text:
Perfectly Portable Picnic puddings - no-bake blueberry mason jar cheesecakes. Easily made gluten-free too.
Let's make Mason Jar Cupcakes! Great 'cake in a jar' ideas, recipes, and DIY tips - mason jar cupcake baby shower and wedding ideas too - http://involvery.com/mason-cupcakes-easy/
Best Recipes in A Jar - DIY Mason Jar Gifts, Cookie Recipes and Desserts, Canning Ideas, Overnight Oatmeal, How To Make Mason Jar Salad, Healthy Recipes and Printable Labels http://diyjoy.com/best-recipes-in-a-jar
Adorable mini mason jar pies that are easy to make. Give as gifts.
Watermelon Cake Layered in Mason Jars!
Mini Mason Jar Pies- perfect for holiday parties!
Red Velvet Cake in a Jar - Typical red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting arranged in layers in pretty mason jars.
Mason Jar Pineapple Upside Down Cake - for when you want your cake and you want to eat it...but maybe not wear it on your hips for the rest of your life. Click now!
The perfect lemon cheesecake! Prepared in a mini mason jar for perfect individual portions. Great dessert for Spring and Summer!
Chocolate Cup Cakes in a jar!

domain: food


text:
Big Island Farm with 11 hours per week work trade & paid stay
$125/week or $500 month for partial work trade; duties vary but fun, clean and interesting. Please be neat, ready to get dirty and love animals and life. Walk to the best swimming, snorkel and hike trails that the big island has to offer. Bus is 15 min walk also a few stores. We treat you as family, when we go to the store, swim, hike, we invite you. Must love life, animals and organic living.
What you offer
11 hours of help per week
Organize and lead tours around the city.
Help clean the kitchen, bedrooms, bathrooms and common areas.
Help with changing the bed linens and general housekeeping.
Help grow plants and cultivate gardens
What you get
2 days off per week
You will have a bed in a private room. In other words, a room just for you.
You will have a bed in a shared room, which means you will share the same room with other travelers.
You will have a bed in a shared room, which means you will share the same room with other people.
You will sleep in a tent at a camping site.
You are entitled to a free breakfast, every day of your stay.
You are entitled to a free lunch, every day of your stay.
You are entitled to a free dinner, every day of your stay.
Discounts on Parties:
Get discounts at nearby parties and clubs.
Discounts on Restaurants:
Get discounts at nearby restaurants.
Discounts on Pubs:
Get discounts at nearby pubs.
Discounts on Drinks:
Get discounts for drinks and beverages from our bar.
Discounts on Tours:
Get discounts for tours and excursions around town.
Discounts on Accommodation:
Get discounts for your stay in other hostels.
You can use our laundry room freely.
We’ll take you on tours and rides around town. For free!
Free Hiking Tours:
We’ll take you on excursions and hikes around town. For free!
Get free drinks or beverages.:
Drink up! Get free and tasty drinks for yourself.
Get free entrance for the best parties in town.
Get free entrance for the best events in town.
Be a part of our pub crawls at local bars!
We will pick you up when you arrive, and take you to our property.
You can use our surfboards as much as you want.
Take free yoga classes at our place.
Take free surf classes at the local beaches.
Take free dance classes at our place.
You can take part in any of our therapeutic activities for free.
Take part in our Permaculture course for free.
Use our equipped kitchen:
Feel free to use our kitchen and make your own delicious food.
Get a certificate of completion after you finish your experience.
Over 18 years old
Accepts solo applications and also couples and pairs
What's not included
Flights, Travel Insurance, Internal Transportation and Visa
There is an 11 hour per week work trade on the farm; weeding, planting, cleaning and animal care with your stay here. We are family, fun and organic. Love life, animals, bugs and dirt, come, enjoy and visit.
Activities & Shift
Get into the dirt & love growing, picking nuts and loving life.
Must be neat, clean and enjoy open air life.

domain: travel


text: Good bye (gao bie) China. Our feet hurt, our Yuans are gone and time is up. The workshop is over and makeLab will focus its sights on the design of the new fabrication lab at Lawrence Tech. Watch for postings to see the progress. Thanks again to all our wonderful hosts.

domain: design


KARACHI: The Circular Railway project for Karachi has slowly inched forward as the commissioner has set up a seven-member committee for its revival.
The committee, headed by Commissioner Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui, will include KMC Administrator Rauf Akhtar Farooqui, KCR and Karachi Urban Transport Corporation Director Ijaz Ahmed Khilji, Divisional Superintendent Nizar Ahmed Memon, Karachi Mass Transit Director Fazal Karim, Finance Deputy Secretary Ryaz Gul, Transport Secretary Taha Faruqui and Railways SSP Robin Yameen.
During his recent visit to the port city, Federal Railways Minister Saad Rafique had assured that the restoration of KCR was a priority for the federal government. On Tuesday, the commissioner called a meeting with representatives of the federal and provincial government along with Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) and Railways Department, to restore the KCR project.
The issue of resettling families also came up during the meeting. The participants were told that 4,635 families will be affected by the project. One of the mandatory requirements for the KCR is to acquire enough land to relocate these residents.
It was also pointed out that all social, environmental and engineering studies and requirements, as per the guidelines of the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) have already been completed.
During the meeting, it was decided that the 300-acre empty land of the Pakistan Railways, located in Juma Goth, will be used to resettle the affectees while the resettlement will be completed through the release of 40 per cent funds from the federal government, 25 percent from the Sindh government and 15 per cent from the KMC.
Commissioner Siddiqui told The Express Tribune that the federal and provincial governments are on the same page. "We have constituted a seven-member committee that will submit a report within one week to the commissioner's office," he said. "Tomorrow, we will start the survey and, after the resettlement, we will build a wall along the railway lines."
Siddiqui agreed that the encroachments along the railway lines have been hindering the project's revival but he assured that the law enforcement agencies will be taken on board during the anti-encroachment drive.
The next meeting will be held on May 7 in which the committee will submit its report on the resettlement issue.
"Political will is most important for the completion of the project and it is for the first time that the federal and provincial governments are on the same page to develop a mass transit system for Karachi," Siddiqui said.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 30th, 2014.
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text:
Hangzhou Tea Culture Expo Brews the Perfect Cup of Longjing Tea for the Awakening of Spring
Surrounded by mountains where the most celebrated green tea, longjing, originated, Hangzhou will open the 2017 Hangzhou Tea Culture Expo on March 31, a three-month tea carnival highlighting the history, the making and the tasting of longjing in its best season.
Longjing tea, or dragon well tea, is a classic Chinese green tea known for its delicate taste and long-lasting aroma. The finest longjing tea can only be produced in the West Lake region.
“For tourists, the tea culture expo during the spring provides the opportunity to experience the best tea. It is also ideal to explore the tales of longjing tea, as they trace back along the history of tea, and experience every step in making and brewing it,” said Zhao Hongzhong, deputy director of the Hangzhou Tourism Commission.
Longjing Village is a perfect destination to experience Chinese green tea during the expo. It’s one of the few places where people can enjoy authentic longjing, which is made from the tender tea leaves that are harvested in early spring. Visitors can also watch how it’s roasted by hand and join local tea masters to turn, press and spread the tea leaves to make their very own tin of longjing.
Tourists can also visit the China National Tea Museum to learn about Chinese tea through vivid exhibitions and tempting tea houses. The museum is one of Hangzhou locals’ favorite places to go, as visitors are immersed in the tea field surrounding the village while tasting fresh tea.
“Hangzhou welcomes all visitors to join the 2017 Hangzhou Tea Culture Expo in this perfect season for longjing. Through a journey in the urban tea villages, we hope they can enjoy authentic longjing tea and Hangzhou’s laid-back lifestyle,” said Zhao.
Host of the most recent G20 summit, Hangzhou is a city praised by Marco Polo as the finest and most splendid in the world. Home to tea and silk, it continues its legacy from the flourishing dynasty’s capital to a vibrant and dazzling metropolis with World Heritage sites, scenic natural vistas and profound Chinese culture. Located 50 minutes from Shanghai by high-speed rail, Hangzhou offers a 144-hour visa-free transit.


Google's Project Fi will support a mid-tier priced smartphone later this year
So far, Google's experimental MVNO (mobile virtual network operator), Project Fi, has only supported Nexus and Pixel devices. The need for specific support (and why it isn't suggested that you just throw your Fi SIM card into any handset you may have lying around) is due to Fi's intelligent switching between its three host carriers. This needs to be enabled in the software of every phone on the network, hence the limited number of officially supported devices.
And since the Pixels are much more expensive than any Nexus before them ever was, a lot of people have apparently been complaining to Google citing the lack of a reasonably priced alternative. That situation will change "later this year", however.
If you dare to wait that much, Fi will support a new smartphone "at a mid-tier price", the carrier's official Twitter account said today. Unfortunately any other details simply weren't there, save for the mention that the phone will be manufactured by one of the company's partners. That's certainly cryptic, but if Google wants Fi to ever become more than an experiment, it definitely needs to support more (and cheaper) handsets.
I doubt so. Maybe an Android One device, or they'll ask another OEM for either a device made for Fi or an already available device but with one or two software tweaks.
- 30 Jun 2017
So could be a OnePlus 5 or a midrange Pixel.
- 30 Jun 2017


text:
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The assignment for this project was to make a “minimal game” in Unity. I asked myself things like, “What is a game? What makes something a game? What’s the most basic characteristic of a game?” After much thought and in class discussions, I decided to make a game where the only purpose was to get points (a score). If the player is the competitive type, he or she will most likely try to get a high score, but that goal is not mandatory. The minimal goal would be joined by minimal gameplay—the pressing of a single button. What’s more, I decided to make the game visually minimal with the use of only black and white and 8-bit text.
INSTRUCTIONS: Input initials (followed by enter) and click to score points!

domain: game


text:
Academic should have the star?
Beijing appointment scene sweeping ultra 360,000 people of 578 have chosen the generation to offer a sacrifice to the service
Fujian Province on March 29 new coronal virus pneumonia epidemic situation situation
India decides as 28 army hospitals the new crown pneumonia fixed point hospital
Struggles in Amazon home young seller: How goes on living, is a difficult problem
Sri Lanka appears the first example new crown pneumonia death case of illness accumulation to diagnose 113 examples

domain: news


Subject: Re: USB -> PS/2: does it work?
To: None <netbsd-users@NetBSD.ORG>
From: MLH <MLH@goathill.org>
Date: 10/02/2002 22:33:28
On 2 Oct 2002 15:50:01 -0500, David Laight wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 02, 2002 at 01:29:13PM -0400, Nathan J. Williams wrote:
>> David Laight <firstname.lastname@example.org> writes:
>> > I very much doubt as to whether anyone actually makes a USB to
>> > serial converter that would let you plug an old 'non USB aware'
>> > PS/2 keyboard into a USB socket.
>> Actually, such devices are plentiful, and usually let you plug in a
>> PS/2 mouse, too. They show up as USB HID devices and get attached as
>> ukbd and ums and generally work fine, for US$10-20.
> The one from kenisis is $59.85
> So my 'gut feel' was wrong - because I didn't think anyone would
> pay that much :-)
We generally use them with kvm switches. They work fine with mbs
that handle usb keyboards. This isn't where we buy them (have to
look it up) but it's about the same price.


text:
The Bangkok Countdown 2018
This huge festival to celebrate the last two nights of 2017 comes with live acts from local and international artists like Afrojack (pictured above), Chris Lake, Lookas, Knife Party, Rotten and Mark Sixma. Tickets are B1,800 available on www.eventpop.me
Dec 30-31, 4pm. Live Park Rama 9, Rama 9 Rd., 065-509-9080. B1,800.
NYE at De Commune
A night of funk and disco matched with techno-house sounds featuring the familiar DJ lineup of Toru, TateXpression, ahivar, Kova O’ Sarin, Munta Morton and Jirus.
Dec 31, 9pm. De Commune, 1/F Liberty Plaza Building, Sukhumvit Soi 55 (Thonglor), 061-717-4365. B300.
Celebrate New Year’s with live DJs and bands like Nayla, Gramaphone Children, Mighty NP, Slum Disco Soundsystem, The Lowdowns, Zoe Winter, African Star Trekker and Cater. Tickets TBA.
Dec 31, 9pm. Whiteline, Silom Soi 8, 087-061-1117. B600
Welcome 2018 with a variety of booze and electronic beats.
Dec 31, 12pm. 72 Courtyard, 72 Sukhumvit Soi 55 (Thonglor), 02 -392-7999. Free.
Celebrate the last night of 2017 with DJs and alcohol.
Dec 31, 9pm. Insanity Nightclub, Sukhumvit Soi 11, 087-804-9542. Free.
A party featuring with live DJs, Latin dance and cocktails.
Dec 31, 8pm. Havana Social, Sukhumvit Soi 11, 061-450-3750. B1,000 includes 2 drinks.
2018 New Year's Eve Party
A night of live jazz performance from Yazz and Jakob Dinesen and Sunny Trio and Friends. Dec 31, 9pm.
Maggie Choo’s, 320 Silom Rd., 091-772-2144. B800-3,000 includes drinks.
Celebrate the new year with a live DJ set from Jam on Toast and live jazz from The Trio.
Dec 31, 12pm. The Commons, 335 Thonglor Soi 17, 089-152-2677. Free.
Celebrate 2018 with a rooftop party and drinks.
Dec 31, 9pm-2am. The Westin Grande Sukhumvit, 259 Sukhumvit Soi 19, 02-207-8000. B1,200 includes 1 drink.
New Year ’s Eve’s classiest party at the city’s ritziest building.
Dec 31, 9pm-2am. Vogue Lounge, 6/F, Mahanakhon Cube, Narathiwat Ratchanakarin Rd., 02-001-0697. BTS Chong Nonsi. B1,200 includes 1 drink.
Welcome 2018 with a hip-hop lineup lead by Khan Thaitanium.
Dec 31, 9pm-2am. W Bangkok, 206 North Sathorn Rd., 02-344-4000. B3,000 includes beers and burgers.
A place to countdown with vibrant laser lighting and provocative sounds. Tickets TBA.
Dec 31,11:30pm. Insanity Nightclub, 32/2 Sukhumvit Soi 11, 087-804-9542. BTS Nana.
Countdown at a splashing pool party with alcohol and DJs.
Dec 31, 9pm. Aloft Bangkok, 35 Sukhumvit Soi 11, 02-207-7000. B499 includes 1 drink.
Counting down to the new year with our 90s favorite singers and other vibrant performances. Tickets TBA.
Dec 31, 6pm-midnight. Asiatique The Riverfront, 2194 Charoenkrung Rd.
The two DJs usher in the new year by spinning their electronic beats with supporting DJs The Outsider and Wintix. Dec 31, 9:30pm. Glow, Sukhumvit 23 Rd., 086-614-3355. B300 includes 1 drink before midnight.
Welcome the new year like a New Yorker. Manhattan Bar will rock your year-end with cutting-edge DJs. Advanced booking is recommended.
Dec 31, 6pm. JW Marriott Hotel Bangkok, 4 Sukhumvit Rd, Soi 2, 02-656-7700. B1,500. bit.ly/2BiTego
Rave through New Year’s with 8 hours straight techno from a local lineup including DJs ATMA, Coran and Sunzone.
Dec 31, 9pm. Violett, 141, The Third Place Building, Thonglor 10, 095-353-8898. Free before midnight. bit.ly/2kETwYL
Spend the last night of 2017 with your childhood nostalgia, gaming through classics like Street Fighter, Metal Slug, Tekken and Pac Man while chomping through Korean food and toasting the new year.
Dec 31, 6pm. 72 Courtyard, G/F, Sukhumvit 55 (Thonglor), 02-392-7740. Free. bit.ly/2BNzd2q
Take in the fireworks from the riverside at this New Year’s Eve party.
Dec 31, 6pm. River City Shopping Complex, Room 122-123, 23 Soi Rongnamkhaeng, 02-639-6305. B500 with free drinks and finger food. bit.ly/2BMUfhM
This New Year’s Eve party comes with a 360-degree view and a buffet that includes wagyu and fresh seafood. Reservations are recommended.
Dec 31, 5pm. MOJJO Rooftop Louge & Bar, Sukhumvit Soi 24, 02-011-1111. B1,200 with 2 drinks. bit.ly/2BiHsCx
End 2017 with hip-hop, jazz and quality cocktails.
Dec 31, 10pm. Evil Man Blues, G/F, 72 Courtyard, Sukhumvit 55 (Thonglor), 02-392-7740. Free.
Top-tier DJs Shufflebot & Q Da Hypeman from the party crew of LMFAO will spin your through the countdown.
Dec 31, 9pm. Insanity Nightclub, Sukhumvit soi 11, 087-804-9542. Men B1,000 and Ladies B800, which includes 1 drink. bit.ly/2kXoI4z
The swanky bar launches its rooftop terrace with party featuring disco and house sounds by DJ Kurrypup, and live soul and funk from The Lowdowns.
Dec 31, 6:30pm. Penthouse Bar+Grill, 34-36/F, Park Hyatt Bangkok, 88 Wireless Rd., 02-012-1234. B2,000 includes 1 drink.
A DJ set of disco, funk and soul sounds to take your to the end of 2017.
Dec 31, 10pm. 12x12, 810/22 Soi Tararom 2, Sukhumvit Soi 55 (Thonglor), 094-260-4713. Free before midnight.
Beer Belly’s countdown features performances by The Toys, Ton-Aum and DJYP, as well as activities like ping pong and pool. Arrive any time, but advanced booking is recommended for a table.
Dec 31, 6pm. 72 Courtyard, G/F, Sukhumvit 55 (Thonglor), 02-392-7770. Free. bit.ly/2p8LCLz
Get free Champagne from 11:30pm to 1:30am and dance to beats by DJs Justin Mills, Scott Hess and Fredrik Funk.
Dec 31, 8pm. Smalls, 186/3 Suan Plu Soi 1, 095-585-1398. bit.ly/2BiHn1C

domain: entertainment


text:
Education | Your Diet
Oral Health and Your Diet
Your diet can effect the health of your teeth. The population is consuming an increasing amount of sugar-filled sodas, sweetened fruit drinks and other non-nutritious snacks that have no nutritional content and negatively affect their teeth. The eating habits established as children and young adults play a large roll in how quickly young children may develop tooth decay.
To better understand how the food you eat effects your oral health, you need to better understand how the bacteria in your mouth behave. When bacteria come into contact with sugar in the mouth, acid is produced. This acid attacks the teeth for 20 minutes or more and can lead to tooth decay. The biggest mistake many people make is sipping on a soda, or other sugar filled beverage over an extended period of time. This creates a constant supply of sugar for the bacteria rather than a short window if you were to drink the beverage in one sitting.
It is important to be aware of what you are consuming, not just for your oral health but for your over-all health. Almost all foods, including milk, breads, fruits and vegetables, have some type of sugar, however they should not be removed from your diet. These foods contribute important nutritional content. Foods that contain large amounts of sugar but provide no nutritional value should be limited or removed from your diet. Because all foods continue some quantity of sugar, it is suggested to brush after every meal.

domain: health


The number of small magnitude earthquakes has gradually increased. At one point in time the volcano was only responsible for less than 10 events per month. It has now increased to more than 100 events per month.
However, the volcano has been quiet during this period. No emission of gas or ash has occurred from the lava


Custom PC Squeezes GTX 1080 SLI into Xbox One-Sized Case
Ashley Allen / 4 years ago
It’s unlikely you’ll find a capable SLI’d PC as small as this. An ambitious Australian gamer had the case for this beauty custom-built for nearly $4,000 (Canadian – approximately $3,000 US), which manages to pack in two GTX 1080 graphics cards, two SSDs, and an Intel Core i7 processor.
The case was designed by Canadian custom enclosure creator Protocase for Australian IT consultant Lukasz Dyjakon which, all in, cost $7,336.21 (Canadian – $5,586.52 US) and measures 30 x 30 x 10cm, which is around the same size as an original Xbox One.
The impressive PC includes an Asus MAXIMUS VIII GENE Motherboard, Intel Core i7-6700K CPU, Noctua CPU Cooler, 32GB of DDR4 RAM, Samsung 950 PRO 256GB M.2 SSD, Ultra II 960GB 2.5″ SSD, two EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 8GB Founders Edition cards in SLI, and an FSP Group 850W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply, plus 4 x USB 3.0 and an HDMI pass-through for VR headsets.
“The case is designed so that the 2 hottest components in the case,” Protocase writes, “the CPU and graphics cards (see technical specifications below), are separated and have access to fresh air directly from outside the case. As you can see from the photos below, the CPU is accessing fresh air from the left side of the case, and the dual graphics cards are accessing fresh air from the right side of the case.”


A suspicious vehicle fire at a Turlock Unified School District parking lot on July 10 is currently under investigation by authorities.
Turlock fire crews responded to a fire in the 1400 block of Colorado Avenue around 10 p.m. Friday.
A TUSD lunch van was found burned in the secured parking lot on Colorado Avenue, reported the Turlock Fire Department.
The vehicle’s interior was badly burned, said the Turlock Fire Department.
Fire crews were on scene for approximately two hours to extinguish and investigate the fire, which has been deemed suspicious.
The fire is currently under investigation and there are no known suspects at this time, said Turlock police spokesperson Sgt. Stephen Webb.
Anyone with information on the fire can contact the Turlock Police Department at 209-668-1200.


text:
2014 long range winter forecast | farmers' almanac, What will the coming winter bring? get our long-awaited 2014 forecast!. Local weather from accuweather.com - superior accuracy™, Weather forecast, local to international. world class weather radar plus your up to the minute weather report and current conditions. 2014 long-range weather forecast - almanac.com, Find the old farmer's almanac long range weather forecast..
The weather channel - national and local weather forecast, The weather channel and weather.com provide a national and local weather forecast for cities, as well as weather radar, report and hurricane coverage.. 19 action news -- news, weather, sports for northeast ohio, 19 action news is your local source for information in cleveland, oh, delivering breaking news, weather, sports and exclusive investigations. National weather forecast - weather.com, The weather channel provides a national weather forecast, including forecasts for major sections of the country..
Jersey city, nj weather forecast, radar & news, New jersey local weather center. get the current weather in new jersey, weather forecast, radar and the latest weather news in your new jersey town. get new jersey. Weather forecast & reports - long range & local, Weather underground provides local & long range weather forecast, weather reports, maps & tropical weather conditions for locations worldwide.. Local 7 day weather forecast, radar, long range predictions, Almanac weekly companion: editors handpick timely topics: weather, gardening, the moon, folklore, and more. the almanac.com general store: great savings, exclusive.


A spatial decision support system for special health facility location planning in developing regions
Ethiopian Journal of Environmental Studies and Management
Access to healthcare is a determinant of the wellbeing of the people. Planning the location and distribution of health facilities to ensure efficiency and equity in the face of limited resources can be challenging, especially where the type of care requires expensive equipments and specialists. This study attempts to provide a spatial decision support system (SDSS) to select specific locations for provision of mental health care out of existing health centres. The SDSS in this study uses a
... s study uses a geographic information system (GIS) and location-allocation models. The data used in the SDSS include the coordinates of the location of the mental health facilities, the coordinates and population of the settlements and data on the roads and footpaths in the study area. The empirical results from the application of the SDSS framework shows that the average distance travelled in the existing configuration of mental health care centres (MHC) could be reduced from 15.3 km to 14 km by adopting a model plan. It is also shown that 74.85% of the settlements are more than ten kilometers from the nearest MHC. In order to minimize travel distance and maximize coverage of the population the minimize facilities, model option of the SDSS shows that 21 facilities are required to ensure that the average travel distance is 9.4km and that 98.6% of the settlements are not more than 20 km from the nearest MHC. Decision makers can use the SDSS discussed in this study to achieve efficiency or equity in the provision of health services. Thus it is hoped that health planners would adopt these techniques and tools to make their location decisions more efficient, reduce inequities and be rational in the use of resources.


text:
Quick quiz, geeks! Who is the all-time box office champ when adding up the total grosses from all of his or her films? Harrison Ford? Tom Hanks? Morgan Freeman? Surely it’s Samuel L Jackson? He’s in every movie made!
Nope. It’s this guy.
This guy, who’s films have grossed a rondockulous $15B globally, is Frank Welker; the greatest living legend amongst the voice acting community. If Andy Serkis is the go to guy for motion capture, Welker is the first choice when you need a cartoon monkey scream.
Ok, so he games the system. He is more than happy to do one or two lines in films that are going to be hits to pad his stats (Box Office Mojo doesn’t even have an entry for him!), but the man is prolific and had tons of success.
Despite his dominance in the film industry, Welker is actually best known as a TV voice actor, performing the voices of Fred from Scoobie-Doo, Dr Claw in Inspector Gadget, and Megatron from the Transformers cartoon (he wasn’t Megatron in the films but did perform as Galvatron and Shockwave adding to his total!)


text:
Review of post-coup CSO funding submitted to UN
FEM has submitted a report to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of assembly and association documenting the post-coup funding of CSOs in Myanmar.
The report covers Myanmar’s association regulations, their effect on fundraising, and the military’s crackdown on CSO funding. It also highlights some donor practices before and after the coup.
CSOs in Myanmar have faced severe financial challenges since the coup on 1 February 2021.
The first wave of challenges came from the military, which has attempted to identify, undermine, and attack CSOs and their financial streams, as it sees them as opposed to their power grab. The military’s attempts have mirrored the tactics used globally to undermine the right to freedom of association.
The second wave of challenges came from donors themselves, which were not adequately prepared for a coup, despite all risk assessments highlighting the likelihood and severity of a potential threat to the democratic transition. Each of the challenges faced by CSOs working with donors in other similar countries has been compounded by the coup.
As a result of the pressure from the military and the donors’ response to the coup, CSOs have seriously struggled with accessing resources, including foreign funding, at a time when they needed it most.
Myanmar’s association regulations
The Myanmar government committed in its second UPR to, “continue to create a safe and enabling environment for civil society to help the country’s ongoing transition to democracy.” There has been no evidence of the previous NLD government or the military taking any steps to fulfil that commitment before or after the 2021 coup.
The 2008 Constitution, which was abolished by the parallel government following the coup, gave some guarantees to the right to freedom of association under Article 354(c). However, these guarantees were vague and included significant and overly broad limitations which seriously undermined the right. For example, the right to association is only guaranteed if it is not contrary to other unspecified laws. The right is also limited by vague references to the prevalence of “peace and tranquillity”.
The 2014 Associations Registration Law establishes a regulatory framework for the registration of CSOs. The law ended the requirement for CSOs to register with the government but does not establish real safeguards for those CSOs that do not wish to register.
The Associations Registration Law conflicts with and does not repeal the colonial-era 1908 Unlawful Associations Act. The Unlawful Associations Act criminalises any form of assistance to associations that have been banned by the government. Banned associations include ethnic groups. Since the coup, the military has added the parallel government and CSOs to the list of banned associations. The concept of assisting is vaguely defined to include communication, participation, and offering support.
There have been reports that the military is planning to amend the Associations Registration Law in early 2022, to bring back mandatory registration for all CSOs. The military has not circulated proposals, but in the recent past, similar proposals have been adopted quickly without any consultation. The military-controlled ministries have allegedly paused all registration and renewal requests.
Association regulations impeding access to funding
Successive Myanmar governments have used association regulations to obstruct and impede CSOs’ access to funding. The association regulations enable funding flows for registered CSOs but obstruct funds for unregistered CSOs including those in the process of registering. Registering is hard and relies on arbitrary authorities. Therefore, the barriers to registration are barriers to access to funds.
There are multiple barriers for CSOs that wish to register. Firstly, the process is complicated and requires significant resources. The Association Registration Law is vague and this vagueness is misused by the authorities to create confusing and bureaucratic processes. The department responsible for processing CSO applications requires CSOs to get letters of support from relevant authorities, but the law does not require this.
For example, before registering, the department required FEM to get letters of support from the quasi-governmental Myanmar Press Council as well as the Minister for Information. Getting a letter of support from the Minister of Information was expensive, time-consuming, and bureaucratic. Failing to get letters would have prevented the application from proceeding.
CSOs working on more politically sensitive issues, such as political rights or land rights, are less likely to be given letters of support from the government. In many cases, there are significant conflicts of interest between the relevant officials and CSOs, particularly at the township and district levels.
The department can reject applications for vague, arbitrary, and discriminatory reasons. CSOs do not have a right of appeal, but only a right to be given a reason for the rejection and to reapply. A common reason given is that a CSO is “damaging the rule of law and state security”, which is effectively impossible to address in any reapplication.
Many CSOs are “advised” by the department to change key elements of their constitutions to be approved. Certain words are not allowed in the CSO name. For example, CSOs are not allowed to have the word “Myanmar” in their name, unless they have branch offices across the country. Politically sensitive words like “human rights” are also problematic. As a result, many CSOs have registered names that are very different from their public brands.
The registration is only valid for five years, after which the CSO must re-apply, facing the same barriers once again.
Once registered, CSOs have the right to open a bank account and to accept funding from donors. The Association Registration Law does not say whether unregistered CSOs have the right to accept funding, but no bank will open an account for an unregistered CSO. Being denied a bank account is a serious barrier for CSOs to access funding, particularly from large or international donors. Most unregistered CSOs rely on using joint personal bank accounts to operate.
Utilising funds is easier once registered, but not always. CSOs face harassment from the authorities when trying to implement funds in Myanmar. Before the coup, CSOs could fairly freely implement activities in the largest cities of Yangon and Mandalay. However, activities elsewhere required prior permission from the local authorities. Unregistered CSOs were rarely given permission. Even for registered CSOs, many authorities refused to give permission or delayed to undermine planning.
Since the coup, many CSOs have either closed or moved underground. As a result, the association regulations have become less important in the overall barriers preventing CSOs from accessing funds. Nevertheless, reports that the military is going to bring back mandatory registration of CSOs indicates that the military will continue past governments’ use of the association regulations to obstruct and impede funding.
Military crackdown on funding
The military has actively tried to identify, impede, and obstruct funding for CSOs. The military has utilised its control over the banking system to do so. They ordered the Central Bank of Myanmar to instruct Myanmar’s banks to monitor and collect information about funding to CSOs and their expenditure. Any large domestic transactions or international transactions of any size are flagged by banks which require CSOs to complete paperwork explaining the source of funds, the reason for receiving them, and how they will be used.
The military has also placed pressure on banks to freeze CSOs’ bank accounts in perpetuity. At first, the accounts of politically sensitive CSOs were frozen. More recently, the banks have frozen other CSOs accounts. The banks have requested that CSOs, including FEM, complete new paperwork explaining their mandates, and more recently have requested CSO staff to come to ominous meetings inside the bank branches.
Using Myanmar’s banks is now a high risk for CSOs. Many CSOs still have funds inside banks that are practically inaccessible. Almost all CSO funding and expenditure is now done using alternative methods that are less visible to the military. Alternative methods are both costly and have their issues, and therefore it is likely that funding flows have significantly decreased in scale.
Causes and responses
Before the coup, the main driver for the authorities to obstruct or impede CSOs from accessing funds was to undermine the capacity, stability, and security of CSOs that threatened the authorities’ power. Association registration in particular was a political process rather than a legal one. Those CSOs that conducted non-politically sensitive activities, such as support for health and education, were generally freely registered and unimpeded from accessing and using funds. Any CSOs that worked on more politically-sensitive issues were obstructed at every level.
Politically-sensitive issues include land rights, labour rights, minority rights, political rights, and human rights more generally. Anti-corruption CSOs and trade unions were also at risk. Obstructions were probably more acute for local CSOs than national ones, given that local CSOs were perhaps more threatening to individuals within the local authorities. For example, local land rights CSOs.
Since the coup, the driver has been the same. The major difference is that almost all CSOs are now a threat to the military’s power. The pre-coup authorities tolerated more civic activity including oppositional and critical elements. The military does not tolerate any civic activity whatsoever, deeming all to be a potential oppositional threat to its totalitarian mindset. Even CSOs offering COVID-19 support have been threatened and shut down by the military.
CSOs did not significantly challenge the association regulations or obstacles to accessing funds in the courts before the coup. For the most part, this was because the courts were not regarded as independent arbitrators and would not protect justice or the rule of law. Instead, CSOs looked to public pressure to try to influence the authorities and their decision making.
Donor practices before the coup
Before the coup, some donors’ practices often obstructed and impeded CSOs’ access to funds and CSOs’ ability to utilise those funds effectively.
Application processes, financial procedures, and financial rules are important for holding CSOs accountable for any funds received. However, some donors’ practices are overly resource and capacity intensive. These practices are both unnecessary and, where necessary, disproportionate. For example, some donor applications are designed by well-resourced staff who create complex processes for comparatively small funds for small CSOs. As a further example, some donors employ highly-skilled finance professionals to interact with CSO staff with comparatively basic training. Both examples demonstrate unnecessary and disproportionate practices that serve to alienate and exclude CSOs from funding. FEM has experienced donors who have 18-month-long application processes for 12-month-long funds. FEM has also experienced donors who take upwards of eight months to approve contracted payments.
Some donors’ unnecessary and disproportionate practices encourage CSOs to invest a greater proportion of their capacity and resources into servicing the donors themselves, rather than servicing their beneficiaries. In effect, some donors’ practices make the donor itself a significant beneficiary of the capacity of a CSO. This reduces the potential impact of any funds received.
One potential cause of this is some donors’ lack of understanding of CSOs, what they do, and how they operate. Donors may have high skills but in some cases, they lack experience as a CSO recipient. Often, if they do have experience as a recipient, it is from within an INGO, which operate in a very different way to CSOs. This inexperience creates the risk that such donors will establish systems that are unsuitable for the needs of the parties involved, and undoubtedly impede CSOs access to funds.
Some donor practices also negatively disrupt the general CSO funding situation. For example, some donors change their funding priorities, introducing new funding, and intentionally or otherwise encouraging their CSO recipients to adjust their priorities too. Sometimes disruption can be positive, bringing in new CSOs with different approaches or diverse representations. However, disruption can also be negative, increasing inexperience, undermining strategies, and splintering partnerships.
Donor practices can also be harmful to CSOs too. Some donors require CSOs to be registered to receive funds. While this may be intended for better financial accountability, it also encourages potential recipients to take unconsidered risks by force rather than by informed choice. Some donors worryingly put out calls for funding proposals on politically sensitive subjects knowing that most CSOs operating on those subjects are unregistered due to increased risk from the government. If a CSO has invested resources in applying for funding, and then at the end is told only registered CSOs can receive funds, there is significant pressure placed on the CSO to take the risk.
Over the past decade, some donors have also prioritised the creation of donor intermediaries. Intermediaries may be either private companies or INGOs, and they receive funds from a donor and distribute those funds to CSOs. They are not similar to INGO-CSO partnerships, because intermediaries do not support or add value to the CSO’s work. In many cases, intermediaries have no experience in the CSOs’ field of work. Instead, intermediaries only act as outsourcing for donors’ application processes and financial management to reduce overheads.
Intermediaries impede CSOs’ access to funds because they disrupt the relationship between donor and recipient, filtering information flows and preventing the development of sustainable relationships. Intermediaries are often comparatively opaque and unaccountable too. Intermediaries often significantly slow down funding and make funding processes more inefficient and inflexible.
Donors since the coup
Since the coup, access to funding reportedly declined significantly in the first few months. Generally, donors’ responses could be separated into two distinct categories. The first category of donors was quick to react, bringing in flexible and responsive funding for CSOs within the first couple of months after the coup began. These donors were able to inject small amounts of funding to cover CSOs’ contingency needs resulting from the military’s power-grab. They were also able to use lower risk means to transfer funds and were more willing to agree to different reporting requirements commensurate with the context.
The second category of donors was extremely slow to react. In many cases, a year after the coup began, these donors are still unable or unwilling to fulfil their previous commitments to CSOs, let alone make new commitments. This second category of donors has contributed significantly to facilitating the military’s attack on CSOs’ access to funding.
The difference between the two categories of donors was not the result of the type of donor. Some governmental donors were quick to react and supportive, and others were slow. Some INGO donors were flexible and responsive, and others were extremely blind to the context. In many cases, it was donor intermediaries who most impeded CSOs’ access to funds.
- All States should protect and fulfil the right to freedom of association, and all third parties including other States should hold them accountable.
- All States should avoid any form of interference with CSOs and their work. Only laws of general application should apply to CSOs, and only when necessary for the public interest.
- All States should actively support CSOs by removing obstructions to their operations including fundraising.
- Donors should prioritise supporting CSOs above and beyond all other areas of civil society. CSOs are the lifeblood of democracy and human rights.
- Donors should establish necessary and proportionate systems for working with and managing CSOs, including applications, finances, and reporting. Wherever possible, donors should establish direct and sustainable relationships, avoiding intermediaries unless those intermediaries provide real added value to the work of CSOs.
- Donors should ensure proper systems of accountability that are accessible to their beneficiaries.

domain: law


text:
The transmembrane protease ADAM17 regulates the release and density of various leukocyte cell surface proteins that modulate inflammation, including L-selectin, TNF-α, and IL-6R. At this time, its in vivo substrates and role in pulmonary inflammation have not been directly examined. Using conditional ADAM17 knock-out mice, we investigated leukocyte ADAM17 in acute lung inflammation. Alveolar TNF-α levels were significantly reduced (>95%) in ADAM17-null mice following LPS administration, as was the shedding of L-selectin, a neutrophil-expressed adhesion molecule. Alveolar IL-6R levels, however, were reduced by only ≈25% in ADAM17-null mice, indicating that ADAM17 is not its primary sheddase in our model. Neutrophil infiltration into the alveolar compartment is a key event in the pathophysiology of acute airway inflammation. Following LPS inhalation, alveolar neutrophil levels and lung inflammation in ADAM17-null mice were overall reduced when compared to control mice. Interestingly, however, neutrophil recruitment to the alveolar compartment occurred earlier in ADAM17-null mice after exposure to LPS. This decrease in alveolar neutrophil recruitment in ADAM17-null mice was accompanied by significantly diminished alveolar levels of the neutrophil-tropic chemokines CXCL1 and CXCL5. Altogether, our study suggests that leukocyte ADAM17 promotes inflammation in the lung, and thus this sheddase may be a potential target in the design of pharmacologic therapies for acute lung injury.
Citation: Arndt PG, Strahan B, Wang Y, Long C, Horiuchi K, Walcheck B (2011) Leukocyte ADAM17 Regulates Acute Pulmonary Inflammation. PLoS ONE 6(5): e19938. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0019938
Editor: Marco Idzko, University Hospital Freiburg, Germany
Received: December 31, 2010; Accepted: April 15, 2011; Published: May 16, 2011
Copyright: © 2011 Arndt et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Funding: This study was supported by research funding HL61613, AI083521 (BW) and HL84201 (PGA) from the National Institutes of Health. No additional external funding was received for this study. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Acute lung injury (ALI), along with its more severe form acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), affects ≈200,000 persons annually in the United States with mortality rates still unexpectedly high –. Various events can incite ARDS, and the release of pleiotropic inflammatory mediators such as TNF-α plays a key role in the lung inflammation that occurs , . TNF-α release activates leukocytes, endothelial cells, and parenchymal cells in the lung, and induces the production of various neutrophil chemoattractants –. Neutrophil infiltration into the alveolar airspace is a critical event in the pathophysiology of airway inflammation. These cells release, in part, various proteases and reactive oxygen species that facilitate progressive lung injury –. Accordingly, the identification of mechanisms that regulate pulmonary inflammation, and specifically the recruitment of neutrophils and the release of TNF-α, is critical for determining therapeutic targets to lessen lung injury.
During the inflammatory response, various cell surface proteins undergo ectodomain shedding, typically at a juxta-membrane site that leads to the release of a soluble extracellular domain fragment. A number of leukocyte determinants that undergo this regulated proteolytic process have an important role in modulating inflammation . A disintegrin and metalloproteinase-17 (ADAM17), originally referred to as TNF-α converting enzyme (TACE) , , plays a broad role in mediating ectodomain shedding . Hence, we hypothesized that ADAM17 may have an important regulatory function in pulmonary inflammation. However, examining the role of ADAM17 in vivo is challenging, as homozygous deletion of the Adam17 gene results in perinatal lethality , . To overcome this limitation, we have generated conditional ADAM17-null mice with an ADAM17 deficiency in all leukocytes . These animals are viable and we show here that a deficiency of leukocyte-expressed ADAM17 markedly alters neutrophil infiltration into the lung with an overall diminution in their recruitment to the alveolar compartment during acute lung inflammation. We also address the relevance of L-selectin, IL-6R, and TNF-α as in vivo substrates of leukocyte ADAM17 in the lung.
ADAM17 regulates L-selectin, TNF-α and IL-6R levels in the lung after LPS exposure
To examine if leukocyte ADAM17 can regulate pulmonary inflammation, we generated ADAM17-null mice [Adam17flox/ΔZn/Vav-Cre] with an ADAM17 deficiency in leukocytes only. Similar to radiation chimeric mice reconstituted with ADAM17-deficient leukocytes that we have previously described , , our ADAM17-null mice were viable . Cleavage of the well described ADAM17 substrate L-selectin was greatly impaired in neutrophils, monocytes, and lymphocytes from ADAM17-null mice following their overt activation in vitro when compared with the same leukocyte subsets from control mice (Fig. 1A, B). Despite ADAM17-deficient leukocytes expressing higher surface levels of L-selectin than control leukocytes, their levels of L-selectin mRNA were equivalent (Fig. 1C), indicating differential L-selectin shedding and not gene expression as a mechanism for their increased cell surface L-selectin levels. Neutrophil migration from the circulation into the underlying tissue at sites of inflammation results in L-selectin shedding . We observed that alveolar neutrophils from ADAM17-null mice after LPS inhalation expressed significantly higher levels of surface L-selectin than alveolar neutrophils from control mice (Fig. 1D). Surface L-selectin levels were 5.4±2.5-fold higher on alveolar neutrophils from ADAM17-null mice than from control mice after LPS challenge (mean ± SD, n = 7 mice in each group). In contrast, the non-cleavable, cell surface adhesion molecule Mac-1 (CD11b/CD18) was expressed at equivalent levels by alveolar neutrophils from ADAM17-null and control mice following LPS instillation (Fig. 1D), demonstrating that ADAM17 deficiency did not cause a global up-regulation in the expression of cell surface molecules. Soluble L-selectin levels were also significantly reduced in the bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid of ADAM17-null mice when compared to control mice (Fig. 1E).
A: Bone marrow-derived leukocytes from ADAM17-null (KO) and control mice (wild-type) were treated with PMA or without (resting) for 30 minutes, as indicated, and then double-stained for surface expression of L-selectin and the neutrophil marker Ly-6G. B: Peripheral blood leukocytes from ADAM17-null (KO) and control mice (WT) were activated with PMA for 30 minutes and relative surface L-selectin expression levels were compared on neutrophils (Ly-6Ghigh CD11bhigh), monocytes (Ly-6G− CD11bhigh), B cells (B220+), and T cells (CD3+), as indicated in the overlay plots. C: Detection of mouse L-selectin mRNA levels by semiquantitative RT-PCR was performed as described in the Materials and Methods. RNA was isolated from bone marrow neutrophils harvested from ADAM17-null and control mice. PCR amplification was performed for L-selectin and hypoxanthine phosphoribosyltransferase (HPRT), and the PCR products generated were 280 bp and 320 bp, respectively. Data are representative of three experiments using bone marrow neutrophils from separate mice. D: BAL leukocytes from ADAM17-null (KO) and control (WT) mice 2 hours after LPS inhalation were triple-stained for surface expression of Ly-6G, F4/80, and L-selectin or Mac-1. Leukocytes with the phenotypic profile Ly-6Ghigh F4/80− were considered to be neutrophils. For panels A, B, and D, relative staining levels of 10,000 labeled cells were determined by flow cytometry. For all histogram plots, isotype-matched negative control antibody staining is indicated (Isotype). The y axis = cell number and the x axis = Log 10 fluorescence. Data are representative of at least 5 mice in each group. E: BAL fluid levels of soluble L-selectin from ADAM17-null (KO) and control mice (WT) either exposed to LPS for 8 hours or not (control). Results are expressed as mean ± SD of 4 mice in each group at each time point.
Neutrophils and macrophages are a primary source of soluble TNF-α upon the induction of inflammation , , and ADAM17 is a well described sheddase of TNF-α by these cells , , , . We determined the levels of TNF-α in the BAL fluid of LPS exposed ADAM17-null and control mice, and found it to be greatly decreased (>95%) in ADAM17-null mice when compared to levels seen in control mice at time points that encompass its peak production after LPS challenge (Fig. 2A). Despite the near ablation of soluble TNF-α production in the alveolar compartment, the levels of TNF-α in the lung interstitial compartment were diminished by only ≈40% and 25% at 2 and 8 hours, respectively, following LPS inhalation in ADAM17-null mice (Fig. 2A), which may be due in part to ADAM17 expression by non-hematopoietic, lung parenchymal cells.
Protein concentrations for TNF-α (A) and IL-6R (B) were measured by ELISA on BAL fluid (left panels) and lung homogenates (right panels) from ADAM17-null (KO) and control mice (WT) after LPS inhalation. Levels of TNF-α and soluble IL-6R in both groups of mice prior to LPS exposure were below the detection sensitivity of the ELISA (data not shown). * p<0.01 KO versus WT; # p<0.05 KO versus WT. Results are expressed as mean ± SD of at least 5 mice in each group at each time point. For the lung homogenates, data is expressed as pg/mg protein to normalize for the total amount of homogenate protein “loaded” in the ELISA well.
ADAM17 has been implicated as a key sheddase of the IL-6R as well . We observed that soluble IL-6R levels were also significantly decreased in the alveolar compartment of ADAM17-null mice after LPS exposure (Fig. 2B), though this did not occur to nearly the same extent as TNF-α. For instance, at 2 hours after LPS exposure, soluble IL-6R levels in the airspace were ≈25% lower in ADAM17-null mice than in control mice (Fig. 2B). In the interstitial compartment, however, we did not observe a statistically significant difference in IL-6R levels in ADAM17-null mice after LPS exposure (Fig. 2B). It should be noted that our lung homogenizing buffer contained a detergent, and thus a portion of the TNF-α and IL-6R detected in the lung homogenates may represent membrane forms of these molecules. Taken together, the results above suggest that ADAM17 is the primary sheddase of L-selectin and TNF-α by alveolar leukocytes, but not of the IL-6R during acute pulmonary inflammation.
Targeting leukocyte ADAM17 alters the time course and levels of pulmonary neutrophil recruitment
Neutrophil recruitment into the alveolar airspace is pivotal for inducing lung damage associated with an increase in mortality . We compared the levels of neutrophil recruitment in the alveolar compartment of ADAM17-null and control mice. We have shown that ADAM17-null mice have similar leukocyte subset proportions in their peripheral blood and circulating neutrophil counts as control mice –. We observed, however, that 2 hours after exposure to aerosolized LPS, alveolar neutrophil counts were significantly higher in ADAM17-null mice (Fig. 3A). These results reveal that the significantly decreased levels of alveolar TNF-α and IL-6R observed in ADAM17-null mice at this time point, as discussed above, were not due to an attenuated influx of neutrophils into the alveolar compartment. Interestingly, we found that alveolar neutrophil counts were considerably lower in ADAM17-null mice at 8 hours after LPS inhalation (Fig. 3A), which represents the peak in alveolar neutrophil recruitment in our model , . Alveolar macrophages, however, were not significantly different in ADAM17-null and control mice at either time point following LPS inhalation (Fig. 3B). In contrast to the alveolar air spaces, neutrophil levels in the interstitial compartment, as assessed by myeloperoxidase (MPO), did not differ between the two groups of mice at 2 or 8 hours after LPS challenge (Fig. 3C). These data indicate that the greatest effect of leukocyte ADAM17 was on regulating neutrophil movement to the alveolar compartment, and overall there was a marked decrease in acute lung inflammation, as revealed by histopathology (Fig. 3D).
A: ADAM17-null (KO) and control (WT) mice were exposed to aerosolized LPS. At the times indicated, mice were sacrificed and BAL was performed with total numbers of neutrophils determined. Results are expressed as mean ± SD of 5 mice in each group at each time point. * p<0.001 KO versus WT. B: Total numbers of BAL macrophages were determined in ADAM17-null (KO) and control (WT) mice at the indicated times following their exposure to aerosolized LPS. Results are expressed as mean ± SD of at least 3 mice in each group at each time point. C: MPO assays were performed on lung homogenates obtained from ADAM17-null and control mice exposed to LPS. MPO is expressed as activity per gram of lung tissue. D: Lungs from LPS exposed, ADAM17-null (left panel) and control mice (right panel) were isolated 8 hours after LPS exposure as described in the Materials and Methods. Lung sections (5 µm) were stained with hematoxylin and eosin. Note the increased number of cellular nuclei and thickened alveolar walls in the right panel. The stained tissue sections are shown at 100× magnification. Images are representative of 4 mice per group.
Alveolar levels of neutrophil chemoattractants are decreased after exposure to LPS in ADAM17-null mice
TNF-α has been reported to induce the expression of chemokines that promote pulmonary neutrophil recruitment , . As levels of TNF-α were reduced in the alveolar and interstitial compartments of the lung after LPS exposure in ADAM17-null mice (Fig. 2A), this suggested that LPS-induced chemokine levels may also be diminished, thereby providing a mechanism for the decrease in alveolar neutrophil recruitment in ADAM17-null mice. To determine whether the production of chemokines important for neutrophil recruitment into the alveolar airspace is altered in ADAM17-null mice upon LPS inhalation, we examined the levels of CXCL1 (KC), CXCL2 (MIP-2), CXCL5 (LIX) in the BAL fluid. We observed that the alveolar concentrations of CXCL5 were significantly lower in ADAM17-null mice than control mice at 2 hours, but not 8 hours, after LPS instillation (Fig. 4). CXCL1 alveolar levels were also significantly lower in ADAM17-null mice, but only at 8 hours after LPS instillation (Fig. 4). In contrast to CXCL1 and CXCL5, alveolar levels of CXCL2 were not significantly different in the two groups of mice at 2 and 8 hours after LPS instillation (Fig. 4). Lung levels of CXCL5 were modestly lower at 2 hours, but not 8 hours, after LPS instillation in ADAM17-null mice, whereas lung levels of CXCL1 and CXCL2 were found not to differ between ADAM17-null and control mice (Fig. 4). The latter findings correspond with the similar level of neutrophils in the interstitial compartment after LPS exposure in the two groups of mice (Figure 3B).
Protein concentrations for CXCL5, CXCL1, and CXCL2 were measured by ELISA on BAL fluid (left column) and lung homogenates (right column) from ADAM17-null (KO) and control (WT) mice after exposure to LPS for the indicated times. Levels of the chemokines in both groups of mice prior to LPS exposure were below the detection sensitivity of the ELISA (data not shown). * p<0.01 KO versus WT; # p<0.05 KO versus WT. Results are expressed as mean ± SD of at least 5 mice in each group at each time point. For the lung homogenates, data is expressed as pg/mg protein to normalize for the total amount of homogenate protein “loaded” in the ELISA well.
In this study we report for the first time that ectodomain shedding by leukocyte ADAM17 participates in regulating neutrophil migration into the inflamed lung. Pulmonary neutrophil recruitment is a critical mechanism of pulmonary inflammatory disorders such as ARDS , , –. Excessive neutrophil recruitment into the alveolar compartment in particular has been associated with worsening lung damage and increased mortality . We observed in ADAM17-null mice, whose leukocytes lack functional ADAM17, that neutrophil accumulation in the alveolar compartment, although occurring earlier, was overall significantly decreased compared to control mice following their exposure to LPS. This same pattern of rapid but attenuated neutrophil accumulation in the lung air spaces also occurred upon intratracheal injection of ADAM17-null mice with the Gram-positive bacterial constituent lipoteichoic acid (Arndt et al. unpublished results), a functional equivalent to LPS that instead induces neutrophil infiltration into the lung via TLR2. Neutrophil migration into the lung interstitial compartment, however, was not significantly decreased in ADAM17-null mice following LPS challenge, indicating that the targeting of leukocyte ADAM17 does not impair neutrophil infiltration into the interstitium from the pulmonary blood vessels, but does alter their advancement to the alveolar compartment.
ADAM17 expressed by neutrophils is a primary sheddase of L-selectin and TNF-α , ; however, its relevancy in vivo by neutrophils recruited to the inflamed lung has not previously been examined. We show that the conversion of membrane L-selectin and TNF-α to their soluble forms was greatly impaired in the inflamed lungs of ADAM17-null mice. In contrast to these substrates, the sheddase activity regulating the cleavage of IL-6R is in the early stages of being understood. The cleaved form of the IL-6R binds secreted IL-6 and enhances its pleiotropic activity through the activation of cells that lack expression of IL-6R via trans-signaling through the ubiquitously expressed glycoprotein 130 . In vitro studies have implicated ADAM17 in IL-6R shedding , yet the biological relevance of ADAM17 in this process has not been directly investigated in vivo. Our results reveal that in the context of lung inflammation, ADAM17 participates in the shedding of IL-6R, but in contrast to TNF-α and L-selectin, ADAM17 is not the primary sheddase of leukocyte IL-6R. ADAM10 has also been reported to cleave the IL-6R , and thus it will be interesting to directly investigate its role in IL-6R shedding in a setting of acute lung inflammation.
It is well recognized that TNF-α induces an extensive array of downstream events that further promote inflammation, and thus the greatly diminished production of soluble TNF-α by ADAM17-deficient leukocytes likely contributed to the reduced levels of alveolar neutrophils as lung inflammation progressed after LPS exposure. For instance, TNF-α signaling has been directly shown to induce the production of neutrophil-tropic chemokines in the alveoli following LPS exposure , . As CXCL1, CXCL2, and CXCL5 are major chemokines directing neutrophil recruitment into the murine lung –, we examined their levels in the alveolar compartment of the lung in ADAM17-null and control mice. CXCL2 levels were found to be similar in the two groups of mice. However, CXCL5 and CXCL1 levels in ADAM17-null mice were significantly decreased at 2 hours and 8 hours, respectively, following LPS instillation. CXCL5 is primarily expressed by activated alveolar type II cells , and attenuated early production of soluble TNF-α by resident and recruited leukocytes in ADAM17-null mice may have delayed the activation of these cells and the initial production of CXCL5 in the airspace. CXCL1 is secreted by a variety of cells including neutrophils , –, and the time frame of its reduction in alveolar levels in ADAM17-null mice corresponded with the marked reduction in alveolar neutrophil numbers as inflammation progressed following LPS exposure. In contrast to the alveolar spaces, only CXCL5 was decreased in the interstitial compartment of the lung in ADAM17-null mice. The greater reduction in neutrophil-tropic chemokines in the alveolar compartment of ADAM17-null mice implies a specific molecular process accounting for the lack of neutrophil transepithelial migration into the alveolar air spaces at the later time point in our study. Of additional interest is that alveolar neutrophil levels in ADAM17-null mice were initially enhanced upon inducing lung inflammation when compared to control mice. The reasons for this are not clear at this time, but may be the result of still other neutrophil chemoattractants or an enhanced ability of ADAM17-deficient neutrophils to respond to them.
In conclusion, our study demonstrates for the first time that leukocyte ADAM17 regulates acute lung inflammation by modulating intra-alveolar neutrophil levels and the shedding of IL-6R, L-selectin, and TNF-α. It is known that preventing TNF-α activity can increase host susceptibility to infection, and thus it will be important to determine the role of leukocyte ADAM17 in pulmonary defense against bacterial infection. Of interest is that we have recently reported that ADAM17-null mice demonstrate enhanced host resistance, including decreased hematogenous spread of bacterial to the lung, during E. coli-mediated abdominal sepsis .
Materials and Methods
Generation of conditional ADAM17 knock-out mice
Experimental procedures involving animals were approved by the Animal Care and Use Committee of the University of Minnesota and performed in accordance with the United States Public Health Service Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and the Animal Welfare Act. Taceflox/flox mice , TaceΔZn/+ mice (ΔZn represents a targeted deletion of exon 11 that encodes the catalytic active site of the ADAM17 metalloprotease domain, resulting in a lack of enzymatic activity) , and Vav1-cre transgenic mice ,  have all been previously described. Adam17 instead of Tace is the current gene symbol and will be used for our mouse colony nomenclature. Vav1-cre transgenic mice, which directs Cre-recombinase activity specifically in all hematopoietic cells , were crossed with Adam17ΔZn/+ mice to produce Adam17ΔZn/+/Vav-Cre mice. These mice, which are of mixed genetic background (129Sv, C57Bl/6), were then crossed with Adam17flox/flox mice to generate Adam17flox/ΔZn/Vav-Cre and Adam17flox/ΔZn mice. This breeding scheme was used to avoid Cre activity in the germ line causing conversion of the floxed allele to a null allele and non-tissue specific Adam17 gene deletion in the offspring. Littermate Adam17flox/ΔZn mice were used as controls since there is no described haploinsufficiency by Adam17 . Herein, the Adam17flox/ΔZn/Vav-Cre and Adam17flox/ΔZn mice will be referred to as ADAM17-null and control mice, respectively. ADAM17-null and control mice were distinguished by PCR and functional screening. For the latter, we assessed shedding of the ADAM17 substrate L-selectin by peripheral blood neutrophils, monocytes, and lymphocytes, as previously described , . ADAM17-null mice demonstrating essentially complete abrogation of L-selectin shedding by their leukocytes were used in this study.
Aerosolized model of LPS-induced acute lung inflammation
Mice 8–12 weeks of age were used for our studies. LPS [E. coli O111:B4; 300 µg/ml in 0.9% saline (Sigma, St. Louis, MO)] was administered by aerosolization (20 minutes exposure period). Based on previous experiments, 2 and 8 hour time points were chosen as they represent the peaks in cytokine/chemokine levels and neutrophil influx, respectively , . Animals were anesthetized with Avertin (240 mg/kg per mouse IP) 30 minutes prior to intratracheal inoculation. Mice were sacrificed by an overdose of sodium pentobarbital (100 mg/kg), blood was collected, BAL was performed, bone marrow isolated, and lungs were collected, snap frozen, and stored at −80°C until further analysis, as previously described , . Total cell counts by hemocytometer and cell differentials of Wright stained cytocentrifuged samples were performed on BAL fluid. Endotoxin free glassware and plasticware were used in all experiments. MPO levels, as a quantification of the number of neutrophils recruited to the lung after exposure to LPS, were performed as we have previously described , . For lung histology, mice did not undergo BAL and instead lungs were isolated, inflated, and fixed in 3.7% formalin overnight at room temperature as previously described .
ELISA for CXCL1, CXCL2, CXCL5, soluble IL-6R, L-selectin, and TNF-α were performed on BAL fluid and lung homogenate supernatants using commercially available kits (R&D Systems, Minneapolis, MN) following the manufacturer's protocols. Lungs were homogenized in PBS containing leupeptin (10 µg/ml), aprotinin (10 µg/ml), PMSF (300 mM), and 1% Triton X-100, centrifuged 10 minutes at 2,040g with supernatants collected and frozen at −80°C until assayed. For normalization of results for lung total protein, protein estimation on lung homogenates was performed using the Bradford assay kit following the manufacturer's instructions (Thermo Scientific, Rockford, IL).
Cell labeling and flow cytometry
Detection of mouse L-selectin mRNA levels by semiquantitative RT-PCR was performed as described with modifications . Bone marrow neutrophils were harvested from ADAM17-null and control mice and total cellular RNA was isolated from 5×106 cells using a Qiagen RNeasy Mini Kit along with RNase-Free DNase to remove residual amounts of DNA, which were performed according to the manufacturer's instructions (Qiagen, Valencia, CA). Reverse transcription and PCR were performed sequentially using a Qiagen OneStep RT-PCR Kit and mouse L-selectin gene-specific primers, as per the manufacturer's instructions. PCR amplification was performed using the following primers (5′ to 3′): L-selectin, CATTCCTGTAGCCGTCATGG and AGGAGGAGCTGTTGGTCATG; hypoxanthine phosphoribosyltransferase (internal control), GTTGGATACAGGCCAGACTTTGTTG and GAAGGGTAGGCTGGCCTATAGGCT, which do not amplify genomic DNA. The PCR conditions consisted of 95°C for 15 min and 30 cycles of 94°C 30 sec; 57°C 30 sec; 72°C 40 sec, and a final 72°C for 10 min. Thirty cycles were determined to be below the plateau phase of amplification for all primers (data not shown), giving an accurate reflection of the relative starting levels of mRNA. PCR products were detected by 1.5% agarose gel electrophoresis.
We thank Dr. Carl Blobel (Hospital for Special Surgery, Weill Medical College of Cornell University) for providing the Adam17flox/flox mice, Drs. Roy Black and Jacques Peschon (Amgen, Inc.) for providing the Adam17ΔZn/+ mice, and Dr. Dimitris Kioussis (National Institute for Medical Research, London) for providing the Vav1-Cre transgenic mice.
Conceived and designed the experiments: BW PGA. Performed the experiments: BW PGA BS YW CL. Analyzed the data: BW PGA BS YW. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: KH CL. Wrote the paper: BW PGA.
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domain: medical


text:
Is 'The Godfather' Based On a True Story? ... The concept of the five families of New York is most certainly based on fact. While each Boss and his family draws characteristics from the real-life New York families, there don't seem to be any clear-cut associations between one family and the other.
The Corleone family is a fictional Sicilian-American organized crime family, and the focus of the novels and films of The Godfather series. The family was created by Mario Puzo and first appears in his 1969 novel The Godfather. The family is from Corleone, Sicily, Italy and is based in New York City.
The Godfather is a classic of American cinema, and Godfather Part 2 is considered by some an even better movie. This story of the patriarch of a New York crime family, and his son who takes over the “family business,” is largely based on Mario Puzo’s novel of the same name, with director Francis Ford Coppola and Puzo producing new ...
In addition, Connie Corleone's wedding is based on the wedding of Salvatore Bonanno to Rosalie Profaci. Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo envisioned The Godfather IV, which would be about the downfall of Vincenzo Corleone, as he lead the family into drug dealing and bringing about his demise in a similar fashion as the death of Pablo Escobar.
Since Vito Corleone is a conglomerate of Frank Costello, Joe Bonanno and Salvatore Maranzano his Family would also be based on those three.
In fact, Marlon Brando even based Corleone’s soft, raspy voice on Costello’s after he listened to tapes of Costello testifying to the Kefauver Committee on Organized Crime. 2. Casino mogul Moe Greene’s life and death mimics real-life mobster Bugsy Siegel’s. In The Godfather, Moe Greene
The Godfather is a historic movie that made and remade history. Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of Mario Puzo’s best-selling family novel is consistently rated in the top three motion ...
The Godfather is a 1972 American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola and produced by Albert S. Ruddy, based on Mario Puzo's best-selling novel of the same name. It stars Marlon Brando and Al Pacino as the leaders of a fictional New York crime family.
The Five Families are major crime families, each operating in specific territories and owning a seat on the Commission. After the Five Families War, only the Corleone family remained in a position of power, the other families were given over to lesser men who quickly sued for peace. Families...
Following are the five families and a bit about their history and interlinks: > [The commission: Consisting of all the powerful mafia families] The Corleone family Founded by Don Vito Corleone in 1920s. I’ll skip their details as the whole trilogy...

domain: library


The Downtown Houston+ Economic Development Program (EDP) leads work to support the health and vitality of Downtown’s dynamic markets, including office, retail, hospitality, residential, entertainment/tourism and new development.
Key components of the EDP include the Research + Reports Program and support for the retail sector. Retail work includes focused incentives as well as recruitment and retention strategies. The EDP coordinates with the Planning & Capital Projects team to advance the economic benefits of near-term and long-range planning.
Downtown Houston+’s active collaborations with the City of Houston, Harris County, Houston-Galveston Area Council, Greater Houston Partnership, Houston First Corporation, Houston Management Districts, and Downtown-based economic development drivers are core to the EDP team mission.


Deptford Presents...Alternative visions for the King's Yard
Friday 4th November
6.30-10pm, Presentation at 7pm
The Master Shipwright's House
Watergate Street SE8 3JF
The organisers say, "With elements ranging from local to international significance, and opportunities for education, work and leisure, Deptford Presents proposals which have the capacity to inform and infuse the wider design to create a world class place for London."
Inspired by the wealth of heritage on the site, suggestions include: building a Restoration warship using traditional and modern ship-building skills (based on two highly successful European projects which rejuvenated the fortunes of the towns they are based in, bringing skilled jobs, tourism and community pride); and recreating the historic garden of John Evelyn's Sayes Court as a fantastic public space.
To get a preview of these ideas have a look at these 'Deptford Is...' links:
The Hermione Project
Rebuilding the 18th century ship, the Hermione, at Rochefort, France
Sayes Court Garden campaign
Imagine walking through this garden...
© Modelling by Robert Bagley and Roo Angel 2011


You might be surprised to learn that Eastman School of Music Professor of Music Theory David Temperley's third book is "The Musical Language of Rock." In an article in City Paper, Mona Seghatoleslami describes Temperley's compositional style as "tuneful, well-constructed classical chamber music with elements of pop and rock interwoven throughout." As with his cello sonata that showed up earlier this month in Performance Rochester, you can hear all of those influences in his Sonata for Viola and Piano.
You may also be surprised by the cello-like sound of the viola. This is because soloist Rudolf Haken plays a custom five string viola, which adds more depth to its voice. This was recorded in Hatch Recital Hall on October 11, 2018. David Temperley is the pianist. And after you listen to this delightful, elegant work, you can listen to his insightful interview with Mona from January, 2020.


About the activity
Hidden in the middle of the big ski resorts, come and live a natural moment! Between spruces and larches, come and immerse yourself in our beautiful forests for an afternoon/day or a starry evening.
Between an imaginary world and the tracks of our mountain animals, come and get some fresh air!
Half-day themed walks. Observation of flora and fauna, animal tracks, slides, landscapes, 360 ° view…
full day 500


Prime Minister Andrej Babiš says he respects the fact the government human rights council backed Helen Válková remaining as Czech human rights commissioner. The PM said if he had felt otherwise he would have removed Ms. Válková, who was previously justice minister for his ANO party, from the post.
She had been President Miloš Zeman’s nominee to become the next ombudsman but he withdrew her name after she became embroiled in a controversy linked to a notorious communist-era prosecutor.
Czech biochemist involved in developing potential coronavirus treatment
“Einstein in Bohemia” – Part II: how alienation in ‘half-barbaric’ Prague led him to a new theory of gravity, eventual love of a free Czechoslovakia
Coronavirus: Prague Airport designates special gates for arrivals from Italy
Coronavirus: Czechs to convene commission following spread to Italy
Enter the Dragon: Czech glass artworks master Lasvit installs ‘world’s biggest jewels’ in luxury Saipan hotel


Shepard is participating in the Sanrio Small Gifts Art Show in Miami curated by Roger Gastman and Zio Fulcher. Shepard created this OBEY x Hello Kitty Screen Print to celebrate the project and show.
Monthly Archives: July 2012
Clip: Introductions at Seville Square in downtown Pensacola on Saturday were based more on noses and smells than handshakes and hellos.Hundreds of canines led their owners through a maze of leashes, vendors and other patrons during Barktoberfest, an annual event hosted by the Humane Society of Pensacola.The event — one of the main fundraisers for(…)
An eight-year-old dog has touched the hearts of Argentines by saving the life of an abandoned baby, placing him safely alongside her own new puppies. The country's media are calling him "the miracle baby". He was born prematurely to a 14-year-old girl in a shanty town outside the capital, Buenos Aires. She is said to(…)


Family Style: Thien Pham on the "nervewracking" aspect of publishing a personal story
Family Style: Memories of an American from Vietnam will hit the shelves on June 30
Sleeping dragons, illustration, and The Nutcracker with Natalie Andrewson
Illustrator Natalie Andrewson dives into her creative process
Travis Daventhorpe is destined to save the multiverse in Wes Molebash's Travis Daventhorpe for the Win!
Take an exclusive first look at an excerpt from the brand new kid's graphic novel Travis Daventhorpe for the Win!
An exclusive preview of Deb JJ Lee's debut In Limbo: A Graphic Memoir
Take an exclusive sneak peek inside of Deb JJ Lee's debut graphic memoir-- In Limbo
Exclusive Exclusive excerpt: Searching for the man behind the genius in Jim Ottaviani and Jerel Dye's Einstein
Jim Ottaviani and Jerel Dye's Einstein hopes to dispel the myth that Einstein did poorly in school
Let your curls show with this quinceañera scene from the upcoming OGN Frizzy
A preview of the upcoming OGN Frizzy by writer Claribel A. Ortega and artist Rose Bousamra
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text:
Cafod Lent appeal reaches £5m target
CAFOD’s Lent appeal has reached its target of £5 million, a figure that will be matched by the Goverment. Ian Farthing, head of fundraising at the charity, praised the “generous donations” of the public, which will help many people “rebuild their lives after disasters”.
Hiroshima victims commemorated
Pax Christi members will commemorate the anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings next month at cathedrals across England.
Thanksgiving Mass for Oscar Romero
A national thanksgiving Mass to celebrate the life of Oscar Romero will be held on August 15 in St George’s Cathedral, Southwark.


text:
Computational Modeling And Simulation Of Thrombus Formation
Thrombosis is a serious medical complication because excessive thrombus formation could lead to obstruction of blood vessels, resulting in tissue ischemia or death. This study is aimed to understand the cell-biology and biophysics, at the molecular level, of thrombosis in a blood vessel. We first review the biology underlying thrombosis and the previous mathematical models of thrombus formation (Chapter 1). In Chapter 2, mathematical modeling and sensitivity analysis were used to explore the mechanistic model of thrombus formation; the results support our working hypothesis that computationally derived points of fragility of human relevant cascades could be used as a rational basis for target selection despite model uncertainty. Chapter 3 focuses on the impact of parametric sampling strategies of Monte-Carlo sensitivity analysis and network structural uncertainty upon the assessment of the qualitative importance of molecular interactions in the coagulation network. While parametric uncertainty can be partially overcome by sampling feasible parameter regions using one of several strategies, structural uncertainty remains a critical determinant of our ability to classify mechanisms as fragile or robust in networks relevant to human health. The mathematical model was further extended to describe platelet activation by other agonists besides thrombin and the intrinsic pathway in Chapter 4. An ensemble of probable parameter sets were estimated using nine experimental data sets from a cell-based model and then used to predict the thrombin generation in experiments using patient-derived plasma for coronary artery and hemophilia A patients. In Chapter 5, analysis of the sensitivity results discloses that the intrinsic protease factor XI could be an excellent therapeutic target for thrombosis treatment with the advantage of not affecting hemostasis. Chapter 6 describes the effect of flow on the initiation of arterial clotting under conditions of exposed tissue factor (TF). Thresholds in shear rates or TF patch sizes were observed for the initiation of clot formation; the balance between the generation of active factors and the removal of those factors by flow was possibly the reason for the threshold phenomena.
dissertation or thesis

domain: literature


text:
NY Nurse Cries as She Shares How It Feels to Work During COVID-19 Pandemic
The novel coronavirus pandemic has affected everyone in one way or another, but the most affected people are the healthcare professionals who come face-to-face with the outbreak and its effects.
Last Tuesday, a nurse named D’neil Schmall, 35, took to her Facebook account to share the weight she carried every day while looking after COVID-19 patients. Schmall relocated to New York City to help with the coronavirus crisis.
In a video she posted to the social media platform, the nurse confessed that she’d had a “really rough” day at the time. Last month, she moved from Washington, DC, to Manhattan to a Brooklyn hospital.
Nurse tired of seeing dead people
Who is going to take care of your patients if your staff isn’t well?
The healthcare worker wept as she explained that she felt “so much sadness” for her fellow nurses and other medical professionals. She posted the video to share what it was like to deal with shifts that lasted up to 15 hours long.
Having a stressful workload
Schmall also confessed to crying on her ride home that night. The former bodybuilder revealed how some of them had to care of up to 14 patients per shift adding: “It’s so bad here, you guys.”
Acknowledging the need to take care of patients affected by the novel coronavirus, the nurse also noted: “Your staff is not doing well, then who is going to take care of your patients?” In the caption of her post, she explained what each one of them had to do to help out at hospitals.
Not sleeping enough
She shared how she’d only get around 4 to 5 hours of sleep per day. The nurse also revealed that their PPE was basically “made out of plastic like wearing a sweat suit all day.”
She also shared how the video was her way of “venting” and that it was “cathartic.” Schmall also explained that she loved her job and wasn’t going anywhere, no matter what.
What other healthcare workers face
Not having PPE at hospitals
In the clip, medical professionals called for PPE and described the conditions they were working in. Shannon Bruno, another nurse, also shared about what she faced at work.
Nurse self-isolates from family
Scott Parker, 44, a nurse at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro, has had to self-isolating away from his family home. He’s stayed away from them to protect his vulnerable young daughter from catching COVID-19.
Protecting his daughter from COVID-19
His daughter Evie, 10, has epilepsy and cerebral palsy. Parker moved into a holiday cabin out of his home in Porthleven, Cornwall.


text:
Jul 2, 2017
In this 3 minute episode, I announce that I'm taking an
indefinite hiatus from Affirmation Pod.
I'm choosing to take some personal time to help with some family matters. Now I still have my list of the episode requests that I have not recorded yet so I look forward to working on them when I get back!
I know it's going to feel like I'm missing my right arm because I started podcasting in April 2013 and I've been consistently publishing weekly since September 2015. That said, in between some travels this summer, I have been working on a podcast with someone and that will launch sometime in 2017. I may jump on the mic to share that with you.
Please enjoy any of the other 124 episodes of Affirmation Pod and I look forward to publishing again upon my return! As always, thank you for listening!
Episode 278 Leaning Into Your Heart
Episode 227 Affirmations for Self-Love
Episode 206 Moving From Self Doubt to Self Confidence
Episode 203 Affirmations for Success
Episode 197 Your Good Morning Coach
Episode 159 Motivation for a New Beginning
Episode 148 I Am Enough
Episode 147 Overthinking
Episode 139 Receiving Love
Episode 108 Relax Into Sleep
Episode 40 I Can Do This

domain: hobby


text:
PITTSBURGH — An Allegheny County woman is suing her former employer, a national railroad provider operating in Pennsylvania, charging gender and retaliatory discrimination along with sexual harassment in the workplace up to and including 2014.
Connie Marion sued National Railroad Passenger Corporation, better known as Amtrak, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania on Oct. 12, alleging violation of the Civil Rights Act and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act during her employment between Jan. 17, 2012 and Nov. 19, 2014.
According to the complaint, while working as an Amtrak electrician, Marion alleges that she was subjected to disparate treatment because of her sex, such as defacement of her personal property, use of derogatory language, unwarranted suspensions and a sexually hostile work culture.
The plaintiff alleges that one of her suspensions resulted from having reported infractions incurred by male employees, such as sleeping on the job or watching television while on the clock; that she was told directly by a co-worker that she was being targeted because she is female; that she was subjected to punitive action for minor infringements, such as arriving late to work, for which her male counterparts were not reproved; and that her complaints of repeated incidents of sexual harassment were met with retaliatory action instead of resolution.
The lawsuit states that Marion was terminated on Nov. 19, 2014, after filing a discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Nov. 5. She filed a second complaint on Feb. 13, 2015.
Charging Amtrak with gender discrimination, sexual harassment and a sexually hostile work environment, the plaintiff alleges pain, suffering, humiliation, anguish and distress.
Marion seeks declarative judgment, compensatory and punitive damages of more than $75,000 for lost wages and benefits, reinstatement of her position, pre- and post-judgment interest, attorneys’ fees, and court costs. She is represented by Joel Samson and Massimo Terzigni of The Law Offices of Joel Sansone in Pittsburgh.
U.S. District Court Western District of Pennsylvania Case number 2:15-cv-01323-MRH

domain: sociology


The PA78 is a 350V power operational amplifier with a novel input stage that provides extremely high slew rates in pulse applications while maintaining low quiescent current of under 2.5mA. This novel input stage also has the effect of adding variables to the power response and slew rate characteristics of the amplifier.
The output stages for this amplifier are well protected with user defined current limit. External phase compensation provides the user with great flexibility in trading gain, stability, and bandwidth. Target applications for the PA78 include piezoelectric positioning, actuation, and electrostatic deflection.
This hybrid product design is housed in an electrically isolated 20-pin PSOP package that requires less than one square inch of board space, thus providing a cost-effective, high-density solution for applications where multiple amplifiers are required. A heatsink is required to realize the SOA.