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Posted on 14 July 2022 by admin

Potential locations chosen for Panama City Performing Arts and Events Center

PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) – The City of Panama City held a public workshop Thursday to discuss potential locations for a new performing arts and events center.

The project is set to replace the original Marina Civic Center which was destroyed in Hurricane Michael. Locals packed the Panama City Center for the Arts Thursday evening to meet with city leaders and provide input on their ideal location for the events center. The city’s project team spoke about the process of selecting a location and discussed the factors that went into the decision. These included financial factors, technical factors such as noise and zoning, and project requirements such as open space and sustainability.

Ultimately, the team has narrowed it down to just a handful of locations.

“Of the 13 sites they now have narrowed it down to two sites. One being at the Panama City Marina, in the vicinity of where the current civic center is after we tear that down. And then the other one would be the parcel immediately behind the city hall,” Panama City Manager Mark McQueen said.

City officials stressed the importance of community involvement in this project. An extensive question and answer session took place, in which a handful of attendees expressed concerns with the potential size and location of the new project. Some argued that a venue of this scale would be better suited for a location outside of the city, where things like traffic would be less of an issue. Others believed the proposed locations were necessary to sustain the tourism industry downtown.

”From a logistics standpoint, if we built a new performing arts and events center out of downtown, we would have a repeat of when the mall was built in the seventies and we would have a vacuum sucking the business and the life out of downtown and we would be squishing the efforts that have been made out of the last five or ten years to revitalize the area,” Panama City Resident Ethan Brown said.

Officials hope to make a final decision on the location in August. They will then enter phase 2 of the process which includes selecting a company to design the new performing arts and events center. Then, construction will begin. If things go smoothly, McQueen said the entire process should take around four and a half years.

Posted on 24 April 2022 by admin

Halo Infinite’s Multiplayer Narrative Events Have Serious Potential

The newly released Halo Infinite has established itself and garnered a fairly favorable critical reception at launch. Launching alongside other industry giants such as Battlefield 2042 and Call of Duty: Vanguard, the latest addition to the long-standing sci-fi FPS has seen a largely positive reception, although it has still fallen victim to criticism over time.

Despite the fact that Halo Infinite has been praised for its bold open-world campaign and free-to-play multiplayer, the latter has taken a while to fully resonate with fans in providing that classic Halo multiplayer experience that has proven to be so successful historically. The addition of depth and contextualization to post-launch content with the periodic arrival of multiplayer narrative events could be a very shrewd way to improve Infinite‘s multiplayer offering.

GAMERANT VIDEO OF THE DAY

What Halo Infinite’s Narrative Events Are

There is still some confusion as to what exactly the narrative events of Halo Infinite will entail. However, like many aspects of Infinite’s multiplayer formula, other popular online shooters can serve as an idea of what to expect.

Fortnite has provided some of the most high-profile interactive narrative events in recent memory of live service games. With Halo Infinite sharing Fortnite’s free-to-play access and seasonal Battle Pass system, the former could have taken inspiration from the latter’s narrative-telling, given how successful it has been. Fortnite’s narrative events mostly consist of using the game itself as a vehicle to tell a story attached to a given season with interactive in-game events and cutscenes.

This helps give serious depth to a season, giving it utility beyond just providing content in the form of cosmetics or other minor benefits, and allowing it to inform a continuous narrative that’s relevant to expanding the lore and worldbuilding of a franchise. Given the difficulty Halo Infinite has had in retaining its playerbase, the introduction of this type of narrative event to Infinite could prove invaluable in providing player longevity throughout seasons.

With Infinite’s seasons being uncharacteristically long with a six-month duration, the benefits of narrative events to break up the season and provide a continuous story are more than clear to see. The seasons of Halo Infinite are complemented by overarching themes, with season 2 of Halo Infinite being Lone Wolves. This already existing theme for season 2 gives credence to the narrative events following a gradually expanding story surrounding the Lone Wolf Spartans that season 2 will focus on.

Confirmed Narrative Events in Halo Infinite

With the recently revealed roadmap for season 2 of Halo Infinite, two specific narrative events were named and given release dates. The first narrative event planned for season 2 is called “Entrenched,” and will last from May 3 to May 16.

The second narrative event will be called Alpha Pack, giving further validity to the aforementioned possibility of the narrative events relating to the Lone Wolf theme of season 2. The Alpha Pack narrative event will last from July 19 to August 1. In addition to these confirmed narrative events for season 2, the roadmap also revealed the intention for narrative events to also be implemented in season 3, although details of these events are currently unknown.

Halo Infinite is available now for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.

MORE: Halo Infinite Reveals Season 2 Modes King of the Hill, Land Grab, and Last Spartan Standing

Elden Ring’s Open World is An Antithesis to Traditional Open-World Games

Disconnecting from Work – New, Old, and Potential Considerations for Employers

In this session, we will review the status of “disconnecting from work” requirements for employers, including policies and other implications on hours of work, place of work, and overtime considerations.

We will discuss:

Ontario’s new policy requirements on disconnecting from work
The February 2022 Final Report of the Right to Disconnect Advisory Committee for the federal government
Disconnecting from work policies in other jurisdictions
Considerations in drafting a workplace policy on disconnecting from work
Implications and considerations on remote work, hours of work, and overtime
Employer obligations with respect to the hours employees are working

Agenda

2:00 pm – 3:30 pm ET / 11:00 am – 12:30 pm PT Webinar and Q&A

Cost

This webinar is complimentary

1.5^Hours

Available Via Webinar

Note: This programme contains 1 hours and 30 minutes of Substantive content for the purposes of the Law Society of Ontario’s annual Continuing Professional Development (CPD) requirements.
This programme contains 1.5 hours of accredited content for the purposes of the Law Society of British Columbia’s annual Continuing Professional Development (CPD) requirements. The session has been loaded with the LSBC and is titled “Fasken’s Disconnecting from Work – New, Old, and Potential Considerations for Employers – May 2022”. It is available for claiming through your LSBC Member Portal.
A confirmation of participation will be sent to you for your continuing education hours with the Barreau du Québec.
For CPD/CLE in other jurisdictions, please contact your local Law Society.

Posted on 15 March 2022 by admin

Russia – Understanding Potential Sovereign Default Events – Fitch Ratings

Russia – Understanding Potential Sovereign Default Events Fitch Ratings

Posted on 14 March 2022 by admin

Some students upset by another potential ‘superspreader’ event

James Hight building at the University of Canterbury

By Tessa Guest

During the day, the University of Canterbury’s campus is almost deserted.

The University of Canterbury’s Ilam campus.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Staff and students are isolating with Covid-19, or participating in courses online. Only a few classes remain in-person.

But on Saturday night, a field near the campus was filled with noise and people.

University-owned Ilam Fields has become home to uncontrolled parties taking place instead of traditional Orientation Week events, which were canned due to Covid-19 restrictions.

Hundreds of students gathered for a makeshift toga party two weeks ago, and more returned for another large gathering last weekend.

Mattresses were thrown around, people urinated in bushes, and the field was left strewn with rubbish and broken glass.

First-year hall resident Molly said the organisers and attendees were largely other student residents, and that the hall’s strict alcohol bans pushed people to drink in public spaces.

With community cases surging, she said the gatherings made some residents feel more anxious about getting Covid-19.

“I was definitely keeping my distance because I didn’t want to catch it, and it was definitely a superspreader,” she said.

Third-year geography student Natalie O’Connell was one of the few students choosing to work from the campus this week, and said it was clear the party-goers didn’t care about the effect their actions were having.

“People are going out of their way to get mass gatherings of definitely more than 100, no one’s checking vaccine passes, no one’s on security, so it’s all round pretty irresponsible, and they know it,” she said.

‘Tough time for students’

University of Canterbury Student Association president Pierce Crowley was sympathetic to those who attended, citing the lack of Orientation Week events as the driver of alternative gatherings.

Pierce Crowley
Photo: Supplied

“It’s a really tough time for students. For many of them, this is their second or third year of disrupted learning,” he said.

“This [the partying] hasn’t happened in the past, and that’s because we’ve been able to host events that have got it out of people’s systems in a big burst at the beginning of the semester.”

He said the association was focused on educating students on the legal requirements of gatherings in the red traffic light setting.

Co-editor of the university’s student magazine, Ella Gibson, thought more could be done now to give students safe partying options.

“There’s definitely a gap in the fun infamous night-time drinking events,” she said.

She thought the party-goers were on the right track in using Ilam Fields, and that the area could be used for controlled night-time events within the current Covid-19 guidelines.

Crowley said the restrictions made it too difficult to host any large events safely now, but a priority for the association was hosting replacements to Orientation Week events as soon as it was possible.

“We’re really keen, once we have the ability to do so again, to host these events and get it in a supervised environment where students can party safely and stay out of the community’s hair.”

Posted on 13 March 2022 by admin

Potential Link Found Between Thrombotic Events, Mortality in Patients With PV, ET

Patients with polycythemia vera (PV) or essential thrombocythemia (ET) had a higher risk of thrombotic events than the general population, which was associated with mortality in a recent study.

Patients with polycythemia vera (PV) or essential thrombocythemia (ET) have a greater thrombotic risk vs the general population, and a recent study published in Leukemia Research found that among patients with PV or ET who had thrombotic events (TEs), mortality risk was higher and survival was shorter compared with those who did not have TEs in the study period.

PV and ET are characterized by the overproduction of erythrocytes and platelets, respectively, and both are rare. Symptoms can include fatigue, night sweats, concentration issues, bone pain, and various clinical features that can make it difficult to accurately diagnose. Shorter overall survival and increased TE risk compared with the general population also affect patients with PV or ET.

Based on Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) registry data, estimated median overall survival is 12 years and 5-year mortality is 19% for both conditions. High rates of arterial and venous TEs are a known cause of morbidity and mortality in these patients, although study authors note that few contemporary studies have assessed the effect that TEs have on mortality in patients with PV and ET.

The current study aimed to assess mortality risk in patients with high-risk PV and intermediate- to high-risk ET who experienced a TE vs those who did not experience a TE during the study period.

This retrospective, observational study included 50,405 Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) beneficiaries with PV and 124,569 with ET. All data were based on the Medicare FFS claims database, and eligible patients had either a PV or ET diagnosis and at least 1 inpatient or at least 2 outpatient claims between January 1, 2010, and December 31, 2017.

The median patient age was 73 years in the PV group and 76 in the ET cohort. A total of 6268 patients (12.4%) in the PV cohort had a history of TEs before PV diagnosis. Median follow-ups were 34.5 months for the PV cohort and 25.5 months in the ET cohort.

In the ET cohort, 23,908 patients (19.2%) had a history of TEs pre diagnosis. During follow-up, 6023 (12.0%) patients with PV and 14,156 (11.4%) with ET received hydroxyurea. In the PV cohort, 14,571 patients with PV (28.9%) underwent at least 1 phlebotomy.

Although past studies have shown that TEs are common among those with PV or ET, this study showed a particularly high occurrence of TEs despite shorter follow-up times vs previous analyses.

“Notably, most of these prior analyses included substantial proportions of low-risk patients,” the study authors wrote. “Patients included in the current analyses were generally older than previous cohort studies and had high rates of comorbidities, likely due to the age thresholds applied for eligibility for the analysis (≥ 65 years), which may have contributed to increased frequency of vascular complications.”

Of the patients with PV, 14,334 (28.4%) experienced a TE in the follow-up period, with the most common being ischemic stroke (46.0%), transient ischemic attack (TIA; 30.7%), and acute myocardial infarction (AMI; 29.9%). In the ET group, 30,478 patients (24.5%) experienced a postdiagnosis TE. Ischemic stroke (42.5%), AMI (25.9%), and TIA (24.8%) were the most common TEs in this cohort.

After adjusting for other patient characteristics, those in the PV group who experienced a postdiagnosis TE were at an increased risk of mortality than those who did not (adjusted HR [aHR], 18.6; 95% CI, 16.1-21.6; P < 0.001). Patients who experienced pre-index TEs were at an even higher risk (aHR, 34.4; 95% CI, 24.0-49.4; P < 0.001).

In the ET cohort, patients who experienced a TE post diagnosis were also at an increased risk compared with those who did not (aHR, 25.2; 95% CI, 23.1-27.5; P < 0.001). Similar to findings in the PV cohort, patients with ET who had a prediagnosis TE were at a greater risk of mortality than those who did not have a prediagnosis TE (aHR, 37.5; 95% CI, 31.7-44.3).

In both cohorts, hyperlipidemia was a common comorbidity and the authors noted it might also be associated with TE prevalence. Despite the study’s limitations, including reliance on claims data and the lack of treatment data analysis for the overall cohort, the findings suggest that mortality risk was significantly higher in patients who experienced TEs in tandem with PV or ET, they added.

“Thrombosis risk mitigation remains an important management goal in patients with PV and ET, particularly among those with a history of thrombotic events,” the authors wrote, adding, “More studies are needed to better define and understand ET and PV thrombotic event rates in various high-risk populations in a real-world setting.”

Reference

Pemmaraju N, Gerds AT, Yu J, et al. Thrombotic events and mortality risk in patients with newly diagnosed polycythemia vera or essential thrombocythemia. Leuk Res. Published online February 16, 2022. doi:10.1016/j.leukres.2022.106809