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Tuesday, March 22, 2005Volunteers began a 60 day bed-rest marathon on March 19 to study simulated weightlessness effects on women astronauts. The study, Women International Space Simulation for Exploration(WISE), is conducted at the MEDES Space Clinic in Toulouse, France.

The 12 women, selected from 1600 applicants hailing from France,Great Britain, Germany, Finland, The Netherlands, Poland and the Czech Republic began the study after a 20 day screening for baseline comparison data as the study progressed.

The women will conduct all activities from eating, bathing, and reading while lying in hospital beds tilted headfirst at a six degree angle. This particular position, called head-down tilt bed rest was determined from previous studies to remove the vertical load of gravity on the body, inducing changes similar to what astronauts in a genuine weightless environment experience [1].

Long term exposure to weightlessness creates a number of physiological and psychological problems in astronauts such as:

• Reduced capacity for physical exertion
• Muscle atrophy
• Affects of confinement and isolation
• Impaired circulatory function

A total of 24 women will participate in the study. A second group of 12 will join in September.

Three groups of eight women each will be studied over the course of the two campaigns of bed rest. One group will serve as a control, receiving no specific treatments, the second will exercise, while the third will receive nutritional supplements.

The study is designed to fill in gaps of knowledge on the differences between men and women during extended weightlessness. It also aims to develop countermeasures for reducing the debilitating effects of long spaceflights.

Participating agencies in the study include the European Space Agency, NASA, the French Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

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Saturday, April 19, 2008

Benedict XVI arrived in New York Friday, as part of his visit to the United States. The first part of his visit was spent in Washington, D.C.. He arrived on “Shepherd One”, a specially dedicated plane belonging to Alitalia, the flag carrier of Italy.

On the first day of his visit to New York City, he went to the United Nations (UN) and addressed the General Assembly. In his speech he urged leaders to solve world crises together, though the world still remains subject to “the decisions of a few,” whom he did not name. Benedict XVI is the third Pope to address the United Nations in person.

The primary focus of his speech was about dialogue, diplomacy and human rights. He delivered the speech in both French and English. Benedict XVI said it was the duty of every nation to guarantee human rights.

“If states are unable to guarantee such protection, it is then up to the international community to intervene with the legal means that are provided for under the United Nations Charter and other international instruments,” the Pope said.

The Pope argued that national sovereignty should not stand in the way of protecting human rights. “On the contrary, it is indifference or non-intervention which cause the real harm,” he said.

The concept of “responsibility to protect,” has also been championed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in seeking international action in regions like Darfur.

Benedict XVI said that religion should not be excluded at the UN because it is “a social order respectful of the dignity and rights of the person.” He further added “It should never be necessary to deny God in order to enjoy one’s rights. The rights associated with religion are all the more in need of protection if they are considered to clash with a prevailing secular ideology or with majority religious positions of an exclusive nature.”

On Friday afternoon, after the UN address, Benedict met with members of the local Jewish clergy at the Park East Synagogue, an Upper East Side Orthodox synagogue in New York City.

“The Jewish community make a valuable contribution to the life of the city,” Benedict XVI told the congregation, “and I encourage all of you to continue building bridges of friendship with all the many different ethnic and religious groups present in your neighborhood.”

Rabbi Arthur Schneier told the Pope, that the visit was “a reaffirmation of your outreach, good will, and commitment to enhancing Jewish-Catholic relations.”

Thursday, Benedict XVI held Mass at Nationals Park with an estimated 47,000 people attending. During the Mass he spoke about the sexual abuse by clergy. “No words of mine can describe the pain and harm inflicted by such abuse nor the damage that has occurred within the community of the church,” he said. “I ask you to love your priests and affirm the good works they do.”

Afterwards, Benedict XVI met privately with some of the abuse victims. Reverend Federico Lombardi, a spokeperson, said he met with five or six abuse victims for approximately 25 minutes.

One of these victims, Bernie McDaid, told Associated Press (AP) about his meeting. “I said, ‘Holy Father, you need to know you have a cancer in your flock and I hope you will do something for this problem; you have to fix this,'” McDaid said. “He looked down at the floor and back at me, like, ‘I know what you mean.’ He took it in emotionally. We looked eye to eye.”

Olan Horne, another victim who has worked with McCaid told AP, “I believe we turned the pope’s head a little in the right direction.”

According to a Vatican official, Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley, the Archbishop of Boston, gave the Pope a list of some 1,000 boys and girls who had been abused in the Boston Archdiocese going back several decades.

“The fact that we finally got the pope to actually stand up and put a statement on record, I really think he set the bar this week,” said Gary Bergeron to the The New York Times. Bergeron says he was abused by a priest in Lowell, Massachusetts.

Later on Thursday, Benedict met with religious leaders of various faiths at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center. He told them that, “Americans have always valued the ability to worship freely and in accordance with their conscience”. He added, “children of all religions sit side-by-side, learning with one another and from one another. This diversity gives rise to new challenges that spark a deeper reflection on the core principles of a democratic society.

“May others take heart from your experience, realising that a united society can indeed arise from a plurality of peoples, … provided that all recognize religious liberty as a basic civil right,” the pontiff said.

During the next couple of days in New York, Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled to hold Mass at Yankee Stadium and visit the World Trade Center site.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Parts of the English Lake District in the county of Cumbria have suffered severe flooding on Thursday, with forecasters predicting further rain. As of 21:09 GMT there were six severe flood warnings (the highest alert in the UK Flood Warnings system) in force in the county, with a large number of flood warnings and watches also in force across the region.

According to BBC News, the main street in the town of Cockermouth is under several feet of water, and around 200 people were being evacuated by helicopters. At least 350 homes in the Elliot Park district of Keswick are also reported to be without power.

A number of local roads are flooded (including the A6 in Kendal). The West Coast Main Line railway is also reported as subject to disruption due to flooding between Oxenholme and Carlisle. Some mainline services are terminatingat either Carlisle or Preston. Local services between Carlisle and Barrow are also reported to have delays.

Some properties in Keswick, Cockermouth and Kendal had already been evacuated under pre-existing emergency plans.

Robert Runcie, the Environment Agency‘s director of flood and coastal risk was quoted as saying: “After persistent heavy rain combined with saturated ground and full rivers across Cumbria, the decision was taken to evacuate residents in towns and villages across the Lake District, before the onset of serious flooding.”

“Since early on Thursday we have been helping emergency services coordinate community groups that are going house-to-house ensuring people were taking precautions and evacuated where necessary. These emergency plans were established following the Cumbria floods of 2005 and have worked successfully. The last thing we want is floodwater putting lives at risk.”

“We urge people to take care and check the latest flooding situation and sign up to our free flood warnings service or by calling 08459 881188.”

Earlier Cumbrian police had advised against non essential travel, and against fell-walking entirely.Chief Superintendent Kevin McGilloway of Cumbria Constabulary stating “All the agencies are working together with local people to ensure they are kept as safe as possible during the severe weather which is hitting some parts of the county. We are asking people not to travel unless it is absolutely necessary.” He also gave some advice, “Pedestrians in areas where there are floods, such as Cockermouth, Keswick, Penrith and Kendal, are being urged not to attempt to walk through flood waters. Anyone who notices blocked drains are also being urged not to put themselves at risk by attempting to unblock them. The key message is for people who are affected by the floods to be prepared, to try and protect any properties that are liable to flooding. Look out for one another including vulnerable friends and neighbours. Anyone in affected areas should ensure they carry mobile phones, torches, waterproofs and other equipment they may need and ensure they have all essential medication with them.”

In Kendal, demand for sandbags has been high. A spokesperson for South Lakeland council stated:”More than 1,000 sandbags have already been collected from our depot and we have ordered 4,000 more to meet the demand.”

The Mayor of Keswick praised efforts by those involved in the flood response. “It is all hands to the pump, really” he said. “The emergency services are well co-ordinated and have been fantastic.”

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Police investigating the disappearance of 22-year old Sian O’Callaghan in Swindon, England, say they have discovered her body and are searching for another. The news comes comes hours after the arrest of a 47-year-old individual for kidnap and multiple counts of murder. Police also seized a green taxi seen at the time of O’Callaghan’s disappearance.

The detective leading the murder inquiry confirmed the individual taken into custody had told police where two bodies were located. Police said they had found one body and were searching for the second. Officials say O’Callaghan’s family were “deeply distressed” by the developments. Police today began searching a house in Swindon, and the property was cordoned off.

“The location of two bodies has been identified to the senior investigating officer, only one body has currently been found and this is believed to be Sian O’Callaghan,” Wiltshire Police said in a statement. “The second body has yet to be recovered.”

O’Callaghan, an office worker, was last seen leaving a nightclub in Swindon at the weekend. Mobile phone records show she traveled in a car to a forest in the early hours of Sunday morning. Police have appealed for the public to search for her mobile phone, and have released CCTV images of her leaving the nightclub.

In a statement, her family described her as a “beautiful girl,” and said they had been “so touched by the support shown by the community that we wanted to express our thanks.”

Friday, October 19, 2007

The 7th Taipei International Hardware & DIY Show, organized by Kaigo Taiwan (The representative of Koelnmesse in Taiwan) and Koelnmesse GmbH, started on October 18-20 at Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall 3. This show has 183 participants using 300 booths to exhibit accessories and tools on esoteric fabricating, home-living applications, and security.

With people in Taiwan valuing on the quality of home-living, the organizer set a pre-show pavilion of “2008 Taipei Home & Lifestyle Fair” and invited B&Q & HomeBox holding DIY workshops for visitors.

This exhibition is conjuncted with industry and applications, and pursuing with three main topics of “Quality, Innovation and Competitiveness”. International factories such as Hitachi, Rexon, Ryobi participated this show for the export opportunity in the hardware industry.

After the “Product Certificates and Testing” pavilion in TAITRONICS Autumn, Bureau of Standards, Metrology & Inspection, M.O.E.A., R.O.C. (Taiwan) and DIY in Europe magazine were invited for speeches focused on certifications on hardware & DIY products and environment issues in EU.

• Spoty Enterprise Co., Ltd.

• Double Dynasty Co., Ltd.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Victoria Wyndham was one of the most seasoned and accomplished actresses in daytime soap opera television. She played Rachel Cory, the maven of Another World‘s fictional town, Bay City, from 1972 to 1999 when the show went off the air. Wyndham talks about how she was seen as the anchor of a show, and the political infighting to keep it on the air as NBC wanted to wrest control of the long-running soap from Procter & Gamble. Wyndham fought to keep it on the air, but eventually succumbed to the inevitable. She discusses life on the soap opera, and the seven years she spent wandering “in the woods” of Los Angeles seeking direction, now divorced from a character who had come to define her professional career. Happy, healthy and with a family she is proud of, Wyndham has found life after the death of Another World in painting and animals. Below is David Shankbone’s interview with the soap diva.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

The last day of the Wikimania 2008 conference saw Saturday morning sessions on a variety of topics. Wikinews attended a presentation by Eric M. Johnson from the United States Department of State. Eric, a former NCO in the U.S. Marines, is the lead for the Knowledge Management Action team in the department’s Office of eDiplomacy, and involved in department’s use of Web 2.0 technologies for knowledge management. This includes blogs, and the key focus of his talk, Wiki culture in the U.S. Department of State.

Eric opened his presentation with an introduction to the U.S. State Department, one of the oldest agencies of the American government, which today has around 57,000 employees worldwide. When formed in the 18th century their offices and diplomatic staff operated largely autonomously due to lack of ability to communicate rapidly. By the mid-20th century this had changed with the advent of telegraph lines, and changed again with the Cold War and security concerns bringing to the fore the well-known term, “need to know”.

Now, in the 21st century, the volume of internal communication generated by the department is a staggering 1,800,000 cables a year, 1.5 billion emails, production of around 500,000 print volumes, and maintenance of approximately one thousand websites. Both internal and externally facing.

A pilot project was set up, Diplopedia, a MediaWiki wiki running on the department’s internal network, which outside of the department of defence is one of the largest private networks operated by the U.S. government.

A grassroots effort, this project to promote knowledge sharing differs from the well-known Wikipedia in that it does not allow anonymous edits. There are around 1,000 registered users who have contributed over 4,400 pages. Integration with the Department of State’s internal search engine prioritises results from the wiki, increasing the popularity of the site such that it has received over 650,000 page views. Like Wikipedia, users are required to provide sources for entered information at the foot of the article, and users are warned that it is a starting point and not an authoritative source of information. Data on visa requirements and information from other static department sites has been incorporated into the wiki.

Eric described the project as just reaching critical mass and attracting increasing interest from other departments. Among the ingredients leading to the success of the project were the cultural change with increasing awareness of the technology from Wikipedia, the formation by the community of a welcoming committee, and the taking on of roles to carry out tasks such as drafting. A number of staff act as “gardeners” tending to the wiki content, keeping it fresh, and well cross-referenced. The continual updating is a novel concept to many of their employees.

Unlike Wikipedia, and many other projects using MediaWiki, none of the Diplopedia pages are locked or protected. This even includes their main page. To date there have been none of the content disputes that have been an issue on Wikipedia, and the use of the wiki to replace traditional websites which are far more time consuming to maintain is seen as a logical extension of the project.

Carried out with no outside help, and by learning from others’ mistakes, the department has adopted mechanisms for assuming that contributions are well-intentioned, and has a body for oversight in the event of a dispute.

With the success of the project, eDiplomacy plans to introduce a separate, classified wiki. They will also expand the effort to compile biographies of foreign leaders, which was pioneered by the U.S. missions in Italy and Germany. This effort has proven valuable when combined with a version of the site available on portable devices such as the Blackberry.

The future holds moves to seek more support from management and integration with their primary authentication system. Among the features on the main page to keep the project interesting to staff is a “Diploquiz” which poses a weekly trivia question which can be answered from somewhere within the wiki.