text:
New research showing that people who would have got hip or knee surgery six years ago wouldn't get it now reveals how broken our health system is, says Labour's Health Spokesperson Annette King.
"The New Zealand Medical Journal article reveals people in Otago aren't receiving surgery when they need it and they're becoming more disabled by the time they get treatment, if they get treatment at all.
"This follows up earlier research which showed 36 percent of patients recommended for surgery were sent back to their GP without surgery because of a lack of funding.
"Academics are unravelling the spin on National's elective surgery figures and its time the Minister told the truth and admitted the numbers of orthopaedic surgeries are not actually meeting demand.
"It's not a surprise that people are not getting the help required given that this Government has cut $1.7 billion from the health budget over six years.
"It is actually cost effective to give people orthopaedic surgery when they need it instead of making them wait.
"Under Labour there was ring-fenced funding for hip and knee surgery from 2004 – 2008 which led to an increase in the number of performed surgeries. This was so successful the Minister uses Labour's 2008 figures in National's elective numbers.
"It's time the Government significantly increased the health budget and stopped the rationing of hip and knee surgeries, says Annette King.


D20 Modern: The Mystery of the Heritage
Here Come the Fraal...
Alien invasion version 1.3
After having visited And'liss Station the crew of the Vigilance learned of a Fraal fleet moving toward Earth. Vigilance immediately jumped into FTL and made for far terran orbit. There they discovered that the Fraal were in communication with the Earth and were spreading a message of peace after the Earth had shot at them.
Vigilance detected a small ship of Earth origin hiding behind the moon. This was the Prometheus. This military ship was launched for mysterious reasons and carries a strike team aboard it. In order to keep the military people safe they were brought on board the Vigilance.
Now the Vigilance has 20 highly trained military personnel aboard along with their food and weapons. Many questions remain. What should be done with the troops? How much can they be trusted? Is is a good idea to hand this over to the authorities as some around the ship are beginning to suggest?
Kitty is beginning to feel the pressure too. She feels responsible for the lives of all aboard this ship and is staring at the possibility of a war. She also is beginning to feel more alienated from her friends. This is stressing her out and could lead to some poor decisions…


Vue - create & deploy the project on MDB GO
How to deploy & host Vue app - tutorial & free hosting
This guide will take you step by step on how to create your project and deploy using MDB CLI.
Initialize and publish MDB project
Initialize
In order to initialize project and use predefined starter use the following command:

 $ mdb init

You will list of available starters to choose from.
Publish
Once you finish building your project, use the following command do deploy it:

 $ mdb frontend publish

Note: Since frontend is a default value for publish command, you can run just mdb publish (instead of mdb frontend publish )
If you are publishing for the first time, CLI will ask you few initial questions like
 - Whether you want to use npm or yarn?
 - What is your project name, version, description, github address and license
Once you successfully publish your project they will be stored for a future.
Video tutorial:


Home » Stage lighting equipment industry term
Stage lighting equipment industry term
Introduce the industry terminology of stage lighting equipment. Learn more info pls send messages to Kale stage lighting equipment supplier
1. DMX (Digital Multiplexing)
Data multiplexing is a programming protocol commonly used in lighting products. This protocol includes 512 channels, each with 256 values. Usually, a single channel is used to control the function of an automated lamp.
2. 8-bit DMX
DMX control channel parameters.
3. 16-bit DMX
A parameter that uses two DMX control channels, usually used for fine adjustment of horizontal and vertical control.
4. Damage
A term used to describe the light beam projected by the lamp in the air.
5. Ballyhoo
The motion effect of a programmed automated light looks like these lamps move randomly in a defined area.
Bump button
A button on the light console that can generate an action when pressed and released. Also known as point control keys.
6. Digital Light
A Digital lamp, a kind of remote control lamp, uses a non-mechanical (usually video output) way to create and change the lamp output.
7. Dimmer
Dimmer, a device used to control the brightness of incandescent lamps.
8. Flyout
Fly out and program the movement of the automated lighting fixture moving vertically from one position to another. For example, a typical FLYOUT CUE is to move the light beam from the stage to the audience area.
The luminous flux of lamps with the same power may be completely different because of their different light effects. For example, ordinary lighting bulbs are only 101m/W, while metal halogen lamps can reach 801m/W.
9. Color temperature
Color temperature means that the color emitted by the light source is the same as the color of the light radiated by the black body at a certain temperature. The temperature of the black body is called the color temperature of the light source and is generally measured in Kelvin. For example, 3200k and 5600k. The color temperature is high and the color of the light is cold: the color temperature is low and the color of the light is warm: when the color temperature is moderate, the light is close to white. Under normal sunlight in nature, the color temperature of light is generally higher than that of artificial lamps. Normally, the color temperature of sunlight is about 5600k, while the color temperature of the studio and performance lamps is about 3200k. (Thermal light source). However, the recent cold light source lighting in TV studios is a transformation of traditional light sources. The cold light source has a high color temperature, low energy consumption, and low heat generation. When performing indoor and outdoor photography, the color temperature conversion is simple and the picture is natural. Of course, the cold light source has higher performance requirements for the dimmer.
In modern light control, a new concept of the channel has been created. It refers to a collection of control loops on a fixture. Specifically: the functions of a certain lamp need to be controlled separately (for example focusing, strobe, color change, etc.), and the collective output circuit of the dimmer station is the channel.
Post time: 2020-06-11


text:
Ekurhuleni to invest R200 million to build water reservoirs
The Ekurhuleni Municipal says it will invest R200 million into building water reservoirs to alleviate water shortage similar to those experienced last year.
Most parts of the region were hit by water shortage for almost a month owing to technical glitches.
"That experience has resulted in almost a month long water supply interruption in parts of the Gauteng province has posed a challenge to all municipalities to better prepare themselves for such incidences," said spokesman Themba Gadebe.
He said the municipality has developed a water management plan to cater for such events.
"One component in the plan is the exploration of an early warning system which would be used to indicate dropping water levels in our storage reservoirs and allowing for speedy intervention."
"This will be achieved through a telemetric type system that will synchronise all reservoirs in Ekurhuleni, making it easy to divert water from one supply zone to another."
"This process will also include the harmonisation of the municipal underground infrastructure so that municipal potable water supply zones are aligned to enable to distribute potable water from one supply zone to another, where practically possible," said Gadebe.
Part of the plan would include building several water reservoirs in anticipation of future supply risk and population growth due to urbanisation.
Gadebe said a reservoir in Brakpan would be built at a cost of R25million, in Masetchaba View for R18million, Russel road for R34million, in Etwatwa R20million, water tower in Etwatwa R10million, in Northmead at R32million, in Dunottar R23million, Visagie Park R10million, in Bredell R31.12million.
Gadebe the construction of reservoirs which will add additional water storage capacity soon is already in an advanced stage of planning.
"South Africa is by its nature a semi-dessert area and Gauteng was built far from natural dams in the chase for mining prosperity, which calls on everyone in the province and Ekurhuleni region in particular to use water sparingly, curtailment of dripping taps and report any visible leakages," said Gadebe.

source: m-a-p/FineFineWeb


text:
Physical Sciences Division
The Oxygen Squeeze Play
Scientists first to discover tetraoxygen on the surface of a common catalyst
Oxygen molecules fill reactive pockets on the surface of rutile titanium dioxide. When heated, they split apart, with one oxygen staying put and the other filling a nearby vacancy (Top). When oxygen is added at low temperatures, two oxygen molecules fit into the vacancy. When heated, these molecules form a new species, tetraoxygen. Enlarged View
Results: When it gets cold on the surface of a popular catalyst, four oxygen atoms squeeze into a spot designed for just one, according to scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Initially, the atoms are paired up as two oxygen molecules or
2 O2. But, when the temperature rises, the two molecules react to form a new species, tetraoxygen or O4.
Why it matters: If researchers want to design a catalyst from scratch or improve an existing one, they need to predict how oxygen will react with the surface, said PNNL's Greg Kimmel, the principal investigator on the project. This very fundamental study revealed new information that will help predict oxygen interactions.
Methods: The researchers exposed a sample of rutile titanium dioxide or TiO2(110) to different amounts of oxygen at very low temperatures. Then, they heated the sample and studied the behavior of the oxygen using electron-stimulated desorption and mass spectrometry techniques.
The researchers began with a catalyst whose surface contained scattered reactive pockets, or vacancies, where oxygen atoms had left the surface. Next, they added (or adsorbed) molecular oxygen to see how it would interact with the reactive pockets. The oxygen was adsorbed at about 25 K or -414 degrees Fahrenheit, which required cooling the sample with liquid helium. In one experiment, they added one oxygen molecule per oxygen vacancy. In a second experiment, they added two oxygen molecules per vacancy.
For both experiments, no oxygen was released from the surface as it was heated. Instead the molecules reacted on the surface, but the type of reactions depended on whether the vacancies had one or two oxygen molecules.
For the sample with one molecule per vacancy, the oxygen molecule began to split apart at 150 K: one oxygen atom stayed put filling the vacancy, and the other adsorbed at nearby site on the surface. By 280 K, all of the oxygen had filled in surface vacancies.
However, when the sample that initially had two O2 per vacancy was heated above 200 K, these molecules transformed to tetraoxygen - a 4-atom arch poking up from the reactive pockets. By 500 K, the tetraoxygen decomposed, filling in nearby reactive pockets. But, to drive off all the oxygen and restore the vacancies, the scientists had to heat the sample to 700 K, about the temperature used to bake bread.
What's next? This fundamental research leads to more questions about the behavior of the common oxygen molecule on the catalyst's surface. The researchers plan to continue their research.
Acknowledgments: This research was done by Greg Kimmel and Nikolay Petrik at PNNL. The DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Chemical Sciences Division funded the research.
Experiments were performed in the electron and photon stimulated desorption laboratory located in DOE's EMSL, a national scientific user facility at PNNL.
The work supports PNNL's mission to strengthen U.S. scientific foundations for innovation by developing tools and understanding required to control chemical and physical processes in complex multiphase environments.
Reference: Kimmel GA and NG Petrik. 2008. "Tetraoxygen on Reduced TiO2(110): Oxygen Adsorption and Reactions with Bridging Oxygen Vacancies." Physical Review Letters 100, 196102. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.196102.

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


text:
Until the 1890s, when Port aux Basques became a railway centre, the settlements were mainly fishing communities settled by the French and later by Channel Islanders and the English. The community expanded as a trade centre, especially later when Port aux Basques was chosen as the terminus of the transinsular Newfoundland Railway in 1892. In 1898 the railway was completed and linked by the gulf steamer service to the Canadian railways. A number of fish processing plants were built by the 1950s but the industry was hit hard with the collapse of the COD fishery in the early 1990s and without the fishery's recovery the last large operation closed in 2007. Since incorporation, Channel-Port aux Basques has been the administrative centre for the Burgeo-La Poile region.
Author JANET E.M. PITT
Links to Other Sites
Channel - Port aux Basque
The website for the Town of Channel - Port aux Basque, named by Basque fishermen who visited this region in the 1500's.
Atlantic Provinces Chambers of Commerce
The website for the Atlantic Provinces Chambers of Commerce (APCC), formerly the Maritime Board of Trade. Formed in 1896, this organization promotes and supports business and economic development in Atlantic Canada. Click on "Chambers" for links to local Chambers of Commerce.


text:
Topics covered in e-RADS include:
Radiotherapy, both external beam, brachytherapy and unsealed source therapy
Diagnostic imaging using x-rays (both planar imaging and fluoroscopy) and nuclear medicine
Interventional radiography and cardiology
The sessions are of value to ward and theatre staff, porters and facilities, catering, domestic and mortuary staff. They are also of value to managers and patient representatives.
e-RADS provides staff with an understanding of the types of controls in place to warn of the radiation hazards, the monitoring available for some staff and the protective devices or methods used to keep doses ALARP. The differences between the risks associated with high dose therapies and lower dose diagnostic uses of radiation and the difference between radioactive substances and x-rays are all considered.
Staff are able to gain a better perspective on the magnitude of the radiation risks involved and why it can be appropriate in many cases not to be over concerned.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


Take the 2-minute tour ×
What's the difference on Windows with cmake and eclipse and MingW if I choose "Eclipse MingW Makefile" or "Eclipse Unix Makefile"?
With the MingW one I always get an error with "sh.exe" (that vanishes if I re-hit "Configure"), with the Unix one I always have to specifiy windres manually because cmake can't find it.
Does this make any difference for Eclipse or something else?
Both generated Makefiles work with Eclipse and MingW and compile my project.
What Makefile should I choose? And why?
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2 Answers
up vote 5 down vote accepted
This is really a mess.
CMake has a number of different Makefile generators on Windows: MSYS, MinGW, NMake, and Unix. The CDT generator works on top of the Makefile generators by also generating an Eclipse project for you. Currently, only MinGW, NMake, and Unix are supported by the CDT generator.
The difference between these are which "make" flavor it uses. MinGW, MSYS, and Unix are all variants of GNU make (in this context, Unix means "Cygwin"). The difference between these are mostly related to how commands are executed, more specifically which shell is used to execute the commands. GNU make will try very hard to use "sh.exe" instead of "cmd.exe", and this is usually where things go wrong: having a command in a Makefile which assumes details about which shell being used for execution. Another problem when choosing GNU make flavor is to figure out which standard Unix utilities are available (sed/grep/etc). One notable detail is that if GNU make is using cmd.exe to execute commands, it will not support parallell builds.
If you use Unix Makefiles, CMake will assume that your make is a Cygwin one, with full Unix emulation.
Also make sure that you actually run the "right" make. If you have generated Unix Makefiles, but you have MinGW make first in your PATH, then typing "make" in your build tree is likely to fail with weird errors.
But about your question: it really doesn't matter as long as it works.
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cmake -G"MSYS Makefiles" helps a lot when compiling for MinGW
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text:
Princeton-led team finds secret ingredient for the health of tropical rainforests
Posted December 9, 2008; 09:00 a.m.
A team of researchers led by Princeton University scientists has found for the first time that tropical rainforests, a vital part of the Earth's ecosystem, rely on the rare trace element molybdenum to capture the nitrogen fertilizer needed to support their wildly productive growth. Most of the nitrogen that supports the rapid, lush growth of rainforests comes from tiny bacteria that can turn nitrogen in the air into fertilizer in the soil.
Until now, scientists had thought that phosphorus was the key element supporting the prodigious expansion of rainforests, according to Lars Hedin, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University who led the research. But an experiment testing the effects of various elements on test plots in lowland rainforests on the Gigante Peninsula in the Barro Colorado Nature Monument in Panama showed that areas treated with molybdenum withdrew more nitrogen from the atmosphere than other elements.
"We were surprised," said Hedin, who is also a professor in the Princeton Environmental Institute. "It's not what we were expecting."
The report, detailed in the Dec. 7 online edition of Nature Geoscience, will be the journal's cover story in its print edition.
Molybdenum, the team found, is essential for controlling the biological conversion of nitrogen in the atmosphere into natural soil nitrogen fertilizer, which in turn spurs plant growth. "Just like trace amounts of vitamins are essential for human health, this exceedingly rare trace metal is indispensable for the vital function of tropical rainforests in the larger Earth system," Hedin said. Molybdenum is 10,000 times less abundant than phosphorus and other major nutrients in these ecosystems.
The discovery has implications for global climate change policy, the scientists said. Previously, researchers knew little about rainforests' capacity to absorb the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. If molybdenum is central to the biochemical processes involved in the uptake of carbon dioxide, then there may be limits to how much carbon that tropical rainforests can absorb.
The biological enzyme, nitrogenase, which converts atmospheric nitrogen into soil fertilizer, feeds on molybdenum, the researchers found. "Nitrogenase without molybdenum is like a car engine without spark plugs," said Alexander Barron, the lead author on the paper, who was a graduate student in Hedin's laboratory and earned his Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from Princeton in 2007 and who now is working on climate legislation in Congress.
Other authors on the paper from Princeton include: Anne Kraepiel, an associate research scholar in the Department of Chemistry; Nina Wurzburger, a research associate in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; and Jean Philippe Bellenger, an associate research scholar in the Princeton Environmental Institute. S. Joseph Wright, who earned his bachelor's degree in biology from Princeton in 1974 and now is a staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Institute in Panama, is also a contributing author.
Molybdenum, a lustrous, silvery metal, is found in soil, rock and sea water and in a range of enzymes vital to human health. Traces of the element have been found in Japanese swords dating back to the 14th century. In modern times, its high strength, good electrical conductivity and anticorrosive properties have made molybdenum desirable as an element of rocket engines, radiation shields, light bulb filaments and circuit boards.
The research was conducted with support from the National Science Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Smithsonian Scholarly Studies program, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute student fellowship program and the Environmental Protection Agency student fellowship program.


Nutrition during specific periods of the life cycle Ernährung in bestimmten Perioden des Lebenszyklus Nutrición durante períodos específicos del ciclo vital
Nutrition during specific periods of the life cycle
Biomanantial
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Nutrition during specific periods of the life cycle
The nutritional requirements differ to some extent during the different periods of life. Women of reproductive age have additional needs because of menstruation and, of course, during pregnancy and lactation. Babies and children have higher needs per unit weight than adults, mainly because they are growing. Older people are a vulnerable group, are exposed to greater risk of malnutrition than younger adults.
Deficiency diseases are prevalent in specific population groups. (The diseases are described and discussed in Part III.) This chapter discusses the various energy needs of people in various life stages.
Humans get energy from food and liquids they consume. The nutrient requirement of women of reproductive age (especially during pregnancy and breastfeeding), children and young adolescents, and older people are different from those of men between 15 and 60 years, so not everyone needs the same amount of food.
Women of reproductive age
Women of reproductive age have more nutritional needs than men adults. One reason is that blood loss during menstruation leads to a regular loss of iron and other nutrients, and that women are more prone than men to anemia (see Chapter 13). Moreover, in many developing countries women are much stronger than men. In rural areas, are usually very involved in agriculture and in urban areas, work long hours in factories and other places, at home, field or factory, still have much work to do at home including food preparation and childcare. Often the burden of collecting water and fuel falls on women. All this work increases the nutritional needs of energy and other nutrients.
Nutritional status of women before, during and after pregnancy contributes to their own welfare, but also to their children and other family members. The field of maternal nutrition focuses attention on women as mothers. Often focuses on nutritional status as it relates primarily to the welfare of children and their capacity to engender nurse, sustenance and care. The health and welfare of the mother as such have been relatively neglected. This is so, the field of maternal health and child emphasize providing services and care of women so that they can have successful pregnancies and lactation, also in the interest of the child, without caring much for the mother. The dual function of the women as mothers and productive workers is affected by poor diet and ill health, not just their own welfare but for the whole family. The excessive burden of work can lead to women with low food consumption at the edge of malnutrition.
A poor diet, infections and some common acute chronic, repeated pregnancy, lactation and an excessive burden of work, are factors that can contribute to serious physiological exhaustion and sometimes malnutrition. It has been suggested the term "maternal depletion syndrome." In many countries young women before the age of 20 are happy, healthy and attractive, but 10 or 15 years later, still young at the end of their thirties, are prematurely aged, exhausted, sick and discouraged. Often, young women cannot even reach the 20 years without having a first pregnancy. Figure 3 illustrates the months of pregnancy and lactation a woman in Kenya, not to represent the African mothers, it is not atypical.
Pregnancy
During pregnancy the nutritional needs of women are higher than in other stages of life. The diet should provide all the necessary elements for growing the fertilized egg or ovum, becoming a viable fetus and then a baby to term (see Table 4). As the female feeds on itself also nourishes the growing fetus and placenta that binds to the fetus by the umbilical cord in utero. At the same time their breast tissue is prepared for breastfeeding.
During the first half of pregnancy is needed additional food for the mother's uterus, breasts and blood - all of them increase in size or quantity - as for the growth of the placenta. The increased need for food continues in the latter half of pregnancy, but during the last quarter, additional nutrients are especially needed for the rapidly growing fetus, which also needs to store some nutrients, especially vitamin A, iron and other micronutrients, and energy by storing fat. A proper diet during pregnancy helps the mother to gain additional weight that is physiologically desirable weight and to ensure the baby's birth.
Healthy women gain weight during pregnancy if they do not work too much. As a heavy person needs more energy to perform the same amount of physical work that a thin person, a pregnant woman also needs more energy. In industrialized countries, many women have an easy life during pregnancy, rest frequently and therefore reduce their energy needs. However, in much of Africa and some other regions, pregnant women are still active, even during the last months of pregnancy (Photo 4). The basal metabolic rate (BMR) almost always increases during pregnancy, which increases further the energy needs. Therefore, most women need more energy when they are pregnant, including those not working excessively. Women's overloaded in the developing world with little food and insufficient rest, weight loss is a real and dangerous possibility.
No doubt that abortions, losses and stillbirths are more common in poorly nourished women than in those with good nutrition. Dietary deficiencies may also increase the risk of fetal malformations. Acute malnutrition reduces fertility and thus the likelihood of conception. A woman with severe malnutrition stops menstruating. This is clearly a natural device to stop the loss of nutrients in the menstrual flow and to protect women from the rigors of pregnancy and childbirth. However, it is not clear lack of fertility in undernourished women as less serious. Moderately malnourished women are the majority in parts of Asia and Africa.
Nutrition of the mother influences the child's weight at birth: malnourished mothers can only expect low weight babies. Even a modest increase in energy consumption during pregnancy tends to increase the child's weight at birth.
In many developing countries from 50 to 75 percent of pregnant women have anemia. Anemia often contributes to high maternal mortality rates. All pregnant women must attend a clinic at regular intervals to undergo a prenatal test, which should include checking the levels of hemoglobin. They should receive practical advice on nutrition, taking into account the foods that are available in the locality and who may become mothers. It is generally accepted policy in many countries that pregnant women should be advised to take supplements of medicinal iron, or sometimes iron-folate.
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I am still too young to have children but this is an important topic that I should check once I decide or even know because now I understand that women need different types of food and quantity depending on their state of course when you are pregnant but when you are young too, and even old?
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Cellulite ... Tips, Food and Dietary Supplements
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C#!= Operator Tutorial - AmieDD
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C#!= Operator Tutorial
This C#!= Operator Tutorial _URL_ AmieDD - code, cosplay and games
About C#!= Operators
!= Not equal.Predefined value types, the inequality operator (!=) returns true if the values are different, false. If the reference types isn't a string,!= returns true if its two operands points to different objects. String type,!= compares the values of the strings.


text:
RALEIGH, N.C., May 23, 2005 — Elster Electricity, LLC, a provider of metering solutions worldwide, announces that Toronto Hydro, the largest municipal utility in Canada, is piloting the EnergyAxis® System. The EnergyAxis System is a metering automation system that utilizes a 900 MHz controlled mesh network with Elster's single-phase electronic REX® meters and A3 ALPHA® meter collectors. Toronto Hydro is testing the system's two-way communications capability in three locations in the City of Toronto.
The EnergyAxis System enables Toronto Hydro to collect hourly interval and time-of-use metering data on electricity consumption from commercial installations, townhouses, and single-family residences. Toronto Hydro is testing the system's two-way meter-to-meter communication capabilities by stretching communications distances between meters up to 1,000 feet and installing meters in communications-challenged locations such as metal boxes and the basements of older homes.
In addition, Toronto Hydro is utilizing the EnergyAxis Metering Automation Server (MAS) hosted by Elster in Raleigh, NC. MAS enables Toronto Hydro to use additional system features such as flexible rate structures, two-way communications and on-demand meter reads in response to the Government of Ontario's Smart Metering Initiative. The Government of Ontario has established targets for the installation of 800,000 smart electricity meters by December 31, 2007 and the installation of smart meters for all Ontario consumers by December 31, 2010. Toronto Hydro's very thorough program to test the system under the Smart Meter Initiative requirements should be beneficial to other Ontario utilities looking for smart meter solutions.
"We are very interested in this pilot program and we expect that it will help us prepare for smart metering in Ontario," says Blair Peberdy, vice president communications and public affairs of Toronto Hydro Corporation.
"We are delighted that Toronto Hydro has chosen to test the EnergyAxis System to meet the Government of Ontario's Smart Meter Initiative," stated Jack Robertson, general manager of Elster Metering in Canada. "It's impressive to see how proactive Toronto Hydro has been to respond to the Government's directive. They have been quick to realize the benefits of a full two-way system that can do interval and TOU in the meter, without requiring special communication towers or repeaters. They can easily install the meters and the system creates its own communication network."
About Toronto Hydro [ _URL_ ]
Toronto Hydro Corporation is a holding company which operates through its wholly-owned subsidiaries including Toronto Hydro-Electric System Limited, a local distribution company (LDC) which distributes electricity; Toronto Hydro Energy Services Inc. which manages an existing portfolio of electricity contracts and is engaged in the development and sale of energy efficiency products and services; and Toronto Hydro Telecom Inc. which leases fibre optic cable capacity and provides managed data services.
The principal business of Toronto Hydro Corporation is the distribution of electricity by Toronto Hydro-Electric System Limited (THESL). THESL owns and operates an electricity distribution system, which delivers electricity to over 670,000 customers located in the City of Toronto. THESL is the largest municipal electric distribution company in Canada and distributes approximately 20% of the electricity consumed in Ontario.
About Elster Electricity, LLC [ _URL_ ]
Elster Electricity, LLC, a subsidiary within E.ON's Ruhrgas Industries, offers integrated, cost-effective solutions including advanced electricity meters, communication solutions, and metering automation systems for residential, commercial, and industrial applications. Elster Electricity is located in Raleigh, North Carolina and is a leading provider of electricity metering products and services throughout the world. Elster's metering products include high accuracy ANSI and IEC electricity meters, the EnergyAxis System with intelligent two-way communications, and the ALPHA meter line. Elster Electricity serves customers through a global sales force.
About Elster Metering (Canada) [ _URL_ ]
Elster Metering is a leading supplier of electricity and water meters and related AMR equipment and systems in Canada. Elster Metering is a division of Canadian Meter Company, Canada's leading gas meter supplier, and part of E.ON's Ruhrgas Industries. Elster Metering is located in Burlington, Ontario and offers a wide variety of metering and AMR solutions. Elster Metering delivers metering solutions across Canada focusing on helping customers achieve their metering goals.


Meridian Music offers piano tuning for home, churches, schools, institutions and businesses in the greater Indianapolis, Carmel and central Indiana area.
Tuning a piano involves taking a wrench (called a tuning hammer) and very precisely adjusting the tension on the 200-250 strings in the piano. Even though pianos only have 88 notes, most of those notes have 3 strings that must all be tuned exactly the same. Even the slightest movement of the tuning pin can change the pitch of the string quite a bit. Skilled piano tuners can easily hear up to 100 steps between two adjacent notes and learning exactly where to set the tension of the string is an art form that takes years to develop.
Dr. John Egan
Chair of Music Department
Saint Joseph College
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text:
What happens when virtual reality meets the real classroom? A lot of learning takes place, that's what. That's especially true in the technical fields.
Unaka High School's collision repair classes have a new learning tool that lets students paint a car without actually painting a car. It may look like a new video game, but in fact its a new learning tool for the class.
It's a virtual painting booth for vehicles. Needless to say, the students love it. "It's pretty much like you're really painting. I love painting, it actually helps you out a little bit," sophomore Lee Bennett says.
The virtual painting booth does give the students a lot of practice; for the school, it saves money. "We don't have to buy paint. They can paint different parts of the vehicle daily, whereas if they were ina paint booth they might only get to do that once a week or [every] two weeks," says Career and Technical Director Mickey Taylor.
The developers of this system have brought as much of the real thing to it as possible. "Even the gunning vibrates to simulate the air going through it. You set your nozzle up the same as you would back there in the paint bay. So it's awful close to the real thing," teacher Phillip Taylor said.
It even tells you what you're doing right or wrong almost instantly, which helps the students. "So if I know what my grade is when I'm doing it, I can do it better. I know what I'm messing up on and can do it right," junior Kayla Cochran said.
"When you paint it shows your thick spots, your light spots and it shows your good spots. That's the cool thing about it," adds sophomore Logan Blevins.
And why not practice in a virtual world rather than using someone's car for practice?


Picture This!
24 Jun
The PICTURE Clause…
You can define how many characters COBOL uses to store each piece of data. You can also specify what type of characters (alphabetic, numeric, etc) that each data field can hold, and you can set up special editing attributes for those data fields. The most commonly used PICTURE symbols are X and 9, which you will use in nearly every program you write.
COBOL assigns special meaning to characters that you use in the PICTURE clause. For example, an X character used in a PICTURE clause creates one position in the computer's memory that can hold a single character. Need to store a longer string? Use more than one X. A pair of X characters can hold two characters, three X characters can hold (you guessed it) three characters, and so on and so on.
So, if were to create a field to hold the name of my favorite animal, which happens to be my dog, I would create a PICTURE clause like this:
01 FAVORITE-PET PICTURE IS XXX.
As you can see, I've created space for three characters, so DOG can be stored in this field. Now, if I wanted to create a field to store the breed of my dog, which happens to be GOLDEN RETRIEVER, I would need to create a picture clause like this:
01 FAVORITE-PET PICTURE IS XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.
Right away, I bet you're seeing a disadvantage to this method. It can be pretty tedious, and prone to error, to count all those X's. So the creators of COBOL nicely allowed us to abbreviate the same PICTURE clause like this:
01 FAVORITE-PET PIC X(16).
Well that's much easier, right? PICTURE IS can be abbreviated to PIC, and XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX is abbreviated as X(16). I need to create space for 16 characters in order for the field to hold GOLDEN RETRIEVER. Yes, the space between the two words takes up a character position.
An X creates a space that can hold any character, whether its alphabetic, numeric, or a special character (like a dash or exclamation point). A 9 creates a space that can hold only a numeric digit. For example, the following PICTURE clause creates a space that can hold a six-digit number:
01 SOME-NUMBER PIC 9(6).
Pretty easy, right? So I can now move 123456 to my field called SOME-NUMBER. What if I mistakenly attempt to move _PHONE_ to this field? What will the result be? COBOL will truncate the number, and the resulting value of the field SOME-NUMBER would be 234567. The leading 1 would be lost. This can be disastrous when you are totaling numbers, so be sure you make your numeric fields large enough.
Would you use a numeric picture clause to hold a phone number, like this?
01 PHONE-NUMBER PIC 9(10).
Well you could (providing you didn't want to store the dashes), but I wouldn't recommend it. I would prefer to define a phone number like this:
01 PHONE-NUMBER PIC X(10).
The reason for this? I've always found that a good rule of thumb is this – if you may be doing math on a field, use a numeric PICTURE clause; otherwise, use a alphanumeric PICTURE clause, even if you intend for the field to always hold numeric data like a phone number, social security number, driver's license number, zip code, etc. You probably won't be doing any type of math on these numbers, so I just find it easier to assign them as a PIC X type. Using a PIC X will allow the entire string to be displayed in the debugger, even if the number contains leading zeros. Defining a number as PIC 9 will cause leading zeroes to be invisible while in debug mode, which can make debugging more of a challenge. We'll discuss more about debugging in a later post.
Here all are of the available COBOL PICTURE clause symbols in a nutshell:
A Creates a position for an alphabetic character. (I prefer to use X).
B Creates a blank position
C Provides a placeholder for scaling numbers that have their decimal points beyond either the right or left of the string of digits
S Creates a position for the sign of a number
V Marks the position of an implied decimal point in a numeric field, but does not take up a character position
X Creates a position that can be filled by any character
Z Creates a position that can be filled by any numeric digit other than leading zero
9 Creates a position for a numeric digit
0 Inserts the zero character into a string
/ Inserts the slash character into a string
, Inserts the comma character into a string
. Inserts the period character into a string
+ Creates a position for a required sign character
CR Creates a two-character position that appears as CR on negative numbers
DB Creates a two-character position that appears as DB on negative number
* Inserts an asterisk in place of a leading zero in a numeric field
$ Creates a position to display the currency sign
I'll admit that I pulled this list from a COBOL textbook. I'll also admit that in more than 30 years of COBOL programming I've never used some of these symbols. In fact, I've probably only used about half of them in all those years of coding, so take what you need, and forget the rest (I surely have).

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Tagging lexical words in the text and/or linking to lemmata for purposes of indexing or search.
Explicit markup of words (tokenization) and identification of their dictionary headwords (lemmatization) are both optional. Many projects simply leave these features unmarked, or rely on automated processes in search software to detect word-breaks and link to lemmatizing tools such as Morpheus. (The Papyrological Navigator, Perseus, and the TLG all use methods similar to this.)
To explicitly mark-up lexical words in a papyrological or epigraphic text, however, each word in the text should be enclosed in a element. (For ease of processing, it is advised that inter-word spacing, punctuation and other features be left outside of this element, and if possible there should be no spaces or carriage returns within the element.)
To record the lemma or dictionary headword of the word in question, the simplest solution is to enter the uninflected form in a lemma attribute, which may be used, for example, to generate the entries in a lexical index to the corpus.
A slightly more sophisticated solution is to enter in a lemmaRef attribute a URL or other URI that points to the entry for the word in question in a database or online dictionary. This solution allows for better disambiguation of homonymous words, for example, or linking to morphological and statistical information about the word.
If a single word tag contains more than one indexable word (e.g. "populusque" in Latin or "κἀκ" in Greek), or an incomplete word is ambiguous and might correspond to either of two or more lemmata (e.g. ΕΚΦΕΥΞ), then all lemmata that should be indexed may be included in the lemma attribute, separated by spaces:


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A new type of quick and pain free test has been introduced into GP practices across Bury, reducing the need for some patients presenting with digestive problems to have invasive tests at hospital.
The new 'Faecal Calprotectin' test checks for levels of a protein called Calprotectin in the gut. The protein is present in a stool sample when there is inflammation present.
The test is used where a patient presents at their GP practice with symptoms that might suggest they have inflammatory bowel disease or irritable bowel syndrome.
The test involves the examination of a stool sample, the sample is taken by the patient in the comfort of their own home and dropped back into the surgery for onward testing. The results of the test are usually available within a week and will give the GP an indication of the likely diagnosis, to help plan the patients care in a timely way.
If Calprotectin protein is detected in the stool sample, this could suggest that the patient has inflammatory bowel disease* which would require further tests at hospital. Tests may include a colonoscopy, an test which involves the insertion of a small tube with a camera into the patient's back passage.
Where the Calprotectin protein is not detected, it is more likely that the patient has irritable bowel syndrome, and in this case, the patient can receive immediate advice on the best ways to manage their symptoms, without the need for further invasive tests at hospital.
The new test is quick, cost effective and results in better patient experience by avoiding unnecessary invasive tests where possible, and for those patients that do require further investigation, waiting times should be reduced.
Dr. Daniel Cooke, local GP and Clinical Lead for Elective Care at NHS Bury Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), said:
"Until recently, a hospital referral for a colonoscopy was the main approach GPs would need to take to diagnose and distinguish between inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome. The new test offers us a much more efficient way to diagnose digestive problems quickly, and more accurately identify which patients would benefit from further tests in hospital, and those that we can support to manage their symptoms without further investigations."
"The new test is good news for GPs, as it helps us to make a diagnosis more quickly and provide the patient with the most appropriate care, it is also good for patients as they will only go on to have further potentially invasive tests where absolutely necessary."
Note to editors: * If Calprotectin protein is detected in the stool sample, which could suggest that the patient has inflammatory bowel disease then the patient's GP is likely to rerun the test to ensure that the results are not a one off or as a result of medication, before referring to hospital test.
Date: 12th October 2018


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Selenium fortification of infant formulas: does selenium form matter?
Selenium is a trace element essential for the health and development of the growing infant. It is a necessary component of proteins and enzymes required for a variety of functions, including antioxidant defense, modulation of the inflammatory response, and production of thyroid hormones. In breast-fed infants, selenium stores depend on the selenium content of the mother's diet. In formula-fed infants, selenium levels are correlated to the residual selenium stores accumulated in utero and the level and type of selenium fortification used in the formula. Today, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommends that infant formulas contain selenium at levels between 2.0 and 7.0 μg per 100 kcal. While the US FDA does not recommend a particular selenium form for fortification, evidence indicates that organically bound selenium forms (e.g., selenomethionine and selenium-enriched yeast) are better absorbed and retained than inorganic forms (e.g., selenite and selenate). Preliminary data from studies in adults do suggest that fortification with standardized selenium-enriched yeast may offer benefits compared to fortification with other organically bound selenium forms. However, because most studies evaluating the impact of selenium fortification of infant formula have assessed inorganic selenium supplements, additional research into the bioavailability and outcomes associated with the use of selenium-enriched yeast in infants is needed.


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Two cannon were discovered on State land off the coast of Oregon near Arch Cape in Clatsop County in mid February, 2008. Afraid that the cannon might be stolen or suffer from future storm damage (e.g., uncovered by tide and left to deteriorate through exposure to the elements), Oregon Parks and Recreation Department personnel hauled one of the cannon partially up the beach on February 18 so that both cannon could be easily retrieved the following day. State law (ORS 390.235) dictates that a state archaeological permit is needed to remove any artifacts from an archaeological site on public lands in Oregon. The Oregon State Historic Preservation Office was contacted and asked to assist in the recovery efforts since public attention had attracted many people to the beach and OPRD staff was afraid that the cannon or associated debris from an earlier shipwreck may disappear before or during the recovery efforts.
State Archaeologist, Dennis Griffin, joined Nehalem Bay State Park staff on the afternoon of February 19th and assisted with the recovery of the two cannon. The recovery efforts were conducted under state Archaeological Permit AP-1089. This report summarizes the recovery efforts and provides recommendations for long-term conservation and exhibition of the recovered cannon.
Read the full report. (1 MB PDF)
(Requires Acrobat Reader )


Oklahoma Attorney General Tells Court Medication Abortion Bans Are Constitutional
Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt argues in a brief filed last week that his state's law regulating medication abortion is not a universal ban on the procedure, but even if it were, such a ban would be constitutional, The Oklahoman reports.
The brief was submitted to the Oklahoma Supreme Court in response to questions asked by the U.S. Supreme Court about Cline v. Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice, a case the Roberts Court is considering adding to its docket that challenges a 2011 Oklahoma law that purports to ban the off-label use of medicines for the purposes of ending a pregnancy. The Oklahoma law directs doctors to only prescribe RU-486 or any other "abortion-inducing drug" as authorized by the protocol spelled out on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved label. The U.S. Supreme Court has expressed an interest in weighing in on whether or not states may go as far as Oklahoma in regulating, or banning altogether, specific abortion procedures.
The Oklahoma law was originally challenged in state court, where a coalition of reproductive rights supporters argued that the law is so badly drafted that it would effectively ban the use of all medication abortion pills, including preferred treatments for safely ending an ectopic pregnancy. Furthermore, the challengers argued, even if some medications fall outside the ban, the law's requirement that practitioners follow FDA protocol in administering those medications place women's health significantly at risk, since those protocols are severely outdated and subject patients to dosing requirements that can be as much as three times the necessary amount. A lower court agreed, and struck down the law, blocking its enforcement.
Attorneys for the State of Oklahoma appealed to the state supreme court and argued that the law does not effectively ban the use of RU-486 nor does it forbid the use of methotrexate to end ectopic pregnancies. But instead of ruling on those specific issues, the supreme court, in a brief opinion, ruled that the state law conflicted with federal Supreme Court rulings protecting a woman's constitutional right to choose abortion and upheld the lower court's decision to block the law.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review the challenge, but not until the state supreme court clarified which medications are regulated under the law.
In his brief, Attorney General Pruitt defended the law, claiming the law requires providers to follow the FDA protocol, given "concerns" over the safety of off-label use of drugs like mifepristone to induce abortion, and is therefore not a ban on the procedure. Furthermore, Pruitt argued, the Supreme Court has previously upheld bans on specific abortion procedures like the federal "partial-birth abortion" ban, so even if the 2009 Oklahoma law does ban all medical abortions, it should still be considered constitutional.
Once the state supreme court clarifies this question of whether the law is a total ban, the Roberts Court will decide whether to consider the matter further.
Follow Jessica Mason Pieklo on twitter: _USER_
 - fiona64
 Give me a break. Treatment of erectile dysfunction is an off-label use of Viagra (a cardiac med) and you don't see any of these *men* raising concerns about that …
 - cjvg
 We, the united states should really protect men's health better, lets ban off label use for Viagra!
 - HeilMary1
 And let's deny it to playboy bachelor priests and child-free adulterous wife dumpers like Lush Limpballs.
 - cjvg
 Yes, only if their wives deliver a notarized letter to the prescribing doctor certifying that the Viagra requested is strictly for use within their marriage and for reproductive reasons only.
 Of course they should have an health exam that includes a manual and ultra sound prostate check and include a 3 hour (with pictures) lecture on std's and the health risks of extramarital sex


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Prints, Drawings, and Photographs
Farm Women Planting
Camille Pissarro, French, 1830 - 1903
Color etching and aquatint
Currently not on view
1941-8-107Purchased with the John D. McIlhenny Fund, 1941
LabelPissarro helped revive a process for making color prints that was originally developed in Paris in the eighteenth century. This classic method consisted of superimposing four separate plates, each inked in a different color (red, blue, yellow, and black). For Farm Women Planting, Pissarro omitted the black plate to obtain the sunny aspect that makes this impression unique.


Why do I feel small crystals or hard lumps inside my new Boveda?
A brand-new Boveda is pliable, jelly-like and "squishy." Sometimes you might also feel some small crystals or lumps inside the pack, which is totally normal. Your Boveda is still safe to use.
Here's why crystals can form inside a new Boveda: The signature formula inside Boveda is a saturated saltwater solution. We add all-natural salts and a food-safe thickener to purified water then seal it all in a leakproof membrane. When we combine the ingredients and fill the membrane, sometimes an excess of those blended salts will mix with the water. As a result, small salt crystals that feel like hard lumps can occasionally form. Additionally, changes in temperature or other conditions can create recrystallization of the salts. This can feel like regular table salt or occasionally like coarse sea salt.
Any crystals in Boveda won't impact the performance, effectiveness or shelf life of the 2-way humidity control. In the rare event that the crystals become sharp and puncture the pouch, please reach out to us. We'll make it right at no cost. We're good like that.


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The Uniting Church Synod of NSW/ACT has a vision for our church to be a transforming presence for the common good in the Murray Darling Basin. This presence includes pastoral care for the people and a prophetic voice for the reconciliation and renewal of Creation.
The Synod passed a resolution for At the 2013 Synod gathering for continued ministry in this regard, following a visit by the Moderator (then the Revd. Dr Brian Brown) to the Riverina during the time of debate about the draft Murray Darling Basin Plan, and a subsquent consultation that he facilitated with a diversity of people from across our church.
The Uniting Church Murray Darling Basin group is now taking this ministry forward.
- Watch this video about why the Uniting Church is involved in questions of water reform and other issues facing the Basin
- Read the Synod resolution and access a report prepared for the 2013 Synod
- Read about the purpose of the Murray Darling Basin Group
The group is now involved in two major projects - tours in various parts of the Basin, and the Faith in a Basin Future project in the Southern Basin
Murray Darling Basin tours
The aims of the tours are:
- To enable city dwellers to visit the MDB and learn first-hand about rural issues.
- To build connections between city and country and between rural and urban people.
- To listen to farmers, scientists and other concerned participants who connect with the UCA MDB group to assist people to become informed about the moral and ethical complexities of the situation.
- To give an opportunity for people living in the MDB (including churches) to be heard and for the wider church to support people and churches in the Basin who are in the midst of significant change.
The first tour, from Albury to Mildura, was held in September 2014. It included public forums, meetings with churches over a meal, visits to irrigation and dry land farms, eco tourism, visits to historical sites, time with indigenous groups and more.
- See Rural Chaplain Phill Matthew's blogs and photos about the tour (blog post 1, blog post 2, blog post 3, blog post 4)
- Read Moderator the Revd. Myung Hwa Park's reflection
- View a self-running presentation about the tour and the Murray Darling Basin by Keith Baker
- Use a discussion group resource for your small group, prepared by Jim Vickery using his photos from the tour and reflections by the Revd. Gereldine Leonard
A second tour along the Darling River took place from 1st to 9th August 2015.
- See Rural Chaplain Phill Matthew's blogs and photos about the tour (blog post 1, blog post 2, blog post 3)
- Read article in Insights by the Rev. Nerida Blake and a several short reflections by other tour participants
A tour along the Murrumbidgee River will run from 10th to 18th September 2016. Visit the tour website for the itinerary and to express your interest in participating.
Faith in a Basin Future project
"Faith in a Basin Future" is a community development project, working together with young people to foster vitality, resilience and sustainability in the Murray Darling Southern Basin. Teams in communities along the Murrumbidgee and Murray Rivers will:
- Find out what makes their community vital and how it is changing socially and economically and culturally.
- Look for opportunities that emerge for their community to develop and nurture sustainable futures.
- Identify and plan for a specific project that they agree can strengthen the vitality of their community as it adapts to the future.
You may like to run a worship service connecting with the Murray Darling Basin. here are some resources to assist:
- Service outline, with thanks to St Margaret's Uniting Church Hackett, and St David's Uniting Church Albury
- Children's talk, prepared by Keith Baker
- Self-running powerpoint presentation/address, prepared by Keith Baker
- The River Sunday resources prepared for the Season of Creation


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We are a Christ-centred community existing to spread a passion for Jesus Christ in the Anlaby Communities and beyond.
We seek to:MAKE disciples who make disciples – This is the essential growth function of the vine, the cell-division. We want to help people to grow in their knowledge of the transforming grace of God, that they might live for him in every part of their lives, and in turn help others. Matthew 28:18-20; 2 Timothy 2:2.
SEND disciples to bless the Anlaby Communities – As the vine spreads it bears delicious fruit which benefit many. God called out a people that they might be a blessing to the whole world: We love our community and our city, and we long to be a blessing to them. Genesis 12:3; Galatians 6:10.
SUPPORT mission in West Hull and beyond – Think of the vine spreading across a fence, covering the barren surface with life and growth. We seek to work with others to make Jesus Christ known in the Anlaby Communities, in West Hull, and beyond. Matthew 28:18-20; John 3:16.
Listen to more about Our purpose and vision here.


Hey, I have just reduced the price for all products. Let's prepare our programming skills for the post-COVID era. Check it out »
Inline Class
A class does almost nothing and isn't responsible for anything, and no additional responsibilities are planned for it.
Move all features from the class to another one.
Inline Class - Before
Inline Class - After
Why Refactor
 - Often this technique is needed after the features of one class are "transplanted" to other classes, leaving that class with little to do.
 - Eliminating needless classes frees up operating memory on the computer—and bandwidth in your head.
How to Refactor
 1. In the recipient class, create the public fields and methods present in the donor class. Methods should refer to the equivalent methods of the donor class.
 2. Replace all references to the donor class with references to the fields and methods of the recipient class.
 3. Now test the program and make sure that no errors have been added. If tests show that everything is working A-OK, start using Move Method and Move Field to completely transplant all functionality to the recipient class from the original one. Continue doing so until the original class is completely empty.
 4. Delete the original class.


The ObservSMART system is a proximity solution designed to solve one of the most significant challenges behavioral health facilities face on a daily basis: consistent, validated patient observation. Healthcare providers can rely on ObservSMART to monitor patients and ensure staff compliance using customized parameters that cater to the needs of their unique unit.
Shaina Smolowe, Director of Customer Success at InvisAlert Solutions, explains how the ObservSMART system serves as an indispensable tool for behavioral health professionals.
Q&A: How ObservSMART helps behavioral health patients and staff
Q: What is ObservSMART?
A: ObservSMART is a patented product that improves Q15 compliance, ensuring overall better patient safety and quality of care. This is achieved through patient wristbands that sync with software to perform patient checks. This equipment relies on proximity — health checks can only be performed and documented if a staff member is near the patient, therefore ensuring compliance.
Q: Why is ObservSMART important?
A: Patient safety is the number one priority. Patients go to these [behavioral health] facilities because it is the safer and better option for them. It is crucial that staff are seeing the patient on regular intervals to ensure that they are providing the safest environment possible.
And this remains especially true during the pandemic. Mental health didn't go anywhere — people are still suffering. Now, facilities are being overrun with patients who are seeking help during these difficult times.
Q: Why is ObservSMART more efficient than traditional Q15 checks?
A: Using traditional methods for patient checks, everything is documented on paper or e-tablets, but there is no validated compliance. If there was a sentinel event, leadership would have to gather everyone's paper records, check cameras, and document what was seen in order to understand if the event was avoidable. They check to see if the staff were doing their rounds like they were supposed to.
ObservSmart ensures compliance. The data that we provide on rounding and proximity is essential and eliminates the uncertainty of using paper. Seeing how close in proximity staff was to a patient is an invaluable measure that other systems aren't able to provide. There are supervisory alerts to help avoid sentinel events, so supervisors can intervene in real-time to make sure that the patient is getting the best care.
Q: Is ObservSMART flexible to specific patient needs?
A: Yes. For example, the health checks can be adjusted to intervals other than fifteen minutes. I have seen them as low as 5 minutes and as high as an hour.
It depends on the type of facility, whether it's inpatient, residential, substance abuse or detox. 15 minutes is the standard for inpatient, which is the most common interval. Now, we are seeing many more variables as we are growing and branching out to different types of facilities. We also accommodate 1:1 rounding for higher acuity patients.
Heart and Head for Patient Safety Checks
Q: Does ObservSMART actually improve client experience and patient safety?
A: Many organizations have reported noticeable improvements as a result of ObservSMART.
We've heard things like, "it helps me sleep better at night," and, "it's the smartest thing we've ever done," from our clients who have implemented ObservSMART in their facilities.
Melissa Larkin-Skinner, regional CEO of Centerstone, a not-for-profit health system, said in a press release, "This technology is vastly enhancing the way we observe and monitor patients in our care. Our staff is able to manage more efficiently the required round-the-clock 15-minute checks that are standard care for behavioral health patients. In turn, supervisory staff can validate that patients are being observed and clinicians can provide real-time feedback and care instructions."
Q: How does ObservSMART affect staff workload and workflow?
A: Designed by and for behavioral health staff, our solution supports the most complex workflows and improves communication among staff. Our proprietary management processes help you operationalize and offer your team the appropriate tools to effectively and efficiently perform their responsibilities. After implementation, our clients report an overall decrease in workload.
A decrease in workload and improvement of communication can allow for better overall quality of staff productivity.
Q: Why is analytics in healthcare important? How does it affect employee performance?
A: Staff and leadership can see real-time performance to quickly understand, if improvements need to be made. It also allows staff to be recognized when they are doing a good job.
We recommend pairing weaker performers with stronger performers. We find when a facility meets more regularly with the staff about compliance, these numbers start to go up and staff compliance improves.
Q: What happens after we implement ObersvSMART in our facility?
A: We develop strong customer relationships, and if we can work together to improve patient safety, then we are doing our job. After implementation, we meet with leadership weekly until they are comfortable, and then quarterly to keep everyone on track. We are invested in your success.
With ObservSMART's experience with other clients, we can help drive best practices and allow for positive changes.
As healthcare professionals ourselves, improving safety is our number-one priority. We designed ObservSMART to give healthcare staff — and patients — the peace of mind they deserve. With its ability to record essential patient data, improve staff workflow and performance, and set and ensure patient monitoring parameters, ObservSMART is a powerful tool capable of keeping patients safe and improving care.
Contact us to learn how InvisAlert Solutions can make your behavioral health facility a safer place for everyone.
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A senior official on the FAA team handling drone regulation and authorizations has lined up veteran flight instructors from a Connecticut flight school to help create the agency's first Aviation Career Education Academy that's all about drones. Aviation Safety Inspector Marilyn Pearson hopes the weeklong program will become a model for similar programs across the country.
It all began with what was a terrifying moment for a teenager: Ryan Felner of Westport, Connecticut, caught Pearson's attention through media coverage of his entrepreneurial efforts starting a drone business—at age 15. Pearson recalled in a telephone interview that she tracked Felner down and called him to give a gentle reminder that the minimum age for Part 107 pilots is 16.
Felner, who at first seemed to Pearson to be terrified to be in the crosshairs of the FAA, readily agreed, and over the course of the ensuing year the two communicated, Pearson offering advice and expertise to help the young man understand airspace and some of the fine points of aeronautics that were not familiar to a teen lacking manned aviation experience. Felner took the Part 107 written exam when he turned 16, and was invited, along with Pearson, to speak about their experience at a Maker Faire in town. That led to the local superintendent of schools approaching Pearson to inquire about creating an opportunity to harness youth interest in drones more broadly.
The upshot of that is a weeklong summer program that the FAA hopes will be a model for the country, a clinic designed for young adults (ages 16 to 20) that prepares them to pass the Part 107 knowledge test, as well as providing a basic introduction to photography and videography technique. The Aviation Career Education UAS Academy begins July 24 at Staples High School in Westport, and Felner will be among the instructors, volunteering his time (along with the other instructors, including Pearson) to introduce fellow teens to unmanned aviation. Pearson also has lined up a pair of experienced flight instructors, Terry Keller Jr. and John Lampson of Premier Flight Center at Hartford-Brainard Airport, to help teach airspace, weather, charts, aeronautical decision making, and other elements of a basic ground school. The instructional staff also includes representatives of the Academy of Model Aeronautics (a co-sponsor of the program) and other local remote pilots. The program fee was originally set at $200 for the week; Pearson wrote in an email July 11 that the fee had been reduced to $100.
Pearson said the FAA has for years conducted Aviation Career Education academies around manned aviation, but this is the first for unmanned aviators, and therefore a bit of a test flight. If all goes well, the FAA would like to replicate it across the country. She said the instructors plan to give the students some hands-on flight experience.
"All of us are remote pilots," Pearson said. "We're all volunteering and using our registered drones."
Pearson joined the FAA in 1997 with a diverse background in aviation and a long list of pilot certificates and ratings. She has flown commuter airlines, night cargo, and charter, and given flight instruction; Pearson is rated in many types of aircraft including gyrocopters and gliders, has experience flying competition aerobatics, and joined the headquarters staff not long after Congress directed the agency to create rules for drone operations.
"It was kind of at the beginning … before they exploded to where they are now," Pearson said of her own introduction to drones. She was sent to Hood River, Oregon, for a training program that included time spent operating the Boeing Insitu ScanEagle, and returned to help draft the rule now known as Part 107. Pearson also has had a hand in evaluating applications for exemptions under Section 333, prior to Part 107 implementation in August 2016, and remains deeply involved in ongoing work to evaluate and approve waivers and authorizations. Pearson also is among the authors of the FAA Safety Team unmanned aircraft course.


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Harmony Grain Corn
Out of stock
A joyful family reunion between a hybrid swarm of North American grain
corns and a synthetic composite of 6 races of South American grain corns: Tuxpeno, Coastal Tropical Flint-Dent, Southern Cateto, Cuzco, Coroico, and high-altitude Andean. Harmony was developed to unify various diasporas of corn and to create a strong genetic base from which to conduct plant selection and breeding. Among the corns that I grow, this population most fully expresses mother maize's role as mother of life, teacher, problem solver, and sacred technologist. Contains flint, dent, flour, pop, and a small amount of sweet corn. Adapted to temperate growing conditions. Not day-length sensitive. About 85 to 115 DTM to grain stage. High resistance to predation by birds and small mammals.


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A rare lizard species called the Lyon's grassland striped skink has been spotted in the Australian wilderness after 42 years. Doctor Andrew Amey, a herpetologist from the Queensland Museum, led the team that embarked on the quest to confirm whether this elusive lizard still inhabited northeast Queensland.
Once Thought To Be Extinct, Scientists Have Found A Lyon's Grassland Striped Skink Lizard In Australia
According to Yahoo! News Australia, their findings exceeded expectations. The Lyon's grassland striped skink lizard was found in Mount Surprise, 300 kilometers south of Cairns, Queensland. "Our mission was basically to see whether they were alive," Doctor Amey said. "And so we targeted the one spot it was known to occur."
However, the journey to find the lizard was challenging. The team had to navigate through high grass on a cattle farm, setting traps across a five-square-kilometer area where the skinks were last recorded. Pit traps were necessary as visual surveys were futile due to the thick grass. "You can't visually survey for them because of the grass, so you just have to set the traps and be patient," Doctor Amey added.
Natural Disasters Threatened The Rare Lizard
One reason for the initial rarity of the Lyon's grassland striped skink is that it had been confined to a very small area, making it particularly vulnerable to natural disasters such as bushfires, droughts, and disease. Despite the area experiencing fires since the last sighting, researchers believe the lizard species survived due to its habitat preference, which involves living in cracks beneath the soil.
Doctor Conrad Hoskin from James Cook University, a member of the Queensland skink expedition, expressed his excitement about the rediscovery and the possibility of finding the reptile in new locations. "I think we've worked out their habitat really well. And when you look at the imagery like on Google Earth, you can see a whole lot of similar areas," he said of the lizard.
The Skink Can Thrive In Grassy Lands
Doctor Hoskin also emphasized the importance of understanding the skink's habitat preferences and how they played a crucial role in their successful rediscovery. Their ability to thrive in specific grassy areas with deep, cracking soil was a crucial insight for future lizard conservation efforts. With high numbers of skinks found beneath the soil in the surveyed area, there's hope of saving the species.
The Expedition Found More Rare Lizard Species
Researchers plan to return to the region to search for other populations of this elusive skink, and they have received financial support from Queensland's environment department for further expeditions. Still, the Lyon's grassland striped skink remains listed as critically endangered by Queensland and the Commonwealth.
During the expedition, the researchers uncovered more good news for the scientific community. In addition to rediscovering the Lyon's grassland striped skink, they found two other rare lizard species – the limbless Mount Surprise slider and the fine-lined slider. The strange worm-like lizards have very small or no legs from adapting to their sandy environments over time.
Saving Endangered Species
In a separate instance in Melbourne, researchers have been working tirelessly to conserve the Victorian grassland earless dragon, not seen since the 1960s. Breeding colonies have been established to protect this lizard species from extinction. The rediscovery of the rare lizards is a testament to the importance of protecting and preserving the planet's fragile ecosystems.
Unfortunately, lizards face extinction due to various factors, including climate change, habitat loss, and agricultural expansion. Rising temperatures disrupt the lives of lizards, making it difficult for them to adapt physiologically to higher body temperatures, leading to extinction. Lizards also serve as prey for birds, snakes, and other animals, and are important predators of insects.


Coming soon: The Largest Flare System in Asia
 This technology is coming soon to the largest flare system in Asia
 Giant flames -- as part of flare systems -- are key to keeping refineries running around the world.
 Flare technology helps refineries safely dispose of toxic or flammable gases, while its burners reduce and better control emissions, and more efficiently generate heat.
 At Hengli Petrochemical in China, Honeywell's Callidus flares will be used in a new, 5,000-ton-per-hour flare system that will be the largest of its kind in Asia when it is completed construction in 2018.
 Here's how the system works:
 Burners provide the heat
 Here is a bottom's up view of a refinery burner. Burners generate heat for refinery processes and typically are fueled by gas. Hengli will use 400 Callidus low-nitrogen oxides (NOx) burners, covering the entire complex.
 Cooler temperatures
 The reason the flames are blue is because they burn cooler, which is a sign of low-NOx combustion.
 Gas in, vapor out
 Modern flare systems compress waste gases with steam or air inside the flare system, then burn the mixture to produce a low-particulate product with water vapor and carbon dioxide.
 Watch for flares
 Flare systems are ready 24/7, which is why flames can occasionally be seen coming out of pipe stacks. Pollutants such as smoke and flare particulates cause air pollution and other environmental consequences that have a serious impact on public health. However, flare systems such as Hengli work to minimize the release of such pollutants.
 Reduce emissions
 A pipe stack like this will be erected at the Hengli refinery by the end of 2018. A customized design can help reduce emissions. For Hengli, the technologies will reduce emissions to half of the regulatory limit in China.


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The James Laurie Prize was established by the Society on October 1, 1912, and is named in honor of the first President of the Society. In the period from 1912 through 1965, the prize was awarded under the rules for the Thomas Fitch Rowland Prize for the paper judged to be next in order of merit. By action of the Board of Direction in October 1964, beginning in 1966, the prize is now awarded on the basis of contributions to the advancement of transportation engineering. It is administered by the
Transportation and Development Institute
through the Honors and Awards Program.


Qualitative Analysis vs. Quantitative Analysis
Difference Between Qualitative Analysis and Quantitative Analysis When a person decides to do a research in a particular…
Difference Between Qualitative Analysis and Quantitative Analysis
When a person decides to do a research in a particular field of science and technology, especially where a lot of chemical as well as biochemical substances are involved, he first has to finalise the proper methodology as well as methods as per his topic of research. In case of the methods involving chemical and biochemical substances, the researcher usually opts for quantitative as well as qualitative analysis of the substances.
Now, you must be thinking what is the difference between these two types of analysis? In reality there lies a very important basic difference between these two. On one hand, qualitative analysis deals with the determination of the exact constituents that make up the particular substance under research, and on the other, qualitative analysis deals with the determination of the approximate amount of these constituent materials, present in the substance under research. So, in short, there is a hell and heaven difference between these two terms.
In order to explain these two terms, we can take an example. Suppose a person is arrested in the case of drug abuse. So, different biological samples (blood, urine, saliva etc) are subjected to qualitative analysis in order to determine the nature of drugs that he/she has taken i.e. Heroine or ganja or LSD etc. These same samples are then subjected to quantitative analysis in order to determine the weight or the total quantity of the drugs that was consumed by the convict. Quantitative analysis result is always a numerical value.
Now, if we consider a student working in a school's chemistry lab performing the test for the determining the acidity or basicity of a substance, then that will be referred to as a qualitative analysis. But, if in the same experiment, he/she tries to determine the exact amount of acid or base present in the solution, then that will be quantitative analysis. Qualitative analysis deals with the identification of the presence of a substance based on the presence of its characteristic features while quantitative analysis deals with calculating the numerical value of the substance present.
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In order to achieve The Duke of Edinburgh's Bronze Award it is possible to complete a Cookery Skills course. Several pupils from year 10 have completed the course this year.
To gain this qualification students need to demonstrate their current knowledge and understanding of food and extend it by carrying out the following tasks:-
- Planning and costing a balanced menu for a family of four for one day;
- Research and planning meals for expeditions;
- Planning and preparing meal which could include :-
A buffet meal for four using fresh and frozen foods;
A vegetarian two-course family meal using pulses, rice or wholemeal foods;
A meal for two students using a small stove and basic equipment;
A summer barbecue for six people.
The above tasks can be carried out independently or in groups. A minimum of one task must be completed in the food room at school and must demonstrate that students can work in a hygienic kitchen, show the safe use of equipment and utensils and a general understanding of food storage, along with an understanding of healthy eating.
Should you require further or more in-depth information visit the website here.


Oman Map and Satellite Image
Oman Bordering Countries:
Saudi Arabia, UAE, Yemen
Regional Maps:
Map of Asia, World Map
Where is Oman?
Oman Satellite Image
Oman Information:
Oman is located in the Middle East, Oman is bordered by the Persian Gulf (Arabian Gulf), Gulf of Oman, and the Arabian Sea and United Arab Emirates, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia to the west.
Explore Oman Using Google Earth:
Google Earth is a free program from Google that allows you to explore satellite images showing the cities and landscapes of Oman and all of Asia in fantastic detail. It works on your desktop computer, tablet, or mobile phone. The images in many areas are detailed enough that you can see houses, vehicles and even people on a city street. Google Earth is free and easy-to-use.
Oman on a World Wall Map:
Oman On a Large Wall Map of Asia:
Oman Cities:
Adam, Al Khaburah, Al Qabil, Alayat Sama'il, Ash Shisar, Barka, Bidbid, Bilad Bani Bu 'Ali, Dank, Dawkah, Duqm, Habarut, Hasik, Hayma, Ibra, Kalban, Kharfat, Khluf, Masqat (Muscat), Matrah, Mirbat, Mudayrib, Nizwa, Qurayyat, Rakhyut, Raysut, Sadh, Saham, Salalah, Sharbatat, Shinas, Suhar, Sur, Taqah and Thamarit.
Oman Locations:
Arabian Sea, Ghubbat Sawqirah, Gulf of Oman, Khalij Masira, Persian Gulf (Arabian Gulf), Tur'at Masirah, Wadi Aswad and Wadi Musallim.
Oman Natural Resources:
The mineral resources for Oman include copper, asbestos, chromium, gypsum, limestone and some marble. The fuel resources in this country include the fossil fuels of petroleum and natural gas.
Oman Natural Hazards:
There are periodic droughts in Oman. Other natural hazards include the summer winds, which will often raise large sandstorms and dust storms in the country's interior.
Oman Environmental Issues:
The country of Oman has very limited natural fresh water resources. Other environmental issues are that the soil has a measured rise of salinity, and there is pollution on the country's beaches from oil spills.


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- International relations
- Comparative politics
- International and comparative political economy
- American politics
- Italian politics
- Comparative tax policy and taxpayer behavior
Peer Reviewed Publications
Going Dutch? The Role of Gender in the Provision of Public Goods through Tax Compliance Forthcoming in the Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics
with David M. Bruner and Sven Steinmo
The existing experimental literature suggests women are more compliant than men when paying taxes but may free ride more when contributing to public goods. It is unclear which effect dominates when paying for public goods through taxation. Experiments conducted in three European countries and the U.S. are used to investigate this issue. The results suggest the compliance effect dominates the free riding effect such that women pay more for public goods, although men are more willing to contribute. Moreover, the data analysis reveals the gender gap in compliance is due to differences in both the extensive and intensive margins.
"Willing to Share? Tax Compliance and Gender in Europe and America." Research & Politics.
with Clara Volintiru and Sven Steinmo.
Studies examining the effects of gender on honesty, deceptive behavior, pro-sociality, and risk aversion, often find significant differences between men and women. The present study contributes to the debate by exploiting one of the largest tax compliance experiments to date in a highly controlled environment conducted in the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Italy. Our expectation was that the differences between men and women's behavior would correlate broadly with the degree of gender equality in each country. In other words, where social, political and cultural gender equality is greater we expected behavioral differences between men and women to be smaller. In contrast, our evidence reveals that women are significantly more compliant than men in all countries. Furthermore, these patterns are quite consistent across countries in our study. In other words, the difference between men's and women's behavior is not significantly different in more gender neutral countries than in more traditional societies.
Full Text: Willing to Share
Divided Nation: The North-South Cleavage in Italian Tax Compliance in Polity. 2017. 42(1). 69-99.
Full Text – Divided Nation
Are some countries more honest than others? Evidence from a tax compliance experiment in Sweden and Italy
with Giulia Andrighetto, Stefania Ottone, Ferruccio Ponzano, Nan Zhang, and Sven Steinmo in Frontiers in Psychology.
This study examines cultural differences in ordinary dishonesty between Italy and Sweden, two countries with different reputations for trustworthiness and probity. Exploiting a set of cross-cultural tax compliance experiments, we find that the average level of tax evasion (as a measure of ordinary dishonesty) does not differ significantly between Swedes and Italians. However, we also uncover differences in national "styles" of dishonesty. Specifically, while Swedes are more likely to be either completely honest or completely dishonest in their fiscal declarations, Italians are more prone to fudging (i.e. cheating by a small amount). We discuss the implications of these findings for the evolution and enforcement of honesty norms.
"Hegemony or Dominance: A Gramscian Analysis of US Ascendancy." in Critique: A Worldwide Journal of Politics.
Hegemony, for Antonio Gramsci, is the use of consent and coercion in order to establish control over a population or a state. It is this balance between the two that is fundamental to Gramsci's theory. Furthermore, the distinction between two types of intellectuals, traditional and organic, is central to the diffusion of elite ideology and obtaining the consent of the masses. First, this study surveys the various Gramscian and neo-Gramscian literature, which develops the background for my central argument. The following section briefly examines the construction of a "common sense" in America focusing on two fundamental aspects: American exceptionalism and Liberalism. Finally, my study takes a critical look at American policy during the Regan Administration, specifically focusing on Ronald Reagan's ability to assume the role as an intellectual, used in the Gramscian tradition. However, I argue, although Ronald Reagan recaptured the common sense of the American people, manipulation and coercion were instrumental in reestablishing American dominance. Thus, power during the Reagan administration lacked a critical element of hegemony, consent, and can no longer be defined as hegemony in the Gramscian sense.
More Bang for Your Buck: Efficiency, Trust, and Tax Compliance
In the present study, we investigate the relationship between fiscal capacity and tax compliance using the largest tax compliance experiment to date. We argue that tax evasion and compliance are the product of either high-efficiency/high-trust equilibria or a low-efficiency/low-trust equilibria specific to individual countries. To test this, we utilize the experiments conducted in Italy, U.S., U.K., and Sweden. In the first test, we performed a simple public goods game framed within a tax context to uncover that increasing efficiency does indeed increase tax compliance. In a second experiment, we ask participants to actually pay taxes to their national government, pension fund, and fire department. Confirming our prediction, individuals are significantly more likely to pay taxes to institutions that they trust than institutions that they dislike.
What Explains the North-South Gap in Italian Tax Compliance? An Experimental Analysis.
Cross-national social surveys account for tax morale across a wide variety of political cultures. Since tax evasion, by definition, is difficult to estimate, researchers use the size of the underground economy as a core indicator. Only Greece (27.5% of GDP) surpasses Italy (17% of GDP) in the size of its underground economy among Western EU states. Italy's unique history and regional complexity provide researchers with a multitude of case study options in a single country. Using the 2004 Bank of Italy Survey of Household Wealth and Income and controlled tax compliance experiments, I undertake a comparative study assessing the regional effects of social capital and political culture on tax morale in Italy. I demonstrate that Southern Italy is substantively and significantly different than Northern Italy with regards to tax morale, and that social capital and civic culture positively affect tax morale. However, I find no difference when we control the institutional environment in our laboratory setting, suggesting that tax compliance is linked to the institutional environment with which an individual associates.
Mass Preferences on Budget Deficits
Budgets are one of the most important tools politicians have at their disposal. They set out the expected amount of revenue to be collected for the following scal year, as well as the amount of spending. The budget is also a fundamental political tool used to signal to constituents where the government's priorities lie. But government budgets are notstraight forward, parsimonious documents. The are complicated documents with important implications and trade-os. However, the public is rarely presented with the trade-offs that governments must make in order to successfully implement a budget. Governments make trade-os between higher (lower) taxes and more (less) spending or they face larger deficits. This article uses a novel survey experiment, incorporating an interactive budget tool, to examine what drives individual preferences for budget deficits.


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Miss Rumphius Literature Guide
What is our responsibility in the world? To Alice Rumphius, her responsibility was to do something to make the world more beautiful. But what does that mean to her and what does it mean to you? Making the world a more beautiful place may seem like a big task, but small simple gestures may have a bigger impact than you imagine. This book inspires the reader to think of small ways to do something for the common good. What will you do to make the world more beautiful?
ASK: What can you do to make the world a beautiful place?
SHOW: Look at the pictures throughout the book. Notice that the character goes to faraway places and grows older.
CONNECT: This is a story that tells about one person from when she is a child to a very old woman. There are three things she wants to do in her life. Let's find out what they are.
ASK: What are the three things Miss Rumphius wants to do?
SHOW: What job does she have? Where does she travel? How does she feel about other people?
CONNECT: What do you think she will do to make the world beautiful? What would you like to do to make the world beautiful in your lifetime?
ASK: What does the young Alice at the end of the story say she wants to do in her life? Why do you think she wants to do the same thing as her great aunt?
SHOW: Look at the final pictures of the children enjoying the company and flowers of Miss Rumphius. What does that tell you about Miss Rumphius?
CONNECT: Although Miss Rumphius seems to be alone her whole life, she is part of several different communities. What are the different communities? What different communities do you belong to? (A community is a group of people coming together for a common purpose or in a common place.)
- Design and carry out a plan to make the world a more beautiful place. Ideas include cleaning up a park, planting flowers, and organizing a recycling effort.
- Think of several examples of beauty in the world. Sort your ideas into different lists, such as natural things/made by humans or big/small or things to see/actions.
- Think of several examples of things in the world that could be made beautiful. List the steps to make one thing beautiful.
- Brainstorm a list of possible jobs for yourself and other family members. Look at the jobs in the book, jobs of people you know, and jobs related to current interests. When you are ready to choose a job for yourself (as a grown up), what do you think are the important things to consider? Why do you think Miss Rumphius chose the job she did?
- Design a seed packet for one kind of flower. Include labels, pictures, and descriptions. Use words that would appeal to Miss Rumphius.
- Observe a flower carefully. Then do one or more of the following:
- Use a ruler to measure it.
- Write a careful description of the flower.
- Draw a detailed picture of it.
- Write a poem about the flower using descriptions related to several of your senses.
- Discuss the meaning of the word philanthropy (the giving or sharing of one's time, talent, or treasure of the sake of another or the common good). Talk about how philanthropy is related to the story of Miss Rumphius. Talk about ways that your family is/can be philanthropists with time, with talent, and with treasure. Here are some ways other people are philanthropic:
- Jerry and his mother spend every Thanksgiving at a local soup kitchen helping to serve meals to the homeless.
- Mr. Roberts' class goes outside once a week to pick up trash around a local neighborhood.
- Bobby gives half of his allowance each week to an organization to support homeless people.
- Sheila baby-sits for her little cousin once a week so her Aunt can study and finish college.
- Katrina and Troy visit an area nursing home once a month to visit the elderly residents and give them seasonal cards and decorations.
- Lakeside Elementary has a mitten and sock clothesline at school to provide new mittens and socks for homeless children


text: A fingernail imaging has been shown to be effective in estimating the finger pad forces along all three directions simultaneously in previous works. However, this method has never been used for the purpose of force measurement during a grasping task with multiple fingers. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the grasp force-sensing capabilities of the fingernail imaging method integrated with a visual servoing robotic system. In this study, the fingernail imaging method has been used in both constrained and unconstrained multi-digit grasping studies. Visual servoing has been employed to solve the issue of keeping fingernail images in the field of view of the camera during grasping motions. Two grasping experiments have been designed and conducted to show the performance and accuracy of the fingernail imaging method to be used in grasping studies. The maximum value of root-mean-square (RMS) errors for estimated normal and shear forces during constrained grasping has been found to be 0.58 N (5.7%) and 0.49 N (9.2%), respectively. Moreover, a visual servoing system implemented on a 6-degrees-of-freedom (DOF) robot has been devised to ensure that all of the fingers remain in the camera frame at all times. Comparing unconstrained and constrained forces has shown that force collaboration among fingers could change based on the grasping condition.