READING COMPREHENSION FOR F.C.

The Man Booker PrizeInstructions: Read through the text, answer the questions that follow, then click on 'Grade Me!' to view your score The Man Booker Prize The Man Booker Prize for Fiction is awarded every year for a novel written by a writer from the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland and it aims to represent the very best in contemporary fiction. The prize was originally called the Booker-McConnell Prize, which was the name of the company that sponsored it, though it was better-known as simply the ‘Booker Prize’. In 2002, the Man Group became the sponsor and they chose the new name, keeping ‘Booker’. Publishers can submit books for consideration for the prize, but the judges can also ask for books to be submitted they think should be included. Firstly, the Advisory Committee give advice if there have been any changes to the rules for the prize and selects the people who will judge the books. The judging panel changes every year and usually a person is only a judge once. Great efforts are made to ensure that the judging panel is balanced in terms of gender and professions within the industry, so that a writer, a critic, an editor and an academic are chosen along with a well-known person from wider society. However, when the panel of judges has been finalized, they are left to make their own decisions without any further involvement or interference from the prize sponsor. The Man Booker judges include critics, writers and academics to maintain the consistent quality of the prize and its influence is such that the winner will almost certainly see the sales increase considerably , in addition to the £50,000 that comes with the prize. Questions Q1 - The Republic of Ireland is in the Commonwealth. is not in the Commonwealth. can't enter the Man Booker Prize. joined the Booker prize in 2002. Q2 - The Man group was forced to keep the name 'Booker'. decided to include the name 'Booker'. decided to keep the name 'Booker-McConnell'. decided to use only the name 'Booker'. Q3 - Books can be submitted by publishers. by writers. by judges. by the sponsors. Q4 - Who advises on changes to the rules? The sponsors The judging panel The advisory panel Publishers Q5 - The judging panel doesn't include women. includes only women. is only chosen from representatives of the industry. includes someone from outside the industry. Q6 - The sponsors of the prize are involved in choosing the winner. are involved in choosing the judges. are not involved at all. choose the academic for the panel of judges. Q7 - The consistent quality of the prize is guaranteed by the prize money. is guaranteed by the gender of the judges. is guaranteed by the make-up of the panel of judges. is guaranteed by the increase in sales of the winner.

POLAR VORTEX

Polar vortex: temperatures drop below freezing in all 50 US states• Rare nationwide chill will persist for at least another day • Cutting winds and blizzards posing the most danger Share 1058 inShare.9Email Joanna Walters in New York The Guardian, Tuesday 7 January 2014 23.15 GMT Jump to comments (…) At least six deaths have been reported across the country due to the polar air mass sweeping over North America, producing the coldest temperatures in two decades Temperatures in all 50 US states dipped below freezing on Tuesday in a rare nationwide chill that will keep a grip on much of the country for at least another day, with cutting winds and blizzards posing the most danger. Florida, a state that normally basks in its reputation as a warm winter escape, experienced unusually low temperatures. In the midwest, northeast and eastern Canada, it was dangerous to venture outside. At some point on Tuesday, at least one location in each of the 50 US states recorded temperatures below freezing, with the highest point on Hawaii, Mauna Kea, recording a temperature of 21F (-6C). The so-called polar vortex that funnelled an Arctic low pressure system into the upper US this week swung south and east on Tuesday. Polar conditions settled over two-thirds of the US. It was colder in the southern state of Georgia than Alaska as Atlanta plunged to 6F (-14C) – the lowest temperature since 1966 – while Anchorage, Alaska, recorded 27F (-3C) . Wind chills were recorded around -60F in parts of Michigan, Minnesota, Montana and New Hampshire. In northern Illinois, 500 Amtrak passengers spent the night on board three trains stranded in snow. The trains – the Southwest Chief from Los Angeles, the Illinois Zephyr from Quincy and the California Zephyr from the San Francisco Bay area – got stuck after 3pm Monday in blowing, drifting snow and ice that made the tracks impassable. The passengers were being bussed to their destinations on Tuesday. The National Weather Service issued a blizzard warning for Western New York state, particularly along a line from Buffalo to Batavia. Accumulations of up to two feet were predicted. “Dangerously cold wind chills will pose a risk for frost bite and hypothermia for anyone outside for even very short periods of time. This is a life- threatening cold for those not in shelter,” the NWS said. A “weather whiplash” sent temperatures in New York plunging 50 degrees fahrenheit. At lunchtime on Monday, it was 55F (13C) in Central Park; 24 hours later it was 5F (-15C). Authorities around the country have so far reported at least 14 weather-related deaths since last Friday, mostly resulting from traffic accidents. It was so cold in Kentucky on Monday that an escaped prisoner turned himself in. Robert Vick, 42, escaped from a minimum-security prison on Sunday, the Associated Press reported, but as temperatures dropped through the floor on Monday he walked into a motel and asked the clerk to call the police so he could escape the freezing air. Lexington police said Vick was checked by paramedics and returned to Blackburn correctional complex. Authorities at Toronto airport halted flights at Pearson international airport on Tuesday morning because the extreme cold was causing equipment to freeze. In all, more than 3,700 flights were canceled by late Monday afternoon, following a weekend of travel disruption across the US and southern Canada. Across the region, airline officials said de-icing fluid was freezing, fuel was pumping sluggishly, and ramp workers were having difficulty loading and unloading luggage. JetBlue Airways stopped all scheduled flights to and from New York and Boston on Monday. Southwest ground to a halt in Chicago earlier in the day, but by the evening, flights resumed in "a trickle", a spokesman said. Residents of south-east states were shocked to find the temperatures so low. “This is severely cold for these parts, a rare event,” said Brian Lynn, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Georgia. Farther south in Pensacola, Florida – a Gulf Coast city better known for its white sand beaches than frost – streets normally filled with joggers, bikers and people walking dogs were deserted on Tuesday. Monica Anderson and Tommy Howard jumped up and down and blew on their hands while they waited for a bus, struggling to stay warm. Anderson said she couldn't recall it ever being so cold. "I'm not used to it. It is best just to stay inside until it gets better," said Anderson, who had to get out for an early morning appointment with her doctor. Citrus growers in Florida reported that so far the low temperatures had not lasted long enough to spoil their fruit crops – and a sharp drop followed by a rise on the thermometer could even make the current orange crop sweeter. The Tennessee Valley Authority, the biggest public utility in the South, said preliminary figures showed demand for electricity Tuesday morning reached the second-highest winter peak in the history of the Depression-era TVA. PJM Interconnection, which operates the power grid that supplies more than 61 million people in the mid-Atlantic states, the midwest and south, asked users to conserve electricity because of the cold.

POWER OUTAGES - BLACKOUTS

Power cuts are becoming more and more frequent. Large-scale, supraregional blackouts are increasingly a realistic scenario. Even small outages can have disastrous effects on unprepared businesses. Download PDF 769.27 KB Energy Risks - the dangers of power cuts and blackouts Many companies are unprepared for business disruptions caused by power blackouts, and are often unaware of the true costs and impact that they can have on their operations. While the majority of power failures from national grids last only a few hours, some blackouts can last days or even weeks, completely shutting down production at companies and critical infrastructures such as telecommunication networks, financial services, water supplies and hospitals. Furthermore, it is likely that power blackouts will become more frequent owing to the lack of incentives to invest in aged national grid infrastructures in Europe and the US, as well as the fact that energy from decentralized, “volatile” renewable sources is not well aligned to work on electricity grids that were designed 50 or 60 years ago. Also, as more and more grids are interconnected, a blackout in one region can trigger a domino effect that could result in supra-regional blackouts. Heightened risk from terrorism, cyber attacks and solar flares also highlights how vulnerable the world’s energy grids are to systemic failure. Research shows that the financial impacts of even a small power cut can be catastrophic. Analyses from blackout events in the US show that a 30-minute power cut results in an average loss of US$15,709 for medium and large industrial clients, and nearly US$94,000 for an eight-hour interruption. Even short blackouts – which occur several times a year in the US – add up to an annual estimated economic loss of between US$104 and US$164 billion. Power outage risks frequent in emerging markets Larry Hunter, Risk Engineer at Allianz Global Corpo rate & Specialty (AGCS) in Houston, says that “while organizations may feel that the likelihood of power outages is beyond their control, they should still assess the impact that an electrical blackout could have on their operations and important machinery, so that they can review and determine whether they have the right controls in place to help mitigate the risk.” The most frequent brownouts (reduction in the volt age) and blackouts occur in emerging economies which have typically underinvested in their energy infrastructures, and which are also prone to serious weather and natural hazards. For example, Latin America has one of the lowest number of power outages, but they last the longest on average. South Asia, on the other hand, has the highest number of power outages per year, although they usually last only a few hours, the effects are sharply felt. For example, a 12-hour power cut in India in 2001 cut off electricity to 226 million people, caused chaos on the rail system and paralyzed major utilities and hospitals. Some countries are trying to address the immediate failings in their national grids by asking consumers to use less electricity. Following a series of power blackouts in September 2011 due to a heat wave, South Korea’s government unveiled a set of measures aimed at alleviating pressure on the national grid, including a 10 percent demand cut for large manufacturers and caps on maximum temperatures for commercial buildings and on the use of neon signs. Other countries are facing the problem of trying to meet energy demands while changing their fuel source. In the US, for instance, a proposal to force California’s two nuclear power plants – which generate 16 percent of the state’s electricity – to shut down immediately when the Nuclear Waste Act of 2012 becomes law, would cause rolling blackouts, spikes in electricity rates and billions of dollars in economic losses each year, according to the state’s nonpartisan analyst, the Legislative Analyst’s Office, in November. Germany is planning to close down all its nuclear reactors by 2022. At present, atomic energy accounts for around a quarter of the country’s power supply, but the government hopes that renewable energies will account for 35 percent of national power by 2020. However, the transition is unlikely to be smooth: Germany’s network regulator, known as the Bundesnetzagentur, believes that the exit from nuclear power will increase blackout risk, particularly in Southern Germany which relies heavily on nuclear power, has comparatively high industrial energy demand and is already prone to grid instability.

FOR PUBLIC TRANSLATORS actus reus and sleepwalking

Actus Reus & Voluntariness According to the criminal law, a crime requires voluntariness or, in other words, a muscular contraction that is willed. Only fully willed actions can incur criminal liability, and without voluntariness no actus reus - and so also no crime - can be said to occur. For example, if Al hits Ed after being insulted, then the action is clearly voluntary and willed, and Ed could bring aggravated assault charges against Al. However, if the two men are in a vehicle which swerves suddenly, involuntarily causing Al's outstretched arm to strike Ed's nose, then no actus reus is present and Ed will probably have to take care of his own hospital bill. Likewise, if Sue takes Al's arm and throws it in Ed's face, it will probably be ruled that Al committed no actus reus (the guilty action came from Sue, it would seem). Actus reus still exists if the defendant is threatened or in some other way coerced into performing a criminal action. If Dan intimidates Chris into robbing convenience store with the threat of death, Chris could argue that criminal intent (mens rea) was absent and the act was performed under duress; the action was voluntary, however, and so actus reus is present. On the other hand, if Chris was sleepwalking when he robbed the convenience store, it might be argued, with the automatism defense, that his actions were completely involuntary and that no actus reus occurred. Sometimes criminal offenses that occur while the defendant is suffering an epileptic fit (a decidedly involuntary affliction) can merit the automatism defense. A person suffering from an epileptic fit is not acting voluntarily, and cannot, strictly speaking, incur criminal liability for what his body does during the fit. However, if the defendant places himself in a potentially dangerous situation - for example, behind the wheel - while reasonably suspecting he might suffer a fit he can still be found liable for criminal offenses under the precept of "should have known better." He voluntarily placed himself in a situation dangerous to himself and others. Similarly, if the defendant voluntarily allowed herself to be hypnotized before committing a crime, she could still be held liable for her actions. It is absolutely essential for the actus reus requirement that the defendant's actions were voluntary and willed, including voluntarily placing himself in a situation where he might involuntarily cause harm. No matter how strongly an injured party may object to it, it is absolutely against the principles of the United States criminal law system to punish people for actions that they did not intend and could not have foreseen. Scott Falater admits that in January 1997 he stabbed his wife forty-four times and drowned her in the swimming pool at their Arizona home. 1 Police struggled to find a motive for the crime. 2 Falater claims to have no recollection of the murder and believes he is not culpable for the crime because he was asleep when he killed his wife. 3 At Falater's trial, an expert in sleep disorders testified that Falater's defense that he was sleepwalking during the killing was possible. 4 Sleepwalking, also known as somnambulism, is a sleep disorder in which sleepers rise from their beds and perform various tasks while still asleep. 5 Occasionally, sleepwalkers commit crimes. 6 Scott Falater is not the first criminal defendant to raise sleepwalking in defense of his actions. 7 The defense of sleepwalking is rarely asserted, and there exists little case law on the subject, leaving courts and criminal defendants little or no precedent as guidance for applying the defense. 8 There has been inconsistency among courts faced with sleepwalking defenses; there are currently three different sleepwalking defenses and no objective criteria for evaluating a defendant's claim of sleep-walking. 9 Criminal defendants raising the defense of sleepwalking face the possibility of arbitrary and unprecedented judicial decisions due to a lack of statutory, common-law, and scholarly precedent on the sleepwalking defense. 10

how to ruin your career with twitter or facbk

How To Ruin Your Career Using Twitter And Facebook By Amanda C. Haury on July 25, 2012 A A A Filed Under: Corporate Culture, Social Media, Twitter In today's technologically savvy age, much of our affairs are handled online. Social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter have taken the Internet by storm. These sites make it easier to connect with friends, family and colleagues, but there is a dark side to social networking that needs to be taken into consideration. Facebook and Twitter can act as a mouthpiece and, depending on how long your friend list is or how many followers you have, you could be speaking to a very large audience. While many people use social networking casually, it is important to take care with what you post on Facebook and other social networking websites, as it can adversely affect your employment status. Here is a look at some social media practices that can get you into hot water at work. SEE: 4 Companies Behind The Social Media Curtain Inappropriate Photographs You may want to scrutinize any photographs you post to a social networking site before presenting them to the public. Racy or inappropriate photographs could cost you the job that you are applying for if the hiring manager views your social networking activity. The practice of employers checking potential employee's Facebook page for inappropriate photographs has come under major scrutiny. Employers scrutinize photographs on social networking websites because it can give them a glimpse into potential job candidates that they wouldn't see otherwise. A candidate with an unsavory social networking presence is considered a major turn-off to hiring managers. Sharing Protected Information One of the easiest ways to get into trouble at work due to your social networking activity is to share protected employer information with your list of friends or followers. Many people use social networking sites to vent, which often includes spouting off frustrations about their jobs. Unfortunately, if your complaint exposes protected company information, you can easily lose your job. Inflammatory Social Networking Posts Inflammatory posts on social networking sites that target your company, co-workers or your boss can be highly detrimental to your employment status. Slate.com recently released an article that highlights cases where employees were fired for criticizing a co-worker on a social networking website. In some cases, employers discovered the information on their own. In other cases, fellow co-workers brought the issue to the attention of a supervisor. This practice is called infringement against employee harassment regulations, and it can most certainly cost you your job. The First Amendment Won't Save You While the first amendment of the United States Bill of Rights prevents government officials and agencies from stripping you of your right to free speech, it does not apply to private employers. Unfortunately, the things you say on social networking websites can actually be detrimental to your job if you speak of your employer in an bad light, break privacy rules or even if you offend another co-worker with a derogatory post. SEE: Job Applicant Privacy And Social Media The Bottom Line Although social networking is supposed to be fun, we live in an age where we have to be conscientious of what we say at all times. This is especially true if you are friends with work colleagues on social networking websites. Although you are cordial or friendly with these individuals at work, it doesn't mean that he or she wouldn't report you to a member of upper management should one of your posts offend him or her. When it comes to job security, it is wise to consider keeping complaints about your job, company or co-workers offline and out of a public forum. by Amanda C. Haury --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

AN ARGENTINE INVENTOR

Car Mechanic Dreams Up a Tool to Ease Births Diego Giudice for The New York Times With Jorge Odón’s device, a plastic bag inflated around a baby’s head is used to pull it out of the birth canal. By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. Published: November 13, 2013 264 Comments Facebook Twitter Google+ Save E-mail Share Print Reprints The idea came to Jorge Odón as he slept. Somehow, he said, his unconscious made the leap from a YouTube video he had just seen on extracting a lost cork from a wine bottle to the realization that the same parlor trick could save a baby stuck in the birth canal. Enlarge This Image Diego Giudice for The New York Times Mr. Odón’s got the idea from a method to retrieve a cork from a wine bottle. Readers’ Comments Readers shared their thoughts on this article. Read All Comments (264) » Mr. Odón, 59, an Argentine car mechanic, built his first prototype in his kitchen, using a glass jar for a womb, his daughter’s doll for the trapped baby, and a fabric bag and sleeve sewn by his wife as his lifesaving device. Unlikely as it seems, the idea that took shape on his counter has won the enthusiastic endorsement of the World Health Organization and major donors, and an American medical technology company has just licensed it for production. With the Odón Device, an attendant slips a plastic bag inside a lubricated plastic sleeve around the head, inflates it to grip the head and pulls the bag until the baby emerges. Doctors say it has enormous potential to save babies in poor countries, and perhaps to reduce cesarean section births in rich ones. “This is very exciting,” said Dr. Mario Merialdi, the W.H.O.’s chief coordinator for improving maternal and perinatal health and an early champion of the Odón Device. “This critical moment of life is one in which there’s been very little advancement for years.” About 10 percent of the 137 million births worldwide each year have potentially serious complications, Dr. Merialdi said. About 5.6 million babies are stillborn or die quickly, and about 260,000 women die in childbirth. Obstructed labor, which can occur when a baby’s head is too large or an exhausted mother’s contractions stop, is a major factor. In wealthy countries, fetal distress results in a rush to the operating room. In poor, rural clinics, Dr. Merialdi said, “if the baby doesn’t come out, the woman is on her own.” The current options in those cases are forceps — large, rounded pliers — or suction cups attached to the baby’s scalp. In untrained hands, either can cause hemorrhages, crush the baby’s head or twist its spine. Although more testing is planned on the Odón Device, doctors said it appeared to be safe for midwives with minimal training to use. Along the way, it has won research grants from the United States Agency for International Development and from Grand Challenges Canada. “We’ve given out $32 million for 61 different innovations, and this one is the farthest along,” said Dr. Peter A. Singer, the chief executive of Grand Challenges Canada. The device will be manufactured by Becton, Dickinson and Company, or BD, of Franklin Lakes, N.J., which is better known for making syringes. “My first reaction, as soon as I saw it, was positive,” said Gary M. Cohen, the company’s executive vice president for global health. It was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that Dr. Merialdi asked him to consider taking it on. “Many inventions get to the prototype stage, but that’s maybe 15 percent of what needs to be done,” Mr. Cohen said. “There’s finalizing the design for manufacture, quality control, the regulatory work and clinical studies. Absent that, they don’t see the light of day.” So far, the device has been safety-tested only on 30 Argentine women, all of whom were in hospitals, had given birth before and were in normal labor. “I was glad they asked me, because it was for a good cause,” said Luciana Valle, a kindergarten teacher who was 31 two years ago when her son, Matteo, was one of the first babies extracted with the device. Because Matteo weighed almost nine pounds, “it really helped,” she said in a telephone interview. “His head came out on my second push.” The W.H.O. will now oversee tests on 100 more women in normal labor in China, India and South Africa, and then on 170 women in obstructed labor. In a telephone interview from Argentina, Mr. Odón described the origins of his idea. He tinkers at his garage, but his previous inventions were car parts. Seven years ago, he said, employees were imitating a video showing that a cork pushed into an empty bottle can be retrieved by inserting a plastic grocery bag, blowing until it surrounds the cork, and drawing it out. That night, he won a dinner bet on it. At 4 a.m., he woke his wife and told her the idea that had just come to him. (His own children were born without problems, he said, but he has an aunt who suffered nerve damage from birth.) His wife, he recalled, “said I was crazy and went back to sleep.” The next morning, a somewhat skeptical friend introduced him to an obstetrician. “You can imagine these two guys in suits in a waiting room full of pregnant ladies,” he said. The doctor was encouraging, so he kept working. Polyethylene replaced the bag his wife had sewn, and the jar was replaced by a plastic uterus. With the help of a cousin, Mr. Odón met the chief of obstetrics at a major hospital in Buenos Aires. The chief had a friend at the W.H.O., who knew Dr. Merialdi, who, at a 2008 medical conference in Argentina, granted Mr. Odón 10 minutes during a coffee break. The meeting instead lasted two hours. At the end, Dr. Merialdi declared the idea “fantastic” and arranged for testing at the Des Moines University simulation lab, which has mannequins more true-to-life than a doll and a jar. Since then, Mr. Odón has continued to refine the device, patenting each change so he will eventually earn royalties on it. “My daughter said, ‘And now I can have my doll back,’ ” he said. It is too early to know what BD will charge, Mr. Cohen said, but each device should cost less than $50 to make. While the company expects to profit on all sales, it will charge poor countries less. Dr. Merialdi said he endorsed a modest profit motive because he had seen other lifesaving ideas languish for lack of it. He cited magnesium sulfate injections, which can prevent fatal eclampsia, and corticosteroids, which speed lung development in premature infants. “But first, this problem needed someone like Jorge,” he said. “An obstetrician would have tried to improve the forceps or the vacuum extractor, but obstructed labor needed a mechanic. And 10 years ago, this would not have been possible. Without YouTube, he never would have seen the video.”

COMMUNITY SERVICE AS A FORM OF PUNISHMENT

September 1, 2010 Is community service really a punishment? Should it be ordered more? The questions in the title of this post, which I asked my 1L students yesterday, are worth some collective reflection in light of this notable new Slate column headlined "Riches to Rags: What's with all the celebrities serving community service? Do they really help anyone?". Here are excerpts: The modern concept of community service as a punishment began in Great Britain in the late 1960s and has become increasingly popular with judges who find they can be more flexible and humane in punishing offenders unlikely to commit another crime. Those guilty of offenses like shoplifting, writing bad checks, possessing small amounts of illegal drugs, or hurling cell phones, are required to work a certain number of hours for the good of the community, usually in a local nonprofit or government facility. (The judges' rule of thumb: Six hours of work equals one day in jail.)... Whether the work itself is useful or not, this kind of sentencing is certainly helpful to the criminal justice system in a time of budget deficits and overcrowded prisons. (We have more people locked up than any other nation and lead the world in incarceration rates at 751 people in prison or jail for every 100,000 in the population. California may have to release prisoners.) Community service is practical as well as humane. It saves court time because few of these cases go to trial. The charges are generally dismissed once community service is done and the fine paid. The state saves the high cost of a prisoner's daily care. Is community service helpful to the community by making offenders less likely to commit crimes in the future? Sentencing experts point to the good outcomes for young offenders, where time in jail would very likely have made them more dangerous. We'd like to believe older offenders can be transformed by serving their communities, but the few studies on the subject are inconclusive. There's not much evidence that such sentencing significantly reduces recidivism.... Recent examples of celeb community service sentencing bring up the tension that runs throughout our justice system. Is it fair? Not really: The moneyed and better-educated defendant almost invariably does better. A Houston study found whites there were more likely to be assigned community service sentences than blacks. People with money can hire a skilled lawyer likely to convince a judge that community service is appropriate. In fact, it's often the defense attorney who proposes the form of service. In the case of a sports star, a team and an agent have a huge investment in keeping the offender playing, not to mention maintaining or rehabilitating his or her reputation. When basketball player DeShawn Stevenson fulfills his community service at a camp for elite high-school ball players (along with two years' probation and a $1,100 fine) after being sentenced for statutory rape, it looks like something he would have probably wanted to do anyway. Same goes for other entertainers. After his airport parking violation led to drug and gun charges, rapper Snoop Dogg spent half of his 800 hours of community service with his Snoop Youth Football League team (complete with a Snooper Bowl). In some cases, the suggested service looks less like punishment than career enrichment. The lawyer for actor Charlie Sheen, who was charged with assaulting his wife with a switch blade, initially suggested that the actor spend a month serving the community as a theater intern with Theatre Aspen. Sheen ended up going to drug rehabilitation (as did his wife), instead of prison. Offenders can go too far with their ideas about the right kind of service. A California lawyer guilty of conspiracy sought community-service credit for teaching a law school course to be called "Regulation of Free Market Capitalism: Are We Failing?" The judge rejected the idea, saying it was not what he had envisioned.