This month’s column gives you a checklist of things to keep in mind if someone wants an alternate price or prefers the other cladding. This list will be handy if you are working with a designer or owner who needs guidance when making a switch.

Ask yourself two questions: Why change? Why not? 

A Penn State University study published in Environmental Science & Technology: Air reveals that airborne microplastics may influence the climate by affecting cloud structures and weather patterns. The study found that microplastics act as ice nucleating agents in clouds, potentially altering precipitation. Professor Miriam Freedman highlights the need for more research into how these particles interact within atmospheric systems to better understand their effects on climate.

Netanyahu was in Jerusalem rejoicing at the election of Donald Trump with unabashed enthusiasm, while American Jewish leaders considered him too divisive and unpopular.

Buckingham Palace sets Changing of Guard ceremony to ‘Gladiator’ themeAhead of the Wednesday world premiere of Gladiator II at the Odeon Luxe in London’s Leicester Square, the Buckingham Palace had a special theme set for the Changing of the Guard ceremony.A special recital of...

Men often face challenges during the transition to fatherhood due to a lack of information and emotional support tailored to their specific needs, suggests

The Universal Postal Union (UPU) has selected Hurricane Commerce’s unique Kona API to help power global trade for postal operators.

Foundations for Farming is changing lives in Zambia by reaching out with God's truth and practical training.

By paying rent for a small school run by a partner church, OM provides education and biblical input to children of displaced families.

OM Ecuador's annual mission school (ECTM) impacts 13 lives, while changing one community.

As job market improves substantially along with technological advancements, it becomes essential to keep up the pace with ever-changing economy.

Todays business environment is moving at a faster pace than ever before. It’s imperative that organizations of all sizes be nimble enough to respond and pivot according to business and market demands at a moment’s notice, or risk falling behind their competition.

To this point, many small businesses often struggle when it comes to effectively scaling their operations. This process entails making hefty IT investments, and while necessary for continued growth, many entrepreneurs just can not afford to do so.

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The tools, platforms and methods you use to grow your business are constantly changing. So you need to keep up with all the latest updates and trends. Members of the online small business community have some great insights about these changing tools and trends, ranging from social media algorithms to augmented reality. Read on for some helpful tips.

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Whether you realize it or not, artificial intelligence has become a ubiquitous part of our lives. Companies large and small are embracing the opportunity to achieve more and set bigger goals by using AI. Solid proof of this embrace can be seen in CRM giant Salesforce, which embeds AI into its leading CRM platform. Driven by the idea of democratizing AI so companies of all sizes can deliver smarter, more personalized, and predictive customer experiences, Salesforce created Einstein, your personal AI data scientist to guide you through your day.

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Various pull-up exercises for the upper body, arms and core.

You can improve your bowling score with a few simple game-changing techniques. Learn those and so much more in this brief guide designed for the alley.

At this year's Euronaval show outside of Paris, MBDA is showing off the latest version of its venerable Exocet anti-ship missile. The new submarine-launched SM40 boasts greatly increased range and targeting capabilities.

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Category: Military, Technology

Tags: Missile Defense

(Telecompaper) The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has opened a consultation on a Draft Numbering Plan that proposes a number of changes...

Google will be changing how it handles the first-party cookie controls on AdSense sites. Google said, "We're making some changes to how first-party cookies are managed in your AdSense account to simplify controls and improve your access to third-party demand."

Google has combined the controls for enabling "first-party cookies" and "first-party cookies for personalization" into a single control.

Turning on the new control will enable first-party cookies for the publisher, share it with demand sources, and enable all usages including personalization, Google explained.

The new control will be set to your existing personalization setting to aid the transition, Google added.

Google added:

Currently, first-party cookies are shared with Google demand sources (Google Ads, Display & Video 360). Starting no earlier than December 4th, 2024, your first-party cookies will also be shared with Authorized Buyers. However, for the time being, this sharing will not include users in the EEA, Switzerland, UK, California, and some US states.

If you're already using first-party cookies for personalization, sharing with Authorized Buyers will be turned on by default. If you're only using first-party cookies without personalization, sharing will remain off.

Choose whether or not you want to allow first-party cookies from Google on your site, and allow sharing of first-party cookies for personalization with eligible advertising platforms (Google Ads, Display & Video 360, and Authorized Buyers). Allowing first-party cookies from Google may increase your revenue because it enables features like frequency capping on ads and allows ads with a frequency cap to serve on your site. First party cookies for personalization help to show personalized ads to your users when third-party cookies aren't available, which may also increase your revenue.

Cookies are small text files downloaded to a user's browser that can be used to store user information and preferences. Cookies are either first-party (associated with the domain the user is visiting) or third party (associated with a domain that's different from the domain the user is visiting). Google may use first-party cookies when third-party cookies are not available.

Forum discussion at X.

Matthew was a hated tax collector for the occupying Roman Empire. His encounter with Jesus Christ changed him forever. It is this life changing encounter that invites us today to further renew the spirit of our minds about just what is this Christian life anyway!

On this Giving Tuesday 2018, Dr. Nicholas and Dr. Roxanne Louh lay the groundwork for having a generous spirit.

The guys watched John Mulaney's new children's-program-inspired Netflix special, and (spoiler alert) it's hilarious. They discuss the power of taking children seriously, how fear plays deeply into much of our lives, and the power of listening. They close with their Top 5 Children's TV Shows.

Fr. Ted encourages us to keep our moral compasses set firmly on Christ.

As Christians, the Holy Spirit gives us a new perspective on life and that includes what we do with our time, talent, and treasure. In short, everything belongs to God. He gives it all to us as a gift and we're called to offer a portion back to Him in thanksgiving.

Bobby Maddex interviews Dr. James Taylor and Adam Lockridge of St. Raphael Orthodox Online Homeschool. Dr. Taylor is stepping down as director of the school after founding it and running it the past two years. Adam Lockridge will be taking his place and explains his vision for the school.

Fr. Pat looks at the story from Mark 2 of the paralytic being lowered through the roof.

Aim/Purpose: The current study examines the impact of an intervention program to train teachers to collaborate with their students while creating digital games. Background: Teachers seem unable to leverage the potential of ICT to present students with a rich learning environment. ICT integration is usually at a relatively simple and concrete level without changing the traditional teacher-student paradigm. Methodology: The study is both quantitative and qualitative. Participants were 63 active teachers studying in the M.Ed. program at a teacher education college. The teachers responded to a series of pre- and post-questionnaires and wrote a concluding reflection. Contribution: Teaching based on creating digital games, combined with teacher-class collaboration, is a viable and real alternative of constructivist teaching, adapted to different learners. Findings: The SEM path analysis showed that it was only after the intervention that the lower the teachers’ resistance to changing teaching patterns, the higher their intrinsic motivation to learn an innovative pedagogical-technological program and likewise the sense of mastery of 21st-century skills, resulting in a positive attitude towards classroom collaboration. The qualitative findings reveal eight categories dealing with two main themes: the first is professional development, including conceptual, behavioral and emotional change, and the second is the teachers’ perception of the learners. Recommendations for Practitioners: Teacher training should be ongoing in order to change teaching-learning processes and promote an active approach based on constructive principles, 21st-century skills and collaboration between teachers and students in a computer environment. Recommendation for Researchers: Future studies should start by sampling teachers and education professionals who have convenient access to technology in their teaching-learning environment. Impact on Society: Collaboration between teachers and students in creating learning games in a computer environment and teacher-class collaboration, in general, require very different training than that which exists today. Hence there should be some rethinking of teacher training. The proposed pedagogical model is one such idea in the right direction. Future Research: A larger study with a greater number of participants, including a control group, should be conducted.

Open data is becoming increasingly important in research. While individual researchers are slowlybecoming aware of the value, funding agencies are taking the lead by requiring data be made available, and also by requiring data management plans to ensure the data is available in a useable form. Some journals also require that data be made available. However, in most cases, “available upon request” is considered sufficient. We describe a number of historical examples of data use and discovery, then describe two current test cases at the University of New Mexico. The lessons learned suggest that an instituional data services program needs to not only facilitate fulfilling the mandates of granting agencies but to realize the true value of open data. Librarians and institutional archives should actively collaborate with their researchers. We should also work to find ways to make open data enhance a researchers career. In the long run, better quality data and metadata will result if researchers are engaged and willing participants in the dissemination of their data.

Aim/Purpose: This paper investigates the changing paradigms for technical skills that are needed by Data Engineers in 2018. Background: A decade ago, data engineers needed technical skills for Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS), such as Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server. With the advent of Hadoop and NoSQL Databases in recent years, Data Engineers require new skills to support the large distributed datastores (Big Data) that currently exist. Job demand for Data Scientists and Data Engineers has increased over the last five years. Methodology: This research methodology leveraged the Pig programming language that used MapReduce software located on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud. Data was collected from 100 Indeed.com job advertisements during July of 2017 and then was uploaded to the AWS Cloud. Using MapReduce, phrases/words were counted and then sorted. The sorted phrase / word counts were then leveraged to create the list of the 20 top skills needed by a Data Engineer based on the job advertisements. This list was compared to the 20 top skills for a Data Engineer presented by Stitch that surveyed 6,500 Data Engineers in 2016. Contribution: This paper presents a list of the 20 top technical skills required by a Data Engineer.

This study investigates cross-border commercial air passenger traffic in Africa, focusing on the development of the 15 busiest country pairs during the period 1989 to 2015. It explores dimensions not previously studied by using ICAO's 'Traffic by Flight Stage' (TFS) and data from the CEPII Gravity Dataset. The spatial results show on an uneven geographical distribution of country pairs with the centre of gravity to South, East and North-East Africa, with one long-distance corridor between Egypt and South Africa. Countries in North and West Africa have rather few linkages, except for Egypt. Central African countries are not represented among the 15 country pairs. Although the number of passengers and the rank among the countries have shifted, South Africa and Egypt stand out, as having most country pair connections. Factors such as changing economic, diplomatic and political relations have had an influence on changing country pair connections throughout the period. A number of variables were selected to investigate how they correlated with Africa's commercial passenger traffic. Of the seven variables selected, five did show on a correlation and two did partly so. In that view, Africa's air traffic follows rather typical patterns.

Aim/Purpose: This article aimed to design and evaluate a pedagogical technique for altering students’ classroom digital multitasking behaviors. The technique we designed and evaluated is called course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE). With this technique, the students wrote a research article based on a multitasking experiment that the instructor conducted with the students. The students conducted a literature review, developed their own research questions, they analyzed experiment data, and presented results. This study evaluated the how the CURE contributed to student multitasking behavior change. Background: Multitasking is defined as doing more than one thing at a time. Multitasking is really the engagement in individual and discrete tasks that are performed in succession. Research showed that students multitasked very often during courses. Researchers indicated that this was a problem especially for online teaching, because when students went online, they tended to multitask. Extant research indicated that digital multitasking in class harmed student performance. Multiple studies suggested that students who multitasked spent more time finishing their tasks and made more mistakes. Regardless of students’ gender or GPA, students who multitasked in class performed worse and got a lower grade than those who did not. However, little is known about how to change students’ digital multitasking behaviors. In this study, we used the transtheoretical model of behavior change to investigate how our pedagogical technique (CURE) changed students’ digital multitasking behaviors. Methodology: Using a course-based undergraduate research experience design, a new classroom intervention was designed and evaluated through a content analysis of pre- and post-intervention student reflections. As part of the course-based undergraduate research experience design, the students conducted a literature review, developed their own research questions, they analyzed experiment data, and presented results. This study evaluated the how teaching using a course-based undergraduate research experience contributed to student multitasking behavior change. Transtheoretical model of behavior change was used to investigate how our pedagogical technique changed students’ digital multitasking behaviors. Contribution: The paper described how teaching using a course-based undergraduate research experience can be used in practice. Further, it demonstrated the utility of this technique in changing student digital multitasking behaviors. This study contributed to constructivist approaches in education. Other unwanted student attitudes and behaviors can be changed using this approach to learning. Findings: As a result of CURE teaching, a majority of students observed the negative aspects of multitasking and intended to change their digital multitasking behaviors. Sixty-one percent of the participants experienced attitude changes, namely increased negative attitude towards multitasking in class. This is important because research found that while both students and instructors believed off-task technology use hinders learning, their views differed significantly, with more instructors than students feeling strongly that students’ use of technology in class is a problem. Moreover, our study showed that with teaching using CURE, it is possible to move the students on the ladder of change as quickly as within one semester (13 weeks). Seventy-one percent of the students reported moving to a higher stage of change post-intervention. Recommendations for Practitioners: Faculty wishing to curb student digital multitasking behaviors may conduct in-class experimentation with multitasking and have their students write a research report on their findings. Course-based undergraduate research experiences may make the effects of digital multitasking more apparent to the students. The students may become more aware of their own multitasking behaviors rather than doing them habitually. This technique is also recommended for those instructors who would like to introduce academic careers as a potential career option to their students. Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers should explore changing other unwanted undergraduate student behaviors with course-based undergraduate experiences. Researchers may use the transtheoretical model of change to evaluate the effectiveness of techniques used to change behaviors. Impact on Society: The negative outcomes of digital multitasking are not confined to the classroom. Digital multitasking impacts productivity in many domains. If techniques such as those used in this article become more common, changes in multitasking intentions could show broad improvements in productivity across many fields. Future Research: This paper constitutes a pilot study due to the small convenience sample that is used for the study. Future research should replicate this study with larger and randomized samples. Further investigation of the CURE technique can improve its effectiveness or reduce the instructor input while attaining the same behavioral changes.

As evidenced by recent legislation and media attention, eradicating gender inequity in the workforce is of significant importance today. However, this interest in justice stands in bold contrast to the continued wage gap, the steady number of gender discrimination suits filed, and the plethora of cases exposed in the media. Previous data collected in 2006 suggests that university students do not perceive gender discrimination as a threat of major significance to themselves or others. University students tend to minimize or even disregard the likelihood that they will witness or experience gender bias or discrimination in their career. The current study serves as a continuation of and a comparison to the 2006 study, with the goal of determining whether the perspective of university students has shifted, or whether they continue to consider themselves to be immune to the injustice of gender discrimination at work. Our findings suggest that students in this cohort are not only more acutely aware of these issues, but that this awareness has expanded to include increased concern over gender discrimination against men as well. The reluctance of students to believe that they personally will be unaffected by gender discrimination has been and continues to be surprisingly high.

In order to acquire resources, new ventures need to be perceived as legitimate. For this to occur, a venture must meet the expectations of various audiences with differing norms, standards, and values as the venture evolves and grows. We investigate how the organizational identity of a technology venture must adapt to meet the expectations of critical resource providers at each stage of its organizational life cycle. In so doing, we provide a temporal perspective on the interactions between identity, organizational legitimacy, institutional environments, and entrepreneurial resource acquisition for technology ventures. The core assertion from this conceptual analysis is that entrepreneurial ventures confront multiple legitimacy thresholds as they evolve and grow. We identify and discuss three key insights related to entrepreneurs' efforts to cross those thresholds at different organizational life cycle stages: institutional pluralism, venture-identity embeddedness and legitimacy buffering.

Pakistan needs to capitalise on the demand in exports of sports goods as it had in the past.

Our bro Felix Prangenberg recently shot a small documentary about a typical day in his life for wethepeople BMX. So if you always wanted to know how Felix spends the morning, sessions his BMX or the Wethepeople headquarters look like, then you've come to the right place!

Have fun with the video, your kunstform BMX Shop Team!

Video: David Schaller

Related links:

• all signature parts of Felix Prangenberg
• all products of kunstform

The IALE 2013 European Congress "Changing European Landscapes: Landscape ecology, local to global" will take place on 9-12 September 2013, in Manchester, UK. This major international event, organised by IALE UK and IALE Europe, will examine how and why European landscapes are changing and how landscape ecology can help us to plan for the future at local to global scales. It will consider local projects alongside international programmes and provide many opportunities for researchers, policy makers and practitioners to interact. The congress will have a European focus but we look forward to welcoming participants from around the world.

More information and how to register find here.

We sat down with Jim Koch to talk about his company’s newest big release, Samuel Adams American Light, which is already earning accolades.

The post Q&A: Boston Beer Co.’s Jim Koch on sticking to beer, and changing consumer tastes appeared first on Boston.com.

Perhaps there’s more money in saving our resources than there is to burn them up recklessly for profit as we have done throughout time.

Over the past three decades I have met all sorts of Drywall Dogs.

One thing is clear: Silicon Valley is high on the future of construction technology.

The growing global market for the light gauge steel framing industry.

State legislatures are enacting consumer data privacy laws, which provide consumers with more choice over how companies acquire and utilize their personal data.

AVS-01 standardizes a classification metric for unauthorized human activity detected by alarm systems, helping law enforcement allocate resources and response prioritization.