How much does it cost to go to school for a Ancient Studies/Civilization major and what are the most affordable colleges? The average annual out-of-state cost for a bachelor program in Ancient Studies/Civilization is $56,764 with an estimated average four year degree total cost of $227,056. The most affordable bachelor program is offered by Missouri State University Springfield at an annual $24,383 out of state total cost. This represents a 57% discount from the national average program cost. University of Michigan has the nation's most popular bachelor program for Ancient Studies/Civilization with 15 degrees awarded per year.


Atrial flutter, also known as atrial fibrillation, is a type of irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia). Rather than the heart resting between beats, the upper chambers never complete a full pump-relax-pump-relax cycle and instead do a somewhat steady quivering flutter. It can be asymptomatic or feel like the heart is thudding against the chest at an alarming rate. But, more than being unsettling in sensation, it can have longterm implications in the form of heart failure, stroke, blood clots, and other complications.
This flutter happens when the electrical system in the heart doesn't function properly, whether because it was "built" that way or because of a cause like high blood pressure or coronary artery disease. As Healthline explains, "When you have AFL, the sinus node sends out the electrical signal. But part of the signal travels in a continuous loop along a pathway around the right atrium. This makes the atria contract rapidly, which causes the atria to beat faster than the ventricles. A normal heart rate is 60 to 100 beats per minute (bpm). People with AFL have hearts that beat at 250 to 300 bpm."
"What is it? This catheter has an electrode on its tip and three electrode rings nearby. The catheter has a tube for cooling the tip with liquid during use. Doctors can bend the catheter so its tip can reach the place in the heart they need to treat.
When is it used? A doctor uses this catheter with other parts of a system to diagnose and treat a condition called type I atrial flutter. This flutter is an abnormal heart rhythm causing fast heartbeat. Persons with flutter have a wide variety of symptoms and a higher risk of stroke.
How does it work? A doctor puts this catheter through a puncture in a vein until it reaches the heart. The doctor uses information from the catheter system to find the place in the heart to treat the flutter. Then, the doctor sends radiofrequency energy to destroy the place that causes flutter. The doctor then takes the catheter out.
What will it accomplish? It can treat flutter and allow the heart to work better. In a clinical study doctors used this catheter to treat108 [sic] subjects. The flutter was corrected in 94 (87%) of them during the treatment. In 81 (75%) subjects, it remained corrected 3 months later."
A heart valve flutter seems like such relatively small (in size, not in implication) and specific thing. It's incredible to think that even just a few decades ago we would have had no way of knowing what this condition was, never mind a relatively straightforward way to treat it.
There are so many conditions that affect just this one body part, the heart. In fact, we've already done posts on two different devices for two other heart conditions. One was on expanded use of a heart valve to treat aortic stenosis, and the other was on a small device to help close a specific type of hole in the heart. One of the things I love most about this work is seeing how people devote their time and resources to use technology to target specific problems. There are so many resources poured into each of these singular devices that will make a big difference in the lives of those they touch. I look forward to seeing what the future holds as technology continues to improve and advance our treatment abilities.


GAPDH as a housekeeping gene: analysis of GAPDH mRNA expression in a panel of 72 human tissues.
Oligonucleotide primers used for quantitative RT-PCR RNA target Primer sequences TNFSF15 Forward 5'-CCTGAGTATTCCAGCAACGCA-3' Reverse 5'-ATCCACCAGCTTGATGTCACTAAC-3' IL-8 Forward 5'-GGCTTGCTAGGGGAAATGA-3' Reverse 5'-AGCTGACTCTGACTAGGAAACTGT-3' GAPDH Forward 5'-GGTGGTGCTAAGCGTGTTAT-3' Reverse 5'-ACCTCTGTCATCTCTCCACA-3' RNA target PCR product size (base pair) GenBank accession no.
The thermal profile for GAPDH was performed for 28 cycles with annealing at 58 [degrees]C for 30 s and extension at 72 [degrees]C for 15 s.
In addition, GAPDH and 18S rRNA had been stably expressed in a comparative transcriptomics study of carp gonads in our laboratory (unpublished data), and the primer for 40S was acquired from Pionnier et al.
Abbreviations: FGFR, fibroblast growth factor receptor; FRS2[alpha], FGFR substrate protein-2[alpha]; GAPDH, glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase; NF-[kappa]B, nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells; P-gp, P-glycoprotein; MDR, multidrug resistance; ChIP, Chromatin immunoprecipitation.
Rasband, Research Services Branch, NIMH, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD) and normalized to the signal intensity of GAPDH for equal protein loading control of each sample in each experiment.
Following reverse transcription, the cDNA was used as template for amplification of CC chemokine ligand 3 (CCL3) and GAPDH sequences using the SYBR FAST quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) master mix (KAPA Biosystems, MA, USA) following the manufacturer's protocol.
b) We evaluated RT variability by carrying out RT-qPCR assays targeting GAPDH (glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase)  #1 on 10 cDNA replicates from of each of 6 RTases.
Housekeeping genes, such as [alpha]-TUB ([alpha]-Tubulin), [beta]-actin (Beta actin), 18s rRNA (18s ribosomal RNA), 28s rRNA (28s ribosomal RNA), GAPDH (Glyceraldehyde-3-phosphatedehydrogenase), G6PDH (Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase), [beta]-TUB (Beta-Tubulin), RPL32 (Ribosomal protein L32), EF1-[alpha] (Alpha elongation factor), ELF1-[beta] (beta elongation factor), are usually used as endogenous controls for normalization of qRT-PCR data, but the reference gene expression levels can differ under different environment conditions (Radonic' et al.
Finally, the new multiplex solutions include off-the-shelf TaqMan RNaseP and GAPDH QSY Assays, which quantify GAPDH and RNAseP genes, and are also available in a primer-limited format.
0 (Applied Biosystems) was applied on the sequence of the PEBNA-1 to obtain MGB (Minor Groove Binding) type primers/probe, for the EBNA-1-reaction and on a conserved portion of the reference sequence of human GAPDH (AC 000144, GenBank) to obtain TAMRA (tetramethylrhodamine) type primers/probe for the GAPDH-reaction.


which is not the same bit stream I see on the scope. I'm not sure what the issues are or how to debug this problem further. I am probably not using the SPI library correctly but it would help if I could use a 16 bit transfer. If someone could help how I should be using the SPI library and using a 16 bit transfer that would help.
Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide. I have attached my sketch with is in a bit of disarray since I am in the middle of debugging but please focus on the code for core 1 which is where I try to read my A2D chip.
This is odd as the TC275 does not seem to be reading the incoming bits on the MISO. The value coming back appears to be 0xAD80 which is 3.389V which I think is correct. Are there two other SPI devices on this SPI bus? It might be that their inactive MISO lines are upsetting the port pin.
I checked the CS for the other devices and none of them are active when the A2D is being used so there are no conflicts in that regard. Also keep in mind that using these 5 devices (2 D2A, 2 UFDCs, 1 A2D) worked fine with the Due used as the Arduino board so the hardware is probably OK.
0xAD80 is the MISO bit stream if you look at the center and right SCK bursts as the high and low byte respectively. I believe that the first and second SCK bursts give the high and low byte, respectively. The last read (on the right in the attached scope figure) is just to make the bit stream stable otherwise the start of the MISO is glitchy. Also the bits in the second and third read are glitchy which can't be seen in the figure. The live scope trace shows this better. I expect some glitchy behavior for the lowest bits because of noise.
Given that the correct data is on the MISO line and the TC275 is the SPI master, noise on the SCLK is probably not to blame. We have other people using SPI-based ADC chips and it seems to work. You could try adding a 4k7 pull-up resistor on the MISO line.
I don't think this a problem with the shieldbuddy. I'm not saying noise on the SCK is present, by noise I meant the glitchy MISO bits. (which can't be seen on the figure) I'll try the pullup resistor and let you know how that goes. BTW Thanks for the help.


Are dimensional models still relevant given the expansion of BI and analytics solutions?
Technological advances have enabled a breathtaking expansion in the breadth of our BI and analytics solutions. On the surface, many of these technologies appear to threaten the relevance of models in general and of the dimensional model in particular. However, a deeper look reveals that the value of the dimensional model rises with the adoption of big data technologies.
The dimensional model rose to prominence in the 1990s as data warehouse architectures evolved to include the concept of the data mart. During this period, competing architectural paradigms emerged, but all leveraged the dimensional model as the standard for data mart design. The now familiar "stars" and "cubes" that comprise a data mart became synonymous with the concept of the dimensional model.
Since the 1990s, business uses for data assets have multiplied dramatically. Data management programs have expanded beyond data warehousing to include performance management, business analytics, data governance, master data management, and data quality management.
As the scope of data management programs has grown, so too has the set of skills required to sustain them. The field of data management encompasses a broader range of specialties than ever before. Teams struggle to keep pace with the expanding demands, and data generalists are being stretched even thinner. These pressures suggest that something must give.
Amidst the buzz and hype surrounding big data, it's easy to infer that dimensional modeling skills might be among the first to go. It is now possible to manage data in a nonrelational format such as a key-value store, document collection, or graph. New processing paradigms support diverse data formats ranging from highly normalized structures to wide, single table paradigms. Schema-less technologies do not require a model to ingest new data. Virtualization promises to bring together disparate data sets regardless of format, and visualization promises to enable self-service discovery.
Coupled with the notion that the dimensional model is nothing more than a form of schema design, these developments imply it is no longer relevant, but the reality is precisely the opposite.
Schema Design: The dimensional model's best-known role, the basis for schema design, is alive and well in the age of big data. Data marts continue to reside on relational or multidimensional platforms, even as some organizations choose to migrate away from traditional vendors and into the cloud.
Although NoSQL technologies are contributing to the evolution of data management platforms, they are not rendering relational storage extinct. It is still necessary to track key business metrics over time, and on this front relational storage reigns. In part, this explains why several big data initiatives seek to support relational processing on top of platforms such as Hadoop. Nonrelational technology is evolving to support relational; the future still contains stars.
The Business View: That said, there are numerous data management technologies that do not require the physical organization of data in a dimensional format, and virtualization promises to bring disparate data together from heterogeneous data stores at the time of query. These forces lead to environments where data assets are spread across the enterprise and organized in dramatically different formats.
Here, the dimensional model becomes essential as the business view through which information assets are presented and accessed. Like the semantic layers of old, the business view serves as a catalog of information resources expressed in nontechnical terms, shielding information consumers from the increasing complexity of the underlying data structures and protecting them from the increasing sophistication needed to formulate a distributed query.
This unifying business view grows in importance as the underlying storage of data assets grows in complexity. The dimensional model is the business's entry point into the sprawling repositories of available data and the focal point that makes sense of it all.
Information Requirements and Project Scope: As data management programs have expanded to include performance management, analytics, and data governance, information requirements take on a new prominence. In addition to supporting these new service areas, they become the glue that links them together. The process-oriented measurement perspective of the dimensional model is the core of this interconnected data management environment.
The dimensional model of a business process provides a representation of information needs that simultaneously drives the traditional facts and dimensions of a data mart, the key performance indicators of performance dashboards, the variables of analytics models, and the reference data managed by governance and MDM.
In this light, the dimensional model becomes the nexus of a holistic approach managing BI, analytics, and governance programs. In addition to supporting a unified road map across these functions, a single set of dimensional requirements enables their integration. Used at a program level to define the scope of projects, the dimensional model makes possible data marts and dashboards that reflect analytics insights, analytics that link directly to business objectives, performance dashboards that can drill to OLAP data, and master data that is consistent across these functions.
Editor's Note: This author will be leading an in-depth session on this topic at TDWI Chicago.


Find out which are the 16 growth areas in the City of Casey.
The Berwick Waterways Precinct is located in Berwick. The precinct connects to the existing community via Centre Road, Homestead Road and Ward Road.
The Botanic Ridge growth area is bounded by Ballarto Road and the Royal Botanic Gardens to the north, Pearcedale Road to the west, Browns Road to the south and Craig Road to the east.
The Brompton Lodge PSP is in Cranbourne South. Brompton Lodge is bounded by Ballarto Road to the north, Cranbourne-Frankston Road to the south and Western Port Highway to the west.
The Cardinia Creek South Precinct Structure Plan. The Precinct Structure Plan shows how the land is expected to be developed.
The Casey Central Town Centre is located at the corner of Narre Warren-Cranbourne Road and Glasscocks Road.
The Casey Fields South Employment Precinct Structure Plan (PSP) is located in Clyde The precinct is bounded by Ballarto Road to the north, Clyde Five-Ways Road to the east and South Gippsland Highway to the South.
The Casey Fields South Residential PSP is located in Cranbourne East. Casey Fields South is bounded by Clyde-Five Ways Road to the east, Casey Fields Boulevard to the west, South Gippsland Highway to the south and the Casey Fields Sportsground to the north.
The Clyde Creek growth area is located on Casey's eastern growth front. It is bounded by Hardys Road to the north, Pound Road to the north-east, Bells Road to the east, Ballarto Road to the south and Clyde Five-Ways Road to the west.
The Clyde North Precinct is bounded by Grices Road to the north, Cardinia Creek to the east, Thomspons Road to the south and Pound Road to the west.
The Clyde South Precinct Structure Plan area is bounded by Ballarto Road to the north, Clyde-Five Ways Road to the west and Manks Road to the south.
The Cranbourne East Precinct is located in Cranbourne East. The precinct is bounded by Brocker Street to the north, Berwick-Cranbourne Road to the east. The Leongatha rail reserve to the south and south-west.
The Cranbourne North Stage 2 Precinct Structure Plan (PSP) is bounded by Glasscocks Road to the north, Narre Warren-Cranbourne Road to the west, Thompsons Road to the south and Berwick-Cranbourne Road to the east.
The Cranbourne West Precinct is located in Cranbourne West. The precinct is bounded by Thompsons Road to the north, Western Port Highway to the west, Ballarto Road Reserve and the Ranfurlie Golf Club in the south and Evans Road and Cranbourne-Frankston Road in the east.
The Croskell Precinct Structure Plan (PSP) area is bounded by Thompsons Road to the north, Berwick-Cranbourne Road to the east.
The Devon Meadows Precinct Structure Plan area is generally bounded by Craig Road to the west, the South Gippsland Highway to the north and east.
The Minta Farm Precinct Structure Plan (PSP) area is bounded by land south of the Princess Freeway and the O’Shea Road reservation. Cardinia Creek is located to the east, Grices Road to the south and Soldiers Road to the west.
The Thompsons Road Precinct is located in Clyde North. The precinct is bounded by Thompsons Road, Hardys Road, Berwick-Cranbourne Road and Smiths Lane and Pound Road. The Clyde Creek growth area is located on Casey's eastern growth front.


Trying to lose weight? Try Chris Carmichael's most effective calorie-torching ride.
For every spreadsheet-keeping supertrainer, there are 10 cyclists who just go out and ride. For a lot of folks, that's fine, but when you're cycling to lose weight, just riding isn't enough. Take it from Ben Owens, a roofing company executive from Marietta, Georgia, coached by Carmichael Training Systems's Ryan Kohler, who has lost more than 240 pounds over the past three years--and now competes in criteriums and track races.
Of course, Owens's amazing transformation came about from big changes in every part of his lifestyle, but one of the biggest was exercise. In the beginning, his goal was just to complete short rides, and the non-weight-bearing nature of cycling meant he could ride for more time than he could walk. It wasn't long, though, before Kohler started incorporating intervals into Owens's training. He wasn't concerned with Owens's maximum power output or trying to make a racer out of a 400-plus-pound beginner. Rather, by alternating intervals with recovery periods, Owens increased the amount of work he accomplished per session, thereby increasing the impact each workout had on his fitness and weight loss. Even if you have just 10 pounds to lose, intervals are the key to your success this winter.
A note to all you Clydesdales: Years of carrying around a big body can work to your advantage. I remember visiting an anatomy lab years ago and viewing a cadaver of a man who had been morbidly obese. The fat had been removed, and the underlying muscles of his legs and hips were massive compared to those of a slimmer person. That muscle represents a lot of potential power that 140-pound pip-squeaks can't come close to. Slim down and nurture that muscle, and you'll be a force to be reckoned with.
Some people think it's counterintuitive that you can maximize calorie burn by inserting recovery periods into your rides. They'd rather go as hard as possible from the first pedal stroke to the last. When you look at power data files, however, you see that what feels like a consistently high-intensity ride is actually a diminishing effort. By the end of an hour, you may feel like you're pulverizing the pedals, but you're producing a fraction of the power you were 45 minutes earlier. What makes intervals so effective is that the recovery periods allow you to maintain higher power outputs during hard efforts, and accumulate more time at those higher outputs.
Whether you're talking about weight loss or enhanced performance, time at intensity is the factor that matters most. Riding at a tough-but-sustainable pace is a good way to burn about 12 calories per minute. Intervals like the ones included here can push your burn rate to about 16 calories per minute. But because you can't sustain 16 calories per minute for very long, time spent at this intensity has to be spread over several intervals separated by recovery, during which you're burning eight to 10 calories per minute. In total, the interval session lasts 42 minutes, but even with the recovery periods, the calories burned are almost identical to the calories burned during 42 minutes at a steady pace.
Why put yourself through intervals if they don't burn a ton more calories? Because time-at-intensity not only burns calories but also stimulates change. That steady pace for 42 minutes isn't enough stress to make you faster or pack your muscles with more fat-burning mitochondria. But those 20 minutes at maximum intensity are. Riding a steady pace burns calories today; intervals burn calories today and enable you to burn more later.
This one-hour workout delivers the double whammy of torching calories and building high-end aerobic power you can put to good use the rest of the season. It's strenuous, so do it a maximum of three times a week to allow for adequate recovery and best results.


I hate egg nog. I've always hated egg nog. Every year I think maybe I might like egg nog, but as it turns out- every year I just hate egg nog. I think it's probably the texture and consistency... or maybe the smell... but probably the taste... in any case, I just hate egg nog.
This year is going to be different. This is the year of the nog, my friends... this is the jolly good year that egg nog finally has victory over my taste buds.
The other day I was evaluating my progress as I am a little over four months into being twenty-four. At some point down the line (a month or two into this (age) year) I realized somewhat of a shift in myself. I started taking risks. I started doing things a little bit more out of my comfort zone. I started doing things that were a little more spontaneous. None of them were easy, nor are they even now, however, I do them nonetheless. In high school I remember being told I was incredibly stubborn, and as much as I disagreed with the implication, I must come to terms with its truth. I was stubborn, and for the most part I still am. However, one thing I've noticed is my willingness to try things I've always been too stubborn to go for.
but with the humble is wisdom."
As I was saying- Over the last few months I've kind of shifted in my mentality when approaching new things, or even things that aren't necessarily new, simply things I've always relented of doing based out of stubbornness.
To summarize some of my thoughts since April: Stop worrying about yourself and just go for it. God is bigger than any decision I make. I just want to enjoy Him and his goodness toward me.* For me, however, very personally, my stubbornness and pride are probably the biggest hindrances in me fully experiencing His joy and outpouring of blessings in my life.
Now I'm not saying, just make rash decisions, and maybe there won't be consequences. I'm saying lay down your pride and fear of failure and instead enjoy the gifts God has given you to enjoy- be it in going after new opportunities, be it in sharing your faith with your coworkers or classmates, be it in digging up those buried talents and sharing them with the world, be it in taking leaps of faith, be it in going new places, or be it in giving egg nog a second chance... or a third... or a fourth. Who knows, you might end up enjoying it. I'm saying be willing to be spontaneous. I'm not saying be unwise or negligent in your decisions. God is big enough to bless you outrageously when you humble yourself and He is big enough to restore you if and when you mess up. Basically, He is big enough to work a miracle in your taste buds and he is big enough to heal you through the process if the egg nog ends up being a thick, and milky disaster on your kitchen floor.
Life is short, and sometimes it seems the small moments of taking a risk or trying something new bring so much joy and refreshment to what often just becomes monotony. I never want to be someone that settles into living life one way because it's comfortable, but I want to constantly be trying new things, taking on new tasks, and allowing myself to take risks, because it's those little things that make life more interesting. I could live the same day over and over again every day for the rest of my life. I could get into a groove, or a rhythm, or a system and repeat it every day for the rest of my life, but that just gets boring. It's almost like a broken record... or that song you played on repeat over and over when you were a pre-teen and now you can't stand. It's those little changes that keep stuff interesting, and it's those things, even the smallest choices, like approaching a stranger just because you feel led to, or going out of your way to have coffee with an acquaintance, that can produce immense blessing. I've learned that if I'm unwilling to try even the little, intimidating, new things now, I'm probably going to be unwilling to go after the bigger, more intimidating things later.
"I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him."
Luckily God is wildly gracious, and luckily God is wildly sovereign. Nothing I screw up will thwart his plans. Luckily He works everything for good for those who love him and are called according to his purposes. So either way I learn a lesson: Either things don't work out as perfect as I want and my flesh is humbled, or I realize His grace in my situation is so abundant that my only natural response is to be humbled by it. Either way- my pride takes a hit. Either way- I will learn humility. And friend, a lesson in humility is a hard lesson well worth learning. And even still there is no little lesson in humility not worth learning; because our pride is a brute not easily destroyed and even the small attacks at it are progress. So learn to embrace the lessons in humility. Have a teachable spirit. Teachable spirits are humble spirits and often times that teachable spirit makes mistakes along the way. It's by grace that "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."
"Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted."
Have enough faith to step out of what's comfortable for you and have enough faith to believe that God is bigger than your potential humiliation. Then go for it- whatever it is. And don't forget to enjoy it. Life is a process... one long process... so learn to enjoy the process, otherwise you're going to end up missing out on an immense amount of joy.
*If joy is fruit of the spirit (which it is) why do I so not take that one seriously.? In my mind it's almost like the optional fruit, the one that is not so much a "you need to work on this" but a "it's nothing nearly as serious as working on your patience." I mean, shouldn't we be growing in all of the fruits and not just the ones we think are important. I'd venture that PERHAPS we ought to not just pray, "give me patience" and expect opportunities to exercise it, but ALSO "give me joy" and expect opportunities to embody it. Perhaps I'll write a book called, "The forgotten fruit: joy" and tag line it "So we all need to work on loving people or self control, but since when did it become okay to throw Joy out with the bath water?"


Key Lesson Elements What is the Teacher Doing? What are the Students Doing?
Do Now (3-5 minutes): Students will complete an activator of their background knowledge Ok. Open your binders to the reading section and turn to page 31. When you are there put your eyes on me. Today we are going to talk about supporting details. Take a minute and complete the Do Now question in your packets. What does it mean to support something? Go. 54321ok. Turn to your partner and discuss what you wrote. Go. 54321ok. Mr.__, what did you all talk about? Ms.____, do you agree or disagree? Why? I Do Input (1-2 Key teaching points): Teacher explains to students that supporting details are statements that support the main idea. Write this down in your notes. Supporting details are statements that support the main idea. Turn to your partner and remind them what a main idea is. Go! Mr._____, what is a main idea? Yes! So supporting details are simply details that support, or hold up, the main idea. There are usually 3 or 4 supporting details in a passage or paragraph. So, lets think about it like a chair. How many legs does a chair usually have, Ms. Simmons? Yes, 4. So, just like a person needs four legs on a chair to hold them up, a main idea should have around 3-4 details that support it. Think about them like you would the legs of a chair. A chair supports the person sitting in it. Teacher also then explains to students how to determine which details are the most important. Check for Understanding: We Do Guided Practice: Take a look at this chair. The main idea of this chair is Derrick Rose is the best player on the Chicago Bulls. What are some supporting details, or legs, that will hold up this main idea? Turn to your partner and discuss. Ms.____, what is one supporting detail that you and your partner discussed? Mr. Jones, what is another detail you and your partner discussed? Students are tracking the speaker and listening to the transitional instructions. Students are opening binders, when prompted, the page 31 of the reading packet. Students are responding to Do Now writing prompt Students are discussing with partners what they wrote. Students are sharing aloud, when called on, about their understanding of what it means to support something.
Objective(s) SWBAT: By the end of the lesson, SWBAT define and identify supporting details, through 3 multiple choice questions, with 85% accuracy.
Students are discussing with partners how to create supporting details for the provided main idea Share out when prompted.
Ok. Here is another chair. This time the supporting details are filled in, but the main idea is missing. Talk to your partner about what could be the main idea that these supporting details are holding up. Mr._____, what do you think could be the main idea of this chair? Check for Understanding: Vocabulary words/Key Concepts Main Idea Supporting Details To support You Do Independent Practice: With your partner, you are going to read the main idea presented on your page of notes. There are four supporting details listed. Identify which detail does not support the stated main idea. Go. Check for Understanding: Teacher monitors students discussions. Teacher places prompt on the board. Mr. Haywood, which supporting detail does not belong? Reading aloud the main idea and options to your partner. Discussing with partners which supporting detail does not belong. Sharing out when prompted.
Modifications/ Accommodations I will place students who are new or not as well behaved beside students who will be a good influence Mr. Morris will go next to Ms. Burkes Mr. Munson will be beside Mr. Haynes Mr. Burnside will continue to sit by Haywood or Munson.
Exit Ticket (aligned to lesson objective) or assessment: What are supporting details? Statements that support the main idea The overall point of a paragraph or passage The legs attached to a wooden chair Brief summaries of what the passage is about Identify which detail does not support the main idea below Identify the main idea that those details support.


Is the Open Science Revolution For Real?
The researcher rebellion against the closed research-and-publishing system, tallied most explicitly in a petition boycotting publisher Elsevier, continues to expand. (The Economist covers it here, and I covered the complaints last year in a feature.) The big question, of course, is whether this noisy riot will engender something like a real revolution. Will it replace the old regime with a new?
Editing & review – making sure a paper is logical and intelligible; also assessing its value and significance. Review has traditionally been formal peer review.
archiving - making the work available to future researchers.
In the current system, the journal system bundles all these functions into the paper: The journal edits the paper and puts it through peer review; publishes it in print and online (usually requiring payment, a key complaint); provides a formalized citation that the authors can put on their resumes and wave around at tenure or job application time; and keeps the work available in print and online so future scholars can hopefully find and use it.
What are the rebels offering to replace that system? By casting around the last couple days, I've assembled a list of tools created by the open-science community that seek to replace or amend the various parts of the conventional journal system. You can skip the indented text here if you don't want the details. In any case, together they show that the rebels (to indulge my metaphor) have gone a long way to creating the alternate infrastructure.
The open science movement stresses that the traditional peer review built into the current system can be done after publication rather than before. This is going on right now with the so-called "Arsenic Life" paper published in Science last year; this Chronicle of Higher Education story looks at another example — nice meta — of both pre-and post-publication review of a paper on whether Twitter mentions affected citation rates. Publish and then Splitting the traditional peer-review function into parts is one premise behind PLoSOne, for instance: There a paper is rigorously reviewed for soundness of method — and then so that the hivemind can evaluate its value and significance. (This is what happens long-term anyway, even with papers published in peer-reviewed journals.) Much of that can be done informally, in blog comments, separate blog posts, responding papers, and so on. But two new tools, PaperCritic and Kleenk, provide ways to do that in more centralized fashion. Faculty 1000, which has some very fine post-publication reviews by scientists, provides another model. Those reviews aren't open-access at this point, but it's clearly a strong model for rigorous and helpful peer review.
There's work to do here. But a key point is that the significance of papers have never been determined by peer review, but rather by the discussion and testing that goes on afterwards. This is actually more robust than ever right now, which is why many open-science advocates argue that the traditional peer-review system can be jettisoned.
Along with the big players like PLOSOne, which do some rigorous editing and then publish, several greased-skid publication conduits have been built lately to let scientists publish fast and fluidly, with minimal or no editing.
F1000 Research, just announced, could be a big player, a sort of ArXiv for biomed; a manuscript will undergo a quick quality check, to make sure it's coherent, and then get published and archived.
Annotum is a publishing platform, built on Wordpress, that FigShare creator Mark Hahnel calls "an open-scource, open-process, open-access scholarly authoring and publishing platform" – a sort of blog platform for sharing research. Other platforms can be built atop it and probably will be. Possibly F1000 is built atop Annotum.
Publication is both the simplest and hardest nut to crack. As with blogging, it's easy enough to just get the stuff out there. The challenge is how to make it findable. My guess is that models like PLoSOne and F1000 — places associated with large organizations — will become the main outlet for non-pre-peer-reviewed publications. In any case, this is a need fairly easily met, and these efforts can pretty soundly replace the dissemination function of the traditional publishing machinery.
Altmetrics, for instance, registers not just published papers but other activity around them, such as mentions in the media, other online conversations, tweets, reference manager counts (such as from desktop reference manager software such as Mendeley), and other forms of scientific discussion or comment. The new FigShare offers roughly similar functions in what is arguably a slicker, more fluid interface. In essence, all this commentary and discussion provides the crucial post-publication peer review. Altmetrics and other efforts provide a way to track it. The dream is that hiring and tenure committees will look to these metrics, rather than just traditional C.V. material, to evaluate a scientist's contributions to science.
This is moving fast. Outfits like ArXiv, PLoS, and BioMedCentral archive and index their papers, as, presumably the coming F1000 Research will do, and Altmetrics appears to offer a catch-all spot in which to register and archive not only papers but commentary surrounding them. This system is not fully mature yet, but it has gone a long way fast with just a few sites, and it seems safe to say it can scale up and stabilize pretty quickly. And Google Scholar lets you find most papers, and not just at the original publisher but at other sites. This one's relatively easy.
SO WHEN DO THEY BUILD THE GUILLOTINE?
Add that all up, the revolt is looking pretty good. Does this mean they'll swarm right over the ramparts? Hard to say. Some of the traditional publishers are far more fluid and responsive than others, and might either join or co-0pt the rebellion. Others seem to be digging in for a siege. The same division splits the scientific societies that depend on journal subscriptions for revenue; some trying to figure while others, such as the American Anthropological Association, are digging in. Meanwhile, in some research sectors, such as biomedicine, tradition and/or reluctance to share valuable intellectual property seem to be discouraging revolt. The rebels still face the task of storming a very big edifice with a force that by both nature and design is decentralized.
But the pressure to change keeps building and is unlikely to stop. Some of the biggest targets are showing signs of the sort of inflexibility that mark the titan ready to fall. One source this week told me, for instance, that in the halls of one major scientific publishing concern, the senior leadership are mystified and the younger middle ranks terrified: a telling combination.
My own take, having followed this for a couple years now, is that the surprises from here on out will more often be jerks of sudden acceleration — like this rally against Elsevier — than unexpected stops. The past couple of weeks have shown how incredibly volatile the ground is around the traditional publishing structures and practices. As described deftly in the Economist story, a couple of missteps by Elsevier seemed to ignite an extraordinary amount of fuel. And as efforts outlined above show, the advocates of change have not just been complaining; they've been building a replacement for the old vehicle they want to ditch.
As I've covered this, I've often thought of happened to the music industry a decade ago and is happening to the consumer newspaper, magazine, and book industries now. In every case, change arrived in a way that brings to mind a roller coaster ride as it approaches and then descends that first wild drop: The change came slowly at first, sped almost imperceptibly for a bit — and then accelerated wildly in a long drop that would forever transform the ride. Even among the industry insiders who saw change coming, most badly underestimated the steepness of the drop they were approaching. Once the drop started in earnest, the only ones having fun were those who saw the big drop and, whooping, leaned into it.
But there are very good reasons to believe that things are different now, and that a new organized effort to deny publishers that are not serving our interests the papers on which they depend. The most obvious and important difference is that the landscape of open access publishing has changed dramatically since the original PLoS boycott. Indeed it was its failure – or more precisely the excuses colleagues gave us about why they weren’t participating – that led Pat, Harold Varmus and I to refocus PLoS as a publisher.
H/t to Amy Harmon for calling the Eisen post to my attention.02-03-12 1:42 pm: Made some corrections and additions. As usual, deletions are marked with striketrhoughs, and additions are underlined.


Josephine Perry branches out from the family restaurant tree with a brasserie of substantial polish, writes Pat Nourse.
It's almost certainly unfair. And definitely ageist. But when you make a booking at a restaurant called Missy French knowing that it belongs to a 21-year-old first-time restaurateur, you can't help but expect a certain lightness of touch. A raffish, flying-by-the-seat-of-the-pants quality that has you reaching for those fun, flighty words the French are so good at. What you'll find instead is a restaurant that's not so much little-black-dress Chanel but more the beige bouclé jacket end of the register. Rampling rather than Tautou. Chic, yes, but with a certain seriousness.
The 21-year-old we're talking about here is Neil Perry's daughter Josephine. She was born into the trade, has worked all over her father's company, latterly on the floor at Rockpool and Spice Temple.
She has chosen to embrace the business with gusto and in no way shies from the family connection. Missy French's designer was Grant Cheyne, who did the look for Rockpool, three Rockpool Bar & Grills, and two Spice Temples. Its wine list was written by Bar & Grill sommelier Richard Healy, and its chef, Chris Benedet, came here from Rockpool on Bridge Street. After a couple of Sancerres, the monochrome portraits by Noah Taylor (yep, the actor) that constitute all but the entirety of the room's decoration even start to look like Perry père et fille.
All kudos to young Perry for not hitting the French-cliché playbook in the design. There's nary a stick of bentwood nor a scrap of cursive chalkboard writing to be seen. But the room's froideur might throw you for a loop. Neighbourhood restaurants need time to wear in, and Missy French might need more time than most. Maybe that explains the success of the pre-worn look common to Keith McNally's Balthazar projects and beyond. Right now this place feels about as worn in and relaxed as a box-fresh tutu. Pretty, but not entirely comfortable.
Nothing about the expensively low-key, carefully lit undesign of the design, and the large number of staff on the floor says this is a restaurant opened with only pennies in the pocket and a heart full of dreams. The tablecloths are crisp, the bread is Iggy's, the butter whipped Lescure. The chairs backed in woven cane, a French pal tells me, are the Frenchest things in the room. It doesn't seem like it was put together on a budget of carefully saved tips and pocket money.
So not for Missy French the spontaneity of Le Chateaubriand, the insouciance of Bones, the élan of Le Servan, or the rakishness of Paris's other hot neo-bistros. The menu doesn't read impulsive. Mussels are marinière, barramundi gets the Grenobloise treatment with capers, brown butter and lemon, sirloin gets sauce Bordelaise, snapper gets white-wine velouté and leeks and vegetarians get goat's curd and pickled yellow beetroot salad.
There again, it's not all done by the book. Some of the more interesting moments come when the kitchen goes slightly off-piste. Gnocchi Parisienne - the little dumplings made with pâté à choux, the stuff you use to make profiteroles and éclairs, instead of potato - are mixed with roasted pumpkin and shiitake mushrooms to great savoury effect, a fine grating of walnuts on top giving the whole thing a clever lift. Pairing shelled garlic prawns (three of them make up a $24 entrée) with the spiky crunch of their lightly battered and fried heads takes them firmly out of the comfort-food zone, even as the soupçon of garlicky prawn reduction has you reaching happily for the bread.
A word on bread: the deplorable custom of clearing the bread with the entrée plates has taken root here, of all places. If you fear you'll want something to swipe through the fine sauces that accompany six of the eight main courses, careful rationing may be in order. Speaking of rationing, if nouvelle cuisine-scale plating is likely to upset you, be advised that this is very much the sort of restaurant where the full three courses and sides routine is de rigeur, unless you're planning to pull a jambon-beurre from your handbag on the way home.
It's a pleasure to see a kitchen have the confidence to offer a classic chicken consommé almost unadorned. There's not very much soup, true, but it's limpid, well-flavoured and clean, garnished on top with chervil and underneath with a fine brunoise of carrots. The three little croquettes of leek and potato served beside it make no sense to me whatsoever - why fried croquettes with soup? Who wants a wet croquette? Maybe they're better when they're not tepid.
The game terrine is a shimmering, wonderful thing. A single stained-glass pane of venison, duck and quail set in game jelly, studded with pistachio nuts and barded with leek, it's bright and fresh where the more usual forcemeat-style terrine is fatty and heavy. Slivers of Iggy's baguette, pickled cucumber and a dollop of floral quince purée make for sweet harmony.
It takes just three players on the plate to certify the Pithiviers a hit: the golden pork-filled round of puffy-pastry pie, some crushed petits pois, and a pool of dark veal and chicken jus. It's still winter as I write this, so the baby peas are not perhaps a perfectly seasonal choice, but that's not to say the whole thing doesn't still come together happily like the city's most handsome pie floater. At $29 it's also one of the more approachably priced main courses.
Like all the main plates, too, it seems designed to spur on a good romp through the wine list. The cellar is two-thirds French, the remainder Australian. There's quaffable Pommier Burgundy and weighty Rhônes and Barossa blends alongside Nicolas Joly's Savennières, Sutton Grange rosé, Foillard Morgon Côte du Py, mondeuse and poulsard from Trosset and Jacques Puffeney, and other fashionable offerings. Most of the options by the glass are $15 and up.
You'll need something of substance to get through the slow-cooked wagyu shin. From a technical point of view it's nicely executed: seasoned correctly, well browned, thoroughly tender. It's paired with a very smooth Jerusalem artichoke purée. Even with a round of bone marrow and a pair of artfully placed baby carrots as a garnish, though, it seems all a bit, well, brown. It's at this point at the French table you might find yourself reaching for toast, mustard, horseradish, cornichons or possibly all of the above. Some light and shade with the meaty things might be nice. I recall seeing a pot-au-feu on an early Missy French menu, but it seems to have ended up on the cutting-room floor.
The kitchen's loyalty to France wavers as dessert rolls around. Eton mess, a dish invented on what the French regard as the wrong side of the channel, is all artful shards of meringue arranged like a teepee around mandarin and blueberry goo. Crème brûlée, as any pastry nerd will tell you, is a French reworking of the Cambridge burnt cream; does pairing it in a wide, shallow dish with caramelised popcorn and a quenelle of milky popcorn ice-cream make it any Frencher? Does it matter when it tastes this good?
Those of us eyeing the gap in the Sydney dining market for something French with a bit of Jean-Luc Godard verve and Luc Besson flair can keep dreaming for now. But it'd be wrong to suggest that Missy French is more of a piece with The Assassin and the Richard Gere version of Breathless than La Femme Nikita and À Bout de Souffle. It's a restaurant with some spirit, and when it embraces a bit more je ne sais quoi, joie de vivre and a few other helpful freewheeling French expressions, it stands every chance of growing into the neighbourhood favourite it would like to be. C'est le ton qui fait la musique.


The costs associated with purchasing adequate insurance coverage and providing employees with competitive health and welfare benefits may be a significant portion of a company's annual operating expenditures. For a private equity firm, the ability to understand and accurately forecast these costs post-transaction can be an important factor in the success or failure of an investment.
Preparing accurate projections of ongoing annual insurance and employee benefits costs should be done by your advisors as part of the due diligence process. The basic formula that drives insurance and benefits premiums is quite simple: Rate x Exposure = Premium. However, there are very few things in life that fit neatly into a simple formula and insurance costs are not among them. In practice, there are enough factors and variables that go into the derivation of these costs that projections will always be the result of as much art as science.
The first question to be answered is how will the deal structure affect the insurance and benefit programs?
Equity - In a straight stock purchase, where the only thing changing is the ownership of the company's equity, most of the existing insurance policies and benefit plans can usually be left in place with little or no change.
Asset Purchase - In certain situations, existing insurance and benefit plans can be included among the assets being purchased. The Asset Purchase Agreement should specify whether the existing plans are included or excluded. Even if these plans are included in the agreement, approval is usually required from the insurance companies before the plans can be transferred or assigned. If the existing insurance and benefit programs are not included in the assets being acquired, new plans will need to be put in place.
Spin Out - The most challenging deal structure for projecting costs is the divestiture or spinout. Typically, in this type of transaction, the entity or assets being acquired were previously included in the insurance and benefit programs of a larger organization. Internal accounting entries may have been used to allocate the total program costs among divisions or subsidiaries. Such allocations are typically simplistic and rarely reflect the market cost of the coverages being provided. A spinout transaction usually requires "starting from scratch" and building standalone insurance and benefit programs for the new entity. Accurately identifying the employees, facilities, and equipment that will be part of the new entity is critical. In some cases, seemingly trivial pieces of minutia such as a building's construction type, e.g. wood frame vs. steel vs. reinforced concrete, or the type of fire suppression equipment in place can have huge impacts on insurance premiums.
The above notwithstanding, certain insurance coverages almost always contain change in control provisions that require them to be replaced regardless of how the transaction is structured. Directors & Officers Liability and Employment Practices Liability are the most common examples of this. For these coverages, the go-forward costs will be determined by the underwriter using such factors as the make-up of the new Board, business plans, pro-forma financial projections, and prior claims activity.
Once the effects of the deal structure are understood, consideration should be given to the costs associated with correcting existing coverage gaps or deficiencies. In some cases, the company's operations may present exposures to loss that simply are not insured. Examples might include pollution, employment practices liability, or foreign exposures. In other cases, all of the appropriate coverages are there but not in amounts sufficient to adequately protect the company. With employee benefits, the risk to the company of missing or inadequate offerings is often one of competitiveness. Your insurance and benefits advisor should be able to identify what is missing or deficient and provide estimates of the costs to plug the holes. Your advisor should also provide you with benchmarking data to illustrate the types and amounts of coverage being purchased by other companies with similar size, operations, and geography.
It is important that your advisors are aware of any planned changes in operations or organizational structure post-transaction. Changes such as staff downsizing, plant closings, and inventory reductions all have potential impacts on underlying insurance and benefits exposures. Some planned operational changes require a very close look to fully understand the potential cost impact. For example, closing a manufacturing facility in the Midwest and expanding capacity in another facility located in the Southeast, where the risk of a catastrophic windstorm is much greater, could result in a significant increase in the cost of property insurance. Similarly, if a planned post-transaction staff reduction will disproportionately impact less experienced, low seniority (i.e. young) workers, the surviving workforce, while smaller, may be older on average and therefore more expensive to insure for medical and other benefits. An important area where even small changes can have large cost implications is employee vs. employer benefit contribution rates. Opportunities for cost savings by shifting more of the burden to employees need to be carefully weighed against the potential impact on morale and the company's ability to attract and retain talent.
Finally, another important factor influencing costs is the company's historical claim experience. The larger the company, the greater the emphasis underwriters will place on that company's own historical experience versus general industry and geographic trends and statistics. While historical claim experience can be among the most influential cost determinants, this data is typically among the most difficult information for advisors to obtain given the tight time constraints posed by most transactions. When examining past claim costs, trends are as important as absolute amounts. Have claim costs been improving or deteriorating in recent years? Is there enough historical data to forecast claim costs for the coming year?
Given all of the complexities involved, the best way to ensure timely and accurate insurance and benefit cost projections is to select advisors with experience and extensive market knowledge. Then, get those advisors involved early in the process and provide them with complete and up to date information.
Robert Zenoni is President of Equity Risk Partners, Inc., the only insurance and employee benefits brokerage firm dedicated exclusively to the needs of the private equity industry and its portfolio companies. Over the years, Equity Risk Partners and its professionals have provided meaningful analysis and advice on more than 500 transactions.
For more information, visit www.equityrisk.com. Robert Zenoni can be reached at 415-874-7109 or rzenoni@equityrisk.com.


SAN DIEGO (AP) -- The Navy has been using NASA satellite data to help guide ships and planes in the war in Afghanistan, marking the first time the military has employed the space agency's up-to-date information in combat, Navy officials said Thursday.
Some in Congress have expressed concerns that NASA risks overstepping its 44-year-old civilian charter, though military planners say the images they have been using are unclassified.
That information is available to ``anyone and everyone,'' including a host of federal agencies and foreign governments, said NASA spokesman David Steitz. He said NASA has no qualms about the military's use of the images, which was first reported this week in Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine.
The military used NASA satellite images in the Gulf War, but that information was archived, not recent.
In Afghanistan, the images have been especially helpful in spotting swirling clouds of dust that cause hazardous conditions for U.S. pilots and ships involved in the battle, Navy officials said.
In October, the imagery helped commanders steer carrier battle groups out of dust storms in the Arabian Sea that had limited visibility to three feet. The satellite data is also being used to study weather conditions that could hamper laser- or optically guided weapons.
Sean O'Keefe, NASA's new administrator, appointed by President Bush, has called for closer ties with the Pentagon since he took over the post earlier this year.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat who chairs the committee that funds NASA, has expressed reservations about the growing cooperation between the military and the space agency.
``We've got to be very careful about the historic firewall between military space and civilian space,'' she told O'Keefe during a joint visit at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland earlier this year.
She added, however, that she does not have a problem with the Pentagon's use of NASA's unclassified data.
Others in Congress supported the project.


Pasted below this question is a sample of a /etc/hosts file from a Linux (CentOS) and a Windows machine. The Linux file has two tabbed entries after the IP address (that is localhost.localdomain localhost) and Windows has only one. If I want to edit the hosts file in Windows to have the machine name (etest) instead of localhost, I simply replace the word localhost with the machine name I want. The machine need not be part of a domain.
In a Linux machine, the two entries localhost.localdomain and localhost seems to indicate that I will need the machine to be part of a domain. Is this true?
or is it required that I substitute one entry with a domain name?
Additionally, please let me know what the second line of the /etc/hosts file on the Linux machine is for.
You always want the 127.0.0.1 address to resolve first to localhost. If there is a domain you can use that too, but then make sure localhost is listed second. If you want to add aliases for your machine that will lookup to the loopback address you can keep adding them as space separated values on that line. Specifying a domain here is optional, but don't remove "localhost" from the options.
where the brackets are the usual way of indicating that something is optional (don't actually type them) and the dots (...) mean there can be more than one.
You shouldn't have to make your host part of a domain. Try it and see. But it would be a good idea to use .localdomain if you don't have a real domain name. It can make host name resolution a little bit quicker due to the ndots option in /etc/resolv.conf.
Note that in this sense, domain means DNS domain (like google.com or stackexchange.com), not a Windows domain or anything like that.
The line starting with ::1 is for IPv6. ::1 is like 127.0.0.1 under the new addressing scheme. Run ifconfig lo and you should see it has two addresses. Note the entry starting with inet6.
See the hosts(5) man page for more details.
I cannot speak to how Windows may differ from Linux, but the format of the local machine's definition affects the results you will obtain from the 'hostname' command.
The important thing I have found is to have the FQDN first and the aliases, in any order, after it.
'hostname' by itself should return whatever name you entered for the host in /etc/conf.d/hostname or /etc/hostname (location of the file varies by distribution, but should be found under /etc somewhere).
If you change the order of the names you may find that "hostname -f" gives you responses like "localhost" or "hostname: system error". The only arrangement I have found that works correctly is putting the FQDN first.
I know some distributions set the IPv6 name to something like ip6-localhost. I don't really use IPv6 yet, so can't comment on what the best settings for this line would be. I can just say that in an IPv4 network it works to have both lines with the same names.
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A traveler's resource addressing and answering travel-related questions. No question is too mundane or difficult. Have a question? Please send an email to travelerspen@yahoo.com.
In an amazing feat, Miles Hilton-Barber flew halfway around the world. Blind. The British pilot departed London on March and arrived in Sydney on Monday. The journey was a total of 13,500 miles.
"It's the fulfillment of an amazing dream," the 58-year-old adventurer said after touching down at Sydney's Bankstown airport. "I've been wanting to do this flight for about four years."
Hilton-Barber flies with a sighted co-pilot but relies on speech output from his navigation instruments to steer his course, directing the plane from a wireless keyboard.
"I've wanted to be a pilot since I was a kid. Now I'm totally blind and I've had the privilege of flying more than halfway around the world. The big deal is not me doing this, it's raising funds," he said.
Hilton-Barber, who has been blind for 25 years, hopes the trip will raise some two million US dollars for the charity Seeing is Believing, which works to cut the incidence of preventable blindness in developing countries.
Kenya: Africa's Newest Aviation Hub?
With the rehabilitation of 15 airstrips, the renovation of the Moi International Airport, and the expansion of the Kisumu Airport, Kenyan government is making bold strides to become the leading aviation hub in Africa.
Transport minister, Mr Chirau Ali Mwakwere, said that the move was in tandem with the ongoing harmonisation of aviation sector in the East Africa Community and Comesa region.
He said the Government would continue to provide the necessary infrastructure and put in place appropriate policies to enable the aviation industry to thrive.
"Kenya will be one of the leading countries in Africa in terms of aviation," he said.
He added: "This year, 10 more airstrips are planned for upgrading while 14 more will be inspected for rehabilitation."
Among airports earmarked for upgrading is Moi International Airport in Mombasa, which is currently under going renovation, and Kisumu Airport whose run way will be extended at estimated cost of Sh2.6 billion.
At the Kisumu Airport, the terminal building will be expanded and the runway increased to 3.2km, from the current 2.1km, to accommodate bigger aircraft. A new control tower will also be built.
Other facilities to be upgraded are lighting and security systems. Another airport in the sights of KAA for expansion is the Malindi Airport, which locals want to be upgraded to an international airport. The Wajir Airport terminal building has been constructed and the control tower rehabilitated for the airport to serve both military and civilian aircraft.
Quote Source and entire article here.
With one stroke of the pen, travel to Europe just got cheaper. In a landmark deal years in the making, the United States and the European Union signed an agreement to open up transatlantic markets, allowing airlines in the European Union to fly to any U.S city and vice versa. Which means, in March 2008, competition between airlines could equal lower fares for customers.
The "open skies" deal that removed World War II-era barriers to service appears initially weighted toward European carriers, some of whom have begun to recognize what they anticipate will be new business opportunities.
"Already, the European airline industry is feeling its effects in a positive way, with plans for new services and signs of a much more flexible and dynamic approach to airline investment among European carriers," Barrot said.
As a result, several overseas airlines have been active in pursuing new routes. European low-cost airline Ryanair is exploring the possibility of transatlantic service between Dublin, Frankfurt and Barcelona to New York, Dallas and San Francisco.
Virgin Atlantic plans to expand vigorously, possibly adding flights to the United States from Paris, Zurich and other cities within a couple of years. Ireland's Aer Lingus is also planning new routes.
For the quote source and the entire article, click here.
I just wanted to let everyone know my new blog, Outdoor Weblog, is now live at Creative Weblogging. Come on over and say hi!
Question: I know this may seem like a simple question, but what is the best month for traveling?
Answer: This is actually a good question and a very important one. Depending on the month you travel, your budget could decrease or increase dramatically. If you're on a budget, ideally, you want to travel during shoulder season, which during the spring is the months of March, April, and May and September, October, and November for fall. The weather may not be as enjoyable, but with the extra money you save invest in a good umbrella or an insulated jacket.
In my opinion, the worse months for travel is during the summer. Gas prices are high. The weather is hot and humid. And hotels, highways, and airplanes are at capacity. If possible, avoid this time, especially if you're counting your pennies.
* Have a question? Please send an email to travelerspen@yahoo.com or leave a comment.
I know this blog has been silent lately, but I'm proud to announce that I'll be taking over Creative Weblogging's Outdoor Weblog! I know you're probably wondering about the outdoor-related posts, but they're samples for my new position. I don't have all the details about the job yet, but when I do I'll keep you posted!
In the meantime, I plan on getting Traveler's Pen back on track soon. I'm returning to the original format of answering and addressing travel-related questions. So, if you have one, please send an email to travelerspen@yahoo.com or leave a comment. I'm also lining up travelers for the Traveler Next Door, if anyone's interested.
With peak hiking season upon us, the folks at Leave No Trace are reminding everyone to..well..leave no trace when hiking or camping in the outdoors. To curve environmental damage created by hikers and campers, seven principles were drafted as a form of outdoor ethics.
For a detailed overview of the principles, check out the Leave No Trace website.
Summer is here. And with summer comes water sports: swimming, kayaking, diving, and boating. But, each year hundreds of people drown from submersion accidents.
1. Learn to swim. This is most important for children and teenagers, who are frequently in the water and often place themselves in precarious situations. It is also important for adults, particularly those who may need to self-rescue, such as surf swimmers, scuba divers, and river rafters. However, do not let swimming lessons create a false sense of security, particularly with children.
2. Do not tolerate horseplay in or around the water. This includes diving from heights into shallow water or water of unknown depth.
3. Avoid solo swimming; use the buddy system, so that someone is always on the alert to help a companion in need.
4. It is never safe to cross thin ice; one should be particularly careful during the spring thaw.
5. Alcohol and recreational drugs have no place anywhere near the water. It takes only a brief lapse of common sense to ruin a person’s life forever.
6. Never place non-swimmers in high-risk situations: small sailboats, whitewater rafts, inflatable kayaks, and the like.
7. When boating or rafting, always wear a properly rated life vest (jacket) with a snug fit and a head flotation collar.
8. Know your limits. Feats of endurance and demonstrations of bravado in dangerous rapids or surf are foolhardy.
9. Learn how to properly cross flowing streams of natural water. Do not attempt to cross a flowing stream where the water is above your knees.
Read the full article at Medicine at the Outdoors.
There are thousands of magazines dedicated to every conceivable genre and hobby. Peruse your local bookstore and you'll find crocheting magazines, pet magazines, political magazines and much more.
And outdoor and adventure topics are not any different. In fact, there are probably more outdoor and adventure magazines in existence when you factor in biking, hiking, boating, and kayaking topics.
But, with all of these choices, which ones cater toward the overall outdoor experience? Which ones feature in depth articles, interviews, and equipment reviews? Simply put, which ones are the best and, more importantly, for your area of outdoor interest?
National Geographic Adventure - We've all heard of National Geographic. But, did you know it's sister publication is arguably one of the best outdoor/adventure travel magazine on newsstands? Last year, it took gold in the coveted Lowell Thomas Awards for best overall travel magazine. This month issue features twelve backdoor getaways for paddling, skiing, and hiking.
Men's Journal - Although they've recently shifted editorial focus from adventure travel, outdoor enthusiasts can still read insightful and informative articles on its pages. Check out this month's issue for two moving stories about Mount Everest's Ice Doctors and a journey to Africa in search of "lost waves".
Outside - For interviews with adventurer travelers, no one beats Outside. Regular contributors are outdoor connoisseurs Bill "A Walk in the Woods" Bryson, Sebastian "The Perfect Storm" Junger, and Tim "Lost in My Own Backyard" Cahill. An depth guide to National Parks, the best outdoor and adventure Jobs of 2007, and an engaging story about a little known American battalion in Papua New Guinea round out this month's edition.
Lately, I've been dying to go to Iceland. I want to see the countryside and soak in the famous springs. Iceland is not a cheap country and a trip there would definitely not be one on a budget. It's also an off the beaten path destination, which you know I love.
So, what about you? If you could travel anywhere in the world, without restrictions, where would you go? And why?
Italy. It’s a name that instantly conjures visions of languid canals occupied by black and gold decorated gondolas, chic boutique hotels, and a rich culture heritage, set in one of the most scenic locations in the world. But, that awe can wear thin as soon as you try to plan a trip to one of the most beautiful countries in the world. For some travelers, the overwhelming options of hotels, attractions, and activities can seem endless. However, armed with the right information, it’s a possible to plan a stress free vacation. Here’s how to turn a vacation to Italy from a nightmare to a dream.
For more information or to register, please send an email to travelerspen@yahoo.com or leave comment.
Having trouble researching and planning your next vacation? Overwhelmed by travel sites, hotels, airfare, and more? Need a little help?
If you have questions about a particular destination, a complex trip to plan, or not sure where to begin, consider a personalized trip consultation from an experienced traveler. I can assist, coordinate, or plan your adventure.
I'm a freelance travel writer based in Atlanta. My work has appeared in National Geographic Traveler, Men's Journal, Women's Health, Hallmark, Every Day with Rachael Ray, Backpacker, Draft, and more.
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Do you dream of wandering the back alleys in Venice, climbing Machu Picchu, or taking an African safari? Don’t think you can afford it? Well, you can! Learn to travel the world on a shoestring budget by using secret budget tips and methods from a veteran budget traveler and freelance travel writer. You’ll learn to define your travel personality, establish your budget traveler status, and prepare a daily budget. By the end of class, armed with learned strategies, you’ll be well on your way to Paris, Peru, or Phnom Penh! For more information or to register, send an email to travelerspen@yahoo.com or leave a comment.


How do I transfer files to a remote server over the Internet using .NET?
There are two standard ways to transmit files over the Internet. The first is to use the HTTP POST verb to transmit files (or just plain data) to a receptor, which then saves them on the remote server. The second is to use File Transfer Protocol (FTP) to connect to a remote server, then transmit the files directly to the remote FTP server, which saves them on the remote server.
HTTP posting requires two pieces. The first piece is the program that recognizes HTTP POST requests (an acceptor), gets the filenames and file data from the request, and saves them in the desired location. The second piece includes the file data's sender and the desired filename (a poster).
I'll walk you through a sample project that shows you how to do this, studying the acceptor first. Name the acceptor Uploader.aspx, and use the Page_Load event to house all your code (see Listing 1). All the acceptor does is look for the filename sent from the requestor, get the file data, and save the data to a specified location on the local server. This Web page includes a single label populated with the status of the save. The poster can query the HTML within the page and look for this label to determine the status of the operation. You could easily modify the acceptor so it saves the data to another location or saves the data dynamically based on some other data posted by the requestor. Finally, compile the project and deploy it to an ASP.NET Web server.
You need to build a poster after you deploy the acceptor. This sample poster is a small VB.NET Windows Forms app that posts the data. The poster can be either a Web page or a rich desktop client. The sample WinForms app provides textboxes for the user to enter a local filename to upload and the name of the acceptor (Uploader.aspx, in this case).
The UploadFile method passes back a byte array, the string of HTML returned by the Uploader.aspx file. This lets you look for the label you output as part of the acceptor so you can determine the status of the save.
Sending a file using the HTTP POST method is easy. Simply open up a WebClient connection to the desired target and use the UploadFile method to send a file using the HTTP POST command. The uriString is the complete URI to the acceptor that you deployed (for example: http://www.myserver.com/TestUploader/Uploader.aspx). Note that you must specify the complete URI and the filename. The UploadFile method won't work if you use only the directory and set Uploader.aspx to be the default page for that directory. The page name must be part of the URI passed to UploadFile.
The WebClient class also includes an UploadData method to upload raw data to a remote Web server using HTTP POST. The drawback to this method is that you must provide both ends of the client.
The second way to transfer files over the Internet is to use FTP. The beauty of using FTP is that the acceptor is ready already and it's platform-agnostic. All you have to do is create some requestor code to communicate using FTP.
You can use one of two approaches to communicate using FTP. The easiest way is to use the unmanaged code within WININET.dll (a core Windows system DLL), which does the bulk of the work for you. For example, assume you want to import references to specific functions that you want to use within the WININET.dll (see Listing 2). After you build the FTP class, it's a simple matter to consume the methods in WININET.dll to send a file to a remote FTP server (see Listing 3).
A second approach to implementing FTP is to roll your own FTP class by overriding the WebRequest and WebResponse classes of the System.Net namespace. You can then include the functionality of the specific FTP commands yourself (see Additional Resources).
How can I secure my application's database connection string and prevent others from getting unauthorized access to my database?
You have a handful of options if you want to secure your database connection string from prying eyes, but most boil down to one of two choices: obfuscation (hiding) or encryption. Encryption can affect your application's performance negatively, so you need to decide who you're securing your connection string from and why before you choose that option.
For example, assume you're a small shop with a single developer who manages the servers and databases. In this case, a single level of obfuscation will probably suit your needs best. If you're deploying a Windows client desktop application, you might want to consider storing the connection string (encrypted or not) in a centralized location, accessible only to the application. If you're implementing your application on a server farm residing at an application service provider's server farm, you might want to implement encryption to prevent unauthorized access to your database.
Hiding the connection string means storing it in a location separate from where you use it in the code. However, be aware that anyone can use ILDASM on your ASP.NET or Windows client application. This means they can debug your application and try to get the database connection string by looking for constants in the code that fit the connection string format.
Popular places to hide a database connection string include the Web.Config file, the Registry, a database, or a remote location accessible only through a Web service or remoting call. You can use the System.Security.Cryptography namespace to add encryption to any of the strategies just mentioned to yield another level of security to your connection string.
However, the safest way to secure your database connection string is to never expose it to the application in the first place. You can do this by developing an assembly that contains a class whose sole responsibility is to return a database connection (and not the connection string) to the caller. The assembly can live in the Global Assembly Cache (GAC) and can use the instantiator's assembly ID as a key to make sure it's on the list of approved assemblies that can have a database connection. You can use this approach to ensure you never send any database credentials back and forth to be intercepted and decrypted. Someone using ILDASM on your application will see only the database connection object, not the credentials used to create that connection.
You could pass parameters to the Get method easily if you want to have some other criteria for validating access to the method. The important thing to remember is that using this method doesn't expose your database connection string (or your connection credentials) across the wire.


Q. How many people are uninsured in Illinois and how many of those are projected to get insurance under the exchange?
A. Nearly 1.8 million Illinois residents are uninsured. An estimated 486,000 Illinois residents will get coverage from commercial insurers through the exchange in 2014, growing to 1 million customers by 2016.
Q. How many people in Illinois are currently served by Medicaid and how many more will be served if Illinois chooses the Medicaid expansion?
A. Nearly 2.8 million Illinois residents are currently covered by Medicaid. Starting in 2014, an estimated 500,000 to 600,000 uninsured Illinois residents would be newly eligible for coverage under the Medicaid expansion, which Gov. Pat Quinn supports.
Q. How many small businesses are likely to take advantage of the health insurance offered on the Illinois exchange?
A. There are about 209,000 small businesses with fewer than 50 employees in Illinois, and about a third of them offer health insurance to their workers, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Illinois has not projected the number of small businesses likely to participate in the exchange but estimates 149,000 employees are likely to receive coverage through the exchange-offered plans, climbing to 443,000 in 2020.
Q. How is the exchange going to be set up in Illinois and which agency will be responsible for overseeing it?
A. Illinois plans to operate an exchange in partnership with the federal government for 2014, the first year, and residents would be able to comparison shop for insurance plans starting Oct. 1. The state has received $38.2 million through three separate federal grants to establish exchange-related activities.
The state Department of Insurance will oversee consumer assistance and plan management. It will train and certify people to help consumers who want to shop for insurance or enroll in Medicaid through the exchange. The state insurance department also will recommend to the federal government which commercial health insurance plans to make available through the exchange.
Q. How would Illinois residents access the exchange and what kind of customer support will be offered?
A. The federal government will operate an exchange website for online enrollment, a call center for telephone enrollment and customer support, and a so-called "Navigator" program offering in-person enrollment assistance. The state also will offer an In-Person Assistance program to supplement the federal Navigator program, focused on geographic and demographic populations not served by the federal program.
Q. How many people will the Illinois exchange employ?
A. The state estimates that a state-based exchange could employ up to 87 people in 2015. Later this year, state officials expect federal money will become available to hire people to provide consumer assistance throughout the state. It is unclear how many will be hired.


Because a small business owner often built their company from the ground up it can be hard for him or her to discuss succession. In fact, 58% of small business owners have no succession plan, according to a study of 200 privately held businesses by Wilmington Trust.
It's not fun to think about life after you're gone, but it's necessary.
Many small business owners have their identities wrapped up in their companies. That makes sense because building a small business is often the fulfillment of a dream -- a very personal kind of success.
Because a small business owner often built their company from the ground up it can be hard for him or her to discuss succession. In fact, 58% of small business owners have no succession plan, according to a study of 200 privately held businesses by Wilmington Trust. Most of those with no plan (78%) blamed their lack of planning at least partially on enjoying "managing their company too much to start thinking about a future transition" while 42% said they were too busy to plan, and 44% felt that succession was "too far in the future" to need to establish a plan now.
"The reality is that planning effectively and running a business are not mutually exclusive," said Matt Panarese, president of Wilmington Trust's Mid-Atlantic region in a press release. "Owners don't need to walk away from the business they've spent their lives building to start thinking long-term. In fact, early planning can provide more flexibility and allow owners to continue to work in whatever capacity they choose -- before and after a transition."
If you don't have a succession plan your death or inability to continue running the business could put your heirs in a tough spot. Succession planning isn't just about control and ownership. There also may be tax issues, training concerns, or finding a viable exit strategy if there's no relative or current employee willing (and able) to take over.
These aren't easy conversations. My family owns a business that has multiple locations and around 200 employees. I worked there for four years and while I have no interest or intention of running the company, it's possible that deciding what to do with it could someday fall to me as the only member of the family's third generation to have experience working there.
Me: So, what happens if you get hit by a bus or eaten by a shark? Who will decide what to do with the company?
Family CEO: I'm not planning on dying any time soon.
That's, of course, just a rough recollection of the conversation and it's not the only time I have brought up the topic. My family is actually better off than many because ownership interests in the company after the current generation have been determined and are in trust. That's at least partial planning, albeit not enough to solve some of the inevitable problems should the current CEO -- who just turned 65 -- not prove immortal.
That puts my family slightly ahead of 47% of survey respondents age 65 or older who had no plan at all. About 3 in 10 of those with no formal plan (27%) do have a broad outline while 20% have considered it but have not started planning.
"Advance planning enables owners to continue to run the business they've built, while addressing financial security for themselves and their families," said M&T Investment Banking Group Managing Director Stuart Smith in the press release. "It can also help them obtain a better result once they decide to transition."
Still, it's selfish and dangerous to not address these issues. The best way to control what happens to your business -- in many cases your life's work -- is to take the proper steps to execute your plan. Even if what you want may anger your family or employees, it's always better to handle it now when it can be discussed than to leave it for lawyers after you're gone.


What do these MRI findings indicate?
Question: 43 year old been having cognitive problems, very unusual for me. Have a very high career and finding confusion and memory issues. Been doing same thing for 23 years and suddenly having problems cognitively and affecting me at work. Was referred to a neurologist had mri of brain cervical and thoracic spine. Neuro appt on 10-14 but got ahold of mri report brain one says :"there are a few punctate foci of t2 prolongation within the subcortial white matter of the frontal and parietal loves which are nonspecific in nature "
Findings "nonspecific foci of t2 prolongation within white matter which may represent small vessile ischemic disease versus less likely demyelinating disease. No definite Mri evidence of multiple sclerosis "
I have read your query and understand your concerns.
First, I need to ask you what you mean by cognitive impairment and if this was a conclusion achieved by a Physician.
At this point, multiple sclerosis (a demyelination autoimmune disease) is suspected to be the cause of your concerns, but MRI findings are not specific.
Just cognitive impairment is not the hallmark symptom of multiple sclerosis, symptoms of such disease include: numbness and weaknesses of one or more limbs, partial loss of vision and/or eye pain, tingling in limbs or trunk, slurred speech, fatigue, problems with bladder and bowel functions.
If you experienced the above symptoms, besides cognitive impairment, then, your concerns are probably caused by multiple sclerosis.
If just cognitive impairment, but no other symptoms, your condition is related to anxiety and stress disorder.
If I were your treating Doctor, I would order spinal tap and cerebrospinal fluid examination in order to diagnose or exclude multiple sclerosis.
So, you have to wait about conclusions of neurologic examination.
I remain at your disposal for further questions and clarifications.
Multiple sclerosis most probable diagnosis.
Welcome back and thanks for the clarifications.
In this case, multiple sclerosis should be considered as the most probable condition that is causing your symptoms.
This should be discussed with your Neurologist.
Hos can memory loss be healed?
Since more than 10 years, I ve been suffering from memory loss and the only thing I love in this life is math. but suddenly I don t do well in it anymore and here where i started to panic. I did x-ray to get have nasal septum deviation surgery. then i was asked to do MRI. My MRI report findings: Subtle right frontal subcortical white matter focus of signal alteration,this finding is not specific it might represent changes associated with migraine less likely vasculitis or demyelinating disease? what do you think?
What symptoms do multiple sclerosis display?
What do the MRI reports indicate?
What causes a demyelinating disease?
I was diagnosed with demyelinating disease in November 2008 but in October the same year I treated carpets & bedding with a household flea treatment after my cats had fleas. I tried not to inhale but I could smell and taste it even though I covered my mouth and nose. Could this be a cause of my condition?


It seems perhaps Multicore solder is minimizing rosin flux, and trying to manufacture more no clean flux cores.
Does the rosin core flux stuff make any better joints? I have been working with no clean flux for a while, but never seen if the rosin flux is any better.
For practical purposes you may consider no-clean flux and rosin flux to be the same thing. Both kinds of flux are chemically similar and have similar properties. Neither kind of flux needs to be cleaned after use if your only concern is corrosion. However, if you are concerned about appearance, residual flux conductivity or conformal coating, then all flux needs to be cleaned after soldering including "no-clean" flux.
In summary, you might as well assume rosin flux and no-clean flux are interchangeable.
Don't know. Is it water soluble flux? If so, don't touch it for hobby and home use. It is very corrosive and it is required that you wash all flux residues off your board after soldering.


Which gets us back to the decision Ainge will have to make before the draft on June 22: Make the pick, or trade the pick? "That guy better be pretty good because if you're drafting No. 1 and you make the pick well - you do really draft a transcendent player - you've got that player for five or six years as they build up before the max money even kicks in". A trade like that has been suggested by many, and it was something that both the Bulls and Celtics had talked about during the draft a year ago and at this past trade deadline.
It wouldn't be that surprising if the Hornets chose to move their pick considering that they traded the 22nd overall selection in the first round (Malachi Richardson) to the Sacramento Kings past year. "I think the chemistry would be unbelievable".
The Celtics were awarded the top overall pick in the Draft Lottery for the first time in franchise history.
The Pistons used the eighth overall pick in 2015 to basically take a player that would mostly serve as a reserve. Holding the rights to Brooklyn's first-round draft pick from the 2013 trade that sent Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce to the Nets, they won the lottery and will take the top pick for the first time since 1950.
"I don't think I would max him out because you can wait for restricted free agency", said an National Basketball Association source.
MSNBC reported that Lieberman was cagey about whether he'd take the job if Trump offered it to him, saying, "I'd rather not say". The 75-year-old Lieberman served in the Senate for 24 years before retiring in 2013.
"If you can acquire a Paul George, Jimmy Butler, or Gordon (Hayward) from Utah, you have to do it", he continued. "There's a lot of flexibility there between the draft picks and free agency". But going back to the financial issue, whether he'd enjoy being in that lineup or not is largely irrelevant as there's nearly no way Boston could afford to make it happen.
"I know I must be a genius to plan it this well", LaVar Ball said. Not only did the Lakers keep the pick, but they actually moved up a spot, to No. 2. To be honest, while I'd like to optimistically buy in to my own silver lining that I've proposed here, I actually wouldn't be all that surprised if the Celtics forego moving the pick. "With a team like that, the defending champions, you can't let them hit first".
The Celtics did not make a move, and ultimately took Brown, Guerschon Yabusele out of France, and Ante Zizic out of Croatia with their three first-round picks.
The Clippers never got much out their No. 8 pick and traded the small forward to the New Orleans Hornets in 2011.


This little program builds a classification tree by interacting with the user. It starts off knowing only that a Bird is an animal and bit by bit learns more as it interacts with you. Here is an example run. You would type everything that follows a '?'. 'n' is no and 'y' is yes.
This is a diagram of the knowledge tree built from the above dialog.
The program is quite simple. It starts with the top question and depending on the users yes or no response, continues either to the left or right down the tree. At the last element (the "leaf" node), it makes its guess. If the guess is wrong then it has the user input the name of a new animal and a question to distinguish the new animal from the guess. Then the tree is grown by one more node to accomodate the question and the new animal.
Click here for program code . This is a numbered listing to accompany the explanation.
07     "Node objects have a question, and  left and right pointer to other Nodes"
14     "The user answers 'yes' or something similar. Otherwise it's a no"
24     "Guess the animal. Add a new Node for a wrong guess."
36         question = raw_input ("What question would distinguish a %s from a %s? "
An object class Node (line 6) is used to construct nodes in the tree. Each node contains a question plus pointers to the next node depending on a yes or no from the user.
Leaf nodes simply contain the name of an animal in the question field and the value None in the two pointer fields.
The function "yes" is a convenience. It will recognize "Yes", "YES", "Y", "y", etc. all correctly. Anything else is taken as a "No".
The tree knowledge starts out (line 21) with just a leaf node.
In main (line 23) the while loop repeatably proceeds down the tree to the left or right (line 30) until it reacheѕ a leaf node (line 34). If the guess is wrong then a new node, with a new question and a new animal is built from user input and linked into the tree. The pointers are set one way (lines 38,39) and then possibly swapped in line 42. That's it.
I first saw this program in very old fashioned Basic from the early 1970s. The code was more complex than this requiring separate arrays of strings and pointers.
Later, I was starting a new job in Holland and took it along. It was something of a hit. After several people played with it for an hour or so, it had developed a nice catagorization, half in English and half in Dutch, of everyone who worked in the office!
Enable the program to save its knowledge tree between runs. You might use the pickle mechanism. Or write a function that saves all the user responses so that they can be played back as a script.
Make a command to display the knowledge tree on the screen using indenting. You might want to consider using recursion for this. Alternatively map the tree with a graphics package like TKinter.