Principal Investigator: A. R. McElroy
Research Institution: PhytoGene Resources Inc.
Timeline: April 2019 – March 2021
- Develop measures of late-season stress using profiles of grain plumpness in individual panicles.
- Evaluate the potential to predict plot yield using grain-fill parameters related to stress tolerance.
- Evaluate elite lines using plot and panicle data to identify superior candidates for cultivar registration.
- The development of effective protocols to select for tolerance to late-season stresses will provide an important new tool to oat breeders for developing high-yielding, stable oat cultivars.
- Profitability for grain producers will be enhanced through the registration of elite, stress-tolerant lines identified in this study.
- Stress tolerance will inevitably increase grain quality, particularly TKW and test weight and therefore help producers access the more profitable milling market.
- The value of oat as a rotational crop is well recognized and increased profitability through the use of stress-tolerant, stable cultivars will help maintain oat as a viable cropping option.
Environmental stresses affect oat yield, yield stability and grain quality. In conditions of severe mid-season drought, yields can be reduced by a third and low test weight can render the crop unsuitable for milling. The best approach to solving this problem is through plant breeding, selecting cultivars with good stress tolerance in order to maintain higher yields each year and to ensure that test weight is always high enough for the premium milling market. The significant improvements in corn yield and yield stability have been attributed in large part to breeding for stress tolerance over the past decades. In oat, this approach is hampered by difficulties in measuring specific stress effects, given the inherent variability of kernel size within a panicle. Effective selection protocols are needed in order to breed for stress tolerance.
This project will build on previous studies which analyzed grain fill patterns in individual oat panicles. Early-season stresses were found to affect two important yield determinants, the number of kernels set and the proportion that fail to develop any groat at all. Measurement of mid- and late-season stresses – often heat and drought – is difficult because the grain fill period is not uniform within a panicle; kernels at the top develop before those at the lower panicle nodes. The pattern of kernel mass distribution is fairly constant among non-stressed plants, regardless of inherent differences in average mass. This pattern is significantly altered by stress, and measures to quantify those effects were developed. Kernel plumpness is closely related to mass but can be measured more rapidly. The goal is to develop an effective protocol for stress tolerance selection through analyses of grain fill based on kernel plumpness.
External Funding Partners:
Crop Development Centre, University of Saskatchewan


In my last post, I talked about the Sea Fencibles, a unique fighting unit from the War of 1812. I thought it would be interesting to continue that trend, moving on this time to introduce the Regiment of U.S. Voltigeurs and Foot Riflemen from the Mexican War.
Voltigeurs, you may ask?!? What in the world are they?
Most people have never heard of them, but the voltigeurs originated in the French army during the Napoleonic wars. As light infantry trained to fight as skirmishers, they usually deployed in an open or loose formations that masked the main battleline of the army, hiding its movements from the enemy. The voltigeurs were also expert marksmen, trained to harass enemy lines with individually aimed fire (as opposed to the mass volleys of the main battleline). An act of Congress on February 11, 1847 authorized the creation of the 1st Regiment of U.S. Voltigeurs and Foot Riflemen during the height of the Mexican War. The Voltigeurs eventually joined Gen. Winfield Scott during his advance on Mexico City in July 1847, participating in the major battles of that campaign, including Contreras, Churubusco, Molino del Ray, and Chapultepec. The regiment was officially disbanded on August 25, 1848.
A few existing records relating to the 1st Regiment of U.S. Voltigeurs and Foot Riflemen are described in the Archival Research Catalog (ARC). Record Group 391, Records of U.S. Regular Army Mobile Units, 1821-1942, includes a series of “Descriptive Books of Companies C – H” (ARC ID 3098677) and “Descriptive Rolls of Companies D and K” (ARC ID 3098683). In Record Group 94, Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1780’s-1917, are also located a series of “Carded Medical Records of Voltigeurs and Pontoniers” (ARC ID 655650). These cards contain information from original records, such as hospital registers, rolls, and reports, relating to the medical treatment of individual soldiers. Court-martial files for men who served in the Voltigeurs, finally, are also available in the series “Court Marital Case Files” (ARC ID 301659) in Record Group 153, Records of the Office of the Judge Advocate General (Army). Use the search term “voltigeurs” in ARC to generate a list of 66 individual case file descriptions.


One of the most enjoyable parts of electronics design is getting excellent performance with rock-bottom parts cost. The right circuit can produce exceptionally good speed, noise, and accuracy specs from very low-cost parts. A case in point was a project from December 2016: a time-domain reflectometer (TDR) for a liquid level sensing application in industry.
TDRs work by sending short pulses down a transmission line where they bounce off anything that disturbs their propagation. By measuring the time delay, you can tell how far down the line the disturbance is. It's a bit like a one-dimensional radar, except that with TDR you can learn a lot more from the reflection than just its location. TDRs can find damaged optical fibres, waterlogged sections of coax cable, and many other things of that sort. This application used an air-dielectric coaxial probe built from two metal tubes sticking downwards into a tank, so that the first part of the probe had air as dielectric and the second part had liquid. The dielectric constant of a liquid is at least 2, whereas air's is 1.0, so there's a nice healthy impedance mismatch at the surface to reflect the pulse. This approach is very rugged and resistant to fouling (you can get all sorts of nameless crud in process water and diesel tanks, for instance).
Simple TDRs use stroboscopic sampling: you generate a transmit pulse and a sampling pulse with a variable delay. The sampling pulse controls the sample gate, which measures the reflected pulse in a very brief time interval (tens to hundreds of picoseconds usually). You only get one measurement per pulse, so you measure one, slide the delay along a bit, measure the next, and so on until you build up a whole trace.
Another guy did the delay generator, back end digitizer, and all the secret sauce in the actual transducer design that ensured a nice clean reflection. My bit was the fast stuff: the pulse generators, sampling gate, and sample/hold amplifier. Commercial TDRs cost thousands of dollars, but this application is very price-sensitive; for a 100-ps-class sampler, my bill-of-materials budget was $2. Fun.
At that price, there was no way we were going to be using ECL comparators, custom matched diode sampling bridges, or 100-MHz op amps: it was one diode for the sampler, LVDS line receivers as comparators to generate fast steps, discrete microwave transistors to make them faster, and PCB trace stubs and very small capacitors to differentiate them into pulses. After that, there was an all-discrete amplifier and a single JFET track/hold to store the pulse before the sampling capacitor discharged. One half of a jellybean dual op amp buffered the output and another one looked after the fast amp's bias.
I apologize that I can't show the schematic for NDA reasons (it's somebody's new product, after all). Here are the SPICE simulation results for a delay range of 550 ps in 50-ps steps. Actual performance was comparable.
The two of us spent a couple of days in the lab here at EOI building a dead-bug prototype of the sampler. It uses all SOT23, SC-70, 0603, and a super small (0402ish) sampling diode. Connectors are MMCX to minimize pigtail inductance. It has a nice clean sampling response, 150-ps gate width (probably 100 ps FWHM), 17 ps p-p jitter, BOM cost $1.30 excluding connectors. I cheated slightly in the proto by replacing the BJT edge generators with pHEMTs--an extra 80 cents--to make up for the higher stray inductances, so it's really $2.10. The product uses BJTs, so we hit the BOM target with ease. A couple of parts went EOL, but were reasonably easy to replace, and the replacements were even cheaper.
Sampling resolution was limited by the voltage gain of the pHEMTs, because the line receivers produced about 1-ns edges, so it took awhile to turn the pHEMT all the way on. A couple of superfast ECL comparators such as ADCMP580 would have been several times quicker, but they cost about $13 each. For this job, our TDR's accuracy (plus or minus 1/4 inch) was easily good enough.
For the test, we used a Highland Technology Model P400 digital delay generator to do the timing. (Highland makes all kinds of great stuff for time-domain measurements.) We were pretty pleased by that 17 ps jitter number, especially since there was no shielding and a bunch of cell phones around. It's neat to be able to tune the delay by 10 ps and see the sampler output change.
Prototyping is sure slow when you're fighting the surface tension of the solder and the tendency of all of the midair solder joints to melt at once. 0603-pitch pad board with ground plane is a big win for this sort of job, but some of the hairiest mid-air things took 10 tries to get right, even under a Mantis stereo microscope.
The resulting product has been successfully introduced. (*)
Really a fun project.
(*) The customer requested that the SPICE schematic and the names of the company and the other consultant not be used for this article. It's a good gizmo, anyway.


In summarizing a Doctrine of Scripture, it’s vital to note what this summary is, and what it is not. This is not a summary of the teachings within scripture, but it is a summary of what those teachings say about scripture.
Can the Bible prove the Bible?
Some would say that using Scripture to prove Scripture is circular logic, but this is akin to saying, “You can’t appeal to reason to explain the principles of reason.”
Below, we will walk through several elements to this important Doctrine of Scripture. I will first list, and then briefly explain.
Is the Bible Inspired by God? An Overview of Inspiration
In 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NASB), we read, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”
The term used here for “inspired” literally translates as “God-breathed.” Let’s take a few steps back…all the way to Creation. We see this same concept in the Garden of Eden when God “breathed” the breath of life into Adam and then Adam became a living soul. Keeping this picture in mind as we read Paul’s letter to Timothy, we understand that God “breathed” His truth into human writers and the result was inspired Scripture—the living Word.God “breathed” His truth into human writers and the result was inspired Scripture. Click To Tweet
Definition of Inspiration
In Millard J. Erikson’s book, Christian Theology: 3rd Edition, Mr. Erikson defines inspiration as, “The supernatural influence of the Holy Spirit on the Scripture writers that rendered their writings an accurate record of the revelation or that resulted in what they wrote being the Word of God.” (Erikson, 2013, p.169)
Mr. Erikson goes on to explain that this is simply a preliminary definition that requires amplification. It is essential, concerning inspiration of Scripture, to understand the New Testament writers believed that they themselves were writing Scripture. Let’s take a look at an example.
Authors of Scripture
In 1 Timothy 5:18, Paul writes to Timothy, saying, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” What is interesting is that he is not quoting the Old Testament here. In actuality, he is quoting Jesus as recorded by Luke in Luke 10:7.
To further support the argument that New Testament writers believed they were writing Scripture, we will take a look at 2 Peter 3:15-16. In this passage, Peter is defending the Apostle Paul and says (in summary) that “ignorant and unstable people twist Paul’s words to their own destruction as they do the OTHER scriptures.” (emphasis mine)
It’s my view that a correct understanding of inspiration necessarily speaks to the authority of Scripture. As we saw in 1 Timothy 3, Scripture is inspired, “God-breathed” and is therefore useful for correction and training in righteousness.
The Scriptures can, and do, correct and train us because of their authority to do so. They possess this authority because they are inspired.A correct understanding of inspiration necessarily speaks to the authority of Scripture Click To Tweet
Is the Bible Infallible? An Overview of Scripture’s Inerrancy & Infallibility
At the basic level, when we say “inerrancy,” we mean that the Bible is valid in all that it teaches. This is closely connected with infallibility, which is roughly understood in the idea that Scripture is incapable of erring because God cannot lie.
We’ve touched on Paul, Peter, and Luke. Now let’s take a look at John. In John 17:17 (NASB) we read John’s record of Jesus’s prayer. As Jesus prays in the Garden, he says, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.”
Now, in conjunction with the case made for inerrancy, we see from John’s gospel that God’s word is truth. The Psalmist also adds his voice to this concept when he sings, “The sum of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous ordinances is everlasting.” —Psalms 119:160 (NASB)
Not only in these verses but in many more—in Numbers, Titus, and Hebrews—we continually read the truth that God cannot lie. Let us put all of these verses together for a comprehensive view of God’s revelation, which is without error and true in all that it teaches.
Have you struggled with questions about the Inspiration, Inerrancy, or Infallibility of Scripture? Do you have a moment when God solidified the answers in your life? I’d love to hear about it in the comment section below. Do you still struggle with questions? Let’s continue the conversation at email@example.com.


Beginning five days after Yom Kippur, Sukkot is named after the booths or huts (sukkot in Hebrew) in which Jews are supposed to dwell during this week-long celebration. According to rabbinic tradition, these flimsy sukkot represent the huts in which the Israelites dwelt during their forty years of wandering in the desert after escaping from slavery in Egypt. The festival of Sukkot is one of the three great pilgrimage festivals (chaggim or regalim) of the Jewish year.
History: The origins of Sukkot are found in an ancient autumnal harvest festival. Indeed it is often referred to as hag ha-asif, “The Harvest Festival.” Much of the imagery and ritual of the holiday revolves around rejoicing and thanking God for the completed harvest, and the sukkot represent the huts that farmers would live in during the last hectic period of harvest before the coming of the winter rains.
As is the case with other festivals whose origins may not have been Jewish, the Bible reinterpreted the festival to imbue it with a specific Jewish meaning. In this manner, Sukkot came to commemorate the wanderings of the Israelites in the desert after the revelation at Mount Sinai, with the huts representing the temporary shelters that the Israelites lived in during those forty years.
At Home: Many of the most popular rituals of Sukkot are practiced in the home. As soon after the conclusion of Yom Kippur as possible, often on the same evening, one is enjoined to begin building the sukkah, or hut, that is the central symbol of the holiday. The sukkah is a flimsy structure with at least three sides, whose roof is made out of thatch or branches, which provides some shade and protection from the sun, but also allows the stars to be seen at night.
It is traditional to gaily decorate the sukkah and to spend as much time in it as possible. Weather permitting, meals are eaten in the sukkah, and the hardier among us may also elect to sleep in the sukkah. In a welcoming ceremony called ushpizin, ancestors are symbolically invited to partake in the meals with us. And in commemoration of the bounty of the Holy Land, we hold and shake four species of plants (arba minim), consisting of palm, myrtle, and willow (lulav), together with citron (etrog).
In the Community: As with all festivals, services play an important role in the communal celebration of Sukkot. In addition to special festival readings, including Psalms of praise (Hallel), on Sukkot additional prayers are included in the service asking God to save us (hoshana, from which we get the English word hosanna). During the Hoshana prayers, congregants march around the synagogue sanctuary holding the lulav and etrog. The seventh and last day of the festival is called Hoshana Rabba, the “Great Hoshana.”
The Intermediate Days: During the intermediate days of Sukkot, one is allowed to pursue normal activity. One is nonetheless supposed to hold and wave the lulav and etrog on a daily basis and to eat one’s meals in the sukkah.
Theology and Themes: The enforced simplicity of eating and perhaps also living in a temporary shelter focuses our minds on the important things in life and divorces us from the material possessions that dominate so many of our lives. Even so, Sukkot is a joyful holiday and justifiably referred to as zeman simchateynu, the “season of our joy.”
The Sukkah: The central symbol of Sukkot is the eponymous sukkah, the hut in which Jews are supposed to eat and dwell during the holiday, in remembrance of the wanderings of the Jews in the desert after the Exodus from Egypt. Many Jews build their own sukkot (plural of sukkah) in their backyards or elsewhere on their property, while in many cases a communal Sukkah at a synagogue or community center takes the place of the family Sukkah.
Oftentimes the decoration of the communal Sukkah becomes a community activity in its own right, with the children in particular getting together and decorating it. Such a Sukkah becomes both a focus of the communal celebration of the holiday and the center of the community’s social life during Sukkot.
Four Species:A major focus of public worship on Sukkot is the waving of the “four species” during communal prayer services. The origin of this custom is a verse in the Torah, according to which the Israelites are commanded to “take the produce of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook and you shall rejoice before Adonai your God seven days” (Leviticus 23:40).
Lulav and Etrog:The rabbinic tradition understood this to mean that one should acquire a lulav and an etrog. A lulav is a palm branch; the branch is placed in a holder together with sprigs of myrtle (aravot) and willow branches (hadasim). These three are collectively referred to as the lulav, since the palm is the dominant feature. The etrog is a variety of citrus fruit also known as a citron.
The lulav and etrog are picked up and symbolically waved at different parts of the morning service. When they are all held together and shaken in prayer they are viewed as fulfilling the verse in the book of Psalms (Chapter 35:10), which declares that “All of my bones shall proclaim, ‘O Adonai, who is like You?’” (Leviticus Rabbah 30:14). In this manner, it is symbolic of devoting one’s entire body to the worship and praise of God.
The lulav and etrog are picked up and blessed for the first time during the synagogue services at the beginning of a section of prayers called Hallel or Psalms of Praise (Psalms 113-118). The lulav and etrog are held in one’s hands throughout the joyous singing and recitation of these psalms and are waved in the six directions at three different points in the chanting of these psalms.
The lulav and etrog are set aside during the reading of the Torah but picked up again toward the end of the morning synagogue services for a unique ritual called the Hoshanot. The Hebrew word hoshanah means “please save (us)” and is a series of as many as seven liturgical poems calling upon God to rescue and redeem the Jewish people, primarily by sending rain.
As an agriculturally based community in the land of Israel, the Jewish people were especially dependent upon the regular, seasonal rainfall to ensure sufficient crops for the community to survive. Because Sukkot falls immediately prior to the beginning of the traditional rainy season in the Middle East, it was considered especially appropriate to petition God for rain at this time. To demonstrate the sincerity and seriousness of the worshippers, the Ark is opened and a Torah is removed from the ark. In a further bid to gain divine favor, everyone carrying a lulav and etrog joins a procession that circles the inside of the sanctuary of the synagogue, chanting and waving his or her lulav and etrog. This procession circling the sanctuary is called a hakkafah (“circling”). A different hoshanah prayer is recited every day of the festival.
Seventh Day:The seventh day of Sukkot is a semi-holiday in its own right. Still counted among the days of hol hamo’ed (intermediate days of the festival), this day is called, Hoshanah Rabbah or the “great hoshanah.” Hoshanah Rabbah was viewed by the rabbis as a mini-Yom Kippur, a day on which the entire Jewish community is judged by God to be worthy or not of the seasonal rains.
All seven hoshanot prayers are recited in seven hakkafot, or processions, around the sanctuary. At the conclusion of this, a special ritual is conducted in which the branches of the willow are struck upon the ground. This is a symbolic attempt to rid ourselves of any remaining sins (the leaves representing these transgressions) that might influence God’s decision to send the seasonal rains. For many Jews, Hoshanah Rabbah is the last day one shakes the lulav and etrog and dwells in the Sukkah (though a number of traditional Jews continue to dwell in the sukkah through Shemini Atzeret). On the evening following Hoshanah Rabbah begins the festival of Shemini Atzeret.
For definitions of terms used and more in-depth resouces on Sukkot, please visit myjewishlearning.com


Action Plan: Set SMART Goals
Getting what you want doesn’t always come easily. Chances are, you’ll have to work to reach your goal. Achieving what you want financially—whether saving to buy a house or for a fun vacation—requires the same planning, perseverance and know-how.
Goal-setting is pretty simple. A goal is something that you are willing to work for. You can get what you want by planning AND following the plan. Setting achievable—and SMART – goals is your first step to success. SMART goals are:
- Specific The more specific your goal, the easier it is to understand what you need to achieve.
- Measurable With a dollar amount to your goals, you have a built-in way of measuring your progress toward that goal and something tangible to work toward.
- Attainable Your goals should be a challenge, yet not so challenging as to be impossible to meet.
- Rewarding How are you going to feel when you’ve reached it?
- Time-bound You have to choose a reasonable timeframe for the achievement of your goals.
Compare the two sets of goals below. The general goals simply state what you hope or want without specifics to help you along. The SMART goals provide you with specific and measurable targets to work toward both in terms of a dollar amount and timeframe.
|General Goals||SMART Goals|
When setting financial goals, it’s important to understand the types of goals you are trying to achieve. In general, there are three types of financial goals, all distinguished by the time it would likely take to achieve them. One of your first goals should be saving for an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. It is always important to keep that emergency fund on your radar as you’re working toward achieving other financial goals.
(Less Than a Year)
(One to Three Years)
(More than Three Years)
Once you’ve set your financial goals, achieving them requires planning to get to where you want to be. Take these steps to get going:
- Set your goals. Figure out what you want to achieve and what it will take, financially speaking, to achieve it.
- Plan the time and savings level to achieve your goals: Goals take time and effort. Set a realistic timetable and a savings level that you can keep up.
- Stick to the plan.
- Write down your goals
- Place reminders where you’ll see them every day
- Use constant, positive motivation
- Draw support from friends and family
Set SMART Goals Worksheet
Use the worksheet below to help you outline your goals and a plan to achieve them.
|Goal||Amount Needed||Month & Year Needed||Saving Start Date||Months to Save||Monthly Amount to Save||Ways to Reach Goal|
Source: InCharge Education Foundation


Thanks to long-lasting, safe, reliable plants, geothermal energy is increasingly low risk and brimming with untapped potential. It is silent, always available, has little impact on the landscape and is versatile. It can even be used for cooling and creates more jobs than any other green energy.
Just a few kilometers beneath our feet lies enough energy to potentially meet all of humanity’s requirements. It is the energy of the Earth’s own heat. While it still plays a marginal role in the world energy scene, it may yet become one of the protagonists of the energy transition to green sources.
Geothermal energy shares many of the advantages of most other renewables. For instance, compared to traditional thermoelectric stations powered by fossil fuels like coal, it produces less carbon dioxide, particulate matter and other toxic substances that create the greenhouse effect, which contributes to climate change. Using this underground energy allows us to reduce our use of fossil fuels and can help us to achieve energy self-sufficiency. Geothermal energy is also in line with sustainable developmentand is essentially free once the planthas been installed. There is no doubt either that recent history has taught us that both the performance and efficiency of renewable plants are improving year after year.
Unlike the sources we have encountered thus far, geothermal energy has certain characteristics that set it apart from other renewables such as wind, solar and hydroelectric power. Below is a 10-point summary that demonstrates why the natural heat below the Earth’s surface still has huge potential to become one of the protagonists of the energy sector of the future.
The African Union Commission (AUC) through its Department of Infrastructure & Energy and TM Geothermal Energy PLC (TMGO) signed a GRMF Grant Contract for the Tulu Moye Drilling Programme. The total grant amounts to USD 9,990,279 for co-financing the total cost estimated to USD 26.2 million for the exploration Drilling Programme.
The Agreement was signed by the AUC Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy, H.E. Dr Amani Abou-Zeid, and the CEO of TMGO Mr. Darrell Boyd. The AUC’s Project Manager for the GRMF, Mr. Atef Marzouk, and the Principal Energy Expert, Mr. Sylvain Degolmal, congratulate TMGO to this achievement:
We would like to congratulate Tulu Moye Geothermal Energy PLC (TMGO) for achieving this milestone. Furthermore, AUC as the project executing agency for GRMF, plays the key role in the harmonization and coordination of geothermal energy exploration and development in East Africa. Therefore, seeing more drilling as the one going on actually in Tulu Moye, Ethiopia is very encouraging. AUC and its partners KfW, BMZ, EU Africa ITF and FCDO (former DFID), would like to reiterate their commitment to fund bankable geothermal projects with respect to GRMF Financial scheme across East Africa region. We are confident that TMGO with this grant will take the project to the next stage closer to power generation.
The Tulu Moye Drilling Programme is located about 140 kilometers southeast of Addis Ababa in the Oromia Regional State, with Lake Koka to the north and Lake Ziway to the south. Three wells are being funded to explore the Gnaro lava field. The Drilling Programme is a continuation of a Surface Study, which received funding within the second GRMF application round.
Seven drilling companies have been shortlisted for the drilling contract for the Corbetti geothermal power project in Ethiopia, Africa, as announced by Corbetti geothermal, the project developer.
Geothermal developer Corbetti Geothermal PLC just released the results of the Pre-Qualification round for the provision of drilling services and material for 26 geothermal wells in the Corbetti caldera in Ethiopia. The companies participating the ongoing tender represent some of the strongest drilling companies in the world and the result shows strong international interest in geothermal development in East Africa. The successful companies are in alphabetical order the following:
Corbetti Geothermal is looking forward to continuing the tender process and expects tenders to be submitted before the end of the year and an agreement signed shortly after New Year to allow drilling to start in early 2021.
U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) has committed $1.55 million in technical development for the Tulu Moye Geothermal Power Plant Project in Ethiopia. DFC’s grant will enable project development and accelerate the schedule to design the 50-megawatt geothermal power plant. When completed, the project will be the country’s first Independent Power Project and one of the largest geothermal power plants in Ethiopia, a country with substantial untapped geothermal resources that can provide significant baseload power.
“DFC will help to shape the design of the project by utilizing one of our new development tools: technical assistance,” said DFC Chief Executive Officer Adam Boehler. “This project will help Ethiopia to tap a critical resource for its economic growth.”
Ethiopian company TM Geothermal Operations PLC (TMGO) is developing the Tulu Moye project, which is approximately 100 kilometers southeast of Addis Ababa. DFC’s technical development would provide funding for up to $1.55 million for project development. After development is completed, DFC would evaluate additional financing for implementation. If TMGO receives implementation financing from DFC or any other financier, TMGO will pay back the full amount of the technical development funding.


Tips for your analytical essay 1 your essay must address and respond to the assignment description most students fail or get low grades because they fail to read. Need help writing a critical analysis essay see these great topic ideas, writing tips and research links for all the help you'll need. Learn how to deal with analysis essay writing find tips about essay structure, style, and peculiarities of each analysis essay type. This resource covers how to write a rhetorical analysis essay of primarily visual texts with a focus on demonstrating the author’s understanding of the rhetorical.
-2-the graduate record examinations® practice general test #3 analytical writing sample essays with reader commentaries the analytical writing portion of the gre. Writing an analytical essay, a guide - what to include, essay structure, topics, outlining, transitions and more learn how to write a good analytical essay. 2 the introduction the introduction to your literary analysis essay should try to capture your reader‟s interest to bring immediate focus to your subject, you may. Worksheet/outline for analytical/argument essays 1 my subject is (complete this sentence in 10 words or less) 2 i believe that. Best help on how to write an analysis essay: analysis essay examples, topics for analysis essay and analysis essay outline can be found on this page.
An analytical essay is not explained in many writing textbooks in essay writing, an analysis is the fundamental element of synthesis essays, summary essays, reflective essays, and most types of college papers. How can the answer be improved. Analytic continuation, a technique to extend the domain of definition of a given analytic function analytical expression. As a type of academic writing, analytical writing pulls out facts and discusses, or analyzes, what this information means based on the analyses, a conclusion is.
The gre general test analytical writing measure tests your critical thinking and analytical writing skills it consists of two separately timed tasks: a 30-minute. Understanding the analytical essay definition analytical essays come up often as writing assignments and term papers unfortunately many students find them difficult. 1 outline structure for literary analysis essay i catchy title ii paragraph 1: introduction (use hatmat) a hook b author c title d main characters. Providing students with analytical essay topics list what is an analytic essay when writing an analytical essay you are setting out to closely study the intricacies.
This unit looks at the difference between descriptive, analytical and persuasive analytical writing it shows how persuasive analytical writing uses a combination of. Writing an analytic research paper (printable version here) an analytic paper demands that you perform many tasks: formulate a thesis, gather sources, evaluate them. An analytical essay sample provided for you to use come look at our quality example of an analytical essay that was used in school. First, it might be more useful to explain what an analytical essay isn’t before getting to what it is an analytical essay isn’t a summary though this may seem obvious in theory, it’s more difficult in practice if you read your essay and it sounds a lot like a book report, it’s probably only summarizing events or characters.
- Get custom analytical essay help analytical essays are called analytical for a reason what is an academic analysis it includes using evidence and assumptions.
- Analytical and interpretive essays for history courses in many history courses, professors will ask you to write analytical and interpretive essays that rely on the.
- Though it seems writing an analytical essay is difficult, but it is not impossible, all you need is to know the essentials to successfully writing an analytical essay.
This resource begins with a general description of essay writing and moves to a discussion of common essay genres students may encounter across the curriculum. For our academic writing purposes we will focus on four types of essay. Download free analytical essay examples learn about analytical essay outline check information about analytical essay definition and format find analytical essay. In an analytical essay, writers form and convey their ideas concerning a particular topic based on careful use and analysis of evidence below are some common types.


Updated: Jul 27, 2019
The resources developed start with non-contextualised arithmetic problems and often link to the reasoning task in context. Each problem comes with key reasoning vocabulary to enable children to access and reason deeply. This is combined with STEM sentences to reveal the structure of the reasoning problem.
They have been developed for Key Stage one and Key Stage two to complement planning.
Head over to the shop now and get started.


The Hakka are a unique offshoot of the Han, China’s majority ethnic group. They migrated to the south from ancient central China between the 4th and 13th centuries, fleeing their worn-torn homelands. They finally settled along the southern coast of China, mainly in Guangdong Province, far from the Mongol invaders and northern cultural influences from which they had fled. They are a resilient and hardy group and have retained their own language, culture and customs through the centuries.
Some Hakka communities employ a unique architectural structure called the tulou, literally “earthen building.” These round structures, often now constructed with more modern materials, provide protection, housing and a communal environment for up to one hundred families. Due to their agrarian lifestyle, the Hakka enjoy hearty cuisine with a balance of texturized meat and vegetables. Folk songs and mountain melodies are common in their communities. Modern Hakka culture emphasizes education for men, who are expected to find work outside the village, often in military or public service. Women, in turn, are expected to work in the fields and take care of everything else. The Hakka language plays an extremely important role in helping them retain their identity as a group.
Though the Hakka have had the Bible in portions since 1860 and in full by 1916, today they are still only about 2% Christian. In the mid 1800’s the Basel Missionary Society sent two of the first missionaries to the Hakka, who began work on translating portions of the scripture. The work they started resulted in 30,000 Hakka believers by the 1920’s. However, since 1949 that growth has been stunted. Today, the Hakka people are almost entirely non-religious, or practice Confucianism, Taoism and ancestor veneration.
The Hakka of southern China have birthed a number of influential leaders in politics and various disciplines. Pray for the Hakka that Christ’s hope and salvation would be established in the hearts of this strong people, “…that they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.” (Matt 13:15)
Pray for a team to be planted among the Hakka who will learn the language, develop relationships, teach and disciple, and that they will discover cultural keys and find favor among the Hakka as they live life among them. Pray that Hakka believers would develop into Biblically sound missional people, and that their influence would help spread the Gospel throughout the nation.


ENDEMIC TO THE SOUTH ISLAND. NATIONALLY VULNERABLE.
DISTRIBUTION: Mōhua live only in isolated populations in forests in the South Island and Stewart Island.
HABITAT: In the 1800s, the Mōhua was one of the most abundant and conspicuous of our forest birds; now it is the most threatened of its genus. The Mōhua has disappeared from large, relatively unchanged forests and is continuing to decline. Once Mōhua inhabited podocarp-hardwood forests. Now they are found only in beech forests with fertile soils where they can find plenty of food. When Europeans first arrived in New Zealand the species was still plentiful, but forest clearances and the introduction of new predators such as rats, stoats and possums all had a devastating effect on Mōhua survival. By 1900 the bird was disappearing from many of its traditional areas.
FOOD: Mōhua are mainly insectivorous - meaning they eat mainly insects or spiders, which they find on foliage and under tree bark.They are also known to eat some fruit.
CALL: Very vocal, with a loud, canary-like song of trilling notes and whistles. Also gives a rapid staccato chatter.
GENERAL: Mōhua adorn a beautiful splash of bright yellow across their head and breast while the rest of the body is brown with varying tinges of yellow and olive. The female is slightly less brightly-coloured and smaller than the male. As Mōhua spend a lot of time feeding on tree trunks or on the ground, the tip of their tail is often worn to spine-like shafts. Mōhua have large feet and strong toes, which are used to hang upside down while searching for food.
When Europeans first arrived in New Zealand, Mōhua were one of the most abundant and conspicuous forest birds in the South Island. Large flocks were commonplace.
Mōhua began to decline noticeably around the 1890s. By the 1960s, the Mōhua had disappeared completely from Nelson Lakes.This trend was repeated elsewhere around the South Island. During the 1980s, it was recognised that Mōhua had disappeared from 75% of their former range and that declines were continuing.
Today's population is estimated at 500. Without recent conservation efforts it is likely that very few Mōhua would remain – the species may even be extinct! Mōhua conservation relies on research, monitoring, predator control and translocations. Although the majority of forests where the Mōhua live are protected, even within these areas populations are still declining due to predation, forest browsing by possums and deer, and competition with introduced birds. The introduced vespulid wasp also competes with Mohua for insects and honeydew, and the wasp may have contributed to the birds' disappearance from beech honeydew forests in the northern South Island.
Establishment of new Mōhua populations on predator-free islands has helped to provide greater security for the species.


As you know, I’m a strong proponent of the idea that the mind is powerless, insofar as emotions drive actions. Willpower, for example, is not based directly on mental strength, but on the emotion of pride. Pride is what really fuels your discipline.
Lisa Williams and David DeSteno from the Northeastern University tested this idea and found that pride mediates perseverance, a major component of willpower.
In their first experiment, 87 participants first had to estimate the number of red dots contained in various images that disappeared after 2 seconds. Afterwards they received either
- a good bogus score with praise (“You received a score of 124 out of 147, which is the 94th percentile. Great job on that! That’s one of the highest scores we’ve seen so far!”), or
- a good bogus score without praise, or
- no feedback.
In the third step, they all had to do a tedious mental rotation task for as long as they pleased.
The results: Those who received the bogus score with praise did not only feel the most pride, they also persevered the longest at the boring task—they were the most self-disciplined. Those who received a bogus score without praise didn’t do better than those who didn’t get any feedback, which suggests that self-efficacy (positive belief in one’s own abilities due to knowledge of previous success) lacked the motivating force that was unique to pride.
But wait a minute: Why pride? What if the praise simply put the participants in a better mood so that they persevered longer? To exclude this possibility, the second experiment was altered a bit. The 78 participants now either
- received a good bogus score with praise, or
- received no score, but looked at positive images (e.g., tropical landscapes), or
- solely looked at neutral images (e.g, a chair or a pen).
Again, those who received praise felt the most intense pride and persevered the longest. Thus, feeling positive emotions wasn’t enough to increase willpower—only pride could achieve that.
In summary, both studies showed that pride leads to greater perseverance on an onerous task and that this increase in willpower was a result neither of believing in one’s abilities nor of feeling good, but a result of the emotion of pride.
These findings, together with mediational analyses, support the motivational hypothesis of pride: When you feel proud after an accomplishment, you want to accomplish even more—due to your pride. This is why your willpower doesn’t necessarily get depleted when you use it.
But you, sitting here reading this article: How can you apply this information? Well, you don’t necessarily need to feel accomplished to get motivated by pride. Just imagine how you’ll feel once you’ve taken action, once you’ve gotten after it, once you’ve achieved something great! Just imagine your pride, and get to work!
- Williams, L. A. & DeSteno, D. (2008). Pride and perseverance: the motivational role of pride. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 94(6), pp. 1007-1017, doi: 10.1037/0022-35220.127.116.117.


Chapter 2: Program Activities for Healthy Development
2.1 Program of Developmental Activities
2.1.3 Program Activities for Three- to Five-Year-Olds
220.127.116.11: Fostering Cooperation of Three- to Five-Year-Olds
Programs should foster a cooperative rather than a competitive indoor and outdoor learning/play environment.
RATIONALEAs three-, four-, and five-year-olds play and work together, they shift from almost total dependence on the adult to seeking social opportunities with peers that still require adult monitoring and guidance. The rules and responsibilities of a well-functioning group help children of this age to internalize impulse control and to become increasingly responsible for managing their behavior. A dynamic curriculum designed to include the ideas and values of a broad socioeconomic group of children will promote socialization. The inevitable clashes and disagreements are more easily resolved when there is a positive influence of the group on each child (1).
COMMENTSEncouraging communication skills and attentiveness to the needs of individuals and the group as a whole supports a cooperative atmosphere. Adults need to model cooperation.
TYPE OF FACILITYCenter, Head Start, Large Family Child Care Home, Small Family Child Care Home
- Pica, R. 1997. Beyond physical development: Why young children need to move. Young Child 52:4-11.


Thursday, December 24, 2009
~ G.K. Chesterton
From Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol:
"A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.
"Bah!" said Scrooge, "Humbug!"
He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.
"Christmas a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge's nephew. "You don't mean that, I am sure."
"I do," said Scrooge. "Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? what reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough."
"Come, then," returned the nephew gaily. "What right have you to be dismal? what reason have you to be morose? You're rich enough."
Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, "Bah!" again; and followed it up with "Humbug."
"Don't be cross, uncle," said the nephew.
"What else can I be," returned the uncle, "when I live in such a world of fools as this Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas. What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with "Merry Christmas" on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"
"Uncle!" pleaded the nephew.
"Nephew!" returned the uncle, sternly, "keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine."
"Keep it!" repeated Scrooge's nephew. "But you don't keep it."
"Let me leave it alone, then," said Scrooge. "Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!"
"There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say," returned the nephew: "Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round - apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that - as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"
Monday, December 21, 2009
Shifting the debate from the legality of murdering a child to whether or not that murder should be funded by the taxpayers is a major setback for the Pro-Life movement. And I'm not sure emough people are aware of that.
Recognizing we don't always get to choose the lines of battle, I pray that Congressman Bart Stupak resists any attempts to intimidate or bribe him as the nation's focus now falls back onto the House.
What we need now more than ever is another Eliot Ness and a group of “Untouchables” in the House and Senate - men and women with integrity, without fear, and without a price.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Without a clear concept of what real manliness is today many men are eager to wage war, but only as an avatar in the distant land of Azeroth (WoW) or in some other digital online gaming world doing battle against a make believe foe. These men sink ridiculous numbers of hours every week into fleeing from the real battles of this world and engaging in the safe and meaningless battles of online gaming.
They have been effectively emasculated and neutralized through their decision to spend their free time fighting fantasy orcs, trolls, and dwarves while the real evil of this world is left unchecked. People can and do enjoy these games in moderation, but the games today are designed more and more to make this the exception and not the rule. More about this in a later post.
So then what is the ideal of Catholic Manhood? What does rightly ordered masculinity look like, and where have all the "good men" gone?
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Tonight we sang the song Your Love is Extravagant which was written by Darrell Evans. Below are some of the lyrics to the song.
Your Love is Extravagant
Your love (Your love) is extravagant,
Your friendship (ooo) mm -so intimate;
I feel I'm moving to the rythm of Your grace,
Your fragrance is intoxicating in our secret place;
Your love (Your love) is extravagant.
Wow, that was hot.
Now I am aware that great Catholic Saints have used intimate and sometimes erotic language in the past to describe union with God not to mention the Song of Songs. I get that, but I don't think Contemporary Christian music falls into this category. The Song of Songs is an inspired book of the Bible and the writings of the Saints flowed from personal experience with and promptings by the Spirit. While this song does have a nice melody, I'm not sure it fits into the same category.
As a man I feel uncomfortable expressing my appreciation of Christ's love with ooo's and mmm's, and with talk of intoxicating fragrances and secret places. Jesus was not only God almighty, but also a man - a real life man with all the trimmings. Jesus is fully God and fully Man - still.
And I can't help but wonder if suggestive, sensual songs involving the Blessed Virgin Mary's love for us or popular art depicting her with a figure are very far off. Would this be inappropriate? Would that be a double-standard?
Monday, December 7, 2009
Draw Me Close
Draw me close to You
Never let me go
I lay it all down again
To hear You say that I'm Your friend
You are my desire
No one else will do
'Cause no one else can take Your place
To feel the warmth
of Your embrace
Help me find a way
Bring me back to You
You're all I want
You're all I've ever needed
You're all I want
Help me know You are near
Listening to the words, I began to form an image of Jesus "drawing me close", pressing me into his big, strong, hairy-chest. There I was "feeling the warmth of His embrace", and I couldn't help but notice how the whole song's imagery seemed awfully, well, feminine.
I really hope heaven isn't like that, because that would be really awkward. I've never thought of Jesus as a hugger. I mean I'm sure he hugs babies, and little kids all the time, and probably women too, but I'm going to go out on a limb here d have to guess He'd opt for a knuckle bump from the fellas.
Don't get me wrong I know Jesus loves me, and my wife assures me that he's going to hug me if I do get to heaven (if for no other reason than for this post). I'm just sometimes surprised how some of these songs seem to be written in such a way that they can be sung to Jesus or to a wife/girlfriend.
But like I said, the youth choir did do a nice job.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
To correctly understand light, you need some concept of darkness. Warmth is appreciated most by those who have an understanding of coldness. True knowledge of joy, requires a familiarity with sorrow. And an understanding, appreciation, and knowledge of mercy require it be considered in the context of justice. And a divine mercy can only be fully conceived if considered against a backdrop of divine justice.
Universalism creates the conditions necessary for its own growth and spread. To emphasize God’s love and ignore His justice makes it difficult to see how any action on our part could result in eternal punishment. People begin talking more and more about the mercy of God and how much He loves us, and less about the radical reality of the human will to reject God and place itself under the justice of God. The cycle is fueled by our society’s love of self and loathing of responsibility.
Jacques Maritain described practical atheists as those who, "believe that they believe in God but in reality deny His existence by each one of their deeds." And I think you could describe a practical Universalist as those who, "believe that they believe in Hell but in reality deny its existence by each one of their deeds." A person who would could imagine such a place but not a path leading to it.
I hear a lot about people wanting to "reach out to people and meet them where they’re at" lately. Great! I’m all for whatever that means as long as the meeting includes talk of both sin and blessing, both death and resurrection, both repentance and redemption … and both justice and mercy.


Investors are forcing the world’s biggest plastic manufacturers to reveal how many harmful plastic pellets they are leaking into rivers, lakes and oceans worldwide.
Factories, trains, ships and trucks spill about 10 trillion of the lentil-sized pellets, or nurdles, used to make all plastic products, into the environment each year — enough to make roughly 15 million plastic bottles. Once in aquatic environments, pellets absorb toxins in the water, becoming poisonous magnets for birds, fish and other animals.
Pellet contamination is widespread around B.C.’s Lower Mainland, according to a 2019 study by University of Victoria researchers and the Surfrider Foundation. They’re also a major problem in the Great Lakes and other regions with high concentrations of plastic manufacturing or transportation infrastructure.
International chemical company DuPont last week announced it will start publicly reporting how many pellets it loses each year, joining several other major plastic producers. The move comes after most shareholders voted for the disclosure against company wishes — a decision that can help expose the plastics industry’s outsized role in the plastic pollution crisis.
“The more activities — no matter what they are — that remind people plastic comes from industry and literally nowhere else, the better,” said Max Liboiron, a professor of geography at Memorial University who studies plastic pollution. “(Plastics) only come from one place, and anything we can do to (push accountability) back up the pipe is valuable.”
About 4.6 million tonnes of raw plastic are produced in or imported to Canada each year, according to a 2019 report commissioned by Environment and Climate Change Canada. Then it is transformed into everyday items like cups or canoes, likely destined for a landfill or the oceans: only about nine per cent of Canada’s plastic waste is recycled.
Pellets under five millimetres are regulated under Canada’s environmental laws, and spills are supposed to be reported to the proper provincial or territorial environmental agency.
Yet despite growing concern about the plastic crisis, pellet pollution has retained a relatively low profile.
In 1991, facing pressure from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the plastics industry worked with the agency to create an industry best-practices program — Operation Clean Sweep — that has been accused of being created to fend off regulation. Companies that join the program, including DuPont, are required to install special equipment and promise not to lose any pellets. They’re not required to keep or report data on pellet spills, according to a 2020 NPR investigation into the program.
While the program’s implementation does correlate with some environmental gains — ornithologists worldwide have seen significantly fewer pellets in seabirds since the 1980s — pellet pollution has recently taken on a new prominence, says Kelly McBee, waste program co-ordinator for As You Sow. The environmental organization works with shareholders to make companies more sustainable and played a key role in pressuring DuPont and five other major petrochemical companies to reveal their pellet pollution data.
Investors are forcing the world’s biggest plastic manufacturers to reveal how many harmful #plastic pellets they are leaking into rivers, lakes and oceans worldwide. #pollution
So far, only three of the five — Chevron Phillips Chemical, Exxon and Dow — have started to make their reporting publicly available, As You Sow said in a statement.
“DuPont is committed to transparent reporting on sustainability and environmental matters,” said Daniel Turner, a spokesperson for DuPont in a written statement. “We are taking action at our facilities to avoid pellet spills, increase plastic recycling and prevent plastic waste from entering the environment.”
McBee is relieved to see even a modicum of transparency on the issue, though it is far too late, she explains.
“We were really shocked to see that after almost three decades of operation (companies) had no reporting on how effective their programs had been, they had no auditing process to determine if it was actually being implemented in practice,” she said.
The companies’ commitments to reporting spill data is a good start, she explains — not a solution. There are no independent, third-party audits of plastic spills nor internal audits on the best practices’ effectiveness.
Furthermore, the new shareholder resolution only covers spills in manufacturing facilities. They will not cover the sinuous path plastics take between the petrochemical plant where they are produced and the factory where they are turned into consumer products, she notes.
Liboiron agrees better reporting isn’t a perfect solution.
“There’s a consistent problem where, when the polluter is providing its reports, there’s always the question of accountability, how metrics are made (because they’re) often considered proprietary, so you never get to check the validity,” they said. “In a lot of industries — especially petrochemical industries, of which plastics are a part — there’s very often a discrepancy between reported figures and the experience of fence-line communities.”
It’s a discrepancy evident on the B.C. coast, David Boudinot, plastic pellet researcher with the Surfrider Foundation’s B.C. chapter, said in an email. Pellets are increasingly common on the province’s beaches, particularly those on the Salish Sea, and the organization has seen spills at plastic manufacturing facilities along the Fraser River. Reporting, preventing and mitigating the spills largely falls on the manufacturers or shipping companies transporting them, he said.
The B.C. Ministry of Environment said in response to the organization’s 2019 study that it hadn’t received reports of pellets entering waterways.
For Liboiron, more data on pellet pollution is a good start, if only because it highlights plastics’ environmental dangers.
“(This) just brings plastics up to snuff with the baseline expectation of accountability for emissions from other types of chemicals and pollutants,” they said.


The National Weather Service says that due to a wildfire burning on High Island in Jefferson County, Houston-area residents may see and smell smoke over the next 12-24 hours and beyond. Due to changing wind conditions, smoke which was mostly contained to Galveston and Brazoria Counties Friday is shifting westward toward the city.
The fire in a remote area of the McFaddin National Wildlife Refuge grew exponentially Friday, to as much as 5,000 acres. Officials said it has the potential to spread, possibly impacting up to 5,700 acres of coastal marsh.
Rough terrain makes firefighting from the ground difficult. The smoke billowing into the area created a haze that wafted for miles. Authorities say it is mostly salt grass which is burning, and it's very difficult to extinguish.
So many concerned residents were calling in about the smoke that the Galveston County Office of Emergency Management activated its reverse 911 system. They called about 15,000 people to tell them what was burning, and let them know they should only be worried about the smoke if they have respiratory issues.
Officials at the wildlife refuge say they believe the fire was manmade. There were no lightning strikes in the area Thursday night or Friday. They can't say though if the fire was accidental or intentional.
Houston residents should not be alarmed if they see a smoky haze or smell smoke. Residents with sensitive or compromised respiratory systems should take precautions to avoid breathing smoky air. This includes limiting contact with outside air until the smoke clears. You should expect that if winds shift you might see or smell the smoke also where you are.
Again, officials say you only need stay inside if you have a sensitive respiratory system.
Denise Ruffino with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said high humidity and heavy dew overnight and into Saturday should leave only some smoldering spots and reduce smoke.
The refuge, established in 1980, covers nearly 60,000 acres of marshland and is home to the largest concentration of alligators in Texas.
The Associated Press contibuted to this report.
Take ABC13 with you!
Download our free apps for iPhone, iPad and Android devices


A ‘latte levy’ or disposable coffee cup charge would be the best solution to tackle the UK’s coffee cup waste problem.
BBC’s Blue Planet 2 showed us the impact of our addiction to plastic on the marine environment and since then the willingness to tackle this problem has grown with the public, the government and with businesses. One area that has received attention in the press is disposable coffee cups. It’s estimated we throw away 2.5 billion coffee cups in the UK every year and this is only set to increase as the coffee industry grows. The cups are coated with plastic which means that they are nearly impossible to recycle – currently only 1 in 400 is recycled. They are also commonly littered and can contaminate recycling bins leading to costs on local governments.
So, what is the best way to tackle our reliance on disposable coffee cups? If we follow the waste hierarchy of ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ then the first step must be to reduce. If more people used reusable coffee cups, then the amount of waste would be reduced. It is therefore important to find the right incentive to encourage this behaviour. A number of coffee chains are offering discounts for customers who bring their own cups, but it’s been shown that discounts are not as effective as charges. A good example of a charge having the desired effect is the 5p charge on single-use plastic carrier bags. Since the introduction of this charge, usage has decreased by around 85%.
But should we decide to just ban disposable coffee cups immediately? Well the trouble with that is that there isn’t really a viable alternative yet, that is easily recyclable. Although we can encourage people to take their own hot drink container, there are occasions when even with the best intentions, we’re caught short. Another benefit of charging for disposable coffee cups is that the funds raised can be used to improve recycling and help fund research into alternative materials.
You might be thinking – why should coffee shops benefit from reduced costs of buying fewer containers? Although there may be some savings to the businesses that sell coffee, this should be seen as another positive way of influencing change for the outcome we want to see – fewer disposable cups. However, there is a need to generally consider the role of plastic producers and retailers in taking on more of the costs of recycling that is currently largely bourn by local authorities. Ideally, we would move to a circular economy where producers and retailers are responsible for the whole life cycle of any materials they use. However, a coffee cup charge can be part of this wider change of approach.
The Environmental Audit Committee suggested that a charge should be introduced urgently and that a ban should come into force by 2023 if coffee cups still cannot be fully recycled. This phased approach has the benefits of delivering swift action using a tried and tested method to drive behaviour change, while also raising the funds to find alternatives and increase recycling, and with a clear and ambitious date to end the use of disposable coffee cups.
Dr Lyndsey Dodds is the head of marine policy at WWF-UK, the UK branch of the world’s leading conservation organisation.
Ultimately, everyone has a responsibility across the chain – we need intervention from everyone, as everyone plays a part. I wouldn’t agree that taxing is the right approach right now. There is a circular way to solve these problems if everyone collaborates.
Our view is that you solve these problems by creating a demand for the material once it’s been collected. We came to the UK as an Australian company looking to work with plastic bottles in the UK, and we took recycling and collection from 3% to above 50%. We created a demand for the UK dairy industry to use recycled post-consumer material for their bottles and specify it in their products. As soon as they specify it, anyone who wanted to sell it to that market had to buy that material, it created a demand and a value to the material. It meant that we could go to waste contractors who were previously landfilling it or burning it and say: “instead of doing that with bottles, we will buy them off you for X amount per tonne.” That translated down to the consumer; “if you as a business put your bottles in this bin, it will cost you half as much as if you had send it with general waste.”
If we can work together to create value and create something useful for paper cups, we can create solutions.
It’s about integrating these products back in as a valuable raw material, and we need more circular ways of thinking. Obviously, if there’s a demand for that, that will then facilitate infrastructure and collection systems, because the waste industry is pretty straight forward. If it’s worth something – it will be collected. This isn’t a problem that the waste industry has got, it’s a problem for the producers and vendors of coffee. I find it frustrating that everyone points the finger at the waste industry.
The more products we make that need cups, the more cups we need, the more valuable they become and then the demand pulls everything out of the marketplace as it has done with paper, glass and cardboard, for example. My fear is that if the industry can’t sort itself out and take the problem as seriously as it needs to be taken, then the government which has made a big stance on solving the problem will be forced to do nothing but tax.
We recently launched a reusable cup made from used coffee cups. It’s probably the first product to promote reuse, while also giving the material a value. The solutions are out there, don’t let anyone say they’re not, it’s just that there are political and commercial reasons getting in the way of them.
Could this problem be solved quickly? Yes, it could. We believe we can make a whole coffee shop out of the materials that a coffee shop generates, and that’s where we need to get to. Get people thinking like that, and a problem is transformed into an opportunity.
Peter Goodwin is the co-founder of Simply Cups, a circular economy-focused waste management company which offers a range of waste and recycling collection solutions to organisations large and small.
Interviews by Jack Atkins


Wood Pattern Maker Job Description Example
What Does a Wood Pattern Maker Do?
Wood pattern makers construct wooden replicas or patterns used in sand mold casting.
The wood pattern maker job description entails planning, designing, and fabrication of wooden sectional patterns which are used in creating the cavities into which molten metal is poured during casting.
Wood pattern makers utilize various measuring and marking tools such as squares, shrink rule, and scriber in designing wood patterns according to details and specification.
They create sections on wood stock by cutting and shaping wood parts using power tools such as lathe machine, planar, and bandsaw.
They also maintain an up-to-date knowledge of casting process and techniques to ensure designed patterns produces desired results and can be easily retrieved from a mold without any physical damage.
As part of their duties, wood pattern makers ensure produced cast remains within set specification after surface finishing.
Usually, wood pattern makers utilize protractors, calipers, and straightedges to verify the angle and dimension of wooden patterns during assembly.
They carry out surface finishing of designed patterns using lacquers or waxes as finishing agent.
Their role may also involve designing wooden models which serve as prototypes for an original concept.
They use paint and color codes on the surface of a pattern to indicate compatible sections for easy assembly.
They often liaise with designers and production engineers to plan and develop patterns in accordance with set standards and specification.
Also, their work description entails studying and interpreting construction details as contained in a blueprint.
In fulfilling their role, wood pattern makers evaluate the shape, texture and size of produced patterns to make appropriate adjustments and repairs before they are used in a casting process.
They ensure compliance with set safety and health regulations and procedures when performing job operations.
They also oversee the selection and procurement of choice wood stock and other materials required for patternmaking.
As part of their responsibilities, wood pattern makers carry out the methoding of a pattern/mold by means of manual or computer aided design.
Wood pattern makers require at least a high school diploma and several years of training from experienced wood pattern professionals to succeed on the job.
Certifications from technical colleges also increase job prospects for wood pattern maker.
Some of the qualities required to excel on this job include an eye for details, math, and mechanical skills.
Wood Pattern Maker Job Description Example/Template
Wood pattern makers perform various functions, the job description example below shows the major duties, tasks, and responsibilities that make up their daily work activities:
- Read and interpret blueprints and production information to determine the dimension and shape of a pattern
- Utilize various equipment such as sanders, bandsaws, and routers in smoothing, cutting and shaping wooden patterns
- Measure the dimension of produced patterns using straightedges and protractors to ensure accurate size and measurement
- Oversee the set up and operation of woodworking machines such as lathe and powersaws
- Couple and assemble wood parts into sections, patterns or models using bolts, screws, nails or glue
- Oversee the repair and adjustment of damaged or irregular wood patterns to ensure the production of precise cast
- Carry out calculations to determine appropriate dimension, weight, and volume for a wood pattern
- Ensure easy removal of patterns from mold by dividing wood pattern into sections
- Oversee the cost estimation for a wood pattern project to determine the price of production and required materials
- Utilize color codes and paint to indicate techniques for the assembly of wood parts or patterns
- Select choice of wood stock and raw materials for a wood pattern production process
- Maintain record of operations and inventory of equipment, tools, and raw materials
- Apply decorative and preservative finish on wood patterns or models to ensure a fine appearance and long shelf life
- Oversee the construction of wooden models, jigs, molds, and templates used in forming the shape of a product or cast
- Oversee the distribution of supplies and patterns to machine operators
- Maintain an up-to-date knowledge of wood pattern design and casting techniques by participating in educational programs.
Wood Pattern Maker Resume Preparation
Do you need to make a resume for the wood pattern maker job? If you do, you can easily create the work experience part of it by applying the sample job description given above.
The job experience section of the resume is an opportunity to show that you have previously carried out the duties and responsibilities of a wood pattern maker.
Therefore, if you have actually worked before in that role and are writing a resume, you can simply make use of the functions of the position stated above in highlighting your work experience.
Requirements – Skills, Abilities, and Knowledge – for Wood Pattern Maker Job
If you are interested in applying for a wood pattern maker job, the under listed are the necessary requirements most employers usually expect applicants to fulfill to be considered for the job:
- Education and Training: To become a wood pattern maker, you require at least a high school diploma which is among the prerequisites for entry into furniture making or woodworking technical colleges. Job experience can be gained by working as an apprentice under experienced wood pattern makers
- Eye for details: Wood pattern makers are able to focus on the individual parts that make up a pattern to build them up to desired standards or set specification
- Math Skill: They are well versed in performing calculations to establish the dimensions of a wood pattern
- Mechanical Skills: Wood pattern makers are proficient in operating and controlling various power and manual equipment to achieve a desired effect.
Wood Pattern Maker Skills for Resume
Again, if you are making a resume for the wood pattern maker job, you can use the above required qualities for the role in creating the skills section of your resume.
With the skills section in your resume, employers will be able to see the relevant skills and qualities you are bringing to the job, and this will give them the confidence that you will be able to carry out the job description that will be assigned to you effectively.
If you are thinking of working as a wood pattern maker, the duties, tasks, and responsibilities of the role given in this post will help you to know more about what the position entails and if that is what you will like to do for a career.
The job description sample for the position also given above provides employers a template to guide them in making suitable work description for their firms for hiring and assigning tasks to the best capable individuals for the job.
Did you learn more about the duties and responsibilities of wood pattern makers from this post? Do let us know what you think about this post in the comment box below. You can also share the work you do as a wood pattern maker with other readers if you are one.


Why a popular Welsh name has been given to numerous mountains in the South Island.
Search ‘Evans’ on the website topomap.co.nz and no fewer than 24 names pop up, including five mountains. Evans is a common Welsh surname, so it’s hardly surprising that so many feature on our maps, but who are these mountains named after?
Three of the mountains are probably named for one man. Frederick John Evans served as the master on the Acheron, the ship that under Captain John Stokes made a comprehensive survey of New Zealand in the 1850s. These are all prominent peaks, visible from the sea: one in what is now Abel Tasman National Park, another on Banks Peninsula, and at least one in Fiordland National Park.
The highest of the Mt Evanses is a striking summit in the central Southern Alps, a great bastion of a peak lying at the headwaters of the Rakaia, Whitcombe, Waitaha and Wanganui Rivers. This Evans was the proprietor of Hokitika’s famous Red Lion pub, and during the late 1800s, a surveyor named two peaks at the head of the Whitcombe after the man and his bar.
To my mind, there is also a missing Mt Evans and that is Mt Edgar Evans, named after the strapping Welshman who accompanied Captain Scott to the South Pole, but died on the return journey. Scott and all of his other companions – Wilson, Bowers and Oates – have peaks named after them in Arthur’s Pass National Park. But poor old Edgar Evans missed out. On the centenary of his death – 17 February 2012 – two friends and I climbed a peak, positioned between Mts Bowers and Wilson on the Polar Range, and held a small ceremony to honour the fallen Welshman.
1 Mt Evans (1156m), Abel Tasman National Park
Mt Evans, the highest summit in Abel Tasman National Park is situated on the Pikikiruna Range, high above the moor-like Canaan Downs. While the track to the summit is no longer maintained, a marked route, beginning from near Moa Park Shelter, is still easy to follow. It climbs gently through forest onto the striking summit rocks, composed of granite with quartz.
2 Mt Evans (703m), Banks Peninsula
This Mt Evans is a prominent summit on Banks Peninsula above Port Levy.
3 Mt Edgar Evans (2019m), Arthur’s Pass National Park
This unnamed peak is most easily reached from Edwards Hut. While in summer it’s a straightforward scramble, during winter it will require mountaineering skills and equipment.
4 Mt Evans (2620m), Whitcombe Valley
On a good day, the view of Mt Evans from Cave Camp is one of the finest in the Southern Alps. The mountain rises in a series of redoubtable cliffs, ledges and snowfields towards the castle-like summit. During the early 1930s, the mountain was, briefly, the highest unclimbed summit in the Southern Alps, and many mountaineers raced to claim the first ascent.
Famously, it fell on the first day of 1934 to a determined team of Canterbury climbers – John Pascoe, Gavin Malcolmson and Priestley Thomson. The second party to climb it was a Tararua Tramping Club group four years later, but tragically one of them, Norman Dowling, died on the descent. There’s a memorial plaque to him at Cave Camp, which has for decades served as a shelter for trampers and climbers in this notoriously wet part of the country.
5 Mt Evans (1084m), Fiordland National Park
This Mt Evans is a high knoll above Dusky Sound’s Cook Channel, where the great mariner spent some weeks during his second voyage to New Zealand in 1773.


An animal's mythical ability to predict earthquakes likely has a more scientific explanation, a companion animal expert has revealed.
Some pet owners in Melbourne reported their animals acting strangely before today's 5.9 magnitude earthquake struck.
Buddy, an English Staffordshire terrier began barking and running about before the ground began to shake, according to his owner, 42-year-old eastern suburbs resident Jamie McCarney.
"From what I could tell, he started making the noise he would when someone's at the gate before the earthquake began," he told Yahoo News Australia.
"He then ran back and forth, up and down the house barking."
Animal earthquake premonition myth busted
At first glance, Mr McCarney's description is consistent with Sydney University veterinarian Dr Anne Quain's understanding of companion pet behaviour during earthquakes.
Tremors will elicit vocalisations in dogs, which take the form of barking and howling. They are also commonly observed moving around the room, while cats usually leave the vicinity.
Where Dr Quain's scientific understanding diverts from Mr McCarney's experience is on the subject of earthquake prediction.
The veterinarian argues animals reacting before tremors begin remains anecdotal, and she is yet to see conclusive evidence that supports this.
“There's lots of anecdotal reports of animals behaving strangely in the time preceding earthquakes,” she told Yahoo News Australia.
“Sometimes that is seconds, sometimes it's minutes, sometimes longer periods of time where animals act differently.
“It’s believed that they’re actually reacting to foreshock, or small earthquakes that we don't feel before the biggest seismic events.
“There's no conclusive evidence that they have some sort of extrasensory ability to predict earthquakes.”
How pet owners can protect animals during earthquakes
After today's earthquake, Dr Quain saw a number of reports on social media of cats going missing.
With aftershocks predicted in the coming days, she is urging pet owners to ensure their animals are microchipped and their records are up to date.
“One of the biggest learnings we've had around animals in earthquakes was centred around Christchurch (in 2011),” she said.
“There was a lot of damage to property, and a lot of animals escaped, because if they're afraid of something, their instinct is often to run.
“Making sure we keep animals in a safe environment, making sure we do have an evacuation plan for them, making sure they have up to date identification is really important.
“Of course, we never know when an emergency situation is going to happen, so today is a good reminder.”
More on Wednesday's earthquake:
Melbourne's famous falcons not phased by earthquake
While domestic animals tend to flee, peregrine falcons which famously live in the heart of Melbourne behaved in the opposite manner.
CCTV footage, which monitors the nesting pair near the top of 367 Collins Street, captured the response of the male when the building began to shake.
The male bird can be seen walking off the nest and walking to the edge of the ledge before cocking his head to the side.
He then vocalises with a high-pitched call before jumping off the building.
Victorian Peregrine Project founder Dr Victor Hurley, who has been working with building owner Mirvac to monitor the pair, said while some thought the bird was fleeing, he was in fact working to protect the nest.
Having studied the species for over 30 years, he believes their reaction was a “furious” move intended to drive away any potential threat.
“It’s not out of fear, it’s more out of protection,” he said.
"They're scared of nothing.”
Dr Hurley describes their behaviour as a “normal” reaction to an “unusual circumstance”.
“It’s pretty unusual for a building to be shaking and rattling so that’s something they won’t have experienced and understandably they’re instantly concerned about what they need to check out,” he said.
“The first thing the male did was to look around, walk to the edge, take off, and probably fly up above to the height of the building to see if he could see something that’s causing the noise and movement.
“It stopped soon after and the female was soon back on the nest.”
Reassuringly Dr Hurley believes the eggs would not have been shaken hard enough by the earthquake to be damaged.
He said the eggs are two-thirds of the way through incubation, meaning chicks will likely be hatching soon.
Do you have a story tip? Email: firstname.lastname@example.org


1971: The Southern California Rapid Transit District inaugurates its experimental Minibus shuttle services in the downtown Central Business District as part of the Bunker Hill urban renewal project. Over 3,400 passengers boarded first-day operations between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., with daily totals reaching 4,500 riders by the end of the first week.
The canopied mini-buses, running every 4 minutes, cost 10-cents compared to 30-cents for regular SCRTD bus fare.
The natural gas and propane powered Minibus service is funded through the Community Redevelopment Agency, the City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County.
It will later expand to additional routes in downtown, Westwood, the San Fernando Valley.
SCRTD acquired new mini-buses in 1984 and the service is transferred to the Los Angeles Department of Transportation on October 25, 1985.
It is then renamed DASH and operates numerous routes throughout downtown and dozens more throughout Los Angeles.
Many more photos of the SCRTD Mini-Buses can be found here.


Last Updated on
It can be great fun to learn about space, especially if you can use a telescope to see what you are learning about, and this is the case with Uranus. Any telescope should enable you to see the planet, so many people want to know more facts about this ice giant to make the experience more interesting. If you like looking at the night sky, keep reading as we go over several interesting facts about this outer planet.
William Hershel was an amateur astronomer in 1781 when he discovered Uranus. While it’s possible to view with the naked eye, people didn’t realize that it was a planet until well after the telescope was invented.
When William Hershel first found Uranus with his telescope, he thought that it was a comet. It took another 2 years for other astronomers to convince him that it was a planet based on its brightness and speed. William Hershel wanted to name his world, Georgium Sidus, after King George III, but it was eventually named after the Greek god of the sky, Uranus.
Scientists studying Uranus have noticed that it has an extreme tilt that causes dramatic weather conditions across the planet. It has a tilt of 97.77 degrees, which might have resulted from a collision with a large, Earth-sized object.
Due to the extreme tilt of Uranus, one of its poles points directly at the sun for ¼ of the year, which is equal to 21 Earth years. The pole on the other side of the planet remains in complete darkness.
The Earth rotates in an eastern direction, so our sun rises in the east and sets in the west. If you were standing on Uranus, the sun would rise in the west and set in the east. Venus is the only other planet where you can witness a western sunrise.
While Earth only has a single moon and a recently discovered quasi-satellite that many people consider to be a second moon, Uranus has 27 moons. While Uranus is the only planet that has a Greek god name, astronomers don’t use any for the names of its moons, like other planets. Instead, the names all come from the literary works of William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope.
Most people know that Saturn has rings, but many are surprised to learn that Uranus does too. Uranus has two sets of rings: an inner system of nine rings and an outer system of two. The inner rings are dark grey. The inner and outer rings have a reddish hue, while the outer one is blue.
Uranus is more than 80% icy materials, like water, methane, and ammonia, and has a small rocky core that can reach more than 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Since Uranus only has a small rocky core, it is not that dense. In fact, of all the planets in the solar system, only Saturn is less dense.
Since Uranus is more than 80% water, ammonia, and methane gas, it does not have a true surface. Instead, it’s a swirling fluid ball with no noticeable surface and no place to land any spacecraft.
The atmosphere of Uranus is primarily hydrogen and helium, but there is also a small amount of methane gas that helps give it its blue color. The methane absorbs the red part of the sunlight and reflects the blue. Wind speeds can reach more than 560 miles per hour, and temperatures can be colder than -350 degrees Fahrenheit below 0.
Scientists believe that Uranus and its sister planet Neptune, another ice giant, formed close to the sun about 4.5 billion years ago. Both planets then drifted away to their current locations about 4 billion years ago.
The magnetosphere of Uranus is different from the magnetosphere on other planets. For example, the magnetosphere on planets like Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn aligns with the planet’s rotation, but the magnetic axis tilts 60 degrees from the planet’s axis on Uranus. It’s also offset from the center by more than 1/3 of the planet’s diameter.
While the poles of Uranus experience 21-year-long winters due to its tilt, the large planet rotates much faster than Earth does, and a Uranus day lasts a little over 17 hours and 14 minutes. Since it takes Uranus 84 earth years to get around the sun one time, each year has tens of thousands of days.
Uranus is an ice giant that is many times larger than the Earth. Calculations show that 63 Earth-sized planets can fit inside this swirling ball of liquid.
•Song Sparrow: Field Guide, Pictures, Habitat & Info
There are many interesting facts to learn about Uranus, and we are discovering new things every day. Many modern telescopes help us get a better look, and though we may never be able to visit it, there is quite a bit that we can learn from this planet to help us understand how the universe works.
Featured Image Credit: NASA, Unsplash
Table of Contents
Ed Malaker is a veteran writer who contributes to a wide range of blogs covering information on computer programming, pets, birding, tools, fitness, guitars, and optics. Outside of writing, Ed is often found working in the garden or performing DIY projects in the house. Ed is also a musician, spending his time composing music for independent films or helping people repair their guitars.
15 Crucial Facts About Ultraviolet Rays & the Sun
What Constellation Is Spica In? The Interesting Answer!
10 Interesting Leo Constellation Facts, Myths, and FAQs
15 Interesting Pegasus Constellation Facts, Myths, and FAQs
6 Interesting Sagittarius Constellation Facts, Myths, and FAQs in 2023!
What Are Constellations? Where Did They Come From?
8 Interesting Libra Constellation Facts, Myths, and FAQs
What Is Infrared Radiation? How Does It Work?


Whether you are watching television or surfing the internet, you are blasted with advertisements that, more often than not, don’t interest you or serve any purpose for you. No matter the medium you are on, advertisers are trying to convince you that they have a product or service just for you. Long before television or radio, there has been some form of advertising. Newspapers were the start of mass advertising, but posers go back to the Egyptians trying to sell products.
In advertising there two general categories of advertising, traditional and digital. Traditional advertising utilizes television, radio, newspaper, billboards, magazines, and direct mailings. These types of advertising can reach an extremely large audience, giving businesses many eyes to see their product or service, but there is no guarantee the right people are getting the advertising.
Digital, a relatively new player in the advertising world, uses the internet to reach a large audience in several ways. Audiences can be targeted by location, and demographics to target a more precise group.
While traditional forms of advertising are effective, digital advertising has taken the lead in accessibility. With the increase in smart devices, digital advertising will follow users wherever they go. The culture of consumers around the world today digital advertising is a necessity.
With digital advertising, the types of advertising available are:
- paid search advertising
- display advertising
- native advertising
- social media advertising
The most prominent type of digital advertising is paid search advertising.Using Paid Search Advertising without any insight is like hunting for a pirate's treasure with no map Click To Tweet
Paid Search Advertising
Paid Search advertising is very detailed. It requires regular monitoring and adjustments to numerous features to optimize the placement of ads, in an attempt to get users to convert. But a basic explanation would be that paid search advertising utilizes keywords to trigger ads. The keywords are monitored reviewing several metrics and adjusting the bids to achieve your goal. When a user enters a search term it triggers a keyword and relevant ads appear at the top of the search engine result page. The advertiser is charged only when a user clicks on their ad, which is the definition of pay per click, or PPC.
Google will show up to 4 paid ads at the top of the page with the organic listings below them. To distinguish between the two, you will see a small icon to the left of the noting it is an ad. With paid search advertising, depending on the market, clicks range from a few pennies to hundreds of dollars. Generally, the lowest bids come from branding campaigns promoting the advertiser’s own company. You may think, “who wants to pay hundreds of dollars to click on an ad?”. Imagine you own a commercial roofing company. Your best-converting keyword may cost you $750, but if that prospective client that clicked on your ad signs a contract worth $3M it was worth the money. We look at the overall cost per click, or CPC, not just the one-click that we converted off of. Imagine you spent $3,000 the week you closed that deal for $3M, your return on ad spend, or ROAS would be 1000%.
Paid search is targeted, measurable, and cost-effective making paid search very attractive to businesses.
Social Media Advertising
Unlike paid search advertising, social media advertising is a more relaxed platform. Paid search works off keywords to trigger ads where social media ads are shown to match your search habits. While you are searching and surfing, sites put cookies on your computer to track what types of sites you frequent, along with other information that can be used to classify you for advertising targeting. Please note that these cookies are not unique to social media but all platforms of digital advertising.
Social media advertising can provide a quick ROI because everything is done in real-time, unlike paid search advertising. Social media is more than Facebook and Instagram and you have to know your market to determine which social media platform would work best for you. As closely as Facebook and Instagram are in the type of social media they are, their audiences, or users, are not exactly the same. Platforms such as LinkedIn serve a totally different audience and purpose. Be sure to research which platform will benefit your business best.
Certain types of ads are very clear that they are trying to grab your attention to sell you something. Native ads, unlike paid search advertising, blend in with their surroundings. Good native advertisements take work to get you to notice them but not be aggressive or obnoxious. Native ads fit in with the content on the page they are seen on, you could think of it as camouflage. Native ads could be an article or a video on a website about similar materials.
Because of their undercover appearance, it has caused a debate among advertisers if they are a fair way of doing business so to speak. The pro-native advertisers point out that their ads are labeled as “sponsored”, “advertisement”, or “Promoted” near the ad so the viewer is aware that the content they are going to engage with is not from the site they are on. The anti-native advertising point is that the labels are small enough that it may not be readily seen by users.
Because of the type of the beast, so to speak, display ads are obviously trying to sell you something. Because they utilize visuals, both still shots, and videos, they stand out among the text on the web page. Display ads are designed to get quick conversions and can have a large viewer audience. This is because search engines can match them to websites across the web-based on keywords and targeting being used.
While display ads aren’t as effective as they used to be, advertisers can’t overlook their strategic plans.
Which Will You Pick?
With the options of digital advertising available in today’s electronic world, take the time to do your research into where your business would fit in best and get the best results. Don’t think that you are locked into one type of digital advertising, combine them, and let them work together. Paid search advertising can be a great compliment to social media advertising
Remember, some agencies have the background and the experience to help you with these decisions as well as building and maintaining your digital advertising.


Parents & School Nutrition
Parents are key to creating a healthy school food environment. Here are things you can do to help your school be the best it can be and protect your child's health:
- Familiarize yourself with your school district's wellness policy.
- Learn about your school's policies regarding foods and beverages used in fundraisers, classroom parties, vending machines, school stores and school meals.
- Talk to other parents about ways to offer healthier fundraisers and healthier classroom parties.
- When sending snacks and lunches to school, be sure they are healthy.
- Be a positive role model by practicing healthy eating and activity habits.
Last updated: 11/12/2012 10:25 AM


Symptoms of viral hepatitis
Common symptoms in the early stages of a viral hepatitis infection (also known as the ‘acute’ phase) include a high temperature, fatigue, mild abdominal pain, loss of appetite, jaundice (yellowing of the skin and eyes), nausea and vomiting. However, some people have no symptoms at all.
Patients with chronic (long term) HBV and HCV may not experience symptoms until their liver disease becomes severe, so it’s important to get tested if you think you might be at risk as there are highly effective treatments available.Find out more
Public knowledge about hepatitis is slowly improving but there is still widespread ignorance about who gets hepatitis and how it’s passed on.
You may want to discuss your concerns with a health professional or counsellor who is trained to help you cope with a diagnosis of hepatitis and any social difficulties that may come with it, such as:
Most insurance companies will ask applicants if they have been tested for HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C. A positive test result may mean a life insurance policy or a mortgage linked to a life policy could be refused or the premium raised. If this happens, it is worth talking to your doctor as many consultants are willing to write to a mortgage or insurance company stating your health and life expectancy.
This is often a difficult decision but you should consider that a positive result may affect your family and sexual partner(s) and whether these people should also think about testing. If you are HBsAg positive, your partner will need vaccinating if they are negative. Vaccination will completely protect them. With a new partner it is important to use barrier contraceptives (condoms) until they have been vaccinated.
You may want only certain people to know about your test and results. GUM (genito-urinary medicine) clinics offer a confidential testing service, although in the case of a positive result your GP will become involved when you are referred for ongoing care. Any doctor who diagnoses acute viral hepatitis is legally required to report this information to Public Health England to help reduce the spread of infection.