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MoMA's success story began during the Golden Twenties in Berlin. Inspired by the city's arts scene, the museum's founding director came up with a new concept for exhibiting art.
Alfred H. Barr, Jr., MoMA's founding director
Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie , the New National Gallery , has more to thank than its good relationship with the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) for being given the honor of hosting the first foreign exhibition of a MoMA collection. MoMA’s mid-town Manhattan home is currently being renovated and rebuilt. A branch -- the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Queens (MoMA QNS) -- located in the New York borough of Queens is carrying on the work of bringing art to the public and administrating acquisitions and exhibitions.
Part of the renowned collection has been sent off on tour, including 200 works that can be seen at the Neue Nationalgalerie starting on February 20th. MoMA itself is due to reopen at its address on 53rd Street in Manhattan in 2005. The new exhibition space will be twice as large as before. The architect commissioned with the project is Yoshio Taniguchi of Japan.
MoMA is perhaps the world’s most renowned museum for modern art. But the days when MoMA had the reputation of being the most progressive and innovative museum are over. One man, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., left his imprint on the museum as no other has since. Barr was truly an adventurer and an explorer when, 75 years ago, he conceived a concept for collecting and exhibiting modern art.
Three passionate and wealthy art collectors, Lillie P. Bliss, Mary Quinn Sullivan and Abby Rockefeller, recognized the visionary potential of Barr, then a young Harvard graduate, and commissioned him to collect art. By establishing MoMA, the three women aimed to create a wider understanding of modern art and to challenge the conservative Metropolitan Museum of Art with an institution that was oriented towards the future.
Bauhaus and National Gallery as Role Models
As the 1920s came to a close, Barr travelled to Europe a number of times in order to gain inspiration. In the U.S. at that time, there was little information available about contemporary European art. What Barr found in Germany in particular would provide a cornerstone of the MoMA concept. It came in the shape of the Bauhaus, an interdisciplinary movement involving all the arts that influenced the modern period like no other. In addition, Barr was enthused by a new department that had been opened at the German Nationalgalerie. At the Gallery for Contemporary Art in the Kronprinzenpalais , Nationalgalerie Director Ludwig Justi had devoted space exclusively to contemporary artists.
Since MoMA was founded in 1929, Barr has been known as the father of a new type of museum because he aimed to present modern art in a format and type of collection as innovative as the works themselves. Film, photography, design and architecture were placed on an equal footing with painting, sculpture and drawing. Barr developed pioneering exhibition formats and art catalogues that would become fundamental models for publications on art in English. He was dedicated to the task of acquainting the public with modern art, which at the time was no simple endeavor.MoMA’s maiden exhibition was devoted to the artists who paved the way for the modern era – Cézanne, van Gogh and Gauguin. Their works formed the core of a collection that has grown to become the world’s largest assemblage of modern painting. Among the works it includes are the most significant paintings of European masters such as Picasso, Dalí, Duchamp and Giacometti. Works by Pollock, de Kooning and Rothko -- the first Americans to develop their own unique style and become the masters of American abstract expressionism -- also belong to the collection, as do paintings by major contemporary artists like Richard Artschwager and Gerhard Richter.


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every body, every shape, every skin color…everyone is beautiful!
August, a streetwear shop located in downtown Madison’s State Street, partnered up with SoHE students to host “Every Body,” a styling and photography event that took place on November 17. The intent of the “Every Body” concept was created to break conventional beauty standards. Students in Professor Carolyn Kallenborn‘s Design and Fashion Events Practicum course worked with August’s owner, Rob Bowhan, to develop tand promote the event. Students and the public were styled using August’s brands, then photographed and sent the photos to share. “This was a real-world opportunity for students to create events in the arts that engage the public and also address contemporary social issues,” stated Kallenborn.

domain: news


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Dr. Ariel Hellein, DC
Born and raised in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Dr. Ariel received her bachelor’s degree in biology and received her Doctorate of Chiropractic degree from Life University in Marietta, Georgia.
Dr. Ariel is passionate about providing advanced chiropractic care to practice members wishing to eliminate their pain, optimize their wellness potential and live a better life. Dr. Ariel has even been under chiropractic care since she was 6 months old. She learned from a young age that the body has the ability to heal itself when the nervous system is functioning optimally.

domain: medical


Purse Snatcher Caught Red-handed
On Friday at 4:00 pm RNC Patrol Services responded to a report of a stolen purse in Corner Brook.
As a result of the investigation, it was determined that a credit card had subsequently been used at a local business.
A 31 year old male was identified and arrested.
Upon his arrest the male was found to be in possession of the credit card and other stolen property.
The property was returned to the owner and investigation into the matter is continuing.


Law schools believe that if you start making people give to your program early, you increase the chances of turning them into lifelong alumni donors. That’s why schools try to start their alumni giving campaigns while students are still on campus. It’s not that your law school thinks they’ll make a lot of money off of graduating 3Ls. But they believe that a $20 pledge while students are on campus is the gateway drug to a $200,000 donation in twenty years.
It all makes a lot of sense for the law school, but what do the graduating students get out of it? A lot of students will be paying off their law school tuition for decades, and many will have to start making those repayments before they get a good legal job. Law schools spend money on a slick alumni giving team, with the law school dean serving in the role of “fundraiser-in-chief.” But 3Ls need their schools to focus on “job-raising” instead of fundraising.
To the extent that 3L giving is a reflection of the services rendered by the law school over three years of expensive education, you’d expect a lot of law schools to get squat out of their 3L giving campaigns. That is exactly what one law student is suggesting to his fellow classmates.
The fun thing is that this 3L is on the committee for 3L fundraising…
* This IRS scandal is really like a Republican’s wet dream. Obama needs to start firing people. [Washington Post]
* The Department of Justice also looks pretty shady. See, it’s not the “size” of government we should worry about. It’s the power of government that leads to problems. Obama needs to start firing people! [Associated Press]
* Maybe the DOJ needs some compliance officers to tell them how to use the phone? [Corporate Counsel]
As we all know, law schools are eager to sell you naming rights if you give them money. Bad schools are willing to sell out, good schools are willing to sell out. Harvard Law School sold the naming rights to their freaking bathrooms.
Usually, these sales are made by deans at country clubs or wherever, with handshakes and checkbooks.
But one law school has put out a chart so that interested alumni can buy naming rights to things like they’re shopping at Wal-Mart.
Why not? It’s better than raising tuition. How much do you think it should cost to name a law school dining room?
Whenever a law school solicits money from its recent graduates, it ends badly. Almost always. The best a law school can hope for is for the recipient to throw away the solicitation or delete the email. More often, the mere request can bring up bad memories and harden the ill will that recent graduates have toward their law schools (unless the request for donations happens to hit the inboxes of the few financially secure recent law grads).
Law schools aren’t even playing the long game anymore. If law schools keep their tuition manageable and help their students find jobs, then they will produce happy graduates who might feel lifelong allegiance to their schools. But instead of cultivating golden little eggs, law schools are all too happy to slay their gaggle of students with unreasonable costs and poor post-graduate options. Schools take the short-term money even while souring their students on the law school experience.
Of course, “sour” law graduates make for some funny emails. Check out how this class of 2010 graduate responded to his school’s alumni giving request. And if you want to copy and paste it into an email to your law school, I don’t think anybody would object….
Should we pass around the collection jar for graduates, or their law schools?
Have you ever noticed that law schools claim it’s incredibly hard to find all of their recent graduates for the cause of transparency, but when it comes time for alumni giving, they always seem to know where everybody is?
The ink isn’t yet dry on their diplomas, but members of the class of 2012 are already being hit up for money by their law schools. No, we’re not talking about collections on the debts they still owe (those phone calls don’t start for a year). But law schools are already up with alumni giving campaigns aimed at recent graduates.
I used to make fundraising calls for my college and I know that conventional wisdom says that if you get people to give even a little bit early on you’re setting up a lucrative lifetime relationship with the graduate. But I think conventional wisdom needs to be thrown out of the window when you are dealing with recent graduates who don’t have jobs and do have a lot of debt.
Asking these kids for money right out of the gate isn’t a way to make them feel a connection with the school, it’s a way to further solidify how much they regret borrowing so much money to go to law school in the first place…
File this under: “reasons why the alumni office should clear everything with the PR department.”
Yesterday, somebody at Columbia Law School sent out an email to recent alumni asking for a $1,000 donation (or twelve $85 monthly installments) to help current law students. No, Columbia isn’t setting up another scholarship fund for public interest fellows. CLS isn’t even trying to make direct cash transfers to unemployed graduates in exchange for their silence. Instead, Columbia wants $1,000 from alumni to help offset the cost of the “early interview program” during which Columbia rising 2Ls interview with Biglaw firms and snag offers for jobs.
Do you think Columbia culled its alumni list to make sure that only graduates who were also working in Biglaw were even asked to make this kind of questionable donation? Of course they didn’t! A bunch of Columbia grads who aren’t working in Biglaw were asked to… wait, let me get this language exactly right:
It’s hard to step back and take an objective look at what’s happening at Penn State. One man allegedly sexually molests God knows how many children, and it’s horrible, but now the entire university is under suspicion. Under siege. Under indictment in the court of public opinion.
And still, they have to go on. Teachers have to teach, grants have to be funded, and at the Penn State Dickinson School of Law, they still have to try to raise money.
But as Penn State tries to resume normal operations, the administration has to fall over itself trying to prove that they are not a university full of child rapists. They love children! When you think of Penn State, think of child abuse victims.
La vengeance se mange très-bien froide. Or as a Klingon might say, “revenge is a dish best served cold.”
I’m pretty sure that the administrators at Loyola Law School of Los Angeles didn’t think they were walking into a smackdown when they sent out an email to alumni asking them to update their employment statuses. But smacked they were, down on their heads, as one student’s epic, slightly rambling response to the innocent request just tore up the school for its behavior towards recent graduates.
And this comes from a student who seems to be doing well, despite the challenging economy. You want to know the best way to “get back” at your law school, if you so desire? Send them an email that says: “I am going to be very wealthy here, and I will not be giving a dime to Loyola.”
Jiminy jillickers! ATL editors are going all over the place over the next month or so. Or at least all over the Eastern Seaboard. If we aren’t heading to your neck of the woods on these trips, never fear, we may hit you up on the next time around. We’ve already hit up Houston, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles in the past year.
Kinney Recruiting’sEvan Jowers is currently in Hong Kong for client meetings and still has a few slots available through October 22. Evan will also be in Hong Kong November 14 to December 15. Further, Robert Kinney has been in Frankfurt and Munich this week and is available for meetings with our Germany based readers.
One of our key law firm clients has referred us to one of their important clients in the US, Europe and China – a leading global technology supplier for the auto industry – in order to handle their search for a new Asia General Counsel and Asia Chief Compliance Officer.
Kinney is exclusively handling this in-house search.
This position will have a lot of responsibility and include supervision of eight attorneys underneath them in the Asia in-house team. The new hire will report directly to the global general counsel and global chief compliance officer, who is based in the US. The new hire’s ability to make judgement calls is going to be as important as their technical skill set background.
The position is based in Shanghai and will deal with the company’s operations all over Asia and also in India, including frequent acquisitions in the region.
It is expected that the new hire will come from a top US firm’s Shanghai, Beijing or Hong Kong offices, currently in a top flight corporate practice at the senior associate, counsel or partner level. Of course, the candidate can be currently in a relevant in-house role.
The JOBS Act created new tools for companies to publicly advertise securities deals online. As a result, thousands of new deals have hit the market and hundreds of millions in capital has been raised, spurring a wealth of new business development opportunities for attorneys.
Fund deals, startup capital raises, PIPE deals and loan syndicates are just a handful of the transactions benefiting from the JOBS Act. InvestorID FirmTM is a platform designed to help attorneys equip their clients with the workflow, marketing and compliance tools to publicly solicit a securities offering online. By providing clients with the tools to painlessly navigate the regulatory landscape of general solicitation, InvestorID FirmTM helps attorneys add value above just legal services.
The Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (JOBS Act) went into effect in 2013 and permits Regulation D offerings of securities to be advertised publicly. This means that funds and companies can now use social media, emails and web sites to market transactions to new “accredited” investors.
However, with these new powers come new pain points. InvestorID FirmTM provides a secure, fully hosted, cloud-based platform with a breadth of tools for your clients, including:


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Capacitor voltage balancing is indispensable in normal operation for modular multilevel cascade converter- single star bridge cell (MMCC-SSBC) based static synchronous compensator (STATCOM). This paper proposes a novel individual voltage balancing scheme with dramatically reduced voltage sensors. First, zero-sequence voltage injection is enabled to regulate the cluster voltage based on only one voltage sensor in each phase; Then, through the additional inserted hardware units, individual voltage balancing can be achieved. Compared with conventional software voltage balancing method, the proposed balancing scheme has the advantage of simple implementation, lower transportation delay, fast balancing speed, and dramatically reduced voltage sensors. In addition, only some popular power modules are added to balance the individual capacitor voltage. The effectiveness of the proposed individual voltage balancing scheme is verified by simulation results in MMCC-SSBC based STATCOM. With the proposed scheme, the individual voltage balancing and reactive power compensation can be realized simultaneously.
|Title of host publication||2019 Tsinghua International Doctoral Forum|
|Publisher||Institution of Engineering and Technology|
|Publication status||Published - 2019|
|Event||2019 Tsinghua International Doctoral Forum - Beijing, China|
Duration: 22 Nov 2019 → 24 Nov 2019
|Conference||2019 Tsinghua International Doctoral Forum|
|Period||22/11/2019 → 24/11/2019|
Bibliographical noteFunding Information:
This work was supported in part by the National Key Research and Development Foundation of China under Grant (2017YFB0903300), and in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant (U1766210, 51625702, and 51807135).
© 2019 Institution of Engineering and Technology. All rights reserved.
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
- Individual voltage balancing
- Modular multilevel cascade converter (MMCC)
- Reduced voltage sensors
- Single star bridge cell (SSBC)

domain: literature


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With urgency being absolutely crucial for someone who is having a “brain attack,” John Muir Health features two stroke centers that excel in the rapid recognition and treatment of stroke victims and in helping them restore as much of their functionality as possible.
John Muir Health’s two campuses are two of only three California hospitals to receive “Triple Gold” for excellence in stroke care.
The care for stroke patients at John Muir Health is a highly coordinated effort, involving a number of diverse, specially trained individuals who are experienced in treating stroke patients. It is a very personal form of care that very much involves the patients and their caregivers in the process of getting stroke patients back to their lives.
Stroke Centers of Excellence
Designated by The Joint Commission as the first certified primary stroke centers in Contra Costa and Alameda counties in 2005, John Muir Health continues to be recognized for the high level of service we provide stroke patients. We have received multiple gold level achievement awards from the American Heart and American Stroke Associations as part of their “Get with the Guidelines” program.
What this means for the patient is not only can you can expect the highest level of care from our stroke centers, you will learn what you need to do to reduce the risk of having a second stroke.
Our team of neurologists, neurosurgeons, emergency medicine doctors, hospitalists (a doctor who specializes the care of who specializes in the care of hospitalized patients), and interventional radiologists (a doctor who uses minimally invasive methods to treat conditions with radiation) deploy the most innovative techniques available for treating stroke patients.
Our state-of-the-art Interventional Neuroradiology Suite features advanced imaging technology that allows physicians to view every blood vessel in the human brain with extraordinary clarity and to provide safer, faster, and more effective treatment. Neuropsychologists, rehabilitation therapists, and nurses then work closely with you in your recovery.
John Muir Health is very active in educating the community with our Stroke Prevention Program, dedicated to raising awareness about ways to reduce the risk of having a stroke and ways to recognize the subtle symptoms at the onset of a stroke.


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Journal of Haiti and the Americas
Haiti/USA: clandestine crossings are increasing
Audio 7:30 p.m.
The wooden boat carrying some 300 Haitian migrants that ran aground off the Florida Keys, more than 160 of them had to swim ashore on March 6, 2022. Many needed medical attention, US federal authorities said.
© United States Border Patrol via AP
By: Mikaël Ponge Follow |
Mikael Ponge Follow
On Tuesday March 22, 2022, nearly 200 Haitian migrants were returned to their country by the United States.
This is one of the last operations carried out by the American border authorities in South Florida.
Since October 2021, the United States Coast Guard has intercepted nearly 2,300 Haitian migrants at sea.
The Florida Keys became the main point of entry.
Since Oct. 1, 2021, the U.S. Coast Guard has intercepted 2,284 Haitian migrants, an increase of nearly 50% over all of fiscal year 2021, which runs from October to September, notes the Miami. Herald.
If the arrivals follow one another, the expulsions by the Biden administration reach records.
A disappointment for many Haitians.
In 2020, candidate Biden promised a break with Donald Trump's anti-immigration policy.
Today, nothing has changed.
And on the Haitian side, the authorities turn a blind eye
,” summarizes Frantz Duval, editor-in-chief of Le Nouvelliste.
Nicaragua: the ambassador to the OAS denounces the dictatorial regime of Daniel Ortega
A dramatic turn of events yesterday at the OAS, the Organization of American States: the Nicaraguan ambassador described March 23 as a "dictatorship" of the government of President Daniel Ortega:
"I am speaking today on behalf of the more than 177 political prisoners, and the more than 350 people who have lost their lives in my country since 2018. I speak on behalf of the thousands of civil servants at all levels, civilian and military, whom the Nicaraguan regime today forces to do pretending, and holding positions and rehearsing at instructions, because if they don't they lose their jobs.
To denounce the dictatorship that my country is going through is not easy, but to continue to remain silent and defend the indefensible is impossible”.
The Nicaraguan opposition hailed a "
" showing that "
the dictatorship is weak
For its part, the government reacted by immediately dismissing Arturo McFields, and claiming that none of his statements were valid.
Presidential in Colombia: Gustavo Petro chooses his running mate
This is Francia Marquez, an Afro-Colombian, lawyer by profession, well known in Colombia for her feminist, environmentalist and anti-racist discourse.
true political phenomenon
", according to the Colombian press, which sees in this choice the desire of Gustavo Petro, candidate of the Historic Pact, favorite in the polls, to seek votes in other sectors.
Francia Marquez appears more progressive than Gustavo Petro.
For example, she vehemently defends the right to abortion, which should earn her the support of a certain number of women voters and young people.
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On the same subject
A boat with 300 Haitian migrants runs aground on a Florida beach
Nicaragua's Ambassador to the OAS calls the Ortega government a "dictatorship"
In the spotlight: backtracking on the recount of the votes of the senatorials in ColombiaKeywords:


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Gautham Menon, Vetrimaaran, Vignesh Shivn team up for Netflix series
Filmmakers Gautham Menon, Vetrimaaran, Vignesh Shivn and Sudha Kongara of Irudhi Suttru fame are coming together for an anthology of four shorts for popular streaming platform Netflix. The project could also mark Netflix’s first original production in Tamil.
While a section of media has already reported that the four directors have been signed up for the remake of Netflix’s Lust Stories in Tamil, we have learned that it’s going to be a different theme. The shooting is expected to kickstart from the first week of September.


The Singaporean man with the thing for mechanized dieselpunk walking tank scale model is back. This time Michael Sng is bringing a new model called Codename Colossus M1A2 Light Walker Squad Leader ver. The new model is, as expected, very dieselpunk-ish, featuring a hexapod design with a lightly armored body. As with previous Machination Studio’s creation, Codename Colossus M1A2 Light Walker Squad Leader ver. Is motorized and lighted, where appropriate, with LEDs. This new walking tank is of 1/35 scale model kit composed of over 60 polyurethane resin cast and 3D printed parts, and each unit comes with a multi-part character figure called Sergeant Reynolds. Here’s a little backstory of this fictional soldier and his war machine:
“The M1A2 Light Walker – Squad Leader version is the first model in the Codename Colossus world from the U.S. Marine Expedition Force. It is a light scout walker designed and built in secret facilities in the Nevada desert… The M1 Light Walkers first saw action in the 2nd Mexican War and Sergeant Reynolds of the 51st Steel Cavalry Regiment is a decorated veteran for being the first cavalry troop to enter Mexico City, ending the war. Both the 51st Steel Cavalry and their Light Walkers are affectionately referred to as “Bug Zappers” for their Westinghouse lightning cannons that are designed to clear trenches and barbed wire.”
Being a kit, it will require assembly and painting and as such, experience in building model kit is required. Also, you will need modelling kit building essential tools. But the good thing is, you won’t have to solder any electronics as they will come pre-soldered; all you need to do is pop the electronics into the model. While it may be a ‘light walker’, the model is not small when assembled; it stands 5.5 inches tall and 5.5 inches wide. A few other highlights include independently articulated legs, opening hatches, rotating main armament and functioning lights.
Machination Studio has once again taken to Kickstarter to promote its latest model. The campaign is funded already and therefore your pledge of 120 Singapore dollars (about US$91) will secure yourself a unit to be delivered sometime in May 2018. Production is underway as we speak. That, plus Machination Studio’s previous crowdfunding experience, should more or less guarantee delivery. If you are keen, you do have to act fast because, it is a 15-day campaign and as of this writing, it has just 12 days left on the calendar.
To ensure timely delivery by May/June, Sng as allocated only 100 units in this crowdfunding campaign. However, not to worry because, the Singapore-based toy maker will be making more, just that those will be available on its website and at a later date. So, if you want one sooner, you may have, like we suggested, act fast. At the time of this writing, 69 units are still available. You can learn more about in the pitch video below after a few more looks.
Images courtesy of Machination Studio.


It was the second loss in extra innings for the Bobcats this season.
COLUMBUS — Throughout the evening, Ohio and Ohio State’s dugouts had plenty of reason to question where the game was headed.
But the second the ball left the bat of the Buckeyes’ L Grant Davis in the bottom of the 10th inning, all lingering doubt on both sides was erased.
Ohio fell to Ohio State 7-4 in 10 innings at Nick Swisher Field on Tuesday, dropping its second extra-inning contest of the season. Logan Cozart (2-1) took the loss for the Bobcats in three innings of relief and Ohio’s team record fell to 14-12.
“I’m proud of the effort we gave,” said coach Rob Smith. “Our guys competed. That’s a regional caliber team that we just played, and that’s what we’ve been doing all year. You’ve got to give Ohio State credit; they scratched and clawed back into it late and did what they had to do in extra innings.”
The Bobcats got a chance to strike first when a single and an error allowed Ohio to put a pair of hitters on base to start the second inning. Senior Tyler Wells then dropped down a sacrifice bunt to move the runners before junior John Adryan smacked a single to left field to give the Bobcats a 1-0 lead.
Ohio fell victim to some defensive issues in the bottom half of the frame, however, as redshirt senior pitcher Evan Geist airmailed a throw to first and allowed the hitter to reach third on the error, who later scored on a groundout. The unearned runs continued in the third for Ohio State, as an error and three walks allowed two more runners to score.
Geist had entered in the second after a perfect first inning of work by Connor Sitz. Ohio sent eight pitchers to the mound in the contest.
“I was obviously disappointed with the third inning, and the fact that they scored their first three runs without getting a hit,” Smith said. “But we had a lot of guys step up tonight. I was pleased with what we were able to do and happy with the performance they gave us.”
The Bobcats and Buckeyes traded mostly zeroes from that point forward, with the staffs only blinking once in the next four innings when Ohio strung together three hits in the fifth before sophomore Mitch Longo drew a bases-loaded walk to cut the deficit to 3-2.
Ohio got things going again in the eighth inning, manufacturing a pair of runs to take the lead on just one hit. After moving two into scoring position with just one out, redshirt junior Cody Gaertner hit a groundball to third base to score a run. Wells then hit a line drive that went in and out of the glove of the Buckeyes’ shortstop, scoring the go-ahead run.
Ohio State bounced back quickly, however, and re-tied the game. Cozart remained in the game to pitch the ninth and traded a scoreless inning with Ohio State to force extra innings.
After the Bobcats were retired in order in the 10th, Ohio State put its first two hitters on base. Cozart settled back in, but hung a pitch to Davis with two outs that he drove out of the park to right field.
Cozart pitched the final three innings of the game for Ohio, and gave up four runs on four hits after entering the game with a 0.38 ERA.
Adryan finished the game 2-for-4 with an RBI and a run scored, while Jake Madsen finished 1-for-4 with two runs scored.


text:
This collection invites you, the reader, into an ongoing conversation - one that, at times, skims the surface of experience, and at others, dives deeper. Just as a conversation drifts from one idea to another, so this subject matter flows from light and playful to heart-wrenchingly tragic and true....
|Product dimensions:||5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.30(d)|
About the Author
Marion Frazer sometimes describes herself as a poetic evangelist. She firmly believes that there is a poem for everyone, even for those who would normally choose prose. She has studied and taught poetry for decades, writing it herself when time and retrospect lent perspective to experience, and brought with it her unique poetic voice. She has travelled widely and lived in both Eastern and Western Canada, but now lives in the Toronto area with her husband, Lorne, their son, Will, and a beautiful and quirky Golden Retriever called Flair....

domain: artistic


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Moscow factory of processed cheese KARAT and Depot WPF branding agency have presented the second bold project within the rebranding of the company – the redesign of Violette cream cheese. The first co-project of KARAT and Depot WPF revealed to the general public was the essential redesign of the classic processed cheese product line – there’s still an ongoing debate on the new packaging design of “Druzhba”, “Volna” and “Yantar”.
Violette product line is the “youngest” in KARAT’s brand portfolio. Until now, 5 flavors of cream cheese were produced under the brand – creamy, with greens, with cucumbers and greens, with shrimps and chocolate. As a part of redesign two more SKU are being launched – with tomatoes and with mushrooms.
«The research of the field showed us that cream cheese buyers lack emotions in its packaging design, while one doesn’t have to go over the top with freshness and naturalness, despite the fact that our competitors emphasize this, – creative director of Depot WPF Alexey Fadeev says. –Our decision, on the one hand, meets all the requirements of the cheese category, on the other, it contains an element of playing, which certainly brings some brilliance and positive to the package. The image of Pac-man that can be read from the top of the tub is a bold move that a bold producer can afford [to make]”.
Apart from adjusted brand platform and visual identity of Violette the shape and the packaging materials have also changed. Low-cost materials that were used before have been replaced with a combination of nice to feel high-quality plastic and cardboard. Form factor has also changed: smooth, “feminine” shape prevails now.
All these innovations fully comply with the positioning that was strategically built in KARAT rebranding last year: up-to-date Russian producer that can provide customers with high-quality world-class products. For the first time domestic producer has all chances to redistribute the leadership at the cream cheese market and drive out transnational competitors.
“We have been working on reforming of Violette together with experts of Depot WPF branding agency for the entire last year, – Pavel Rosenfeld, general director of Moscow factory of processed cheese KARAT, comments. – At the beginning of the project Violette was the main brand in the overall sales of KARAT, along with processed cheese, and #1 in sales in cream cheese category in some nationwide store chains.
At the same time, we were falling behind our competitors in appearance of the package, which in customer’s perception looked more like sour cream than cheese. We decided to relaunch the trademark and offer our customers our traditionally tasty and natural cream cheese in a fundamentally different package. We plan to broaden our audience by proposing the new Violette to a new and active target audience, driving out the competitors and increasing our share to 30% in 2016”.
Simultaneously with the new package KARAT launches an advertising campaign of Violette, created together with “Voskhod” agency. Video shows what a morning might be like if it starts with breakfast with Violette cheese:

domain: food


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Matthew Mondanile didn’t grow up near the beach, nor, despite the blogosphere’s inclination to toss his music into the grating chillwave category, is his New Jersey neighborhood particularly chill. One of the musicians in a surge of talent from northern New Jersey (he also plays guitar in Real Estate), Mondanile is also one of many performing in a one-man band. Ducktails III: Arcade Dynamics is Ducktails’ third full-length album amongst a plethora of cassettes—a physical representation of the nostalgia that permeates Arcade Dynamics—and 7-inches released on labels including Not Not Fun, Olde English Spelling Bee, Goaty Tapes and more.
Beachy, instrumental prelude “In The Swing” gets things in such a swing, waylaying into the reverberating swoon of single “Hamilton Road,” a relaxing ditty that ends almost as swiftly as it began. But this is part of Arcade Dynamics’ charm: the release is pop-friendly with few tracks making the three-minute mark, until the fuzz of ambient outro “Porch Projector” kicks in. “Arcade Shift” shifts the dynamics from the colorful world of Frogger to the minimalist Asteroids with heavy drum machines and the retro-future reverberations once reserved for the totally epic (i.e. campy) travels-in-space flick. But love for lo-fidelity and days gone by isn’t solely reserved for the ’70s and ’80s yearning: the guitar- and tambourine-driven “Art Vandelay” is a name recognizable as Seinfeld character and perennial loser George Constanza’s more successful alter-ago who came into his own in the days of silvery CDs.
“Killin The Vibe,” on which Mississippi ukulele-man Dent May and Woods’ Jarvis Taveniere guest, is the only anachronism as it takes a detour to a chant-filled Animal Collective Land (Panda Bear was featured on the single version of the track) where repetition and matchy-matchy vocal and guitar patterns reign.


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How Modern Businesses Can Adapt To Changing Worker Attitudes
Gone are the days where people found a job for life. You only have to go back a generation to see just how different our career attitudes are now.
Instead of ticking off job security, pensions, and career progression within a company, we boldly jump from one business to another to hop up the ladder. And while pensions are important, flexible retirement plans mean they don’t have the same meaning they had for our parent’s generation. The truth is, all these things still matter, but the traditional path to obtaining them has diverged with a multitude of options on how, when and where we work.
But what is driving these changing attitudes, and how can you keep up, and ensure your organisation's digital workplace strategy works towards attracting and retaining the best talent? It’s all about understanding employee expectations and creating an environment and opportunity that delivers what it needs to.
The millennial mindset
Have you heard of the entitlement complex? The idea that millennials expect bigger pay packets or that dream job from the beginning of their careers. Whether this is a theory you agree with or not, there does seem to be some evidence to back it up.
Studies by the University of Hampshire revealed that people born between 1988 and 1994 are 25% more likely to display “entitlement related issues” than 40-60 year olds. Yes, on the surface this could seem like a convenient excuse to verbally bash the younger generation, but you could argue that people of all ages have different expectations from today’s workplace.
As a society, we’re finding it easier to discuss things like the importance of work-life balance and work-related mental health issues. All this goes beyond the traditional salary, pension, security mindset. We’re instead embracing the bigger picture. It’s more of a, “what does your perfect workplace and job role both look and feel like?”
Flexible work environments
Does anyone like being chained to a desk, 9-5? Does anyone actually work 9-5 anymore? It’s not a stretch of the imagination to say that most find the drab, cubicle environment uninspiring at best.
There are several reasons why workplaces are becoming more fluid, both in terms of location and working hours. Remote working is becoming much more of “a thing”, and people are plugging into work from all locations, around the clock. Incidentally, this is one great way to open roles up to a larger talent pool too. If you’re not location-specific, the sky’s the limit.
This is all possible due to tech advancements, but tech is only useful if it answers a need. Today’s so-called “sandwich-generation” have responsibilities to look after both their children and ageing relatives. Meanwhile, as the retirement age rises, the workforce is diversifying. As a result, work-life balance has never been a hotter topic, and businesses need to find new ways to accommodate their employees.
Then there’s the mindset aspect of working flexibly. If staff feel good about being treated fairly, and being able to balance work and family commitments, this is a huge boost to morale.
And last but not least, there are also big advantages for enterprises that embrace and support remote and flexible working. As well as happier and more productive workers, there are real-world cost and efficiency savings to be made when a proportion of staff have options to work remotely.
The rise of tech
As tech advancements are ushered into the workplace at an increased pace, businesses have more solutions to meet the collaboration needs of a mobile and technically savvy workforce.
Looking to our everyday lives, it’s easy to see how these changes have come about. We’re becoming increasingly au fait with machines like Alexa and Siri. We connect with friends and family on Skype. We’re happy to chat with customer service bots on websites, and we expect brands to have a strong online presence. Then there’s the smartphone. An appendage we seemingly can’t do without. So despite the growing importance of a good home/work balance for modern workers, we are always connected and able to communicate with our workplaces, yet another reason 9-5 is becoming an outdated concept.
There is a dizzying array of communication and collaboration tools available, but all too often organisations overlook user experience as a consideration when selecting their collaboration solution to work across (and enable) their digital workplace. Many of the aforementioned benefits of cultivating a modern, flexible working culture can be undermined if users do not embrace the collaboration platform due to a poor or unreliable experience.
In conclusion …
The workplace as we knew it has already changed exponentially. Great strides in tech have created opportunities for both businesses and employees that were previously unheard of. The ability to access a worldwide talent pool and create flexible workplaces has huge benefits all round. Simultaneously, employees have a more pressing need to balance busy home-lives with work commitments.
To get the most from staff, boost productivity, reduce costs and increase morale, businesses need to meet this growing appetite for balance and autonomy with a considered collaboration strategy and ensure they providing the right tools for collaboration and communication.
It’s all about an attitude shift. You might say that we all need to be a bit more “millennial” in our thinking to aim big.

domain: sociology


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I am seeking a connection with dexendents of Kenneth John MacLeod - details below.
Details of his life are very few and far between, and probably the most important item I would like to find is a photo.
Full Name: MacLEOD, Kenneth John
Parents: Donald MacLeod (b. abt 1793), Anne MacLean (b. abt 1821).
Donald MacLeod was married twice – to Anne MacLean, and also to Kirsty MacAuley.
Parents Address: 11, Callanish
Date of Birth: 20th November 1860 , 2pm
At first the year of birth was surmised from the birth certificate of McLeod, Kenneth John (his son) - which gives the age of the father as 26 years. Therefor 1892 -26 = 1866. However, documentation gives the birthdate as 1860. It is apparent that his declared age was less than his actual age.
Place of Birth: Callanish, Isle of Lewis, Scotland
Stornoway is given as the place of his birth, on the birth certificate of his son, also named Kenneth John McLeod. However, it is now established that his place of birth was Callanish, on the western side of the Isle of Lewis. It is thought that Stornoway would be appropriate as the place would be better known, whereas few people would recognise Callanish.
After a search through the birth records of Lewis, there was only one Kenneth MacLeod who fitted the basic data reasonably well. Callanish falls within the parish of Uig, and it was in the register there that the birth is recorded of Kenneth MacLeod.
Entry #90 in Scottish Register Book of Births, for District of Carloway County of Ross?.
Father listed as Donald McLeod, Tenant
Mother listed as Anne McLeod, maiden name MacLean
Informant, Donald McLeod, Tenant, Callanish
Birth registered Dec 5th 1860
Spouse: KEITH, Marie Duncan.
Born 1864 in Dunedin. The year of birth is surmised from 1892 - 28 = 1864
Married: Winton, Southland 17/6/1892
The marriage is recorded in the District of Winton, as #74 in the Register of Marriage. The copy I have has a hand-written number “92/1931” in the top right corner. This marriage entry gives Kenneth MacLeod’s profession as “Manager”.
The marriage ended in divorce, and a decree absolute issued in the Supreme Court of Otago & Southland District on 7th January 1907. In this document Kenneth John McLeod is noted as residing in Elderslie, with the occupation of labourer.
The decree absolute has the number “256” on the front, and the case was handled by Ethel R Benjamin, Solicitor, Christchurch.
1. McLeod, Kenneth John, b. 4/12/1892 at Halfway Bush, Dunedin. Married Hazel Violet Bell 15/1/1924 at Hanover Street Baptist Church in Dunedin. Hazel’s parents were James Nesbit Bell and Charlotte Burgess.
The BELL family came from Glasgow to Dunedin on the ss “Oamaru”, departing 30th Nov 1874 and arriving in NZ 17th Feb 1875
The BURGESS family came from London on the ss “Dover Castle” departing 30th June 1873 and arriving at Port Chalmers on 9th Oct 1873.
Kenneth was a marine engineer with Union Steam Ship Company. Had one son Kenneth James McLeod born 17/9/1925.
2. McLeod, Ida. Born 1895. Lived with her husband Frank Sargeant at Wanganui, then shifted to Tawa. Frank was possibly a Wool Classifier.
3 McLeod, William. Born 1896. Wounded during WW1. Never married. Worked as a ships greaser for Union Steam Ship Company.
Date of Death: 4th April 1935
Place of Death: The Buchanan Home, (part of the Greytown Hospital)
Greytown, North Island, New Zealand
Buried At: Greytown Cemetery
Death Citation : Folio #1439 in 1935 Death Register
Undertaker: H Trotman
Kenneth John MacLeod went to Glasgow at about the age of 19 years. It is understood that he left home after a bitter dispute with his parents about joining the Scottish Police, an action that his parents opposed. He left home and never returned. This story has come down through three different family branches, and again from a non family lady who remembered the story from her granny.
Kenneth MacLeod came to New Zealand sometime before 1892, however he does not appear on any shipping list up to 1888. It is understood that when he left Scotland he could only speak Gaelic, but to have worked and married in New Zealand he must have had some proficiency in English.
He was farming at Halfway Bush, Dunedin, but is not known if he was a farm worker or manager.
After the birth of his three children, he left the farm at Half Way Bush, sometime after 1892. It may be that when his marriage failed he worked at Elderslie (inland from Oamaru) for some time. From there he made his way to Greytown, in the North Island of New Zealand.
After their divorce, his wife Marie remarried Thomas Henry King (full-back for the Kaikourai football club). Marie remarried as Mary Duncan Keith.
59 Chesham Avenue, Taupo, NZ

domain: history


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The Blue Mountains tourism industry will be showcased on the world stage when The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge meet a Blue Mountains Lithgow & Oberon Tourism (BMLOT) delegation at Echo Point tomorrow (Thursday, April 17).
BMLOT CEO Randall Walker and Scenic World joint managing director Anthea Hammon will be the official escorts for the royal couple during their whistlestop visit to Echo Point Lookout, the most visited natural location in regional Australia.
As well as pointing out landmarks in the vista such as the Three Sisters, Jamison Valley and, of course, Scenic World across the valley, Mr Walker and Ms Hammon will discuss the economic impact of the October 2013 bushfires on the tourism industry.
The Royal couple will also meet Aboriginal elders associated with the tourism industry, Aunty Sharyn Halls (Gundungurra Aboriginal Heritage Association, The Gully and Ancestral Pathways Walk), Aunty Sharon Brown (Gundungurra Tribal Council, Muggadah Tours and Mulyang Dance Troup) and Uncle Chris Tobin (Darug, artists camp) as well as BMLOT chairman Daniel Myles, Blue Mountains Accommodation & Tourism Association president Eric Sward and Huong Nguyen, owner of one of the largest tourism businesses in the region, the Escarpment Group.
Their Royal Highnesses will also receive a special edition Prince George teddy bear from Nana’s Teddies & Toys at Blaxland and an information package detailing the Evatt family association with the royal family, compiled by Leuralla Toy & Railway Museum owner Elizabeth Evatt, which were presented to a Kensington Palace official on Tuesday (April 15) to pass on to the Royal couple.
Mr Walker said he was delighted to welcome the royal couple and the world’s media to one of Australia’s most iconic tourism destinations on behalf of the tourism industry, especially after challenging times.
“To be able to raise awareness of the destination in such a high profile and positive way is a fabulous outcome for tourism industry operators and the Blue Mountains community.
“I deeply thank the royal couple for taking the time out of their extraordinarily busy schedule to visit a special historic and Aboriginal place.”
Mr Walker said he planned to point out the Jamison Valley as a glimpse into the 1 million ha of World Heritage Area as well as sustainable tourism experiences such as Scenic World, Lilianfels and Echo Point Visitor Information Centre on the edge of the wilderness.
Ms Hammon said: “As a young woman and family business owner, I’m excited to meet The Duchess of Cambridge and welcome her to our beautiful Blue Mountains region.
“I look forward to sharing with her the stunning Jamison Valley landscapes, hearing about her travels and providing insight into the local tourism industry.’’
BMLOT chairman Daniel Myles welcomed the honour: “I am very proud that BMLOT was invited to assist in the arrangements for the visit to the Blue Mountains by the young royal couple.
“It is a wonderful secret a very small and tight-lipped group within the official regional tourism organisation has kept faithfully for some time. Many thanks to the select group of Blue Mountains City Council staff who have worked with BMLOT on preparations for this visit.
“We are delighted to now share the details with the community so royal watchers and well wishers have the chance to see Their Royal Highnesses in person.
“The Blue Mountains is one of the most recognisable, not to mention magnificent locations on the planet. It is fitting that one of the most recognisable couples in the world visit it.”
The Blue Mountains, has been a favourite royal tour destination for almost a century.
The Duke’s grandmother, the current monarch Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and The Duke of Edinburgh visited the Blue Mountains and Lithgow in 1954, their tour including Echo Point. In fact, a monument stands on the lower deck of the lookout in her honour.
The most celebrated visit was that of the then Duke and Duchess of York in March 1927.
On March 31 of that year, the royal couple arrived at Katoomba by train and walked the short distance from the railway station to The Carrington Hotel (the first resort-style hotel in Australia’s first tourist destination, the Blue Mountains).
Huge crowds greeted them. After lunch, they were driven to Echo Point, home of the Three Sisters, where thousands lined the streets.
The Echo newspaper reported that The Duchess was overheard to say: ” ‘Look at those clouds! Isn’t it wonderful.’ The Duke’s reply was unintelligible [unable to be heard], but his face maintained its customary passivity.”
The Royal couple also visited Jenolan Caves during that tour.
Well wishers are advised to arrive at Echo Point between 11am and 12pm on Thursday. Further details such as the route to be taken by the royal entourage will not be disclosed.
Contributing members are responsible for the accuracy of content contributed to the Member News section of AdventureTravelNews.

domain: geography


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Be a down payment saver
Saving up for a down payment on a home can be tricky. In fact, it’s often the hardest step in the process of buying a home. That’s because you must tighten the financial belt and make sacrifices.
Some pros suggest putting down at least 20 percent. Those who put down less may face less favorable loan terms. Plus, they’ll have to pay private mortgage insurance (PMI). PMI safeguards the lender if you’re not able to pay your loan.
20 percent not necessary
But having one-fifth saved up isn’t mandatory. Many people are still able to buy with a down payment less than 20 percent. New data show that most buyers actually put down only about one-third that amount.
Learn the facts and check out loan programs that require a smaller down payment. It may put you on a faster track to owning than you think.Click to see your low-downpayment loan eligibility (Dec 10th, 2018)
New numbers on down payments
A new report by ATTOM Data Solutions had some interesting findings. In the third quarter of 2017:
- The median down payment for detached homes and condos bought with financing was $20,000. That’s up from $18,161 in the earlier quarter. A year earlier, that amount was $14,400.
- $20,000 is a 7.6 percent down payment. That’s based on the median sales price of $263,000 for financed home purchases. That mark is up from 7.1 percent tallied a quarter earlier, and 6.1 percent a year prior.
- The median down payment surpassed $50,000 in 12 of the 99 metro areas studied in the report. These pricey areas included San Jose, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, California, and Boulder, Colo.
Daren Blomquist, senior vice president for ATTOM Data Solutions, says the report underpins what we already know: home prices keep going higher. As a result, today’s buyers need to fork over a bigger down payment.
“There’s been a lot of talk about opening up ownership to first-time buyers. But this data shows the market is still tilted in favor of buyers with larger down payments,” he says. “This is evident in the record high dollar amounts seen in median down payments.”
A limited housing supply in many markets has led to two truths.
“First, the most qualified buyers with the largest down payments end up buying most of the homes for sale. Second, those with lower down payments are increasingly being left out in the cold. Or, they’re forced to get creative to cobble together a bigger down payment,” says Blomquist.
Put in football terms, “buying a house is a full-contact sport in today’s market,” he adds. “Those with beefy down payments have a better chance of not getting sacked and actually making it to the end zone.”
The positive takeaways
But this news doesn’t spell doom and gloom for first-timers. Blomquist says they’re responding to this challenge and finding ways to compete with rivals.
“The report shows that 23.4 percent of all purchase loan originations on homes bought in the third quarter involved co-borrowers,” says Blomquist. He notes that co-borrowers mean multiple, non-married borrowers on the loan documents. For example, a parent and child, or two siblings. That’s up from 22.8 and 22.1 percent, respectively, in the quarter prior and year prior.
“The highest share of co-borrowers tended to be in high-cost cities. That’s where the competition is fierce and median down payments are sky high,” he adds. These cities include San Jose (51.1 percent co-borrowers); Miami (42.7 percent); and Seattle (36.7 percent co-borrowers).
Blomquist sees a silver lining in the rise of co-borrowers.
“This indicates more buyers are getting creative to get to 20 percent down and avoid PMI,” he says. “I also think we’ll see more innovation in the industry to help borrowers avoid PMI in the future.”
Hope springs eternal
Blomquist sees other hope on the horizon, too.
“It will likely be another year of escalating down payment percentages before we see relief,” says Blomquist. “Credit may loosen in the coming months. And the gradual pick up in housing starts we’re seeing indicates the inventory logjam will eventually break up.”
And that will help to ease the imbalance between supply and demand.
“It’s this imbalance that’s forcing buyers to up the ante when it comes to down payments in order to compete,” he notes.
What you can do now
Don’t have 20 percent saved? Don’t let that get you down.
“The average down payment has consistently been below the 20 percent threshold historically. That means that this is somewhat normal,” says Blomquist. “It’s part of the cost of getting your foot in the door with home ownership.”
To help with down payment matters, try these tips:
- Research down payment assistance programs available. The Mortgage Reports Down Payment Assistance Guide offer links to many programs.
- Check out low down payment mortgage options, like the FHA’s 3.5 percent home loan.
- Create and stick to a budget. “Know where all of your money is going each month,” he says. “Then, identify opportunities to cut down on other areas of spending that are luxury or wasteful. These can be put toward saving for the down payment.”
- Consider living with family or friends for at least a short period of time. “This can save on rent costs,” says Blomquist.
- Get a co-borrower to go in on the loan with you. Talk to a mortgage expert about this option.
What are today’s mortgage rates?
It’s a fact that those who put more money down get the best mortgage rates. However, there are discounted programs available to those with moderate or low incomes. These include Fannie Mae’s HomeReady and Freddie Mac’s Home Possible. Both programs offer more flexible underwriting and less-expensive PMI for those who qualify.Click to see your low-downpayment loan eligibility (Dec 10th, 2018)


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NewVantage Partners’ Executive Survey (2021) reveals that 99% of enterprises reported active investment in data and AI. Yet, only 39% of them regard data as a business asset.
Enterprises already make great strides to embrace digitalization and transform their businesses.
However, the very wide range of diverse data and digital capabilities can easily disrupt an organization’s focus:
In short, companies struggle to effectively manage their data and analytics assets, capture value and experience business transformation outcomes.
It has always been hard to track the value of IT investments. This need gains more and more attention with the growth of Data and Analytics, which combine significant investments with very high expectations in terms of impact. Organizations are at risk of running in circles despite increasing investments and as such of failing to remain competitive.
Therefore, companies need holistic Data and Analytics management to ensure focus, monitor value creation at every step, track costs and reduce misleading or underperforming projects.
Portfolio management comes in handy to enable companies to capture value from massive Data & Analytics initiatives, by clarifying the interdependencies between assets and projects, and managing their full lifecycle.
With portfolio management, Data and Analytics become an organization’s profit center.
In that context, portfolio management for Data & Analytics specifically need to drive both assets and project portfolio combined, in order to achieve:
Portfolio management brings a bird’s-eye view on projects and programs in favor of creating a value stream. It helps leaders better select the right projects and resources, identify risks or impediments, to fulfill global goals.
By governing the value streams, enterprises can build and maintain suitable delivery workflows.
Having portfolio management break into a supply and demand system, it connects silos and supports organizational efficiency by matching both sides and helping managers manage the relationship between costs and profits.
In order to correctly apply portfolio management, a company needs a comprehensive understanding of its deliverability capacity (supply) and value expectations (demand). The end goal expands to ensuring coordinated planning, proposing realistic expectations and maximizing deliveries.
Well-governed IT portfolios result in a 30% increase in return on assets. (Gartner, 2020)
Portfolio management for Data and Analytics helps organizations use data meaningfully and measure value with transparency. It focuses on identifying the connections between initiatives and data assets for capturing both direct and indirect value. It leads to a long-term organizational value creation process around data and analytics. In other words, it strengthens the impacts of data and analytics from all aspects.
This opens new opportunities in value generation.
Each data asset and the existing budget fuel the supply system to enable business operations and accelerate project execution. Comparatively speaking, projects and initiatives constantly create Data and Analytics demands to solve their targeted business problems.
By matching both sides, companies can understand their investment level and competitive advantages in Data and Analytics. Eventually, companies can foster revenue growth opportunities, save expenses, leverage proactive deliverables and solidify data as a sustainable asset.
Optimizing value from data and analytics is a continuous process, not a once-a-year or quarterly activity. (Gartner, 2021)
Having a shared Data and Analytics vision from the start is the key, ensuring alignment with strategic goals and priorities. And having a strong operating model is a must-have to be able to deliver on that vision and harvest the expected benefits.
The operating model addresses the need for defining efficient governance (roles, responsibilities, risks), adaptive processes, achieving visibility and overall supporting an effective collaboration for all actors. It is based on an adaptive learning model to continuously improve and adapt to the situation (maturity, ambitions, etc.)… and continuously maximizes value.
At the core of the operating model, managing value streams is about managing initiatives and assets end-to-end: from ideation to delivery and all along their lifetime. We propose here to zoom into the 4 main stages of this lifecycle:
The success of any change is when people within the organization adopt it. To achieve that, having business users contributing to ideas or proposing ideas is crucial from the start.
These business practitioners have the closest and latest understanding of business problems and opportunities in their area, as they face them every day. In turn, they might have the most suitable suggestions to solve existing issues, improve existing processes, or address new needs. Thus, the goal for ideation is to ensure the right people are involved in where it matters to them.
To initiate this, the base is to allow and enable everyone to view existing and ongoing initiatives and to freely propose their ideas.
Users need to be provided with a framework to guide them through framing their ideas and providing the right level of details, so they can be an easy context for collaboration and processing afterward.
Through the qualification process, individuals from across the organization can engage to give inputs, complete missing information, and provide approvals to an idea.
This collaborative process encourages engagement, communication and innovation. It allows to discover potential pain points early and to discover opportunities.
Qualification is also the ideal phase to identify and remove possible duplicated or conflicting ideas from the start, or on the opposite split large ideas into achievable and well-scoped initiatives.
And finally, users having contributed to ideating and qualifying ideas should be able to track their progress through the following phases, and continue being involved all along.
The post-pandemic economic boom leads to high demands of new Data and Analytics strategic initiatives, yet the budgets remain tight. After gathering enough ideas, decision-makers need to select suitable projects and allocate adequate resources.
Each organization may have different methods and processes for project selection, but the goal is always to form a feasible collection aiming for organizational growth and differentiation.
The decision-making process contains three factors:
Keep in mind that high-value projects often come with high risks and complexity. It may be easier to execute the big plan starting from low impact and low barrier projects.
At the same time, be aware of the organizational acceptance on the transformation level.
Facing an unexpected transformation, an organization may show resistance and avoidances rather than the willingness to commit and execute the plans. Sometimes if the organization is not ready for the change, it is probably required to identify intermediary transformation steps to get there and wait until teams are prepared and onboard.
In addition, it is key for enterprises to accelerate the typical annual or bi-annual planning cycle, and incorporate more frequent changes. This enables them to cope with the global acceleration and be able to react fast to new market conditions, new risks, emerging opportunities.
In that context, the ability to connect the roadmap with the ongoing status of execution is required to be able to quickly assess feasibility and impacts of potential changes… continuously adapting supply vs. demand and maximizing the value vs. the risks.
After obtaining a clear orientation and actionable portfolios, organizations need to maintain visibility regarding ongoing projects and initiatives for efficient and effective progress tracking at every stage.
When starting a project, the first step is to finalize alignment on the scope: deliverables, success criteria, costs, technical & functional requirements, data requirements, etc. With usually much more details than during ideation or roadmap phases.
Because of different objectives, team cultures, the scale of collaboration, or other reasons, projects may proceed with various execution methods.
Considering that there are many uncertainties during project execution, it is needed to have an adequate tracking system to consolidate progress and manage changes coherently. Portfolio management allows decision-makers to review and evaluate projects under the same measurements. With this global tracking mechanism, it is easier to follow and manage project uncertainties, track progress and take action.
This way, organizations ensure that the Data and Analytics supply capacity can still cover the changing needs.
The project delivery is about engaging the resources and people assigned to the initiative, but also ensuring they get proper support and expertise to be able to deliver efficiently.
Collaboration engages expert communities by exchanging ideas, sharing findings and tools, initiating workflows and leveraging diverse skillsets from other members. It facilitates cross-project and cross-department coordination to reduce conflicts and bring more added value to the deliverables.
Ultimately, successful and impactful project management anticipates and covers deployment needs, to prepare the users and stakeholders for operational adoption and use, and to prepare for ongoing care to maintain the initiative.
Sometimes Data and Analytics initiatives deliver an enabler or a new capability as a result instead of direct and instant value. Only after the tool has been deployed and used for a while, the true value of the initiative shows.
Monitoring focuses on long-term value generation and over-time quality tracking in order to identify how Data and Analytics initiatives perform in terms of impacts and costs.
Data and Analytics initiatives are sensitive to environmental changes, including macro/microeconomics events, data source changes, new behaviors, etc. Due to the swift changes in context or data, a model can be validated today but loses its accuracy and effectiveness tomorrow. Closely tracking these changes and updating models is the key to continuously deliver high-quality data and insights.
With high-quality information supporting business practitioners, teams will be more likely to use and reuse trustworthy data, as well as better explain achievements through impact metrics.
This eventually solidifies trust towards Data and Analytics, while supporting further continuous improvements… and favoring the emergence of new ideas!
Data and Analytics capabilities need to remain efficient, sustainable and effective to support the execution of the business strategy.
To an organization, the value of data starts when it is effectively used within operational processes and by users.
By incentivizing the use and reuse of data & analytics assets, their value and impact grow even further.
As a recap, portfolio management for Data and Analytics can help enterprises and Data leaders obtain a holistic view of all initiatives and manage multiple initiatives simultaneously. Business practitioners can also contribute and adapt better to digital transformation.
Portfolio management for Data & Analytics consists of those 4 steps:
By managing all the initiatives and assets, all along their lifecycle, enterprises can deploy an effective operating model to support their strategy and optimize the delivery and adoption.
Ultimately, portfolio management helps with managing and maximizing the value from Data & Analytics investments.
This continuously evolving cycle can help your organization to fully understand and develop your Data and Analytics assets, capabilities and potentials.
To help you consolidate, manage and optimize your portfolio of Data & Analytics initiatives and assets, we have designed YOOI, a SaaS platform combining portfolio and assets management in order to optimize the value generated by your projects.
With YOOI, you can build your cockpit to manage all your initiatives, from emergence to deployment. Fully connected with your ecosystem of tools to consolidate information, YOOI is providing alignment with the strategy, visibility on progress and risks, supporting animation of your communities.
Don’t hesitate to contact our team to learn more and schedule a demo!


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Reading by Donna Morrissey at the Confederation Centre Public Library, Thursday, May 19, 7:00 p.m.
The Confederation Centre Public Library and the PEI Writers’ Guild are thrilled to present an intimate public reading by bestselling Newfoundland author Donna Morrissey on Thursday, May 19, at 7:00 p.m. in the Library.
Donna Morrissey has written three vivid novels set within the Nfld. culture. She has received awards in Canada, the U.S. and England. Reviewers have compared her depictions of Newfoundland’s terrain and people to the worlds summoned up by Hardy and Faulkner. Donna’s fiction has been translated into several different languages, and has proven especially popular in Japan, Holland and Germany. She is also a scriptwriter: Clothesline Patch (a short story) won a Gemini for best production, as well as the best picture prize at the Los Angeles Film Festival. Her latest novel, What They Wanted, moves away from Nfld. and onto the oilfields of Alberta, and has been hitting the bestseller lists across the country. For more information about Donna, visit www.donnamorrissey.com
All are welcome, refreshments will be served, and books will be available.
Donna Morrissey Writing Workshop in Charlottetown, May 20
Co-sponsored by the PEI Writers’ Guild and her good friend, David Weale, Donna Morrissey will be presenting a day-long writing workshop on May 20, between 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. at 18 Upper Prince Street (a big blue house, find parking along Upper Prince or Walthen Drive which runs parallel).
Details about this incredible six-hour workshop:
• Designed around finding VOICE and writing short fiction from one’s past.
• Fun, intriguing technique of tapping into one’s past and combining truth with fiction to create short stories.
• Includes one, five-page edit of work.
• Designed for beginning writers, those wishing to enrich their writing skills or looking for inspiration/motivation, and, or, those wishing to play with words and develop right brain thinking.
• There is a one-hour break for lunch – brown bag your own.
• Bring something to write on and with.
Donna is the author of four award-winning novels – Kit’s Law, Downhill Chance, Sylvanus Now and What They Wanted as well as a screenplay, Clothesline Patch, which won a Gemini Award. Her work has been translated into Japanese, Dutch, German and Italian. Donna grew up in a small fishing outport in Newfoundland and now lives in Halifax. She has taught creative writing at Dalhousie University and Humber College and she is currently writing her fifth novel, and her first children’s fable. For more information about Donna, visit www.donnamorrissey.com
Email: firstname.lastname@example.org to register, only room for 15 souls, so register early! Fee due at the workshop is $79.00, please come 15 minutes early to register.

domain: library


An independent review to determine whether Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was radicalised during his time at University College London (UCL) was announced on Monday by President and Provost, Professor Malcolm Grant.
Mr. Abdulmutallab is accused by the FBI of attempting to blow up a US passenger aeroplane on Christmas Day, 2009. He denies the six-count indictment.
The review will examine Mr. Adbulmutallab’s time at UCL, including the three years he spent as President of the Islamic Society. Efforts will also be made to understand whether conditions at UCL contributed to his radicalisation.
The review will be chaired by Dame Fiona Caldicott, principal of Somerville College, Oxford, and pro vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford.
Dame Caldicot stated, “I am pleased to be able to lead the independent inquiry that has been set up to look into events at UCL during the period of study there of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. I hope very much that through chairing this inquiry I can help to produce a report that will have credibility and utility both within UCL and beyond.”
Professor Grant stated, “We are setting up a full independent inquiry into what transpired whilst he was here and his association with the student Islamic Society and their activities.”
Criticisms were levelled at UCL after the attempted attack. It was claimed by London-based terror expert, Peter Neumann, in an interview with the AP, that the university Islamic society is known for being particularly hardline.
However, Professor Grant has made it clear he feels that such criticisms are unfair.
In a statement, he drew attention to the legal obligation British universities are under to guarantee freedom of speech within the law on campus.
Professor Grant stated, “Campuses are and should be safe homes for controversy, argument and debate. This clearly does not include incitement that could lead to terrorism and murder.”
In an interview on Monday, he further clarified his position, commenting, “We must continue to regard students as adults. We must of course ensure that universities are not converted into hotbeds of radicalisation. But this is a long way from reality. There has been so much hyperbole and hysteria whipped up around this.”
He added, “I don’t think radicalisation works by radical preachers coming in and acting like drill sergeants recruiting into a group. We must dispel any misapprehension that universities can substitute for the security services. We are not capable of acting as policemen.”
A spokesperson from Oxford University stated that the University holds a similar position. “Freedom of speech is a fundamental right respected by the University and we also need to ensure that we do not discriminate against either staff or students on the basis of their political or religious views.”
They further commented, “Oxford University takes the security of students at Oxford University extremely seriously. Locally, Oxford city and Oxfordshire county councils are leading on what is known as the Prevent Strategy and the University has met with local councillors and Thames Valley Police to discuss the guidance given. These actions form part of the UK Government’s overall Prevent Strategy, rather than relating to any specific concern about Oxford.”
The other members of the review, which will begin in February, are yet to be announced. The finding of the panel will be published, and UCL has said that it will “act on whatever recommendations it makes.”


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The homeowners of Property of Island Design and style underpaid their two personnel for a long time. Picture / Google Maps
The proprietors of an island-style clothes store systematically underpaid two migrant employees beneath the minimum amount wage for years, deliberately holding untrue wage and time information to dupe authorities.
Damyanti and Prakash Narsey, a married couple now in their 60s, also did not give the employees ill leave, paid yearly depart or community getaway pay out.
The Fiji Indian pair owned and ran the now wound-down Home of Island Design and style in Ōtāhuhu, Auckland.
Labour inspectors mentioned they stored a fake book of wage and time documents for the two personnel to make it glimpse like they were being aspect-timers who only worked nine hrs a week.
But the couple held a next notebook at property that showed the employees basically labored some 20 hrs for every week on average and were being compensated well underneath the minimal wage.
The two employees were being also Fiji Indian, highlighting what the Labour Inspector known as an “inherent inequality of power”.
Ministry of Company, Innovation and Work Labour Inspectorate national manager Stuart Lumsden stated MBIE was “genuinely anxious about the volume of migrant exploitation we are looking at”.
“It really is a reputational challenge,” he instructed Open up Justice. “We can not pay for to be witnessed to have migrant exploitation, especially when it truly is difficult to get labour in New Zealand.”
The two employees in this circumstance experienced rationale to anticipate better remedy by men and women who shared linguistic and cultural ties, the Employment Relations Authority said in its selection launched nowadays.
But its documents had been “replete of instances wherever regrettably that is not so”.
Investigations confirmed the employees had been compensated $13 an hour in money for hours earlier mentioned the 9 officially recorded, a shortfall of $4.70 below minimum wage at the time.
MBIE was tipped off about the case in December 2019. A member of the community complained, stating a worker looked unhappy at the shop and explained to them they were not paid out the least wage or holiday getaway pay.
Labour inspectors visited the shop in January 2020, and the couple at the keep advised them their two staff members were being part-timers and were not entitled to ill go away.
The pair confirmed the inspector the e book of untrue data at 1st, but following further more questioning, admitted in March they had a second notebook at house showing the real image of how a great deal the two staff labored.
One of the workers told the inspector she experienced under no circumstances taken unwell depart but had long gone to perform ill.
Each personnel was owed among $11,540 and $11,810 for work above 6 several years, among 2015 and 2020.
They had been also owed a combined full of $7130 for public holidays and one more $11,200 for yearly depart.
The retail store entrepreneurs experienced failed to pay the workforce for community vacations that were being usually a working day for them, and only compensated three weeks annual depart as opposed to the necessary four.
The full arrears amounted to additional than $41,680, which the proprietors paid up “inside a make any difference of days” to the two employees after acquiring the labour inspector’s report in July 2020.
The couple tried using to blame a previous accountant for what they known as employment and tax “assistance”.
The Authority threw that out, declaring that holding two books of wage and time data permitted the company homeowners to maximise revenue and minimise wage expenditures and tax liabilities.
“The breach was neither inadvertent nor negligent but intentional,” Authority member Peter Fuiava reported in his selection.
The couple also reported they experienced a “good romantic relationship” with their personnel that would have continued if they did not close the apparel company.
But the Authority said there had been “numerous and sustained breaches of employment requirements” for a crystal clear vast majority of the workers’ time at the organization.
The Authority fined the pair $15,000 just about every for breaching the Bare minimum Wage Act and the Holidays Act. An additional proprietor of the shop was fined $30,000.
Lumsden said companies typically threatened the migrant with deportation, threatened not to assist their visa apps, or even charged a quality for people visas even nevertheless they did not have the power or authority to do that.
“It can be a breach,” he said. “It is not worthy of having those people couple extra bucks due to the fact we will do our greatest to recuperate arrears for the migrants, and we will seek out penalties for the breaches.”


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We simply got press information from the Philadelphia Chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, and it’s one that you’ll likely need to put down the Trumpets for a moment and read:
A combined satellite hearing will be conducted by the Pennsylvania House of Representatives with Health and Judiciary Committees on medical marijuana. The hearing will happen on March 24, 2015 at 10:00AM at the University of PA Health System in the Perelman School of Medicine Zumbrow Auditorium, 800 S. Spruce St. Philadelphia, PA.
Enactment to authorize a medicinal pot program in Pennsylvania has been dynamic since 2009 when Rep. Mark Cohen (D-Philadelphia) initially presented a bill.
In 2014 the state Senate passed a restricted medicinal cannabis products bill, SB 1182, by a vote of 43-7. In any case that enactment was seriously limited, permitting only 10 qualifying conditions and just eatable arrangements.
On February 25, 2015, the Senate State Government Panel held a hearing to listen to affirmation on Senate Bill 3 (Folmer/Leach). Patients, medical professionals, scientists and community leaders have been urging lawmakers in both chambers to extend the scope of the medicinal cannabis bills. Changes ought to permit specialists to choose when patients’ conditions oblige a proposal for remedial cannabis, permit inhaled delivery methods and offer a sped up time allotment for implementation.
The House at present has one medicinal cannabis bill presented (House Charge 193 – Cohen). It is doled out to the Health committee.
Derek Rosenzweig, who sits on the Board of PhillyNORML said, “Medical cannabis is going to be a reality in Pennsylvania; the only question is how expansive it will be, and whether or not it will be effective in protecting patients from arrest while helping provide an atmosphere of healing and low cost,”
We don’t intend to be unforgiving your buzz (man, here and there we sound so square), yet we simply have a profound trepidation inside that this issue is going to delay forever. Obviously such emotions could simply be ascribed to consummately ordinary distrustfulness. Related: Would someone be able to present to us a Yoo-hoo and some Little Caesar’


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- Products & Services
- Knowledge Base
Boxes at Sublett is in the permitting stage and is expected to open in 2024. It will consist of approximately 30 containers, a covered promenade and plenty of parking.
ARLINGTON, TX, March 16, 2023 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Real Estate Developer Ron Sturgeon loves shipping containers. His most recent project using the innovative and eco-friendly building material, Boxes at Sublett, promises to be the most exciting yet.
Sturgeon's latest container project, his third in Tarrant County, will be at Sublett and 287, where he intends to build phase two of a shopping center that he owns.
Sturgeon is a big advocate for the small business community with more than 1000 such tenants in Tarrant County. He loves mom-and-pop businesses.
"I'm especially excited about Boxes at Sublett because it will bring extra-small retail spaces for micro-enterprises that are not available anywhere in Tarrant County to an innovative community like Arlington with its many attractions," said Sturgeon. "This type of development is great for the creative type tenants and customers, and we hope to get a coffee shop for everyone to enjoy as well," he added.
Cities across the United States are gravitating to shipping container retail centers for their appeal to the younger generation and to small enterprises with goods to sell. Similar shipping container malls have appeared in Las Vegas (Downtown Container Park), Kansas City (The Iron District), Nashville (C1TYblox), and Wesley Chapel, Florida (Krate at the Grove), among other cities.
Sturgeon's first shipping container project, Box Office Warehouse Suites, a shipping container business park built with 150 containers, has been a sensational success. The park is fully leased with a waiting list. It's located in North Ft Worth, at the Golden Triangle exit off of I35W.
Additionally, Box Office Warehouse Suites was the inspiration for Sturgeon's custom home, a three-story shipping container house in Downtown Fort Worth with a swimming pool on the top floor, close to Montgomery Plaza.
Boxes at Sublett is in the permitting stage with the City of Arlington and is expected to open in 2024. It will consist of approximately 30 containers, a covered promenade and plenty of parking.
About RDS Real Estate
RDS Real Estate is a leader in leasing retail, office, warehouse, industrial and multi-use space in Johnson, Parker and Tarrant counties. For more information about any of their properties, call Jim Eaton at (817) 439-3224 or visit RDSRealEstate.com.
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World Insurance buys broker with trucking, cell tower emphasisPosted On: Jan. 19, 2023 1:27 PM CST
World Insurance Associates LLC on Thursday said it has acquired Volaris Insurance Group LLC.
Terms of the transaction, which closed Dec. 31, 2022, were not disclosed.
Tampa, Florida-based Volaris provides commercial lines coverages with a specialization in the trucking and cell tower industries, a statement said.
Volaris has fewer than 10 full-time employees, the majority of whom have moved over to World, according to an email from a spokeswoman.
World Insurance, based in Iselin, New Jersey, is the 34th-largest broker of U.S. business in the most recent Business Insurance rankings.

domain: economics


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Sweet-scented urine, much like its foamy counterpart, can be an intriguing yet puzzling phenomenon. While some instances are entirely benign, others might signal underlying health conditions. Let's delve into the aromatic world of urine and decipher what that sweet smell might be trying to communicate.
1. Diabetes Mellitus: 🍬
One of the most common culprits behind sweet-scented urine is diabetes mellitus. When diabetes is uncontrolled, excess glucose can spill into the urine, resulting in a sweet fragrance. If you notice an unusually sweet odor, it's crucial to monitor your blood sugar levels and consult with your healthcare provider.
2. Maple Syrup Odor – Maple Syrup Urine Disease (MSUD): 🍁
If your urine exudes a maple syrup-like aroma, it could be a sign of Maple Syrup Urine Disease (MSUD). This rare genetic disorder disrupts the breakdown of certain amino acids, leading to a distinctive sweet scent. Early detection and management are vital for individuals with MSUD.
3. Certain Foods and Beverages: 🥭🍯
Believe it or not, your diet can influence the fragrance of your urine. Consuming certain foods and beverages, such as asparagus, coffee, and certain spices, can impart unique scents to your urine. While usually harmless, these odors are temporary and not indicative of any health concerns.
4. Urinary Tract Infection (UTI): 🦠
Sweet-smelling urine can also be linked to urinary tract infections (UTIs). The presence of bacteria in the urinary tract can alter the odor of urine, often resulting in a sweeter fragrance. If you experience discomfort along with the sweet scent, it's advisable to seek medical attention promptly.
5. Medications and Supplements: 💊
Similar to foamy urine, medications and supplements can play a role in altering the smell of your urine. Some drugs may impart a sweet odor as a side effect. If you've recently started a new medication and notice changes in urine fragrance, discuss it with your healthcare provider.
Remember, while occasional changes in urine fragrance are normal, persistent or sudden alterations warrant attention. If you're uncertain about the cause of sweet-scented urine, consulting with a healthcare professional can provide valuable insights and ensure timely intervention if needed. Your body might be whispering clues – it's

domain: biology