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Learn more about the work of the Pacific Parkinsons Research Institute!

Read more about Parkinson's Research and the New Centre for Brain Health at UBC

Read Marg's article that appeared in the
Vancouver Courier on November 24th, 2011

GIVING BACK: An article from the Globe & Mail featuring Marg Meikle and Noel MacDonald

Marg Meikle's
April 17 DBS

October 22,2007

Writer Maurice Bridge wins a Jack Webster Award for these articles:

.My Life with Parkinson's
.The operation
.Enabling the unit

If for some reason it  doesn't work, use my sign-in to the www.vancouversun.com marg@meikle.com              password: vancouversun

And here's a follow-up:

Still Seeking Answers

Porridge Trivia

Porridge by any other name...

Porridge has various names in the different parts of Scotland:

  • 'lite' leetch-yuh
  • 'milgruel'
  • 'tartan-purry'

Scroll down for answers

Trivia Answers

  • 'lite' leetch-yuh Gaelic for porridge
  • 'milgruel' in Shetland
  • 'tartan-purry' is the thin porridge made with the liquor in which kale has been cooked.

Courtesy of Scottish National Dictionary Association.

Marg Meikle, Mac MacDonald and Noel MacDonald
photo courtesy of Dan Heringa

Can't be at Porridge?

Donate Here !

Presentation of $307, 500 from the Pacific Parkinson's Research Institute to UBC at the 2011 Porridge for Parkinson's Breakfast

From left to right: Dr. Silke Cresswell, PPRI Professorship-holder; Dr. Jon Stoessl, Director, Pacific Parkinson's Research Centre, UBC; and Dale Parker, Chair, Board of Trustees, Pacific Parkinson's Research Institute.

Dear Porridge Lovers: September 2016

It's been a while since I updated our site.  This year will be the 16th Porridge for Parkinson's in our home and the third year that Marg hasn't been with us. It's been an incredible journey for Mac, myself and all the fabulous volunteers that made this event what it is. Our thanks to everyone who supports Porridge for Parkinson's.

This money continues to support the work of Dr. Silke Cresswell, the neurologist who holds the "Marg Meikle Professorship" at the Pacific Parkinson's Research Centre at UBC, and brings us closer to finding a cure.

Many thanks,

Yours in porridge,
 Noel and Mac

What is Porridge for Parkinson's?

Porridge for Parkinson's is the world's simplest fundraiser. We started the idea in our home with our friends and relatives in November 2001, and  we just had the 13th  annual PfP at our home in Vancouver.

   Porridge for Parkinson's is not a pyramid scheme.
   It's more of a food chain or a bowl movement!

We're delighted that the bowl movement has gone international, although we have learned the hard way that many Americans aren't completely sure what porridge is..."something from nursery rhymes" we've been told. "Oatmeal for Parkinson's" simply doesn't scan. We'll have to convert the masses, one bowl at a time.

We've put together this website to show how you can hold an inexpensive, delicious, simple, and profitable event. The website will be a scrapbook of past parties, tips for putting on a party, and a running tally of funds raised for Parkinson's research.

Whether you serve 5, 10, 30 or 300, or you know two friends who might serve 10 each, we think this is an ideal cheap and fun way to raise money to find a cure.

P.S. Bill Richardson, Mac's godfather, wrote this article (149k PDF file) about our efforts for the June 2002 issue of Canadian Living Magazine. And John Lee wrote about the spread of the bowl movement in the November 1, 2002 National Post.

Why Porridge and Why Now

We want to help find a cure for this nasty progressive disease, and so we are raising funds to go directly to research. Marg was diagnosed in June 1999 when our son, Mac, was 18 months old. (Marg was 43.) The rapidity of the progression has been scary and being proactive feels right.

December 21, 2013 Marg died from the impact of her Parkinson's Disease.

We admire the huge number of fundraisers that the various Parkinson's organizations hold, but we wanted to do something that worked with Marg's medication "on" times and worked for our family. Noel came up with "Porridge for Parkinson's." It's a variation on a breakfast benefit our friends Carol Denny and David Jiles have held for 19 years for First United Church in Vancouver . It is always such a friendly, simple party, and we thought it would be an ideal fundraiser for our cause. (David originally came up with the idea because he loved the porridge at the Stock Market at Granville Island in Vancouver so much.)

Porridge for Parkinson's is a "we can't just sit around waiting for something to happen with this disease" grassroots event. Parkinson's disease sucks - so let's help get rid of it. Researchers have a better understanding of PD and are close to a cure. The fact that the science is ahead of the money encourages us to get cooking.

Our first breakfast turned into a huge deal with close to 200 people, but we firmly believe that whether you serve 10, 30 or 300 guests, you will have done something significant towards increasing awareness, and you definitely will have had some fun.

And did we mention it is cheap? The costs are remarkably low for the return. Our total cost that first year was about $200, including cards, envelopes and postage for a huge mailing, masses of superb porridge and dense and delicious Dried Fruit Poached in Port compote. We could have done it for much much less (in a subsequent year we used www.evite.com for our invitations but now we're back to printed invites--citing the fact that folks love to stick something on their fridge). Our favourite statistic is that the steel cut oats cost $10.81 to serve 200 people.

Our party continues to be large--we sent out about 450 invitations in 2006, many to regulars who salivate at the mere mention of porridge.  Our expenses were about $1000.00 and we brought in $50,000.00. (And because of the SNOW that day, we had a lot smaller turn-out but many people sent in donations. Good thing the kids had a snowball fight that day cause that was more or less it for that year!)

The Bottom Line: We raise a lot of money in a morning for the Pacific Parkinson's Research Institute, which funds the Pacific Parkinson's Research Centre (formerly known as the Movement Disorder Clinic at the University of British Columbia ). Their work is well known worldwide.

So, if you have Parkinson's Disease or know someone who does, or just feel like putting on a fun, inexpensive and profitable event for this cause, go for it. You're guaranteed to get lots of kudos for these great recipes, it is pretty minimal impact entertaining, and you will have remarkable results both financially and for raising public awareness. Our guests were eager to learn something about this rather bizarre brain disorder and keen to contribute something. It all adds up.


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Great Rescues Day Book

Feline Portraits and Rescue Stories in a Book You Can Use Every Day

Great Rescues Day Book

Great Rescues Day Book

In 2011 I published Great Rescues Calendar and Gift Book, a 16-month desk calendar that included a commissioned portrait of a rescued cat or cats for each month, plus more about the portraits, cats and rescuers in the back and information on cat care. But calendars go out of date and I knew these stories had to go on.

Great Rescues Day Book carries on the original idea in a way that’s much more permanent. This book is not dated for one year, but has all the dates in a month for you to fill in the birthdays, anniversaries, holidays and social and personal events in your life.

Great Rescues Day Book is spiral-bound and measures 8″ x 10″ to easily fit on your desk or in a purse, briefcase or backpack. While the original Great Rescues had a die-cut cover with the title stamped in gold foil, this has a solid 12 pt. printed cover for durability.

You can buy a book here, or read on. Price includes shipping.

What’s a Day Book?

I’ve used a day book for over 20 years and have all the arrivals and, sadly, departures of each of my cats along with my friends’ weddings, my nieces’ births and the births of their children, the day I first registered a business name, all that sort of stuff, conveniently included in one place.

On the left is the featured portrait with the kitty’s story, below that the monthly fun quote of something feline. On the right is the month name with enough lines for all possible dates in that month. The holidays that are celebrated on a certain date are marked on that date, but ones that float, especially those Monday holidays, are explained at the bottom just to remind you that they also happen in that month. If animal-themed holidays are celebrated on a certain date, like Spay Day USA, they will also be included, but just the same if they are ones that float like Pet Memorial Sunday they will be explained at the bottom.

About the portraits

The portraits in this book, collected as a series, won both a Certificate of Excellence and a Muse Medallion in the 2011 Cat Writers’ Association Annual Communication Contest, as well as the 22 Cats Notepaper mentioned below.

Although Great Rescues Day Book is a 12-month book I am still featuring from the original calendar all 15 portraits of rescued cats I was commissioned to paint over 20 years as an animal portrait artist (to that date), plus the portrait of my own which I consider my first, “Waiting for Mom”, below.

“Waiting for Mom”, pastel, 16″ x 23″, 1988 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

“Waiting for Mom”, pastel, 16″ x 23″, 1988 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

That means you get a few pages in the center where you have only portraits and stories to enjoy.

While the portraits are lovely and I’m proud of my body of work, the stories of these cats, and the people who rescued them, is what compels me to share them with you. Each of the stories tells of cats from shelters and cats abandoned and saved, cats found inside car engines and cats reluctantly surrendered by people who could no longer care for them, but each one has a happy ending as a cherished companion in a loving home.

And while each cat has an individual story, each rescuer has a story as well of reaching out to an animal in need to bring it in from the streets. In many cases they helped heal physical and emotional wounds and gave that cat a lifetime of love, in return receiving love and devotion; often those humans received some healing in return they weren’t aware they needed.

The story continues

After the calendar pages I have a section where the stories are continued, either with more details or updates; I remained friends with all my portrait customers and received continuing news. I also have notes on how I created the portraits that weren’t included in the stories.

Great Rescues Day Book, portraits, cats and rescuer stories continued.

Great Rescues Day Book, portraits, cats and rescuer stories continued.

Resources for cat guardians

Following the calendar section and section of stories of the rescuers and their feline families I’ve included a mini cat-care book illustrated with my drawings. I based this information on the most frequent questions I field from people needing help with cats in any way, from finding strays or orphaned kittens, adopting for the first time or caring for a geriatric cat, a list of household toxins and toxic plants, or helping stray and feral cats and beginning with TNR.

Each book includes 10 sheets of my “22 Cats” decorative notepaper with a collage of all the portraits in black and white so you can make your own notes or write special notes to friends.

Great Rescues Day Book "22 Cats" notepaper.

Great Rescues Day Book “22 Cats” notepaper.

Each month on The Creative Cat I post the featured portrait, story and pages from Great Rescues Day Book and then describe the creation of the portrait in detail as well as even more history of the cats and the rescuers.  You can browse here to read a few of the stories.

Here are images of the other portraits in the book—perhaps you’ll recognize a kitty you know!

Great Rescues Day Book portraits from the back of the book.

Great Rescues Day Book portraits from the back of the book.

Purchase Great Rescues Day Book

Price includes shipping, and discounts for wholesale and quantity purchases.

Other products and upcoming books

As a complement to the day book, I am also designing from the images in this book a number of complementary products such as placemats, pet bowl mats and memo pads. Keep watching for those here on Portraits of Animals! Sign up for my e-newsletter at the bottom of this page to be sure you don’t miss any special offers.

If the book is a gift to someone, or you have a particular cat or cats in mind, I would be glad to add an inscription in the front of your book.

I had originally wanted to do this as a day book, but was uncertain enough at the reception I decided instead to go with a calendar. I was certain about one thing: I wanted to share those stories and the lovely kitties I’d painted, and a calendar works fine for me. But compiling each one is such an effort because as I’d found with the original Great Rescues Calendar and Gift Book, I have to rephotograph nearly every painting, a tricky and time-consuming endeavor, one that would be difficult to pull off each year. This day book still shares the stories and art, but as I publish the variations including other cats and dogs and even animals and people I know the work I’m doing will be in use for much longer.

Don’t miss any new items or opportunities!

“Follow” the Portraits of Animals blog with the link in the upper left.
Sign up to receive posts in email, or in your favorite reader using the links in the right-hand column.

Sign up for e-newsletters

You can also sign up for my monthly e-newsletters to receive special discounts and find out where I’ll be with my artwork.

Click here for the Creative Cat Preview E-newsletter,
for feline and animal-specific products and information.

Click here for the Art & Merchandise E-newsletter,
for landscapes, nature, urban scenes and more.

© 2016 | | Published by Bernadette E. Kazmarski

All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.

Friendship Friday

Friendship Friday

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Request A Quote

Leave a message:

Leave a message below: Due to the custom nature of our products, we recommend that you upload a photo or sketch with your description.  Your quote will immediately be sent to customer service.

Call: Give us a call at 574-295-8777 and customer service will be happy to help.

Fax:  (574-293-1872) Send in photo or sketch with a description and contact information. Customer Service will contact you for approval.


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Parallax WordPress Themes

    Parallax delivers a very modern and trendy design that would fit for a variety of different websites or topics.

    The single page design allows you to place all of your content front and center for your visitors, giving them easy access to all of the information that is most important to you.

    Additionally, the feature-set and list of enhancements that come with this package will give you a site that is simple upon first glance, yet remarkable powerful and robust. The responsive design, built-in custom post types, customization options, and extra touches like infinite scroll – give you a site that is as accommodating as it is beautiful.

    Vertex was created by one of the world’s leading WordPress theme designers and developers, Elegant Themes.

    It prominently features that parallax design elements you are looking for while maintaining a trendy flat-style design that has been optimized for speed and navigation.

    In addition to the parallax feature, it also includes a variety of features that come built in to the package. These features allow you to create nearly any type of website you might want and include: testimonials section/area, progress and skill bars, portfolio section, and content sliders for driving visitors deeper into your site.

    Remarkably fast-loading, your visitors will be able to find all of the information they might want within easy reach when navigating through your website or blog.

    Float features WooCommerce support, social sharing integrated into the design, parallax blog and page elements, multiple templates and layouts to choose from, and a powerful theme options panel for customizing your blog or site – it is the ultimate parallax theme for WordPress.

    WP-Parallax would make an excellent choice if you’re looking for a business theme for WordPress that makes heavy use of parallax scrolling and design.

    Equipped with beautiful animation effects, plenty of parallax design integration, a responsive and SEO-optimized design and layout, and the ability to customize many different features and sections to your liking.

    Boston is a parallax-style WordPress theme that would be best suited as a corporate or business website.

    The bold and striking imagery and layout would make it ideal for thousands of different businesses, while real estate companies, creative agencies, and modern professionals (lawyers, consulting groups, etc.) will find that it can mesh perfectly with the products and services they offer.

    OneUp is a clean, contemporary, and flexible theme that is completely customizable to meet your needs.

    With multiple page layout options, a variety of different features, and an appealing design – it should come as no surprise that this theme is so popular.

    Easily configure your pages via the theme options panel or arrange your media gallery with the built-in drag-and-drop interface.

    Jarvis is the ultimate single page parallax theme for WordPress and the top-selling of its kind on ThemeForest with nearly 7,000 sales to date.

    Whether you’re wanting a professional site for your business, a personal blog, creative portfolio, or just about any other type of website – you will find that this theme can conform and adapt to nearly any circumstance.

    One of the most feature-rich options to choose from, it includes a responsive layout and design, fast load times, a dozen different homepage layout options, and dozens of other customizations and enhancements that will give you a great-looking site (no matter the content you are publishing).

About this collection…

Taking the web design community by storm, parallax-style design and elements have become one of the most popular web development techniques to surface in recent years.

Not just left to the large brands and creative agencies, a multitude of parallax WordPress themes have sprung up lately – allowing any type of business or topic field the ability to incorporate the cool design effect into their website.

Those of you unfamiliar with the style, it is basically a way of forcing a viewer’s perspective (through a combination of different design techniques) to see images that appear to either stand still or move as a user scrolls through the site. It’s a technique that has gained a lot of attention recently, and the trend shows no signs of slowing down.

Here, you will find a hand-picked selection of some of the very best parallax themes (both free and premium) for you to download, check out, and enjoy!

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 Sanjay Farrow | Pound Pup Legacy

Sanjay Farrow

6 year old boy from Hanoi, Vietnam adopted by actress Mia Farrow, who believed Sanjay had polio. He was adopted by another family after Mia discovered he was profoundly mentally retarded.
Date: 1991-10-01

New York City, New York
United States
See map: Google Maps
DocumentDatesort icon
Picking Up The Legos And The Pieces1994-05-08
A Seles-connors 'Battle Of The Sexes'?1991-09-26
Photo Caption: US actress Mia Farrow holding her son Sanjay1991-09-24

Pound Pup Legacy


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BLOG: Innovation, the Economy and You

So, a business style SWOT analysis for a country?

BLOG: Innovation, the Economy and You

 I was intrigued to come across these recently released white papers put together by Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand in collaboration with NZIER and the Lowy Institute. Comparing the nations of New Zealand and Australia to a start-up business enterprise, some interesting strategies are suggested to maximise potential. It’s great to see thought leaders developing a plan for both countries’ continued prosperity. Emerging from the Global Financial Crisis in reasonably good shape, we’re entering into a period of strong growth. Not surprisingly, the use of technology figures prominently in the suggested economic growth model.

This statement in particular resonated with me:

“The current societal backdrop is one of high speed change. Technological change, urbanisation, globalisation and ageing will not stop; to the contrary, their effect on economies, politics and policies will become more pronounced.”

Technology is at the forefront of innovation, and it’s important not to be left behind. Opportunities identified in the white papers include the use of technology to lift productivity growth. Knowledge-based capital is highly valued in an increasingly digital world.

Technology for your competitive advantage

As a business owner, leveraging technology to systemise, automate and respond quickly to real-time data can give you a tremendous competitive advantage. With traditional accounting industry disrupters like Xero coming along and providing real-time solutions, an eco-system has rapidly evolved to support the innovative business owner.

Here at PracticePlus we’re also committed to innovative solutions and we’re looking forward to showcasing our latest at Xerocon.  Providing websites and lead generation tools for Xero partners, we’re continually looking for ways to do things better.

Contact us for more information.

Michelle Polglase PracticePlus

As General Manager for PracticePlus, Michelle is inspired by innovation and on a mission to provide the best website solutions for accountants and bookkeepers globally.


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Why Choose Us

Why Choose UsThere simply is no substitute for experience.  There is a lot more to performing a professional air duct cleaning than most people know. Prairie Dust Busters has been cleaning commercial and residential air duct systems for over 24 years. Our technicians have over twenty years experience working with us and through those years we have learned how to successfully clean the heating and air conditioning systems in any size or configuration of building. It takes many years to gain the knowledge to perfect the air duct cleaning process. Most of our competitors are cleaning systems the way we did years ago!

Prairie Dust Busters Vac Trucks

 Why Choose Us

Our custom built vacuum trucks that are made to our specs are the most powerful in the industry. The vacuum hoses we use are 10 and 12 inches in circumference, along with compressed air 67 CFM PD @ 200psi

We use the same trucks on large commercial builds that we do on homes.  We adjust the suction pressure by adjusting the engine speed. This enables us to dial in the optimum suction power on each and every project.

Our Trucks are so powerful that we can run hundreds of feet of 10 inch diameter vacuum hose from our truck to the HVAC equipment we are cleaning.

We run hoses up the sides of buildings and clean multiple story buildings. Why is all that suction power important to you? Because the stronger the suction power the neater the job and the results are more complete.

Prairie Dust Busters suction power enables us to pull dirt out of air ducts that other systems just don’t have the power to do.

Prairie Dust Busters Truck power also increases productivity and gives us the ability to clean large sections of air duct much quicker than other companies which helps us to keep our prices down and saves our customers valuable time.

Training and Certificate

Our technicians undergo extensive training. Many of our competitors train their employees for short period of time days or weeks and then send them out to clean air ducts in homes and buildings.

At Prairie Dust Busters, our employees work as an apprentice assisting one of our technicians for an average of 3 years. We make sure that our technicians understand every facet of our service before we ever send them to your home or building. Other companies only train their technicians using a very limited process that falls well short of our thorough training .

All of our cleaning technicians have over 23 years of experience with our company. It has always been our belief at Prairie Dust Busters, that in order to thoroughly clean an HVAC system you need to fully disassemble a system, and that takes skills that a typical air duct cleaning technician doesn’t have.  Our technicians are trained on furnaces and air conditioners, how they function, and how to insure they are running safely.

Coil Cleaning

Prairie Dust Busters technicians access every evaporator coil on every system. These coils become clogged and fouled in every system unless they are cleaned regulary. These fouled coils, restrict air flow, contaminate the indoor air and make you sick.

Did you know that (1/16 of a inch of dirt on a coil can reduce the efficiency by 21%) The way to clean them properly is to air wash them and in extreme cases we need to wash the coil Prairie Dust Busters has developed a way to wash and clean them in place!

Before & After
Why Choose Us

We Respect Your Home Or Building

Why Choose Us Why Choose Us

We treat everyones home and building with respect we put in the effort and care to lay down drop cloths(left above), We use corner guards(right above) we will cover up important items, move around your house carefully and take every precaution we can to make sure we don't damage anything.

Complete System Cleaning Our Process

When you hire Prairie Dust Busters to clean your heating and cooling system, "we clean the entire system". We inspect and develop a plan for maximizing the effectiveness of cleaning the system while at the same time minimizing the impact to the home and occupants.

We access all inspection panels, if there are none our highly trained technicians will make their own access openings for proper cleaning, we will supply access panels at a small cost to you. We clean the entire furnace along with the blower fan, heat exchanger, burners, "all coils", etc.

The furnace fan is then reinstalled and all acess openings are sealed with duct caps the access panels are sealed by using duct screws and foil tape insuring no leaks, the entire HVAC system will go through a thorough inspection ensuring proper operation. We put a sticker showing when it was cleaned and when it is due next.
(please note that we can not show you everything that we do as this is a very lengthy process that takes between "3 to 4 man" hours for an average size 1200 square foot home of course much larger homes take longer).


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Psycho Wellness Center & Divinity Clinic understands that its use of your information and committed to the highest standards of data privacy and will only use your information with your data protection rights.

This privacy policy was last updated on 14 July 2018

Personal information

In providing you with our services, Psycho Wellness Center & Divinity Clinic may handle your personal information, which may include sensitive personal information such as medical information. We are very aware that you trust us to keep this information confidential.

Securing information

We are committed to keeping your personal information secure. We have put in place physical, electronic and operational procedures intended to safeguard and secure the information we collect. All our website data held under SSL to ensure transmitting of the data remain encrypted between our server and browser.

Information we may hold about you

The information we hold about you may include sensitive personal information. We may collect this information during contacts we have with you or from the clinics that our clinician work within, who provide this information about you.

When we collect your information

Information about you is collected when you engage with Psycho Wellness Center & Divinity Clinic either by entering a contract with Psycho Wellness Center & Divinity Clinic, or submitting a query or enquiry.

We may collect personal information about you from other people when we obtain medical reports, or when we liaise with your family, employer, health professional or other treatment or benefit provider.

     Using your information

We use your personal information to provide you with our services, and to improve and extend our services.

We will always ask you for your consent to use this personal information, which will be kept as part of your medical records and if you change your mind, you are able to withdraw this consent at any stage. This will not affect the care or service that you receive from Psycho Wellness Center & Divinity Clinic.

Sharing information

Information about you may be shared with other healthcare professionals such as your General Practitioner, Hospital Consultants, Therapists and others involved in your care. We ensure that the confidentiality and security of your personal information is protected by contractual restrictions and service monitoring.

Keeping information

We will only keep your personal information for as long as is necessary.

Accessing information

If you would like to know more about how we use your information or if, for any reason, you do not wish to have your information used in any of the ways described above, please let Psycho Wellness Center & Divinity Clinic know or email: psychowellnesscenter@gmail.com

For further enquiries contact:

+91 9810315110, 9810636188, Ph.: 28084836


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 Historic Handshake Marks Hopeful Start to Winter Olympics

Historic Handshake Marks Hopeful Start to Winter Olympics

Whether or not the missile was designed after Russian or South Korean models, experts say the appearance of the new missiles will be taken up by the United States as evidence of the need to continue to push North Korea to denuclearize.

Pence and Moon took two very different diplomatic approaches to the North Korean delegation's attendance at the games in Pyeongchang.

North Korea ramped up its nuclear and missile programs previous year, testing its first three intercontinental ballistic missiles and most powerful nuclear weapon to date.

The first liberal president in a decade, Moon has repeatedly said since his election in May that he'd be willing to visit Pyongyang and meet with Kim Jong Un if that would help solve the North's headlong pursuit of a nuclear arsenal that can target the US mainland.

Pence was seated between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, with Kim Yo Jong and Kim Yong Nam, North Korea's 90-year-old nominal head of state, seated a row behind.

They added that Kim Jong-un's sister, Kim Yo Jong, the country's foreign minister, Kim Yong Nam, and the South Korean President all gave a warm welcome to the players.

Pence said Friday that the USA would oppose talks between the two Koreas until the North agreed to open negotiations on ending its nuclear program.

Many experts say Kim's overture is meant to use improved ties with Seoul as a way to weaken US -led worldwide sanctions toughened after its series of big weapons tests a year ago that include its sixth and largest nuclear test explosion and three intercontinental ballistic missile launches.

Kim Jong Un wanted to meet Moon "at an early date", a spokesman for the Blue House said.

The powerful Kim sister also attended Friday's opening ceremony, but before the hockey match there were none of the flag-burning protests over the North's Olympic presence that had marked the previous few days.

The United States insisted it would continue its policy of exerting global pressure on North Korea in an effort to get it to abandon its nuclear program.

This week, Moon received an invitation from his northern counterpart, Kim Jong-un to visit Pyongyang for a top-level summit. One calls the North Koreans "puppets" of dictator Kim Jong Un.

Mr Pence stayed seated when the athletes of the host nation marched into the arena alongside those from the North.

Hundreds of anti-North Korea protesters scuffled with riot police hours not far from the main stadium before the opening ceremony was due to begin, with some of their banners reading "Moon regime is leading Korea to destruction". Pence was also at the dinner and reportedly refused to shake the elderly North Korean's hand.

A senior administration official aboard Pence's airplane also told reporters that South Korea and Japan "are solidly with our alliance and the need to continue and intensify economic sanctions".

"You went through a lot of trouble braving the cold until late" last night, Moon told the North Koreans, referring to their attendance at the frigid opening ceremonies.

What will South Korea ask for?

The ITF headquarters are located in Vienna but was founded in North Korea and its President Ri Yong-son is from there.

The luncheon at the Blue House came after Kim Yo Jong and other North Korean delegates attended the opening ceremony of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, which has brought a temporary lull in tensions over the North's nuclear-weapons program.

This items corrects that Kim Yo Jong is the leader's sister.

The event, which arose from the Winter Olympic participation deal negotiated at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) last month, featured displays by a team from South Korea representing World Taekwondo and one from North Korea wearing the colours of the International Taekwondo Federation (ITF). Since July, Trump has engaged in a campaign of name-calling and outright threats, vowing to "totally destroy" North Korea before the U.N. General Assembly.


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Spring til indhold

Case study: GPP in School reconstruction

The municipality of Carnikava decided not to renovate the secondary school in a traditional manner, but instead to invest more financial recourses to achieve better results – not only financial result, but also salubrious, which has been a big issue in Latvian schools because of bad ventilation systems.
Carnikava building

Carnikava is a small size municipality in Latvia, who wants to renovate the secondary school, integrating renewable energy technologies and develop technical design project for the reconstruction in accordance with green public procurement.

The existing school building will be renovated in accordance with green criteria, the housing complex will be renovated and will include a renovation of ventilation systems and windows. An RES-system will be integrated in the swimming pool and energy efficient lighting will be installed. The entire school property will be renovated, including the stadium.

Now, the green public procurement for the building renovation and technical upgrade has been developed and approved at the municipality’s council meeting by the major. On September 7, 2015, the project was announced on the national web page, where all public procurements are to be published. The tender will closed on October 30, 2015.

For more information, contact

Zane Bilzena, Latvian Environmental Investment Fund,

zane.bilzena@lvif.gov.lv , +371 67845111

Access the case study here: Refurbishment of school buildings in Carnikava

Last update

Responsible editor

Jørgen Grubbe

Partners in PRIMES

Latvijas Vides investīciju fonds

Latvian Environmental Investment Fund

Zane Bilzena, projekta vadītāja

Telefons +371 67845111

Email Zane.Bilzena@lvif.gov.lv

Website www.lvif.gov.lv


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SEMI Position on European Union Framework Programme 9

Horizon 2020 BudgetBy Emir Demircan, Senior Manager Advocacy and Public Policy SEMI Europe

European Union (EU) research, development and innovation programmes have proved successful in recent decades. The current framework programme (FP) Horizon 2020, with its 80 billion EUR total budget – around 17 billion EUR of which is allocated for Industrial Leadership – has produced unparalleled collaboration opportunities that no single European country can match on its own.

FPs are strategically positioned to strengthen the European electronics manufacturing industry, which generates high economic value and jobs.  FP9 should build on the successes of Horizon 2020 and enhance Europe’s competitiveness in electronics. SEMI, representing the electronics manufacturing supply chain, recommends seven key points pertaining to FP9 for the consideration of the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council.

Recommendation 1: The Digital economy relies on advances in electronics. FP9 should play a driving role in fully integrating electronics manufacturing players into the European digital economy.

One of the Commission’s priorities in recent years has been to enhance Europe’s position as a world leader in the digital economy. Fulfilling this mission requires an innovative electronics manufacturing industry in Europe. Indeed, electronics components and systems are virtually shaping all IoT-enabled and digital technologies, including autonomous transportation, wearables, augmented and virtual reality as well as artificial intelligence and machine learning. To move to a data-driven economy, Europe needs new materials, semiconductor manufacturing equipment and devices that enable supercomputing, rapid data processing and hyper-connectivity at low power – all in a safe, healthy and environmentally friendly way.

ECSEL logoThis can be only achieved with deeper, mission-oriented research supported by Horizon 2020 public-private partnerships, such as ICT and Factories of the Future, and joint-undertakings (e.g. ECSEL-JU) that pool resources across the electronics value chain in Europe. Under this light, FP9 can play a pivotal role by strategically positioning the European electronics manufacturing industry and strengthening its ecosystem, which would in parallel underpin EU’s intention to become a world leader in the digital economy.

Recommendation 2: The cost of research and development in electronics is increasing. To maintain rapid innovation in Europe, FP9 should provide unparalleled support to electronics manufacturing industry.

The semiconductor manufacturing industry already invests more in R&D (as a percentage of revenue) than any other sector in the world, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association. In the same vein, according to KPMG Global Semiconductor Outlook, the cost of research and innovation in the electronics manufacturing industry is increasing and larger R&D budgets as a percentage of planned revenue are required to maintain market position.

European Data Economy BannerLikewise, many SEMI members state that developing next-generation processes and products aligned with emerging verticals is becoming more expensive. To this end, FP9 should provide larger public funding to the European electronics industry. As mentioned in the Lab-Fab-App Report of the Commission, many research and industry players support the idea of doubling FP9 budget (compared to Horizon 2020). Aligned with this proposal, the industry expects the budget for electronics-related research and innovation in FP9 to double the allocation under Horizon 2020.

Recommendation 3: Future applications need further collaboration. FP9 should build a stronger ecosystem in Europe, maintain a value-chain-approach and bear verticals in mind.

FP9 should prioritize actions entailing collaborative research rather than single beneficiary schemes.

FP9 can extend the role that Horizon 2020 plays in building a genuine EU electronics-manufacturing ecosystem of research and technology organizations (RTOs), universities, large businesses, small to medium enterprises (SMEs) and startups along the value chain that innovates under common goals. First, further collaboration between large and SMEs and startups is needed in Europe, and this can be easily supported under FP9. Small and large companies offer two clear-cut yet complementary strengths: while smaller companies are dynamic and agile in developing new concepts, larger companies are better positioned to scale up new ideas with their extensive private funding instruments and testing and demonstration facilities. This would also help scale up European startups that are challenged to remain competitive and grow.

Second, FP9 should prioritize actions entailing collaborative research rather than single beneficiary schemes. Single beneficiary schemes can be powerful tools for very specific purposes, but they cannot fully support the formation of a strong industrial ecosystem in Europe. Third, the EU electronics manufacturing industry expects a complete value chain approach from FP9. Future EU-funded research actions should prioritize projects in electronics that involve players along the value chain, starting with materials and equipment providers and spanning chipmakers, system integrators as well as players from emerging “smart” verticals such as automotive, medical technologies and energy.

Recommendation 4:  Incremental innovation drives growth. FP9 should equally support incremental and disruptive innovation, as they are complementary.

FP9 should cover the entire innovation process and support both breakthrough/disruptive and incremental innovation as they are complementary. Incremental innovation is the driving force behind Europe’s manufacturing SMEs growth and plays an instrumental role in increasing productivity, and most breakthroughs and disruptive technologies stem from incremental innovation. There is, therefore, no reason to prioritize disruptive/breakthrough innovation over incremental efforts in FP9. Ignoring this recommendation would largely discourage European industrial SMEs that are focused on incremental innovation and do not always have large resources needed for disruptive/breakthrough innovation.

Recommendation 5: Industrial Leadership Pillar of Horizon 2020 has proved its success. FP9 should not water it down, but reinforce it.

Horizon 2020 European Commission BannerThe Industrial Leadership Pillar is of crucial importance for applied researchers in the field of electronics manufacturing. The industry largely benefits from the tangible results generated by this Pillar. Any watering down of the Pillar’s “industrial” character by incorporating global/societal challenges would damage the success of Horizon 2020, and divert businesses from FP9. The Commission should not forget that industrial technology is the cornerstone of the innovation needed to tackle societal challenges including safety, environmental sustainability, mobility and an aging population.

In order to ensure the industry’s growing contribution to tackling societal challenges, FP9 should maintain the Industrial Leadership Pillar as a separate funding line. Likewise, future industrial technologies to be funded by FP9 should be thoroughly vetted by industry, research and government experts with a long-term vision and mastery of the subject matter, rather than a “citizens voting system” as proposed in the Lab-Fab-App Report.

Recommendation 6: A multidisciplinary skills-set will be decisive. FP9 should support the acquisition and upgrade of skills needs in the digital economy.

IC Chip PhotoElectronics manufacturers increasingly need a multidisciplinary skills encompassing expertise in electronics, chemicals, materials, production, design, software, computer and data analytics. By leveraging talent from the worlds of industry and academia, EU-funded programmes have a great potential to generate the new skills and knowhow needed to fuel industry growth. While many Coordination and Support Actions under Horizon 2020 Programme have already addressed the issue of education and skills development, often Innovation Actions (IAs) and Research and Innovation Actions (RIAs) have not necessarily supported the acquisition of new skills aligned with emerging industry needs.

In FP9, this shortcoming can be addressed by promoting specific work packages and tasks pertaining to education and skills in IAs and RIAs such as “new curriculum development” or “industry-led training programmes” aimed at building a workforce focused on innovation.

Recommendation 7: Horizon 2020 has facilitated SME participation thanks to simplification. FP9 should pay attention to low success rate, minimize lost efforts and simplify further.

One of the biggest shortcomings of Horizon 2020 is a low success rate that drives a wedge between highly innovative companies and EU-funded R&D. According to the Lab-Fab-App Report, Horizon 2020 currently funds just 25 percent of the proposals evaluated as high quality, raising industry concerns that high-quality proposals receive no funding and should be avoided for the sake of time and efficiency. Clearly, the Commission cannot distance European organizations from EU-funded research, but there are potential solutions to the problem. One approach could be to extend the two-stage proposal process for industrial technologies to streamline the project application phase: in the first stage, only a short proposal is submitted and, if successful, a second detailed proposal is submitted for further evaluation.

Clearly, the Commission cannot distance European organizations from EU-funded research. One approach could be to extend the two-stage proposal process for industrial technologies to streamline the project application phase.

In addition, FP9 should avoid comingling R&D financial instruments. Grants and loans have different purposes and cannot replace each other. While grants support chiefly research, development, innovation, testing and demonstration in collaborative projects, loans are perfect funding instruments for single beneficiaries to finance projects very close to markets or products that are already on the market. In this regard, blending funding instruments can distort practices that European R&D players are already used to, create complexities and barriers that prevent companies from joining FP9, and water down all the simplification efforts made through Horizon 2020.

In conclusion, Horizon 2020 has delivered tangible results in pushing the borders of Europe’s research and innovation. The Commission’s recent communications on “Building a European Data Economy” as well as “the Renewed EU Industrial Policy Strategy” have underlined a) the EU’s great potential in the digital economy and b) the need for further research, development and innovation in key enabling technologies such as electronics. SEMI believes that FP9 can bridge the Europe of today with the Europe of the future, powered by the digital economy, if the EU makes the right decisions.

Association contact:

Emir Demircan, Senior Manager Advocacy and Public Policy SEMI Europe; +32 (0) 2 609 5318

SEMI Global Update
February 6, 2018


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Sunday, March 1, 2009

Winnipeg needs this

I'm talking about Sport Manitoba's high performance centre they wish to build. All concerns about Facadism are noted, of course. I'm not suggesting this facility be built to sacrifice historic buildings.

Rather, the benefits such a facility would provide to our amateur athletes never seems to come up, we just expect these people to somehow magically become elite. It even concerns me a little, to think that criticism for the lack of these kinds of facilities in Winnipeg rarely if ever, comes up.

The problem lies in that all high performance centres are scattered, and many times, innaccessible. For example, the University of Manitoba Max Bell Field House is where I train, however, by it's nature, it was designed for University athletes and that makes it somewhat less accessible to other, non-UofM athletes. Purchase of a pass will cost a few hundred bucks, and for running, a sport that has almost no cost attached to it, many parents wishing to get their kids into the sport may find this to be a bit much.

The article mentions other sports, such as volleyball, swimming, and soccer. I'd like to take a paragraph and emphasize that we are speaking here, mostly of young athletes, high schoolers in many cases. If other aspects of training such as weights are not available at their high school, they may have to join a public gym. And public gyms are no places for aspiring high performance athletes to train. There are no other athletes there to help them out, nevermind coaches. All these things may be, and in most cases are, innacessible.

As a result we have little athlete development here in Manitoba. You cut your chops the hard way, very little is provided to you and very little is encouraged.

At a single centralized facility, all athletes from all walks of lifes and backgrounds would converge. Hey, I'm a runner, but there's a hell of a lot I could learn from hockey players, volleyball players, and swimmers....hand-eye coordination, acute muscle development, and balance. Vice versa, there's a lot I could teach them, mechanics, the understanding of how your muscles and body react during movement and the importance that can play in efficiency and injury avoidance.

In addition to that, Sport Manitoba can offer many interdisciplinary clinics for their athletes. This is already something they do to some degree, but could be applied across all sports and available to all athletes, under one roof. For an example of this I could refer to a pro athlete (and one of my favourites), Tim Thomas, who does yoga to supplement his training.

To summarize, Sport Manitoba can take direct involvement in the development of amateur Manitoban athletes.

The fact that Sport Manitoba has chosen downtown as the location for this facility shouldn't be overlooked. That's making a statement. They really DO want to have a centralized facility. On top of that, they want to make use of a historic building. Sport Manitoba is doing everything right here, but all I read is criticism for their potential plans for a historic building.

Sport Manitoba came this far. I can at least give them the benefit of the doubt they won't resort to Facadism.

No comments:


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How We Confuse Ourselves

How We Confuse Ourselves

 A fair amount of confusion and contradiction permeates among and across the literary works that deal with Project Time Management. Some of this confusion is inherent in the subject matter itself and cannot be avoided. But much of the confusion is entirely avoidable.

However, Confusion Avoidance requires both Will and Influence on the part of those who have a vested interest and recognized voice in precisely how Project Time Management is implemented on a given project Let’s take them separately:

  • Will: Avoiding confusion requires the will to act — one’s conscious, purposeful, deliberate, and steadfast desire to do so. It requires a level of diligence and mental focus that can at times become tiring, fatiguing, and overwhelming. It is not an assignment for the faint of heart.
  • Influence: On the other hand, influence refers to one’s standing in the broader Project Time Management community. It is not enough to want, or even have a great idea about how, to avoid confusion, for there to be a meaningful and lasting effect. The catalyst for change must have broad influence.

Change of all kinds, which afflict all projects, come from only two places: externally and internally.

  • External Sources of Change: External sources of change tend to be more formal, more disruptive, and less respectful of any preconceived, agreed-upon Project Time Management approach. Included within the External class of changes that can affect a single project are government regulations, contracts and other owner mandates. It also includes “best practices” and standards that are imposed by industry groups striving to standardize approaches to Project Management. [To their credit, these institutions recognize the inherent struggle to balance multi-project standardization (even across disparate industries) with the need for project-level autonomy.]
  • Internal Sources of Change: Factors within this class of change evolve out of the Project Execution process itself. Just as rough or calm seas are merely changing states of a consistently-present ocean beneath the ship, within this class of change is the ever-modulating state of operational conditions that constitutes the platform upon which the Project is built. In Construction there are many such commonly encountered changes: to name just a few; shifting weather patterns, subsurface ground conditions, the unpredictability and uncertainty of workforce availability, quality, or performance; the timely arrival to site of critical materials; the quality and timeliness of essential information; and so forth.

It should be obvious that our greatest opportunity to influence the elimination of confusion on projects rests mainly in the External Change realm. For it is here that decisions are made that directly affect how projects are, can be, and (quite often) must be managed. Both explicitly through edict, and implicitly through accepted, recommended, or adopted practices, those with sufficient Influence are forever invoking and forcing change. And whether they realize it or not — or intend it or not — their decisions can (and often do) easily and innocently confound otherwise straight-forward understandings.

To make my point, let me give an example. In this case, a recommended or accepted practice undercuts a previously well-functioning and readily understood concept: Earliest Dates. For the sake of those possibly unfamiliar with the term, Earliest Dates (Earliest Start and Earliest Finish) indicate the earliest possible time that an Activity in a schedule can conceivably start or finish, given prior logic, activities, and durations as depicted in the CPM schedule’s interwoven network of activities.

Confusion Example #1: Earliest Dates

In this example, we will consider how the rules (formula) for determining an activity’s Earliest Start have gradually changed over time — to the extent that now the word “earliest” no longer means “earliest.” Helpful to this discussion will be a simple two-activity logic diagram, as introduced in Figure 001.

Figure 1: Truly Earliest Start Interpretation

This figure presents us with a lot of important and valuable information.

  1. We see that there are two activities: Washing Dishes and Drying Dishes.
  2. We can assume that there are at least two individuals involved, since one person could not be performing both dish-washing and dish-drying at the same time.
  3. We see that it is either ten o-clock, or that the “work” is triggered to commence at ten o’clock, and no earlier, as denoted by the Start-No-Earlier-Than (SNET) designation.
  4. We see that the washing of the dishes will require fifteen minutes, and included among the dirty items in the sink are some “pots with stubborn baked-on grease.”
  5. We see that the drying of the dishes, if performed without interruption, is estimated to need seven minutes to accomplish.
  6. We see that, for whatever the reasons, the dish-drying activity is called to start after two minutes of dish-washing have been performed.  Hence, we estimate Dry Dishes will commence at 10:02.
  7. We see that, if the Dry Dishes activity commence at 10:02, as shown, it will not be able to work uninterrupted for the balance of its duration, because the Wash Dishes activity is moving at a much slower pace. The person drying the dishes can expect to be standing idle longer than he/she will be actually drying dishes!
  8. We see from the red arrows and accompanying notation that the Dry Dishes activity enjoys seven minutes of discrete Total Float (up and above any other Total Float it might have thanks to prior and subsequent logic surrounding the activity).

In terms of interpretation and usage, the Project Manager for the ”project” that this “schedule” represents has all the information that she needs to make decisions about how to execute this work. In one extreme, she can call for the Dish Dryer to be ready to commence at 10:02 (as shown). At the other extreme, she can maximize Dish Dryer efficiency by postponing the Dish Drying activity until 10:09. The take-away, from this paragraph, is that the Project Manager has several options, and the schedule, as shown in Figure 001, provides a lot of useful information upon which to make informed decisions.

Now let’s look at Figure 002, in which we see the same two activities. But this time we are exposed to a scheduling technique used in the Critical Path Method called “Continuous Durations” or “Contiguous Durations.” I first encountered this option in P3 (Primavera Project Planner) back in the late 1990s, where a scheduler was given the option of choosing a toggle setting of either “Contiguous or Interruptible Durations.”  If I chose Interruptible, the result was what we just studied in Figure 001. But if I chose Contiguous, the result was as shown in Figure 002.

Figure 2: Delayed Earliest Start

Let’s look at Figure 002. The first thing we notice, jumping out at us from the bar chart on the right, is that the Dry Dishes activity is now one solid, constant block of work. We see that it starts at 10:09, and proceeds without interruption to 10:16.

You should be aware of how P3 calculates the Earliest Start of 10:09, for such awareness gets to the point of this example, and this blog article. P3 essentially violates the decades-old understanding of a Forward Pass, and instead calculates backwards in order to determine the Earliest Start.

  • First, P3 determines the Earliest Finish for Dry Dishes, by honoring the Finish-to-Finish tie of one minute. Since Wash Dishes cannot finish any earlier than 10:15, then Dry Dishes cannot finish any earlier than 10:16.
  • Next, P3 subtracts the activity duration for Dry Dishes, which is seven minutes, and arrives at an Earliest Start of 10:09.

But there is just one small problems: 10:09 is not the earliest that Dish Drying can start!! Keep in mind that for the entire life of P3, which spans more than two decades, Primavera offered the scheduler the option to choose between Contiguous or Interruptible.  And in the early years, Interruptible was the default.

But somewhere along the way, Contiguous became the default setting. P3 maintained the option to change the setting, and most seasoned schedulers would do just that. But the default setting prevailed in schedules where the scheduler was not aware of the setting. Over time, the prevalence of Contiguous Durations in schedules was rampant.

Today, in P6, there is no option for Interruptible (to my knowledge). As a result, what P6 calls the Early Start (10:02) is not, in truth, the earliest that it could start if the artificial restriction imposed by the software setting wasn’t calling the shots.

Finally, just in case you are thinking that I am merely making a well-presented argument for what is essentially a technical point of no real-world importance, consider the loss of those precious seven days of Total Float. In Figure 001, we saw that the Dish Dryer knew that he or she had a period of thirteen minutes (10:02 through 10:15) to perform six minutes of Dish Drying. Just where those seven minutes of Total Float would occur was left to the “Project Team” (in this case the Dish Dryer and Dish Washer) to decide.

Defenders of Contiguous Durations insist that there is really no downside or negative effect to its practice, but I disagree.  First, from a practical perspective I don’t happen to believe that scheduling software should have greater influence over how a project is executed than the Project Manager does. Second, any time we squander precious Total Float we endanger the project.

Let’s expand our example one last time. Let’s look into that sink of dirty dish water and see what needs to be washed. As already noted there are several pots with stubborn baked-in drips. The Dish Washer will leave these time-consuming items for last. But, other than four such pots, the remainder of the sink’s contents is comprised of dishes and silverware, each piece of which should be easy to quickly wash.

Now let us suppose that among the dishes are two ornate serving platters that the Dessert Chef is waiting on, in order to prepare a dessert for a party of six who are just about finished with their entrées in the dining room. Suppose that this urgency is communicated to the Dish Washer, who makes a point of washing those two platters in the first minute of the Wash Dishes activity.

The Dish Dryer is not scheduled to start until the end of the second minute, which is intentional: it allows the majority of water runoff to drain from the platters, so that the Dryer’s towel doesn’t get sopping wet after only a few dishes. By extension, we can see that the Dish Dryer will have dried the important platters within the first minute of his work.

Figure 3: Contrasting Interruptible and Contiguous Durations

All of this is shown in Figure 003, left side, where we see that the Dessert Chef should have the needed platters by 10:03. The Dessert Preparation activity has an eight-minute duration, and from what we see in the logic on the left, the desserts should hit the awaiting diners at 10:11.

But now look what happens if we are using a Contiguous Duration setting, with its delayed “Earliest” Start.  Since Dish Drying is not allowed to start until 10:09, then those needed platters are not available to the Dessert Chef until 10:10, and the desserts will not arrive to the diners before 10:18. Notice that the difference between the two dessert arrival times (10:11 and 10:18) is the same seven minutes of Total Float that we enjoyed with traditional Interruptible Durations, but that had been squandered under the Contiguous Duration approach.

Folks, while the above discussion may have opened your eyes to what are clearly deficiencies in the current (Contiguous Duration) practice, the main point I am trying to make is that, from an institutional level, an External Change has been imposed on the Project Time Management world that fundamentally redefines the word “earliest.”

I would suggest that a more appropriate term might be Preferred Start. Why do I say this? Because the underlying rationale for using Contiguous Durations in the first place is to facilitate greater efficiency in the performance of the restricted activity. It traces to a well-accepted truism that uninterrupted work is far more efficient than stand-around work.

But this is a management decision, is it not? The Contiguous Duration approach favors efficiency, which in its greatest consequence, improves project economics. But the Interruptible Duration favors the project’s temporal interests. In our example, it does this in two ways. First, it supports the earliest possible delivery of desserts to the customers. Second, it holds onto Total Float for subsequent, downstream Dish Drying activities.

This second point deserves a further brief discussion. When work, any work, is performed without Total Float, it is like working without a net! There is no allowance for anything to go wrong. Suppose the Dish Dryer accidentally drops the towel into the sink of dirty dish water, and that fresh towels are downstairs in the laundry room. Or suppose the Dish Dryer accidently cuts his hand on a knife and needs to take a few minutes to contain the bleeding and bandage the wound, before returning to duty.

In the Interruptible Duration scenario there would be ample Total Float to absorb either ”incident.” But in the Contiguous Duration scenario, there would be no Total Float. And so, if we assume that either incident would delay Dish Drying by three minutes, then dish (under the Contiguous Duration setting) drying will not finish until 10:19. It would be a one-for-one delay to the end of Dish Drying, because there would be no Total Float available to absorb unexpected “surprises.”

Software Settings for Durations Just one Example

The above example of the effects of two alternative software settings for determining Earliest Dates is just one example of how External Influences can alter the meaning of concepts that were previous understood, rational, and effective. Sadly, there are many, many others similar instances of policies affecting what had been common sense understandings. Which examples can you think of? Leave your comment below?

This blog is long enough, so I won’t go into other examples. Suffice it to say that the broadly-accepted objectives and goals of Project Time Management as a discipline might be better served if those with the greatest Influence were to be as diligent as possible when checking that new approaches and innovations do not unintentionally undermine, contradict, or even reverse well-established understandings.

8 Comments to How We Confuse Ourselves

  1. Sue Backiel says:

    Informative blog regarding Contiguous and Interruptible durations. I agree, the Project Manager should have the influence over how a project is executed. Very interesting comments supporting both Contiguous and Interruptible durations.

  2. Dave says:

    As always an interesting blog explaining how scheduling confusion can happen and how to avoid it. The blog discusses change and particularly how external sources of change can be influenced to eliminate confusion on projects.

    I found the explanation of the CPM Scheduling techniques “Continuous or Contiguous Durations and Interruptible Durations” intriguing. Having never used Primavera Scheduling Software the information provided about the two previously mentioned durations was beneficial. The explanation of the forward pass used by P3 change to the earliest date calculation by actually subtracting an activity duration to calculate an early start date, was a unique solution by a software vendor and eye opening to say the least.

    By the vendor eliminating the setting option for Interruptible Durations means that recent schedulers are unaware there was ever an option to choose a different type of scheduling duration through the use of a toggle switch. Disallowing this process means that alternate what ifs scenarios will never be contemplated in these situations.

  3. Michael Neal says:

    [C] Early start seems to be determined as to whether the activity is contiguous or interruptable. More leeway is given if the activity interruptable since in theory it could start just after its pred. I like the comments that are brought forth.

  4. MurrayBWoolf says:

    Novzar, underpinning what you correctly characterize as a “generally accepted tradition that continguous durations are more efficient” is an assumption that resource efficiency is necessarily a priority of every Project Team.

    My feeling is that this decision should be made by each Project Team, and not bby sweeping, universal “best practices,” industry standards, or project management software algorithms.

    I offer the same resistance to other structured efforts that, nonetheless noble and well-intended, make the assumption that resource efficiency is a hallmark of a well-executed and efficient project. As one example, consider Location-Based Scheduling (aka, Line of Balance, Linear Scheduling) which is an extremely effective method of finding the mosty efficient use of resources for a given area.

    The problem is that localized efficiency often comes at the price of more global inefficiency. I often give the example of road construction on a rural highway. You are driving along at 55 mph when suddenly, as you come over a hill, you are faced with a sea of brake lights in front of you. You are on a two-lane road, and your lane is at a complete standstill.

    As you peer ahead you notice a flagman holding a “STOP” sign in front of the first car in your lane. To your left, a slow-moving stream of opposing traffic passes by your door window. Eventually the stream stops, the flagman rolls his fingers, and the sign now reads “PROCEED SLOWLY.”

    As you clear the flagman, you enter the Construction Zone. You see that one of the two lanes is now under construction, and both directions of traffic are sharing just one lane.

    From the perspective of the Construction Area, if you were to look down from a helicopter, you would see impressive efficiency. The major disruption to the construction, the through traffic, has been “managed” by way of two flagmen and their signs. Meanwhile, the construction work itself proceeds unabated.

    But if you were to ascend in your helicopter to a higher elevation, and pan out across the distance of miles, you would see stalled traffic extending several miles in both directions!

    From a global perspective, there is anything but efficiency. Many people will arrive late to their destinations, and the domino effect at those locations may last hours.

    The same happens when we maximize efficiency in a specific area without consideration of how overall work flow is impacted. As you may know, ICS-Global is the birthplace of Momentum Management, which uses Performance Intensity to monitor, report, and help manage overall Project Momentum.

    This is a fascinating area of Project Time Management that still remains off the “traditional” Project Management radar screen. In time, though, I am confident that Project Managers around the globe will give greater consideration to the “Big Picture.”

    Using Interruptible Durations is one step in that direction. I can give you tangible examples of how Contiguous Durations actually extend the Critical Path! So, in that light, just how important is localized resource efficiency?

  5. Connie Bremer says:

    Convincing argument in favor of maintaining an interruptible duration over a contiguous duration activity. This blog was certainly thought provoking. I also appreciate the experience and knowledge shared by other comments.

  6. Thomas Long says:

    Ultimately the CPM schedule is a tool for communication and project control. The art of scheduling is not about what you put in it, but what you leave out. Just as Aris Venetikidis discusses in his talk about creating maps that work , a CPM schedule is a tool to proof out the most efficient and maybe fastest route to your end. When looking at a transit map, your chosen path may include risk factors. For example, you might take a “longer” route because it has less transfers and thus less inherent risks in delays due to waiting on the next train.

    In tower construction I always break up the activities by trade and by floor. Then the logic is put in so that floors are “released” to a single trade, capitalizing on the inherent efficiency in allowing a trade free run of the work area. They can’t keep it for long. That would mean that they have a FS relationship between following trades and the next floor. In reality, the trade works in a performance curve: a slow start-up followed by high productivity, then slowing as backtracking occurs to fix deficiencies or tie up loose ends. Work is performed by teams, and the team composition is in constant flux. In tower construction, fission of the team occurs as some members move ahead to advance the work on the next floor as the rest of the team stays behind to wrap things up. Then the team congeals again to perform the high productivity work and the cycle continues until the last floor is reached.

    There is also the law of diminishing returns, sure you can pull more teams in, or stack the trades, but this often leads to inefficiencies as the secondary teams have lower productivity. When I walk into a construction site I look at the workflow to quickly asses how well the job is going. If one trade is dominating an area, or too many trades are working on top of each other I can easily assume that the project manager has lost control.

    FS relationships are the easiest way to sequester float in construction. If I were to build a schedule with nothing but FS relationships and filtered by trade I would see a jagged, discontinuous workflow. When the schedule is actualized there will be a lot of out of sequence to resolve as the subcontractor mitigates the mob-demob cycle with soft or late starts.

    Often when I have meetings with the owner they are looking at the early start dates. Maybe I have worked with subcontractors too much, but I first look at the finish dates. Like a fish that grows to fill its bowl, subcontractors tend to expand their work to fill the entire temporal space between early start and late finish. This isn’t just a defect, but a function of temporal osmosis driven by the subcontractor’s need to balance manpower with efficiency.

    Contiguous or interruptible settings couch the discussion in a theoretical diametric and imposes an unrealistic constraint. The art of scheduling demands that the logic and granularity of the schedule are adjusted to allow it to perform the functions of a high level communication tool and logical proofing means and methods. I have never pushed the automatic leveling tool button on many software programs and instead do it all by hand. If I am lucky enough to build the schedule I am updating, I have already built in the flexibility to do this without impacting the end date. Until scheduling software undergoes a transformation from its current 2D state to a 3D(such as line of balance) as BIM software has done to drafting, the communication gap between the theoretical schedule and the reality of work performance will continue.

    • MurrayBWoolf says:

      Thomas, your comments reflect a wealth of knowledge and experience, surely acquired through years on real projects. In all that you said, I could not agree more. Your conclusion, that “Contiguous or interruptible settings couch the discussion in a theoretical diametric and imposes an unrealistic constraint,” is particularly profound. The subtle message — written between the lines — in my blog article is that all of our best methods and techniques for modeling Project Execution Strategy are necessarily limited by the conventions and software limitations of human expression. Real Projects are dynamic, and far more than even three-dimensional. They are complex and overlapping and symbiotic.

      Whether we use Finish-to-Start ties, or choose to overlap (Start-to-Start and Finish-to-Finish) the activities in our Baseline Schedule, these are just placeholders for what will ultimately happen in Real Life. Our sketches (logic) only superficially reflect our intentions. They can never fully chart the course we will ultimately take. In the end, it is up to the Project Team, in Real Time, to make daily (and even hourly) decisions as to how the project will be executed.

      And it is to this end that I passionately argue that the Project Team, and in particular the Project Manager, never be denied the opportunity to make those in-the-moment calls. That is why I favor Continguous Durations, because they yield the truly earliest possible dates for activity start, and do not surrender or squander Total Float without offsetting gains. As Novzar notes in his brief comment, “there is a generally accepted tradition that contiguous duration is more efficient.” This may be true, that working continously is more resource-efficient. But at the end of the day, is it not for the Project Team to decide whether Labor Efficiency is the primary objective? What if expediency, timeliness, quality, safety, or some other criterion is the greater concern and objective?

  7. Novzar Dastoor says:

    There is a generally accepted tradition that contiguous duration is more efficient; but your illustration very vividly puts forward the case for merits of interruptible durations.
    Thanks for the eye opener.

What is your opinion? We'd like to know!


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Wednesday, January 12, 2011

6th Annual PROMISE Tricampus Research Symposium Friday, 1/21

Event: 6th Annual PROMISE Research Symposium
(tri-campus: UMB, UMBC, and UMCP)

Date: Friday, January 21, 2011
Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm

Location: UMCP Campus, Nyumburu Cultural Center

General Registration Open Through Friday, Jan 14, 2011
There is still time to register to attend the 6th Annual PROMISE Research Symposium held on Friday, January 21, 2011 at the UMCP campus. General registration remains open through Friday, January 14:

Come support your fellow graduate school colleagues, meet PROMISE scholars working in a wide range of fields, and find out about the exciting research that is being done throughout UMB, UMBC, and UMCP campuses.

More information regarding the PROMISE Research Symposium can be found on the following websites:

Transportation to UMCP
UMBC will provide bus transportation for both UMBC and UMB students to and from UMCP. Please email with the subject line: “Bus for Research Symposium 2011” for additional details and sign-up information.

If you plan to drive, parking information is provided on

If you have any questions, please e-mail to

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Proofreading and Editing — The Vital Differences

Proofreading and editing are not exactly the same. Although many people use the terms interchangeably, editing and proofreading are two different stages of the revision process. Both demand close and careful reading, but they focus on different aspects of the writing and employ different techniques. Editing is what you begin doing as soon as your first draft is finished. You reread your draft to see for example, whether the paper is well-organised, the transition between paragraphs is smooth, and your evidence really backs up your argument. Whereas, proofreading is the final stage of the editing process which focuses on surface errors such as misspellings and mistakes in grammar and punctuation. You should proofread only after all your other editing revisions are finished.

Proofreading is the process of careful reading and rereading of a document to detect any errors in spelling, punctuation, or grammar. It may also involve checking different elements of the layout (such as headlines, paragraphs, illustrations, and colours) for their correct dimensions, placement, type, etc. Every author knows that a human proofreader is indispensable. This process involves reading  an electronic or hard copy of a work to be published in order to detect and correct production errors in text or art. Proofreaders are expected to be very accurate because they are checking the last stage of typographic production before publication.

This process concentrates less on the form and more on the terminology. Editing involves checking to make sure that the correct terminology is used. It also involves assisting with the structure and content of a document, such as ensuring consistency within the text and publisher’s style guide, as well as checking the accuracy of references.
Editorial work involves a collaborative approach to maintain the author’s style and vision, while ensuring the document creates maximum impact on the intended reader.

Try to keep the editing and proofreading processes separate. When you are editing an early draft, it is difficult to think about punctuation, grammar, and spelling. If you are worrying about the spelling of a word or the placement of a comma, you are not focusing on the more important task of developing and connecting ideas.

The bottom line: If you hire an individual or company to check your thesis, it’s essential they carry out both proofreading and editing. As both skills are completely different, you’re paper should be checked at least twice: once by an editor and lastly by a qualified proofreader.

Proofreading Asia offers a comprehensive, cost-effective  proofreading and editing service to students, companies and professionals in Thailand and around Asia.

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Prov Blog

In Response to Charlottesville

Posted by on

Church, in light of what is happening in Charlottesville, I thought it was important to express a pastor's heart towards the issue. As we've learned in our study of Exodus, every human being is made in the image of God and loved by God more than we can imagine. Because every human being is precious and valued by God, every human being should be precious and valued by each of us.
We will not and should not be engaged in the hatred and oppression of others. Genesis 1:27-28
My colleague, Pastor Peter Nelson of Goshen Baptist Church wrote these words that I would love to share with you.
–Pastor Phil Carnuccio

The recent rally of white supremacist groups in Charlottesville, Virginia, is deeply disturbing—and from multiple angles.  Let me name just two—the national, and the spiritual.

Right at the heart of being an American is affirming the vision of humanity that's enshrined in the Declaration of Independence:  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…”  All people—including those of any and every racial background.  Therefore, the drive to elevate one racial group above others is fundamentally un-American.

And right at the heart of following Jesus and living as a Christian is affirming his love for people of all races.  “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).  God’s open arms of love reach out to all the world—to all people groups, all languages, all classes, all races.  Therefore, any effort to associate white supremacist values with Christianity is profoundly wrong—it amounts to outright defiance against Jesus Christ.

In the midst of the sorrowful news of racial hatred and hostility, numerous Christian leaders have spoken out to call evil evil and to draw attention to the unifying love of Jesus.  Let me encourage you to read and reflect on a few recent articles:

We do well to remember, and to rejoice in the fact, that heaven will be populated by people from every race!  “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” (Revelation 7:9-10).

Joining you in prayer for God’s gracious and powerful work in these troubled times!

–Peter Nelson, Goshen Baptist Church

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Psychology and Socionics
of Interpersonal Relationships - journal issue 7/08

  • N 7 (67)

  • July

  • 2008

Churyumov S.I.

On Correlation between the Notions of Type and Character

The notions of type and character used in psychology are analysed. Excessive empiric approach of some typologies is criticised. Correlation between the notions of type and character seen as orthogonal to each other is substantiated.
Key words: socionics, type, character, psychological symptom, model, fullness of typology, independence of its elements.

Socionics in nursery

Olkova Ye.V.

Origin of Socionic Type

Results of research of origin of socionic type are described. The hypothesis that informational flow aspect, which was the most active in perception of mother during pregnancy, becomes the place of the least resistance (the painful point) of socionic type of the child is put forward.
Key words: socionics, psychology, type of informational metabolism, model A, informational flow aspect, mother, child, pregnancy.

Savchenko S.V.

The Origin of Quadras from the Viewpoint of the Symbol Socionics

An explanation of origin and functioning of the four quadras is proposed from the standpoint of the symbol socionics. Short characteristics of the types in the system of Tarot cards are given.
Key words: symbol socionics, Tarot cards system, quadras, personality types.

Problems of Human Psyche Evolution

Kaznatcheyev V.P., Trofimov A.V.

The Distant Information Interactions among People as the Cosmophysical Indicator of the Intellect Evolution on the Earth

It is described the experimental results on the distant information interaction among people within the way of some thousands kilometers (Novosibirsk, Dikson, central Russia, West Europe, USA, Canada). During some experiments in the Extreme North it was revealed the "distant-time forestall" phenomena, i.e. the transmissed information reception by percipients, occurred some hours or days before its actual transmission. It was obtained the data about the dependence of the transmissed information reception on the cosmos situation during the prenatal period of the brain development as well as on the birthday date of the experiment participant.
Key words: intellect, distant information interactions, space-time continuum, cosmoplanet phenomenon, transpersonal interactions.

Socionic Portraits

Blashko I.I.

Socionic Types and Intertype Relationships of Heroes of F.Dostoyevsky's Novel "Crime and Punishment"

The article proposes a hypothesis on socionic types of the heroes of F.Dostoyevsky's novel "Crime and Punishment". Intertype relationships between the novel heroes are analyzed.
Key words: socionics, socionic type, intertype relationships, literary hero.

Yarosh K.

Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great. Psychological Parallel

The research paper, although written a hundred years ago, still preserves its beauty and actuality. Psychological language of the author is so clean that the two types look vividly embossed.
Key words: psychological portrait of personality, Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, socionics.

Bukalov A.V., Karpenko O.B.

Commentary to "Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great. Psychological Parallel" by K.Yarosh

The socionic analysis of psychological portraits allows considering informational metabolism types of two famous historical persons, ET (EIE) for Ivan the Terrible and FL (SLE) for Peter the Great. Generic quadral presets and particularities are shown. Substantial differences in their ways of self-manifestation and realization in life peculiar to ET (EIE) and FL (SLE) are reviewed.
Key words: socionics, type of informational metabolism, Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, ethical-intuitive extrovert, sensory-logical extrovert, quadra.

The Female Face of Socionics

Men'shova T.I.

Shreds of Private Life, or Road from Love to Love (Ethical-Sensory Introvert)

In the literary form the image of a woman - representative of the type ethical-sensory introvert (ESI) is described.
Key words: socionics, socionic type.


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Christmas 2010

Pugs in this photo: Molly and Stan

Molly and Stan with Santa

SamMorgan (over 7 years ago)

they got their pictures with santa? Lucky! I was going to take my Pug to Petsmart to get a picture with Santa Claws! But everytime i go, im early, and when i come back again- they're gone. Cute picture btw!


text:
Huxley collected essays

Huxley collected essays, A little bit funds a lot of bytes: every dollar donated in december will be matched 3-to-1 dear internet archive supporter, i ask only once a year: please help the.

Collected essays, aldous huxley - preface “i am a man and alive,” wrote d h lawrence “for this reason i am a novelist and, being a novelist, i consider. Collected essays by thomas henry huxley starting at $1499 collected essays has 13 available editions to buy at alibris. Huxley's collected essays gathers together the writings of one of the most prominent and outstanding intellectual figures of the nineteenth century.

There were times while reading aldous huxley's 'collected essays' that i was tempted to put it down several of the essays, originally published between 1923 and 1956, were outlandishly dated, and all of them were dense and complex - as an essayist, huxley demands my full attention. Home table of content united architects – essays table of content all sites →see also →huxley, aldous →huxley, aldous (leonard) →aldous huxley.

Collected essays / by th huxley volume v7 (1894) 1894 [ebook pdf] by th huxley.

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