BIS Press Release - Easing trade tensions lift sentiment: BIS Quarterly Review, 8 December 2019

Police say efforts to find the driver of an abandoned car in Kings County last week likely saved his life.

Here is what you should know as Quebec loosens travel restrictions in some regions.

Sheltering in place doesn’t mean you have to give up the best of wine country's offerings

Making Tierra Mía, says the director of the Smithsonian Latino Center, proved transformative in giving voice to the people

Shopify has unveiled an app that lets users discover local businesses, receive relevant product recommendations from their favorite brands, check out effortlessly, and track all their online orders. It can gather and track orders automatically, but it also works without auto-tracking. Consumers can get a customized feed with deals, trending items and recommendations from their favorite stores.

Some Prince Edward Islanders are raising concerns about returning to work under the province's plan to ease back COVID-19 restrictions, but if they choose to stay home they could lose financial support from the federal government.

If the NBA can't salvage the remainder of the season, Terence Davis said he won't be sad for the illustrious complete rookie year that could have been. But he would rue a missed post-season run.

Visions 2020: Nydia Han and 6abc celebrates Asian Pacific American Heritage Month - 6abc  WPVI-TV

Inside Pic: Can You Identify Madhuri Dixit In This Throwback Picture with Her Sister?  సాక్షి

Soccer's international governing body says it will maintain funding for women's soccer despite concerns about the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

CONCACAF president Victor Montagliani says the global pandemic will result in a change in World Cup qualifying for the region that covers North and Central America and the Caribbean.

The programmed supply reduction could potentially bring a supply shock and large price implications.

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Waterloo regional police have charged three people and identified a suspect in a fatal February hit and run on Highland Rd. W.

The Ottawa Senators have named Anthony LeBlanc as their president of business operations. LeBlanc was most recently a founding partner of Schooner Sports and Entertainment, a group trying to bring a CFL team to Halifax.

Laurent Duvernay-Tardif and the Kansas City Chiefs have agreed to a restructured deal for the Canadian offensive lineman.

A Quebec-born Super Bowl champion is making the move from the offensive line to the medical front line.

Visits to long-term care homes and some retirement homes across B.C. have been restricted due to the COVID-19 pandemic — and one senior says life inside is very challenging.

An idea that began when a classicist went to a brewery to sip beers and ponder the history of hops has brought to life an ancient ale.

Gus has been captivating visitors to the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History for more than seven decades.

Laura Chouinard's encounter with the runaway ox had her gripped by fear. But in the midst of the battle she resolved, "I am not going to die today."

Where are they from? Why are they there? Crates full of steel-toe boots showed up at the Yellowknife dump last week. Now they're almost gone.

The memento mori of two friends.

For 10 years she was forced into prostitution by her husband. With the help of OM Mexico, Rocio is now building a new life.

Two villages. 207 New Testaments. Countless steps. The Transform team walk from home to home, sustained by prayer.

OM Hungary works alongside partner organisations to bring comfort and Jesus’ love to refugees in Budapest.

Kevin Khungay played high school basketball. His friend's older brother Sunny Basran was his coach. Years later, their unique designs are worn by some of the sports biggest stars.

The Coldwater band is calling for federal intervention after Trans Mountain announced it was changing the way it would study the aquifer the First Nation relies on for its drinking water.

Let go last week after a decade-long run with skip Rachel Homan's Ottawa-based rink, lead Lisa Weagle has joined Team Jennifer Jones, which will operate with five members.

The World Curling Federation announced Thursday it is proposing to the International Olympic Committee that the 2021 world curling championships will determine which countries will book their tickets to Beijing 2022.

The time was right for Lisa Weagle to join forces with Olympic champion Jennifer Jones. Jones told CBC Sports' Anastasia Bucsis that the latest addition to her five-person rink "was like the clouds parted and the sun came out."

Normal life is slowly resuming as the city of Hamilton begins to relax tight measures set in place because of COVID-19. Mayor Fred Eisenberger said now it's up to the public to help the city move in the right direction by continuing to stay two metres apart from each other and be cautious.

Quantifying RNA is an important and necessary step before most RNA analysis techniques. Methods for quantifying RNA can be classified into two categories: ultraviolet (UV) spectrophotometric methods, which are based on the absorption spectra of the purine and pyrimidine bases; and fluorescent dye-based methods, which measure the fluorescence intensity of dyes that selectively fluoresce when bound to nucleic acids. If the RNA sample is pure (i.e., without significant amounts of contaminants such as proteins, phenol, agarose, or other nucleic acids), UV spectrophotometric measurement of the amount of UV irradiation absorbed by the bases is simple and accurate. However, if the sample contains significant quantities of impurities or if the concentration of RNA is very low, it is better to use fluorescent dye-based methods. An overview of spectrophotometric and fluorescent dye-based RNA quantification methods is given here, as are several options for storing purified RNA preparations. Proper storage of RNA samples is important; it can help minimize RNase contamination and consequent sample degradation.

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The post SOLIDWORKS Electrical Formula SAE Tutorial: Assigning, Creating and Modifying Manufacturer Part appeared first on SOLIDWORKS Education Blog.

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The post Building Careers and Appreciating Teachers with SOLIDWORKS Certification appeared first on SOLIDWORKS Education Blog.

Bank of Italy Working Papers by Andrea Gazzani and Alejandro Vicondoa

“If people saw this, they would stay home.” What the war against the coronavirus looks like inside two Bronx hospitals.

“I just went down on my knees,” his mother recalled later. “I just implored God for mercy.”

The 2020 Special Olympics Summer Games, slated for June 11 to 13, are being canceled due to concerns related to coronavirus. The games will shift to virtual events, with details to be announced in the near future.

Last March, analysts and tech bloggers dumped out arrogant contempt over Apple's latest product introduction. This year, those new offerings helped save Apple's Q2 earnings and are projected to bolster its June quarter performance despite the pandemic.

Apple is shifting a substantial portion of its current AirPods production from China to Vietnam, and appears to be considering a release schedule later than previously predicted for an AirPods refresh.

Apple's upcoming reopening of some U.S.-based retail locations will be based around guidelines that the company developed for and refined at its open South Korea Apple Store.

At 33, Igor, from Serbia, was sick, jobless and homeless. But one winter night he met Jesus. Now he serves God with OM in Montenegro.

After making friends at OM's English Cafe, Igor shares with them how he came from a similar background but was freed from despair when he met Jesus.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 7, 2020 / 10:48 am (CNA).- A Catholic nurse said the coronavirus pandemic has presented challenges she has never encountered before—and that a prayer life is critical to get her through her shift.

“If I don’t have my faith in me, I cannot give what I don’t have,” said Maria Arvonio, a registered nurse for almost 40 years and a board member of the National Association of Catholic Nurses. 

As the current night shift supervisor at Virtua Willingboro Medical Center in southern New Jersey—a COVID-19 “hot spot,” she says—Arvonio told CNA she and her colleagues were facing a new kind of disease.

Over the decades she has had experience treating previous diseases including the AIDS epidemic, before which nurses didn’t wear gloves. “I’m still standing—that is God,” she said.

Yet the new coronavirus pandemic is something unprecedented, she admitted. “It’s different in that it appears that no matter what we’re doing, it seems to just multiply,” she said.

As she treats COVID-19 patients, Arvonio told CNA that she leans on her prayer life to lead the team of nurses at the hospital.

“I cannot help those other nurses stand strong, if they look at me and I look afraid. Why would they want us to continue to work? I cannot show fear,” she said.

“I start my job with prayer. Before I even go into the workplace, I’ve already been either doing the rosary with someone, praying ‘Jesus, come and seal me in your most Precious Blood, Blessed Mother help me,’” Arvonio said.

Arvonio was one of several nurses to appear at the White House on Wednesday for National Nurses Day, and told President Trump of her experience treating patients in a COVID-19 “hot zone.” New Jersey has been one of the hardest-hit states by the virus, with nearly 132,000 confirmed cases and more than 8,500 deaths.

Treating the person, and not just the sickness, is part of the mission of nurses, she said at the event. “It’s not just our science, it’s our compassion.”

In an interview with CNA after her White House appearance, Arvonio said she pressed an official close to the President on the need for the administration to push for more access to COVID patients by hospital chaplains.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has reportedly been working on guidelines for restarting religious services as states begin to loosen stay-at-home restrictions. CNA reported that on April 28 and 29, officials from the White House domestic policy council and the CDC had discussed the matter with four Catholic bishops who are resuming public Masses.

New Jersey, Arvonio said, has allowed golf courses and liquor stores to be open, but Catholics do not have public Mass. “That’s a problem,” she said.

The spiritual needs of the COVID-19 patients are just as real as their physical needs, she said. As a board member of the National Association of Catholic Nurses, U.S.A., Arvonio says that organization’s mission is critical now more than ever, to emphasize caring for the spiritual needs of patients. 

In the case of one patient who was heading to hospice, a priest could only talk to her remotely, on Zoom.

“She was in tears, an elderly woman worried to leave on hospice because her priest wasn’t there to give her the last rites. This is wrong! This is our right as a Catholic!” Arvonio said.

For some hospitals, chaplains cannot administer the sacramental anointing because of a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) available for them. Yet, Arvonio said, she has seen staff wearing PPE in situations where it’s not necessary.

“Look at how we’re using our equipment and give it to the essential personnel, which is the priest,” she said. “We need him in the hospital more than ever.”

“We need to start thinking about getting the spiritual care back to these patients. They need their priests, they need their pastor.”

She has started making care packages for patients to provide something tangible in the absence of the sacraments; for one patient she assembled a care bag with holy water, blessed oil, and plastic rosaries. “I said ‘he’s not alone. God always has somebody for every person,” she said.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 8, 2020 / 03:10 pm (CNA).- The Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, said that the Church must return to “normal life” after the governor announced plans to ban large gatherings until a COVID-19 vaccine or treatment is available.

Earlier in the week, the state’s Governor JB Pritzker unveiled a five-phase “Restore Illinois” plan that bans gatherings of more than 50 people until a vaccine or treatment is available, or the virus has stopped spreading for a sustained period of time. Health officials have said that a vaccine for the new coronavirus (COVID-19) might not be available for 12 to 18 months. 

Currently, people in the state are allowed to attend religious services of 10 or fewer people, but no gatherings of more than 10 people are permitted until phase 4 of Pritzker’s plan, and the state wouldn’t even be able to “advance” to phase 3 until May 29.

“The Church has certainly done her part in making great sacrifices to slow the spread of this virus,” Andrew Hansen, director of communications for the diocese of Springfield, Illinois, told CNA on Friday.

“That said, the Church must return to her normal life of liturgy and communal worship,” Hansen said, while emphasizing precautions such as social distancing “will likely be the appropriate path longer term for the return to some version of normalcy for the Church.”

Previously, in-person or drive-in religious services were banned in the state. The Thomas More Society filed a lawsuit on behalf of a church in Lena, Ill., on April 30. Later that evening a paragraph was added to the governor’s executive order allowing for people to leave their homes to attend religious services of ten or fewer people, the society’s president Peter Breen told CNA.

The next day, May 1, the archdiocese of Chicago announced it would be resuming public Masses with 10 or fewer people.

According to the “Restore Illinois” plan, there could not be any gathering of between 11 and 50 people in size until phase 4 of the plan—“Revitalization.”

That phase can start only when certain conditions have been met: the positivity rate of COVID tests is at or under 20% and doesn’t rise by more than 10 points over 14 days; hospital admissions don’t increase for 28 days; and hospitals have at least 14% “surge capacity” in ICU beds, medical and surgical beds, and ventilators.

Pitzker clarified in a Wednesday press conference that religious services would be part of this 50-person limit in phase 4, and schools would not be allowed to reopen until then, raising questions of how tuition-dependent Catholic schools might fare in the fall if remote learning is still widely utilized.

The state’s superintendent of education has said that at least some schools might have to begin the new school year with remote learning, or with students attending classes in-person only on certain days.

“So we continue to hope and pray schools will reopen next school year. Certainly, when our schools reopen, new measures and precautions will be in place,” Hansen told CNA.

The president of DePaul University, located in Chicago, announced earlier this week that the university already plans to “minimize our footprint on campus this fall,” and that an announcement of the fall plans could happen by June 15.

Purifying and culturing cells from the central nervous system (CNS) has proved to be an incredibly powerful tool for dissecting fundamental neuron and glial properties, and especially powerful in understanding neuronal–glial interactions. In a series of detailed protocols, we have provided step-by-step instructions for purifying and culturing specific types of neurons, glia, and vascular cells from the CNS by immunopanning. This article discusses common pitfalls and errors as well as important design considerations for the immunopanning procedure.