In the process of developing an urban resilience strategy – one that answers these questions, one that addresses the concerns of planners, developers, mayors, local government personnel, investors and concerned citizens – inevitably more questions arise. The most important one is arguably the question of 'resilience to what and why?' This was also discussed during the recent Resilient Cities Conference 2017 in Bonn.
In these days, climate and Bonn are thought together. As a matter of fact, adaptation to climate change, building resilience and dealing with loss and damages will challenge the world just as much as the necessity of mitigating global warming to no more than two degrees Celsius or less. Bonn is a hotspot for the joint efforts to get there. Already this 8 May, the Bonn Climate Talks will bring parties, observers and stakeholders together in the city at the Rhine.
“People need to own public space” – Interview with Ebru Gencer from the Center for Urban Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience
Urban populations face risks, not only in regard to natural disasters and climate change, but also in terms of social problems such as unsafe public spaces. In an interview with URBANET, Ebru Gencer from CUDRR+R explains how cities and local governments can make cities more resilient and manage risks effectively.
“Nowadays cities are more aware of the problem” – An interview with Jiao Tang and Luis Marinheiro from the ISWA
In recent years there have been great advancements in solid waste management and people are becoming more and more aware of its importance. However especially in developing countries there is still a need for more sustainable solutions. We spoke to Jiao Tang and Luis Marinheiro about the current situation in waste management and what still needs to be done to make it more sustainable and innovative.
Asia is one of the regions of the world that is experiencing extremely rapid urbanisation. The Cities Development Initiative for Asia (CDIA) has recently launched a photobook in which case studies of four cities in Asia illustrate innovative ways to tackle issues in key sectors such as flood and drainage management, water supply, transport and waste management.
“Soon 20 percent of the land of Southern Bangladesh may be gone forever” – An interview with ANM Safiqul Alam, MD of Geomark
Bangladeshi cities do not only have to face difficult climate conditions, but also increasing waves of urban migration and the problems associated with that. URBANET spoke to ANM Safiqul Alam, managing director of the software and planning company Geomark, about how Bangladesh is facing these challenges and why he is hopeful for the future of the country.


Berry is the Idols SA season 17 winner!
The 31-year-old from Cape Town in Western Cape was a second-time entrant. She auditioned eleven years ago and didn’t make it.
Berenike Trytsman was crowned this year’s winner on Sunday, 21 November and walks away with R300 000,00 cash in an Old Mutual Money, R250 000 cash, Samsung Galaxy Fold 3 on Vodacom Red VIP 100GB Plan, Renault Kiger Intens, valued at over R269 000, R100 000 in cash from Darling and R100 000 in fashion from Truworths.
She also received a Bachelor of Business Administration bursary valued at over R260 000 from Regenesys Business School, R85 000 worth of musical equipment from Yamaha, and R350 000 cash from Mzansi Magic.
The finale was filled with great performances from the likes of Musa Keys, Oskido, Mafikizolo, Busta 929, Nobantu Vilakazi and more.
Karabo and Berry opened up the stage with a cover from The Greatest Showman soundtrack, A Million Dreams. The top 10 made an appearance too and performed with the top 2.
Busta 929 and Mzu M were the first Mzansi stars to take the stage and they performed their hit single, Mapula. Mafikizolo, who are celebrating 26 years together this yet sang their new single, Mamezala. Musa Keys and Nobantu Vilakazi sang their hit Vula Mlomo.
The top 10 then took the stage and sang Prince Kaybee’s hit single, Banomoya featuring Busiswa. Season 16 winner, Zama sang her single, Isithunzi.
And Oskido together with season 16 top 10 contestants, Ndoni and Meez performed their new single titled Emakhaya. Karabo and the Mzansi Gay Choir sang Tina Turner’s River Deep Mountain High. And Berry sang Lady Gaga’s Edge of Glory with the Mzansi Gay Choir.
The top 2 shared their last performance with John Legend’s Never Break before the winner was announced.
The host of Nigerian Idols, IK Osakioduwa also made an appearance to call for auditions for Nigerian Idols season 7.
In Other News: SIZWE DHLOMO SPEAKS AFTER ALLEGED ABUSE ON FORMER WORKMATE UNATHI NKAYI
Kaya FM drive time host Sizwe Dhlomo has all but denied a City Press news report claiming Idols SA judge Unathi Nkayi’s axing stemmed from an incident between the station’s two stars. According to the publication, both Dhlomo and Nkayi were involved in a heated argument just weeks before her axing. Nkayi laid a complaint with HR against her colleague, accusing him of…Learn more


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Month: January 2021
Watercolor 365 – Daily Tips, Tricks & Techniques
Today, I visited my local Art and Craft shop, Eckersleys Art & Craft to spend a gift voucher I received for Christmas.
When I receive a gift voucher I always like to buy something memorable. It would be easy to spend it on more paints etc but those paints get used up and there’s nothing really left to show for spending the voucher.
Whilst surveying the shelves in the Art shop, I came across a book called, “Watercolor 365 – Daily Tips, Tricks & Techniques” by Leslie Redhead.
Buying any sort of ‘How To’ book can sometimes see us buying things we’ve already bought. They are so many books out there about Watercolour, when one buys a book, often the same material is conveyed, albeit sometimes in a different way.
Upon closer inspection I found that the ‘Tips, Tricks & Techniques’ contain:
- 52 Mini step-by-step instructions
- 52 Q & A’s
- 52 Troubleshooting tips
- 52 Bits of creative advice
- 52 General tips
- 52 Definitions
- 52 Exercises
I was impressed enough to buy the book. It looks very interesting and in viewing the book there are a quite a lot of things that I didn’t know (I’m not a full-time Artist). I believe I am going to enjoy using this book to help me in my Watercolour journey. Thank you, Leslie for producing this book. 🙂
Written by David Johnson
24 January 2021
Warmth Of The Sun
Sometimes along a journey you wonder whether you are improving or not. I remember this happened with Toastmasters early on. I was going along to meetings, writing, rehearsing and giving speeches, taking on roles etc and after three months, I wondered it was having an effect?
A colleague I worked with at the time suddenly said one day, ‘David, you are appear to have greater confidence these days, what’s the secret?’ I knew then that going to Toastmasters had started to affect me in a positive way.
With my Watercolour sketches I have wondered the same thing, although it is easier in one way to gauge improvement as I have tangible evidence in the form of previous Watercolour sketches.
During lockdown last year I did 120 YouTube tutorials in a row and occasionally, I do more. One of the ways I am trying to gauge improvement is to go back to a tutorial but not actually ‘do the tutorial.’
Instead, what I do is sketch the image and do the painting without watching the tutorial. This way, I am trying to gauge what I can do without the step-by-step instruction to see how close I can get to the one I did when I did the tutorial.
Today’s Watercolour sketch (Day 727) is an example of that. I did the tutorial (Nil Rocha Art) back on Day 500. I have added a couple of shrubs and there are some other elements which I have changed but I am pretty happy with the result. I would love to reach the skill level of the tutorials. More practice required!
I’m happy with my progress with Watercolour in general and with Line and Wash, however, I am looking forward to the time I can do a face-to-face Watercolour course with a professional. I was due to start a 10 week course like this when Covid hit.
I’ve been using Winsor & Newton Cotman Half-Pans for over two years now. I’m thinking that maybe it is time to jump to Artist quality paints and have purchased a set of Primaries.
Still have so much more to learn. Still having so much fun! 🙂
Written by David Johnson
23 January 2021
Day 706 of a Watercolour Sketch a Day
Back on 26 January 2019 when I started this ‘Daily Art Practice’ I could never have imagined that I would do it for 30 days straight, let alone 706…
I have no ‘lofty number goal’ in mind, I just aim to do ‘a sketch a day.’ Mostly, they are done upon rising, sometimes during the day and, less often at night these days. I believe it’s a great way to start a day.
From very early on it was like a form of meditation for me. I also wanted to learn the Watercolour and the Line and Wash mediums and was frustrated that I was only getting to do a sketch every 1-2 weeks because I thought, ‘that I didn’t have time…’.
We often think that, ‘we don’t have time’ for things. Often, when they become a priority, we do have the time.
I was asked a question recently in one of Art groups I’m on Facebook. ‘What is the one thing that you have learnt so far?’ My answer was that, ‘I have learnt that I have still so much to learn.’
Over the past few days, I’ve been thinking about this more and I feel that I could add some more answers to that question for the answer is more than, ‘just one thing’ so here goes…
- It appears that I am in the process of developing a style or two
- Favourite subjects to sketch and paint are starting to appear
- From tutorials (especially) I am learning all sorts of wonderful colour combinations
- Prior to embarking on this daily art practice, painting shadows were a weak point for me (still have a way to go with them but I’m improving)
- The practice is encouraging me to ‘go outside my comfort zone’ in terms of subject matter and technique
On top of this it is building my confidence in sketching and painting. When I was a child I wasn’t very good at sketching, drawing or painting. I’ve dabbled over the years and my last real attempt (at sketching) before now was back in the early 90’s but as ‘Photography was King’ in my life it didn’t get much of a ‘look-in.’
Prior to lockdown I was about to do a 10 week Watercolour course which was, of course cancelled so during lockdown I did a YouTube tutorial for 120 days in a row. I’ve subscribed to two artists, Nil Rocha Art and Peter Sheeler. I would highly recommend both.
Recently, I started going back and re-doing some of the subject matter in the tutorials but without doing the actually tutorials as I want to see how much I’ve learnt and how I am applying it to the subjects.
Below are a few examples from the last 300 days:
Looking forward to Day 707 and beyond!
Written by David Johnson
2 January 2021

domain: hobby


text:
Human CRACC/SLAMF7 PE-conjugated Antibody Summary
Accession # Q9NQ25
Please Note: Optimal dilutions should be determined by each laboratory for each application. General Protocols are available in the Technical Information section on our website.
Detection of CRACC/SLAMF7 in Human Blood Lymphocytes by Flow Cytometry. Human peripheral blood lymphocytes were stained with Mouse Anti-Human CRACC/SLAMF7 PE-conjugated Monoclonal Antibody (Catalog # FAB1906P) and Mouse Anti-Human CD3e APC-conjugated Monoclonal Antibody (Catalog # FAB100A). Quadrant markers were set based on control antibody staining (Catalog # IC003P). View our protocol for Staining Membrane-associated Proteins.
Preparation and Storage
- 12 months from date of receipt, 2 to 8 °C as supplied.
CRACC, also known as CSI (CD2 subset I), is a type I transmembrane protein belonging to the CD2 subset of the Ig superfamily. CRACC is expressed on most NK cells and subsets of CD8+ cells, CD4+ cells and B cells. CRACC may play a role in the activation and effector function of T cells and NK cells.
Citation for Human CRACC/SLAMF7 PE-conjugated Antibody
R&D Systems personnel manually curate a database that contains references using R&D Systems products. The data collected includes not only links to publications in PubMed, but also provides information about sample types, species, and experimental conditions.
1 Citation: Showing 1 - 1
Anti-CS1 humanized monoclonal antibody HuLuc63 inhibits myeloma cell adhesion and induces antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity in the bone marrow milieu.
Authors: Tai YT, Dillon M, Song W, Leiba M, Li XF, Burger P, Lee AI, Podar K, Hideshima T, Rice AG, van Abbema A, Jesaitis L, Caras I, Law D, Weller E, Xie W, Richardson P, Munshi NC, Mathiot C, Avet-Loiseau H, Afar DE, Anderson KC
Sample Types: Whole Cells
Applications: Flow Cytometry
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domain: medical


text: 1 March 20193 May 2019 Long read / horror On the other side of destruction: Lovecraft, annihilation and the self Laurence Barratt-Manning All travellers to wild places will have felt some version of this, a brief blazing perception of the world’s disinterest. In small measures in exhilarates. But in full form it annihilates. – Robert Macfarlane, The Wild Places Clark Ashton Smith’s ‘weird’ short story from 1931, ‘The city of the singing flame’, presents the journals of Gilles Angarth (also a writer of weird fiction) and his accidental discovery of a portal to another dimension near the California-Nevada border – a place of lush vegetation surrounding a strange and cyclopean city. At the heart of this alien metropolis, Angarth discovers the titular flame, a vast column of light surrounded by a multitude of strange and unknown species (of which the human narrator is just one of many), all in moth-like supplication to the flame and the intoxicating music it emits. Although the implications of this flame are immediately clear – ‘the thought of how marvellous and ecstatical it would be to run forward and leap headlong into the singing fire’ – Angarth’s reactions are not those of horror or unease. Rather, his journal records impressions that are rapturous and filled with awe: The fire was white and dazzling, it was pure as the central flame of a star; it blinded me, and when I turned my eyes away, the air was filled with webs of intricate colour, with swiftly changing arabesques whose numberless, unwonted hues and patterns were such as no mundane eye had ever beheld. I felt a stimulating warmth that filled my very marrow with intenser life. From this encounter with the city comes a great change in the narrator. Having witnessed the flame, his thoughts are coloured by it, to the point that the ‘real’ world ‘seems hardly less improbable and nightmarish than the one that [he has] penetrated in a fashion so fortuitous’. Eventually, Angarth and a companion return to the ‘amber heaven’ of the flame, where his companion wastes no time in immolating himself. At the close of the story, Angarth finds himself envying his friend’s fate, ‘and wondering as to the sensations he had felt in that moment of fiery dissolution’. His new sensations having grown stronger than his human instincts for self-preservation, he signs off his journal for the last time and returns to the city and to the flame. Smith’s story is remarkable in several ways, but none more so than the sustained sense of beauty and wonder throughout – beauty and wonder in the face of extreme internal change and external strangeness. Angarth’s shifting priorities from the individual/self (and self-preservation) towards the communal (rapturous immolation, ‘the exultation and triumph of a momentary union with … elemental essence’) is treated not as a sickness or insanity, but as the inevitable consequence of such an extreme encounter with a vast, incomprehensible otherness. While there are occasional intonations of nightmare or horror (‘man’s instinctive recoil before the unknown’), the mood here is overwhelmingly one of acceptance, excitement and wonder. The lingering sense of Angarth, abandoning his human life to join the singing flame, is not that of a man driven mad or someone that needs to be saved, but is instead one of a natural course taken and a great joy being fulfilled. The change that occurs in Angarth’s priorities, in his very essence, is not one to be feared or checked, but rather one to be embraced and accepted. If this leaves the conventional notion of the human or the individual behind, then so be it. ‘The City of the Singing Flame’ is a worthy precursor to Alex Garland’s Annihilation (an adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer’s novel), 2018’s strangest and perhaps most brilliant film. Annihilation also depicts a physical landscape – the clandestine Area X on the Atlantic coastline – that brings about deep-seated change in those who traverse it (in this case, a team of explorers) – change not forced from without, but, as with Angarth, inevitable in the face of a miracle. Area X functions as a kind of refraction chamber, where physical and mental states of humans, animals, plants and even the inanimate are scrambled and reassembled in endless flux and combination – a ceaseless and purposeless reworking of assemblages and rhizomatic potentialities: not only physical form, but thought, language, meaning and so on. It’s a deeply materialist conception of physicality and psychology and the link between the two, one that questions any predetermined notion of self. The anthropologist Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing poses the question, ‘[what] if our indeterminate life form was not the shape of our bodies but rather the shape of our motions over time?’ In Area X, this question is reaffirmed: conventional categories break down, and life surges without limit. In Area X, like in Smith’s story, change and the loss of self are not things to be fought or feared, but accepted as a natural thing that has already happened. Witness the character of Josie Radek, who discovers she no longer has a desire to leave Area X. In a lesser film, this could have been portrayed as a taking-leave of senses, an obstacle to be fought against. In Annihilation, the audience’s sense is instead one of agreement: why fight for a feeling that is lost, for a thing we used to be? If the danger of change is only recognised from the standpoint of the person we used to be – the very thing that has already changed – then does the danger even exist anymore? The starkest example of this comes as the final member of the exploration team, a biologist, comes across a video of her husband, Kane, thought previously to be lost within Area X. ‘I thought I was a man …’, the video begins, before making clear this is no longer something that can be believed in. Area X has wrought its change, and the old signifiers of self and separation have ceased to make sense: the demarcation of the individual has revealed itself as an arbitrary divide. As if to prove this, the video ends by showing two things – first, Kane’s self-immolation, and second, moments after the detonation, Kane again walks into frame to examine his own charred corpse. Once again, Annihilation sidesteps easy interpretations: what we are witnessing here is not simply a case of madness and imposture, but something much stranger. Neither the destruction of the body, nor the loss of self, nor the replication of forms is seen as inherently bad here – frightening, yes, but only as the shock of the new. What is ultimately invoked is an understanding of the place of the human in the world as intricately bound with other natural processes, both visible and invisible – strange assemblies, endlessly acting and reacting, forming and reforming. To quote Tsing again: ‘Thinking through self-containment and thus the self-interest of individuals (at whatever scale) made it possible to ignore contamination, that is, transformation through encounter.’ Tsing does not mean contamination pejoratively. Rather, this is a sense of naturalism that foregrounds constant connection, encounter, and change. I am not arguing for an ideal of naturalism that can align nature writing with fascist thought (which usually upholds the human as outside or divorced from nature) or antihumanism, but instead one of nonhumanism, where humans are placed squarely within nature, without partition. The effect is twofold: the breakdown of a human/nature divide, and also recognition of the unfamiliarity of where we now find ourselves – in a place without signposts or significance of what we traditionally identify as human. ‘Little is said publicly about these encounters’, writes Robert MacFarlane, referring to moments when the artificiality of this partition becomes evident: ‘those who experience them feel no strong need to broadcast their feelings.’ This is mirrored in the book and film versions of Annihilation, where survey teams drift away from their purpose towards symbiosis with their environment. Recording and categorising is no longer useful or relevant. Not only does it no longer say anything useful about the world, but even if it did, is there any need to say it? Anna Tsing’s The Mushroom at the End of the World (from which the above quotes are taken) explores this kind of interlinked relationship between species and organisms via an investigation into the matsutake mushroom, and how ecological categories – including humanity – are not easily (or realistically) separated. Tracing fungus, weather, supply chains and human mismanagement (and much more), Tsing masterfully shows the artificiality of distinct categories of organisms, and how the human and nonhuman intersect beyond the point of meaningful distinction. While this makes comprehending our relationship with the natural world overwhelming – to some extent because it becomes a matter of comprehending ourselves – it also allows for a realistic and workable sense of our place within nature. It’s an understanding miles away from the alienation that can be found in writings from Thoreau to Plato. It’s useful to contrast this kind of nature writing to the more common way of depicting nature – as overwhelming. HP Lovecraft (Clark Ashton Smith’s friend and correspondent) is usually the go-to comparison for fiction that hints at the cosmic, at cycles outside our comprehension that reduce human concerns to irrelevance and meaninglessness. However, in this often lazy comparison, the similarities are foregrounded and the differences sink into the background. This is particularly relevant in the case of Annihilation. In my copy, Lovecraft is invoked three times in the blurbs, and nearly every review of the film I’ve seen finds a way to mention him at least once. When it comes down to it, though, there’s not much of Lovecraft’s ‘contre le monde, contre la vie’ to be found in either book or film. In Annihilation, the dwarfing of human concerns and the morphing of the conventionally defined mode of humanity does not come with Lovecraft’s horror. Yes, there is the shock of difference – the ‘annihilation’ invoked by Robert Macfarlane. But beyond this lies wonder. A good point of comparison is Lovecraft’s classic tale, ‘The Shadow over Innsmouth’. It concerns the antiquarian Robert Olmstead’s journey to a dead port town, where he uncovers a race of ‘fish people’ and their generations-long inbreeding with the native residents of the town. But beyond his escape from Innsmouth lies the real horror: Olmstead’s genealogical investigations lead him to the Oedipus-like discovery of his own family’s complicity in this breeding. He, too, bears the (in Lovecraft’s terms) tainted DNA that will one day transform him into the hated aquatic creatures, and at the story’s close, he has lost the sense of dread of this prospect and longs for the ‘wonder and glory’ of the ocean realm. Even with this final declaration and the narrator’s joy, there is no mistaking Lovecraft’s authorial sense of horror in this prospect: Olmstead, unlike Josie Radek, has lost his humanity for the worse, and has become something he is not. While the narrator has ebbed away from his human psychology (as in ‘The City of the Singing Flame’ or Annihilation), there is no beauty in this transformation or loss of self – only the horror of the other, in line with Lovecraft’s (well known) racist notions of degenerecence, and his fear of mental decay and bodily corruption. The larger force that Olmstead becomes subsumed in not only dwarfs humanity – it mocks it, and the sense we are left with is one of evil and wrongness. This is where Annihilation most sharply breaks from any meaningful comparison to Lovecraft. Where, for Lovecraft, the awareness of patterns outside of and indifferent to human activity is horrific, in Garland’s film it is exhilarating – terrifying in its shock of newness, and annihilating in its power, but ultimately electrifying. It is not the sense of being pitted against something that makes mockery of individual reason, but being part of something that does the same. In Annihilation, beyond the shock of the unknown – the annihilation of the sense of the people that we thought we were – there is nothing of the monstrous in the discovery that we are part of a vast, churning nature. At the film’s close, the remaining member of the expedition into Area X is asked what she believes the entity that she confronted (the cause of the great change within her and within Area X) wants. ‘I don’t think it wants anything,’ she replies with wonder. Here, reason and purpose (or the sense of an enemy) has vanished. Things turn without an end goal or a sense of finality, and are no less rich for it. To trace the thread from Smith, to Tsing, to Garland and VanderMeer and beyond is to trace it away from Lovecraft, away from finding terror in the loss of self. He is a useful starting point for dislodging the centrality of humanity and reason, and we can follow him away from humanism, but must break ways at his disgust. For it is there, in his recoil, that human-centricism reasserts itself, albeit in distorted and (to use a favoured Lovecraftian term) grotesque inversion – with the meaninglessness of self, reason and civilisation a cause for abject horror. As reasoned human reference points ebb away – temporal, historical, or existential – the final line of defence they present is mourning their absence. This is something Annihilation does not allow. In VanderMeer’s book, the narrator speculates on the tendrils of genetic change and intermingling that spread from Area X into the world and into her: ‘The terrible thing, the thought I cannot dislodge after all I have seen, is that I can no longer say with conviction that this is a bad thing.’ Terrible, yes, but only when seen from our side, from the perspective of the human separated from our surroundings. On the other side of destruction waits wonder. Lovecraft’s ‘The Call of Cthulhu’ famously opens with the assertion that too much knowledge, the knowledge of our own lack of meaning, will require either madness or a dark age to conceal us from this ultimate horror. But what if we choose neither? What if we were to walk even further from the fires, where even meaninglessness has no meaning: to the place where vines seethe, where stars glimmer and die, where corpses rot and flowers bloom and all swirls endlessly, without beginning or end or sense? What strange matter mixes and mingles …? Image: still from Annihilation. Laurence Barratt-Manning Laurence Barratt-Manning is a writer from Australia, who currently lives in Cambridge, UK. More by Laurence Barratt-Manning Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 1 First published in Overland Issue 228 26 May 202225 July 2022 Politics From crisis to common sense Anna Carlson While common-sense ideas of ‘Team Australia’ reached absurd proportions during the pandemic, the underlying logics aren’t new. They reinvigorate much older common sense discourses of settler colonial nationalism: triumph over adversity, unity in crisis, national identity forged in war time. And like most common sense ideas, they function to paper over the foundational contradictions that produce and sustain contemporary crises. First published in Overland Issue 228 8 October 202115 November 2021 Main Posts Creative migration: ‘to emigrate inwardly’ Ouyang Yu What a writing life is that, one might wonder, having to publish one’s own work by oneself, in the case of Pessoa, or consigning one’s own work to obscurity, in the case of Dickinson? But that is exactly what migration—mental, spiritual and creative—is all about.

domain: artistic


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Westfield Health Wellbeing Index report finds
On National Stress Awareness Day
‘Strong culture has to be a joint effort’
From nutritionist Lily Soutter
Heightened 'pressure' during summer months
Westfield Health’s Wellbeing Index suggests
‘The Orange Table’
‘A global leader in workplace wellness and human performance’
Employers can improve both the overall wellbeing and productivity of their workforce through better office plans and designated areas
He replaces Jill Davies following her retirement
Instant access to 'transformational' mental resilience and wellbeing solutions via Healthy Extras scheme
More needs to be done within the workplace to tackle wellbeing
Employers are not doing enough to support employees mental and physical health as NHS struggles, research by Westfield Health has found
Sheffield health provider forges links with delegates in Texas to explore preventative medicine and sport wellness facilities
Westfield Health is inviting start-ups and entrepreneurs from the health and wellbeing sector to pitch for partnership, investment and business support opportunities with the company.
Westfield Health has invested in 3rings - the elderly care tech start-up showcased by serial entrepreneur Steve Purdham on Dragons' Den.
Nearly a third (30%) of UK employees have reported that they feel unsure about who to talk to or where to find help or support regarding metal health issues.
The Minister for Public Health has announced Westfield Health as a major partner for Sheffield Hallam University's Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre (AWRC).
Westfield Health has donated £250,000 to the fundraising appeal to build a new helipad at Sheffield's Northern General Hospital.
Westfield Health has submitted a planning application for the move of its UK Headquarters to a new site in its home city of Sheffield.
Westfield Health has launched a new service that will enable customers to be prescribed medication over the phone or via an online consultation, and have it delivered to their home or work address.
According to a recent poll from EDM Group, one-third of people claim to have switched insurers in the past two years because of poor service. In your view, how can insurers improve customer service?
Westfield Health has enhanced its health club concession benefit, giving policyholders more choice when choosing gym membership.
Westfield Health's head of intermediary sales, Steve sharrock, explains his bafflement that more advisers are not selling cash plans.


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Casper Police Shoot, Kill Man At Convenience Store on CY Avenue
The case of a man who was shot and killed by a Casper Police officer in west Casper on Tuesday morning has been turned over to the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation, according to a news release from the city manager's office.
The incident started at 5:37 a.m. when the Public Safety and Communication Center received multiple 911 calls from the 500 block of Granite Drive in east Casper where callers reported a male subject had pointed a firearm at several people.
Casper Police immediately responded, but learned the suspect fled the area in a late-model silver sports car.
Officers learned from interviews that the suspect, who has yet to be identified, indeed had threatened people by pointing a gun at them.
At 5:46 a.m., law enforcement located the car, but he again escaped from officers.
Half an hour later, the vehicle was seen in Evansville.
Law enforcement began to chase the car as it re-entered Casper, traveling west at a high rate of speed on East Second Street toward downtown.
Police department supervisors told officers to not chase the vehicle because the driver was placing the public in danger.
At 6:31 a.m., an off-duty Natrona County Sheriff's deputy reported the suspect vehicle was parked at the Loaf 'N Jug store at CY Avenue and Kit Carson.
A police officer immediately responded and arrived within a minute.
When he got there, he contacted the suspect who had a gun and shots were exchanged.
The suspect was seriously injured and medical personnel tried to save him, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.
No officers were hurt during the incident.
The Casper Police Department asked the DCI to investigate the incident, and they will ultimately release the results to the Natrona County District Attorney's Office.
No one else was injured during the event, and there is no threat to the public on Parade Day and related activities, according to the press release.
This marked the third Casper Police officer-involved fatal shooting this year.
On Feb. 26, two officers confronted a man, Douglas One Year, who was wielding a sword and approaching them in East 15th Street in east Casper. The DCI investigated that case, and the Natrona County District Attorney's Office cleared the officers.
On May 6, two officers went to the area of Fairdale Park for a report of a man driving with two children in a vacant lot. When they spoke to him, he drew a gun and shot at them. Officers responded and killed David Wolosin.
Officer Jacob Carlson was gravely injured in the shooting, and was released from the Wyoming Medical Center a month later. The DCI continues to investigate this case.

domain: news


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Have a pup that can't get enough of the outdoors? Does your dog have lots of energy to burn? We offer many classes and programs for you and your pup to stay fit, get active and have fun together!
Please note that the majority of the classes listed below require Basic Obedience as a pre-requisite.
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We love to celebrate with our fellow dog-loving friends and neighbors! And what better way to celebrate than marching in a parade?! Join your friends and neighbors in marching with AWS in Kennebunk's HarvestFest/Homecoming Parade! Two and four-legged friends are welcomed! Meet at 11:15 am at Parsons Field for the 12 Noon parade start time. To learn more about HarvestFest, visit the Town of Kennebunk's website.Find out more »
Engage your dog’s body and mind by overcoming agility obstacles such as jumps, cavalettis, hoops, tables and more.Find out more »
Soar to new heights and get your pup's manners tuned up. Build longer stays, tighter heeling and quicker comes all while having fun. We’ll set up real life scenarios and work hard on doggie self-control.Find out more »
Work towards earning a Novice, Intermediate or Advanced AKC Trick Dog title. All levels welcome!Find out more »
Does your dog like to sniff? This class puts your dog’s natural sniffing instinct to test and provides great physical and mental stimulation.Find out more »
One of the biggest struggles dog owners have is getting their dog to come back when called reliably. This class will cover some of the important do’s and don’ts of teaching your dog to come. We will show you how to make coming back to you fun and rewarding for your canine.Find out more »

domain: pet


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As a coffee expert, I can confidently say that crafting the perfect cup of coffee is truly an art form. It requires a deep understanding of the coffee bean, the roasting process, and the brewing method. A skilled roaster can take a simple green coffee bean and transform it into a rich, complex, and nuanced cup of coffee that will tantalize your taste buds and awaken your senses.
The first step in mastering the art of coffee is to understand the bean. Coffee beans come from two main species of plant: Arabica and Robusta. Arabica beans are known for their delicate flavor, while Robusta beans are more robust and have a higher caffeine content. Within these two species, there are countless variations that are affected by factors such as the altitude at which the beans were grown, the soil composition, and the climate. Each variation has its own unique flavor profile and requires a different roasting approach to bring out its best qualities.
Once the beans have been selected, it’s time to roast them. Roasting is perhaps the most critical step in the coffee-making process as it brings out the flavors and aromas that make each bean unique. The roasting process involves heating the beans to a specific temperature and then cooling them rapidly to stop the roasting process. Roasting times and temperatures vary depending on the type of bean and the desired flavor profile. A skilled roaster will know how to adjust the roasting process to bring out the best in each bean.
The roasting process can be broken down into three main stages: drying, browning, and development. During the drying stage, the beans lose moisture and begin to turn yellow. This stage lasts for about five minutes and is followed by the browning stage, during which the beans turn brown and start to release oils. This stage lasts for about three to five minutes and is followed by the development stage, during which the beans darken and the flavors and aromas fully develop. This stage can last anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes, depending on the desired roast level.
Roasting can be done using a variety of methods, including drum roasting, air roasting, and fluid bed roasting. Each method has its own unique advantages and disadvantages, and a skilled roaster will know which method to use for each type of bean.
Once the beans have been roasted, it’s time to grind them and brew the coffee. The brewing process can also be broken down into several stages, including water temperature, water-to-coffee ratio, and brewing time. A skilled barista will know how to adjust each of these variables to achieve the perfect cup of coffee.
Water temperature is critical as it affects the extraction rate of the coffee. If the water is too hot, it will extract too much flavor from the coffee, resulting in a bitter cup. If the water is too cold, it won’t extract enough flavor, resulting in a weak cup. The ideal water temperature for brewing coffee is between 195 and 205 degrees Fahrenheit.
The water-to-coffee ratio is also critical as it affects the strength and flavor of the coffee. The ideal ratio is about 1:16, which means one part coffee to 16 parts water. This ratio can be adjusted depending on personal taste preferences.
Brewing time is also important as it affects the flavor and strength of the coffee. The ideal brewing time for a drip coffee maker is between four and six minutes, while the ideal brewing time for an espresso machine is between 20 and 30 seconds.
In addition to these variables, there are also several brewing methods to choose from, including drip brewing, espresso brewing, and French press brewing. Each method has its own unique advantages and disadvantages, and a skilled barista will know which method to use for each type of coffee.
In conclusion, crafting the perfect cup of coffee is truly an art form that requires a deep understanding of the coffee bean, the roasting process, and the brewing method. A skilled roaster and barista can take a simple green coffee bean and transform it into a rich, complex, and nuanced cup of coffee that will tantalize your taste buds and awaken your senses. So the next time you enjoy a perfectly brewed cup of coffee, take a moment to appreciate the skill and artistry that went into creating it.

domain: food


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We like to travel to interesting places. Our dream place to get to is of course Japan. Our dream was finally fulfilled and so we have been there once already. Hopefully more to come.
Naturally since we both came from The Crimea, Ukraine, we travel there a lot now that we live in USA.
Also since we are now living in US, we have been to some places there as well:
- New York and all of our blog posts about New York
- Hawaii and all our blog posts about Hawaii
- New Orleans
- Mendota Heights, MN

domain: travel


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June 11, 2012
James Balch, a resident opposed to tax increases in the county, asks commissioners Monday to abandon an idea to raise the millage rate by 2 mills in the county.
Stories this photo appears in:
County employees won't have to deal with unpaid holidays this year, officials say.
Dougherty County commissioners may spare county employees from unpaid holidays in FY 2013.

domain: economics


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Brent Robinson of Vista Villa Farms in Ontario has been elected to a second term as head of the Canadian Centre for Swine Improvement.
He was also presented the association’s Merit Award during the recent annual meeting in Ottawa.
Others elected to the board of directors are:
Rod de Wolde of Ontario
Jaques Faucher of Quebec
Wim Van Berkel of Western Canada
John Ross of the Canadian Pork Council
Colleen Roehrig of the Canadian Meat Council
Line Theroux of the Canadian Swine Breeders Association
Dave Vandenbroek of Alliance Genetics Canada
Marquis Roy of Alphagene
Ken Hamoen of Sandridge Farm
Murray Duggan of Fast Genetics
Lee Whittington of the Prairie Swine Centre.
Retiring from the board are Bill Wymenga and Normand Martineau.


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Media Release - 17/06/10
Rolleston man Robert Webb is grateful that high cholesterol was picked up at his regular health check.
His doctor, Rolleston General Practitioner Phil Schroeder was sufficiently concerned about it that he prescribed medication to bring the level down. It has now fallen from over 7 to around 4.8.
“I didn’t realise it was so high. The doctor said I had better get it down. I have always made sure I have regular health checks and this just proves how important they are,” Mr Webb says.
High cholesterol isn’t associated with any symptoms so people are often unaware they have it. It can only be detected through a blood test. However, if left untreated high cholesterol can lead to heart disease. Changes to diet and doing more exercise are often successfully used to reduce it.
This week is Men’s Health Week (June 14-20) and Canterbury District Health Board is encouraging men to make sure they go to the doctor for regular health checks even if they aren’t feeling unwell.
Mr Webb, age 66, a builder and engineer, says an annual health check gives him peace of mind.
Dr Schroeder says men will often avoid seeing doctors until they have a real need. “And that can mean we are catching things at the bottom of the cliff and sometimes it is too late to be of maximum effectiveness.”
“Men tend to spend a lot of
time and effort doing the right thing for their properties and
motor vehicles but sometimes neglect to do the right thing for
He recommends a regular health check for anyone over the age of 30, even those seeing the doctor for a regular health condition.
“Having a full check covers the gaps that we are not necessarily looking at for their ongoing problem. For example someone going to their doctor for high blood pressure may not have had other checks. Sometimes you need to step back and do a proper adult health screen.”
A man’s health screen could include questions and examination on alcohol and smoking habits, exercise, weight, prostate, diabetes, lungs, heart and skin lesions.


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See the Elemental Avatars of Sorcery Contested Realm in ACTION!
With Sorcery: Contested Realm we set out to create more than a card game, we wanted to craft an experience. With fantastic art and gameplay, we seek to transport you into the Contested Realm. The latest four Elemental Avatars available in the Beta Preconstructed Decks are an extension of that desire.
These Avatars represent masters of fundamental forces of nature, each with unique strengths and abilities. Taking on the persona of an Avatar of the Realm, whether as the Geomancer, Sparkmage, Waveshaper, or Flamecaller, we want you to be drawn into the fantastical realm of Sorcery.
With the reveal of the Avatars later today, you will begin to have a sense of the potential these new Avatars bring to the game... but to really have an understanding you'll want to see them in action!
Avatars in Action: Sorcery Team Covenant Gameplay
We know you’ve been eagerly waiting to see the gameplay of Beta Edition Elemental Avatars in action, and the time has come!
Today, at 2:30 PM EST, join us for a showcase with Team Covenant pitting the Geomancer and the Sparkmage in a head-to-head showdown. Steven and Zach capture the spirit of the Sorcery gameplay experience and couple this with unparalleled production quality for a gameplay video you won't want to miss!
Epic Adventures with Kitchen Table Play in Mind
With so many possibilities unlocked by the addition of the Elemental Avatars in the Beta Preconstructed Decks, you might be wondering how the Geomancer plays against other Preconstructed Avatars.
Well, don't worry! If you are looking for additional gameplay footage, Louie from KitchenTable TCG has you covered! He's making waves pitting the Geomancer against the Waveshaper in his Sorcery: Contested Realm Beta Preconstructed Deck gameplay debuting later today.
Join the Community
Stay tuned for more exciting updates, as we continue to explore the world of Sorcery: Contested Realm!
You can connect with the Sorery community in our Facebook group and Discord Server, we look forward to seeing you there as we celebrate the launch of Sorcery: Contested Realm - Beta Edition this week!

domain: game


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The Salton Sea: The very name conjures images of a one time dazzling inland Riviera and beachy playground of the Rat Pack situated in the depths of eastern Riverside and Imperial counties’ remotest deserts. It also brings to mind, for some, images of a curious, modern-day wasteland, rife with the ruins of old trailers spray-painted with graffiti art, abandoned ski boats and a rapidly receding shoreline.
It’s also an environmental wonderland of seasonally migrating birds, and it’s fine playa dust, the source of California’s highest rates of respiratory illnesses for those living nearby when the wind blows, which it often does here. Then there’s the smell: Algae blooms and fish die-offs are not uncommon and emit a rotten-egg odor that can drift for hundreds of miles. Soon, as per recent federal and state pronouncements, it will be the site of one of the largest, and most aggressive, lithium-extracting operations in the U.S.
This is the Salton Sea, perfectly framed with these images of empire’s ascent, pinnacle and steep downfall into disrepair – and how this relatively recent series of rapid-fire events involving this eccentric inland sea, dating back only to the mid-19th century, serves as a sharp metaphor for the consequences of colonialism, in a stunning and important new book. “The Settler Sea: California’s Salton Sea and the Consequences of Colonialism,” written by Traci Brynne Voyles – an associate professor and chair of women’s and gender studies and director of the Center for Social Justice at the University of Oklahoma – poses a very unique question, which she explores in depth: Can a sea be a settler?
“The Settler Sea” is a book that paints a vivid, storied canvas evoking the complex relationships in the ecologic-human interfaces of this region of paradoxically desert-dry wetlands. Its pages journey far beyond the arrival of colonial influences and deeply into the much-deeper and centuries-long stories of the region’s Cahuilla and other native peoples’ close relational histories of life in their traditional homelands in the region of today’s Salton Sea – formed in 1905 by a complexity of Colorado River flooding and colonizers’ water irrigation efforts gone awry as well as with a much-larger ancient Lake Cahuilla, which has appeared and receded many times over thousands of years, influenced by changes in weather, rain and flood, as well as by periods of extended drought.
The modern-day version of the Salton Sea, serving to establish the 20th-21st century sea itself as a “settler,” depicts the strong influences of colonialism not only on the ecologic fate of this quirky sea, but on drastically altering the lives of the people whose ancestors had established a closely rhythmic network of relationships with the sea as a deeply patterned sustaining framework for their own survivance.
The book’s structure serves as a map of how these influences have played out: Starting with her introduction, “A World on the Brink,” Brynne Voyles quickly lays out the current state of disaster the Salton Sea is in. It is an environmental and social justice litany of wrongdoings and emergencies, seemingly neglected and overlooked by the state of California, which for over 20 years has promised to “clean it up,” but has not.
Part 1, “Desert” and “Flood,” beautifully tell the stories of old Ancient Lake Cahuilla and a now vastly-altered way of life for Cahuilla and other desert people. Part 2, “Birds, “Concrete,” “Bodies,” “Bombs,” “Chains” and “Toxins,” lays out the quick succession of how the embodied spaces of the Salton Sea have been transformed, in just over 100 years, from a place of great environmental beauty and closely-lived sustainability to becoming the victim of a series of vastly damaging, large-scale colonizing activities.
“The Settler Sea: California’s Salton Sea and the Consequences of Colonialism” is a critically important book. It sheds light on deep indigenous histories and relationships formed in the depths of California’s southernmost deserts over millennia in a compelling orchestration between water, heat and desert, and is a microscopic view of the devastating impacts of settlement and colonialism on this one particular place on the planet.
For those of us living in Riverside County’s Inland Empire/desert region, this is the black thumbprint stamped indelibly on some of the places we call home, interlaced with stories of great beauty, resilience and hope. And that hope is well-embodied in this book’s final chapter: “Conclusion: A How-To Guide to Saving the Salton Sea.”
Ruth Nolan is editor of “No Place for a Puritan: the Literature of California’s Deserts.” She teaches creative writing at College of the Desert and writes about California’s deserts.

domain: library


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Despite a starring career that lasted only five years, Rudolph Valentino has remained one of Hollywood’s most intriguing icons, ever since his death in 1926 at age 31. Admired by his fans as a moody dark-skinned lover but reviled by editorial writers for his androgynous sexuality, Valentino exhibited “a depth of feeling, a capacity for suffering, an artistry, and a princely bearing that belonged to him alone,” as Emily W. Leider writes in her new biography, Dark Lover: The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003). This retrospective features the rarely revived The Wonderful Chance (1920), Monsieur Beaucaire (1924), and Cobra (1925), as well as the New York premiere of Edoardo Ballerini’s Good Night Valentino (2002; filmmaker present) and a presentation and book signing by Ms. Leider. All films except Good Night Valentino are silent with piano accompaniment by Stuart Oderman or Ben Model.
Organized by Ronald S. Magliozzi, Assistant Curator, Research and Collections, Department of Film and Media.

domain: entertainment


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The New World Deli offers a breakfast and lunch menu, fresh cold cuts, drinks, and take-out prepared dishes.
Breakfast will include such items as omelettes, cereal, eggs, toast, yogurt, plus coffee and tea.
The lunch menu will consist of various cold cut sandwiches (turkey, ham, roast beef, etc.) plus prepared salads including:
In addition, Ms. Ericson will be offering her own salmon dressing to compliment these offerings. Finally, New World Deli will offer its unique Pacific Northwest style cuisine. This includes Ms. Ericson's own creations such as:
In addition, Ms. Ericson is negotiating with a local coffee and espresso provider to form a strategic alliance that will allow New World Deli patrons to enjoy those products.
Much of the New World Deli's food description is mentioned elsewhere, however, the starting menu to be offered is as follows:
The competition facing New World Deli is vast. This includes every eating establishment in the Eugene/Springfield area. Major competitors include Taco Time, Taco Bell, McDonalds, Burger King, Burrito Boy, La Salsa Taqueria, Subway Sandwiches, Cousins, Subs and many other "mom and pop" style organizations too numerous to list. Furthermore, there is a large number of substitute suppliers from grocery stores that offer prepackaged meals to upscale sit down restaurants such as Ambrosia's. Drawing any sort of general conclusions from such a vast array of competitors is difficult, but you can say that just about every conceivable product or service idea, and just about every taste is encompassed within this group.
Many of the smaller firms, due to lack of funds are only able to carry out the most basic of marketing strategies. NWD intends to leverage its locational advantage to create higher profits that will in turn fuel marketing efforts. However, the larger firms have comprehensive national marketing strategies that draw in hundreds of customers per week. NWD's answer to this is to promote its local flavor and cuisine and draw in those individuals who see fast food as unhealthy and of low quality. Therefore the owner of NWD believes that there is significant opportunity to gain local market share.
Our main sales literature will consist of flyers sent though the mail, and promotional advertisements offered to local businesses. Relevant information such as a comprehensive menu, costs, description of some of NWD's more distinct items, and address and delivery number will be included.
Ms. Ericson is planning on introducing new menu items as time and profitability permit. Furthermore as a recognized local authority on Northwest cooking Ms. Ericson plans to offer her soon to be published cookbook on the Deli's premises.


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If you are interested in making an appointment for the Academy TCM Clinic, please contact the clinic at (510) 763-1299. The Clinic Manager will check availability and schedule a convenient day and time for you to come in.
Cancellations must be made 24 hours prior to the appointment in order to avoid a service charge.
Questions, Comments, Queries:
Clinic Manager Ryan Au: firstname.lastname@example.org


Please remember, Driving is a Privilege, so Don’t Lose it
There are several infractions that can lead you to lose or restrict your driving privileges. Here are a few that pertain a lot to teen drivers.
- If you receive a moving traffic conviction while you have a Learner’s License, the one year period you are required to hold your Learner’s License will be extended for one year from the date of the conviction or until you are 18 years old, whichever happens first.
- If you receive 6 points on your driving record within a 12 month period, your driving privileges are automatically restricted to business purposes only for 12 months or until you are 18, whichever happens first. If you receive additional points during this restricted period, the restriction is extended 90 days for each additional point.
- If you have a blood alcohol level of .02% or more (applies to those under age 21), an administrative suspension of six months will result.
- If you are truant in your school attendance, your driving privilege is suspended until you provide proof you have attended school for 30 consecutive days.
- If you are convicted for possession of tobacco or nicotine products (applies to those under age 18).
Florida Driving Points and Violations
Here are several examples of how many Florida points you will be issued per violation.
|15 mph or less over the speed limit
|More than 15 mph over the speed limit
|Speeding resulting in an crash
|Moving violation (includes driving during restricted hours and parking on a highway outside the limits of a municipality)
|Moving violation resulting in a crash
|Failing to stop at a traffic signal (effective October 1, 2005)
|Passing a stopped school bus
|Leaving the scene of a crash resulting in property damage of more than $50
|Improper lane change
|Violation of a traffic control sign/device
|Open container as an operator
|Child restraint violation
Zero Tolerance for DUI
Florida has a Zero Tolerance for DUI’s.
Drivers under the age of 21 with a blood alcohol level of .02% or more will have their license immediately suspended for 6 months.
Drivers under the age of 21 with a blood alcohol level of .02% or more will have their license immediately suspended for 1 year.
Refusal to submit to Testing
Refusal to submit to testing will result in an immediate suspension for 12 months.
Refusal to submit to testing will result in an immediate suspension for 18 months.


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Feb 22, 2014
Finalized girls' basketball state playoff brackets were released Saturday evening by the N.C. High School Athletic Association.
Nov 16, 2013
East Columbus grabbed an early lead Friday and added a couple scores late to advance to the second round of the playoffs with a 40-22 win over North Edgecombe.
Nov 9, 2013
Tarboro completed a perfect conference season Friday night, beating North Edgecombe, 47-0.
Oct 26, 2013
Northampton had a huge win over North Edgecombe, 42-14.
Aug 31, 2013
Southwest's Devontell Hyman had 173 yards and 4 touchdowns on 5 carries.
|Feb. 24||@Granville Central||L 45-69|
|Rocky Mount Prep||0-0||0.000||0-0||0.000|


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Whirled Peace Gifting Map
These maps show where Pinwheels were created, and under the maps you will view what states in the United States, as well as Costa Rica and Australia participated in gifting Whirled Peace through Unite In Peace to distribute them to children in the midst of adversity worldwide:
Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois,Indiana,Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, NorthCarolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Virginia
The following countries will receive Whirled Peace Pinwheels in the near future!
Meru, Kenya; Kasama, Zambia
Kabul, Afghanistan to orphanages and "Street Children" of Kabul City;Refugee camps and orphanages in Pakistan and Iraq

domain: geography


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Mini Denture Implants: What They Are And How They Work
The next time you visit a denture clinic, ask your dentist or denturist about a mini denture implant (MDI), especially if you are having problems with your lower denture plate. This procedure has many benefits, the most important of which keeps your denture partial in place and stops it from moving about. The procedure, and how MDI's work, are as follows.
The MDI, or Mini Denture Implant
Your dentist will examine your lower jaw and check to see where your denture plate slips around the most. If you want the procedure, your dentist will suggest between two and five implants that will help stabilize a denture partial, thereby replacing a full denture plate and replacing the slipping and sliding you currently experience for no slipping at all. Usually, the implants are placed where they will be most effective at anchoring the partial--a couple of molars and/or a couple of front teeth. These implants are exactly like the ones used when a dentist places a full set of implants in a patient, only your dentist will not be doing your entire mouth.
Once the MDIs Are in Place
Unlike a full set of implants, you can use your mini set to eat and chew right away. The reason behind this is that your accompanying partial takes on most of the chewing duties, reducing any grinding force on the mini denture implants. (Sometimes, the mini denture implants are a series of teeth connected together, which would ordinarily be teeth naturally seen next to each other.) The fitted partial fits right over the top of the implants and snaps into place, secured by dental wire that wraps around the implants. You can still brush and clean the partial like you would with dentures, while the implants you will use a toothbrush and toothpaste to clean them.
Ask Your Dentist About MDIs
Ask your dentist about the possibility of MDIs. Even if he or she feels that you would be a good candidate for such a procedure, your dentist may not be able to provide you with the implants. Even some denturists do not do mini denture implants, and in Canada, you may have to travel some distance to have the procedure done. Your dentist should be able to point you in the right direction with a referral to a dentist or denture clinic who has both the skills and the tools for the procedure (if your own dentist does not).


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I’d scarcely taken a few steps outside when it hit me: the air seemed different, was different. Why? Spring is here!
With every breath, my brain became infused by perfume, sweet and heady. From street to street, the same lingering scent abounded.
I turned my eyes from side to side, seeing trees laden with blossoms pink and rose. Once in a while, my gaze found its mark at near-ground level; the fragrant freesias had done their bit, too.
Yes, Spring is here, so make the most of it, before the punishing winds arrive!


|In spring '91, Anathema decided to record their second demo. Their first one, called 'An Iliad of Woes', did not get them a record deal. But this one would. When Hammy of Peaceville records heard this demo, he signed the lads of Anathema for a record deal, luckily. Otherwise the world maybe wouldn't have heard their great following releases.|
The demo consists of four tracks. The first one is 'Crestfallen' and also appears on their latter EP 'Crestfallen'. The last one is 'They Die', which also appears on the aforementioned EP and on the debut full-length 'Serenades'. Both songs are hearably recorded earlier than the versions we all know. Production is a bit rough, Darren's voice sounds heavy as always, but the guitar sound is not that well.
The second song on this demo is called 'At One With the Earth' and is rather a plain death-metal song, which is normal if you consider the scene in England at that moment. Even the band logo has a far more "deathish" look to it (have a look on their homepage). 'At One With the Earth' is rough, hard, fast and heavy. The first time I played the song to a friend, he was taking guesses into the Six Feet Under or even Cannibal Corpse directions. He apparently did not recognize Darren's typical voice and was mislead by the raging guitar work and the double-bass drums.
The third song is the title track of the demo, 'All Faith is Lost'. This song is a bit more in the typical Anathema vein again. Slow, mournful, heavily loaden with dark emotions and hypnotizing. You can hear clearly where Anathema is going from here. 'Serenades' is nothing more than a logical evolution: The same talented band, but with money and time to write and record good songs. This demo is definitely worth having!
2. At One with the Earth
3. All Faith Is Lost
4. They Die
Duration : Approx. 25 minutes
Visit the Anathema bandpage.


ELNET-Germany invited leading decision-makers from Europe, the USA and Israel to Actions Matter – The International Antisemitism Summit. Over 100 experts from politics, science and society took part in the conference to jointly discuss strategies against antisemitism.
ELNET-Germany is organizing its first international summit against antisemitism in Berlin in March 2023. The conference will provide leading international decision-makers to exchange knowledge and develop shared recommendations for actions.
ELNET hosted a conference on the Abraham Accords and Europe, titled New Opportunities in a Changing World
ELNET held a major symposium in the French Senate in support of the Abraham Accords, as part of our efforts to establish support groups for the Accords in European Parliaments.
More than 200 officials, policymakers, and experts from 20 European countries, Israel and the U.S., gathered this week for ELNET’s first high-level virtual summit on the ramifications of the recent International Criminal Court (ICC) decision to open an investigation against Israel.
On the occasion of the centenary of the San Remo Conference,
ELNET is holding a special video conference “100 Years After the San Remo Conference: In Search of a New Paradigm for the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”


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Blockchain analysis company, Chainalysis, recently published the first ever Geography of Cryptocurrency Report. This report showcases how patterns of crypto usage vary across the world. The report includes data relating to scams in the African region. Chainalysis provides data and analysis to government agencies, exchanges, and financial institutions across 40 countries.
The data states that scams make up a lower share of illicit activity in Africa, when compared to other regions. What Chainalysis regards as illicit activity makes up about 1.4% of all African crypto activity by volume, which is about average compared to other regions in the report. Chainalysis mentions a number of scams in the African region, including the highly suspicious Mirror Trading International (MTI).
The data suggests MyMTIClub has grown to become the dominant scam in the African region. Chainalysis claims that MTI defraud victims by claiming they can grow customers’ Bitcoin deposits through algorithmic trading.
Value sent from the African region to MTI has increased explosively during the beginning of 2020, from about $1 million in January 2020 to about $8 million in June 2020. These figures suggest that the value sent from Africa to MTI would continue to increase from the highs seen in June 2020.
The informative Chainalysis report also outlines key activity levels across the globe, and further highlights the growing global nature of cryptocurrency. In particular, the growth of cryptocurrency activity in developing regions, and in Africa, is not to be ignored. The Chainalysis report outlines that cryptocurrency scams aren’t as prevalent in Africa as they are in other regions, but that’s no reason to be less cautious.


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From Kharkiv to Mariupol, the targets of some of the worst Russian attacks on civilians are largely Russian-speaking cities. It is the worst possible twist to Putin’s bogus claim that his war was to “de-nazify” and prevent “genocide” of Russian speakers.
Central to the tragic absurdity of this war is the question of language. Vladimir Putin has repeated that protecting ethnic Russians and the Russian-speaking populations of Ukraine was a driving motivation for his invasion.
Yet one month on, a quick look at the map shows that many of the worst-hit cities are those where Russian is the predominant language: Kharkiv, Odesa, Kherson.
Then there is Mariupol, under siege and symbol of Putin’s cruelty. In the largest city on the Azov Sea, with a population of half a million people, Ukrainians make up slightly less than half of the city's population, and Mariupol's second-largest national ethnicity is Russians. As of 2001, when the last census was conducted, 89.5% of the city's population identified Russian as their mother tongue.
The martyrdom of Mariupol
Between 2018 and 2019, I spent several months in Mariupol. It is a rugged but beautiful city dotted with Soviet-era architecture, featuring wide avenues and hillside parks, and an extensive industrial zone stretching along the shoreline. There was a vibrant youth culture and art scene, with students developing projects to turn their city into a regional cultural center with an international photography festival.
There were also many offices of international NGOs and human rights organizations, a consequence of the fact that Mariupol was the last major city before entering the occupied zone of Donbas. Many natives of the contested regions of Luhansk and Donetsk had moved there, taking jobs in restaurants and hospitals. I had fond memories of the welcoming from locals who were quicker to smile than in some other parts of Ukraine. All of this is gone.
Putin is bombing the very people he has claimed to want to rescue.
According to the latest data from the local authorities, 80% of the port city has been destroyed by Russian bombs, artillery fire and missile attacks, with particularly egregious targeting of civilians, including a maternity hospital, a theater where more than 1,000 people had taken shelter and a school where some 400 others were hiding.
The official civilian death toll of Mariupol is estimated at more than 3,000. There are no language or ethnic-based statistics of the victims, but it’s likely the majority were Russian speakers.
So let’s be clear, Putin is bombing the very people he has claimed to want to rescue.
Putin’s Public Enemy No. 1, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, is a mother-tongue Russian speaker who’d made a successful acting and comedy career in Russian-language broadcasting, having extensively toured Russian cities for years.
Rescuers carry a person injured during a shelling by Russian troops of Kharkiv, northeastern Ukraine.
A bilingual nation
Yes, the official language of Ukraine is Ukrainian, and a 2019 law aimed to ensure that it is used in public discourse, but no one has ever sought to abolish the Russian language in everyday life. In none of the cities that are now being bombed by the Russian army to supposedly liberate them has the Russian language been suppressed or have the Russian-speaking population been discriminated against.
Sociologist Mikhail Mishchenko explains that studies have found that the vast majority of Ukrainians don’t consider language a political issue. For reasons of history, culture and the similarities of the two languages, Ukraine is effectively a bilingual nation.
"The overwhelming majority of the population speaks both languages, Russian and Ukrainian,” Mishchenko explains. “Those who say they understand Russian poorly and have difficulty communicating in it are just over 4% percent. Approximately the same number of people say the same about Ukrainian.”
In general, there is no problem of communication and understanding. Often there will be conversations where one person speaks Ukrainian, and the other responds in Russian. Geographically, the Russian language is more dominant in the eastern and central parts of Ukraine, and Ukrainian in the west.
A daughter of Kyiv
Like most central Ukrainians I am perfectly bilingual: for me, Ukrainian and Russian are both native languages that I have used since childhood in Kyiv. My generation grew up on Russian rock, post-Soviet cinema, and translations of foreign literature into Russian. I communicate in Russian with my sister, and with my mother and daughter in Ukrainian. I write professionally in three languages: Ukrainian, Russian and English, and can also speak Polish, French, and a bit Japanese. My mother taught me that the more languages I know the more human I am.
At the same time, I am not Russian — nor British or Polish. I am Ukrainian. Ours is a nation with a long history and culture of its own, which has always included a multi-ethnic population: Russians, Belarusians, Moldovans, Crimean Tatars, Bulgarians, Romanians, Hungarians, Poles, Jews, Greeks. We all, they all, have found our place on Ukrainian soil. We speak different languages, pray in different churches, we have different traditions, clothes, and cuisine.
My mother taught me that the more languages I know the more human I am.
Like in other countries, these differences have been the source of conflict in our past. But it is who we are and will always be, and real progress has been made over the past three decades to embrace our multitudes. Our Jewish, Russian-speaking president is the most visible proof of that — and is in fact part of what our soldiers are fighting for.
Many in Moscow were convinced that Russian troops would be welcomed in Ukraine as liberating heroes by Russian speakers. Instead, young soldiers are forced to shoot at people who scream in their native language.
Starving people ina street of Kharkiv in 1933, during the famine
The meaning of genocide
Putin has tried to rally the troops by warning that in Ukraine a “genocide” of ethnic Russians is being carried out by a government that must be “de-nazified.”
These are, of course, words with specific definitions that carry the full weight of history. The Ukrainian people know what genocide is not from books. In my hometown of Kyiv, German soldiers massacred Jews en masse. My grandfather survived the Buchenwald concentration camp, liberated by the U.S. army. My great-grandmother, who died at the age of 95, survived the 1932-33 famine when the Red Army carried out the genocide of the Ukrainian middle class, and her sister disappeared in the camps of Siberia, convicted for defying rationing to try to feed her children during the famine.
On Tuesday, came a notable report of one of the latest civilian deaths in the besieged Russian-speaking city of Kharkiv: a 96-year-old had been killed when shelling hit his apartment building. The victim’s name was Boris Romanchenko; he had survived Buchenwald and two other Nazi concentration camps during World War II. As President Zelensky noted: Hitler didn’t manage to kill him, but Putin did.
Genocide has returned to Ukraine, from Kharkiv to Kherson to Mariupol, as Vladimir Putin had warned. But it is his own genocide against the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine.

domain: politics


Navistar announced last year its plans to offer over-the-air (OTA) reprogramming of engine control modules in 2016 for International trucks powered by its N9, N10, and N13 proprietary engines. This technology joins the company’s already-in-service OnCommand Connection tool as part of its overall connectivity strategy.
OTA reprogramming of the truck’s ECM will enable the driver or fleet manager to utilize a mobile interface to initiate reprogramming. The procedure can be performed at the customer’s facility over a secure Wi-Fi connection. Future advancements include expanding to other software modules on the truck like transmissions and chassis, according to Terry Kline, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Navistar Inc. Kline recently spoke with SAE Magazines about the company’s vehicle connectivity plans and its current solutions.
What is Navistar's connected vehicle strategy?
It’s one of the core pillars of our corporate strategy to the Board of Directors; a cornerstone of what we’re investing in and moving forward. The connected vehicle strategy is a key enabler to some of the other strategies like “up time,” meaning that the trucks are running and moving down the road. As you can imagine a truck that isn’t running doesn’t make money for the owner and freight is late and everybody is unhappy.
We’ve got OnCommand Connection as one of our cornerstones, and it basically is a diagnostic tool that’s an open system, open architecture, that works with and across all the telematics providers. Today we’re integrated with [about] 12 of them that we take data from. We’ve got about 160,000 vehicles tied to that system today that we’re reading data from and able to do everything from health reports to repair maps—given these codes from the truck that means you need these parts, this kind of technician, and this bay capability. Based off these codes you can drive 1500 more miles but don’t drive 1501. So we know what’s going to happen to that truck and we’ve been able with OCC to take repair and maintenance, which averages 15 cents a mile according to ATA (American Trucking Associations) and some others, down to 2 to 3 cents by doing predictive maintenance, predictive analytics on when things need to be done vs. doing them the traditional way; this is with customers that we’re actively working with [who have] fleets of 200, 300 trucks.
We’ll keep investing in OCC. This year, probably one of the biggest things coming out is what we call ‘smart routing.’ What that’s about is when your truck throws a code or throws a set of codes, we’ll know where you’re at, what the urgency of that repair is, what parts are necessary, and we would actually allow our dealers to offer up their services to you. It’s not just about what’s the price going to be but ‘when can I get my truck back,’ because one of your trucks is sitting idle. So that’s where the whole OnCommand space is going.
What’s the idea behind OnCommand’s open architecture?
The 160,000 trucks we’ve got on OnCommand, it’s really important to know that more than 50% of those aren’t our trucks, they are competitors’ trucks. And that’s important for a couple of reasons. One, if you own a fleet of trucks, it’s not likely you’re going to own one brand. So we give that fleet owner one place to shop for this type of data, whether they own an International brand, or they own a Freightliner. We’re pretty proud of the fact that we’re open, and we believe we’re unique in that we accept other brands into the solution. Why would we do that? Well, we believe everybody that owns a truck is a potential future customer, and whether that’s tomorrow at the service department buying parts, or that’s the next time they buy a new truck.
As you can imagine we’re getting tons of data; it’s like having 160,000 test trucks on the road. So whenever we have a ‘what if,’ we generally have a fleet of trucks we can look at to study that [scenario]. It’s been invaluable to increase the quality of our vehicles by looking at these trucks and how they’re performing, or even help customers to understand that the way they’re using the truck is not how it was engineered. In the trucking business, trucks are highly customized; they’re highly designed for [specific] applications—a truck built to have a cement mixer put on the back is much different than a long-haul truck. So maybe people aren’t using these trucks the way they were engineered. We’re starting to notice those things and we can reach out and help; sometimes it’s as easy as reprogramming the shifting patterns of the truck.
How does Over-the-Air reprogramming fit in?
It’s another key piece of our strategy, and we believe it’s unique in the truck space. Obviously people are doing over-the-air programming in other spaces—I’m sure you’ve got a smart phone; it gets programmed over the air all the time. But especially in the heavy trucking industry that we play in, we believe we’re first to market. It really came out of an innovation contest we ran in the company with our employees; some of the folks that do this for a living and do the tools that are wired in the dealerships came up with the specific idea. At that same time, we’ve been running a project we call “Project 80”—80% of the vehicles in the industry don’t have telematics. How can we capture those 80%? So Project 80 and Over-the-Air sort of came together, and that’s what we’re going to market with right now. We’ve got it running in our plants right now, reprogramming trucks. We’ve got it in pilot at some of our dealers and at some of our big customers. And as you would imagine, we’re using it heavily on our own captured fleet.
What’s the goal with OTA reprogramming?
Engines are first. I view the truck almost like an iPhone, in that it’s got all these modules on it—on your iPhone we call them apps. On a truck we call them engine control modules, transmissions have software, brake systems, etc. We want to get to where we program and have the ability to reflash all these devices that have software on them remotely, wirelessly.
How long has OTA been in development?
It’s been in development for less than a year. What’s important to recognize though is we’re building on tools that we’ve spent hundreds of thousands of hours on. The tools that program your truck in the dealerships today, we’re just enabling those to be wireless. OCC, which we’re leveraging some of the lessons learned from that and the expertise there, we’ve been developing since 2013. So we’re leveraging a lot of the things we’ve had in this space to be able to [launch OTA] that quickly; if we were starting from scratch it would be a much different story.
As far as what’s the ‘secret sauce,’ we’ve teamed up with a couple of [companies]. We’ve been working with a company called Digi on this first version; they are making our hardware. We take the standard Digi UMI (user-machine interface) off the shelf and we put it on steroids. By that I mean we put more memory in it, we souped it up. This device is a Wi-Fi device only, it’s not got cellular connectivity. We think that’s one of the secrets to going after the 80% of the people that don’t have traditional telematics. They don’t want to pay for a cellular connection. And we’re going to be able to store about 500 health reports on this device. We’ll store priority information on it based on the importance of the information, so that when you get to a Wi-Fi connection it will dump its contents and become part of the OCC ecosystem. And that’s the OTA dongle that we’re working with Digi on and they’ve done significant engineering for us on this ‘souped-up model.’ On the device software, the software around it, we’ve written all that ourselves; it’s all Navistar proprietary stuff that we’ve either had from all the years of writing code or we’ve developed it over the last year.
We are going to buy and leverage an industry standard to drive the device management. So the device management of the Digi itself and the firmware on it, we will use an industry standard tool. We really haven’t got an agreement signed there yet, so we won’t say who. But the security is a combination of the Digi guys combined with us and a number of other folks that are helping us on the security front.
How you are addressing cyber security concerns?
I’d just say that it’s top of our stack, a top priority to do it, and that we’re working with not just Digi but all the big security [companies] to make sure that we have all the modern capabilities on the devices and doing best practices.
When will OTA be available and where?
In the next couple of months we’ll start pushing it heavy in the aftermarket, or putting it on trucks we’ve already built. In the new-truck arena, middle of this year timing we’re looking at. We’ll actually be putting it on trucks as an option. Right now in the U.S. only, but we are talking to people in Asia as well as all of North America.Continue reading »


The team at the consistently growing and expanding brand Rising Labs, has confirmed it’s put together three all-new supplements. For now, it is only sharing the categories of those supplements, but that’s not the most interesting part. What makes this news so interesting is that Rising Labs is letting fans decide which two of the three types of products they would like to see first.
The three supplements Rising Labs has already formulated and finalized are a pump and blow flow product, a flavored multivitamin, and one for the increasingly popular superfood category. As mentioned, the brand has not shared anything more outside of the categories of the three new supplements, with no name or formulas, although the latter is something it’s known for.
You can now have your say on which of the three types of products you would like to see Rising Labs release by heading over to its Instagram page. On there, the brand has a post where all it wants you to do is comment with the two categories you’d like to see it enter first. If we had to pick, we’d like to see superfood and multivitamin, as it would really help fill out the line.