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You are a woman living alone in a one-room tin shack that you rent in Africa’s second largest slum. Because you live near the equator, it is completely dark by 7:00 every evening. You don’t have electricity, and there are no street lights. In fact, there are no “streets” – just a maze of well-worn dirt paths. The only light outside comes from paraffin lanterns hanging from kiosks.
You need to go to the bathroom, but your landlord has not provided any toilet facilities for you or your neighbors. The nearest pit latrine, which is shared by more than 100 people, is almost half a mile away, and it takes 10 minutes to walk there. The last time you left your house to walk to the latrine at night, a gang of young men grabbed you and threatened to rape you, saying that no nice girl would be out on her own at that hour. You were lucky to escape when nearby residents heard your screams and came to see what was wrong.
There are no police posts in this slum; the closest police station is several miles away in a middle-class neighborhood. You know if those gang members come back for you, there is nowhere to turn for help. So you decide to use a “flying toilet” – a plastic bag that you use, then throw out into the open sewer that runs alongside the alley outside your house.
The lack of sanitation facilities adds to women’s insecurity and heightens the risk of gender-based violence. Violence against women is widespread and goes largely unpunished because of ineffective policing. The threat of violence looms large in women’s lives, and many women suffer in silence rather than report crimes due to the multiple obstacles they face to accessing justice.
More than one million people live in Kibera, Nairobi’s biggest slum, yet Kibera does not have even one permanent police station and police do not regularly patrol the area. When police do come into the slums, rather than protect women, they have represented another threat to their security. Police officers have been accused of raping women in the slums. Women fear that if they report violence to the police, they will not recognize it as a crime. They also fear that they will be at risk of reprisal by the perpetrator and the police will not protect them.
Join Amnesty in calling for greater security for women in Nairobi! The Kenyan government should live up to its obligations to provide security and access to justice by consulting with slum residents to establish effective policing and improve confidence in the justice system, making it easier for women to report crimes against them and ensuring that cases are promptly investigated and perpetrators brought to justice.
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Definition of temporality
1a : civil or political as distinguished from spiritual or ecclesiastical power or authorityb : an ecclesiastical property or revenue —often used in plural
2 : the quality or state of being temporal
First Known Use of temporality
Rhymes with temporality
abnormality, actuality, amorality, animality, atonality, axiality, bestiality, bilinguality, bimodality, bipedality, cardinality, classicality, coevality, comicality, commonality, communality, conjugality, cordiality, corporality, criminality, criticality, ethicality, externality, factuality, farcicality, fictionality, functionality, generality, geniality, hospitality, ideality, illegality, immorality, immortality, informality, integrality, internality, irreality, joviality, lexicality, liberality, lineality, literality, logicality, lognormality, marginality, musicality, mutuality, nationality, notionality, nuptiality, optimality, parfocality, partiality, personality, physicality, practicality, principality, prodigality, punctuality, quizzicality, rationality, seasonality, sensuality, sexuality, siege mentality, sociality, speciality, subnormality, surreality, technicality, textuality, topicality, triviality, typicality, unmorality, unreality, verticality, virtuality, whimsicality
Seen and Heard
What made you want to look up temporality? Please tell us where you read or heard it (including the quote, if possible).
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Gott mit uns
Born the son of pharmacist in Czechoslovakia, Franz Fühmann (1922-1984) would grow to become a prolific German writer of children’s stories, essays, poems, and film scripts. Autobiographical in nature, The Jew Car represents his attempt to compile, chronicle, and present readers with an insightful exploration of his radically shifting world views, particularly those that were formed in his earliest days of existence as a highly impressionable youth at the time of the Nazi party’s rise to power.
The collection opens with the title piece, in which Fühmann is introduced as an ardent young Catholic schoolboy. He’s never met a Jew, but he’s heard plenty of rumors about them.
A Jew Car she, she spluttered, had appeared in the mountains, driving in the evenings along the lonely country roads to snatch little girls and slaughter them and bake magic bread from their blood; it was a yellow car, all yellow, she said, her mouth and eyes screwed up with horror: a yellow car, all yellow, with four Jews inside, four swarthy, murderous Jews with long knives, and all the knives were bloody, and blood was dripping from the running board, people had seen it clear as day, and they’d slaughtered four girls so far, two from Witkowitz and two from Bohmisch-Krumma; they’d hung them by the feet and cut off their heads and drained the blood into vats, and we were piled on top of one another in a shrieking, quaking lump of fright, and Gudrun’s shrill owl’s voice was louder than our fear, avidly swearing, though no one doubted her story, that all of this was really true, she’d seen the Jew car herself.
Not only do kids say the darndest things, they also believe them. Like tiny little sponges thirsty for liquid, they absorb everything they come into contact with and squeeze their own twist on it all back into the world. The most interesting aspect of Fühmann’s stories is the striking ways in which his belief system is continually built and rebuilt as he is subject to the attitudes and convictions of those surrounding him. He starts as a child guided by religion, but as the collection skips ahead through time, it’s clear that his Fühmann’s father has a huge influence on what will become his impassioned belief in Nazism. Against his parents’ wishes however, this will lead to his enrolling in the Wehrmacht. It’s the middle pieces of the collection deal with this time spent as a member of the German Defense Force. The shine of this Nationalism will eventually wear off however, leaving Fühmann to once again transform himself.
Ultimately captured by the Russian army, as a prisoner of war Fühmann will morph yet again, this time into a passionate Socialist. Kill them with kindness they often say, but here, in the closing pieces of the collection, it’s more a case of convert them with it.
As the The Jew Car concludes, Fühmann seems steadfast in his belief in Socialism, but much later in life, as his battles with East German politicians over the artistic freedoms of writers would intensify, he would eventually grow disillusioned to these concepts and ideas as well.
Centered around documenting these ever changing beliefs, The Jew Car succeeds by relying on a specific type of self-analysis, one akin to what Karl Ove Knausgaard attempts to tackle in his series of autobiographical novels, but in a different, perhaps more intense way, thanks in no small part to the time period and the subject matter. It’s not often that a fierce belief in fascism is described with such delicate intensely, nor is it the norm to see such a level of honesty permeate a work about the life of a dedicated soldier in 1940s Germany. Fühmann’s collection is a beautifully strange offering that calls into question the power of his own recollections as it documents a history the world is all too familiar with from a unique and captivating vantage point.
The Jew Car: Fourteen Days From Two Decades
By Franz Fühmann
Translated from the German by Isabel Fargo Cole
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One Mission, Two Remarkable Destinations
The Dawn mission is achieving a first in space exploration, exploring not one but two distinct destinations in the main asteroid belt, hundreds of thousands of miles from Earth. Giant asteroid Vesta was confirmed to be a dynamic terrestrial world, much like members of the inner solar system. Dwarf planet Ceres, larger yet less dense and with a confirmed presence of water vapor in its thin atmosphere, is hypothesized to be an icy body, reminiscent of members of the outer solar system. We will know far more when the mission arrives in late spring 2015 and begins its five month orbit Ceres.
Before July 2011, giant asteroid Vesta was only a series of modest images brought to us by the Hubble Space Telescope, enough to tantalize and inspire the Dawn mission, but essentially an unexplored new world in our solar system. Thousands of images and other data downloads later, the spacecraft cruised out of orbit around Vesta in September 2012 and into its trajectory to the mission's second destination, Ceres.
As the spacecraft cruises toward its second destination, Dawn's science team continues its intense work analyzing all the fascinating data gathered during its survey, high and low altitude mapping orbits at Vesta. Explore the links below for more information.
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One of the more annoying nuances in life may be “that constant cough” that refuses to go away. If you find that you are constantly coughing, you are most likely suffering from a chronic cough, which is defined as a cough lasting more than six weeks. Although smoking may be the first thing that comes to mind for those who are constantly coughing, it is reported that about 40 percent of those affected with chronic cough are non-smokers. Be sure to see a doctor if you are suffering from chronic cough so you can determine the correct underlying cause and receive relief. Below, we listed four possible reasons why you’re constantly coughing that might surprise you.
When you think of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), you may think it only causes heartburn, but it is also a common cause of chronic coughing. GERD develops when stomach acid travels back up the esophagus instead of to the intestines. Although occasional heartburn may be caused by eating spicy food, GERD is often due to a weak esophageal sphincter muscle, which allows the food back up the esophagus.
Chronic coughing can occur with GERD when the stomach acid irritates the nerves of the esophagus. It is often a dry cough that occurs. When it comes to determining the cause of a chronic cough, GERD is often overlooked, especially if heartburn is not present. Not all people with GERD have the typical pain associated with the condition, but instead present with a chronic cough and possibly a sore throat.
If GERD is successfully treated, symptoms, including chronic cough, should decrease. Treatment for GERD includes dietary changes, medication and in some instances surgery to repair the weak sphincter muscle.
ACE Inhibitor Medication
One of the frequent, but lesser-known causes of a chronic cough is ACE inhibitor medications. ACE inhibitors are a classification of medications used to treat conditions such as high blood pressure, heart failure and coronary artery disease. There are several different ACE inhibitors, and a chronic cough is a side effect of some. According to the National Institutes of Health, the cough caused by taking ACE inhibitors is usually a dry, non-productive cough.
If the cough is severe enough or interfering with sleep or regular activities, your doctor may be able to switch you to a different type of ACE inhibitor that does not cause chronic coughing.
Bad quality air, including any air pollution from car exhaust, factories, cigarette smoking (first or secondhand smoke), burnt objects, and other toxic fumes can inflame the airways and cause chronic coughing. Sometimes, cough-inducing air pollution is not as obvious when it is in low doses and does not exhibit odors or visible particles, but can still induce extreme irritation of the respiratory airway. For example, some cases of asthma are triggered by long term exposure to environmental pollutants without the affected person knowing so. Hence, be sure to check your city’s website on air quality, and take the necessary precautions if needed to protect yourself.
Keep in mind, it’s not only normal to produce mucus, it is helpful. Mucus helps trap and get rid of bacteria and other foreign substances from the body. Normally, you probably don’t even notice mucus, but if it is produced in excess or becomes too thick, it can drip down the back of your throat and cause post-nasal drip. The mucus from post-nasal drip tickles the throat, which causes you to cough. The most effective way to decrease chronic coughing caused by post-nasal drip is to treat the underlying problem. Post-nasal drip may be due to allergies, sinus infections or colds.
If you’ve never experienced a chronic cough before, and suddenly begin to constantly cough, it may signify that there is an underlying medical condition that should be solved before it progresses to an irreversible medical problem. One way to easily decrease the risk of chronic coughing is to stop cigarette smoking, and stay away from inhaling second hand smoke. If you are or have been constantly coughing for no reason, be sure to see a health care provider as soon as possible to rule out further complications and relieve the chronic cough.
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|Matthew`s Biography of Jesus - Chapter 24
Home > Historical Sources Describe Jesus > Early Biographers Depict Jesus > Matthew’s Biography of Jesus By Chapter > Matthew`s Biography of Jesus - Chapter 24
Signs of the End of the Age
Jesus went out from the temple, and was going on his way. His disciples came to him to show him the buildings of the temple. But he answered them, "Don't you see all of these things? Most certainly I tell you, there will not be left here one stone on another, that will not be thrown down."
As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things be? What is the sign of your coming, and of the end of the age?"
Jesus answered them, "Be careful that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will lead many astray. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you aren't troubled, for all this must happen, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there will be famines, plagues, and earthquakes in various places. But all these things are the beginning of birth pains. Then they will deliver you up to oppression, and will kill you. You will be hated by all of the nations for my name's sake. Then many will stumble, and will deliver up one another, and will hate one another. Many false prophets will arise, and will lead many astray. Because iniquity will be multiplied, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end, the same will be saved. This Good News of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world for a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.
"When, therefore, you see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take out things that are in his house. Let him who is in the field not return back to get his clothes. But woe to those who are with child and to nursing mothers in those days! Pray that your flight will not be in the winter, nor on a Sabbath, for then there will be great oppression, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, nor ever will be. Unless those days had been shortened, no flesh would have been saved. But for the sake of the chosen ones, those days will be shortened.
"Then if any man tells you, 'Behold, here is the Christ,' or, 'There,' don't believe it. For there will arise false christs, and false prophets, and they will show great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the chosen ones.
"Behold, I have told you beforehand. If therefore they tell you, 'Behold, he is in the wilderness,' don't go out; 'Behold, he is in the inner chambers,' don't believe it. For as the lightning flashes from the east, and is seen even to the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For wherever the carcass is, there is where the vultures gather together. But immediately after the oppression of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken; and then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky. Then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. He will send out his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together his chosen ones from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.
"Now from the fig tree learn this parable. When its branch has now become tender, and puts forth its leaves, you know that the summer is near. Even so you also, when you see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Most certainly I tell you, this generation will not pass away, until all these things are accomplished. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
The Day and Hour Unknown
"But no one knows of that day and hour, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
"As the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and they didn't know until the flood came, and took them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and one will be left; two women grinding at the mill, one will be taken and one will be left. Watch therefore, for you don't know in what hour your Lord comes. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what watch of the night the thief was coming, he would have watched, and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore also be ready, for in an hour that you don't expect, the Son of Man will come.
"Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his lord has set over his household, to give them their food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his lord finds doing so when he comes. Most certainly I tell you that he will set him over all that he has. But if that evil servant should say in his heart, 'My lord is delaying his coming,' and begins to beat his fellow servants, and eat and drink with the drunkards, the lord of that servant will come in a day when he doesn't expect it, and in an hour when he doesn't know it, and will cut him in pieces, and appoint his portion with the hypocrites. There is where the weeping and grinding of teeth will be.
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Brown v. Board of Education
Created in anticipation of the 50-year anniversary of the monumental Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education, this website covers four general areas. These include Supreme Court cases, busing and school integration, school integration in Ann Arbor (home of the University of Michigan), and recent resegregation trends in America. The site contains a case summary and the court's opinion for each of 34 landmark court cases, from Plessy v. Ferguson to Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.
Brown includes transcripts of oral arguments, as well. Visitors can also read the oral histories of five members of the University of Michigan community who remember the Brown decision and its impact. There are more than 30 photographs of participants in the Brown case and other civil rights activists, as well as a collection of documents pertaining to desegregation in the Ann Arbor Public School District. A statistical section details the growing number of African Americans in Michigan and Ann Arbor schools from 1950 to 1960.
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The traditional distance between Hong Kong Chinese and their mainland counterparts was thrown into sharp relief recently, after two widely seen videos dramatized the cultural gulf that still exist between the two sides nearly 15 years after Hong Kong’s reunification with China. In one, a cell-phone video disseminated on social-network sites and Hong Kong TV news, arguments erupt between Hong Kong and mainland Chinese after a local man tries to stop a mainland girl from eating in a Hong Kong subway carriage. The other is a response from a nationalist academic, Peking University professor Kong Qingdong, couched in language so virulent that at least one version was removed from YouTube for violating the site’s policy on “hate speech.” The professor says, “Some Hong Kong people don’t see themselves as Chinese … They are bastards,” before adding, “These people are too used to being running dogs for British imperialists.”
Hong Kong’s colonial past is one reason why many see such a rigid delineation between “us” and “them.” Large numbers of Hong Kong Chinese retain British or other foreign travel documents and take a balanced view of the colonial era — viewing it as a time of racial or social injustices, certainly, but also as source of many of the city’s defining advantages, including common law, a global outlook and media freedom. These have been contributing factors in a distinctive local culture that has long caused many Hong Kong people to quietly regard themselves as being far from ordinary Chinese. These days, however, the issue of identity is spilling into a more public forum.
A University of Hong Kong public-opinion poll that has been conducted every six months since 1997 measures the number of Hong Kong residents who identify as Hong Kong citizens, Chinese citizens or some combination of the two. In the latest survey, released in December, the number of respondents identifying themselves first and foremost as Hong Kong citizens was the highest in 10 years, while the number who saw themselves primarily as Chinese sank to a 12-year low. The results hit a nerve: mainland officials called the poll unscientific, and state-run media lashed out at the survey’s main organizer, accusing him of working for the British to “incite Hong Kong people to deny they are Chinese.”
In part, Hong Kong people’s negativity toward mainland Chinese reflects discontent over the Communist government’s control over the supposedly autonomous region. The dominant political forces in Hong Kong are pro-China, and the Hong Kong government is viewed as regularly kowtowing to Beijing. Hong Kong is politically distinct from the mainland, most notably with its laws governing freedom of speech and freedom of protest, and any muddling of this distinction is “frightening” to locals, says Gordon Mathews, a scholar on Hong Kong identity at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “The greatest fear Hong Kong people have is Hong Kong becoming just one more city in China.”
Pocketbook issues are also exacerbating political and cultural divisions. In recent years, wealthy mainland Chinese have become a welcome lifeline for Hong Kong’s struggling economy, filling hotel rooms and emptying designer stores (their shopping sprees make up one-third of retail sales). On the other hand, their speculation in Hong Kong’s property market is widely resented. Mainland Chinese buyers are behind 30% of all luxury-home sales, and there is a perception that they are driving up overall property prices, leaving even middle-class Hong Kong people struggling to afford exorbitant rents or mortgage down payments. Hundreds of thousands of mainland Chinese migrants — many of them the spouses and children of Hong Kong residents — have meanwhile put pressure on housing and school places in an already overcrowded city. Even milk formula has at times become scarce in supermarkets. After the 2008 tainted-milk scandal in China, mainland Chinese crossed the border to stock up on imported formula in Hong Kong, denuding shelves and leaving local parents fuming. The net result is increasingly open antagonism that can be triggered by seemingly minor pretexts. Earlier this month, hundreds-strong protests took place outside the shop front of luxury Italian brand Dolce & Gabbana because a security guard told locals only mainland Chinese and other tourists were allowed to take photos in front of the store.
The area of greatest contention lies in the numbers of pregnant women from the mainland entering Hong Kong to give birth, which automatically grants the babies residency, as well as the free schooling and high-quality health care that goes along with it. In 2010, 37% of babies born in Hong Kong were to mainland families, in which neither parent was a Hong Kong resident. It has become alarmingly difficult for pregnant women, local or otherwise, to reserve hospital beds in the maternity ward, even after the number of mainland women allowed in Hong Kong hospitals was capped at 34,400 for this year.
A week ago, dozens of pregnant women marched in protest in the cold and rain. The women, along with hundreds more husbands and other supporters, were calling for a legislative change to overturn automatic right of abode through local birth. “If [mainland people] come here for the resources and welfare and are not contributing, then it’s a problem. It is out of control now,” said Zumi Fung, an expectant mother who was part of the protest. The 80,000-member Facebook group that organized the demonstration has become a forum to vent vitriol at the mainland Chinese in Hong Kong, who are called by the derogatory term “locusts” and much worse.
The issue of mainland mothers has become a central talking point for Hong Kong’s election in March, when the Chief Executive will be selected by an electoral committee of 1,200. The two front-runners have both vowed to improve the situation with tighter border control and quotas. One of them, former Chief Secretary Henry Tang, has also called for a more “inclusive” mind-set to create a more “harmonious society.” But it is doubtful that Hong Kong people will adopt harmonious attitudes toward China or their mainland brethren any time soon. “I think it will only happen when China becomes a democracy,” says Mathews. “And I’m not holding my breath on that.”
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On March 31, nearly 100 educators from across the state gathered at Erikson for “Exploring PreK–3rd Grade: A dialogue on educational reform,” a meeting that sponsors hope will be the first shot in a revolution in early education in Illinois.
“Our system of education is built on a separation between ‘school’—something that starts in kindergarten or first grade and goes through high school—and ‘preschool’,” says Chris Maxwell, director of the New Schools Project and conference organizer. “They are two different worlds. Preschool and elementary teachers don’t even speak the same language.
“The PreK–3rd movement is a call to rethink both systems, to remove the barriers between them and to realize that we should be trying to establish a continuum of education in the early years.”
What is “PreK–3rd”?
What educators call “PreK–3rd” is not a particular system or model of early education per se but a unique approach to early education with four critical components. First among them is that continuum. “Essentially, the research shows that children can benefit in important ways from a planned, continuous sequence of full-day educational opportunities that begins at age 3,” says Jana Fleming, director of the Herr Research Center for Children and Social Policy, which cosponsored the conference.
The second component of PreK–3rd is quality, defined as practices and teaching that are informed by research-based knowledge about young children’s unique developmental needs and ways of learning. High-quality education requires that goals, standards, assessments, and teaching strategies be aligned within and across the PreK–3rd grade levels, a move that will entail significant cooperation and reform on both sides of the current preschool/school divide. Moreover, curricula and instructional practices must promote the development and learning of the “whole child,” a recognition that children’s emotional and social development are inseparable from their academic learning.
The third component of PreK–3rd is connection among families, schools, and communities as children transition across programs and grade levels. Families must have the opportunity to become more actively engaged with their children’s learning.
Finally PreK–3rd demands collaborative professional development and planning among educators within and across grade levels, backed by knowledgeable administrative leadership.
“At its core, this approach seeks to reduce educational inequities,” says Erikson president Samuel J. Meisels, who offered the conference’s welcoming remarks. “An aligned system of high-quality, developmentally oriented PreK–3rd education will yield benefits for all children and families, especially children whose backgrounds place them at increased risk of poor school outcomes, including children from low-income households, minorities, and English language learners.”
Exploring PreK–3rd from the national and local perspective
Speaking to an audience that included both teachers and administrators, Lisa Guernsey, director of the early education initiative of the New America Foundation, gave a “bird’s eye view” of PreK–3rd at the national and federal level in the morning. The afternoon session featured Arthur Reynolds, professor of child development at the University of Minnesota and director of the Chicago Longitudinal Study, who presented findings from his decades-long investigation into Chicago’s Child-Parent Centers. The centers were among the most successful early intervention programs in the nation and are widely considered a model of PreK–3rd education.
Watch the presentations
The morning session was followed by a response from Heidi Goldberg, program director for early childhood and family economic success at the National League of Cities’ Institute for Youth, Education, and Families, and Elizabeth Najera, principal of the Chicago Public Schools’ Velma F. Thomas Early Childhood Center. Participants in the conference broke for Q&A and discussion following both sessions.
“Our purpose today was to begin a conversation,” said Maxwell at the conference closing, urging participants to take the days’ ideas back to their constituents. A second forum, in which participants will examine and discuss implementation of those ideas, is planned.
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| 0.961437 | 876 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Pollution in London, Birmingham and Leeds will not reach safe levels until after 2030, more than 20 years later than the official European deadline, the government has been forced to admit.
Ministers had promised to make the air in British cities meet EU limits by 2025 at the latest.
However, new figures released by Defra this week show that the deadline for tackling them has been pushed back by up to another ten years.
The admission came as the government faced legal action in the European courts for their failure to meet the legal limits.
Client Earth, who brought the action, said the delay meant thousands more people across the UK would be made ill through dirty air.
"Another five years of delay means thousands more people will die or be made seriously ill," Client Earth lawyer Alan Andrews said.
"The UK needs to act now to get deadly diesel vehicles out of our towns and cities.”
Levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), linked to diesel engines have been in breach of legal levels since the European deadline passed in 2010.
The deaths of up to 4000 people each year in London alone are attributable to pollution levels.
High levels of pollution also exacerbate conditions such as asthma and can cause breathing difficulties in otherwise healthy people.
The Green party today called on the government to act to reduce the number of vehicles on the road.
"People's health has suffered directly because of the complacency and inaction of successive government ministers," Green London assembly member baroness Jenny Jones said.
"This latest admission about the extent of the air pollution problem reinforces the case against more road building in London and for the introduction of pay as you go driving to bring down fares and reduce traffic."
The government's admission comes as London's Oxford Street was named the most polluted street in the entire world, due to diesel emissions.
Levels of NO2 on the street were found to be up to ten times the safe and legal limit.
Defra today insisted pollution levels were coming down.
"We are investing heavily in measures to improve air quality and have committed billions to increase uptake of ultra-low-emission vehicles, sustainable travel and green transport initiatives," a Defra spokesperson said.
"As our understanding of NO2 evolves this must be reflected in our projections which is why we have revised these figures – work is under way to ensure compliance with EU limits in the shortest possible time."
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| 0.967789 | 489 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Women who exercise during pregnancy could boost their baby’s brain health, according to a new Canadian study.
Researchers at the University of Montreal measured higher levels of brain activity in babies whose mothers exercised regularly during pregnancy than in those whose mothers did not exercise.
The findings reflect a shift in thinking about exercise during pregnancy, said Dr. Stu Jones, the chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital.
“We know it helps adults in brain function; we figured that it would most likely help the baby as well,” said Jones, who was not involved in the research recently presented at a neuroscience conference in San Diego.
For the study, 18 women in their second trimester were split into two groups: One was told to exercise moderately for 20 minutes three days a week; the other was told not to exercise.
To measure brain activity, researchers connected 124 diodes to the head of each newborn eight to 12 days after birth and played recorded sounds as they slept. The unconscious response to the sounds was a measure of their auditory memory, the researchers wrote.
The babies whose mothers exercised had brains that, on average, were more developed.
The exercise instructions given to mothers in the study are generally the same as what doctors advise for pregnant women, Jones said. He tells patients to perform low-impact exercises for 20 minutes three days a week.
Swimming, walking, yoga and light aerobics are good options, Jones said, and those who were already runners usually can continue during pregnancy. For all activities, the intensity should be just enough to result in being slightly short of breath.
Beyond potential benefits to the baby, exercise during pregnancy can increase energy levels for the mom, reduce joint aches and lead to a smoother delivery, Jones said.
The University of Montreal researchers plan a follow-up to assess the cognitive, motor and language development of the study babies, who are now 1 year old. The researchers want to see whether the differences in brain development between the two groups continued.
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Department of Chemistry and Physics Learning Outcomes
- Students will have a firm foundation in the fundamentals and application of current chemical and scientific theories.
- Students will develop problem-solving and analytical skills.
- Students will be able to communicate scientific results orally and in writing.
- Students will know and follow the proper procedures and regulations for safe handling and use of chemicals.
- Students will be able to operate and interpret data from instrumentation.
- Students will be able to use library resources to research chemical topics and chemical techniques.
View student performance on program learning outcomes (BA Chemistry)
View student performance on program learning outcomes (BS Chemistry)
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| 0.890561 | 133 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Wuthering Heights was Emily Brontë's only novel, and it is considered the fullest expression of her highly individual poetic vision. It contains many Romantic influences: Heathcliff is a very Byronic character, though he lacks the self pity that mars many Byronic characters, and he is deeply attached to the natural world. When the novel was written, the peak of the Romantic age had passed: Emily Brontë lived a very isolated life, and was in some sense behind the times. Wuthering Heights expresses criticisms of social conventions, particularly those surrounding issues of gender: notice that the author distributes "feminine" and "masculine" characteristics without regard to sex. Brontë had difficulties living in society while remaining true to the things she considered important: the ideal of women as delicate beings who avoid physical or mental activity and pursue fashions and flirtations was repugnant to her. Class issues are also important: we are bound to respect Ellen, who is educated but of low class, more than Lockwood.
Any reader of Wuthering Heights should recognize immediately that it is not the sort of novel that a gently-bred Victorian lady would be expected to write. Emily Brontë sent it to publishers under the masculine name of Ellis Bell, but even so it took many tries and many months before it was finally accepted. Its reviews were almost entirely negative: reviewers implied that the author of such a novel must be insane, obsessed with cruelty, barbaric. Emily's sister Charlotte's novel Jane Eyre was much more successful. Emily was always eager to maintain the secrecy under which the novel was published, understandably. She died soon after the publication, and Charlotte felt obliged - now that secrecy was no longer necessary - to write a preface for the novel defending her sister's character. The preface also made it clear that Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell were, in fact, different people: some readers had speculated that Wuthering Heights was an early work by the author of Jane Eyre. It appears that Charlotte herself was uncomfortable with the more disturbing aspects of her sister's masterpiece. She said that if Emily had lived, "her mind would of itself have grown like a strong tree; loftier, straighter, wider-spreading, and its matured fruits would have attained a mellower ripeness and sunnier bloom." Her apology for Emily's work should be read with the realization that Charlotte's character was quite different from Emily's: her interpretation of Wuthering Heights should not necessarily be taken at face value.
Wuthering Heights does not belong to any obvious prose genre, nor did it begin an important literary lineage. None of its imitations can approach its sincerity and poetic power. However, it has still been an important influence on English literature. With the passing of time, an immense amount of interest has grown up about the Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, and they have achieved the status of the centers of a literary cult.
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Story: Shaw, Henry
This biography was written by Donald Kerr and was first published in the Dictionary of New Zealand BiographyVolume 3, 1996
It is to Henry Shaw that Auckland City Library owes the distinction of holding more incunabula (books printed before 1501) than any other library in New Zealand. Shaw also gave the library 16 medieval and early Renaissance manuscripts, which, combined with the medieval manuscripts in Sir George Grey's gift to the library, makes the collection the largest of such material in the country.
Born in Birmingham, England, on 5 September 1850, Henry Shaw arrived in New Zealand in 1859 with his parents, Frederic Shaw, a jeweller, and his wife, Charlotte Spittle. He had two brothers, Frederick and Charles James. Their first stop was Mangapai, Northland, but family dislike for the harsh conditions led to a quick move to Auckland.
Shaw was educated in Auckland, and was employed by a number of Auckland businesses. About 1876 he joined the firm of S. & J. R. Vaile; in the 1880s he was with McArthur, Shera and Company, a drapery warehouse; and in 1897 he was employed as secretary for the American Tobacco Company of New Zealand. By 1902 Shaw had commenced his own business as a commercial accountant. Actively involved in the profession, he was president of the New Zealand Accountants' and Auditors' Association from 1908 to 1910, a fellow of the New Zealand Society of Accountants, and was involved in the negotiations towards establishing the new bachelor of commerce degree in the University of New Zealand. He was made a life member of the society in 1922. Shaw was a member of the Auckland City Council from 1910 to 1912, during which time he served on the library committee and reorganised the book-keeping system at the town hall. He was also a life member of the Auckland Society of Arts and of the Leys Institute.
Shaw's activities as a book collector were noticed as early as 1884 when he imported a Breeches Bible (printed in 1560) into New Zealand, and was claimed to have already 'devoted many years of his life to the procuring of rare and curious works'. At one point during the 1880s, perhaps hurt by the economic depression, he established his own shop in the city from which he sold hundreds of volumes from his library. One of his major clients was fellow book-collector Sir George Grey.
The Auckland Free Public Library first received a gift of some 150 volumes from Shaw in May 1904. In 1908 his Guide to the principal manuscripts, early printed books, autograph letters, etc., contained in the Auckland Free Public Library was published, the fruit of his bibliographic and cataloguing work on the Grey collection. Shaw continued to donate books, and was appointed in 1913 as one of the two curators of the Grey collection (Edward Shillington, the recently retired librarian, was the other). By the time of his death in 1928 Shaw had given the library some 2,300 volumes. He also gave generously to the Auckland Museum, to the Leys Institute, and to the Roman Catholic diocesan archives. His brother Fred also gave his substantial book collection (including a number of incunabula) to the Auckland Public Library.
However, Henry Shaw was hardly an enterprising collector. He did not specialise in any particular subject or author, and collected in safe and established traditional areas. Shaw never travelled, and with few exceptions his purchases were obtained by correspondence and through catalogues sent to him by British book dealers. He had vision enough to secure books that he understood to be significant and desirable.
Highlights in his collection include Persian, Ethiopic and Arabic manuscripts; fine printing; illustrated materials; and the classics of English literature, with Robert Burns apparently Shaw's favourite poet. Books on artists and paintings tie in with Shaw's great interest in book illustration: there are many grangerised items and scrapbooks that Shaw himself constructed, and collections of book jackets and American advertising of the 1920s.
Shaw was a devoted bibliophile to whom books were a lifelong passion. He wrote, 'Any man, who is a real lover of books, is bound to spend a lot of time amongst his collections; he cannot help himself, he is drawn to them as with a magnet, and becomes as it were their slave'. Bald, bespectacled and unassuming, he loved to talk on any subject encountered in his wide reading. After his retirement in 1912 he spent much of his time in the library, working on his collection. He never married and for many years resided with his brother at Vermont Street, Ponsonby. About 1922 he moved to Wellington, where he died on 2 May 1928.
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Photo by Betty Campbell
|The Ottawa Field-Naturalists' Club
by Frank Pope, Chair of the OFNC's Alfred Bog Committee
WHAT IS THE ALFRED BOG?
The Alfred Bog is a little piece of boreal (northern) forest, hundreds of miles south of anything like it. Yet, at 4,200 hectares (10,000 acres), it is the biggest bog of its kind in Southern Ontario, big enough to give refuge to many plants and animals that were stranded as the warming climate pushed the boreal forest northward. This domed peat bog has been building for 10,000 years and shelters many plants and animals that are rare or endangered, some of which are of national significance. Examples include the Bog Elfin butterfly, Fletcher's dragonfly, spotted turtle, white fringed orchid, Atlantic sedge and rhodora. In fact the bog has been designated by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources as a "Class 1 Wetland" and an "Area of Natural and Scientific Interest (ANSI)".
Being a domed peat bog, the Alfred Bog is unlike the kettle bogs most commonly encountered south of the Hudson Bay lowlands. Kettle bogs are found typically in depressions such as those found when a huge block of glacial ice is buried and subsequently melts, leaving a pond in which vegetation has crept in from the edges until the whole surface is covered with a flat, quaking mat. Domed bogs drain in all directions from the dome and the only nutrients received come from rain and snow. The dominant vegetation in both types of bog is sphagnum moss, known to gardeners as peat moss. Sphagnum moss thrives in the interior of bogs where cool, wet, oxygen starved, nutrient poor, acid conditions prevail. The dome is formed over millennia because sphagnum moss has the ability to wick up water from below. These conditions produce a unique community of plants and animals.
Alfred Bog lies in the east end of an abandoned channel of the Ottawa River . This was the main channel of a great river flowing down the Ottawa valley to the Atlantic Ocean. It drained a glacial lake centred in Manitoba. Because of reduced flow and glacial rebounding, the river abandoned its old channel and moved to its present location. Mer Bleue, lying in the west end of the channel is Alfred's smaller twin.
The most significant impact upon the bog over the years has been the conversion of the bog land for agricultural purposes. The first settlers in the area found the bog to be of little use for farming and an obstacle to building roads. Nevertheless, over the years drainage around the margins has reduced it to about a third of its original size.
In 1981 the Caledonia Township Council had before them a request to change the zoning of a large block of land from "conservation" to "agriculture". The land was owned by a company interested in market gardening . Since the first objective of The Ottawa Field-Naturalists' Club is "to promote the appreciation, preservation and conservation of Canada's natural heritage", the club was sympathetic when Leo Durocher and Ernie Beauchesne of the Vankleek Hill & District Nature Society appealed to President Roger Taylor for help. We joined forces and the battle was on.
Our primary objective has always been to protect the flora and fauna. In this regard, size of the core area is important. Drainage ditches around the periphery and into the core of the bog reduce the habitat that is vital for the healthy genetic diversity of the rare species isolated here. We also recognize the value of the bog in slowing spring runoff and maintaining summer stream flow. Lately, global warming has become an issue. Drainage exposes the peat to oxygen from the air. Exposed peat oxidises at a rate that can exceed 1cm/year, releasing carbon dioxide gas, recognized to be an important factor in global warming. This rate of oxidation over the 42 square km of Alfred Bog would convert 420,000 cubic metres of peat/year into carbon dioxide, equivalent to putting an additional 24,000 family cars on the roads.
Failing to persuade the Caledonia Township Council to reject the proposed zoning change we appealed their decision to the Ontario Municipal Board which heard the case in May 1983. To obtain status for the hearing the Club purchased 50 acres in the bog. The Alfred Bog Trust Fund was established to finance the legal challenge and further land acquisition. The fund grew to $17,500 but the legal expenses came to $16,000. Later that year President Dan Brunton reported that we had lost our case before the Ontario Municipal Board.
The Club then went into an education and fund raising mode. The keystone was a 17 page article on Alfred Bog by Don Cuddy, published in the May/August issue of T&L. Fund raising continued at every opportunity, notably with raffles for an original oil painting by Aleta Karstad and a Paul Harpley print, and the sale of honorary deeds recording the protection of a parcel of Alfred Bog.
In June of 1985 Charles Sauriol of The Nature Conservancy of Canada and President Frank Pope convened a meeting at the Westin hotel of 13 agencies interested in preserving Alfred Bog. The meeting endorsed a motion to form the Alfred Bog Committee with Pope as chair to pursue their interests in the Bog. The Committee immediately set about to buy bog property. An acquisition plan was developed and funding sought. Property owners in the bog who might be interested in selling were approached and 200 acres purchased. South Nation Conservation agreed to manage the property on our behalf.
The first big break came in 1987 when the 3800 acre property that had been the subject of the zoning change came onto the market. Negotiations culminated in 1988 with the purchase of the property. This triggered a busy round of soliciting funds (including federal and provincial government contributions) and preparing the necessary documentation and publicity. Club members responded generously to the appeal. After the purchase, negotiations were opened with the other large property owner in the bog.
In 1990 Ted Mosquin conducted a biological survey of the bog. We acquired another 100 acre property. The Committee also arranged to contact every property owner in the bog and those receptive were informed of its significance. A few who pledged to protect the land they owned in the bog were awarded stewardship certificates.
In the next 5 years a statement of management principles was developed and a management agreement was struck between the Nature Conservancy and South Nation Conservation. The Management Plan was completed. A 1000 ft. board walk was installed and it has proven to be very popular. Another 200 acres were purchased. The Committee decided to expand its membership to become a forum for anyone with an interest in the bog, including a representative from owners of small holdings who were interested in extracting peat. This would prove somewhat awkward later.
In 1996 Pierre Mercier, Director of Planning and Economic Development for the United Counties of Prescott and Russell announced the beginning of public consultation towards the development of the United County's first Official Plan. By 1999 the Official Plan had been approved by the County Council and the Province except for the part pertaining to Alfred Bog. Some property owners, most of whom were interested in peat extraction, objected to the restriction on the use of their property and to the boundaries of the wetland. They appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board and I represented the Club at the hearing in support of the Official Plan. The Board prescribed mediation and we are entering the third year of mediation. Thanks to the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, the wetland boundary issue has been settled. The restriction upon use of land within the wetland boundary has now come down to a matter of compensation. Because one of the Alfred Bog Committee members and I appeared on opposite sides of the issue at the Board hearing I have not called a meeting since Number 26 in October 1999. I had no idea that mediation would take so long. In the meantime, under Legacy 2000, the property acquired to date by the Nature Conservancy has been transferred to Ontario Parks which has designated it as a nature reserve.
In October 2001 we had our second big break when 3200 acres, the other large property referred to above, came on the market. The Nature Conservancy once again came to the fore, taking out an option to purchase the property. The price negotiated for this property is approximately $2,500,000, three times the price for the 1988 purchase of fewer acres. The higher price reflects the demand for peat moss. It took until March to clear legal and survey question and to arrange the funding. If the deal goes through, the governments of Canada and Ontario will each pay one third of the cost, leaving about $820,000 to be raised privately. We are counting upon members of The Ottawa Field-Naturalists' Club to again respond generously. This is probably the opportunity of the decade to exercise our stewardship responsibilities by preserving a precious resource for future generations.
Should the purchase go through, and the outstanding questions about the Official Plan be settled, Ontario Parks will manage the entire property. This amounts to 7,550 acres considering the two large purchases and the smaller purchases. At this point the Alfred Bog Committee may have fulfilled its purpose and morph into something like Friends of the Alfred Bog which would support Ontario Parks.
I cannot let this opportunity pass without giving special recognition and thanks to Don Cuddy, for his passion, leadership and technical expertise, Leo Durocher for his devotion and dedication to the cause, and The Nature Conservancy of Canada who made it all possible.
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| 0.965264 | 1,956 | 3.828125 | 4 |
The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference - this week: Emancipation. The featured title in the latest issue of Credo Reference Content Update is the "Encyclopedia of Emancipation and Abolition in the Transatlantic World" - a fascinating survey of attempts to end slavery. All the answers to the following questions can be found there. Answers here.
1. Name the sixteenth president of the United States, whose Emancipation Proclamation officially freed slaves in the Confederate states in 1863.
2. The abolition of slavery in the United States and the emancipation of nearly 4 million enslaved people was the most significant outcome of which war?
3. Name the man who gave his life in 1859 trying to end slavery in the United States with a failed attempt to capture an arsenal in Virginia and distribute weapons to the slaves.
4. The Society of Friends played a significant role in the history of abolitionism. By what name are they usually known?
5. The writer of "Les Misérables" denounced slavery. What was his name?
6. When talking of slavery, what was the "Underground Railroad"?
7. Which antislavery novel published in 1852 sold more than 10,000 copies in the first week of publication?
8. In a celebrated case of 1841, the U. S. Supreme Court determined that a group of Africans had been illegally abducted and could not be held as slaves. The Africans had revolted on a Spanish slave ship called...what?
9. Who led the only successful slave rebellion in history in the French colony of Saint-Domingue on the island of Hispaniola between 1791 and 1804, and helped to establish Haiti?
10. Booker T. Washington was a pioneer in promoting education for emancipated slaves. What was his middle name?
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| 0.96617 | 377 | 3.140625 | 3 |
Wolf-Rayet stars (or WR stars) are very massive stars, with a surface temperature between 25,000 and 50,000 kelvins, luminosity from 100,000 to 1 million times the Sun's
and a mass from 10 to 50 times the Sun's. The star
Gamma Velorum (in the constellation Vela) is just
such a star.
The stars are named after their discoverers, C. J. Wolf
and Georges Rayet (1839 - 1906), who visually observed them in 1867.
What happens under these conditions of high luminosity and high temperature is that the light from the star itself produces radiation pressure which ejects large quantities of matter from the star. This heated matter can be seen in the spectra of these stars as bright "emission lines", rather than the dark absorption lines that most often are found in stars with the same surface temperatures; the so-called O-type stars.
Wolf-Rayet stars are very rare, we only know about 218 such stars in our own galaxy. However, these stars can appear in areas with massive star formation ("starbursts"), and since these clouds and clusters are quite dense, some Wolf-Rayet stars may be hidden inside, still to be discovered.
Wolf-Rayet stars are probably within a few million years of exploding as a supernova because of their very rapid evolution at such large masses, or if it rotates fast enough, maybe even a hypernova, accompanied by gamma-ray bursts.
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| 0.947708 | 313 | 4.125 | 4 |
Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 (amending the Higher Education Act of 1965) is a federal gender equity law that prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities that receive federal funding. Sexual harassment, which includes sexual violence and other forms of nonconsensual sexual misconduct, is a form of sex discrimination and is prohibited under this law. Title IX states:
“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal assistance. . . .” (20 U.S.C. section 1681)
Some people associate Title IX only with equal opportunities for women in college athletics because this issue has received a lot of attention since the law was passed. However, Title IX is much broader and seeks to give all students an educational experience free from gender discrimination.
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| 0.960725 | 186 | 3.28125 | 3 |
We have alternating daytime and nighttime. Each cycle lasts twenty-four hours. It happens because the Earth rotates on its axis. As the Earth turns, the half of it facing the Sun has day and the other half has night.
If you understand this, it seems straightforward. However, in a 1999 Gallup Poll, nearly one in five Americans thought that the Sun revolved around the Earth. (By the way, it seems that the Germans and the British don't do any better.)
It looks to us as though the Sun is moving and it's against our intuition that instead it's the Earth spinning. Therefore we need to look for examples, experiences and models in order to help children (and adults) understand the scientific concepts.
In addition to its rotation, Earth orbits the Sun. Yet even if it were possible for it to stop somewhere in its orbit, day and night would continue as long as Earth kept spinning.
I have set out relevant concepts and some supporting evidence. Then I have listed some web materials that you may find useful.
1. The rotation axis is an imaginary line through the center of the Earth from pole to pole.
Although the line is imaginary, the axis is real in that it acts as like the axle of a wheel.
2. The axis is tilted with respect to the path of Earth's orbit around the Sun (the ecliptic).
3. Earth spins in a counterclockwise direction, which is from west to east.
You can see the Earth's spin in this animation. The Sun isn't shown, but you can easily work out where it is.
>Since the Earth spins from west to east, the Sun seems to move in the opposite way, rising in the east and setting in the west. This is an example of relative motion.
Relative motion is a common experience. A carousel is an example. The riders go up and down while moving clockwise - as viewed from the sidelines. This family video taken on a carousel shows the riders moving up and down. Yet some shots that include the background make it looks as though it's the background moving counterclockwise, not the carousel moving clockwise.
Or think of being on a train when another train is alongside. You start to move. No! Whoops! It's the other train that's moving. This superb video shows relative motion. There are two trains, even though you only see one of them. Which one is moving and which one is stationary? And how does this change during the video? (I had to watch it several times.)
>At night the stars seem to move from east to west.
You can check this by stargazing, using a planetarium program or Heavens-above.com. In Heavens-above, go to "Astronomy" and then "Whole Sky Chart". By changing the time on the chart, you can see how star positions change from hour to hour. In the northern hemisphere, the pole star Polaris (in Ursa Minor) doesn't move in one evening, because it's just above the Earth's axis. The rest of the sky seems to turn around it.
If you aren't sure how to read the star map, there is some help in "Absolute Beginners - Start Observing". (There is a link below this article.)
>Star trails show that the Earth is moving.
In this picture taken by P-M Hedén you can see a beautiful set of star trails created by leaving the camera's shutter open for many hours. Polaris is near the center of the circular trails.
4. It takes the Earth 24 hours for one rotation, which is an Earth day.
Other planets have days of different lengths, depending on how long it takes them to rotate.
5. Light travels in straight lines.
Since light can't go around or through an opaque object, a shadow forms. Therefore the side of the Earth turned away from the Sun is in darkness.
#1. An animation showing two views of Earth's rotation - from the side and looking down at the North Pole. One arrow lets you watch it spin, but the other will let you move the Earth a bit at a time.
#2. Day and Night is a complete lesson plan with worksheets. It's aimed at pupils aged 10-12, but I think it could be used with younger ones, as it's pretty basic. This doesn't change the science, but it is aimed at the U.K.
#3. A helpful summary for students (aimed at age 11-13).
#4. What Makes Day and Night? The Earth's Rotation from the University of California. It's a detailed lesson plan, so it looks complicated. But it is a good approach. It requires a book, but there are reasonably-priced copies on Amazon and it looks like a good book. Everything else is here, with a summary, equipment list and objectives. Aimed at ages 6-8.
Last revised 2013.07.17
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| 0.962804 | 1,038 | 3.71875 | 4 |
The Baluchis, who constitute the majority of the population in Baluchestan va Sistan (also known as Sistan and Baluchestan), numbered approximately 600,000 in Iran in the mid-1980s. They were part of a larger group that forms the majority of the population of Baluchistan Province in Pakistan and of some areas in southern Afghanistan. In Iran the Baluchis are concentrated in the Makran highlands, an area that stretches eastward along the Gulf of Oman coast to the Pakistan border and includes some of the most desolate country in the world.
The Baluchis speak an Indo-Iranian language that is distantly related to Persian and more closely related to Pashtu, one of the major languages of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Historically, Baluchi has been only an oral language, although educated Baluchis in Pakistan have developed a written script that employs the Arabic alphabet. Unlike the majority of Persians, the majority of Baluchis are Sunni rather than Shia Muslims. This religious difference has been a source of tension, especially in the ethnically mixed provincial capital of Zahedan. Religious tensions came more to the forefront following the Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War.
About half of the Baluchis during the 1980s were seminomadic or nomadic. The remainder were settled farmers or townsmen. Tribal organization remained intact among nomadic and seminomadic Baluchis. Tribal patterns of authority and obligation were also retained by the majority of settled Baluchis. The Baluchis have been one of the most difficult tribal groups for the central government to control in Iran (as well as in Pakistan), in large part because of poor communications between Tehran and Baluchestan va Sistan. With the exception of the city of Zahedan, neither the monarchy nor the Republic invested any significant funds in local development projects. As a result, the Baluchis were one of the poorest and least educated peoples in Iran. Most of the principal Baluchi tribes in Iran border Pakistan or Afghanistan. They include the Yarahmadzai, the Nauri, the Gomshadzai, the Saravan, the Lashari, and the Barazani. Along the coast of the Gulf of Oman live the important tribes of Sadozai and Taherza.
In 2001 Iran, ostensibly as part of a major counter-drug operation, conducted a series of major military operations in Baluchestan va Sistan, and reportedly borders areas of Afghanistan. As of 2008 Baluchis made up 2 percent of Iran's population. General concerns about the porous border with Pakistan and Baluchi sovereignty movements led Iran to put a permenant military base in Sistan va Baluchestan in 2006.
In March 2006 a Baluchi group called Jundullah was responsible for an attack on a government motorcade that left twenty dead, kidnappings, and the reported execution of at least one member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. Jundullah (Army of Allah) is a cross border group that had also been part of the independance movement for Balochistan in Pakistan.
In 2007 Amnesty International published a document reporting instances of torture, arbitrary arrests, and other human rights abuses against the Baluchi minority by Iranian authorities. Baluchis also continued to be the target of economic and social discrimination, further exacerbated in many cases because of their Sunni Muslim faith.
The United States have been reported to be funding groups like Jundullah, because of their attitudes toward the Iranian government, despite their destabilizing actions in Pakistan, a nation the United States has historically had good relations with. Iran claimed these accusations were corroborated by information gathered from captured Jundullah members in 2007 and 2008.
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It is a tradition in many Byzantine Churches, not so much in the Slavic Church, that the faithful will bring red dyed chicken eggs to Church on Holy Saturday night. These eggs are blessed at the conclusion of the service and then distributed to the people. The eggs are crack, one on another, whilst exclaiming “Christ is Risen.” There is sort of a contest involved to see who can last the longest cracking their egg.
As with everything that we do in the Church there is a tradition behind all aspects of the egg. I say tradition because there is very little theological meaning behind it but tradition is important as well.
The eggs are dyed red to symbolize the blood of Jesus Christ that has been shed for the life and salvation of the world. The hard shell of the egg represents the tomb of Jesus where He was placed after the Crucifixion. And the cracking of the eggs represents the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
There are of course many legends of how this all began. Some of it involves the fasting that we Orthodox partake in during Great Lent. If you follow the fast as prescribed by the Church you will not eat meat or dairy products for the 40 days. However, as I have found out, Chickens do not follow the fast and they continue to lay eggs. So as not to let the eggs spoil, and therefore wasting food, people would hard cook them and preserve them. They would then bring them to Church on Pascha to be eaten.
One of my favorite legends involves Mary Magdalene, actually there are several that involve her and many think that the tradition of the Red Eggs came from her. The story goes that on the day of Resurrection, Mary Magdalene was bringing as basket of eggs to share with the other women who had gone to the tomb to prepare the body of Jesus. If you recall the story they buried him in haste and returned the next day to complete the process of burial. When she saw the risen Christ, the eggs in her basket turned red. Hence the egg became associated with the stone that was placed in front of the tomb.
Another legend involving Mary Magdalene has her traveling to Rome. She stands before the Emperor Tiberius and presents him with an egg and says, “Christ is Risen.” Tiberius responds that if this is true this egg will turn red. Guess what? The egg turned red.
The last legend that I will share involves the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus. The legend states that the Theotokos brought a basket of hard cooked eggs to the soldiers that were to Crucify her son. She brought them in the hopes that they would treat Him well during the task that they had to complete. As she presented the basket of eggs to one of the soldiers her tears fell on the eggs and they turned red.
So, as you can see, there are many different legends and practices involving the Red Eggs at Pascha. These are all fun traditions but should not, and cannot replace the joy of the Resurrection of Christ.
Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen!
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Copyright © University of Cambridge. All rights reserved.
The screen shot on the
Hints page shows some solution
When we looked at the solutions sent in,
some people had started by putting triangles together until they
could make a hexagon, others started with a hexagon and looked for
ways it might split up into the two types of triangle.
Well done to Daniel from Royston and to
Georgina from St. George's School for seeing the answer to the
first important question :
'Did that tell you something about yellow and green triangles,
about how they relate to each other' ?
Two yellow triangles make a rhombus of a size which can also be
made by two green triangles.
And that lets us see that the yellow and green hexagons are equal
because the yellow and green triangles have the same area (half
that rhombus) and both hexagons use six triangles. But the
equilateral triangles (below) do not use the same number of
triangles and so cannot be the same size.
Esther had a great approach using sequences
You can make equilateral triangle arrangements from yellow
The numbers needed follow the sequence : 1, 4, 9, 16 . . .
a² where a
the number in the sequence.
When I tried making equilateral triangles with the green triangles
I could see that one way to do it was by replacing each equilateral
space with three green triangles ( which would also of course scale
up the size of my arrangement ).
When working with green triangles the numbers follow the sequence:
3, 12, 27, 48 . . . 3b² where b
is the number in the sequence.
Which means I'm looking for a value of a
and of b
so that a² =
Keeping in mind that a
are whole numbers ( a
position in a sequence ) , a² would have to have a
factor of 3 to match 3b² , but any factor a²
has it will have twice because it's a number squared. So
a² can only contain an even numbers of 3
s in its prime factors and
3b² can only contain an odd numbers of 3
s. This means that a² and
3b² are never going to match, and an equilateral
arrangements made from yellow triangles is never going to match an
equilateral arrangements made from green triangles
This is great reasoning, but how do we
know that replacing each equilateral space with three green
triangles is the only way to build up to an equilateral triangle
?We hope you enjoy the brain-stretching this kind of reasoning
involves.Be encouraged, students a lot older than Stage 4 still
wrestle with this sort of thinking.
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You are here
© Estormiz at Wikimedia Commons
You'll find the Black-capped Chickadee across the northern US into Canada. The Carolina Chickadee holds sway in the Southeast. Hear the husky voice of a Mountain Chickadee in the Rockies. Travel to Canada for the Boreal Chickadee. The Chestnut-backed Chickadee calls the Pacific Northwest home. The Mexican Chickadee just nudges into SE Arizona. And this Gray-headed Chickadee turns up north of the Arctic Circle.
Chickadee Line-up - Seven Chickadees
Written by Bob Sundstrom
This is BirdNote. [Black-capped Chickadee “chick-a-dee-dee” calls]
The image of this dapper Black-capped Chickadee frequently adorns Christmas cards and bags of birdseed. But the Black-capped is only one of seven species of chickadees found in North America. [Black-capped Chickadee “chick-a-dee-dee” call]
All are variations on a bold and engaging model, and each calls “chick-a-dee” with its own regional accent. While you’ll find the Black-capped Chickadee across the northern U.S. into Canada, its close cousin, the Carolina Chickadee, [Carolina Chickadee song and call] holds sway in the Southeast. Hike among conifers in the Rockies, and you’ll be greeted by the husky voice of a Mountain Chickadee [Mountain Chickadee call]. Or listen in the dense spruce forests of Canada for the call of the Boreal Chickadee [Boreal Chickadee call].
A chickadee of resplendent brown, the Chestnut-backed Chickadee, calls the Pacific Northwest home [Chestnut-backed Chickadee call]. The Mexican Chickadee just nudges into the mountains of southeast Arizona [Mexican Chickadee call] and the Gray-headed Chickadee [Gray-headed Chickadee call] turns up in the extreme northwest corner of the continent, north of the Arctic Circle.
No matter which chickadee you find, take a moment to enjoy one of nature’s most delightful creatures. [Black-capped Chickadee “chick-a-dee-dee” call]
Hear the calls of all seven again, on our website, birdnote.org.
Bird calls provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Black-capped Chickadee recorded by G.A. Keller; Carolina Chickadee (song and call) by W.L. Hershberger 84819; Mountain Chickadee by R.S. Little; Boreal Chickadee by G.Vyn; Chestnut-backed Chickadee by G.A. Keller; Mexican Chickadee 40593 by G.A. Keller; and Gray-headed Chickadee by G. Vyn.
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Chris Peterson
© 2015 Tune In to Nature.org February 2015 Narrator: Mary McCann
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| 0.857892 | 688 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Even weirder than dark matter—the invisible stuff constituting most of the mass of the universe—is dark energy, a mysterious force pushing the universe apart at an ever-faster rate. Weirder still is a recent discovery that dark energy has been around for most of the history of the cosmos. “Nine billion years ago, dark energy was already wielding its repulsive influence on the universe,” explains Johns Hopkins University astrophysicist Adam Riess. But the repulsion didn’t win out against the force of gravity until 5 billion years ago, when cosmic expansion kicked into high gear and began accelerating.
Calibrating images from the Hubble Space Telescope’s high-end cameras against those from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe—a satellite that maps the heat signature of the early universe—Riess and his colleagues retraced the growth history of the universe with unprecedented accuracy and depth. “It’s as if you mark the height of a child against a doorframe to measure growth spurts,” Riess says. “While dark matter retards expansion, dark energy propels it.”
For reasons as yet unknown, the anti-gravitational effects of dark energy are greater now than they were in the distant past. One theory, which the Hubble data support, is that empty space is pregnant with residual energy from the Big Bang. As space expands, there is more dark energy, while matter becomes more spread out, weakening the inward pull of gravity. But a universe of questions still remains. “This is another clue,” Riess says, “and we know so little about dark energy that anything we can find out is important.”
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| 0.939599 | 356 | 3.375 | 3 |
Some reefs are erroneously constructed from car tires (a bad idea due to the toxicity of rubber disintegrating in salt water), and some are built using broken-down cars, old boats and scrap metal. Our goal was to ensure that fish and other marine animals, such as crabs, octopus, and eels, looking for a place to live and reproduce had the best environment available. The reef project chose cinder block because the block was much easier to handle than cars and other heavy industrial items and the Calcium content of concrete bolsters the growth of various plant and invertebrate life forms. Also, logistically it made more sense because block is readily available. The fish habitats are formed into an “igloo” and “caterpillar” shapes which offer the best environment to live, breed and find protection.
Step 1: Choose Location
The very first step is to choose a low current location that is conducive to undersea life, reproduction and feeding.
In 1985, a 60-foot tuna-fishing vessel of Mexican origin was anchored close to the beach in Playa Hermosa. A fire broke out aboard causing considerable damage and the boat sank. In 2002, fishermen living in Playa Hermosa knew the location of boat and helped discover the wreck and the remains of the fishing vessel. The wreck has a N-S direction. To the south is a drum with nets and ropes completely covered with vegetation and corals, at the center is the engine and various mechanical parts of the arms. At the other end, the north, one can see a metal cube of about 100 cubic feet that is most likely a fuel tank. The wreck lies about 400 meters west from the beach, facing the parking lot of the first entrance to Playa Hermosa. It sits at a depth roughly 20 to 30 feet depending on the tide. 12 fish habitats consisting of the igloo block structure are located around the wreck..
While the CondoFish project in Playa Hermosa Costa Rica obtained full government approval for the project, this may or may not be relevant in other international locations. Costa Rica is a very ecologically conscious country and anything regarding natural resources or wildlife requires approval and constant surveillance.
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| 0.949199 | 449 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Words formed when one letter is changed in than
Letter 1 (T) changed: 1 word found:
No words found when changing letter 2 (H).
Letter 3 (A) changed: 2 words found:
Letter 4 (N) changed: 3 words found:
A total of 6 words can be formed from than by changing one letter.
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| 0.893186 | 72 | 2.75 | 3 |
A city in Arizona has become the first in the state to allow same-sex partners to have civil unions, despite threats of legal action made by the state’s attorney general.
The council of Bisbee, a former mining town now populated by a large number of artists and retirees, voted 5-2 on Tuesday to pass legislation allowing civil unions between couples of any gender.
Gene Connors, a council member in his first term, proposed the measure. He said after the vote: “We’re just acknowledging the people that live here. It’s a big step in the right direction for a tiny town … it’s pretty neat.”
Arizona’s attorney general, Tom Horne, wrote to the council before they voted, telling them they had “no authority” to legalise same-sex unions.
“The only proper way to change a statute is through the legislature, not through actions of the city council attempting to change a state statute within its boundaries,” said Mr Horne. He has threatened to block the measure in court before it comes into effect, but has yet to follow up on that promise.
Bisbee resident James Cool voiced his support for the measure: “The train in this country has left the station on civil unions, just as it did on interracial marriage and voting rights. If you don’t like civil unions, don’t get one.”
Some opponents argued that the legislation could result in falling levels of tourism to Bisbee, while others said same-sex unions were an “abomination”.
If no legal challenge is submitted civil unions should be able to take place in Bisbee from May this year, but they would only be recognised within city limits.
Last month the US Supreme Court heard two major cases related to equal marriage, one challenging a California ban and the other challenging a federal law restricting tax and other marriage benefits to opposite-sex couples only. The court is expected to issue rulings in June.
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| 0.969739 | 420 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Lewis, Matthew Gregory, 1775–1818, English author, b. London. In addition to his writing he pursued a diplomatic career and served for a time in Parliament. He was often called "Monk" Lewis from the title of his extravagant Gothic romance The Monk (1796), the writing of which was influenced by the tales of Ann Radcliffe. The novel concerns a saintly Capuchin monk who, led into a life of depravity by a fiend-inspired woman, subsequently becomes a rapist and murderer. Charges of immorality and irreligion brought against Lewis by his critics caused a less offensive second edition to be published. Of his melodramatic plays the most famous is The Castle Spectre (1797). His ballads, notably Alonzo the Brave and the Fair Imogene, influenced Sir Walter Scott's early poetry.
See biography by L. F. Peck (1961); studies by M. Summers (1938, repr. 1964) and R. P. Reno (1980).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
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| 0.969235 | 230 | 3.125 | 3 |
ASSISI is already too well known for its own good, thanks to St Francis, Italy’s premier saint and founder of the Franciscan order, which, with its various splinter groups, forms the world’s biggest religious order. Had the man not been born here in 1182 the town wouldn’t be thronged with visitors and pilgrims for ten months of the year, but then neither would it have the Basilica of St Francis, one of the greatest monuments to thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Italian art. You’ll probably feel it’s worth putting up with the crowds and increasingly overwhelming commercialism, but you may not want to hang around once you’ve seen all there is to see – something which can easily be done in a day. That said, Assisi quietens down in the evening, and it does retain considerable medieval hill-town charm.
More about Italy
Find out more
The Basilica di San Francesco
The Basilica di San FrancescoPilgrims and art lovers alike usually make straight for the Basilica di San Francesco, justifiably famed as Umbria’s single greatest glory, and one of the most overwhelming collections of art outside a gallery anywhere in the world. Started in 1228, two years after the saint’s death, and financed by donations that flooded in from all over Europe, it’s not as grandiose as some religious shrines, though it still strikes you as being a long way from the embodiment of Franciscan principles. If you don’t mind compromised ideals, the two churches making up the basilica – one built on top of the other – are a treat.
The Lower Church
The sombre Lower Church – down the steps to the left – comes earlier, both structurally and artistically. The complicated floor plan and claustrophobic low-lit vaults were intended to create a mood of calm and meditative introspection – an effect added to by brown-robed monks, a ban on photography and a rule of silence. Francis lies under the floor in a crypt only brought to light in 1818 after 52 days of digging (entrance midway down the nave). He was hidden after his funeral for safekeeping, and nowadays endures almost continuous Masses in dozens of languages.
Frescoes cover almost every available space and span a century of continuous artistic development. Stilted early works by anonymous painters influenced by the Byzantines sit alongside Roman painters such as Cavallini, who with Cimabue pioneered the move from mosaic to naturalism and the “new” medium of fresco. They were followed by the best of the Sienese School, Simone Martini and Pietro Lorenzetti, whose paintings are the ones to make a real point of seeing.
Martini’s frescoes are in the Cappella di San Martino (1322–26), the first chapel on the left as you enter the nave. He was given free rein in the chapel, and every detail, right down to the floor and stained glass, follows his drawings, adding up to a unified scheme unique in Italy. Lorenzetti’s works, dominated by a powerful Crucifixion, are in the transept to the left of the main altar. Vaults above the altar itself contain four magnificent frescoes, complicated but colourful allegories of the virtues on which Francis founded his order: Poverty, Chastity and Obedience. Once thought to have been the work of Giotto, they’re now attributed to one of the church’s army of unknown artists. The big feature in the right transept is Cimabue’s over-restored Madonna, Child and Angels with St Francis, a painting Ruskin described as “the noblest depiction of the Virgin in Christendom”. Look out for the famous portrait of Francis and for the much-reproduced fresco of St Clare on the wall to its left.
If time allows check out the cloisters, accessible from the rear right-hand side of the Lower Church, and the Treasury, or Museo del Tesoro e Collezione F.M. Perkins (April–Oct Mon–Sat 9.30am–5pm; donation requested), reached via the apse of the Lower Church. The latter, often passed by, contains a rich collection of paintings – including works by Pietro Lorenzetti and Masolino da Panicale.
The Upper Church
The more straightforward Upper Church, built to a light and airy Gothic plan – which was to be followed for countless Franciscan churches – is a completely different experience. It’s less a church than an excuse to show off Giotto’s dazzling frescoes on the life of St Francis. Francis Preaching to the Birds and Driving the Devils from Arezzo are just two of the famous scenes reproduced worldwide on cards and posters. The cycle starts on the right-hand wall up by the main altar and continues clockwise. Giotto was still in his 20s when he accepted the commission, having been recommended for the job by Cimabue, whose own frescoes – almost ruined now by the oxidation of badly chosen pigments and further damaged in the 1997 earthquake – fill large parts of the apse and transepts. In the vaults, several harsh areas of bare plaster stand as graphic monuments to the collapse of that year.
The most extraordinary figure the Italian Church has produced, St Francis was a revolutionary figure who took Christianity back to basics. The impact he had on the evolution of the Catholic Church stands without parallel, and everything he accomplished in his short life was achieved by nothing more persuasive than the power of preaching and personal example. Dante placed him alongside another messianic figure, John the Baptist, and his appeal has remained undiminished – Mussolini called him “il piu santo dei santi” (the most saintly of the saints).
The events of his life, though doubtless embellished by myth, are well chronicled. He was born in Assisi in 1182, the son of a wealthy merchant and a Provençal woman – which is why he replaced his baptismal name, Giovanni, with Francesco (Little Frenchman). The Occitan literature of Provence, with its troubadour songs and courtly love poems, was later to be the making of Francis as a poet and speaker. One of the earliest writers in the vernacular, Francis laid the foundation of a great Franciscan literary tradition – his Fioretti and famous Canticle to the Sun (“brother sun … sister moon”) stand comparison with the best of medieval verse.
In line with the early life of most male saints, his formative years were full of drinking and womanizing; he was, says one chronicler, “the first instigator of evil, and behind none in foolishness”. Illness and imprisonment in a Perugian jail incubated the first seeds of contemplation. Abstinence and solitary wanderings soon followed. The call from God, the culmination of several visions, came in Assisi in 1209, when the crucifix in San Damiano bowed to him and told him to repair God’s Church. Francis took the injunction literally, sold his father’s stock of cloth and gave the money to Damiano’s priest, who refused it.
Francis subsequently renounced his inheritance in the Piazza del Comune: before a large crowd and his outraged father, he stripped naked in a symbolic rejection of wealth and worldly shackles. Adopting the peasant’s grey sackcloth (the brown Franciscan habit came later), he began to beg, preach and mix with lepers, a deliberate embodiment of Christ’s invocation to the Apostles
“to heal the sick, and carry neither purse, nor scrip [money], nor shoes”. His message was disarmingly simple: throw out the materialistic trappings of daily life and return to a love of God rooted in poverty, chastity and obedience. Furthermore, learn to see in the beauty and profusion of the natural world the all-pervasive hand of the Divine – a keystone of humanist thought and a departure from the doom-laden strictures of the Dark Ages.
In time he gathered his own twelve apostles and, after some difficulty, obtained permission from Pope Innocent III to found an order that espoused no dogma and maintained no rule. Francis himself never became a priest. In 1212 he was instrumental in the creation of a second order for women, the Poor Clares, and continued the vast travels that took him as far as the Holy Land with the armies of the Crusades. In Egypt he confronted the sultan, Melek el-Kamel, offering to undergo a trial by fire to prove his faith. In 1224 Francis received the stigmata on the mountaintop at La Verna. Two years later, nursing his exhausted body, he died on the mud floor of his hovel in Assisi, having scorned the offer of grander accommodation at the bishop’s palace. His canonization followed swiftly, in 1228, in a service conducted by Pope Gregory.
However, a split in the Franciscan Order was inevitable. Francis’s message and movement had few sympathizers in the wealthy and morally bankrupt papacy of the time, and while his popularity had obliged the Vatican to applaud while he was alive, the papacy quickly moved in to quash the purist elements and encourage more “moderate” tendencies. Gradually it shaped the movement to its own designs, institutionalizing Francis’s message in the process. Despite this, Francis’s achievement as the first man to fracture the rigid orthodoxy of the hierarchical Church remains beyond question. Moreover, the Franciscans have not lost their ideological edge, and their views on the primacy of poverty are thought by many to be out of favour with the present Vatican administration.
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There is one thing that would, for certain, jump-start the U S economy and create many jobs. Expect career politicians and congressional lobbyists to resist it mightily. The reason, its adoption would adversely affect all their pocket books and seriously diminish congress's power over and control of American citizens. It's called The Fair Tax.
The Fair Tax is a "consumption" tax, a national sales tax. The IRS would be annihilated. Nobody pays income tax anymore and no payroll taxes paid by businesses or employees. Every earner keeps all they
have earned! The price of all American made goods would drop by an estimated 22 percent. That is the figure researchers estimate the income tax and the payroll taxes add to the cost of everything produced in
America. The national sales tax rate would be 23 percent. So there's no increase in cost-of-living for Americans. But economists estimate that in the first year after the Fair Tax becomes law, the economy will grow over 10 percent, exports will grow by 26 percent and capital spending will increase over 70 percent. There are many additional advantages of the Fair Tax! Read The Fair Tax Book to learn much more. Then ask your congressional candidates about The Fair Tax and insist they support it!
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Barrier islands, sometimes called barrier spits, are found on coastlines all over the world, but are most noticeable along the eastern coast of North America, where they extend from New England down the Atlantic Coast, around the Gulf of Mexico and south to Mexico.
Barrier islands are popular vacation spots, including resort communities from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Miami Beach, Florida. Many people own vacation homes or condominiums on barrier islands, and more barrier islands are being developed for tourism. However, barrier islands are fragile, constantly changing ecosystems that are important for coastal geology and ecology. Development has posed dangers to these ecosystems and has also increased the risk of property damage every year from hurricanes and Nor'easters.
In this article, we will examine the fragile ecosystems of barrier islands. We'll explore how these islands are formed, what habitats and life are present on them, how they change, the consequences of development and the recreational activities that attract tourists to them every year.
Barrier islands are long, narrow, offshore deposits of sand or sediments that parallel the coast line. Some barrier islands can extend for 100 miles (160 km) or more. The islands are separated from the main land by a shallow sound, bay or lagoon. Barrier islands are often found in chains along the coast line and are separated from each other by narrow tidal inlets, such as the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
The formation of barrier islands is complex and not completely understood. The current theory is that barrier islands were formed about 18,000 years ago when the last Ice Age ended. As the glaciers melted and receded, the sea levels began to rise, and flooded areas behind the beach ridges at that time. The rising waters carried sediments from those beach ridges and deposited them along shallow areas just off the new coast lines. Waves and currents continued to bring in sediments that built up, forming the barrier islands. In addition, rivers washed sediments from the mainland that settled behind the islands and helped build them up.
Barrier islands serve two main functions. First, they protect the coastlines from severe storm damage. Second, they harbor several habitats that are refuges for wildlife.
Let's take a look at the parts of a typical barrier island.
The structure of a typical barrier island consists of the following zones, from the ocean side toward the sound:
- Beach - consists of sand deposited by the actions of waves
- Dunes - formed from sand carried and deposited by winds. Dunes are stabilized naturally by plants (sea oats, bitter pancum) and artificially by fences. The primary dune faces the ocean and may be followed by secondary and tertiary dunes inland.
- Barrier flat - (also called backdune, overwash or mud flat) formed by sediments that get pushed through the dune system by storms, such as hurricanes. Grasses grow and stabilize these areas.
- Salt marsh - a low-lying area on the sound-side of a barrier island. Salt marshes are generally divided into high and low marsh areas. High marsh areas get flooded twice each month with the spring tides, while low marsh areas get flooded twice daily with the high tides. Cord grasses stabilize the salt marsh area, which are one of the most ecologically productive areas (amount of vegetation per acre) on Earth. In fact, the salt marsh ecosystems of the islands and the coast help to purify runoffs from mainland streams and rivers.
Each of these zones has distinct animal and plant life, which we will discuss in the next section.
Even though barrier islands are narrow, they have several distinct habitats:
- Barrier flat
- Salt marsh
Each habitat has varying conditions and wildlife. We will examine some of them according to each habitat.
On the ocean side is the barrier island's beach habitat. The beach is much like a desert in that it lacks fresh water, but a large portion of the beach gets covered almost entirely with salt water twice daily (the entire beach gets covered to the dune base during storms). Animals and plants in this environment (known as the intertidal zone, between tides) must endure long periods of exposure to salt water and drying air. On the beach, the only plant life you'll see is some algae that get washed ashore. Bacteria live in the spaces between the sand grains where water from the surf percolates through. The animals on the beach itself include burrowing animals like mole crabs and clams that filter-feed during high tides, burrowing worms that feed on bacteria in the sand, scavenging crabs (ghost crabs) and various shorebirds (sandpipers, seagulls and pelicans) that eat the crabs, burrowing animals and offshore fish.
The dunes receive moisture from rain and surf and are occasionally flooded during severe storms. The dunes are still a relatively hostile environment with high salt content, sandy soil and little fresh water. Plants such as sea oats and bitter pancum provide stability to the dunes. Their root systems hold the sand in place and their shoots slow the winds, thereby allowing sand to be deposited. Along the dunes, you will find many crabs, particularly ghost crabs. Again, you will find birds (gulls, terns) that feed on the animals that inhabit the dunes.
After the dunes, some islands may have maritime forests with shrubs and trees (Sand Live Oak, Myrtle Oak, Slash Pine and Magnolia). Animals in these forests include various snakes, opossums, skunk, raccoon and fox.
On other islands, the barrier flats come after the dunes. The primary vegetation includes cordgrass and sawgrass. These areas are often flooded daily during high tides.
The muds and sediments are full of anaerobic bacteria (there is little oxygen in the sediments). The bacteria decompose the rich organic material in the sediments and from dead plants and animals. Animals that live in the wet muds filter-feed bacteria and plankton from the tidewaters or feed on bacteria in the muds; these animals include clams, mussels, snails and worms. Various fish come and go with the tides. Fiddler crabs feed on the bacteria in the muds. Ghost crabs and blue crabs feed on the bacteria, small invertebrates and small fish. Various birds (seagulls, egrets, pelicans) feed on the fish, crabs and invertebrates.
The sound-side of an island is usually dominated by the salt marsh. The salt marshes that you find on the sound sides of barrier islands are similar to those found on the coastal mainland. Like the barrier flats, salt marshes are regularly flooded with seawater during high tide and the animals and plants that you find are similar to those in the barrier flats.
Nature's Effects on Barrier Islands
Barrier islands are constantly changing. They are influenced by the following conditions:
- Waves - Waves continually deposit and remove sediments from the ocean side of the island.
- Currents - Longshore currents that are caused by waves hitting the island at an angle can move the sand from one end of the island to another. For example, the offshore currents along the east coast of the United States tend to remove sand from the northern ends of barrier islands and deposit it at the southern ends.
- Tides - The tides move sediments into the salt marshes and eventually fill them in. Thus, the sound sides of barrier islands tend to build up as the ocean sides erode.
- Winds - Winds blow sediments from the beaches to help form dunes and into the marshes, which contributes to their build-up.
- Sea level changes - Rising sea levels tend to push barrier islands toward the mainland.
- Storms - Hurricanes and other storms have the most dramatic effects on barrier islands by creating overwash areas and eroding beaches as well as other portions of barrier islands.
The impact of storms on barrier islands depend upon qualities of the storm (storm surge, waves) and upon the elevation of the barrier island at landfall. To quantify the impact of storm damage, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has devised a "hazard scale" as follows:
- Impact 1 - Wave erosion is confined to beach area. The eroded sands will be replenished in a few weeks to months and no significant change occurs in the system.
- Impact 2 - Waves erode the dune and cause the dune to retreat. This is a semi-permanent or permanent change to the system.
- Impact 3 - Wave action exceeds the dune's elevation, destroys the dune and pushes sediment from the dune landward (approximately 300 yards/100 m), thereby creating overwash. This change in the system pushes the barrier island landward.
- Impact 4 - The storm surge completely covers the barrier island, destroys the dune system and pushes sediments landward (approximately 0.6 miles/1 km). This is a permanent change to the barrier island or portions of it.
For more details, see USGS: Mapping Coastal Change Hazards.
Fighting Erosion on Barrier Islands
Because barrier islands are popular vacation spots, many are being developed. Resort communities are being built on them including high-rise hotels, condominiums and golf courses. To accommodate these structures, sand dunes are destroyed and salt marshes and barrier flats are filled in. In some cases, humans have tried to fight the natural erosion processes on barrier islands, with mixed results. Let's look at two examples.
Cape Hatteras Lighthouse
Barrier islands such as Hatteras Island, NC, where the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is located, are constantly changing. Offshore currents carry sand away from one end of the island and deposit it at the other end, thereby changing the shape of the island.
The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse has guided mariners since the 1800s. Because of the eroding beach around it, the lighthouse was in danger of falling into the Atlantic Ocean. In 1989, officials decided to move the lighthouse from the site where it had stood for over 100 years to a new site inland about 2900 feet (about .5 mile/.8 km). Years of reports, studies and public hearings delayed the move until 1999. The move presented many technical challenges which are described in various press releases and articles at Cape Hatteras Lighthouse Relocation Articles and Images.
Upham Beach, Florida
Sand erosion by longshore currents and wave actions can dramatically change a beach. To preserve the beach, humans must renourish it with sand dredged from other sources, a process known as beach nourishment. Beach nourishment is an expensive undertaking, often costing millions of dollars. As you can see below, beach nourishment in Upham Beach, Florida, did not last. Within a year, the offshore currents eroded the replenished sand. At best, beach nourishment is an expensive, temporary effort to halt the inevitable shifting sands of barrier islands.
In the next section, we'll look at some dramatic effects that development has had on barrier islands.
Development's Effects on Barrier Islands
Development has important effects on barrier island ecosystems, which are dynamic systems by their nature. Several environmentalists and noted geologist Orrin Pilkey, of Duke University, have spoken about the dangers of building on barrier islands. Let's look at two barrier islands that have been drastically changed by development.
Ocean City, Maryland
Ocean City, which is located at the southern end of Fenwick Island along Maryland's eastern shore, has been a popular beach resort for a long time. In the 1920s, several large hotels were built there, and by the 1950s, development boomed dramatically and lasted almost 30 years. In the 1970s, ecological concerns about the island were raised, and laws were enacted to halt dredging of channels and filling in wetlands.
A hurricane opened the Ocean City Inlet in 1933 (the inlet separates Fenwick Island from Assateague Island to the south). To keep the channel navigable to the mainland, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers constructed two rock jetties. Although the jetties stabilized the inlet, they altered the normal north-to-south sand transport by the longshore currents. The result is that sand built up behind the north jetty and the sand below the south jetty was quickly eroded. The accelerated erosion has shifted Assateague Island almost one-half mile (.8 km) inland. In a very short time, human interventions have permanently altered the barrier island profile.
Topsail Island, North Carolina
Topsail Island is a popular beach vacation spot along the North Carolina coast. This barrier island was extensively developed for tourism with the construction of condominiums and beach houses. In September 1996, Hurricane Fran made landfall near Wilmington, NC. The counterclockwise air circulation around the hurricane's eye caused heavy wave action and storm surges over Topsail Island. The storm eroded much of the island, causing overwashes. Several places on the island were eroded, and the island's only highway was seriously damaged. Residential homes were destroyed, and property damage was several-hundred-million dollars.
Although barrier-island development is a risky business, these islands continue to be popular vacation and recreational attractions. Because barrier islands serve important functions (protecting the coasts from storm damage, nurturing ecosystems and protecting wildlife), a balance is needed between conservation and further development.
For more information on barrier islands, check out the links on the next page.
Related HowStuffWorks Links
- How The Nature Conservancy Works
- How Hurricanes Work
- How Floods Work
- Why are the waves on the U.S. West Coast larger than the waves on the East Coast?
- If global warming causes the polar ice caps to melt, how much will the oceans rise?
- What causes high tide and low tide? Why are there two tides each day?
- How do they measure "sea level"?
- How much water is there on the Earth?
- What is a Nor'easter?
- Why would there be no more fish in 40 years?
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From Ohio History Central
Newark is the county seat of Licking County. It is located approximately thirty-five miles east of Columbus. Samuel Elliott and Samuel Parr built the first houses -- log cabins -- in the community in 1802. By 1804, approximately twenty families lived in Newark. In 1808, residents constructed Licking County's first courthouse. It was located on the same site where Licking County's courthouse is today. The original courthouse was a log structure that also served as a church. In 1817, Presbyterians built the first separate church in the community. In 1830, Newark had a population of roughly one thousand people. In 1840, the population had almost tripled to over 2,700 people. Most residents earned their living from agriculture in Newark's early years. By the late 1840s, the town was home to three newspaper offices, ten grocery stores, two gristmills, an iron foundry, a wool factory, a bookstore, two hardware stores, as well as several other business establishments. Construction of the Ohio and Erie Canal began just south of Newark at Licking Summit in 1825. The canal led to local prosperity in the 1830's and 1840's.
In 1900, Newark was a city of fifteen thousand people. Newer businesses included several iron foundries, construction companies, tractor manufacturers, and companies working with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The Heisey Glass Company was world-renowned for its stem and dinnerware. The American Bottle Company was the largest beer bottle manufacturer in the world and employed more than 2,500 people in the first decade of the 1900s.
During the twentieth century, Newark continued to grow and prosper. In 2000, Newark's population exceeded 45,000 people. The Ohio State University at Newark is the largest of The Ohio State University's branch campuses. Almost two thousand students are enrolled at the school. Another three thousand people are enrolled at the Central Ohio Technical College. Newark is the Longaberger Company's headquarters, and its offices are located in a building that resembles a large picnic basket. Many Columbus residents moved forty-five minutes east to Newark during the 1990s and early 2000s. These people still commute to Columbus to work, but they prefer living in a smaller community like Newark.
Newark is probably best known for the Newark Earthworks, a series of mounds built by the Hopewell Indians. Remnants of the earthworks still exist today in sites owned by the Ohio History Connection. During the late 1800s and the early 1900s, the Licking County Fair took place inside the Great Circle Mound, while the Ohio National Guard utilized the Octagon Mound as a drill field.
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Around the world, only 5 to 20 percent of the population is left-handed. But why?
A 2012 study suggested that societies that had more shared tools have people with the same hand dominance. It makes sense, right? If you only have right-handed tools to work with, you’d better learn to be right-handed or risk injury.
Another study thought handedness came into play for better combat. Those who were left-handed, it was determined, had a better chance of winning a fight. Although perhaps that is because most people are expecting an attack from the right.
And then there is the theory of genes. Some scientists thought genes were definitively the way that we get our hand dominance. However, some identical twins favor different hands.
Huh. So, why are some people left handed?
Well, it looks like it’s a combination of environmental factors and genetics. And a new study has begun to find some of the genes that are most responsible for it.
A gene called PCSK6 is known to provide the information as to where internal organs should be in the body. People with mutations to this gene can have conditions where their organs are reversed in their body (situs inversus), or basically have two left sides to their body and multiple spleens (left-handed isomerism).
But it was also found that this gene can affect how the brain works, specifically when it comes to hand dominance.
There’s still more research to do, but it gives scientists a good place to start.
Pretty cool, huh? Here are some other interesting stories that came about this week…
1. Babies know animals should have guts. In this study, it was found that infants expect things that move to have organs inside. When objects were made to appear to be alive and then were broken apart, babies showed surprise that the objects were hollow.
2. A mom posted on her blog about how teenage girls should cover up. This created a slew of responses, from pats on the back to comments about “slut shaming”. I read many of the responses and I liked this one because while the author disagrees, she keeps it civil.
3. A study found that kids can’t properly assess risks. No wonder they don’t listen when you tell them to “stop doing that or you’ll get hurt”! :)
4. Some airlines are making kid-free quiet zones in their planes. Good idea or insulting? Let me know in the comments!
5. More than one fifth of parents think it’s okay to skip the kid’s seatbelt. Interestingly, the wealthier the parent, the more likely they are to say that kids not wearing a seatbelt sometimes is okay.
Looking for inspiration and information? Check out the news, crafts, and activities I’ve posted on Pinterest!
Photo courtesy of Heather Katsoulis on flickr.com.
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Teachers all over Ohio are peeking at the new Ohio Common Core Standards (CCS) to be adopted in 2014. While a few teachers stretch and yawn, thinking they have 2 years to implement these standards, most teachers are readying for change. The standards will transform the teaching strategy for Ohio teachers once again, and it could be for the best. The new standards seem to flow from grade to grade, unlike our current set of standards, and teachers are excited about the potential for the over-arching ideas to engage more students.
From kindergarten to high school, the new standards emphasize research. The smallest students will be challenged to ask questions and find answers. Students and teachers will work toward scaffolding research skills grade level after grade level. The old concept of the “big paper” isn’t completely lost toward the end, but teachers will be encouraged to allow the students’ self inquiry to drive the research topics rather than to impose a topic on the students. Most teachers welcome this idea, but a few old-school teachers reject the concept. The old-fashioned teachers wonder how they’ll grade a paper written on a topic foreign to them, and they query whether or not the topics will be “academic enough.”
Another new and exciting concept becomes apparent as we glance at the CCS charts. Students on the high school level are no longer freshman, sophomores, juniors, and seniors. They are 9-10 graders, and then they are 11-12th graders. Many experts have proposed that the linear design of our educational system inhibits many students’ progress. For example, the students who are interested in math and want to take more of it shouldn’t be held back simply because they haven’t completed all the standards in English. Hopefully, schools will take advantage of the less linear design to invent a way to engage our Ohio students. The CCS chart shows great potential to allow our high schoolers to grow at their own rate.
Every set of standards presents a different challenge, but it is becoming more and more evident that we need to engage students. This year in the United States, the Department of Education projects one million students will drop out of high school. Teachers, parents, and administrators note that we often keep the struggling students, but the brightest students drop out. Parents tell us their children are bored in school, and administrators can no longer simply argue, “It’s school, not entertainment.” Education’s new mantra needs to be, “It’s learning, so it’s not boring.”
Curriculum writers need to create assignments that will inspire learning. In Ohio, school work needs to grab our students’ interest. The new standards propose to engage students, and most teachers welcome the opportunity for change.
Written by: Tami Absi
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Want to spend some time outdoors and have fun together as a family while exploring the natural environment? Look no further than lichen!
Lichen, which consists of a symbiotic relationship between a fungus and an alga, is sensitive to atmospheric pollution including nitrogen and sulfur emissions that lead to acid rain, as well as toxic lead and mercury emissions. This sensitivity makes lichen a valuable biological indicator of air quality. It can be difficult to identify lichen species, even for seasoned naturalists.
We’ll generalize lichen into three categories for this activity.
- Crustose lichens form a “crust” onto their substrate of trees, rocks or soil. The crust is attached so firmly that it cannot be removed without causing damage.
- Foliose lichens are leafy (think: foliage) that attach loosely, and the lobes of the leaf are often parallel to the surface of the substrate.
- Fruticose lichens are the three dimensional, often growing perpendicular to their substrate. They can look like little bushes growing off the side of a tree or rock.
Look at some pictures of each of these lichens until you’re comfortable identifying them. (See the resources listed at the end.)
Activity: Go for a nature walk around your yard, a park or other favorite natural environment. As you walk, stop to look at the types of lichen present. Lichen is very slow-growing, so try not to disturb it as you examine it to determine if it is crustose, foliose or fruiticose. Younger children can identify the lichen’s color: bright green, gray-green, blue-green, yellow-green, or even pink! Older children may want to bring a field journal along to diagram the lichen that they see. Keep track of the number of different types of lichen you see while on your nature walk. Generally speaking, the more lichen you see (in color and quantity) the cleaner the air.
Analysis: Use the modified Hawskworth-Rose Index below to estimate air quality in the area.
- No lichens present – very poor air quality
- Crustose lichens only – poor air quality
- Crustose and foliose lichens – moderate to good quality (based on number of different lichens)
- Fruticose, foliose and crustose lichens – very good air quality
What if we have poor air quality?
If you’re lookin’ for lichen but can’t find it anywhere, you may have very poor air quality. Please write to your representatives and voice your concerns about your local air. Children can write letters, take photographs or draw pictures to convey their ideas. You can also tell the EPA that air quality should be a priority!
What if we have good air quality?
I bet that your representatives would love to hear about that, too! Why not send a letter, drawing or photo to let them know that your air is clean and you want it to stay that way?
- Track changes in your local lichen each year to see if it increases or decreases.
- Older children and teens can measure the lichen and calculate its area to collect quantitative data and practice graphing.
- Photograph the lichen and make a guide to your local species. You don’t have to get technical, you can make up your own names.
- If you want to get technical, consult an online lichen key to find the scientific names.
- Grow your own lichen! You can paint on rocks or trees with yogurt to promote lichen growth. Not for those seeking immediate gratification.
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In 2012, Hurricane Sandy struck the eastern seaboard and left damage and chaos in its wake. The response plan of the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) included delivering fuel to lessen the widespread gas shortages, but they had no easy way to determine which gas stations still had power or where gas was most needed. They turned to Waze, asking for help gathering resident-submitted reports on gas stations. Within the hour, Waze set up a simple form; over 10,000 responses successfully allowed FEMA to make a refueling plan. Through its partnership in this time of crisis, Waze realized its platform was uniquely positioned to help governments solve their pressing data needs.
Creating shared value
Waze, owned by Google, describes itself as a community-based traffic and navigation app where drivers share real-time traffic and road information via their smartphones. In late 2014, Waze launched the Connected Citizens program, allowing a growing list of cities and states from around the world to partner with Waze at no financial cost. The partnerships are two-way exchanges of information. Waze shares data about traffic jams, automatically collected from drivers via the app, and also shares user-reported traffic issues, such as accidents and potholes. In return, partnering governments share information about road closures and traffic incidents, helping develop even better route options for drivers.
City and state governments can also save money by partnering with Waze. Collecting traffic data can be expensive, and although cities have road sensors and traffic cameras deployed on many major roads, covering every residential street can be a challenge. The Waze partnership can be an easy way for a department of transportation to expand its view of its roads and streets, completely free of charge.
Waze sees the Connected Citizens program as a way to grow and improve its services. The data Waze receives from cities allows for even more accurate inputs to complex traffic algorithms. While crowdsourcing has proven reliable, information about street closures and upcoming maintenance from cities allows Waze to get ahead of user-submitted data. Waze also plans to use city data to route drivers around trash collection and leverage the fleet-tracking technology used by some cities.
In recent years, Waze has received some criticism from city officials, and the fast-growing company is looking for methods to improve government relations. The most common complaint comes from police departments, who disapprove of Waze’s feature that allows drivers to identify speed traps. Police argue it allows drivers to game the system, but Waze counters that both parties have the same goal: encouraging safe driving.
As with all technology companies, the fight for users is fierce. Partnering with cities also allows Waze to expand its market penetration. With the growth in ride-sharing apps and the pending introduction of self-driving cars, the company that can provide the most accurate traffic and street data will have a competitive edge. Public-private partnerships between cities and traffic-related companies are still in their early stages, but the increased competition should lead to even more innovation and improvements in product offerings.
City governments can use Waze's data to reduce traffic with strategic and informed management of traffic signals. There are 550 intersections in Boston that can be controlled from the city’s central Traffic Management Center, and Boston can now uses Waze’s real-time data to change those traffic signals as needed to unclog congested routes. When traffic lights do change, the information alters the suggested routes that are sent to Waze users, creating a reinforcing cycle of data sharing to cut down on commute times. For commuters, this is a win-win.
In Rio de Janeiro, city officials have had similar success. The partnership began in 2013, when Waze was asked to help the city monitor road conditions during a visit by Pope Francis. The Waze API is now completely embedded in the city’s Control Center and helps with day-to-day monitoring of road conditions. City officials in Rio were also able to change the garbage routes, determine where to install cameras, and deploy traffic personnel. Furthermore, the implementation process was simple for the staff in Rio’s transportation department. Pedro Junqueira, the head of Rio’s operations center, explains in this video how their operations center was able to integrate Waze’s information two weeks after an initial phone call. To streamline integration, Waze partners can retrieve data via an XML or JSON feed, or use Waze’s custom interface called the “Traffic View Tool.”
Washington, D.C. demonstrated another creative type of partnership when the city used Waze to supports its “war on potholes” in spring 2015. The Department of Transportation called the campaign “Potholeapalooza” and asked users to submit information about potholes via Waze. The city reported that in the first quarter of the year, it identified 11,000 potholes via conventional reporting means, such as 311 calls. But after less than a month of the Potholeapalooza campaign, the city had received 10,000 pothole reports through Waze. D.C. leveraged its 650,000 Waze users to prove that the crowdsourcing approach to finding potholes is more effective, and more efficient.
Waze continues to actively expand, and has stated that it prioritizes partners with both a willingness to innovate and the technical capabilities necessary to share data within the program. Interested partners can find more information and apply on the Connected Citizens website.
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://datasmart.ash.harvard.edu/news/article/wazes-drive-towards-successful-public-partnerships-786
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| 0.957374 | 1,138 | 2.65625 | 3 |
We have bridges that span streams, traverse gorges, soar over bays and connect the banks of rivers around the world. Yet there is another more humble bridge that has had an impact on human society equal to that of the Golden Gate or Rialto. That piece of engineering genius is the dental bridge.
Like other bridges, dental bridges span a gap -- in this case, a gap in the mouth caused by the loss of one or more teeth. It is a much-needed piece of dental hardware; statistics show that 69 percent of adults aged between 35 and 44 have lost at least one tooth either through an accident, decay, gum disease or a failed root canal [source: American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons].
While replacing a missing tooth might seem merely like a cosmetic concern, the fact is that even just one AWOL chomper can have a serious impact on dental health. That's because teeth need each other to stay in proper position. So when one goes missing, the opposing and neighboring teeth can begin to shift out of position, potentially leading to a misaligned bite, problems with the temporomandibular joint (TMJ), and an increased risk of tooth decay and gum disease.
Dental bridges range between $500 and $900 per tooth depending on their complexity and materials, and dental insurance typically pays for half the cost [source: Johnstone]. The materials that comprise bridges include porcelain, porcelain fused to metal (PFM) and all gold. Of these, PFM and gold bridges are the strongest and are most often used for back teeth where aesthetics aren't a concern. All-porcelain bridges work well for front of the mouth as they can blend nicely with the surrounding teeth. Depending on the location in the mouth and the amount of pressure placed on bridges, their longevity can vary, although it is not unheard of to have a bridge last as long as 20 years [source: Johnstone].
Next: The three major types of dental bridges.
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/oral-care/procedures/dental-bridges.htm
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| 0.947325 | 412 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Syndromes Without A Name USA (SWAN USA) is a
non-profit tax exempt
organization that offers
support, information and advice to families of children living with a
syndrome without a name. They are often described in
many different ways such as; undiagnosed syndrome,
unknown diagnosis, mystery diagnosis
What is a Syndrome?
Syndrome is a group of signs, symptoms, or
features that occur together and create a picture
which may suggest the presence of a particular
medical condition or disorder.
are subjective evidence of a medical condition that
are experienced by a patient and reported in the
medical history such as pain, nausea, or dizziness.
are objective evidence of a disorder
that a physician or nurse can recognize during a
physical examination such as wheezing, visual
impairment, or a seizure.
Syndromes Without A
Name USA (SWAN USA) partners with Rare Genomics
Institute (RGI) to help families have more
opportunities in getting whole genome sequencing.
DISCLAIMER - SWAN USA offers
the information on this Web site for general educational purposes
only. This information should not be used for diagnosis, nor should
it be considered a replacement for consultation with a healthcare
professional. If you have questions or concerns about your health,
please contact your healthcare provider.
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://www.undiagnosed-usa.org/index.htm
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| 0.901501 | 289 | 3.109375 | 3 |
What is the air really like right outside your window, and how does that compare to the air being breathed in another part of the country, or around the world? Now you can know with a neat little device called the Air Quality Egg. The Egg was launched last year on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter where it exceeded its initial $39,000 goal and raised more than $144,000 – a distinction that earned it a rank on Kickstarter's "best of 2012" list.
The goal for the Kickstarter campaign was not just to create the Air Quality Egg device itself but to establish a worldwide air-quality sensing network. A team of designers came up with the concept, which was born at a couple of "Internet of Things" meetings in New York City and Amsterdam. They all envisioned a series of sensors placed outside peoples' homes to track the greenhouse gases nitrogen oxide (NO2) and carbon monixide (CO), as well as temperature and humidity. Data would be transmitted online and posted where everyone could see and compare the resulting information.
The people who backed the Kickstarter campaign had the option, depending on how much they donated, to receive either a complete Air Quality Egg system or some of the components necessary to build their own at home. A pledge of $100 or more got people a fully assembled egg. People who pledged $250 got an Egg plus extra components that can track radiation, particulate matter and other substances.
It's been several months since the Kickstarter campaign ended and now the Air Quality Eggs have started to ship and go online. If you visit the Air Quality Egg website, you can see the data from devices in dozens of states, several Canadian provinces, most European countries, Japan and Australia. Digging into the data is both fun and illuminating. As of this writing, the only Air Quality Egg in Japan registers NO2 levels of 559 parts per million and CO levels of 10,097. A device in Arizona is registering NO2 levels of 392 and CO levels of 24,830.
In addition to the main website, there's also an #airqualityegg trending topic on Twitter, where users are reporting how well their devices are working. One user is reporting that he moved his Egg and the NO2 sensor seems to have failed, while others are replying that they did not have the same problem.
Beyond that there is also a dedicated Air Quality Egg wiki, with information on the hardware, software and the resulting data.
If you missed out on the Kickstarter campaign you can still order an Air Quality Egg online for $185 or some of the components for $95.
Related air quality stories on MNN:
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http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/gadgets-electronics/stories/an-egg-that-monitors-air-quality-goes-online-around-the-world
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| 0.968093 | 535 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Page 2 of 2
The only way to gain an idea of what a network conversation is all about is to expand the node in the tree and take a look at who is talking to whom and what sort of conversation is going on. For example, if you expand the Unknown node you can immediately see the IP addresses of each of the machines involved in each of the conversations. In general any conversations going on between a pair of machines internal to your network isn't going to be an indicator of anything strange going on - they could be but most malware is concerned with communicating with the outside world.
Looking for external IP addresses
Scanning down the list reveals that there is a conversation going on between the machine being monitored and the outside world. Expanding that node reveals that it is a TCP conversation. Expanding the tab further reveals that there is an HTTP conversation between the same two addresses and that this is to a "keep alive" page. This means that the conversation is probably OK but to check further you can select the HTTP conversation and have the frame decoded in the "Frame Details" windows.
This extracts the basic data from the frame and decodes it so that you can read the various fields. However, we know that this is an HTTP frame and we could extract even more information. To do this simply click the Decode As button in the Hex Details window and select HTTP from the list that appears. You can do this quickly by typing H and then T. From the decoded data you can easily see that the conversation was about a keep alive heartbeat with a known and trusted website and the only payload of any importance is a cookie - which is presumably OK.
Decode the data in the frame
Now you have seen some of the basic capabilities of the network monitor. It can collect all the data passing to and from the monitored machine. You can look at conversations and find out the source and destination IP addresses and you can examine a particular packet and the data it contains. As long as you know the protocol in use you can even decode the packet and see what it contains in plain English. The monitor comes with a lot of standard protocol decoders and it is possible to write more.
This is just the start, however. You can set up filters that remove all of the traffic you are not interested in and you can focus on anything out of the ordinary. It is also possible to load experts which will perform standard analysis on the data you collect. Follow the lnks above for articles on each of these topjcs.
Finally notice that you can save the data you have captured and subject it to more complex filtering, charting and decoding.
The network monitor gets you inside your network.
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| 0.95538 | 550 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Health Risks from Dioxins: Evaluation of the EPA Reassessment (July 2006)Report in Brief
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is responsible for assessing health risks from dioxin and related compounds, which are chemicals that are unintentionally released into the environment from many industrial processes. Public concern over dioxin began when it was found in Agent Orange, an herbicide widely used during the Vietnam War. Dioxin and related compounds persist in the environment and build up in the food chain. People are exposed primarily when they eat beef, pork, fish, and dairy products, although occupational or accidental exposure are typically much higher. Efforts to reduce dioxin and related compounds in the environment in recent years have resulted in an almost 90% decrease in emissions. This report evaluates EPA's latest draft "Reassessment" of the health risks from dioxin and related compounds. The report finds that EPA comprehensively reviewed the available scientific literature, but it did not adequately quantify the uncertainties associated with the risks, nor did it adequately justify the assumptions used to estimate them. Using different assumptions may result in a lower estimated cancer risk for humans exposed to low doses of dioxin and related compounds. The report also encourages EPA to further address health risks other than cancer by establishing a "reference dose" below which it anticipates no adverse effects--information valuable for establishing risks faced by populations, including workers, who may be exposed to more than the reference dose. This study was sponsored by EPA, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
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<urn:uuid:b305d9c2-9618-4539-9d26-f370cf78a4c4>
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://dels.nas.edu/Materials/Report-In-Brief/4725-Dioxin
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en
| 0.960294 | 328 | 2.90625 | 3 |
The Tall-E Bakun Project
Tall-e Bakun is a twin site located in the fertile Marv Dasht plain of Fars, near Persepolis, the Achaemenid ceremonial capital. Bakun has played a prominent role in the understanding of the prehistory of Fars, partly because it was the first large-scale excavation of a prehistoric mound there, and primarily for the richness of its finds.
This tall consists of two sites, differentiated as Bakun A and Bakun B, the latter being earlier. Tall-e Bakun B (ca. 5000-4200 BC) was first excavated by Alexander Langsdorff and Donald McCown in 1932, and later in 1937 by Eric Schmidt and McCown on behalf of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Excavations at Bakun was part of a major Oriental Institute archaeological project in Iran, with Persepolis as the main focus and headquarters of the project. The results from the 1932 excavations are published (Langsdorff and McCown 1942); the materials from the 1937 season are now being prepared by Abbas Alizadeh, the Oriental Institute, for final publication.
Tall-e Bakun B consists of two distinct cultural deposits; the lower deposit, Bakun BI, contained only layers of ash and debris with a coarse red ware; and the upper one, Bakun BII also did not contain architecture but yielded painted pottery.
The first season of excavations at Bakun A (ca. 4000-3500 BC) began in 1932. Work was concentrated on the northern part of the mound, where an area of about 1200 sq. m. was opened. Four occupational levels were reported, Level I being the lowest, and Level III being the best preserved and most extensively excavated. Level III contained a complex of buildings consisting of rectangular houses and warehouses with common walls. The buildings of Level III suggest a planned architectural layout; they are oriented northeast-southwest with nicely aligned and carefully abutted common walls. This level also produced most of the artifactual material including the clay sealings, which are primary indicators of ancient administrative technology.
Artifactual remains from the excavation areas include pottery, animal and human figurines, spindle whorls, pottery tokens of various shapes and sizes, small, decorated, pottery pipes, firedogs, pottery wasters, stone maceheads and pounders, stone and clay sling missiles, large and miniature vessels of alabaster and local stones, flint and obsidian blades, scrapers, borers and drills, finished and half-finished stone stamp seals, copper objects such as points and needles, chisels, a 25cm-long dagger, a stamp seal, and copper ores.
Whereas numerous whole pottery vessels still in situ, some still containing animal and fish bones, were discovered from various buildings and warehouses in the northern complex, the primarily workshop areas in the central and southern areas (excavated in 1937) produced mostly potsherds, and the few whole jars, indicating specialized activity areas within the settlement. The central and southern areas are markedly different from the northern complex of 1932 season. The northern constructions of the 1932 season exhibit a planned architectural layout as can be discerned from the regularity in spacing of the rooms and thickness of their walls. The architectural units of the central and southern quarters follow the same northeast-southwest orientation; they are not, however, as carefully constructed as the units of the northern complex. Also, these units are surrounded by open areas containing kilns of various sizes and covered with layers of debris and ash.
The wealth and variety of material items at Bakun and the evidence of large workshop areas point to the existence of local industry and connections/trade with distant regions such as the Persian Gulf, the central plateau, Kerman, and northeastern Iran whence goods like shells, copper, steatite, lapis, and turquoise were procured.
Reanalysis of the combined results of the 1932 and 1937 seasons (Alizadeh 1988) demonstrated that Bakun A was a late prehistoric example of the precursors of the later fourth millennium BC urban societies.
- Alizadeh, Abbas
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https://oi.uchicago.edu/research/projects/tall-e-bakun-project
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| 0.958822 | 867 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Endocrine disruptor contamination most severe in the central U.S.
A widely used pesticide known to impact wildlife development and, potentially, human health has contaminated watersheds and drinking water throughout much of the U.S., according to a report released Aug. 24 by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
Banned by the European Union, atrazine is the most commonly detected pesticide in U.S. waters and is a known endocrine disruptor, which means that it affects human and animal hormones. It has been tied to poor sperm quality in humans and hermaphroditic amphibians.
“Evidence shows Atrazine contamination to be a widespread and dangerous problem that has not been communicated to the people most at risk,” said Jennifer Sass, PhD, NRDC senior scientist and an author of the report. “[The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency] EPA is ignoring some very high concentrations of this pesticide in water that people are drinking and using every day. This exposure could have a considerable impact on reproductive health. Scientific research has tied this chemical to some ghastly impacts on wildlife and raises red flags for possible human impacts.”
“People living in contaminated areas need to be made aware—and the regulators need to get this product off the market,” Sass said.
The report, “Poisoning the Well: How the EPA is Ignoring Atrazine Contamination in Surface and Drinking Water in the Central United States,” creates a groundbreaking analysis of atrazine pollution by bringing together data from watershed monitoring and drinking water compliance programs for the first time.
The report reveals that all of the watersheds monitored by EPA and 90% of the drinking water sampled tested positive for atrazine. Contamination was most severe in Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri and Nebraska. An extensive U.S. Geological Survey study found that approximately 75% of stream water and about 40% of all groundwater samples from agricultural areas contained atrazine, and according to the New York Times, an estimated 33 million Americans have been exposed to atrazine through their drinking water systems.
"The extent of contamination we found in the data was breathtaking and alarming,” said Andrew Wetzler, director of NRDC’s Wildlife Conservation Program and deputy director of NRDC’s Midwest Program, as well as one of the report’s authors. “The EPA found atrazine almost everywhere they looked. I think that the public will find this hard to swallow and I hope it will help force the EPA to address the situation more aggressively.”
The contamination data in the report was obtained as the result of a legal settlement and Freedom of Information Act requests. “Poisoning the Well” highlights watersheds and municipal water treatment systems most affected by the chemical contamination, offers policy solutions and describes actions that people can take to protect themselves from exposure to this dangerous chemical in their water.
Atrazine is regulated by the EPA. Under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), EPA has determined that an annual average of no more than 3 parts per billion (ppb) of atrazine may be present in drinking water. One of the chief findings of the report was that this reliance on a “running annual average” allows levels of atrazine in drinking water to peak at extremely high concentrations.
Given the pesticide’s limited economic value and the fact that safer agricultural methods can be substituted to achieve similar results, NRDC recommends phasing out the use of atrazine, more effective atrazine monitoring and the adoption of farming techniques that can help minimize the use of atrazine to prevent it from running into waterways. The report also underscores the importance of using home filtration systems.
The effects associated with atrazine have been documented extensively. Reproductive effects have been seen in amphibians even at low levels of exposure. Concentrations as low as 0.1 ppb, for example, have been shown to alter the development of sex characteristics in male frogs, resulting in male frogs with female sex characteristics and the presence of eggs in male frog testes. Some scientists are concerned about exposure for children and pregnant women, as small doses could impact development of the brain and reproductive organs. Research has also raised concerns about atrazine’s “synergistic” affects, showing potential for the chemical having a multiplier affect to increase toxic affects of other chemical co-contaminants in the environment.
The report includes information on actions people can take to protect themselves from Atrazine and other dangerous contaminants. NRDC recommends that consumers concerned about atrazine contamination in their water use a simple and economical household water filter, such as one that fits on the tap. Consumers should make sure that the filter they choose is certified by NSF Intl. to meet American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Standard 53 for VOC (volatile organic compounds) reduction and therefore capable of significantly reducing many health-related contaminants, including atrazine and other pesticides.
The full NRDC report is available here .
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://www.wqpmag.com/print/9658
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en
| 0.953683 | 1,046 | 3.109375 | 3 |
Simple Definition of opportunity
: an amount of time or a situation in which something can be done
Examples of opportunity in a sentence
A phony war because its stated objective—eradicating terrorism—is impossible and serves to mask unstated, alarmingly open-ended goals, a kind of fishing expedition that provides an opportunity for America to display its intimidating arsenal … —John Edgar Wideman, Harper's, March 2002
Nowadays my only opportunity for an old-fashioned, self-indulgent sulk comes when I'm traveling. —Ian Frazier, Atlantic, March 2001
I'm handing you an opportunity in the heart of the city where the whole world's heading: journalists, corporate leeches, Japanese tourists, Greco-Roman wrestlers. —Gary Smith, Illustrated, 11 Sept. 2000
More than 90 percent of female senior managers believe that men's and women's opportunities remain unequal … —Katha Pollitt, Atlantic, November 1997
You'll have an opportunity to ask questions after the presentation.
When the opportunity came for her to prove that she could do the job, she was ready.
I had the rare opportunity of speaking to the president.
Studying abroad provides a great opportunity to learn a foreign language.
There are fewer job opportunities this year for graduates.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who helped me with this book.
He was given every opportunity to prove that he was trustworthy.
There is plenty of opportunity for advancement within the company.
Origin and Etymology of opportunity
First Known Use: 14th century
Rhymes with opportunity
OPPORTUNITY Defined for Kids
Definition of opportunity for Students
1 : a favorable combination of circumstances, time, and place <He practices guitar at every opportunity.>
2 : a chance for greater success <“… learning secretarial skills is an exciting opportunity for me …” — Lemony Snicket, The Austere Academy>
Learn More about opportunity
Seen and Heard
What made you want to look up opportunity? Please tell us where you read or heard it (including the quote, if possible).
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<urn:uuid:8816e359-3677-4371-a84b-5bc2802b479c>
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/opportunity
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en
| 0.940526 | 435 | 3.171875 | 3 |
A group of citizen scientists has successfully established communication with an inactive NASA spacecraft in an attempt to breathe new scientific life into a more than 35-year-old agency mission.
NASA signed a Non-Reimbursable Space Act Agreement (NRSAA) with Skycorp, Inc., in Los Gatos, California, on May 21 that allows the company to contact, and possibly command and control, NASA’s International Sun-Earth Explorer-3 (ISEE-3) spacecraft as part of the company’s ISEE-3 Reboot Project. On May 29, the project team established two-way communication with the ISEE-3 spacecraft and began commanding it to perform specific functions.
First contact with ISEE-3 was achieved at the Arecibo Radio Observatory in Puerto Rico. The initial contact was a tone followed by specific commands. The team has changed modes so the spacecraft will broadcast telemetry information. Over the coming days and weeks they are planning to assess the spacecraft's overall health and refine the techniques required to fire its engines and bring it back to an orbit near Earth.
"NASA congratulates the ISEE-3 Reboot Project team and everyone involved in establishing communications with the ISEE-3 spacecraft," said Allard Beutel, NASA spokesperson in Washington. "The team now is finding out whether the scientific instruments on board might be functional. The contribution of the citizen science from ISEE-3, if recovered, will be highly dependent on the status of the instruments. This creative effort to recapture the spacecraft has already engaged citizen scientists and citizen spacecraft operators and is capturing the curiosity of the next generation."
This is the first time NASA has worked such an agreement for use of a spacecraft the agency is no longer using or ever planned to use again. The NRSAA details the technical, safety, legal and proprietary issues that will be addressed before any attempts are made to communicate with or control the 1970’s-era spacecraft as it nears the Earth in August.
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http://www.nasa.gov/content/citizen-scientists-successfully-communicate-with-spacecraft-0/index.html
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en
| 0.944889 | 406 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Our initial focus in developing the Glidersonde was to meet the needs of developing countries where obtaining routine soundings has been prohibitively expensive due to the cost of the expendables. We feel the deficiency of soundings worldwide is strongly limiting meteorological modeling and analysis activities. We feel, from our initial analysis, that the Glidersonde could be used up to 70% of the time at numerous locations worldwide. At some locations, especially in southern North America, South American, and Africa this number could easily be 95% of the time. This would be a significant cost saving to individual countries and organizations that subsidize the cost of expendables.
Electric Power and Gas Industry
In the June 1998 issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, there is an article which outlines the importance of sounding data to the prediction to high and low temperatures. The accurate prediction of these temperatures is critically important for the electrical generation industry. So important, in fact, that individual utility companies are now purchasing their own sounding equipment. The Glidersonde could be used to minimize the cost to these companies of making soundings.
New and existing Environmental Protection Agency rules governing air quality for large metropolitan areas have increased the need for monitoring boundary layer air chemistry. Monitoring the height of the inversion and its fluctuation is important for forecasting the severity of an air pollution event. The Glidersonde's ability to carry and return safely expensive air chemistry sondes would allow a more extensive analysis program for individual cities, lessening the potential penalties administered by the EPA for air pollution violations.
The scientific objectives for field programs often require an extensive network of sounding sites, or very frequent observations. Often the cost for obtaining these soundings proves to be too high and the field campaigns are often scaled back. The Glidersonde offers the potential for scientists to collect the number of soundings desired at a greatly reduced cost. Additionally, much scientific research does not require sounding data to very high levels (i.e. 10mb), and soundings to 300mb would be more than adequate for many research activities. The Glidersonde and the RPV (the latter profiling to perhaps 500mb) offer the opportunity to collect these profiles more economically.
We feel that are numerous military applications ranging from surveillance to sounding requirements for ballistic and guided ordinance. Given the small size, non-existent radar profile, and low cost, the Glidersonde has considerable potential for testing and field operations in simulated or real battle conditions.
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We have just published the next article in the series of Rinpoche’s recent teachings on ‘Training the Mind in Compassion’, called Why Bodhisattvas Don’t Defend Themselves.
In the article, Rinpoche discusses how a bodhisattva—someone whose action is motivated solely by wishing to bring benefit and happiness to others, without considering what the consequences might be for themselves—will never respond to others with anger or aggression. Even if they are attacked, mistreated or criticized, they will only ever respond with love and compassion.
“Ordinarily we try to keep good things such as happiness, success and prosperity for ourselves, while we prefer to give to others all the things we don’t want. However, the bodhisattva attitude is the complete opposite of how we normally operate.”
With video extracts and examples of masters who actually put this advice in to practice, this article celebrates the attitude of fearless compassion for others that has been demonstrated in the actions of great practitioners ever since the Buddha first taught the path to enlightenment.Read Article
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Scientists are still teasing out the contributions of genetic and environmental factors to epigenetic marks on the genome. Differences in DNA methylation patterns have been linked to various disease occurrences in genetically identical twins, for example, suggesting an environmental impact. And a new study, out this week (July 15) in Genome Research, extends the influence of the environment in to the uterus by demonstrating that differences between identical twins in methylation are detectable at birth. Surprisingly, methylation patterns between some twins differ more than between unrelated individuals, also suggesting a role for random chance in the development of the epigenome.
“We already know that twins behave differently and look different, and it’s probably due to epigenetics,” said Jeffrey Craig, who led the study with Richard Saffery, both at the University of Melbourne.
Because of their identical genomes, monozygotic twins allow scientists to identify epigenetic differences that may serve as markers for disease. But it wasn’t known when differences in epigenetic patterns emerged between twins, Tadafumi Kato, who studies the molecular basis of bipolar disorder at RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Japan but was not involved in the current study, wrote in an email to The Scientist.
In order to look more closely at epigenetic differences between twins, Craig and Saffery took tissue samples when the children were born and for several months after birth, following epigenetic changes over time. They compared sets of identical twins and fraternal twins, a classic experimental setup used to separate environmental from genetic effects. They then used a chip array to examine DNA methylation at over 27,000 sites in the human genome in each of three tissues: placenta, umbilical cord vascular endothelial cells, and cord blood mononuclear cells. The researchers also compared the newborns’ methylation patterns to those of unrelated infants.
Although DNA methylation patterns tended to be more similar for identical twins, “we were very surprised by the range” of differences, said Craig, “The distribution of monozygotic twins overlapped unrelated newborns, and some twins were more different than unrelated pairs.
The scientists also found that identical twins that shared a placenta—arguably coming as close as possible to sharing similar environments—had epigenetic patterns that differed more than identical twins that didn’t share a placenta, but did share a uterus. This finding highlights “that sharing the same intrauterine environment does not contribute to having more similar DNA methylation patterns,” Esteban Ballestar, who studies the epigenetics of disease at the University of Barcelona, wrote in an email. “Their results would rather suggest that stochastic events could be more relevant in establishing differences between DNA methylation patterns in individuals,” added Ballestar, who was not involved in the work.
Thus, it seems that random changes and environmental factors together influence epigenetic patterns more than twins’ shared genetics. Indeed, when Craig and his colleagues statistically examined how much genetics, environmental factors, and random chance contributed to epigenetic methylation patterns, they found that slight differences in shared intrauterine environments, such as placenta size or where the umbilical cord attaches, and random changes accounted for more of the variance in epigenetic patterns than the underlying DNA sequence. As the children aged, their methylation patterns didn’t continue to diverge, however, suggesting that environmental signals may have less of an influence on epigenetics later in life—a finding that contradicts some earlier studies.
Knowing that low birth weight has been linked to later ill health, the scientists looked more closely at the genes showing differing patterns of methylation. They found that discordantly methylated genes in sets of twins with differing birth weights were often genes encoding proteins involved in metabolism and growth, which suggests to Craig that these pathways can be “nudged” off track early by deleterious patterns of methylation even before birth.
“It’s still a very pilot experiment,” noted Arturas Petronis at the University of Toronto, who pointed out that the 27,000 sites the researchers examined represent only about 0.1 percent of possible methylation sites in the genome. More comprehensive studies will determine how well these findings apply to the whole genome, said Petronis, who did not participate in the study.
In the meantime, Craig and his colleagues are hoping to discover what subtle environmental differences within the uterus can prompt such large epigenetic differences in twins. Placement of the umbilical cord, which can regulate the number nutrients passed from mom to her babies, and even what route they take, could play a role, Craig hypothesized. More importantly, he added, if scientists can identify early epigenetic markers of disease, it may be possible to proactively use epigenetic drugs, such as those already in cancer trials, to “nudge” their methylation patterns back on a healthy track.
L. Gordon, et al., “Neonatal DNA methylation profile in human twins is specified by a complex interplay between intrauterine environmental and genetic factors, subject to tissue-specific influence,” Genome Research, doi: 10.1101/gr.136598.111, 2012.
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File:3-cent Statue of Freedom 1950 U.S. stamp.tiff
English: 3-cent commemorative picturing the Statue of Freedom on the Capitol Dome in Washington DC celebrated the city’s 150th anniversary on April 20, 1950. President Truman named the celebration, “Freedom’s Fair”.
|Source||Arago: people, postage & the post online, National Postal Museum|
|Author||U.S. Post Office, Bureau of Printing and Engraving|
|This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code. See Copyright.
Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time.
|current||19:32, 9 April 2014||190 × 282 (195 KB)||TheVirginiaHistorian||User created page with UploadWizard|
- You cannot overwrite this file.
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Reconstruction of a sample of Gymnopollisthrips on an ovulate organ of an extinct gingko (copyright: Enrique Peñalver).
Gymnopollisthrips minorimage from the synchrotron in Grenoble, ESRF).
A sample of the species Gymnopollisthrips maior with the pollen grains (piece of amber from Álava).
Gymnosperm pollen attached to the abdomen and wings of a thysanopteran insect.
Only amber can preserve behavioural features in such rich detail over millions of years.
More than 110 million years ago, in the age of the dinosaurs, a group of insects delivering pollen became trapped in resin beads. They were four female thysanopterans, also called thrips, and had pollen grains attached to their bodies, which have been preserved to date in a piece of amber in Álava. It is the oldest evidence of pollination discovered so far —and the only one from the Mesozoic Era— that is now presented in a paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and signed by the experts Dr. Enrique Peñalver and Dr. Eduardo Barrón (Geological and Mining Institute of Spain, IGME); Dr. Xavier Delclòs (Department of Stratigraphy, Palentology and Marine Geosciences of the UB), and Dr. Carmen Soriano (European Synchrotron Radiation Facility), among others. The main fossil was digitized using synchrotron holotomography in Grenoble in order to gain a better understanding of the distribution of the pollen grains in the body. Hence the three dimensions of this tiny fossil and the pollen that was being transported could be seen.
Pollination: a reproductive strategy
Plants need to exchange pollen in order to reproduce, and insects are the most efficient method. Currently there are about 200,000 pollinators, most of which are insects. Insect pollination —especially by butterflies, bees and flies— is a process that is always associated with flowering plants (angiosperms), of which there are currently more than 240,000 species. Thysanopterans are minute insects that were long considered low-efficient pollinators and that usually feed on plant tissues and pollen, generally on angiosperms.
They catch and transport the pollen more efficiently
The international research team found four female thysanopterans that had been enclosed in the amber in Álava for 105-110 million years, with their bodies covered with pollen of gymnosperms. One of the females became trapped in the resin when transporting 140 pollen grains, whereas another was transporting 137 grains. These insects are less than two millimetres long and exhibit highly specialized hairs with a ringed structure which had never been seen before and which increases their ability to collect and transport pollen grains. These hairs are very similar to the ones of bees, which have the same function. Males have also been found, but without these hairs and without pollen. Researchers describe these insects in a new genus (Gymnopollisthrips) comprising two new species G. minor and G. major. This extinct genus, Gymnopollisthrips, belongs to a family that currently exists, the Melanthripidae. All data, including the amount of grains transported by each female, indicates that Gymnopollisthrips were efficient pollinators, like the current most efficient angiosperms pollinators.
What kind of pollen did insects transport?
Pollination of gymnosperms by insects is a rare phenomenon. Current gymnosperms, such as pines, firs, araucarias and cycads, are pollinated by wind, which randomly transports pollen. About 110 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period, forests were composed primarily of gymnosperms, and angiosperms were a minority. In that period, resin gymnosperms produced a large amount of resin, which is currently found fossilized in the amber, for example in the piece found in Álava.
The study concludes that pollen, belonging to the Cycadopites group, is from a kind of cycad or ginkgo tree, which are currently relict groups. Only one species of ginkgo trees, Ginkgo biloba, currently survives, which is considered a living fossil. Pollen grains from this species are very small, having 20 thousandths of a millimetre, and they must have had a surface with some kind of adherent capacity, as it may be inferred from the groupings observed in the amber. These two features are characteristic of the pollen that is transported to other flowers by insects. On the other hand, there are recorded cycads which have been pollinated by beetles and thrips. The only known case of a genus of thrips that exclusively pollinates a group of cycads is in Australia. Interestingly the finding in the Spanish amber is not related with these Australian cases, contrary to what it may seem.
Why did insects from the Cretaceous collect pollen?
According to experts, ringed hairs to collect and transport pollen did not grow due to an evolutionary selection to pollinate. Pollination must have been accidental, although the process must have involved some selective pressure for the plant. The benefit for the thrips can only be explained by the possibility to feed their larvae with pollen. This suggests that these new species must have formed colonies with some social behaviour. This phenomenon, from sub-social to true social behaviour, has been described in some species of current thrips. However, the fossils preserved in amber that were found in the North of Spain do not provide further data on possible characteristics of the colonies. Still, it is likely that larvae lived in the ovules of some kind of ginkgo for shelter and protection. In the amber deposits in Spain many remains of leaves and ovulate organs from an extinct type of ginkgo are found.
A revolution in terrestrial ecosystems
The co-evolution of angiosperms and insects was a great evolutionary success and it determined the displacement of gymnosperms due to an intensive competence. This revolution in terrestrial ecosystems was just beginning when the resin that originated the amber in Spain was produced.
Only amber can preserve behavioural features like pollination in such rich detail over millions of years. This finding indicates that thrips might be one of the first pollinator groups in geological history, long before evolution turned some of them into angiosperms pollinators. The samples of the new study published in the PNAS belong to the collection of the Natural Sciences Museum of Álava. The investigation has been possible thanks to the support of the Diputación Foral de Álava and to an I&D project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.
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/ South America
/ Dwarf Cichlids
/ Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid
Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid
Synonyms: Biotodoma agassizi, Geophagus agassizi, Mesops agassizi
Physical description: An elongated with moderately compressed sides. In males, the caudal fin is highly elongated and comes to a point. In females, the caudal fin is rounded. Several different color variations exist mostly depending on if the fish was wild-caught or its geographical population. Males are much more colorful. The upper back is red, while the forehead is yellow. Below these areas, the back is green which parallels a wide, horizontal, black band that extends from the tip of the snout, back through the eye, and to the tip of the caudal fin. The lower parts, just below this band, can range in color from gold to green to blue. The belly is usually yellow. The face is usually marked with green or gold markings. The dorsal fin is a fire orange-red color that comes to a sharp point. The other fins are often blue to green. On the caudal fin a white to blue set of lines come to a point near the end of the fin. A black stripe extends from the eye, down to the corner of the gill cover. Female do not have the elongated fins or colors of the male. They are usually yellow in color with similar markings.
Size/Length: Males to 3.5" (9 cm), females only reach 2.4" (6 cm)
Similar species: None
Habitat: Inhabits shallow areas of blackwater ponds and slow-moving water with a substrate of decaying leaf litter. South America; found in the tributaries of the Amazon in Bolivia and Brazil.
S: bottom, middle
Aquarium: A 24" (61 cm) tanks with a capacity of 20 gallons (75 L) is sufficient for a small group. A more preferable size would be a 32" (81 cm) tank with a volume of 30 gallons (114 L). In either case, the tank should be arranged with a dark gravel bottom. Use lots of plants to serve as shelter along with rocky caves, roots, and pieces of wood. The filter should be efficient as this species requires clean, nitrate-free water. Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid thrives in peat filtered water. Provide a good source of oxygen.
Water chemistry: pH 5-7 (6.4), 2-10 dH (6), 73-81°F (23-27°C)
Social behavior: A peaceful, but territorial species that will not harm plants. A male forms a harem and as a result, should be kept in a ration of one male to every three or four females. Males defend a large territory in which several females may guard their own brood.
Suggested companions: Corydoras , tetras, pencilfish, hatchetfish, Loricarids.
FOOD: Live; crustaceans, insects, insect larvae; flakes; pellets; tablets; finely chopped meat.
SEX: Males are far more colorful and considerably larger than females. The males fins are also more elongate.
Breeding techniques: The water should have a pH from 6.0-6.5, a water hardness from 5-8 dH, and a temperature from 79-84°F (26-29°C). Frequent partial water changes should be made. A single male will defend a large territory containing several females. He will court each female and mate with them. The female will lay up to 150 eggs in a previously cleaned cave or over-turned flower pot. The eggs will be carefully guarded by the female. They hatch in three to four days. The fry are lead into a shallow pit and are free-swimming four to six days later. The young can be first fed with roftiers and liquid foods, and later with Artemia nauplii. The female attracts the young by her movements.
Breeding potential: 8. Breeding Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid is difficult and the eggs are sensitive to fungus.
Remarks: A fish highly sensitive to the build-up of toxic compounds and medications. Different color variations including red, gold, and blue are available. Wild-caught specimen are even more delicate, but more colorful than tank-bred fish. This species requires frequent partial water changes in order to prosper.
Difficulty of care: 7. A delicate species.
By Rhett Butler , Mongabay.com
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How to Identify an Orchid
This pictorial shows examples of orchids and identifies the type of orchid. You can use this guide when repotting an orchid that has no label and if you are unsure which genera it is. The following orchids are commonly sold in nurseries, groceries and box stores and are sometimes sold with no label other than simply "orchid".
The "lady of the night" orchid, so named for its delightful fragrance in the evening is a wonderful addition to any orchid collection. It has stout terete leaves which emerge along a central rhizome. From the new growth comes elegant white flowers in early winter. When the sun goes down, the fragrance emerges to fill the entire room. Brassavola can be grown on an orchid mount or in a pot. Gallery PhotoRecommended Brassavola Potting Mix:
Catasetum are unique and most unusual orchids. Deciduous in nature, they require a distinct winter dry rest. When they bloom the large waxy flowers will be either male or female. The male flowers are typically showier and are produced at lower light than required for female flowers. If the flower is bumped the pollen is literally ejected into the air.Recommended Catasetum Potting Mix:
The corsage orchid is a popular and rewarding orchid to grow. It has large tall growths called pseudobulbs that are topped with a leaf growing one after another to produce the next season's bloom. The pseudobulbs are connected to each other by a horizontal growth that is at or just under the surface of the media called a rhizome. When repotting, a rhizome clip may be required to secure the orchid in its pot. Cattleya orchids are usually repotted when they have finished blooming and a new pseudobulb is just starting to grow. Gallery PhotoRecommended Cattleya Potting Mix:
The miniature cattleya is a fraction of the size of its big brother, the Cattleya. Often less than 8" tall, the mini cattleya takes far less space than the standard cattleya which is twice as tall and requires a much larger pot. The miniature cattleya have multiple petite blooms that look remarkably like cattleya blooms except for their smaller size. The miniature cattleya has the same pseudobulb growth habit as the standard cattleya and is best repotted right after blooming as the new growth begins to emerge. We will usually select a smaller media size for our miniature cattleya, potting them in a seedling mix.Recommended Miniature Cattleya Potting Mix:
A member of the Catasetum tribe, the waxy and fragrant blooms of Cycnoches are a delight in the early fall. The care for these wonderful orchids is similar to Catasetum including a dry winter rest. From tall pseudobulbs and leaves that lean forward in a fan shape comes an arching inflorescence of blooms with incredible substance. Yellows, reds, greens, they are all a wonderful addition to any collection. They bloom early in the fall, basically in late summer, when not much else is happening. What a delight!Recommended Cynoches Potting Mix:
Often large, hairy and unruly, the Cymbidium orchid delights with tall spikes loaded with flowers. This pictured plant is about three feet tall and ready to go into the next size container. The Cymbidium orchid has much smaller pseudobulbs that are topped with long thin leaves that gently drape to form an attractive foliage plant. In warm climates Cymbidiums grow outdoors year-round and spread out to be quite spectacular. Similar to most other orchids, Cymbidiums prefer to be repotted shortly after blooming as the new growth is beginning to emerge.Recommended Cymbidium Potting Mix:
Dendrobiums are tall and stately with elongated pseudobulbs topped by modest sized leaves. Their graceful sprays of flowers are a welcome break during winter's grey days. Even after the leaves fall from the oldest pseudobulbs they continue to provide sustenance to the plant and should be retained during repotting unless they are quite shriveled.
Dendrobiums like to grow in a very small pot, often the pot looks ridiculously small compared to the height of the plant. This presents some unique problems with growing Dendrobiums; they are top-heavy. Some solutions to this are to plant them in clay pots or to use broken brick, cobblestone or pea gravel in the bottom of the pot to weigh it down. Precise staking of Dendrobiums to make them well balanced is also critical.
Dendrobiums often resent repotting and in extreme cases can be killed if repotted at the wrong time. Repot only when new growth begins to appear as in the picture shown at right. Gallery PhotoRecommended Dendrobium Potting Mix:
A delightful and floriferous orchid, a common variety is a Dendrobium Bigibbum hybrid. Small in stature yet covered with blooms, these miniature dendrobiums are a pleasure to grow. Care is similar to standard Dendrobiums yet they are not top-heavy and often don't require staking. Miniature Dendrobiums are about 8 inches tall compared to standard Dendrobiums which can easily exceed 3 feet for a mature plant.Recommended Miniature Dendrobium Potting Mix:
Delicate fragrant blooms atop chunky rounded pseudobulbs, the epidendrum is a delightful orchid. It's high light requirements, however, can make it difficult to rebloom in the home. Supplemental artificial light or summers outdoors help meet its needs. Gallery PhotoRecommended Epidendrum Potting Mix:
Reed Stem Epidendrum
The Reed Stem Epidendrum has multiple growths each with several leaves. From the top of the growths come spikes that are topped with a puff ball of delightful little blooms. The blooms may resemble little clown faces.
These orchids are relatively easy to grow and bloom. They prefer to be repotted after blooming. Gallery PhotoRecommended Reed Stem Epidendrum Potting Mix:
The cockleshell orchid has wispy blooms topped with a dorsal sepal that looks like a seashell. Spikes come from the top of the pseudobulbs in the winter or early spring. Blooms open successively along the spike allowing the encyclia to stay in bloom for a long time.
The Encyclia orchid prefers to be repotted when a new pseudobulb is beginning to grow. Gallery PhotoRecommended Encyclia Potting Mix:
Intergeneric orchid care and background can be generalized as similar to Oncidiums. For a precise guide to their care one must research the parents. Given all the hybridization that has occurred, however, many of the idiosyncrasies of the parent's culture often has been bred out of these plants.
Like most orchids, Intergenerics prefer to be repotted after blooming as new growth emerges. They also prefer to be in a fairly tight pot. Gallery PhotoRecommended Intergeneric Orchid Potting Mix:
Lycaste orchids have waxy flowers over fat oval pseudobulbs with wide pleated leaves. Many species are fragrant ranging from lemony scented to cinnamon spicy and many are deciduous, blooming on leafless pseudobulbs. Lycaste prefer a seedling grade mix.Recommended Lycaste Potting Mix:
Ludisia Discolor, the "Jewel Orchid" has extraordinary foliage. Grown more for its leaves than for its diminutive flowers, this orchid is often found growing as a common houseplant. Ludisia grows very quickly once established. It is a terrestrial orchid that prefers a fast draining soil-less potting mix like our Jewel Orchid Mix.Recommended Ludisia Potting Mix:
Masdevallia blooms are strikingly unique. Three fused sepals form a triangular shape hiding the petals and lip from view. Ordinary looking leaves top tiny pseudobulbs making this orchid look much like a common houseplant when not in bloom. These miniature orchids are a pleasure to grow and bloom in the summer when not much else is happening in an orchid collection. Gallery PhotoRecommended Masdevallia Potting Mix:
Miltonia, is a wonderful spring to summer blooming orchid. These orchids bear a string of flowers that seem almost too large for the size of their foliage. Sometimes referred to as the 'pansy orchid' it is Miltonopsis that has the real broad pansy-like faces. Miltonia are more warm tolerant and easier to grow than the cooler growing Miltonopsis, though the two are often confused. Miltonia like to be kept evenly moist and prefer a free draining mix or sphagnum moss.Recommended Miltonia Potting Mix:
Miltassia is an intergeneric orchid, Miltonia crossed with Brassia. Intricate bloom colors and patterns from the Miltonia side crossed with the spidery nature and scents of Brassia make for some unusually beautiful flowers. Care is similar to Oncidiums. Repot as new growth forms in a fine grade mix.Recommended Miltassia Potting Mix:
The Dancing Lady orchid delights with brilliant sprays packed with flowers. Yellow, tricolor, or the popular red sharry baby (that smells like chocolate), these are orchids easy to grow. Oncidiums have a habit of growing up and out of the pot as though they are trying to grow up a tree trunk. Oncidiums like to be evenly moist and if subjected to periods of dryness will grow leaves that have an "accordion" look to them. One option is to layer a bit of sphagnum moss on top of the media to increase humidity, just be careful that it is below the level of the pseudobulbs. Gallery PhotoRecommended Oncidium Potting Mix:
Miniature Oncidiums, the most popular being Oncidium Twinkle, have a remarkable number of flowers for such a small plant.
Miniature Oncidiums prefer to be in a small, tight pot and will dry out very quickly. It is a bit of a challenge keeping these little guys moist enough. Still, they are relatively easy to grow and have a generous bloom. Unlike standard Oncidiums, the miniature varieties are less likely to attempt to grow up and out of the pot.
These are diminutive plants, usually 6 inches or less in height.Recommended Miniature Oncidium Potting Mix:
The "Nun Orchid" or "Nun's Cap Orchid" is a beautiful broad leaf terrestrial orchid of the genus Phaius. This orchid can grow outside year-round in freeze-free areas. In colder climates this orchid enjoys summers outside and should come indoors before night temperatures drop below 40 degrees. In winter it will develop tall bloom stems topped with many beautiful blooms.Recommended Phaius Potting Mix: Jewel Orchid Classic Mix
Terrestrial Classic Orchid Mix Orchid Mix
The Lady Slipper orchid holds a special appeal for many orchid growers. Terrestrial in nature, Paphiopedilums grow in the loamy detritus on the jungle floor. Paphs have been called the "ultimate houseplant" for their ease of growth in the home. The new growth on a Paph consists of a "fan" of new leaves that emerges from the base of the previous fan. There is no pseudobulb and therefore Paphs have no water reservoir to fall back on during dry times. As a result, the paph grower tries to keep a delicate balance between keeping the plant moist enough yet not too moist. Potting media made especially for Paphs can help maintain this balance. Gallery PhotoRecommended Paphiopedilum Potting Mix:
The Moth orchid is the most common orchid due to its ease of production and the ability to force it to bloom year-round. Phals are easily grown in the home and stay in bloom for a very long time. A mature phal will be in bloom much of the year with graceful inflorescences loaded with good-sized blooms. From pure whites to unusual spotted harlequins, phals are sure to please. Gallery PhotoRecommended Phalaenopsis Potting Mix:
- Phalaenopsis Monterey Gold Imperial Orchid Mix
- Phalaenopsis Monterey Dark Imperial Orchid Mix
- Phalaenopsis Gold Classic Orchid Mix
- Phalaenopsis Dark Classic Orchid Mix
- Phalaenopsis AAA Imperial Orchid Mix
Phragmipedium love water. In fact, they love water so much that they prefer to continually have 'wet feet'. This is in stark contrast to the vast majority of other orchids. Many of these orchids live along the splash zone of streams in nature. The bloom of the phragmipedium is very similar to that of the Paphiopedilum and resembles a lady's slipper. Offspring of Phrag. besseae bear brilliant reds not found in other ladyslipper orchids.Recommended Phragmipedium Potting Mix:
The Butterfly orchid (Oncidium Papilio) is a unique and fanciful orchid with attractive foliage and blooms atop very tall spikes that look like butterflies dancing in the breeze. Blooms are born sequentially on the same spike for many months. Psychopsis are relatively easy to grow in the home and seem to tolerate a range of light conditions quite well. They can be fussy about repotting yet don't like to grow in broken down or sour mix either. Repot only as new growths appear. Gallery PhotoRecommended Psychopsis Potting Mix:
The Sarcochilus is a wonderful miniature orchid native to Australia. Most are lithophytes and like moist conditions without drying out yet they don't like 'wet feet'. They can be grown successfully in conditions ranging from those for Phalaenopsis to Cattleya. Sarcochilus is a monopodial orchid, like its close relative the Phalaenopsis. These little orchids freely grow new clumps and bloom profusely in the spring.Recommended Sarcochilus Potting Mix:
The Vanda is a delightful and unique orchid to grow. Unlike many other orchids, Vandas are most often seen growing in baskets with their roots hanging down in mid air. Vandas can be a bit of a challenge to grow in the home because of their high light and high humidity requirements. Given favorable conditions, Vandas will bloom a few times per year. Vandas grow either alone in a Vanda Basket or in a basket with Large Coconut Husk Chips or Chunky Cattleya Blend to provide additional moisture and humidity. For stability within the basket, Coconut Husk Fiber and Large Cork Chunks are excellent choices. Gallery Photo
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The basic corpus of OCS, centered around the 10th-11th centuries, is very limited in scope. The primary Glagolitic manuscripts are:
(i) The Kiev Missal, from the mid 10th cent. This consists of seven folia containing prayers for Mass according to the Roman rite. The language displays West Slavic characteristics: CS tj, dj > ts, z rather than sht, zhd; CS stj > shtch rather than sht; the instr. sg. masc. o-stem ending is -u'mi' rather than -omi'. The vocabulary shows numerous elements from the West: prje'fatsija < Lat. praefatio; oplatu' < Lat. oblata; pogani'sku' < Lat. paganus.
(ii) The Codex Zographensis, from the 11th cent. This has 303 folia, most of which furnish an incomplete version of the four Gospels; the rest are in Cyrillic and provide a list of Saints' days with the accompanying Gospel reading for that day. The language is characterized by assimilation of jers: u' > i' before a front vowel, i' > u' before a back vowel.
(iii) The Codex Marianus, from the late 10th, early 11th cent. This consists of 174 folia containing an incomplete version of the four Gospels. This is assigned to the Serbo-Croat area on the basis of the following linguistic characteristics: o^ > u; y > i; gen. sg. sego > sega; vu'- > u-.
(iv) The Glagolita Clozianus. This contains 14 folia recording a collection of Saints' Lives and homilies to be read during festivals of the ecclesiastical year. This is characterized by the linguistic shifts o^ > u and y > i.
(v) The Codex Assemanianus. This contains 158 folia collecting gospel passages read in the liturgy, followed by a calendar of Saints' days. The large proportion of Macedonian saints in the calendar leads one to assume a Macedonian provenance.
(vi) The Psalterium Sinaiticum, from the 11th cent. This has 177 folia with translations of the Greek Psalms 1-137.
(vii) The Euchologium Sinaiticum, from the 11th cent. This comprehends 109 folia containing a collection of prayers for different occasions.
The major Cyrillic documents are the following:
(viii) Savvina Kniga, from the 11th cent. This consists of 166 folia, containing an incomplete evangelistary and list of Saints' days. The name derives from mention within the document that it was written by popu' Savva. Thought to be of Bulgarian provenance based on the fact that u' is not strengthened to o.
(ix) The Codex Suprasliensis, from the 11th cent. This consists of 285 folia giving a menology for the month of March, that is, a collection of readings ecclesiastical festivals of March. There are twenty-four saints' lives and legends, twenty-three homilies, and one prayer. The back jer u' is not strengthened to o, nor i' to e; the text is assumed to come from the Bulgarian region.
(x) The Inscription of Tsar Samuel, dated 993. This is a marble inscription commissioned by the Tsar over Macedonia and Western Bulgaria from 976 to 1014. It commemorates his deceased parents and brother.
The following passage is the beginning of the Nativity, Luke 2:1-20. The first line is the introduction to the passage at hand, and not part of the Gospel. Noteworthy is the frequent use of je' where a or ja is to be expected, e.g. kesarje' for kesar'ja. In the second verse, one also finds scribal confusion, where kiriiiejo^ is written for the more proper dative kiriiju agreeing with the participle vlado^shtu. That this could be mere conflation of o^ and u is mitigated by the fact that o^ is correctly used elsewhere. This rather seems a case of attraction to the preceding suriejo^, brought on by lack of familiarity with foreign names. Note also the use of adjectival forms of names, e.g. davydovu', to denote possession or relation, rather than a simple genitive form.
mje'se^tsa deke^br'ja ig vu' navetcherije rozhdi'stva khri'stova evang'elije otu' luky glava v
vu' ono vrje'me^ izide zapovje'di' otu' kesarje' avgosta napisati v'so^ vi'seleno^jo^ |
se napisanie pru'voe bystu' vlado^shtu suriejo^ i kiriniejo^ |
i idje'akho^ vi'si napisatu' se^ ki'zhdo vu' svoi gradu' |
vi'zide zhe iosifi' otu' galilee^ i grada nazareti'ska vi' ijudejo^ vi' gradu' davydovu' izhe naritsaetu' se^ vithleemi' zane bje'ashe otu' domu i oti'tchi'stvije' davydova |
napisatu' se^ su' mariejo^ obro^tcheno^jo^ emu zhenojo^ so^shtejo^ neprazdu'nojo^ |
bystu' zhe egda byste tu isplu'nishe^ se^ denie da roditu' | i rodi synu' svoi pru'vje'netsi' i obity i i polozhi i vu' je'slekhu' zane ne bje' ima mje'sta vu' obitje'li |
i pastu'iri bje'akho^ vu' toizhde st'ranje' bu'de^shte i strje'go^shte strazho^ noshti'no^jo^ o stadje' svoemu' |
i se ang'elu' gospodi'ni' sta vi' nikhu' i slava gospodi'nje' osije' e^ i uboje'she^ se^ st'rakhomu' veliemu' |
i retche imu' ang'elu' ne boite se^ se bo blagovje'shtajo^ vamu' radosti' velijo^ je'zhe bo^det bi'sje'mi' ljudemu' |
je'ko rodi se^ vamu' su'pasu' izhe estu' khristu' gospodi' vu' gradje' davydovje' | i se vamu' z'namenie obre^stete mladi'netsi' povitu' i lezhe^shti' vi' je'slekhu' |
i vu'nezaapo^ bystu' su' angje'lomu' m'nozhi'stvo voi nebesnyikh khvale^shtiikhu' boga i glagoljo^shti' |
sla vu' vyshniikh bogu i na zemi miru' vu' tchlovje'tsje'khu' blagovolenie |
i bystu' je'ko otido^ oti' nikhu' ang'eli na nebo i tchlovje'tsi pastu'iri rje'she^ drugi' ki' drugu prje'idje'mu' ubo do vithleoma i vidimu' glagoli' si' byvi'shii egozhe gospodi' su'kaza nam |
i prje'ido^ pod'vigi'she se^ i obrje'to^ marijo^ i iosifa i mladi'netsi' lezhe^shti' vi' je'slekhu' |
vidje'vu'she zhe si'kazashe^ o glagolje' glagolanje'mi' o otrotche^ti semu' | i vu'si slyshavu'she divishe^ se^ o glagolanyikhu' otu' pastu'iri' ki' nimu' |
marije' zhe vi'se^ su'bljudaashe glagoly sii vu' sri'di'tsi svoemu' | i vu'zvratishe^ se^ pastyri slave^shte i khvale^shte boga o v'sje'khu' je'zhe slyshashe^ i vidje'she^ je'kozhe glagolano bu'isti' ki' nimu' |
mje'se^tsa deke^br'ja ig vu' navetcherije rozhdi'stva khri'stova evang'elije otu' luky glava v vu' ono vrje'me^ izide zapovje'di' otu' kesarje' avgosta napisati v'so^ vi'seleno^jo^ | se napisanie pru'voe bystu' vlado^shtu suriejo^ i kiriniejo^ | i idje'akho^ vi'si napisatu' se^ ki'zhdo vu' svoi gradu' | vi'zide zhe iosifi' otu' galilee^ i grada nazareti'ska vi' ijudejo^ vi' gradu' davydovu' izhe naritsaetu' se^ vithleemi' zane bje'ashe otu' domu i oti'tchi'stvije' davydova | napisatu' se^ su' mariejo^ obro^tcheno^jo^ emu zhenojo^ so^shtejo^ neprazdu'nojo^ | bystu' zhe egda byste tu isplu'nishe^ se^ denie da roditu' | i rodi synu' svoi pru'vje'netsi' i obity i i polozhi i vu' je'slekhu' zane ne bje' ima mje'sta vu' obitje'li | i pastu'iri bje'akho^ vu' toizhde st'ranje' bu'de^shte i strje'go^shte strazho^ noshti'no^jo^ o stadje' svoemu' | i se ang'elu' gospodi'ni' sta vi' nikhu' i slava gospodi'nje' osije' e^ i uboje'she^ se^ st'rakhomu' veliemu' | i retche imu' ang'elu' ne boite se^ se bo blagovje'shtajo^ vamu' radosti' velijo^ je'zhe bo^det bi'sje'mi' ljudemu' | je'ko rodi se^ vamu' su'pasu' izhe estu' khristu' gospodi' vu' gradje' davydovje' | i se vamu' z'namenie obre^stete mladi'netsi' povitu' i lezhe^shti' vi' je'slekhu' | i vu'nezaapo^ bystu' su' angje'lomu' m'nozhi'stvo voi nebesnyikh khvale^shtiikhu' boga i glagoljo^shti' | sla vu' vyshniikh bogu i na zemi miru' vu' tchlovje'tsje'khu' blagovolenie | i bystu' je'ko otido^ oti' nikhu' ang'eli na nebo i tchlovje'tsi pastu'iri rje'she^ drugi' ki' drugu prje'idje'mu' ubo do vithleoma i vidimu' glagoli' si' byvi'shii egozhe gospodi' su'kaza nam | i prje'ido^ pod'vigi'she se^ i obrje'to^ marijo^ i iosifa i mladi'netsi' lezhe^shti' vi' je'slekhu' | vidje'vu'she zhe si'kazashe^ o glagolje' glagolanje'mi' o otrotche^ti semu' | i vu'si slyshavu'she divishe^ se^ o glagolanyikhu' otu' pastu'iri' ki' nimu' | marije' zhe vi'se^ su'bljudaashe glagoly sii vu' sri'di'tsi svoemu' | i vu'zvratishe^ se^ pastyri slave^shte i khvale^shte boga o v'sje'khu' je'zhe slyshashe^ i vidje'she^ je'kozhe glagolano bu'isti' ki' nimu' |
24th of the month December, on the eve of the birth of Christ. Gospel according to Luke, 2nd chapter:
(1) And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. (2) (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) (3) And all went up to be taxed, every one in his own city. (4) And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) (5) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. (6) And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. (7) And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. (8) And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. (9) And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. (10) And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. (11) For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. (12) And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. (13) And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, (14) Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. (15) And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. (16) And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. (17) And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. (18) And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. (19) But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. (20) And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.
There are two types of past active participle in OCS. One of these, the resultative or l-participle, has been discussed in Section 18. This section discusses what most grammars term the past active participle.
The past active participle is formed by attaching the suffix -u'sh- or -vu'sh- to the stem of the verb. To this suffix are added the endings of the soft twofold nominal (cf. Section 12) or compound (cf. Section 17) adjectives, with special forms of the nominative and accusative. The ending -u'sh- is suffixed to verbal stems ending in -i or a consonant -- in this situation, -j and -ov- do not count as consonants. -no^- verbs which drop the -no^- also take the suffix -u'sh-. All other stems, i.e. -ov, -j, -no^, -je', -a, take the suffix -vu'sh-.
Before -u'sh-, -i becomes -j, with accompanying palatalization of the preceding consonant and fronting of the following -u'- to -i'-. prositi, prosho^, prosishi 'ask' furnishes an example: the nominative singular feminine form is pros-i+u'sh+i > prosj-i'shi > proshi'shi 'having asked'. Before -vu'sh-, final -j is deleted and -ov- becomes -u. dje'lati, dje'lajo^, dje'lajeshi 'do' has the stem dje'laj-, so that the nominative singular feminine is dje'laj+vu'sh+i > dje'la-vu'shi > dje'lavu'shi 'having done'. Similarly, otu'pluti, -plovo^, -ploveshi 'sail away' has otu'plov+vu'sh+i > otu'plu-vu'shi > otu'pluvu'shi 'having sailed away'.
Verbs whose stem ends in -i occasionally have alternate forms with the suffix -vu'sh-. For example, moliti, mol'jo^, mol'jeshi 'beg' shows the forms mol'i'shi and molivu'shi. The nominative singular masculine and neuter ending is zero, so that OCS deletion of final consonants gives -u', -i' (in front environments), or -vu'.
In terms of the conjugational classifications of these lessons, the suffixes -u'sh- and -vu'sh- are added to the infinitive stem of the verb. The suffix -u'sh- is appended to hard stems ending in a consonant; -vu'sh- is added to hard stems ending in a vowel. Verbs of conjugation II drop the -no^- / -ne- suffix before forming the past active participle. Verbs of conjugation IV take the suffix -i'sh-; in later texts they appear with -ivu'sh-.
The verb nesti, neso^, neseshi 'carry' illustrates the declension of the past active participle. The short forms are as follows.
|N V Sg.||nesu'||nesu'||nesu'shi|
|N A V Du.||nesu'sha||nesu'shi||nesu'shi|
|N V Pl.||nesu'she||nesu'sha||nesu'she^|
The long forms are given below.
|N V Sg.||nesu'shyi||nesu'sheje||nesu'shija|
|N A V Du.||nesu'shaja||nesu'shii||nesu'shii|
|N V Pl.||nesu'shei||nesu'shaja||nesu'she^je^|
There are assimilated forms, e.g. feminine I sg. neso^jo^ and masculine G sg. nesaago, and contracted forms, e.g. masculine G sg. nesago. The masculine and neuter N sg. form for participles in -i' is -i'i, where the tense jer sometimes gives -ii. In the oblique cases, all the same endings are attached to the suffix -i'sh-.
The past passive participle is formed by means of the suffixes -tu' (cf. English (finely) wrought), -nu', or -enu' (cf. English eaten). The suffixes are added to the infinitve stem and declined as twofold short or long adjectives.
The -tu' suffix is used only in a restricted class of verbs. Verbs with present stem ending in -i' + nasal employ this suffix. It is added to the infinitive stem, which ends in -e^. Thus e^ti, imo^, imeshi 'take' (present stem i'm-) forms e^tu' 'taken'; pe^ti, pi'no^, pi'neshi 'stretch' forms pe^tu' 'stretched'.
Other verbs with different stems form the past passive participle by means of -tu': izvje'dje'ti, -vje'mi', -vje'si 'know' forms izvje'stu' 'known'; otu'vrje'sti, -vru'zo^, -vru'zeshi 'open' forms otu'vri'stu' 'opened'.
The -nu' suffix is used for verbs whose present stems end in -a, -aj, -je', -je'j. These lose the final -j in the infinitive stem, to which the suffix is added. For example, sje'jati, sje'jo^, sje'jeshi 'sow' yields sje'janu' 'sown'; razumje'ti, -mje'jo^, -mje'jeshi 'understand' forms razumje'nu' 'understood'.
All other stems form the past passive participle by means of the -enu' suffix. This includes verbs whose stems end in consonants, in particular -no^- verbs which drop this suffix in the past tense: dvigno^ti, dvigno^, dvigneshi 'move' yields dvizhenu' 'moved'. Verbs which retain the -no^- suffix in the past tense form the participle in -nov-enu', e.g. otu'rino^ti, -rino^, -rineshi yields otu'rinovenu'. This intervening -v- is also found in the participles of roots ending in a back vowel followed by -j, e.g. kru'venu' 'covered' from kryti, kryjo^, kryjeshi 'cover'. In this situation, -yj- is the tense reflex of -u'j-. In some instances stem-final -i yields -j, which produces palatalization: prositi, prosho^, prosishi 'beg' gives proshenu'.
Some verbs form participles by means of both the nasal suffix and the mute suffix. For example, biti, bi'jo^, bi'jeshi 'beat' has participles bitu' and bi'jenu' 'beaten'. sje'ti, sje'jo^, sje'jeshi 'sow' shows prefixed participles osje'tu' and osje'nu' 'sown'. Some verbs with root-final -l show formations with both -nu' and -enu', e.g. klati, kol'jo^, kol'jeshi 'stab' forms both klanu' and kolenu'.
The present passive participle is formed from the present tense stem by the addition of the endings -imu', -emu', or -omu'. These are declined as twofold short or long adjectives. Verbs whose present tense stems end in -i take the ending -imu'. Other soft stems take the ending -emu'. The remaining consonant stems and -no^- verbs take the ending -omu'. The following are examples according to declension.
|I||nesti, neso^, neseshi||nesomu'||'being carried'|
|II||dvigno^ti, -no^, -neshi||dvigomu'||'being moved'|
|III||znati, znajo^, znajeshi||znajemu'||'being known'|
|IV||moliti, mol'jo^, mol'jeshi||molimu'||'being asked'|
|V||dati, dami', dasi||dadomu'||'being given'|
The verb vidje'ti, vizhdo^, vidishi 'see', being originally athematic, forms the participle vidomu' alongside the expected vidimu'. Similarly, alkati (lakati), altcho^ (latcho^), altcheshi (latcheshi) 'hunger' has the participle lakomu'.
The present passive participle may be used with forms of the verb 'be' to create a periphrastic passive voice, e.g. nesomu' jesmi' 'I am being carried', nesomi bykhomu' 'we were being carried'.
The verbs of the second declension display the affix -ne- between root and ending. The affix -no^- appears in the infinitive. Preceding the affix may be either a stem-final consonant or stem-final vowel. Some roots drop the affix in certain verbal forms. For example, dvigno^ti, dvigno^, dvigneshi 'move' forms the aorist dvigu' directly from the root, while mino^ti, mino^, mineshi 'pass by' retains the affix -no^- in the aorist mino^khu'.
The conjugation is illustrated by the verbs dvigno^ti, -no^, -neshi 'move'; stati, stano^, staneshi 'stand'; rino^ti, rino^, rineshi push'; mino^ti, -no^, -neshi 'pass by'. Many forms are unattested. The verb dru'zno^ti, dru'zno^, dru'zneshi 'dare' supplies some forms where they are lacking in the other paradigm verbs.
|Pres. Act. Part.|
|Pres. Pass. Part.|
|Past Act. Part.|
|Past Pass. Part.|
The third person plural, sigmatic aorist form -stano^she^ occurs for the verb stati 'stand'. The -no^- affix, originally dropped in the aorist and past participle forms, seems to have been reintroduced for some verbs by analogy with the present system.
The genitive case has several uses. It may be the complement of both verbs and substantives.
The genitive is often used as the complement of certain verbs in a manner akin to a direct object. For example, vidje'ti 'see' may take an object in either the accusative or genitive, while zu'rje'ti 'see' typically takes the genitive. alkati 'hunger (for)', zhu'dati 'await', vu'sprositi 'beg', and napli'niti 'fill (with)' are examples of other verbs which regularly take the genitive. Some verbs normally taking an accusative object may take a genitive denoting a part of a whole. An example is vu'kusiti 'taste': jako zhe vu'kusi arkhitriklinu' vina byvu'shaego otu' vody 'and when the ruler tasted (some of) the wine made from water'. The genitive is used also by some verbs representing separation from or lack of something, e.g. izbaviti 'rid (of)', svoboditi 'free (from)', plakati 'mourn (over)'.
The use of the genitive with a negated copula or negated transitive verb has been discussed in Section 15.
The genitive is the usual complement of the supine: pride ... vidje'tu' groba 'she came for the seeing of the tomb', 'she came to see the tomb'.
The genitive may also be the complement of a substantive, with a wide variety of meanings. These all serve to somehow delimit the range of the substantive, whether by mere possession, by quantity, or by quality. Take the follwoing examples: dukhu' oti'tsa vashaego 'spirit of your father'; tchlovje'ku' edinu' dobra roda 'a certain man of a good family'; du'shti du'voju na dese^te lje'tu 'daughter of twelve years', 'twelve-year-old daughter'; sedmi' koshi'nitsi' 'seven (of) baskets'. The following are examples where a substantive and genitive construction is used to denote part of a whole: ku'to ikhu' 'who of them', 'who among them'; koliko khlje'bu' 'how much of bread', 'how many (loaves) of bread'; malo ikhu' estu' 'there are few of them'.
Some adjectives take a genitive complement: su'so^du' ... pli'nu' otsi'ta 'a vessel full of vinegar'. The comparative adjectives and adverbs use the genitive to denote the reference of comparison: este lutsi'shi pu'titsi' 'you are better than birds'; tetche skorje'e petra 'he ran faster than Peter'.
The passive voice is represented morphologically only in the present passive and past passive participles. Their formation is discussed in Sections 31 and 32 above. These participles may be used with forms of byti 'be' to form periphrastic passive constructions. For example nesomu' jesmi' 'I am being carried' represents a present passive construction, while prje'danu' bo^detu' 'He will be betrayed' represents a future passive.
se^ in its basic role represents the accusative form of the reflexive pronoun, e.g. javl'jo^ se^ emu samu' 'I will manifest myself to him'. In the presence of negation, this reflexive may be substituted by the genitive form sebe. Likewise, se^ used as a personal or animate object may be replaced by the genitive sebe, cf. Section 15. An example of this is vy este opravi'dajo^shtei sebe 'you are the ones justifying yourselves'.
A related but more common usage of se^ is with verbs to denote not a definite object but rather a shift from transitivity to intransitivity. se^ in this role occupies the place of an accusative without expressing an explicit object, and in this function is not substituted by sebe. It typically either follows the verb or the first accented word of its clause. For example, ashte se^ bi ne rodilu' 'if he had not been born'; unje'e estu' ne zheniti se^ 'it is better not to marry'. Some verbs acquire a different shade of meaning with se^, e.g. kle^ti 'curse', but kle^ti se^ 'swear, take an oath'. Other verbs never occur without se^, like bojati se^ 'fear'.
Inasmuch as se^ makes transitive verbs intransitive, it often serves to mark passive meaning. This interpretation is borne out by variant translations in the different manuscripts, one having a reflexive form, another a morphological passive: Zographensis has synu' tchlovje'tchi'sku'i prje'dastu' se^, while Marianus has ...prje'danu' bo^detu' 'the Son of Man will be betrayed'.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Patricia Viets
A color poster depicting the floor of the Northern Gulf of Mexico was recently released by the Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The map presents a detailed look of the terrain of the Gulf floor.
The poster, which is a bathymetric map, was released by NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center in Boulder, Colo. "Bathymetric mapping is the ocean-floor equivalent of topographic mapping on land, showing the highs and lows of the terrain. Bathymetry is used in scientific research and modeling, natural resource exploration, environmental policy-making, as well as in the classroom," explained NGDC Geophysicist Lisa A. Taylor.
Bathymetric maps are also used for expeditions aboard scientific research vessels. Bathymetry is of interest to sport and commercial fishermen for identifying areas where a particular species of fish is likely to be found. Fishery managers also use bathymetry to calculate the habitat available to various species of fish.
This production of the map is a long-term effort by NGDC, Texas A&M University, and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission's International Bathymetric Chart of the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico project.
A preview of the poster is available online in NGDC's Web site at: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/fliers/00mgg02.html
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| 0.916378 | 298 | 3.5625 | 4 |
Parsing XML Documents: Events, Part 3
Preface This is the third in a series of six lessons designed to teach you how to write custom XML processing programs using a SAX-based parser and the Java programming language. A sample program is provided and explained in the sixth lesson in the series. The five lessons leading up to that lesson are intended to prepare you to understand the complex technical material presented in the sixth lesson.
I maintain a consolidated index of hyperlinks to all of my XML articles at my personal website. You can easily locate and access my XML articles from there.
Preview One of the common ways to create custom XML processing tools is through the use of an event-based parser that implements the SAX interface, along with either the Java or Python programming languages. In the previous lesson, I showed you how to write general event-driven programs using the Java programming language. In this and the next few lessons, I will show you how to use the Java programming language and a SAX parser to write programs for doing custom processing of your XML documents. In subsequent lessons, I will show you how to use a DOM parser to parse and process XML documents on the basis of the Document Object Model.
One way to parse an XML document is to analyze the XML document as a stream of text, recognizing the various components that make up the document as they are encountered. With this approach, a processing algorithm is applied as the components are recognized. A very common way to implement this approach is by using a concept (often referred to as SAX) that examines the sequence of characters that comprise the XML text and raises events (such as the start and end of elements) as the components in the document are encountered. An event-based parser reports events back to the processing program using callbacks. The processing program implements and registers event handlers for the different types of events. Code written into the event handlers is designed to achieve the overall objective of the program.
So, the bottom line is, XML can be a very useful tool, but in order for it to be useful, computers must be equipped with programs that understand, speak, read, and write XML. Where do these programs come from? Obviously programmers write them. Programmers need programming tools, and SAX is a programming tool.
Computer programs are written using programming languages, such as Fortran, Python, Pascal, C, C++, and Java. There was a time when programmers like myself started every new program from scratch and reinvented the wheel on a daily basis. There were many reasons why we did this. One of the important reasons was the fact that it was often easier to reinvent a wheel than to try to use an old wheel that was integrated into a previously-written program. (Another reason, which was not a very good one, was that we felt that we were being more creative when we did it this way. Unfortunately, some programmers still feel that way.)
Fortunately, some modern programmers, including myself (yes, sometimes, you can teach an old dog new tricks), have learned that starting from scratch every time is not the best approach. Some among us have learned the value of "reusable code." There is a body of technology, often referred to as Object Oriented Programming, which has as one of its major advantages a strong emphasis on the reusability of code. In this technology area, reusable code typically comes in the form of class libraries that make it fairly easy to do difficult tasks the same way every time without the need to reinvent the code every time. (A good example of code reuse through a class library is the creation and rendering of a typical button in a graphical user interface (GUI).)
Object oriented programming (of the Java variety at least) also brings with it another higher-level and very abstract concept known as an interface. In a nutshell, an interface definition in a programming language such as Java specifies the programming interface to a module of code. And this is where SAX comes in.
What is SAX? For the most part, SAX is simply a set of interface definitions. Those definitions specify one of the ways that application programs can interact with XML documents. There are other ways for programs to interact with XML documents as well. Prominent among them is the Document Object Model, or DOM, which will be the topic for a later tutorial lesson.
Another modern programming concept is event-driven programming. In a nutshell, event-driven programming describes a programming style where the program goes into a quiescent state and waits for some interesting event to happen. When an event happens, an event handler springs into action and takes some appropriate action related to the event. An event can be anything of interest in a particular context, such as a change in the price of a stock, or a mouse click on a GUI button, for example.
SAX provides the following benefits to the programmer who is interested in writing programs for processing XML documents:
- A standard programming interface
- An event driven programming model
SAX is not a commercial product that is intended for sale. Rather, SAX is a technical specification that explains how those who develop software products for XML document processing should go about it.
SAX is a technical specification provided by Megginson Technologies Ltd.
As of 1/20/01,
- SAX 2.0 is a free API for event-based XML parsing
- SAX has become a defacto standard for event-based XML parsers
- SAX can be downloaded from http://www.megginson.com/SAX/Java/index.html.
According to Megginson Technologies,
|"SAX is a common interface implemented for many different XML parsers (and things that pose as XML parsers), just as the JDBC is a common interface implemented for many different relational databases (and things that pose as relational databases)."|
You may not need to download SAX in order to use it. If you are using a SAX-based parser (such as IBM's XML for Java, or Sun's Java API for XML) for the development of XML processing programs, the SAX libraries and documentation may already be contained in the libraries and documentation for the parser. A separate download of SAX may not be necessary. I will have more to say about IBM's XML for Java in the next lesson in this series.
So what is a parser? A parser, in this context, is a software tool that preprocesses an XML document in some fashion, handing the results over to an application program. The primary purpose of the parser is to do much of the hard work up front and to provide the application program with the XML information in a form that is easier to work with than would otherwise be the case.
Once again, quoting the folks at Megginson Technologies,
|"SAX, the Simple API for XML, is a standard interface for event-based XML parsing, developed collaboratively by the members of the XML-DEV mailing list, currently hosted by OASIS. SAX 2.0 was released on Friday 5 May 2000, and is free for both commercial and non-commercial use."|
People who write parser programs have the option of basing those programs on SAX.
So what is an API? The world of programming is a world of jargon. API is the common jargon for Application Programming Interface. An API usually contains a variety of features that make it easier for the application programmer to write what might otherwise be difficult programs (such as GUI programs). There are at least two types of XML parser APIs commonly used for the development of programs to process XML documents:
- Tree-based APIs
- Event-based APIs.
As I demonstrated in an earlier lesson entitled Transformations (XSLT) using IE5, Trees, Nodes, and Templates, Part I, an XML document can be viewed as a tree. A tree-based API can be used to convert an XML document into an internal tree structure. This makes it possible for an application program to navigate and manipulate the tree to achieve its processing objectives. Typically, once the processing of the tree has been completed, the tree is converted back into a modified XML document. The Document Object Model (DOM) working group at the W3C is responsible for developing a standard tree-based API for XML.
An event-based API
However, this tutorial lesson isn't about DOM and tree-based APIs. It is about SAX, which provides an event-based API. As mentioned earlier, an event-based API reports parsing events (such as the start and end of elements) back to the application using callbacks. The application implements and registers event handlers for each of the different parsing events that are of interest in the context of the application. Code in the event handlers is designed to achieve the objective of the application.
The process is similar (but not identical) to creating and registering event listeners in the Java Delegation Event Model discussed in the previous lesson entitled Parsing XML Documents: Events, Part 2. (If you would like to learn more about event driven programming in Java, I have published a large number of tutorial lessons on this topic on my web site.)
In some cases, using an event-based API can be more efficient than using a tree-based API. This is particularly true when the objectives of the processing program can be achieved during a single on-the-fly pass through the XML document. In cases such as this, the computing effort required to create a tree, modify the tree, and convert the tree back to an XML document may be less efficient than an event-based approach. In addition, Java programmers who are often familiar with the use of event-driven programming may find the event-based API to be more familiar ground. Generally, an event-based API provides a simpler, lower-level access to an XML document.
SAX is not the only approach to event-based parsing of XML documents. If you decide to use an event-based parser, (instead of a tree-based parser) why should you care whether or not the parser is based on SAX? There are several advantages to using a parser based on SAX. Foremost among them is the aspect of standardization. If you learn how to use one SAX based parser, then you will know how to use most, if not all, SAX based parsers. Another advantage is code portability among parsers. As long as you maintain version compatibility, code written for one SAX based parser should be compatible with another SAX based parser with few, if any, modifications required.
Summary SAX, the Simple API for XML, is a standard interface for event-based XML parsing. In this lesson, I have provided information about SAX that is intended to prepare you for the use of SAX in subsequent lessons.
What's Next? In the next lesson, I will continue the discussion of SAX-based parsers, and in particular will introduce you to a software product from IBM named XML for Java or XML4J for short. This product supports both SAX and DOM, and lets the application programmer combine the two approaches in a single application.
As of 1/20/01, you can download this parser from IBM free of charge. You might want to go ahead and download and install it and be prepared for the next tutorial lesson in this series.
Copyright 2000, Richard G. Baldwin. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission from Richard Baldwin is prohibited.Richard Baldwin ([email protected]) is a college professor and private consultant whose primary focus is a combination of Java and XML. In addition to the many platform-independent benefits of Java applications, he believes that a combination of Java and XML will become the primary driving force in the delivery of structured information on the Web.
Richard has participated in numerous consulting projects involving Java, XML, or a combination of the two. He frequently provides onsite Java and/or XML training at the high-tech companies located in and around Austin, Texas. He is the author of Baldwin's Java Programming Tutorials, which has gained a worldwide following among experienced and aspiring Java programmers. He has also published articles on Java Programming in Java Pro magazine.
Richard holds an MSEE degree from Southern Methodist University and has many years of experience in the application of computer technology to real-world problems.
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Sites - Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs)
email a friend
Finland, Oulun lääni
25o 23.00' East 64o 13.00' North
A4i, B1i, B2, C2, C3
Year of IBA assessment
Site description A group of adjacent shallow lakes in the central part of north Pohjanmaa district. The lakes are nutrient-rich, partly resulting from nutrient input from melting snow and rivers. Equisetum and Phragmites dominate the vegetation, whilst the lakes are bordered by open mires, Betula and Pinus sylvestris fens, and mixed forests.
Key Biodiversity An important staging area for waterbirds, especially for Cygnus cygnus and also Tringa glareola (2,500 birds, spring) and Larus minutus (500-800 birds, spring).
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| 0.701974 | 197 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Statehood: December 7, 1787
Nickname: The First State, Diamond State, Blue Hen State,
or Small Wonder
Motto: Liberty and Independence
The state seal was first adopted on January 17,
1777, and contains the coat of arms. It also bears the inscription
around it "Great Seal of the State of Delaware" and
the dates 1704, 1776 and 1787. Descriptions of the contents
of the seal are as follows:
The Wheat Sheaf -- was adapted from the Sussex County seal
and signifies the agricultural vitality of Delaware.
The Ship -- is a symbol of New Castle County's ship building
industry and Delaware's extensive coastal commerce.
The Corn -- is taken from the Kent County seal and also symbolizes
the agricultural basis of Delaware's economy.
The Farmer -- with the hoe represents the central role of
farming to the state.
The Militiaman -- with his musket recognizes the crucial role
of the citizen-soldier to the maintenance of American liberties.
The Ox -- represents the importance of animal husbandry to
the state economy.
The Water -- (above the Ox) stands for the Delaware River,
the main stay of the state's commerce and transportation.
State Bird: Blue Hen
State Flower: Peach Blossom
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| 0.911143 | 274 | 3.546875 | 4 |
How to Make a Gourd Birdhouse
When the gourd is completely dry, use a wire brush and sandpaper to clean the outside surface. Next, you should treat the gourd with a 10% solution of bleach and water. This will protect the gourd from rot and fungal molds. Handle with care and be sure to wear rubber gloves and eye protection! Soak the gourd in the bleach solution for 15 minutes. Remove the gourd from the solution and place on a clean surface and allow to dry. To avoid this first step, buy a gourd that has been dried and cleaned.
For an entrance, using an expansion bit or
hole saw, cut a hole* slightly above the center of the gourd. Clean out the inside of the gourd using a serrated knife to break up the pith and seeds. The gourd is now ready for finishing.
To hang the gourd drill two 1/4 inch-diameter holes at the stem end for the hanger, which may be a piece of rigid wire (such as a coat hanger) or a strip of rawhide.
Drill four or five holes in the bottom, approximately 3/8� using a drill bit, and possibly 2 or 3, 3/8� holes on the sides for drainage and ventilation.
The outside of the gourd may be finished with an oil based primer, followed by enamel paint. Lightly sand first with fine sandpaper so the primer adheres well to the surface of the gourd. White is a good color choice as the white will reflect the sun, keeping the inside of the birdhouse cool. For a more natural look, just use 2 � 3 coatings of clear polyurethane directly on the gourd.
Hang from a tree branch or from wire suspended between sturdy structures.**
*The size of the gourd and the size of the entrance will determine the type of birds that will use the gourd for their home. See
hole size chart.
**The distance from the ground will also determine what type of birds will use the gourd for their home. See
hole size chart.
Do you know why there are no perches on the gourd birdhouse?
Birds do not need a perch to enter the nest, they have such precise flying skills that they can land on the edge of the entrance opening. A perch would be an invitation for other �predator� birds to enter the nest. Therefore you do not need a perch.
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| 0.906162 | 538 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Breach of Fiduciary Duty Law & Legal Definition:
“When one person does agree to act for another in a fiduciary relationship, the law forbids the fiduciary from acting in any manner adverse or contrary to the interests of the client, or from acting for his own benefit in relation to the subject matter. The client is entitled to the best efforts of the fiduciary on his behalf and the fiduciary must exercise all of the skill, care and diligence at his disposal when acting on behalf of the client. A person acting in a fiduciary capacity is held to a high standard of honesty and full disclosure in regard to the client and must not obtain a personal benefit at the expense of the client.” http://lesal-dictionaty.thefreedictionarv.com
We the people created a Social Contract through the creation of a Constitution utilizing Parliamentary Procedure with the intent on creating a form of government for the protection of our Property: “A Constitutionally Limited Republican Form of A Representative Government.” It is not only our Right, but it is our Duty to participate in this form of government that was given to us in order for it to function properly. We must not let ourselves become negligent of this responsibility.
Entrusted to the people, we choose people to become our elected representatives to operate this form of government which requires all of us to take time to be sure that they are of the highest status and quality. The representatives and public servants are delegated with the powers given to them by the people to give us the best government. When they no longer act on behalf of nor in the interest of, it is not only our Right but it is our Duty to remove them and correct the wrongs.
A well rounded education (from the library of Thomas Jefferson) and careful choices are of the utmost importance in order to preserve our freedoms and liberties. With the skills of a wise and learned person, choose your representatives carefully as choices have consequences.
Jason Lundquist, Stanford Township
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| 0.964086 | 416 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Normative Bayesianism says that you ought to believe as you would if you were an ideal Bayesian believer and so believing is what it is to believe rationally. An ideal Bayesian believer has (1) beliefs by having credences, where a credence is a degree of belief in a proposition; (2) has a Prior = a complete consistent set of credences (capitalized to avoid confusing priors = a person’s credences with Priors = a plurality of complete consistent sets of credences), that is to say, has a credence function from the sigma algebra of propositions into the reals such that the credence function is a measure that is a probability function; (3) changes his beliefs on the basis of the evidence he has acquired by updating his credence function by the use of Bayes’ theorem.
Much of the earlier discussion about the rationality of disagreement and the requirement of modesty was advanced on the basis of the claim that Bayesian believers cannot rationally disagree. But there are different versions of what precisely that claim might be.
Strong Bayesian Agreement: Ideal Bayesian believers who have common knowledge of each others opinion of a proposition agree on that proposition.
Moderate Bayesian Agreement: Ideal Bayesian believers who have rational Priors and common knowledge of each others opinion of a proposition agree on that proposition.
Weak Bayesian Agreement: Ideal Bayesian believers who have a common Prior and common knowledge of each others opinion of a proposition agree on that proposition.
Continue reading "Normative Bayesianism and Disagreement" »
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Sometimes reading the posts and discussions here I am reminded of some of the most interesting characters in science fiction: the Vulcans of Star Trek. Vulcans are depicted as having two main traits: they are extremely logical, and they are unemotional. These two characteristics are generally presented as if they are related, or even synonymous. Vulcans make decisions based on logic, in contrast to humans who frequently make decisions on emotional grounds.
When we try to overcome our biases and see the truth clearly, are we aiming to become Vulcans? Is Bayesian another word for Vulcan?
In some ways it does seem true. We talk about trying not to be influenced in our thinking by our hopes and fears, but to reason dispassionately and logically. Many or most of our biases are emotionally based and satisfy emotional needs. Vulcans have perfected the art of overcoming these sorts of biases. In many of our critiques here of bias, I mentally hear the voice of Mr. Spock chiding: "You are behaving most illogically."
One problem with the Vulcan emphasis on logic above all is that it is not clear what motivates Vulcans. Logic helps us to see what is true, but it cannot tell us what we ought to do. Indeed, although Vulcans in the stories are successful within the quasi-military structure of Star Fleet, where orders come from above and give them straightforward guidance as to what their goals should be, they seem to be at something of a loss if thrown into an ambiguous situation, separated from authority and forced to set their own goals.
This suggests that we do not want to become true Vulcans, but rather to retain a core of human emotionality surrounded by a shell of logic. Our emotions, our needs and our drives set our goals. Logic then helps us to achieve those goals. Logic is the means, but emotional satisfaction is the end.
I must admit that this sounds a little too pat. It is far from clear that we can separate our mental functions so nicely. Even Vulcans are depicted as suffering from rare episodes of near psychotic irrationality and emotion, as years of suppressed emotions seem to explode uncontrollably. I wonder if our efforts to channel and control our emotions may lead to similar catastrophic failures.
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One dictionary defines "to give the benefit of the doubt" as
To believe something good about someone, rather than something bad, when you have the possibility of doing either.
That is, assume the best. This may be better than assuming the worst, but honesty requires you to instead remain uncertain, assigning chances according to your evidence. Does this mean we should stereotype people? After all, M Lafferty commented:
To make assumptions about an individual based on a stereotype is wrong, even if the stereotypical view is broadly accurate.
To the contrary, I say honesty demands we stereotype people, instead of giving them "the benefit of the doubt." Bryan Caplan has emphasized to me that most stereotypes are on average accurate:
Obviously, every stereotype has exceptions; stereotypes are useful because they are better than nothing, not because they are infallible.
Continue reading "Benefit of Doubt = Bias" »
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Friday’s Science reported that one in four published journal articles has misleadingly manipulated images.
Some biologists become so excited by a weak signal suggesting the presence of a particular molecule that "they’ll take a picture of it, they’ll boost the contrast, and they’ll make it look positive" … scientific journals, concerned about a growing number of cases of image manipulation, are cracking down on such practices with varying degrees of aggressiveness. At one end of the spectrum is the biweekly Journal of Cell Biology, which for the past 4 years has scrutinized images in every paper accepted for publication — and reports that a staggering 25% contain at least one image that violated the journal’s guidelines. That number has held steady over time …
Most journals are reluctant to devote much staff time and money to hunting for images that have been inappropriately modified. Vanishing few are emulating the Journal of Cell Biology. … and its two sister journals, which have a dedicated staffer who reviews the roughly 800 papers accepted by all three each year. Science‘s screening is principally designed to pick up selective changes in contrast and images that are cut and pasted. … Since initiating image analysis earlier this year, Science has seen "some number less than 10," or a few percent at most. … the difference might be due to … the fact that [the Journal of Cell Biology‘s] staffer … is now unusually experienced at hunting for modifications.
The cost-effectiveness of this one staffer in disciplining an entire field of research seems enormous. We could clearly increase research progress overall by replacing a few more researchers with such staffers. The fact that no other journals do anything close suggests either that we have a serious coordination failure, or that research progress is not a high priority.
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< ?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?> < !DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd">
A few days ago I showed a plot of oil futures prices, and Robin made the point that it would be useful to see information about variance as well. For each futures contract there are a set of options which can be used to deduce information about how much uncertainty the market sees in future prices. For example, the commodities price yesterday for December 2010 oil was $67 per barrel. But for $2 you could buy a call option with a strike price of $100. This will have a value of P – $100 if at the end of 2010 the oil price P is higher than $100 (and will have no value if the oil price is lower than $100). Therefore if oil goes up to $105 you will more than double your money; if it hits $122 you will make ten times your investment. Clearly the market does not view these possibilities as very likely, or the option would not be as cheap as $2. Below the fold I will describe and illustrate a simple technique for deriving probability estimates for price targets merely by glancing at tables of option values. I find it useful and practical in terms of getting a quick overview of how likely the market judges various possibilities.
Continue reading "The Future of Oil Prices 2: Option Probabilities" »
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Self love is more cunning than the most cunning man in the world. … Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue. La Rochefoucauld.
Humans are hypocrites. That is, we present ourselves and our groups as pursuing high motives, when more often low motives better explain our behavior. We say we invade nations to help them build democracy, rather than for revenge or security. We say we marry to help our partner, rather than to gain sex or security. We say we choose our profession to help others, and not for prestige or income. And so on.
Comedians live by ridiculing such hypocrisy, but "cynics" who complain without such wit and style are despised. In contrast, we are attracted to the innocent who naively believe our hypocrisies.
Noticing the hypocrisy in others usually makes us feel morally superior. After all, we are know we are not hypocrites; "I can look inside myself and and see my sincerity." But eventually experience and intelligence force some of us to face the likelihood that we are no different. At this point we can resolve our hypocrisy two ways: we can start really living up to our high ideals, or we can admit we don’t care as much as we thought about those ideals .
Continue reading "Resolving Your Hypocrisy" »
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Another important bias in academic consensus is overconfidence. Even in the hardest of hard science, Henrion and Fischhoff showed in 1986 (ungated for now here) that published error estimates for fundamental constants of physics were seriously overconfident. Looking at 306 estimates for particle properties, 7% were outside of a 98% confidence interval (where only 2% should be). In seven other cases, each with 14 to 40 estimates, the fraction outside the 98% confidence interval ranged from 7% to 57%, with a median of 14%.
Last week’s New Scientist described a dramatic example with policy implications (ungated for now here):
In July 1971, Stephen Schneider, a young American climate researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in New York, made headlines in The New York Times when he warned of a coming cooling that could "trigger an ice age". … The US National Academy of Sciences reported "a finite probability that a serious worldwide cooling could befall the Earth within the next 100 years". … It is often claimed today that the fad for cooling was a brief interlude propagated by a few renegade researchers or even that the story is a myth invented by today’s climate sceptics. It wasn’t. There was good science behind the fears of global cooling. …
All this raises an alarming question. If climatologists were so wrong then, why should we believe them now? As those who played a part in the cooling scare now readily admit, those early studies were based on flimsy data collected by very few, often young, researchers. In 1971, when Schneider’s paper appeared, he was instantly regarded as a world expert. It was his first publication. Today, vastly more research has been done into how and why climate changes. The consensus on warming is much bigger, much broader, much more sophisticated in its science and much longer-lasting than the spasm of concern about cooling.
This is too pat an answer. Yes, we have more data now, but the issue is our tendency to claim more than our data can support. I’m not saying global warming is wrong, just that we should be less confident than academics suggest.
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In honor of Christmas, a religious question.
Richard and Jerry are Bayesians with common priors. Richard is an atheist. Jerry was an atheist, but then he had an experience which he believes gives him certain knowledge of the following proposition (LGE): “There is a God, and he loves me.” Jerry’s experiences his knowledge as gnosis: a direct experience of divine grace that bestowed certain knowledge, period, and not conditioned on anything else at all. (Some flavors of Christianity and many other religions claim experiences like this, including prominently at least some forms of Buddhism.) In addition to believing certain knowledge of LGE, Jerry’s gnosis greatly modifies his probability estmates of almost every proposition in his life. For example, before the gnosis, the Christian Bible didn’t significantly impact the subjective probabilities of the propositions it is concerned with. Now it counts very heavily.
Richard and Jerry are aware of a disagreement as to the probability of LGE, and also the truth of the various things in the Bible. They sit down to work it out.
It seems like the first step for Richard and Jerry is to merge their data. Otherwise, Jerry has to violate one rule of rationality or another: since his gnosis is only consistent with the certainty of LGE, he can either discard plainly relevant data (irrational) or fail to reach agreement (irrational). Richard does his best to replicate the actions that got the gnosis into Jerry’s head: he fasts, he meditates on the koans, he gives money to the televangelist. But no matter what he does, Richard can not get the experience that Jerry had. He can get Jerry’s description of the experience, but Jerry insists that the description falls woefully short of the reality — it misses a qualitative aspect, the feeling of being “touched,” the bestowal of certain knowledge of the existence of a loving God.
Is it in principle possible for Richard and Jerry to reach agreement on their disputed probabilities given a non-transmissible experience suggesting to Jerry that P(LGE)=1?
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In some earlier posts I talked about the idea that advertisements can be privately profitable for firms but still be socially harmful due to uninternalized negative effects on their targets. In the comments, Glen Raphael asked me for an example. Here are a few of my favorites.
1. JIF peanut butter. The slogan "choosy moms choose JIF" is famous in marketing circles for having been extremely effective. The reason, of course, is that the implied corrolary to the slogan is "crappy negligent moms who don’t care about their kids give other brands of peanut butter." The harm here is that it gets moms into the habit of thinking that the place to concentrate their efforts to be better moms involve choice of peanut butter, instead of things that might actually work.
2. Disney. One could write a whole book about how horrifying Disney is (I think maybe someone even has). But my specific example is a commercial for Disneyland where the camera is in real tight on the face of an ecstatic awestruck looking kid. After a few seconds, the parents chuckle knowingly and say something like "Timmy, this is just the entrance, let’s go inside the park." The idea is that Disneyland isn’t just a fun place to eat junk food and go on roller coasters and stuff, it’s a source of wonder; the very essence of childhood. The harm here is obvious.
3. Any one of a million beer commercials. Beer commercials overwhelmingly involve attractive women. This is either because the advertisers want you to believe that drinking their beer will actually improve your chances with attractive women, or at least they want you to associate drinking their beer with being as attractive to them as you wish you were. I think it’s pretty clear that encouraging young men to think of women as ornaments that go nicely with getting loaded is not a recipe for subsequent success in matters of the heart, not for the men and certainly not for the women.
I could go on.
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Two weeks ago Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution called me a Scrooge for pointing out that "helping" professions don’t help more. So this Christmas day, let me Scrooge again by pointing out the dark side of gifts. It is not just that gifts can be worth less than they cost; the problem goes deeper. In Friday’s Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer explained:
The roundsman is the guy who, with the class huddled at the bed of a patient who has developed a rash after taking penicillin, raises his hand to ask … whether this might not instead be a case of Schmendrick’s Syndrome … The point is for the prof to remember this hyper-motivated stiff who stays up nights reading journals … the roundsman, let’s call him Oswald, ignores at his peril, is that this apple polishing does not endear him to his colleagues, … The general feeling among the rest of us is that we should have Oswald killed. … There’s always an Oswald. There’s always the husband who takes his wife to Paris for Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day? The rest of us schlubs can barely remember to come home with a single long-stem rose. What does he think he’s doing? And love is no defense. We don’t care how much you love her — you don’t do Paris. It’s bad for the team.
Gift-giving is in part a contest, to show how much more you know and care about someone, relative to others. And what that someone gets, in part, is having everyone see how loved they are, relative to others. If you succeed and make yourself look good, you make other givers look worse by comparison. And if your recipient looks loved, other recipients look less loved by comparison.
"All is fair in love and war" they say, and this sort of love is a lot like war; when you gain, others lose. But while we usually feel at least a little bad about the harm we cause in ordinary war, we are smugly proud of the harm we cause in this war of love that is gifts.
The world may gain some benefits from people feeling they can trust their associates. But even so, I’d guess most gifts produce a net harm.
Enjoy your spoils of war this Christmas day. 🙂
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Yasunori FUKUOKA* and Yukiko TSUJIYAMA**
(Translation: John G. Russell***)
* Saitama University, Japan, Professor
** Nagoya Seirei Junior College, Japan, Lecturer
*** Gifu University, Japan, Associate Professor
The Bulletin of Chiba College of Health Science, Vol.10, No.2.
Japan is often described as a homogeneous society free of ethnic discriminat ion. In fact, Japan has its share of ethnic minorities, among them Ainu, an ind igenous people centralized in Hokkaido in northern Japan and over a million ethn ic Koreans who were brought to Japan during its colonization of Korea.1) All ex perience discrimination in Japanese society.
This paper focuses on young Koreans in Japan who combat ethnic discriminatio n. It examines their struggle in relation to Mintohren (Minzoku Sabetsu to Tata kau Renraku Kyogikai, National Council for Combatting Discrimination Against Eth nic Peoples in Japan), by which movements for the human rights of Koreans in Jap an are now primarily led. This movement became prominent after the 1970s. Toda y the majority of young Koreans in Japan are second and third generations. Neve rtheless as a result of anti-foreign government policies, they have been treated as foreign residents. Many are not naturalized Japanese and have been denied t he rights and status of full-citizenship.
This paper is divided into three parts. Before entering into a sociological analysis, Part I describes the historical background and the present condition of Koreans in Japan, and the development of the Mintohren movement. Part II del ineates the life histories of three young Korean members of Mintohren and examin es their motives and the characteristics of their mentality. Part III examines how the attitudes of Mintohren members toward discrimination differ from the con sciousness of other young Koreans in Japan. By doing so, the paper sheds light on the uniqueness of the Mintohren movement.
In 1910 Japan annexed Korea. Japanese colonial policy against Korea was ext remely cruel. From 1910-1918, Japanese authorities created a list of all Korean landowners and confiscated their lands. From 1920-1934, Japan initiated a proj ect to increase Korean rice production and much of the rice Koreans produced was appropriated and exported to Japan. As a consequence, many Korean farmers atte mpted to escape the wretched conditions Japanese colonial policy imposed on them by seeking employment in Japan, and by 1938 there were about 800,000 Koreans in Japan. Since 1939, many Koreans were brought to Japan to serve as forced labor in Japanese mines and factories. By the end of WWII in 1945, there were an est imated 2,300,000 Koreans in Japan.
Thirty-five years of Japanese colonial rule saw a quick intensification of d iscrimination against Koreans. Two major events characterize the nature of this rule. 1) Japanese authorities and private citizens massacred thousands of Kore ans at the time of the Great Kanto Earthquake (1923) on groundless rumors that K oreans had poisoned wells; 2) under the imperial assimilation policy, Koreans w ere forced to assimilate and adopt Japanese identities. For example, Japanese c olonial policy dictated that Koreans speak Japanese and adopt Japanese names. With the war's end in August 1945, Koreans were liberated. Most who had bee n forced to come to Japan returned to their homeland. But among those who came to Japan with family and relatives to seek employment prior to the forced expatr iation, about 600,000 Koreans chose to remain. Although most of them desired to return to their homeland, they had already lost any socio-economic base for lif e in Korea, and with the partitioning of the Korean peninsula and economic turmo il they had little choice but to remain in Japan.
The Japanese government adopted a policy of strict assimilation and control toward these unrepatriated Koreans. Following the GHQ's (GHQ=the General Headqu arters of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers) definition of Koreans as persons of a third country who were neither victors nor vanquished, the Japanese government adopted a policy which negated their rights not only as Japanese cit izens but also as foreigners. Although many Korean schools were established in the postwar period, the government suppressed them. At the time, because the go vernment officially recognized Koreans as Japanese nationals, it objected to suc h schools on the grounds that it was ludicrous for Koreans to receive education as foreigners. By December 1945, however, Japanese authorities began to disenfr anchise unrepatriated Koreans because they were not "true" Japanese, and in 1947 they were made the object of the Alien Registration Ordinance (Gaikokujin Torok u Rei).
On April 28, 1952 the San Francisco Peace Treaty was promulgated and the Jap anese government unilaterally stripped Korean residents of their Japanese nation ality, stating that "until their status was decided legally, they could remain r esidents in Japan without having obtained resident qualification," thus placing their status in legal limbo. The Alien Registration Law (Gaikokujin Toroku Ho) forced Korean residents to submit to fingerprinting, a procedure not required of Japanese citizens. Viewed by the Japanese government as a potentially dangerou s and subversive element, they became the target of security regulation.
The Republic of Korea-Japan Normalization Treaty (1965) granted "permanent r esident" status to Koreans who had resided in Japan prior to the end of the war. However, although this status was also extended to their children, the plight of their descendants remains unresolved. Despite the acquisition of permanent r esident status, it remains incomplete and Koreans can still be deported. Moreov er, the Japanese government does not officially recognize the government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the north and it was only after 1982 th at Japan granted permanent residence to individuals supporting North Korea. Currently the number of ethnic Koreans in Japan exceeds 1,000,000, or about 1% of the population of Japan.2) Discrimination against them continues and Japa nese society has yet to recognize their human rights.
In the area of education, most school-age Koreans in Japan attend public or private Japanese schools,3) the majority adopting Japanese names. That is, they receive their education not as Koreans but as "Japanese," are raised without t he least knowledge of the Korean language, and are exposed to Japanese prejudice s and discrimination in school and society. Schools cultivate a negative image of Koreans and even if they attempt to "pass" by adopting Japanese names, should the fact that they are Korean surface, their friends and, in some cases, even t heir teachers will discriminate against them.
Some Korean students attend ethnic schools. Most of these schools are spons ored by Soren (Chongryun, the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan) which backs the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The Education Ministry, however, does not officially recognize these schools. Consequently, in principl e, graduates of ethnic high schools cannot take the Japanese college entrance ex amination. Nor do education authorities recognize graduation or academic record s from these schools.
Private firms often refuse to employ Koreans because of ethnic discriminatio n. Koreans are also excluded from holding civil service positions because such positions require Japanese nationality. Although in recent years employment dis crimination has lessened somewhat in the wake of movements against discriminatio n, historically, most Koreans have been limited to low-level occupations like da y-laborers, or self-service jobs such as pachinko (pinball) parlor managers, Kor ean barbecue house proprietors, scrap collectors, and small family subcontractor s.
Mixed marriages between Japanese and ethnic Koreans remain a complicated iss ue. In cases where a Japanese youth announces an intent to wed a Korean, opposi tion is expressed by parents and relatives on both sides. The objections of Kor ean parents often stem from strong anti-Japanese feelings based on their experie nce of discrimination. Koreans may also oppose such marriages because they wish to preserve bloodlines. On the other hand, there are many cases where marriage is opposed by Japanese merely because the prospective spouse is an ethnic Korea n. Generally, opposition remains stronger among Japanese. Nevertheless, exogam ous marriages to Japanese are increasing.4) Except for those Koreans who live in Korean communities, who attend ethnic schools or who participate in anti-disc rimination movements, most young Koreans are unable to make friends among their ethnic cohort, and consequently choose Japanese as their marriage partners.
Koreans in Japan continue to encounter housing discrimination and are turned down for apartments by real estate agents. In 1989, a Korean in Osaka filed th e first legal suit against a real estate agent for unjustly refusing to lease hi m an apartment and against Osaka authorities who are reluctant to become involve d in cases of ethnic discrimination.
The Korean population in Japan continues to encounter discrimination in virt ually all areas of life in Japan. Prior to 1970, movements opposed to ethnic di scrimination were few. This is not to suggest that there were no organized move ments for Koreans to survive in Japan. As early as October 1945, such organizat ions had been formed. Following the partitioning of the Korean peninsula, two o rganizations were established: Mindan (Mindan, the Korean Residents Union in Jap an) (1948) which backs the Republic of Korea in the south and Soren (1955). How ever, the leaders, who were first-generation ethnic Koreans, considered Japan me rely a temporary home. They embraced strong desires of returning eventually to the homeland, giving priority to Korean unification rather than the problem of d iscrimination in Japan. Consequently, these movements never developed into full -fledged, radical movements to fight discrimination in Japan and to demand full civil rights.
Today, second- and third-generation ethnic Koreans are the majority. Born a nd reared in Japan, they attend Japanese schools; most of them can speak only Ja panese and their lifestyle is fundamentally Japanese. The 1970s was a period wh en movements against discrimination toward Burakumin (descendants of Japan's for mer outcasts), the disabled, and women proliferated in Japan. It was also a per iod when consciousness of international human rights was increasing. Dissatisfi ed with their unfair treatment and experience of racism, young ethnic Koreans be gan to organize a movement to eliminate discrimination. Unlike larger organizat ions like Mindan and Soren, Mintohren was started by individuals and small group s, eventually spreading across the entire country.
In 1970 a landmark case of symbolic import occurred. A young ethnic Korean, using a tsumei ("pass name"), passed a company test for Hitachi. However, when the company learned he was Korean, it refused him employment. He appealed in c ourt, winning the case in 1974. At the time, some ethnic Korean organizations c riticized his action, saying that by working for a major Japanese firm he was tr ying to assimilate. However, during the court battle the base of support for th is case was spread among both Korean and Japanese youths. As a result of this c ase, Mintohren was formed with the objective of fighting ethnic discrimination i n Japan.
Unlike Mindan or Soren, Mintohren is not a single, hierarchic organization. Although established as a result of the Hitachi employment discrimination case, it created small groups to battle ethnic discrimination on a regional level thr oughout the country. Indeed, it was by means of such small groups and solidarit y networks that Mintohren was established.
We would like to introduce three groups from among the central core of group s which form Mintohren: 1) Mukuge no Kai (the Society of Mukuge), 2) Tokkabi Kod omo Kai (Tokkabi Society for Children), and 3) Seikyu Sha (the Blue Hill Associa tion).5) We would also like to indicate that the youths committed to these move ments share the Mintohren outlook.
Case 1: Lee Kyung-Jae (Mukuge no Kai)
Mukuge no Kai conducts its activities among small, ethnic Korean villages in Takatsuki City, Osaka. Its founder, Lee Kyung-Jae, established the organizatio n immediately upon graduating high school in 1972, as a means of supporting Kore an boys and girls in their struggle against racism.
Lee Kyung-Jae was born in Nariai in Takatsuki in 1954. He is a second-gener ation Korean resident with South Korean nationality. Nariai is a village compos ed of only about 35 Korean households. It was here that the Japanese army assem bled over 10,000 Korean laborers, forcing them to dig tunnels through the mounta inside in order to construct secret factories. After the war, the site of the w orker's quarters became the center of the Korean village, but the area is far mo re impoverished than the surrounding Japanese villages, and it has become an obj ect of prejudice.
Both of Lee's parents were born in Korea and came to Japan during the coloni al period (1910-1945). Their life was a poor one. His father was a day-laborer and scrap collector; his mother worked in a quarry. Both parents spoke Japanes e at home because his mother, who had come to Japan at the age of three, could n o longer speak Korean. Neither parent received an education and even today they are unable to read and write Korean and Japanese.
Lee attended Japanese public schools under the name Ri Keisai, the Japanese reading of his Korean name. During his school days, Lee saw Korean students bul lied by their Japanese classmates, and witnessed that only Korean students inclu ding himself were unjustly searched by teachers when some money mysteriously dis appeared in school. Through these experiences he began to hate Koreans and want ed to become Japanese. The fact that his family was poor reinforced his hatred toward Koreans.
During middle school, hoping to conceal his Korean ethnicity, Lee adopted th e Japanese pass name "Takayasu Keisai." His desire to pass as Japanese was so s trong that he even refused to play with Korean friends whom he had known since c hildhood. After his first year, bored by school, he and two Korean friends hopp ed a freight train and ran away from home. The incident shocked his Japanese te achers who thought it important that Korean children receive an education that m ade them aware of their Korean identity. Eventually, he returned to school. On e of Lee's teachers, Y.H., raised the Korean problem in class. It was from her that Takayasu Keisai, who blamed his family's poverty on his father's "laziness" and who "hated Koreans," learned that the real culprit was discrimination. Thr ough her efforts and the support of his Japanese friends, a gradual revolution o ccurred in Lee's self-concept. He asserted to his classmates his Korean ethnici ty (Chosenjin sengen), declaring Lee Kyung-Jae, his real name (honmyo sengen) at his middle school graduation ceremony.6)
Lee advanced to a private high school that did not deal with the Korean issu e. Completely disappointed, he resumed the use of his pass name "Takayasu Keisa i" and concealed his Korean identity from friends. When he graduated from high school in 1972, his teacher refused to help him find a job. Graduating without any job prospects, Lee was inevitably forced to support himself with part-time w ork.
The same year, Lee called upon the Korean youths of Nariai to join him in fo rming Mukuge no Kai (the Society of Mukuge). Lee knew that the Korean students like himself were prone to violence and delinquency, but he thought that respons ibility for raising Korean children who would resist to discrimination rested no t only with Japanese teachers but also with Koreans themselves. He chose the na me Mukuge no Kai because he had heard that during the period of Japanese rule of Korea the mukuge flower was a symbol of resistance against Japanese colonial ag gression. From the group's inception, Lee resolved to use his Korean name.
At first, the organization was unable to attract members and experienced sev eral setbacks. But Lee overcame these problems. The organization began to take off in 1978 when it started an association for the local children of Nariai. A t the same time, Lee and his friends began negotiations with the city office of Takatsuki and in 1985 the Takatsuki Board of Education established the "Division of Resident Korean Education (Zainichi Kankoku-Chosenjin Kyoiku Jigyo)" as a se ction of the city board of education. Today, of six full-time staffers of Mukug e no Kai, two hold official positions as civil servants and two as part-time emp loyees. Despite the fact that they did not have Japanese nationality, they were able to become civil servants by successfully eliminating the Japanese national ity requirement for Takatsuki city employees.
The objective of Mukuge no Kai and the Division of Resident Korean Education is to raise Korean children free of self-hatred, to fight ethnic discrimination , and to take pride in their identity as Koreans in Japan. Today in Takatsuki, Mukuge no Kai is actively carrying out this objective. It organizes kodomo kai (children's associations) in three elementary schools, four middle schools and t hree regional offices, and helps Korean children to learn about themselves. It has also established kokosei no kai (an association for high school students), w here both Korean and Japanese students discuss the problems of Koreans in Japan. In addition, Mukuge no Kai offers Japanese language classes for the first-gene ration Koreans who have difficulty in reading and writing Japanese.
Once an active full-time member of Mukuge no Kai from 1979 to 1988, today Le e Kyung-Jae works at a Korean-managed real estate agency while acting as a Mukug e no Kai representative.7)
Despite several setbacks, Lee continued, sometimes by himself, to combat eth nic discrimination. We wondered at the source of his energy. Based on our inte rview with him, we suggest three factors to account for it.
First, his reconsideration of his hatred of being born Korean and toward his parents. "I hated the fact that I was Korean and hid it. I thought we were po or because we were Koreans. I hated the fact that I was born to Korean parents. If I had hated my father because he beat me, that would have made some sense. But if my hatred toward him came from the fact that I was born Korean because o f him, this hatred can not be justified. I first became aware of this when I wa s a middle-school student. It took a long time, but I finally realized that dis crimination was the real culprit." With this awareness, Lee continued his battl e against discrimination.
Second, Lee feels a strong sense of responsibility as a leader toward younge r ethnic Koreans not to give up the struggle. "I keep telling the younger kids, 'If you become delinquents and do bad things, then the Japanese will think that all Koreans are bad. Don't give up your struggle against discrimination.' My words would come back to haunt me, if I didn't live up to them."
Third, Lee fully realizes that in order to battle discrimination in Nariai, one must fight the battle oneself, without relying on others. In advancing his movement, Lee visited local chapters of Mindan and Soren. "I said to them, 'I'd like your cooperation to make our Nariai a good community.' But they ignored me , saying, 'Lee, you shouldn't concern yourself with such trifles. We've got a w onderful homeland, Korea.'" This experience convinced him that the only residen ts of Nariai could attack the problem of ridding the community of discrimination .
Case 2: Son Su-Gil (Tokkabi Kodomo Kai)
In 1974, So Jong-U (b. 1954; second-generation ethnic Korean), current secre tary-general of the Osaka office of Mintohren, established Tokkabi Kodomo Kai (T okkabi Society for Children) with the aim of creating a society in which Koreans and Japanese could live in harmony without discrimination and to foster self-pr ide among Korean children. The organization's name derives from "Tokkabi," a hu morous, heroic spirit that appears in Korean folktales.
The organization is based in Yasunaka in Yao City, Osaka. Yasunaka is a Bur akumin area settled by Japanese who were classified as outcasts under Japan's fe udal system of social stratification. Today the area is populated by their desc endants who remain targets of Japanese social discrimination. Scattered through out Japan there are several areas where Koreans reside in Buraku villages. Bura ku residents accept Koreans as fellow victims of discrimination. Yasunaka is on e such community.
It was into this community that Son Su-Gil, a third-generation Korean holdin g South Korean nationality, was born in 1966. He grew up with Tokkabi Kodomo Ka i and currently participates as one of its graduates.
Both Son's parents were born in Japan, neither receiving an education. Alth ough they can speak Japanese, they can neither read nor write it. His father wo rked as a manual laborer, his mother as a part-time worker. Their jobs provided for daily expenses but home was a barrack-like hut amidst the wretched poverty of the community.
As a child Son Su-Gil attended a Japanese public elementary school under the pass name "Yamamoto Hideyoshi." After classes he attended Kaiho Kodomo Kai (th e Children's Liberation Society), an organization for Buraku children. There he was taught about the Buraku problem and learned that his community was a Buraku area. At this time, his self-image was as a Japanese and a "child of the Burak u."
Son began his activities with Tokkabi Kodomo Kai as a third-grader. It was at this time that he first realized he was Korean.
"The first thing I realized was that I had two names. Yamamoto Hideyoshi an d Son Su-Gil. When I asked my adviser, 'Why do I have the name Son Su-Gil?,' he said, 'Because you're Korean.'" Son was ashamed of the name. "At the time I d idn't know why, but I thought that Koreans were bad." But Tokkabi Kodomo Kai in stilled in him the necessity of using one's Korean name. "They told me, 'We, Ko reans in Japan, are forced to adopt Japanese names. Yet we are still discrimina ted against. Use your real name and fight discrimination.'"
When he was a fifth-grader at the recommendation of his school teacher, Son Su-Gil and a classmate Lee Chang-Jae announced their Korean names over the schoo l's closed-circuit television system.
"I was worried that I would lose my Japanese friends if they knew I was Kore an," he says. But the Buraku children were especially very warm and supportive. Still, some friends ridiculed his Korean name and teased him because its pronu nciation resembles that of "son," a Japanese word meaning "disadvantage," "handi cap." At that time he argued with them: "I am determined to use my real name. Don't poke fun at me!"
As a middle school student, Son's relationship with Buraku children grew eve n deeper. "I continued to play with Buraku children," he recalls. "We had disc ussions. There were times when we'd stay up all night, talking, sharing our tea rs. It wasn't the kind of superficial discussion that says, 'Discrimination aga inst fellow human beings is wrong.' We'd think about Buraku and ethnic discrimi nation together, as Koreans different from the Japanese. We could really relate to one another."
Son and Lee advanced to different high schools. When he was a high school s enior, Son began to consider the kind of job he would like after graduation, but although his teachers helped his Japanese classmates find a job, they would not help Korean students. Tokkabi Kodomo Kai's So Jong-U recommended that Son and Lee apply to take the exam for a position at the post office. The position of a postal delivery boy, with its promise of steady employment and guaranteed sick- leaves, was attractive to both boys. However, because the position was a nation al civil service position, the nationality clause prohibiting non-Japanese natio nals from sitting for the examination remained an obstacle. Despite these diffi culties, the boys were determined to fight such discrimination for the benefit o f those who would come after them. On September 1, 1983, they picked up examina tion forms at the Osaka Central Post Office. But their applications were reject ed. Marshalling the support of fellow Koreans and Japanese, they continued to n egotiate with the postal authorities. As a result, the following year the natio nality clause for postal delivery boys was eliminated. The two studied hard and passed the examination. In April 1985, a year after they graduated high school , both were hired by the Postal Service.
The same year, five Koreans, including Son and Lee, were hired as delivery b oys. This did not mean, however, that ethnic discrimination within the postal s ervice ceased with their employment. "Koreans Go Home," "Kill the Koreans" were some of the graffiti occasionally scrawled on office walls.
Son and Lee formed the Society of Postal Employees to Consider the Problem o f Koreans in Japan (Zainichi Kankoku-Chosenjin Mondai wo Kangaeru Yubinkyoku Doh o no Kai). Today, its membership has increased to 16, of which 13 work under th eir Korean names. Their hope is to create a discrimination-free workplace where Koreans can work in peace of mind under their Korean names.
Case 3: Kim Su-Il (Seikyu Sha)
Seikyu Sha (the Blue Hill Association) is located in Sakuramoto, Kawasaki Ci ty, near Tokyo. From Ikegami-cho to Sakuramoto stretches a large ethnic Korean village. It is an area where many Korean laborers were brought to build militar y factories during the war. In 1974 Seikyu Sha, whose parent body is the local Korean Christian Church, began to urge Korean youths to use their real names, le arn about their Korean heritage, and resist discrimination. This association wa s named Seikyu (Chong-gu, blue hills) since it is another name for Korea, meanin g beautiful green mountains and rivers.
Kim Su-Il, a second-generation Korean, was born in 1961 in Ikegami-cho, Kawa saki City. Today he works on the staff of Fureai Kan (Fureai Hall), a community center, which was established in Sakuramoto in 1988 by the city in response to t he demands from Seikyu Sha. The word "fureai" is Japanese and means "opening on e's heart to others," reflecting the hall's aim of fostering exchanges between f oreign residents, particularly Korean residents, and Japanese as fellow citizens of Kawasaki.8)
Kim Su-Il's parents were born in Korea and came to Japan during the colonial period.His father attended school but dropped out because of poverty. Unable t o find a job, he supported the family by collecting and selling scrap metal. Hi s mother, who was employed at a Korean barbecue house, died at age sixty-two. As a child Kim adopted the Japanese pass name "Kaneyama Hidekazu."
"I remember it clearly. My elder brother laughed at me when I told him, 'I' m Japanese.'" It was then that Kim realized he was Korean. From his third year of elementary school, Hidekazu was full of self-hate, loathing his Korean ances tory:
"I hated myself. I mean really despised myself, you know. Myself and the f act I was Korean. I wanted to be Japanese. There was nothing pleasant about be ing Korean. We were poor. Dad would drink a lot and become violent." A large, quiet child, Hidekazu was often bullied by his classmates until fou rth grade. His teachers also treated him badly. There were other ethnic Korean s in class but, he says, "They all looked Japanese to me. I looked at people fr om the point of view of self-preservation."
As a middle school student, in the eyes of his teachers, "Kaneyama Hidekazu" was a model student. He was active as a committee member on the student counci l, and also as a member of the Judo club. However, his feelings of self-hatred intensified inside of himself, and he desperately concealed the fact of his Kore an ethnicity from friends. Indeed, whenever his mother prepared a boxed-lunch c ontaining Kimchi (Korean pickles) for him to take to school, he would refuse to eat it, fearing that if someone were to notice, his secret would be revealed.
This was also a time when he saw his elder brother and sister encounter the barrier of discrimination. His elder brother graduated technical high school bu t he was the only student in his class not to find a job, and was eventually for ced to take a job as a truck driver. His elder sister, a graduate of a commerci al high school, worked in a department store but burst into tears when she learn ed she was singled out for a warehouse assignment. These setbacks made the atmo sphere at home oppressive.
In high school, M.T., Kim's teacher, told him the school had a Korean proble m study group and invited him to participate. Upon learning this, Kim thought h e had come to a ridiculous school. But M.T., a Japanese, taught passionately ab out the history of Japan-Korean relations, and continued to urge Kim to attend. Kim finally came to trust M.T. One day a student in class said, "Koreans are s cary." Kim screwed up his courage and blurted, "I'm Korean."
Early in his sophomore year of high school, at the suggestion of M.T., Kim p roclaimed his Korean name in class. However, of 10 teachers, 8 continued to ref er to him by his Japanese name "Kaneyama" and friends who called him by his pass name increased. Ironically, although he had resolved to use his real name, few would call him by it.
As a result Kim came to think that Japanese could not be trusted. What enab led Kim to overcome this setback was a Japanese friend who during a class discus sion said, "I respect Kim. It's important to recognize him as a Korean." Kim w anted to become friends with such people. "As a Korean I want to live with my r eal name and fight discrimination."
Kim advanced to a vocational college, participating in Seikyu Sha as a volun teer. During the first year, he put in three nights a week, and the second year every night as a volunteer in charge of teaching middle school Korean students. "I have a very strong attachment to Kawasaki. I wanted to help younger kids a s someone who has himself experienced the pain of being a Korean in Japan." Bus y with his activities for Seikyu Sha, it took Kim eight years finally to graduat e vocation school. "I've given my youth to Seikyu Sha," he says. When he was 2 1 years old, he began to learn the Jang-gu (a Korean drum) at Seikyu Sha because he wanted to carry on the legacy of his ethnic heritage.
In 1988 Kim married a Japanese. Until a few years ago he had only considere d marrying a Korean, but one day he noticed that there was a contradiction betwe en his public advocation of integration and his private life. "Nationality isn' t everything. The problem isn't whether one is Korean or Japanese, but the way one lives."
Under Japan's Nationality Act, citizenship is based on "blood" not birthplac e. In 1985 the Nationality Act was revised to permit children to acquire Japane se nationality through either parent, not just father. Consequently, Kim's chil d acquired Japanese nationality through her Japanese mother. Nonetheless, the c ouple decided to give their child a Korean name and to cultivate in her an aware ness of her Korean identity despite her Japanese nationality.
From these three life histories of Mintohren members, one can schematize the ir identity crisis and the strategies they employed to resolve it as follows: As second- and third-generation Koreans, they share the same experience in t heir up-bringing: on the one hand they have assimilated into Japanese society; o n the other, they have more or less retained their Korean ethnicity and have bee n aware of their being the victims of ethnic discrimination by Japanese. This i s true not only of Mintohren members but of young Koreans in general. That is, born and raised in Japan, they have been socialized as Japanese, absorbing the l anguage and culture of Japan. Many adopt pass names, attending school and recei ving education as "Japanese." They are forced to assimilate. Conversely, young Koreans in Japan still maintain a degree of knowledge of their ethnicity. Whil e the degree varies with each individual, in their values and lifestyle, they ha ve internalized that they are "essentially different" from the Japanese around t hem and most have tasted the bitter pill of discrimination. Consequently, many grow up feeling they are "different" from and "inferior" to the Japanese majorit y and suffer a crisis of identity.
Lee Kyung-Jae, Son Su-Gil, and Kim Su-Il overcame such self-doubts and have established a stable self-identity. Here we would like to suggest some characte ristics of the Mintohren movement that account this. First, their realization t hat the problem lay not in the fact that they are Koreans but in the reality of discrimination against Koreans in Japanese society. Second, the fact that their source of spiritual strength was not anchored to the concept of Korea as a home land. They have a strong attachment to their communities in Japan and desire to establish their ethnic identity there. Third, the fact that in their combat ag ainst ethnic discrimination they focus on their personal experience in daily lif e. Fourth, their stress on the importance of living in harmony with Japanese. The Mintohren movement has been carried out based on these characteristics o f its members. In the next section, we will discuss how the orientation of the Mintohren movement differs from the consciousness of diverse young Koreans in Ja pan.
Many young Koreans in Japan experience the same difficulties as those of the informants described above. Among them are those who overcome their difficulti es and who aim for a stable self-identity. Members of Mintohren are representat ive of this group. But the resolve to overcome adversity and to seek self-liber ation is by no means limited to Mintohren members. Indeed, there are also young Koreans who have internalized a strong sense of ethnic identity through attendi ng ethnic schools from early childhood.
The following four types are recognized when the orientations of young Korea ns in Japan are categorized based on their attitudes toward ethnic discriminatio n. These are ideal types, and the characteristics of each type are emphasized i n the following explanation.In as much as they are ideal typical, a single indiv idual may in fact combine features of the various types. Nonetheless, through t his discussion one may better understand the characteristics of Mintohren member s.
For the purpose of analysis, we breakdown the identity of young Koreans in J
apan on two axes. The vertical axes measures the strength and/or weakness of th
eir interest in the history of oppressed Koreans; the horizontal axes measures t
he strength and/or weakness of their attachment to the Japanese communities in w
hich they were born and raised. On this basis the following 4 identity types ca
n be distinguished:
I. PLURALIST; II. NATIONALIST; III. INDIVIDUALIST; and IV. ASSIMILATIONIST.9)
I. Pluralist Type
The words "mutual cooperation" symbolize the mentality of the pluralist type , whose core agenda is the realization of a society based on the recognition of ethnic differences but free of ethnic discrimination. That is, their aim is to solve the problem of social discrimination through "social change," accomplished at the local level, starting with their own communities and neighbors.
One observes the pluralist type primarily among Mintohren members. A review of their life histories reveals that most adopted Japanese names in their schoo l years and, as a result of Japanese prejudice, grew up with a negative image of their identity as Koreans in Japan. However, in one form or another, they happ ened to learn about the history of Koreans in Japan, and came to realize that th e source of their problems is not the fact that they were born Korean but the re ality of Japanese discrimination, eventually taking pride in their identity as K oreans in Japan. They strongly believe that they do not have a homeland but tha t their real home is the community in Japan in which they were born and raised. They neither seek to return to the homeland nor advocate complete identificatio n with the Japanese state. Rather their degree of attachment to their place of birth in Japan is quite strong.
Moreover, they maintain that in order to combat ethnic discrimination, one m ust use one's real ethnic name, viewing the use of Japanese pass names as merely a temporary escape from discrimination not a solution. Whether intentional or not, individuals who adopt a pass name conceal their Korean identity and lose th e opportunity to meet with Japanese who show a willingness to understand anti-Ko rean discrimination.
A review of their life histories also reveals that many cannot speak Korean and lack a full appreciation of Korean culture. But they do not view this fact as shameful since it is merely the result of the circumstances over which they h ad no control. Still, they believe that it is "desirable" to be able to speak K orean and many have made efforts to do so.
In sum, for the pluralist type there is still no fixed "model" lifestyle. T hey neither identify with Koreans in the homeland nor with Japanese, but are att empting to create their own identity and lifestyle as "Koreans in Japan."
II. Nationalist Type
"Resident foreign national" is the expression which represents the mentality of the nationalist type. Their core agenda is to contribute to the "developmen t" and "unification" of Korea. Consequently, they do not seek to assimilate int o Japanese society, but hold an awareness as resident foreign nationals, who fee l compelled to support the resident Korean community. They attach tremendous im port to the preservation of their organization against Japanese government polic ies that attempt to violate their rights as foreign nationals. However, having taken this position, it is difficult for them to transcend their position as for eign nationals and demand various rights. Consequently, they generally evince a strong element of "self-isolation" in their battle against ethnic discriminatio n.
This type can be seen in the young Koreans who compose the active members of Soren. Typically, they attended Soren sponsored ethnic schools and colleges wh ere they learned Korean history, language and culture. As a result they have in ternalized a strong sense of pride in their Korean roots. In this sense, they h ave not experienced an ethnic identity crisis. Although they are often the targ ets of right-wing Japanese when en route to ethnic schools, they are proud, and display no self-hate based on their Korean ethnicity. They assert the unity of Korea. As a result of having learned of Japanese aggression against Korea, they are strongly critical of Japan and feel no attachment to it. For them Japan is "merely a foreign country." Their model is the native Korean and there are tho se who say that they will return to Korea when it is unified.
Through family, community and the media, they have easily mastered the Japan ese language, as well as Korean at ethnic schools. They view the ability of Kor eans to speak Korean as totally natural, regarding those who cannot as "pitiful and no longer qualified to call themselves real Koreans." In principle they bel ieve they have only one real name, their given Korean one. However, in order to pass in Japanese society and escape the inconvenience that a Korean name would impose, several in fact do adopt Japanese names. Believing they already possess a strong sense of ethnic consciousness, they do not see the use of Japanese nam es for the sake of convenience as weakening their self-identity.
Those belonging to the nationalist type also have a tendency to restrict the ir activities to the ethnic Korean community. There are even those whose close friends are all Korean. One youth told us, "Although I have some Japanese acqua intances, I don't have any close Japanese friends." In work as well, most are e mployed at organizations and institutions affiliated with Soren, and there are m any cases where they work for their parents. Believing that it is impossible to gain employment with Japanese firms, they don't even consider it. Compared wit h the pluralist type, due to this kind of self-isolation from Japanese society, the degree of personal experience of social discrimination is relatively low.
III. Individualist Type
"Self realization" best represents the mentality of the individualist type, whose core agenda is the realization of self through assertion of individualism. Their chosen response to social discrimination is to liberate themselves throu gh social mobility.
The bearers of this identity type are mainly young people who aspire to atta in an overseas education in the United States, work for multinational corporatio ns, or achieve an elite life in Japan by going to a first-class college and join ing a first-class company. Typically, their life histories resemble those of th e pluralist type, in that they feel a sense of incongruity at living in Japan as ethnic Koreans but unlike the pluralist type they do not embrace a negative sel f-image, viewing the problem as one of environment. In this sense they are conf ident in their abilities and believe that they can change their circumstances by travelling overseas or by advancing themselves in Japan. One can probably desc ribe their outlook as "cosmopolitan."
Because they aspire toward social mobility, their sense of community attachm ent is weak, and they are not particularly concerned with ethnic Korean history. Nor do they feel an attachment to either Japan or Korea in their relation as i ndividuals to the state. Nor do they pay much attention to the question of whet her they should use Korean names or Japanese ones. In interpersonal relationshi ps, they feel a sense of liberation with strong individualists, who are not preo ccupied with affiliation, but who value individual achievement instead. In term s of language, rather than Korean they are passionate about English, believing t hat mastering it will help advance their careers and opportunities for social mo bility.10)
IV. Assimilationist Type
The word which best symbolizes the mentality of the assimilationist type is "naturalization." Their core agenda is to "become Japanese." They believe that by assimilating they can exist without experiencing ethnic discrimination.
The bearers of this type are those young people who naturalize. Typically, they are raised in an environment surrounded only by Japanese, the entire family itself adopting a Japanese name and concealing their Korean ethnicity. Even at home, it is rare that ethnicity is preserved. However as they mature, they beg in to internalize the negative image of Koreans embraced by Japanese. They are pained when they discover that they are ethnic Koreans. They attempt to cope wi th this incongruity by adapting to Japanese society.
It is a common characteristic that they have close Japanese friends only. T hey desire to become the same as their Japanese friends and take the attitude of escaping their Korean ethnicity, asserting that their home is Japan not Korea. Their attachment to their communities is strong. They feel uncomfortable with their Korean names, believing their Japanese names to be their real ones. On th e issue of language, they feel the fact that they are unable to speak Korean was natural and unavoidable, and view the history of Japanese aggression against Ko rea as a thing of the distant past about which they can do nothing. They attemp t to cope with social discrimination by eliminating difficulties through adaptin g themselves to the world around them.11)
The identity type of Mintohren participants corresponds to Type I. Of cours e, not all movements against ethnic discrimination are carried out by Mintohren. For example, Mindan and its affiliated association, Zainichi Kankoku Seinen Ka i (Korean Youth Association in Japan) have been fighting discrimination. The id eal type of the members of these organizations falls between Type I and II. Sor en and its affiliated associations have also played a significant role in combat ting ethnic discrimination, and the young members of these organizations are cat egorized as Type II. What these various groups have in common, however, is the strong desire to be aware of the history of oppressed Koreans. The core members of these movements display strong elements of characteristics associated with T ypes I and II described in the upper two (see graph). Those displaying Types II I and IV characteristics, on the other hand, tend to see ethnic discrimination a s a matter resolved through individual efforts.
Although all these groups (Mintohren, Seinen Kai, Soren-youths) are opposed to ethnic discrimination in Japan, their approaches differ. First, one of the d ifferences between Mintohren and other groups lay in the manner of how ethnic co nsciousness is expressed. Soren-youths express this consciousness in terms of f eeling of solidarity with native Koreans in the north. Although the fact that t hey were born and raised in Japan and have absorbed Japanese culture has made th em somewhat different from native Koreans in outlook, they conceive of themselve s as essentially the same. They have no doubts about their Korean nationality. On the other hand, members of Zainichi Kankoku Seinen Kai recognize the fact th at they live a different existence from Koreans at home but they positively embr ace their Korean nationality. Mintohren members in contrast are not concerned w ith concepts like "homeland" or "the state." They prize their Korean ethnicity, but do not stress nationality.
Second, while at first glance it appears that the anti-discrimination demand s of these groups are similar, they differ significantly in the ways in which th ey conceptualize the problem. Mintohren, Soren, Mindan and Seinen Kai are unifi ed in their demand that the Japanese must apologize to and compensate Koreans in Japan for Japanese colonial aggression and atrocities, and that it must also re solve the legal status of Koreans in Japan by establishing their rights and guar anteing ethnic education. However, in the case of Soren, the unification of Kor ea and the development of the homeland are given priority. Thus, they treat the problems of ethnic Koreans as a matter of guaranteing them their rights as "for eign nationals." They insist on nothing that falls beyond this demand. For exa mple, although Mintohren, Mindan and Seinen Kai demand the right to vote in loca l government, Soren does not, since it believes it would only further the assimi lation of Koreans in Japanese society. The current movement of Mindan and Seine n Kai seeks to correct the inadequacies of the Republic of Korea-Japan Normaliza tion Treaty. Consequently, although Seinen Kai views the problems of ethnic Kor eans as a domestic issue that should be resolved through negotiations between et hnic Koreans and the Japanese government, in reality it tends to advocate cooper ation with the South Korean government to achieve this goal.
On the other hand, Mintohren is organized on the grass-roots level, a charac teristic that distinguishes it from Soren, Mindan and Seinen Kai. Mintohren was formed to improve the position of Koreans in Japan. Concerned with the questio n of what to do with the negative image of Koreans, the Mintohren movement striv es to strengthen the resolve of Korean youth to resist discrimination. It began as an organization to confront the employment discrimination problem faced by y oung Koreans who are disqualified from positions because of the nationality clau se and to help them realize their desire for stable employment. Mintohren has a dopted an ad-hoc approach in order to realize these goals. It gives priority to the battle against social discrimination. In this sense, Mintohren has a stron g tendency not to get caught up in dogmatic ideological questions such as suppor t for North or South Korea, which have tended to dominate the ethnic Korean comm unity.
Third, there are differences in the type of members who comprise Mintohren a nd the other movements. Soren, Mindan and Seinen Kai are organized by ethnic Ko reans only. In contrast, Mintohren's approach sees the struggle as a joint proj ect, involving the combined efforts of both Japanese and Koreans in Japan. As t he three case studies presented illustrate, participants in the Mintohren moveme nt involve not only leadership from the Korean community in Japan but also the s upport of Japanese teachers and friends who attempt to raise consciousness about the injustice of ethnic discrimination. The slogan of Mintohren is "Tomo ni Ik iru (Living Together)." The aim of the movement is to create a society where al l people, regardless of ethnic differences, can live together in mutual cooperat ion. The fact that members of the organization themselves come from different b ackgrounds but have joined forces to battle discrimination has tremendous value. And in fact, many Japanese participate in Mintohren groups.
This paper has presented a general overview of Koreans in Japan, indicating the mentality and characteristics of the Mintohren movement. We would like to c onclude by placing Mintohren at the center of the movement in the struggle again st ethnic discrimination. Mintohren started as a grass-roots movement by young Koreans in Japan at a time when the "myth of repatriation" embraced by first-gen eration Koreans who wanted to return to Korea was beginning to crumble. As a re sult, it adopted an ad-hoc approach to the struggle against discrimination, view ing joint action with Japanese positively. Since the 1970s Mintohren has contri buted greatly to eliminating ethnic discrimination against Koreans in Japan, but it has only recently begun to receive such justified recognition in the Korean community in Japan. Even now it merely occupies a third place position against such large and powerful organizations as Mindan and Soren that still support the homeland. Nonetheless, in introducing Korean social movements in Japan, we hav e focused on Mintohren because we believe that its ideal of living together show s the potential for bringing about a tremendous change in Japanese society which at present continues to suppress ethnic minorities under the illusion of "monor acialism."
Korean and Japanese names are given in traditional East Asian order, family name first.
Of course, among them are Korean nationals who have come to Japan to work or study but the majority is Koreans who live in Japan for the aforementioned reas ons, most of whom today are second- and third-generation Koreans in Japan. The Japanese Nationality Law is not based on place of birth but on bloodline, so eve n if one is born in Japan, one does not automatically acquire Japanese citizensh ip. From 1952 to 1989 the number of "naturalized" Koreans holding Japanese citi zenship was about 150,000. Naturally, their children also hold Japanese citizen ship. Others have acquired Japanese citizenship as the offspring or descendants of "international marriages" between Japanese and Koreans. It is estimated tha t their total number exceeds one million. In 1985, the number of Korean children attending primary and secondary schoo ls was about 150,000, among which 130,000 (86%) attended Japanese schools and th e remaining 20,000 (14%) attended Korean ethnic schools. 13% ethnic schools run by Soren, 1% run by Mindan. In 1988, of 10,015 resident Korean marriages, 2, 362 were between Koreans; 7,598 between Koreans and Japanese. However, the latt er includes marriages between Koreans in Japan and ethnic Koreans who hold Japan ese nationality, and those between Japanese men and Korea-born women, a growing trend in recent years. It is extremely rare for organization combatting discrimination against Kore ans to receive public funds from local governments. The three cases introduced in this paper are examples where funding was obtained from local governments as a result of negotiation. "Honmyo sengen" is the act of telling friends one wishes to be called by one 's real ethnic name. At such times, Koreans relate their experiences of discrim ination and seek Japanese understanding of the Korean problem. There are many c ases where this is carried out by Japanese teachers who teach anti-discriminatio n classes. Such declarations are thought to be the first step toward creating c hildren who will resist discrimination. In 1982, while continuing these activities, Lee Kyung-Jae renewed his passbo ok, but refused to be fingerprinted because he felt impermissible any system tha t violates the human rights of Koreans in Japan. As a result, he was arrested b y the police in 1985 and indicted for violating the Alien Registration Law. How ever, with the death of Emperor Hirohito in 1989, the Supreme Court granted Lee an official pardon. Many Mintohren members refused to be fingerprinted. Later Kim Su-Il also refused. At first, local Japanese residents opposed Fureai Kan and its opening was de layed a year. However, its achievements came to be looked on favorably by Japan ese. In 1990, the Japanese director was replaced by one of Mintohren's most abl e leaders, Bae Jung-Do (b. 1944), himself a second-generation Korean. These identity types are based on interviews, ranging from 3-5 hours in dura tion, we conducted with about 120 young Koreans in Japan over a two-year period from 1988-1989. During the course of interviews we met several young Korean s who were employed by major Japanese firms. We feel certain that the Mintohren method of combatting ethnic discrimination played a vital role in enabling thei r self-realization. The naturalization procedure is unique to Japan. It is permitted by discre tion of the Minister of Justice who determines whether the applicant has become sufficiently Japanese. In other words, it requires that Koreans, the targets of Japanese oppression, bow their heads and ask to be made Japanese. In this sens e, naturalization requires that the applicants abandon their ethnic identity. M oreover, in as much as Japanese society tends to exclude those of different ethn ic heritage, naturalization does not result in complete elimination of discrimin ation. For no matter how determined one is to assimilate, one can never truly b ecome "Japanese." In reaction to this, there is a movement among Koreans who ha ve acquired Japanese citizenship to live as Korean again by abandoning their Jap anese names and using their Korean ones. From 1987-1989, naturalized Koreans wo n four court cases where they appealed to have their Korean names legally recogn ized. The group Minzoku-mei wo Torimodosu Kai (the Society for Return of Our Et hnic Names) operates in conjunction with Mintohren.
Faculty of Liberal Arts
Saitama University, JAPAN
Tel. & Fax.:+81-(0)48-858-3070
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An interferometer consists of two or more separate telescopes that combine their signals almost as if they were coming from separate portions of a telescope as big as the two telescopes are apart.
The resolution of an interferometer approaches that of a telescope of diameter equal to the largest separation between its individual elements (telescopes). However, not as many photons are collected by the interferometer as would be by a giant single telescope of that size.
Some famous interferometers are
the Very Large Array VLA
the Very Long Baseline Array VLBA
the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope WSRT
the Australia Telescope AT
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Yosemite National Park, renowned for its magnificent valley, great granite domes and peaks, waterfalls, giant sequoia, and spectacular high country, Yosemite is also home to one Paiute Indian Tribe that reside there.
Paiute Indian elders have told stories of encounters that the Paiute people have had with the Bigfoots or Sasquatches. In the Paiute language they have different names for them, one is Pahi-zoho. There were some with red hair, brown hair and black hair. The red headed ones were said to be the meanest.
They were not like the bears or Grizzlies that the Paiutes shared space within the high sierra, but big hairy human like creatures that Paiute people were afraid of. The Bigfoots and Indians always tried to keep away from each other, but sometimes during hard times the Bigfoots would eat young Indian children who wandered away from the group. Once they tasted human flesh the Paiutes believed they would hunt humans.
Here's one story about a Paiutes Indian girl who was kidnapped and impregnated by a Red Bigfoot. But first, watch this beautiful time lapse video of Yosemite National Park.
Yosemite HD from Project Yosemite on Vimeo.
In the other story my uncle had heard that a few of the Mono Lake Paiute girls were out gathering berries in Piute Meadows, which is located in northern Yosemite National Park. When suddenly one of the girls who was on the edge of the meadow by the trees was heard screaming. The girls ran over there as one of the girls went to call the men. There was no trace of her. She had vanished. The people believed that she was taken by a Grizzly bear or some spirit had captured her. At the camp the family cried and was inconsolable, but the people had to go on. The next day the people started up the hill to trek along the Sierra suddenly in rear was heard a screaming and yelling. It was the girl crying, upset and yelling nonsensical things. She was moving her hands wildly and pointing back to the wooded area. She told the people that as she was picking berries along the meadow by the edge of the forest when a Big Foot or Pahi-zoho had come out behind a tree and grabbed her. He was big, reddish and hairy and she screamed and screamed. He had carried her off and she thought for sure he was going to eat her, but instead he took her into the bushes and forced himself on her. She said he stunk so bad, that it was making her sick and it was extremely painful, that he didn’t talk but grunted all that time. She was too scared to look at him, but could see his reddish big hands and hairy legs and feet, that even his feet had hair on them. They didn’t look human. She said after awhile he just went to sleep, but still had her in his grip in his arms. That his arms were very large and she just laid there scared and thinking that after that he was going to kill her. That he snorted and snored loudly all night long and suddenly almost in the morning he completely lost his grip and she made a quick dash. She ran like she had never run before for she feared for her life. Now she was safe with her people and her family, but later on she started to show signs of pregnancy. The people stayed clear of her accept her friends and family. Nine months later she had a son, a big red headed baby boy who was very hairy. The people were scared at first and some of the men wanted to kill him, but the girl’s mother prevented them. Later the people accepted him into the group for he was a good hunter and he had uncanny natural abilities of sight and smell and was very strong. He married and his children came out more normal looking, but every now and then one of his descendents comes out hairy and with red hair. Many of his descendents are now scattered in many of the Paiute tribes in California and Nevada.
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Complete List of Posts
Tue, 15 May 2007
Which one uses up more energy per square foot, a single detached house, or an apartment in a large building?
That should be easy: most of the walls of your apartments are interior walls, only one surface is exposed to exterior temperatures, as opposed to six surfaces in a single detached house. Plus you have economies of scale: you can insulate the heck out of that one surface and two windows, and the entire building can share the cost of the most efficient heating and cooling technology available and make the investment worthwhile.
You would think that apartments consume a lot less energy per square foot than houses. You would be wrong. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Office of Energy Markets and End Use, apartments consume more energy per square foot than even single detached houses. An average single-family detached house consumes 44,700 BTU per square foot, while an apartment in a building with 5 or more units consumes 48,500 BTU per square foot.
Air conditioning a 3-bedroom unit consumes 4,300 BTU/ft2 in a house and 7,600 BTU/ft2 in an apartment. Heating does takes less energy in apartments, but the total energy use is higher. Is it the elevators? Is it the hall and lobby lights left on all night? I don't know. In another article I wrote last year, it turns out that in most densities, apartment dwellers drive more than house dwellers.
So, seriously, why are companies like Tridel building nothing but apartment buildings in their "Green Communities" repertoire?
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A publication of the Archaeological Institute of America
Students, dissidents and patriots, farmers, priests and nuns resisted the military dictators who ruled Panama for nearly three decades. Some paid with their lives. Only now is a government Truth Commission trying to find the graves of nearly 200 Desaparecidos--the Disappeared. Created last January and headed by respected lawyer Alberto Almanza, the group faced a daunting task with limited funds and only a nine-month mandate. Then a member happened to buy a copy of ARCHAEOLOGY while passing through Chicago's O'Hare airport and read about Eagle, a "death investigation dog" with an uncanny gift for detecting buried human remains, no matter how old ("Hounding the Dead," September/October 2000). Last July, with President Mireya Moscoso's personal approval, Eagle, trainer-handler Sandra Anderson, and a team of U.S. forensic experts arrived in the Republic of Panama.
For one week the black Doberman-pointer mix worked over seven potential mass grave sites from Panama City to the Costa Rica border and sniffed out at least ten sets of human remains. At an old military barracks near Tocumen airport, Eagle probed a bulldozed pit for the remains of Hector Gallego, a martyred priest and champion of campesinos (peasant farmers), who vanished in 1968. He marked locations that yielded what were identified as human tarsal bone fragments and a tibia, which will be sent to the U.S. for DNA testing.
By day two, Eagle himself had been discovered--by the Panamanian media. Stories and pictures of the "Sherlock Holmes canino" filled the front pages of newspapers, and TV crews dogged the dog under the watchful eye of a 24-hour presidential armed guard. Soon Eagle flew to the Coiba Island penal colony off Panama's Pacific coast, seeking clues to the location of another noted dissident, Floyd Britton, who died after being imprisoned in 1968 by General Omar Torrijos. He found many unmarked burials, four of which were immediately exhumed.
Anderson said the job had been "vastly more difficult" than at home in Michigan, where she doesn't worry about Eagle encountering deadly snakes and toxic plants. At a ceremony the night before his departure, Eagle, decked out in a starry Panamanian-flag neckerchief, received plaques of appreciation from relatives of the Disappeared, as well as the local humane society. "In seven days," said anthropologist Bruce Broce, "Eagle accomplished what would have taken months, years." Almanza's spirits were raised by watching Eagle uncover sins of the past. "It gives us hope that we will eventually learn the truth," he said. Our country has suffered for many decades, and by learning about what happened, we can do everything possible to ensure that history will not repeat itself."
After the September 11th terrorist attacks, Eagle was on the job again, called by government investigators to seek remains at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania. Anderson and Eagle plan to return to Panama this winter.
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Figure 1: ISEE-3 Post Flyby Trajectory (Courtesy of Mike Loucks www.see.com)
Since the lunar flyby on August 10th the ISEE-3 Reboot team has continued to work with Google Creative Lab to bring to full fruition the spacecraftforall.com website to provide real time data from ISEE-3. We have been working with the various dishes that have supported us until now, including Arecibo, Bochum, the SETI Institute, Morehead State and others. We now have a problem.
The ground stations listening to ISEE-3 have not been able to obtain a signal since Tuesday the 16th. Arecibo, Morehead, Bochum, SETI, as well as the Usuda 64 meter dish in Japan and the Algonquin 45 meter dish in Canada have all pointed at the spacecraft with no positive results. So, at this time we are assuming that the spacecraft has gone into safe mode.
What This Means
Safe mode on ISEE three can basically only occur from one problem, loss of power. Before the lunar flyby ISEE-3 orbited closer to the sun than the Earth. This resulted in a very good power profile for the spacecraft. However, as seen in the figure 1 here, since the flyby the spacecraft is traveling much farther away from the sun than it has been before:
We have not had many opportunities to get data from the spacecraft since the flyby as the antenna configuration has also been much worse from an attitude perspective. Also, we no longer have propellant to change the attitude of the spacecraft to improve this configuration. We can change the antenna pointing a bit but the first time we tried it, it did not work.
When ISEE-3 goes into safe mode it turns off all of the experiments and it turns off both transmitters and waits for help. Due to some uncertainty in the trajectory this may end up being a bit more of a problem than otherwise. We are working now to put together the commands to turn the transponders back on and obtain engineering telemetry. The last telemetry we have looked ok, but the spacecraft is still traveling farther away from the sun, and thus it is probable that last week the voltage on the power bus dropped enough to trigger the safe mode event. There is no functioning battery on the spacecraft now as it failed in 1981.
So, stay tuned for more information.
ISEE-3 Project Co-Lead
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Members of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, CSAIL, Multimodal Understanding Group under the direction of CSAIL principal investigator and EECS faculty member Randall Davis have developed a system that will enable robotic planes to be guided to land on a flight deck using the gesture-classification algorithm, on which the group has reported in the March issue of the journal ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems. Read about how they went about this work in the MIT News Office, March 14, 2012 article by Larry Hardesty titled "Guiding robot planes with hand gestures - MIT researchers are developing a system that would allow aircraft-carrier crews to guide in autonomous planes using ordinary hand gestures." The article is also posted below in its entirety.
Aircraft-carrier crew use a set of standard hand gestures to guide planes on the carrier deck. But as robot planes are increasingly used for routine air missions, researchers at MIT are working on a system that would enable them to follow the same types of gestures.
The problem of interpreting hand signals has two distinct parts. The first is simply inferring the body pose of the signaler from a digital image: Are the hands up or down, the elbows in or out? The second is determining which specific gesture is depicted in a series of images. The MIT researchers are chiefly concerned with the second problem; they present their solution in the March issue of the journal ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems. But to test their approach, they also had to address the first problem, which they did in work presented at last year’s IEEE International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition.
Yale Song, a PhD student in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, his advisor, computer science professor Randall Davis, and David Demirdjian, a research scientist at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), recorded a series of videos in which several different people performed a set of 24 gestures commonly used by aircraft-carrier deck personnel. In order to test their gesture-identification system, they first had to determine the body pose of each subject in each frame of video. “These days you can just easily use off-the-shelf Kinect or many other drivers,” Song says, referring to the popular Microsoft Xbox device that allows players to control video games using gestures. But that wasn’t true when the MIT researchers began their project; to make things even more complicated, their algorithms had to infer not only body position but also the shapes of the subjects’ hands.
The MIT researchers’ software represented the contents of each frame of video using only a few variables: three-dimensional data about the positions of the elbows and wrists, and whether the hands were open or closed, the thumbs up or down. The database in which the researchers stored sequences of such abstract representations was the subject of last year’s paper. For the new paper, they used that database to train their gesture-classification algorithm.
The main challenge in classifying the signals, Song explains, is that the input — the sequence of body positions — is continuous: Crewmembers on the aircraft carrier’s deck are in constant motion. The algorithm that classifies their gestures, however, can’t wait until they stop moving to begin its analysis. “We cannot just give it thousands of [video] frames, because it will take forever,” Song says.
The researchers’ algorithm thus works on a series of short body-pose sequences; each is about 60 frames long, or the equivalent of roughly three seconds of video. The sequences overlap: The second sequence might start at, say, frame 10 of the first sequence, the third sequence at frame 10 of the second, and so on. The problem is that no one sequence may contain enough information to conclusively identify a gesture, and a new gesture could begin halfway through a frame.
For each frame in a sequence, the algorithm calculates the probability that it belongs to each of the 24 gestures. Then it calculates a weighted average of the probabilities for the whole sequence. Gesture identification is based on the weighted averages of several successive sequences, which improves accuracy, since the averages preserve information about how each frame relates to those before and after it. In evaluating the collective probabilities of successive sequences, the algorithm also assumes that gestures don’t change too rapidly or too erratically.
In tests, the researchers’ algorithm correctly identified the gestures collected in the training database with 76 percent accuracy. Obviously, that’s not a high enough percentage for an application that deck crews — and multimillion-dollar pieces of equipment — rely on for their safety. But Song believes he knows how to increase the system’s accuracy. Part of the difficulty in training the classification algorithm is that it has to consider so many possibilities for every pose it’s presented with: For every arm position there are four possible hand positions, and for every hand position there are six possible arm positions. In ongoing work, the researchers are retooling the algorithm so that it considers arm position and hand position separately, which drastically cuts down on the computational complexity of its task. As a consequence, it should learn to identify gestures from the training data much more efficiently.
Philip Cohen, co-founder and executive vice president of research at Adapx, a company that builds computer interfaces that rely on natural means of expression, such as handwriting and speech, says that the MIT researchers’ new paper offers “a novel extension and combination of model-based and appearance-based gesture-recognition techniques for body and hand tracking using computer vision and machine learning."
“These results are important and presage a next stage of research that integrates vision-based gesture recognition into multimodal human-computer and human-robot interaction technologies,” Cohen says.
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Last August I had a post up, The point mutation which made humanity, which suggested that it may be wrong to conceive of the difference between Neanderthals and the African humans which absorbed and replaced them ~35,000 years ago as a matter of extreme differences at specific genes. I was prompted to this line of thinking by Svante Pääbo‘s admission that he and his colleagues were searching for locations in the modern human genome which differed a great deal from Neanderthals as a way through which we might understand what makes us distinctively human. This sort of method has a long pedigree. Much of the past generation of chimpanzee genetics and now genomics has focused on finding the magic essence which differentiates us from our closest living relatives. Because of our perception of massive phenotypic differences between H. sapiens and Pan troglodytes the 95-99% sequence level identity is thought by some to be perplexing. Therefore models have emerged which appeal to gene regulation and expression, or perhaps other forms of variation such as copy number, to clear up how it can be that chimpanzees and humans differ so much. Setting aside that the perception of difference probably has some anthropocentric bias (i.e., would an alien think that chimpanzees and humans are actually surprisingly different in light of their phylogenetic similarities? I’m not so sure), it doesn’t seem to be unreasonable on the face of it to plumb the depths of the genomes of hominids so as to ascertain the source of their phenotypic differentiation.
But can this model work for differentiating different hominin lineages? Obviously there’s going to be a quantitative difference. The separation between chimpanzees and modern humans is on the order of 5 million years. The separation between Neanderthals and modern humans (or at least the African ancestors of modern humans ~50,000 years B.P.) is on the order of 500,000 years. An order of magnitude difference should make us reconsider, I think, the plausibility of fixed differences between two populations explaining phenotypic differences.
Backing up for a moment, why do we think there might be fixed differences between Neanderthals and modern humans? The argument, as outlined in books like The Dawn of Human Culture, is that H. sapiens sapiens is a very special lineage, whose protean cultural flexibility allowed it to sweep of the field of all other hominin sister lineages. The likelihood of some admixture from these “dead end” lineages aside, this rough model seems to stand the test of time. Consider that the Mousterian technology persisted for nearly 300,000 years, while the Oldowan persisted for 1 million! In contrast, our own species seems to switch and improve cultural styles much, much, faster. Behavioral modernity does point to a real phenomenon. The hypothesis of many scholars was that there was a genetic difference which allowed for modern humans to manifest language as we understand it in all its diversity and flexibility. The likelihood of this seems lower now that modern humans and Neanderthals have the same variants of FOXP2, the locus which seems to be correlated to elevated vocal and auditory capabilities across many vertebrate lineages. And, if it is correct that ~2.5% or so of modern human ancestry in Eurasia, and nearly ~10% in Papua, comes from “archaic” lineages, then I think that should reduce our estimates of how different these humans were from the Africans.
Therefore you can posit two stylized scenarios of contrasts between Neanderthals/modern humans and chimpanzees/modern humans. In one model the difference between the two comparisons is fundamentally of degree. Neanderthals and chimpanzees are still disjoint from modern humans. That is, there’s no overlap in the traits. But, Neanderthals are far closer to modern humans, as would be likely expected from the phylogenetic relationship. Another model though is that Neanderthals and modern humans did differ, but there was a great deal of overlap. This is a model with qualitative differences from that of chimpanzees vs. humans. If the second model is correct, and I think with all that we know from the Neanderthal genome project would should take it more seriously, then looking for disjoint pairwise differences in allele frequencies is not the way to go in understanding how the two human lineages diverged in phenotype.
In the second model, where there is a great deal of overlap, there is still a difference in the tails of the distribution. The idea I had in mind with my earlier post was that it is at these tails that the differences between Neanderthals and modern humans will be found when it comes to cultural differences. I think one might wonder where the Michelangelo or a Bachs of the Neanderthals were, but then one has to observe that the vast majority of modern humans are not Michelangelo or a Bachs! One of the primary indications of the transition to behavioral modernity is the proliferation of symbolism. But are we to presume that every member of an ancient Paleolithic tribe was equally capable of creative virtuosity? I think likely not. It could be that in fact the vast majority of “modern humans” are no different from all Neanderthals in the sort of things we might expect to be different across the two lineages. Rather, it may be that a small minority of modern humans crossed a particular threshold at the edge of the distribution of the phenotype, and when that transition was made the world was never the same.
I’m not proposing here that the victory of African humans ~50,000 years ago was due to artists. What I’m proposing is that at some point a critical mass of exceptional individuals arose. These individuals were possessed of peculiar characteristics, but instead of these characteristics making them outcasts, the qualities which they possessed were seen by their fellow humans as marks of greatness. In short, they were the children of gods among men.
Or perhaps demons. Men such as Alexander, Napoleon, and Hitler, were possessed of peculiar charisma, but whether they were good or evil is a matter of dispute and perspective. The point is not that they achieved greatness, but that they were the catalysts for a great number of events. As charismatic leaders they took collections of human beings, and turned them to their purpose. Individual humans became more than the sum of their parts, and for moments exhibited almost organismic levels of cohesion. Though the number one predictive variable in who won wars in the pre-modern world is the simple one of numbers, organization and structure also mattered. The Roman legion operating in a Testudo formation could beat off the attacks of more numerous barbarians who were physically more robust on a per person basis because the unit exhibited synergy, and translated cohesion into efficient collection action. This does not occur bottom up, but requires a personality type, a genius, to serve as the nexus or locus.
The model I have in mind then is one where the African humans faced up against their near relations, but not as one against one. Rather, under the guidance of charismatic leaders, Paleolithic megalomaniacs driven by fervid nightmares and irrational dreams, they ground through the many enemies who fought as sums of singulars as a cohesive social machine. It was not because they were superior on a per unit basis, but because they were superior on a per tribe basis, driven by individuals who turned the many to their own ambitions. With the lever of superior social organization the few moved the world, and swept over it. How many insane voyages were their east over the horizon from Sundaland before one tribe finally made landfall in Sahul? How many tribes perished in the ice of the far north, before some finally made it to Beringia? Why did humans look over the horizon, and venture out across the black waters? Perhaps just because they could. This answer is likely confusing and disquieting to many alive today, and perhaps it was disquieting to the more reasonable and level-headed “archaics” who were confronted with the zealous organizational insanity of the African humans who were rolling all opposition. But these insane individuals still move among us today, and they are still the objects of curiosity, fear, and adulation.
Is this a crazy model? Yes, somewhat. But is it really anymore crazy than the model that there is a mutation which can encapsulate all that differentiates man from beast-man? I think not.
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Everything you need to understand or teach Gifted Hands by Ben Carson.
Ben Carson becomes a world-class pediatric neurosurgeon at the prestigious Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD. Growing up in poverty-stricken Detroit with his mother and elder brother, Curtis, Ben could have never dreamed of the future that lay ahead for him. When 9-year-old Ben's father abandons his family, his heart is broken with the hurt lasting a life-time.
Ben's mother, Sonya, is the driving force in her sons' young lives. Sonya...
Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story Lesson Plans contain 145 pages of teaching material, including:
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ERHARDT, JOHN CHRISTIAN, Moravian trading agent on the Labrador coast; b. c. 1720 at the Baltic seaport of Wismar, then in Swedish territory (now German Democratic Republic); d. 1752, on the Labrador coast.
John Christian Erhardt, a German sailor, joined the Moravian Brethren after coming under the influence of their missionaries on the island of St Thomas in the West Indies. Subsequently Erhardt sailed in the supply ship serving the Moravian mission stations in Greenland. There he picked up some Eskimo words and talked with the missionaries, especially with the veteran Matthew Stach, who told him that the Eskimos on the opposite side of Davis Strait probably were similar to the Greenlanders in their language and customs. Erhardt wrote to Bishop Johannes [John de Watteville] in 1750 offering his services in establishing a Labrador mission, saying that as “an old Greenland traveller,” he had “an amazing affection for these countries, Indians and other barbarians, and it would be a source of the greatest joy if the Saviour would discover to me that he had chosen me and would make me fit for this service.”
In 1752 three merchants of the London Moravian congregation fitted out the vessel Hope to trade with the Labrador Eskimos as a means of financing a voyage of reconnaissance along the then virtually unknown coast. Erhardt was appointed second in command of the ship and was to be in charge of the trade. Four Moravian Brethren went out in the ship as missionaries: George Golkowsky, John Christian Krum, Christian Frederick Post, and Matthew Kunz.
The Moravians left London on 18 May 1752 and first met Labrador Eskimos on 29 July, north of Hamilton Inlet. On 31 July they picked out a suitable site for a mission post, called it Nisbet’s Harbour, and took possession of the land in the name of King George III. Nisbet’s Harbour was probably in the region of modern Hopedale, about ten leagues south of Davis Inlet.
Erhardt immediately began a brisk barter trade with apparently friendly Eskimos for whalebone and seal skins. He found himself hampered by his limited knowledge of Eskimo and lamented: “I often wish I had the Stachs with me, for my little bit of Greenlandish does not go far.” Meanwhile the ship’s crew laboured to set up a prefabricated house brought from Europe, in case the missionaries should decide to winter in Labrador.
In early September, with the missionaries in their new home, the Hope sailed north to Davis Inlet for more trading before returning to England. At the mouth of the inlet Erhardt, with Captain John Madgshon and five crew members, left the ship with a boatload of goods to trade among the islands. The boat was never seen again. After waiting for two days, the remaining crew sailed the Hope back, reaching Nisbet’s Harbour on 14 September. A search party set out in the missionaries’ yawl, but was driven back by high winds. The missionaries now decided to return home since their help was needed to man the ship. They left supplies behind in case Erhardt and his companions somehow survived and should reach Nisbet’s Harbour.
The following summer, the chief mate of the Hope, Elijah Goffe, went again to Labrador, found the mission house destroyed, and located the bodies of the missing men on a nearby island. After they left the ship, Erhardt and his party may have been delayed or detained by the Eskimos; they made their way back to Nisbet’s Harbour, and were later murdered in the vicinity. There can be little doubt that they were killed by Eskimos: some of the murderers were actually pointed out to later missionaries. At this time the Eskimos made summer voyages to southern Labrador to trade with or plunder Europeans, as opportunity afforded. Erhardt’s slight knowledge of Eskimo was probably insufficient for him to make clear to the natives the ultimate purpose of his mission. When the Eskimos encountered Erhardt’s trading party in an isolated position, they simply took advantage of it as they had done with French and English traders in the past.
The idea of a Labrador mission did not die with Erhardt. A Moravian carpenter, Jens Haven*, was stirred by a strong desire to carry the Gospel to Erhardt’s murderers. He took a leading part in the Moravian expeditions of the 1760s which led to the establishment of the first mission post in 1771. Haven and others of his colleagues were fluent in Eskimo and had nothing to do with the trade themselves. They were thus able to demonstrate convincingly that they were not as other Europeans, and so gain the confidence of the Eskimo people.
Memorial University Library (St John’s), Moravian missions, Labrador, Papers relating to the exploratory voyages, 1752–70 (mfm reel 4), pp.1–13. PAC, MG 17, D1, Diary of Kunz, Post, Krum and Golkowsky, May–November, 1752 (mfm 4–548). David Cranz, The history of Greenland: including an account of the mission carried on by the United Brethren in that country, from the German of David Crantz; with a continuation to the present time, illustrative notes, and an appendix containing a sketch of the mission of the Brethren in Labrador . . . (2v., London, 1820); The Moravians in Labrador (Edinburgh, 1833). J. W. Davey, The fall of Torngak; or the Moravian mission on the coast of Labrador (London, 1905). W. G. Gosling, Labrador: its discovery, exploration, and development (London, 1910). J. K. Hiller, “The foundation and the early years of the Moravian mission in Labrador, 1752–1805” (unpublished ma thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John’s, 1967).
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Find the latest in professional publications, learn new techniques and strategies, and find out how you can connect with other literacy professionals.
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The Frog Beyond the Fairy Tale Character: Searching Informational Texts
|Grades||K – 2|
|Lesson Plan Type||Standard Lesson|
|Estimated Time||Three 30-minute sessions|
Arlington Heights, Illinois
Are frogs found on every continent? Will frogs drown if they don’t find land on which to rest? How long do frogs live? Students will find out in this lesson in which they examine their prior knowledge about frogs, make predictions, and verify their predictions through research on the Internet. Students initially record their predictions about frogs on a worksheet with true and false columns. They then use the website The Somewhat Amusing World of Frogs to learn more about frogs and check their predictions. To verify their predictions, students click on the internal page links to reach a subheading. The subheading signals to the reader that this section of informational text contains evidence to support or contradict the statement.
The Somewhat Amusing World of Frogs: A website filled with fun facts about frogs from all over the world. Students can use what they learn on this website to get a better understanding of frogs used in fiction.
Yopp, R.H., & Yopp, H.K. (2000). Sharing informational text with young children. The Reading Teacher, 53(5), 410-423.
- Primary-grade students need increased exposure to nonfiction if they are to appreciate both fiction and nonfiction texts, and informational texts are to become a gateway to increased literacy activities.
- Informational texts present readers with distinctly different text structures and features than those of narrative texts. Primary-grade students must build an understanding of the conventions of informational texts and develop comprehension strategies to assist learning.
- Prediction is based upon prior knowledge about a topic; thus, future learning from informational texts is influenced by the students' knowledge of the world, which can be supplemented by reading nonfiction.
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| 0.900766 | 518 | 3.84375 | 4 |
We can already hear you asking, “what’s a valve stem?” Well, it is one of the most important parts of your tires because of it’s function and because it is a big potential problem area. The valve stem is the bit that sticks out that allows you to add or remove air from the tire. So, how often do you check yours?
If you answered, “never,” then you’re probably in the majority of Americans. It is, after all, a very small part that is easy to forget, even if you regularly check your tires. However, it is essential to perform regular checkups on this often overlooked part. Damage to a valve stem usually results in a leaky tire. Cracks can form, especially in especially hot or cold environments, and leak air, making more of a headache for you. If the damage gets worse, it can cause a flat, which is at best an inconvenience, and at worst it could happen on the freeway, which could be fatal.
The really annoying part of a damaged valve stem is that it’s a bit of a trickster; a damaged one will leak, and it can appear like there is a leak elsewhere in the tire. Properly diagnosing a leaky valve stem can be the difference between a $5 part and a $150 pair of new tires.
So, how do you check a valve stem? Well, if you have ever checked a bicycle tube for leaks, you’re already familiar. The easiest way is to make some warm, soapy water and apply it around the valve stem. If it starts blowing bubbles then it’s leaking. They usually develop cracks or small holes around the base, where they connect to the tire, but sometimes the valve itself can fail. In either case, either the soapy water test, or some attentive listening will tell you if there is a problem.
Checking your valve stems is another easy way to make sure that your tires are in peak condition. If you are experiencing a slow leak then give the soapy water test a shot. You might be able to fix the problem for pennies.
Have a leaky valve stem? We can replace them! Pay us a visit and we tell you everything you want to know about this humble part—and make sure that your tires are doing everything they can to give you the best drive possible.
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Women working at the coal dressing belt (“Shitemo Sento Koku”).
At the beginning of the Taisho Era, coal dressing machines were introduced at small and middle sized collieries. Women washed coal at coal dressers and the powder from the coal dressers went into, and blackened, the clear waters of the Onga River. Male coal miners were also needed at coal dressing belts to handle large chunks of coal.
The iron belt to carry the coal along the dressing table was called a “Yoroi” (armor)” or
“Band”(belt). It was approx. 10 meters long with a width of 1.2 meters, and consisted of three
belts of 40 cm wide iron plates, overlapping. The speed of the belt was the walking speed of a
man. Coal was placed on the side belts, and reject coal was placed on the central belt. Second
quality coal was dropped on the floor temporarily.
(Left Lower Picture) The working shift was 12 hours long, day and night. Workers were required to use both hands for sorting.
(Centre Picture) Coal is delivered by a coal truck which tips the coal onto the end of the table, which is then directed into the side belts.
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| 0.980288 | 266 | 3.90625 | 4 |
Japanese Bobtail cat
Japanese bobtail retained his tail as a fluffy ball, pompon. These funny cats running around the streets of Japan for many centuries. Not all Japanese cats have a short tail, but on the Japanese prints of the XII century, you can see the cat zadik decorated with a fluffy brush no longer than the rabbit, quite compelling.
“On the tops of mountains inhabited by a huge cat Nekomata that brings people to disease and death. All the troubles of man, all the sickness and death are enclosed in its tail, which looks like a snake…”
This legend has existed in Japan in the XIV-XV centuries, which led to the tradition of trimming of the cats tails. This was especially true of cats who have reached the 10th anniversary, as if they had remained tail, they were considered the devil incarnate, or this very Nekomata. In all the figures of the time portrayed only cats with short tails. Thus zoologists believe that the mutation, providing knots and kinks in the tail, in cats only appeared in the XVI century.
The images of ancestors of the Japanese bobtail come down to us from ancient times. A cat with a short forked tail was considered in Japan guise of the devil, it never touched, in contrast to the usual. That is why the short-tailed cats so Japanese brood. Japanese Bobtail, known as Maneki Neko, is widespread throughout Japan and are believed to bring good luck.
Japanese Bobtail is not too large animal. Its elegant body is woven of muscles, and the head is shaped like a triangle that ends large, with rounded ends, ears. Forepaws is slightly shorter than the rear which, in turn, always angled. The Japanese Bobtail is long nose, which in completion to the overall picture carefully bent down almost to eye level. The eyes of the Japanese bobtail large, wide apart, oval shaped.
The coat of this breed of animal light, silky and of medium length, almost without undercoat, which avoids the hassles associated with seasonal molt.
However, there are also long-haired Bobtail: their soft shёrstka also tightly hugs the body and thus has no tendency to stall. Molting even long-haired Bobtail goes unnoticed. The main advantage of the breed – is without a doubt the tail. Moreover, it should be noted that the number of vertebrae in a not less than the other breeds. Just their size in relation to mutation reduced and deformed vertebrae themselves. With this length of the tail is between 6 and 13 centimeters. Different representatives of the breed’s tail can be twisted or straight, can be bent.
Sleek and muscular, with long legs, with the back are longer than the front. This makes physiology bobtail more like kangaroos – because when jumping bobtail lands first on his hind legs and then touches the ground in front. This original jump, probably partly compensates for the lack of a tail, however, long hind legs and make a relaxed gait Japanese bobtail really special.
Animal of the breed itself is very active. They are the real hunters. Muscular body contributes to their active operations both in normal times and in the game. Animals are very easily trained in contrast to other species. It is not aggressive and very loyal to his master animals.
Continued participation in the life of the cat family – a pledge of its balanced character and mental health of future kittens. Cats by nature are excellent mothers. Number of kittens ranging from three to six babies and always will be born strong, powerful and greedily suck. Cat diligently took care of them, keep an eye out for the procedure. For these lads need be watched!
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Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.
Critical and Biographical Essay by Alfred H. Miles
William Josiah Irons (18121883)
WILLIAM JOSIAH IRONS was the son of Joseph Irons, preacher and hymn-writer (17851852). Joseph Irons was a personal friend of the Rev. John Newton, and attended his ministry at St. Mary-Woolnoth, of which parish William Josiah Irons became rector in 1872. After the death of Newton, Joseph Irons seceded from the Church of England, and became the pastor of a Nonconformist Church at Sawston, and later of one meeting at the Grove Chapel, Camberwell, London. He was a powerful preacher, and sometimes addressed his congregation in eloquent and poetical blank verse. For the use of his own people he published a book of original hymns, which was used as a supplement to the psalms and hymns of Dr. Watts. This book, first published in 1816 under the title Zions Hymns, was enlarged from time to time, until in 1827 it contained six hundred and eleven original hymns. Many of these hymns are vigorous and expressive, but their strong Calvinistic flavour has limited their use, and very few have passed into other collections. The following hymn may be taken as a sample, though many are less pronounced in doctrine:
Besides his hymns Joseph Irons published Nymphas. Bride and Bridegroom communing. A Paraphrastic Exposition of the Song of Solomon in Blank Verse (1840); Judah, the Book of Psalms paraphrased in Spiritual Songs for Public Worship (1847); and Calvary, a poem in blank verse.
William Josiah Irons was born at Hoddesdon, Herts, on the 12th of September, 1812, and was educated privately, and at Queens College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1833. Two years later he took Holy Orders, and became Curate of St. Mary Newington. In 1837 he was appointed Incumbent of St. Peters, Walworth, and afterwards successively Vicar of Barkway, Incumbent of Brompton, Rector of Wadingham, and Rector of St. Mary-Woolnoth (1872). He received the degree of D.D. in 1854. He was Bampton Lecturer in 1870, and in this connection produced his most important prose work, the Bampton Lectures on Christianity as taught by St. Paul. He was also Prebendary of St. Pauls Cathedral. He published many sermons, letters, and pamphlets in connection with the ecclesiastical controversies of his time, and many of his hymns were first published in sheet form, and afterwards collected into his own and other hymn-books.
Of hymnological works he published a Metrical Psalter in 1857, to which he added an Appendix in 1861; also Hymns for use in Church (1866), and Psalms and Hymns for the Church (1873). The first two of these books contained hymns by various writers, but the Psalms and Hymns for the Church contained only original hymns and translations. Several editions of this work were called for, and additions were made from time to time, until the edition of 1883 contained three hundred and eight original hymns.
According to Julian, the principal object of this last work was to supply special hymns on the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, and for Advent and Lent, together with special hymns for the Festivals; and this to a great extent Dr. Irons was enabled to accomplish. His versions of individual psalms are directly from the Hebrew line for line.
Many of Dr. Irons hymns are very fine, and deserve much wider use than they have obtained. Julian places them in the very front rank of modern hymns, and with good reason. Few modern writers have produced so many really fine hymns, and it is to be regretted that modern compilers have not made more extensive use of them.
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Bernal History Project
Bernal Heights is a hilltop village, tucked away in the southern part of San Francisco. Freeways and urban thoroughfares now bound a neighborhood once defined by the swamps and creeks of the original Mexican land grant. From the 1860s legend of Widow O'Brien's cow to the current fight over the preservation of the branch library's murals, residents have tirelessly guarded and recorded their environment. Bernal is diverse, vibrant, and still evolving.
This site aims to provide a solid basis in researching the neighborhood. Browse the links, subscribe to our newsletter, and contact us if you want to know more about anything Bernal-related not shown here.
- Big Relief Station at Bernal Park Is Still in Operation May 18, 1906 San Francisco Call
Hundreds of Victims of the Fire Appreciate the Good Work Being Accomplished by the Committee
Among the many relief stations opened throughout the city during the exciting days that immediately followed the catastrophe was one established in Bernal Park at the base of Bernal Heights. Before nightfall on the memorable 18th of April, hundreds of homeless men, women, and children, driven out of their dwellings in the southern district by the onrush of the flames, were cowering on the bleak hillside without food or shelter.
It was then that the experience of John H. Cook, who came from New York less than a year ago to take charge of the finishing department of the Thomas Day Company, proved of untold benefit to the sufferers. Cook had assisted in the relief work after the Baltimore fire, and again after the terrible cyclone that swept through Wallingford, Conn., leaving hundreds homeless and destitute. He quickly realized that something myst be done to alleviate the sufferings of the people gathered near Bernal Park; that food and shelter must be provided for them without delay. Calling to his assistance several of his neighbors he outlined his plans for the establishment of a camp to supply food to the 10,000 homeless and destitute who had flocked to the west side of the city. An hour later committees were at work, and as if by magic wagonload after wagonload of provisions began to arrive at Bernal Park. The neighboring lumber yards were levied upon for building material, and at dawn the following Friday morning a supply depot was in full operation.
In the meantime, those dependent on the help of their neighbors for food had been plentifully supplied with bread, canned meats and vegetables, and all danger of starvation had passed. That same Friday afternoon a supply of tents arrived from army headquarters, and those who were unable to find accommodations in the houses in the vicinity were provided with canvas homes. The work of caring for these homeless ones was no small task, for not a few of them spoke in foreign tongues and had great difficulty in making known their wants. Cook found interpreters for them and in addition made it his special care to see that they were well supplied with everything required to sustain life.
Army officers who have since visited the Bernal Park relief station say that it could not have been improved upon. Everything moves with clocklike regularity. Rations are distributed at certain hours and everyone receives his just share of what is to be distributed.
While many of the other stations established in the Mission district have been consolidated into army camps, Bernal Park station remains and is likely to be continued until the days calling for relief are happily passed.
Although hundreds of those who first sought assistance at Bernal Park have gone to the homes of more fortunate friends, or have been given accommodations at one of the concentration camps, several thousand persons still look to it for food, clothing and shelter. The army officers and Red Cross people, realizing the great good being accomplished at Bernal Park, have abolished several smaller stations in the vicinity and turned over the people to Cook and his assistants to care for. John Marlow and Peter Hughes, who have ably seconded the work of Cook through the trying days, are still at the station, and with him will continue to relieve the fire fleers until they are able to once more provide for themselves.
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Twenty-nine states plus DC offer persons the option of declaring a party affiliation when they register to vote. Party registration totals thus provide a snapshot of the overall partisan balance within a state. Comparisons of these statistics over time provide a broader picture of overall trends.
First some important definitions.
Keep in mind that while surveys show party self-identification is a strong predictor of a person's voting patterns, a person is free to vote for any general election candidate. Party registration is not exactly party self-identification, either. It is more sticky in that registrants need to fill out a form to change their party registration, while survey respondents are free to articulate their party preference of the moment to an interviewer. Typically, party registration is used as a qualification for voting in party primaries. A Republican living in a heavily Democratic area might register as a Democrat in order to cast a meaningful vote in a Democratic primary. Particularly in Southern states, where a long-term realignment towards the Republican Party has been occurring, a person may register as a Democrat to vote in state and local Democratic primaries but vote for Republican candidates in general elections.
One further aspect of voter registration is important to understand is the difference between active an inactive voters. Election administrators are constantly challenged to keep the voter registration rolls accurate. New registrations are constantly pouring in. If a voter who recently moved provides information that identifies their former address, election administrators will attempt to remove or port over the registrant's voter registration record in their former local jurisdiction. This is known as purging. Often people do not notify election officials that they have moved. The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (a.k.a. Motor Voter) outlines the procedure for election administrators to purge records of registrants who have not voted in recent elections, who filled out a National Change of Address Form with the Post Office, or to whom an official letter sent from their office was returned as undeliverable. Most election officials maintain two lists of registrants: active and inactive. Although the exact procedures vary among localities, inactive voters are generally registrants that election officials believe should be purged, but all of the procedures to do so have not been satisfied. In the tables below, I provide statistics for active voters, where active voter statistics are available in 2008 and 2010.
OK, enough with the important definitions. Let's get to the good stuff!
The table below provides current party registration statistics for all states with party registration, except Utah, which does not post party registration statistics on-line. While most state reports are very current, some may be for a primary earlier in the year. I provide the reporting date to help identify a report's shelf life. Registration has not closed in many of these states, so these are not the final numbers for Nov. election. As a comparison point, I provide the percent change in the party registration from the November, 2008 election. I aggregate all minor party registrations into one category, and note that eight states do not report any minor party on their on-line reports, either because no minor parties are recognized by the state or because minor parties are grouped with unaffiliated in a residual "other" category.
Overall, a continued registration trend away from the major political parties is evident, one that observers began noticing in the 1970s. The Democrats lost 927,332 registrants and the Republicans lost 587,698 registrants since Nov. 2008. There are substantially more Democrats than Republicans, so as a percentage change, Democrats lost 2.1% and Republicans lost 1.9% of their Nov. 2008 registrants. Minor party registrations increased by 55,194 registrants or 2.5% and unaffiliated registrants increased by 101,429 or 0.4%.
The state-by-state trends reveal uneven patterns of change among the states. Some of these changes appear significant in what they illuminate about hotly-contested races.
- In Nevada, the economic downturn as taken its toll on registrations, with an overall decline of 101,011 registrations since 2008. The effect is weighing more heavily on Democrats. Democratic registrants have declined a whopping 12.2% since 2008, while Republican registrations have only declined 5.5%. These changes are likely fueling the tight Senate battle.
- In Delaware, Democratic registrations are outpacing Republican registrations. This evidence appears to confirm surveys that show a comfortable lead for the Democrat in the Senate race.
- In Iowa, Democrats registrations have dropped 5.3%, while Republican registrations have increased 4.1%. This confirms the Republican advantage in Iowa's Senate and Governor polling. I speculate that at least part of this pattern is due to students who registered in 2008 to take part in the Democratic caucuses but have now moved from the state.
- In Connecticut, Democratic registrations have surged, but Republican registrations have declined. Perhaps Democrats are indeed well-positioned in the Senate and Governor races, as polling suggests. (Note that for this one state, I report party registrations for the Aug. 10, 2010 primary, while the minor party and unaffiliated registrations are from a Sept., 2009 state election report.)
- In states like Kentucky, Louisiana, and Oklahoma, I believe that declines among Democrats in comparison to increases for Republicans are part of a long-term trend of realignment from the Democratic to Republican parties in these states.
- Finally, a fascinating trend is the rise of minor parties. This is despite the large decline in Maryland, when the State Board of Elections closed the Independent Party earlier this year because they determined it was not operating as a real party. Now, there are only 2,227,149 minor party registrants, so they start from a small base. Still, they are gaining while the major parties are in decline. This is NOT just a Tea Party movement. For example, in Maine, the growth is primarily among the Green Party.
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Forcing cancer cells to shape-shift stops them from migrating, Mayo Clinic researchers find
December 12, 2013
Researchers at Mayo Clinic in Florida have identified a number of agents — some already used in the clinic for different disorders — that may force shape-shifting in tumor cells to immobilize them and thus prevent metastasis.
“We are starting to understand mechanistically how cancer cells move and migrate, which gives us opportunities to manipulate these cells, alter their shape, and stop their spread,” says the study’s lead investigator, Panos Z. Anastasiadis, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Cancer Biology at Mayo Clinic in Florida.
“It is the spread — the metastasis — of cancer that is largely responsible for the death of cancer patients, so stopping these cells from migrating could potentially provide a treatment that saves lives,” he says.
The study was conducted using tumor material from breast and brain (glioblastoma) cancer. Both of these tumors are generally lethal when they spread — breast to other organs, and brain cancer as it crawls throughout the brain.
The researchers found that a protein called Syx is key to determining how tumor cells migrate. When researchers removed Syx from the cancer cells, they lost their polarity — their leading and trailing edges — and morphed into a “fried egg” shape. “They are now unable to sense direction, so they are not going anywhere,” Dr. Anastasiadis says.
Abstract of Molecular and Cellular Biology paper
The role of RhoA in promoting directed cell migration has been complicated by studies showing that it is activated both in the front and the rear of migrating cells. We report here that the RhoA-specific guanine nucleotide exchange factor Syx is required for the polarity of actively migrating brain and breast tumor cells. This function of Syx is mediated by the selective activation of the RhoA downstream effector Dia1, the subsequent reorganization of microtubules, and the downregulation of focal adhesions and actin stress fibers. The data argue that directed cell migration requires the precise spatiotemporal regulation of Dia1 and ROCK activities in the cell. The recruitment of Syx to the cell membrane and the subsequent selective activation of Dia1 signaling, coupled with the suppression of ROCK and activation of cofilin-mediated actin reorganization, plays a key role in establishing cell polarity during directed cell migration.
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Map of the World
Title: Universale Descrittione di Tutta la Terra Conosciuta Fin Qui
(Universal Description of the Known World)
Creator: Paolo Forlani (fl. 1560-1574)
This beautifully executed map of the world is a prime example of the Italian printing style, and shows a vast land covering the southernmost region of the world. The continent at the South Pole was still only hypothesized in the 16th century, and this map shows the conception at that time was of a land far larger and extending much further north than in reality. The land at the South Pole is populated with both real and mythical creatures, including an elephant, camel, unicorn, and griffin, among others. The seas are full of sailing vessels and fanciful sea creatures. The map also shows the western part of North America connected directly to Asia.
About Sizes & Borders
Where possible, we try to offer print sizes that match modern standard size frames, but since many antique maps were printed with different proportions than modern standard sizes, this is not always possible. The most common standard size frames are 8"x10", 11"x14", and 16"x20". These sizes are widely available in any store that sells frames. Less common standard sizes are 8"x8", 8"x12", 9"x12", 10"x15", 12"x12", 12"x16", 12"x18", and 16"x16". These sizes are available in most well-stocked stores that sell frames.
If you purchase a print that is not one of these standard sizes, you will most likely have to go to a frame shop to purchase a custom frame, or use one of the many online custom frame vendors.
For each size this map is offered in, you can purchase a print with either the 'no borders' or the 'plus 1/2" borders' option.
For prints with the 'no borders' option, the size listed will be the exact size of the printed area as well as the exact size of the paper. For example, a size of 11"x14" (no borders) means the exact size of the printed area will be 11"x14" and the exact size of the paper will also be 11"x14". This is a good option if you plan to frame the print in a frame without a mat.
For prints with the 'plus 1/2" borders' option, an additional 1/2" blank border will be added to each side. For example, a size of 11"x14" (plus 1/2" borders) means the exact size of the printed area will be 11"x14" and the exact size of the paper will be 12"x15". This is a good option if you plan to frame the print in a frame with a mat so there is overlap between the mat and the print.
We love to customize! In most cases we can make this map available in sizes different than those listed above or with different borders. Please contact us before you place your order to see if the customization you have in mind is possible. Please also note that we generally do not accept returns for products with customizations. See our returns policy for more information.
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Daniel Russell knows how to find the answers to questions you can't get to with a simple Google query. In his weekly Search Research column, Russell issues a search challenge, then follows up later in the week with his solution—using whatever search technology and methodology fits the bill.
Quick answer: The brick circles show the outlines of underground cisterns of water that can be used to fight fires even when the city's regular water supply is broken.
First, I'm impressed that so many people recognized San Francisco, the City by the Bay, from the pictures I showed. I guess it's not a completely wild guess, given where I work and those hills in the background, but still—that's impressive deduction!
The fastest route to solving this challenge was simply to type in the simplest possible description of what you can see in the images. This is case:
[ brick circles ]
...and then let autocomplete give you a suggestion for San Francisco. If you take the suggestion and run the query:
[ brick circles San Francisco ]
There are a number of sources that give various versions of the answer. Let's talk about those versions for a moment.
The circles mark cisterns for emergency fire-fighting water supplies that were put in place after the great 1906 earthquake and fire that destroyed most of the city.
The SF fire department claims there are 172 cisterns on this page—but in other SFFD pages, they say the number of cisterns is 177. Go figure. I imagine there's a master map someplace with all of the cisterns (see below), but bear in mind that the city is building more cisterns even now (see the Fire Commission meeting minutes from 2011) so the number COULD be varying!
Are the cisterns pressurized? Many readers gave solutions that commented on the cisterns being pressurized. They could be, but keeping large underground tanks pressurized for more than 100 years would be an engineering challenge. (Especially in a place like San Francisco, which has its fair share of earthquakes.) What's more, since the cisterns were built in response to the great earthquake and fire of 1906, the engineers realized that they couldn't rely on having power or intact water lines throughout the entire city. This led to the design of the cisterns as more-or-less stand-alone reservoirs. As this page from the SF fire department illustrates, there are actually 4 different water supplies for fire fighting in San Francisco.
(1) The high pressure system (most US cities have this—it supplies the ordinary fire hydrants at curb-side).
(2) The low pressure system just taps into regular drinking water supply—these hydrants are all white.
(3) Sea water system. There are 52 suction connections along the northeastern waterfront that allow fire engines to pump water directly from the Bay. Both city-owned fire boats can also supply saltwater to the system by pumping into any of five manifolds.
(4) Cisterns—these are the big tanks of water (usually around 75,000 gallons each) that are under key street intersections. They are unpressurized, but the water can be pumped out through the green-topped hydrants. On the site SFFD says "…the cisterns have no connection to either the Water Department or high pressure supply system. They are under continual inspection by the Fire Department and are kept full by the Bureau of Engineering and Water Supply." That is, they go around every so often and pour water in them, usually from the low-pressure system.
San Francisco fire fighting water supply map showing the cistern locations as red dots.
From SFgov2.org report on the Auxiliary Water Supply System Study, January 23, 2009.
For some truly beautiful photos of the cisterns, see: untappedcities.com/2012/06/29/cisterns/
Search Lessons: READ CAREFULLY! Several readers passed along information that the cisterns are part of the pressurized system. I looked at all of the references that readers gave, and I can see why you might make that inference. But if you read carefully, in most cases you'll see it's not actually implied… but merely a co-occurrence of a discussion about the "pressurized system" next to the discussion about cisterns. Careful not to overread. Pay attention to where and when the topic changes. (And, of course, always look for a non-copied confirmation in a second source.)
And...Don't assume you know the answer just because it seems obvious. The circles are NOT cable car turnarounds. This is an example of jumping to a conclusion due to priming. Because San Francisco is well-known, and well-known for cable cars, the conclusion that these circles are cable car turnarounds seems obvious—but remember to check your work!
Answer: What, why, where are these stone circles? | SearchReSearch
Daniel M. Russell studies the way people search and research—an anthropologist of search, if you will. You can read more from Russell on his SearchReSearch blog, and stay tuned for his weekly challenges (and answers) here on Lifehacker.
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The experimental era for cars could be—should be—a model for invention today
Henry Ford, Henry Leland (Cadillac, Lincoln), Billy Durant (General Motors) and the other winners of the competition to build a successful car company are huge figures in the history of the American automobile industry, but in their way, they’re freaks: They succeeded where almost no one else did.
Several years ago, I wrote a story about the St. Louis, a car named after the city, and learned it was one of about 100 makes based there. In fact, almost any town with an industrial base probably had a car built there, from the Angus in Nelson, Nebraska; to the Nyberg in Chattanooga as well as the Chattanooga truck (and probably more I don’t know about).
Pick any nearest town of 20,000 or more people—odds are that an entire company was born, lived and died there. There have been well over 2,000 car companies in the last 120 years. In one of the big manufacturing centers like Detroit, if you look at where a factory was, you’ll find layer on top of layer of failure—an E.M.F. plant will be in an old Briggs Detroiter factory, which Studebaker then sold to REO, then acquired by Willys and later used to stamp Chrysler Imperial bodies. Henry Ford II’s Renaissance Center became GM’s white elephant and has under its foundations the factories of half-a-dozen makes.
Failure wasn’t expected a century ago; after all, investors threw millions of dollars at manufacturers. But no one was surprised when a company went under, as that’s what practically all of them did.
Often a carmaker would only build a few weird prototypes or, at best, manage a year or two of production. Then the promoters, managers, financiers and engineers would pop up again later that year under a new name with their next big idea, and try again. For an early automotive pioneer, failure was always an option.
When you’re willing to fail, there are no limits to what you can consider, and the products of the era before the Depression reflect this: Rotating reciprocating engines? Adams-Farwell gave it a shot. Driving the front wheels directly by the crankshaft? Walter Christie raced ’em that way. Engines burned oil, kerosene, alcohol, coal gas and anything else you could light on fire or make explode. Knight’s valveless, Itala’s rotary valve and Franklin’s valve-and-a-half engines all ran.
In hindsight, some were obviously doomed, but a crazy idea and a great idea can both look good when they first appear. This spirit also yielded Pilain’s 1911 internally expanding hydraulic front-wheel brakes, Levassor’s 1903 mechanical fuel injection, Fouillaron’s continuously variable belt drive (and diagonal engine) and Owen Magnetic’s electromagnetic automatic transmission, all before 1925.
Those were just as odd in their day as B-L-M’s (of Brooklyn) cast-iron clutch facing or Wilson-Pilcher’s engine pivots. Then again, the ’04 Wilson-Pilcher’s engines were horizontally opposed 2.7-liter fours and 4.0-liter sixes (with a four speed), arrangements that Porsche fans recognize a century later.
That isn’t to say people expected to fail; aside from a few scam artists, everyone had some plan. But inside, somewhere, many must have known that their chances were slim. Did William Mazzei really think his amphibious Hydromotor was the next big thing? Was Fageol actually going to sell a Hall-Scott aero-engined car for $17,000? Neither did, yet many persevered and the result was a culture of innovation and experimentation the likes of which America hasn’t seen again outside Silicon Valley.
Today, not only every car but also their every option must succeed. Without accepting failure, you can’t have true originality. As a result, we’ve suffered through a generation of tepid, similar cars, where the distinguishing features are now infotainment systems.
The capacity for creativity hasn’t been lost; that’s obvious from the responses to demands for higher fuel economy, such as amazingly efficient turbo four- and six-cylinder engines producing V-8 power; the transmissions behind them; and battery-assist drivetrains. But these are reactions—they’re fixing a problem, not speculating about the future.
I’m not sure we should subsidize failure, but there has to be room for it. Engineers and designers have to be not only encouraged to take risks, but executives need to bring them to market knowing they’ll get another chance.
When money people run car companies, the results are disastrous, as when Cerberus Capital Management luridly demonstrated with Chrysler. Inventors know that there’s no straight path to success, and sometimes it’s the losers that take us to the most interesting places.
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Ireland’s Earthquake explained
Published 29/05/2013 | 11:33
MANY slept through it, however thousands of people on the east coast felt tremors from an Earthquake which struck at 4.16 this morning.
The Geological Survey of Ireland has confirmed this morning that the epicentre of the 3.8 magnitude quake was in the Irish sea, 10 miles off the Welsh coast.
It also confirmed that the quake’s tremors were felt over a 90 mile radius, affected parts of Ireland, Wales, England and the Isle of Man.
There was one aftershock from the quake at 4.20, however it only registered a magnitude of 1.7, meaning it was barely noticeable.
The Geological Survey of Ireland said: “The earthquake was produced by movement on the Menai Straits fault system, which runs across the Irish Sea from Anglesey to South Wexford.
“This fault has had a long geological history of movement and is a locus of small earthquakes to the present day.”
The largest earthquake ever recorded in Ireland was in 1984, when an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.4 caused minor structural damage on the east coast.
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ince its inception, "write once, run anywhere!" has been the mantra and rallying cry for many architects and software engineers trying to convince their enterprises to move to or stay with Java. The phrase was particularly useful when talking about building software applications for mobile and wireless devices.
If you are involved in J2ME development, the write once, run anywhere or "WORA" battle cry may have lacked some luster in recent years. Sure it sounds good and logically makes sense. Java was extremely successful in assisting developers write software applications that run on a number of operating systems (Windows, Unix, Linux, Mac OS, etc.). It would seem to follow that Java is also suited to help support application development on the multitudes of cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and other consumer electronic and embedded devices. Unfortunately, it turns out the diversity of devices is too much for J2ME and perhaps any software platform to handle. If you have tried to write an application that runs on a couple of types of cell phones (let alone trying to cover the millions of J2ME-enabled phones or other electronic devices) you are probably dealing with this problem. It has a name and it is called device fragmentation.
Defining Device Fragmentation
Device fragmentation is the problem of having to write separate or custom software for devices on which you want your application to execute. In other words, it is writing and managing a separate code base for the same basic functionality just to meet individual device capabilities/features. The worst-case scenario is being forced to write a separate code base for each and every device you what to supportcertainly a WORA kill-joy. Device fragmentation turns the idea of creating and mass distributing that "killer app" you have in your head and want to develop into an almost insurmountable problem.
What does the problem stem from? There are many reasons why devices do not avail themselves to WORA. Some of the problems relate to device capabilities such as screen size, available memory, storage space for your code, and processor speeds. Other problems relate to the diversity and capabilities of the underlying operating system of the devices. Finally, the choice of J2ME profile/configuration (example: MIDP 1.0 vs. MIDP 1.1) and JVM, adherence to the standards for that JVM, and availability and implementation of the various J2ME APIs (like the Mobile Media API or J2ME Web Services) makes for many other obstacles that must be overcome to provide true application portability.
In order to give those that have not had to address device fragmentation a taste of these issues, simply go to Sun's listing of J2ME supported devices. First, take a look at the various screen sizes supported by the devices. You will see everything from 95x65 to 640x200 pixel resolution and one to eighteen bits of color depth. Imagine trying to write a J2ME game application given that type of variety in user interfaces? Next, take a look at the "Software" column listing the J2ME profile, configuration, and J2ME optional APIs that each device supports. Remember that a simple change from CLDC 1.0 to CLDC 1.1 in J2ME means the difference between having something as simple float point numbers or not. By the way, a vendor's interpretation of J2ME standards like MIDP means that running an application on devices that each support MIDP to the 1.1 level, for example, does not guarantee consistent behavior. Finally, take note of the number of manufactures and models of devicesover 170 different devices in this list and many with their own OS and unique device capabilities. Nokia (the world's number one manufacturer of mobile phones) alone has two major operating systems (Nokia and Symbian) on the J2ME phones listed. Can you imagine your test plan to check all the features of your application against a major chunk of these devices? Ouch!
Some Defragmentation Help
Not a pretty situation, but you have to at least acknowledge that Java and J2ME have offered hope to hopelessness. The JVM on millions of phones provides the basis for running a large portionprobably 80 percent in most situationsof an application without issue. And before you are ready to abandon J2ME and decry WORA dead, know that there are some tools that help. Specifically, using the NetBeans IDE in conjunction with the NetBeans Mobility Pack can help you address some of these device fragmentation issues.
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Botox 'may stunt emotional growth' in young people
- 13 September 2014
- From the section Health
Giving young people Botox treatment may restrict their emotional growth, experts warn.
Writing in the Journal of Aesthetic Nursing, clinicians say there is a growing trend for under-25s to seek the wrinkle-smoothing injections.
But the research suggests "frozen faces" could stop young people from learning how to express emotions fully.
A leading body of UK plastic surgeons says injecting teenagers for cosmetic reasons is "morally wrong".
Botox and other versions of the toxin work by temporarily paralysing muscles in the upper face to reduce wrinkling when people frown.
Mimicking to learn
Nurse practitioner Helen Collier, who carried out the research, says reality TV shows and celebrity culture are driving young people to idealise the "inexpressive frozen face."
But she points to a well-known psychological theory, the facial feedback hypothesis, that suggests adolescents learn how best to relate to people by mimicking their facial expressions.
She says: "As a human being our ability to demonstrate a wide range of emotions is very dependent on facial expressions.
"Emotions such as empathy and sympathy help us to survive and grow into confident and communicative adults."
But she warns that a "growing generation of blank-faced" young people could be harming their ability to correctly convey their feelings.
"If you wipe those expressions out, this might stunt their emotional and social development," she says.
The research calls for practitioners to use assessment tools to decide whether there are clear clinical reasons for Botox treatment.
Several assessment scales exist that take into account how thick the skin is, how sun-damaged it appears, and the depth of any wrinkles, but experts warn that some Botox clinics are putting financial gain first.
Ms Collier calls on therapists to spend time helping young people boost their confidence rather than reaching for injections.
She adds: "Though most of the effects of the toxin are temporary, research suggests the muscles don't fully recover from injections.
"We really need to understand the consequences of starting treatments too soon."
Dr Michael Lewis, a researcher in psychology at Cardiff University, says: "The expressions we make on our face affect the emotions we feel.
"We smile because we are happy, but smiling also makes us happy.
"Treatment with drugs like Botox prevents the patient from being able to make a particular expression and can therefore have an effect on our learning to feel emotions naturally."
Rajiv Grover, president of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, says: "Injecting teenagers with Botox for cosmetic purposes is morally wrong and something that no ethical practitioner would do.
"This can only exacerbate body image issues at a vulnerable time."
Ms Collier's research will be presented at the Clinical Cosmetic and Reconstructive Expo in October.
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Thumbless or smoky bats (Family Furipteridae)
Thumbless or smoky bats (Family Furipteridae) comprise two genera and species of bats: the smoky bat and thumbless bat. Both live in Central and South America. They are most closely related to the American disc-winged bats (Family Thyropteridae) and funnel-eared bats (Family Natalidae) in the superfamily Vespertilonoidea, but have no fossil record, as the bats do not fossilise well, due to their small, delicate skeletons. These small bats have an inflated crown on the skull. The broad, large, well-separated, funnel-shaped ears have a small tragus and seem to cover the small eyes, so the bats appear eyeless from the front. The very reduced, functionless thumbs are mostly enclosed by the wing membranes. The bats have greyish or grey-brown, coarse fur and a small nose-leaf. The premaxilla has palatal branches that are reduced to filaments. The bats lack postorbital processes. The dental formula is 2/3, 1/1, 2/3, 3/3 = 36. The molars are dilambdadont. The relatively small upper canines are about the height of the upper premolars. The tail is enclosed in the uropatagium, but a short portion may project beyond. The feet are small. The bats appear delicate and their broad wings are relatively long. The head and body length is 1.4- 2.6 inches (3.5-5.8 cm). The forearms are about 1.2-1.6 inches (3 -4 cm) long. Females are slightly larger than males. The snout is pig-like in appearance, being short and turned up at the tip. Set close together, the nostrils are oval or triangular. Ears resemble funnel-eared bats. They are separate, large, and funnel-shaped, reaching almost to the jaw line. These bats have tiny eyes that are hidden by fur and their large ears. They also have long legs and short feet, with claws on the end of their feet. The tail is relatively long, but it does not reach past the edge of the tail membrane (layer of thin skin). The fur is generally coarse. The smoky bat has triangular, wart-like fleshy projections around its mouth and lips. The bats live in diverse environments from lowland rainforest to the extremely arid western deserts of South America. Colonies of 100-300 roost in caves, as well as buildings and other man-made structures . Many of these bats live in isolated populations. They are found primarily in caves, tree hollows, and human-made structures. They eat insects, especially butterflies and moths. and butterflies. People have caused the decline of the species in this family due to harming their natural habitats.
No one has provided updates yet.
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Two weeks ago, Minnesota became the 12th state to pass a law allowing gay marriage. Yesterday, France legalized the marriage of same-sex couples. And in a culture where divorce is becoming more and more commonplace, maybe same-sex couples can teach the traditional husband and wife pairing a thing or two about couple dynamics.
In a recent cover story in The Atlantic, “The Gay Guide to Wedded Bliss,” Liza Mundy discusses how same-sex unions are happier than heterosexual marriages. Her studies show that gay and lesbian couples, whether intentional or not, are more in sync than straight couples across many areas. For example, chores.
“Study after study has shown that these unions tend to be more egalitarian,” Mundy said on Take Two Thursday. “There's still a fair amount of traditional division of labor in straight households, whereas gay couples start with a blank slate, and have to negotiate every duty.”
Mundy mentions how in male-female couples’ household duties, the wife tends to clean the bathroom while the husband traditionally takes out the trash. In same-sex unions, however, each couple divvies up chores more based on their strengths rather than gender roles.
This same logic applies to an issue oft-debated in marriages: parenting. While the woman is generally assumed to play the major role in child care in many couples (though men are taking the role more and more), Mundy says that taking gender out of the equation can lead to a better parenting dynamic.
“When it comes to parenting, for example, in gay couples, both parents tend to be present more at the same time,” Mundy said on raising children. “They’re co-parenting… together.”
Mundy’s study showed that in contrast, straight couples being around children together were more likely to have the mother interacting by herself with the kids, with the father “off on his Blackberry or playing with Tinker Toys by himself.”
The role of specialization in couples, however, is anything but gone. Mundy found that same-sex couples frequently specialize, with one partner being the primary bread-winner and the other being a stay-at-home parent or supplementary earner. She found this especially prevalent in gay households, leading to the third point of her study: women are more likely to leave marriages.
“In Europe, lesbian couples are twice as likely to break up as gay couples are,” Mundy said. “Could it be that women just have higher standards for relationships?”
There are other sides of the argument. A possibly divisive factor that Mundy pointed out is more prevalent in same-sex couples, is non-monogamy. She mentioned that while a member of a gay or lesbian union today is less likely to have multiple sexual partners than in previous decades, some ministers in states that recently approved gay marriage laws, like Maryland, refuse to marry couples not planning to be monogamous.
Since the legalization of gay marriage is so recent, statistics contrasting the divorce rate between same-sex and straight couples are not yet available.
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|about this site|
Marcus Vitruvius was a Roman architect in 1 BCE and authored the famous treatise on architecture entitled De Architectura. The treatise is broken into 10 different books, each dealing with aspects of architecture, city planning, and machines. His book was the authority on these subjects up through the Renaissance, and still has influences in modern architecture today.
It is in the beginning of Book III, in his discussion on the building of temples, where the concept of Virtruvian Man emerges:
Similarly, in the members of a temple there ought to be the greatest harmony in the symmetrical relations of the different parts to the general magnitude of the whole. Then again, in the human body the central point is naturally the navel. For if a man can be placed flat on his back, with his hands and feet extended, and a pair of compasses centered at his navel, the fingers and toes of his two hands and feet will touch the circumference of a circle described therefrom. And just as the human body yields a circular outline, so too a square figure may be found from it. For if we measure the distance from the soles of the feet to the top of the head, and then apply that measure to the outstretched arms, the breadth will be found to be the same as the height, as in the case of plane surfaces which are completely square.
(Marcus Vitruvius, De Architectura, Book III, Chapter 1, p 3)
Despite being a treatise on architecture, Vitruvius original work provides us with no actual images, apparently leaving it as an exercise for others.
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But deep in the bowels of academic libraries, the highly technical research journals tell a different story. The scientific evidences which evolutionists often refer to as so strongly confirming evolution, in fact, do not. Yes there are evidences that are consistent with evolution, but there are also many that are not. In fact there are many evidences which argue against evolution. This is evident in the many fundamental predictions made by evolution which have failed. There is a gaping mismatch between the high claims of evolutionists and the actual science.
For example, here is what the introduction of a 2009 journal paper said about the evolutionary tree:
The genome sequence is an icon of early twenty-first century biology. Genomes of nearly 2000 cellular organisms, and from many thousands of organelles and viruses, are now in the public domain. … At the same time, one cannot but be struck by the diversity of genomes, both across the living world and, in many cases, within genera or species. … Perhaps most unexpected of all is the substantial decoupling, now known in most, although not all, branches of organismal life, between the phylogenetic histories of individual gene families and what has generally been accepted to be the history of genomes and/or their cellular or organismal host lineages. The tree of life paradigm consolidated by Darwin's Origin of Species (1859), but itself arising from a much older tradition of natural history, seems likely to emerge, if at all, from the multi-genome era much more restricted in scope, and subject to many more qualifications, than could have been anticipated a dozen years ago.
The decoupling discussed above refers to the many inconsistencies between the traditional evolutionary tree of life, as determined from the visible features of the species, and evolutionary trees determined from the newer genetic data. In fact, not only is there a decoupling between the visible and genetic data, there are substantial inconsistencies within each group.
In fact, it is impossible to construct a realistic evolutionary tree using all the data. Evolutionists routinely construct evolutionary trees using a select, more cooperative, subset of the data. And even then the resulting trees are unrealistic. That is, they require evolutionary change for which there is no known mechanism. This is true even according to evolutionists who are quite liberal in allowing for speculation.
The problem is the species may be similar in some aspects, but not others. So neighboring species on the evolutionary tree may have a great many similarities, but in many cases they have some big differences, which evolutionary theory cannot explain beyond vague speculation.
The paper concludes:
The rapid growth of genome-sequence data since the mid-1990s is now providing unprecedented detail on the genetic basis of life, and not surprisingly is catalysing the most fundamental re-evaluation of origins and evolution since Darwin’s day. Several papers in this theme issue argue that Darwin’s tree of life is now best seen as an approximation—one quite adequate as a description of some parts of the living world (e.g. morphologically complex eukaryotes), but less helpful elsewhere (e.g. viruses and many prokaryotes); indeed, one of our authors goes farther, proclaiming the “demise” of Darwin’s tree as a hypothesis on the diversity and seeming naturalness of hierarchical arrangements of groups of living organisms.
The authors of the paper are evolutionists, and so are sympathetic witnesses. They believe evolution is true, and yet even they must admit that the evolutionary tree has problems. Even they admit that the evolutionary tree may be passé, or at least will be subject to many qualifications, restricted in scope and at best an approximation.
Between the introduction and conclusion there are plenty of interesting details. For example the paper discusses a particular example species where the evolutionary tree “does not appear to be helpful, or even especially meaningful.” And the paper mentions alternate models such as a ring, network or other topology.
To be sure the authors still see much value to the traditional evolutionary tree model. But the paper highlights the fact that this traditional evolutionary tree model is, well, just that—a model. In fact the paper, which is a brief survey, does not discuss several problems with the tree model. For instance, the paper implies that the more complex eukaryotic species fit the evolutionary tree model well. That is not true. There are plenty of contradictions to go around, including in the eukaryotes.
And so if the evolutionary tree model is just a model, with warts and blemishes that are not uncommon with scientific models, then where does this leave the evolutionist’s high claims in the popular media, in detailed books about evolution and in textbooks, that evolution is a fact—overwhelmingly supported by the science?
There is a wide gap between the truth claims evolutionists make, and the science. Here we looked at the evolutionary tree, but the story is the same in the other evidences for evolution. Over and over, there are the high claims of evolutionists, and then there is the science.
Whenever a theory is presented in an inaccurate light, then science loses. Scientists lose the public trust, and students lose the opportunity to learn the real science.
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Q: What is a transfer tax (aka: land transfer tax or real estate transfer tax)?
A: A transfer tax is a fee on all real estate transactions involving land, new residential or commercial construction, and existing residences. It is paid every time a deed changes hands. For new development, it is paid when a developer buys land, when lots with utilities and streets are sold to builders, and when builders sell new homes, office buildings or shopping malls. For those already owning a home, the only transfer tax that would be paid is when your house is sold.
Q: How can a transfer tax help pay for growth?
A: Fast growing areas like Wake County need new infrastructure to keep up with more people. One of the biggest needs is building public schools (Wake will need 33 new schools in by 2025), which are primarily funded through property taxes. The building, buying and selling of real estate is linked to growth, so the transfer tax would be an additional way to help pay for growth’s needs (like schools) without increasing the property tax on existing homeowners. And of course, prospective businesses and residents are attracted to areas with strong public schools and good infrastructure. In Wake, a 1% TT would have generated as much revenue in 2007 as a property tax increase of 15-20 cents.
Q: Is a transfer tax a new tax on homes?
A: The only tax on homes is the property tax, paid by all homeowners every year. A transfer tax would only be paid at time of real estate transfer, and it would be an extension of the existing deed stamp excise tax of 2%.
Q: Where else is the transfer tax (TT) used?
A: All over the world. Thirty four U.S. states have a TT. In several states it is higher than the 1% proposed in most legislation. Delaware, with a growth rate close to NC, has a TT rate that is 2-3 times higher than has been proposed in some NC counties. Six counties in NC have had a separate 1% TT for two decades and are benefitting because it’s funding local schools and local roads. These counties have prospered and continue to grow. Dare County, has the lowest property tax rate in the state, 26 cents versus Wake’s 60.5 cents, in part due to the TT.
Q: Who actually pays the transfer tax?
A: It depends. Who pays the sales tax when you buy a pair of shoes? In real estate negotiations, the buyer usually pays the costs. In the strong markets typical of high growth areas of NC, buyers will treat the TT just as they would a real estate broker’s commission, they will add it on to their asking price, allowing growth to pay for growth. Remember that quality schools, roads and other infrastructure paid for by a TT help keep the real estate market strong.
Q: Who is NCAR and why do they oppose the transfer tax?
A: The NC Association of Realtors (NCAR) represents thousands of realtors across the state, and they oppose the transfer tax because realtors make commissions from home sales. All realtors must pay a fee to NCAR annually in order to access the MLS online database of properties for sale (a fee opposed by many realtors). NCAR’s PAC (political action committee) far outspends all other PACs in the state, giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to state and local candidates each election. NCAR recently spent $10 million to defeat local transfer tax referenda in several NC counties, so they are very politically influential.
Q: What transfer tax legislation was approved by the NC General Assembly?
A: In 2007, the NC General Assembly passed a law empowering counties to raise new revenues for needed infrastructure by either levying a 0.4% transfer tax or a 0.25% sales tax if approved by voters in a local referendum. As a result of intense political pressure by the NC Realtors’ PAC, the legislation was reversed in 2011. Unfortunately, this revenue generating tool is not a current option in most of North Carolina.
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Learning to Go: Lesson Ideas for Teaching with Mobile Devices, Cell Phones, and BYOT. Every day, people around the world communicate, connect, and learn digitally on the go.
Our students spend hours with their devices and digital tools. Imagine if some of that time was spent learning your content. Imagine your students learning by creating, playing, translating, editing, curating, researching, and brainstorming digitally on cell phones, mobile devices, laptops, tablets, iPads, Chromebooks, and consoles. Learning to Go is a collection of lesson plans, resources, handouts, and tips for teachers wishing to incorporate mobile devices, cell phones or BYOT (Bring Your Own Technology) into their teaching.
So You Want to Create Your Course Ebook. Creating & Learning with Digital Books. Creating Digital Books that Help Others. Let's Create a Digital Book with Learners. Ebook Course for Teachers free! Free ebook design course. #EbookEVO Session Videos. eTextbook EVO 2014. Chat for Creating Digital Textbooks. Textbooks w Google Docs. Posted by Dianne Darlington, Director of Technology, Tullahoma City Schools Editor's note: Today’s post comes from Dianne Darlington, a Google Apps Certified Administrator and director of technology at Tullahoma City Schools, a school district in Tennessee that includes four elementary schools, two middle schools and one high school.
Our teachers at Tullahoma City Schools have discovered (and fully embraced) the benefits of incorporating timely, interactive material into the classroom—whether it’s a recent YouTube video or a breaking news article. Recognizing that technology plays a key role in learning, we recently expanded our use of Google Apps and Google Classroom throughout our schools. How to Create Your Own Textbook — With or Without Apple.
By Dolores Gende Apple’s iBooks2 and authoring app has created big waves in education circles.
But smart educators don’t necessarily need Apple’s slick devices and software to create their own books. How educators think of content curation in the classroom is enough to change their reliance on print textbooks. As the open education movement continues to grow and become an even more rich trove of resources, teachers can use the content to make their own interactive textbooks. It might seem daunting, but the availability of quality materials online and the power of tapping into personal learning networks should make it easier. Ebook Design Resources. My new unplugged coursebook series: Windows.
Windows is a coursebook concept drawing on potentially ambiguous pictures as a starting point for unplugged language teaching.
Well, as you might expect from any quality coursebook production, my new series Windows was a long time in the making... a whole morning in fact. The first "level (?) " (titled "Some Won") has been completed and is available below for you to download and use in your classes - if you are interested, that is. Here is a quick preview of some of the content in the book: But before I refer you to the downloads, an important correction to what I've already typed is in order... Independent Publishing. Mapping Out Your Chapter. Ebook Design Presentations. Students and eTextbooks. Creative Commons. Flickr cc attribution bookmarklet maker. How to Integrate iBooks Author to Nearpod. To Market, To Market. Marketing departments at publishing houses have a daunting task, figuring out how to use shrinking budgets to create promotional materials that are actually effective for the publisher and useful to the bookseller.
So what works? What do we love seeing in our bookstores? What gets tossed out without a further glance? Whereas a centralized bookselling corporation may have one buyer to please, indies range in size, scope, and individual buyer preferences. Teaching with Storybook Tools. HTML5, EPUB 3, and ebooks vs. web apps. One of the benefits of working on TOC is that I get to see some of the behind-the-scenes industry debates that take place via email.
Since it’s “formats” month here in TOC-land I thought it would be fun to share a thread about HTML5 vs. EPUB 3 featuring O’Reilly’s Sanders Kleinfeld and the IDPF’s Bill McCoy. They’ve both agreed to share this thread with the TOC community since it helps clarify the state of both EPUB 3 and HTML5. It all started with an HTML5 interview I did with Sanders earlier this month. Bill reached out to Sanders as follows: Your mileage may vary, especially on the Nook. Textbooks of the future: Will you be buying a product ... or a service? The World Bank is currently working with a few countries that are planning for the procurement of lots of digital learning materials.
In some cases, these are billed as 'e-textbooks', replacing in part existing paper-based materials; in other cases, these are meant to complement existing curricular materials. In pretty much all cases, this is happening as a result of past, on-going or upcoming large scale procurements of lots of ICT equipment. Once you have your schools connected and lots of devices (PCs, laptops, tablets) in the hands of teachers and students, it can be rather useful to have educational content that runs on whatever gadgets you have introduced into to help aid and support teaching and learning. The learner's notebook as coursebook - Part 1. Datenglish: 2014 EVO Crafting your Perfect Ebook - Week 1. Datenglish: Creating eBooks with learners. Project: Students create their own E-Textbooks Why this project?
I think that helping them create their own E-Textbooks would be just one more way to express my gratitude to my learners for sharing our learning journey. I feel this is a powerful way to develop pride in their learning process as well as develop self-awareness of their achievements during the year. Students Creating Their Own Textbook: Interview with @DatEnglish #30GoalsEDU. Blackboard Collaborate. 7th Graders Publish Their Own Textbook. Mac Life wrote an article titled Super 7th Graders Publish Their Own eBook to the iBookstore.
It explains the project in more detail. The Comic Book Project. Future of the textbook. Mobile learning scenarios, Germany @ rscon4 by André J. Spang on Prezi. Book Creator - create and publish ebooks to the iBooks Store or Google Play Store. Fastest Way to Create Comic Strips and Cartoons - Toondoo. Little Bird Tales - Home. Storybird - Artful Storytelling. Pimpampum.net. Create Your Own Comic. ISSUU - Digital Publishing Platform for Magazines, Catalogs, and more. About Slipp.
Has evolved into If you're not ready for Slipp you can still CREATE A GLOSSI.
Dear Glossinauts, Since our launch over a year ago, almost 10,000 beautiful Glossies have been created by imaginative, creative and fantastic people just like you. It's been a rewarding journey of discovery and sharing. ZooBurst. Make Kids' Books Online For Free! Book Creation IOS Apps. Blackfish Children's Books and Story Creator - Bedtime Lite Apps Customizable Kids Free Interactive Stories HD. I imagine. Create My Own Interactive Action Superheroes And Super Villains Story Books Free Game.
Fairy Tale – A fun children’s story production App where I become the author to make the story. Story Creator - Easy Story Book Maker for Kids. LocoMotive Labs: Products - LocoMotive Labs. Kid in Story Book Maker makes it easy and fun to create visual stories to support learning, social modeling, and early literacy with your child as the star character. How Kid in Story Book Maker WorksTo personalize the stories, LocoMotive Labs’ unique Locolens™ image detection technology allows you to superimpose your child or student onto the template backgrounds – similar to “green screening.”
Just snap a portrait (or use one already saved in your library), and let Locolens™ pluck your “kid” out of the picture and place him or her in the story. As the narrator, you can record your own voice or the child’s voice for each page. Once complete, children will enjoy reading their very own personalized visual story. Parents can share it with others via email or Dropbox. 4 Steps of Magic 1. 1 2 3 4 Features Templates. Little Story Creator - Digital Scrapbooking and Photo Collage Maker. Story Maker. Create Children Book. Bookemon instaPress - Create your own printable books on iPhone and iPad using Photos, Blogs, PDFs, or Word Documents.
Why should I use Apache OpenOffice? Apache OpenOffice is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose. Great softwareApache OpenOffice is the result of over twenty years' software engineering. Where is Apache OpenOffice currently used? iBooks Author. Simple book production.
Zopler - Collaborative Storytelling. ePublishing Options. Create Ebooks - Papyrus Editor. Free Self-Publishing & eBook Downloads: Learn to Write. Tool Options EbookEVO. Digital storytelling.
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One very commonly held theory about religion is that all religions ultimately have the same basic source, call it "God", or whatever. According to this theory all religions teach more or less the same basic truths, and these truths teach us (and actually can and do help us) to be better persons. In practice, therefore, it doesn't really matter what religion you were born into, or what religion you may have chosen to adopt, so long as you practice it sincerely, it's all good.
Karen Armstrong is a well known and articulate proponent of the theory that all religions are essentially true (theory 1) Here is an excerpt from her Charter for Compassion:
The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect ....Another commonly held theory is that all religions have the same ultimate source, but this time the source is considered to be not 'God', or anything of the sort, but rather ignorance and/or fear, or possibly a desire to fool the masses in order to oppress and exploit them more efficiently. According to this theory all religions require belief in things that are not only patently false, but downright harmful, and all religions are inherently irrational and intolerant. In practice, therefore, it doesn't really matter what religion you were born into, or what religion you may have chosen to adopt, it's all just superstitious nonsense and a very big mistake.
We therefore call upon all men and women ~ to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion ~ to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate ~ to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures ~ to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity ~ to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.
Richard Dawkins is a well known and articulate spokesperson for the theory that all religions are essentially false (theory 2). Here is an excerpt from his book The God Delusion:
How did the Greeks, the Romans and the Vikings cope with ... polytheological conundrums? Was Venus just another name for Aphrodite, or were they two distinct goddesses of love? Was Thor with his hammer a manifestation of Wotan, or a separate god? Who cares? Life is too short to bother with the distinction between one figment of the imagination and many .... For brevity I shall refer to all deities, whether poly- or monotheistic, as simply 'God' .... I am not attacking any particular version of God or gods. I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented.As different as Armstrong's and Dawkins' theories might appear, they are both specific examples of a single, much more general, theory of religion: all religions are essentially the same.
All religions are not essentially the same
The two most widely adhered to religions on earth, Christianity and Islam, are (and quite obviously and explicitly so) both predicated on a very different theory of religion from the two theories discussed above.
Specifically, Christianity and Islam both assume a clear distinction between true and false religion, and both have based themselves, from their inceptions, on a full-throated rejection of all other religions, which they have historically denounced in no uncertain terms as not only false, but also idolatrous, superstitious, demonic, and pagan. This is the theory that there is One True Religion, and all other religions are false (theory 3).
Egyptologist Jan Assmann has proposed that the division of religions into two categories, those that are true and those that are false, can be referred to as "the Mosaic distinction". It should be noted that not only does Assmann not claim that Moses was the first to make this "distinction", he (to put it mildly) seriously questions the historicity of Moses altogether: "because there are no traces of his earthly existence outside the [Biblical] tradition".
While it may have been Pharaoh Akhenaten who first made the true/false distinction with respect to religion, our conception of this distinction today is inextricably intertwined with the Biblical story of Moses, and:
Since memory is all that counts in the sphere of cultural distinctions, we are justified in speaking not of Akhenaten's distinction, but of the Mosaic distinction. The space severed or cloven by this distinction is the space of Western monotheism. It is this constructed mental or cultural space that has been inhabited by Europeans for nearly two millennia.Moreover, according to Assmann:
[Jan Assmann, Moses the Egyptian, p.2]
It is an error to believe that this distinction is as old as religion itself, though at first sight nothing might seem more plausible .... However plausible this might seem, it is not the case. Cultures not only generate otherness by constructing identity, but also develop techniques of translation ... Translation in this sense is not to be confused with colonializing appropriation of the "real" other. It is simply an attempt to make more transparent the borders that were erected by cultural distinctions.While the Mosaic distinction posits its own subjective division between true and false religions, it thereby automatically creates an objective division according to which there are two kinds of religion: (1) those religions that make the Mosaic distinction, and (2) those that don't (theory 4). As Assmann states above, "the world of polythestic religions" is a world in which the Mosaic distinction is not made.
Ancient polytheisms functioned as such a technique of translation. They belong within the emergence of the "Ancient World" as a coherent ecumene of interconnected nations .... The names are, of course, different in different cultures, because the languages are different. The shapes of the gods and the forms of worship may also differ significantly .... The different peoples worshipped different gods, but nobody contested the reality of foreign gods and the legitimacy of foreign forms of worship. The distinction I am speaking of simply did not exist in the world of polytheistic religions.
[Moses the Egyptian, pp. 2-3]
The question of tolerance
Religions that make the "Mosaic distinction" have an inherent tendency toward intolerance, for their followers are compelled to seek the extirpation of all false religions in order to replace them with the One True Religion. On the other hand, in "the world of polytheistic religions" tolerance and diversity are the general rule, and intolerance the rare exception.
That just such a clear, objective distinction with respect to the question of tolerance can be made between monotheism and polytheism, has been widely recognized by many of those who have studied the ancient religions of Greece and Rome (that is, the religions that preceded the rise of Christianity, and that were largely displaced by that rise). Among these are two of the most famous historians of Rome, Edward Gibbon and J.B. Bury.
Here is a passage from Gibbon's Enlightenment era classic (and literary masterpiece in its own right), The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire illustrating his view:
The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true .... toleration produced not only mutual indulgence but even religious concord.In stark contrast to the above laudatory judgment of the natural and instinctive tolerance of "the Greek, the Roman, and the Barbarian" Pagans, when assessing the reasons for Christianity's triumph over these easy-going Pagans, Gibbon identified the five most important factors, and first among these he considered to be "the inflexible, and, if we may use the expression, the intolerant zeal of the Christians." Gibbon explicitly counterposes this "intolerant zeal of the Christians" with the "religious harmony of the ancient world [that is, prior to the rise of Christianity], and the facility with which the most different and even hostile nations embraced, or at least respected, each other's superstitions." [Decline and Fall, Chapter XV]
The devout polytheist, though fondly attached to his national rites, admitted with implicit faith the different religions of the earth .... As soon as it was allowed that sages and heroes who had lived or who had died for the benefit of their country were exalted to a state of power and immortality, it was universally confessed that they deserved, if not the adoration, at least the reverence of all mankind. The deities of a thousand groves and thousand streams possessed in peace their local and respective influence; nor could the Roman who deprecated the wrath of the Tiber deride the Egyptian, who presented his offering to the beneficent genius of the Nile. The visible powers of Nature, the planets, and the elements were the same throughout the universe. The invisible governors of the moral world were inevitably cast in a similar mold of fiction and allegory. Every virtue, and even vice, acquired its divine representative; every art and profession, its patron, whose attributes in the most distant ages and countries were uniformly derived from the character of their peculiar votaries .... The Greek, the Roman, and the Barbarian as they met before their respective altars easily persuaded themselves that under various names and with various ceremonies they adored the same deities. The elegant mythology of Homer gave a beautiful and almost a regular form to the polytheism of the ancient world.
[from Chapter II, excerpt available online here]
For J.B. Bury's part, the following is illustrative of what he had to say on this matter:
The purpose of the official cults in the pagan State was to secure the protection of the deities; these were liberal and tolerant lords who raised no objection to other forms of worship; and toleration was therefore a principle of the State. But the god of the new official religion [Christianity] was a jealous master; he had said, "thou shalt have none other gods before me," and idolatry was an offence to him; how could his protection and favour be expected in a state in which idolatry was permitted? Intolerance was a duty, and the first business of a patriotic ruler was to take measures to extirpate the errors of paganism.Gibbon died over two centuries ago, in 1794, while Bury died in 1927. But their view that the polytheism of the Greco-Roman world was characterized by not merely toleration, but mutual recognition and respect for the religions of others, is also found in the writings of contemporary historian Ramsay MacMullen (who was born the year after Bury died) who wrote in 1997:
[History of the Later Roman Empire, p. 366]
On the one hand was paganism, no more than a spongy mass of tolerance and tradition, so it might seem, confronting a growing number of people determined to do away with that mass utterly, so as to replace it with what was enjoined upon them by the tremendous will of the one God -- such were the opposites making up the religious world of Late Antiquity.And James B. Rives states much the same view in his 2006 Religion in the Roman Empire:
[Ramsay MacMullen, Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries, p. 5]
[O]n a fundamental level the various religious traditions of the [Roman] empire had more similarities than differences. As a result, when people from one tradition were confronted with another, they often found much that was familiar and immediately understandable, and tended to treat what was unfamiliar simply as a local peculiarity. In short, the impression we get from the sources is that people thought not so much in terms of "different religions," as we might today, but simply of varying local customs with regard to the gods.Primary versus Secondary Religions
Jan Assmann has proposed calling those religions that do not make the Mosaic distinction "primary" religions, and those that do, "secondary" religions, a terminology that he has borrowed from Heidelberg University Theology Professor Theo Sundermeier. But Assmann goes further than Sundermeier, and also proposes that secondary religions should be viewed as "counter-religions" a point to which I will return below.
Two features found in all religions that make the Mosaic distinction are (1) they arise at a specific place and time in history, when other ("primary") religions are already in existence, and (2) the new "secondary" religion necessarily defines itself explicitly in terms of a rejection of these pre-existing primary religions. It goes without saying that if there are any secondary religions that are also around already, the new secondary religion rejects these as well, and is, in turn, rejected by them. Perhaps the most extreme and comical example of this is the emergence of one Protestant sect after another after another during the so-called Reformation, each one dutifully condemning all the other Protestants to Hell, along with, of course, the Catholics, the Muslims, the Jews and, naturally, all Pagans and Atheists:
Where are we to find that Church which has but one faith? Is it possible to discover it among Protestant sects, divided as they are into different bodies; refusing to be joined in communion; agreeing in scarce one point of doctrine, and mutually excommunicating each other?These two features of secondary religions are mirrored by their opposites in primary religions, which (1) have no clear starting point in human history, and (2) do not reject other primary religions, but rather, see them, as James B. Rives states above, simply as "varying local customs with regard to the gods." These two feature are the diachronic and synchronic manifestations of the inherent tolerance of primary religions. Diachronically, primary religions accept all previous religious traditions, while, synchronically, also accepting all contemporaneous "other" religious traditions. On the other hand, the attitude of secondary religions with respect to all perceived competitors in all of space-time (past, present and future -- here, there, everywhere) is always that of uncompromising hostility.
[Authenticated Report of the Discussion Which Took Place At Londonderry, Between Six Roman Catholic Priests, and Six Clergymen of the Established Church; In the Diocese of Derry, March 1828, Section Three, p. 8]
Embedded in the above discussion is another important aspect of the primary/secondary religion divide, and one that bears at least passing mention: primary religions chronologically preceded secondary religions in human history. In other words we can speak of a time in the past during which, and before which, all religions were primary religions. There is actually a kind of macabre symmetry here, since the mental universe of secondary religions eagerly envisions a future in which there are no longer any primary religions left, because they have all been successfully extirpated in the name of ridding humanity of the scourge of idolatry and devil-worship.
According to both Jan Assmann and his fellow Egyptologist Erik Hornung, we can say with some precision when secondary religion first arose: the Amarna period (mid 14th century BC) of ancient Egypt. Here is Erik Hornung:
It was only around the middle of the nineteenth century that Wilkinson and Lepsius laid the foundation for our knowledge of the Amarna period, when ancient Egyptian culture and religion were fundamentally transformed for several years, and which even witnessed the introduction of a new literary language, and during which a religion was founded for the first time in the history of the world. To the best of our knowledge, this had never happened before, either in Egypt or elsewhere.And here is an excerpt from Jan Assmann's new book The Price of Monotheism
[Akhenaten and the Religion of Light, p. 2, emphasis in the original]
Primary religions evolve historically over hundreds and thousands of years .... Religions of this kind include the cultic and divine worlds of Egyptian, Babylonian and Greco-Roman antiquity, among many others. Secondary religions, by contrast, are those that owe their existence to an act of revelation and foundation, build on primary religions, and typically differentiate themselves from the latter by denouncing them as pagan, idolatry and superstition. All secondary religions ... look down on the primary religions as pagan .... These religions can therefore perhaps be characterized most adequately by the term "counterreligion." For these religions, and for these religions alone, the truth to be proclaimed comes with an enemy to be fought.Now let's look at how Theo Sundermeier, whom Assmann credits (as mentioned already) with originally proposing the "primary versus secondary" terminology. Sundermeier uses this distinction in his book The Individual and Community in African Traditional Religion:
The validity of secondary religious experience is not confined to the small group; it lays claim to universal validity. That is the basic reason why it is designed for expansion. Weight is attached to the notion of truth, which is not at issue in primary religious experience. The latter is immediately credible and can be experienced at first hand in society. It is non-missionary, whereas secondary religious experienced forces its way onto the world stage as 'true religion'.Sundermeier's use of the terms primary/secondary religion must be approached with some caution. He obviously wishes to give the impression that "primary" religion is synonymous with both "primitive" religion and "traditional" religion, and that in general primary religion is by definition unreflective, unsophisticated, and only compatible with relatively small and isolated societies, while he privileges "secondary" religion with being a natural by-product of the development of more complex cultures and civilizations:
The larger society gives people greater scope for decisions and choice. The individual gains space and freedom, as we have seen. This likewise means that religion no longer covers all spheres of life, that the realm of the profane grows and secularism becomes possible. Secondary religious experience is therefore characterised by individualism. The mythical, analogous way of thinking is expanded by conceptual rationality and the symbol is interpreted according to individual inclination. What has been experienced through sensation and intuition is now pervaded by theoretical ideas; religion is reduced to a system, and can be handed down as a doctrine. Ritual enactment is no longer sufficient; secondary experience appeals to the intellect, demanding disbelief.The problem with the above is that it is completely wrong. The classical polytheisms of the great civilizations of Sumer, Babylon, Egypt, Greece and Rome were decidedly primary religions. A very nice explanation of this is to be found in Jan Assmann's essay Monotheism and Polytheism, which appears as a chapter in the volume Ancient Religions, edited by Sarah Isles Johnston. It is nevertheless the case that Sundermeier is right to think that primary religions historically preceded secondary religions, it is just that he is wrong in imposing a "progressive" paradigm on the transition from primary to secondary religion.
Monotheism as Counter-Religion:
"Positive religions imply negated traditions"
Theo Sundermeier's point of view is really quite startling in its Kipling-esque arrogance toward "primitive" religions (and we should not forget that Kipling considered himself a very liberal minded man, and very well and kindly disposed toward inferior/darker peoples for whom he seriously believed that he had nothing but respect and compassion). This demonstrates that the distinction between primary and secondary religions is not sufficient in itself, because it all too easily becomes just another vehicle for masking the biases of whoever is making use of the terms.
The real issue is that there is still something missing, yet another basic feature that distinguishes one broad class of religion from another, without which the real, objective differences are not sharp enough to ensure that other, "projected" differences are not "seen" by mistake.
Another way of putting this more bluntly is that Sundermeier is seeing what he wants to see. Sundermeier obviously thinks of himself, and rightly so I have no doubt, as a good-hearted, liberal, open minded person. And so he insists that he is not, heavens forbid, suggesting that there is anything at all wrong with those cute little "primary" religions. Of course they inhibit individualism, are incompatible with reason, do not appeal to the intellect, and view the empty, rote enactment of ritual as "sufficient", but what did you expect? You see, those people live in their little, isolated, "primitive" "traditional" worlds, and they don't know what they are missing -- and, well, as soon as they do find out what they are missing, that is, when they come into contact with "larger society", they will learn to add "theoretical ideas" to their religion, etc., like all civilized people do.
Fortunately, Jan Assmann provides the missing piece to the puzzle by his introduction of the term "counter-religion" (although Assmann also, albeit to a far lesser extent, falls into the same "progressive" trap as Sundermeier, a problem that I will have to address at a later time), which he describes here:
The sun god of one religion is easily equated to the sun god of another religion, and so forth. Because of their functional equivalence, deities of different religions can be equated. In Mesopotamia, the practice of translating divine names goes back to the third millennium B.C.E. ... In the second millennium, this practice was extended to many different languages and civilizations of the Near East. The cultures, languages, and customs may have been as different as ever: the religions always had a common ground. Thus they functioned as a means of intercultural translatability. The gods were international because they were cosmic. The different peoples worshipped different gods, but nobody contested the reality of foreign gods and the legitimacy of foreign forms of worship. The distinction I am speaking of simply did not exist in the world of polytheistic religions.According to Assmann (and also Erik Horning, although Hornung does not adopt the same terminology) the first such "counter-religion" was the "revolutionary monotheism" introduced by Akhenaten during the Amarna period in Egypt:
The Mosaic distinction was therefore a radically new distinction which considerably changed the world in which it was drawn. The space which was "severed or cloven" by this distinction was not simply the space of religion in general, but that of a very specific kind of religion. We may call this new type of religion "counter-religion" because it rejects and repudiates everything that went before and what is outside itself as "paganism." It no longer functioned as a means of intercultural translation; on the contrary, it functioned as a means of intercultural estrangement. Whereas polytheism ... rendered different cultures mutually transparent and compatible, the new counter-religion blocked intercultural translatability. False gods cannot be translated.
[Moses the Egyptian, p. 3]
The defining difference between the old and new, "tradition" and "truth", is created not so much by verbal means as by practical means. The latter were indeed drastic .... The traditional cults and feasts were discontinued, the temples were closed, the names and images of the gods (above all those of Amun) were destroyed, the capital was transfered, a new style was introduced into language and representational art, and so forth. These radical measures of persecution and innovation show beyond any doubt that the Amarna movement viewed itself as a new religion that was absolutely incompatible with the continuation of traditional forms of religious life.Compare the above description of the acts of the Pharaoh Akhenaten with this description of the acts of the Emperor Constantine seventeen centuries later:
[Moses the Egyptian, pp. 170-171]
ALL these things the emperor diligently performed to the praise of the saving power of Christ, and thus made it his constant aim to glorify his Saviour God. On the other hand he used every means to rebuke the superstitious errors of the heathen. Hence the entrances of their temples in the several cities were left exposed to the weather, being stripped of their doors at his command; the tiling of others was removed, and their roofs destroyed. From others again the venerable statues of brass, of which the superstition of antiquity had boasted for a long series of years, were exposed to view in all the public places of the imperial city: so that here a Pythian, there a Sminthian Apollo, excited the contempt of the beholder: while the Delphic tripods were deposited in the hippodrome and the Muses of Helicon in the palace itself. In short, the city which bore his name was everywhere filled with brazen statues of the most exquisite workmanship, which had been dedicated in every province, and which the deluded victims of superstition had long vainly honored as gods with numberless victims and burnt sacrifices, though now at length they learnt to renounce their error, when the emperor held up the very objects of their worship to be the ridicule and sport of all beholders.In The Price of Monotheism, Assmann expands on just how systemic and even paranoiac the proclivity toward violence is in monotheistic counterreligion:
[Eusebius' Vita Constantini, from Chapter LIV]
I have already mentioned that the antagonism characteristic of monotheism as a counterreligion, the exclusive and exclusionary negation by which it defines itself -- "No other gods!" -- is not just directed outwards, but also and especially inwards. Far more worrying than the paganism of others is the falsehood to which one's own co-religionists are forever in danger of succumbing. The conflict between truth and untruth and the shift from primary religion to counterreligion is played out in the Bible itself. Monotheism relates the story of its own establishment as a history of violence punctuated by a series of massacres. I have in mind the massacre following the scene with the Golden Calf (Exod. 32-34), the slaughter of the priests of Baal after the sacrificial contest with Elijah (I Kings 18), the bloody implementation of the reforms of Josiah (2 Kings 23:1-27) .... Through this power of negation, monotheism acquires the character of a counterreligion that determines its truth by expelling whatever cannot be reconciled with it.Assmann also makes use of the term "revolutionary monotheism" in order to emphasize the fact that the monotheism introduced by "counter-religion" is incapable of living in peace with any other religious traditions that it comes into contact with:
It seems evident that all founded or, to use the eighteenth century term, "positive" religions are counter-religions. This is so because all of them had to confront and to reject a tradition. None of them was founded within a religious void. Therefore, they may be termed "secondary religions" becuase tehy always presuppose the preceding and/or parallel existence of "primary religions". We have no evidence of evolutionary steps leading from primary to secondary religion. Wherever secondary religions occur, they always seem to to have to have been established by foundational acts such as revolution or revelation. Such positive acts often have their negative complements in rejection and persecution. "Positive" religions imply negated traditions.Conclusion
[Moses the Egyptian, p. 169]
In sum, then, we have four different theories of religion, which fall into two broad categories like this:
1. All Religions are essentially the same.
1.a. All Religions are essentially true. (Karen Armstrong)
1.a. All Religions are essentially false. (Richard Dawkins)
2. All Religions are not essentially the same.
2.a. There is One True Religion and all other religions are false. (Akhenaten/Moses)
2.b. There are Primary Religions and Secondary Religions. (Jan Assmann)
It is worth noting that the proponents of the first three theories all accept the monotheistic concept of a single 'God' as the defining principle for religion in general. This is immediately obvious if we look at the titles of Karen Armstrong's books The Battle for God and A History of God, and also Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion (especially the passage quoted above from Dawkins' book). On the other hand, the fourth theory explicitly recognizes that there is a fundamental difference between secondary, revolutionary monotheistic religions that insist on one and only one God, and primary, polytheistic religions that allow for a great, possibly infinite, variety of Divine Beings.
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STUDENTS and staff at a Darlington school are keeping up with the latest technology in the classroom.
A lucky group of 30 pupils and ten teachers at Hummersknott Academy have been given iPads to trial in lessons to see how they can enhance learning and teaching.
The group will be trained on how to use the gadgets, which are small enough to sit alongside exercise books, before seeing how they can be incorporated into lessons, from English, through to science and maths.
Assistant principal Louise Farnell said: “We need to prepare pupils for the future world in which they will be working.
“Increasingly employers are using and developing devices for daily routine tasks and, as such, we need to train our students to use these devices effectively as a tool to work with.”
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| 0.962211 | 164 | 2.5625 | 3 |
How to use
a desire to do something, to have something, or to have something happen
It's important to respect the wishes of the patient.
politicians who ignore the public's wishes
wish to do something
Despite her wish to continue working, she was forced to retire at the age of 62.
to see the children.
Jenny's always wanted to live in the country. Now she's finally
she has got what she wanted
somebody's wish is granted/fulfilled
someone gets what they want
somebody's wish comes true
someone gets what they want, especially in a surprising or unexpected way
somebody's last/dying wish
something that someone says they want just before they die
His last wish was that he should be buried back home in California.
somebody's greatest wish
somebody's dearest wish
what you want most of all
His dearest wish was to become a father.
against somebody's wishes
if you do something against someone's wishes, you do it even though you know they do not want you to
She'd left school against her mother's wishes.
go against somebody's wishes
do something against their wishes
best/good/warmest etc wishes
used, especially in cards and letters, to say that you hope someone will be happy, successful, or healthy
best/good/warmest etc wishes for
Best wishes for a long and happy retirement!
She asked me to
to all her friends and colleagues.
(With) best wishes
used at the end of a letter before you sign your name
With best wishes, Celia.
have no wish to do something
used to emphasize that you do not want or intend to do something
I have no wish to speak to her ever again.
a silent request for something to happen as if by magic
Close your eyes and
make a wish
your wish is my command
used humorously to say that you will do whatever someone asks you to do
Definition from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Advanced Learner's Dictionary.
Dictionary results for "wish"
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| 0.904062 | 500 | 2.65625 | 3 |
It's confirmed: November 2013 was the hottest November on Earth since at least 1880.
This past November was the hottest on record, with land and ocean temperatures a toasty 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.78 degrees Celsius) above the average 20th century global temperature of 55.2 degrees Fahrenheit (12.9 degrees Celsius), according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). When only land temperatures are taken into account, this November was the second hottest on record.
Almost every region was warmer than usual, with a few exceptions: The central and eastern portions of North America, the Southern Ocean near Antarctica, northern Australia and southwestern Greenland were cooler than average. Meanwhile, Russia had its warmest November since 1880, with some areas seeing temperatures 14 degrees Fahrenheit (8 degrees Celsius) above average, according to NOAA. [8 Hottest Places on Earth]
And don't expect a break from the heat, either: 2014 may be even hotter than 2013. That's because climate models are raising the odds of 2014 El Niño conditions, which warm sea water in the tropical Pacific and often raise global temperatures, according to data from the Climate Prediction Center and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society. If El Niño conditions prevail, they would be the first since the hottest year on record — 2010. El Niño conditions could make Southeast Asia and Australia drier and lessen rains in the Indian monsoon. The coast of California could also be battered by stronger storms in winter 2014, Quartz reported
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| 0.941738 | 304 | 3.3125 | 3 |
Although Milo is the hero of the story, is he a remarkable character?
How typical is he of boys and girls today?
When I think of a hero,I think of Hercules,not Milo. Milo isn`t a typical boy because he doesn`t like sports,like to play with friends and he`s boring. In this essay I`m going to prove that Milo is a remarkable boy.
In the begining of the story,Milo thinks that nothing seems exciting.He soon finds out that you can make boring things into exciting ones if you just us your imagenation.Imagenation can make even the most boring things very exciting.After arriving in his room one day after school,he finds the tollbooth in a box with a label that read…FOR MILO,WHO HAS PLENTY OF TIME.Milo then starts building the tollbooth.He then uses his car and rides through the tollbooth to begin his journey.
Even though Milo doesn’t sound very exciting he gets better & better as the story goes on.Milo goes through some incredible chalenges,but works everything out as if nothing happened.As Milo’s journey goes on,he learns new things all the time.Meeting new people,facing new chalenges,those things teach Milo that not everything is as boring as it seems.Milo also learns that by using his imagenation & his smarts,he can solve almost every problem that comes his way.By using his imagenation & his smarts even his biggest problem can become his smallest worry.
In this essay I proved that Milo is a remarkable boy because he learns to use his imagenation.By using your imagenation anything is possible.
Who is the first person Milo meets in the Lands Beyond?a.
How does Milo get out of the Doldrums?a.
Who sent Milo the tollbooth?d.
Why did Azaz and the Mathemagician banish Rhyme and Reason?c.
Who keeps Dynne in a bottle?b.
What sort of music does Chroma’s orchestra play?d.
Why does the Soundkeeper lock all the sounds up in her vault?a.
What does the Mathemagician give Milo as a gift?a.
Why does Milo mistake the Gelatinous Giant for a mountain?c.
How many years is Milo’s prison sentence from Officer Shrift?d.
How do Milo, Tock, and the Humbug get off the island of Conclusions?a.
Why does the Humbug accompany Milo and Tock on their quest to save Rhyme and Reason?d.
How did Faintly Macabre end up in prison?c.
Why does Alec Bings float?b.
Where does Milo meet Tock?c.
How does Milo get a sound out of the Soundkeeper’s fortress?b.
How do Milo, Tock, and the Humbug escape the Terrible Trivium?a.
What is the one thing the Senses Taker can’t get from Milo?d.
How is it that Tock can fly?b.
How much times passes in the real world while Milo is off in the Lands Beyond?d.
Why didn’t Azaz tell Milo his mission was impossible?c.
When does Milo plan to make his second trip to the Lands Beyond?d.
(A)the next day.
B)the next week.
C)the next month.
D)when he starts to appreciate things in the real world.
what is the biggest number the mathemagition has?(D)
How does Milo overcome his fear of the Demon of Insincerity?c.
What gift does the Soundkeeper give Milo?c.
Chapter 7 is just one chapter that is rich in idioms. Here are a few that can be found in that chapter alone:
how time flies…Time flies when your doing somthing.
splitting hairs…the minister splits hairs.
make hay while the sun shines…I told you to make hay while the sun shines.
leave no stone unturned…I told you to leave no stone unturned.
eat my words…When i don`t say something i want to, i eat my words.
in one ear and out the other…The things i hear go in one ear and out the other.
bite off more than you can chew…I bit of more than i can chew.
a square meal…Today i had a square meal.
Do you know what those mean? Try to make up a sentence using each idiom above correctly. List all Idioms you can find…I found…how time flies,make mountians out of moleholes,splits hairs,makes hay while the sun shines,leaves no stone unturned,eat my words,not to bite of more then you can chew,in one ear and out the other,if it isn`t one thing it`s another,out of the friying pan and into the fire,you don`t have to bite my head off.
Now you are ready to practice what you’ve learned about idioms. Try these activities:
I Really Meant
For this activity you will need your list of idioms from The Phantom Tollbooth that you made above, a 12″x18″ piece of construction paper, and some art supplies.
Begin by folding the paper into thirds and label each third as follows.
The first section should be labeled “When I said…”
The second section should be labeled “I did not mean…”
The third section should be labeled “I meant…”
Now, choose an idiom and write it in the first section. For example, “When I said a square meal”
In the second section draw the literal – or the real meaning of that phrase – in this case an actual square meal on a square plate with square food and a square glass.
In the third section draw that figurative meaning – in this case a square meal is a balanced meal – and the picture should illustrate that.
Make other posters for other idioms and discuss the “What I said/What I meant” meanings with your parent.
Paint by Idioms
Here is a great way to reinforce idioms. This game can be played online and it has several levels and categories: http://www.funbrain.com/idioms/index.html
Complete this idiom review worksheet.
Directions: Write the meanings of these frequently used idioms:
1. catch a cold _become sick with a cold.________________________
2. see eye to eye_to agree with someone about someone or something_______________________
3. under the weather__out of sorts___________________
4. stuffed to the gills__full up___________________
5. out of the frying pan and into the fire__out of he frying pan and into the fire______
6. slow boat to China__slowmoving___________________
7. nose to the grindstone__very close_________________
8. on pins and needles__very sharp___________________
9. fly off the handle__come of_____________________
10. toot your own horn__blow___________________
11. pie in the sky__something up there________________________
12. head in the sand__underground______________________
13. lay down the law__put up rules_____________________
14. born yesterday__something you remember from looking a something________________________
15. feel like a million__feels like alot______________________
16. just what the doctor ordered__something your suposed to do______________
17. hold your horses_slow down________________________
18. cat has your tongue__don`t know what to say_____________________
19. going bananas__going crazy _________________________
20. bury the hatchet__cover up________________________
Now that you are good at using idioms, keep an eye out for more as you continue reading The Phantom Tollbooth.
Please write 2 paragraphs….
What would have happened to Milo if Tock had not shown up in the Doldrums? Would he have stayed there forever…
He would have stayed and did what the lethargarians did.He would have not known how to get out of the doldrums.Milo didn`t know what to think of lethargarians at first and then got used to then as the day went on.
If Tock hadn`t come,Milo would be stuck in the doldrums intill someone like Tock came to tell him to use his imagenation.I bet Milo was very glad to get out of the doldrums.If Tock hadn`t come I bet Milo would be stuck in the doldrums with the lethargarians still.
Why is Milo so bored before he goes to the Lands Beyond? Milo is bored because he thinks that the journey is pointless.
What is the meaning of Faintly Macabre’s story? It`s meaning is to get Milo ecited for the journey.
Why does the Humbug come along on Milo’s journey? He comes along because he wants to take credit for the idea.
Why does Milo fail at conducting Chroma’s orchestra? He fails because he dosen`t know how to conduct the orchestra.
Please write 2 paragraphs….
What lessons could the Soundkeeper learn from Dischord and Dynne?
The soundkeeper could learn that loud noises aren`t all bad.From taking away all the sound from the silent valley,no one is able to talk.They have to write averything they want to say.
She could also learn that silance isn`t the only answer to every problem that pops up.Silance is good for some things but not all of them.silance is good for when your anoyed,but no all the time.sometimes peopleneed to talk to each other.
Phantom Tollbooth Guide
Lesson 4: Guided Reading: Chapters 5-8
An idiom is a phrase which has a different meaning from the meaning of its separate words. Idioms are expressions we use to convey a certain meaning or idea. Idioms have an “understood” meaning rather than an actual or literal one.
Here is an example. When we say that it is “raining cats and dogs” what we are really saying is that is it raining very hard. That is the meaning we are trying to convey. We don’t mean that cats and dogs are actually falling from the sky. So the “real” meaning of those words isn’t what we are really saying – we are using the non-literal, or the idiom meaning to let someone else know how hard the rain is!
Idioms make our language colorful and expressive, but they can often be challenging as well. In this lesson, think about both the literal, or real meaning, as well as the non-literal meaning of idioms.
Think about these idioms. Do you know what they mean?
You took the words right out of my mouth.
I’m all ears.
I’m going to hit the books.
You’re making a mountain out of a mole hill.
Let’s take a look at each one. When you say “You took the words right out of my mouth” did someone actually take words out of your mouth? No, that idiom means that someone said just what you were thinking or wanting to say.
When you say “I’m all ears” are you literally covered with ears? No, that idiom means that you are listening very carefully.
If you “hit the books” do you really, physically hit them? No, that idiom means that you are going to study hard or really spend time with the books.
When someone says you are “making a mountain out of a molehill” does that mean you are building a mountain where a molehill was? No, that idiom means that you are making something much more important than it actually is or blowing something out of proportion.
Look here: http://eslcafe.com/idioms/id-list.html for a detailed list of idioms.
Now, skim through the story and record as many idioms as you can in 5 minutes below. Ready – go!
Don`t bite off more then you can chew. In one ear and out the other. If it isn`t one thing its the other. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. You don`t have to bite my head of.
Those are some idioms that I found in the book.
To get ready for your next reading assignment, think about the characters that you’ve met in the story so far. If you need to remember who they are – take a moment to review the story. You may also want to keep a list of the characters as you read.
Write the names of the characters you have met here:The Whether Man,The Lethargarians,Milo,Tock(the watch dog),The gateman,King Azaz,The Duke of Definition,The Minister of Meaning,The Earl of Essence,The Count of Connotation,The Undersecretary of Understanding,The spelling Bee and The Humbug.
Here is your next assignment: Read Chapters 9 through 12.
nonsense , ridiculous , fantastic , absurd & bosh
1. turnpike & tollbooth A turnpike is a tollgate & a tollbooth is a booth where you collect tolls.
2. lethargic , expectation & doldrums Lethargic means of,pertaining to,or affected with lethargy,drowsy,sluggish;expectation is the act or state of expecting & doldrums means a dull,listless,depressed mood,low spirits.
3&4. quagmire , flabbergast & upholstery Quagmire means anything soft or flabby;flabbergast means to overcome with suprise and bewilderment,astound & upholstery means the materials used to cushion and covr furniture.
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| 0.938263 | 3,016 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Dr. Andrew Greenberger, periodontist and participating Delta Dental dentist, says you may not think twice about your teeth as a health indicator, but they could reveal clues that you're at risk for serious disease.
Chances are you know someone with diabetes with nearly 26 million Americans suffering from the disease1. Luckily, we have a built-in system in our body to warn us if we're at risk. In fact, it's right in our mouths. Did you know that your dentist can look in your mouth and see evidence of more than 120 diseases? Often, these are early signs or symptoms of serious health problems elsewhere in our bodies, like diabetes.
Not only that, but if you have a serious health problem like diabetes, you may also have gum disease. Diabetics are more prone to infection, and gum disease is an infection. In addition, if you have gum disease, it's likely you're at risk for a serious health problem like diabetes. If this sounds like a vicious circle, it is. That's because poor oral health leads to poor overall health. The same is true for good oral health leading to good overall health.
Take note if you are among the 79 million Americans who have a condition called pre-diabetes2. If so, you're at risk for developing Type 2 diabetes within 10 years. Keeping up on your oral health just might help you stay out of the danger zone.
Regular visits to the dentist can help potential diabetics get an early warning sign that they should be on the alert. Such visits can help the rest of us protect our oral health and our overall health.
This is true even if you wear a partial or full set of dentures. Your dentist can still check for signs of serious health problems, as well as changes in your bite and the fit of your dentures.
Check-ups also help dentists catch the early stages of periodontal disease. This can both reduce any pain or financial cost associated with more severe forms. If caught early enough, periodontal disease can be arrested.
Awareness is the first defense. Protect your oral health and you'll increase the chances for a long, healthy life.
message is courtesy of the Delta Dental of New Jersey Foundation. For
information about the Delta Dental of New Jersey and Delta Dental of New Jersey
Foundation, visit www.deltadentalnj.com,
Dental of New Jersey Foundation Facebook page, Delta Dental of New Jersey Facebook page, or
contact Kimberly Elmore at (973) 944-4555 or [email protected]
1 Centers for Disease Control, http://www.diabetes.org/news-research/news/diabetes-in-the-news/number-of-americans-with.html
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| 0.932362 | 585 | 2.546875 | 3 |
What do biofuels look like on the Wisconsin landscape? Some might think of corn or switchgrass. But what about that herd of cows?
What you can’t see might fool you. Cows are walking natural biodigesters, says CALS bacteriology professor Garret Suen. Their rumens are filled with rich bacterial communities that break down the cellulose found in feed into nutrients usable by the animal.
“The cow is arguably one of the most efficient cellulose degraders around, and the main reason why is that we’ve domesticated them to be that way through selection,” Suen explains. “What I argue is that we didn’t just domesticate the cow, we domesticated their microbes.”
Efficiently breaking down cellulose into simpler usable materials—a key challenge in biofuel production—is a feat naturally performed primarily by microbes. “A cow couldn’t exist without its bacteria, because it has no way on its own to break down the plants that it eats,” he says.
Suen, a researcher with the Wisconsin Bioenergy Initiative, is exploring the workings of the ruminant system in the hope of harnessing its power for industrial applications. He’s focusing on three strains of bacteria in the rumen that use different strategies to degrade cellulose. Drawing upon his background in both computational biology and genomics, Suen is using next-generation sequencing to hone in on the individual genes, enzymes and other proteins used by each and how they work together.
“Understanding the different ways that nature has come up with to degrade recalcitrant plant material will be very useful,” he says.
To date, Suen’s research group has identified some sets of genes they believe are involved, including some interesting surprises that he isn’t quite ready to share. He recently received a five-year, $750,000 early career award from the U.S. Department of Energy to advance the project. Suen hopes the work could ultimately extend even beyond bioenergy.
“Understanding how the microbes are breaking down these plant biomasses doesn’t only impact biofuels. It also has implications for areas like improving digestibility of feed and nutrient yield for the cow—which could directly affect everything from milk production to feed costs to beef quality,” he says.
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| 0.948522 | 494 | 3.59375 | 4 |
NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has discovered an extraordinary outburst by a black hole in the spiral galaxy M83, located about 15 million light years from Earth. Using Chandra, astronomers found a new ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX), objects that give off more X-rays than most "normal" binary systems in which a companion star is in orbit around a neutron star or black hole.
On the left is an optical image of M83 from the Very Large Telescope in Chile, operated by the European Southern Observatory. On the right is a composite image showing X-ray data from Chandra in pink and optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope in blue and yellow. The ULX is located near the bottom of the composite image (mouseover for the exact position).
In Chandra observations that spanned several years, the ULX in M83 increased in X-ray brightness by at least 3,000 times. This sudden brightening is one of the largest changes in X-rays ever seen for this type of object, which do not usually show dormant periods.
Optical images reveal a bright blue source at the position of the ULX during the X-ray outburst. Before the outburst the blue source is not seen. These results imply that the companion to the black hole in M83 is a red giant star, more than about 500 million years old, with a mass less than about four times the Sun's. According to theoretical models for the evolution of stars, the black hole should be almost as old as its companion.
Astronomers think that the bright, blue optical emission seen during the X-ray outburst must have been caused by a disk surrounding the black hole that brightened dramatically as it gained more material from the companion star.
Another highly variable ULX with an old, red star as a companion to a black hole was found recently in M31. The new ULXs in M83 and M31 provide direct evidence for a population of black holes that are much older and more volatile than those usually considered to be found in these objects.
The researchers estimate a mass range for the M83 ULX from 40 to 100 times that of the Sun. Lower masses of about 15 times the mass of the Sun are possible, but only if the ULX is producing more X-rays than predicted by standard models of how material falls onto black holes.
Evidence was also found that the black hole in this system may have formed from a star surprisingly rich in "metals", as astronomers call elements heavier than helium. The ULX is located in a region that is known, from previous observations, to be rich with metals.
Large numbers of metals increase the mass-loss rate for massive stars, decreasing their mass before they collapse. This, in turn, decreases the mass of the resulting black hole. Theoretical models suggest that with a high metal content only black holes with masses less than about 15 times that of the Sun should form. Therefore, these results may challenge these models.
This surprisingly rich "recipe" for a black hole is not the only possible explanation. It may also be that the black hole is so old that it formed at a time when heavy elements were much less abundant in M83, before seeding by later generations of supernovas. Another explanation is that the mass of the black hole is only about 15 times that of the Sun.
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by Staff Writers
Cleveland OH (SPX) Mar 18, 2014
New evidence gathered by NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft at Mercury indicates the planet closest to the sun has shrunk up to 7 kilometers in radius over the past 4 billion years, much more than earlier estimates.
The new finding, published in the journal Nature Geoscience Sunday, March 16, solves an apparent enigma about Mercury's evolution.
Older images of surface features indicated that, despite cooling over its lifetime, the rocky planet had barely shrunk at all. But modeling of the planet's formation and aging could not explain that finding.
Now, Paul K. Byrne and Christian Klimczak at the Carnegie Institution of Washington have led a team that used MESSENGER's detailed images and topographic data to build a comprehensive map of tectonic features. That map suggests Mercury shrunk substantially as it cooled, as rock and metal that comprise its interior are expected to.
"With MESSENGER, we have now obtained images of the entire planet at high resolution and, crucially, at different angles to the sun that show features Mariner 10 could not in the 1970s," said Steven A. Hauck, II, a professor of planetary sciences at Case Western Reserve University and the paper's co-author.
Mariner 10, the first spacecraft sent to explore Mercury, gathered images and data over just 45% of the surface during three flybys in 1974 and 1975. MESSENGER, which launched in 2004 and was inserted into orbit in 2011, continues collecting scientific data, completing its 2,900th orbit of Mercury later this month.
Mercury's surface differs from Earth's in that its outer shell, called the lithosphere, is made up of one tectonic plate instead of multiple plates.
To help gauge how the planet may have shrunk, the researchers looked at tectonic features, called lobate scarps and wrinkle ridges, which result from interior cooling and surface compression. The features resemble long ribbons from above, ranging from 5 to more than 550 miles long.
Lobate scarps are cliffs caused by thrust faults that have broken the surface and reach up to nearly 2 miles high. Wrinkle ridges are caused by faults that don't extend as deep and tend to have lower relief. Surface materials from one side of the fault ramp up and fold over, forming a ridge. The scientists mapped a total of 5,934 of the tectonic features.
The scarps and ridges have much the same effect as a tailor making a series of tucks to take in the waist of a pair of pants.
With the new data, the researchers were able to see a greater number of these faults and estimate the shortening across broad sections of the surface and thus estimate the decrease in the planet's radius.
They estimate the planet has contracted between 4.6 and 7 kilometers in radius.
"This is significantly greater than the 1 to maybe 2 kilometers reported earlier on the basis of Mariner 10 data," Hauck said.
And, importantly, he said, models built on the main heat-producing elements in planetary interiors, as detected by MESSENGER, support contraction in the range now documented.
One striking aspect of the form and distribution of surface tectonic features on Mercury is that they are largely consistent with some early explanations about the features of Earth's surface, before the theory of plate tectonics made them obsolete-at least for Earth, Hauck said.
So far, Earth is the only planet known to have tectonic plates instead of a single, outer shell.
The findings, therefore, can provide limits and a framework to understand how planets cool-their thermal, tectonic and volcanic history. So, by looking at Mercury, scientists learn not just about planets in our solar system, but about the increasing number of rocky planets being found around other stars.
Case Western Reserve University
News Flash at Mercury
Mars News and Information at MarsDaily.com
Lunar Dreams and more
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3. Avoid the Dirty Dozen. The Dirty Dozen is a list that contains the top 12 most pesticide contaminated fruits and vegetables based on analysis completed by the USDA and the Food and Drug Administration. Pesticides are designed to kill living organisms such as insects, plants, and fungi that are considered to be pests.
They are toxic by design and pose severe health risks to people, however, the doses are often declared safe by industry and government. Avoid the most contaminated fruits and vegetables by purchasing organic versions. The Dirty Dozen includes peaches, apples, bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, kale, lettuce, imported grapes, carrots and pears.
4. Eat Less Beef and Dairy Products. This may be the single most effective way for individuals to lower their food-climate impact. Researchers estimate that shifting to a one day per week or less meat based meals will reduce greenhouse emissions by 51 percent. Buy organic, local, and grass-fed meat and dairy products since they are produced without synthetic pesticides and herbicides, and they use less fossil fuel.
5. Choose Wild Alaskan Salmon. Not only is salmon popular, it is good for brain and heart health and is known to reduce inflammation. Choose wild Alaskan salmon when available as it has the least amount of PCP contamination, or choose organic farmed salmon.
Farmed salmon from Washington State and Chile have the lowest contaminant levels of PCP in the farmed category. Canned salmon, which usually contains wild Alaskan salmon, is also a good choice.
Buying fish that has been caught through sustainable methods will help ensure their availability in the future. The best choices for fish are the ones that are the most abundant, well managed, and caught or farmed in environmentally safe ways.
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| 0.952122 | 369 | 3.265625 | 3 |
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