text:
UNRWA works closely with a wide range of partners – from the smallest local NGOs to sister UN organisations with global mandates, each with unique resources and strengths – in order to deliver the best possible services to Palestine refugees. UNRWA also partners.with companies, individuals and academic institutions. NGO’s provide UNRWA with financial support, expertise or access to networks.It tailors each partnership carefully to ensure the greatest mutual benefit by making optimal use of partner resources and expertise.
Islamic Relief USA
Since 1993, Islamic Relief USA (IRUSA) has worked tirelessly around the world to alleviate poverty, suffering, hunger and illiteracy. This major US charity is a long-standing partner of UNRWA in the provision of life-saving humanitarian assistance. In 2012, IRUSA contributed US$ 1 million to two programmes in Gaza: supplementary food aid for 22,000 children in UNRWA schools and emergency aid for nearly 135,000 poor and vulnerable families. As poor and vulnerable households in the Gaza Strip struggle to make ends meet, the dedication and generosity of IRUSA is critical.
Partnering with Islamic Relief’s chapter in the US has opened opportunities for UNRWA to engage with Islamic Relief chapters in the UK and France, and with the umbrella organization Islamic Relief Worldwide.
Read the full report in PDF, click here.

domain: sociology


text:
A Brief Chapter Summary from Books At a Glance
by Steve West
Note: The entire chapter may be accessed here.
Different scholars and schools of thought use very different definitions of biblical and systematic theology. This is also true when we survey the history of the growth of “biblical theology” – all kinds of things have been meant by that label. As much as biblical theology is necessarily tied to the exegesis of texts, it tends towards synthesis, building up to a theology of the text, book, corpus, and canon. Biblical theology studies the historical development of the theology of the canon as it is progressively revealed, but it is not merely historical theology. The biblical witness does develop, but it is an authoritative and connected canon. The development in the canon is not the same as development in something like the thought of the Reformers. The fact that there is authority, canon, and revelation makes biblical theology unique, no matter how close parallels and analogies to historical theology can be.
Over the past centuries, the trajectory in biblical theology has been toward atomization rather than wholeness. Higher criticism has also had a large impact on methodology and perspectives on unity. It makes a huge difference if we believe the biblical writers are talking about things that actually happened. Historical criticism divides the text into sources, but biblical theology deals with the text in its final, canonical form. Although there was an influential movement to divide faith from history, that movement is waning. Systematic theology needs to be careful that it doesn’t disregard the diversity of biblical genres, literary forms, epochs, authors, etc. Not every biblical text can be reduced to being the mere bearer of propositional truth. Biblical theology aims to exposit texts along the axis of Scripture’s developing narrative plot-line, and this lends itself well to bringing together the concerns of various disciplines. At best, the various disciplines help each other avoid excesses. . . .[To continue reading this summary, please see below....]
Buy the books
NEW DICTIONARY OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY: EXPLORING THE UNITY DIVERSITY OF SCRIPTURE, edited by T. Desmond Alexander, Brian S. Rosner, D. A. Carson, Graeme Goldsworthy

domain: library


text:
Tipoff: 7:30 p.m. Friday at Staples Center.
TV: ESPN, CSN Bay Area.
Records: Warriors 4-1, Lakers 2-3.
Last season: The Warriors won the season series 3-1, but the “one” was Golden State’s worst loss of the season. After beating L.A. by 34, 21 and 18 points in their first three meetings, the Warriors went to Staples Center in March and lost 112-95. The game was considered one of the biggest upsets in NBA history, based on the difference in the teams’ winning percentages being .727. The Warriors shot 13 percent from 3-point range with Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson combining to go 1 for 18.
Warriors update: Golden State is coming off a 122-96 victory over Oklahoma City on Thursday night and will play its first back-to-back set of the season. … Kevin Durant was spectacular against his old team, scoring 39 points and hitting seven 3-pointers. For the season, he is averaging 30.6 points and shooting and outrageous 58.7 percent from the field. … After shooting 21.2 percent vs. San Antonio, 32.1 percent at New Orleans, 27.6 percent at Phoenix and 38.5 percent at Portland, the Warriors looked like themselves from long distance Thursday night, making 14 of 30 (46.7 percent). Even slumping Klay Thompson was 4 for 8 after going 3 for 28 in the first four games.
Lakers update: New coach Luke Walton faces his former team for the first time. Last year while subbing for Steve Kerr, Walton got the Warriors off to a 24-0 start and had a 39-4 mark that didn’t count in the record books. But it sure counted when the Lakers were searching for a replacement for old-school Byron Scott. … Los Angeles won its opener against Houston at home, but didn’t win again until Wednesday when it completed a four-game trip with a 123-116 victory over Atlanta. … Center Timofey Mozgov, a big offseason signee — more in terms of his contract (four years, $64 million), not his basketball impact — missed the Atlanta game after suffering facial injuries the night before at Indiana. His status for Friday is doubtful. … Nick Young has been the starting shooting guard, mostly because he is actually playing good defense. … Jordan Clarkson is averaging 14.4 points off the bench.
Things to watch: Lakers second-year point D’Angelo Russell (16.6 points, 4.8 assists) has drawn comparisons to Curry, notably from Walton. We’ll see how they match up face to face. … It’s still early, so averages can be deceiving, but the Lakers’ defense is giving up 110.8 points per game. That’s actually worse than the 106.8 of last season when they ranked 27th in the NBA. The Warriors lead the league in scoring at 115.4 points. … Warriors have made a habit of getting off to slow starts and will need to guard against coming out flat after the emotions of Thursday night. They probably won’t be as fired up against Walton as they were for the Thunder.

domain: news


text:
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domain: design


text:
By Becca Kronebusch
As the heat of summer is in full swing and UNC students begin to fill the quad, many ambitious first-years stepped into the local community for three days of service through the APPLES Service-Learning Initiative: Launch, or SLI. For these students, service was the most meaningful way to get to know and give back to their neighbors in the Chapel Hill community.
SLI is a student-led program that introduces incoming first-year and transfer students to service in the local Chapel Hill-Carrboro community. This year, 64 SLI participants focused on sustainability and gave more than 576 service hours to eight community partners. Each student was assigned to three different sites over the course of three days.
Will Melfi, a first-year student at UNC, was one of many SLI participants who promoted sustainability by cleaning up Carrboro High School’s garden.
“I joined SLI because during high school I never found enough time to give back to the community,” Melfi said. “It’s really been a great experience and opportunity to get a jumpstart into giving back to this community that I’m invested in.”
At East Chapel Hill High School, students set up and decorated teachers’ classrooms to make the school year transition seamless. Teachers shared that they felt a weight lifted off of their shoulders with every desk, chair and poster in place. For participants, SLI is not a one-time event; they plan to continue serving the community through more organizations on campus.
“I’ve had such a great time, and I love this program and can’t wait to be more involved,” Melfi said.
In addition to giving back to the community, SLI help participants develop leadership skills. The program is entirely student-led to help empower and inspire students to become better, forward-thinking leaders. Abby Gostling, a junior global studies and economics double major from Raleigh, began as a participant in SLI and worked her way up to become one of this year’s co-chairs.
“I have really been able to gain a comprehensive view of what it takes to make a three-day service program like this happen,” Gostling said. “I have grown immensely in my ability to think through all of the details of a situation to make sure everything is addressed and to be a better problem solver on the spot.”
Gostling added that she is thankful that SLI gave her the opportunity and passion to become a leader in the Carolina community. She added that she is confident that this year’s SLI participants will go on to become resilient future leaders.


text:
The number of people diagnosed worldwide with Diabetes is a cause for concern.
The number of people diagnosed worldwide with Diabetes should remain as a cause for serious concern within the medical community, since high fasting plasma glucose (parameter of diabetes) has risen from the 8th. to the 5th. position as a global risk factor DALY (a measure that quantifies lost years of "healthy" life) between 2000 and 2013. At the same time, a new study has recently shown that many independent drivers of health were forecasted to worsen, because of the prevalence of many non-communicable diseases, with diabetes-related morbidity and mortality playing a relevant role amongst them.
Following this issue with mounting concern, at OMRON we are drawing the public’s attention to the need to accurately measure blood pressure in diabetic patients -given the high correlation between diabetes and high blood pressure- in order to step up prevention and effective treatment of hypertension, a related medical condition to diabetes.
A significant percentage of diabetic people are also suffering from high blood pressure.
According to the Global Report on Diabetes published by World Health Organization in 2016, an estimated 422 million adults were living with diabetes in 2014. This represents an astonishing increase of 390.7% compared to 1980. In addition, a study conducted by Oxford University shows that people with high blood pressure have up to a 58% greater risk of developing diabetes. Hypertension can be present before diabetes has been diagnosed (Cho N.H. et. Al., 2015) and if and individual has diabetes, the risk of developing hypertension is higher for him than it is for a healthy person. Moreover, hypertension is a great risk factor for accelerating the progression of diabetes (Parati et. Al., 2011).
It is evident that bringing to life technological breakthroughs to accurately measure blood pressure among the diabetic population at home is a societal need. For this reason, OMRON has clinically validated the OMRON M7 Intelli IT for use in diabetic patients.
Is there a specific demographic of person (male, female, young, old) at the greatest risk of accelerating their diabetic condition?
In principle, according to WHO, the majority of cases of Diabetes Type 1 occurs in children and adolescents and type 2 Diabetes “is determined by an interplay of genetic and metabolic factors.” An unhealthy diet, family history of diabetes, physical inactivity, obesity, smoking, older age – these are all factors that have been attributed to causing the rise in global diabetes. At the same time, since type 2 Diabetes mostly affects adults and now people tend to live longer, there’s a strong association between diabetes and aging.
Obesity is a peculiar condition. It is highly correlated with diabetes and therefore, with high blood pressure. At the same time, obesity is a great risk factor for hypertension, accounting for 65-75% of the risk for essential hypertension (Marion R., 2004). For this reason, OMRON has also developed the OMRON RS7 Intelli IT, OMRON’s first automatic wrist blood pressure monitor clinically validated for use in obese population. In support of these results, the use of wrist devices to accurately measure blood pressure in obese patients is being recommended.
The risks of leaving high blood pressure untreated in diabetics.
By and large, leaving high blood pressure untreated poses great peril for anyone suffering from this condition. According to WHO, if left uncontrolled, hypertension can lead to heart attack, an enlargement of the heart and eventually heart failure. For these reasons, according to the International Society of Hypertension, high blood pressure is the No. 1 contributing risk factor for global death and 10 million people die unnecessarily every year due to raised blood pressure.
When taking diabetics into account, the risk for a cardiovascular event such as stroke is 2 to 4 times higher in people with diabetes than it is in healthy people (Deshpande AD et. Al., 2008).
Measures of control can have a positive effect on the health of diabetic people.
Taking into account the relationship between hypertension and diabetes that was shown along these lines, we can conclude that tight blood pressure control policy can reduce the risk associated to diabetes. For this reason, getting ensured accuracy when taking their measurements is key to enhance prevention and control amongst the diabetics.
Committed to help people minimize the impact of this condition to live better, longer and more actives lives, OMRON has clinically validated the OMRON M7 Intelli IT home blood pressure monitor for use in diabetic patients. Higher levels of glucose in the bloodstream lead to hardening of the arteries and in turn, to difficulties in the appropriate measurement of blood pressure. Since these particular conditions might render blood pressure readings inaccurate, diabetics need to be sure they are choosing devices clinically-validated for use in diabetic population, which guarantee the same level of accuracy they would get at their Doctor’s office.
On a global scale and quoting a recent study on the evolution of life expectancy, “policy choices can profoundly affect future health trajectories. Prioritizing non-communicable diseases (NCDs) [such us high blood pressure and diabetes] and NCD-related risks in health planning and investment decisions has the potential to markedly reduce premature mortality by 2040”.
Our goal in fighting the risks of diabetes.
OMRON is committed to help people minimize the impact of health conditions to help them live better, longer and more active lives, making zero compromises on health. With this vision charting the course of our actions, we are going further than just getting our blood pressure monitors clinically validated in the general population. We understand that specific groups such as the obese, pregnant women and diabetic patients have particular needs, which we address with specialized clinical validations that provide them a greater deal of reassurance when using our devices. The results from the clinical validation in obese people, diabetic patients and pregnant women have strongly confirmed our beliefs and we are proud to offer more and more professionalized devices over time.

domain: literature


text:
The Conference of State Bank Supervisors (“CSBS”) has announced a multi-state framework for state regulators to process an application by a person to become a licensed money services business (“MSB”). The announcement forms part of the ongoing development of Vision 2020 for supervising non-depository financial institutions engaged in financial technology. The multi-state framework appears, at this time, to be limited. But as a necessary first step towards explicit harmonization―possibly leading to a system for a state-license “passport” for an MSB―the new framework is promising.
The details available concerning the new multi-state framework are set forth in a press release announcing the formation of an interagency agreement to standardize key elements of the licensing process for an MSB, as well as the interagency agreement itself.
Under the terms of the interagency Agreement for MSB Licensing, initially dated January 9, 2018 (the “Agreement”), several state regulators (“Signatory States”) have agreed to an expedited licensing process (the “Protocol”). The initial Signatory States were Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Texas and Washington. The CSBS has announced that additional states have declared their intention to join.
The Protocol provides for:
- Assignment to one of the Signatory States for review of each MSB application from an applicant that opts in to use the Protocol.
- Performance of a “Phase One Review” of any MSB application assigned to a Signatory State within 25 business days after the Phase One application is complete, and issuance of a Phase One Certification or denial.
- Reliance by each Signatory State on a Phase One Certification issued by another Signatory State to “the greatest extent possible under law.”
- Automation of the Protocol and sharing of information through NMLS.
The Agreement does not list the application materials that will be covered by a Phase One Review; however, the CSBS press release indicates that these will include key elements of a money transmitter application - IT, cybersecurity, business plan, background check, and compliance with the federal Bank Secrecy Act.
Following the successful completion of a Phase One Review, each Signatory State will then individually complete its own Phase Two Review of state-specific application materials and either approve or deny the license application after such review.
The Agreement does not specify a deadline for Signatory States to complete their individual Phase Two Reviews. The Agreement cannot rise to a level of a “passporting” system, such as the system adopted by EU member states under the Revised Payment Services Directive. Among other factors, the Signatory States appear to still be working through the following shortcomings:
- The Protocol does not appear to limit the scope of the state-specific application materials that may be reviewed during Phase Two, and does not specify a timeframe for completion of such review.
- The Signatory States currently include only a small minority of the states that require licensure for MSBs.
- A state that does not have the authority to collect criminal background and credit information is not eligible to be a Phase One Certifying State and may only accept Phase One Certifications from other Signatory States, and therefore the Protocol does not appear to be fully reciprocal.
- The Agreement does not provide for binding resolution of disputes between Signatory States relating to the Agreement or the Protocol, and Signatory States may withdraw from the Agreement at any time by giving written notice at least thirty days in advance of withdrawal.

domain: law


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Hungary USA T-Shirt for Men: Specifications
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Workers on Aberdeen’s long-awaited western bypass were left “dazed and confused” last night amid reports that several had been made redundant.
Some north-east-based employees of construction giant Carillion were feared to be among hundreds across the UK to be told yesterday that they had lost their jobs.
Britain’s second largest building firm went into liquidation last month, plunging the completion date for the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route (AWPR) into uncertainty.
Economy Secretary Keith Brown told a Holyrood committee last week that about half of Carillion’s 76 directly-employed AWPR workers had been transferred to the other two consortium partners on the project, Balfour Beatty and Galliford Try, and that there was a “strong expectation that far more will be taken on”.
He previously said that about 190 other staff, including those from agencies, were involved in the remaining stages of the bypass scheme.
The Unite trade union held crisis talks with affected workers at a series of meetings across Scotland yesterday, including in Aberdeen.
It said there had been about 30 redundances in Scotland so far, with notices given yesterday to staff on the bypass project.
Speaking after the Aberdeen meeting, local official John Clark said he had been told of workers who had lost their jobs at 11am yesterday.
He said: “They are angry, I think that’s all that people would expect.
“It’s much the same here as everywhere else. We’re just concerned that the trickle might turn into a flood.
“People are probably still dazed and confused. It’s three weeks since Carillion collapsed and really all the Carillion employees are still in the dark.”
Across Britain, 377 redundancies at the collapsed group were confirmed yesterday, with a further 919 jobs protected.
The official receiver’s spokesman said: “I am expecting many employees working on other Carillion contracts to transfer in the coming weeks and we are continuing to keep the workforce updated as these arrangements are finalised.”
A Transport Scotland spokesman said: “Balfour Beatty and Morrison Construction will make offers of employment to Carillion staff on the AWPR project where there is a position available or necessary to allow the project to continue.
“We understand that a number of offers have already been made which have either been accepted or are under consideration.
“This consultation process commenced following the announcement last month and is ongoing. Until it is complete, we will not be in a position to comment further.
“It should also be noted, however, that AWPR construction joint venture already had a demobilisation plan in place, and that it may not be possible to accommodate all affected employees.”


Russian woman, 28, 'decapitates her 83-year-old LOVER and throws his head into a pig sty after a drunken argument'
- The pensioner had been drinking with his lover in the Moscow outskirts
- They got into an argument and the 28-year-old attacked him with a meat cleaver
- She then decapitated him and threw his severed head into a pig sty
- The Russian Investigative Committee has begun a murder investigation
A woman aged 28 has been detained on suspicion of killing her 83 year old lover - and throwing his severed head into a pig sty.
The pensioner, named as Mr Nechayev, was killed from multiple knife and meat cleaver wounds.
His girlfriend then beheaded his corpse, according to the Russian Investigative Committee, equivalent of the FBI in America.
The horrifying scene unfolded at a house in Volokolamsk, Moscow (pictured)
A statement said: 'His body was found inside a private house in Volokolamsk.
'The pair had been drinking on the evening of 11 June in a house on Shchekino Street in the town, in Moscow region.
'They both became rather drunk and got into an argument.
'The young woman attacked the man with a knife and a meat cleaver.
The woman attacked the man with a knife and cleaver before trying to clean up the crime by throwing his head into a pig sty
'He died from multiple wounds to his face, head, neck and limbs.
'To hide traces of the crime, the suspect chopped off his head - and threw it into a pig sty.'
The statement said the woman - who was not named - has been detained.
A murder investigation has begun.
The Russian Investigative Committee have opened an investigation into the scene
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Unit Commitment with Gas Network Awareness
Recent changes in the fuel mix for electricity generation and, in particular, the increase in Gas-Fueled Power Plants (GFPP), have created significant interdependencies between the electrical power and natural gas transmission systems. However, despite their physical and economic couplings, these networks are still operated independently, with asynchronous market mechanisms. This mode of operation may lead to significant economic and reliability risks in congested environments as revealed by the 2014 polar vortex event experienced by the northeastern United States. To mitigate these risks, while preserving the current structure of the markets, this paper explores the idea of introducing gas network awareness into the standard unit commitment model. Under the assumption that the power system operator has some (or full) knowledge of gas demand forecast and the gas network, the paper proposes a tri-level mathematical program where natural gas zonal prices are given by the dual solutions of natural-gas flux conservation constraints and commitment decisions are subject to bid-validity constraints that ensure the economic viability of the committed GFPPs. This tri-level program can be reformulated as a single-level Mixed-Integer Second-Order Cone program which can then be solved using a dedicated Benders decomposition. The approach is validated on a case study for the Northeastern United States  that can reproduce the gas and electricity price spikes experienced during the early winter of 2014. The results on the case study demonstrate that gas awareness in unit commitment is instrumental in avoiding the peaks in electricity prices while keeping the gas prices to reasonable levels.
Gas-Fueled Power Plants (GFPPs) have become a significant part of the energy mix in the last decades, primarily because of their operational flexibility and lower environmental impacts. Although GFPPs have introduced interdependencies between the natural gas and electrical power systems, these networks are still operated independently, with asynchronous market mechanisms. In particular, the unit commitment decisions in the electrical power system take place before the realization of natural gas spot prices, introducing reliability risks and economic inefficiencies in congested environments. Indeed, the GFPPs may not be able to secure gas at reasonable prices, introducing either reliability issues or electricity gas spikes.
This undesirable outcome occurred in the Northeastern United States during the early winter of 2014. Extremely low temperatures induced an unusual coincident peak in electricity and natural gas demand. On the one hand, it produced record-high natural gas spot prices due to congestion. On the other hand, high electricity loads led the electrical power system operator to call for some emergency actions, which resulted in higher electricity prices . Moreover, the power system operator, valuing reliability the most, encouraged committed GFPPs to buy natural gas at all costs without assurance of cost recovery, further aggravating the economic cost . It is important to mention that the critical issue in this case was not the gas supply, but rather congestion in the gas transmission network. Moreover, a recent study  has shown that the cost of expanding the gas and network infrastructures to avoid such events would be prohibitive.
To address these interdependencies, a number of researchers have studied how to incorporate the natural gas transmission capabilities into the operational decisions of electrical power systems. See, for instance, [4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13]. Other researchers have also studied how to incorporate the economic coupling between these two infrastructures using new market mechanisms. A new market framework with a joint ISO, using price- or volume-based approaches, was investigated in [14, 15]. Instead of introducing one joint ISO, other researchers have proposed a new market framework that assumes centralized independent gas markets, synchronizes the electricity and gas market days, and allows some information exchange between some parties in the electricity and gas markets (e.g., market operators or GFPPs) [16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21].
This paper takes a different approach that stays within the current operating practices and does not introduce a new market mechanism. Instead, the approach generalizes the unit commitment model to capture the physical and economic couplings and strive to ensure both physical feasibility and economic viability. More precisely, the paper introduces the Unit Commitment problem with Gas Network Awareness (UCGNA) to schedule a set of generating units for the next day while taking account the fuel delivery and the natural gas prices that are propagated back by the natural gas system. The UCGNA imposes bid-validity constraints on the GFPPs to ensure their profitability and estimates the natural gas prices for these constraints with the dual solutions associated with the flux conservation constraints of the gas market.
The UCGNA is formulated as a tri-level mathematical program and assumes that the power system operator has partial (or full) knowledge on gas demand forecast and gas network. When the power system is modeled with its DC approximation and the gas network with the second-order cone program from  to model its steady-state physics, the tri-level mathematical program can be reformulated as a single-level Mixed-Integer Second-Order Cone Program (MISOCP) through strong duality of the innermost problem. The resulting MISOCP can then be solved using a dedicated Benders decomposition recently proposed in .
The key contributions of this paper are threefold. First, it proposes the first unit commitment model (UCGNA) that incorporates both the physical and economic couplings of electrical power and natural gas transmission systems and can be used within current operating practices. Second, it proposes a MISOCP that captures the UCGNA and can be solved through Benders decomposition. Finally, it demonstrates the potential of the approach on a detailed case study that replicates the behavior of the 2014 polar vortex event on the Northeastern United States. In particular, the paper shows that, on the case study, the UCGNA avoids the electricity price peaks and keeping the total gas costs reasonable, contrary to current practice, even for highly congested electrical and gas networks.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section II formalizes the UCGNA and Section III presents the MISOCP. Section IV briefly reviews the solution methods for the MISOCP. Section V describes the test cases. Lastly, Section VI analyzes the behavior of the model on the case study and Section VII concludes the paper.
Ii Unit Commitment With Gas Awareness
This section specifies the UCGNA, including its electricity system, its natural gas network, and their physical and economic couplings. The electricity transmission grid is represented by an undirected graph and the natural gas transmission system by a directed graph . Boldface letters represent vectors of variables, denotes the set of integers in interval , and denotes the set for some integer . The letter denotes the set of time periods .
Ii-a The Electricity Transmission System
In the United States, Unit Commitment (UC) and Economic Dispatch (ED) problems are solved daily to determine the hourly operating schedule of generating units for the next day from bids submitted by market participants. Tables I and II summarize the parameters and variables of the UC/ED problems. With these notations, the UC model is specified in Figure 1: It is standard but is presented as a bi-level program to make the UCGNA formulations more intuitive subsequently.
|Undirected graph where is a set of buses indexed by and is a set of lines indexed with|
|Set of generators, indexed by|
|Set of GFPPs|
|Set of generators located at|
|Set of supply bids submitted by , indexed by|
|Bid price of|
|Amount of real power generation of|
|Minimum/maximum real power generation of|
|Ramp-down/-up rate of|
|No-load cost of|
|Set of counts of time periods with distinct start-up costs of indexed by|
|Start-up cost of when is turned on after it has been offline for some time|
|Initial on-off status/real power generation of|
|Minimum-down/-up time of|
|The time that generator has to be inactive/active from|
|Line susceptance of|
|Real power limit of|
|Electricity load profile during|
|Maximum voltage angle difference between two end-points of|
|Minimum/maximum voltage angle at|
|1 if is on during , 0 otherwise|
|1 if becomes online during , 0 otherwise|
|1 if becomes offline during , 0 otherwise|
|Real power generation from of during|
|Real power generation of during|
|Real power flow on during|
|Start-up cost of during|
|Voltage angle on during|
|where denotes the ED problem specified as follows:|
The objective function of the upper level problem (Equations (1a) - (1h)) includes the no-load costs, the start-up costs, and the costs of the selected supply bids of each electrical power generating units. Equation (1b) computes the start-up cost of a generator for time period based on how long has been offline. The expression is one when generator becomes online after it has been turned off for time periods. Equation (1c) states the nonnegativity requirement on . Equation (1d) specifies the initial on-off status of each generator. The minimum-up and -down constraints are specified in Equations (1e) and (1f) respectively. The relationship between the variables for the on-off, start-up, and shut-down statuses of each generator is stated in Equation (1g). The binary requirements for logical variables are specified in Equation (1h).
Based on the commitment decisions, the lower-level problem (i.e., Equations (1j) - (1u)) decides the hourly operating schedule of each committed generators in order to minimize the system production costs. Equation (1k) states the flow conservation constraints for real power at each bus, using and to represent the head and tail of . Equation (1l) states that the total real power generation of a generator is equal to the production of its selected bids. Equation (1m) constrains the power generation from bid to be no more than the submitted amount . Equation (1n) enforces the bound on the real power generation of each generator. Equation (1o) specifies the initial generation amount of each generator, and Equations (1p) and (1q) state the ramp-up and -down constraints of each generator. Equation (1r) captures the DC approximation of the power flow equations and Equation (1s) specifies the thermal limit on each line. Equations (1t) and (1u) state the voltage angle bounds on each bus and the bounds on the angle difference of two adjacent buses respectively.
Ii-B The Natural Gas Transmission System
|Directed graph representing a natural gas transmission network, where is a set of junctions, indexed with , and is a set of connections, indexed with|
|Set of compressors|
|Set of control valves|
|Cost of demand shedding at|
|Gas demand profile during|
|Lower/Upper limit on natural gas supply at|
|Cost function for gas supply at|
|Pipeline resistance (Weymouth) factor of|
|Minimum/maximum squared pressure at|
|Lower/upper compression ratio of|
|Lower/upper control ratio of|
|Amount of gas supplied by during|
|Pressure squared at during|
|Gas flow on during|
|Satisfied gas demand at during|
|Shedded gas demand at during|
|Total amount of gas consumed by the GFPP located at during|
Tables III and IV specify the parameters and variables of the steady-state natural gas model, which is given in Figure 2. The modeling is similar to those in [1, 22, 24] and uses the Weymouth equation to capture the relationship between pressures and flux. The flux conservation constraint is given in Equation (2b), where and represent the head and tail of . Equation (2c) determines the demand served at each junction: It captures the amount of gas load shedding which must be nonnegative and cannot exceed the demand at the corresponding junction (Equation (2d)). The model assumes that gas flow directions are predetermined and Equation (2e) enforces the sign of gas flow variables, i.e., it constrains to be nonnegative. Equation (2f) specifies the upper and lower limits of natural gas supplies. The change in pressure through compressors and control valves are formulated in Equations (2g) and (2h) and the model use a single compressor machine approximation as in prior work. The steady-state physics of gas flows is formulated with the Weymouth equation in Equation (2i). Equation (2j) states the bounds on nodal pressures. Equation (2i) can be convexified using the second-order cone relaxation from : This relaxation is very tight .
When the gas system is not congested, the price of natural gas is relatively stable. However, during congestion and when some loads are being shedded, natural gas prices increase sharply. The cost of gas in the objective function captures this behavior: For a junction , it is specified with an almost-linear piecewise linear function for production and a high penalty cost for gas shedding. To be specific, let be a set of non-overlapping intervals covering , each with a distinct slope satisfying whenever . Define an auxiliary nonnegative variable that represents the amount of gas supply from at time . The objective function is then stated as
The model also includes constraint (2k) to link the gas variable at junction with the auxiliary variables.
Ii-C Physical and Economic Couplings
GFPPs are the physical and economic interface between the electrical power and gas networks. This section first describes the resulting coupling constraints before describing how the natural gas zonal prices are computed. Tables V and VI describe the parameters for the coupling.
|Coefficients of the heat rate curve of|
|Maximum allowable percentage of the expense on natural gas over its marginal bid price for|
|Set of pricing zones, indexed with|
|Set of junctions that belong to|
|1 if of is selected during , 0 otherwise|
|Price of marginally selected bid of during|
|Zonal price of natural gas in during|
The physical couplings between and can be formulated as follows ():
The real power generation of a GFPP induces a demand in the natural gas system. Equation (3) specifies the relationship between the real power generation of a GFPP and the amount of natural gas needed for the generation. In the equation, this relationship is approximated by a quadratic heat-rate curve, whose coefficients are given as . The equation can be convexified like the Weymouth equation.
Since the level of power generation of the GFPPs determines the load in the gas system, the physical coupling also affects the natural gas prices. The price formation of natural gas, in turn, governs the profitability of GFPPs, which submit bids before the realization of gas prices. To capture these economic realities, the model introduces binary variables of the form for each bid of a GFPP: Variable indicates whether bid is selected during time period . Equation (1l) is then replaced by the following constraints (for all ):
Equations (4b) and (4c) are bound constraints for the bids submitted by the non-GFPPs and GFPPs respectively. Equation (4c) ensures that the indicator variable is one whenever bid is used for time period (i.e., ). Equation (4d) states that the bid of a generator can be selected only when it is committed and Equation (4e) ensures that the bid is selected only if the bid is fully used. Accordingly, Equation (4a) states that is the maximum/marginal bid price of GFPP among its currently selected bids.
The economic coupling between the electricity and gas networks is enforced by bid-validity constraints that ensure that the marginal costs of producing electricity by GFPPs are lower than their marginal bid prices. Although the natural gas system is operated in a decentralized manner, the zonal price of natural gas can be modeled as a function of the market supply and demand, i.e., as a function of the binary and continuous variables of Problems (1) and (2), which are denoted by and . Under this assumption, the bid validity constraints can be expressed as follows (for all ):
They capture the fact that, when the realized natural gas price
for generating one additional unit of real power by GFPP is greater than its marginal bid price , GFPP is not profitable. This situation arises because GFPP submits its bids before the realization of . The bid validity constraint is expressed in Equation (5b) and ensures that only profitable GFPPs are committed. The bid validity constraints use the realized zonal gas prices from Equation (5a) and denotes a big-M value set to the maximum natural gas price (e.g., $200 per mmBtu) multiplied by .
It remains to specify how to compute the zonal gas prices, i.e., the function in Equation (5a). The UCGNA assumes that the nodal natural gas price at each junction is given by the marginal cost of supplying natural gas at . This marginal cost is the dual solution associated with the corresponding flux conservation constraint in Problem (2). The zonal natural gas prices are then computed by averaging the nodal natural gas prices of a subset of junctions in the zone. Therefore, the zonal natural gas price are given by linear functions of the dual solution to Problem (2).
Note that, by construction, the natural gas zonal prices under normal operating conditions are given by the almost linear part of objective (2a). However, when the gas network is congested and load needs to be shed, the zonal prices increase sharply due to the high penalty cost . As a result, the resulting model closely captures the behavior of the market during the 2014 polar vortex. Note also that the model does not shed the demand of the GFPPs. The model assumes that GFPPs buy natural gas at any cost to meet its commitment obligation. Once again, this captures the 2014 Polar Vortex situation where GFPPs were encouraged to buy the natural gas from the spot market at any cost for the sake of the power system reliability .
Iii Reformulation of the UCGNA
This section shows how the UCGNA can be expressed as a MISOCP. Let variable subscripts and respectively denote the power and the gas systems. Let and respectively denote the vector of binary and continuous variables of the power system (i.e., Problem (1)) and let be the vector of continuous variables of the gas system (i.e., Problem (2)). The UCGNA can be stated as a trilevel program:
and is the proper cone denoting the domain of .
The first-level problem (i.e., Equations (6a) and (6b)) formulates the unit-commitment problem (i.e., Equations (1a)-(1h) and Equation (4)). The unit-commitment decisions from the first-level problem are then plugged into the second-level problem, which formulates the economic dispatch problem (i.e., Equations (1j)-(1u)) and decides the hourly operating schedule of committed generating units. Then, the third-level problem (i.e., Problem (7)) formulates the natural gas problem (i.e., Problem (2) and Equation (3)) and determines the resulting nodal prices for natural gas based on the dual solution of the economic dispatch decisions.
Equations (6a), (6b), and (6c) capture the current operating practice of the power system. The first level captures the commitment decisions that are taken first without consideration of the gas network. The second and third levels implement a Stackelberg game, where the dispatch decisions of the electricity system are followed by those of the natural gas network. The novelty in the UCNGA is the bid-validity constraint (6d), which corresponds to Equation (5b): It ensures that only profitable GFPPs are selected in the first level and uses the dual variables of the third-level problem to do so, allowing the unit-commitment problem to anticipate the zonal prices of natural gas.
The following theorem, whose proof is in Appendix A, shows that the tri-level problem can be reformulated as a single-level mathematical program. The proof uses strong duality on the third-level problem and a lexicographic optimization to merge the second and third levels.
Problem (6) can be asymptotically approximated by the following mathematical program:
Problem (8) is best viewed as a “standard” MISOCP to which a constraint on the dual variables of its inner-continuous problem has been added. The “standard” MISOCP optimizes the joint electricity and natural gas problem
and the additional constraints
on the dual variables of its inner continuous problem capture the bid validity.
Iv Solution Approach
This section briefly sketches how the MISOCP is solved. Problem (8) can be reformulated as
The implementation applies a Benders decomposition on this formulation to solve Problem (8). Moreover, the dual of Problem (11) has a special structure that can be exploited by the dedicated Benders decomposition from . The idea is to decompose the dual of Problem (11) into two more tractable problems. The extreme points and rays of these subproblems can be used to find the (feasibility and optimality) Benders cuts of Problem (11). The solution method also uses the acceleration schemes from [25, 26] which normalize the rays and perturb . The solution method also obtains feasible solutions periodically (e.g., every 30 iterations) heuristically by turning off violated generators. Finally, the solution method applies a preprocessing step to eliminate some invalid bids. It exploits the fact that the natural gas prices without the GFPP load gives a lower bound on the natural gas zonal prices. Therefore, the implementation solves Problem (2) with no GFPPs, i.e., for all . Those bids violating the bid-validity constraint with regard to these zonal prices are not considered further.
V Description of the Data Sets
The UCGNA model is evaluated on the gas-grid test system from , which is representative of the natural gas and electric power systems in the Northeastern United States. This test system is composed of the IEEE 36-bus NPCC electric power system  and a multi-company gas transmission network covering the Pennsylvania-To-Northeast New England area in the United States . The data for the test system can be found online at https://github.com/lanl-ansi/GasGridModels.jl.
The test system consists of 91 generators of various types (e.g., hydro, gas-fueled, coal-fired, nuclear, etc.). The unit-commitment data for these generators (e.g., generator offer curves including start-up and no-load costs and operational parameters such as minimum run time) was obtained from the RTO unit commitment test system . Each generator in the gas-grid test system is assigned the unit commitment data adapted to its fuel-type and megawatt capacity.
The gas-grid test case consists of two natural gas pricing zones: Transco Zone 6 non NY and Transco Leidy Line. The Transco Leidy Line represents the natural gas prices in the Marcellus Shale production area, which has a wealth of natural gas. On the other hand, the Transco Zone 6 non NY represents the natural gas prices near consumption points. Therefore, a large difference in prices between these two pricing zones implies a scarcity of transmission capacities between these two points. During normal operations, the average natural gas prices in the Transco Zone 6 non NY and the Leidy Line are around $3/mmBtu and $1.5/mmBtu respectively. The slopes at junction (see Section (II-B)) are chosen to be around these numbers. The penality cost for load shedding is set as $130/mmBtu for all junctions. The results are given for a single time-period (i.e., ).
Vi Case Study
This section analyzes, under various operating conditions, the behavior of the UCGNA on the realistic test system described in Section V. The results are compared with current practices. The case study varies the level of stress on both the electrical power and gas systems. For the electrical power system, the load is uniformly increased by 30% and 60%. For the gas system, the load is uniformly increased by 10% up to 130%. Parameters and respectively represent the stress level imposed on the electrical power and gas systems. In the results, (A) denotes existing practices and (B) the UCGNA model. Solutions for (B) are obtained with a wall-clock time limit of 1 hour, while solutions for (A) is obtained by the following procedure:
Solve the power model (i.e., Problem (1));
Solve the gas model and compute the natural gas zonal prices using the dual values associated with the flux conservation constraints;
Based on the zonal prices, determine the set of GFPPs violating the bid-validity constraint (i.e., Equation (5b)) and compute the loss of such GFPPs by multiplying the violation, i.e., the difference between the marginal gas price and the marginal bid price, with the scheduled amount of power generation.
The behaviors of (A) and (B) in the normal, stressed, and highly-stressed power systems are compared in Figures 7, 12, and 17 respectively. In each figure, (a) and (c) display the system costs and natural gas prices of (A), and (b) and (d) display those of (B). More precisely, (a) and (b) present the total cost breakdown in terms of the cost of electrical power system, the cost of the gas system, and the economic loss from invalid bids. (c) and (d) depict the natural gas zonal prices in each pricing zone.111Note that, as increases, the total cost of (A) always increases, while the cost of (B) temporarily decreases sometimes. This is due to the presense of optimality gaps for some hard instances.
Figures (a)a and (c)c show that the gas system cost gradually increases as increases up to , then it grows rapidly from on. The rapid increase is due to load shedding (see Section II-B) and leads to natural gas price spikes in Transco Zone 6 non NY. The large difference between the prices in Zone 6 and Leidy Line indicates that the load shedding occurs due to the lack of transmission capacity between these two points, not because of a lack of gas supply. Due to the gas price spike in Transco Zone 6 non NY, some bids of GFPPs become invalid and incur some losses, which increases the total cost. On the other hand, for (B), the electrical power system cost is slightly higher than for (A), but it does not incur any economic loss from invalid bids and the overall cost is lower. Observe also that model (A) captures the same behavior as in the 2014 polar vortex. Additionally, observe that the gas price in the Zone 6 region is also exhibiting sharp increases in model (B). However, this peak has significantly less impact for (B) given the different commitment decisions.
The differences in behavior between systems (A) and (B) become clearer as the load increases in the electrical power system. For the stressed power system, displayed in Figure 12, the difference between the total cost of (A) and (B) becomes very large: There are many invalid bids for (A), which puts the reliability of the power system at high risk and induces an electricity price peak. The price of gas and the economic losses both increase significantly in (A) and the increases start at stress level 1.5 for the gas network. In contrast, (B) maintains a reliable operation independently of the stress imposed on the natural gas system. The price of gas increases obviously but less than in (A) and the cost of the power system remains stable. The peak in gas price only starts at stress level 1.7, showing that (B) delays the impact of congestion in the gas networks by making better commitment decisions.
Figure 17 shows the benefits of (B) over (A) become even more substantial when both systems are highly stressed. Observe that the cost of the electrical power system remains stable once again in (B) and that the cost of the gas network increases reasonably. In contrast, Model (A) exhibits significant increases in gas prices and economic cost from invalid bids. These results indicate that bringing gas awareness in unit commitment brings significant benefits in congested networks. By choosing commitment decisions that ensure bid validity, the UCGNA brings substantial cost and reliability benefits for congested situations like the 2014 polar vortex.
The great cost and reliability benefits of (B) are owing to better commitment decisions that anticipate the future state of the gas system. Table VII summarizes some statistics on committed generators under the highly stressed power system. As the gas load increases, some of the GFPPs in (T) are no longer committed and the lost generation is replaced by generators of different types or GFPPs with reasonable bid prices. More specifically, Figure 22 shows the commitment decision of (A) and (B) for () = (1.6,2.3). The numbers in black in Figures (a)a and (c)c report the number of committed GFPPs on the corresponding bus; Those in Figures (b)b and (d)d display the number of committed non-GFPPs. In Figure (a)a, the numbers in red on the bottom right corner of some buses represent the number of committed GFPPs located at the bus without bid validity. Most invalid GFPPs in Figure (a)a are turned off in Figure (c)c and replaced by some non-GFPPs as Figure (d)d indicates.
Finally, Table VIII summarizes the objective value and the optimality gap of (B) for each instance. For 16 out of 42 instances, the algorithm times out (wall-clock limit time of 1 hour) and it reports sub-optimal solutions whose optimality gaps are presented in columns denoted by (ii). It is important to stress however that even sub-optimal solutions to the UCGNA bring significant benefits for gas-grid networks as shown previously.
The 2014 polar vortex showed how interdependencies between the electrical power and gas networks may induce significant economic and/or reliability risks under heavy congestion. This paper has demonstrated that these risks can be effectively mitigated by making unit commitment decisions informed by the physical and economic couplings of the gas-grid network. The resulting Unit Commitment with Gas Network Awareness (UCGNA) model builds upon the standard unit commitment used in current practices but also reasons about the feasibility of gas transmission feasibility and the profitability of committed GFPPs. In particular, the UCGNA introduces bid-validity constraints that ensure the economic viability of committed GFPPs, whose marginal bid prices must be higher than the marginal natural gas prices. The UCGNA is a three-level model whose bid validity constraints operate on the dual variables of flux conservation constraints in the gas network, which represent the marginal cost of gas for producing a unit of electricity. It can be formulated as a Mixed-Integer Second-Order Cone Program (MISOCP) and solved using a dedicated Benders decomposition approach. The case study, based on a modeling of the gas-grid network in the North-East of the United States, shows that the UCGNA has significant benefits compared to the existing operations: It is capable to ensure valid bids even at highly-stressed levels, while only increasing the cost of gas and electricity in a reasonable way. In contrast, the existing operating practices induce significant economic losses and gas price increases.
Future research will be devoted to further improve the solution techniques to solve the UCGNA and, in particular, the use of cut bundling and Pareto-optimal cuts.
This research was partly supported by an NSF CRISP Award (NSF-1638331) “Computable Market and System Equilibrium Models for Coupled Infrastructures”.
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Appendix A Proof of Theorem 1
where denotes the dual cone of . The first and third constraints of Problem (12c) state the primal and dual feasibility of the third-level problem, while the second constraint ensures their optimality.
Equation (12b) (i.e., the constraint of the upper level problem of Problem (12)) does not involve the lower-level variables (i.e., and of Problem (12c)), which means the upper-level solution is not affected by the solutions to the lower-level problem. Problem (12) can thus be solved in two steps: (i) solve the upper-level problem and obtain , (ii) solve the lower-level problem with fixed as and obtain . Accordingly, Problem (12) can be expressed with a Lexicographic function as follows:
The optimal solution of Problem (13) satisfies the following conditions:
Observe that any feasible of Problem (15) is optimal. By strong duality, () satisfies the following conditions:
where the low-level problem in Equation (18c) is
Problem (19) is an approximation of Problem (13), where is obtained by the dual solution associated with Equation (19c). Hence, by strong duality of Problem (19), Problem (8) is equivalent to Problem (18).


text:
Historical records matching Dorrie Nossiter
About Dorrie Nossiter
Dorrie Nossiter (29 June 1893–1977) was an English jewellery designer from Aston, near Birmingham.
Nossiter crafted precious jewellery in the English Arts and Crafts Tradition in both sterling silver and gold. Her work is known for her use of color and floral and curvature lines using gemstones in motifs.
Nossiter was educated at the Municipal School of Art in Birmingham from 1910 to 1914. Nossiter married Ernest Guy Robinson in 1922. By 1935 she was living in London where her work was shown in the "Art by Four Women" exhibition at Walker's Gallery, London. Nossiter would go on to exhibit there from 1935 to 1939.


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- Cheetahs coach Hawies Fourie’s return to Bloemfontein has been rough for various reasons, but he’s not a man who dwells on the past.
- Lockdown has been a busy period for the man from Ceres as he’s juggled a viable recruitment strategy with refining a system to make his side more consistent in Europe.
- But the switching of styles so many preach for the Cheetahs to master to be a bigger presence in the PRO14 is easier said than done.
- Fourie has no regrets leaving the comforts of being Maties coach with the cutthroat environment of SA franchise rugby.
The inherent uncertainty of the Covid-19 pandemic means a lot of people, whether they do so fondly or not, try to reflect on the past.
It provides some sense of comfort at least, a type of certainty.
Hawies Fourie is not that type of guy.
If he had to take stock of his last seven months, he’d be riddled with doubts over his decision to become the Cheetahs’ head coach last year.
The 51-year-old from Ceres, after muscling out a rumoured 30-plus other candidates for the position, was supposed to take over from Franco Smith after the victorious Currie Cup campaign.
But an operation meant that Smith had to be asked to take charge of first three matches of the new PRO14 season, which the Cheetahs all won emphatically in Bloemfontein.
That left Fourie with the unenviable task of having to start his tenure with five games away from home, of which only the visit to Ospreys yielded a positive result.
By the time the virus suspended the tournament, a record of three wins from three had transformed into just six triumphs from 13.
Then came the respective dramas of losing two of his top players, hooker Joseph Dweba to Bordeaux and lock Sintu Manjezi to the Bulls.
“Let’s just say it wasn’t an easy start,” Fourie told Sport24 candidly.
Yet that’s about the only thing he mentions from what has been an undeniably challenging period.
Fourie only looks forward.
“I’m not sure we’ll complete the current season, but I also don’t believe we couldn’t have made a decent fist it should we have continued playing,” he said.
“It wasn’t easy having to deal with five consecutive matches overseas, yet six of our last eight games would’ve been at the Free State Stadium. Currently we’re just two points adrift from a playoff spot. I truly believe we would’ve been very much in the shake-up.”
Instead, Fourie has been spending the past four months engaging in a variety of tasks that make him sound more like a director of rugby than merely a head coach.
Frans Steyn (Montpellier), Jeandre Rudolph (Pumas), Chucky van der Westhuizen (Bulls), Howard Mnisi (Southern Kings), Reniel Hugo (Toyota Verblitz), Carl Wegner (Toyota Verblitz), Rosko Specman (Bulls), Ian Groenewald (Griquas), George Cronje (Clermont – junior), Marcell Muller (Montpellier – junior), Lesley Botha (Montpellier – junior)
Joseph Dweba (Bordeaux), Sintu Manjezi (Bulls), Walt Steenkamp (Bulls), Benhard Janse van Rensburg (NEC Green Rockets), Jasper Wiese, Gerhard Olivier (retired), Justin Basson (retired)
“I wanted to take an active role in our recruitment. We really don’t have a lot of money, so we took the plunge and decided to focus on quality over quantity. Instead of filling all 45 of our spots for senior contracts, we only contracted 35 players,” he said.
“It’s been a delicate balance. When we’ve lost a senior player, we’ve tried to get a replacement of a similar calibre. We’ve also tried to make sure the junior players we acquire fit our needs. It’s inevitable that they’ll have to step up in two years time when another batch of seniors depart. That’s the name of the game. I’ve watched hours of footage over the past few months.”
Recruitment, in all honesty, has never been an Achilles heel for the franchise, who continually punch above their weight.
The more pressing matter is to find ways to start winning consistently overseas.
Fourie admits he’s consulted numerous colleagues and analysed trends to make his team more adaptable.
However, he rather reasonably argues that supporters and observers might be a tad unrealistic in expecting the Cheetahs to be an outfit capable of seamlessly changing playing styles.
There are two primary reasons for that.
First and foremost, the rugby DNA of the Free State is a more attractive brand of rugby, which suits them well at home.
And secondly, the logistical challenges of playing in Africa one week and Europe the next renders a switching of styles pretty damn difficult, especially if playing personnel changes constantly.
“That word ‘adaptation’ is a bit of a curse,” said Fourie.
“I believe any team that puts its mind to it is theoretically adaptable. The reality is we simply don’t have the time to always do it. One week you’re training and playing from Tuesday to Saturday in a blazing hot Bloemfontein. Then you climb on a plane on the Monday and the next Tuesday to Saturday you’re playing in chilly, windy and rainy European conditions.
“It’s sometimes a bit of a shock to the system for the players.”
Answers to this challenge are few and far between, but Fourie has devised a way to try ease the pressure: “UK-days.”
“What we’ll do is when we have a week or two at home, we’ll set aside one day of the week just to train like we’d train overseas. It’s a way of getting the players a bit more used to what is expected of them in European conditions.
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“It’s not foolproof, but at least it’s a way to be more proactive.”
It’s devising those exact types of plans that prompted Fourie to leave the relative comforts of being Maties coach – his sides were Varsity Cup winners twice – and take the plunge of returning to the unforgiving environment of franchise rugby.
At least he’s intimately familiar with life in the City of Roses – he was Naka Drotske’s assistant for six years.
“It’s been so easy to go back. Most of the stalwarts who are involved in the game here are still present,” said Fourie.
“I’ve experienced Super Rugby, so I really wanted to enrich myself by being exposed to the PRO14. I always wanted to get back into senior level rugby.”
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Main technical principle:
It is used for the process after the super clean nano polishing, the antifouling factor can be permeated to inwall of micro-pore and in between of
micro-crake, combine with tile body become compact, by fully filled the tile surface mirco-pore and crystallization, so can be capable to avoid
corrosion of oil, ink and so on..
1.Oil base antifouling agent-B1
by using combination of Alkane penetrating agent and silicone oil, the penetrating agent drive the silicone oil antifouling agent inside tile body,
thereby combine with tile body become compact, make the ceramic tile an ideal antifouling performance.
2.Water base antifouling agent-B2
by using water as carrier of solvent, and make emulsification of silicon oil materials. It is safe and environmental protection (un-flammable
material), it has ideal antifouling performance.

domain: chemistry


text:
Evidence for the existence of such genetic variation for aging rates—a central tenet in the evolutionary theory that explains why animals would show physiological declines as they grow older—had largely been lacking in natural populations until now, the researchers said.
“We’ve found that individuals differ in their rates of aging, or senescence, and that these differences are (at least in part) caused by genetic effects so they will be inherited,” said Alastair Wilson of the University of Edinburgh. “While the genetic effects we found are completely consistent with existing theory, scientists hadn’t previously managed to test this theory properly except in controlled laboratory experiments.
“We’ve also done this work on long-lived mammals,” he added. “For someone interested in the evolution of aging and senescence in humans, these are going to be more relevant organisms than Drosophila [fruit flies].”
Scientists normally expect genetic mutations having bad effects to be removed by natural selection, Wilson explained. Conversely, selection will lead to an increase in the frequency of mutations that are beneficial. “On this basis, any genes with bad effects on survival or reproduction should be removed by selection,” he said. “But if that were true then there is no reason for individuals to deteriorate as they get old.”
Aging therefore raises a critical question: How has natural selection failed to remove genetic effects responsible for such reduced fitness among older individuals? Current evolutionary theory explains this phenomenon by showing that, as a result of the risk of death from environmental causes that individuals experience over the course of their lives, the force of selection inevitably weakens with age, he continued. This, in turn, means that genetic mutations having detrimental effects that are only felt late in life may persist in a population. Although widely accepted, this theory rests on the assumption that there is genetic variation for aging in natural systems.
To look for such genetic variation in the new study, the researchers examined wild Soay sheep and red deer living on two Scottish islands. Those populations were ideal for the study because they provide unparalleled levels of data, including individual survival and reproductive success, for large numbers of long-lived animals, Wilson said. In both study systems, individually marked animals are followed throughout their lives from birth until death, and their relationships to one another are known.
In both the red deer and sheep populations, they found evidence for age-specific genetic effects on “fitness”—a measure combining the animals’ probability of survival and reproduction. “The present study provides, to our knowledge, the first evidence for additive genetic variance in aging rates from a wild, non-model study organism,” the researchers concluded. “Furthermore, the age-specific patterns of additive genetic (co)variation evident in the two populations examined here were entirely consistent with the hypothesis that declines in fitness with age are driven by a weakening of natural selection.”
Cathleen Genova | alfa
Microbes can grow on nitric oxide (NO)
18.03.2019 | Max-Planck-Institut für Marine Mikrobiologie
Novel methods for analyzing neural circuits for innate behaviors in insects
15.03.2019 | Kanazawa University
New research group at the University of Jena combines theory and experiment to demonstrate for the first time certain physical processes in a quantum vacuum
For most people, a vacuum is an empty space. Quantum physics, on the other hand, assumes that even in this lowest-energy state, particles and antiparticles...
Physicists in the EPic Lab at University of Sussex make crucial development in global race to develop a portable atomic clock
Scientists in the Emergent Photonics Lab (EPic Lab) at the University of Sussex have made a breakthrough to a crucial element of an atomic clock - devices...
Every year earthquakes worldwide claim hundreds or even thousands of lives. Forewarning allows people to head for safety and a matter of seconds could spell...
Scientists of the Department of Physics at the University of Hamburg, Germany, detected the magnetic states of atoms on a surface using only heat. The...
Combining an atomically thin graphene and a boron nitride layer at a slightly rotated angle changes their electrical properties. Physicists at the University of Basel have now shown for the first time the combination with a third layer can result in new material properties also in a three-layer sandwich of carbon and boron nitride. This significantly increases the number of potential synthetic materials, report the researchers in the scientific journal Nano Letters.
Last year, researchers in the US caused a big stir when they showed that rotating two stacked graphene layers by a “magical” angle of 1.1 degrees turns...
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Archbishop is right
THE Archbishop of Canterbury and fellow bishops have spoken out about a further 200,000 children being pushed into poverty by Government policy.
Good, but that is only half of it. They should be shouting from the pulpits about the wrongs of the massive imbalance of the wealth at the top of our society and their overall responsibility for this.
George Appleby, Leighton Croft, Clifton, York.


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What are commercial drones?
Commercial or industrial drones have no universal definition. However, commercial drones are considered to be the most suitable for use in a professional and commercial environment.
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The drone solution is an essential tool that helps streamline missions and enables enterprise organizations to expand and manage their commercial drone programs, while laying the technical foundation for beyond line-of-sight (BVLOS) and night operations.


Boat trips from Bohol to Cebu, Negros Oriental cancelled due to strong winds
TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol – Boat trips from Bohol to Cebu and Negros Oriental have been cancelled on Saturday morning due to high swells and strong winds.
Although no gale warning was issued by the state weather agency Pagasa, SN2 Anwar John Sinajon of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG)-Tagbilaran, said that it was the discretion of the management to cancel their trips.
“The cancelled trips (were) upon the discretion of the management due to big waves and strong winds,” Sinajon told Inquirer.
Pagasa weather advisory said the country would experience unfavorable weather enhanced by the southwest monsoon or habagat.
The OceanJet Ferries cancelled its trips to Dumaguete City, Larena in Siquijor and Cebu City.
The 2Go cancelled its trips to Cebu City.
As of Saturday noon, at least 491 passengers were stranded at the Tagbilaran Port.
In Getafe town, 20 passengers were stranded, while 40 passengers were stranded at the Talibon Port.
Among those stranded passengers were Korean tourist Jerry Kim and his family.
Kim said they had to rebook their tickets and decided to go back to the resort they were staying in Panglao Island.
“The situation is beyond our control. We have no choice,” Kim said.
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Struggling electronics company Pioneer has outlined a number of ventures and investments as part of its plan to turn its business around and return to profitability.
Last week Toshiba launched in a new Qosmio multimedia laptop model in Japan that includes a secondary video processing chip and, for the first time, software to automatically clean-up the quality of Web video. We took it for a test-drive on the Web's...
Freeview, the television industry body publicising the move to free-to-air digital television, has released information on products it has certified the compatibility of at a launch at Dick Smith in the Sydney CBD on Monday.
Telstra has lost its final appeal to impose a $30 charge for competitors to access the last mile copper network in metropolitan areas.
Sony Creative Software has announced Vegas Pro 9 at the NAB 2009 exhibition in Las Vegas, an upgrade to its video editing software that boosts its tool for higher-end workflows including 4K video and native support for footage from the Red One camera...
Flash, the technology used by YouTube to stream video clips into your browser window, is now installed on 98 percent of all computers, according to Adobe Systems, which acquired the technology in 2005. The company also says that about 80 percent of W...
Panasonic has began developing a professional-grade stereoscopic 3D full HD production system. The system, which the company expects to be the first of its kind in the industry, consists of a twin-lens P2 professional camera recorder and a 3D-compati...
Taiwanese mobile phone service provider Far EasTone is working with a "leading" local handset maker to develop two new smartphones that use Google's Android software.
The U.S. government is beginning to spend billions of dollars quickly to stimulate the economy. And that may be why Advance Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) said this week it is releasing its <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=vi...
AMD announced that XFX is now an official AMD technology partner, joining the group of AMD add-in-board (AIB) partners. XFX plans to provide new products based on the award-winning ATI Radeon HD 4000 series GPUs to consumers, beginning in 2009.
Steve Wiebe, the unlikely protagonist of 2007's King of Kong documentary has just set a world record in Donkey Kong Jr. with a score of 1,139,800, beating out previous record holder Ike Hall by 106,800 points.
Microsoft released Internet Explorer 8 in March, and whether to install it is likely your biggest update decision right now.
I admit it. I'm impressed. I might have written a wishy-washy review of the beta of Ubuntu 9.04, but now I've had a chance to play with the final release, I like wha...
Texas Memory Systems has added a less expensive, faster and smaller form-factor flash storage array to its line of solid-state products.
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Learn how to protect your digital lifestyle. A must read for all those who are active online.
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ONGOING>>> 2nd Monday of each month. Kids’ Music Circle for the whole family! This monthly Lake Worth Public Library Program is FREE. 5:30-6:30 pm with a potluck outside immediately following the music circle. 414 Lake Ave, Lake Worth, FL 33460. https://www.lakeworth.org/residents/library/
Dec 19, 2017: I’ll be leading a fun filled Kids’ Music Circle at the Tyrone Bryant Library in Ft. Lauderdale. This musical program will incorporate the holidays theme and is free and open to the public. 2230 NW 21 Avenue, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33311
Directions by Google Maps
April 22, 2017: Happy to be leading a Kids’ Music Circle at this year’s Lake Worth Earth Day Festival taking place at the Gray Mockingbird Community Garden 2000 N. D St, Lake Worth, FL 33460. This is a FREE event and will have a main stage with great entertainment as well as a kids stage/area with lots of fun and engaging entertainment and activities for kids throughout the day. The garden is incredible too, so be sure to stroll through and check out what community members have accomplished.
Feb 9, 2017: Noam accompanies Terry a la Berry, children’s music entertainer and Arlo Guthrie’s drummer for over 40 years, at The Lord’s Place Family Campus! Thank you TAFFY Presents and the Jerome A. Yavitz Family Foundation for this event.
Nov 29, 2017: And TAFFY Presents again brings Kids’ Music Circle to the Learning Path Academy in West Palm Beach, FL
Nov 18, 2017: TAFFY Presents brought the Kids’ Music Circle to the Loula V. York Branch of the Palm Beach County Library System in Pahokee, FL. Many of these children are in band. So much fun!
July 2016: Kids’ Music Circle is coming to a PBC Library near you this July! Please click here for dates for each branch.
Friday, June 3rd: The Bryant Park Neighborhood Association is hosting an end of the school year/beginning of summer event at Bryant Park South. Kids’ Music Circle at noon! Yoga, fun, games, outdoors, etc!! Hope you can make it.
June 3rd, 7 pm: Kids’ Music Circle in Gainesville, FL!! Very excited to support this fundraiser event. Check out the FB link below…
I am excited about a family friendly addition to this radical event. After the Rally and Speakout, to kick off the fundraiser at 7pm @ the Wooly my talented friend Noam Brown will host a Kids Music Circle. Bring your little ones to play instruments and sing. Pro-Choice is pro-family
Kids’ Music Circle at Earth Day Festival in Lake Worth at 3:45 pm, honored to be scheduled between 2 inspiring individuals: Javier Del Sol and Buckley Griffis All In Drumming
Sunday, April 17: Stories and Songs in the Garden with Storyteller, Mij Byram and Song Leader, Noam Brown. Enjoy the weaving of wonderful stories and interactive songs in the beautiful and inspiring setting of the new Children’s Garden in Delray Beach. See details below. (please note: the link shows shows last month’s event, but the next one is April 17)


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We opened our new Hastings branch in January 2018. We're looking forward to helping you out with your cash loan and pawn loan needs.
Who do we provide service for
Our customers come in from as far as Waipukurau, Takapau, and many of the surrounding areas in the the Southern Hawkes Bay.
We're a relaxed bunch and always laughing. We're looking forward to welcoming new team members.
Meet our team
Paul recently moved to the Hawkes Bay and he's looking to stay.
Shauna is Irish and yes it's true - she does love potatoes! Shauna is new to our team and is bubbly, down to earth and always up for a good laugh! Shauna has been in New Zealand for 4 years and it's definitely her home away from home
MichellestartedNovember 2014. She specialises in our Express and Pawn Loans and customer satisfaction. Over the years Michelle has built up a great rapport with our regular customers and is very much liked.
Keila is the most spoilt member of the team. She likes to know everything that’s going on instore, will often pop out and if you're lucky might even give you one of her famous smiles.

domain: geography


145 STEDMAN STREET • CHELMSFORD, MA 01824
No matter what type of heating system you have in your home, at some point it will need services and repairs. Services and repairs on a heating system can either be a simple fix or a more complex issue that needs to be addressed by a professional heating technician. At Nazzaro & Sons Plumbing & Heating, our job is to educate homeowners on how to fix the simple issues, and lend a hand when it comes to fixing the more difficult problems.
Issues with your heating system should never be avoided for long. Homeowners often mistake unusual noises or smells as something that’s common for heaters, and therefore issues go undiagnosed for weeks or even months. Nazzaro & Sons Plumbing & Heating urges all residents to always call a professional heating technician whenever they are in doubt about the performance of their heating system.
Avoiding issues causes more strain on the system, causing it to work harder to heat your home. Unfortunately an inefficient heating system leads to costly utility bills. Not fixing an issue can also shorten the lifespan of your system, which mean you’ll have to spend more money installing a brand new one when you could have gotten 5 to 10 years more out of your existing system. Lastly, smaller issues that are easily fixed but aren’t addressed almost always end up becoming larger problems with the entire system. Fixing things earlier rather than later avoids costly repairs.
Our service technicians at Nazzaro & Sons Plumbing & Heating are fully trained and qualified to repair any type of heating system, including:
Each system is different, which means many of the repair services are unique and call for a professional to diagnose the issue. After scheduling an appointment with our service technician, we’ll be sure to quickly and accurately address the problem you’re having with your heating system. We ensure that every customer is fully aware of the estimated cost, the time it will take to repair, and – most importantly – how to perform at-home maintenance in the future.
Our Chelmsford MA-based heating company can solve any issue your heating system is having. Sometimes one issue is the result of a larger problem with your system. Either way, we can address and resolve both common and complex heating issues, including:
Having issues with your heating system? Contact our heating company today for full service and repairs, maintenance, replacements and installations today at 978-256-3586.


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This post is going to multi-task. It will show you how to make sushi (for the most part anyway) it will tell you that sushi isn't just about raw fish, and give you some ideas of what else to put in it, and it will also tell you about my recent sushi making party!
Lets start off with telling you that sushi is not all about raw fish, and give you some other filling ideas.
Many people think that sushi means raw fish, and that if no fish is involved, it is not sushi. This is not the case. The word sushi actually describes the vinegared rice that goes into making sushi. Raw fish however, is one of the most common ingredients to be a part of sushi.
So what should you put in your sushi if you're not adding in any fish? Simple. Vegetables. Sometimes some tofu or tempeh as well.
Here are some of the more common vegan fillings for your sushi:
Tofu (baked, pan fried, deep fried, whatever you like)
Tempeh (I've never done it myself, but others have, and I think it sounds tasty.)
Sprouts (Alfalfa, clover, etc)
Sauteed mushrooms (Shitake is most common, but I like portobellos!)
Broccoli (not very good in sushi rolls, but I like them in hand rolls)
And probably some others that i haven't heard of, or am forgetting.
Really, you can put whatever you like in your sushi, it's up to you.
Now, on to my sushi making party!
So, I decided that I should have a sushi making party. Unfortunately, I decided this the night before I was planning on having it, so I didn't expect many people to show up. Two people came, but I know at least two other people who would have liked to come, so maybe I'll do it again sometime soonish.
But anyway, I set up the table with cutting boards and sushi mats, the rice, the fillings, and little sauce bowls, wasabi, pickled ginger, and low-sodium soy sauce.
Those are the fillings. There's broccoli, carrots, red peppers, avocado, sauteed and sliced portobello, green onions, cucumber, and tofu.
I was going to just buy this tofu, so I wouldn't have to heat up the house by cooking my own tofu, but it turned out that that tiny little thing costs more than a whole block of organic tofu. So I figured I'd make it myself. And I'm glad I did.
I cut my block of tofu into three thick slices, placed them on a towel, and pressed some of the water out. Then I coated them in cornstarch, and pan fried them until lightly golden (I did this to give it that nice outside skin you get from frying, without frying it) Then I marinated it in a mixture of this Teriyaki sauce, some low-sodium soy sauce, garlic, ginger, and I think maybe something else. I can't remember though. A few hours later (let it sit as long as you can though) I sliced it with a sharp knife, and i got something fairly similar to Pete's tofu.
Now let's learn how to make some sushi!
Take a bamboo mat, and wrap it completely in plastic wrap. Then place your seaweed (shiny side down) on your mat.
Thinly spread your rice on the seaweed. As thin as possible without having big gaps.
Then lay on your fillings. I think this one has green onions, carrots, cucumber and tofu.
Start to roll it over, just a little, then press it down with both hands.
pull the mat off, and roll a little more, and lightly press it.
Here's our sushi plate. We made a lot more, but most of it was eaten. Some of the sushi doesn't have seaweed, because one of the friends there doesn't like it. It's much harder to make without seaweed, so don't do that until you've got the hang of it.
There's also some hand rolls, and some inari.

domain: food