The $ variable conflict being removed through jQuery.noConflict()

After the latest change,  some menu items which should have bene unconnected stopped working. The connection was through the $ variable as a conflict was created. The change here is to remove that conflict using the jQuery.noConflict() function made exactly for that purpose. 

Identifying such a fix for php is complex for our scripts since the $ variable is used in several places. In this particular case changing only two lines after the definition seems to be sufficient.