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Last January in Freehold Township, N.J., a car driven by a 17-year-old high school student, with two fellow students as passengers, passed a car being driven by another teenager at 70 miles an hour in a 50-mile zone. The passing vehicle crashed into an oncoming van. Three boys and the 68-year-old van driver were killed.

It is an all too familiar tale, prompting parents and school officials alike to wonder why risky behavior is so common among teenagers and what might be done to curtail it. Is it that teenagers think that they are immortal or invulnerable, immune to the hazards adults see so clearly? Or do they not appreciate the risks involved and need repeated reminders of the dangers inherent in activities like driving too fast, driving drunk, having unprotected sex, experimenting with drugs, binge drinking, jumping into unknown waters, you name it?

None of the above, says Valerie F. Reyna, professor of human development and psychology at the New York State College of Human Ecology at Cornell. The facts are quite the opposite. Scientific studies have shown that adolescents are very well aware of their vulnerability and that they actually overestimate their risk of suffering negative effects from activities like drinking and unprotected sex.

For example, a study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, found that teenagers were more likely than adults to overestimate risks for every outcome studied, from low-probability events like contracting H.I.V. to higher-probability ones like acquiring more common sexually transmitted diseases or becoming pregnant from a single act of unprotected sex.

“We found that teenagers quite rationally weigh benefits and risks,” Dr. Reyna said in a recent interview. “But when they do that, the equation delivers the message to go ahead and do that, because to the teen the benefits outweigh the risks.”

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For example, she said: “The risk of pregnancy from a single act of unprotected sex is quite small, perhaps one chance in 12, and the risk of contracting H.I.V., about one in 500, is very much smaller than that. We’re not thinking logically; they are.”

For that reason, Dr. Reyna and Frank Farley, a professor at Temple University and past president of the American Psychological Association, noted last June in an article in Scientific American Reports that traditional programs that appeal to teenagers’ rationality “are inherently flawed, not because teens fail to weigh risks against benefits,” but because “teens tend to weight benefits more heavily than risks when making decisions.”

As for perceptions of invulnerability, a national study of 3,544 teenagers a decade ago found that their own estimates of their risk of dying were very much higher than the actual risk. Because adolescents already feel so vulnerable, showing them photos or films of fatal car crashes may do nothing to reduce future risk-taking.

“It now becomes clearer why traditional intervention programs fail to help many teenagers,” Dr. Reyna and Dr. Farley wrote. “Although the programs stress the importance of accurate risk perception, young people already feel vulnerable and overestimate their risks.”

In Dr. Reyna’s view, inundating teenagers with factual risk information could backfire, leading them to realize that behaviors like unprotected sex are less risky than they thought. Using an analytical approach of weighing risks versus benefits is “a slippery slope that all too often results in teens’ thinking that the benefits outweigh the risks,” she said.

Credit Stuart Bradford

A New Strategy

Based on what she and others have learned about how teenagers react to risky choices, Dr. Reyna, co-director of the Center for Behavioral Economics and Decision Research at Cornell, and her colleague Charles J. Brainerd are testing a new approach to adolescent risk prevention.

She explained that as people grew older and more experienced, they became more intuitive, and more of their decisions were based on what she calls “gist,” an overall sense of what is the best course of action.

This approach, in which “one sees the forest more than the trees,” enables adults to reach the bottom line more quickly and, in the process, reduce their risky behaviors.

For example, while an adolescent might consider playing Russian roulette for a $1 million payoff, a normal adult would not give it a moment’s thought. Cutting directly to the chase, the adult would be more inclined to think: “No way! No amount of money is worth a one in six chance of dying.”

“Young people don’t get it,” Dr. Reyna said. “They don’t get the gist of a situation. Gist is based on one’s culture, background and experiences, and experience is what teens lack.”

A gist-based approach to decision making results in simple, black-and-white conclusions of good or bad, safe or dangerous, she and Dr. Farley wrote.

How can “gist” be created? After a young woman I knew became a paraplegic after swerving her car to avoid hitting a squirrel, I trained myself mentally not to brake or swerve in that situation, and I urged my sons and daughters-in-law to do the same. The gist here is that the life of a squirrel is not worth the possible consequences to me or anyone else on the road.

Likewise, in helping a teenage girl resist spontaneous, unprotected sex, a gist-based approach has her practicing ways to say “no” and not worry about losing her boyfriend. A 15-year-old who already had one unintended pregnancy and who participated in the “intuitive, gist-enhanced intervention program” that Dr. Reyna and Dr. Farley devised put it this way: “In talking about all the different ways to say ‘no,’ I’ve actually used them, which makes me feel much more comfortable. And I feel confident. I don’t feel stupid by saying ‘no.’ And even if people think I’m stupid, that’s their problem.”

Making Good Choices

Teenagers need “practice at recognizing cues in the environment that signal possible danger before it’s too late to act,” the two experts urged in a 44-page review of adolescent decision making published in September 2006 in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest.

At the same time, Dr. Reyna warned: “Younger adolescents don’t learn from consequences as well as older adolescents do. So rather than relying on them to make reasoned choices or to learn from the school of hard knocks, a better approach is to supervise them.”

In other words, young teenagers need to be protected from themselves by removing opportunities for risk-taking — for example, by filling their time with positive activities and protecting them from risky situations that are likely to be tempting or that require “behavioral inhibition.”

A young teenage girl should not be left alone in the house with her boyfriend, and responsible adults should be omnipresent and alcohol absent when teenagers have parties.

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The bright lights of the big city are getting a little bit duller — with just a hint of green.

Motion sensors ensure that unoccupied offices, storerooms and canteens go dark after workers and cleaning crews leave at night. Dimmers soften overhead lights that once could burn only bright or not at all. Timers guarantee that buildings fade to black while the city sleeps.

Gone are the days when cheap electricity, primitive lighting technology and landlords’ desire to showcase their skyscrapers kept floor after floor of the city’s highest towers glowing into the night. Now, rising energy costs, conservationism, stricter building codes and sophisticated lighting systems have conspired to slowly, often imperceptibly, transform Manhattan’s venerable nightscape into one with a gentler glow.

Instead of tower after tower shining at all hours — the World Trade Center stayed aglow long after its occupants went home — the skyline is becoming a patchwork of sparsely sparkling buildings decorated with ornamentally lighted tops.

“The tall tower with the illuminated floors on all night long is probably a thing of the past,” said Randy Sabedra, the owner of RS Lighting Design, who is helping to create a new map of the city’s most prominently lighted buildings. “You’re not relying on the glowing floors to have the building presence. It is relying on the crown of light.”

Since electricity set it ablaze more than a century ago, the skyline has dimmed a number of times. During World War II and the energy crisis of the 1970s, New Yorkers considered it patriotic to turn out lights. But such frugality disappeared once times were flush again (though the current troubles could leave more office space vacant, and thus dark).

MOOD LIGHTING The city may never sleep, but some of its buildings do. From atop the Empire State Building, office and apartment towers to the south blend in among the streetlights and headlights on the avenues. Credit Andrew Henderson for The New York Times

The building boom of the last decade, the ever-expanding electronic billboards of Times Square and unshielded traffic lights have solidified New York’s status as one of the country’s most light-polluted cities, according to the International Dark-Sky Association, which has pushed for city and state legislation to turn the lights down.

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New York scores a 9 on the 9-point Bortle Dark-Sky Scale, the association’s favored measure, along with other major cities like Houston and Las Vegas; a typical suburban sky ranks a 5, while Tucson, which has stringent outdoor lighting codes, is also a 5.

Illumination Overkill

“The light bulb has not really gone on in their head yet,” Susan Harder, who runs the association’s New York section, said of city officials. “We’ll always have an iconic skyline, but we don’t need this big glow over the city.”

To that end, the State Assembly passed legislation in June requiring that new outdoor lighting have shields that reduce glare and waste; the bill’s sponsor, Assemblywoman Linda B. Rosenthal, a Manhattan Democrat, said it would most likely be taken up by the State Senate if the Democrats manage to win a majority on Tuesday (Republicans currently hold a one-seat advantage).

City Councilman Alan J. Gerson has introduced a variety of similar measures — to require full streetlight shields and motion detectors in all commercial and government buildings, and to mandate more efficiently lighted billboards. The first of the proposals could be taken up as early as this month.

“The sky won’t be totally dark,” Ms. Rosenthal said. “But it’s 2008, so we have to take into account energy concerns.”

RAZZLE DAZZLE 'EM In 1957, entire floors of buildings south of 30 Rockefeller Plaza were still illuminated well after the workday had ended. Credit Edward Ratcliffe

In many ways, the business community is ahead of the politicians. Several of the city’s newest skyscrapers incorporate cutting-edge technologies that appeal to environmentalists — and those eager to keep energy costs down. Landlords have found that meeting stiffer energy efficiency standards in their new and refurbished buildings is a selling point with tenants, especially those that pay their own electricity bills.

“This time, the difference is that we’re more conscious of what we’re doing and the lighting industry is more advanced,” said Meg Smith, a manager in New York for Lightolier, a manufacturer that specializes in lighting fixtures and controls.

Incentives to Change

As demand for electricity in New York rises and global competition drives energy prices higher, the cost of the technology that makes better use of daylight and reduces electricity use at night — motion sensors, software-driven timers and the like — is falling. In some cases, it takes just two years to recoup the investment in this equipment, down from five years not long ago, according to Mark Roush, director of New York marketing for Acuity Brands Lighting, the nation’s largest maker of lighting fixtures.

That includes the growing number of rebates from state agencies and utilities, which are trying to reduce consumption to relieve stress on the electric grid and put off building expensive power plants and substations.

Con Edison, for instance, has asked the state for permission to offer businesses a variety of rebates for installing efficient lighting as part of its efforts to cut demand in New York City and Westchester County by 500 megawatts by 2015.

At the new 91,000-square-foot downtown offices of Incisive Media, which owns about 30 publications, including The American Lawyer magazine, the two floors are divided into four zones for overhead lighting so not all of the space has to be lighted or dark at a given time.

TECHNOLOGY'S LIMITS Midtown in 1973, as seen from Weehawken, N.J. Many buildings of the era had only a few switches on each floor, so even in mostly empty offices, large swathes would be aglow. Credit Larry C. Morris/The New York Times

Individual offices are equipped with motion sensors; on a recent evening, lights automatically shut off as workers left for the day. The cleaning crew was gone by 8 p.m., but because a handful of editors worked later, a timer tucked in a small closet turned off the remaining lights at 11 — and would turn them back on at 6 a.m.

“We have to balance the administrative time versus the energy savings,” said Allison Hoffman, an Incisive Media executive who oversaw the construction of the space, at 120 Broadway. “We’ll be constantly adjusting.”

To qualify for tax credits and rebates from the State Energy Research and Development Authority, Incisive’s architects, TPG, designed a system that emits less than 0.78 of a watt a square foot (1.1 watts a square foot are allowed under the building code for refurbished offices). They used fluorescent bulbs that are five-eighths of an inch in diameter, about 40 percent smaller than the previous generation of bulbs, and use 28 watts of electricity, compared with 42 to 48 watts for the old lights. Less-frequented areas like hallways have small halogen lights spaced far apart.

At the National Audubon Society’s offices on Houston and Varick Streets, lights-out is set for 7 p.m. Ten minutes before, a warning flash alerts employees who need to work late that they should go to a light switch to reset the timers.

Clay Nessler, vice president of global energy and sustainability at Johnson Controls, helped develop a more complex system for the Citigroup tower in Long Island City, Queens, that helps keep cleaning crews on schedule. “It’s going to increase productivity and lead to more efficiency,” he said.

At the Renzo Piano-designed new headquarters of The New York Times, on Eighth Avenue, the rows of single 28-watt fluorescent bulbs that line the ceilings are connected to a computer network that lets maintenance workers quickly scan which ones need replacing or repair, rather than trolling the floors.

TAKING CONTROL The offices of Incisive Media at 120 Broadway have been fitted with a lighting system involving dimmers, timers and motion sensors. Credit Andrew Henderson for The New York Times

Like Incisive Media, The Associated Press divided its Manhattan headquarters, which covers two acres of floor space, into zones, allowing groups of workers to tailor the lights to their liking and preventing large banks from burning when just a handful of people are around.

Such zones require a bigger initial investment because more circuits, outlets and other equipment need to be installed, but the system, Lightolier’s iGEN, helped cut energy use by 28 percent in the first year, Ms. Smith said.

Footing the Bill

Because of the expense, advanced lighting systems are being installed primarily in new buildings or offices being retrofitted for new tenants. So changes to the city’s nightscape will come gradually over many years.

But more and more, building owners are writing leases that require tenants to pay for their own electricity, leading many tenants to install more efficient lights. A lot of the new energy-efficient fixtures were designed to fit into the ceiling spaces that now hold older fixtures, making the upgrades easier and cheaper.

“Lights will diminish,” said Guy Geier, senior partner at FXFowle, an architecture and interior design firm in Manhattan, “because over 10 or 20 years, those leases are going to roll over and the incentive is going to be there to start installing newer lights.”

This is not the first time innovations in technology and construction have been visible in the nightscape. In the early 20th century, many buildings lacked air-conditioners, so most workers sat near the windows; that meant the yellowish light from the incandescent bulbs hanging above their desks flooded through open windows into the street.

One of the timers that keep the office dark from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. Credit Andrew Henderson for The New York Times

Evolving Consciousness

As central air-conditioning and fluorescent lights spread after World War II, architects could build skyscrapers enclosed in glass, which gave off a cooler light; at the same time, more interior space was now viable, though lights there were less visible from the outside.

But as tall towers multiplied, the volume of light in Manhattan increased: Many buildings had only a few light switches on each floor, so if even one person was in the office, large swaths were aglow.

James Sanders, who used to work for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, recalled arriving at work one Sunday in 1985, finding only two switches on the entire 84th floor of one of the World Trade Center towers, and discovering that a janitor had to be called to flip one.

“They had to switch a half-acre of lights on just for me,” he said. To his bosses, who were the landlords, leaving lights on all evening “was in part a symbol of power,” he said.

These days, such landlords can light perimeter offices while keeping the center of a building dark. Others are installing more efficient LED lights outside buildings in place of older floodlights. Still others are focusing on the tops of their towers, joining the Empire State Building, whose color-coded homages are a New York icon.

Con Edison itself has adopted several of these techniques at its 26-story headquarters near Union Square, installing 344 LED fixtures on the clock tower in September. The fixtures, which are meant to last 15 years, use 63 percent less energy than conventional lights, and can be programmed to produce millions of colors without the need for filters (like those used at the Empire State) or other equipment.

Such ornamental statements will most likely become more prominent as the interiors of buildings continue to dim over time.

“New York City’s skyline will always be a magical thing,” said Mr. Sabedra, the lighting designer at work on the nightscape map. “It’s something wonderful and beautiful about the city when it transforms at night, its building glow, its glowing canyons. It’s a wonderful sight.”

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TRADITION Kathi Denniston tends bar at the Stewart House, a restored inn built when Andrew Jackson was in office. Credit Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times

ASHTON HAWKINS and Johnnie Moore had been living part-time in the second-home hot spot of Hudson, N.Y., for five years before the right house lured them across the Hudson River to the smaller and less-known village of Athens.

It was the Haight-Van Loan House, a 7,000-square-foot Federal mansion that has panoramic views of the Hudson River and looms over eight acres on a hill at the south end of the village. And they were able to buy it for just $925,000.

“I feel like we made the bargain of the century,” said Mr. Moore, a theater actor and producer who lives in Manhattan.

More than two years later, the couple are still enthusiastic about their find, which would have cost more than $3 million across the river in Columbia County, local real estate agents say. They are now in the middle of an extensive restoration being overseen by Howard Hall Farm, a local firm that uses environmentally sensitive preservation techniques. The red shag carpeting has been ripped out, and a brace holds up the ceiling of the grand ballroom while an original beam of the house is being repaired.

“The house has been peeled back to its essence,” said Mr. Hawkins, a consultant to Christie’s and a former general counsel for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The restoration of the Haight-Van Loan House is perhaps the perfect emblem for Athens. Its trove of historic homes in various states of restoration and repair has become a draw for second-home owners who have an eye for vintage architecture. Newly spruced-up houses stand beside neglected properties of weed-infested yards, peeling paint and crumbling brick. Scaffolding is a common sight, and town gossip often revolves around who’s fixing up what and how.

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The Village of Athens, a separate municipality within the town of Athens, sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, four miles north of the Rip Van Winkle Bridge in Greene County. First settled in the late 17th century, the village, a port on the Hudson-Athens Ferry, became a thriving hub for shipbuilding, brick making and ice harvesting. Athens fell on hard times after the bridge went up in 1935, eliminating the need for the ferry, which closed in 1947. Athens’s layout and architecture have remained essentially the same since its heyday in the late 19th century. It has more than 300 buildings on national and state historic registers and has the feel of a living museum of American architecture, with examples of many of the predominant styles of the 18th and 19th centuries, including Federal, Greek Revival, Italianate, Stick, Second Empire, Folk Victorian and Queen Anne.

Geoff Howell, who owns a Manhattan design and production studio, bought a five-bedroom Italianate house four years ago for $225,000. He has since bought two houses to restore and sell. “I’ve been interested in historic preservation my whole life but never felt I could make a difference in the city,” he said. “But Athens is small enough that every house you restore makes a big difference in the community.”

The Scene

Ursula’s Diner is a friendly gathering place across from a waterfront park and boat launching area. And kayaks, powerboats, tugs and barges are a common sight on the river.

Boating, fishing and other water sports are also popular at Sleepy Hollow Lake, a 750-home private community that surrounds a two-and-a-half-mile man-made lake outside the village. Sleepy Hollow includes tennis courts, a marina, a driving range, two swimming pools, a lodge and a campground.

Night life revolves mainly around the bar and restaurant at the Stewart House, a recently restored 1833 inn. The Athens Cultural Center hosts art openings and other events.

Otherwise, the social scene in Athens tends toward impromptu Saturday night gatherings. Sarah Gray Miller, editor in chief of Country Living magazine, and her husband, Tony Stamolis, a photographer, who live in Manhattan, bought a four-bedroom Italianate house two years ago for less than $300,000, she said. They then persuaded friends in their New York social circle to buy four other houses in Athens.

The couple entertain often, filling their bedrooms with visitors and inviting friends to dinner parties that can expand from 6 guests to 16 in the span of an evening. “We can all walk to each other’s houses, and there’s something very casual about it,” Ms. Miller said. “It’s like the joy of living in a commune, but you don’t actually have to share a house.”

Athens sits on a gradual slope up from the river, with houses and restaurants literally a stone’s throw from the water. On the east side of the Hudson, railroad tracks limit river access in many communities, while in most towns on the west side, steep riverbanks pose a similar challenge.

Chris Baswell, a professor of medieval literature at Barnard and Columbia who lives in Manhattan, is renovating a Federal brick house, built around 1800, eight blocks up from the river. “I use a wheelchair, so the gentle grade is good,” he said. “I can go anywhere in the village — the park, the diner, the river’s right there.”

Athens is smaller and less expensive than Hudson, a city across the river also noted for its stock of vintage homes. Though prices in recent years have begun to catch up, the median price in Athens is still about $50,000 less than in Hudson, according to the Greene County Multiple Listing Service.

Besides a basic gas station-convenience store, there is no retail shopping in Athens. The closest supermarket is in Catskill, 10 minutes away.

The Real Estate Market

Historic fixer-uppers can be found for $100,000 to $150,000 in the village, local agents say, but expect to pay at least $200,000 for a three-bedroom house in move-in condition. Lot sizes in the village average a third of an acre.

Most lakefront homes at Sleepy Hollow cost $350,000 to $450,000, with off-lake properties available in the $200,000 range, said Vicki Wolpert, who owns Lake and Mountain Realty in Athens. Listings of more than $500,000 are rare.

Athens has managed to hold its own in the down housing market. The median price of homes sold in the town of Athens, which includes the village proper, from January through mid-September 2008 was $181,000, according to the Greene County Multiple Listing Service. In the last five years, the average price of a home rose more than $100,000.

“Lower-priced deals on homes that need work can still be found, but it’s not like it was,” said Andrea Smallwood, the village mayor and a sales associate at Heart Land Realty in Coxsackie, N.Y.

The average listing stays on the market for about six months, about a month longer than in 2007. Local real estate agents estimate that 10 to 15 percent of the houses in the village of Athens and about 50 percent of the houses at Sleepy Hollow Lake are used as second homes.

The homes at Sleepy Hollow Lake are mainly A-frames and contemporaries built in the last 40 years. The property owners association regulates paint color and other features.

“We don’t have the grand old houses,” Ms. Wolpert said. “When people contact us, they are looking for lakefront. That’s what attracts them first. Then we move on to what kind of home.”

POPULATION 1,743, according to a 2006 Census Bureau estimate.

SIZE 4.6 square miles.

WHERE Athens is 132 miles north of New York City, about a two-and-a-half-hour drive.

WHO’S BUYING Lawyers, journalists and other professionals from New York City and North Jersey.

WHILE YOU’RE LOOKING Rooms start at $147.50 a night at Stewart House (2 North Water Street, 518-945-1357; The inn also includes a well-regarded restaurant.

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One man bent down to the sidewalk to shake the man, lifting him to reveal a pool of blood before walking away. Two men appeared to have a conversation about the situation, one pausing to take a photo of the body before departing. But the rest merely turned their heads toward the body, revealing some curiosity as they hurried along.

What is clear from a surveillance tape is that Mr. Tale-Yax, a homeless 31-year-old Guatemalan immigrant, lay on a Queens street for more than an hour before anyone called the police. By the time help arrived, he was dead.

Mr. Tale-Yax, who friends said occasionally worked as a day laborer and often slept in public parks, had been stabbed while apparently coming to the assistance of a woman being angrily confronted by another man.

On Sunday, a week after the killing, people in the area seemed mostly unshaken by its circumstances. Many were unaware that someone had died on 144th Street in Jamaica, near 88th Road, in a hardscrabble neighborhood with large populations of Central American immigrants and of homeless men.

But to the question of obligation — whether those who encountered the body should have stopped and helped the man — the answers came quickly.

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Perhaps the passers-by thought he was just drunk. Perhaps they were illegal immigrants themselves, too nervous to contact the authorities. Or perhaps they had just learned a lesson that Mr. Tale-Yax so clearly had not: better to keep to oneself than to risk the trouble that comes from extending a helping hand.

“It’s bad,” said Alexis Perez, 29, the superintendent of two buildings on the block where the stabbing occurred. “But I live here, so I know what it’s like. There are a lot of alcoholics who drink and then they fall down and they’re laying on the ground. People say to themselves, ‘I don’t know them so I won’t get involved.’ ”

At the Iglesia Cristo Peniel, a small brick assembly hall bursting with Spanish hymns, Uber Bautista, 37, a heavy-machinery operator who identified himself as a church elder, said that he believed the inaction might have stemmed from illegal immigrants’ trying to escape detection.

“So they’re going to be very afraid to call the authorities if they see something,” he said. “It’s not that people don’t care.”

Police tape remained Sunday at the spot in Queens where Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax, a homeless man, lay dying a week before. Credit Yana Paskova for The New York Times

Juan Cortez, himself the victim of several assaults, offered another theory as he collected cans from the trash nearby. “People mind their own business,” he said.

Regardless of the explanation, the death has become another unfortunate case study in bystander behavior in emergencies, a psychological field that developed after the notorious 1964 killing of Kitty Genovese. She was stabbed to death at an apartment building in Kew Gardens, Queens, where a large number of neighbors heard her screams but did not call the police.

The death of Mr. Tale-Yax is all the more dramatic because police say that he was stabbed as a result of his apparently trying to help a stranger.

“I’m afraid what we’ve got here is a situation of people failing to help, and the failure appears to be a moral failure,” said John Darley, a professor of psychology at Princeton University who has written about bystander response to emergencies. “He did what you’re supposed to do, and we let the person, who did what he was supposed to do, die.”

In New York, as in most other states, there is no legal obligation for a bystander to help someone in distress, said Harold Takooshian, a psychology professor at Fordham University who has also studied the subject.

The episode began before 6 a.m. when Mr. Tale-Yax intervened in a noisy dispute on 144th Street between an unidentified man and an unidentified woman and was stabbed, said Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne, chief spokesman for the New York Police Department.

The man fled in one direction, the woman fled in the other, and Mr. Tale-Yax ran a few steps before collapsing on the pavement.

A surveillance video from an adjacent building captured the reactions of those who passed by. The video was posted on The New York Post’s Web site.

During that time, the police responded to three 911 calls, said Mr. Browne. The first, shortly before 6 a.m., reported a woman screaming; the second, at 7:09, reported a man lying on the street. But both calls gave incorrect addresses.

The third, at 7:21, also reported a man lying in the street. It led to the discovery of the body.

“We would expect someone to call 911 and, if possible, to stay with the victim until help arrives,” Mr. Browne said.

María Luz de Zyriek, the second-ranking official at the Guatemalan Consulate, said preparations were being made to fly the body of Mr. Tale-Yax back to Guatemala for burial.

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TEHRAN, Iran — The web sites of two senior clerics have been blocked by government censors, a possible sign of a hardening political divide at the highest level of Iran’s religious establishment.

The web sites of the clerics, Grand Ayatollah Yusuf Sanei and Grand Ayatollah Asadollah Bayat-Zanjani, who are both “sources of emulation,” the highest clerical rank in Shiite Islam, were first reported blocked by news sites linked with Iran’s political opposition movement on Sunday. The official site of a third top cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali-Mohammad Dastgheib, was reported blocked early last month.

While there was no official announcement that the sites had been blocked, Internet users who attempted to access them on Monday were automatically redirected to a standard Iranian government filtering page which offers links to government-authorized web sites such as marriage advice sites, state-run news services and the official web site of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

In response, an announcement on the top page of Grand Ayatollah Sanei’s web site, which can only be accessed in Iran with the aid of illegal anti-filtering software, stated that the offices of the Grand Ayatollah were still be open to serve his followers in the fields of “worship, politics and cultural resistance against oppression.”

“Let it not go unsaid that freedom of expression is emphasized under Islam,” the statement reads.

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The fresh restrictions on the clerics’ web sites appears to be a further sign of the widening gulf between Iran’s leadership and top ayatollahs who have refused to align themselves with an increasingly authoritarian regime.

“Filtering their sites is precisely because of the public positions that they have taken,” said Muhammad Sahimi, a professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and a political columnist for Tehran Bureau, a news website for the Iranian diaspora. “This is part of the ‘cyberspace war’ that the hardliners have publicly announced against the Green Movement and its supporters.”

Many of Iran’s top-ranking clerics refused to congratulate President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad following his disputed reelection last year, which many consider to have been fraudulent.

Both Grand Ayatollah Sanei and Grand Ayatollah Bayat-Zanjani have openly condemned the violent crackdown on street protests that followed the disputed election and Ayatollah Dastgheib became the target of attacks by hardliners when he issued a taboo-breaking call to Iran’s Assembly of Experts, of which he is a member, to exercise its constitutionally enshrined responsibility to review the performance of the Supreme Leader.

Attempts to suppress clerical opposition to the government have not been limited to the Internet. In recent months, pro-government militia members have attacked the offices of Grand Ayatollah Sanei and Grand Ayatollah Dastgheib, as well as the offices of the late Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, who became a rallying figure for the opposition movement following last year’s election and whose funeral in December became the scene of clashes between anti-government protesters and security forces.

News of the filtering of the clerics’ websites comes at a time when pro-government media outlets are anticipating a visit by Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, to the religious city of Qom, home to Iran’s most important Shiite religious schools. Opposition web sites have speculated that delays to the visit are due to difficulties in ensuring an adequate show of support for the Supreme Leader among leading clerics.

Ayatollah Khamenei has long been at odds with top religious authorities due to his lack of the formal qualifications previously considered necessary for holding the position of “Supreme Jurisprudent,” as stipulated under the political philosophy of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Khamenei’s predecessor, Ayatollah Khomeini.

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Edition: U.S. / Global

Allies Pressure Qaddafi Forces Around Rebel Cities

Suhaib Salem/Reuters

Curious Libyans examine weapons of forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi that were destroyed by a coalition airstrike between Benghazi and Ajdabiya. More Photos »

WASHINGTON — The United States and its allies shifted on Wednesday to ferocious airstrikes on Libyan ground forces, tanks and artillery, marking the second phase of a military campaign that drew the Pentagon deeper into the fight.

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A pounding from allied warplanes in the rebel-held city of Misurata forced Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s troops to pull back for much of the day, residents said, but by nightfall his forces had renewed their attacks. Government tanks terrorized the city, in one instance firing a shell that landed 20 yards from a hospital door. In Tripoli, small bursts of antiaircraft fire sounded as warplanes streaked across the sky.

American military officials said that the first stage of the military campaign, when more than 160 Tomahawk missiles fired from ships at sea largely destroyed Colonel Qaddafi’s air defenses and air force, had made the skies safe for coalition warplanes. The allies were conducting stepped up attacks on ground troops, military officials said, without fear of being shot down.

“We are interdicting and putting the pressure on Qaddafi’s forces that are attacking population centers,” said Rear Adm. Gerard P. Hueber, the chief of staff for the American-led operational command, speaking to reporters by audio link from a ship in the Mediterranean.

Admiral Hueber said the United States and its allies were striking at Colonel Qaddafi’s ground forces in both Misurata in the west and Ajdabiya in the east. Air attacks in such urban areas, which have the potential for many civilian casualties, meant the military was operating in “an extremely complex and difficult environment,” he said.

The goal was to “interdict those forces before they enter the city, cut off their lines of communication and cut off their command and control,” the admiral said.

As long as Colonel Qaddafi’s forces were fighting in and around cities where the allies had ordered them to back off, he said, coalition attacks would continue. He said the allies are in communication with the Libyan units about what they need to do, where to go and how to arrange their forces to avoid attack, but there was “no indication” that the government’s ground forces were following the instructions.

Admiral Hueber also said that the coalition was communicating with rebel forces. But later, when he was pressed on whether the United States was telling rebels not to go down certain roads because there would be airstrikes there, he said he had misspoken. American military officials have said there are no “official communications” with the rebels, which remains a delicate issue. Contact with the rebels would reflect a direct American military intervention in the civil war of another country.

President Obama, who returned to Washington on Wednesday from a trip to Latin America, has said that the goal of the military assault is not to remove Colonel Qaddafi from power and that the United States will step back within days from playing the lead role in the attacks.

But by striking directly at Libyan fighting forces in the midst of battle against the rebels and seeking to protect civilians, the United States and its allies highlighted the thin line between all-out war and the more limited mission, set out by a United Nations resolution, of enforcing a no-fly zone and forcing the pro-Qaddafi fighters to withdraw.

As the war intensified, Mr. Obama faced new pressures in Congress. The House speaker, John A. Boehner, sent the White House a letter on Wednesday, demanding answers about the cost of the war, an exit strategy and when the United States would hand off the lead role to the allies. He also asked a question central in Washington: “Is it an acceptable outcome for Qaddafi to remain in power after the military effort concludes in Libya?”

Obama administration officials continued to say that although they were not specifically seeking to attack Colonel Qaddafi, the Libyan leader might be ousted from power by his own family or inner circle. “I think there are any number of possible outcomes here, and no one is in a position to predict them,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, said during an official visit to Cairo.

Both Mr. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton cited defections within Colonel Qaddafi’s ruling circle and alluded to divisions within his family, although they provided no details.

“We’ve heard about other people close to him reaching out to people that they know around the world — Africa, the Middle East, Europe, North America, beyond, saying: ‘What do we do?  How do we get out of this?  What happens next?’ ” Mrs. Clinton told Diane Sawyer of ABC News on Tuesday night.

On Wednesday, Mrs. Clinton cited reports of others now considering defecting, though she did not elaborate.

“We’ve been hearing a lot of things from many different sources,” she said at the State Department after a meeting with the foreign minister of Morocco, Taieb Fassi Fihri. “But what is very clear is that Qaddafi has lost his legitimacy to govern and the confidence of his people.”

Mrs. Clinton defended the operation so far. “I know that the nightly news cannot cover a humanitarian crisis that thankfully did not happen,” she said, “but it is important to remember that many, many Libyans are safer today because the international community took action.”

NATO inched closer on Wednesday to agreeing to who would be in charge of military operations once the United States stepped back, although strains remained.

The French foreign minister, Alain Juppé, said that representatives from the United States, Europe, Africa and the Arab nations would meet next week in London to discuss who would take the lead. But Germany, which has opposed military intervention in the Libya crisis, said it was withdrawing four of its ships in the Mediterranean from NATO command. To offset the impact of its action on other NATO allies, Germany said it would send 300 more troops to Afghanistan to help operate surveillance aircraft, German officials said.

In Tripoli, there was not nearly as much antiaircraft fire on Wednesday as on previous nights, suggesting that allied airstrikes may have taken out some of the larger guns or heavily armed positions.

In Ajdabiya, which has changed hands from the rebels to Qaddafi loyalists several times, residents said relentless shelling by loyalist troops had forced them to flee. One report called the city a “ghost town.”

Elisabeth Bumiller reported from Washington, and David D. Kirkpatrick from Tripoli, Libya. Reporting was contributed by Thom Shanker from Cairo; Steven Erlanger and Alan Cowell from Paris; and Mark Landler and Steven Lee Myers from Washington.


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Costume – Nanami (duelist)

Character: Nanami Kiryuu (duelist uniform)
Series: Revolutionary Girl Utena
Debut: Fanime 2014
Cost: $80
Inspiration: There was discussion of doing an Utena group for Fanime, and naturally I wanted to do more Nanami costumes! She is such a fun, twisted character to play, and Utena will always be one of my favorite series.

Construction Notes: The base wig is from Color.Salon on Ebay. This is the first lace front wig I have worn! I love it to death, because it’s thick, has a natural color blend, and fits snugly enough that I don’t need to glue anything down. I cut wefts from an old wig for the braid and hand sewed it in place.

I found the perfect yellow stretch twill online, and the black stretch twill from Hobby Lobby. The black bias tape is the regular Wrights stuff, but I made the yellow. The top is based of McCall’s 6035. I changed the collar, gave it really snug sleeves, and a separating zipper down the front. The triangles on the collar are actually machine embroidered. I also made my first welt pocket! Oh, what fun that was. I made the shorts as tight as possible to mimic the artwork, and they close with an invisible zipper.

Whether they are are tights or leggings, they are very opaque, so I chose to layer two pairs of black tights. The  shoes are from when I did the school uniform version, but I added new black bows. (I painted a pair of boots with yellow fabric paint and glued/sewed the white vinyl on top). The epaulettes are craft foam and a fringe. I chose to go with a darker color as the hot pink doesn’t work well with the bright yellow. The cord is parachute cord, and the tip is plastic.

My boyfriend (Talon Forge) is a metalsmith, and made the ring out of silver and powder coated the pink color on the rose design.

My boyfriend and I both worked on the swords. Each one is three pieces that fit together. I drew out the design, he cut the pieces out of pine with a bandsaw, and we took turns sanding them on the belt sander. Some of the pieces broke and had to be redone, getting the wood grain just right so the tips don’t snap! I did all the detail carving, finishing,  filling, final hand sanding and painting.
Photo Credits: Eurobeat King, Darkain, Jeff @


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New York State Women's History

Alice Austin House ...A NYS Women's History Site
Alice Austin
2 Hylen Blvd. Rosebank-Staten Island NY 10305

Type: House

Category/Significance: economics (photography)

A photographer, Austen's work challenged Victorian traditions while providing examples of everyday society in late 19th and early 20th century America. Her work often mocked Victorian mores by dressing female subjects in men's clothing and even showing women smoking in public--an illegal act during the Victorian age. Her photography captured more common experiences than other photographers' work, and her photos were often displayed in prominent shows.

GPS: 40.6151414,-74.0630312 Location Map

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Oasis in Brooklyn Bridge Park

Camp Fair - Williamsburg, Brooklyn (12pm - 3pm)

January 30, 2016

Come join us! Oasis will be present at the New York Family Camp Fair in Williamsburg along with many other area day camps and sleep away camps! We'll have our very own table, so come ask questions, get brochures, or just say hi! You can RSVP below, but be aware that a camp fair is slightly different from an open house or information session. Our information sessions are much more intimate, while camp fairs give you the opportunity to see our camp along side other camps in the area.

Williamsburg Northside School

299 North 7th Street

Brooklyn, NY 11211

575 5th Ave – 14th Floor New York, NY 10017. Phone: 800-317-1392, Fax: 718-855-2435. E-mail: info@oasischildren.com

Copyright © 2018 Oasis Children's Services LLC
Camp website by DVS Camp Websites


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Wednesday, 17 January, 2018, 7:07 PM
Home National

Actor Siraj Haidar no more

Published : Thursday, 11 January, 2018 at 9:36 AM Count : 320

Prominent actor Siraj Haidar passed away at his Kalyanpur residence in capital Dhaka on Thursday morning at the age of 71.

Siraj's son Lelin Haidar said his father felt chest pain at night. He had died around 6:14am before taken to hospital.

The renowned actor left behind his wife, two sons, a daughter, a host of relatives and admirers to mourn his death.

Siraj's body will be taken to Bangladesh Film Development Corporation (BFDC) where his first namaz-e-janaza will be held after Asr prayer.

He will be laid to rest in his village in Munshiganj.

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Ten Rebels Earn National Academic Honors from USTFCCCA
Aug. 10, 2017

OXFORD, Miss. – The U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) recently announced their 2017 All-Academic awards for track & field, which included 10 Ole Miss student-athletes and the women’s team.

This is the first time since the USTFCCCA began handing out track & field all-academic team awards in 1999 that the Ole Miss women have been honored for achieving better than a 3.0 cumulative team grade point average.

Three Ole Miss men and seven women received 2017 All-Academic accolades:

Name – Year – Event(s) – Major
Nick DeRay – Freshman – Sprints – Business
Craig Engels – Senior – Distance – Master of Business Administration
Ryan Manahan – Senior – Distance – General Studies
Anna Braswell – Junior – Distance – Geological Engineering
Hannah Christen – Junior – Distance – General Studies
Mary Alex England – Senior – Distance – Master in Accountancy
Nicole Kallenberger – Freshman – Pole Vault – Accountancy
Katherine MacNeal – Junior – Distance – Exercise Science
Kaira Simmons – Freshman – Jumps – Criminal Justice
Callie Watson – Senior – Pole Vault – Exercise Science

To qualify for USTFCCCA All-Academic honors, the student-athlete must have compiled a cumulative GPA of 3.25 and have met at least one of the following athletic standards:

  • For the indoor season, a student-athlete must have finished the regular season ranked in the national top 96 in an individual event or ranked in the national top 48 (collective listing) in a relay event on the official NCAA POP list provided by TFRRS.org.
  • For the outdoor season, a student-athlete must have participated in any round of the NCAA Division I Championships (including preliminary rounds).

Among the Ole Miss honorees, three earned All-America distinction in 2017 (DeRay, Engels, Manahan), four made All-SEC teams (DeRay, Engels, Braswell, England) and two made SEC All-Freshman squads (Kallenberger, Simmons).

DeRay and Engels were members of Ole Miss’ distance medley relay squad that captured NCAA and SEC titles in 2017. It was the Rebels’ first national title in a relay and their fourth straight SEC title in the DMR.

Engels and Braswell were shining examples in the classroom this year. Engels captured first team CoSIDA Academic All-America honors and was Ole Miss’ nominee for the H. Boyd McWhorter Award that goes to the SEC’s top male scholar. Braswell was a CoSIDA Academic All-District VI honoree with a sparkling 3.93 GPA in geological engineering. She also anchored the Rebels’ school-record women’s DMR squad to a bronze medal at the SEC indoor meet.

For more information on Ole Miss Track & Field, follow the Rebels on Twitter (@OleMissTrack), Facebook and Instagram.

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Balancing the Business Side of Your Practice
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Whoever said, “Paperwork wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for all the paper… and all the work”, may very well have been a physician.

Whether it’s taking down histories, ordering tests and other diagnostic procedures, referring patients, prescribing medications, filling out forms, completing mandatory reports or signing cheques — there’s no escaping  the myriad administrative tasks that eat into a doctor’s day.

Furthermore, with thousands of different OHIP fee codes, just selecting the proper code to get paid can be a daunting task.

Physicians’ administrative work even makes national news. When Canada Post announced its plans in 2014 to require doctors’ notes for individuals to continue receiving home delivery--and surveys cited excessive administrative work as one of the top reasons for frustration and discontent among physicians-- the headlines, blogospheres and 6 o’clock news took note.

The myth of the paperless office

Several decades ago the personal computer debuted, amid much fanfare about the “paperless office.”

When many organizations began transitioning from paper to electronic documents in the ‘80’s, there was an initial reduction in paper, but the truth is that today, more paper is being used than ever before. Case in point: according to, more than 1 billion photocopies are made every day.

Michael Evans, Associate Professor of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto and staff physician at Toronto Western Hospital, wrote in “The Battles of a Doctor’s Day” (Globe and Mail, April 2009) that his office’s new policy of no phone-in prescription refills angered patients, adding, “We get 100 requests a day. It’s a logistical nightmare and we don’t get paid for it (like almost all of the other paperwork or phone calls we do”).

Balancing the bureaucratic burden

Physicians want to treat patients, perfect surgical techniques, conduct research, teach—not be stuck at a desk in a pile of paper.

However, your thriving medical practice demands that you and your employees know exactly where every file, paper, form and bill belongs.  Research shows that the average employee spends more than 1 hour a day (6 weeks per year!) searching for things.

Consider how many times you get interrupted during a typical day because some form is incomplete. Research also shows that when you are interrupted, you don’t immediately go back to the task you were doing before the interruption. In fact, it’s been proven that people take on two additional tasks in between being interrupted and returning to whatever they were doing before.

Dr. Derek Puddester, MD, MEd, FRCPC, ACC and Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Ottawa and an international expert in physician time management offers a unique perspective:  “Administrative work is what it is… work! So I treat it just as I treat any clinical task or skill.  To me, it must be honoured and treated with respect. It’s part of how I provide top notch care to my patients. If I take a minute to be mindful of this-- on those days I’m feeling, frazzled, frustrated and hard done by because of the time it takes to complete administrative tasks--it usually puts me in a better frame of mind.”

Keeping on top of practice admin work is key, but Karen Malabre, Manager, Association and Affinity Claims at Sun Life Financial, also shares some insight about why it’s important to ensure your own personal admin tasks, such as disability, critical illness or other insurance forms are completed accurately and submitted on time.

Karen says that, “Contrary to the ‘Hollywood perception’ (movies such as Erin Brokovich or The Rainmaker) that insurance companies are in business not to pay claims, I want our physicians to know that we bend over backwards to pay.  Even though some of the questions on claim forms may seem unwarranted or not to make sense, we need that information to pay your claim.”

Karen adds that if there’s one wish she could have granted regarding any medical claim form that crosses her desk, it would be to have the clinical notes as requested. “50% of physicians do include their notes, but that means that half do not. As tedious as it may be, it is absolutely necessary to make sure that each line of a form is filled out and every piece of documentation requested is attached. If there is a something on the form that you think doesn’t apply to you, be entirely certain it really doesn’t apply.  Remember, there’s nothing we want more than to pay your claim!”

A 10-point prescription for paperwork:

1. Assess/reorganize your filing system
Remember the study about the average person wasting one hour each day of every week searching for papers?  Set aside some time to go through each and every file in your office with a view to purging as much paper as possible.

Dr. Puddester offers a word of caution about “the cloud”: It’s not the end all and be all, particularly for our profession.  He says, “Storing sensitive documents on any U.S.-based “cloud” system—such as iCloud or Drop Box—is risky, because they are not subject to Canadian privacy and confidentiality regulations. Make sure your cloud storage tool is Canadian—and that you’re up to speed on any legal requirements concerning cloud storage.”

2. Check out OntarioMD
OntarioMD, a subsidiary of OMA, offers information technology resources to support your practice and patient needs. The portal offers, among other things, clinical practice guidelines, patient handouts, forms and flow sheets.  OntarioMD also offers collaboration tools for information sharing and learning with your colleagues.

3. Ensure that making personal insurance claims is as efficient as possible
 OMA Insurance has retained an independent company, Sealey/Manning Inc. (SMD) to assist you during the initial stages of submitting your personal insurance claims—to ensure forms are completed properly, which means the shortest possible wait time for reimbursement. Call 905.822.6415 to be put in touch with an SMD representative.

4. Make an “appointment”
Every day, your time can be frittered away in hundreds of different directions. To maximize your efficiency, make an “appointment” on your calendar to tackle administrative tasks that can’t be completed by your staff. Treat this appointment just as you would one with a patient.

5. Get tough about interruptions
Train yourself (and your staff) to have everyone book an appointment with you, no exceptions. (This includes patients, sales reps and even your family. Talk to your spouse or other family members about checking in with each other at the same time every day—once--instead of numerous texts or telephone calls.)

Create a patient handout and a portion of your website homepage to explain this. Support your staff and yourself by talking to your family about your policy and the reasons behind it…and not making exceptions. Give it a try. Once everyone gets used to it, you will have a much calmer and organized day.

6. Avoid “voicejail
Telephone tag is frustrating and time consuming. When you reach voicemail, always include a convenient window of time your call can be returned in your message. When recording your own personal voicemail message, include alternatives for the caller other than leaving a message for you. (Example: “Push 2 to speak to Jill, who will be happy to help you.”)

7. Have your inbox within easy reach of your desk phone.
If your inbox is within reach, you can complete easy paperwork (like reviewing lab results) if you get put on hold.

8. If you haven’t converted to an EMR already, make the switch.
Not only does it reduce paper and save you money, but EMRs can help you provide better patient care and enable compliance more easily.

9. Attend an OMA Billing Seminar
Ensure you’re doing everything you can to streamline your administrative tasks and maximize your income

10. Use pre-printed patient advice sheets.
Spend some time writing or collecting advice sheets for everyday acute and chronic conditions, as well as information on local support groups, diet, exercise, volunteering and applying for home care. While spoken advice can quickly be forgotten or not remembered correctly,  printed material with the most relevant sections highlighted for each patient can be referred to time and time again at home.  Keep copies of these documents just outside of each exam room in a hanging wall tray and have your staff ensure they’re always current and well-stocked.

A 5-point prescription… for you

Sleep, health, fitness, proper nutrition and leisure time are just as important for you as they are for your patients. It’s easy to forget when so many people are depending on you. Leave your paperwork at the office when you leave.  Let your phone go to voicemail if you’re off call—it’s worth remembering that if you were out of the country, on vacation or in hospital yourself, someone else would handle things.

Making the best of it

Dr. Puddester says, “Like any clinical skill, time management must first be learned—then perfected. And as physicians, we must keep up to speed by consistently refreshing our time management skills, just as we do all others.”

Examining your current work habits with a view to fine-tuning them, brainstorming about ways that administrative tasks can be better managed, delegated or reduced and revisiting your time management strategies and practices are three things you can do to take back some control. We hope you’ll find some of these tips and ideas practical and easy to incorporate into your practice.


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What is Moodle

Moodle is a free and open-source e-learning software platform, also known as a Learning Management System.

This LMS is suitable for use on online learning in small and large organisations. It's scalability allows it to run on a laptop, and a large server cluster.

Moodle is used by academia in schools, Polytechs, PTE's and Universities, and in industry for staff training and professional development.

Try Moodle out for free

Moodle is a web application, and can be freely downloaded and run - however the gotcha is that it can take a bit of technical expertise to get it up and going. To make it easy Onlearn provides free service to get you going asap.

We call these a "Moodle Sandpit", and they are a fully functioning Moodle site, branded with your name. The site is hosted at a Data Centre, and is configured ready to go.

To learn more click here.

What is a Learning Management System?

A traditional school or university, even a training centre, needs to have a location, and all the normal system to host and manage the learning and teaching processes. There needs to be systems for administration, dealign wiht the facilities, and even a janitor.

A Learning Management System is the online version of such a system. Everyone is familiar with logins that are required for electronic banking etc. This combined with systems for managing users, courses, and administration equals an LMS.

Why do I need a Learning Management System?

A school today cannot function in an open space. They need fences, buildings, facilities and structures to manage their staff and students. Likewise in the online world, there needs to be a structure and a set of systems to manage the learning process.

What does it Cost?

Moodle is licence free. You are free to download and use it. However it needs to be hosted on a physical server preferably in a Data Centre, and supported by capable people.

The actual cost of all this depends on two main factors:

  1. The size and capability of the server and it's connection to the Internet
  2. The service level required

There are also costs for installation, customisation, training, and development of any course material you wish to outsource.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Ref: Wikipedia

Moodle has several features considered typical of an e-learning platform, plus some original innovations.

Some typical features of Moodle are

  • Assignment submission
  • Discussion forum
  • Files download
  • Grading
  • Moodle instant messages
  • Online calendar
  • Online news and announcement (College and course level)
  • Online quiz
  • Wiki

Developers can extend Moodle's modular construction by creating plugins for specific new functionality. Moodle's infrastructure supports many types of plug-ins:

  • activities (including word and math games)
  • resource types
  • question types (multiple choice, true and false, fill in the blank, etc)
  • data field types (for the database activity)
  • graphical themes
  • authentication methods (can require username and password accessibility)
  • enrollment methods
  • content filters

Many freely-available third-party Moodle plugins make use of this infrastructure.

Moodle users can use PHP to author and contribute new modules. Moodle's development has been assisted by the work of open source programmers. This has contributed towards its rapid development and rapid bug fixes.


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Showing posts with label online streaming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label online streaming. Show all posts

February 16, 2016

best resolution vs price comparison:top set top media

 The best streaming players compared by  output resolution with Price vs Rating and Price

July 16, 2015

has online streaming killed he DVD star ?

"DVD vs onilne streaming infographic"
"online streaming killed the DVD star":

Has the Streaming service killed the DVD Star ? Well  there's a compelling case that streaming video is killing its predecessors. This year, it is estimated, there will be 3.4 billion movie views online, compared with 2.4 billion disc views. Streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu Plus have racked up tens of millions of subscribers. It's easy to see why — viewing a movie on a streaming service costs a fraction of the price of viewing a movie on disc. .

Overall sales of physical discs continued to decline. Spending on Blu-ray discs rose 2.6% to $2.2 billion but that was not enough to offset declining DVD sales of $5.2 billion, down nearly 14%, IHS says. Physical rentals also dropped 9% to $4.3 billion


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Partnership with IT Companies or Individuals

We look forward to partner with promising companies who have similar vision and a common goals. Our offshore teams are a perfect solution for many software development organizations who either need to hire persons for specific projects or who want to maximise earnings without compromising quality and execution. If you need long term development services - we suggest you to use our offshore dedicated centre manned by professional developers and project managers.

We at OWD work with Web Design and Development companies from all over the world providing them a team of experienced professionals. They are engaged either in offshore model where they work in our office or sent onshore on individual or multiple projects basis. We maintain and administer a team of dedicated professionals working solely on your projects. Offshore outsourcing enables our partners to focus on their core business areas and leave the development and maintenance to us. We offer assistance in setting up one or numerous offshore dedicated teams according to your requirements.

We offer the following advantages to you:

Referral Commission

OWD Partner Program has been developed to expand our reach to more customers and at the same time to give you an opportunity to benefit through this association. Without actually having a team or a Company, you can earn $$ just by referring your contacts or jobs to us.

We have worked with several small and medium sized companies and they have benefitted a lot. Infact the amount of money you can earn through referral is quite substantial. You can utilise your networking and marketing skills and use our technical team to execute the projects. Its only a win-win situation for both of us. You will be updated on the billing status of each client on a regular basis.

The process is very simple:

Sounds Interesting!! To explore more about this association, please get in touch with us at


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Nival Announces Blitzkrieg 3

A decade ago, Nival cemented itself as a leader in strategy gaming with the launch of its now-classic Blitzkrieg series, which has won more than forty awards, including numerous Game of the Year and Editor’s Choice accolades. Today, Nival unveils Blitzkrieg 3, the next title in the acclaimed series, coming to PC and Mac in early 2015. Blitzkrieg 3 paints a realistic picture of World War II – away from the realm of politics or ideology, focused on the battles that ultimately shaped the world we live in today.

Players will become commanders of the era as they experience an interactive story of the second World War, blending single-player and innovative multiplayer gameplay. Classic single-player campaigns will be available for each party involved in the conflict – the USSR, the Axis and the Allies. Multiplayer is asynchronous, allowing players to make their way through the enemy defenses without needing to be online for hours on end.

“Since its establishment 17 years ago, Nival has been focused on the strategy genre – often mixing it with other elements to create new game experiences,” says Sergey Orlovskiy, CEO of Nival. “We feel that today’s rather rapid pace of life has caused the RTS genre to fall by the wayside. Blitzkrieg 3 is designed to re-invent RTS for modern gamers, using all of our experience to deliver something new and exciting.”

More information about Blitzkrieg 3 will be released in the coming months, but for now prospective strategists can take a look at the official website,

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This website provides a handy guide to the Butterflies of Ontario.

Many of the species featured here can also be found in other parts of Canada and the USA.

Each butterfly species has its own web page, and these pages are organized by family.  You can get to these pages in several ways:
If you're unfamiliar with the wide range of butterflies found in our province, you might want to start at the View Butterfly Families page. This will give you an idea of how our butterflies are classified, but feel free to dive in anywhere!

NEW! For my Quebec website, follow this link:
Butterflies of Quebec.

NEW! For my Maritimes website, follow this link:
Butterflies of the Maritimes

Les papillons de l'Ontario
Ontario Butterflies


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OpenPKG Project
OpenPKG ProjectPress

Press Release

    The OpenPKG project releases version 2.4 of the
    unique cross-platform software packaging facility. — Munich, DE — 2005-06-22 — The
  OpenPKG project is proud to announce version 2.4 of its software,
  another evolutionary step after eight releases in four years.

  Much valued by IT decision makers and beloved by Unix system
  administrators, OpenPKG is the world leading instrument for deployment
  and maintenance of Open Source Unix software when administration
  crosses platform boundaries. The unique OpenPKG architecture leverages
  proven technologies like Red Hat Package Manager (RPM) and OSSP
  and GNU components to establish a unified software administration
  environment, independent of the underlying Unix operating system.

  This is the first release created by the newly established OpenPKG
  Foundation e.V., which contributed a substantial amount of manpower
  and all the technical resources making up the "buildfarm" and the
  development environment for the release engineers.

  Since the previous release four months ago, the OpenPKG package
  repository has grown again by 15%. A subset of 562 packages were
  carefully selected for inclusion into the OpenPKG 2.4 release,
  including the latest versions of popular Open Source Unix software
  like Apache, Bash, BIND, GCC, INN, Mozilla Firefox, MySQL, OpenSSH,
  Perl, Postfix, PostgreSQL, Samba, Squid, teTeX and Vim.

  Major technical efforts for this release were spent on migrating the
  whole development and release engineering environment to the new
  OpenPKG Foundation infrastructure, porting OpenPKG to IBM AIX 5.1 and
  enhancing the Solaris 10 and Debian 3.1 support.

  OpenPKG 2.4 is available for 16 different Unix platforms. Most
  notably, it is supported on FreeBSD 5.4, NetBSD 2.0.2, Debian
  GNU/Linux 3.1, Fedora Core 3, SUSE Linux 9.3, and Sun Solaris 9
  and 10. Additionally, all CORE and the vast majority of BASE class
  packages are already available for the tentative platforms FreeBSD
  6.0, Gentoo Linux 1.6.12 and Mandriva Linux 10.2. It is also still
  available for the obsolete platforms Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, Sun
  Solaris 8 and FreeBSD 4.11. Finally, OpenPKG is also known to work
  under IBM AIX 5.1, HP HP-UX 11.11 and MacOS X 10.3.

  The OpenPKG 2.4 release was a joint effort of many individuals,
  most notably the Release Engineering team, this time consisting of
  the OpenPKG Foundation members Thomas Lotterer, Ralf S. Engelschall,
  Steve Weinreich and Matthias Kurz.

  * Portable across major Unix flavors.
  * Supporting many commonly used platforms:
    FreeBSD 5.4, NetBSD 2.0.2, Debian GNU/Linux 3.11,
    Fedora Core 3, SUSE Linux 9.3, and Solaris 9 and 10.
  * Additionally already available for the tentative platforms:
    FreeBSD 6.0, Gentoo Linux 1.6.9 and Mandriva Linux 10.2.
  * Additionally still available for the obsolete platforms:
    FreeBSD 4.11, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and Sun Solaris 8.
  * Additionally known to work for the forthcoming platforms:
    HP HP-UX 11.11, MacOS X 10.3 and IBM AIX 5.1
  * Entirely based on Open Source technology.
  * Minimum operating system intrusion and dependency.
  * Minimum overhead in software packaging.
  * All packages up to date with vendor versions as of 2005-06-18.
  * Sources of 562 CORE+BASE+PLUS packages released.
  * Binaries of CORE+BASE class packages provided for supported platforms.
  * Binaries of CORE class packages provided for all platforms.
  * Easy installation, updating and deinstallation of packages.
  * Bundled with useful and secure package preconfigurations.
  * Includes an abstracted and powerful run-command facility.
  * Virtual hosting through multiple instances on a single system.
  * Proxy package mechanism for sharing packages across instances.
  * Build-time package variations for maximum flexibility.
  * Foundation to build encapsulated and self contained environments.

  The Open Source software project OpenPKG was founded in 2000 by
  Ralf S. Engelschall and first released to the public in January 2002.
  Today OpenPKG is a mature technology in production use. It is
  maintained and improved by its original developers, organized in
  the OpenPKG Foundation e.V., and volunteer contributors.

  The OpenPKG Foundation e.V. is a nonprofit organization with the
  dedicated goal of supporting the OpenPKG project. The idea to organize
  the social network of OpenPKG was born by Ralf S. Engelschall and
  Thomas Lotterer in January 2005. A month later, on 2005-02-09, nine
  founders kicked off the Foundation. Official registration under German
  law was completed on 2005-03-18. The OpenPKG Foundation finally went
  public on 2005-06-21.

  The OpenPKG Project            OpenPKG Foundation e.V.
  +49-172-8986801 (CET)

Validation: XHTML | CSS


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Harris County Healthcare Alliance

Agencies 2010

AgencyNo. of Reports Listing Agency*
US Senate7
US House of Representatives7
Dept of Health & Human Services4
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services1
Health Resources & Svcs Administration1
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*Each quarterly filing is treated as a separate report.

Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics. For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact the Center: info@crp.org

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Profile for 2016 Election Cycle

ranks 10,591 of 18,661

$0 (2016)
$0 (2015)

Explain these rankings to me

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Contributions to candidates: $337
Contributions to Leadership PACs: $0
Contributions to parties: $15
Contributions to 527 committees: $0
Contributions to outside spending groups: $0

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RecipientTotalFrom IndivsFrom Orgs
 Clinton, Hillary $337 $337 $0
 Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte $15 $15 $0
All contributions to candidates from Quality King Distributors came from individuals
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Campaign finance totals for the current election cycle were released by the FEC on May 16, 2017 and by the IRS on August 15, 2016, lobbying data was released by the Senate Office of Public Records on January 25, 2017, outside spending data was released by the FEC on January 17, 2018, and PFD data was released by the House, Senate, and US Office of Government Ethics starting in June 2011.

Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics. For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact the Center

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text:
by Dira-Smolleck, Lori.

Abstract (Summary)
iii The purpose of this study was to develop, validate and establish the reliability of an instrument that measures preservice teachers’ self-efficacy in regard to the teaching of science as inquiry. The instrument (TSI) is based upon the work of Bandura, Riggs, and Enochs & Riggs (1990). The study used Bandura’s theoretical framework in that the instrument uses the self-efficacy construct to explore the beliefs of prospective elementary science teachers with regards to the teaching of science through inquiry: specifically, the two dimensions of self-efficacy beliefs defined by Bandura: personal self-efficacy and outcome expectancy. Self-efficacy in regard to the teaching of science as inquiry was measured through the use of a 69-item Likert scale instrument designed by the author of the study. A 13-step plan was designed and followed in the process of developing the instrument. To develop the instrument, the researcher first defined the construct to be measured, self-efficacy, as well as a content matrix to represent the five essential elements of classroom inquiry. Second, eighty-one draft Likert type items for the instrument were prepared with at least three representations of each cell in the Essential Elements of Classroom Inquiry matrix. These draft items were modeled after those composing the STEBI A and STEBI B (Riggs, 1988; Enochs & Riggs 1990). This version of the TSI instrument was given to a panel of reviewers that consisted of experts within the field of science education and self-efficacy research. Feedback from the panel was then used to revise Version 1 of the instrument. Following this revision, a ninety-four item instrument was drafted. This version, Version 2, was also reviewed by the panel of experts. Feedback from the reviewers was collected by the researcher and then analyzed. This same process of content and iv construct validity was conducted through eight versions of the TSI to ensure clarity and comprehension. Version 7 of the instrument was administered to the approximately 200 prospective elementary teachers in the Elementary-Kindergarten Education Program (EK ED) at The Pennsylvania State University in the beginning of the Fall semester of 2003. The participants were enrolled in six sections of SCIED 458: Teaching of Science in the Elementary School. This group of participants represented the intended population for the final instrument. Item analysis was performed with the following goal: What is the most reliable and valid combination of items to compose the TSI for the purposes of assessing preservice elementary teachers’ self-efficacy in regard to the teaching of science through inquiry, and the two dimensions of selfefficacy: personal self-efficacy and outcome expectancy? The data obtained from administering Version 7 of the instrument to the SCIED 458 classes was then used to develop Version 8. Version 8 was also administered to the same group of preservice elementary teachers during the week of December 1, 2003. Although the actual content of the first draft was not changed as a result of data analysis, aesthetic revisions were made to enhance the ease with which a participant completed the instrument. Using the results from Chronbach Alpha and Analysis of Variance, a 69- item instrument was found to achieve the greatest balance across the construct validity, reliability and item balance with the Essential Elements of Classroom Inquiry content matrix. Based on the standardized development processes used and the associated v evidence, the TSI appears to be a content and construct valid instrument, with high internal reliability for use with prospective elementary teachers to assess self-efficacy beliefs in regard to the teaching of science as inquiry. Further study of the instruments construct validity is recommended. Norming the TSI may provide some insights and will provide additional information on the TSI that will be useful to users. Additionally, development of a form of the TSI for practicing elementary teachers should be pursued. vi
Bibliographical Information:

School:Pennsylvania State University

School Location:USA - Pennsylvania

Source Type:Master's Thesis

Date of Publication:

© 2009 All Rights Reserved.


text:
Wednesday 17th January 2018

Beston Chambeshi wins 2017 FAZ Coach of the Year Award

Nkana coach Beston Chambeshi has won the 2017 Coach of the Year Award.

Chambeshi beat 2016 winner Mumamba Numba of Zanaco and Bilton Musonda of Green Buffaloes.

He guided Nkana to a 3rd place finish after steering the record 12-time FAZ Super Division champions from mid-table obscurity after Zeddy Saileti was fired in May.

But his major highlight came at national level where he won the 2017 U20 AFCON with hosts Zambia Under-20 in March three months after lifting the 2016 COSAFA U20 Cup in South Africa.

He later guided the Zambia Under-20 to a debut quarterfinal appearance at the FIFA U20 World Cup in South Korea last June.

Chambeshi also took home a K20, 000 cheque for his success.

Chambeshi’win eclipsed the Player of the Year Award that went to midfielder Augustine Mulenga of Zanaco who beat his club mate and 2016 winner Ziyo Tembo to the accolade.

Mulenga enjoyed a great CAF Champions League outing with Zanaco and also produced some impressive form with Zambia in both the 2018 FIFA World Cup and 2018 CHAN qualifiers.

He took home the biggest cheque of all to the tune of K25, 000.

2016 Best Player Ziyo did not go home empty handed after winning The Most Disciplined Player Award.

And Golden Boot winner Chris Mugalu of Lusaka Dynamos, like Chambeshi, also took home a K20, 000 cheque.

Zambia Under-20 and Nkwazi forward Lameck Banda won the Young Player of the Year.

Jan Sikazwe took home the Best Referee Award while Oliver Mweene won the Best Assistant Award.

Sikazwe, Ziyo and Banda all pocketed a K15, 000 cheques each while Mweene took home K10, 000.

And the President’s Award went posthumously to the late Kabwe Soccer Youth Academy boss Evans Mutangama who died a fortnight ago after the club secured its FAZ Super Division Promotion.

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Enterprise Transport Training offer Road Haulage Transport Manager Operator CPC Courses.  Courses run from 5 locations across the UK for every Transport Manager exam sitting.

Passenger Transport Manager Operator CPC Courses run from 3 locations across the UK each sitting.

To find the course that suits you visit the ‘Course Dates‘ page.

Our pass rates exceed the national average at every exam sitting because our innovative approach works!

We deliver our Operator CPC courses via a number of study methods, at times convenient to you. Whatever your budget, learning style or work schedule, we have an option to suit you. We train to the highest industry standards, at the lowest price.

OCR accreditation gives the benefit of taking the exam at the same location as your training course.

Case study exam sittings are every quarter in accordance with the national timetable set by OCR exam board.

Why e-testing is better

Historically, candidates had to sit both exam papers on the same day. A lot of training centres still operate this way! Why? Because it easier for the training centre.

At Enterprise we do it differently. All candidates receive access to our online question bank containing over 1000 multiple choice practice questions. Candidates generate as many practice exams as needed until they are confident they are ready to pass.

Due to our centres being OCR accredited ‘e-testing’ venues for the multiple choice exam candidates choose the timing of their exam. All centres conduct multiple choice exams every week. Candidates receive results immediately upon completion of the test.

Our multiple choice pass rate exceeds 90%. The national average is under 50% (Mar 2017 49%, Jun 2017 45%)

Our Case Study performance is equally impressive.

We’re passionate about getting you through 1st time. To experience our enthusiasm give us a call or pop in to meet us.

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