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UP eastbound T/COFC with 51 cars @1842 behind two SD40-2. Yes, WAY too short for the EwePee of today; maybe add two more trains of the same length to make it more agreable to the number crunchers of Omaha now. AND of course it was probably going fast. That's what I expected when I visited "Uncle Peter's" mainline back then, about 70 miles south of my home in BN country. Dix is just east of Kimball, which is where I'd sometimes head south towards Colorado. How could I resist a picture taken at DIX, a place that should contain a statue or plaque to commemorate a certain guy from the Chicago area. The original image was way too dark, but after much editing I was able to keep the dramatic sky of a High Plains summer day, far more accurate in its portrayal of the day I prefer to remember.
.45 Caliber highly accurate handgun.Installed compensator to reduce recoil.Standard Magazine contains 12 rounds.Can fire Semi-auto and Burst fire mode also.
FalconPilot333 for the silencer(i used it to create new parts)and the hexagon texture
Jake for the original grip(modified)
A meridian is a north-south line, selected as the zero reference line for astronomical observations. By comparing thousands of observations taken from the same meridian it's possible to build up an accurate map of the sky.
With their asymmetrical ear openings, Saw-whet Owls (Aegolius acadicus) are among the most attentive of listeners. At a dinner party, for instance, they might hear even the most hushed of rumor-mongering from the corner of the room, and be able to share with you precisely what was said and by whom. In reality, they use this heightened sense of hearing while perched in an opportune branch in the night. With their disc-shaped faces angled downward, they listen for the rustling movement of mice and voles beneath the leaf-litter. So precise is their hearing, that they can accurately strike a prey item without ever seeing it.
As you know, My Friends all over the world, in Italy there are many and many fields of wheat, corn, sunflowers, soy, and many and many cultivations of the grapevine... well, this summer was very dry and all these regains suffered for dryness.
Original file jpg: 103,4 MB
dimensions: 7360 x 4912 pixel
equipment: camera Nikon D800E + lens Nikon 105 micro
NO PHOTOSHOP, NO DIGITAL PROCESSING
NATURAL DIRECT SUN OBLIQUE LIGHT
THE BLACK BACKGROUND IS GIVEN BY THE CORRECT EXPOSURE ON THE FLOWER
the mirror is a real mirror
SEE ON BLACK, PLEASE: IT IS REALLY WONDERFUL!!!!!
Lately there is a feeling of unrest in our country... probably more accurately the entire world. I guess to many of us, it feels like we are on the precipice of something. There is unease in that feeling, because it feels like it could go either way. There is also pain and blame. More than that, for many people it feels like a deception of a good friend or family member, ...someone you swore had your back. We are a people more divided than we've been in a long time, that is certain. This is a time we must all look for the things we can share. A desire for hope, for change and recognition. Truth is another thing altogether - it's certainly not always known for it's beauty. Yet, there is a beautiful thing about truth we sometimes forget: it's illuminating. It will indeed be a tender and heavy struggle to find a common ground in the coming months, a struggle that is also fettered with wincing grudges. As I write this, I am unsure how to be positive, but I know we'll each find that happy, positive place again. We have to. No matter what you believe or how heavy your heart, we cannot divide now. I have to believe that we'll find a way through this. A bright road. We will. Maybe it will awaken kindness, that ... knowledge that we're still here. You are not surrounded by strangers, although sometimes it feels that way beyond a shadow of a doubt.
We're still here.
As accurate as I can get it. I would have put the hat that they wore but I don't have one. Hope you guys like it. The picture I used for basis will be the 18th picture if you search "French soldier napoleonic wars"
Best wishes,
Venku
While a couple birds dry their wings, stormy skies give way to a rainbow ending with the uprights ready for Amtrak.
More accurately - leaning stones. Looked around for two more stones to validate the name but without success. Very atmospheric overlooking the lake, a rather melancholic air to the rather dramatic view.
STOP PRESS - Just read that two stones lay not far away, horizontal and in the process of being absorbed in the water-logged soil.
So for some reason I was inspired to make multiple versions of Agents of AIM from Marvel. I don't expect this one to get too many faves.
Left to right:
Gunmetal one: shiny and dark. Very video game.
White one: I thought the beekeeper outfit could work pretty well. It's fine.
Most accurate one: I thought this was the closest to the comics versions.
Bill: the one from Deadpool.
Hazmat one: more hazmat? Kinda like the beekeeper but yellow?
So surprised by how accurate colors are on this old digital camera that I have found inside a drawer, laying there since my 18th birthday. I remember it clearly, it was a pretty little gem back then. But now, it's screen is really small... I simply cannot comprehend how that screen was something innovative and special back then. I appreciate it even more now....
The thing is, even though it has MANUAL mode and you can set your aperture size etc... I found that THE BEST option is to just shoot AUTO on this toy. It is way more fun than having to squint every time you are asking yourself did you open your aperture enough.... Not to mention the tini-tiny buttons that were easier to press when I was a child, I guess.
I had to upload the B&W also because of super lines for this wall on my uncle's porch.
As I said in previous post, all the other photos are pretty accurate, color-wise.
Very astonishing to me was the discovery how nice the photos looked when I first USB-ed them to my PC. I honestly expected garbage. But they really ALL LOOKED REALLY NICE!
It is very compact, fits perfectly in hand, can take for about a 100 photos (256MB) on those cards that are nor micro nor sd but larger.... I do NOT know the name of it but they are long for about 5 centimeters.
It 'auto-focuses' for 4 or 5 seconds at best (much depending on the 'contrastness' of the scene), but still works like a charm.
Analog photography is great, but this camera brought the similar experience.
I had much fun taking this cam with me the other day. I shall (and hope) to do it again.
Having fun while taking photos- > The most satisfying thing....
EDIT: my fingers stopped being cold so this now ought to be fixed grammar :D
NOW IT EVEN includes proper metadata as I made a few adjustments with Lightroom.
Have a great day and get ready for a new year!
Cheers!
though not a completely accurate portrayal of all of my bookshelves, i can say with utter confidence that my home contains over a thousand books. i feel lost without at least one by my side and i can't bear to part with them. i've been a massive reader since i can remember. and honestly, that's not just a figure of speech .
*explored 7/8/09
The "Dragonfly" is a fighter-bomber based on the "Lancer" archetype suggested on "The Rocketpunk Manifesto." Designed to attack SHIPS, the dragonfly features powerful engines to accelerate to great speeds on its attack vector. Like a dive bomber, the Dragonfly aims to release its payload as closely and accurately to its target as possible before making a last-minute maneuver to veer off. Instead of a traditional munition, however, it bears a rod of high-density metal with enough of a basic rocket engine to separate from the fighter and provide minor course corrections.
The mass torpedo is a rod of high density metal with a simple rocket system which has been scored to break up on impact, this allows it to impart as much force upon its target as possible- a concept similar to hollow-point bullets. The mass torpedo is also resistant to point defense, as a hit will usually break it into a number of high velocity projectiles rather than deflecting away. (And, most notably, it cannot be detonated prematurely like a traditional munition.) Although torpedos are typically made of tungsten, there have been reports of specimens with magnesium oxide, and even radioactive material layers having been deployed against habitats.
The Dragonfly comes equipped with an adequate pair of conventional cannons to spar with other fighters, as well as a hybrid gyroscope and adjustable rocket maneuvering system capable of pointing them in the needed direction quickly. The fixed nature of its armaments and its typical mission parameters put it at a disadvantage against purpose built interceptors and point defense ships. The Dragonfly is best deployed with additional craft to support it.
The Rocketpunk Manifesto:
www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com/2007/08/space-fighters-not.html
While not accurate the title seemed to work better with horns than antlers.....more commonly used, for many reasons.
These 2 elk bulls put on a good show. More in play and practice then harming each other. Prep for future battles to come over lady elk against bigger bulls.
Enjoy a wonderful weekend!!
Quick update I did to appease Suomi_Bricks, lest I face his wrath. (Based on summer tunic fin: images.app.goo.gl/942bEXsnJXv2iwRh6 )
Astronomers are winding back the clock on the expanding remains of a nearby, exploded star. By using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, they retraced the speedy shrapnel from the blast to calculate a more accurate estimate of the location and time of the stellar detonation.
The victim is a star that exploded long ago in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to our Milky Way. The doomed star left behind an expanding, gaseous corpse, a supernova remnant named 1E 0102.2-7219, which NASA's Einstein Observatory first discovered in X-rays. Like detectives, researchers sifted through archival images taken by Hubble, analyzing visible-light observations made 10 years apart.
This Hubble Space Telescope portrait reveals the gaseous remains of an exploded massive star that erupted approximately 1,700 years ago. The stellar corpse, a supernova remnant named 1E 0102.2-7219, met its demise in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Banovetz and D. Milisavljevic (Purdue University)
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #chandraxrayobservatory #ChandraXRay #cxo #chandra #astronomy #space #astrophysics #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter #solarsystemandbeyond #galaxy #supermassiveblackhole #blackhole #Goddard #GSFC #GoddardSpaceFlightCenter #HST #Hubble #HubbleSpaceTelescope #supernova
With the new high res pics of Spidey, I can see that it is barely accurate to the movie. The black stripes are blue, and the spider symbol is completely wrong. This must have been based off early concept art because although it's a really cool fig, it just isn't movie accurate. I still want it though, it's a cool fig, but it seems we'll have to wait for Spidey homecoming sets before we can get a movie accurate one.
~ check out our “eat the pic“ picture albums at the iBook store for your iPad ~
This is my new picture for my 365 project for the weekly theme "Who You Are". I love a clean and tidy desktop, that's typical me =)
Captured with a Nikon Df and a manual Nikkor Ai 50mm ƒ1:1.2, post processed in Lightroom using VSCO Film.
Please don't spam my photo thread! Comments with awards or photos will be removed immediately!
My LEGO interpretation of Fractalsponge's incredible fan design.
>Original 3D model:
www.artstation.com/artwork/ZGg0ZG
I modified the design slightly to fit better with my building style but tried to keep it as accurate as possible for the most part.
Check out Fractalsponge's other top-quality 3D work here:
Bjartsýnisferð vegna skýjaspár í gærkvöldi. Fengum smá ljós fyrir rest.
Staðsetningin á kortinu er líklega ekki mjög nákvæm :)
Optimistic roadtrip yesterday because of the clouds. We finally saw some aurora.
The position on the map is probably not too accurate!
Due to the invasion of southern and eastern European nations by the Warsaw Pact, the EU has sent back their troops to Europe from America to prepare and strategize a retaliation. Due to this soldiers now have a much more common presence in the daily lives of civilians. All forces will be used to create an advantage, even the Leaning Tower of Pisa will be used as a watch tower in Italy. The preparations are almost complete.
______________________
For the Purge Chronicles
Doing something very interesting with the leaning tower of pisa was harder than I thought if I wanted it to be pretty accurate, so this is more of a tone scene rather than a detailed one to be more accurate to the area.
The painter has finished. Once the door hardware is installed I’ll be able to start moving my dioramas and things in ahead of move in at the end of the month. Don told the builder we wanted that room finished first since I had a lot of “delicate” things going in there that the movers wouldn’t be handling. I thought his choice of description was accurate but also kind of cute.
www.instagram.com/claudiogentil.fotografia/
Please do not "comment" with "group awards", "comment codes" or other types of ready-made phrases. Thanks.
Peter Duesberg is a "scientist" who is widely recognised as being one of the foremost idiots who thinks that HIV does not cause AIDS. He thinks that everyone gets it from taking ARVs and doing too much poppers and too many recreational drugs. Celia "Thats why they put blood on my face" Farber has spent an awful long time defending this lunatic "faith".
A new Harvard study has claimed that the deaths of around 330,000 South Africans occured as a direct result of Mbeki's HIV denial.
Peter Duesberg was on Mbeki's AIDS panel, so advised him in his murderous denial.
Of course I am not pointing the finger directly at Duesberg as the buck stopped with Mbeki and his health minister Dr Beetroot, and the policies they enacted.
However it would be wrong to completely ignore the role that Duesberg and others played in the deaths of all of these people.
Duesberg is currently employed by the University of California Berkeley. Maybe in light of this new evidence they should seriously consider his position within their (ANY!) teaching institution.
Mbeki Aids policy 'led to 330,000 deaths'
Sarah Boseley Thursday November 27 2008 00.01 GMT
The Aids policies of former president Thabo Mbeki's government were directly responsible for the avoidable deaths of a third of a million people in South Africa, according to research from Harvard University.
South Africa has one of the most severe HIV/Aids epidemics in the world. About 5.5 million people, or 18.8% of the adult population, have HIV, according to the UN. In 2005 there were 900 deaths a day.
But from the late 90s Mbeki turned his back on the scientific consensus that Aids was caused by a viral infection which could be combated, though not cured, by sophisticated and expensive drugs. He came under the influence of maverick scientists known as Aids-denialists, most prominent among whom was Peter Duesberg from Berkeley, California.
In 2000 Mbeki called a round-table of experts, including Duesberg and his supporters but also their opponents, to discuss the cause of Aids. Later that year, at the international Aids conference in Durban, he publicly rejected the accepted wisdom. Aids, he said, was indeed brought about by the collapse of the immune system - but not because of a virus. The cause, he said, was poverty, bad nourishment and general ill-health. The solution was not expensive western medicine but the alleviation of poverty in Africa.
In a new paper Harvard researchers have quantified the death toll resulting from Mbeki's stance, which caused him to reject offers of free drugs and grants and led to foot-dragging over a treatment programme, even after Mbeki had taken a vow of silence on the issue.
"We contend that the South African government acted as a major obstacle in the provision of medication to patients with Aids," write Pride Chigwedere and colleagues from the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.
They have made their calculations by comparing the scale-up of treatment programmes in neighbouring Botswana and Namibia with the limited availability of drugs in South Africa from 2000-2005.
Expensive antiretrovirals came down in price dramatically as a result of activists' campaigning and public pressure. In July 2000 the pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim offered to donate its drug nevirapine, which could prevent the transmission of HIV from mother to child during labour. But South Africa restricted the availability of nevirapine to two pilot sites a province until December 2002.
Eventually, under international pressure, South Africa did launch a national programme for the prevention of mother to child transmission in August 2003 and a national adult treatment programme in 2004. But by 2005, the paper's authors estimate, there was still only 23% drug coverage and less than 30% prevention of mother to child transmission.
By comparison, Botswana achieved 85% treatment coverage and Namibia 71% by 2005, and both had 70% mother to child transmission programmes coverage.
The authors estimate that more than 330,000 people died unnecessarily in South Africa over the period and that 35,000 HIV-infected babies were born who could have been protected from the virus but would now probably have a limited life.
Their calculations will withstand scrutiny, they say. "The analysis is robust," said Dr Chigwedere. "We used a transparent and accessible calculation, publicly available data, and, where we made assumptions, we explained their basis. We purposely chose very conservative assumptions and performed sensitivity analyses to test whether the results would qualitatively change if a different assumption were used."
The authors conclude: "Access to appropriate public health practice is often determined by a small number of political leaders. In the case of South Africa, many lives were lost because of a failure to accept the use of available ARVs to prevent and treat HIV/Aids in a timely manner."
Since Mbeki's ousting from the leadership of the African National Congress in September South Africa has urgently pursued new policies to get treatment to as many people as possible under a new health minister, Barbara Hogan.
November 26, 2008
Study Cites Toll of AIDS Policy in South Africa
By CELIA W. DUGGER
www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/world/africa/26aids.html?_r=1
JOHANNESBURG — A new study by Harvard researchers estimates that the South African government would have prevented the premature deaths of 365,000 people earlier this decade if it had provided antiretroviral drugs to AIDS patients and widely administered drugs to help prevent pregnant women from infecting their babies.
The Harvard study concluded that the policies grew out of President Thabo Mbeki’s denial of the well-established scientific consensus about the viral cause of AIDS and the essential role of antiretroviral drugs in treating it.
Coming in the wake of Mr. Mbeki’s ouster in September after a power struggle in his party, the African National Congress, the report has reignited questions about why Mr. Mbeki, a man of great acumen, was so influenced by AIDS denialists.
And it has again caused soul-searching about why his colleagues in the party did not act earlier to challenge his resistance to broadly accepted methods of treating and preventing AIDS.
Reckoning with a legacy of such policies, Mr. Mbeki’s’s successor, Kgalema Motlanthe, acted on the first day of his presidency two months ago to remove the health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, a polarizing figure who had proposed garlic, lemon juice and beetroot as AIDS remedies.
He replaced her with Barbara Hogan, who has brought South Africa — the most powerful country in a region at the epicenter of the world’s AIDS pandemic — back into the mainstream.
“I feel ashamed that we have to own up to what Harvard is saying,” Ms. Hogan, an A.N.C. stalwart who was imprisoned for a decade during the anti-apartheid struggle, said in a recent interview. “The era of denialism is over completely in South Africa.”
For years, the South African government did not provide antiretroviral medicines, even as Botswana and Namibia, neighboring countries with epidemics of similar scale, took action, the Harvard study reported.
The Harvard researchers quantified the human cost of that inaction by comparing the number of people who got antiretrovirals in South Africa from 2000 to 2005 with the number the government could have reached had it put in place a workable treatment and prevention program.
They estimated that by 2005, South Africa could have been helping half those in need but had reached only 23 percent. By comparison, Botswana was already providing treatment to 85 percent of those in need, and Namibia to 71 percent.
The 330,000 South Africans who died for lack of treatment and the 35,000 babies who perished because they were infected with H.I.V. together lost at least 3.8 million years of life, the study concluded.
Epidemiologists and biostatisticians who reviewed the study for The New York Times said the researchers had based their estimates on conservative assumptions and used a sound methodology.
“They have truly used conservative estimates for their calculations, and I would consider their numbers quite reasonable,” James Chin, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Public Health, said in an e-mail message.
The report was posted online last month and will be published on Monday in the peer-reviewed Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.
Max Essex, the virologist who has led the Harvard School of Public Health’s AIDS research program for the past 20 years and who oversaw the study, called South Africa’s response to AIDS under Mr. Mbeki “a case of bad, or even evil, public health.”
Mr. Mbeki has maintained a silence on his AIDS legacy since his forced resignation. His spokesman, Mukoni Ratshitanga, said Mr. Mbeki would not discuss his thinking on H.I.V. and AIDS, explaining that policy decisions were made collectively by the cabinet and so questions should be addressed to the government.
The new government is now trying to hasten the expansion of antiretroviral treatments. The task is urgent. South Africa today is home to 5.7 million people who are H.I.V.-positive — more than any other nation, almost one in five adults. More than 900 people a day die here as a result of AIDS, the United Nations estimates.
Since the party forced Mr. Mbeki from office and some of his loyalists split off to start a new party, rivalries have flared and stories about what happened inside the A.N.C. have begun to tumble out, offering unsettling glimpses of how South Africa’s AIDS policies went so wrong.
From the first year of his presidency in 1999, Mr. Mbeki became consumed with the thinking of a small group of dissident scientists who argued that H.I.V. was not the cause of AIDS, his biographers say.
As president he wielded enormous power, and those who disagreed with him said they feared they would be sidelined if they spoke out. Even Nelson Mandela, the revered former president, was not immune from opprobrium.
In a column in The Sunday Times of Johannesburg on Oct. 19, Ngoako Ramatlhodi, a senior party member now running the party’s 2009 election campaign, recounted how Mr. Mandela, known affectionately as Madiba, was humiliated during a 2002 A.N.C. meeting after he made a rare appearance to question the party’s stance on AIDS.
Mr. Ramatlhodi described speakers competing to show greater loyalty to Mr. Mbeki by verbally attacking Mr. Mandela as Mr. Mbeki looked on silently. “After his vicious mauling, Madiba looked twice his age, old and ashen,” Mr. Ramatlhodi wrote.
Mr. Ramatlhodi himself acknowledged in a recent interview that in 2001 he sent a 22-page letter, drafted by Mr. Mbeki’s office, to another of Mr. Mbeki’s most credible critics, Prof. Malegapuru Makgoba, an immunologist who was one of South Africa’s leading scientists. The letter accused Professor Makgoba of defending Western science and its racist ideas about Africans at the expense of Mr. Mbeki.
In 2000 Mr. Mbeki had provided Professor Makgoba with two bound volumes containing 1,500 pages of documents written by AIDS denialists. After reading them, Professor Makgoba said in an interview that he wrote back to warn Mr. Mbeki that if he adopted the denialists’ ideas, South Africa would “become the laughingstock, if not the pariah, of the world again.”
But Mr. Mbeki indicated last year to one of his biographers, Mark Gevisser, that his views on AIDS were essentially unchanged, pointing the writer to a document that, he said, was drafted by A.N.C. leaders and accurately reflected his position.
The document’s authors conceded that H.I.V. might be one cause of AIDS but contended that there were many others, like other diseases and malnutrition.
The document maintained that antiretrovirals were toxic. And it suggested that powerful vested interests — drug companies, governments, scientists — pushed the consensus view of AIDS in a quest for money and power, while peddling centuries-old white racist beliefs that depicted Africans as sexually rapacious.
“Yes, we are sex crazy!” the document’s authors bitterly exclaimed. “Yes, we are diseased! Yes, we spread the deadly H.I. virus through our uncontrolled heterosexual sex!”
In 2002, after a prolonged outcry over Mr. Mbeki’s comments about AIDS and the government’s policies, Mr. Mbeki agreed to requests from within his party to withdraw from the public debate. That same year, the Constitutional Court ruled that the government had to provide antiretroviral drugs to prevent the infection of newborns. And in 2003, the cabinet announced plans to go forward with an antiretroviral treatment program.
“We did an enormous amount of good in the early days in South Africa, not because of the Health Ministry, but in spite of the Health Ministry,” said Randall L. Tobias, who was appointed by President Bush in 2003 to lead the United States’ $15 billion global AIDS undertaking.
In the same years, former President Clinton and his foundation were also deeply involved in helping South Africa get a treatment program going. Mr. Clinton attended Mr. Mandela’s 85th birthday celebration in Johannesburg in 2003. During the dinner, he and Mr. Mbeki slipped away to talk about AIDS, Mr. Clinton recalled in a recent interview.
Mr. Clinton said he told Mr. Mbeki how antiretroviral treatment had reduced the AIDS mortality rate in the United States and reminded him, “I’m your friend and I haven’t joined in the public condemnation.” That evening, when Mr. Clinton offered to send in a team of experts to help the country put together a national treatment plan, Mr. Mbeki took him up on it.
The Clinton Foundation helped devise a plan and mobilized 20 people to travel to South Africa in 2004 to help carry it out. But the South African government never invited them, Mr. Clinton said. So the foundation, which had projects all over Africa, was to have none in South Africa.
Changes since Mr. Mbeki’s fall from power have prompted many to hope for forceful South African political leadership on AIDS. Mr. Mbeki’s rival and successor as head of the party, Jacob Zuma, who is expected to become president after next year’s election, himself made a famously questionable remark about AIDS.
In his 2006 rape trial, in which he was acquitted of sexually assaulting a family friend, he testified that he sought to reduce his chances of being infected with H.I.V. by taking a shower after sex. Nonetheless, he seems to have more conventional views on the pandemic.
“Who would have thought Jacob Zuma would be better than Mbeki, but he is,” said Richard C. Holbrooke, the former ambassador to the United Nations in the Clinton administration who heads a coalition of businesses fighting AIDS. “The tragedy of Thabo Mbeki is that he’s a smart man who could have been an international statesman on this issue. To this day, you wonder what got into him.”
For South Africans who watched the dying and were powerless to stop it, the grief is still raw. Zackie Achmat, the country’s most prominent advocate for people with AIDS, became sick during the almost five years he refused to take antiretrovirals until they were made widely available. He cast Mr. Mbeki as the leading man in this African tragedy.
“He is like Macbeth,” Mr. Achmat said. “It’s easier to walk through the blood than to turn back and admit you made a mistake.”
Mbeki's opposition to ARVs cost 330,000 lives, shows study
Michael Carter, Thursday, November 27, 2008
www.aidsmap.com/en/news/97BFC49D-E43C-4028-8E4D-CACF15F82...
The refusal of the Mbeki government to roll-out antiretroviral therapy and treatment to prevent mother-to child transmission in South Africa resulted in 330,000 needlessly premature HIV-related deaths and 35,000 avoidable case of mother-to-child HIV transmission according to estimates published in the December 1st edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.
South Africa is one of the countries hardest hit by HIV. UNAIDS estimates that 19% of the adult population is HIV-positive, some 5.5 million individuals. In 2005, an estimated 320,000 individuals died because of HIV.
President Thabo Mbeki’s government consistently resisted the provision of antiretroviral therapy. The first important evidence of this was in 1999 when, under pressure to provide AZT monotherapy to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV, President Mbeki announced that the drug was dangerous and that it would therefore not be provided by his government. This was followed by Mbeki publicly questioning that HIV caused AIDS and the efficacy of antiretroviral therapy. The Mbeki administration then resisted the use of nevirapine to prevent mother-to-child transmission and obstructed the acquisition of grants from the Global Fund.
US investigators estimated the lost benefits resulting from the Mbeki government’s opposition to provision of antiretroviral therapy and treatment to prevent mother-to-child transmission. To do this, they compared the actual number of people who received HIV treatment or therapy to prevent mother-to-child transmission between 2000 and 2005 and compared this to the number that could feasibly have been treated during this period. This difference was multiplied by the average efficacy of antiretroviral treatment and treatment to prevent mother-to-child transmission to give the lost benefits consequent upon the South African government’s decision to prevent access to anti-HIV drugs.
“Our overriding values in choosing methods were transparency and minimization of assumptions and we were purposely conservative”, write the investigators.
When estimating the number of people who could reasonably have been provided with antiretroviral therapy or treatment to prevent mother-to-child transmission, the investigators noted that HIV treatment became significantly more accessible between 2000-2005. This was because:
* The price of anti-HIV drugs fell significantly in this period.
* More money was available for donor organisations, such as the Global Fund and PEPFAR, to purchase antiretroviral drugs.
Nevertheless, the South African government still maintained opposition to the provision of HIV drugs.
To estimate the number of people who should have been eligible to receive antiretroviral therapy, the investigators obtained from UNAIDS the number of HIV-related deaths in South Africa between 2000-2005. Patients who died of HIV without receiving anti-HIV drugs lost the entire potential benefits of antiretroviral therapy.
Next, the investigators obtained figures showing how many individuals received antiretroviral therapy in the same period. Their sources were UNAIDS and the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) “3 x 5” antiretroviral treatment access programme. These figures showed that fewer than 3% of patients received antiretroviral treatment in 2000, increasing to approximately 10% in 2003 and 23% in 2005.
The researchers considered it reasonable that South Africa could have treated no more than 5% of eligible patients with HIV in 2000. However, because drugs became less expensive and more international funding became available, “ramping up” access to treatment was feasible, meaning that by 2005, 50% of HIV-positive patients in South Africa should have been receiving antiretroviral therapy. They note that the maximum of 50% treatment coverage is significantly lower than the 71% achieved by Namibia and the 85% achieved by Botswana.
Finally they estimated the number of life years that would be gained per patient due to antiretroviral therapy. They used the most conservative estimate of 6.7 years.
Their calculations showed that 330,000 lives and 2.2 million person years were lost because the Mbeki government resisted the implementation of a reasonable antiretroviral treatment programme.
They tested their model using a number of other assumptions. For example, if they reduced the number of patients who could reasonably be expected to receive antiretroviral therapy in 2005 to 40%, then the number of lives lost fell to 226,800 or 1.5 million person years.
Consequences of opposition to treatment to prevent mother-to-child transmission
The researchers' model to test the impact of the Mbeki administration’s opposition to treatment to prevent mother-to-child transmission also included a number of conservative assumptions.
First, they calculated the number of children infected with HIV vertically. They looked at a number of sources and selected the lowest estimate of 68,000 per year and revised this down to 60,000 to take into account the high adult HIV population and marginal increase in population growth in South Africa during this period.
A number of sources suggested that in 2005, coverage of treatment to prevent mother-to-child transmission was 30%, having increased from below 3% before 2000.
To estimate the proportion of women who could have received treatment to prevent mother-to-child transmission, they considered that treatment would have been free during this period, that it is easy to administer and that 84% of pregnant women in South Africa receive antenatal care.
Based on these assumptions, the investigators calculated that no more than 5% of women would have received treatment to prevent mother-to-child transmission in 2000, but that this could have increased to 55% by 2005.
Next the investigators estimated the efficacy of such therapy, taking as their benchmark the HIVNET 012 study which showed that single-dose nevirapine reduced the risk of transmission by 47% compared to short-course AZT amongst women who breastfeed.
Finally, they assumed an average life-expectancy at birth of 48 years, and subtracted from this the average three year life-expectancy of infants infected with HIV at birth.
The investigators therefore estimated that 35,000 cases of mother-to-child transmission (or 1.6 million life years) were the result of the Mbeki administration’s policies.
One again, the investigators tested their results using other assumptions. If they accepted 40% coverage of treatment as acceptable, then the excess number of babies infected because of government policies was 18,000, a loss of 800,00 life years. However, had there been 70% coverage (still below what was achieved in Namibia and Botswana), then HIV infections in 44,000 babies (or 2 million life years), would have been avoided.
When the investigators combined their two estimates – years of life lost because of opposition to antiretroviral treatment, and life years lost because of the failure to provide treatment to prevent vertical transmission – they found that some 3.8 million life years were lost because of the Mbeki administration’s policies.
They conclude, “in the case of South Africa, many lives were lost because of failure to accept the use of available antiretrovirals to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS in a timely manner.”
Reference
Chigwedere, P. et al. Estimating the lost benefits of antiretroviral drug use in South Africa. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr 49: 410-15, 2008.
Here's a small moc of Totoro for my friends birthday. I'm quite happy with the sturdiness, and the overall build for the head, though not entirely accurate, was really fun to put together
Left to Right:
Shazam: gave him a more accurate head, new legs, and vambraces
Fig Formula- Bruce Wayne head, Flash torso, FatB legs, Brickforge vambraces
Ragman: gave him a trench coat and green hood
Fig Formula- Ninjago head, PotC torso, CMF 12 legs
Meltdown: finally finished him
Fig Formula- Cyclops head, Mighty Micros Iron Man torso
Ares: ditches the etape
Fig Formula- Same as last time but with new legs and head
Tell me your thoughts!
OK? ummm...I DID infact save the pastie(?) so, this is the ACCURATE version of the handguard, and to keep from being a repost, I added the AK lower and Katuvee's .223 Mag(modded for 5.45 of course :) here is the pastie, No white shapes, but nothing is grouped so....work thy magic :)
This photo of two tiny European Skipper butterflies was taken on 23 July 2015, at Darryl Teskey's property. These unusual butterflies have such large eyes : )
"The eyes of Skippers are different from those of other butterflies. They have a space between the cones and rods which allows light from each ommatidium to spill into neighbouring rods, effectively increasing their resolution and sensitivity. As a result Skippers can fly very accurately from one spot to another. This different type of eye structure is one of the reasons why taxonomists place them in a different super-family to all other butterflies - the Hesperioidea."
Source: www.learnaboutbutterflies.com/Anatomy.htm
On this day, five of us spent the day botanizing the land belonging to Darryl Teskey, SW of Calgary and W of Millarville (maybe a 40-minute drive from Calgary). This was the first time I had been there and I'm so glad I was invited to go - I would have missed all sorts of things, including a family of Ruffed Grouse and several fungi. These Grouse were the rare rufous-morph, and we startled them when we were walking through the forest in their direction. Usually, you don't see Grouse because they are so well-hidden. When you get fairly close (sometimes very close) to them, they suddenly "explode" from the tangle of shrubs and plants of the forest floor, making ones heart beat fast! We were taken by surprise when we came across a nearby statue of Saint Francis of Assisi, who is known as the patron saint of animals and the environment. A nice idea, I thought.
Our walk took us over grassland and through forest, many places treacherous with so many fallen logs which were often barely visible. I have never, ever seen so many tiny Skipper butterflies - there must have been hundreds or even thousands of these bright orange beauties that were flying or perched on flowers of every colour.
Fortunately, the rain stayed away until we started driving back to Calgary. Quite a lot of black clouds, reminding me of the tornado that passed through Calgary just the day before (22 July 2015).
Our purpose, as always, was to find and list everything that we saw - wildflowers, trees, grasses, birds, insects, fungi, etc.. Our leader then compiles an extensive list of our finds and this is later sent to the landowner, along with any photos that we might take. Always a win/win situation, as the landowner then has a much better idea of just what is on his property, and we have a most enjoyable day.
I'm very happy with this one, but I have to admit I was lucky. I saw the cat coming and saw the picture but I was not expecting to capture the entire body of the cat so nicely in the allowed space I had. Accurate timing is an essential bit in photography ... along with a good deal of luck ... :)
This is, easily, the best photo I have ever taken.
Or to be more accurate, Siaba Kecil, in the Komodo national park. A better standard of over/under shot after taking it a bit more seriously. The current behind me was extremely powerful (and fun). At one point I saw a group of divers literally roll past in the deep channel.
I like an accurate watch – this sensor will help our atomic clock be accurate to 1s in 300 million years…now that’s precise.
More about the ACES experiment: wsn.spaceflight.esa.int/docs/Factsheets/20%20ACES%20LR.pdf
Credits: ESA/NASA
122F1908
Finally made an accurate Sig-Fig. For those of you who know what I look like, you know this is accurate. Those who don't know what I look like, just watch this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2BKNLLwdZI
Also going to be using this picture as my banner.
Hey, new year new me and all that trash. Why not do an updated 20 facts thing?
1. I am currently 20. I am done with school as of now, working on my certification, and doing a little bit of that working full time.
2. Still live in the good ol' South Carolina. Not perfect, but it's not to cold, and not to hot.
3. Favorite "heroes" are Batman, Rorschach, Hellboy, Groot, and Optimus Prime.
4. Favorite villains are Joker, Professor Pyg, Clayface, Dr. Faciler, and Black Mask (Sorry Marvel, your villains mostly suck)
5. My real life idols are Bob Ross and D.B. Cooper
6. Jaws is still my favorite film. The Dark Knight Returns, Zootopia, Transformers, Watchmen, Ghostbusters, The Big Lebowski, The Shawshank Redemption, Django Unchained, and The Dark Knight are some of my other favorites.
7. Favorite music artists are Billy Joel, Elton John, John Denver, ELO, and Bob Seger. If you wish too see the full playlist of what I listen to most, look here: www.youtube.com/playlist?list=FLrN2suj7AeTZSEAWXZQ25jQ
8. I somehow have 24 thousand subs on YouTube with 0 editing or good content. Thanks to you guys who actually watch it...you lunatics.
9. Favorite games are Portal 2, Arkham City, Halo 3, GTA 5, and Left 4 Dead.
10. I've been on Flickr for 4 or 5 years at this point, not sure which. Anyways, I'd say I have greatly improved over these years.
11. The first person I talked to on Flickr was Steven Vu, and then I believe it was Taylor.
12. My inspiration to join Flickr was Billy, Tim Lydy, Ross, and Aaron. I followed them on here and on YouTube long before I ever created an account.
13. Star Wars is just fine. I enjoy it enough, but I find ripping it to pieces much more enjoyable.
14. I hate Tron Legacy, Iron Man 3, Age of Extinction, and the Destiny game franchise.
15. Some of my guilty pleasure movies are The Dukes of Hazzard 2005, Transformers ROTF, and The the Fast and Furious franchise.
16. Batman Returns is better than Batman 1989, and Mark Hamill is a terrible actor in the original trilogy.
17. I just got a "new" car, and by that I mean my mother did, so I got her old one. I am now the proud owner of a 2004 Nissan Maxima instead of a 2006 Suzuki Forenza.
18. I am actually starting to like Thor the most in the MCU.
19. I do not care at all about Black Panther. I care even less about it than I did about Dr. Strange, and I still have not seen Dr. Strange.
20. Out of the 5 lads I talk to the most, Jared is probably the funniest person I know, and also the clumsiest mong ever. Shane is the guy to talk to about deep shit. Aaron is the most trustworthy and honest of the lads. Taylor is the one I can talk to the most and the longest with about anything. Andy is the most oblivious to everything which makes him adorable and the most innocent. Please get this boy a dog.
The Fondation pour la Sauvegarde de l’Art Français, for which I work as a pro bono photographer, financially helps the restoration and preservation of churches built before 1800 and not otherwise protected —i.e., not listed as a Historic Landmark nor benefiting from another type of legal or regulatory protection. That means, mostly, village churches of secondary architectural and/or historical importance.
Therefore, the intrinsic power of attraction of each of those churches vary, and while most of them are, to my eye, interesting in some minor way, from time to time I make a truly memorable discovery that makes me go, “How come this one is not listed?”
That was the case when I stepped into the Saint-André church in the village of Sail-sous-Couzan in the département of Loire (old province of Forez, central France). Well, “when I stepped into the church” is not accurate, as indeed the whole nave was rebuilt in the 19th century and is, from my personal viewpoint, not at all interesting, even though I photographed it as well as I am capable of because it was my mission for La Sauvegarde.
Not the nave, no, but the transept and the whole eastern part of the church, oh yes! There, to my surprise, I discovered a genuinely Romanesque architecture and decoration, with a splendid collection of capitals, among which some even looked pre-Romanesque to me... What a find!
The church was being restored when I visited it for the first time, and I spoke with the chief restorer who, I quickly realized, had very reassuring ideas on how things should be done. She was tasked with repainting the church and was, at the time, seeking appropriate tones so that they would not clash with the Romanesque ambiance of the transept.
You will judge the results from my photos, but in my opinion, she has done a good job. The faint remaining traces of polychromy on some capitals were left alone —although that coat of paint is not Mediæval, but more likely 19th century. The capital here is Romanesque, late 1100s.