Republican Gov. John Kasich on Friday signed a bill expanding gun rights in Ohio to include the use of suppressors by hunters, concealed carry reforms, and mandatory shall-certify rules for National Firearms Act items.

The measure, H.234, had proven popular with lawmakers, passing the state Senate on Dec. 9 by a large 24-6 margin on its way to a 72-21 win in the House the following day. Beginning life as a bill that only legislated a repeal in the state’s ban on using legally possessed suppressors while hunting in the state, the measure over time grew to include a number of changes to the state’s concealed carry laws. These include reducing the number of hours required in training, relaxing the residency requirements to apply for a permit, and providing a grace period for renewals by active duty members of the military.

“The signing of this bill is a large step forward for firearm rights in Ohio,” Brett Pucillo, President of Ohio Carry told Guns.com Saturday. “We acknowledge that the bill is not perfect, but no bill will be. We acknowledge that the bill does not fix all of the problems we have with the current laws, but if we keep working hard and passing new legislation such as this, year after year, eventually, with determination, we will be where we want to be. This bill is progress, and we are very pleased that Governor Kasich has signed it.”

Kasich signed the bill into law Friday without comment in the face of a campaign by national gun control groups, namely former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action, to urge the Governor to veto the legislation. The groups contended the bill would weaken the state’s concealed carry requirements and oppose the new law as signed.

“This law is dangerous for Ohio communities that see gun violence strike all too often,” said Michele Mueller, the Ohio Chapter Leader of Moms Demand Action said in an emailed statement to Guns.com.”Some states like New Hampshire and Virginia have loopholes that allow convicted domestic abusers to acquire concealed carry permits. Those dangerous people will now be able to carry loaded guns in Ohio. We support the Second Amendment, and we will continue to fight for basic public safety measures proven to save lives, like criminal background checks for all gun sales.”

However, gun rights advocates in the state disagreed with that argument, pointing out that new oversights and safeguards built into the act will actually make the permitting process safer to the public as permit applicants will be screened through the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Instant Criminal Checks System.

“It restores rights that we’ve lost and it aligns it and makes it work better,” Jim Irvine, President of Buckeye Firearms Association told local media. “This is really good public policy. Currently, Ohio will issue concealed handgun licenses to people prohibited from owning guns. That’s bad policy.”

The expansive bill, modifies or repeals nearly 20 sections of Ohio’s current gun laws.

In analysis from the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action, 234’s accomplishments include the following:

Improves the concealed handgun license process by (1) reducing the number of training hours required from 12 to 8 hours, (2) eliminating minimum length-of-residency requirements, (3) allowing non-residents who work in Ohio to apply for a CHL in the county or adjacent county in which they work, and (4) makes special provisions for members of the military who have been honorably discharged or retired, extending their competency certification from six years to ten years after honorable discharge or retirement. Expands concealed carry reciprocity to visitors and persons temporarily in Ohio who have valid out-of-state licenses, regardless of whether the license-issuing state has entered into a reciprocity agreement with Ohio. Repeals the prohibition on Ohio citizens buying and/or selling long guns or ammunition from only the five contiguous states of Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Citizens of Ohio can now purchase and/or sell rifles and shotguns in any state as long as the firearm laws in both states are obeyed. Includes a “shall certify” provision which requires a chief law enforcement officer (CLEO) to sign off on an application to transfer an item regulated by the National Firearms Act, once the application procedure and requirements are met. This provision eliminates personal bias towards NFA-related items, requiring CLEOs to sign off and process the application in the same way they do a concealed handgun license. Allows for the use of firearm sound suppressors while hunting in the Buckeye State. Brings Ohio’s definition of “automatic firearm” in line with the federal definition, limiting it to only any firearm designed or adapted to fire a succession of cartridges with a single function of the trigger.

Notable is the law’s extensive reform of how NFA Title II firearms are regulated in the state to include suppressors and full-auto devices.

“With Gov. Kasich’s signature, Ohio became the fifth state to pass suppressor hunting and the sixth state to pass ‘Shall Sign/Certify’ legislation this year,” observed American Suppressor Assiciation President Knox Williams in an email to Guns.com. “We applaud the Governor for his action to help make hunting a safer experience in the state, and for helping to ensure that the right of Ohioans to purchase these hearing safety devices is not dictated by local law enforcement.”

As a sign of the increasing deference over the more appropriate term for sound moderating firearms devices, H234 replaces the legacy, “silencer” wording, in Ohio’s statutes in no less than four places with the more currently accepted term, “suppressor.”

The legislation will take effect in 90 days.

Updated 2:16 with comments from Williams, Pucillo, and Mueller.


Folate and vitamin B12 levels in patients with oral lichen planus, stomatitis or glossitis.
Forty-one patients with oral lesions and symptoms were enrolled in the study. Their ages ranged from 16 to 79 years with a mean age of 48.5 years. They were divided into two groups. Group I consisted of 25 patients with oral lichen planus and group II consisted of 16 patients with stomatitis or glossitis. Their complete blood counts, hemoglobin typing, serum and red cell folate, and serum vitamin B12 levels were studied. The results revealed low red cell folate levels in 11 out of 25 patients (44%) in group I and 9 out of 16 patients (56%) in group II. The serum vitamin B12 levels were within normal range in both groups. They were defined as having folate deficiency (n = 10), folate deficient erythropoiesis (n = 3) and folate depletion (n = 7). None of them had anemia nor macrocytes. Therefore, folate levels should be investigated in patients with oral lesions and symptoms especially those with risk factors of age, poor nutrition or systemic diseases. When suspected, daily folic acid supplements should be given.


This is a {{site.markup_type}} page


Las Vegas, NV Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich will attend a rally in his honor tomorrow morning in Las Vegas. All Las Vegans are invited to attend to welcome the former speaker to the Silver State. Event activities begin at 8:00AM at Xtreme Manufacturing on 1415 W. Bonanza Rd., on the SE corner of Martin Luther King Blvd. and Bonanza Rd.

Parking will be provided on the SW corner of Martin Luther King Blvd. and Bonanza Rd.

Speaker Gingrich attended events all day today in Reno and is looking forward to visiting the southern part of the state. He will be here until caucus day Feb. 4th.

Trump endorsing Newt would be great. But if he does, I’d really like to see him work as an attack dog against Romney. Trump can be vicious.... look at how he brutalized Rosie O’Donnell. Let Newt stick to the solutions and big ideas....

A thought: Trump can temper Newt by endorsing him and keep him on topic. He can make Newt more secure and relaxed while sending a quiet message to Romney that he, Trump, can buy and sell him (Romney) if needed, keeping Romney from going negative.

I love your analysis of this!!! If Donald can get Barry to release a phoney BC after all this time, he can certainly convince Mitt that all of his money is no longer an advantage against Newt. I believe that Donald sincerely loves this country and would love to use his influence to flush out Barry in the Fall. This would be a real game changer if the rumor is true.

33
posted on 02/01/2012 11:25:40 PM PST
by IAGeezer912
(If government ownership of business is so great, why aren't the N. Koreans filthy rich?)

Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.


Q:

Adding OCMock causes Test to launch main app instead of running tests

I'm trying to add OCMock to my existing Cocoa project, but am running to a strange problem that I don't see anyone else cover.
I finally isolated it to the following: if I simply add OCMock.framework reference to my project (i.e. drag it in somehow into Link Binary With Libraries build phase), when I run tests, the real app gets launched instead.
Without OCMock, the output is normal:
Test Suite 'Multiple Selected Tests' started at 2013-02-07 20:07:03 +0000

With OCMock framework link (partial output):
Error loading MyProjTests.octest/Contents/MacOS/MyProjTests
Library not loaded: @rpath/OCMock.framework/Versions/A/OCMock
Reason: image not found
IDEBundleInjection.c: Error loading bundle '/Users/alex/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/MyProj-bqwyxyspdiudktfnjcdgibdmpgsa/Build/Products/Debug/MyProjTests.octest'

Other app output then appears as normal after this point. While the app is running, test progress is spinning on last tab of project navigator, and doesn't stop until you Quit the app. So test is supposedly in progress the whole time your app is running.
Clearing test host or bundle loader didn't solve, only produced linking errors for wrong architecture.
I'm using latest Xcode, 4.6. Any help greatly appreciated.

A:

OK, finally figured it out, before I hit Submit here on SO, so I figured I'd share the answer. The problem was that OCMock.framework wasn't available at runtime.
The official OCMock steps just say download and add to target, but don't tell you to add a copy phase. I added a new phase in the test target to copy the framework into the Products Directory and the tests now run fine.
It was very unexpected that the main app would launch, and I hope this helps someone else.
edit:
Added pictures. Everyone loves pictures
Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4


Religious activity and lifetime prevalence of psychiatric disorder.
There is growing evidence that current religious activity is associated with less psychological distress, yet research on clinical levels of psychopathology along with lifetime patterns of religious activity remains limited. In this study, we used data on 718 participants from the Providence, RI, cohort of the National Collaborative Perinatal Project, to test for the association between lifetime patterns of religious service attendance frequency, subjective religiosity, and lifetime psychiatric diagnosis. For women, but not men, a changing pattern of service attendance (having stopped or started attending services since childhood) was associated with increased lifetime rates of generalized anxiety, and marginally increased rates of alcohol abuse/dependence (OR for generalized anxiety: 2.71, 95% CI: 1.11-6.62; OR for alcohol abuse/dependence=1.97, 95% CI: 0.92-4.20) compared to a stable pattern of continuous religious service attendance. Conversely, men who changed their frequency of religious service attendance were less likely to have ever met diagnostic criteria for major depression (OR=0.50, 95% CI: 0.31-0.83) as compared to those who had always been religiously active. The rates of psychiatric illness among those who reported never attending religious services were not statistically different from those who either had always been religiously active or those who reported changing patterns of attendance. These findings suggest that lifetime religious activity patterns are associated with psychiatric illnesses, with different patterns observed for men and women.


At Blockmason, we’re building base-layer blockchain technologies that enable developers to create world-class decentralized applications for their users.


China Glaze Shocking Pink Swatch

Posted: Oct 28 2014 by Alexandria Brady

Swatched by the awesome Paulina of Paulina's Passions.

"Shocking Pink (Core collection) is another bright neon pink. The formula is very creamy, but not very opaque. I needed 3-4 coats to have a nice and even surface. The color looks a lot like Neon & On & On by China Glaze! They are almost identical, but Shocking Pink is more pinky, while Neon & On & On has more peachy tone to it. It’s a gorgeous shade and you all know how I love my bright pinks. The swatch is topped with Seche Vite top coat."


327 S.W.2d 781 (1959)
CITY OF LUFKIN, Appellant,
v.
C. L. DUPUY, Appellee.
No. 6269.
Court of Civil Appeals of Texas, Beaumont.
September 24, 1959.
Rehearing Denied October 14, 1959.
C. E. Brazil, City Atty., Lufkin, Ward R. Burke, Diboll, for appellant.
George K. DuPuy, Collins, Garrison, Renfrow & Zeleskey, Lufkin, for appellee.
McNEILL, Justice.
The City of Lufkin, plaintiff, instituted this suit against C. L. DuPuy, defendant, seeking to have certain encroachments and obstructions removed from the alley in Block 18 of the original town of Lufkin as per the plat thereof dated January 27, 1888, *782 recorded in Volume P., pp. 368-369, Deed Records of Angelina County, and for an injunction to restrain the defendant from replacing encroachments or obstructions in the alley. The defendant answered by certain exceptions, by denial and pleaded the statute of limitation of ten years, alleging that "he, the defendant, and those under whose title he holds" have had adverse possession of the area in the alley at issue for more than ten years before the year 1939. The cause was heard by the court and after trial, judgment was rendered in favor of the defendant that the plaintiff take nothing by its suit, hence this appeal.
Block 18 lies along the south boundary of the original town of Lufkin as platted by the owners of the land. This block is divided by a 20 foot alley which runs on a course of S. 70° East connecting with South Second Street on the west, but fails to connect with South Third Street on the east as the southerly line of the original town plat cuts across this block, leaving the southerly end of the alley a dead end. And the plat indicates South Third Street also ends to the north before intersecting what would be the alley if extended easterly (but the street has since been extended southerly). Lots 1 through 6, inclusive, abut the alley on the north and lots 8 through 12 abut the alley on the south. Lot 1 is in the northwest corner of the block and the numbering runs east with lot 6 in the northeast corner. There is no lot 7 (which would have been located opposite and south of lot 6) since the south line of the plat intersects the block, cutting off the southeast corner, eliminating what would be lot 7 entirely and lots 8, 9, and 10 are all part lots, their numbering beginning at the southeast edge of the block with part lot 8, then part lots 9 and 10, and 11 and 12 in the southwest corner of the block.
J. J. Gunter and wife bought lots 1, 2, and 3 about the year 1921 and resided on these lots until 1943. Darwin Singleton bought lots 11 and 12 in 1921 and lots 8 and 10 about a year later. He built a home on lots 11 and 12 and lived there from 1922 to 1925. Then tenants occupied these premises until 1935 when he moved back and resided there until 1940. The testimony shows that Singleton called on the City Manager of Lufkin in 1922 and requested that the city open up the east end of the alley so that there could be complete passageway between South Second and South Third Streets, which street had no doubt been extended in the meantime. However, he was not encouraged in this so sometime later during the year he built a fence along the middle of the alley, beginning at the west line and extended it to the easterly edge of the dedicated alley. This fence completely surrounded the premises except the front yard facing the street on the west side of lot 12. Mr. Gunter likewise erected a fence adjoining the Singleton fence that extended from the west end of the alley to the east line of lot 3. This fence surrounded Gunter's property and both fences were kept and maintained for the pertinent years by the respective owners. During 1922 a hedge was planted along the jointly owned fence line in the alley by Gunter and Singleton and it has since been kept and maintained by each party on his side. The testimony shows the hedge had grown some 15 or 20 feet high and in places more than extended beyond the boundaries of the alley. Each party used the section of the alley which he had fenced in as a part of his yard, and mowed the grass and maintained it as the other part of the yard was maintained. This continued some 18 or 19 years. The public never used the alley at any time, although the City accepted its original dedication as such. The facts justify the court's conclusion that the parties acquired limitation of the portion of the alleyway involved in the suit prior to the effective date in 1939 of an Act amending Article 5517, Vernon's Texas Civ.St., so as to thereafter prohibit loss of city alleys by limitation, unless the matters hereinafter mentioned defeat this conclusion.
Sometime before 1928, probably in the early '20s, a predecessor of the Texas Power *783 & Light Company, the public utility now furnishing electric service, erected a service pole at the west end of the alley some 6 feet south of its north line. The testimony above shows that this pole was erected to carry electric lines to furnish service to the Gunter home on the north and to the tenant in the Singleton house on the south. It was further shown that sometime in the fall of 1929 a four inch gas main was laid in the alley from its west edge 127 feet east, at which point the gas line turned south through about one-half the distance of lot 10. Mr. Purdue, the gas company official, stated this line was put in to serve the Singleton residence. The testimony further shows that both utility lines are now serving other users but for the period prior to 1939 no other connections on either the electric or gas line appear to have been made. The utilities during the times material to the facts of the case held franchises to use the public ways of the City for their lines and equipment.
The defendant DuPuy purchased lots 1, 2, and 3 from Gunter and wife in 1944 and purchased those portions of lots 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 abutting on the alley on February 20, 1954. In addition, by instrument dated July 8, 1954 he obtained from Darwin Singleton and wife, quitclaim deed to the southerly one-half of the alley and obtained a quitclaim deed dated July 17, 1954 to the north half of the alley abutting lots 1, 2, and 3 from Mrs. Gunter, who was then a widow and who owned the entire Gunter claim to the alley.
Plaintiff relies on three main points to reverse the lower court's judgment. The first one is that since defendant's plea of limitation was "that he, the defendant, and those under whose title he holds, have had and held peaceful, continuous and adverse possession * * *" of the premises in controversy and the undisputed evidence established that neither defendant himself nor any person for him ever had any actual adverse possession of the premises but the adverse claim is based solely on occupancy and use by his predecessors, there is a fatal variance between defendant's evidence and his pleadings. The early case of Cunningham v. Frandtzen, 26 Tex. 34, cited by plaintiff supports this contention. In that case the defendants relied upon the statute of limitation of three years, and they pleaded that they and their predecessor in interest have had and held adverse possession for such period of time. The proof showed the entire limitation period to have been through the predecessor's possession. The court held this was a fatal variance between allegation and proof. This early case was followed on original hearing by the court in Ragon v. Craver, Tex.Civ.App., 127 S.W. 1087, but on rehearing the court receded from this position. No latter case appears to have cited Cunningham-Frandtzen on the point involved and in view of our present liberalized rules of pleading established by the Supreme Court, it is our opinion that this early case is no longer authoritative on the point discussed. It does not appear that the contention now urged was mentioned in the trial court and it is here without merit.
Plaintiff's second point is that since public utilities under franchise from the City had been granted the right to lay and maintain their lines in the alley and other public ways within the City limits and had placed and maintained their lines in the alley involved, defendant failed to show continuous and exclusive possession. It cites and relies principally upon Rick v. Grubbs, 147 Tex. 267, 214 S.W.2d 925, 927, to support the proposition. This case is clearly distinguishable from the present one. Grubbs, the owner of lot 5, erected a fence around both his own and Rick's lot 4 adjoining, placed improvements upon and farmed and grazed stock on both lots for over 10 years. However, during this time Ricks, record owner of lot 4, (1) granted a 100 feet right of way to a pipeline company which laid seven different lines across the lot and one of its employees entered the enclosure to make inspection trips across the lot at least once each day, all of which was without protest by Grubbs, (2) granted the *784 state 25 feet off the side of this lot to widen a highway and Grubbs' fence was moved back accordingly, without protest by Grubbs, (3) granted a sign builder the right to erect a large sign on the lot and the sign was erected without protest, (4) granted the army permission to maneuver over lot 4 and this was actually done without Grubbs' protest. Justice Hart for the court said: "Possession in order to be adverse must be exclusive" but possession "shared with the owner or his agents or tenants" is not exclusive.
There was no "sharing" of possession in the present case. The two utility easements placed in the alleyway area were there during the limitation period to serve the limitation claimants only. The 4" gas line placed in the area turned south across lot 10 owned by Singleton to serve others in another block; the electric line was supported by the one pole at the west end of the alley area 6 feet from its north line. At no time material to the contested period was it shown that either utility was in the alley area except for service to Gunter and Singleton or his tenants. While it is true that adverse possession may be interrupted by ouster, conduct claimed by the owner of an interest in the land must be such as would put a reasonably prudent person on notice that he actually had been ousted. American Nat. Bank of Beaumont v. Wingate, Tex. Civ.App., 266 S.W.2d 934 (14, 15) by this court. The act of neither utility here was such as to put the adverse claimants on notice that it was asserting a right hostile to that claimed by them. In Rick's case, supra, the pipeline company laid seven different pipelines across the lot and had a man walking them every daynot to render Grubbs, the adverse claimant a service, but for its own distinct use and benefit. Singleton testified that he gave both utilities permission to place their lines there. In addition, when the city's water line was laid to run from Second Street east to serve a Mr. Courtney it was not placed in the alley area but was put 2 feet south through Singleton's lots, with Singleton's permission. The map in evidence indicates the city had placed a sewer line in the north side of the east end of the alley but it stopped short of the contested area.
The case of Young v. City of Lubbock, Tex.Civ.App., 130 S.W.2d 418, 420 (no writ history) squarely supports the judgment of the trial court and defendant's position here. The opinion in this case was written by Justice A. J. Folley, later Supreme Court Justice. We quote from the opinion:
"There is no testimony as to any use made by these utility companies of the alley in question other than that their lines traversed the alley. It is not contended by the appellee that these companies had any rights in the alley other than easement rights. We think the rule is that `to render possession exclusive, it is not necessary to preclude the exercise of an easement by a private person.' 2 C.J.S. Adverse Possession § 51, p. 568. `Possession may be exclusive notwithstanding the land is subject to rights which are mere easements and not things in possession.' 2 C.J.S. Adverse Possession § 51, p. 568; Barker v. Publishers' Paper Co. et al., 78 N.H. 160, 97 A. 749."
Plaintiff's last group of points is to the effect that since Singleton made two deeds after the limitation period had matured conveying parts of his lots, which deeds in describing the property called for "corner at the South boundary line of said alley through said Block 18; Thence North 70 West with the South Boundary line of said alley at 253.6 feet to the place of beginning;" and since defendant and others petitioned the City of Lufkin to open the alleyway all the way through the block to connect with South Third Street, this was (a) a rededication of the alleyway as such and (b) since defendant and others asked that the alleyway be opened in reliance upon which the city and some of its citizens acquired the additional land necessary to completely open the alley, defendant is estopped to claim the premises. A dedication is never presumed but must be manifested in a *785 declaration or act which evinces the clearest intention on the part of the dedicator to set aside and appropriate land for a public use. City of Brownsville v. West, Tex.Civ. App., 149 S.W.2d 1034, 1037. This suit is not between privies to the deeds, and we think the language used therein was for descriptive purposes only. But even if the circumstances raised a fact issue it was resolved against the city. McCarver v. City of Corpus Christi, 155 Tex. 153, 284 S.W.2d 142.
Plaintiff further urges that as defendant and four others in July, 1953, signed a petition addressed to the city requesting that the east end of the alley be condemned by it so that the alley could be opened and appeared before the City Commission for this purpose, this was a re-dedication of the alleyway for public purposes. Defendant testified that he only signed the petition and appeared before the City Commission as a neighborly act and accommodation to the other signers; that at the time he only owned lots 1, 2, and 3 on the north side of the alley. At the meeting of the City Commission it was stated by its officials that it did not have the money nor the desire to condemn the necessary property but the petitioners could go ahead and buy the land necessary to open the alley through to Third Street and the city would look into it and if it was not too much trouble the city would open the alley. The upshot of the matter was that a year passed without anything being accomplished when defendant bought the Singleton lots on the south side of the alley and obtained quitclaims from Singleton and Gunter to the area of the alleyway in contest. It was not until a year later, in June, 1955, that conveyances of the necessary land to open the alley were made to the city by C. M. Thompson, a petitioner, and B. W. Burleson and wife, conditioned that if the city did not open the alley within a reasonable time, the land should revert ipso facto to the grantors. The above facts do not show a re-dedication of the alley as such by defendant but at best a conditional offer at the time to open the alley if the city would obtain the needed land. City of Brownsville v. West, supra.
As the final part of its last contention, plaintiff argues that since defendant appeared before the city fathers under the circumstances related in the paragraph above, and that as the land necessary to open the end of the alley had been acquired that defendant was estopped to deny the city's right to the alley. The position of the city, as stated by the mayor, was not an acceptance of the proposal made in the petition, but was a counter proposal, which at best was not a very definite one to be acted upon and, we think under the circumstances obtaining, it was not shown that defendant's conduct caused any person to act to his detriment. But whether this be so or not plaintiff failed to plead that defendant is estopped to assert the alleyway is lost to the city as was required to have been done. City of Waco v. Murray, Tex.Civ.App., 137 S.W.2d 1062; Murphy v. Lewis, Tex.Civ. App., 198 S.W. 1059 by this court.
The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.


Application of the isolated perfused rat kidney model to assess gender effects on drug excretion.
To study the effect of gender on the renal disposition of two organic anions, p-aminohippuric acid (PAH) and furosemide (FSM) in the isolated perfused rat kidney (IPK). IPK experiments (3-4 per treatment group) were conducted using kidneys from male and female Sprague Dawley rats. PAH was administered as a continuous infusion (with loading dose, targeted steady-state concentration 10 ug/mL). FSM was added as a bolus dose (2.65 mg, targeted concentration 33 ug/mL). Urine was collected in 10-min. intervals and perfusate was sampled at the midpoint of each collection period. Control (drug naïve) perfusions were performed for both genders. PAH and FSM were measured by HPLC. Kidney viability (GFR [estimated using inulin clearance], sodium reabsorption, glucose reabsorption) was monitored continuously during each perfusion experiment (2-h duration). Good kidney function was maintained across all study groups, and lower GFR estimates in female kidneys were due to differences in kidney weight. For PAH, kidney weight corrected renal clearance (0.88 +/- 0.37 mL/min/g vs. 0.59 +/- 0.19 mL/min/g) and excretion ratio (3.8 +/- 1.7 vs. 2.2 +/- 0.72) were significantly higher in male kidneys. For FSM, renal clearance was significantly lower in female (0.10 +/- 0.05 mL/min/g) compared to male kidneys (0.15 +/- 0.07 mL/min/g). Mass balance analysis showed that FSM cumulative urinary excretion was significantly higher and kidney accumulation was significantly lower in experiments with male kidneys. The study demonstrates that the IPK is a useful model to assess gender effects on renal drug disposition. The renal excretion of organic anions is reduced in female rats, possibly due to gender differences in expression and/or activity of membrane transporters (both basolateral and luminal) in the kidney.


Q:

How to make a label blink

I have a Stopwatch in my form with Interval = 1000 displayed in the hh:mm:ss format.
When it reaches the 5th second it should start to blink the label background as green but so far I can only make the background color turn to green without any flash.
This is how I turn the background color to green:
Private Sub Timer1_Tick(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Timer1.Tick
    Label1.Text = SW.Elapsed.ToString("hh\:mm\:ss")
    If Label1.Text = "00:00:05" Then
        Label1.BackColor = Color.Green
    End If
End Sub

How do I make the label blink?

A:

You could use a simple Async method to do this.
The following code will give Label1 the effect of flashing. Since we have used While True this will continue indefinitely once you hit "00:00:05".
Private Async Sub Flash()
    While True
        Await Task.Delay(100)
        Label1.Visible = Not Label1.Visible
    End While
End Sub

You would call this inside your Timer1_Tick method:
Private Sub Timer1_Tick(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Timer1.Tick
    Label1.Text = SW.Elapsed.ToString("hh\:mm\:ss")
    If Label1.Text = "00:00:05" Then
        Label1.BackColor = Color.Green
        Flash()
    End If
End Sub

If you only want to flash a couple of times we can make a simple change to Flash():
Private Async Sub Flash()
    For i = 0 To 10
        Await Task.Delay(100)
        Label1.Visible = Not Label1.Visible
    Next

    'set .Visible to True just to be sure
    Label1.Visible = True
End Sub

By changing the number 10 to a number of your choice you can shorten or lengthen the time taken to flash. I have added in Label1.Visible = True after the For loop just to be sure that we see the Label once the flashing has finished.

You will have to import System.Threading.Tasks to make use of Task.Delay.


Q:

How to force FormRequest return json in Laravel 5.1?

I'm using  FormRequest to validate from which is sent in an API call from my smartphone app. So, I want FormRequest alway return json when validation fail.
I saw the following source code of Laravel framework, the default behaviour of FormRequest is return json if reqeust is Ajax or wantJson.
//Illuminate\Foundation\Http\FormRequest class
/**
 * Get the proper failed validation response for the request.
 *
 * @param  array  $errors
 * @return \Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response
 */
public function response(array $errors)
{
    if ($this->ajax() || $this->wantsJson()) {
        return new JsonResponse($errors, 422);
    }

    return $this->redirector->to($this->getRedirectUrl())
                                    ->withInput($this->except($this->dontFlash))
                                    ->withErrors($errors, $this->errorBag);
}

I knew that I can add Accept= application/json in request header. FormRequest will return json. But I want to provide an easier way to request my API by support json in default without setting any header. So, I tried to find some options to force FormRequest response json in Illuminate\Foundation\Http\FormRequest class. But I didn't find any options which are supported in default.
Solution 1 : Overwrite Request Abstract Class
I tried to overwrite my application request abstract class like followings:
<?php

namespace Laravel5Cg\Http\Requests;

use Illuminate\Foundation\Http\FormRequest;
use Illuminate\Http\JsonResponse;

abstract class Request extends FormRequest
{
    /**
     * Force response json type when validation fails
     * @var bool
     */
    protected $forceJsonResponse = false;

    /**
     * Get the proper failed validation response for the request.
     *
     * @param  array  $errors
     * @return \Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response
     */
    public function response(array $errors)
    {
        if ($this->forceJsonResponse || $this->ajax() || $this->wantsJson()) {
            return new JsonResponse($errors, 422);
        }

        return $this->redirector->to($this->getRedirectUrl())
            ->withInput($this->except($this->dontFlash))
            ->withErrors($errors, $this->errorBag);
    }
}

I added protected $forceJsonResponse = false; to setting if we need to force response json or not. And, in each FormRequest which is extends from Request abstract class. I set that option.
Eg:  I made an StoreBlogPostRequest and set $forceJsoResponse=true for this FormRequest and make it response json.
<?php

namespace Laravel5Cg\Http\Requests;

use Laravel5Cg\Http\Requests\Request;

class StoreBlogPostRequest extends Request
{

    /**
     * Force response json type when validation fails
     * @var bool
     */

     protected $forceJsonResponse = true;
    /**
     * Determine if the user is authorized to make this request.
     *
     * @return bool
     */
    public function authorize()
    {
        return true;
    }

    /**
     * Get the validation rules that apply to the request.
     *
     * @return array
     */
    public function rules()
    {
        return [
            'title' => 'required|unique:posts|max:255',
            'body' => 'required',
        ];
    }
}

Solution 2: Add an Middleware and force change request header
I build a middleware like followings:

namespace Laravel5Cg\Http\Middleware;

use Closure;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\HeaderBag;

class AddJsonAcceptHeader
{
    /**
     * Add Json HTTP_ACCEPT header for an incoming request.
     *
     * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request  $request
     * @param  \Closure  $next
     * @return mixed
     */
    public function handle($request, Closure $next)
    {
        $request->server->set('HTTP_ACCEPT', 'application/json');
        $request->headers = new HeaderBag($request->server->getHeaders());
        return $next($request);
    }
}

It 's work. But I wonder is this solutions good? And are there any Laravel Way to help me in this situation ?

A:

It boggles my mind why this is so hard to do in Laravel. In the end, based on your idea to override the Request class, I came up with this.
app/Http/Requests/ApiRequest.php
<?php

namespace App\Http\Requests;

class ApiRequest extends Request
{
    public function wantsJson()
    {
        return true;
    }
}

Then, in every controller just pass \App\Http\Requests\ApiRequest
public function index(ApiRequest $request)

A:

I know this post is kind of old but I just made a Middleware that replaces the "Accept" header of the request with "application/json". This makes the wantsJson() function return true when used. (This was tested in Laravel 5.2 but I think it works the same in 5.1)
Here's how you implement that :

Create the file app/Http/Middleware/Jsonify.php
namespace App\Http\Middleware;

use Closure;

class Jsonify
{

    /**
     * Change the Request headers to accept "application/json" first
     * in order to make the wantsJson() function return true
     *
     * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request  $request
     * @param  \Closure  $next
     *
     * @return mixed
     */
    public function handle($request, Closure $next)
    {
        $request->headers->set('Accept', 'application/json');

        return $next($request);
    }
}

Add the middleware to your $routeMiddleware table of your app/Http/Kernel.php file
protected $routeMiddleware = [
    'auth'       => \App\Http\Middleware\Authenticate::class,
    'guest'      => \App\Http\Middleware\RedirectIfAuthenticated::class,
    'jsonify'    => \App\Http\Middleware\Jsonify::class
];

Finally use it in your routes.php as you would with any middleware. In my case it looks like this :
Route::group(['prefix' => 'api/v1', 'middleware' => ['jsonify']], function() {
    // Routes
});


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. Will it help me and my particular autoimmune condition(s)?

By restoring proper immune system function (accuracy) and balance, the misfiring attacking mode driving all autoimmune conditions is progressively eliminated. As immunity is restored, it goes back to its intended mode of protecting and defending, supporting all the physiologic healing functions of the body.

We accomplish immune system restoration by feeding the immune system, in high concentration, precisely what is designed to receive for proper function; immune modulating components, which were abundant in the food supply several decades ago. This is outlined in detail in my free free book.

2. What causes autoimmune conditions?

Autoimmune conditions can occur progressively due to a lack of, or absence of immune modulating components in our food supply see question 4 below , but can also occur suddenly from traumatic injury.

The collapse of immunity and subsequent autoimmune conditions can also be triggered by other contributing factors including pharmaceutical drugs, most commonly by antibiotics and immune suppressing agents. Stress is also a major factor in both immune system failure, and the perpetuation of the autoimmune attack.

The autoimmune attack can strike virtually any system, organ, gland, or tissue of the body causing inflammation, multiple disruptions, multiple imbalances, pain, and potential tissue damage.
The autoimmune attack is responsible for well over 100 autoimmune conditions and numerous symptoms see list.

The autoimmune attack may be attacking one system or organ, or the attack can affect multiple organs and tissues simultaneously. Most often, if left unchecked, individuals with autoimmunity experience compounding attacks to multiple areas of the body as time progresses, potentially culminating in varying forms of tissue damage. To avoid this scenario, immunity must be restored to proper function and autoimmunity eliminated as soon as possible.

Further questions: Heal@drrondrucker.com

3. Why is Proper Immune Function so Important?

The immune system (includes the Lymphatic system) is a structure of biological processes which protects the body against disease. The immune system protects and orchestrates the healing processes of EVERY system, organ, gland, tissue, and cell in the body right down to the bone marrow.

4. Can immunity be restored with your healing process, regardless of how it failed or genetic factors?

In my experience, I have found no "genetic barriers." Those who had been told their conditions were "genetic," recovered all the same.

Autoimmune conditions can occur progressively due to a lack of, or absence of immune modulating components in our food supply see question 5 below, but can also occur suddenly due to traumatic injury.

The collapse of immunity and subsequent autoimmune conditions can also be triggered by other contributing factors including pharmaceutical drugs, most commonly by antibiotics and immune suppressing agents. Stress is also a major factor in both immune system failure, and the perpetuation of the autoimmune attack.

The autoimmune attack can strike virtually any system, organ, gland, or tissue of the body causing inflammation, multiple disruptions, multiple imbalances, pain, and potential tissue damage. The autoimmune attack is responsible for well over 100 autoimmune conditions and numerous symptoms .

The autoimmune attack may be attacking one system or organ, or the attack can affect multiple organs and tissues simultaneously. Most often, if left unchecked, individuals with autoimmunity experience compounding attacks to multiple areas of the body as time progresses, potentially culminating in varying forms of tissue damage. To avoid this scenario, immunity must be restored to proper function and autoimmunity eliminated as soon as possible.

Decades of mineral depletion of the soils of the industrialized nations have led to crops which yield low-grade/nutrient poor food supplies. The widespread use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides further inhibit the plants’ ability to utilize soil-based minerals in the production of complex plant nutrients. Pre-mature harvesting techniques such as "green-harvesting" (harvesting 10-15 days prior to ripening) designed to minimize spoilage and maximize shelf-life, render fruits and vegetables void of the complex nutrients which are transferred from the tree and vine to the fruit and vegetable in the last three to five days of ripening. In most cases, even "organically grown" fruits and vegetables are green-harvested to prevent spoilage in transit and on the market shelf. Couple these problems with the implementation of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO's) and the result is a food supply void of the vital components required for immunity and other essential physiologic functions, and/or potentially loaded with harmful unnatural components and substances.

6. What exactly is a natural immune modulator and where can I get a high concentration of them?

An immune modulator is a natural, plant-derived microscopic structure designed by nature for the support and restoration of the immune systems in mammals. For the last 70 years, through procedures designed for profits, the food industry has unintentionally yet progressively depleted the immune modulating components from the food supply. This depletion is directly correlated to the rise of autoimmune conditions.

For the last 20 years I have been testing immune modulating formulas and products claiming to modulate immunity. The scientific community has long determined that the effectiveness of an immune modulating agent lies in its molecular weight measured in “Dalton.”

Dalton is the standard unit that is used for indicating mass on an atomic or molecular scale. The scientific community has defined structures of One Million Dalton and higher as "Immune Modulators" or "Healing Orchestrator's." The greater the Dalton range, the greater the immune modulating properties of the structure.

The test used to measure the Dalton range of an immune modulator is called a size-exclusion chromatography test. Using this testing method, in conjunction with practical application, I have determined and subsequently use the best immune modulating formula currently available. The name of the company which manufactures the formula is Pristine Nutraceuticals, and the formula name is DigestaCure® AUTOIMMUNE-X®. The size-exclusion chromatography testing profile proves to be a long-chain immune modulator range of 1 million Dalton to over 10 million Dalton. The active ingredient portion of the formula containing this high Dalton range has averaged 70 percent with good consistency.

Until a stronger formula is developed, this is the one I will continue to use and recommend. To provide a contrast, the next best (second place) formula available, displays a Dalton range of between one and two million Dalton, with this active ingredient portion amounting to only 2 percent.

Take the formula as directed and communicate with Support during the healing process. The Support Team is free and very knowledgeable, therefore use them to your advantage.

Sadly and deplorably, the answer is simple economics. The pharmaceutical/medical industry has become the ultimate Conflict of Interest. The industry has built an entire empire on the revenues generated by autoimmunity. The estimated revenue generated is in excess of one trillion dollars annually.

Eliminating autoimmunity and healing the patients through immune system restoration would render small profits short term, and industry suicide long term. Because of this, the industry protects autoimmunity by teaching medical doctors to treat symptoms and conditions only, while ignoring the root-cause, subsequently allowing the patient to slowly deteriorate and prematurely die in the name of revenue. Make no mistake, your medical doctor wants to heal you and is in on No conspiracy, but he is being educated and controlled by an industry focused on profits, not the healing of the patient.

The answer is in this video. It details the interrelationship between the FDA and pharmaceutical companies, and how dangerous side-effects of prescription drugs are withheld from the public. Watch the most interesting and important video of your lifetime about the FDA: “The War On Your Health”

The human body is designed with special receptor sites called enterons, which line the digestive tract. These special receptor sites are designed to take in or engulf, intact, the immune modulating components without breakage. This process is called endocytosis. Due to this process, the immune modulating components are absorbed in a way that protects the links of the long-chain polysaccharide molecules.

The mechanism of endocytosis exists within the body to perform this essential task of absorption without destruction of these long chain structures. Once inside the cell, these long chain macromolecules which have been taken in by endocytosis including polysaccharides, proteins, and polynucleotides (DNA and RNA) can be used for their unique healing properties or broken down inside the cell for their nutritional value. We refer to this process as, “intracellular digestion.” It is the second form of digestion which occurs within the cells. This form of digestion only occurs after these intact healing components have entered the interior of the cell where they are either utilized intact, for their unique and necessary healing properties, or they may be broken down and processed into their subcomponents for further use.

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Necessary Legal Disclaimer: All material provided on this website is provided for educational purposes only. Nothing here should be construed as an attempt to diagnose, prescribe, prevent, or treat any physical, mental, or emotional health ailment, disease, or condition. Consult your licensed health professional regarding the treatment of any medical condition. The information on this website is not a replacement for a thorough consultation and examination from a licensed health professional. Users must indemnify and hold harmless the author from all claims, demands, obligations, liabilities, suits and proceedings, (including claims for defamation, trade disparagement, privacy and intellectual property infringement) and damages (including attorney’s fees and costs ) arising in connection with information posted on the web site or submitted by the User. Users may not copy the website content, either entirely or for commercial gain. The website content is protected by copyright, and other intellectual property laws. Under no circumstances will the author be liable to the user or any third party for any damages, costs, lost profits, or lost opportunity, or indirect, special, consequential, incidental or punitive damages, based upon use of information posted on the website or edited by the author even if the author has been advised of the possibility of such injuries. If you do not agree with the above, you should leave this website.

The immune modulators work for the little guys too!

I AM AN INDEPENDENT NATURAL HEALING PRACTITIONER

I am able to openly teach any individual or practitioner, and spread the word that these “incurable conditions” are indeed very easily healed, because I am an independent who is not selling drugs or supplements, and who is not being compensated by any party who is. I am referring the individual and practitioner to a healing procedure, and I am charging no fees to do so.

For the last 21 years, I have been involved in healing Autoimmune Conditions, spreading the word about healing Autoimmune Conditions, and teaching other physicians how to heal autoimmune conditions.

*In some conditions, varying levels of tissue damage from the years under the autoimmune attack may remain to varying degrees. In all cases, this fact becomes a moot point, for the autoimmune attack must be eliminated as soon as possible before causing more damage in multiple areas.

Necessary Legal Disclaimer: Anything posted on this website or any attachment thereto is intended for educational and/or informational purposes only. Dr. Drucker is sharing his experience and opinions. No doctor-patient relationship is established or implied. The information provided concerns the principle of ignoring the disease and restoring the immune system. Nothing here should be construed as an attempt to diagnose, prescribe, prevent, or treat any physical, mental, or emotional health ailment, disease, or condition. Individual results may vary from person to person and there is no guarantee of results. Doctor Drucker does not claim to cure diseases. Doctor Drucker is stating that the immune system in proper mode, has the innate ability to heal, and in his experience, does. Consult your licensed health professional for consultation, examination, testing, diagnosis, advice and treatment of any medical condition. The information on this website is not a replacement for a thorough consultation and examination from a licensed health professional. Users must indemnify and hold harmless the author from all claims, demands, obligations, liabilities, suits and proceedings, (including claims for defamation, trade disparagement, privacy and intellectual property infringement) and damages (including attorney’s fees and costs ) arising in connection with information posted on the web site or submitted by the User. Users may not copy the website content, either entirely or for commercial gain. The website content is protected by copyright, and other intellectual property laws. Under no circumstances will the author be liable to the user or any third party for any damages, costs, lost profits, or lost opportunity, or indirect, special, consequential, incidental or punitive damages, based upon use of information posted on the website or edited by the author even if the author has been advised of the possibility of such injuries. If you do not agree with the above, you should leave this website. Nothing contained herein should be construed as medical advice, no warrantees are given, nor implied and no liability whatsoever will be acknowledged for any use or misuse or the information contained herein. No HIPPA guarantee is given, nor can there be any guarantee of confidentiality and therefore nothing should be stated that you would not want to be viewed by anyone. Nothing herein is approved by any governmental agency. If you do not agree with anything on this website, any attachment there to or any email associated with it, delete it immediately and ignore its' content.


/**
  This stuff solves two recurring problems with bindings:
    1) you often need several bindings to the same controller,
    2) you may want to use bindings to 'configure' views nested deep in the hierarchy.

  One option would be to have one binding on the top level in the view definition, then
  bind to that in the child views, but that's also suboptimal because you need a lot of
  parentView.parentView... type paths which are not robust w.r.t. changes in the view
  hierarchy. So here's how to do it:

  fooView1: Flame.View.extend({
    controllerPath: 'MyApp.someController',
    fooAction: 'MyApp.createFoo',

    fooView2: Flame.View.extend({
      fooView3: Flame.View.extend({
        foobarBinding: '$controllerPath.someProperty'  // Binds to MyApp.someController.someProperty
      }),
      fooView4: Flame.ButtonView.extend({
        foobarBinding: '$controllerPath.anotherProperty',  // Binds to MyApp.someController.anotherProperty
        actionBinding: '^fooAction'  // Binds to parentView.parentView.fooAction
      })
    })
  })

  Put in a bit more formal way:

    $<propertyName>[.<path>] => looks up propertyName in parent view/s, uses its value to prefix
                                given path, and binds to the resulting path
    ^<propertyName>[.<path>] => looks up propertyName in parent view/s and uses the path to that
                                to prefix given path

  Another way to think of this is that $propertyName expands to the value of that property,
  whereas ^propertyName expands to the path to that property.

  Beware that the latter syntax only works when the property you're binding to has a value
  other than 'undefined' at the time when the views are created. However it does work if it's
  defined by a binding, even if the binding hasn't been synchronized yet.

  A note about implementation: This kind of bindings are bound in Flame._bindPrefixedBindings,
  which needs to be explicitly called from the init of all root views (views that don't have
  parents). I have tried to make this more automagic by overriding Ember.Binding.connect. While
  it's easy to detect prefixed bindings there, the basic problem is that parentView is not
  yet set at that point. One possible approach is to add the prefixed bindings to a queue
  in connect and then process them later. However, the obj in connect is not the same as
  the final view object, but instead some kind of intermediate object that is then presumably
  wrapped later (in the prototype chain I assume) to become the real thing. Trying to bind
  to the intermediate object later doesn't work, and I cannot figure out a way to work out
  the final object, given the intermediate one (might be impossible). Thus, we're currently
  stuck with this implementation (which works but might get slow - it has to go through all
  properties of all views).
*/

var IS_PREFIXED_BINDING = /^[\^\$]/;
Ember.mixin(Ember.Binding.prototype, {
    connect: function(obj) {
        if (!IS_PREFIXED_BINDING.test(this._from)) return this._super(obj);
    }
});

var IS_BINDING = /Binding$/;
var PREFIXED_BINDING = /^(\^|\$)([^.]+)(.*)$/;

// Bind our custom prefixed bindings. This method has to be explicitly called after creating a new child view.
export function bindPrefixedBindings(view) {
    var foundPrefixedBindings = false;
    for (var key in view) {
        if (bindPrefixed(key, view)) {
            foundPrefixedBindings = true;
        }
    }
    return foundPrefixedBindings;
}

function bindPrefixed(key, view) {
    var foundPrefixedBindings = false;
    if (IS_BINDING.test(key)) {
        var binding = view[key];
        Ember.assert('Expected an Ember.Binding!', binding instanceof Ember.Binding);

        var m = binding._from.match(PREFIXED_BINDING);
        if (m) {
            foundPrefixedBindings = true;
            var useValue = m[1] === '$';
            var property = m[2];
            var suffix = m[3];
            var prefix;

            if (useValue) {
                prefix = lookupValueOfProperty(view, property);
            } else {
                prefix = lookupPathToProperty(view, property);
            }
            Ember.assert("Property '%@' was not found!".fmt(property), !Ember.isNone(prefix));

            var finalPath = prefix + suffix;
            // Copy transformations and the ilk.
            var newBinding = binding.copy();
            newBinding._from = finalPath;
            newBinding.connect(view);
            // Make debugging easier
            binding._resolved_form = newBinding._resolved_form = newBinding._from;
            binding._unresolved_form = newBinding._unresolved_form = binding._from;
        }
    }
    return foundPrefixedBindings;
}

function lookupValueOfProperty(view, propertyName) {
    var cur = view, value;

    while (value === undefined && value !== null && cur !== undefined && cur !== null) {
        value = cur.get(propertyName);
        cur = cur.get('parentView');
    }

    return value;
}

function lookupPathToProperty(view, propertyName) {
    var path = [propertyName, 'parentView'];
    var cur = view.get('parentView');
    // Sometimes there's a binding but it hasn't 'kicked in' yet, so also check explicitly for a binding
    var bindingPropertyName = propertyName + 'Binding';

    while (!Ember.isNone(cur)) {
        // It seems that earlier (at least 0.9.4) the constructor of the view contained plethora of properties,
        // but nowadays (at least 0.9.6) the properties are there throughout the prototype-chain and not in the
        // last prototype. Thus testing whether current objects prototype has the property does not give correct
        // results.
        // So we check if the current object has the property (perhaps some of its prototypes has it) or it has
        // a binding for the property and in case it has, this object is the target of our binding.
        if (typeof Ember.get(cur, propertyName) !== "undefined" || typeof Ember.get(cur, bindingPropertyName) !== "undefined") {
            return path.reverse().join('.');
        }
        path.push('parentView');
        cur = cur.get('parentView');
    }

    return undefined;
}


Chicago Union, Board Seek Right to Negotiate

The Chicago Teachers Union has struck a deal with the school
district that would restore some of the bargaining rights the union
lost in 1995, when the state gave the mayor control over the city's
schools.

If approved by the Illinois legislature, the agreement has the
potential to enhance both the educational power and the public image of
teachers in the nation's third-largest school district, some observers
say.

The draft legislation, unveiled Sept. 4, would still permit district
leaders to make unilateral arrangements with private firms, and changes
in class sizes, layoffs, pilot programs, staff assignments and
schedules. But it would force management to let teachers negotiate over
the impact of those changes. Disputes that arose during such bargaining
would be settled by a mediator.

District and union leaders hailed the agreement as a compromise that
would allow teachers a greater voice while still preserving enough
maneuvering room for management.

Arne Duncan, the chief executive officer of the 437,000-student
district, called it a "fair and flexible" arrangement that recognizes
the "shared commitment" of teachers and district leaders to improve
Chicago schools.

"In this wave of reform, the missing ingredient has been teachers'
voices," Deborah Lynch, the president of the CTU, said in an interview.
"We believe this agreement will translate into better programs and
initiatives informed by the front-line professionals who have to carry
them out."

Election Issue

The issue of Chicago teachers' bargaining rights has become a
football in this fall's gubernatorial race. Illinois Attorney General
Jim Ryan, the Republican nominee, has accused his Democratic opponent,
U.S. Rep. Rod R. Blagojevich, of being a "captive" of the teachers'
union because Mr. Blagojevich supports expanded teacher-bargaining
rights.

When the agreement was announced, Mr. Ryan said it would "turn back
the clock" on school reform by giving teachers too much power. He
gathered leading state Republicans together to publicly denounce the
deal.

State Sen. Dan Cronin, one of the architects of the 1995
mayoral-control law, said in an interview that enhancing bargaining
rights for teachers "dilutes" the intent of the law, which was designed
to place authority and accountability for schools in the hands of one
person: the mayor.

"Teacher input is fine, but more collective-bargaining rights just
means more and more negotiating," he said. "Why don't we just give the
teachers the keys to the buildings, the [district] checkbook and go
home?"

Mr. Blagojevich, who won the endorsement of the Illinois Education
Association, cast Mr. Ryan's reaction as sour grapes, noting that in
June, the attorney general had sought but failed to secure the
endorsement of the National Education Association affiliate. The CTU is
affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers.

"Mr. Ryan has a glaring lack of substantive ideas in education, and
this just helps him cover that up," Billy Weinberg, Mr. Blagojevich's
spokesman, added. "What the school board and the union agreed on is
simply the right to discuss."

Among teachers, the desire for more influence in school policy has
been a sore spot since 1995, when state leaders pared back teachers'
bargaining rights to allow the mayor a stronger hand in running the
schools. Ms. Lynch made the issue a rallying cry of her campaign for
the union presidency last year, and backed a legislative attempt this
past spring to repeal the section of the law that restricted those
bargaining rights.

During that attempt, state lawmakers and Mayor Richard M. Daley, a
Democrat, suggested that the school board and the 34,000-member union
instead negotiate a compromise. Talks over the summer produced the
agreement announced earlier this month. Since the agreement—a
draft bill—would amend a section of the Illinois Educational
Labor-Relations Act, the legislature must approve it. Hearings are
expected in November.

'Part of Solution'

If approved by the legislature, the agreement could prove pivotal in
repositioning the Chicago Teachers Union in the public eye, said
Dorothy Shipps, a former director of the Consortium on Chicago School
Research who is now an assistant professor of education at Teachers
College, Columbia University.

Many of the backers of the 1995 law perceived the teachers' union as
an obstruction, rather than an aid, to school improvement, Ms. Shipps
said, so their aim was to "defang" the group. "But now," she said, "the
union has taken the stand that they want to be part of the solution,
not part of the problem, and not be seen as scapegoats for why reform
fails."

The previous restructuring of Chicago's schools, in 1988,
decentralized authority, giving an increased voice to parents and
teachers. The more recent law centralized more power under the mayor
and has improved district finances and governance, Ms. Shipps said, but
neither has made a huge impact on teaching and learning.

"This agreement is a very positive move," she said. "You are never
going to get serious change, better outcomes for students, unless you
have the teachers on board."

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I have tried Berlitz it's a great center honestly, my friend tried the Modern Language Center and she was so happy with them. You can go to each center page and read other people's comments about those centers


National law firm Heenan Blaikie LLP is closing after 40 years in operation, marking the largest failure of a law firm in Canada.

The partners voted on Wednesday evening to approve a plan to dissolve the firm, which has been the home base for many prominent Canadians, including former prime ministers Jean Chrétien and Pierre Trudeau.

Heenan, which was founded in the 1970s and later pioneered the creation of national law firms, had about 500 legal professionals until recently. But it has faced a raft of defections of senior lawyers to competitors – more than two dozen on Wednesday alone – and grappled to negotiate a restructuring plan as the competitive landscape for legal firms shifted rapidly.

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An array of problems contributed to its demise, from new pressures on mid-sized law firms to a long decline in major corporate deals and demands from clients for lower billing. Some clients have abandoned traditional loyalty to a single firm and have been using smaller ones that offer deep discounts on routine work.

The firm said in a release late on Wednesday that an "orderly wind-up" will span several months and make it possible to "ensure a harmonious transfer" of clients to other firms. The partners also agreed on Wednesday to create a five-person committee to oversee the liquidation.

"It's sad, obviously," said Donald Johnston, a Montreal-based founding partner of Johnston Heenan Blaikie, whose name was removed when he was elected a Liberal MP in 1978.

"Heenans was the firm where everybody wanted to work. The best and brightest would come, and if [dissolution] happens, there are going to be a lot of young lawyers who are going to have to find other jobs."

However, some of the lawyers may stay together under a new roof. Partners in Toronto are in talks with DLA Piper in the United States about lawyers in Toronto and possibly Calgary joining the global firm, a source said on Wednesday.

The source said the talks were "pretty close," but that the two sides had yet to agree on key financial terms. A spokesman for DLA Piper had no comment.

It is relatively rare for large law firms to fail in Canada. Most opt for mergers when their financial footing weakens. The largest previous failure was Goodman and Carr LLP, which had 140 lawyers at its peak but had shrunk to 90 before it folded in 2007.

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Robert Armstrong, a retired judge of Ontario's appeal court, said Heenan helped blaze a trail for national law firms at a time when provincial regulators made it difficult for lawyers from one province to represent clients in another.

"They were one of the firms in the vanguard of creating national firms," Mr. Armstrong said in an interview. "Ten or 12 years ago, when I was treasurer of the law society, if you wanted to go to PEI and act for a client, you had to go to the regulator for permission."

Heenan was also one of the few firms that began in Montreal and became national.

Wednesday's vote followed a traumatic day in which more than two dozen lawyers announced their departures. Most were from the Montreal and Ottawa offices, which were widely expected to close and not be part of an acquisition deal with DLA Piper.

Heenan announced last weekend it had launched a "major restructuring" due to financial problems.

Mr. Johnston cited a changed and more competitive legal landscape.

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"There's a lot of evolution taking place in the legal system. … There was a Greek [philosopher] who said something like, 'Athens is not forever,' and I guess that's true of law firms as well. It's sad."

Mr. Johnston said fellow founding partners Peter Blaikie, and especially Roy Heenan, who was chairman from the firm's founding in 1973 until 2012, maintained a healthy "esprit de corps" among partners, even as it greatly expanded over the years.

"The firm has done extremely well," Mr. Johnston, who now serves as senior counsel alongside the likes of Mr. Chrétien and former Supreme Court justice Michel Bastarache, said in a phone interview early Wednesday evening. "This came as a shock and sadness for the firm ... It really came out of the blue."

Observers have said issues within Heenan also contributed to its demise, including an expansion to eight offices across Canada and a high-profile office in Paris, all stretching the resources of a mid-tier firm.

A recent exodus of lawyers after a meeting at Heenan's Toronto office on Jan. 20 created insurmountable problems. Many of the dozens who departed were among Heenan's most senior lawyers, making the law firm less viable without its top revenue-earners.

On Wednesday, Dentons Canada LLP confirmed it has hired seven lawyers from Heenan's Montreal office – including most of its real estate practice – while Lavery de Billy said on Wednesday it hired about 12 lawyers from the Montreal office this week. Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP said on Wednesday it has hired four lawyers from Heenan's Ottawa office and another four from Montreal.

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Several other firms announced on Wednesday they had hired individual Heenan lawyers.

Ed Waitzer, a senior partner at Stikeman Elliott and former chairman of the Ontario Securities Commission, said Heenan Blaikie was an "iconic Montreal law firm" and its dissolution is "a reminder of just how fragile professional partnerships are."

As lawyers grow nervous about the firm's fate, "it starts to unravel pretty quickly. That's one of the challenges of managing a law firm."

Depending on the partnership agreement, dissolution may require more than a simple majority vote – as much as 85 per cent is not uncommon, Vancouver management consultant Colin Cameron said.

Partners in law firms put up the firm's working capital; when the partnership is dissolved, they are all responsible for outstanding debts.

"Somebody's got to stick around and make sure all the liabilities are dealt with," Mr. Waitzer said.

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The biggest concern is "to make sure the clients are fully protected and secure," said Ottawa lawyer Eugene Meehan, a partner at Supreme Advocacy. "That comes first."

He said the firm could invite the Law Society of Upper Canada, the profession's self-regulating body, to ensure those interests are protected, and that files are transferred properly and with consent. The law society also could step in if it believes client interests are at risk, he said.

A spokesperson for the Law Society said it would not comment until Thursday.

Most professional partnerships set up management companies that sign leases, rent equipment and oversee the payroll for administrative staff. Once those are wound up, "you figure out what the partners are entitled to," Mr. Waitzer said. "They get their capital back first, if there is anything, and then they get their share of whatever is left over. In the meanwhile, they are all finding other places to go, and moving clients over. And clients are leaving. It's like winding up any business. It's not all that pretty but it gets done."

HEENAN BLAIKIE: A PRIMER

History: Founded in 1973 by labour lawyer Roy Heenan, who served as chair until 2012; founding partners included Donald Johnston, a future justice minister of Canada, and Peter Blaikie, a future president of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.

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Number of offices in Canada: nine (Calgary, Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Trois-Rivières, Quebec City, Sherbrooke, Victoria, Vancouver)

Number of international offices: One (Paris)

Number of lawyers: 500

Former politicians and judges associated with the firm: Former prime minister Jean Chrétien is counsel to the firm; Pierre Trudeau was counsel for the last 16 years of his life. Others include former Quebec premier Pierre-Marc Johnson, former federal justice minister Martin Cauchon (a partner in Montreal), former Supreme Court justice Michel Bastarache and former Quebec Court of Appeal justice René Dussault.

Recent clients: Legal adviser to the Union of Quebec Municipalities at the Quebec inquiry into corruption in the construction sector; legal adviser to Gabon's Ministry of Industry and Tourism in the purchase of a 75 per cent stake in a mining company; defended the Regional Public Health Authorities and Agency of Quebec City in a coroner's inquest into an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease.


Camassa–Holm equation

In fluid dynamics, the Camassa–Holm equation is the integrable, dimensionless and non-linear partial differential equation

The equation was introduced by Roberto Camassa and Darryl Holm as a bi-Hamiltonian model for waves in shallow water, and in this context the parameter κ is positive and the solitary wave solutions are smooth solitons.

In the special case that κ is equal to zero, the Camassa–Holm equation has peakon solutions: solitons with a sharp peak, so with a discontinuity at the peak in the wave slope.

Relation to waves in shallow water

The Camassa–Holm equation can be written as the system of equations:

with p the (dimensionless) pressure or surface elevation. This shows that the Camassa–Holm equation is a model for shallow water waves with non-hydrostatic pressure and a water layer on a horizontal bed.

The linear dispersion characteristics of the Camassa–Holm equation are:

with ω the angular frequency and k the wavenumber. Not surprisingly, this is of similar form as the one for the Korteweg–de Vries equation, provided κ is non-zero. For κ equal to zero, the Camassa–Holm equation has no frequency dispersion — moreover, the linear phase speed is zero for this case. As a result, κ is the phase speed for the long-wave limit of k approaching zero, and the Camassa–Holm equation is (if κ is non-zero) a model for one-directional wave propagation like the Korteweg–de Vries equation.

Hamiltonian structure

Introducing the momentum m as

then two compatible Hamiltonian descriptions of the Camassa–Holm equation are:

Integrability

The Camassa–Holm equation is an integrable system. Integrability means that there is a change of variables (action-angle variables) such that the evolution equation in the new variables is equivalent to a linear flow at constant speed. This change of variables is achieved by studying an associated isospectral/scattering problem, and is reminiscent of the fact that integrable classical Hamiltonian systems are equivalent to linear flows at constant speed on tori. The Camassa–Holm equation is integrable provided that the momentum

is positive — see  and  for a detailed description of the spectrum associated to the isospectral problem, for the inverse spectral problem in the case of spatially periodic smooth solutions, and  for the inverse scattering approach in the case of smooth solutions that decay at infinity.

Exact solutions
Traveling waves are solutions of the form

representing waves of permanent shape f that propagate at constant speed c. These waves are called solitary waves if they are localized disturbances, that is, if the wave profile f decays at infinity. If the solitary waves retain their shape and speed after interacting with other waves of the same type, we say that
the solitary waves are solitons. There is a close connection between integrability and solitons.
In the limiting case when κ = 0 the solitons become peaked (shaped like the graph of the function f(x) = e−|x|), and they are then called peakons. It is possible to provide explicit formulas for the peakon interactions, visualizing thus the fact that they are solitons. For the smooth solitons the soliton interactions are less elegant. This is due in part to the fact that, unlike the peakons, the smooth solitons are relatively easy to describe qualitatively — they are smooth, decaying exponentially fast at infinity, symmetric with respect to the crest, and with two inflection points — but explicit formulas are not available. Notice also that the solitary waves are orbitally stable i.e. their shape is stable under small perturbations, both for the smooth solitons and for the peakons.

Wave breaking

The Camassa–Holm equation models breaking waves: a smooth  initial profile with sufficient decay at infinity develops into either a wave that exists for all times or into a breaking wave (wave breaking being characterized by the fact that the solution remains bounded but its slope becomes unbounded in finite time). The fact that the equations admits solutions of this type was discovered by Camassa and Holm and these considerations were subsequently put on a firm mathematical basis.
It is known that the only way singularities can occur in solutions is in the form of breaking waves.
Moreover, from the knowledge of a smooth initial profile it is possible to predict (via a necessary and sufficient condition) whether wave breaking occurs or not.
As for the continuation of solutions after wave breaking, two scenarios are possible: the conservative case
and the dissipative case
(with the first characterized by conservation of the energy, while the dissipative scenario accounts for loss of energy due to breaking).

Long-time asymptotics

It can be shown that for sufficiently fast decaying smooth initial conditions with positive momentum splits into a finite number and solitons plus a decaying dispersive part. More precisely, one can show the following for :
Abbreviate . In the soliton region  the solutions splits into a finite linear combination solitons. In the region  the solution is asymptotically given by a modulated sine function whose amplitude decays like . In the region  the solution is asymptotically given by a sum of two modulated sine function as in the previous case. In the region  the solution decays rapidly.
In the case  the solution splits into an infinite linear combination of peakons (as previously conjectured).

See also
Degasperis–Procesi equation
Hunter–Saxton equation

Notes

References

Further reading

 Peakon solutions

 Water wave theory

 Existence, uniqueness, wellposedness, stability, propagation speed, etc.

 Travelling waves

 Integrability structure (symmetries, hierarchy of soliton equations, conservations laws) and differential-geometric formulation

Category:Partial differential equations
Category:Equations of fluid dynamics
Category:Integrable systems
Category:Solitons