Strap is a flexible flat material, most commonly made from steel or various plastics.

Steel

Steel is the oldest and highest tensile strength strapping. It is available in a variety of widths and thicknesses as well as variations in the grade of steel. Steel is used for heavy duty holding where high strength and minimal stretch are desired. Steel strap can have a surface finish of paint, paint and wax, or zinc and wax; the wax is used to better transmit the tension around the bundle and for use with certain types of tensioners Common applications include steel coils, baling, bricks and pavers, and roll end-binding.

Polypropylene

Polypropylene strap (oriented or tensilized) is an economical material designed for light to medium duty unitizing, palletizing and bundling. It is available in various widths, thicknesses, and polymer variations (e.g., copolymers). Some polypropylene is embossed or printed. This product offers high elongation at break but tends to have irrecoverable dead stretch with constant stress.

Polyester

Oriented or tensilized polyester and nylon are the strongest plastic strapping products and are used as a viable alternative to steel strapping in the some industries. Polyester provides excellent retained tension to stay tight on rigid loads. Its excellent recovery properties help a load absorb impact without strap breakage.

There are specialized types available for specific applications. For instance, in cold climates a strap bonded in hot melt glue is used because it is weather-proof.

Nylon

Nylon strap has the greatest specific strength of the three plastics, however it is rarely used due to its high price. In the past nylon strap used to be very popular, but over time polyester has replaced almost all of its use. One application that still uses this type of strap is cold room applications, because it does not creep as much as the other types of plastic.

Corded and woven

Corded and woven strapping are available in several constructions, primarily involving polyester and rayon. Some types are reusable. Because this system uses a buckle for a joint, corded and woven strapping can have a larger system strength than steel banding. Corded polyester strapping also has a higher elongation than other strapping systems, which gives it an ideal memory for sea and rail shipments. Because corded and woven polyester is light and soft, it is also a safer alternative to steel banding.

Paper

Paper strap is used to strap paper products between industrial processes. This allows the bundle to be introduced into the process without the need to cut the straps, which can lead to the product falling apart prematurely.

Composite

Composite strapping has filaments embedded in it. In the load securing industry it is often referred to as “synthetic steel”. It is very abrasion resistant and has the highest joint efficiency when used with a buckle. Both advantages are not affected by climate.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Strapping, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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1st Series

Production of the first series of 60 vehicles began in April 1943. Fifty-two of these were built using new Panzer IV Ausf. G chassis and the remaining 8 from rebuilt Ausf. E and F chassis. Survivors, about half, were rebuilt beginning in December 1943; they were mostly rebuilt to 2nd series standards.

2nd Series

Production restarted in December 1943 of another 60 vehicles, using only new Ausf. H chassis, and continued until March 1944. The Stupa’s baptism in combat at the Battle of Kursk proved that the driver’s compartment was too lightly armored and it was reinforced. The gunner’s hatch was removed and a ventilator fan was fitted, much to the relief of the crew. Internally-sprung, steel-rimmed road wheels replaced the front two rubber-rimmed road wheels in an effort to reduce the stress on the forward suspension that was only partially successful.

3rd Series

Production of the 3rd series ran from March to June 1944 with few changes from the second series. The Fahrersehklappe 80 was replaced by periscopes and the lighter StuH 43/1 was used.

4th series

The superstructure was redesigned in early 1944 for the fourth series, which used the chassis and HL120TRM112 engine of the Ausf. J, and was in production between June 1944 and March 1945. It featured a redesigned gun collar, as well as a general reduction in height of the superstructure. This redesign also introduced a ball mount in the front superstructure for a MG 34 machine gun with 600 rounds. The vehicle commander’s position was modified to use the hatch of the Sturmgeschütz III Ausf. G, which could mount a machine gun for anti-aircraft defense.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Brummbär, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Venter started off playing rugby for South African schools. He said that even then his studies came first. “I was a good rugby player at school. I saw it as a tool to get a degree—my parents weren’t very wealthy. I decided that if I made it as a rugby player it would be a bonus but that even if I didn’t it would pay for my studies and I could become a doctor. Brendan went to the University of the Orange Free State to study medicine and play rugby. After too much partying in his first year, he just scraped through his exams. “I had a real reality check. I had to decide if I really wanted to be a rugby player or a doctor. So when I went back in my second year there was a complete change in attitude, and rugby took second place. I was determined to be a good doctor and felt that I had to give my studies priority in order to achieve this.”

The Rugby World Cup took place in 1995, and after this rugby turned professional. However Brendan still continued to practise as a doctor: “I was very lucky. Although we were professional, training in my province only started at five in the afternoon. So I had the whole day to work as a GP in my own practice as well as doing afternoons in anaesthetics. The rugby training was really my stress relief.”

In 2001 Brendan came back to the United Kingdom with his wife and two children to coach and play for London Irish. “I was very analytical as a player and had always wanted to try out my ideas as a coach.” Concurrently he has continued to fit in GP locum work as well as dealing with his team’s medical needs.

He believes that medicine helps him be a better coach: “When I am faced with a coaching problem, I fall back on the principles I was taught as a doctor. I have learnt that sometimes it doesn’t matter how much you know, how committed you are, how much work you put in. Sometimes there are variables that you can’t predict. Medicine taught me to accept that there are some things I can’t change.”

However, recently he has admitted that when it comes to the crunch, he would always choose rugby over medicine, citing his new found love of the game after joining Saracens as DOR in 2009.

On 13 May 2010 Venter was charged with misconduct by the RFU for allegedly pushing a Leicester Tigers supporter who had asked him to sit down as he was blocking the view of the paying fans as well as making inappropriate comments and gestures to spectators. In his defence, Venter has described the incident as a bit of fun and the chief executive and the club owner of Saracens have defended Venter, claiming they considered it out of character for him. He has an existing four week suspended ban from an incident earlier in the season.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Brendan Venter, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Obsessions

A typical person with OCD performs tasks, or compulsions, to seek relief from obsession-related anxiety. Within and among individuals, the initial obsessions, or intrusive thoughts, can vary in their clarity and vividness. A relatively vague obsession could involve a general sense of disarray or tension, accompanied by a belief that life cannot proceed as normal while the imbalance remains. A more articulable obsession could be a preoccupation with the thought or image of someone close to them dying. Other obsessions concern the possibility that someone or something other than oneself—such as God, the Devil, or disease—will harm either the person with OCD or the people or things that the person cares about. Others may sense that the physical world is qualified by certain immaterial conditions. These people might intuit invisible protrusions from their bodies, or could feel that inanimate objects are ensouled.

Some people with OCD experience sexual obsessions that may involve intrusive thoughts or images of “kissing, touching, fondling, oral sex, anal sex, intercourse, incest and rape” with “strangers, acquaintances, parents, children, family members, friends, coworkers, animals and religious figures”, and can include “heterosexual or homosexual content” with persons of any age. As with other intrusive, unpleasant thoughts or images, most people have some disquieting sexual thoughts at times, but people with OCD may attach extraordinary significance to the thoughts. For example, obsessive fears about sexual orientation can appear to the person with OCD, and even to those around them, as a crisis of sexual identity. Furthermore, the doubt that accompanies OCD leads to uncertainty regarding whether one might act on the troubling thoughts, resulting in self-criticism or self-loathing.

The person with OCD understands that their notions do not correspond with the external world; however, they feel that they must act as though their notions were correct. For example, an individual who engages in compulsive hoarding might be inclined to treat inorganic matter as if it had the sentience or rights of living organisms, but such an individual might find their consequent behavior irrational on a more intellectual level. In severe OCD, obsessions can shift into delusions when resistance to the obsession is abandoned and insight into its senselessness is lost. (Insel and Akiskal (1986))

Compulsions

While some with OCD perform compulsive rituals because they inexplicably feel they must, others act compulsively so as to mitigate the anxiety that stems from particular obsessive thoughts. The person with OCD might feel that these actions somehow either will prevent a dreaded event from occurring, or will push the event from their thoughts. In any case, the individual’s reasoning is so idiosyncratic or distorted that it results in significant distress for the individual with OCD or for those around them. Excessive skin picking (i.e., dermatillomania) or hair plucking (i.e., trichotillomatia) and nail biting (i.e., onychophagia) are all on the Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum. Individuals with OCD are aware that their thoughts and behavior are not rational, but they feel bound to comply with them to fend off feelings of panic or dread.

Some common compulsions include counting specific things (such as footsteps) or in specific ways (for instance, by intervals of two) and doing other repetitive actions, often with atypical sensitivity to numbers or patterns. People might repeatedly wash their hands or clear their throats, making sure certain items are in a straight line, repeatedly check that their parked cars have been locked before leaving them, constantly organizing in a certain way, turn lights on and off, keep doors closed at all times, touch objects a certain number of times before exiting a room, walk in a certain routine way like only stepping on a certain color of tile, or have a routine for using stairs, such as always finishing a flight on the same foot.

People rely on compulsions as an escape from their obsessive thoughts; however, they are aware that the relief is only temporary, that the intrusive thoughts will soon come back. Some people use compulsions to avoid situations that may trigger their obsessions. Although some people do certain things over and over again, they don’t necessarily perform these actions compulsively. For example, bedtime routines, learning a new skill, and religious practices are not compulsions. Whether or not behaviors are compulsions or mere habit depends on the context in which the behaviors are performed. For example, arranging and ordering DVDs or videos for eight hours a day would be expected of one who works in a video store, but would seem abnormal in other situations. Put another way, if the activity helps bring efficiency to one’s life, it is probably a habit, if it interferes with one’s normal enjoyment of life, it is probably a compulsion.

In addition to the anxiety and fear that typically accompanies OCD, some people may spend hours performing such tasks (i.e., compulsions) every day. In such situations it can be hard for the person to fulfill their work, family, or social roles. In some cases, these behaviors can also cause adverse physical symptoms. For example, people who obsessively wash their hands with antibacterial soap and hot water to remove what they consider to be contamination can make their skin red and raw with dermatitis.

People with OCD can use rationalizations to explain their behavior; however these rationalizations do not apply to the overall behavior but to each instance individually; for example, a person compulsively checking the front door may argue that the time taken and stress caused by one more check of the front door is much less than the time and stress associated with being robbed, and thus the check is the better option. In practice, after that check, the person is ”still” not sure and deems it is ”still” better in terms of time and stress to do one more check, and this reasoning can continue as long as necessary.

OCD without overt compulsions

OCD sometimes manifests without overt compulsions. Nicknamed “Pure-O”, OCD without overt compulsions could, by one estimate, characterize as many as 50 percent to 60 percent of OCD cases. Rather than engaging in observable compulsions, the person with this subtype might perform more covert, mental rituals, or might feel driven to avoid the situations in which particular thoughts seem likely to intrude. As a result of this avoidance, people can struggle to fulfill both public and private roles, even if they place great value on these roles and even if they had fulfilled the roles successfully in the past. Moreover, the individual’s avoidance can confuse others who do not know its origin or intended purpose, as it did in the case of a man whose wife began to wonder why he would not hold their infant child.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Obsessive–compulsive disorder, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Paul Ehrlich (Edward G. Robinson) is a physician working in a German hospital. He is dismissed for his constant disregard for hospital rules, which are bound by bureaucratic red tape. The reason for his conflict is his steadily-rising interest in research for selective color staining, the marking of cells and microorganisms, using certain dyes and marking agents, which, as he describes in the film, have a certain ‘affinity’ to that which is to be stained and nothing else. Emil von Behring (Otto Kruger), whom Dr. Ehrlich meets and befriends, while experimenting with his staining techniques, is impressed with Dr. Ehrlich’s staining methods and refers to it as ‘specific staining,’ adding that this is one of the greatest achievements in science, especially for diagnostic purposes, based on optical microscopia. After attending a medical presentation of one Dr. Robert Koch (Albert Basserman) showing that tuberculosis is a bacterial disease, Ehrlich is able to obtain a sample of the isolated bacterium. After an intense time of research and experimentation in his own lab, paired with a portion of luck, he is able to develop a staining process for this bacterium. This result is honored by Koch and medical circles as a highly valuable contribution to diagnostics.

During his work, Dr. Ehrlich is infected with tuberculosis, a disease still known as being deadly. Therefore, Ehrlich travels with his wife Hedwig (Ruth Gordon) to Egypt for recovery and relief. There he starts to discover the properties of the human body with regard to immunity. This discovery helps Ehrlich and colleague Dr. von Behring to fight a diphtheria epidemic that is killing off many children in the country. The two doctors are rewarded for their efforts.

Ehrlich concentrates on work to create his “magic bullets” – chemicals injected into the blood to fight various diseases. Ehrlich’s laboratory has the help of a number of scientists like Dr. Sahachiro Hata (Wilfred Hari). The medical board, headed by Dr. Hans Wolfert (Sig Ruman), believes much of Ehrlich’s work is a waste of money and resources and fight for a reduction, just as Ehrlich begins to work on a cure for syphilis. Ehrlich is financially backed by the widow of Jewish banker Georg Speyer, Franziska Speyer (Maria Ouspenskaya) and after 606 tries he finally discovers the remedy for the disease. This substance, first called “606″, is now known as Arsphenamine or Salvarsan.

The joy of discovery is short-lived, as 38 patients who receive the treatment die. Dr. Wolfert denounces the cure publicly and accuses Ehrlich of murdering those that died from the cure. As faith in the new cure starts to dwindle, Ehrlich is forced to sue Wolfert for libel and in the process exonerate 606. Dr. Von Bering (who had earlier told Ehrlich to give up his pipe dreams of cures by chemicals), who was called by the defense to denounce 606, instead states that he believes that 606 is responsible for the death of syphilis itself, the 39th death as he calls it. Ehrlich is exonerated, but the strain and stress from the trial are too much for his ill body and he dies shortly thereafter, first telling his assistants and colleagues about taking risks with regard to medicine.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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