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In individuals with heart failure (HF) who also have implanted cardioverter defibrillators and/or cardiac resynchronisation therapy (ICD/CRT) devices, low daily physical activity (PA) levels lead to increased risk of mortality, poor aerobic capacity and lower health-related quality of life.1 Improving daily PA in these individuals may, therefore, be an important clinical endpoint; however, designing interventional trials has proved to be problematic due to the confounding effect of seasonal variation. While there has been a significant amount of research devoted to the effect of seasonal weather changes on daily PA in individuals with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD),2,3–5 community-dwelling older people,6–11 healthy adults12–17 and functionally impaired older people,18 there is a paucity of similar research in individuals with HF. Therefore, a better understanding of the way in which season affects daily PA in individuals with HF is needed to assist clinical trial design and in clinical interpretation of changes in daily PA over time.
Previous research on seasonal variation in daily PA is limited in several important ways: 1) wide variation in the definition of daily PA,7–9,18 2) heterogeneity of measures of daily PA,1–11,14–20 3) short daily PA sampling periods5,7–10,12,16 and 4) use of non-longitudinal designs that compared separate groups of subjects from different seasons using relatively short sampling periods.1,2,11,14,15,17 Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to determine the presence and magnitude of seasonal variation in daily PA in community-dwelling individuals with HF through the use of several analytic approaches.
Study design and measure of daily physical activity
This retrospective chart review included patients with HF and a range of Medtronic ICD/CRT devices (Medtronic, Dublin, Ireland) living in West Michigan. The objective was to examine change in daily PA data compared with average temperature and hours of daylight over the 1-year period of 1 November 2017–31 October 2018. Medtronic ICD/CRT devices include a single-axis accelerometer that record daily PA in 1-minute increments for every minute a patient is moving at an equivalent of 70–80 steps per minute. This recorded activity is then graphically reported in hours per day as ‘patient activity’ on the Cardiac Compass™ (Medtronic, Dublin, Ireland) device interrogation report for the preceding 14 months. The patient activity measure demonstrates strong correlation and agreement with triaxial accelerometer measures of daily PA21 and therefore provides a unique opportunity for longitudinal daily PA analysis. The present study did not include individuals with devices from other manufacturers due to differences in measurement mechanisms and associated algorithms for calculating and reporting PA.
A list of potentially eligible patients managed by the Spectrum Health Cardiac Device Clinic was generated from the Optima database for patients with HF who were seen for an in-clinic device check between 1 November 2017 and 16 January 2018. This would allow for the possibility that patient activity data were available for the target sampling period due to the rolling 14-month period of data stored in the device. Inclusion criteria were based on patients with the following characteristics: 1) A diagnosis of HF due to ischaemic or non-ischaemic cardiomyopathy, 2) New York Heart Association (NYHA) class I–IV, 3) management by the Spectrum Health Medical Group, and 4) Medtronic ICD/CRT device. Patient records were excluded if the patient: 1) did not live within a 50 mile radius of a weather reporting station; 2) did not have patient-activity data available during the selected 1-year sampling frame (1 November 2017–31 October 2018); 3) a documented limitation in ambulation such as wheelchair use, severe orthopaedic condition, stroke or other neurologic disease, or amputation; 4) a left ventricular assist device; 5) greater than five hospitalisations for any reason; or 6) a major cardiovascular or orthopaedic surgical procedure during the sampling frame such as coronary artery bypass grafting, aortic aneurysm repair, joint replacement, amputation, or spinal surgery.
Data collection procedures
The investigators reviewed electronic medical records of included patients for clinical characteristics (age, sex, aetiology of cardiomyopathy, NYHA class, device type, left ventricular ejection fraction [LVEF], number of comorbidities [measured as a simple count of chronic conditions], number and length of hospitalisations [based on local/in-system electronic health record data], nearest weather reporting station [based on home address]). Bi-monthly data points were recorded (start of month and middle of month) for the 1-year sampling period using visual estimation of the patient activity measure from an electronic copy of the Cardiac Compass device interrogation report. The Cardiac Compass report provides graphic and numeric information on numerous parameters, including device status, thoracic impedance, defibrillations, episodes and durations of atrial fibrillation and ventricular fibrillation, heart rate variability, average nightly heart rate, and patient activity. Visual estimation of the patient activity measure was performed by adjusting the size (i.e., zooming in/out) of the electronic copy of the graph to match the y-axis (which represents hours of activity per day) to that of the ruler.22,23 At each data point, the recorded value was that which approximated the 2-week average around each point measured to the nearest tenth.22,23 Although inter-rater reliability and validity of this method has been previously established,22,23 it was re-established for the present study using 20 randomly selected records and three investigators to reflect the current investigators’ inter-rater reliability and measurement validity for the present study. The three investigators independently visually estimated, with a ruler, the amount of activity during the final week prior to device interrogation to allow for comparison with the average patient activity that is calculated by, and reported in, the Cardiac Compass report only for the week preceding the interrogation.
Weather data for relevant weather reporting stations for 1 November 2017–31 October 2018 were obtained from the Local Climate Dataset (www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/datasets), including the maximum, minimum and average temperature. Total daylight hours were obtained from the United States Naval Observatory (https://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/Dur_One Year.php). The study protocol was approved by the Spectrum Health Institutional Review Board.
Inter-rater reliability for the visually-estimated measurement of patient activity was analysed using the intraclass correlation coefficient.1,2 Concurrent validity was analysed using the Pearson correlation coefficient to quantify the correlation between the visually estimated measurement of patient activity and the average patient activity calculated and reported for the final week on the Cardiac Compass device interrogation report.
Data analyses were comprised of multiple approaches to identify the presence and magnitude of seasonal variation in patients with HF and ICD/CRTs. These analytic approaches reflect the varied methods used in previous studies of seasonal variation in daily PA. Autocorrelation was used to identify the presence of seasonality in patient activity. By comparing the autocorrelation plots of average temperature, daylight and patient activity, inferences can be made about the presence of seasonality and whether the seasonality of patient activity corresponds to the seasonal trends for temperature and daylight hours. Autocorrelation is a technique that can be used for detecting seasonality in time-series data by measuring the correlation of time-series data with itself by calculating the correlation between any two points in time across a specified number of time lags.24 Random data will have values near zero across the plot. The time/number of lags between peaks observed on the plot indicate the duration of each season.24 Repeated measures ANCOVA modelling was used to determine the presence of seasonality (i.e., a cubic main effect of time) and to determine the influence of clinical characteristics on seasonal variation in patient activity.13 Relevant clinical characteristics were identified using a Pearson correlation coefficient matrix of clinical characteristics and maximum seasonal difference in patient activity. Ultimately, comorbidities and overall mean annual activity level were included in ANCOVA modelling. Comorbidities were dichotomised based on the mean number of comorbidities (≤8 as determined by the mean for the overall sample and an apparent breakpoint in the scatterplot of comorbidities and seasonal difference in patient activity) and overall activity level according to a previously established threshold that differentiated daily PA patterns (≤2.2 hours per day).22 The magnitude of seasonal differences in patient activity were analysed using dependent t-tests for the overall sample and a one-way ANOVA to test the difference in seasonal patient activity between groups of patients with different combinations of clinical characteristics used in the ANCOVA. Statistical analyses were completed using IBM Statistical Package for the Social Sciences V.24 (SPSS, Chicago, IL, USA).
A total of 378 patients were considered for inclusion with 168 subjects (44.4%) ultimately included for analysis. The most common reason for exclusion was complete patient activity data not available during sampling frame. Other reasons for exclusion were having a ventricular assist device, marked limitation in ambulatory ability, lower extremity joint replacement during the sampling frame, greater than five hospital admissions during the sampling frame, diagnosis of aggressive cancer during the sampling frame and documented prolonged time spent living out of state during the winter. Clinical characteristics of included patients can be found in Table 1.
Inter-rater reliability and validity of patient activity measurement
The intraclass correlation coefficient for the three investigators was high (0.996; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.991, 0.998).1,2 Concurrent validity using the Pearson correlation coefficient was also excellent (r=0.995, 0.998 and 0.995 for the three investigators, respectively).
Seasonality of daily physical activity
The seasonality of bi-monthly averages for daylight hours and average temperature are clearly evident in the autocorrelation plots (Figure 1A and B). Similarly, bi-monthly averages of patient activity also clearly demonstrate seasonal variation (Figure 1C) that generally coincides with that of daylight hours and average temperature. However, the seasonal duration (i.e., time between peaks in the autocorrelation plots) for temperature and daylight was 6 months/12 lags, and the duration for patient activity was 4 months/8 lags. The association between seasonal change in daylight hours, average temperature, and patient activity is also evident in the graphs of the three variables over time (Figure 2). During the 2018 summer, average humidity and the resulting average heat index values were not substantially above 25°C, and the timing of the warmest weeks did not appear to directly correlate with the start of the decrease in patient activity.
Magnitude of seasonal differences in daily physical activity
Based on Figure 2 and the mean bi-monthly values, the lowest patient activity occurred during the 2-week period around 1 February (2.6 hours per day/156 minutes per day) and the highest patient activity during the 2-week period around 1 June (3.0 hours per day/180 minutes per day). The unadjusted/raw difference in average daily PA between 1 February and 1 June of 0.4 hours per day/24 minutes per day/2.8 hours per week/14.9% was significantly different (t=5.965, p<0.001). When excluding the 29 patients with hospitalisations during the sampling frame, the mean difference of 0.4 hours per day/24 minutes per day/2.8 hours per week/15.4% was also statistically significant (t=6.010, p<0.001).
Presence of seasonal variation in patient activity controlling for clinical characteristics
The Pearson correlation coefficient matrix revealed that only total number of comorbidities and overall mean activity level were significantly associated with the seasonal difference in patient activity and, therefore, were selected for inclusion in ANCOVA modelling. Repeated measures ANCOVA revealed a cubic effect of season on patient activity (within-subjects F=9.806, p<0.000) for the overall sample and when controlling for overall activity level (F=14.65, p<0.000). However, when controlling for the effect of comorbidities (dichotomised as ≤8 as determined by the mean for the overall sample and an apparent breakpoint in the scatterplot for comorbidities and seasonal difference in patient activity) or number of comorbidities and overall activity level (dichotomised as ≤2.2 hours per day),22 there was not a statistically significant effect of season on patient activity (F=2.13, p=0.146 and F=0.762, p=0.638, respectively). These confounding effects of overall activity level and comorbidities are illustrated in Figure 3 which demonstrates that those individuals with more comorbidities and lower overall activity levels did have a significant change in patient activity over the 1-year sampling period. Results are similar when excluding the 29 patients who had hospitalisations during the 1-year sampling period with one exception: there was not a statistically significant interaction effect of comorbidities and patient activity. Of note, there was a statistically significant correlation between total number of comorbidities and number of hospitalisations (r=0.283, p<0.001). Additionally, those with >8 comorbidities demonstrated a statistically significant decline of 0.3 hours per day over the course of the year (t=2.970, p=0.04) compared to the overall sample which demonstrated an overall decline of 0.14 hours per day (t=2.474, p=0.014).
Comparison of adjusted means for seasonal differences in patient activity
Results of the one-way ANOVA to compare mean seasonal differences in patient activity adjusted for number of comorbidities and overall activity level are presented in Table 2. There was a main effect of the comorbidity–overall activity level grouping (F=5.85, p=0.001) with Bonferroni post hoc tests revealing that the group with ≤8 comorbidities and >2.2 hours per day of overall activity had greater seasonal variation in patient activity than all other groups (p<0.05), with a mean seasonal difference between February and June of 0.7 hour per day/42 minutes per day/4.9 hours per week.
Previous research on seasonal variation in daily PA is limited by short daily PA sampling periods and use of non-longitudinal designs, and only one previous study included individuals with HF.19 Those studies that used short sampling periods are limited to conclusions about the short-term impact of weather parameters (temperature, daylight, precipitation).5,7–10,12,16 Other studies made conclusions about seasonality based on non-longitudinal designs that compared separate groups of subjects from different seasons using relatively short sampling periods.1,2,11,14,15,17 This is problematic since the question of seasonality is most appropriately examined using time series data,24 which requires longitudinal sampling of the same individuals. Only seven previous studies have used this type of longitudinal design.3,4,6,13,18,19,25,26 The present study used longitudinal data from a single cohort of patients with HF and implanted ICD/CRT devices.
Presence of seasonal variation in daily physical activity
The seasonal effect on PA is consistent with Shoemaker et al.19 who observed similar trends in similar patients with HF and ICD/CRT devices using a small pilot sample. Sewell et al.2 and Furlanetto et al.5 both reported an effect of season on older subjects with COPD, as these studies both observed significantly decreased step counts during the winter months compared to summer months. Similarly, multiple other studies reported lower average daily PA during the winter months in older adults without HF.6,7,9,10,12,14,16,17 The authors of the present study are not aware of any previous studies that examined seasonal variation of daily PA in individuals with implanted devices but without HF, nor any studies of patients with HF but without implanted devices.
Potential variables that might account for the observed seasonal variation in daily PA are average temperature and hours of daylight. In the present study, the timing and duration of seasonal change for patient activity was slightly different than that of temperature and daylight hours; therefore, conclusions about the cause of seasonal variation in daily PA cannot be made. In a previous study performed by Togo et al.,6 daily PA was found to be more strongly associated with mean ambient temperature than day length. However, Klenk et al.,11 Hagströmer et al.,13 and Witham et al.7 found associations between daily PA and both temperature and daylight hours.
Magnitude of seasonal variation in daily physical activity
In the present study, the difference between the lowest daily PA in winter months and highest in summer months in the Midwestern USA was 14.9%. This is consistent with previous pilot data from patients with HF and ICD/CRT devices in the Midwestern US which ranged from 13.8–20.7% (0.3–0.4 hours per day).19 In individuals without HF, previous studies have reported seasonal differences of 6.1–25.0% in Sweden,13 7.1% in Norway,16 <10.0% in the south-eastern USA,25 12.0% in Belgium,5 15.0% in the United Kingdom,18 15.0–20.0% in Michigan,15 16.5% in Scotland,7 20.0% in Brazil,5 23.5% in Japan,17 and 30.0% in Canada.14 This relatively large range of estimates for magnitude of seasonal variation in daily PA could be related to samples studied, geographic region and local climate, methods of daily PA measurement (objective versus subjective), daily PA measure used (step counts, energy expenditure, hours of activity, etc), or lack of control for confounding clinical characteristics.
Seasonal variation in daily physical activity adjusted for clinical characteristics
The repeated measures ANCOVA affirms the cubic (i.e., sinusoidal/not linear) main effect of time on daily PA which can be observed in Figure 2. However, that difference in daily activity between 1 February and 1 June is markedly obtunded in those with >8 comorbidities and ≤2.2 hours per day of overall activity as is evident in Figure 3. That is, when adjusting for comorbidities and overall PA levels, those with low comorbidities and higher activity levels are disproportionately affected by season with an average difference of 0.74 hours per day between the winter and summer months (February–June). Daily PA in all other patients varied by <0.24 hours per day. Aspvik et al. similarly observed a greater effect of temperature on daily PA in ‘fitter’ older adults.16 However, no prior study has adjusted for the confounding effect of comorbidities when examining seasonal variation in daily PA.
Clinical and research relevance
The results of the present study have several important clinical and research implications. First, maintaining daily PA in patients with HF and ICD/CRT devices, especially in those who are relatively more active and have fewer comorbidities, is a challenge in the winter months. Although this subgroup generally has a lower risk of frequent hospitalisations and lower mortality, there is an increase in hospitalisations and mortality during cold-weather months in patients with HF when compared to warmer months,27,28 and lower daily PA is associated with lower 11-month event-free survival.29 Further, maintaining daily PA over time warrants additional investigation given the observed decline over the course of the year, especially in those with >8 comorbidities.
A second clinical implication of the present study is that interpretation of the patient activity measure on the Cardiac Compass report should consider season so as not to over-interpret improvements or declines in daily PA. Finally, daily PA prescription needs to consider an individual’s unstructured and structured daily PA preferences and provide appropriate alternatives especially if those preferences include outdoor activities where hours of daylight and/or temperature may have an impact.
With regard to the research implications of the present study, studies investigating interventions to improve daily PA need to account for the effect of seasonality in the timing of patient enrolment and follow-up measurement. For example, Sewell et al. were unable to account for the confounding effect of season on the percent change in patients with COPD following pulmonary rehabilitation.2 Similarly, Shoemaker et al. were unable to account for the confounding effect of seasonal variation on interventions to improve daily PA in patients with HF and ICD/CRTs.30 This is especially important when using rolling enrolment where changes in daily PA may be differentially impacted based on timing of enrolment, which could mask or accentuate intervention and control-group effects. Furthermore, accounting for the effect of season may also need to adjust for individual subject characteristics (i.e., comorbidities and overall activity level). Future research to develop and validate regression models to accurately adjust daily PA outcome measures based on season, meteorological variables, and clinical characteristics is needed.
Lastly, an important clinical and research implication of the present study is that of interpretation of clinically meaningful change. There are currently only a few estimates of clinically meaningful change in daily PA in individuals with HF. One minimum clinically important difference (MCID) estimate of daily PA in patients with HF and ICD/CRT devices was 20.0–41.5% (0.5–1.0 hours per day).23 Another study in patients with HF using external accelerometers, observed poor alignment of the MCID (a measure of change perceptible by a patient) of 14.6% (0.5–1.0 hours per day) and the minimum detectable difference (a measure related to measurement error) of 64%.22 However, despite the lack of a clearly established threshold for clinically meaningful change in daily PA in patients with HF, the amount of seasonal variation identified in the present study, especially in those who are more active and have fewer comorbidities, could significantly confound interpretation of change in an individual patient clinically and a group of subjects in a research study.
The present study is not without limitations. The analyses in the present study used a visual estimation of bi-monthly daily activity from a graph as Medtronic proprietary software is required to extract the raw/daily data. Although visual estimation was demonstrated to be reliable and accurate in a small subgroup of our sample, replication of the present study using the raw/daily data points in another group of similar patients is necessary. The present study excluded a large number of patients based on criteria that would confound the effect of season on daily PA and we did not record the number of subjects in each exclusion criterion, though the majority were excluded due to incomplete data. Although the strict exclusion criteria were necessary to better isolate the effect of season by eliminating potential confounding variables, it also limits generalisability of the findings.
Devices from Medtronic are single-axis accelerometers that only record activity data in the sagittal plane. These devices require a threshold of approximately 70–80 steps/min to record activity; therefore, non-ambulatory activities would not be accounted for. Additionally, it is unclear whether restricting the sample to individuals with Medtronic devices limits generalisability to other similar individuals with devices from other manufacturers. However, including individuals with other devices that have different measurement mechanisms and associated algorithms could confound the data.
The observed downward trajectory of daily PA in those individuals with >8 comorbidities could confound the inferences made about seasonal differences. This could explain why there was not an effect of season when controlling for comorbidities. Unless noted in a patient’s chart, we were unable to account for those that spend a portion of the year outside of the west Michigan area which might affect daily PA or whether a patient was hospitalised in another health system. Additionally, patients could have fallen ill at some point during the sampling period, but not ill enough to warrant hospitalisation. Lastly, the results of this study cannot be generalised to all patients with HF as it was specific to those with Medtronic devices and west Michigan weather and seasonality.
The present study affirms the seasonality of daily PA in a cohort of patients with HF and ICD/CRT devices, with an overall difference between the winter and summer months of 0.4 hours per day/24 minutes per day/2.8 hours per week/14.9%. This seasonal effect on daily PA is significantly greater in those with ≤8 comorbid conditions and overall activity level >2.2 hours per day. Seasonal variation should be accounted for when interpreting change in daily PA in clinical practice and when designing and interpreting results of clinical trials investigating interventions to improve daily PA.


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James Tate Hill discusses his new memoir, BLIND MAN’S BLUFF.
Tags: Academy Gothic, Appalachia, Appalachian, blind, Blind Man's Bluff, blindness, Carmen Machado, carmen maria machado, disability, eyesight, gender roles, House of Prayer No. 2, impostor syndrome, In the Dream House, James Tate Hill, Jess deCourcy Hinds, Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman, Literary Hub, Mark Richard, masculinity, memoir, monkeybicycle, pop culture, prince, revision, second person, Sounds Like Titanic, The Situation and the Story, vision loss, Vivian Gornick, West Virginia
Dr. M. Leona Godin discusses her new book, THERE PLANT EYES.
Tags: ableism, ableist, blind, blindness, book covers, Braille, cover design, disability, Downcast Eyes, helen keller, intersectional, intersectionality, John Milton, Kerry Kijewski, Lawrence Rosenblum, M Leona Godin, Martin Jay, memoir, metaphor, metaphors, Milton, ocularcentrism, Oliver Sacks, Paradise Lost, Stigma, The Miracle Worker, The Radical Lives of Helen Keller, There Plant Eyes, There Plant Eyes: A Personal and Cultural History of Blindness, tropes
For nearly half of my life now, I’ve been living with limited vision. ...more
Tags: anxiety, bisexual, bisexuality, blind, blindness, coming out, CRISPR, disability, eye doctor, eyesight, Great Expectations, identity, invisible disability, Jane Eyre, Laura Ingalls Wilder, limited vision, Little House on the Prairie, reading, Stargardt disease, teaching, therapy, vision, Wendy Elizabeth Wallace, Wendy Wallace
Jerald Walker discusses his memoir,
The World in Flames: A Black Boyhood in a White Supremacist Doomsday Cult, the story of his childhood in The Worldwide Church of God, and how the act of writing delivered him from bitterness. ...more
Tags: adolescence, alcohol, alcohol abuse, Alden Jones, autobiography, Billy Graham, blind, book titles, Chicago, childhood, Christianity, church, con man, cults, david sedaris, doomsday, Dorothy Parker, drug abuse, drugs, family, george saunders, ghetto, Grace Communion International, Herbert W. Armstrong, humor, interview, James Thurber, Jeanette Walls, Jeanette Winterson, Jerald Walker, Joseph Tkach Jr, mark twain, memoir, MFA, nightmares, nonfiction, Oral Roberts, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, religion, sexuality, Street Shadows, street violence, The Glass Castle, the rumpus, The Rumpus Interview, the world in flames, the worldwide church of god, white supremacists, White Supremacy, Worldwide Church of God
James Tate Hill, author of the recently released Academy Gothic, details his experience as “a writer who can’t read” due to visual impairment: My preoccupation with the charade of passing, that it mattered to me at all, strikes me now as utterly absurd, so much so that this insistence became a defining trait of the visually […]
A unique library project in India is helping people who are blind access books. Printed books are converted in audio formats so blind readers can listen to them, with the target audience students between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five. Volunteers record and edit the books.
“I want to become more independent, but stepping outside and knowing that if I cross the street at the wrong time I could get hit by a bus, well, that’s intense,” she said. ...more
Tags: Arkansas River, Bekah Grim, blind, blindness, camp, Cedar Rapids, drowning, eyesight, fear, rafting, rivers, students, whitewater rafting

domain: literature


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Mangrove - 10.6
Volume: 250 liters
Weight: 26 lbs
Construction: Dragon Fly (DF)
***POTENTIAL LOW INVENTORY, PLEASE CALL TO CONFIRM AVAILABILITY...
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The SIC Mangrove fits a wide range of paddlers looking for a stable platform for a variety of uses. This stability is provided by the Mangrove’s flat bottom and full rails. Its rounded bow glides effortlessly in flat water and open ocean, and cuts through chop with ease providing a softer ride. There is plenty of decking for your kids, dog, cooler as well as plenty of bungee tiedown options on the deck and tail for securing gear. This is the latest innovative design that glides similar to a touring board, but without the larger size, while giving you the comfortable, stable platform like a Cruiser board. Key features include: 8.3” Weedless 3K Carbon Fin, 2 FCS2 fin boxes to accommodate shallow water paddling, EZ-Grab handles, Crocodile textured EVA Deck Pad, Bungee tie downs on the nose and tail, Leash plug, Gore-Tex™ breather vent.
SIC’s Dragon Fly (DF) construction which is constructed with a full oak wood veneer wrapping the core - tip-to-tail / 360-degree rail-to-rail wrap. This is arguably one of the most durably constructed composite boards on the market today and it remains at a very light weight.
BOARD/ GEAR INFO
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Stand Up Paddle Boarding Laguna Beach
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domain: hobby


Yonda Ft. Dremo & Idowest – Omo Iyamii Mp3 Download
Award winning musician & song writer Yonda is out with a brand new music which is titled “Omo Iyamii” Featuring Dremo & Idowest.
A good number of music of fans and lovers has been anticipating this new song “Omo Iyamii” By Yonda, for a while now.
And after much anticipation he decided this is the right time to give them what they have been yearning for.
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“Omo Iyamii” By Yonda Ft. Dremo & Idowestp Mp3 Download.


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Trump and the Persian Gulf Have a Long, Surprising HistoryBreaking News
tags: Middle East, Iran, Trump, Persian Gulf
Down in the basement of the venerable American Library in Paris I pulled out an issue of Newsweek dated September 28, 1987, and as it happened, Donald Trump was on the cover.
He was 41 years old, wearing a red tie (at normal length): “A Billion Dollar Empire and an Ego to Match,” read the cover, “Citizen Trump” headlined the article. And he was, even way back then, thinking about a run for the presidency. To launch his tentative undeclared campaign he’d just paid $94,801 to run full page ads in The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Boston Globe.
In an “open letter,” Trump attacked the foreign policy of then-President Ronald Reagan: “The world is laughing at America’s politicians,” he wrote, for protecting “ships we don’t own, carrying oil we don’t need destined for allies who won’t help.”
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- Archivist and bookseller plead guilty to pilfering $8M in rare texts from Carnegie Library
- The chief justice who presided over the first presidential impeachment trial thought it was political spectacle
- Hundreds of Britons Volunteered for a Diary-Keeping Project in 1937. They Left an Invaluable Record of World War II
- Fact check: After Pearl Harbor, Japanese didn't invade US because they feared armed citizens?
- How Political Divides Shape U.S. History Lessons
- AHA Encourages History Departments to Provide Full Library Access to Alumni and to Unaffiliated Historians in their Regions
- Clayborne Carson Interviewed by World Socialist Web Site on 1619 Project
- “A staggering tour de force – but an opportunity missed”: a historian’s review of the film 1917
- NY Journal of Books Reviews Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy
- AHA Enrollment Study Finds History Enrollments Hold Study as Department Efforts Intensify

domain: politics


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I am a list maker to the core. I usually have 4-5 separate lists all going daily. Lists of lists of lists.. you get the idea.. (teuxdeux is my favorite list managing website, by the way). So it's only natural that I make a list of some goals at the beginning of the year. There's something about writing it down (or typing it out) that makes you feel THAT much more inspired to actually accomplish it.
(same quote from last year.. it's too good though)
Here's a few of my goals for the year:
1. Stop complaining - This was one from last year too but I think it should be at the top of every year. This is especially important now that social media has become a prime place to complain.. it's pretty silly. This is what I said about it last year. "If you make a conscious effort to not complain, even about the tiniest things, chances are you'll forget about it within a few minutes and you'll have a whole lot less negativity in your life. (When you do this you'll start to notice how much people around you complain, but don't be tempted to point it out.. lead by example)."
2. Read a book a month - I used to read a TON, but in 2011 i only read like.. 3 books? One a month is definitely doable even with my busy schedule. Damned by Chuck Palahnuik is the first on the list. Have you read any great books lately? I'll need some recommendations.
3. Experiment with video projects - Now that I have the equipment in my possession, I want to do lots of video projects this year. Quick recipes, DIY projects and just for fun daily life montages.
4. Split my working time equally between the dress making biz and photography biz. - Both are my biggest passions, and I don't want to see either one fall to the side.
5. Last but not least, Get better at returning texts/emails/phonecalls - Sometimes I am the WORST at this. I truly care about each thing but I far too often check them when I'm too busy to reply and they go unnoticed until its too late (weeks/months) and I feel incredibly rude. So new rule, don't check until I have the time to respond.
Those are my goals.. Simple and doable!


Star Stable is an online game for PC and Mac, but there is more to it. Download our apps and get even more experiences right in your phone.
Follow this link for full answer
On the other hand, can you play Star Stable on a tablet?
Star stable to be also played on Ipad, tablet and IPhone Some people don't own a MAC or computer.
Therefore, can you play game on a Chromebook? Chrome OS can run Android apps, so there are many mobile games that you can play right on your laptop with minimal hassle. ... Scroll down to Google Play Store and turn on the option to install apps and games from Google Play. If your Chromebook has a touch screen, most games should play well.
But, can you play Star Stable without downloading?
This means that everyone who wants to play Star Stable will be asked to download the small file and install it on their computer so they can launch the game without using their internet browser. ... You must download the Desktop Launcher software.
What age is Star Stable for?
7 Related Questions Answered
There's no malware if you directly install the game from Star Stable's website. ... These files probably have malware (potentially viruses and Trojans). Definitely stay clear of any offsite downloads related to Star Stable and you should be safe!
In Star Stable Online you're able to earn XP both for your character and your horses. The current highest level for the player is 23 via normal gameplay (30 with mods) while the highest level for your horse is 15.
is one of my favorite games of all time, and is definitely worth a play. There's something to offer for all ages and the continuous new content keeps you engaged. If your child is under twelve, monitor them, but this game
for young children
You can download it to iPad but the game will not be optimized for it. We are also not able to provide technical support for iPad users. For the best experience we recommend you play on an iPhone!
OS: Windows 7 (32- or 64-bit), with the latest Service Packs. CPU: Intel Core i3 or AMD Athlon II (K10) 2.8 GHz. RAM: 4 GB. Free Disk Space: 5 GB.
SSO is supported by Windows and Mac (Linux is not supported though), but you've got there a HP laptop so it probably has Windows (you still should check this and confirm what Windows it uses).
Star Stable is Now Available on Mac.


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Gastronomy is a central focus at the Iberostar Laguna Azul Hotel in Varadero, Cuba. Our hotel offers 9 bars and restaurants including a la carte restaurants specializing in Cuban, Japanese, and Italian cuisine. A full buffet with the best international fare, an exquisite gourmet restaurant, and several bars for unwinding with drinks and appetizers are located on-site.
This exclusive restaurant serves the most refined culinary recipes at the Iberostar Laguna Azul. Serving dinner 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.
Offering the best international cuisines, this main restaurant serves buffet-style breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Serving guests nearly 24-hours a day, Argenta tends to every culinary palate: breakfast 7:00 to 10:00 a.m., lunch 1:00 to 3:00 p.m., and dinner 6:30 to 10:00 p.m.
Cubano prepares amazing traditional Cuban fare for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
In Varadero, traditional Italian specialties, such as ravioli, and tiramisu, are served up in our a la carte restaurant, Los Mármoles. Open 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.
Diners will enjoy this excellent Japanese restaurant and bar featuring delicious oriental favorites including sushi, tempura, and teppanyaki. Highlights include a sushi bar. Dinner service is available from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.
Book your stay!
How many people are going?

domain: food


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This is news long awaited all around the rock world. The first confirmed details of what was previously known simply as “AB4” have emerged as Alter Bridge have confirmed the details of their return with their fourth studio album. The album has now been formally titled Fortress, and comprises thirteen songs encapsulating Alter Bridge’s ability to operate equally at both the softer and heavier ends of the rock spectrum. Song titles confirmed for Fortress include opener Cry Of Achilles, Bleed It Dry, Farther Than The Sun, All Ends Well and the album’s title track. Fortress has been produced by the band’s long time associate Michael ‘Elvis’ Baskette, who has also worked with Trivium and The Stone Temple Pilots, amongst others.
Alter Bridge’s legendary guitarist Mark Tremonti has had the following to say about Fortress:
“When we started pre-production on this album, we pushed ourselves harder and further than we ever have previously in order to make the most out of every individual arrangement. We wanted this album to be our most unpredictable and exciting one yet. From the early feedback we have received, it looks like we have achieved what we set out to do.”
Fortress will be released on September 30th 2013, approximately three years after the release of ABIII, the album that cemented Alter Bridge’s place in the hearts of thousands as one of the world’s best current hard rock bands. The album will be released through Roadrunner Records, who also released ABIII.
Alter Bridge will kick off touring for Fortress with a one off performance at the Orlando, Florida House Of Blues on October 4th 2013, before hitting the road properly across Europe in October and November 2013 with Shinedown and Halestorm opening for them. As previous announced this tour includes the band’s second UK arena tour, including a return to the scene of their greatest triumph at London’s Wembley Arena, which was recorded for the band’s most recent live CD/DVD “Alter Bridge: Live At Wembley“. A reminder of the tour dates is below:
Alter Bridge October 2013 UK Tour Dates with Shinedown & Halestorm
Wed 16th – Nottingham – Arena
Thu 17th – Birmingham – NIA
Fri 18th – London – Wembley Arena
Sun 20th – Cardiff – Motorpoint Arena
Mon 21st – Glasgow – Hydro
Tue 22nd – Manchester – Arena
Limited tickets remain but some of the shows may now have sold out. Please check the usual locations like Ticketmaster, Live Nation and SeeTickets for further details. There will be more updates about Fortress and from the Alter Bridge camp in the weeks leading up to the album’s release and you’ll be able to read all of them right here at Rockins.com.

domain: artistic


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I read recently that, at a population count of 2,791,140, Toronto had become the fourth largest city in North America.
Rapid population growth has always been something that interests me, especially as a development worker who has had opportunities to visit many cities across Africa, Asia, and the Americas.
In fact, Plan International Canada has done a lot of thinking about cities over the years. Especially since 2008, when the world crossed a major threshold for the first time in human history, with more than 50 per cent of the world's population now living in cities.
Which other cities rank as the largest in North America?
Blog continues after slideshow
Old-style development in rural settings
Before this increasing migration to cities, we had for decades premised our development programs on the rural model. Most of the international community's methodologies and tools were birthed in rural environments.
One principal pillar was the homogeneity of a population -- where neighbours and extended families lived side-by-side for generations. People typically trusted one another, spoke the same language, and were often related through kinship and marriage ties.
Land ownership was a second pillar you could count on in a rural setting. Even small parcels of land could be used as an asset and could be leveraged or borrowed against, much like mortgages today. In rural settings you could also count on static populations -- where people were more apt to stay in one place, making it easier to predict certain trends or outcomes like crop rotations, rains and floods, and whether or not there would be children to help cultivate the land and care for the sick or elderly in the village.
On these pillars we built programs, shared ideas, and held deep local discussions based on long-held and trusted community-based models. Then things began to shift and people started moving to cities. As a result, the international development community wasn't as well-equipped to deal with these highly mobile, heterogeneous populations.
New challenges and implications in an urban world
When people landed in cities many found that a sense of community and kinship was lacking. People found themselves in multilingual communities where they didn't always know or trust their neighbours. This led to the demolition of many rural models such as borrowing circles, where loans could be made based on good faith because you knew your neighbours. Having a landlord became a substitute for land ownership. The newly arrived lacked any assets that could be leveraged, not even the promise of a future crop.
The international community struggled with the challenge of serving the world's poor in an urban environment. In this struggle, Plan turned its attention to one of the most vulnerable groups in poor urban centres -- young girls.
In 2010, we produced a report called, Digital and Urban Frontiers: Girls in a Changing Landscape. Through this study, we found that living in cities meant girls had increased mobility and access to things they needed to build their human capital. Girls were more likely to attend school in cities and had better access to employment, health care, and other services. They had more autonomy, more independence.
On the flipside, our study also found that girls in cities were more likely to end up working in sweatshops or living in squalid and overcrowded slums. An estimated 30 million girls were forced to live on city streets, where they were exposed to the worst kinds of exploitation, violence, crime, and disease.
It became clear to us that for many people in developing countries, including girls, cities were a complex mix of opportunity and dangerous, grinding poverty.
Plan's Because I am A Girl Urban Programme aims to improve the life of girls through the creation of safe neighborhoods and communities that are free from violence. // Photo: Plan Canada
As a development agency we needed to address this complexity. So, we continued to look at the effects of living in cities for girls and pursued another study, Adolescent Girls' Views on Safety in Cities, which allowed us to speak to 1,000 girls living in five major urban centres.
In this study, girls from Cairo, Delhi, Hanoi, Kampala, and Lima told us over and over again about how they felt unsafe and vulnerable while doing basic things like going to school, visiting a public washroom or taking the bus - but that despite their fears, they had a common vision for a safe city, where they could live and move freely and safely. Something I am sure Jyoti Singh, who was raped and murdered last December while travelling by bus in Delhi, would have wanted -- and deserved -- as well.
These girls, like millions of others, move to cities because they're attracted to opportunity and hope for a better life. It's these millions of girls and so many others that we continue to watch and connect with as we test new models and ways to tackle poverty and inequality in urban settings.
We've started some of that work through our Because I am a Girl Urban Programme, a joint initiative between Plan International, Women in Cities International, and UN-Habitat to build safe, accountable, and inclusive cities with and for adolescent girls.
But building safer and better cities can not be the work of international development agencies alone.
In Canada, we need students working on efficient and safe mass transit systems. Poor water and sanitation are among the biggest gaps and cost factors affecting poor cities. In the world's urban slums, like those found in Kenya and India, water and sanitation is even more critical than in rural areas.
We need young, brilliant minds working collectively on these global urbanization challenges. This time, we must address urbanization's vast and urgent challenges so that the promise of cities is realized, for everyone, including girls who see cities as the best place to pursue their potential.

domain: sociology


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The plots are generously sized and the low density layout includes a number of open green spaces (Public Open Spaces).
Gamtoos Resort offers panoramic river, lagoon and sea views, and overlooks surfing mecca Jeffreys Bay.
Gamtoos Resort Phase 2 is right next door to the vibrant holiday village of Gamtoos Mouth Phase 1 that was created by the same successful development team. Incidentally the same team also created Kariega Game Reserve, one of the top tourism attractions of the Eastern Cape.
The Gamtoos Rivier winds its way through the Eastern Cape bushveld, providing warm, calm waters in which to swim, frolic and fish. It is a fabulous base for those exploring Port Elizabeth, Jeffreys Bay, Humansdorp and St Francis Bay. The vistas from the river are magnificent, and include the local farmlands, mountain ranges and coastal dunes.
The Gamtoos River Mouth boasts a long, sandy beach that is unspoilt and inviting. The soft white sand is lapped by the warm greens and blue water of the Indian Ocean. The river itself if ideal for boating and canoeing, and visitors will love exploring the beach and splashing about in the waves.

domain: geography


Air pollution is a major public health risk, ranking alongside cancer, heart disease and obesity and it poses the single greatest environmental risk to human health. UK Government has set out its Port Air Quality Strategy (PAQS) with the goal of protecting public health and the environment whilst maintaining growth and a vibrant sector.
The strategy introduces increasingly tighter legislation around monitoring of pollutants, motivating ports to invest in reporting and managing Air Quality.
estimated cost in health and social care by 2035 due to air pollution according to Public Health England
of the major pollutants (including NOx / SOx / particulates) attributed to shipping
potential cut in costs following Government’s Clean Air Strategy
Our Air Q ‘smart box’ solution measures air pollutants and has been tailored to the marine environment. Shipping information and local weather data is integrated into the smart box to create a picture of environmental effect of port operations.
These data snapshots help the port plan its future operations so it can minimise environmental impact locally and across the city. The smart boxes use a low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) to communicate, so require no other infrastructure aside from a simple power supply to begin collecting data.
These boxes measure nitric oxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide and carbon dioxide alongside fine particle sensing for PM2.5 and PM10 sized particulate matter. The data captured can then be used to inform port operations so that air pollution can be reduced at peak times.
Start your journey or get in touchHow can we help?
Wherever you need technology to take you, start your journey with us.Talk to us


Parker Center, the controversial building that housed the Los Angeles Police Department for over 50 years, is officially no more.
Yesterday, the City of Los Angeles' Bureau of Engineering announced that above-ground demolition of the eight-story building is now complete. The process, which began in August 2018, is expected to proceed through the end of 2019.
“The removal of the Parker Center is a crucial first step in our proposed Civic Center Master Plan — a vision to redefine how our City conducts business, serves Angelenos, and encourages civic engagement,” said Mayor Eric Garcetti. “This milestone is a marker of progress in our effort to transform this space into a beautiful and welcoming resource for Angelenos, City employees, and visitors to Los Angeles.”
Demolition began with a floor-by-floor removal of hazardous materials, followed by the deconstruction of the building itself. In accordance with the project's environmental impact report, the City saved several pieces of artwork from the building, as well as components including signage and lights which will be stored and displayed elsewhere.
“Our primary concern throughout demolition of this structure has been to limit the impact on the surrounding community and on the environment,” said Gary Lee Moore, City Engineer. “It’s not a small thing to take down a building of this size in a highly-trafficked area, so we worked closely with the community to assess their needs and concerns and used the highest standards of low-impact methods to deconstruct the building.”
Parker Center, home to the LAPD from 1955 through 2009, has been vacant since 2013. The City of Los Angeles opted against rehabilitation and reuse, citing seismic deficiencies and the presence of hazardous materials. Despite those apparent flaws, preservationists sought to save the former Police Administration Building - including members of the City's Cultural Heritage Commission - citing its importance to the mid-century development of Los Angeles and its prominent architect, Welton Becket. However, Parker Center's controversial past would ultimately deny it landmark status.
Members of the City Council balked at honoring the building's namesake - former LAPD Chief William H. Parker - who instituted policies which targeted Los Angeles' Latino and African-American communities.
Japanese-American community members also opposed preservation, as Parker Center stood upon land that was once part of the commercial core of Little Tokyo. More than 1,000 residents were displaced by the construction of the police headquarters.
The now-empty site at 150 N. Los Angeles Street may not remain so for long; the City of Los Angeles issued a request for qualifications to developers earlier this year for the construction of a new office tower on the property. The anticipated project would be a 27-story, 450-foot-tall building containing 750,000 square feet of offices, 65,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, and 1,200 subterranean parking spaces.
Up to 3,200 city employees could work within the building, which could begin construction as early as 2020.
Look below to see a timelapse video showcasing the demolition of Parker Center.
- Parker Center (Urbanize LA)


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Open Access Subscription or Fee Access
Menopausal challenges as perceived by women in rural villages of Limpopo province, South Africa
The study explored the challenges of menopause as perceived by participants in rural villages of Vhembe District. A cross-sectional study involved a sample of 500 women between the ages of 40 years and above. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data and was analysed descriptively. The results indicated that those experiencing night sweat were 39.1%, hot flushes (43.4%) and 43.4% difficulty falling asleep. As for urogenital category, about 50% reported frequency of urination while 41.3% and 35.2% reported having menstrual problems and issues related to ‘avoiding intimacy’respectively. Concerningmusculoskeletal symptoms, between 38% and 41.3% reported having joint aches/stiffness of the joints and low backache/muscle pains respectively.The study demonstrated a high prevalence of menopausal challenges among the perimenopausal and postmenopausal women, thus suggesting a need for an intervention to reduce the incidence of menopausal challenges associated with menopause in this population.


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Hand crafted glow in the dark end grain earrings. We coat each wood cut with a natural, non toxic glow pigment making them both black light reactive and glow in the dark. For more info about our glow pigment please check our FAQ page. We use only surgical grade stainless steel for our earring hooks and posts, eliminating any chance of irritation. Finished with high grade jewelry resin, this gives each piece a durable, glossy finish that will protect it for many years to come.
Glow End Grain Earrings
Measures approximately 5/8 inch diameter


As calls to mental health line rise in Missouri, some worry about long-term funding
If you’re in eastern Missouri and call 988, you may end up talking to crisis intervention clinician Jennifer Brown.
Brown answers calls for Behavioral Health Response, the crisis response line for the St. Louis region and other parts of the state.
“Many people are simply calling because they don’t know what to do with those feelings, with the energy they’re feeling outside their bodies. They’re looking for hope and help,” she said.
In July, Missouri officials debuted 988, an emergency mental health hotline that connects callers to dozens of organizations around the country based on the caller’s area code. During the hotline’s first month of service, calls to Missouri mental health centers increased 30%.
It’s not just people who are thinking of suicide who call the hotline, Brown said. Sometimes, it’s those just feeling lost or helpless.
“I really want them to feel a connection when they call in,” she said. “It’s a real person on the other end of the line.”
Advocates of 988 say the easy-to-remember number will connect more people to professionals like Brown when they need it the most: when they or someone they know is in a mental health crisis or thinking of killing themselves.
A workforce on the line
The hotline’s overhaul means crisis response organizations need more workers and money to pay them. Advocates are concerned that the state has not committed to funding the hotline for the long term.
The Missouri Department of Mental Health received $16.7 million in state funding and block grants to support calls for the first fiscal year of 988, department officials said. But the Missouri legislature hasn’t produced a law that secures continual funding, and the hotline doesn’t have a guaranteed money source for years to come.
“It’s a fear of mine,” said Casey Muckler, who leads the 988 system for the department. “How we can make this a sustainable effort and keep this going long term — that has kept me up at night pretty much since I started.”
State health officials expect a surge in callers as more people learn about the new number. Department of Mental Health officials estimate the service will receive 172,000 calls in the first year of the service alone, not including texts and chat messages or follow-up calls.
That’s more than four times the number of calls that Missouri Suicide Prevention Lifeline networks received in 2020, Muckler said.
To absorb that new volume, the state’s response organizations will likely need to hire dozens of additional employees.
Even though the hotline was a national initiative, the federal government isn’t providing full funding, Muckler said.
“It’s really up to the state to fund 988 at the state level,” she said. “We’ve been looking for any possible funding that we can find for well over a year."
A handful of states have enacted laws that place a surcharge on phone bills to pay for the line, but Missouri has not taken that approach.
“I can't say I know for sure or can even lean one way or another on whether or not this will be sustainable with the governor's office,” Muckler said. “But we sure are hoping so.”
Backers of the 988 line say that once state officials see how effective the service is, they’ll be eager to fund it in perpetuity.
“I think we’ll be in a good place after this first year to really say, ‘This has been working and we need more funding to make sure we can continue this important service,’” Muckler said.
A special job
Unlike 911 dispatchers, the call center workers are also providing care and can stay on the line for a long time, said Behavioral Health Response Director Bart Andrews.
“It’s really creating a system that meets people’s needs, in the moment, where they are, and lowering the barriers to access mental health services,” Andrews said.
Even with new funding, recruiting and training people to work the specialized and sometimes traumatic and taxing job is a big task, Andrews said.
Behavioral Health Response is planning to use the first year of government funding to hire about 60 staffers to meet the new patient load, he said.
“There’s going to be a huge hiring binge across the entire state of Missouri,” Andrews said. “Missouri will be in excellent shape for 988.”
To hire more workers, Missouri and other states changed the qualifications needed to work for the line.
“We used to only hire master's-level clinicians. We’re never going to have enough master-level clinicians to handle the capacity that we really need, the volume that’s going to be coming in."
He says being good at this job is less about education and more about experience and training. Behavioral Health Response crisis workers need to have three weeks' training before they even take their first practice call.
New (and old) problems
Another way the 988 line is different from 911 is that the hotline routes calls based on a phone’s area code, not on its location.
That could cause problems for connecting people with local services, Andrews said.
“In metropolitan areas, up to almost 50% of people have out-of-area cellphones,” he said. “Many people have gotten rid of their landlines. So we have a problem.”
Crisis clinicians say they can still transfer calls to local response centers or dispatch teams to people in crisis wherever they are in the country, but they hope the line can soon route calls based on the caller’s location.
There’s also the issue of follow-up care. In addition to giving someone a listening ear, 988 clinicians can connect people in distress to services or in-person help.
“The important thing is not just to answer,” said Gena Terlizzi, National Alliance on Mental Illness Missouri executive director. “But to know how to connect individuals with any immediate needs, referrals of follow-up care they may need.”
But depending on where someone lives, it may be expensive or logistically difficult to, for example, schedule an appointment with a psychiatrist, she said. According to the Rural Health Information Hub, which compiles federal HRSA data, all but two of Missouri’s 114 counties have professional mental health shortages. If someone is uninsured, it can take even longer to get an appointment with a therapist or psychiatrist.
“If you are able to meet that No. 1 goal … and keep that person from taking that action, we still need to make sure that they are getting the treatment and services they need in the future,” Terlizzi said. “It’s not a one-time thing. It’s a long-term commitment to trying to improve the mental health of society.”
What callers want
Andrews said research shows many people who call the lifeline actually don’t want follow-up services.
“They just want to be able to call the lifeline when they’re struggling, when they want help, when they need to talk to somebody,” he said. “We’re actually making it easier for people to get the services they want, in the way they want it.”
Jennifer Brown, the crisis call worker, said some callers just want to talk.
“Oftentimes, when people are at their lowest, the thing you need is a connection with someone, someone they can trust and to feel safe,” she said.
Follow Sarah on Twitter: @petit_smudge
Copyright 2022 St. Louis Public Radio. To see more, visit St. Louis Public Radio.


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Surrey student advises GBC on efficacy of CCTV and crime prevention
University of Surrey student Jon Allen has played an instrumental role in Guildford Borough Council’s (GBC) recent review of the provision of closed-circuit television (CCTV) and its impact on situational crime prevention across the Borough.
Jon, a third-year student from the Department of Sociology, has compiled a comprehensive research report for GBC which will be used to inform decision-making for the local community and help to shape the future of community safety in the Borough.
CCTV has become a prominent part of everyday life within the United Kingdom. Jon’s report provides an evaluation of numerous academic research projects associated with CCTV and the efficacy of CCTV in relation to crime prevention and detection of offenders. In addition, the report assesses the impact of reduced monitoring of CCTV, re-deployable capabilities and the public value of CCTV.
Of his work, Jon said: “Academic researchers have collated data which demonstrates that CCTV is most effective in reducing crime in car parks and residential areas. Effectiveness of detection is often taken as a guaranteed result of installing CCTV and public support is often thought of as being exclusively in favour of CCTV; however, my evaluation concludes that success is largely context dependent. Context plays such a vital role in determining the effectiveness of CCTV as many factors interplay with CCTV research, from the place, people and objectives, to crime rates, monitoring and camera set-up. The concept of context should not be underestimated when considering research on CCTV.
“Working with the Community Safety group and GBC has a been a great experience. Having lived and studied in Guildford for three years, it’s very rewarding to be part of a local project that has allowed me to apply the skills I have learnt during my degree while making a positive contribution to the community.”
Deputy Leader of the Council and Lead Councillor for Safeguarding, Inclusion, Public Safety, Community Safety, Vulnerable Families and Older People, Cllr Fiona White said: “Community safety is a key priority for the Council and we have always worked closely with the Police on using CCTV to help keep our borough safe. The equipment is due to be upgraded and we are working closely with the Police, the University of Surrey and Experience Guildford to review our equipment.
“Jon’s contribution has been excellent and he has added further insight and understanding to our review. We are very grateful to him and the University for their support. Our town is the only one in Surrey to be awarded the Purple Flag for the fifth year in a row for its entertaining, diverse and safe nights out (it’s like Blue Flag for beaches) and projects such as this are vital in helping us to continue to provide this for our residents who live, work, shop and go out in the town and our visitors.”
Head of Security Mark Chatterton, who represents the University of Surrey at the Community Safety Executive meetings, said: “At an early stage in group’s discussions, it struck me that there was an opportunity for the University to engage academically to help inform the Borough regarding some extensive research into CCTV and what works.
“This collaboration is a great example of the University engaging with professionals who are tasked with making real world policy decisions and assisting the Council in reviewing the evidence that currently exists before investing in further CCTV deployment.”


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Police tweeted the news on Saturday, saying that the suspension does not cover convicted criminals.
Interior Minister Maria Ohisalo immediately took to Twitter, saying Finland will now have time to investigate the case of Ali, an Iraqi man who was denied asylum in 2017, deported to Iraq and killed a few weeks later.
Earlier this week, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Finland violated the European Convention on Human Rights in Ali's case on the point that everyone has the right to life.
The Finnish authorities repatriated Ali even though he had produced evidence he had been the target of assassination attempts in his home country before fleeing to Finland.
”I’ve asked leading civil servants to explain how we can ensure this never happens again,” Ohisalo told Yle.
While the minister said Ali’s case should not have been possible in a country like Finland, the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) has disclosed that it does not know how many other rejected asylum applicants may have been wrongly repatriated.

domain: news


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Bochum Hotels with Conference Facilities or Meeting Rooms
Enter your travel dates now for the fastest way to see the latest hotel and holiday home deals in Bochum.
Have you been given the ‘joy’ of organising a work event? Be it a small board or client meeting, a mid-sized conference or full-scale convention, we've handpicked the best Bochum hotels guaranteed to help you make, and leave, the right impression.
Free WiFi is included in all public areas except the conference area.Make yourself at home in the Courtyard by Marriott Bochum Stadtpark hotel''s spacious rooms, fe...more
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This non-smoking hotel in central Bochum offers modern rooms, free high speed WiFi access in the public areas (except the conference floor) and an international restaurant....more
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This 4-star hotel in Bochum offers modern rooms, an international restaurant and a sauna area. The main railway station and the shopping district are...more
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Just 200 metres from Wattenscheid's main square and pedestrian zone, this 3-star hotel offers a 24-hour reception. The Tryp Bochum Wattenscheid featur...more
Score from 1007 reviewers
Offering a peaceful location, this 3-star hotel is a 5-minute drive from Kemnader Lake and Ruhr University Bochum. It features free Wi-Fi, and a fitne...more
Score from 1227 reviewers
This country-style hotel is quietly located on the outskirts of Bochum. The Starlight Express Musical is 12 km from Hotel Restaurant Zum Neuling.Brigh...more
Score from 115 reviewers
Hotel Excelsior Bochum offers inexpensive and quiet accommodation with excellent transport links. The city centre of Bochum with central station and t...more
Score from 1407 reviewers
This hotel to the east of Bochum is beside the MediTherme spa and a 10-minute walk from the Ruhr Park shopping centre. It offers modern rooms, free pa...more
Rated 3 out of 5 by 110
This café is designed in an Art Deco style, and is a popular meeting place for tourists and locals.A tapas bar can be found in the basement of the Art Hotel Tucholsky. Free Wi-Fi internet access...more
Score from 573 reviewers
This hotel offers rooms with a large flat-screen TV as well as a coffee/tea maker. It is in the centre of Bochum, 400 metres from the Deutsches Bergba...more
Rated 3.5 out of 5 by 211
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domain: travel


| Oct 4, 2013
| 1:58 PM
Protesters will take to the streets of Hollywood and other locations across the country Saturday morning to urge lawmakers not to forget about immigration reform.
The Hollywood event begins at 10 a.m. at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Western...
| Oct 5, 2013
| 12:12 PM
Jorge Garavito was 3 years old when his father got caught up in a raid at the airport and was deported back to Colombia.
Now 22, the political science student said said he hasn't been able to save enough money to go back and see his father for almost...
| Oct 11, 2013
| 2:59 PM
New University of California President Janet Napolitano received a mixed reception Friday during her first official visit to UCLA, facing protesters who dislike her past policies as U.S. secretary of Homeland Security but also meeting with student...
| Sep 25, 2013
| 12:52 PM
SAN FRANCISCO – Supervisors here have approved a policy under which local law enforcement would deny requests by immigration authorities to hold arrestees for potential deportation in all but a handful of instances.
The "Due Process for All"...
| Sep 30, 2013
| 2:07 PM
SAN DIEGO — A court hearing in Las Vegas has been delayed until Thursday to decide whether a well-known gambler should be being returned to San Diego to face charges of cheating at blackjack.
Anargyros Karabourniotis, 62, known in gambling circles...
| Oct 1, 2013
| 7:15 PM
UC student leaders had their first meeting Tuesday with new UC system President Janet Napolitano and emerged saying they were “cautiously optimistic” that she would address their concerns, including those affecting students who were brought...
| Mar 14, 2013
| 4:22 PM
One of two people who were trapped in a 15-foot trench in Pacific Palisades has died, authorities said. The second worker in the construction project incident was rescued, an effort that lasted more than an hour after firefighters arrived on......
| Jul 18, 2013
| 3:11 PM
SAN FRANCISCO -- The UC regents on Thursday confirmed U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano as the next president of the 10-campus system during a sometimes rowdy meeting marked by a protest from students and others who contend Napolitano...
| Jul 18, 2013
| 1:55 PM
ROME -- A former CIA base chief in Italy who was convicted in absentia in the kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric from the streets of Milan, has been arrested, an Italian Justice Ministry official said Thursday.
The official, who spoke on condition of...
| Jul 17, 2013
| 12:44 PM
MOSCOW -- Edward Snowden's long sojourn at Moscow's international airport may be nearing an end.
“Any day now, Snowden may get an official confirmation from the Federal Migration Service" that his application for temporary asylum is being...
| Jul 19, 2013
| 1:45 PM
Three young immigrants who entered the United States illegally as children are in Mexico and will try to cross the border back into the U.S. as part of a campaign to reduce deportations.
At the border, the three will ask to be admitted legally, but they...


Battery backup solutions for saving cache data during unplanned shutdowns are long-established and proven, but have disadvantages. The major issues with batteries include replacement, service calls, disposal costs, system space limitations and “green” content requirements. Sometime around 2004, some RAID storage system designers began observing “wouldn’t it be great if we could get rid of the batteries needed to power the DRAMs for emergency 72-hour cache backup and switch to a flash-based solution?” It was referred to as a “self-backing DIMM” and other similar names. Today, the somewhat intangible costs of using battery-backed solutions are helping to drive the transition to battery-free RAID backup solutions that make use of non-volatile registered DIMMs (NVDIMMs), which are rolling out in various densities and form factors.
Power efficiency and performance advancements in FPGA and flash memory technologies now make it possible to develop effective data-recovery circuits in RAID back-up solutions that can be charged from alternative charging sources, such as ultra capacitors. For example, the ONFI 2.0 FLASH interface enables very fast RAID memory backup and recovery times – writing from DRAM to flash for backup and then back to DRAM for recovery. This architecture uses an NVDIMM, which is an ONFI flash-based registered DDR3 DIMM that transfers data in the DRAM array to non-volatile flash memory in the event of a system power loss. Only the DIMM needs power until the data within the DRAM devices are written to flash memory. Once the transfer is complete, the DRAM array can be powered off until system power is restored. After that, the data can be restored to the DRAM array from the flash memory. Reducing the backup time interval allows the power source to be replaced by a supercap card. (The typical backup and restore times average less than 10 seconds per gigabyte for each function.)
The innovation known as supercaps or ultracaps can supply enough power to move data from the DRAM array to the flash memory. Consisting mainly of carbon and aluminum and containing no heavy metals, supercaps are environmentally friendly with no hazardous disposal issues. They also have a longer shelf life than batteries, making them particularly well-suited for RAID back-up applications where power outages may be infrequent. They can be recharged in a fraction of the time required by batteries, and they retain data for years. While supercaps cannot supply power as long as rechargeable batteries, they can supply enough to power a DIMM for a few minutes. Once the backup is complete, the DIMM turns off until the next power cycle. Densities up to 8GB and 16GB can be achieved per module by combining ONFI flash and DDR3 DRAM that are then powered by the supercap cards.
NVDIMMs combine advancements in flash, DRAM, FPGA, and supercap technologies, and they are helping to drive industry adoption in the RAID storage market. IDC projects that storage capacity is growing at an average rate of 52% per year. The capacity trend for emergency cache backup storage is also growing, and it is now averaging between 2GB to 8GB per processor. Today’s commonly used backup solutions of either RAID adaptor cards or battery-backed portions of main memory are being stretched to the limit. As a result, NVDIMMs and Mini-NVDIMMs are poised to gain significant traction over the next two years. According to IDC, the forecast for external storage systems which includes RAID adaptors is expected to grow from $22B in 2010 to approximately $26B in 2013. With NVDIMMs, the need for RAID adaptors becomes redundant (because the NVDIMMs can function as main memory as well as be used for cache backup), and there is no longer a need to create a separate memory subsystem for emergency cache backup. A growing percentage of the external storage system market will transition to include NVDIMMs.
SMART Modular Technologies and other vendors are offering various types of NVDIMM solutions. Their evolution continues as industry standardization efforts and work between memory vendors and processor suppliers are underway. These efforts will accelerate once there are a more common set of cache backup solutions available to storage system OEMs and a more common set of NVDIMM system integration schemes. However, despite these challenges, NVDIMM solutions are available now, and the industry expects that they will shortly become a plug-and-play solution.


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Moment press agency photographer is manhandled out of Tory conference by security guards ‘after he was refused entry into hall for Liz Truss’s speech’
- Photographer escorted by three security guards from Tory conference hall
- Man, EPA photojournalist Tolga Akmen, can be heard saying ‘please stop’
- Officials can be heard threatening to call the police as they eject him from hall
- It happened at the Conservative Party conference where Liz Truss spoke today
This is the moment a photographer was manhandled and ejected from the Conservative Party conference hall by security guards after being ‘refused entry into the hall for Liz Truss’ speech’.
The man, named as Tolga Akmen, a staff photojournalist at European Pressphoto Agency (EPA), can be seen being escorted by three security guards to an exit of the Birmingham venue.
A bystander commented: ‘A photographer has just been dragged off the conference centre floor by security.’
Tolga Akmen pictured outside the Birmingham Venue where the Conservative Party conference took place
The photographer is heard to plead: ‘Just leave me be. I’m a member of the media. Can you please stop this please?
‘What are you doing? I promise you, I didn’t do anything.’
Meanwhile, officials can be heard threatening to call the police.
A man in a suit is heard to comment: ‘I’d go with him now, otherwise the police will get involved but go now, we’ll try and sort it out.’
Speaking to the Metro, Mr Akmen said security had claimed he was a ‘threat’ after he was not allowed into the conference hall where the Prime Minister was giving her keynote address to delegates.
He told the publication: ‘I was entering the conference hall for the speech after photographing the PM on the hotel bridge but a security guard didn’t let me in from the closest door to the hall and I argued briefly that I’m going to the photographers’ area.
The moment was captured by a journalist who uploaded the video to social media
‘I was given no explanation or alternative directions. I left the gate to go to another one but realised the same security guard (was) following me and radioing my description and describing me as a threat.’
He added: ‘When I got to another door there were three security guards waiting for me and they grabbed me by the arms, ripped the accreditation off my chest and started dragging me and pushing me until they threw me out to the pavement without my jacket or rest of my gear.
‘I had to wait in the rain with my T-shirt for an hour an half until a colleague could get my gear to me.’
Mr Akmen won the Getty Images Young Photographer of the Year 2016 and the Fixation News Photographer of the Year 2019 awards, his website states.
West Midlands Police said it was aware of the incident but it was dealt with security staff.
‘No offences were committed and no arrests were made,’ they added.
Tolga Akmen and the Conservative Party have been contacted for comment.
Source: Read Full Article


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TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV) – Indiana State University received a large donation to the college’s technology department.
ESKO Graphics Inc. donated their software to the packaging program in the form of a check of over one million dollars.
According to a representative from ESKO, this software technology will allow students to gain work experience in the classroom.
Many companies use the ESKO software for their packaging needs.
ISU Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs Mike Licari said this donation will give the packaging program an edge against other universities.
“Our industry partners are able to take our students as interns and then as future employees,” he explained. “And know and have the confidence that our students are going to be successful in their businesses.”


You can read my portrait of Jemma Birrell, artistic director of the Sydney Writer’s Festival in The Saturday Paper here.
Read my travel piece on Bergen in The Saturday Paper here.
Read my portrait of A.M. Homes in The Saturday Paper here.
My new novel Where the Light Falls will be published by Allen & Unwin in the second half of 2015. You can read an extract of it in The Australian here. Note, I changed the title to something marginally less pretentious.
Read my review of Marilynne Robinson’s novel Lila in The Monthly here.
You can read my review of Deb Fitzpatrick’s The Break in the Australian Book Review here.
My short story ‘Albatross’ about love, guilt and losing memory was published in Southerly 72(3).
If you are a subscriber you can read my review of Arm’s Race here.
Read my review of Yiyun Li’s Kinder than Solitude here.
My review of Rachel Cusk’s novel Outline published in the Sydney Morning Herald, can be read here.


Gov't Asks To Dismiss Grizzly Mauling LawsuitBear Hunting Magazine
The United States Federal government filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit last week claiming immunity under a state law, the Wyoming Recreation Use Act. It states that property owners do not have to warn others about possible dangers on the land.
They are asking the judge to throw out the lawsuit made over a fatal grizzly bear mauling near Yellowstone National Park. The 430-pound male grizzly mauled a 70 year-old man from Illinois in June 2010 and his widow filed a $5 million wrongful death lawsuit against the government. The suit alleges that researchers were negligent in trapping a bear along a trail and close to cabins, and by prematurely taking down signs that warned people passing by of their work in the area.
You can view BHM's original News Flash regarding this incident here


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South Indian actor Ganesh Venkatraman has been known for his performances in movies like Abhiyum Naanum, Unnai Pol Oruvan and Siddharth starrer Theeyaa Vela Seiyanum Kumaru to name a few.
Ganesh who has also been seen in lead roles in some movies like Inaiyathalam and Panithuli and as a contender in Tamil Bigg Boss season 1, is presently working on movies in Tamil and Malayalam. Ganesh has been wedded to actress Nisha Krishnan and now the pair have moved into a novel chapter of life.
The actors are all set to turn parents, and they took to social media to share pictures from the traditional Seemandham (baby shower).
Ganesh shared a few pictures from the baby shower and wrote –
View this post on Instagram
Welcoming the soon to come 'New Arrival' 👣👣 in the family & seeking blessings for my love @prettysunshine28 with a traditional Seemandham 🤰 Excited about this New Phase of life 'Fatherhood' 👼 Time to grow up myself 😜😜 #WeAreExpecting #ComingSoon #PositiveVibes #Family #Fatherhood
‘Welcoming the soon to come ‘New Arrival’ in the family & seeking blessings for my love @prettysunshine28 with a traditional Seemandham
Excited about this New Phase of life ‘Fatherhood’
Time to grow up myself #WeAreExpecting #ComingSoon #PositiveVibes #Family #Fatherhood.’
Heartfelt wishes to the actor, who is acting presently in Arvind Swamy starrer Vanangamudi.

domain: entertainment


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This 80 X 125 building lot is located in northwest Port Charlotte, and yet just over 4 miles to new shopping and restaurants located at North Port’s Cocoplum Village Shops off of US41! Also located 7.7 miles to Port Charlotte Town Center; for all your shopping, dining and entertainment needs! You will find Venice and Englewood beaches are less than 20 miles from this home site. The Port Charlotte area is best known for: excellent fishing, boating and golfing, with pristine gulf beaches close by! PCH 055 3005 0020
Listing Agent: John Sheridan
Courtesy of: CENTURY 21 AZTEC & ASSOCIATES
Office Phone: 941-629-3188
Updated: 24th April, 2017 11:32 PM.
1053 BEEKMAN CIR Port Charlotte, FL


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Take advantage of this rare opportunity! Property has been in the family for decades, but they are ready to sell. More than 13 acres with woods and river view. Public water. New Richmond Schools.
- Area Clermont-C04
- Directions E US Rt 52, Just Past Moscow Cemetery Road.
- School District New Richmond Ex Vill
- View River
Single Family Lot
Bring your own builder to this gorgeous 1.4 acre wooded lot! Creek and slope suitable for a walkout basement. Spring Haven subdivision; Clinton Massie School district. No HOA, restrictions available upon request. Peaceful country setting with easy access to major roadways.
MLS ID 1636862
Courtesy of: Sibcy Cline, Inc.
Office Phone: 656004066
Listing Agent: Lori Schott
Updated: 19th January, 2020 9:23 PM.
0 US Rt 52 Washington Twp, OH


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WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), a senior member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Wednesday questioned witnesses on the effects and importance of applying existing regulations to cryptocurrencies in light of the recent FTX collapse as Congress seeks answers on how to protect investors, our financial system, and our national security from crypto-related risks.
“A lot of securities regulation essentially comes down to one thing – what actions are and are not permissible when one person is handling another person’s money. And by and large, we in Congress, the securities industry, and the general public have agreed on the major principles that should guide that activity,” Menendez said. “For instance … brokers are not permitted to use customer funds to finance their business. They are required to fully disclose conflicts of interest. And when dealing with retail investors, they are required go further and mitigate certain conflicts. FTX doesn’t seem to have done any of this, and if they had, it seems like a lot of harm would’ve been prevented.”
Sen. Menendez also asked witnesses what would be required to perform full, accurate, and meaningful audits of crypto firms, given efforts to integrate digital assets into the wider traditional financial system.
“In the wake of the FTX collapse, many crypto firms have attempted to reassure the public of their soundness by hiring outside auditors to provide proof of reserve. However, the quality of these audits are inconsistent and oftentimes provide an incomplete picture of the company’s assets and liabilities,” Menendez said.
Last month, days after FTX’s collapse, Sen. Menendez called for Congress and regulators to step up efforts to determine what regulations are needed to ensure crypto exchange investors and the overall financial system are protected.
Sen. Menendez has been a leader in the fight to protect consumers, investors and the larger economy from cryptocurrency-related risks. In September, Sen. Menendez joined a letter urging Meta to provide information about the company’s efforts to combat cryptocurrency scams and hold bad actors accountable for cryptocurrency fraud on its platforms. In March, Sen. Menendez joined colleagues and introduced the Digital Asset Sanctions Compliance Enhancement Act to ensure that Vladimir Putin and Russian elites cannot use digital assets to undermine the international community’s economic sanctions against Russia following its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

domain: law


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I was sent a free copy of The Good Kings by Kara Cooney by TLC Book Tours. All opinions are my own.
About The Good Kings:
Written in the tradition of historians like Stacy Schiff and Amanda Foreman who find modern lessons in ancient history, this provocative narrative explores the lives of five remarkable pharaohs who ruled Egypt with absolute power, shining a new light on the country’s 3,000-year empire and its meaning today.
In a new era when democracies around the world are threatened or crumbling, best-selling author Kara Cooney turns to five ancient Egyptian pharaohs–Khufu, Senwosret III, Akenhaten, Ramses II, and Taharqa–to understand why many so often give up power to the few, and what it can mean for our future.
As the first centralized political power on earth, the pharaohs and their process of divine kingship can tell us a lot about the world’s politics, past and present. Every animal-headed god, every monumental temple, every pyramid, every tomb, offers extraordinary insight into a culture that combined deeply held religious beliefs with uniquely human schemes to justify a system in which one ruled over many.
From Khufu, the man who built the Great Pyramid at Giza as testament to his authoritarian reign, and Taharqa, the last true pharaoh who worked to make Egypt great again, we discover a clear lens into understanding how power was earned, controlled, and manipulated in ancient times. And in mining the past, Cooney uncovers the reason why societies have so willingly chosen a dictator over democracy, time and time again.
All purchase links below are affiliate links. If you make a purchase I may receive a small commission at no additional charge to you
About the Author:
KARA COONEY is Professor of Egyptian Art and Architecture at UCLA and chair of its Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. Her academic work focuses on death preparations, social competition, and gender studies. She appeared as a lead expert in the popular Discovery Channel special “The Secrets of Egypt’s Lost Queen” and produced and wrote Discovery’s Out of Egypt. The author of When Women Ruled the World (2018) and The Woman Who Would be King (2014), Cooney lives in Los Angeles, CA.
I have long had a fascination with ancient times and Egypt in particular. There is something about this period in history that just pulls me in. In this new book Ms. Cooney dives into the lives of five great leaders during the reign of the Pharaohs. Often times, as my mother always told me, absolute power corrupts absolutely, but there are times when you get a ruler who truly wants what is best for his (or her) people.
This is a world so very different from the one we currently inhabit so be prepared to immerse yourself in the lives of beings who thought themselves to be gods. Just look at what they had built for their burial chambers – not exactly a small, discreet memorial stone, eh?
The stories are both mundane and fascinating as they were gods and men all at the same time. Ms. Cooney’s writing style is smooth and easy so that you do not feel as if you are deep in a history book but rather you are being told a story by someone who truly loves their subject matter.
This is the best kind of reading.

domain: library