance leave little room for manoeuvre and no prospect of supererogatory action. The advisory, regulatory and the bigger socio-economic conditions, from mobility and debt aversion to the international market for students, predetermine the scope of governance.
In contrast to the UK's HE market superstructure there is a telling edict in the EU Lisbon Treaty, which has lofty expressions of modernisation and the knowledge economy but also asks universities to contribute to the advancement of democracy. We will not have to worry about that anymore. Given the experience of many lay board members in being directly engaged in engineering the market conditions which prevail for universities it would be surprising if boards did not find a normalcy, a correctness in the prevailing conditions. The other responsibilities of governance for academic and moral matters as expected in the USA seem simply preposterous.
Beyond the need to broaden the experiential background of governors, we can also question the constitution of boards. Current expertise can be useful for audit, financial oversight and stress testing business planning (although the big four accountancy firms have had some remarkable involvement in corporate failures in the recent past), but to duplicate this at full board means a loss of opportunities for the more discursive. The current uniformity also explains why, notwithstanding the managerial links of performance to executive leadership, high levels of pay for VCs are not considered exceptional by remuneration committees – they share the same atmosphere.
Reform of governance structures means that some of the axioms in mission statements should be considered as governance issues. If universities are 'communities of scholars' then why is the governance of that community in the hands of corporate accountants, financiers and directors of privatised public assets? If universities are to play a role in partnership with the local community in the civic mission then what of the governance implications with that community?
Finally, how can the academic/senate discourse connect with corporate governance? This is not simply about which will take priority: first we must ask, can they talk to each other? The simple hierarchical format of governance 'works' in terms of financial viability (more or less) and international status and delivery (more or less) but that should not be confused with overall efficacy. Other historical conditions contribute to the success of the HE sector – or rather, parts of the sector, as some struggle to survive in the market, or exit.
There is talk of the need to devolve managerial leadership, not always a happy experience if distant and indirect corporate performance targets give way to local bullying. Weakening governance by having the not so great and the good might not alter the dynamic of executive leadership; management might become even more powerful and autocratic. Anecdotal evidence suggests that, too often, challenging and questioning the executive is rare.
The deeper problem is to disperse governance from the hierarchical to a more clustered and broader stakeholder approach. Beware the unanalysed ideological values that we all bring to bear on decision making. Let's ditch the concept of autonomy which is a historical accident in semantic terms and begin some creative discussions on what creative governance should look like.
Sherer, M and Zakaria, I (2018) 'Mind that gap! An investigation of gender imbalance on the governing bodies of UK universities' Studies in Higher Education 43(4): 719-736
*I looked at 12 universities, six Russell Group and six post-92 universities. Some governing bodies are known as Council, some have changed their title to Board of Trustees, but all have the same legal responsibilities for the institution. The Committee of Universities Chairs (CUC) has produced 3 advisory reports on remuneration of senior staff, one advisory report on Prevent, and on student's (sic) unions.
Categories: Leadership Governance & Management | Tags: board membership, corporate governance, HE Leadership, leadership, markets and universities, public sector higher education, university autonomy, university boards, university governance | Permalink.
Five stages of marketisation in English higher education policymaking
by Colin McCaig
The use of the term 'neoliberal' to describe the marketisation of HE systems implies a 'grand design' that takes a public service like HE and creates a market; however it seemed to me that this differed from a 'free capitalist market', nor did my understanding of the historical development of HE in England seem to reflect such a simple linearity of design. Therefore I decided a couple of years ago to really nail down what neoliberal marketisation means in the context of the English HE system. The result was The marketisation of English higher education: a policy analysis of a risk-based system, my 2018 book summarised in a paper to the SRHE Research Conference in December 2018. Employing a political discourse analysis (PDA) approach to a close reading of 16 HE policy documents over the last thirty years I identified five distinct stages of marketisation policy, reflected in arguments used to justify reform:
Stage 1: efficiency, accountability and human capital (1986-1992)
This stage was exemplified by reforms highlighted in: the Jarratt (1985) Report on university management and the Croham Report (1986) on the future of the University Grants Committee; the 1987 White Paper; the 1988 Education Reform Act; and the 1992 Further and Higher Education Act. Arguments deployed included the need for 'New Public Management' thinking: ideas that promoted entrepreneurialism among university and polytechnic leaders. University and polytechnic boards, and the new Universities Funding Council, would henceforth include business representatives; individual academics were also encouraged to be more entrepreneurial, selling their expertise as consultants. At the same time the binary system would be unified and expanded in the hope that institutional competition would ensue, the better to meet the changing basis of demand for human capital in the knowledge economy of the future.
Stage 2: diversity as a good (1992-2000)
Policy documents during the 1990s largely celebrated and encouraged diversity and the prospects for widening participation. The new landscape of different types of institutions and modes of HE were seen as essential for expansion and lifelong learning needs. While the discourse shifted radically in some ways from stage 1, human capital needs were still to the fore – as important as social justice arguments when it came to arguing for a widening of participation. The Dearing Report (1997) encapsulated most of the debates around the future size and shape of the sector and how to fund expansion, recommending the introduction of partial fees. Commissioned by the Conservatives, it reported to an incoming Labour government wedded to social justice objectives and lifelong learning.
Stage 3: diversity becomes differentiation (2003-2010)
The major policy statements covered in this stage – the 2003 White Paper, 2004 HE Act, and the 2009 White Paper – introduced radically new arguments for a new purpose. No longer would system diversity be celebrated for its own sake, HEIs were now exhorted to differentiate their offer in the marketplace to attract applicant-consumers. Responding to institutional pressures for more funding, government introduced a variable tuition fee, on the assumption that only the most highly-demanded universities would justify the higher fee of £3,000 per annum. The policy arguments used in this stage were unusually reactive; the Russell Group and 1994 Group of universities had long lobbied for 'top-up fees', partly on the basis of actual costs but also because they believed they needed to be differentiated in the market from 'other' universities and types of HEIs. Greater centralisation paved the way for the regulatory framing for the market we see in 2019.
Stage 4: competitive differentiation (2010-15)
This stage can be seen mainly as the continuation of the implications of the previous stage – the arguments deployed in the Browne Review of HE funding and student finance (2010) and the 2011 White Paper Students at the heart of the systemdominated policy discourse. The need to have an efficient, responsive differential system reflecting a competitive fee distribution, to (roughly) match the UCAS points distribution between highly-demanded and less demanded institutions, became more critical in the era of £9,000 a year tuition fees. This decision can be seen as the key driver of virtually all policy since 2010.
Stage 5: risk and exit: the completion of the market?
The 2015 Green Paper and 2016 White Paper introduced proposals and legislative measures finally to actuate the variable tuition-fee market as envisaged as long ago as 2003. The Higher Education and Research Act introduced a single regulator for all and any HE providers – the omnipotent Office for Students (OfS) which manages, via quality oversight and funding incentives, the system of risk-based monitoring that is designed to encourage 'exit' for failing providers, to be replaced, if necessary, by new alternative providers encouraged in turn by lower Degree Awarding Powers and University Title barriers to market entry.
Marketisation 1986-2019: a tortured path or linear progression?
At the time of writing no providers have been allowed to fail/exit and many in the sector are in denial that government would ever allow it to happen: but that is the iron logic of the market thus constructed. Successive OfS and government statements (from OfS Chair Michael Barber, and successive Universities Ministers Sam Gyimah and Chris Skidmore) have been at pains to reassure us that they will not prop up a failing institution, defined as one that that fails to attract enough applicant-consumers willing to pay a given tuition fee. New providers, coming to market with a cheaper offer, will finally create downward pressure on (stubbornly un-differentiated) fees: 'failing' providers either lower their fees or risk losing students to the competition. Needless to say, none of this harms the established research-intensive 'elite' providers that had been lobbying for differential fees since the late 1990s.
Was all this part of a grand neoliberal design, a blueprint for marketisation? Or a collection of reactive decisions designed to ameliorate the effects of the unintended consequences of previous reforms, or indeed externalities such as the 2008 crash? Diversity and (largely unplanned) expansion certainly begat defensive differentiation among the existing (pre-1992) universities, which immediately called for the right to charge 'top-up' fees in the name of differentiation. Government, meanwhile, trying to widen participation for human capital as well as social justice purposes, also needing to satisfy the pre-1992s, hit upon choice for the applicant consumer in the run up to the 2003 White Paper as the mechanism that would allow applicants to see where the most highly valued HE was to be found. The Times Higher Education duly obliged with the first wave of its 'price-list' domestic league tables from 2005. While commercial league tables never featured in any policy statement, officially endorsed indicators of 'quality' such as the National Student Survey, the Destination of Leavers from HE survey and a UNISTATs website containing consumer information were all conceived at this dawning of the competitive market, all in the name of differentiating the system so that applicants could differentiate the pre-1992 'wheat' from the post-1992 'chaff'.
The 'end-stage' of the market (HERA 2017) attempts to open up the system to cheap incomers that maybe, just maybe, will provide the much needed downward pressure on average tuition costs. Poorer students are exhorted to think hard about increasing their own (and public) future debt by choosing the wrong kind of HE providers: the 2016 White Paper celebrates the good access record of many 'new providers' and the virtues of alternatives such as apprenticeships. After twenty years of promoting the 'graduate premium' (first noted in the Dearing Report 1997), the White Paper points out how differentiated that benefit can be, and promises us more sophisticated evidence from tax returns (LEO data) to dissuade those with the least chance of enhancing their life though HE.
Colin McCaig is Professor of Higher Education Policy at the Sheffield Institute of Education, Sheffield Hallam University He has published extensively on widening participation and system differentiation and is a political scientist by background. His book The marketisation of English Higher Education: a policy analysis of a risk-based system, was published by Emerald Publishing (ISBN: 9781787438576) in 2018
Categories: Policy and HE | Tags: marketisation, Marketisation of HE, marketisation policy, markets and universities, neoliberal, neoliberalsim | Permalink.
by SRHE News Blog
Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way
Sam Gyimah MP, Minister of State for Universities and Science
Dear Minister
If asked to sum up in a single word the direction of higher education policy from 2010 onwards, I think that many of us who try to follow Government thinking on these matters might say that the word would be "markets". In successive White Papers and speeches, ministers have insisted that fee-paying students should see themselves as customers buying services from a university provider, which in turn should be competing with other providers in the higher education marketplace to offer the best value for money to student customers. In this way, your predecessors have argued, quality would go up and costs would come down, as happens in most markets for consumer goods. The Government has encouraged this trend by demanding that universities provide more information on which student-customers might base their purchasing decisions – most recently the TEF and the LEO data – and by encouraging new entrants into the marketplace with the aim of sharpening competition further.
Many of us in universities rather doubted that trying to create a straightforward market-type relationship between universities and their students was the best way to organise teaching and learning. For a start, there is little evidence that students themselves want a relationship on these terms: the great majority of students surveyed in the HEPI 2018 Student Academic Experience Survey, for example, arguably preferred a pre-2004 Act, certainly a pre-2011 White Paper, funding model. I think that one reason for this – paying lower fees is no doubt another – is because they understand that in order to learn effectively they must engage with the academic life of the university in a way that is qualitatively different to, say, my engagement with Sainsbury's when I go shopping there. Sainsbury's does not expect its customers to help create the products which appear on its shelves; and if I'm unimpressed with them today, and I can see what Tesco are up to tomorrow. I have made no particular commitment to the Sainsbury's way of shopping. Forgive me if this seems terribly obvious, but it has not always been clear that ministers fully appreciated this distinction.
Although many of us didn't much like its implications, we did at least think we knew that Government saw our relationship with our students in these transactional, market-based terms. But then, Minister, along you come saying that, on the contrary, we should be in loco parentis to our students, acting (for instance) as go-betweens with their parents or guardians if we have concerns about their mental health (as reported in The Guardian, 28 June). This is not just overthrowing normal market relationships – Sainsbury's in truth couldn't care less about my personal well-being – it is redefining universities' relationships with their students, and in an unhelpful way. (Having a duty of care towards both students and staff members is a different matter.) If I may say so, this has the distinct feel of political grandstanding, wanting to be seen to be acting decisively in response to – what, exactly? Of course, mental illness is desperately serious for the families and friends of those suffering from its various forms, needing the involvement of skilled professionals. A particular concern may be that suicide could result from overlooking a person's symptoms. (Though suicide in the UK is actually a good-news story – so to speak – as ONS data show that the number of suicide deaths has been falling steadily over recent decades. Middle-aged, disadvantaged men are most likely to commit suicide – and they don't constitute a large part of the student demographic.)
But what should be the role of a university in relation to its adult students with mental health problems? Nicola Barden writing for WonkHE on 28 June (do you read it, Minister? – you should) identifies a few of the problems which the proposed opt-in system, allowing universities to contact a student's parents or other nominated individuals in the event of a mental health crisis, will create. Any social worker will tell you that relationships within families can be difficult in ways that outsiders can't immediately detect: any member of university staff intruding here must be certain that they will not cause further harm – and how can they know that for sure? Imagine a situation where a parent of a student with mental health difficulties believes that the university will contact them in the event of a crisis – only for the student to have withdrawn that consent subsequently, not wanting their family to be involved. The university will then be in an impossible situation, having made commitments to both parties (as they will see it).
We're operating, Minister, in a Government-mandated market. Universities should support their students in their academic work, but should not set themselves up to fail as substitute families. That historically never was their role; your Government's market-focused policies have now put it completely beyond reach.
SRHE member Paul Temple, Centre for Higher Education Studies, UCL Institute of Education, University College London.
Categories: Government & Higher Education Policy | Tags: markets, markets and universities, student mental health, Universities | Permalink.


text:
Stibbe advises Dyme
Banking and Finance Digital Economy Financial Regulation Stibbe StartsUP Financial Institutions
Stibbe has advised fintech company Dyme on obtaining a PSD2 licence for the provision of Account Information Services (AIS) from the Dutch Central Bank. Dyme is the first independent payment service for consumers in the Netherlands to receive this licence. Dyme's success may signal the beginning of a trend for other Dutch and foreign payment service providers - including Brexit-impacted parties - to also apply for licences to operate as payment service providers in the Netherlands.
Dyme is a participant of the Stibbe StartsUP program, and has developed an innovative app to help users keep track of their finances. The app uses bank data and the latest machine learning technology to help its users manage various payments (such as subscriptions to Netflix), energy suppliers, and telephone contracts. The Dyme app allows users to see all of their recurring payments in one overview, and to cancel or change subscriptions with one single click - without ever having to leave the app.
Key contact(s)
Roderik Vrolijk
Lisanne van Boven


If you're looking at a new car purchase in the near future, you should be doing a lot of research about different vehicles out there. Depending on what you're looking at, you might notice multiple prices for the same car. For example, a TV commercial may advertise a 2018 Lexus IS 300 differently than the price you might see on a website. This might be confusing, but the reasoning is pretty simple. Many outlets will only show you the MSRP of the car (Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price). This is set by the Manufacturer, for example, Lexus, as a recommended sale price, and is the only one that an outlet legally has to show. However, at Lexus of Richmond Hill, we want to be upfront about our prices, which is why we include all fees in our pricing.
In Ontario, all dealerships must advertise their prices according to OMVIC (Ontario Motor Vehicle Industry Council) regulations. One of those regulations is, we must advertise the "All-In Price", which is MSRP (Manufacturers Suggested Retailing Price) plus all applicable fees and levies such as Freight & PDI, the Environment Handling Fee, OMVIC Fees and Tire Levies. Not all advertising complies with this regulation, and sometimes you will just see MSRP Advertised. All dealerships will charge the "All-In Price", but you might not know that until you're sitting at the negotiation table. At Lexus of Richmond Hill, it is our policy to be upfront, honest and clear about our pricing. See the graphic above for a complete breakdown of pricing.
Can I purchase a Lexus vehicle directly from the manufacturer or distributor?
No. All retail sales transactions of Lexus vehicles are processed directly through Lexus dealerships in Canada, so you must contact a Toyota dealer. Lexus Canada is the distributor of new Lexus vehicles in Canada and is responsible for the warranties of these vehicles.
Canadian Black Book is a highly regarded and extensively used independent third party organization, specializing in the valuation of used automobiles in Canada. Toyota is pleased to present you with this third party data as a reference in estimating the value of your current vehicle. The actual cash value of a trade-in vehicle can only be determined through an appraisal at a participating Toyota dealership.
MSRP is an acronym that stands for manufacturer's suggested retail price. Manufacturers (i.e. Audi) use MSRP as a base price to give retailers their estimated value of a product. This is not the usually the actual price of an item, but rather what the manufacturer suggests as the maximum price that the item could be expected to sell for.
Dealers, are free to offer the vehicle for a lesser price, but never more on a new retail vehicle.
MSRP generally does not include additional trim levels, options, accessories, Freight, PDI, administration fees, or taxes.
Buying a used vehicle can be a very stressful experience. In any situation where you're spending so much money, you want to be sure you have all the information available on what you are buying to make the best decision you can. You don't want to go on just what you've been told - you want impartial, thorough, accurate, and timely data. As well, not only do CarProof reports protect your wallet, but most importantly, having this information helps protect your family from the possibility of purchasing a vehicle that could be unsafe.
Does Lexus provide assistance for importing Lexus vehicles to Canada?
The MSRP and rates used above are approximate and used only as an example. Please see your Dealer for current finance and lease rates.
*Taxes (GST & PST) are 13% in this example.
"Afford" a nicer car. If you've ever wondered how it is that so many people can afford to drive an RX or IS, then wonder no more. According to LeaseGuide.com, around 75% of all luxury cars are leased. The reason is because banks don't like to loan out more than $30,000 for a car loan. If you want a car that's worth more than that and you don't have the money to make up the difference, leasing is your only option. On the upside, your monthly payment will be lower than if you actually bought a car. Leasing allows you to "afford" a nicer car than you'd get if you had to buy it.
What is the difference between an open or closed end lease?
Are leased cars covered by Lemon Laws?
What if I've decided to buy, not lease?
Which cars make the best lease deals?
This will vary by manufacturer but the bets are the brands with higher resale values( Toyota and Lexus are good examples). They provide good value any time.
Where can genuine Lexus parts be purchased?
Genuine Lexus parts and accessories are sold through our Parts Department. Our Parts Personnel can determine the availability and price of the parts and accessories required, and can assist in the processing of your order.
Always use Snow Tires when driving on snow or ice. Select snow tires of the same size, construction and load capacity as the original equipment tires.
All four tires must be the same brand and have the same tread patterns.
Observe these precautions to help prevent accidents. Failure to do so may cause damage to parts of the drive train, as well as dangerous handling characteristics, which may lead to injury or fatal accidents.
Are genuine Lexus oil filters better for my Lexus?
There may be differences between genuine Lexus filters and aftermarket filters. Genuine Lexus filters are designed and engineered to fit Lexus vehicles specifically and to maintain the filtration of dirt or particles within the oil to match the recommended oil change interval of 8000 km. Aftermarket filters may not have the same fit or be manufactured to the same standards as genuine Lexus filters and may cause engine concerns.
No. Non-Genuine Lexus Parts, or any damage or failures resulting from their use, are not covered by any Lexus warranty. Only Genuine Lexus Parts and Accessories are covered by the Lexus Replacement Parts and Accessories Warranties.
Where do I find information on the services required to maintain a Lexus vehicle?
Lexus Guests can find information on vehicle maintenance in the Owner's Manual Supplement. You may also access an online schedule in our Maintenance section.
What are some common reasons why the BRAKE indicator light is illuminated?
The light will also be on if the brake fluid is slightly lower than allowed. That is usually an indication that the brake pads are worn and need service soon.
The worst-case scenario is that the brake system is leaking fluid, which could lead to hydraulic failure resulting in no braking power. The driver would feel the brake pedal become spongy, and braking power required would steadily decrease or become more difficult. The driver should not drive the vehicle in this situation. The vehicle should be towed and repaired. Additional diagnostics that may be performed by the dealer include: parking brake adjustment, parking brake warning switch, parking brake warning switch wiring harness and connected components, brake fluid-level warning switch, brake fluid-level warning switch wiring harness and connected components.
Does the Owner's Manual state the minimum required maintenance for my Lexus?
Maintaining your Lexus vehicle according to the recommendations in the Warranty and Services Guide Scheduled Maintenance Log is required to ensure that your warranty coverage remains intact. Your Lexus dealer may recommend more frequent maintenance intervals or more maintenance services than those listed in the Warranty and Services Guide. These additional services are not required to maintain your warranty coverage. Please ask your dealer for an explanation of any recommended maintenance not included in the Scheduled Maintenance Log.
How important is a tire's treadwear rating?
When choosing a new set of tires, the treadwear rating offers no guarantee of the mileage a customer will get. Weather, driving habits, road conditions, alignment and tire maintenance all affect tread life. The treadwear rating merely lets a customer compare the potential life of different tires. Also, these ratings may be interpreted differently by different tire manufacturers. Refer to the appropriate Warranty and Services Guide for specific tire manufacturer limited warranty.
A maintenance-free battery is designed to capture and return evaporated fluids to the battery reservoir. Water may not be added because the battery cells are sealed closed.
Can I use synthetic engine oil in my Lexus vehicle during its break-in period?
Synthetic oil can be used at the first scheduled oil change. Please note that some models have specific synthetic oil specifications, and the use of synthetic oil does not extend the recommended oil change intervals. Please refer to the Lexus Warranty and Services Guide for further information regarding the proper maintenance schedule for your specific vehicle. If synthetic oil is used after that time, it should be the same SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) weight specification and meet or exceed the API (American Petroleum Institute) grade specifications listed in the Owner's Manual. Even if synthetic oil is used, we do not recommend longer oil change intervals. Once synthetic oil is used, it is best not to switch back to petroleum-based oil.
What precautions do I need to take during the break-in period for my new Lexus?
A few simple tips for the first 1,600 km can add to the future economy and long life of your new Lexus. These tips can be found in your Owner's Manual. Refer to the index for the exact page location.
What is the Vehicle Identification Number?
The Vehicle Identification Number, or VIN, is a sequence of 17 alphanumeric characters used to uniquely identify your vehicle. The VIN on vehicles purchased prior to 1992 may consist of fewer digits. Toyota VINs beginning with "2" indicate vehicles assembled in Canada. Vehicles with VINs beginning with "1", "4", or "5" represent vehicles assembled in the United States. Vehicles with VINs beginning with "J" were produced in Japan. The 2nd digit indicates the Manufacturer, which is Toyota. The next 6 digits (3 through 8) are the Vehicle Description Section (VDS). These provide information on the vehicle, engine, model and body style. The ninth digit is a check digit used internally. The 10th digit indicates the model year. Letters (except "O" and "Z") were used for vehicles up to the 2000 model year, while numbers are used for 2001 and newer vehicles. For example, "X" means the 1999 model year, "Y" is the 2000 model year and "1" represents the 2001 model year. The 11th digit is the plant code. Finally, digits 12 - 17 are the unique vehicle serial number. The letter "O" is never used in a VIN. "0" always refers to the number zero.
What should be done to a Lexus vehicle to prepare it for long-term storage?
Before storing car: Change engine oil, change coolant if due during time of expected length storage, fill up fuel tank, wash vehicle using high-pressure water or steam to clean underneath. Rub the leather seat surfaces with an approved cleaner and allow dry in a ventilated, shaded area. Check underneath floor mats  ensure carpet is dry. If there are any paint chips, have them repaired. (Customer should be aware that Lexus recommends operating A/C compressor once month proper lubrication. stored for long time, it could detrimental compressor.) When Operate at normal temperature 15 minutes prior shutting off engine. Disconnect negative battery cable. (If applicable, radio ddc-radio may lock up.) Leave parking brake off. Put on blocks. temperate, ventilated garage, windows can left cracked slightly open. Cover vehicle. bringing out storage: Charge reconnect add underhood fluid levels as needed. inflate tires correct pressures before taking After starting engine, observe warning lights. remain illuminated, issue addressed by dealer appropriate. pedal feel (height firmness) shifting transmission. Take general inspection.
How do I clean the interior and exterior of my Lexus?
Remove dirt and dust using a vacuum cleaner. Wipe dirty surfaces with a soft cloth damp with warm water.
When cleaning carpet and cloth interior, remove dirt and dust using a vacuum cleaner. Apply a foaming-type carpet cleaner with sponge or bruish, allowing cleaner to work for a few minutes to loosen dirt. Continue by rubbing carpet and cloth interior in a circular motion. Wipe off excess with a clean cloth. If any dirt remains, repeat process. Best results are obtained by keeping carpet and cloth interior as dry as possible.
When cleaning leather, remove dirt and dust using a vacuum cleaner. Using a small amount of neutral wood detergent mixed in water, apply to leather using a sponge, rubbing in a circular motion. Wipe off excess detergent and let leather dry in an open air location.
Working from top to bottom, apply lots of low pressure water to vehicle body, wheel wells and underside of the vehicle to remove any dirt or dust. Wash tehj vehicle body using a soft sponge or soft cotton cloth with mild car wash soap. Rinse off with water.
Wax vehicle paint if water does not bead on a clean vehicle surface. Using a soft cotton cloth, apply car wax when the vehicle body is cool.
Wait for hot wheels to cool before getting wheels wet.
Using a soft sponge or soft cotton cloth, apply same mild car wash soap as used for the paint. Quickly rinse off soap with water. Using a soft cotton cloth, apply car wax as used for the paint.
Can a customer obtain a replacement VIN plate?
If the customer has a full VIN plate to turn into the Lexus dealer, the Lexus dealer may submit a replacement application and the damaged VIN plate to Lexus Technical Compliance. The existing VIN plate must be complete and legible in order for Lexus to review the application. Lexus Technical Compliance will not provide a replacement VIN plate if the existing VIN plate is not legible or if the VIN is partially or fully missing.
How do I check Bluetooth Phone Capability?
This video shows you how to check phone compatibility at www.lexus.com/mobilelink, pair a compatible phone, and place hands-free calls. This video applies to 2013 models equipped with navigation, except GX. ES with remote touch controller is shown, IS and LX with touch screen operate similarly.
How do I program my garage door opener?
This video shows you how to program compatible garage door openers and remote-control entry gates. ES shown, other models similar.
How to use All-Speed Dynamic Cruise Control?
This video shows you how to use All-Speed Dynamic Cruise Control, available on 2013 LS. If your 2013 LS has the vehicle-to-vehicle distance button on the steering wheel, your vehicle has this feature.
How to use and adjust the Remote Touch?
For models equipped with Navigation and Remote Touch Controller, this video shows you how to use and adjust the Remote Touch, which controls the navigation system, audio system, climate controls, and Bluetooth® features.


Everyone is excited for Captain Marvel, the first female superhero to get her own film in the hugely profitable Marvel Cinematic Universe. With buzz building for its upcoming release, Marvel has just released a new featurette, and to be honest, it only increases our anticipation.
The feature focuses in on the training and preparation that star Brie Larson underwent to physically and mentally transform into Captain Carol Danvers, a.k.a. Captain Marvel.
Set to kick off a ginormous year for Marvel, Captain Marvel introduces us to the famed Danvers, allowing her to be involved in the upcoming Avengers: Endgame, the final film for many of the characters within the MCU that we have come to love.
Spider-Man: Far From Home, the third Marvel film to be released in 2019, will hit theaters in July.
Captain Marvel co-stars Samuel L. Jackson, Gemma Chan, Lee Pace, Jude Law, Ben Mendelsohn, Djimon Hounsou, Annette Bening, and Clark Gregg. Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, the film hits theaters March 8.


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UnitedHealth Group $70,200 jobs nationwide
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Senior Behavioral Medical Director TN
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No industry is moving faster than health care. And no organization is better positioned to lead health care forward. And you'll do your life's best work.(sm)....
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There's an energy and excitement here, a shared mission to improve the lives of others as well as our own. Nursing here isn't for everybody....
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Relax into your body either laying down, or sitting, with the eyes closed. Relax deeply into each out breath and let go of all your concerns. Allow your mind to become fresh in this moment. Hear your out breath like a gentle flowing river.
Now, in the space of your heart, ask yourself, what are my heartfelt aspirations for this life? What would make me truly happy? How do I see this life unfolding in which I am truly thriving, both with worldly happiness, and inner happiness? What would it be like to realize this? Reflect and see what comes to mind. Allow yourself to be indulgent, flamboyant, and to have an adventure, wishing this for yourself, as your best friend. Allow yourself to be scandalously optimistic. Becoming a dream weaver of your own life.
Then consider that the deepest dimension of your being is the root of your yearning for happiness, and imagine this pure dimension symbolically as an orb of white light at your heart, cascading throughout your whole body, and saturating your mind with each out breath.
Stay a while here with these images, and begin to see them transpiring with each out breath, as you say to yourself, "May I be truly happy". Breath by breath, imagine the fulfillment of your own dreams and aspirations blossoming, here and now.
As we are inextricably dependent on many others to live our innermost dreams, what would you love to receive from others and from your environment to realize your heart's desire?
With each in breath, in the spirit of loving kindness, say to yourself, "may I receive all I truly need, day to day, moment to moment", and imagine all that you would love to receive, coming into you in the form of white light on each in breath, filling your heart and your entire body. Imagine here and now receiving all that you truly need. Imagine reality reaching up to meet you.
We need not only blessings and assistance, but also inner transformation. Ask yourself, in the spirit of loving kindness, what qualities of mind and behaviors would I love to be free of? What mental habits that impede my deeper aspirations and block me from the realization of true happiness would I love to discard? Imagine these leaving you with each out breath while saying to yourself, "may it be so".
What inner resources would you love to cultivate in order to bring about your deepest happiness. What qualities would you love to be invested with? With each in breath, envision your own maturation, your own growth toward the realization of your dreams, saying to yourself again, "may it be so". See yourself reshaping your inner world with these qualities strengthened and accessible within you.
With each breath imagine this transformation taking place within you here and now.
Finally, in the same spirit of loving kindness, in order to inject your life with as much meaning as possible, what kind of mark would you like to make on the world? What is the greatest good you can imagine bringing to the world so that it is a better place because you have been here, and at the end of your life, you look back with a deep sense of satisfaction, knowing this was a life well lived.
With each out breath imagine offering all the things you would like to offer, drawing on your unique background, your talents, your interests, your training, your vision. Imagine offering this here and now.
Imagine those around you receiving your offerings with joy and delight.


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Home›World News›Long- simmer tensions between trans gender women, gay men rise at celebration of World Pride
Long- simmer tensions between trans gender women, gay men rise at celebration of World Pride
A black transgender woman wanted to be heard, but the white men wanted to celebrate.
The scene at New York City's Stonewall Inn on Saturday, as reported by multiple witnesses on social media, showed how long-simmering tensions between transgender women of color and white gay men have boiled over during the celebration of World Pride and the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising.
The unidentified woman wanted to address the crowd inside the Greenwich Village gay bar where patrons fought back against police harassment 50 years ago, birthing the LGBTQ movement. She arrived unannounced and disrupted a drag show, drawing an unfriendly response at first. The crowd eventually warmed and she was given the microphone and spoke for 12 minutes.
"She read the names of the black trans women who died. Facts about them. Their obituaries. She called on everyone in the bar to help. I would like to say the audience was respectful, but there was quite a bit of chatter and a few jeers," witness Aspen Eberhardt, finance manager of the gay rights group PFLAG, wrote on Twitter.
For many gay men, this weekend's celebration is about finally being able to live their true lives, unafraid to declare who they love and being grateful for achieving virtual equality, at least in places like Greenwich Village, where the rebellion began.
But many transgender women of color, representing the T in the LGBTQ community, have seized the moment to air their grievances, such as suffering from higher levels of unemployment and homelessness as their cisgender gay and lesbian brethren.
"If pride month is the only time you talk about these issues, that's probably a sign you should look into just how privileged you are," said Darya Shirvani, 19, a white Los Angeles college student.
Moreover, trans women are often the target of violence. Some 65 transgender people, nearly all trans women of color, have been murdered in the United States since 2017, according to Human Rights Watch.
"The trans community has not made the same progress as the cis gay community has. And I think it's important to call attention to that especially because pride was started by trans people. We've been largely abandoned by the gay rights movement," said Calamity Alexis, 19, a preschool teacher living in Brooklyn who uses both he and she pronouns.
Certainly many gay white men are active in promoting transgender rights, recognizing that transgender women of color in particular suffer from discrimination in ways they did 50 years ago. Mainstream gay rights groups often make a point of standing up for trans women.
"Growing up as a gay man in Texas, I found strength in that the rest of the community was there for me. And now, with where we are now, it's my responsibility to be there for the rest of the community," said Brett Donaldson, 28, a white gay man from New York.
But there is still lingering resentment born out of the movement's origins. Two early pioneers of the Stonewall movement from the beginning in 1969 were transgender women of color, Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. But within four years, "drag queens," as they were called then, were banned from the annual gay pride parade that Johnson and Rivera helped launch.
At the Trans Day of Action, a rally in New York's Washington Square Park on Friday, people shouted: "Who started this fight?"
The crowd responded: "Trans women of color.
Qweenb Amor, 30, a nursing student from New Orleans and a trans Latina, said her activism on this topic was "an act of survival."
"Gay men, they can assimilate. The rest of us don't have the right or the privilege to blend in. We can't blend in," Amor said. "This is what it is and we need full force from the community to stand behind us."
TagsAspen EberhardtCalamity AlexisDarya ShirvaniLGBTQ communityPFLAGQweenb Amor
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Designed by noted architect Richard S. Colley in 1952, the Memorial Coliseum was completed in 1954 as part of a civic center complex including the City Hall (demolished) and Exposition Hall (demolished).
In 1952, the Design Award Jury of Progressive Architecture magazine noted the extraordinary pre-construction design. The coliseum is threatened by demolition by the City of Corpus Christi.


We've been looking at the humiliation of Christ as it is summarized in The Apostles' Creed. We've talked about his birth, sufferings, and crucifixion. But it is interesting to note that the Creed does not fail to mention that Christ actually died and, to prove such, was buried.
In this we are reminded that Christ became "maximus peccar," the supreme sinner, and bore the wages of sin. He not only suffered extreme torment, but he met the full penalty that was intended for man's disobedience.
One may wonder why it was necessary that all this happen to our Lord. Some who are of an atheistic stripe have said that this amounts to nothing other than a grotesque God because He has His own Son killed.
Yet we must remember that this is necessary for salvation. The justice of God had to be appeased. The penalty of sin is death and it was incumbent upon Christ to pay that penalty in the full if redemption was to be provided.


Simply Katricia | What are the Benefits of Essential Oils?
Diffusers are a way to get oils into the air so aromatherapy benefits can be enjoyed. Many positive effects are received for the body, mind and mood by inhaling the essential oils that are in the air.
My favorite oil to to inhale all year long is peppermint. When purchasing sets of oil, the first label I look for is peppermint. Properties of peppermint oil assists with calming the mind, pain relief, and respiratory relief. If you've ever engaged in conversation with me, you'd know that I enjoy the smell of peppermint so much that I chew peppermint gum, keep starlights in my pocketbook and desk (reminder that I need to refill my bowl), and use a Vick's Nasal Inhaler during the day and at night to relax my mind.
Using Yeouth before, I saw that there were oils used for diffusers available. Here is a preview of the benefits of each of the 6 oils in the starter therapy pack.
It may help prevent or kill head lice.
It may help curb skin inflammation.
It has a calming effect and divine fragrance.
May help kill a number of germs responsible for colds, flu and other illness.
Tea tree oil has been shown to kill or repel insects.
May help control underarm odor related to perspiration.
Applying a mixture of tea tree oil and coconut oil can help prevent minor cuts from becoming infected.
Relaxes muscular and nervous spasms.
Alleviates anxiety, anger, depression, and certain bodily inflammations.
Very good for maintaining healthy, smooth, and glamorous skin. It also helps cure acne.
Apply topically for Pain Relief.
Drink up for irritable Bowel Syndrome.
Breathe deep for Respiratory Relief.
Use orally to prevent Bad Breath.
Helps relieve pain in muscles and joints, as well as toothaches and headaches.
Detoxify the body and stimulate the production of milk.
Effective for treating a number of respiratory tract infections including cold, cough, running nose, sore throat, and nasal congestion.
Helps prevent conditions like dandruff, itchy scalp, and psoriasis.
Can also be effective in treating stress and mental disorders as inhaling its vapor help increase blood circulation to the brain.
If you use any of these essential oils on your skin, mix a few drops to a carrier oil like coconut or olive oil. If you use to digest, make sure to dilute with water.