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Mark Perry has posted some interesting comparison of how prices have plummeted between 1958 and 2012 when measured in terms of the hours of work required to purchase items. He concludes that today’s consumer working at the average wage of $19.19 would only have to work 26.6 hours (a little more than three days) to earn enough income ($511) to purchase a toaster, TV and iPod. The equivalent products (in terms of their basic function, not their quality) would have required 4.64 weeks of work in 1958. In short, the “time cost” of these items has massively declined by 86% in less than 5 decades.
Similarly, Perry calculates that measured in the amount of time working at the average hourly wage to earn enough income to purchase a washer-dryer combination, the “time cost” of those two appliances together has fallen by 83%, from 181.8 hours in 1959 to only 31 hours today.
What if we applied this kind of analysis to health care? The results are quite interesting. In 1958, per capita health expenditures were $134. This may seem astonishingly small, but it actually includes everything, inclusive of care paid for by government or private health insurers. A worker earning the average wage in 1958 ($1.98) would have had to work 118 hours—nearly 15 days--to cover this expense. By 2012, per capita health spending had climbed to $8,953. At the average wage, a typical worker would have to work 467 hours—about 58 days.
In short, while time prices for other goods and services had shrunk to less than one quarter of their 1958 levels, time prices for health care had more than quadrupled!
Of course, health care in 2012 is vastly different and greatly improved compared to what was available in 1958. But the same can be said of other goods and services (Perry, for example, is comparing the cost of an iPod to 4-speed automatic record player). This simple comparison reminds us of three basic truths. In general, private markets tend to produce steadily lower prices in real terms (e.g., in worker time costs) and steadily rising quality. This is exactly what we observe for goods such as toasters, TVs, iPods, washers and dryers. In contrast, while the quality of health care unequivocably has risen since 1958, real spending on health care has climbed dramatically. This isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison insofar as the bundle of goods and services that constitute health care is also much larger today than in 1958. In contrast, even though the quality may be better, a washing machine in 2012 is still a washing machine. If we were willing to rely more on markets in medicine, we might be able to harness the superior ability of Americans to find good value for the money to produce results more similar to other goods.
Second, over time, we as a nation have been able to afford more health care precisely because the time cost of other goods and services has declined. For the same number of hours worked, workers can enjoy the same standard of living even as they allocate more of their working time to purchasing health care. There is nothing wrong with this. The only issue is whether we are getting good value for the money when we buy health care. With only 11 cents of every health dollar paid directly out-of-pocket, I think most of us can honestly say “no.”
Anyone who is skeptical on this point should do the following mental experiment: if I promised to pay 89 percent of the cost of your groceries, would what you buy be different? Most students I ask freely concede that they would buy things they would not otherwise buy and might well pay higher prices even for things they would have bought anyway. The difference between the cost of your weekly groceries when you buy them with your own money (say, $100) and what you spend when someone else is paying most of the bill (say, $150) is not pure waste. There is some added value to you from those extra groceries. But that value cannot exceed the added cost else you would have bought them on your own in the first place. The difference between that added cost and your own estimate of the added value is what an economist would call waste. According to the Institute of Medicine, we wasted about $765 billion in health care in 2009—about 30 percent of all spending.
Finally, this rate of increase is not sustainable. The time price of health spending cannot quadruple again over the next half century, else the average worker is likely to experience a decline in his or her real standard of living (i.e., what can be afforded after paying for health care). To paraphrase the former president of AEI, “we cannot make health care affordable by picking each other’s pockets.” The sooner policymakers recognize this basic truth, the sooner we can get on a path towards sustainable growth in health care expenditures.
Sarah Kliff had a nice follow-on piece in the Washington Post that elaborates on my chart and some possible explanations for why consumers are so much less cost conscious in health care.
As well, one could argue that the average worker does not purchase the average per capita amount of health care since there are all sorts of cross-subsidies created by private and public insurance as well as U.S. tax policy. But at the end of the day, today’s health spending is financed by today’s workers, so if anything, the very rough picture I’ve provided is overly optimistic. On a per worker basis, total U.S. health spending this year will amount to $21,280, which would require an average-paid worker 1,108 hours of work to finance (and even more when taxes are taken into account). In reality, there are few U.S. workers who have to devote more than half a year to bankrolling their health care. The average hourly earnings figure I am using is only for production and nonsupervisory employees in manufacturing. Many other workers, including those in management and entrepreneurs, do not earn an hourly wage. And the costs of government-financed health care—which now accounts for more than 60 percent of health spending—tends to be borne more by those with the highest incomes.
In fairness, when health economists have tried to measure the real prices of health treatments such as for heart attacks, they sometimes have found these have declined, though not nearly as rapidly as the decline in prices for goods and services analyzed by Perry.
The original quote, from Christopher DeMuth, was “we cannot all grow wealthier by picking each other's pockets.” |
This is a “mathematics appreciation” book, consisting of numerous mathematical vignettes, all of them accessible to people with little (say, high-school level) mathematical training, and all of them loosely — sometimes very loosely — organized under the theme of mathematical mistakes. Accuracy of the title requires, however, that all three terms “magnificent,” “mistakes,” and “mathematics” be interpreted fairly broadly.
When I first heard that I was going to be reviewing this book, I idly amused myself by trying to guess what mistakes would be covered. I had assumed from the title that the book would concentrate on famous mistakes in mathematics that, although incorrect, nevertheless led to enhanced insight into, or development of, the subject. In other words, I thought that this book would do for mathematics what Livio’s book Brilliant Blunders: From Darwin to Einstein — Colossal Mistakes by Great Scientists That Changed our Understanding of Life and the Universe apparently (based on the description; I haven’t read it) does for science.
The one example that jumped immediately to mind- perhaps because I had just finished reviewing a book that approached abstract algebra from the perspective of Fermat’s Last Theorem — was Lamé’s famous incorrect proof, using factorization in the ring of cyclotomic integers, of that result; the error was the assumption of unique factorization in a ring that did not (necessarily) have it, and that error is directly related to the development of algebraic number theory.
In fact, however, my assumption was incorrect; the book’s focus is on much more elementary mistakes in mathematics. Lamé’s error is mentioned in this book, but only in passing: while the authors discuss Fermat’s Last Theorem — the primary “mistake” here being Fermat’s likely error in assuming that he had a proof — it is stated that Lamé thought he had a correct proof, but didn’t; the details of his mistake are not provided, presumably because they would be tough going for the book’s intended audience. Most of the mistakes referred to in this book, in fact, are not the kind of errors that significantly advanced the development of our subject, but are instead of the easy “brain teaser” variety, the analysis of which could easily show up as an exercise in a college mathematics text.
The first chapter of the book is entitled “Noteworthy Mistakes by Famous Mathematicians”, and recounts about 20 errors. The discussions range from a few paragraphs to a few pages in length, and vary also in quality and interest. In some cases, the mistake in question is discussed substantively, as in, for example, Chevalier de Méré’s mistaken idea that the probability of tossing a six on four tosses of a single die is the same as the probability of tossing a double-six on 24 tosses of a pair of dice. This mistake actually did prompt serious mathematical discussion and helped advance the modern theory of probability.
Unfortunately, however, in a number of the vignettes of this chapter, the notion of “mistake” seems almost an afterthought, an excuse for shoe-horning a discussion of some interesting mathematics into a book entitled Magnificent Mistakes. For example, there is a brief discussion of Catalan’s Conjecture — which turned out not to be a mistake; the conjecture was eventually proved — in which the authors state that there “were many mistaken attempts at proving this conjecture”, and leave it at that. Likewise, the authors mention several currently open problems in number theory (including Goldbach’s conjecture, the twin primes conjecture and the Collatz conjecture) and simply say that mistakes have been made in attempting to prove these. There may undoubtedly have been a number of mistaken attempts at proving these results, but absent some indication of what the mistakes were, it remains unclear what value, if any, these mistakes had.
Some other mistakes mentioned here are rather dry and technical. We learn, for example, that Legendre mistakenly asserted that there do not exist positive rational numbers r and s satisfying r3 + s3 = 6, but in fact the equation does have the solution r= 17/21, s= 37/21. That’s nice, but other than the interest of seeing that even somebody of Legendre’s skills could be wrong about something, why would anybody care about this? The authors don’t say.
Finally, at least one of the mistakes mentioned in this first chapter is nothing more than a typo. Enrico Fermi once wrote down an equation on a blackboard in which he interchanged two symbols; unfortunately, this was photographed in 1948 and that photograph then wound up on a postage stamp (actually two postage stamps — the authors reproduce a picture of a 2001 American stamp commemorating the one hundredth anniversary of Fermi’s birth, but there is also an Italian postage stamp with the same error appearing on it. You can see them both at http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1683.htm). This was an amusing bit of trivia that I hadn’t known about previously, but I would hardly call it a “magnificent mistake”.
The rest of the book is divided into four chapters, discussing mistakes in each of the areas of arithmetic, algebra, geometry and probability, respectively. The mistakes mentioned here are, as previously noted, quite elementary (lots of illustrations, for example, of why it’s not good to divide by 0, or to forget the possibility of negative square roots), and are comparable to the errors discussed in the book Paradoxes and Sophisms in Calculus by Klymchuk and Staples, reviewed some months back in this column. A number of the mistakes discussed here consist of obviously false results (1=0, all triangles are isosceles, etc.) with so-called “proofs” containing hidden flaws in them; the geometry chapter, in particular, has quite a few of these. Many of them could probably be used as fodder for homework assignments or brief comments in lectures. However, one of the really historic mistakes in geometry (the mistaken idea that the Euclidean parallel postulate can be proved as a theorem) is unfortunately not mentioned.
In these four chapters, as in the first one, I sometimes had the impression that the authors were stretching things to bring something within the ambit of the book’s title. For example, about half a dozen mistakes recounted in the chapter on geometry were nothing more than standard optical illusions, including, for example, the old chestnut of determining which of two lines (both the same length, but one with arrows at the end pointing in and the other with the arrows pointing out) is longer. I’ll grant that this arguably is an example of a mistake, but I’m not even sure how it amounts to “mathematics”, let alone “magnificent”. And, in the chapter on probability, there were a few examples that were completely divorced from mistakes: at one point, for example, the authors devote a short section to questions like “how many ways can the sum of two prime numbers add up to 999?” They correctly point out that for the sum of two integers to be odd, one must be even and the other odd; since the only even prime is 2, the only possible sum is 2 + 997. This is a cute, albeit pretty obvious, example and I can see using it as a homework problem in an introductory course in abstract algebra or number theory, but where is the “mistake” here? If it is “not thinking before you attempt the problem”, then just about any example of mathematical reasoning could be used as an illustration.
I thought the last chapter, on probability and statistics, was probably the most successful and in keeping with the promise of the book’s title. Probability is notorious for being counter-intuitive, of course, and several mistakes in this area actually have had the effect of advancing substantive knowledge. There were nice discussions in this chapter on the birthday and Monty Hall problems, as well as other mistakes, the analysis of which enhance the reader’s understanding of combinatorics, probability, or statistics. For example, the authors point out how to count the number of ways of filling in a mini-Sudoku board (with four rows and columns rather than the traditional nine). Similar, but much more complicated, reasoning can be used to determine the total number of possible “full” Sudoku puzzles.
I do think the authors missed an opportunity in this chapter, though, by not mentioning some of the well-known cases in which probability has been misused in court. See, for example, the first two chapters of Math on Trial by Schneps and Colmez, for discussions of how the probabilities of non-independent events were multiplied in court in two criminal trials, quite possibly to the detriment of the defendants (although one never knows just how much the jury was influenced by the mathematical errors, a point that was made by Paul Edelman in his review of that book in the August 2013 issue of the Notices of the
By and large, I thought the level of exposition in the book was quite high. The material was, generally speaking, presented at a level that could be understood by the intended audience of mathematically-unsophisticated people, even high school students. On one or two occasions, I had some concern with the way things were done, because I thought the discussion actually had the potential to misinform. For example, the authors pose the following question, to which they offer both an incorrect solution and a correct one: consider a machine “that contains countless non-transparent balls”, every fifth one of which contains a $5 bill; the others have no money in them. If three balls are chosen simultaneously, what is the probability that none of them contain any money? The “correct” answer provided by the authors is (4/5)3, which is correct only when the number of balls is literally infinite, which of course is not possible in practice. When the number of balls is finite the answer is not (4/5)3, but the discussion may lead some people to believe otherwise. At the end of the discussion the authors do give the correct answer when the total number of balls is five but they fail, I think, to adequately explain just where the “countless” assumption is used and why it is necessary.
These kinds of issues were the exception rather than the rule, however. Because of the generally good writing style, and also because of the short length of most of the vignettes presented here (few exceed three pages), this book might prove useful as leisure reading by a bright high school student or by a teacher looking for an interesting thing to talk about in class or assign as a homework problem.
The book could, however, benefit from a better table of contents. The current one lists only the five chapters and their titles and makes no effort to list the individual errors. That may be understandable, because there are lots of these, but some effort to provide a listing would, say, facilitate the efforts of a teacher looking for a particular example to use in class, especially since the various vignettes seem to be randomly strew around. (There is, admittedly, a decent index, but that doesn’t seem to be as useful as a table of contents would be.)
Summary: although I think the title of the book should be taken with a huge grain of salt, there are some interesting things to be found here. I doubt very many people will read this book cover-to-cover, but it is certainly worth flipping through.
Mark Hunacek ([email protected]) teaches mathematics at Iowa State University, and is grateful that nobody has ever photographed some of the things that he has occasionally written on a blackboard. |
What Is Different?
A kaleidoscope of colour and ideas, What is Different? is a celebration of the uninhibited creativity of our young people in the face of crisis.
When schools closed during Queensland’s lockdown life became very different for everyone, especially for young people. Children were at home more than usual, routines were different, playdates were cancelled and lessons moved from the classroom to the home. As the coronavirus pandemic began to unfold, the Gallery of Children’s Art (GoCA) asked children across Queensland: “what is different?”. From kindergartens to primary schools, this question prompted students to reflect and respond to their changing global, local and personal situations through art, helping them to express their ideas and emotions.
Full of innovation, humour and heart, this exhibition is one to put on your to-see list. Head to the Museum of Brisbane website to learn more.
Image credit: Museum of Brisbane |
Root Cause Analysis of the I-35 Bridge Collapse
Cause Mapping the 2007 I-35 Bridge Collapse
Root Cause Analysis Overview
US bridges have gotten some attention for potential structural issues. Some structural engineering experts have even suggested that up to 8000 US bridges are in need of remodeling
However, the last truly fatal major US bridge collapse occurred in 2007. Three major bridges collapsed in the United States that year:
- Harp Road Bridge in Greys Harbor County, WA collapsed under the weight of a truck hauling an excavator (none killed or injured)
- MacArthur Maze in Oakland, CA collapsed when a fire from a tanker truck crash and explosion weakened steel support sections of the bridge (one injured in initial crash; no injuries from collapse)
- I-35 collapse in Minneapolis, MN
The I-35 Bridge stands out in this group for the tremendous damage it caused. It was the most expensive of the three collapses. More importantly, it was the only one of the three that was fatal. The bridge also had poor past assessments from US regulatory agencies, raising questions surrounding state upkeep and maintenance procedures.
A hindsight view of the collapse offers new knowledge of how we should maintain bridges. Our Cause Map, built through our own unique, rigorous method of Root Cause Analysis, aims to provide all important information and assess potential solutions by determining the acceptable level of risk.
Root Cause Analysis Step #1: Define the Problem
Defining the I-35 Bridge Collapse
Cause Mapping any incident requires first asking four questions:
What is the problem?
If you were facilitating a Cause Mapping session all of those who might have knowledge of the I-35 Bridge collapse an asked for the reason it fell, you would hear:
“It was the initial structure of the bridge.”
“Yes, but if periodic inspections had included the proper steps, the collapse could have been bypassed. THAT’S the root cause.”
“I think the problem is the fatalities. We really should focus on that because that’s what we want to prevent.”
And our Root Cause Analysis experts write all of these ideas down objectively, then analyze them later in our Root Cause Analysis exercise.
When did it happen?
This is the “starting point” of the incident. This includes focusing on the specific time, date, and location of the incident. Fortunately, security cameras and traffic monitoring allow us to pinpoint the exact time when the bridge began to fall: 6:05 p.m. on August 1, 2007.
Aside from the collapsing bridge, we can also captures several key differences at the time of this incident as opposed to all the other times the bridge remained standing. These key fundamental differences help us better assess solutions once we complete our Cause Map. The bridge collapsed during evening rush hour, and there was roadwork underway on the bridge.
Where did it happen?
The incident took place while at Bridge 9340 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which crossed the Mississippi River.
How did it impact the goals?
The collapse affected five distinct types of goals for the state: Safety, Environmental, Customer Service, Production/Schedule and Materials/Labor.
The Safety Goal is where we will start. The fatalities and injuries are our major overall concern. 13 people were killed and 145 were injured.
The Environmental Goal impact in this case is also something the State of Minnesota would want to avoid, but we don’t know the exact fallout. So we add a question mark to that part of the description at the top of our Cause Map. That way, we can continue to consider this impact while we (or other researchers) continue to gather research about this impact.
The Customer Service Goal and Production/Schedule Goal were affected because the loss of the bridge represented the loss of a major transportation route for more than 140,000 vehicles a day. This results in a major inconvenience for citizens.
The commuting issue also directly impacted the Material/Labor Costs. The loss of the bridge resulted in an additional $400,000 per day in commuting costs. There were 414 days between the bridge collapse and the opening of the replacement bridge on September 18, 2008, resulting in a total of over $165 million. The estimated loss to the economy was $60 million. And the cost to replace the bridge was $234 million, for a grand total of almost half a billion dollars.
The last piece of information we want to record is the frequency of the incident. Since the Cause Map is created from the perspective of the State of Minnesota as the principal organization, we have filled out our outline from the State’s perspective. Catastrophic interstate bridge failures in Minnesota are infrequent.
Root Cause Analysis Step #2. Identify the Causes (Analysis)
I-35 Bridge Collapse Analysis
Writing down goals is a key starting point for any Root Cause Analysis. From there, the key is to ask why something happened and we can trace the incident’s causes to create a Cause Map, an extremely effective Root Cause Analysis tool.
The lives of those injured and killed in this incident are the top priority in this situation, so we start with our safety goal and work directly backwards to injuries and fatalities. 13 people were killed and 145 were injured.
We continue to work backward by asking “Why?” each individual step in our Cause Map happened until we develop a chain of relationships between causes and potential causes. A good rule of thumb to begin a Cause Map is to simply ask “Why?” five times in a row. This is called “The Five Whys” method.
The deaths and injuries took place because
the main span of the bridge collapsed.
This process continues as we build our Cause Map. Why did the main span of the bridge collapse? Because the gusset plate fractured.
This image shows a fracture in a gusset plate that played a key role in the collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge. (National Transportation Safety Board photo)
To clarify, this is a photo of a gusset plate:
Interstate 35W Bridge Main Truss Node (National Transportation Safety Board photo)
You have probably seen these on bridges before. They are essential to the structural integrity of the bridge. Gusset plates support the joints of the bridge. In this case, the plate was the joint supporting the bridge’s main span.
And why did the gusset plate fracture? Because of the insufficient load capacity of the gusset plate. Why was there insufficient load capacity? Because the calculations that determined the load capacity were not sufficient.
Since the purpose of Root Cause Analysis is to eventually pinpoint and select acceptable solutions, it may help to add detail to your steps as you are building your Cause Map. An accurate map is essential, but not always enough to help solve the problem as it relates to your actual goals.
Because of the fatalities associated with this bridge collapse, we are going to add all the detail we can, especially in an effort to address our Safety Goal.
We can add more detail in between the causes. For example, 13 people were killed because they were in vehicles that fell into the water. The main span of the bridge collapsing CAUSED the vehicles to fall into the water, which caused the deaths.
That helps us, because we now have a better understanding of the situation as well as more room for solutions. A real Cause Map is starting to form.
We can still improve it, though. Sometimes, a cause is preceded by two required causes. For example, to break a window requires both something to strike it and the glass to be fragile enough to break.
The same can be said of the fracturing of the gusset plate. While the load capacity was a problem, a heavy load also had to be placed on the bridge to provide enough pressure to fracture it.
We add our cause vertically and draw it like this:
We can take this a step farther, too. Sometimes, when looking at a past incident, a lack of evidence may leave things uncertain. To represent that on the Cause Map, we draw a vertical relationship between causes as we did in the graphic above, but use the word OR instead of AND. In reality, only one of the causes are legitimate, but if we don’t know which one it is, we can put this in as a placeholder to continue to solve our problems.
If we name particular causes, but later dispute them and rule them out, we can cross them off the list so we remember what we considered early in the investigation.
Early on in the investigation several possibilities that could have caused the fracture of the gusset plate were considered, and later refuted. We want people who look at our map to know we've considered these possibilities, so we leave them on the map, but cross them off. Possible causes for the fracture of the gusset plate that were considered, and then refuted, were corrosion damage, preexisting cracking, and temperature effects.
Then we face an even trickier possibility that we may rule out a cause because we miss a piece of evidence, later discover that evidence and have to reconsider the cause. One way to remember why we may have done this in the first place is to add the evidence we used to rule out the cause below the box.
At this point, our Cause Map looks like this:
This Cause Map is more detailed than when we began, but there is still more helpful information we can add to the right by continuing to ask “Why?”
Why was there an increased load on the gusset plate? Because of the concentrated weight over the gusset plate and increased load on the bridge.
Why was there concentrated weight over the gusset plate? Because there were construction equipment and materials on the bridge, concentrated over the gusset plate.
The increased weight on the bridge was a result of an increased dead load on the bridge and the high volume of traffic on the bridge. Why was there a high volume of traffic on the bridge? As we will show on the Cause Map, it was rush hour, half of the lanes were closed, and there was an increase in use of the bridge from the time it was built. Why were the lanes closed? A repaving job was underway.
We use the most specific possible numbers as evidence for the increase in use, showing the exact number of vehicles it was designed to handle and how many crossed it on a regular basis at the time it collapsed.
The increase in dead load was a result of two previous repairs. Those repairs were a result of the bridge’s not meeting updates safety standards, as well as to protect the rebar (reinforcement beam) of the bridge from corrosion.
Cause Maps are excellent at demonstrating not only potential causes and solutions, but also the shortcomings of previous solutions and unintended results that may come from that decision. That way, organizations can keep that possibility in mind as they determine future solutions.
One of the causes in our Root Cause Analysis is an unintended result from a previous decision. In 1977, it was determined that there was an impact to the material and labor cost goal due to decreased life of the bridge. The decreased life was due to rebar corrosion from the rebar interacting with road chemicals. The solution was to increase the concrete overlay to protect the rebar.
Unfortunately, that solution became a cause in our Cause Map of the more recent bridge collapse.
Let’s return to a previous part of the map by focusing again on why the gusset plate fractured.
From here, diving deeper into these causes and building out a more detailed Cause Map will give us a better handle on the issue of weight on the bridge vs. the capacity to handle that weight.
Why was the load capacity of the gusset plate insufficient? Because there was insufficient design thickness of the gusset plate, as is evidenced by its ½ inch thickness rather than the standard 1 inch.
This insufficient design thickness was caused by four equally important causes:
- Calculations necessary to create the proper design thickness were not performed
- The design firm review process was not followed
- There was lack of oversight from the government
- The error went unnoticed, leaving the bridge a 40 year window of opportunity to collapse
Three of these causes have their own immediate causes we can also draw out on the Cause Map. The necessary calculations were not performed because the design was meant to be preliminary. The design firm review process was not followed because there was no procedure for ensuring all calculations had been performed. And the lack of oversight from the government resulted from the government’s review process failing to apply to gusset plates.
As for the error going unnoticed, the State of Minnesota may be able to find really solid solutions in this part of the Cause Map. If an error goes unnoticed for 40 years, it would seem there are some basic checks that could be put in place to resolve the issue.
Why did the error go unnoticed? The two inspections that may have resolved the issue were the general bridge inspections and load rating inspections (load rating inspections determine the bridge’s weight limit).
Even at this point, we can Cause Map useful, solution-focused steps to determine how the error went unnoticed in the load rating calculations. Gusset plates are not generally considered essential to the load rating and they were excluded to simplify overall analysis. The reason gusset plates are not considered important to the load rating is that there is a general assumption that gusset plates (the key joints on the bridge) are stronger than the parts they connect. And generally, this assumption is correct. However, the gusset plates in this case were not properly sized, thus compromising the strength of the bridge.
As for the second cause of the error going unnoticed (inadequate inspection of the gusset plates), we can extend our Cause Map and focus on three main reasons. The first is that the bowing (displacement) of the gusset plates went unmentioned. As you can imagine, displaced gusset plates can be detrimental to the structure of the bridge. Remember, gusset plates are joints that support other parts. The bowing of the plates is believed to have occurred during construction.
In addition to the bowing of the gusset plates, gusset plates were not listed as separate inspection elements and there was a lack of training on gusset plate inspection. These events occurred because the gusset plates were not considered an important part of the load rating.
Does this mean that discounting the importance of gusset plates to the load rating is THE root cause in our Root Cause Analysis? No.
But it does show that when you are building a Cause Map to perform extensive Root Cause Analysis of an incident, you may see a cause in multiple places.
The full Cause Map based on the information found in the NTSB report has more than 50 causes, but even more detail can be added for clarification or if additional information arises as part of the investigation. Again, due to the fatalities associated with the event, we want an extremely detailed Cause Map so we can perform a more complete root cause analysis.
Root Cause Analysis Step #3. Select the Best Solutions (Reduce the Risk)
Solving the I-35 Bridge Collapse
There are multiple causes to every issue. Depending on what level of detail you need to be able to solve your problem, you have the option of demonstrating as few or as many causes as necessary by using a Cause Map to perform root cause analysis rather than listing causes or attempting to pinpoint a root cause and stopping at that.
The detail in a given map should be worked to a point where risk can be reduced to an acceptable level. This is where debate between decision makers becomes constructive. The I-35 bridge collapse led to fatalities. Finding more causes of those fatalities may allow us to solve the issues that caused them.
to download a PDF of the Cause Map.
Root Cause Analysis Solutions for the I-35 Bridge Collapse
With a solid, creative Cause Mapping facilitation, the organizations involved could collect an incredibly high number of potential solutions. Here are just a few of those solutions.
Solution #1: Limit Weight Concentration of Construction Materials
The concentration of weight over the gusset plate caused strain and contributed to the collapse of the bridge. Had this concentration not occurred, the collapse may have been prevented.
Solution #2: Require Written Permission for Staging Materials on Bridges
There is no policy requiring permission to stage materials on the bridge. Had a permit been required, they may never have been staged, thus preventing the concentration of weight on the gusset plate.
Solution #3: Ensure Bridge Construction Inspectors Receive Bridge Instruction Training
The same people who provide oversight for bridge instruction are tasked with inspecting the bridge at a later point. Cross-training these instructors would enable them to assess the condition of the bridge.
Solution #4: Recheck Weight Analyses After Dead Weight Increases
A check after the increase in the dead weight of the bridge would have provided a more realistic understanding of the bridge’s load capability.
Solution #5: Add Gusset Plates to Design Review
This is another place where the gusset plates can be (double)checked.
Solution #6: Checklist to Make Sure All Calculations Have Been Performed
A checklist would have ensured that the design review process was followed.
Solution #7: Make Preliminary Designs Clearly
The designs for the bridge were meant to be preliminary. Clearly marking them as preliminary may have prevented them from being used as the official designs of the bridge.
Solution #8: Require Load Calculations before Use
Naturally, without load rating calculations required, the State of Minnesota was left more in the dark regarding the viability of the bridge.
Solution #9: Analyze Capacity of Gusset Plates
Rather than presume the strength of the gusset plates, an analysis of their capacity may have tipped off officials to potential problems.
Solution #10: Educate on the Importance of Gusset Plates
Gusset plates were not considered as part of the load rating. The importance of gusset plates is an essential consideration in this incident.
Solution #11: Verify Strength of Gusset Plates is Greater than the Parts that Depend on It (Members)
Normally, gusset plates are capable of supporting other parts. But when they are not properly sized, this may not happen. So verifying their strength would be useful.
Solution #12: List Gusset Plates as Specific, Separate Inspection Elements
These were not listed, contributing to an eventual incomplete review process. Listing them separately would lead to an individual, discriminating look at this essential part.
Solution #13: Add Specific Training on Gusset Plate Inspections
The process of designing, building and inspecting the bridge had plenty of assumptions. Training on the strength of gusset plates would have mitigated those assumptions with expertise.
I-35 Bridge Collapse Aftermath
Recovery efforts following the collapse of the bridge were “cautious” yet “deliberate” according to Minnesota Public Radio
. Descriptions of the site were heart-breaking. Recovery teams had to balance the need for haste in saving any potential survivors with possible danger recovery team members might face. In at least two circumstances, recovery team members could see and speak with injured civilians in the wreckage but could only watch as they passed away.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) conducted a thorough investigation after the incident. One NTSB employee had written a doctoral thesis on the potential collapse scenarios of the bridge. The thesis became an investigative tool for the incident. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) also investigated the incident, creating a computer-generated model of the bridge and contributing that tool as part of the investigative process. The FHWA advised states to inspect 700 bridges
of similar structure after its investigation.
Thanks to the improvements made after the I-35 Bridge tragedy, future collapses of this kind are highly unlikely. The aftermath investigation has taught construction crews several prevention strategies, avoiding future damage that might occur as fallout from such a collapse.
Interested in another structural failure Cause Map? Check out: |
Is the UK government’s ‘Road to Zero’ strategy ambitious enough? It sets out a goal to become a world leader in zero emission vehicle technology, with targets for 50% of new cars to be ultra low emission by 2030 and “effectively zero emission” by 2040. However, it has been criticised for cuts to subsidies, a lack of charging points and “vague and unambitious” plans in a recent report by Parliament’s business select committee. MPs are now calling for a ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars to be brought forward to 2032, 8 years earlier than currently planned.
The transition to an all-electric future will require sizeable investments in R&D, the acceleration of vehicle charging infrastructure and potential legislation for the installation of charge points in new homes. But this transition to electric vehicles (EVs) is gaining momentum. Whilst electric cars and lorries may account for a tiny percentage of vehicles on the road today (4 million electric vehicles versus over one billion petrol and diesel cars), adoption is accelerating, fast. It took over 20 years to sell the first million electric cars. Now, a million electric vehicles are sold in just four to five months.
Policy is moving fast too. Oxford plans to introduce the world’s first ‘Zero Emission Zone’ in the city centre. In London, the ultra-low emission zone will begin next year, meaning drivers will pay more if they don’t drive an electric vehicle. Around the world EV sales have been fuelled by such perks like instant vehicle registration.
In the UK, behavioural scientists believe that special green number plates for ultra-low emission cars could further boost awareness and increase the use of environmentally “clean” driving. Pilot projects have been successfully running in Norway, Canada and China on green vehicles including electric and hydrogen cars, making them both distinct and visible to other road users.
With a number of car manufacturers such as Volvo and Jaguar Land Rover announcing that they will stop launching new models powered by internal combustion engines from 2020, it doesn’t look like the adoption of low emission vehicles is likely to be a problem.
Powering the future
Although a cleaner and more environmentally-friendly alternative, EVs pose several infrastructure challenges beyond ensuring charging points are plentiful.
- In the UK, and most other countries, our energy grids (transmission and distribution networks) will be severely stretched to satisfy the growing adoption of electrical vehicles on the road (growth in EV use will require a potential demand of 8GW power generation). Innovative load balancing techniques will be needed to ensure this demand is met.
- To ensure that electric or hybrid vehicles are actually low-emission, the energy grid needs to be powered by a much higher percentage of renewables and a reduction in carbon fuels.
- Currently, energy is largely created and used on demand. Renewable energy sources are unpredictable.
- As the world becomes increasingly electrified, energy demand is becoming less predictable and the energy grid less stable.
- As the battery size of EVs increases and the sales sky-rocket, many of the existing energy management charging systems installed in new developments will struggle to meet demand in just three years.
- The race is on to solve storage challenges and develop new battery technology. But can the answer be found soon enough?
Electric vehicles – a readily-available energy source
As more and more households invest in electric vehicles, more and more homes will effectively have a large electricity storage device (capable of powering the average home for several days) in their garage.
It’s not too difficult to envision a future in which consumers become prosumers by storing and reselling energy back to the grid, using the batteries in their electric cars as a distributed, mobile energy storage system.
The battery will take from the grid when charging (and energy is cheap and plentiful), but potentially feed energy back into the grid when demand is there.
Similarly, in larger residential developments smart building management technology can be used to divert ‘un-used’ power from buildings when there is less need (daytime weekdays and late at night) and feed it to electric vehicle charging points. This reduces the power to charging points at peak times (early evening) redirecting it to other buildings where power is needed.
In short, electric vehicles have the potential to turn today’s supply and demand models on their head.
Where once energy was delivered in a linear, one-way flow from power station to home, power will increasingly come from many scattered and renewable generation resources, including micro producers and even prosumers.
So, what do we need to lay the road to zero when it comes to energy supply?
Recognise the speed of adoption, deploy truly smart meters and legislate.
If micro generation and electric vehicles, or any home battery storage technology is to provide the solution to future energy supply, there needs to be a way for energy companies and consumers to charge for the energy they supply to the grid, in the same way they currently pay for energy used.
Smart meters currently provide operators with insight into consumer consumption of energy. Second generation smart meters are available now which have the ability to measure energy usage and energy generation, plus provide visibility of pricing movements. However, there is currently no plan in the UK to roll these out.
In the future smart meters could understand how much energy each household is likely to need for the day ahead (and at what time), ensure that energy is available when needed (bought at off-peak, cheaper times of the day) and sell excess, battery stored energy back to the grid at peak times.
To enable and encourage the continued development of smart meter technology, micro-power generation and a bi-directional grid, the investment we need from governments is to develop regulations and legislation that incentivises consumer behaviour, quickly.
Currently metering of EV charge points and battery storage on commercial, public and private land is not included in the smart meter rollout. Whilst in theory, there is nothing to stop a private company (or individual) from buying their own second generation smart meter, there are currently no domestic government incentives on the horizon to encourage ‘prosumerism’. Setting out a framework by which people can be compensated for returning energy to the grid, would seem to be the natural next step.
C. McKerracher & J. Wu, Mobility Transition, In Conversation with Colin McKerracher and Justin Wu (Intercontinental Hotel, London, 1st October 2018)
Mike Hughes is Zone President, UK & Ireland at Schneider Electric, and has worked in the industrial energy management and automation sector for over 25 years. |
Gregory Clark (via Marginal Revolution) has a new and more comprehensive data set on real wages in England from 1209 to the present. Up to about 1600, it is consistent with the Malthusian theory that real wages varied inversely with population. But then from at least 1630, there is a remarkable and unprecedented departure from the Malthusian curve formed by the ratio of real wages to population. Real wages rose over 50% from 1630 to 1690 despite rising population. There is then a stable period from 1730 to 1800 with a new curve parallel to but offset from the original Malthusian curve, and then a second startling departure from 1800 to today reflecting the end of this last Malthusian epoch (ironically just as Malthus was writing).
This data contradicts the idea that nothing remarkable happened to the economy before the industrial revolution got going in the late 18th century. It also contradicts the theory that a qualitative shift occurred due the the Glorious Revolution of 1689 in which Parliament gained more power, some Dutch financial pratices were introduced, and soon thereafer the Bank of England founded.
Rather, the theory that comes most readily to mind to explain an economic revolution in 17th century England is the rather un-PC theory of Max Weber. I'll get back to that, but first Clark debunks the theory of Becker et. al. regarding family investment. According to this theory, parents choose between the strategy of having a large number of children and having a small number of children in whom they invest heavily, teaching them skills. This is basically the spectrum between "R strategy" and "K strategy" along which all animals lie, except that with humans there is a strong cultural component in this choice (or at least Becker et. al. claim or assume that family size has always been a cultural choice for humans -- see my comments on this below).
According to this family investment theory, until quite recently (perhaps until the industrial revolution) having more children was the better bet due to lack of reward for skill, and overall underdevelopment of the economy limited the reward for skill, so the world was caught in a Malthusian trap of unskilled labor. However at this recent point in history rewards for skilled labor went up, making it worthwhile for parents to invest in skills (e.g. literacy). Clark's data contradicts this theory: his data show that the ratio of wages for skilled to unskilled laborers did not rise either in the 17th century revolution or during the industrial revolution, and actually were in substantial decline by 1900. Indeed, a decline in demand for skilled labor is what Adam Smith predicted would happen with increasing specialization in manufacturing. Thus, there was no increase in reward for skill investment which would have pulled us out of the Malthusian trap. Thus, Clark also rejects the family investment theory.
I think, however, that part of the family investment theory can be rescued. Clark's and other data on literacy demonstrate a substantial rise in literacy just prior to and at the initial stages of the qualitative change in productivity. Literacy in England doubled between 1580 and 1660. Parents were in fact making substantial investments in literacy despite an apparent lack of incentive to do so. Why?
My own tentative theory to explains Clark's data combines Becker, Weber, and the observations of many scholars about the cultural importance of printing. Printing was invented in the middle of the 15th century. Books were cheap by the end of that century. Thereafer they just got cheaper. At first books printed en masse what scribes had long considered to be the classics. Eventually, however, books came to contain a wide variety of useful information important to various trades. For example, legal cases became much more thoroughly recorded and far more easily accessible, facilitating development of the common law. Similar revolutions occurred in medicine and a wide variety of trades, and undoubtedly eventually occurred in the building trades that were the source of Clark's data.
Printing played a crucial role in the Reformation which saw the schisms from the Roman Church and the birth in particular of Calvinism. The crucial thing to observe is that, while per Clark the gains from investment in skills did not increase relative to unskilled labor, with the availability of cheap books and with the proper content the costs of investing in the learning did radically decrease for many skills. Apprenticeships that used to take seven years could be compressed into a few years reading from books (much cheaper than bothering the master for those years) combined with a short period learning on the job. This wouldn't have been a straightforward process as it required not just cheap books with specialized content about the trades, but some redesigning of the work itself and up-front investment by parents in their children's literacy. Thus, it would have required major cultural changes. That is why, while under my theory cheap books were the catalyst that drove mankind out of the Malthusian trap, many institutional innovations, which took over a century to evolve, had to be made to take advantage of those books to fundamentally change the economy.
Probably the biggest change required is that literacy entails a very large up-front investment. In the 17th century that investment would have been undertaken primarily by the family. Such an investment requires delayed gratification -- the trait Weber considered crucial to the rise of capitalism and derived from Calvinsim. However, Calvinist delayed gratification under my revised theory didn't cause capitalism via an increased savings rate, as Weber et. al. postulated, but rather caused parents to undertake a costly practice of investing in their children's literacy. Once that investment was made, the children could take advantage of books to learn skills with unprecedented ease and to skill levels not previously possible. So the overall investment in skills did not increase, but instead the focus of that investment shifted from long apprenticeships of young adults to the literacy of children. At the same time, the productivity of that investment greatly increased, and the result was overall higher productivity.
Investment in literacy would have both enabled and been motivated by the famous Protestant belief that people should read the Bible for themselves rather than depending on a priest to read it for them. This process would have started in the late 15th century among an elite of merchants and nobles, giving rise to the Reformation, but might not have propagated amongst the tradesmen Clark tracks until the 17th century. It is with the spread of Huguenot, Puritan, Presbyterian, etc. literacy culture to tradesmen that we see the 17th century revolution in real wages and the first major move away from the Malthusian curve.
This theory that the Malthusian trap was evaded by a sharp increase in the productivity of skill investment explains why population growth did not fall in the 17th century as Becker et. al. would predict. Cheap books substantially lowered the cost of skill investment, so the productivity gains could come without increasing the overall investment in skills and thus without lowering family size.
The family size/skill investment tradeoff is more likely to explain the second and sharper departure from Malthusian curve starting around 1800. However again I think Becker is wrong insofar as this was not due to an increase in returns on skill (Clark's data debunks this), but due to (1) technology improving faster than humans can have children, and (2) the rise of birth control (without which there is little control by choice or culture over family size -- no cultural family size choice theory really works before the widespread use of birth control).
The catalyst in moving away from the Malthusian curve was thus not, per Becker et. al., an increase in the returns on investments in skills, but rather a decrease in the costs of such investments once cheap books teaching specialized trades were available and the initial hill of literacy was climbed by Calvinist families. If the Calvinist literacy-investment theory ("The Roundhead Revolution") is true, we should see a similar departure from the Malthusian curve at the same time or perhaps even somewhat earlier in the Netherlands, and also in Scotland, but probably not in Catholic countries of that period. |
Students always dread essay writing. They feel that it is one of the most difficult things to do. How to write? Where to start from? Where to end? How to make it interesting? These are some questions frequently asked by students.
Essay writing can actually be very fun and quick if you know the simple format to follow. Read below to find out the easy steps to writing an essay. Believe me after reading the whole article you will never find essay writing difficult and boring.
Before starting to write the essay, make an outline of the points that you will include in it. This will give you a clear understanding of how you will start and how you will end. Writing an outline ensures that you do not get stuck in the middle of writing the essay.
A standard essay usually consists of five paragraphs where one paragraph each is allotted to the introduction and conclusion and the rest of the three are allotted to the body.
Writing an essay is just like telling a story. You start with an introduction. The first few words of your essay are very important because they will determine whether your teacher will read it with interest or read it just like she reads dozens of boring essays every day. So make sure that you start off strongly. Compel the reader to keep reading.
Your introduction should always be brief, to the point, simple and attractive. You can pose a question, write an interesting statement or start off with a well known quotation. All these are ways of developing interest for the reader.
In the body of an essay you explain in detail the topic, provide information, evidence etc. make sure that you write the body part of your essay very clearly so that it has a smooth flow for the reader. This will tell the reader how sure you are about your topic and how well you know about it. Divide the content into three paragraphs, where each paragraph tells a different story while being related to the main topic.
Like the introduction the conclusion of the essay should also be very attractive. The purpose of making the introduction attractive is to compel the reader to read further. The purpose of making the conclusion striking is to leave a mark in the mind of the reader. Your aim should be that no matter how many more essays the reader reads he/she still remembers your essay. So make it stand out!
In the conclusion you briefly sum up the main points of the whole essay and give your opinion. Be different and unique; however make sure that you maintain the tone of the essay which will depend on the type of topic you have chosen. If your essay is on some cartoon maintain a light, funny and amusing tone throughout. Conclude with a question or a statement. Basically anything that leaves your reader thinking. |
Sex is a way for people to express and experience themselves in a sexual aspect. Our sexuality is the core of our human existence. Sexuality also naturally involves biological, physical, emotional, erotic, spiritual, and social behaviors and feelings.
Our sexuality is an indispensable part of our lives. Thus, it is only right that we look after our sexual and reproductive health as it is a part of our overall physical and mental health.
Being educated about reproductive and sexual anatomy and knowing how to take care of our well-being is a part of becoming sexually healthy.
Aside from having regular sex, it is also important that we undergo several regular sexual and reproductive health tests. Here are a few routine tests that are crucial to keeping our sexual health to the optimum.
1. STI Testing – A test to check for sexually transmitted diseases.
2. Pap Test – This test involves collecting cells from the cervix to see if there are abnormal cells.
3. Prostate Exam – This test is conducted to see if there are any abnormalities in a man’s prostate.
4. Colonoscopy – Men by the age of 50 should consider getting a colonoscopy to check for cancers in the rectum and anus. |
In the early 1970s, the Army decided to do something for its General Officers in terms of personal protection. The M1908 Colt Pocket Hammerless pistols issued to General Officers since World War II had finally outlived their service life. To address this situation, Rock Island Arsenal, in Rock Island, Illinois began to modify the standard M1911-A1. The US Army adopted the M15 General Officers Model Pistol in 1972 as a self-defense weapon for army officers. In size and weight it is very similar to the Colt Combat Commander, but internally, there are some differences.
The pistol’s slide and barrel were shortened just over .75″ (1.905cm) and the barrel had one locking lug removed. A full-length recoil spring guide was installed, as was an enlarged set of fixed sights. Checkered walnut grip panels inlaid with a brass plate bearing the officer’s name replaced the M1911A1 pistol’s brown bakelite grips. The M15 was adopted in 1972 as the United States Pistol, General Officers’, Caliber .45, M15.
Comments, suggestions, contributions? Let me know |
Old City Cemetery
1001 Fourth Avenue South
Nashville, TN 37215
The City Cemetery is the oldest continuously operated public cemetery in Nashville and is the final resting place of more than 11,000 people.
The City Cemetery is the oldest continuously operated public cemetery in Nashville. On March 9, 1820, the Nashville mayor and aldermen purchased from Richard Cross four acres of land located "on the plains, south of town, for its burying ground." The cemetery opened on January 1, 1822. Fourteen years later the cemetery had outgrown its original site and more acres were acquired. By 1850 the cemetery was the final resting place for over 11,000 people of every race, religion and economic status. Since the opening, there have been 20,000 interments in the City Cemetery. Over the years, there have been removals including the Civil War Federal soldiers to the National Cemetery, Gallatin Pike, C.S.A. soldiers to the Confederate Circle at Mt. Olivet, and the relocation of graves to new family lots in Mt. Olivet Cemetery after the Civil War.
Four of Nashville's founders, James and Charlotte Robertson & John and Ann Robertson Cockrill; American Revolutionary War soldiers Lipscomb Norvell, Joel Lewis, Anthony Foster; four Confederate generals: Felix Zollicoffer, Bushrod Johnson, Richard Ewell, and Samuel Read Anderson; the man who named the American flag "Old Glory," Captain William Driver; Union Navy Commodore Paul Shirley; a Tennessee Governor, William Carroll; 15 mayors of Nashville, and two of the original Fisk Jubilee Singers, Mabel Lewis Imes and Ella Sheppard Moore; many slaves and free persons of color interred prior to the Civil War, are buried in the small, peaceful cemetery. The City Cemetery was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 because of its historical and architectural significance.
- Among those buried here are Confederate generals Felix Zollicoffer and Bushrod Johnson, two members of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, 15 Nashville mayors and many slaves and free persons of color interred before the Civil War. |
Editor says, what if Harold Godwinson had marched to Hastings, dispatching the Normans first before heading North to fight the Norwegians at Stamford Bridge? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This article is part of the Alternate Nations thread.
Alternate Historian and 1 other(s) like this article.
Editor says, Source article - Jackie Speel writes: In our timeline last King of Saxon England, claimed the throne on the death of Edward the Confessor, defeated his own brother, Tostig Godwinson and Harald Hardrade, King of Norway at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, and then was killed in the Battle of Hastings, against William Duke of Normandy who became William I of England.
Harold II goes for Duke William first, and the latter is killed or routed (with consequent impacts on Franco-Norman relationships): he is then killed in the battle in the North.
If Tostig alone survived, he would probably succeed to the throne.
If Harald survived he would have united the two realms (and possibly divided them up again much as William I in OTL divided Normandy and England between his sons).
The battles would occur at different locations to OTL.
Harold alone survives both battles. His position would be secure for the immediate future.
In both Harold II and Tostig on the throne timelines, Edgar the &Aelig;theling, a more direct heir to the throne, but a youth in 1066, would probably have staged an attempt on the throne (much as he was involved in rebellion in OTL).
All four of Harold, William, Tostig and Hardrada die variously: Edgar (the) Aetheling succeeds to the throne. Editorial comments are entered in [light green] typeface. |
Obverse: Head of Tanit wearing wreath of grain ears, triple pendant earring and necklace.
Reverse: Horse prancing right; palm tree in background; Neo-Punic inscription.
Carthage was a great maritime trading city that was founded by Phoenician colonists from Tyre in the 8 century B.C. From the 6th to the 3rd century B.C. the Carthaginians dominated trade in the western Mediterranean. The Carthaginians started minted coins at the end of the 5th century for the payment of troops engaged in the wars against the Greek city states in Sicily. The coins were derived from Greek coin designs, particularly those issues of Syracuse.
Diameter: 27 mm
Material: Gold plated fine pewter
Made in the USA
Packaged in a coin collecting flip with the description of coin printed on flip insert. |
Dr Ameer Khalid BHMSMD(Hom)
Regulation of acid-base balance, regulation of hydrogen ion concentration in the body fluids is actually meant. The hydrogen ion concentration in different solutions can vary from less than 10-14 Eq/litre to higher than 100 Eq/litre.
Only slight changes in hydrogen ion concentration from the normal value can cause marked alterations in the rates of chemical reactions in the cells, some being depressed and others accelerated. For this reason the regulation of hydrogen ion concentration is one of the most important aspects of homeostasis.
Acid and bases definition
An acid is defined as a molecule or an ion that can function as a proton donor. An acid is a molecule or an ion that can contribute a hydrogen ion to a solution.
A base is defined as a molecule or an ion that can function as a proton acceptor. A base is a molecule or an ion that will combine with hydrogen ions to remove them from a solution.
Relation between base and alkali:-alkali is combination of one of the alkaline metals –sodium, potassium or so forth with highly Basic ion such as hydroxyl ions.
Since the alkali is well known the word alkali is frequently used synonymously with the term base and for the similar reason the term alkalosis is used to mean the opposite of acidosis.
Strong and Weak Acids and Bases:- A strong acid is one that has a very strong tendency to dissociate into ions and therefore to discharge its hydrogen ion into the solution. A typical example is hydrochloric acid.
On the other hand, acids that release hydrogen ions with far less vigor are called weak acids. Examples are carbonic acid and sodium acid phosphate.
A strong base is one that reacts very powerfully with hydrogen ions and therefore removes these with extreme acidity from the solution. A typical example is the hydroxyl ion (OH-). A typical weak base is the bicarbonate ion (HCO3- ), for it binds much more weakly with hydrogen ions.
Most of the acids and bases that are concerned with normal regulation of acid-base balance in the body are weak acids and bases, the most important of which are carbonic acid and bicarbonate base.
Hydrogen Ion Concentration and pH of Normal Body Fluids and changes that occur in Acidosis and Alkalosis.
Expressing hydrogen ion concentration in terms of actual concentrations is a difficult procedure. Therefore, the symbol pH has come into usage for expressing the concentration; the term pH was introduced in 1909 by Sorensen who defined pH as negative log of the hydrogen ion concentration. pH is related to acid hydrogen ion concentration by the following formula.
A low pH corresponds to a high hydrogen ion concentration, which is called acidosis; and, conversely, a high pH corresponds to a low hydrogen ion concentration, which is called alkalosis.
pH and H+ concentration of body fluids
H+ concentration mEq/L
Extra cellular fluid
4.0 X 10-5
4.5 X 10-5
4.5 X 10-5
1 X10-3 to 4.0 X 10-5
6.0 to 7.4
3 X 10-2 to 1 X 10-5
4.5 to 8.0
Since the normal pH of the arterial blood is 7.4, a person is considered to have acidosis whenever the pH is below this value and to have alkalosis when it rises above 7.4. The lower limit at which a person can live more than a few hours is about 6.8, and the upper limit approximately 8.0.
Defenses against changes in hydrogen ion concentration buffers, lungs and kidneys
There are three primary systems that regulate the hydrogen ion concentration in the body fluids
1. The chemical acid base buffer system of the body fluids, which immediately combine with acid or base to prevent excessive changes in hydrogen ion concentration.
2. The respiratory centre which regulates the removal of CO2 (and therefore H2CO3) from the extracelluar fluid.
3. The kidneys which can excrete either acid or alkaline urine, there by readjusting the extra cellular fluid hydrogen ion concentration toward normal during acidosis or alkalosis.
To prevent acidosis or alkalosis, several special control systems are available: (1) All the body fluids are supplied with acid-base buffer systems that immediately combine with any acid or base and thereby prevent excessive changes in hydrogen ion concentration. (2) If the hydrogen ion concentration does change measurably, the respiratory center is immediately stimulated to alter the rate of breathing. As a result, the rate of carbon dioxide removal from the body fluids is automatically changed; and, for reasons that will be presented later, this causes the hydrogen ion concentration to return toward normal. (3) When the hydrogen ion concentration changes from normal, the kidneys excrete either acid or alkaline urine, thereby also helping to readjust the hydrogen ion concentration of the body fluids back to normal.
The buffer systems can act within a fraction of a second to prevent excessive changes in hydrogen ion concentration. On the other hand, it takes 1 to 12 minutes for the respiratory system to make acute adjustments and another day or so to make still additional chronic adjustments. Finally, the kidneys, although providing the most powerful of all the acid-base regulatory systems, require many hours to several days to readjust the hydrogen ion concentration.
From this equation it can be seen that the strong hydrochloric acid is converted into the very weak carbonic acid. Therefore, addition of the HCl lowers the pH of the solution only slightly.
Now let us see what happens when a strong base, such as sodium hydroxide, is added to a buffer solution containing carbonic acid; the following reaction takes place:
NaOH + H2C03 NaHC03 + H20 (3)
This equation shows that the hydroxyl ion of the sodium hydroxide combines with a hydrogen ion from the carbonic acid to form water and that the other product formed is sodium bicarbonate. The net result is exchange of the strong base NaOH for the weak base NaHC03.
Acid base balance by buffers
Function of buffers
An acid-base buffer is a solution containing two or more chemical compounds that prevents marked changes in hydrogen ion concentration when either an acid or a base is added to the solution. As an example, if only a few drops of concentrated hydrochloric acid are added to a beaker of pure water, the pH of the water might immediately fall from a neutral 7.0 to as low as 1.0. However, if a satisfactory buffer system is present, the hydrochloric acid combines instantaneously with the buffer, and the pH falls only slightly. Perhaps the best way to explain the action of an acid base buffer is to consider an actual simple buffer system, such as the bicarbonate buffer, which is extremely important in regulation of acid-base balance in the body.
Buffering of hydrogen ions in the body fluids
A buffer is any substance that can reversibly bind H+. the general form of the buffering reaction is
Buffer + H+ H Buffer
In this example, a free H+ combines with the buffer to form a weak acid (HBuffer) that either remain as an unassociated molecule or dissociate back to buffer and H+. When the H+ ion concentration increases, the reaction is forced to right and more H+ bind to the buffer, as long as available buffer is present. Conversely when the H+ concentration decreases, the reaction shifts towards the left and H+ are released from the buffer. In this way changes H+ concentration are minimized.
I. The bicarbonate buffer system
A typical bicarbonate buffer system consists of a mixture of carbonic acid (H2C03) and sodium bicarbonate (NaHC03) in the same solution.
H2C03 is formed in the body by the reaction of CO2 with H2O
This reaction is slow unless enzyme carbonic anhydrase is present. This enzyme is especially abundant in the wall of lung alveoli; where CO2 is released; also epithelial cells of renal tubules where CO2 reacts with H2O to form HC03- .
H2C03 ionises weakly to form small amount of H+ and HC03-
H2CO3 H+ + HCO3-
The second component bicarbonate salt occurs predominantly as sodium bicarbonate NaHC03 in the extracellular fluid. NaHC03 ionises almost completely to form bicarbonate ions and sodium ions.
NaHC03 Na+ + HC03-
Now putting the entire system together,
CO2+H2O H2CO3 H+ + HCO3-
Because of the weak dissociation of H2C03 the H+ concentration is extremely small.
When a strong acid such as HCl is added to bicarbonate buffer solution, the increased H+ released from acid.
HCl H+ + Cl- are buffered by HC03-
↑ H++ HC03- H2CO3 CO2+H2O
As a result, more H2C03 is formed, causing increased CO2 and H2O production. From this reaction, the hydrogen ions from the strong acid, HCl, react with HC03- to form CO2 and H2O. The excess CO2 greatly stimulates respiration, which eliminates the CO2 from the extracellular fluid.
The opposite reactions take place when a strong base, such as sodium hydroxide (Na OH), is added to the bicarbonate buffer solution.
Na OH + H2CO3 NaHCO3+H2O
In this case, the hydroxyl ion (OH-) from the NaOH combines with H2CO3 to form additional. Thus the weak base NaHCO3 replaces the strong base NaOH. At the same time, the concentration of H2CO3 decreases (because it reacts with NaOH), causing more CO2 to combines with H2O to replace the H2CO3.
CO2+H2O H2CO3 ↑ HCO3- + H+
The net result is a tendency for the CO2 levels in the blood to decrease; but the decreased CO2 in the blood inhibits respiration and decreases the rate of CO2 expiration. The rise in blood HCO3- that occurs is compensated for by increased renal excretion of HCO3-.
Quantitative dynamics of the bicarbonate buffer system
All acids, including H2CO3 are ionized to some extent. From mass balance considerations, the concentrations of hydrogen ions and bicarbonate ions are proportional to the concentration of H2CO3.
H2CO3 H++ HCO3-
For any acid, the concentration of the acid relative to its dissociated ions is defined by the dissociation constant K’.
K’ = (1)
This equation indicates that in an H2CO3 solution, the amount of free hydrogen ions is equal to
The concentration of undissociated H2CO3 cannot be measured in solution because it rapidly dissociates into CO2 and H2O or to H+ and HCO3-. However, the CO2 dissolved in the blood is directly proportional to the amount of undissociated H2CO3. There fore, equation (2) can be written as
The dissociation constant (K) for Equation (3) is only about 1/400 of the dissociation constant (K’) of equation (2) because the proportionality ratio between H2CO3 and CO2 is 1to 400.
Equation (3) is written in terms of the total amount of CO2 dissolved in solution. However, most clinical laboratories measure the blood CO2 tension (Pco2) rather than the actual amount of CO2. Fortunately, the amount of CO2 in the blood is a linear function of times the solubility coefficient for CO2; under physiologic conditions the solubility coefficient for CO2 is 0.03 mmol/mmHg at body temperature .this means that 0.03mmmol of H2CO3 is present in the blood for each millimeter of mercury Pco2 measured. There fore equation (3) can be rewritten as
As discussed earlier, it is customary to express hydrogen ion concentration in pH units rather than in actual concentrations. Recall that pH is defined as
pH = -log H
The dissociation constant can be expressed in a similar manner pK = -log K
Therefore, we can express the hydrogen ion concentration in equation (4) in pH units by taking the negative logarithm of that equation, which yields
-log H+ = -log pK – log (5)
pH = pK — (6)
Rather than work with a negative logarithm, we can change the sign of the logarithm and invert the numerator and denominator in the last term, using the law of logarithms to yield
pH = pK + (7)
For the bicarbonate buffer system,the pK is 6.1, and equation 7 can be written as
pH = (8)
Equation 8 is the Henderson-Hasselbalch equation, and with it one can calculate the pH of a solution if the molar concentration of bicarbonate ion and the Pco2 are known.
From the Henderson-Hasselbalch, equation, it is apparent that an increase in bicarbonate ion concentration causes the pH to rise, shifting the acid-base balance toward alkalosis. And an increase in Pco2 causes the pH to decrease, shifting the acid base balance toward acidosis.
The Henderson-Hasselbalch equation, in addition to defining the determinants of normal pH regulation and acid-base balance in the extracellular fluid, provides insight into the physiologic control of acid and base composition of the extracellular fluid. The bicarbonate concentration is regulated mainly by the kidneys, whereas the Pco2 in extra cellular fluid is controlled by the rate of respiration. By increasing the rate of respiration, the lungs remove CO2 from the plasma, and by decreasing respiration, the lungs elevate Pco2. Normal physiologic acid-base homeostasis results from the coordinated efforts of both of these organs, the lungs and the kidneys, and acid-base disorders occur when one or both of these control mechanisms are impaired, thus altering either the bicarbonate concentration or the Pco2 of extracellular fluid.
When disturbances of acid-base balance result from a primary change in extracellular fluid bicarbonate concentration, they are referred to as metabolic acid-base disorders. Therefore, acidosis caused by a primary decrease in bicarbonate concentration is termed metabolic acidosis, whereas alkalosis caused by a primary increase in bicarbonate concentration is called metabolic alkalosis. Acidosis caused by an increase in Pco2 is called respiratory acidosis, whereas alkalosis caused by a decrease in Pco2 is termed respiratory alkalosis.
Bicarbonate Buffer System Titration Curve.
When the concentrations of HCO3- and CO2 are equal, the right-hand portion of equation 8 becomes the log of 1, which is equal to 0. Therefore, when the two components of the buffer system are equal, the pH of the solution is the same as the pK (6.1) of the bicarbonate buffer system. When base is added to the system, part of the dissolved CO2 is converted into HCO3- causing an increase in the ratio of HCO to CO, and increasing the pH, as is evident from the 1-lendersonHasselbalch equation. When acid is added, it is buffered by HCO,-, which is then converted into dissolved CO2 decreasing the ratio of HCO3- to CO2 and decreasing the pH of the extracellular fluid.
II. The phosphate buffer system
Although the phosphate buffer system is not important as an extracellular fluid buffer, it plays a major role in buffering renal tubular fluid and intracellular fluids.
The main elements of the phosphate buffer system are H2PO4- and HPO4- . When a strong acid such as HCl is added to a mixture of these two substances, the Hydrogen is accepted by the base HPO4- and converted to H2PO4-
HCl + Na2 HPO4 Na2HPO4+ NaCl
The result of this reaction is that the strong acid, HCl, is replaced by an additional amount of a weak acid, NaH2PO4, and the decrease in pH is minimized.
When a strong base, such as NaOH, is added to the buffer system, the OH- is buffered by the H2PO4 to form additional amounts of HPO4 + H20.
NaOH + NaH2PO4 Na2HPO4 + H20
In this case, a strong base NaOH, is traded for a weak base, Na2HP04, causing only a slight increase in the pH.
The phosphate buffer system has a pK of 6.8, which is not far from the normal pH of 7.4 in the body fluids; this allows the system to operate near its maximum buffering power. However, its concentration in the extracellular fluid is low, only about 8 per cent of the concentration of the bicarbonate buffer. Therefore, the total buffering power of the phosphate system in the extracellular fluid is much less than that of the bicarbonate buffering system.
In contrast to its rather insignificant role as an extracellular buffer, the phosphate buffer is especially important in the tubular fluids of the kidneys for two reasons: (1) phosphate usually becomes greatly concentrated in the tubules, thereby increasing the buffering power of the phosphate system, and (2) the tubular fluid usually has a considerably lower pH than extracellular fluid, bringing the operating range of the buffer closer to the pK (6.8) of the system.
The phosphate buffer system is also important in buffering intracellular fluids because the concentration of phosphate in these fluids is many times that in the extracellular fluids. Also, the pH of intracellular fluids is lower than that of extracellular fluid and therefore usually closer to the pK of the phosphate buffer system, compared with the extracellular fluid.
III. Proteins: important intracellular buffers
Proteins are among the most plentiful buffers in the body because of their high concentrations, especially within the cells.
The pH of the cells, although slightly lower than in the extracellular fluid, nevertheless changes approximately in proportion to extracellular fluid pH changes. There is a slight amount of diffusion of hydrogen and bicarbonate ions through the cell membrane, although these ions require several hours to come to equilibrium with the extracellular fluid, except for rapid equilibrium that occurs in the red blood cells. CO, however, can rapidly diffuse through all the cell membranes. This diffusion of the elements of the bicarbonate buffer system causes the pH in intracellular fluids to change when there are changes in extracellular pH. For this reason, the buffer systems within the cells help to prevent changes in pH of extracellular fluids but may take several hours to become maximally effective.
In the red blood cell, hemoglobin is an important buffer as follows:
H+ + Hb HHb
Approximately 60 to 70 per cent of the total chemical buffering of the body fluids is inside the cells, and most of this results from the intracellular proteins. However, except for the red blood cells, the slowness of movement of hydrogen ions and bicarbonate ions through the cell membranes often delays for several hours the maximum ability of the intracellular proteins to buffer extracellular acid-base abnormalities.
Another factor besides the high concentration of proteins in the cells that contributes to their buffering power is the fact that the pKs of many of these protein systems are fairly close to 7.4.
1. Text Book Of Medical Physiology-Guyton & Hall
2. Review Of Medical Physiology William .F. Ganong
3. Harpers Biochemistry -Robert K Murray, Daryl K Grunner, Peter A Mayes & Victor W Rodwell |
Still with me?
What exactly does all this fancy maths do then? It will analyse a set of data, and turn it into a set of frequencies. You can then apply an FFT Inverse to this set of frequencies to get back the original piece of music. What use is all that then. Let me give you an example The application for all of this most people will be familiar with is sound, specifically music. Imagine you have a piece of music, say 10 seconds long, with for example, a base guitar and some cymbals. You then apply an FFT filter to it, which will transform it from the time domain, to the frequency domain. The data you will see after transformation will show some low frequencies, which would be the base guitar, and some high frequencies, which would be the symbols. You could just apply the inverse transform, to take it back from the frequency domain to the time domain, and reconstruct you piece of music, but (and here is the clever bit) you could remove the high frequencies from the transformed data first, before the inverse transform. You would be left with a piece of music where the base guitar was unaffected, but the cymbals would be almost inaudible. Pretty good huh? If you have a graphic equaliser on your stereo, you will be familiar with the kind of effect I am talking about.
Still with me? Well done.
So what does this have to do with geophysics? In two words, plough lines. Ploughing can leave a lot of streaky lines across your nice geophysics plot. Take the image below as an example, fresh from my last blog post. If you look closely, you can see a lot of plough lines, heading ENE-WSW, cluttering up the place like unwanted junk mail. So what can we do about it? If you imagine our piece of music as being one dimensional, with the dimension being time, you can imagine the image below having two dimensions, X and Y. Specifically, the piece of music is in the 'time domain' and the image is in the 'spatial domain', and we can use even more hairy maths on it, a two dimensional FFT. If you imagine the plough lines as waves crossing the image, we can get a specific frequency for it, and remove it, thereby removing the plough lines from the image.
Here are the steps you will need to take to accomplish this, which fortunately does not require you to do any of the maths yourself, and uses free software. You can click on these on the blog to view bigger versions, which you will probably need to do to see what I am talking about.
1) Firstly, you will need to download piece of free image processing software, called GIMP. Lovely name huh? It's actually pretty powerful.
2) Next you will need to download the FFT filter for GIMP, installing it as described for your system.
3) Now open the image you want to work on, and use Filters > Generic > FFT Forward. You will be left with a very strange image, as shown below.
4) The next stage is quite difficult to explain, I will do my best. The image above, which is somewhat zoomed in, shows the frequencies in the transformed image. It is now in the frequency domain. You will see a cross, radiating from the centre of the image. The centre is where the high frequencies are, going to lower frequencies towards the edge. You will need to zoom in to find what you are looking for, which is a pair of lines of higher readings amongst the frequencies. Due to the nature of the filter, you will get this somewhat mirrored effect. This is the hardest part, and may require some trial end error on your part.
5) Once you have found the relevant frequencies, you will need to surround them both with the Free Select Tool (looks like a lasso), which I have done in the image above. Try and enclose as small a space as possible around the frequencies you wish to remove, otherwise your image may suffer for it. You can do one at a time if you wish.
6) Use the Blur Tool (looks like a drop of water), within the selected area. You don't have to worry about going over the edge, as the selection restricts any changes you make to within the selection. Make sure you give it a good going over with the blur tool.
7) Once both areas have been blurred, remove any selections using Select > None.
8) Now we are ready to go back to the spatial domain. Use Filters > Generic > FFT Inverse.
9) You should hopefully now have your geophysics image with most of the plough lines removed. If you haven't, there is always Undo, and you can try again.
10) In some areas where the plough lines did not originally encroach, you may find that the filter has introduced some artefacts, that look like the original plough lines, which isn't very helpful. These areas can be restored by copying and pasting the parts of the original image that you wish to revert to their original state.
Well, here is the resulting image. Open both the original and filtered images and compare them. The effect is quite striking. There are a few small pieces of the ploughing left, but it has mostly been removed. |
CHAPTER 6: SITE DESIGN
The fence bottom should be a maximum of 76 mm above the ground.
integrated pest management to control pests using the least toxic methods
Exposed fence bottoms should have a smooth finish for child safety.
feasible. Use alternate, less toxic termite prevention systems, rather than
Wood fences are not to be specified for new construction, existing ones
the application of chemical soil treatment, for wood-framed buildings. Only
should be smooth finished and splinter-free and if treated for exterior
where soil poisoning is determined to be necessary, use less toxic chemicals
use should be guaranteed to be non-toxic. Avoid the use of wood pres-
than chlorpyrifos ("Dursban"), which is currently being phased out by EPA.
sure-treated with CCA (chromated copper arsenate). Instead of wood,
Plant materials should be used to bring natural elements to the play
maximize the use of products made from recycled plastic or recycled
plastic/wood composite materials, which are inherently durable and
The atmosphere of the center can be enlivened by the color, texture,
weather-resistant. Following EPA's Comprehensive Procurement Guide-
sound, and motion of plant materials.
lines (CPG), plastic fencing should be made from 90-100% total re-
Children's ability to observe plant growth is programmatically beneficial.
cycled content, including 60-100% post-consumer plastic.
Plant materials that display seasonal changes are desirable. Visual
Gates must be self-closing and latching. Children's fingers must be
barriers, screens, and shade and wind protection can be created using
protected from pinching or crushing on gate hinge spaces. Each play
plant materials in preference to, or in conjunction with, man-made struc-
yard will have a vehicle gate to allow service.
Fences may be used for protection from the elements and to control
Plant materials should be used to define interesting play areas.
sunlight and wind exposure.
Avoid trees with low hanging limbs if children can use them to climb to
Fences must be safe, with smooth caps and no finials or sharp picket
unsafe heights or to scale fences.
tops on which children might be injured.
Fences should be designed to discourage climbing, however, as per
6.7.3 Dimensions and Clearances:
codes, they must be capable of withstanding code specific force applied
For accessibility, please reference ADA 36 CFR 1191 Final rule: play
areas 15.6. Main entrance pathways should be 1830 mm to 2440 mm
All openings in the fences must be no more than 88 mm wide. To pre-
wide. All pathways must provide adequate clearances as prescribed by
vent finger entrapment, there must be no openings in the fence be-
the UFAS and ADA standards. Pathway slopes should be no greater
tween 9 mm and 25 mm wide.
than 1:20 unless they are provided with a handrail. (More than 1:20 is
Fence construction should not use horizontal rails except for the cap
considered a ramp.) Cross slopes will be limited to 1:50.
and base to prevent climbing.
Platforms, stairs, handrails on stairs, guardrails, and protective barriers
All fastening devices used for fence construction should not project out-
on platforms must be designed in compliance with requirements con-
tained in the latest edition of the Handbook for Public Playground Safety,
ward where they can injure children.
Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). The height of plat-
forms and the age group using the platform will determine when a guard-
6.7.2 Plant Materials:
rail or protective barrier is required. Guardrails may be used in platforms
All plant materials must be non-toxic. See Appendix B for listing of common
at lower heights, while protective barriers must be provided on higher
toxic and non-toxic plant material. In addition, contact local USDA
Agricultural Extension Services for information on toxic or poisonous plants
Handrails must be provided to accommodate the intended age group
in the local area. Categories of plant hazards include berries, thorns, and
on all stairs (including adults). For children, heights will range between
plants with toxic leaves, stems, roots, or flowers.
510 mm above the leading edge of the tread and 915 mm. In certain
instances, it may be necessary to have two railings mounted at differing
Design planting and irrigation systems to minimize, down to zero, potable
water for landscape irrigation. Maximize the use of native vegetation, which
Guardrails must be provided for infants and toddlers on all platforms
has inherently lower maintenance requirements than introduced species,
greater than 300 mm above adjacent surfaces. Guardrails must be
and minimize, down to zero, the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
provided for pre-school-age children on all platforms greater than
Use locally acquired composted materials for fertilization, and practice
PBS-140 - July 2003 |
Relative/Absolute URL and Proxies
If you develop a web application you'll come soon at the moment of building your URLs.
First moving your app on a different domain will maybe be harder (especially if you're a bad coder and this absolute URL is not writed once in a config file).
Then serving your app with different domains in the same time won't be possible.
And harder, you'll break proxy rewriting.
The job of the proxy is to serve your web application on a different namespace. Maybe you have a myapp.localnetwork.net application, that every people in localnetwork.net will see. The proxy will server myapp.publicdomain.com or even publicdomain.com/myapp/is/here. And the job of the proxy is only handling HTTP headers. That means he will only rewrite things like redirect (which is a code and url in headers of the response, not in the HTTP content.
browser \->myapp.publicdomain.com (proxy) \->myapp.anotherproxy.domain.com (proxy) \->myapp.localnetwork.net
So... if you either use absolute_url, then you should test if any proxy is between you and the guy requesting the page. This is given by Apache to PHP in the HTTP_X_FORWARDED_HOST parameter (or something similar if you're not in PHP, that means it's something your webserver knows by HTTP headers of the request). There you'll find a list of proxy used (if any) between you and the browser. Be carefull, it's a coma separated list, with spaces. The name you should use as the base name of your site is the first name of this list.
In our example we'll have: "myapp.publicdomain.com, myapp.anotherproxy.domain.com"and your absolute url to use is http://myapp.publicdomain.com
With that name overriding your default base name you'll have a better app. But the problem is not really completly fixed in fact. What you have is the host name, but you do not have any information about the protocol. Maybe you'll prefix the name with 'http://' and it will be ok, but maybe the proxy is using ssl (because using ssl for a public filtering proxy before intranet application is something used a lot). And the protocol should be 'https://'. If you decide to handle this in a config file of you application you'll obtain 'https://' even in your local network, where you should'nt. Your only solution will be to tell your app which protocol to use for which name. Quite dirty.
Well, in fact there's a solution, the proxy can set:
RequestHeader set X-Forwarded-Proto "https"
On his SSL configuration and you'll have HTTP_X_FORWARDED_PROTO available on your code.
All theses things works because of 'de facto' http headers added by mod_proxy on Apache. You'll maybe wont have them, and your application will rely on proxy configuration. Remember relative URL is still the best solution.
Follow me also on regilero.github.io. |
Course Detail for ENGL-399-01
|ENGL-399-01||ST: Engl Irish Lit (3 )||
||Sadlack, Erin A|
Instruction Type: Lecture/Discussion
An in-depth exploration of specific literary author, genre, theme, literary period, or rhetorical mode not regularly offered.
This course considers how, over the course of centuries, Irish and English writers thought about one another at times of conflict and rebellion. We will read traditional literary genres, such as poetry and drama, but also letters, songs, speeches, politic
Information on Registering: |
Range and habitat:
Colobus monkeys are native to the forests and tropical jungles of central and eastern Africa.
These monkeys eat leaves and leaf buds, plus fruits and blossoms.
Mostly vegetables, lettuce and monkey chow.
Size / weight range:
Colobus monkeys grow to 18 - 28 inches long, with tails that are 20 to 40 inches long. Males weigh between 19.8 and 31.9 pounds; females weigh between 14.3 and 22 pounds.
Usually one male and several females and their offspring. They live in groups up to around 9 individuals.
Colobus monkeys mature at around 4 years old and live 25 - 30 years. Their gestation is about 6 months.
We have one male (Sefu- born in 2007) and 2 female Colobus monkeys (Asante- born in 2008, and Freefall- born in 1990). Sefu and Asante are siblings, and Freefall is unrelated. Asante was partially hand-reared after her mother died 2 months after she was born. Keepers worked closely with her to feed her, monitor her weight and socialize her. Luckily, we were able to put her back with her father and brothers fairly quickly. Her brothers took great care of her, carrying her around, snuggling with her and helping to socialize her with others of her species.
The humps on the tops of Colobus monkeys’ heads is just the way the hair grows; it’s not the shape of their skulls.
They have long, fluffy white tails and capes. This helps them balance when they are moving and jumping among trees (they are more likely to move by jumping and leaping, rather than swinging or climbing). The color and “ballooning” action of their capes is also intimidating to predators.
They have sacculated, or segmented, stomachs (similar to cows), which enable them to better digest the leaves and bark that they eat in the wild. This food is low in nutritional value, so they need to eat lots of it.
All primates have opposable thumbs, but the Colobus monkeys’ thumbs are very tiny (the word “colobus” means “docked” in Greek). They are not able to use them for grasping.
Newborn babies’ hair coat is all white; it darkens to the black-and-white adult pattern by about 6 months old.
The Colobus monkeys at the Toledo Zoo are part of a Species Survival Plan.
One way that Colobus monkeys communicate is by making a lip-smacking noise that sounds like us clicking our tongues.
Location at the Toledo Zoo:
You may also see our Colobus monkeys on the Primate Cam by visiting our Animal Web Cams page!
Vulnerable. These monkeys are hunted for their pelts as well as meat. Logging and agriculture are destroying their habitat. |
See Emily Bazelon's special report on the untold story of Phoebe Prince and her suicide.
A new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation reported last week that kids ages 8 to 18 now spend an average of seven and a half hours a day plugged in—online, on the phone, or in the thrall of TV or some other electronic device. The number seems impossibly high: Even the study's authors were surprised. And yet it doesn't sound off-base to some parents of teens.
So if it's true that "If Your Kids Are Awake, They're Probably Online," as the New York Times headline put it, the big question is: What are they doing there? To some degree, alas, the answer is that they are doing harm or having harm done to them.
Polls on the prevalence of cyberbullying are disturbing. In a 2007 survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, almost one in three teens (32 percent) said she'd been harassed online. That means "receiving threatening messages; having their private emails or text messages forwarded without consent; having an embarrassing picture posted without permission; or having rumors spread about them online." In a 2009 survey of about 1,200 middle schoolers, Sameer Hinduja and Justin Patchin, academics who direct the Cyberbullying Research Center, found that 22 percent of kids reported doing some kind of online bullying at least twice in the past month, and 29 percent reported having been bullied. And this isn't just a problem for kids. Stalking on Facebook, flame wars on listservs—these things happen on university campuses and in the workplace, too.
The numbers suggest cyberbullying is a big problem. Yet Hinduja and Patchin also found that 34 percent of the middle schoolers they studied said they'd acted like regular bullies (spreading a rumor in person, mocking a classmate at school) and 44 percent reported being bullied in the time-dishonored, familiar way. This suggests that cyberbullying might get more than its share of attention. For sure it's a hot topic. MTV has launched a prevention project and plans a 30-minute news special for February. Here's the trailer for a new movie, urFRENZ, that's got it all—sexting, Facebook stalking, and plenty of screaming. And check out this new anti-bullying PSA, complete with faux-nasty YouTube comments.
If online bullying is being treated as the new kid on the block, that's probably not a bad thing. It's a cousin of all the old forms of meanness, but it's also causing trouble in new ways that we need to understand. Because cyberbullying is so easy, it may draw in kids who wouldn't shout insults in the cafeteria or spread a slut rumor while hanging out with friends after school. Press a button, and your jeering text or e-mail—or nude photo—can go out to the whole school. You can do this while feeling distant from the cruelty. You can do it without thinking. You can do it without a clique of mean girls (or guys) to egg you on. All of this hits teenagers in a developmental weak spot, playing on their young brains' tendency to act on impulse.
Cyberbullying is also serious because it's associated with suicide, and not just in the case of Megan Meier, the 13-year-old girl took her own life after the mother of a former friend created a MySpace persona for a fictional 16-year-old boy and used it to send personal attacks. Then there is the specter of sexting. According to Pew, 4 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds say they've sent a nude or sexed-up picture; 15 percent said they'd received one. In an MTV-Associated Press poll of teens and young adults ages 14 to 24, the numbers were 10 percent and 17 percent. Sexting is building a sad collection of suicide victims, too.
The distress and the serious harm are making schools, legislators, and police scramble to figure out whether the best tactics for preventing online bullying and sexting are different from the ones used to push back against traditional bullies. Here at Slate, I'm launching a reporting project designed to get a handle on the problem and what those who work in the field are learning about how to stop it.
So I need your help. Slate readers were a fabulous source of stories last spring when I wrote a series about how the recession was affecting Americans. Now I want to hear from you about your experience, or someone else's you know, of the many forms of cruelty in the online world. How big a problem is cyberbullying, really, and how is it a problem? In middle school, high school, college, and the workplace, what stories about meanness online, big or small, can you tell me: a gossipy YouTube video that ended in a suspension; a Facebook parody that caused tears or worse; a sext that damaged someone's reputation; a stalker who tracked his obsession via social media? And what are schools and parents and the authorities doing about it?
Please send your stories and tips to [email protected] or to the new Facebook page for this project: E-mail will be treated as anonymous unless you say otherwise. I may write you back to ask questions. You can also write in with a question related to cyberbullying that you'd like advice about, and I'll do my best to answer in consultation with Sameer Hinduja. And I'll be traveling to schools, workplaces, whoever will have me to report out these stories, and writing up stories based on my reporting in a series on Slate. I'll post news updates and other thoughts on the Facebook page and on my Twitter feed. Write to me, join in and post, help me dig deep into this toxic feature of our beloved Internet—and, I hope, into the solutions. |
The cause of the universe’s accelerated expansion is one of the most hotly debated topics in the history of modern physics.
Many scientists believe that dark energy makes up 68% of the cosmos and is responsible for speeding up its expansion.
But its only a hypothetical concept and now a new study published by the Royal Astronomical Society suggests it doesn’t exist at all.
Instead, the report’s authors suggest that standard models of the universe fail to account for its shifting structure and introduce dark energy without needing to.
Dr László Dobos, co-author of the paper and a researcher at Eötvös Loránd University, said the study questioned the validity of scientists’ solutions to Einstein’s theory of general relativity:
“Our findings rely on a mathematical conjecture which permits the differential expansion of space, consistent with general relativity, and they show how the formation of complex structures of matter affects the expansion. These issues were previously swept under the rug but taking them into account can explain the acceleration without the need for dark energy.”
Previous models have relied on the idea that the universe expands at the same rate, but the study’s authors have dropped that assumption.
But despite accounting for different regions of the universe expanding at different rates, the average rate is accelerating and in line with observations.
If its findings are backed up, the study threatens to overhaul many theoretical physicists’ understanding of the universe.
type=type=RelatedArticlesblockTitle=Related... + articlesList=580e099ce4b056572d834ebd,5824460be4b0c2e24ab24c4e,5788a70ce4b0daae46fb8d44
It’s not the first study to challenge the existence of dark energy.
Back in October, researchers at Oxford University questioned the idea that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate.
After analysing 740 supernovas, the physicists found that the evidence for acceleration wasn’t strong enough to have a fundamental significance.
NASA’s Most Famous Images
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post UK, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. |
Choosing an online dictionary
Online dictionaries are very useful tools when writing and reading and there are some really good ones out there. Go for a learner dictionary – this will be more useful and give you more detailed information about usage. Here are some tips on how to choose an online dictionary:
1. Make sure the definitions of the words are easier than the words themselves! Some are way more complicated.
2. Look at the other information provided about the words. Does it give you enough information to understand the word and help you to use it? Does it give example sentences? Does it show you other words that go with that word? Can you hear how the word is said (by Brits and/or Americans)?
3. Don’t stick to one dictionary – often it’s useful to get a definition from one dictionary and then cross check this against the definition in another dictionary. This may give you a better definition for the situation where you have seen the word. Online dictionaries are free to the user so why stick with just one?
Here are three good online dictionaries that will be particularly useful for people learning English as an additional language or people with lower levels of literacy.
- The red colour and the star show that the word frequently occurs in English. Less common words are black. Even more common words have two or three stars.
- All words used for definitions in this dictionary are in the most commonly occurring 2500 words in English.
- Each word links to a thesaurus entry.
- B2 and C1. This refers to the Council of Europe Framework. Cambridge English have a large ongoing project called the English Profile project which charts language usage by people of different levels of language proficiency. For this word, the first two definitions would be likely to be known by someone operating at B2 level on the Council of Europe Framework but the third definition will only be used by people at the higher C1 level. Interesting!
- UK and US pronunciation
- “Smart” thesaurus with links to related words.
- The key symbol shows that it is an important (and frequent) word.
- British and American pronunciation.
- Option to create own word list, if you pay a small subscription.
- Note: word family on right hand side (explorer, exploration etc.)
- Wordfinder – emphasis on building vocabulary through learning related words.
These are all good (free) and useful tools and there are probably others out there which are great too. Let us know if you come across any other good ones. |
SizeUp to 12 feet (3.7 m) across with body about 15 inches (37 cm) wide, weighing 44 lbs
DietOmnivore, eatiing plants and algae as well as animals like mollusks
RangePacific Ocean around Japan
HabitatSeabed, often inhabiting vents and holes on the ocean floor at depths of 160 to 2,000 feet (50-600 m)
- Japanese spider crab gets its name from its resemblance to a spider. It has a rounded body covered with stubby projections and long slim legs.
- Maximum size of up to 12 feet (3.7 m) across.
- Body will grow to about 15 inches (37 cm) wide and the animal can weigh up to 44 lbs. (20 kg).
- Male is larger than the female and has larger claws.
Japanese spider crabs put small animals on their shells as camouflage
- An omnivore. Diet consists of both plant matter and animals.
- Sometimes acts as a scavenger, consuming dead animals.
- Some are known to scrape the bottom of the ocean floor for plants and algae, while others pry open the shells of mollusks.
- Occurs in the Pacific Ocean around Japan.
- Found on the seabed, often inhabiting vents and holes on the ocean floor at depths of 160 to 2,000 feet (50-600 m).
- Female carries fertilized eggs attached to her abdominal appendages until they hatch into tiny planktonic larvae.
- Larval stage looks nothing like the adult. It is small and transparent with a round, legless body and usually drifts as plankton at the surface of the ocean.
- One of the largest known arthropods (i.e., the group of animals that includes crabs, shrimp, insects, spiders and horseshoe crabs).
- It is difficult for fishermen to catch the giant Japanese spider crab because of the depth at which it is found, so the species is not widely exploited commercially. However, it is considered a rare delicacy in Asia.
- Member of the Majidae family, which is known as “decorator crabs.” This group of crabs will pick up small anemones, pieces of sponge or other benthic animals and cement them to the top of the carapace (shell). This provides the crab with natural camouflage that protects it from predators. |
Size2.2 feet (67 cm) and 5 lbs. (2.3 kg)
RangeWestern Atlantic from Massachusetts south to northern Brazil
HabitatShallow, clear, warm coastal waters over coral reefs and rocks
- Adult schoolmaster snapper can reach a maximum size of about 2.2 feet (67 cm) and 5 lbs. (2.3 kg). More commonly it is encountered at weights of less than one pound.
- Schoolmaster snapper is a marine fish widely distributed in the Western Atlantic from Massachusetts south to northern Brazil, including the Gulf of Mexico, the Bahamas and Bermuda. It is also found along the coast of West Africa.
- Found in shallow, clear, warm coastal waters over coral reefs and rocks to depths of approximately 200 feet (63 m).
- Frequently is found in the shelter of elkhorn coral and gorgonians.
- Juveniles are encountered over sand bottoms (both with and without sea grass) and over muddy bottoms of lagoons and mangrove areas. Young sometimes enter brackish water.
- Schoolmaster snapper is the most abundant snapper in the waters of the West Indies.
- The species has been reported to cause ciguetera poisoning.
- Coral Reef Fishes. Lieske, E. and Myers, R., pg. 156
- Atlantic Coast Fishes – Peterson’s Field Guides. Robins, C.R., Ray, G.C. and Douglass, J. |
The Georgia court system features 5 classes of trial-level courts. These classes are magistrate, probate, juvenile, state and superior courts. Moreover, there are around 350 municipal courts that are operating on a local basis and two appellate-level courts, which are the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals. You should be able to find a detailed illustration of the Georgia court system in the form of a diagram at this link http://www.georgiacourts.org/georgia-courts?menu=main.
If you are searching for information on trial courts of limited jurisdiction, you should know that the magistrate’s court for instance refers to a county court that issues warrants of arrest. This court also conducts hearings of criminal cases and also civil claims up to the maximum sum of $15,000. Chief magistrates are determined by the local law office and therefore they are not elected or appointed. Other magistrates can be appointed by the chief magistrate. This court is also where civil arguments are conducted. Preliminary hearings are held for criminal cases; the judge will issue search warrants and arrest warrants, if required. They are also entitled to set bail for defendants.
Probate courts decide the involuntary hospitalization of incapacitated adults or appoint legal guardians and issue marriage licenses or licenses for keeping guns. Those Georgian counties where no state court exists, the probate judge will hear traffic violations, misdemeanors or citations regarding the state game and fish laws. These judges are able to make appointments to local public offices and if the population exceeds 96,000, the probate judge has to be a licensed attorney having practiced for at least 7 years.
Juvenile courts focus on cases where deprived or neglected children who are under the age of 18 are involved. They also handle cases where delinquent and unruly offenses have been committed by children who are less than 17 and they also address cases concerning traffic violations committed by minors. The court hears cases revolving around consent to marriage for minor or the enlistment of minors in the military and others. The judges here are appointed by agreement of the superior court judges, every 4 years.
The state court has limited jurisdiction within certain counties. It handles misdemeanors such as traffic violations and it issues search and arrest warrants. It also holds preliminary hearings where criminal acts have occurred and it is organized by the local legislation. The judges here are elected for a 4-year term.
The municipal court is part of cities and towns in Georgia and its job is to handle traffic offenses and also local ordinance violations. It can also complete preliminary hearings and of course issue warrants. The municipal court judges are usually appointed by the mayor, and some of them are elected. Georgia hosts no less than 350 municipal courts.
The superior court has both civil and criminal cases to handle and its judges preside over felony trials. Georgia is currently hosting 49 superior courts which are made up of one or several counties. Each of these courts or court circuits is being led by a senior court judge. There are a number of judges who have been authorized by the General Assembly. There are special conditions that a potential judge needs to respect in order to rule over a superior court: he or she needs to have practiced for at least 7 years, to be a resident of the state for at least 3 years and to be at least 30 years of age.
The Court of Appeals is the court that usually reviews many civil and criminal cases that have already been heard by the trial courts and these reviews can correct legal errors or errors of law. This court has 12 judges assigned 1 to 4 panels made up of 3 judges each. Those cases that have already been assigned to a panel which will be reviewed by the judges; transcripts and portions of records will also be listened and panels will also hear verbal arguments in some cases. |
Electric technology. It’s in our DNA
Electric past, present and future
We believe a more vibrant society can be created through mobility. In other words, the more efficient ways we have of getting around, the better we’ll all be. That’s why we started our development into electric vehicle (EV) technology way back in 1970.
We are pioneers in vehicle electrification
In 2009, we launched the i-MiEV, the first ever mass-produced electric vehicle. More recently, we’ve been developing plug-in hybrid technology. A hybrid electric vehicle uses both a petrol engine and an internal battery as its main sources of power. But a Plug-in Hybrid EV (PHEV) has a battery which can be recharged from the mains. Our research and development in this area resulted in the 2013 launch of the OUTLANDER PHEV. In 2017 we introduced the e-Evolution concept car, which shows we’re already thinking about the future.
Mitsubishi Motors' innovation
Our PHEV system is based on EV technology and is an advanced series hybrid. It has twin motors: one on the front axle, and one on the rear. Having twin electric motors creates a superior EV system with 4WD capability.
A vehicle that thinks for itself
Our PHEV System switches smoothly between driving modes to offer the most efficient performance.
EV Drive Mode (Electric motor only)
The motors power the vehicle using electricity from the battery, resulting in zero fuel consumption and zero CO2 emissions. The drive mode is quiet, clean and powerful. Maximum speed is 135km/h.
Series Hybrid Mode (Electric motor + Petrol engine generator)
The motors power the vehicle using engine-generated electricity. The engine generates electricity to recharge the battery when the level is low and to increase power when accelerating rapidly or climbing hills
Parallel Hybrid Mode (Petrol engine + Electric motor)
The engine powers the vehicle at high speeds etc, (when engine efficiency is high) with assistance from the motors when extra power is required.
Cleaner. Quieter. Smoother
Having twin electric motors doesn’t just mean the car can be driven at speeds of up to 135km in pure electric (EV) mode. With no gears to change, there's no 'shift shock,' so you get a much smoother ride.
Better for the environment
Because our PHEV system harnesses electric power more often, and the 2.4-litre atkinson cycle engine is highly efficient, our PHEV vehicles have ultra-low CO2 emissions: 40g/km (NEDC) and 46g/km (WLTP).
S-AWC (Super All Wheel Control)
This integrated control system is only available from Mitsubishi Motors. It delivers incredible power and control by managing several on-board systems all at once: AYC (Active Yaw Control), ASC (Active Stability Control) with Traction Control and ABS (Anti-lock Braking System). This means the Twin Motor 4WD system is working at its best, without compromising safety, comfort or fuel efficiency.
A new Drive Mode makes S-AWC even better because it lets you choose the best setting for your road conditions:
Use for regular driving on dry tarmac roads.
Easier starts and more secure cornering on snow-covered roads.
Evenly distributes power to all four wheels for improved traction and stability. Use on rough dirt and gravel roads.
Use this mode for quicker response on dryer, winding roads.
Less noise. More green
Having separately mounted motors on the front and rear axles not only delivers a smoother ride, it's also incredibly quiet. You could be gliding through the city streets or country roads in the early hours and no one will notice. And in all-electric driving mode, you'll benefit from zero fuel consumption and zero CO2 emissions.
Go for miles without needing to refuel
Our PHEV drive system stores the electricity in a large capacity lithium-ion battery (13.8kw) which gives you a range of 45km. Combine that with the 2.4-litre atkinson cycle engine and you’ve got a total range of up to 600km
There are several ways to charge, including over 1,100 charging locations across Ireland. It takes as little as 25 minutes to charge your PHEV vehicle up to 80% at a fast charging point.
Ways to Charge
Charging is easy
The OUTLANDER PHEV can be charged in several different ways. All of them are easy and convenient. Just choose the one that suits you best.
Dedicated Home Charger
A dedicated home charger is one that is installed outside your home by a trained electrician.
The drive battery can be charged via a standard Irish wall socket via the 3-pin "Granny Cable" charger which we recommend uses a dedicated electrical circuit, checked by a qualified electrician. 7 hours for 230V 8A.
A fast charger can provide up to 80% charge in as little as 25 minutes, making them the quickest way to charge in Ireland. Commonly found at motorway service stations and close to major roads.
You'll find Public Chargers in supermarket car parks, shopping centres and anywhere else a car can be left for an extended period – sometimes even workplaces.
The ESB Charging Station Finder App
Recharge your batteries while the car recharges
The ESB Charging Station Finder App (ecar connect) will help you find your nearest charging location. If you hook up to a rapid charger, you can stop for coffee or a bite to eat and 25 minutes later, you'll have up to 80% charge.
The easy way to find charging stations
Find more than 40,000 charging points across Europe with the latest available information. The EV Charging Station Finder App works on your iPhone*. It works on AndroidTM smartphone as well, and also through Android AutoTM on the on-board MMC Smartphone Link Display Audio (SDA). You can either search for chargers based on your current location or by choosing a location. The app will also tell you whether the charging point is available or occupied.
*iPhone is a trademark of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.
AndroidTM, Android AutoTM, and Google Maps are registered trademarks of Google LLC
Everyday life with a PHEV
When does the PHEV use the electric motor, and when does it use petrol? When do you charge and for how long? We’ve taken some everyday scenarios to show you how easily a Mitsubishi PHEV will fit into your life.
How much could you save on running costs with the Outlander PHEV? Fill in your details below and we'll tell you right now.
More ways to save with a PHEV
If you choose the OUTLANDER PHEV, there are several other ways that can help you keep your running costs down.
See what the future holds
We've been pioneers for over 100 years, it's part of our DNA. So too is the need to innovate. This means we'll continue to develop greener, more sustainable vehicles which offer greater protection and make driving fun and pleasurable. Just like our e-EVOLUTION concept car. |
John Conway (Ph.D. Mathematician from Princeton) in the ’70s developed a simple game based on a checkerboard. The rules were as follows:
- A single checker piece with less than two other checker pieces dies due to a lack of tribe.
- A single checker piece with two or three checker pieces lives on to the next generation – the perfect balance of resource & consumption.
- A single checker piece with more than three neighbours dies, – limited resources creates competition & survival of the fittest.
- If three checker pieces are close enough, a new checker piece will emerge – procreation producing new children.
Here’s what it looks like:
We started with a block of 4 pieces together. One of them will die because of overcrowding, the others will move around and reproduce. Soon, you’ll find formations like beehive, blinkers, gliders, etc etc.
They kinda look like how micro-organisms would behave. Attacking, moving, mitosis, meiosis – all that jazz. Now John, ran this on a computer and the simulation produced some remarkable outputs.
It’s kinda like how life is, you know?
A simulation run on four basic principles – life, death, survival and procreation. Human action, interaction, and transaction is pretty much run on these elements. Work, marriage, religion, food, shelter, – you name it.
Well, how do you account for art, or, sports, the theatre or enjoying an innocent ice-cream at the park?
Here’s the kicker, ladies and gentlemen. We do these activities to preserve ourselves.
We have a strong attraction to art and beauty because we are programmed that way. Our neuro-receptors fire off in certain sequences making us follow certain paths to achieve our goals. Whether it’s eating a piece of cake or finishing off a Dickens.
We’re controlled by dopamine, serotonin, melatonin, our vitamin intake, quality of food, sleep, exercise, etc. etc. Even our moods and our thoughts are heavily influenced by the amount of stress we have and the condition of the environment in which we live. Stockbrokers might die younger. Meat eaters might get heart attacks.
No matter how much we might “think-our-way” out of a situation, we find ourselves trapped even deeper until we control our own food intake and go for a run once in a while.
Christina Rasmussen lost her husband to cancer. When asked what she learned from her 2 years of solace and despair – she said:
“Nothing. Time doesn’t heal but, action does.”
Only in taking action, will our minds continue on.
This should be extremely liberating, folks. If everyone accepts this fact, then no one will be judged for behaving irrationally – as all humans are inherently rational only to the extent of managing all of their essential duties. Eating, sleeping, resting, playing, reading, and then sleeping again.
Now when you stop worrying about how you react to situations or how you are perceived by others, what will you do with all your free time? I say – Have a great time and enjoy it! Really live your life, the way you choose to.
- How the Slang Language Is Driving You Insane Without You Even Knowing - March 13, 2019
- Will Business Process Automation Lead to Workers Being Replaced by Robots? - November 23, 2018
- NDE Shows How Consciousness May Exist Beyond the Physical Body - June 17, 2017
Copyright © 2012-2021 Learning Mind. All rights reserved. For permission to reprint, contact us. |
What is the Gut-Brain Connection
You’ve probably used the phrases “I have butterflies in my stomach,”
“I have a gut feeling about this,” or “there’s a pit in my stomach.”
Have you ever wondered why so many of these sayings involve our brains and tummies?
As it turns out, it’s not such a coincidence. In fact, the more we learn about the human gut, or our gut microbiome, the more it’s clear that it is our “second brain.”
You’re probably already aware that leaky gut syndrome is linked to severe conditions and diseases.
But science is discovering that the Gut-Brain Connection and our emotions are just as secure.
What Does the Gut Have to Do with How We Feel?
See, the gut is home to the enteric nervous system.
Separate from the central nervous system, the ENS is made up of two thin layers with more than 100 million nerve cells in them — more than the spinal cord.
These cells line the gastrointestinal tract, controlling blood flow and secretions to help the GI tract digest food.
They also help us “feel” what’s happening inside the gut, since this second brain is behind the mechanics of food digestion.
While the second brain doesn’t get involved in thought processes like political debates or theological reflection, it does control behavior on its own.
Researchers believe this came about to make digestion more efficient in the body; instead of having to “direct” absorption through the spinal cord and into the brain and back,
we developed an on-site mind that could handle things closer to the source.
But because this second brain is so complex, scientists aren’t convinced that it was designed as just a way to aid indigestion.
So while it isn’t capable of thoughts, it does “talk” to the brain in significant ways.
What Role Does Our Gut Play in Mood?
Stress, for example, is intimately tied to our guts.
Our bodies respond to stress with a “fight or flight system,” related to our cortisol levels and which is ruled by the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.
When something scary or worrying happens, like someone unexpectedly jumps in front of you or you see a mouse scurrying in front of you,
you have a physical reaction: your palms might get sweaty, and you might feel your heartbeat quicken.
Typically, if you’re in a stressful situation that is then diffused, your body goes back to normal.
But if you’re always stressed, your body is stuck in that fight or flight phase over an extended period.
The critical part is that our bodies are unable to distinguish between physical and mental stress.
So your body would respond the same way if a bear showed up in your home as it does when you realize you hate your job — it will try to combat the stress.
This constant state of stress causes chronic inflammation; the body reacts to the pressure as a type of infection and tries to overcome it.
Because inflammation is at the root of many diseases, this exposure to prolonged stress can have severe consequences for your health, ranging from high blood pressure to autoimmune disorders.
The types of bacteria found in the gut — “good bacteria” — play a role in how our immune responses are regulated.
Additionally, the gut microbiome is believed to be linked to disorders like depression and autism.
For years, scientists and doctors have noticed that people with autism often have GI issues like food allergies or gluten intolerance.
That led researchers to believe that perhaps there was something different about the gut makeup of autistic people.
A 2013 study found that when a specific type of bacteria was given to mice that had similar behavioral characteristics as humans with autism, the gut microbiome of these mice changed, along with their behavior.
They became less anxious and were more social with other mice.
Another study illustrated how the Gut-Brain Connection is established by studying the effects of probiotics on patients with irritable bowel syndrome and depression.
Researchers found that twice as many patients saw improvements from depression when they took a probiotic as compared to the other patients who took a placebo.
Again, with an increase of the gut, came an improvement of mental wellbeing. Patients in this study received the probiotic Bifidobacterium longum NCC3001 daily.
Doctors are even changing the way they dispense medicine as a result of the Gut-Brain Connection. Some doctors may prescribe particular antidepressants to treat diseases like irritable bowel syndrome.
That doesn’t mean they believe that the digestive problems are all in someone’s head.
Instead, it’s thought that these medications can improve the link between the gut and the brain, providing digestive relief in the process.
Natural Remedies for Your Gut-Brain Connection
While there’s still much to uncover about the mystery of the gut and all it affects, we are sure of a few things you should do to improve your gut-brain connection.
1. Avoid Processed Foods
For starters, a whole foods-based diet leads to a gut with a much different makeup than one that’s been fed mainly refined and processed foods.
Even worse, ultra-processed foods like white bread, chips, and snack cakes that make up nearly 60 percent of the average American’s diet.
The added sugar found in these foods, often disguised as different types of artificial sweeteners, is responsible for a variety of health conditions, from obesity to type 2 diabetes to migraines.
2. Eat Probiotics
Eating probiotic-rich foods, like kefir and sauerkraut, can also cause your gut and mood to thrive.
Probiotics are good bacteria that primarily line your stomach and are responsible for nutrient absorption and supporting your immune system.
3. Swear Off Gluten
For many people, limiting gluten will also have a positive effect on their gut microbiome.
The traditional methods of soaking, sprouting, and souring grains to make them digestible and nutritious has been abandoned for a fast and convenient way of mass-producing food.
4. Eat Healthy Fats
Healthy fats are essential for brain development.
Olive oil, for instance, includes a high amount of antioxidants that protect your cells from damage.
It also helps improve memory and cognitive function and works as an anti-inflammatory.
Avocado benefits range from protecting your heart to helping with digestion, but it’s also an excellent pick for improving your mood.
5. Consume Mushrooms
The shiitake mushroom contains plenty of vitamin B6. Because vitamin B6 impacts the production of serotonin and neurotransmitters, healthy B6 levels are associated with a positive mood and reducing stress naturally.
It’s also been proven to treat mood disorders like depression effectively.
6. Eat Nuts
Have a small handful of nuts like almonds, cashews, walnuts, and Brazil nuts. Why? They’re full of serotonin, a feel-good chemical that’s in short supply when you’re depressed.
7. Have Sesame Seeds
Its benefits stem from tyrosine, an amino acid that boosts the brain’s dopamine levels. It kicks the feel-good hormone into high gear while balancing out the others.
We don’t have all the answers on the gut-mood link just yet, but one thing is sure: our bodies and minds are much more connected than you believe.
Taking care of one part will reap benefits for the rest of you. |
Understanding Your Students’ Uniqueness. Darla J. Layton 28 October 2002. Content. Introduction Aspects of Student Diversity Diversity and Multicultural Education Bilingual Education Reduction of Racism Teacher Awareness Conclusion. Introduction. A students’ uniqueness is defined by: - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Understanding Your Students’ Uniqueness
Darla J. Layton
28 October 2002
Diversity and Multicultural Education can lead to a Reduction in Racism:
A Requirement for a Diverse and Multicultural Education is Improved Teacher Awareness.
The old adage, “It takes a village to raise a child.” is true when it comes to education, and the well being of a child. It takes the entire school to help with the successful continuing education of children, no matter the diversity. We as educators need to be aware of diversity in our students, the community, and ourselves. This uniqueness is a wonderful opportunity for improving the learning process. |
Hindu statesman Rajan Zed has said that in addition to yoga and meditation, Hinduism was a superabundant storehouse of wisdom going back to ancient times. He or other Hindu scholars would be glad to help in her spiritual exploration if asked.
Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, suggested Spears that after the physical benefits of yoga, it was time now to explore the spiritual dimension of yoga because actually yoga was a mental and physical discipline by means of which the human-soul (jivatman) united with universal-soul (parmatman). As yoga was one of the six systems of orthodox Hindu philosophy, it would be further enlightening to take a look at the rest of the five schools also, Zed added.
He further said that yoga was referred as “a living fossil” whose traces went back to around 2,000 BCE to Indus Valley civilization. According to Patanjali who codified it in Yoga Sutra, yoga was a methodical effort to attain perfection, through the control of the different elements of human nature, physical and psychical. |
Chess Board Setup
If you have ever wondered “How do I set up a chess board?” this article is for you! Here you will learn how to set up a chess board and pieces correctly in order to play a game of chess under standard tournament rules (F.I.D.E).
This guide is for beginners and those new to chess. It shows the normal set up for over the board (OTB) play.
While every computer chess game will set up the board automatically at the start of a new game, it is still useful to know correct orientation of a chess board and where all the pieces should be placed. This knowledge will enable us to play chess against human players in the sunshine (hopefully!), or at OTB tournaments.
Correct Chess Board Orientation
A chess board is made up of eight rows and eight columns of alternating light and dark colour squares.
Although the squares are often black and white, they may also be other colours. Light and dark shades of red, brown or green are common. Glass chess boards use a system of etching and transparency.
Whatever colour your chess board happens to be, it will have two contrasting light and dark colours. The most common colours for a chess board are black and white.
Correct orientation of a chess board is to have the corner square, on the right-hand side nearest you in the light colour.
At the start of a game, check to see if the right-hand square nearest to you is light or dark. If this square is a dark colour then turn the board a quarter turn (90 degrees) in either direction.
The reason that this is the correct orientation relates to placement of the queen and the ability to record games using standard chess notation.
A helpful mnemonic to remember this is: “Light to the right“.
By convention, images or chess diagrams show white/light pieces at the bottom of the board and black/dark pieces at the top.
How Many Pieces in a Chess Set?
A standard set of chess pieces contains 32 pieces, 16 light and 16 dark pieces. Good quality chess sets may have 34 pieces as they will include an extra queen of each colour.
A standard 32 piece chess set will have eight pawns, 1 queen, 1 king, 2 bishops, 2 knights and two rooks for a total of 16 pieces of each colour.
Rooks are not “castles”. The confusion may have arisen from the chess move called castling.
Where do the Pieces Go?
Each chess piece has its own assigned place in a chess board setup. The easiest way to setup a board for play is to place the pawns first, followed by the major pieces. This avoids reaching over the pawns and perhaps knocking or moving them.
The bottom yellow row highlights the starting position for the white pawns. The top red row highlights the starting position for the black pawns.
The black queen faces the white queen from the opposite side of the board. Like the white queen, place the black queen on a square of her own colour.
The correct place for the black queen is the black square nearest the middle of the back rank.
The black and white kings sit on the e file, next to the queen.
Kings always start on a square of opposite colour.
Each side has two bishops. A bishop sits next to the king or queen.
Some chess articles refer bishops as “Queen’s bishop” or “King’s bishop” depending upon their initial position.
This designation also informs experienced players as to the colour of squares that the piece may move on. This convention avoids phrases such as “white’s white bishop!”
Place one knight next to each bishop on the back rank.
Chess novices sometimes become confused over knight and bishop placement.
Here is a helpful way to remember correct placement. Bishops are likely to be members of the court and so are near the king and queen, but a knight is often depicted by a horse. No horses in the court!
Each player has two rooks and they are perhaps the easiest of pieces to place as they occupy the corners of the board.
Place each rook in the corner of the board, next to the knights. After all, where else would a knight “live” other than next to a “castle”?
I hope that you found this guide useful. Now the next time someone asks “How do you set up a chess board?” you can be confident that you know how to set up a chess board correctly.
Of course, if you use our online chess game here on here at computer chess online then setting up the board is simple as pressing “new game”! 🙂 |
The thallus, or body, of the alga is brown to tan, forming fan-shaped clusters. Each blade is calcified, more heavily above and lightly below, and curls inward near the edges. Both the upper and lower blade surfaces bear minute surface hairs arranged in a series of bands approximately 1.5 to 6 mm apart (Taylor 1979; Littler & Littler 2000; Littler et al. 2008). The blades attach to the substratum via a holdfast, which is often matted.
Potentially Misidentified Species:
Several species within the genus Padina appear quite similar and may be misidentified. However, only one other species, P. gymnospora, is commonly recorded within the IRL (Littler et al. 2008). The thallus of P. gymnospora is similar in size and color to P. pavonica. However, the blades of P. gymnospora are more elongate and leaf-like, and clusters are more likely to be found attached to surfaces like jetties or seawalls that are exposed to moderate wave action (Littler et al. 2008).
II. HABITAT & DISTRIBUTION
The range of P. pavonica extends throughout the world in warm temperate to tropical locales, including: North Carolina to Florida in the United States; the Gulf of Mexico; throughout the Caribbean and tropical Atlantic (Taylor 1979; Littler & Littler 2000; Littler et al. 2008); and the Eastern Atlantic, Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas (Orlando-Bonaca et al. 2008). Clusters are commonly attached to shell fragments and rocks from the lower intertidal zone down to 20 m (Taylor 1979), in seagrass beds and coral reefs, on tidal flats, and attached to mangrove prop roots (Littler & Littler 2000).
Indian River Lagoon (IRL) Distribution:
In the Indian River Lagoon, P. pavonica is usually found from the Fort Pierce Inlet in St. Lucie County south throughout Martin County (Littler et al. 2008). Most clusters are attached to pebbles or shell fragments around tidal flats, either on sandy bottoms or in seagrass beds, and on prop roots of the red mangrove, Rhizophora mangle (Littler et al. 2008).
III. LIFE HISTORY & POPULATION
Age, Size, Lifespan:
P. pavonica can occur as small clusters or as mats covering several centimeters (e.g. Littler & Littler 2000). Individuals reach dimensions of 22 cm high x 37 cm wide, with each blade measuring up to 12 cm wide (Littler & Littler 2000; Littler et al. 2008).
Little information exists concerning factors that affect age and lifespan of P. pavonica. However, growth and mortality of populations is likely tied to nutrient levels, temperature, salinity and predator abundance.
Reproduction & Embryology:
Once a plant has developed and attached to the substratum, growth of new blades originates at the holdfast (Littler et al. 2008). This process isolates individuals during growth, even though tightly-packed plants may appear as large, connected mats at a glance.
The peacock’s tail is known as haplodiplontic, reproducing alternately via haploid gametes or through diploid spores (e.g. Garreta et al. 2007). Spores can develop independently into new individuals, which appears to be quite common. In contrast, sexual reproduction via the release of male and female gametes does exist, but is considered rare.
Regardless of the method of propagation, reproductive organs, called sori, and their associated structures are responsible for the production of gametes or spores. In spore-producing individuals, the spherical sori are 90-140 um in diameter, and are found along one or both sides of the bands of hairs growing on the lower surface of the blades (Littler & Litter 2000; Littler et al. 2008). Male and female gamete-producing sori are also found on the lower surfaces of the blades in certain plants. The female, or oogonial, sori are spherical and 40-50 um in diameter (Littler & Litter 2000; Littler et al. 2008); whereas male sori, called antheridia, are ovoid or rectangular, measuring 39-122 x 28-72 μm (Garreta et al. 2007).
It has been suggested that water temperature is the predominant factor determining the process of reproduction among populations of P. pavonica (Garreta et al. 2007). Spore-producing individuals are common during different seasons, depending on location and climate (Garreta et al. 2007). In the IRL, plants are most abundant in the spring and summer, dying back in the winter months (Littler et al. 2008).
IV. PHYSICAL TOLERANCES
Temperature & Salinity:
Little information is available concerning the temperature and salinity tolerances of P. pavonica. However, the natural range and habitats of the species suggests it prefers and/or requires warm temperate to tropical waters in brackish to marine salinity ranges. As mentioned above, populations in the IRL are more abundant in spring and summer, suggesting a preference or requirement for warmer waters, or possibly higher nutrient levels associated with the rainy season.
V. COMMUNITY ECOLOGY
Like most other species of algae and vascular plants, P. pavonica is autotrophic, converting energy from the sun into usable food via photosynthesis.
Information regarding the common grazers of P. pavonica is scarce, but it is likely that the species is fed upon by a variety of organisms, including: urchins, hermit crabs, sea turtles, and herbivorous fishes. In particular, studies have documented algal grazing on this species by urchins of the genera Diadema and Echinothrix (Tuya et al. 2001; Coppard & Campbell 2007).
Although no obligate associations have been documented between P. pavonica and other species, the alga is commonly found with other organisms occupying the same habitats. For extensive lists of these species, please visit the Tidal Flat, Mangrove and Seagrass habitat pages of this inventory.
VI. SPECIAL STATUS
In addition to the possible benefits to human health, P. pavonica may also have agricultural implications. Studies conducted by Omezzine and others in 2009 showed that various extracts from the brown alga acted as effective fertilizers, promoting crop growth and nutrient composition of the surrounding soil, while simultaneously retarding the growth of potentially harmful fungi.
Extracts isolated from P. pavonica have been added to homeopathic medicinal remedies and several cosmetic solutions, including shampoos, topical creams and lotions, and tablets or capsules taken orally. These extracts are reported to improve skin tone and texture, reduce wrinkles, and support bone and cartilage health. However, most or all of these claims have not been evaluated by the Food & Drug Administration.
VII. LITERATURE CITED & OTHER USEFUL REFERENCES
Coppard, SE & AC Campbell. 2007. Grazing preferences of diadematid echinoids in Fiji. Aquat. Bot. 86: 204-212.
Garreta, AG, Lluch, JR, Martí, MCB & MAR Siguan. 2007. On the presence of fertile gametophytes of Padina pavonica (Dictyotales, Phaeophycea) from the Iberian coasts. Anales Jardín Bot. Madrid 64: 27-33.
Littler, DS & MM Littler. 2000. Caribbean Reef Plants. Offshore Graphics. Washington, DC. USA. 542 pp.
Littler, DS, Littler, MM & MD Hanisak. 2008. Submersed Plants of the Indian River Lagoon: A Floristic Inventory and Field Guide. Offshore Graphics. Washington, DC. USA. 286 pp.
Neto, AI. 2000. Observations on the biology and ecology of selected macroalgae from the littoral of São Miguel (Azores). Bot. Mar. 43: 483-498.
Omezzine, F, Haouala, R, Ayeb, AE & N Boughanmi. 2009. Allelopathic and antifungal potentialities of Padina pavonica (L.) extract. J. Plant Breed. Crop Sci. 1: 94-203.
Orlando-Bonaca, M, Lipej, L & S Orfanidis. 2008. Benthic macrophytes as a tool for delineating, monitoring and assessing ecological status: the case of Slovenian coastal waters. Mar. Poll. Bull. 56: 666-676.
Tuya, F, Martín, JA, Reuss, GM & A Luque. 2001. Food preferences of the sea urchin Diadema antillarum in Gran Canaria (Canary Islands, central-east Atlantic Ocean). J. Mar. Biol. Ass. U.K. 81: 845-849.
Taylor, WR. 1979. Marine Algae of the Eastern Tropical and Subtropical Coasts of the Americas. University of Michigan Press. Ann Arbor, MI. USA. 870 pp.
Report by: LH Sweat,
Smithsonian Marine Station at Fort Pierce
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Page last updated: 28 September 2010
© 2010 Smithsonian Institution |
By Michael Kammen
Liberty, probably the most consequential phrases in our language, is without doubt one of the so much precious thoughts in American thought--and the most intensely debated. Its that means is continually moving, altering not just from one tradition to a different but additionally, over the years, in the related tradition. No definitions of liberty appear alike.
In this sophisticated and illuminating paintings Michael Kammen strains the evolving suggestion of liberty all through American historical past and offers a great framework for realizing the that means of the time period at the present time. He indicates that by way of the early 17th century a stress among liberty and authority used to be good well-known. during the eighteenth century and particularly in the course of the American Revolution a bond among liberty and estate used to be asserted. by way of the tip of the eighteenth century this idea of liberty used to be so good confirmed that it remained dominant in the course of the 19th. by means of the early 20th century, because the idea of social justice won prominence, liberty and justice have been paired often, and via midcentury the 2 had develop into allied to common American values. because the Sixties the union of liberty and equality has been the present suggestion, and reaching them has proved an enormous objective.
In a full of life and realized demeanour Kammen additionally indicates that americans have subscribed to varied definitions of liberty at the same time. particularly, there was a gradual enlargement of what's embraced by way of the concept that of liberty. This enlargement has created problems in public discourse, inflicting teams to misconceive each other. nonetheless, interpretations of liberty have broadened to incorporate such strategies as constraints on authority, a correct to privateness, and the safety of private freedoms.
In a brand new preface for this Banner Books version Kammen responds to reviews of past variants and locations his perspectives in the context of newer studies. |
Image of the Cistercian Monastery located in Cumberland, RI. Excerpt from Cumberland Public Library Monastery History
The Cumberland Public Library is situated on the site of the Monastery of Our Lady of the Valley, occupied by the monks of the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance, commonly known as Trappists. The story began in Nova Scotia in 1892, when a fire destroyed the Abbey of Petit Clairvaux. The monks then needed to re-locate elsewhere.
Dom John Murphy purchased 530 acres of land in the Town of Cumberland in August of 1900 from the Right Reverend Matthew Harkins, Bishop of Providence. Temporary quarters were quickly constructed, establishing one of the first Trappist monasteries in United States. The name of Our Lady of the Valley was selected because the nearest village was named Valley Falls and the site overlooked the Blackstone River. The monks themselves quarried the granite stone on the property to erect the many buildings.
The first building was constructed in 1902. It served as the entire monastery, for both monks and lay guests, until the church was dedicated in 1928. It then became the Guest Wing. It was here that the disastrous fire of 1950 began. Ironically, this building was one of the few made of wood, having only a stone facade. It was scheduled to be torn down and replaced at a later date. Daily life at Our Lady of the Valley held to a strict routine. The community rose at 2:00 A.M., earlier on feast days and Sundays, and spent the day in liturgical and mental prayer, study and manual labor. Most of the manual labor is done by lay brothers, who either do not have the aptitude for study or do not wish to become priests. While the lay brothers did the manual work, the religious did the "work of God". Both priests and lay brothers ate very sparingly, mostly bread, vegetables and tea or coffee. Meat was only given to those who needed it because of illness. The Cistercians are under a rule perpetual silence, which was conducive to the observance of regular discipline. While they were allowed to speak with superiors and sometimes others, they developed a system of sign language that contained simple verbs, nouns and adjectives for all other conversation.
On March 21, 1950, a terrible fire destroyed the Guest House and most of the church. The fire was discovered under the stairway of the Guest House. It spread quickly in the dormitory and leapt to the roof of the church. All of the 140 monks inside were able to escape, some of them by using ladders and others dropping 20 feet from the windows. The battle against the fire began with a bucket brigade of monks who were later joined by fire fighters from 10 communities. After the fire, volunteers used outdoor stoves to provide soup for the displaced monks. Damages were estimated to be $2 million in 1950 dollars, so one can imagine the cost in today's economy. After the fire, the monastic community decided to build on a larger piece of property they owned in Spencer, Massachusetts. This was to have been a second community. They are still there today. |
Politics is becoming a fad in America. President Trump’s Twitter feed, which has become a platform for his administration’s policy recommendations, is hard to ignore. However, while we focus on America’s dysfunctional political climate, the rest of the world is facing much more severe constitutional changes and secessions. More often than not, this is happening through public referendums.
In layman’s terms, a referendum is a direct vote on a specific issue. Referendums are different from elections in that referendums reflect the views of the people on a range of individual issues instead of their preference for a specific candidate. This means that the people have the opportunity to express themselves before the issue they are voting on is passed into law. There are two types of referendums: mandatory and optional. Mandatory referendums are generally required by the country’s constitution and are usually binding, while optional referendums are initiated by political parties or the government and are not binding.
Referendums have become more politicized because politicians are simplifying the narrative of the referendums. This makes passing a referendum more about the popularity of the political party than about the subject of the referendum. In fact, Alexandra Cirone, a fellow at the London School of Economics, said, “[a referendum is] a tool that’s risky, but politicians keep using it because they think they’ll win. Often they do not win, and instead of resolving political problems, the referendums create new ones.”
Brexit exemplifies how referendums can create new problems instead of resolving old ones. David Cameron, former prime minister of the United Kingdom, decided to go forward with the referendum to ease the ‘euro-skeptics.’ He did so with the knowledge that, according to polling, only 10% of the U.K. population openly supported the U.K. Independence Party. Ultimately, David Cameron was mistaken and the majority voted in favor of Brexit.
During the debate in the United Kingdom over whether to leave the European Union, the ‘remain’ campaign emphasized economic stability. The ‘leave’ campaign highlighted the problems Britain had as a result of immigration. Neither side actually explained to the public the specifics of what it meant to stay or leave the European Union. Therefore, neither campaign gave the public the opportunity to understand what they were voting for. Both sides framed their argument based on what they thought would help them win—they politicized the campaign and let the people suffer as a result. Kenneth Rogoff, an economics professor at Harvard University, wrote “the idea that somehow any decision reached anytime by majority rule is necessarily ‘democratic’ is a perversion of the term… This isn’t democracy; it is Russian roulette for republics.” His remarks illustrate the frustration many public policy advisors and experts feel with regards to referendums. Michael Marsh, a political scientist at Trinity College, Dublin, concurs with Rogoff’s sentiments, saying that referendums are “almost never” a good idea.
Frankly, the British people are not in a position to decide something as consequential, complicated and convoluted as Britain’s membership in the European Union. Jason Brennan, an expert on the ethics of voting at Georgetown University, spoke about what it means to have a rudimentary understanding of the ramifications of Brexit. He said, “one would need to know about the economics and sociology of trade and immigration, the politics of centralized regulation, and the history of nationalist movements. But there is no reason to think even a tenth of the UK’s population has a basic grasp of the social science needed to evaluate Brexit.”
Brexit is not the only potentially harmful referendum that has recently taken place. In fact, it has only been a few days since Catalonia held their referendum to leave Spain. This referendum however, was interrupted by the Spanish riot police. What was at first a festive moment for the people of Catalonia slowly descended into a display of police brutality.
Catalonia’s desire for independence stems from their painful memories of the Franco dictatorship of 1939-1975. Catalonia’s cultural identity and political liberties were suppressed, their language was belittled and their traditions were banned under Franco’s autocratic rule. Despite all this, Catalonia, which has a population of 7.5 million, maintains its own local parliament and provides about a fifth of Spain’s GDP, is still a part of Spain.
The roots of Catalonia’s desire for independence stem from its domination by the centralized Spanish government and Spain’s holistic suppression of Catalan identity. Calls for independence increased in the wake of the 2008 economic crisis. Catalonia was made to bear more of the overall economic burden from the crisis than the other Spanish regions, such as Andalusia. Catalonia, a much smaller region than Andalusia, paid about 2.5 million more to the Spanish government than Andalusia did. This made the people of Catalonia extremely frustrated. The referendum that was held on October 1st called into question Catalonia’s secession from Spain. The Spanish government claimed the rogue referendum was unconstitutional but Carles Puigdemont, the Catalan regional president, has said the people of Catalonia want to become an independent republic.
Unfortunately, the people of Catalonia never got a real opportunity to vote for their independence. The Spanish government confiscated almost 10 million ballot papers, blocked access to pro-independence websites, imposed fines on Catalan officials and detained several political leaders. Moreover, on the day of the referendum, the Spanish police used rubber bullets and truncheons to hinder the voting process. The struggle between the Spanish government and Catalonia calls into question the entire process of referendums. Political parties assume their referendums will succeed, but voters are unpredictable and, more often than not, ignorant. They are likely to vote for the political party or ideology they support, even if it infringes on their rights and upends the government. Ultimately, this unpredictability portrays the dangers attached to referendums. |
New Delhi, February 12, 2019:
Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) co-infection refers to the condition where a person is infected with both viruses at the same time. Both HIV and HCV are blood-borne pathogens and have common routes of transmission through blood and blood products. Hepatitis C is a disease of liver caused by HCV that can cause both acute and chronic hepatitis C, ranging in severity from a mild illness, lasting a few weeks to a serious life threatening illness, such as liver cancer, if not treated.
Currently, there is no national representative data for estimating the disease burden in India. In the absence of a streamlined reporting mechanism, it is difficult to estimate the number of cases of various types of hepatitis infections. In India, population prevalence of hepatitis C is around 1%, which amounts to an estimated 12 million people in India who are likely to be infected with HCV
Some facts you must know about HIV and HCV Co-infection:
- Globally, 71 million people are estimated to be chronic carriers of hepatitis C, but 4 out of 5 people (80%) do not know their status and only 7% are receiving treatment.
- WHO has set an ambitious target of viral hepatitis elimination by 2030 to support Sustainable Development Goal 3. India is also a signatory to the World Health Assembly resolution and the country’s vision is to move towards elimination of Viral Hepatitis by 2030. Through adoption of a simplified and accessible service delivery approach to promote access to testing of Hepatitis C and access to HCV diagnosis & treatment.
- All vulnerable populations (such as people who inject drugs, patients on haemodialysis, geriatric patients, healthcare workers, people engaging with multiple sexual partners, those in close contact with an HCV-infected patient, have body piercing and tattoos etc.) are more at risk of being infected with HCV.
- Despite various safety measures, blood received from donors, still in window period, is a matter of concern, as it is difficult to detect the infection at the blood banks.
- Both HIV and HCV can be transmitted through the blood and by sharing needles, blades or any instrument coming in direct contact with an infected person’s blood.
- Progression of HCV infection speeds up in the presence of HIV infection, although it can remain asymptomatic for a long time. HCV infection remains asymptomatic for a long time, which makes early diagnosis challenging because, during the gestation period, the disease does not manifest itself through any specific symptoms. According to a study tested among 14,481 PWIDs in 15 cities across India – The prevalence of HIV among this population was found to be 5.7%, however the Hep C prevalence was 25.6% and prevalence of coinfection of Hep C and HIV was 14.4%. In addition to this, 6 of the 15 cities showed a co-infection of higher than 30%.
- The HCV prevalence rate in vulnerable populations (such as those living with HIV, and those who inject drugs) is expected to be higher than the HCV prevalence rate in the general population. This is primarily due to sharing of infected needles and syringes. This high-risk behaviour makes people who inject drugs vulnerable to both HIV and HCV infections.
- All diagnosis tests are free of cost under National Viral Hepatitis Control Program (NVHCP) at designated hospitals and ART/testing centres
- The Government of India launched the National Viral Hepatitis Control Program (NVHCP) on 28 July 2018, under the National Health Mission to control viral hepatitis, to provide free-of-charge screening, diagnosis, treatment and counselling services to all, and especially to people belonging to high-risk groups
- It is critical for people living with HIV to know if they are coinfected with HCV to allow early initiation of treatment that can minimize hepatitis-related liver disease, and the long-term negative impact on HIV outcomes.
Recent advances in diagnostics have now made it possible to diagnose people carrying viral hepatitis infections through point-of-care rapid diagnostic tests. Several new technologies and platforms are also now available for conducting screening and confirmatory tests.
“– Dr. Sanjay Sarin, Country Head, FIND India” |
This week’s Travel Photo of the Week takes us to the steamy grasslands of the Himalayan foothills in southern Nepal to meet a female Asiatic one horn rhino and her calf. These magnificent creatures were photographed cooling off in a water hole in the Royal Chitwan National Park, Nepal. This 360 square mile park is one of the last refuges of the Indian one horned rhino as well as tigers, leopards and rare Gangetic dolphins. Originally a game hunting park for royalty and foreign dignitaries, this wildlife refuge became a national park in 1973, the first in Nepal.
Indian or Asiatic one-horned rhinos also called gaida by the people of Nepal are the fourth largest land animal weighing in at a hefty 3,500 to 7,700 pounds with a record of 8,800 pounds. These large herbivores once ranged throughout Pakistan, northern India into Burma and parts of China, they are now restricted to pockets of Nepal, India, and Bangladesh.
Male and female rhinos both sport the distinctive horn, young rhinos are born without the horn (as indicated by the photo). The horns originally believed to be fused hair are actually grown like human fingernails and are made mostly of keratin. This iconic symbol of the species is unfortunately it’s downfall. Traditional Chinese medicine inaccurately believes that it will cure a variety of aliments including cancer and impotence (see related PBS Nature article) . The demand for the horn has driven the price higher than gold or platinum (see related MSNBC article) making them very tempting to poachers. Areas such as Chitwan and other game preserves have proven that live animals have a far greater financial impact on an area as a result of tourism than the destruction and one time use of an individual animal.
Is riding an elephant on safari or seeing one of these amazing creatures on your bucket list, why not combine these with seeing the Himalayas? Contact the Travel Consultants at GW Nunn Adventures today to get your custom crafted itinerary to Nepal. |
Race is a label associated with the illusion of the other in P-B which has no existence in the reality of P-A. David Chandler in an article in the Boston Globe affirms this point of view in writing that, “Race is not a biological reality at all: It is nothing more than a social, cultural and political invention.”
Harvard paleontologist and essayist Jay Gould says, “It makes us realize that all human beings, despite differences in external appearance, are really members of a single entity that has had a very recent origin in one place. There is a kind of biological brotherhood that’s much more profound than we ever realized.”
Therefore, afflictive emotions characterized by the labels “racism” and “racial prejudice” derive from reactions based on fear of the other and have their genesis in the shattering of Oneness each time we choose reaction over response. Choosing reaction is the same as choosing illusion and suffering and missing the opportunity for an act of compassion toward and connection with a fellow human being.
References and notes are available for this article.
Also find a much more in-depth discussion of Simple Reality
on this blog and in published books by Roy Charles Henry. |
PART 1—A conversation with author, Ann Vileisis about her new book Kitchen Literacy; what we know about our food, and how we came to know it. For Ann, Kitchen Literacy came about because she was struck by how much she didn’t know about the common foods she encountered in the supermarket. In conducting her research, she was surprised to learn how much people in pre-industrial times knew about their food. It was common then to know the sex and age of an animal, the farm it came from, and even the animal’s background before purchasing the meat.
Today, there is a renewed focus on the importance of food production, and distribution. A big part of this interest stems from a growing concern over food safety issues, also a concern in earlier times. In this 3-part series, Ann Vileisis shares some historical perspectives about our early food systems, and how in some ways, people are returning to ways of the past to reconnect with the food that they eat. In part two, Vileisis talks about the transition of populations from the farm to the city, and how our relationship with food profoundly changed with that shift. Part 3, the consequences of our modern agriculture system are discussed, and the important role that a historical perspective can help us navigate toward more sustainable agriculture practices. |
Discuss the changes to the American Presidency and foreign Policy after 1890
Herbert Hoover . The Great Depression began when the stock market crashed in October and the remnants of it were felt all the way until World War II . The government was no longer hands off they felt that they had to manipulate the flow of money in to calm the tide . Not only did they begin to inflate credit in to control the flow of money domestically , but they also tried to manage the money abroad . They were no longer willing to wait on war debt repayments from allies they wanted them to be
paid immediately America was hurting for money and they finally looked outside of their bs for it . The automobile industry suffered just as the banks did GM took a hit because their vehicles were more expensive than some of the others but they did try to make purchases easier for their customers . They had to do whatever they could to stay afloat . Hoover did not understand the depression . He did exactly what he wanted to do when he took office he "hit the floor running " He did things that Coolidge had feared he came in and began making changes when things seemed to be working well . He spent a lot of money , especially on public works . He built the Hoover Dam and the San Francisco Bay Bridge During the Depression , Hoover was frivolous . He seemed to make decisions at the drop of a hat , some which were detrimental . He controlled banks in an effort to reduce the amount of bankruptcies banks could no longer protect themselves from bad credit . His passing of the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930 made the cut of the Depression even deeper . This increase in import duties made the Depression hit Europe banks began to crash their as well . People didn 't have money...
More Papers on war, people, policy, foreign, president
- Entrepreneurship Business Plan
- Discuss the Post-Vietnam Period. How did the role of the U.S. change in the world after 1975? or has it?
- Philosophy of life essay
- Movie review on the "Cry Freedom"
- Asian Studies
- Congress, Presidency, the Bureaucracy
- Teen Marriage
- A Psychologist
- film critique: Ghandi
- Study Questions |
[This Old Tony] has a few videos that have made appearances on Hackaday. His latest one is CNC Dummies for Routers (see below). The subtitle, CNC Basics, is an honest one. If you’re already well versed in GCode and Mach 3, you probably won’t make it through the 14 minute video (although Tony is pretty entertaining even if you know what he’s talking about).
By his own admission, this is really CNC basics for hobby-grade CNC routers and mills. He starts off talking about his custom-built machine along with some common machines in the $500-$5000 range. He then gives a simple sketch of what GCode looks like.
The last part of the video talks about software for CAD and CAM. He talks about Fusion 360 and Mach 3, although the point to the video isn’t to provide a tutorial for any specific tools. You do get to watch over [Tony’s] shoulder as he creates pig-shaped cutting boards.
If you’ve done 3D printing, you won’t find much new here. If you have any experience with CNC, you’ll find nothing new here. But that isn’t really the point. This would be a great video for introducing students, new hackerspace members, or anyone who doesn’t know anything about CNC to the general workflow required.
If you watch close, you might pick up a few tips, especially if you are only used to 3D printing. For example, the pig cut out gets tabs to keep it from flying out before the cutting completes and he uses a sacrificial spoilboard to avoid cutting into the router’s work table. |
Life lessons for young adolescents an advisory guide for teachers fred schrumpf sharon freiburg david skadden on amazoncom free shipping on qualifying offers life lessons for young adolescents provides 94 group activities that are interesting enjoyable and most important relevant to students social and personal development these well planned activities are short and simple. Teachers of the middle grades are being asked to be advisors as well as instructors to their students the teacher is expected to teach the whole child showing awareness of the childs affective self as well as the cognitive self the teacher as advisor is a new role and one for which many teachers feel unprepared this guide is designed to help teachers learn to fill the advisory role. Get this from a library life lessons for young adolescents an advisory guide for teachers fred schrumpf sharon freiburg david skadden grade level 8 9 i s t. Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for life lessons for young adolescents an advisory guide for teachers at amazoncom read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. 50 valuable life lessons i am teaching my teenage girls 11 oct 2012 37 comments by nikki in absolute abundance brilliant books harmonious home joyfull klever kids travelling with teens tags fybf happy children happy teens healthy habits helping teens blossom into adults how to help your teen blossom positive life skills valuable life lessons
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Readers in Singapore may be interested in this upcoming talk at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies by Dr Phon Kaseka on the Cheung Ek Archaeological Site.
Research at the Cheung Ek Archaeological Site
Phon Kaseka, Director, Archaeology Department, Royal Academy of Cambodia
Date: Monday, 17 June 2013
Time: 3.30 – 5.00 pm
Venue: ISEAS Seminar Room II
The village of Cheung Ek, located just outside the capital city of Phnom Penh, is known today as one of the most famous “Killing Field” sites. The “Killing Fields” were sites where large numbers of people were killed and buried by Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge Regime in the 1970s. Recent archaeological work at Cheung Ek by Khmer archaeologists have shown, however, that the Cheung Ek area was occupied from a vastly earlier time period. The early historic site which underlies the Killing Fields is significant as it appears to hold the key to a better understanding of early floodplain polities in Cambodia.
Research at the Cheung Ek archaeological site has been conducted in several phases since the year 2000. The findings from the site have slowly developed from one field season to another. Current research at the site has documented 61 kilns, 31 habitation mounds, 11 temple foundations (brick architectural features) and a circular walled site.
Two types of kilns were identified at the site: one type fired earthenware and the other fired stoneware. The earthenware kilns date back to 5th century AD; meanwhile the stoneware kilns are suspected to be dated to a later period, even though the results of the dating are still pending. The research at the site has also revealed a circular, earthen wall with a diameter measuring 740 meters long, or about 54 hectares, making it one of the largest earthworks in Cambodia.
Registration required, more details here. |
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Gripping the steering wheel of “Northern Bend,” an interactive simulation created by Ferris State University students that’s on display at ArtPrize, Jonathan Coble explained why video games are every bit as creative as a painting or sculpture.
“Art really is in the eye of the beholder,” said Coble, a Ferris student who helped design the game, which simulates a river boat ride through a fictitious Michigan logging town in the early 1900s.
“It’s really about immersing someone, separating them from their day-to-day life,” he said.
By that definition, “Northern Bend” was a success for Mary Hendon, of Muskegon. The game is on display at Spectrum Theater at Grand Rapids Community College.
Hendon watched on Monday afternoon as Coble guided the virtual ship down river, moving past saw mills, churches, a Native American encampment and thick clusters of pine trees.
Related: Full coverage of ArtPrize 2012
The three-minute simulation, in which the user powers the boat through a foot pedal, ends in a bustling harbor leading into one of Michigan’s Great Lakes.
“It was like it was alive,” Hendon said, adding that the game gives young people a fun way to learn about Michigan’s lumber heritage.
“Our current students don’t know enough about our history and what we were,” she said. “We’re just built on lumber.”
David Baker, who oversees Ferris State University’s Digital Animation and Game Design program, said “Northern Bend” was actually created for a Great Lakes shipwreck exhibit opening in November at Grand Rapids Public Museum.
He decided to enter the game in ArtPrize because it would give students an opportunity to let the public play the game and give feedback.
“We’ve found everyone wants to go down a part of the river you can’t go down,” Baker said. “We’re going to put log jams there.”
The public interaction has also driven home the need to add virtual characters. Ferris students say the plan to create lumberjacks, fishermen, business owners, and two men getting in a fistfight outside a saloon.
Creating the game has taken a significant time commitment from several students, Baker said.
As many as 50 people contributed, but the bulk of the work was done by Coble and three other students.
Since January, Coble estimates that he’s spent about 400 hours working on “Northern Bend,” developing everything from the game’s landscape, user interface and starting menu.
“We were really against the wall,” said Coble, 26. “We had a small band of us that were keeping it together.”
Helping out was Kirt Gordon, who’s planning on graduating in December from Ferris’ Digital Animation and Game Design program.
He said it’s fitting to have the game on display during ArtPrize, which has more than 1,500 entries and carries $560,000 in prizes.
“It’s art because it takes a high level of creativity as well as technicality,” said Gordon, 34.
Ferris’ Digital Animation and Game Design program is housed at the university’s Grand Rapids center, which is located on the campus of Grand Rapids Community College.
Created in 2004, about 200 students are currently enrolled in the program, Baker said. Roughly 90 students have graduated from the program, going on to work in various multimedia video design jobs.
Coble, a senior, says “Northern Bend” shows that video games aren’t just about sports and violence. They can also be incorporated to education.
“Video games potential for educational activity is just huge,” he said. “There (can be) a lot of problem solving involved.” |
Students compare how the family unit is viewed in China and here in the United States in this early elementary lesson. Class discussion, student reflection, and the construction of "family scrolls" are used to assess student learning.
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Neptune, the eighth and last planet from the sun, is one of the coldest. But despite its great distance, the planet undergoes seasons much like the Earth, creating warmer spots on the planet.
An icy atmosphere
Neptune is one of the two planets classified as an "ice giant." Like Uranus, its composition is made up more heavily of ices than the gas giants of Jupiter and Saturn.
Neptune's atmosphere is composed predominantly of hydrogen and helium, with traces of methane to create the bluish color. Unlike the terrestrial planets, Neptune and the other gas giants still hold much of the atmosphere they had at their formation. Temperature and pressure shift at different heights. The average temperature at the top of the cloud tops is minus 346 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 210 degrees Celsius).
Like the other gas giants, the enormous planet lacks a solid surface. Instead, the gas stretches down to the water-ammonia ocean that makes up the planet's mantle. Scientists have defined the "surface" of Neptune as the region where the surface pressure is equivalent to the pressure on Earth at sea level. The temperature at this "surface" is approximately minus 346 F (minus 201 C).
The planet's average temperature is minus 353 F (minus 214 C). But despite being the most distant planet, it is not the coldest. That honor goes to the seventh planet, Uranus, which is closer to the sun. At such vast distances, however, the two ice giants take in very little heat from the star. Neptune's temperature is driven more by the motions within its interior than by the rays of the sun, motions that Uranus doesn't seem to share.
The long summer
Like other planets on the solar system, Neptune doesn't sit completely parallel to the sun. Instead, it is tipped on its side at a 28.3 degree angle (for comparison, Earth is tipped at a 23.4 degree angle). This tilt gives rise to seasons. However, the distance to Neptune from the sun is enormous--on average, the planet is 2.8 billion miles (4.5 billion kilometers) from the heat-giving star. As a result, the pole tipped toward the sun reaches higher temperatures than the rest of the planet for a quarter of a Neptunian year, or for about 40 Earth-years.
In 2007, when the south pole was still tipped toward the sun, scientists found that the upper cloud layer in the region was about 50 degrees F (10 C) warmer than the rest of the planet, allowing some of the methane to leak out into space.
These seasonal changes also affect cloud motion in the atmosphere.
— Nola Taylor Redd, SPACE.com Contributor
- How Big is Neptune?
- How Far Away is Neptune?
- Neptune's Atmosphere
- What is Neptune Made Of?
- How Was Neptune Formed? |
Creating the cult of St. Joseph:art and gender in the Spanish empire
- About Author
St. Joseph is mentioned only eight times in the New Testament Gospels. Prior to the late medieval period, Church doctrine rarely noticed him except in passing. But in 1555 this humble carpenter, earthly spouse of the Virgin Mary and foster father of Jesus, was made patron of the Conquest and conversion in Mexico. In 1672, King Charles II of Spain named St. Joseph patron of his kingdom, toppling St. James--traditional protector of the Iberian peninsula for over 800 years--from his honored position. Focusing on the changing manifestations of Holy Family and St. Joseph imagery in Spain and colonial Mexico from the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, this book examines the genesis of a new saint's cult after centuries of obscurity. In so doing, it elucidates the role of the visual arts in creating gender discourses and deploying them in conquest, conversion, and colonization.Charlene Villaseñor Black examines numerous images and hundreds of primary sources in Spanish, Latin, Náhuatl, and Otomí. She finds that St. Joseph was not only the most frequently represented saint in Spanish Golden Age and Mexican colonial art, but also the most important. In Spain, St. Joseph was celebrated as a national icon and emblem of masculine authority in a society plagued by crisis and social disorder. In the Americas, the parental figure of the saint--model father, caring spouse, hardworking provider--became the perfect paradigm of Spanish colonial power.Creating the Cult of St. Joseph exposes the complex interactions among artists, the Catholic Church and Inquisition, the Spanish monarchy, and colonial authorities. One of the only sustained studies of masculinity in early modern Spain, it also constitutes a rare comparative study of Spain and the Americas. |
BIG DAY OUT
DDay British Airborne Landings
Pegasus Bridge Memorial Sites & Merville Battery Memorial sites
The 6th British Airborne Division, “the Red Berets” commanded by Major General Richard Gale, was composed of parachute & glider borne troops transported into German occupied France in Horsa or Hamilcar gliders. The mission to hold the eastern flank of the DDay invasion forces to prevent German counter attacks coming from the east. The mission was carried out in three ways:
The bridges across River Orne & Caen Canal to be captured and held intact to enable the DDay troops arriving from Sword Beach to cross and to prevent the German forces from using them.
The Merville gun battery had to be put out of action. The 100mm calibre guns could fire down on to Sword Beach and the Allied fleet off the coast.
The bridges across the River Dives had to be destroyed to prevent German reinforcements, arriving from the east, from crossing. High ground had to be taken and held by the division.
These missions were accomplished with great success before dawn on D-Day but with heavy losses. More than 2000 soldiers paid the ultimate sacrifice and now lie at the Commonwealth War Graves cemetery at Ranville.
1.45m hour drive into Normandy
- Bénouville Bridge - 'Pegasus Bridge'; 6th British Airborne Division glider landing site
- Pegasus Bridge War Memorials
- Iconic Cafe Gondrée the first cafe liberated in France
- Pegasus Bridge Museum which is exellent!
- Lunch at the 3 Gliders Cafe located right at the bridge
- Ranville Bridge, Euston 2 on D-Day, later called Horsa , across the Orne
- Merville 9th British Parachute Battalion memorial & museum & battery site
- The Merville Battery is a formidable fortification of the German Army that was on the east flank of the Allied Landing on June 6, 1944. Bombed repeatedly, without result, it was neutralized by the 9th British Parachute Battalion at term of an unimaginable assault. Only to be re-occupied by the germans that afternoon and remained in use until the 17th of August 1944. Walk on a totally preserved historic site, invites you to discover the history of the Battery.
- The Merville Battery Museum houses an origional Douglas C-47 that participated in the 9th USAAF, WW2 -Overlord - Dragoon - Market - Repulse - Varsity.
Available 1 Feb to 15th Dec
Single person supliment applies for individuals travelling alone. |
This article originally appeared as a guest post on The Planetary Society site.
Which is the hardest-working robot in the Solar System? You could make a strong case for the 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter. Named in honor of visionary science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, this month marks 12 years since Odyssey arrived at its worksite. That makes it the longest-serving member of the robotic workforce there. For that entire decade-plus, the trusty spacecraft has been dutifully sending home data, while also serving as a vital radio relay link for surface operations at Mars.
Last week, Odyssey’s handlers at Arizona State University released yet another new batch of data. Diving into it yielded a few pieces of Mars-made art to add to our growing collection.
First off is a scene from the planet’s southern highlands, where a parade of dust devils has painted an abstract image evoking a network of veins or a tangle of branches.
In the far south, Odyssey found this ominous pit, really just a crater where eons of whisper-thin Martian wind has gathered a dollop of grains and dust.
Old dog Odyssey still has a few good tricks. One of them is its ability to observe the surface of Mars at night. The Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) can see in visible light, but it can also detect surface minerals radiating heat back into space that they have absorbed during the day. This gives Mars explorers important clues to the composition and texture of the surface–plus it just makes some cool images.
Twelve years, millions of miles traveled, more than 50,000 orbits, a long list of scientific discoveries–“odyssey” is an understatement. In another dozen years, will it still be transmitting new art across space? That seems like a lot to ask, even of this workhorse. But who knows?
Update October 9: I was taking literary license when I talked about Mars Odyssey surving another 12 years, but how long might it really survive? Assuming nothing else goes wrong, the critical factor is how much propellent remains on board. Without it, the spacecraft can’t orient itself to communicate with Earth or keep its solar panels pointed toward the sun. Helpful unmannedspaceflight.com member Doug Muir sent me this note he received from the Mars outreach team at JPL last year:
“As of today [in September, 2012], Odyssey has 17.3 kg, +3.0 / -5.0 of propellant. 1.9 kg is obligated for a follow-on Orbit Trim Maneuver (OTM) in January 2014. Odyssey utilizes approximately 1 kg / year and historically has budgeted 1 kg / year for unexpected safing events. So, propellant life should be between 5.2 to 9.2 years. These numbers are based on no onboard anomalies that would require propellant above the safing budget, no changes in Odyssey’s basic operations (three operating reaction wheels, high gain antenna and solar array servos continue to function normally, etc.) and no further programmatic maneuvers.” |
5 of the Most Sustainable Craft Breweries in the Country
St. Patrick’s Day isn’t the only day out of the year when you can get a green beer.
In fact, more and more breweries across the country are going green with their beer – but not the kind you’re used to seeing every March 17.
The process of making beer requires a lot of energy and a lot of water, and craft brewers all over are pouring their efforts into cutting their carbon footprint.
From eco-friendly packaging to reducing water consumption, learn how these five craft breweries are killing it in sustainability.
Brooklyn Brewery (Brooklyn, NY)
Ever since it loaded its first cases of beers through the doors in 1991, Brooklyn Brewery has been doing its part to better the environment.
At first, their efforts centered around recycling and upcycling old pallets at their Williamsburg distribution center. But that was just the beginning for Brooklyn Brewery, which has been practicing sustainability ever since. Check out some of the highlights below:
- 1996: The Williamsburg facility was fitted with heat exchange systems to reduce energy demand during the brewing process.
- 2012: Integrated steam reclamation to capture energy from the brew kettle and use it to heat the hot water tank.
- 2016: Partnered with Arbor Day Foundation to offset 1,500 tons of carbon dioxide with approximately 375 acres’ worth of carbon dioxide-converting trees planted in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley. Brooklyn Brewery’s contribution offset the carbon released by the electricity and natural gas needed to produce 126,000 cases of 12-ounce bottles and 76,000 half-barrel kegs each year.
Whether in regard to their facilities or the beer itself, Brooklyn Brewery has always had high standards when it comes to sustainability.
Great Lakes Brewing Co. (Cleveland, OH)
Great Lakes Brewing Co. has always aspired to craft its beers in the most socially and environmentally responsible way possible. At its Pint Size Farm in Bath, Ohio, the company produces high-quality, organic produce that is used seasonally in its brewpub.
The brewpub features solar thermal panels and an energy-efficient boiler that heats water for brewing and restaurant use.
New Belgium Brewing (Fort Collins, CO)
Even prior to selling its first bottle, New Belgium Brewing strove to be environmental stewards. To say they’re achieving their goal would be an understatement. In 2016, the company earned a platinum certification from the U.S. Zero Waste Business Council (USZWBC) for its effort in reducing, reusing and recycling waste.
In its 2016 sustainability report, New Belgium Brewing successfully diverted 99.8 percent of its waste from landfills. Most of the waste, 98.09 percent of it, is spent grain that is sent to local farmers. The rest is broken down as follows: recycling (1.68 percent), landfill (0.21 percent) and compost (0.02 percent).
Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. (Fletcher, NC)
Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. established itself on the business model of “reduce, reuse, and recycle.” It has been recognized locally, statewide and nationally for its commitment to reducing its environmental impact.
In 2013, the company saved more than $5 million by diverting nearly 100 percent of its waste. Furthermore, its brewery in Chico, California is home to one of the biggest privately-owned solar arrays in the country. It features more than 10,000 panels that produce two megawatts of power, which is enough to meet 20 percent of the brewery’s energy needs.
Ska Brewing Co. (Durango, CO)
Just how sustainable is Ska Brewing? Consider this:
The insulation at their brewery is made out of old jeans. And creative reuse is just one of the many ways it practices sustainability. The company also uses environmentally-friendly aluminum cans and recycled packaging materials, as well as wind and solar power at its facility. Customers can even recycle their six-pack containers at the brewery in exchange for more beer.
Thirsty yet? If you know of any more craft breweries excelling in sustainability, let us know in the comments below! For more eco-friendly resources, check out our blog’s Sustainability section. |
Thoralf meaning and origin
Meaning of Thoralf is Thunder or Elf is used in Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, German, Scandinavian and Danish and rooted from Old Norse is bestowed upon boys.
Variants of ThoralfNames that rhyme with Thoralf
Popularity of Thoralf
Thoralf is a rare baby name in United States and may not be used now as it was last seen in 1918. Thoralf is a common name in Germany. At least, 1000 people globally have carried Thoralf as their given name according to our findings.
Numerological analysis of Thoralf
You can't stand fake people with low IQ who gossip and do small talks on a daily basis because they have nothing smart to say. You are efficient, dynamic, and always look at the big picture instead of collecting the small pieces and wonder where they fit. Don't forget to emind yourself of your life success, when facing hard times. You always hope your intuition is wrong and give people a chance to earn your trust.
Do you like Thoralf? You would love these names
- Filipa - Meaning of Filipa is Friend of Horses or Friend or Horse has origin in Old Greek which is principally used in Danish, Swedish and Russian is aimed at girls
- Trine - Illustrous Trine is used predominantly in Swedish, German and Greenlandic is originated from Old Greek and Sanskrit, Trine means "The Pure" is a gender-neutral name
- Elizabete - Origin of Unconventional Elizabete is in Hebrew language is used as a girl name and is predominantly used in Finnish, Swedish and Latvian, meaning of Elizabete is "My God has Sworn or My God is Abundance"
- Frauke has its origin in Germanic, Old High German and Frisian is substantially used in Finnish, Frisian and German, a girl name, Frauke means "Little Woman or Frouwa"
- Bettine - Especially used in Finnish, Norwegian and Danish far-out, Bettine means "My God is Perfect" and is used for girls is originated from Hebrew and Latin
Namesakes of Thoralf
- Thoralf Strømstad, Norwegian Nordic skier
- Thoralf Knobloch, contemporary German painter based in Dresden
- Thoralf Glad, Norwegian sailor
- Thoralf Hagen, Norwegian rowing coxswain
- Thoralf Skolem, Norwegian mathematician |
What is meant by Psychoneuroimmunology?
WHAT IS MEAN BY PSYCHONEUROIMMUNOLOGY?
Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) is the study of the interaction between psychological processes and the nervous and immune systems of the human body. PNI has an interdisciplinary approach, interlacing disciplines as psychology, neuroscience, immunology, physiology, pharmacology, psychiatry, behavioral medicine, infectious diseases, endocrinology, rheumatology and others.
The main interest of PNI is the interaction between the nervous and immune systems, and the relation between mind processes and health. PNI studies, among other things, the physiological functioning of the neuroimmune system in health and disease; disorders of the neuroimmune system (autoimmune diseases, hypersensitivities, immune deficiency), the physical, chemical and physiological characteristics of the components of the neuroimmune system in vitro, in situ, and in vivo.
PNI studies may also involve endocrinology and may be referred as psychoendoneuroimmunology (PENI). |
Titian’s 'Diana and Actaeon'
‘Art is one of the best and safest, and most lasting pleasures which in this weary changeable world we are glad to make the substitutes for happiness. I remember that on entering the Bridgewater Gallery after a long absence, all things so changed within and without, I could almost have burst forth in the eloquent apostrophe of a fellow enthusiast – “Thou, O divine Bath of Diana, with deep azure dyes, with roseate hues spread by the hand of Titian – art still there, another, yet the same, that thou wert five and twenty years ago!'”.'1
Thus Mrs. Jameson, the prolific Victorian author of popular guides to Old Master painting, describes her joyful reunion with Titian’s Diana and Actaeon. The picture has excited high praise down the ages, from Giorgio Vasari in 16th-century Italy (who stated that Titian used ‘colours in a way that made [the figures] appear alive and natural’), to the great 19th-century art-critic William Hazlitt who called the work and its companion ‘perfect studies in the Venetian art of colouring’ and Ellis Waterhouse in the 20th century, who pronounced the painting ‘a miracle’ being ‘an incredible design in every dimension’.2
When viewed alone the 'Diana and Actaeon' is a remarkable work but arguably it has greater impact when seen with the other works with which it was intended to hang. Furthermore, one only has to scan mentally the various collections to which it has belonged during its 450 year history and recall where it was displayed to realise that this work has played a significant role in confirming and expanding the established taste for Italian Renaissance art in Britain.
'Diana and Actaeon' was painted as a pendant to another episode from the goddess Diana’s life: 'Diana and Callisto', which shows the hapless nymph Callisto, who had been seduced by Jupiter and discovered to be pregnant, being denounced to the chaste moon-goddess Diana. Closely related both visually and thematically, the National Gallery’s 'Diana and Actaeon' and the 'Diana and Callisto' were painted for no less a patron than the powerful, ambitious and art-loving King Philip II of Spain. In a letter to his royal patron, Titian noted that he had started the 'Diana and Acteon' scene in 1556, while in another missive, of 19 June 1559, he reported that the companion pictures were finished (although he went on working on them for another three months). They were dispatched from Venice in October 1559, but their arrival in Spain was not acknowledged until 2 April 1561.3
Titian’s paintings of Diana were not a ‘stand alone’ pair but rather were conceived within a larger series of mythological paintings (or ‘poesie’) drawn mainly from Ovid’s 'Metamorphoses'. It is not clear that it was a closed series; in other words Titian could have added other subjects to the seven mythologies which he did produce - piecemeal fashion. Among their number is The Death of Actaeon (now also in the National Gallery) which depicts the final act of the tragedy whose first act is played out in the 'Diana and Acteon'. This particular painting, begun in 1556 and worked on intermittently, was never completed which may explain why it did not find its way to Spain.4 By contrast, the other paintings were finished and Philip II ended up with a sumptuous grouping which included images of 'Danäe', 'Venus and Adonis', 'Perseus and Andromeda' and the 'Rape of Europa'.
Having started off life in a royal palace, a noble course seems to have been set for the pair of Diana pictures. They, together with others of Titian’s mythologies and other paintings by the artist, ended up in France where they joined what was in effect the collection of the royal house. This occurred because Philip V, unlike his earlier namesakes Philip II and IV, was not a great art lover and he gave the two 'Dianas' and the 'Europa' to the duc de Gramont in 1704, during Gramont’s time as French Ambassador at the Spanish Court. Gramont, in turn, ceded them to the notorious Philippe, duc d’Orléans.
Within the short time-span of his becoming virtual ruler of France in 1715 and his death eight years later, the duc d’Orléans built up a virtually unrivalled art-collection containing paintings, sculptures, engravings, and miniatures. His paintings included masterpieces from the Italian, French, Dutch and Flemish schools brought together from such distinguished collections as those of King Charles I of England and Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin in France. By far the most important source was the collection of Queen Christina of Sweden, which the duc d’Orléans had purchased 'en bloc'. Among the Orléans Italian paintings, which boasted six Raphaels and six Correggios, highlights were the Titians of which there were over 20 examples,6 some exemplifying the artist’s earliest manner including the Noli me Tangere (now in the National Gallery), the 'Four Ages of Man' and 'Venus Rising from the Sea' and others, like 'Diana and Actaeon', representative of Titian’s mature or late work.
Next: English royalty and aristocracy |
Pitcher. The pitcher's job is to throw the ball over to the plate in a way that it is difficult for the batter to hit. A pitcher should be able to throw fast pitches, but velocity is less important than control (the ability to throw strikes consistently and not issue a lot of bases on balls). A pitcher should be tough, smart, and keep his or her composure under pressure (such as throw strikes behind in the count or when there are people on base). The pitcher is the fifth infielder and needs to field his or her position on bunts, grounders, and pop ups, and back up the catcher on plays at the plate. Pitchers are often the best all-around athletes on the team.
- Catcher. Generally the team leader since he or she is the only player facing his or teammates. The catcher handles the pitcher, keeps track of balls and strikes (the count), reminds the other players about the number of outs, sets the defense, and backs up 1st base on every infield play. Catchers are usually the most rugged and quickest thinking players on the team. Once base stealing is permitted, a catcher should have a good throwing arm and the ability to get rid of the ball very quickly.
First base. The perfect place for a left-handed player who can catch the ball well, even when, as is often the case in youth baseball, it is thrown over his head, bounced in the dirt, or off line. Strength and size (particularly height) are important; a strong throwing arm is not. A first baseman needs to be able to concentrate, as he will potentially be involved in nearly every play.
Second base. Size and stature are of little importance. Speed, quickness and good fielding ability are. A second baseman needs to know what to do when there are runners on base (such as to know that, if the ball is hit to him with a runner on first, to touch second base, or tag the runner, and then throw to first.
Shortstop. This player has more ground to cover than any other player does and must be fast, quick, agile and have a strong throwing arm. The shortstop will potentially field more ground balls, in more off-balance positions, than any other player. Like the second baseman, the shortstop needs to be to think ahead.
- Third Base. This player should be able to charge the ball on bunts and slow grounders, and field the ball barehanded, and be able to move side to side quickly on balls hit hard down the line or to his left in the hole between third and short. Because the third baseman has the longest throw of all the infielders, he should have a good arm.
- Right Fielder. Needs to be able to think-ahead. This player backs up first base on all throws from the catcher and all bunted balls, since the catcher must be available for fielding the ball. They backup second on any ball thrown from the left of the diamond. I.e. shortstop, third base or foul territory.
- Center Fielder. This will be the player that has the best combination of speed and throwing distance. Like shortstop, they cover more 'grass' than any other player and, most likely, will catch the most fly balls. They must backup second on all bunts and throws from the catcher.
- Left Fielder. Of all outfield positions, this player can have the weakest arm, as they do not generally throw the ball as far. They still require good fielding and catching skills and backup third on pick-off attempts from the catcher or pitcher. |
Earth Resources Laboratory Applications Software
In 1978, the Science and Technology Laboratory (STL), formerly the Earth Resources Laboratory (ERL), at NASA's Stennis Space Center (SSC), began its program of image and geographical information system processing of satellite and airplane data. This data-gathering process is known as remote sensing. It is technology that enables meteorologists, scientists, climatologists, and others to monitor changing conditions on earth. Data is gathered from spaceborne sensors that detect various types of radiation obtained from the earth. The transformation of that data into useable information is embodied in the NASA developed Earth Resources Laboratory Application Software (ELAS).
ELAS was developed in response to a NASA requirement that SSC innovate and execute a training program to enhance the transfer of remote sensing and related computer technologies to the public and commercial sectors. Working with data from the Landsat resources survey satellites and other sources, ELAS provided digital images that served in such areas as agricultural inventory, oil and mineral prospecting, weather forecasting, charting sources of fresh water, wildlife preservation, air and water pollution monitoring, delineating urban growth patterns, improving map accuracy, and studying floods to reduce the potential for devastation. Throughout the 1980s and 90s, this tool has become indispensable and continues to be applied in new arenas. The ELAS software is now utilized in support of many other unique endeavors besides processing data from satellite and aircraft. It's now producing images of antiquities; enhancing magnetic resonance images of the human body; analyzing urban microclimatology; and processing submarine sonar images. |
|DOH Home >> Press Releases|
PO Box 360
Trenton, NJ 08625-0360
|Poonam Alaigh, MD, MSHCPM, FACP|
For Further Information Contact:
August is National Immunization Awareness Month, a good time for New Jerseyans of all ages to protect themselves and their communities by catching up on their vaccinations, Deputy Health and Senior Services Commissioner Dr. Susan Walsh said.
“We never outgrow our need for immunizations. Across the lifespan – from babies to seniors – immunizations reduce disease and save lives,” Dr. Walsh said. “With the new school year and flu season approaching, it’s the perfect time to ask your health care provider which immunizations you and your family members need.”
“Everyone can benefit from an annual flu shot. The
Vaccines are safe, effective, and critically important for young children, who are especially vulnerable to vaccine-preventable diseases. Most childhood vaccines should be given by age two, with some follow-up doses at ages four to six.
Immunizations are important for older children, too. In addition to ensuring childhood vaccines are current, adolescents need tetatus-diphtheria-pertussis vaccine, vaccine to protect against meningococcal disease and the three-dose HPV (human papillomavirus) series.
College students living in dormitories need meningococcal vaccine, and young adults should get HPV vaccine if they haven’t already been immunized. Older adults may need tetatus-diphtheria-pertussis, shingles, or pneumococcal vaccine.
Adults may need other immunizations, too, depending on age, vaccination history, medical conditions, high-risk exposures, or type and location of travel. These include vaccines to protect against hepatitis A, hepatitis B, chickenpox, and measles, mumps and rubella.
“When you get fully immunized, you protect yourself, your family and your community,” Dr. Walsh said. “People who are vaccinated help form a circle of protection around babies and individuals with health conditions who can’t be fully immunized.”
Immunization is among the greatest achievements of public health, but the fight against vaccine-preventable diseases is not over. Families, health care providers and the public health must continue working to ensure that all children are age-appropriately immunized.
DHSS makes free vaccine available to providers around the state who participate in the federal Vaccines for Children (VFC) Program. The VFC program serves infants and children whose families are uninsured, underinsured, on Medicaid or FamilyCare.
DHSS also continues its work to expand health care provider participation in the New Jersey Immunization Information System, a web-based immunization registry. The registry helps providers track children’s immunization status and reminds parents when shots are due. The registry is easy to use, saves providers time and allows them to share needed immunization information with others.
For more information on National Immunization Awareness Month and on the CDC recommended immunizations for all age groups, visit the CDC web site at: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/events/niam/default.htm
# # #
Department of Health
P. O. Box 360, Trenton, NJ 08625-0360 |
It turns out that "happiness as people usually think of it--the experience of pleasure and positive feelings," is not nearly as important to physical health as meaning and purpose. Engaging in meaningful, purposeful activity creates a deeper and more impactful positive state, which is called "eudaimonic well-being," than lighter, fun, which is called "hedonic well-being." The effects of eudaimonic well-being contribute not only to better mental health and cognitive acuity but also to a longer life than focusing on achieving feelings of happiness alone.
Dr. Carol Ryff and her team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, found that eudaimonic well-being reduced the impact of known risk factors like low education level on some critical health indicators. "Participants with low education level and greater eudaimonic well-being had lower levels of interleukin-6, an inflammatory marker of disease associated with cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and Alzheimer's disease" than those with lower levels of eudaimonic well-being, even when taking hedonic well-being into account.
Too, researchers say that focusing too much on happiness, "can actually lead to feeling less happy." All too easily, we become addicted to the "quick fix," and swim on the surface of life, leaving the deeper layers of our beings untended.
While small, fleeting pleasures, like listening to good music, enjoying a good dinner or getting a new outfit, give us a burts of good feeling, in the long term, these activities, which contribute to "hedonic well-being," do not have real staying power. The article notes that raising children, volunteering or going to graduate school "may be less pleasureable day to day," but gives us more of a sense of fulfillment, "of being the best one can be, particularly in the long run."
Another important principal is everything in moderation. It is not human to be happy all the time, nor is it necessarily desireable. Life brings challenges, loss and hard times. To be able to feel through these different experiences is critical to being human. Being too unhappy too often is not good for us. And being more at peace more often is indeed more enjoyable. Yet, in a culture that has become far too narcissistic, "fixating on being happy in itself can become a psychological burden," reflects Dr. Ryff. |
So what skills and qualifications do you need to become an astronaut? Growing up, I often heard the answer “perfect vision and a physics degree”. While this response is slightly simplistic, it’s not far off the mark.
Peake, who sets off on his space mission at 11.03am GMT on 15 December, had logged more than 3, 000 hours of flight time as an army pilot, and supplemented the experience with an academic degree in flight dynamics and evaluation from the University of Portsmouth.
Like Peake, most aspiring astronauts with piloting experience and qualifications also have a university degree in natural sciences, medicine, engineering, information technology or mathematics.
For those without the prerequisite minimum flight time, the academic credentials are more rigorous; candidates will preferably have a doctorate in physics, biology, chemistry, earth sciences, medicine, engineering, IT or maths. Even at this academic level, operational experience is still recommended.
Esa says: “It is a strong asset, but not mandatory, to have studied aeronautics and astronautics. Above all, no matter what you have studied, you should be good at it.”
As for the medical tests, astronauts must have a clean bill of health, which does in fact include perfect vision, although this may be the result of correctional contact lenses. |
Garlic can be used as a remedy for several medical conditions. The herb has been used by many ancient people from the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans to the Chinese. This potent herb has biological effects owing to its sulfur compounds which allow it to improve health on an overall level.
Highly nutritious with vitamins and minerals, garlic has very few calories. Common conditions like cold and few can be easily treated by the use of garlic which can also reduce blood pressure levels, cholesterol levels, and the risk of cardiovascular diseases.
The antioxidants found in garlic can protect against aging and cellular damage too. Its benefits don’t end here; garlic also improves bone health, detoxifies the body, and prevents mental health conditions.
To add a cherry on top, a new research shows that garlic can also improve your memory both short-term as well as long-term. This it can do thanks to its ability to act as a powerful probiotic.
What Did This Study Reveal?
A new study which was presented at the 2009 Experimental Biology meeting shows the link between eating garlic and memory problems such as Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s. This garlic can do by altering the gut microbiome in a favorable way.
For the purpose of the study, researchers fed older mice a supplement that comprised of allyl sulfide which comes from an organosulfur compound driven from allicin which is found in garlic. The results were compared to mice who were not given this oral supplement and it was found that the first group of mice had better long-term and short-term memory along with healthier gut bacteria.
How does garlic deliver this benefit? It’s no secret that garlic works as a stellar probiotic that can feed healthy bacteria which allows them to thrive. And research is not short on how a balanced and healthy gut is associated to better mental health and vice versa.
To recap, the gut is connected to several systems of the body including the immune system, endocrine system, and the central nervous system. Therefore, a negative imbalance in gut microbiome is able to cause problems related to other systems of the body whereas a positive balance in gut bacteria can improve immunity and overall health.
A recent study showed that lower markers of two important kinds of gut bacteria caused depression. This stresses on the need to consume more garlic, that also raw. There are several recipes in which garlic can be added in case you don’t want to eat just garlic cloves.
The benefits offered by garlic are several many. Used as a medicinal herb for centuries, garlic is best when eaten raw. It can improve gut health, cardiovascular health, bone health, and more. Now a new study shows that garlic can also improve memory. This it can do by altering gut microbiome and because the gut shares a link with mental health, garlic’s effects are able to improve memory. |
Determination of the α-martensite content in steel tanks used for storing liquid hydrogen
New technologies have become more important than ever for developing efficient and clean energy supply systems. Hydrogen technology is one example that holds high potential both as an accumulator and as a fuel. However, cryogenic liquid hydrogen is typically stored in special steel tanks – a circumstance that presents its own safety challenges: Should the structure of the tank fail in any way, the hydrogen can escape uncontrollably and form inflammable mixtures with other elements like oxygen present in the air. Therefore, material testing is absolutely essential in any quality control process for tanks used to store liquid hydrogen.
Austenitic steel is often used as a base material for producing hydrogen storage tanks. However, the face-centred cubic (FCC) crystalline structure of the alloy is only metastable. Indeed, the manufacturing process itself (cold rolling or forming) can cause the FCC crystals to transform into the body-centred tetragonal (BCT) microstructure of martensite.
Also dropping below the MS (martensite start) temperature can be problematic. When allowed to cool slowly, the austenite transforms into a mixture of ferrite and cementite. But in a rapid cooling process (i.e. quenching, employed to harden the steel), there is no time for the carbon atoms to diffuse out of the crystalline structure in large enough quantities to form ferrite and cementite, resulting in martensite.
Too much martensite is undesirable in steel destined for hydrogen tanks, because hydrogen can settle at the grain boundaries of the martensite (hydrogen embrittlement or cold cracking), which can then lead to material failures. Therefore, testing the steel’s martensite content with precise measurements is required to determine its suitability for this purpose.
An easy-to-use technique is the magnetic induction measurement method. The FERITSCOPE® FMP30, originally designed by FISCHER to measure the ferrite content of steel, has now been further enhanced to additionally measure the martensite content. The switch-over to “martensite testing mode” entails just a few clicks in the software.
Fig.1: FERITSCOPE FMP30 with probe FGAB1.3-Fe to determine martensite content
The calculation of the martensite content from the probe’s signal is based on the relations published by Talonen et al. (Comparison of different methods for measuring strain induced α-Martensite content in austenitic steels, Materials Science and Technology, Dec. 2004).
In order to assess the potential risk of material failure and avoid subsequent damage, it is quick, easy and cost-effective to determine the α-martensite content in hydrogen tanks using the FERITSCOPE® FMP30. Please contact your FISCHER representative for more information. |
My partner has been diagnosed with Bell's palsy.
Can you tell me anything about the link with this condition and the herpes virus? I'd like to know the answers to the following questions:
- How do you get Bell's palsy?
- Can it be transmitted by being in contact with someone who has genital herpes?
- If it is linked to herpes, do you only contract if you do not already have the herpes virus dormant within the body?
Bell's palsy can be caused by viral damage to the facial nerve.
There can be other causes of facial nerve palsy, but it is believed that the herpes simplex virus is commonly implicated.
The symptoms of Bell's palsy generally affect one side of the face only. These include;
- mouth weakening on one side, which causes it to sag and food and saliva to escape.
- intolerance of high pitched or loud sounds.
- weakness that prevents the eyelids from closing properly and that may produce excessive watering of the eyes.
Let's answer each of your questions in turn.
It is passed on through contact such as kissing and cuddling or sharing bathroom towels.
The virus enters the body and either lies dormant or attacks more widely, causing physical symptoms.
Herpes simplex type 1 can theoretically be transmitted by contact with someone who has genital herpes.
This would not be a common occurrence because genital herpes is associated with the type 2 virus.
Oral sex would increase the risk of transmission.
Many of us have had cold sores in the past and it is probable that we therefore have dormant herpes simplex 1 virus in our bodies.
In order for the virus to attack our facial nerve and cause Bell's palsy, it would be necessary for it to be reactivated.
However, the virus does not need to become dormant before causing Bell's palsy.
Infection for the first time with herpes simplex 1 could produce a direct attack on the facial nerve with resulting palsy.
The NetDoctor Medical Team
Other Qs & As |
The Tutankhamun Exhibit
Jewelry and Ornamentation
Winged Scarab Pectoral
The pectoral of this necklace represents a winged scarab holding in its forelegs the lunar disk and crescent and in its back legs a basin. Between and attached to the scarab and the basin are three vertical gold bars. The pectoral is made of solid gold decorated on the outer surface with cloisonne-work of lapis lazuli, carnelian, and turquoise-colored glass. The lunar disk is of gold alloyed with silver. All the details of the elements in its composition are finely engraved in the gold base on the inner surface.
It is evident that the pectoral represents the throne name of Tutankhamun, Nebkheperura, but two of its elements are not the usual hieroglyphic signs used for writing the name. The basin (heb) has been substituted for the basket (neb) and the lunar disk and crescent (iah) for the sun's disk (ra). In both cases the substitutions can be explained as examples of artist's freedom, but the basin may have been intended to suggest the idea that the king would live to celebrate many festivals, also written as heb. Carter thought that the moon's disk was intended to counterbalance the sun's disk of the falcon pectoral. He remarked, however, that all these pectorals showed signs of friction; it seems unlikely that they were worn together as a pair by the king during his lifetime, though he may well have worn them individually.
Chains of plaited gold wire connect the pectoral with two inlaid gold lotus flowers and a heart-shaped pendant separated by two carnelian beads. The pendant is inlaid with a cartouche bearing the king's throne name written in the normal manner flanked by two uraei. Since the lotus flowers have five holes and the pectoral is provided with a similar number of eyelets at the tops of the wings, it is probable that the necklace was originally intended to have five strands of gold bead chains.
Who are we?
Tour Egypt aims to offer the ultimate Egyptian adventure and intimate knowledge about the country. We offer this unique experience in two ways, the first one is by organizing a tour and coming to Egypt for a visit, whether alone or in a group, and living it firsthand. The second way to experience Egypt is from the comfort of your own home: online. |
Tinnitus is Latin for “ringing,” (pronounced “tin-eye-tus”), the perception of sound in the ear, this sound not being generated by an outside source.
By some estimates, over 17% Americans have some form of Tinnitus – that’s almost 51 million people with Tinnitus!
7% of Tinnitus sufferers (about 21 million people) seek medical treatment each year.
For 3.5% of or the population (around 10.5 million people), Tinnitus affects their lives so severly, making most any activity (especially sleep) difficult at best.
As we age, more Americans develop Tinnitus. More than one-third of Tinnitus sufferers are 65 years and older.
Tinnitus is an equal-opportunity affliction, both men and women have Tinnitus in roughly equal numbers.
There are two forms of Tinnitus – Objective Tinnitus which makes a sound that can be heard by others and has a better chance of a medical cure. The other form of Tinnitus is called Subjective Tinnitus, which can only be heard by the sufferer and is the tinnitus that most of us know so well.
The classic sign of Tinnitus is a constant or occasional ringing, whooshing, buzzing, whistling, chirping, roaring, ticking or clicking noise in one or both ears.
These sounds sometines vary in volume, getting louder in a quiet setting. Noisy environments make Tinnitus noises less noticeable.
Sometimes other forms of hearing loss are associated with Tinnitus.
Causes of Objective Tinnitus
Muscle spasms that cause clicks or crackling in the inner ears.
Pulsatile Tinnitus is caused by altered blood flow or increased blood turbulence in veins in the ear, possibly from atherosclerosis or venous hum, and the noise is in rythmn with the beating of the sufferer’s heart. Rarely, Pulsatile Tinnitus can be a sign of more serious problems like carotid artery aneurysm or carotid artery dissection.
Eustachian tube abnormalities can also cause a form of Tinnitus, with a blowing sound or an ocean roar and/or clicking/whooshing noises as the main symptoms.
Causes of Subjective Tinnitus
80% of Subjective Tinnitus sufferers have other hearing disorders.
Almost all of those with Ménière’s disease have some form of Tinnitus.
Loud noises, constant or one-time noises, can be prime causes of Tinnitus.
Medicines, especially NSAIDs (aspirin, ibuprofen) have been shown to cause Tinnitus.
Chemical imbalances like diabetes have been linked to cases of Tinnitus.
Studies have shown that up to 50% of those with clinically-diagnosed depression and/or anxiety disorders have symptoms of Tinnitus.
Constant and abnormal stress has been shown to cause Tinnitus and make it worse.
How Do I Treat My Tinnitus?
Unless there is an underlying, treatable medical condition, there is no cure for Tinnitus. Always see your physician first to see if medical help is possible.
It is possible to reduce the intensity of the sounds of Tinnitus through various non-medical and alternative treatments.
For the most part, the goal in treating Tinnitus is to help the sufferer get used to his or her level of tinnitus, and attempt to move the perception of the Tinnitus noises to the patient’s subconscious.
For those who have issues with depression, anxiety and excessive stress, the alternative and holistic medical practitioners have been instrumental in developing many new, non-medical and creative treatments to help Tinnitus sufferers regain control over their lives. |
What Is Autism?
According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5), individuals with autism spectrum disorder display persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction and display restricted and repetitive behaviors, interests, or activities. These symptoms cause significant impairments in social, communication, and independent skills.
The severity of an autism diagnosis is classified by how severe the impairments are in the social, communication, and restricted and repetitive behavior domains.
1 in 54 children is on the autism spectrum*
4:1 male:female ratio
Early Intervention will significantly increase the child’s opportunity to attend public schools at a future date**
Early Intervention minimizes problem behaviors and maximizes skills across a child’s lifespan
Parent training can reduce challenging behavior in children with ASD by up to 47%***
* 2019, CDC
** Fenske, E. C., Zalenski, S., Krantz, P. J., & Mcclannahan, L. E. (1985). Age at intervention and treatment outcome for autistic children in a comprehensive intervention program.
*** Strauss, K., Vicari, S., Valeri, G., D’Elia, L., Arima, S., & Fava, L. (2012). Parent inclusion in Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention: The influence of parental stress, parent treatment fidelity and parent-mediated generalization of behavior targets on child outcomes. |
Steer away from sugary foods and keep your teeth healthy during the festive season
The holiday season is filled with cakes, candies, cookies, puddings and other desserts. It’s sugary sweet!
So why not try a healthier alternative this year? Maybe you have fitness goals you’re trying to achieve? Maybe you want to maintain or improve your oral health?
Whatever your reason, we promise a healthier Christmas has its benefits. If it doesn’t work out for you, next Christmas can always be sugary sweet instead!
What’s so wrong with sugary foods?
Sugary foods taste so good but are so bad for our oral health. The sugar is used as food for the bacteria in our plaque. These bacteria use sugar to create acid which causes tooth decay as it dissolves enamel, the protective layer on our teeth. This causes tooth decay and can lead to cavities forming.
Some healthy ideas for Christmas:
Fresh fruit is tasty, nutrient rich, mouthwatering and a healthy option. Chewing on certain fruits such as apples even helps to clean teeth. If fruit alone isn’t enough, add a dark chocolate dipping sauce or get creative and create designs such as Christmas trees made of fruit. Overall fruit is a fantastic way to satisfy your sweet tooth.
- Nut mixes:
Nuts are a great snack option. The healthiest nuts include almonds, pistachios, walnuts, cashews, pecans, macadamias, brazil nuts and hazelnuts. All of these contain vitamins and minerals, which provide excellent health benefits.
So go nuts!
- Dark chocolate:
Dark chocolate contains less sugar than milk and white chocolate. Plus dark chocolate contains antioxidants and is rich in minerals like iron, magnesium and zinc which provide you health benefits.
- Fresh vegetables:
Bringing out a platter of fresh vegetables may not receive the same looks as a bowl of Christmas pudding or sweets. But pair it with a delicious dip like hummus, garlic or any other yummy alternative dip and maybe it will receive those looks. We especially recommend carrot, cucumber, celery, broccoli, capsicum, tomato and cauliflower.
- Coconut chips:
High fiber and healthy fats content make coconut chips a delicious option for the table.
Cheeses are a great choice as they contain a range of minerals, vitamins and proteins needed to stay healthy. Also did you know that cheese helps protect you against tooth decay.
- Peanut butter:
Make sure to find a peanut butter spread that has no added sugars, fats or preservatives to use as a tasty dipping treat.
- Greek yogurt:
Lower sugar levels than regular yogurt, which means you can enjoy delicious yogurt alongside fresh fruit while doing little damage to your teeth.
More healthy foods and recipes that have fabulous benefits and cause little to no harm to your teeth and gums can be found online. Create a healthy Christmas this festive season!
At Access Dental Care our professional team offers a range of dental treatments from general check-ups and cleans to more involved treatments.
If you would like to find out information or to book an appointment, please get in touch. |
Francois Rabelais (1494 – 1553)
Francois Rabelais was a French monk and physician who wrote several volumes of a huge novel, The Life of Gargantua and Pantagruel, a story about a giant and his son. Satirical, amusing and over-the- top, it has influenced the style of writers like James Joyce, Lawrence Sterne and almost any writer who has attempted novels or plays containing the adventures of comical characters, including Shakespeare.
Rabelais was the first great prose author. He surprises one with the ‘modernity’ of his style and preoccupations while at the same time writing within the traditions of medieval literature.
One of the things that makes Rabelais an important and influential writer is that, in his writing we see the evolution of the humanist thinking that was to make writers like Cervantes and Shakespeare such powerful representatives of Renaissance literature, both to a large extent influenced by Rabelais. There are few writers in the history of literature who have had such an influence on later writers as had Rabelais.
In the four books of The Life of Gargantua and Pantagruel Rabelais’ purpose was to entertain his educated readers with the follies, overindulgences and exaggerations of his times. Such things as the evils of a corrupt monasticism, the profuse litigation of crooked lawyers, the ignorance and deceit of greedy physicians, are the subjects of the work. Rabelais was a friar and able to observe monastic life first hand; his father had been led on by lawyers to waste his money on a long case with a neighbour over some trivial water rights and, as a surgeon himself, Rabelais saw at close quarters how thin the line was between genuine physician and quack. Rabelais’ masterpiece, like Cervantes’ Don Quixote, is full of amusing incidents. It begins in a lighthearted way and continues with some belly-laugh events but, also like Don Quixote, it is a serious work – a quest for the genuine inner life.
Rabelais’ lasting influence has nothing to do with his view of himself as an author. He had a view of his own times and was struck by its absurdities. He was very much a man of his time: his heart was very much in the Mediaeval mode but with a compelling curiosity about the new learning and so with those two elements firmly embedded in him he married the two in his writing. His absurd, ridiculous inventions are mediaeval in essence even though he is mocking mediaeval acceptances. It is the mixture of all of that that makes him an entertaining and above all, a great and wise writer.
Read biographies of all of the 30 greatest writers ever >> |
''Within this Enclosure Rest the remains of Gen.l George Washington." This is the brief legend inscribed on a stone tablet over the entrance to the tomb vault at Mount Vernon. Behind the iron gate are two marble sarcophagi, one inscribed "Washington," the other "Martha, Consort of Washington."
George Washington's will directed the building of the present vault in the following words: "The family Vault at Mount Vernon requiring repairs, and being improperly situated besides, I desire that a new one of Brick, and upon a larger Scale, may be built at the foot of what is commonly called the Vineyard Inclosure. . . In which my remains, with those of my deceased relatives (now in the old Vault) and such others of my family as may chuse to be entombed there, may be deposited."
Immediately after Washington's death, Congress resolved that a marble monument should be erected to his memory in the new Capitol in the city of Washington, and that his family should be requested to permit his body to be deposited beneath it. Martha Washington's consent was solicited and obtained. A crypt was provided under the dome of the Capitol, but the project was never completed. In 1831, the surviving executors of Washington's estate removed the bodies of George and Martha Washington and those of other members of the family from the old vault to a similar structure within the present enclosure at Mount Vernon.
In 1832, when the nation observed the centennial of the birth of George Washington, the proposal for the removal of his body to the Capitol was revived. Congress authorized application to the proprietor of Mount Vernon, John A. Washington, for the transfer. However, the legislature of the Commonwealth of Virginia requested him not to consent. Washington elected to abide by the implicit intent communicated in the will of his great-uncle.
The marble sarcophagus that the body of General Washington now rests in was erected in 1837. At that time the leaden inner casket was removed from the closed to the new marble vault and permanently entombed within it. A similar sarcophagus, more plainly sculptured, was provided for the remains of Martha Washington. The marble shafts in front of the Tomb were erected to the memory of Bushrod Washington and his nephew, John Augustine Washington, who in turn were proprietors of Mount Vernon. They are buried in the inner vault. The shafts at the side of the enclosure mark the graves of Nelly Custis Lewis and one of her daughters.
Rasmussen, William S. and Robert S. Tilton. George Washington—The Man Behind the Myths. Charlottesville, VA: The University Press of Virginia, 1999.
Wineberger, James Albert. The Tomb of Washington at Mount Vernon. Washington, D.C.: T. McGill, 1857. |
Baron Haussmann's building projects and the construction of the grand boulevards resulted in many theatres being demolished, like the popular establishments on the "boulevard of crime" (Boulevard du Temple).
When the question of reconstruction was raised, the theatre owners wished to be located near to each other in order to attract audiences more easily. So Haussmann created a new complex which included the Théâtre de la Gaîté, built between 1862 and 1864 by Alphonse Cusin, situated on the Square des Arts et Métiers. It was near the Théâtre Lyrique and the Théâtre du Cirque Impérial, designed by Gabriel Davioud on the Place du Châtelet. It was decided not to leave them isolated, but to include them in a series of buildings to be let, and to surround them with shops.
The general style was Italian Renaissance, and these new theatres all had arcades at ground level and a loggia on the first floor. The buildings on each side of the Théâtre de la Gaîté featured a sequence of Ionic columns, creating a façade 44 metres in length. It was one of the biggest auditoriums in Paris, seating 1800 people, and was true to Haussmann's aim: "to make the new theatres monuments worthy of the capital of France, to build them solidly and decorate them richly, to create wide and easy access with well-lit and well-ventilated auditoriums".
Alas, we now know the transformations this theatre was subject to – notably its conversion into a "leisure centre" at the end of the 1980s, for which the beautiful Italian-style auditorium was demolished. |
The name Deception Bay is often abbreviated to D-Bay. This term, D-Bay was mainly used by outsiders, organisations or recent arrivals to The Bay. The suburb was previously plagued with crime and high unemployment during the 1980s and 1990s as it was populated with one of the most concentrated social housing in Queensland by the government of the day; however community problems subsided after 2001 due to development and population growth in the area.
Deception Bay is also the name of a small bay in the west of Moreton Bay, south of Pumicestone Passage and north of the Redcliffe Peninsula. In the north of the bay at Beachmere is where the Caboolture River and Burpengary Creek meet the ocean. It was named in 1823 by Lt John Oxley, who thought the bay was a river and because of his mistake and the shallowness, named it Pumice Stone River; he later changed the name to Deception Bay. |
Persuade others to accept or reject
hypotheses by presenting data and interpretations
Detail data, procedures, and outcomes for
Become part of the accepted body of scientific
knowledge when published unless later disproved
Provide an archival record for reference
and document a current situation for future comparison
The typical lab report includes: title, abstract, introduction, materials
and methods, results, discussion, references and literature cited
Reflect the factual content with less than ten words in
a straightforward manner
Use keywords researchers and search engines on the
Internet will recognize
Summarize in a concise paragraph the purpose of the report,
data presented, and major conclusions in about 100 - 200 words.
Define the subject of the report: "Why was this study
Provide background information and relevant studies: "What
knowledge already exists about this subject?"
Outline scientific purpose(s) and/or objective(s): "What are
the specific hypotheses and the experimental design for
Materials and methods:
List materials used, how were they used, and where and when
was the work done (especially important in field studies)
Describe special pieces of equipment and the general theory of
the analyses or assays used
Provide enough detail for the reader to understand the
experiment without overwhelming him/her. When procedures from a
lab book or another report are followed exactly, simply cite the
work and note that details can be found there.
Concentrate on general trends and differences and not on
Summarize the data from the experiments without discussing
Organize data into tables, figures, graphs, photographs, etc.
Data in a table should not be duplicated in a graph or figure
Title all figures and tables; include a legend explaining
symbols, abbreviations, or special methods
Number figures and tables separately and refer to them in
the text by their number, i.e.
Figure 1 shows that the activity....
The activity decreases after five minutes (fig. 1)
Interpret the data; do not restate the results
Relate results to existing theory and knowledge
Explain the logic that allows you to accept or reject your
Speculate as necessary but identify it as such
Include suggestions for improving your techniques or design,
or clarify areas of doubt for further research
References & literature cited
Cite only references in your paper and not a general
bibliography on the topic
Alphabetize by last name of the author
Follow the recommended format for citations
Strive for logic and precision and avoid ambiguity, especially
with pronouns and sequences
Keep your writing impersonal; avoid the use of the first person
(i.e. I or we)
Use the past tense and be consistent within the report note:
"data" is plural and "datum" is singular; species is singular
Italicize all scientific names (genus and species)
Use the metric system of measurement and abbreviate measurements
without periods (i.e. cm kg) spell out all numbers beginning
sentences or less than 10 (i.e. "two explanations of six
Write numbers as numerals when greater than ten (i.e. 156) or
associated with measurements (i.e. 6 mm or 2 g)
Have a neutral person review and critique your report before
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My name is Haniebal Gebrie and I am a graduating senior from E.L. Haynes High School. An AP class can change the life of every child, but less than 30% of black and brown students are currently enrolled. As someone who has taken 3 AP classes, I’ve experienced the benefits first-hand. While at first I doubted my ability to do well in these college-level courses, I am grateful to have that exposure to rigor. Schools should make at least one AP class mandatory. When students do not take AP classes they are less likely to believe in their academic ability and are not as prepared for college as their peers.
A majority of college freshmen are unprepared for college and, as a result, they have to spend time in remediation classes. Remediation classes often cost money and take time away from students working on their major. According to a 2019 article from the Hechinger Report, “one in four, show up on campuses each fall not ready to take college courses in math or English” (Marcus, Jon, et al). These students are taking high-school-level classes in college, because they didn’t take advantage of or weren’t given access to rigorous curriculum, like AP, in high school. Furthermore, minority students make up more than their fair share of these courses. The Public Policy Institute of California explains that “Latino, African-American, and low-income students are overrepresented in developmental courses,” a fact that can be tackled if we pushed students of color in the way they deserve. Too many students going to college are not ready for the classes that they are going to be taking. If they had taken AP classes in high school they would have been more prepared for the rigor of college. Thus, schools should make at least one AP class mandatory for students.
Did you know that as a black male, I am more likely to be suspended than I am to be enrolled in an AP class? According to USA Today, “white students are about twice as likely as black and Hispanic students to be enrolled in at least one AP class [and] black students are 2.7 times more likely to be suspended.” This is because the school system treats students differently based on race. The current system is failing students of color. Black and brown students benefit the most from expanded AP classes because it is an eye opener for them in the way that they see their academic self-esteem. An article by The New York Times shows the benefits of AP classes for minority students “by sending a message to students that they are capable” (Tugend). For these reasons, schools should make at least one AP class mandatory for graduation, which would better prepare students for college and serve students of color by encouraging academic achievement.
Minority students deserve the same opportunities as their white peers. Nicole Asamoah, from Medium, states the “Norm for black students and other minorities is to ditch out on AP classes because it is out of their league.” Out of our league? Not quite. Amy Stuart Wells states the practice of labeling “gifted” students when young is largely done by race. This labeling leads to white students getting more access to honors and advanced placement classes. If AP classes become part of the required courses, black and brown students will see this curriculum as attainable and be less likely to ditch these courses.
Making at least one AP course mandatory would better help students of color so that, when they go to college, they don’t have to waste time taking remedial classes. Most importantly, they will learn to believe in themselves. In order for this to be enforced there should be board meetings where school leaders attend and hear from students (current and alumni), parents, and teachers about the benefits AP courses would have on the students now and later on in the future. |
Contagion via Saliva
Periodontal disease is an ongoing bacterial infection in the gums and bone around your teeth.
DNA coding techniques have enabled researchers to track the path of infection from one person to another. They found that periodontal disease causing bacteria were transmitted by saliva contact between family members.
The studies reveal that the periodontal disease causing bacteria travel from the pockets around the teeth into the saliva. Transmission of the infection through saliva is influenced how often a person is exposed to the infected saliva and how susceptible they are to getting the disease.
Another study determined that saliva contact happens quite often in family settings through kissing, coughing, sneezing, sharing food, sharing a cup or glass and sharing utensils or drinking straws.
So... given all of these precautions.. how do you actually avoid the spread of disease in your own family if periodontal disease is already present?
The transmission of periodontal disease is a serious health problem since periodontal infections are responsible for 75% of all adult tooth loss.
- Complete all recommended perio treatments. Periodontal treatment destroys or greatly reduces disease causing bacteria
- Keep your periodontal cleaning appointments. Some bacteria in the saliva can return to the pre-treatment levels in under 6 months. Frequent cleanings significantly reduce the risk of re-infection.
- Have your entire family screened if there is periodontal disease in the family
Periodontal disease may also increase the risk of:
- Heart Disease
- Respiratory Diseases
- Pre-term Low Birth Weight Babies |
Question: Buddhism as a whole speaks eloquently on issues such as managing suffering and dealing with violence after it has occurred, with forgiveness, acceptance, and letting go. But, in my experience, it has been largely silent on dealing with issues of violence as they are occurring. So, here is my question: In day-to-day society—be it in a business setting, family setting, or more public setting—we often witness mistreatment such as emotional violence, bullying, and disenfranchisement being perpetrated against ourselves or others. Does the dharma provide any teaching on how to deal with this kind of situation—not after it has happened, but while it is happening? Should we respond and, if so, how should we respond?
I ask this question because it seems that we are often advised to take the “nonviolent” approach, which is often interpreted as taking a passive, nonreactive approach.
Narayan Helen Liebenson: There are two instances in the Buddha’s life that are instructive regarding your question. The first involved a drunk and angry elephant running toward the Buddha with the intent to kill him. The Buddha responded by sending the elephant metta, whereupon the elephant stopped in his tracks and bowed down instead of trampling the Buddha to death.
In the second instance, the Buddha was subjected to angry insults. First the Buddha just listened to the man, then he basically said he could not accept the anger, that it was a gift he would not receive.
So yes, we need to respond in the moment to any mistreatment of ourselves or others, but the question is how.
The Buddha taught that violence begets violence and that only love can stop the cycle, so it is important to avoid participating in violent actions. But this doesn’t mean lying down and passively accepting abuse. Nor does it mean demonizing the person who is causing the trouble or seeing that person as the “other.”
Nonviolence does not equal passivity or nonresponsiveness. It means bringing forth the qualities of heart we are training ourselves in, namely, loving-kindness, courage, patience, and wisdom, and doing our best to enact them in the heat of the moment. Pausing to be mindful of just one breath can help calm the mind. Calmness offers the possibility of responding out of wisdom and compassion, rather than out of anger.
Standing up to injustice and preventing those who are causing harm from continuing to do so can be an expression of love and compassion. It protects not only oneself and others but the perpetrators as well by preventing them from being harmed by their own unskillful actions.
Our conditioning tells us to fight or flee but the dharma tells us to stand our ground and be aware of the emotions being stirred up, and then to take the wisest and most compassionate action possible in a given situation. Of course, the wisest action may be to fight (without anger) or to flee (without fear). What would it mean to fight or flee without self-centered aggression and because it’s the sensible thing to do?
In unjust situations, this can be extremely difficult to do. Sometimes the only thing we can do is be patient and try not to make a situation worse until a beneficial and creative action becomes clear.
Because this is such a difficult arena, it’s extremely beneficial to learn skills for meeting violence with nonviolence. The Buddha’s guidelines for wise speech can provide invaluable skills. These include practicing speech that is truthful, kind, unifying, and useful, and letting go of speech that is untruthful, unkind, divisive, and indulgent. Also, Marshal B. Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication (NVC) approach provides language and communication tools that are in line with the Buddha’s teachings.
It’s important to recognize the power of our individual actions, no matter how small they may seem. In the face of suffering, it is easy to feel overwhelmed and helpless. It is possible to slide into passivity and even indifference. Dharma practice encourages receptivity not passivity, and equanimity not indifference. Of course, we can never know how we will act in a given situation until we are actually in it and we act out of whatever wisdom and compassion is available to us in the moment.
Zenkei Blanche Hartman: A monk asked Yun Men, “What is the teaching of the Buddha’s whole lifetime?” Yun Men replied, “An appropriate response.” I have also heard this translated as “Teaching facing oneness” and I have been told that the characters literally read “one meets one,” or “each meets each.” In a situation such as you described, I think it means to be totally present in order to discern if there is a way to intervene without escalating the violence.
As for the Buddha’s teaching on stopping violence, you might read “Angulimala Sutta: About Angulimala” online at accesstoinsight.org. Although the Buddha called on some supernatural powers to get Angulimala’s attention and to prevent Angulimala from harming him, he clearly said to Angulimala, “You must stop your murderous ways.”
In the ninth precept of the Order of Interbeing, founded by Thich Nhat Hanh, is the teaching, “Have the courage to speak out about situations of injustice even when doing so may threaten your own safety.” And the twelfth precept is, “Do not kill. Do not let others kill. Find whatever means possible to protect life and prevent war.”
When you ask “Should we respond?” and “How should we respond?” you are bringing up the teaching of the Buddha’s whole lifetime of practice and his response to “just this” or “things-as-it-is,” as Suzuki Roshi used to say. Our whole life of practicing the buddhadharma is to study how best to respond to whatever we meet with wisdom and compassion. My teacher often says, “Respond, don’t react.”
We cultivate the four immeasurables (loving-kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity) and the six paramitas or “perfections”—the virtues perfected by an awakening being in the course of their development: dana paramita (generosity), sila paramita (discipline or precepts), kshanti paramita (patience or forbearance), virya paramita (energy or exertion), dhyana paramita (meditation), prajna paramita (wisdom)—all to be able to respond to whatever we may meet in the most beneficial way. Moreover, the first pure precept is to refrain from all harmful actions.
So my answer to you is: Yes, we should respond to everything we encounter with an open and loving heart, without anger or judgment, trying to connect with the Buddha in the person we are responding to. Falling into old habits of anger and judgment just puts us in a hell realm along with those who may be perpetrating the violence. I appreciate a prayer of the great teacher Shantideva, “May those whose hell it is to hurt and hate be turned into lovers bringing flowers.” And I try to heed the warning of Mark Twain, “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”
So you have raised a big question. How shall we respond? How shall we respond to life in each moment? Learning nonreactivity and calmness is the teaching of a whole lifetime, so we need not be discouraged if we are not sure what to do, or how to intervene to resolve an angry or violent situation. Asking oneself these questions means that compassion and kindness are already established. At times, one’s calmness alone will make an impression; at other times, one might need to call the police or Child Protective Services. In order to make the most skillful response we need to stay awake and stay present and connected as much as we can in each moment. Above all, bring compassion to violence, even when it is directed at you.
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche: According to dharma teachings it is more a question of how to act rather than whether to act. There is no encouragement to be either passive or active, but there is guidance on action. We can speak of actions of body, actions of speech, or actions of mind. One’s actions of body should occur from a deep, grounded stillness. One’s actions of speech should be connected to deep inner silence. One’s ideas or solutions should come from an open, spacious mind. Even in response to violence, these actions are not driven by fear or anger; rather, they are actions that arise spontaneously with confidence and awareness. When awareness is present, you know what to do. Your actions are healing, not harming.
When your sense of stillness, silence, and spaciousness is obscured by internal distress, it is not the time to act. Let me give an example in the realm of action through speech. Perhaps someone has criticized you and you feel you have been disrespected and misunderstood. You write an email to clarify the situation, but you notice your words are sharp and cutting. You feel almost powerful as you write angry words, and there is a sense of relief as you express yourself. Fortunately you do not press the send button, but save your response as a draft. The next day you reread the email and edit it a bit, deleting some of the sharper points of your attack. Again you save it. A few days pass, and by the end of the week you no longer feel the need to send the email. Instead of pressing the send button you delete the email. To qualify as a true healing this has to be more than an example of giving up or letting go because you think that is what you are supposed to do. That only subtly reinforces a worldview where you are a victim and the other person is the aggressor.
What would the internal scenario look like if this were truly a healing transformation? As a practitioner of meditation, as you spend time connecting with openness and the awareness of that openness, you become aware of the hurt and anger that motivated your initial response. As you feel your feelings directly, you host them in the space of being present. You host your feelings because they are there, and hosting means you feel without judging or analyzing further. Interestingly, without elaboration, the drive behind the feelings begins to dissolve into the spaciousness of being present. As you become fully present, the harsh words of the other’s criticism do not fit or define you. It is possible that you may experience them coming from an unbalanced or vulnerable place in the other person.
If you do decide that some action needs to be taken, you have connected more fully with a sense of unbounded space within you. This experience of being fully present is powerful. Awareness of this inner space gives rise to compassion and other positive qualities. It is important to realize that you do not arrive at this experience of yourself by rejecting, altering, or moving away from your feelings, or by imposing some prescription of how to behave, or by justifying your feelings by thinking or elaborating upon them. As you continue to be fully present, the feelings release into the openness. If you are truly honest, they no longer define your experience of yourself. Can you trust that this is your true power?
The space of openness is indestructible. It cannot be destroyed; it can only be obscured. Having connected with yourself in this way, whatever you write or communicate will be influenced by that respect and the warmth that marks being fully present. Because you have treated your own reactivity by simply being present, you have come to a trustworthy place in yourself.
In this example, the process took you a week, but as you become more familiar with the power of openness, it can happen in an instant. Even strong negative emotions can be a doorway to direct and naked awareness—a doorway to the direct connection to the space of being. If you meet the moment fully and openly, awareness will define what you do. Awakened or enlightened action will spontaneously arise; it does not come from a plan.
Even physical or verbal actions that may appear forceful arise from the confidence of openness itself and the power of compassion that is always available and always benefits all. |
In This Posting, I mentioned “Half-Band Filters”, which are a special case of the “Sinc Filter”, that are faster to compute than typical sinc filters, because in this case, half the coefficients are equal to zero, which means that half the samples which are usually multiplied by coefficients, do not need to be.
Even though this is easy to say, there is one consideration in coding the principle, essential to make it work.
A tight loop would need to dereference half the samples in the input stream, in a pattern which also skips the center sample, which is usually multiplied by the coefficient (+1) as an exception. After this loop has finished, the central input sample would be added to the accumulated, weighted sum, to arrive at the final value for the output sample.
(Edit 03/21/2017 : )
There is an additional observation to offer, on half-band filters. Their direct use for playback would suffer from a problem I have yet to characterize. If used directly as input / output filters, this kind of filter assumes that an analog filter is capable of passing an intended signal-frequency, while suppressing a frequency adequately, which is only twice as high – i.e. one octave higher.
The problem with this is the fact that realistic analog low-pass filters never bring down the amplitude completely to zero. And if they are given only one octave to work with, then they will effectively be reducing the signal energy at the oversampled Nyquist Frequency to -50db. While this might sound adequate, for many purposes it is not.
This parasitic energy which is passed will simply show up in critiques of the technology as noise. And if it is either the goal or the achievement, that the noise-level be as low as -90db, and yet that the frequency-response curve be very clean, then the analog filters need to be given 2 or 3 octaves to work with. And this will mean that the digital system needs to be oversampled 4x or maybe even 8x.
This can be accomplished, if several half-band filters are put in a dyadic chain, but then something else cannot be accomplished. |
Memorial (lost): Friends’ Meeting House - Hammersmith
This garden is on the site of the Friends’ Meeting House and Burial Ground, 1765-1944.
Looks like something used to be mounted on the granite top of this pillar, but what? This memorial was probably erected in 1951 when the bomb site was cleared for the Festival of Britain celebrations.
Site: Friends’ Meeting House - Hammersmith (2 memorials)
W6, Furnivall Gardens
The tree-less plaque is in the lawn some distance to the right, outside our photo, which was taken from inside the garden.
Concerning Furnivall Gardens generally, a nearby information board informs: "The gardens are named after Dr Frederick James Furnivall, 1825 - 1910, a distinguished scholar of English literature and an important figure in the development of the sport of rowing. In 1896 he founded the Hammersmith Sculling Club for Girls and Men, now called the Furnivall Sculling Club, whose premises are in Lower Mall.
Furnivall Gardens cover the area which was formerly the mouth of the Hammersmith creek, an outlet into the Thames from Stamford Brook. In 1936 after the decline of the fishing industry in the creek harbour in the early 19th century, the creek was filled in and the water channelled through an underground culvert.
Many of the buildings in the creek area were destroyed by bombing during World War II and, in 1948, the council created an open space in this area, to be used during the Festival of Britain. A walled garden was constructed on the bombed site of what had, since 1765, been the Friends' Meeting House and burial ground.
Furnivall Gardens and Hammersmith Pier were opened on 5th May 1951."
The pier was built as a dock where festival-visitors could board a ferry to the Battersea and the South Bank.
The 1954 film Impulse has a scene at about 44 minutes where the characters arrive at Dove Pier and walk across Furnival Gardens. The camera briefly shows some of the large buildings on the other side of the Great West Road, and before that a windowed ruined wall which seems to stretch northwards from what is now River House, across the Gardens to the Great West Road. |
Julio González (Barcelona, 1876 - Arcueil, France, 1942) is considered the father of iron sculpture and one of the key artists in the development of twentieth-century art. This retrospective exhibition exposes his process of finding a new sculptural syntax through a wide variety of registers and is an addition to those Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía dedicated to him in 1986 focused on Las Colecciones del IVAM and in 1995 focused on his drawings.
González, with an artistic vocation, trains as a craftsman in his father’s artistic metalwork workshop in a modernist Barcelona, where he learns how to forge and cast iron. His move to Paris influences his artistic production. There he learns an industrial technique, autogenous welding, decisive for the subsequent renewal of his iron sculptural language. The artist experiments the two-dimensional plane with his embossed reliefs and the exploration of volume until in 1928 Picasso, used to working with metal, asks for his help in producing a memorial to his friend Apollinaire with transparent and emptied forms, in order to materialise the idea of "a solid statue of nothing", inspired by The Poet Assassinated written by Apollinaire in 1914. Thanks to this collaboration, González’s advice to Picasso allows him to test the feasibility of his sketches, while Picasso gives his friend the impetus to develop his work, based on the synthetic capacity of the drawing. González's sculptures, hitherto limited to delicate iron and small dimensions, are reinforced to the point of becoming imposing and complex figures that will lead him to be internationally recognised.
With his thread-like sculptures he prioritises "the marriage between material and space" and he distances himself from the traditional approaches of symmetry through what he calls "drawing in space." They are improvisations, constructed directly with iron rods, which consolidates an "apparently abstract" language, pieces of great schematic and formal complexity. In parallel González uses iron plates with which he creates a series of sculptures that some authors have associated with Cubism, where he decomposes volume and incorporates empty space, achieving contrasting lighting effects between full and empty forms. In 1937, González ends his sculptural work with two exceptional pieces: La Montserrat, exhibited in the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris International Exhibition of 1937, and Mujer ante el espejo, a daring synthesis between Cubism, Surrealism and Expressionism.
Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya MNAC, Barcelona (October 28, 2008 - January 25, 2009) |
MCWHIRTER, MARTHA WHITE
MCWHIRTER, MARTHA WHITE (1827–1904). Martha White McWhirter, founder and leader of the Belton Woman's Commonwealth, was born on May 17, 1827, in Gainesboro, Tennessee, the daughter of a Jackson County planter. In 1845 she married George M. McWhirter, an attorney and farmer. The McWhirters moved to Bell County, Texas, in 1855, and settled first on Salado Creek, near the site of present Armstrong. Nine or ten years later they moved to Belton, where George McWhirter operated a store and had an interest in a flour mill. The McWhirters had twelve children, only six of whom survived. Martha McWhirter had joined the Methodist Church in Tennessee at the age of sixteen, and in Belton she and her husband helped establish the interdenominational Union Sunday School, to which they remained loyal even after the community acquired a Methodist congregation in 1870. She also led a women's prayer group that met weekly in the members' homes. In 1866, after the deaths of her brother and two of her children, she began to believe that God was chastising her. After a prayerful night she had a vision that convinced her that she had been "sanctified," or filled with the Holy Spirit. She shared her revelation with the women in her prayer group, and other members began to pray successfully for sanctification. Mrs. McWhirter's deepening commitment to unorthodox religious views eventually caused a serious rift in the community. Many of her growing band of female followers were unhappy in their domestic affairs, and she herself accused her husband of making improper advances toward a servant girl. She claimed to have had a revelation in which the sanctified were instructed to separate themselves from the undevout, and consequently directed her followers to continue to perform their household duties while minimizing social contact with their husbands and abstaining from conjugal relations. Eventually the women began to leave their homes to live and work communally. As the McWhirter house began to fill up with "Sanctified Sisters," George and Martha separated permanently. Without her husband's permission she had a house built for a homeless sister on one of his lots, claiming that the money she had brought to their marriage gave her a moral right to the property. Despite his anger George did not interfere when the women continued to build houses; he defended his estranged wife against critical townspeople and left her his estate when he died in 1887. While still living with her husband Martha McWhirter had avoided asking him for household money by marketing eggs, butter, and baked goods. As the financial planner for the Woman's Commonwealth she directed her followers in a variety of enterprises that made the group financially secure in a relatively short time. The Sanctificationists' economic success helped dissipate much of the town's hostility, and McWhirter became the first woman elected to the city Board of Trade. She contributed to the community fund to help attract a railroad to Belton, and her name appeared on the cornerstone of the Belton opera house. She continued to lead the Woman's Commonwealth even after the members retired from business in 1899 and bought property in Washington, D.C., and Mount Pleasant, Maryland. She died in the Washington area on April 21, 1904.
George Pierce Garrison, "A Woman's Community in Texas," Charities Review, November 1893. Eleanor James, "Martha White McWhirter (1827–1904)," in Women in Early Texas, ed. Evelyn M. Carrington (Austin: Jenkins, 1975). Eleanor James, "The Sanctificationists of Belton," American West, Summer 1965. Melissa Johnson, "Sanctified Sisters," Texas Historian, November 1974. Jayme A. Sokolow and Mary Ann Lamanna, "Women and Utopia: The Woman's Commonwealth of Belton," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 87 (April 1984). Gwendolyn Wright, "The Woman's Commonwealth," Architectural Association Quarterly 6 (1974).
The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article.Mary Ann Lamanna and Jayme A. Sokolow, "MCWHIRTER, MARTHA WHITE," Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fmcax), accessed September 02, 2014. Uploaded on June 15, 2010. Published by the Texas State Historical Association. |
Pointing a Finger at Star Formation
NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, captured this image of a star-forming cloud of dust and gas located in the constellation of Monoceros. The nebula, commonly referred to as Sh2-284, is relatively isolated at the very end of an outer spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy. In the night sky, it's located in the opposite direction from the center of the Milky Way.
Perhaps the most interesting features in Sh2-284 are what astronomer call "elephant trunks." Elephant trunks are monstrous pillars of dense gas and dust. The most famous examples of are the "Pillars of Creation," found in an iconic image of the Eagle nebula from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. In this WISE image, the trunks are seen as small columns of gas stretching towards the center of the void in Sh2-284, like little green fingers with yellow fingernails. The most notable one can be seen on the right side of the void at about the 3 o'clock position. It appears as a closed hand with a finger pointing towards the center of the void. That elephant trunk is about 7 light-years long.
Deep inside Sh2-284 resides an open star cluster, called Dolidze 25, which is emitting vast amounts of radiation in all directions, along with stellar winds. These stellar winds and radiation are clearing out a cavern inside the surrounding gas and dust, creating the void seen in the center. The bright green wall surrounding the cavern shows how far out the gas has been eroded. However, some sections of the original gas cloud were much denser than others, and they were able to resist the erosive power of the radiation and stellar winds. These pockets of dense gas remained and protected the gas "downwind" from them, leaving behind the elephant trunks. These pillars can also be thought of as rising like stalagmites from the cavern walls.
The Sh2-284 nebula is classified as an HII region, as is LBN 114.55+00.22 featured in the September 16, 2010 image (http://wise.ssl.berkeley.edu/gallery_LBN114.html). HII regions go hand in hand with star formation, and indeed the stars in the central Dolidze 25 cluster have just recently formed. They're hot, young, bright stars, with ages ranging from 1.5 to 13 million years -- infants by astronomical standards. In comparison, the sun is about 4.6 billion years old.
The colors used in this image represent specific wavelengths of infrared light. Blue and cyan (blue-green) represent light emitted at wavelengths of 3.4 and 4.6 microns, which is predominantly from stars. Green and red represent light from 12 and 22 microns, respectively, which is mostly emitted by dust.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA |
I collected samples of the different types of plants and used them to discuss the classification process.
studied the differences in the leaf shape and vein pattern
We also identified a few flowers we found in the garden (please excuse the dandelion - the girls seem to think they are a wonderful flower and I regularly get bunches shoved into a pot as a gift)
We used the monocot/dicot exercise from Montessori for everyone which comes with a great explanation of the differences between monocots and dicots.
and they finished by writing up their notebook pages. |
Back in the 1990s, longleaf pine knowledge was in danger of dying out. Many of the scientists who had dedicated their careers to studying longleaf were near the end of their lives. Fewer people than ever appreciated the “whispering pines” with forest floors bathed in dappled sunlight filtering through the high, open tree canopies.
Two professors at Auburn University — Rhett Johnson and Dean Gjerstad — knew many of these scientists and realized that, like a language only spoken by a handful of elders, longleaf expertise and appreciation were in danger of disappearing.
Johnson recalls: “We first looked at longleaf just as a tree, but then we realized what a unique and valuable ecosystem it was. Healthy longleaf forests have incredible biodiversity. They’re like living museums when you consider how little is left. After a few years of lonely longleaf research, we looked around and found that longleaf was still disappearing at a pretty rapid rate. But the people who were really knowledgeable about it were disappearing even faster.”
Longleaf pines had become a pale shadow of their former presence. Forests that covered 90 million acres of the southeastern United States a few hundred years ago had been reduced to less than 5 million acres — the rest cleared or degraded by logging, crop development, grazing, human development, fire suppression and feral hogs.
Johnson and Gjerstad decided it was time to take action.
Johnson says: “We had a couple of meetings in 1994 and we found more interest in longleaf restoration than we’d expected. But no one wanted to take the lead. We had to do it ourselves and on our own time. We both had day jobs, but it was very rewarding, especially in working with private landowners. It was like we were Johnny Appleseeds: We’d scatter like a covey of quail and go to four different states. And it wasn’t just about hunting or timber: Some landowners were just excited about restoring this historic, iconic landscape.”
As time went on, Johnson says, “Darned if it didn’t take off. We realized that we weren’t capable of managing growth and interest, and that we needed partners. And when the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) started to support us at the Longleaf Alliance, it was a breakthrough.”
Eight Million Acres in Fifteen Years
According to Kyle Jones, the U.S. Forest Service’s regional longleaf pine restoration coordinator, in 2007 the Longleaf Alliance joined forces with more than 20 other organizations from federal and state agencies as well as the private sector. That partnership became ALRI — America’s Longleaf Restoration Initiative.
ALRI’s conservation plan, drafted in 2009, calls for an increase in longleaf-dominant forests to 8 million acres by 2025. It’s an ambitious goal, for several reasons. One is that so much of former longleaf habitat has been and continues to be cleared for agriculture and development. Another is that longleaf ecosystems depend on frequent, low-intensity fire, which is a difficult management prospect for forests near developed areas.
In addition, longleaf can be tricky to establish, and although the tree is highly valued for its strength and resistance to rot, fire, wind and insects, it can be difficult to convince timber companies of longleaf’s economic value relative to faster-growing trees such as slash or loblolly pine.
A Shared Vision, With Very Different Priorities
Many representatives of ALRI’s more than 30 members observe that it’s unusual to have partners with so many different agendas working toward the same goal. According to Jones, “It’s inspiring to go to a meeting and see a conservationist working closely with an executive from the timber industry.”
The Forest Service is an important partner in this effort, partly due to the fact that, of all ALRI partners, it manages the largest amount of historic longleaf property — more than 4 million acres, of which only about 850,000 remain intact as longleaf forests.
“There’s a huge opportunity for us to move the needle,” Jones says, “and we’re doing that with the Million Acre Challenge, which is an effort that we announced last year to add a million acres of longleaf stands on national forest land. By doing this, we’re hoping to cause a ripple effect with acreage commitments from other state and federal agencies.”
Working with Public and Private Landowners
As another part of this effort, the Forest Service and the NRCS work closely with state governments as well as private landowners to restore and manage for healthy longleaf forests. According to Kay Reed of the Forest Service’s Southern Region: “In the South, private landowners own most of the forest land. Some landowners already know about longleaf and they’re passionate about it, while others can benefit from learning more about the ecosystem and the assistance available under the Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act and through state forestry agencies.”
Jeffrey Vail of the Forest Service described efforts working with for-profit organizations and state forests such as Tate’s Hell State Forest in the Florida Panhandle. Once a swampy mix of cypress sloughs, wet prairies, wetlands and pine forests, Tate’s Hell was developed as a commercial forest in the 1960s and 1970s, with drainage ditches and roads that altered the area’s hydrology and damaged habitat for rare species such as Florida black bears, red-cockaded woodpeckers, Chapman’s butterwort and small-flowered meadow beauties.
In the early 1990s, the state began purchasing the land to protect Apalachicola Bay. Since then, the Florida Forest Service has prescriptively burned most of the pinelands, re-established the native longleaf pine over a major portion of the forest, and worked to restore large areas of grassy savannahs.
“If you go there today,” Vail says, “you can see the efforts made to restore longleaf habitat and remove other species while restoring fire to the ecosystem.”
Employing a Powerful Conservation Tool
On the federal level, there’s another key partner with a very specific focus: the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. According to Aaron Valenta, chief of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Division of Restoration and Recovery, “Our primary interest in longleaf restoration is that it’s an ecosystem that holds a whole suite of species, including many that depend on that ecosystem for survival.”
In fact, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service, longleaf forests are associated with 29 species on federal threatened or endangered lists.
The Fish and Wildlife Service has a powerful tool in the restoration process. It’s called a safe harbor agreement, and it’s a voluntary agreement between the agency and non-federal property owners.
According to Valenta: “The lumber industry in the Southeast was facing a potential crisis related to red-cockaded woodpeckers, which are closely reliant on longleaf pine forests that are maintained as an open forest canopy and that burn every few years. Those companies were worried that the Endangered Species Act would prevent them from harvesting their land. We went to landowners and proposed an agreement: ‘If you manage the land in a way that we both find acceptable and a red-cockaded woodpecker moves onto your land, you’ll have no liability under the Endangered Species Act.’ Once they had the legal right to not worry, red-cockaded woodpeckers became a non-issue.”
The same approach is proving useful for other longleaf-dependent species, such as the gopher tortoise and the Eastern indigo snake. Valenta explains: “Not all of these species are listed under the Endangered Species Act, but we’re not waiting for that to happen. Our vision is to work with private landowners and state and federal agencies by understanding their needs in the context of restoring endangered, threatened or at-risk species. For the gopher tortoise, landowners are stepping up to help manage the land to prevent the species from being listed.”
Cooperation from the Department of Defense
One of these landowners is none other than the Department of Defense. Like other federal agencies, the Department of Defense is subject to Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act, which requires federal agencies to work to conserve endangered and threatened species.
According to Ryan Orndorff, director of the Department’s Natural Resource program: “A number of Southern military installations have healthy populations of red-cockaded woodpeckers, gopher tortoises and other species that depend on these ecosystems. If that habitat continues to be lost outside of our installations and land protections are triggered under the Endangered Species Act, that would restrict our ability to use the land for training purposes.”
INRMPs (Integrated Natural Resource Management Plans) are why, on military installations such as Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida Panhandle, you’ll find thoughtful placement of military exercises, as well as a willingness to manage the land with frequent fire — approaches that preserve longleaf ecosystems.
“It’s a process that takes a significant amount of time and resources,” Orndorff says, “but if we can sustain conditions that prevent habitat losses and prevent the need for habitat restrictions, we can maintain flexibility of land use while supporting conservation efforts.”
It’s also an approach that gets to the heart of the Endangered Species Act, which was signed into law nearly 45 years ago. Spurred by the near-extinction of the bald eagle and the disappearance of the passenger pigeon, lawmakers sought to protect critically imperiled species and the ecosystems they depend upon from extinction as a “consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation.”
Funding Restoration Efforts: The Longleaf Stewardship Fund
The Department of Defense is one of several federal agencies and private companies that support the Longleaf Stewardship Fund, a partnership managed by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. According to Jon Scott, the foundation’s southern forests program director, the fund and related efforts have awarded more than $32 million in federal grants for longleaf restoration, which has leveraged an additional $78 million in non-federal grant matches and helped restore and enhance more than 1.5 million longleaf acres.
“We support a variety of longleaf-related efforts, including funding burn crews so landowners have access to trained and qualified experts,” Scott says.
The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation is also an important partner in bringing together a wide range of partners. Scott explains: “We were chartered by Congress, but we’re also an independent nonprofit agency. That means we can bring together a federal agency that’s complying with legal requirements and a company that’s interested in responsible, sustainable forest stewardship.”
When these groups cooperate, restoration funds can be used to help bridge the economic gap between harvesting longleaf pine and other southern pine species.
One such company is Resource Management Service, an Alabama-based timberland investment management organization that manages more than $4 billion in timberland and related assets. While the company is a for-profit business, it has a sustainability ethic that has endured for more than 60 years.
According to Jimmy Bullock, the company’s senior vice president for forest sustainability: “We’re working with several partners to establish and maintain a working longleaf forest and functional longleaf ecosystem called the Coastal Headwaters Forest in the Florida Panhandle and southern Alabama. It involves tens of thousands of acres and some pretty significant working forest conservation easements. I think it’s going to help change the notion of whether longleaf pine can be economically feasible for large private landowners.”
“The Most Successful Ecosystem Restoration Project on the Planet”
According to Ken Arney, acting regional forester of the Forest Service’s Southern Region: “It’s quite a success story, and I mean that in a collective sense, since a lot of agencies and groups have been involved. It’s evolved to be what The Nature Conservancy has described as the most successful ecosystem restoration project on the planet. I think we’ve made a lot of progress, even though we have a long way to go.”
While this initiative will transform parts of the South, the effort also has implications for landscape-wide ecosystem restoration efforts elsewhere. Arney says, “Our hope is that we can reach our goal of 8 million acres by 2025 while also demonstrating that this kind of effort can be replicated in other landscapes around the country.”
Looking back on more than 20 years of longleaf restoration efforts, Longleaf Alliance founder Rhett Johnson is also optimistic.
“Longleaf has a cultural and historic significance that people are learning and appreciating,” he says. “People are realizing that longleaf resoration is not just about hunting or timber. Some landowners are just excited about restoring this historic, iconic landscape.”
A longer version of this article was published in the October 2018 issue of The Longleaf Leader.
Brian Cooke is a science writer based out of Fort Collins, Colorado. He received a degree in journalism-science writing from Lehigh University. Brian’s writing and editing work has included assignments for several U.S. Forest Service divisions, the National Park Service and various environmental services companies. Additional information on Brian can be found at www.linkedin.com/in/bcooke1. |
There are multiple reports of an increase in overdoses throughout the Districts of Manitoulin and Sudbury.
This situation serves as an important reminder to the community that the illicit drug supply continues to be toxic. Every batch of street drugs is different and may be cut or mixed with substances such as fentanyl or carfentanil. Even a very small amount of these substances can cause an overdose.
Prevent opioid overdoses/save lives:
- Avoid using drugs when you are alone. If this is not possible, ask a friend to check on you.
- Reduce your risk of COVID-19 infection by staying at least six feet away from other people.
- If possible, call someone before using drugs. They can call 911 if you become unresponsive.
- When using drugs with a friend, do not use at the same time.
- When switching substances or if you have not used in a while, start with a lower dose.
- Carry a naloxone kit. Get your free kit at your local pharmacy today.
- Use multiple doses of naloxone, as needed.
- Call 911 if you suspect an overdose.
- Avoid mixing drugs, including prescribed, over the counter, and illegal drugs.
- Avoid drinking alcohol while using other drugs.
To protect others from the risk of COVID-19 infection, the Government of Canada suggests that you wear a non-medical or cloth mask when physical distancing can’t be maintained.
Overdose symptoms include:
- blue lips or nails
- dizziness and confusion
- the person can’t be woken up
- choking, gurgling or snoring sounds
- slow, weak or no breathing
- drowsiness or difficulty staying awake
Please distribute this information (PDF) widely to help share the message. |
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Innovation is a company principle shared by both IBM and E. & J. Gallo Winery, the world’s largest family-owned winery, headquartered in Modesto, California. While the Internet of Things (IoT) and wine don’t seem like obvious partners, the two companies found a common purpose focused on growing the best quality grapes while optimizing the amount of water applied to the vineyard.
At the core of E. & J. Gallo Winery is a strong commitment to produce high quality wines while being mindful of how the land is farmed. This is only possible by paying careful attention to each step in the grape growing process. It also requires an intimate understanding of vineyard site and growing conditions including climate, sunlight exposure, soil quality, slope and topography. Gallo has a long tradition of encouraging and adhering to sustainable practices that are environmentally sound. Paramount to this objective is the conservation of water at all of their vineyards in California and Washington.
Gallo was working in 2012 on improving water use efficiency using remote sensing. The concept utilized NASA satellite imagery to determine vine canopy size and water status, as well as to determine vine water use. The Gallo team noticed a high degree of variability in vine water use across their vineyards, which led them to find a collaborator in IBM Research. IBM applied its expertise in IoT, physical analytics and cognitive computing technologies to co-develop a precision irrigation method and prototype system and install it in a ten-acre vineyard. This work provided the first large scale scientific evaluation of grapevine response to hyper-local precision irrigation, and showed that that this method could reduce water usage by 25 percent.
Vineyard at Gallo Winery
At the heart of the method, data on weather and soil conditions was integrated with satellite imagery and other sensor data to determine precisely how much water each section of the vineyard required in order to produce the highest quality grapes. Before the prototype was developed, irrigation levels could only be adjusted at the vineyard block level and did not account for individual vine requirements. A common farming practice prior to this finding was to irrigate all vines in the vineyard at the same level, leading to some vines getting too much irrigation and others not enough.
From an infrastructure and IoT perspective, IBM scientists conceived an advanced irrigation system built with a series of sensors and actuators in the ten-acre plot that communicated with a central vineyard control system. Using geo-spatial data such as soil, climate and imagery from hyperspectral satellites, the system predicted vine irrigation needs that sent signals to open valves and released the precise amount of water to each vine. Physics-inspired machine learning technologies were used to establish the irrigation schedules.
IBM and Gallo received a Vintage Report Innovation Award for their collaborative efforts on the prototype in 2015. Today, Gallo is still experimenting with the technology. In fact, since 2015, Gallo has installed precision irrigation systems in six different vineyard blocks encompassing nearly 250 acres in California. They are experiencing a 20 percent increase in water use efficiency – meaning that they use 20 percent less water for each pound of grapes that they produce.
Although this IoT technology was pioneered in vineyards, it has potential to be applied to other perennial crops such as citrus and almonds. If this technology could be used across all irrigated farmland in the U.S., it could result in significant water conservation and also help to optimize crop production. Gallo has plans underway to commercialize the system and its components to bring this to other farm commodities.
IBM, for its part, has taken the learnings from this project and is applying them to an ambitious experimental research effort that involves aggregating, indexing and analyzing terabytes of open geo spatial data that could pave the way to let winemakers and others perform precision analytics on a global scale.
What began as a seed of an idea has blossomed into a ripe opportunity for E. & J. Gallo Winery and IBM to continue to innovate and advance ideas based on big data that could transform not just the wine industry, but provide valuable insights to tackle some of our world’s biggest challenges, including the availability of food, water, and sustainable energy sources. |
- Assessment and feedback
- Internationalisation of the curriculum and global citizenship
- Key skills and PPD
- Large-group teaching
- Object-based learning
- Peer-assisted learning
- Peer observation of teaching
- Personal tutoring
- Problem-based learning
- Research-based learning
- Small-group teaching
- Teaching administration
- Using Google web forms and scripts to automate the workload
- Encouraging students to complete feedback questionnaires
- Improve student satisfaction with 100 per cent e-submissions
"Teaching is about creating those moments where the world suddenly makes a little bit more sense."
Dr Ben Hanson, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Encouraging students to complete feedback questionnaires
6 August 2013
The Digital Department project, funded by JISC, the Vice-Provost (Education) and ISD, is collating information on processes and systems used by teaching administrators (TAs), particularly those aspects of the TA role that impact on the student learning experience.
In this case study, which draws on the experience of over 20 members of UCL staff, the pros and cons of different methods of gathering student feedback are discussed. The research was conducted by Mumtaz Abdul Ghafoor (Mathematics), Viv Crockford (Economics), Paloma Garcia-Paredes (ICH) and Angela Poulter (IfWH), and has been summarised here by Stefanie Anyadi (Psychology and Language Sciences).
UCL has a number of mechanisms in place to monitor and continuously improve the quality of teaching provision. The Annual Monitoring process is one of these mechanisms and requires departments to collect feedback from students for each module. Practice between and within departments varies widely, with many instances of good practice. This case study explores the use of Student Evaluation Questionnaires (SEQs) as part of the Annual Monitoring process in a range of departments.
The challenges explored in this case study are:
- To devise a system for collecting feedback which allows for efficient collection of feedback and production of useful reports
- To encourage students to complete feedback questionnaires and to provide reliable and useful feedback
Different methods for collecting feedback
Virtually all departments canvassed use a standard set of evaluation questions across modules and programmes – with some small variations incorporated where necessary – to facilitate comparison.
The tools and media used vary; some departments use paper-based evaluations whilst others make use of more tailor-made, online media including Moodle and Opinio. The methods used bear some correlation to the number of students; smaller groups enable a more personal interaction (often preferred) but for larger groups, departments are increasingly turning to online methods in an attempt to manage the process. There are three main evaluation methods used at UCL, and we have included the more rarely used group feedback session:
There are concerns that ‘survey fatigue’ reduces response rates as well as a lack of appreciation on the part of the student as to how seriously feedback is taken and the difference it can make. Response rates are almost universally reported as being lower for online evaluations compared to in-class, hard copy questionnaires. Options reported to address this issue include:
- Revert to paper or opt for a mixed approach, i.e. rotating which modules are assessed online and by paper questionnaire; others vary the method across different years and groups to try to get a range of feedback in a manageable fashion
- Adopt a ‘carrot and/or stick’ approach, e.g. release information on Moodle only after completion of SEQ
- TAs/academics remind students face to face and by email of the importance of completing feedback and the real impact it can have
- Use Personal Response Systems (PRS) for some evaluation: this provides immediate in-class high response rates and electronic data but does not gather qualitative feedback
Quality of feedback
The use of online questionnaires has seen an increase in negative feedback, not in itself a bad thing since part of the purpose of evaluation is to discover what can be improved, but this can be upsetting for the individual being evaluated if online anonymity leads to overly critical and/or personal abuse towards staff. This issue requires tact and sensitivity on the part of the TAs who process the evaluations before presenting them to the tutor. Indeed, as well as just collating information, the TA’s role frequently involves summarising comments and dealing sensitively with negative feedback when disseminating evaluations to academics. In some departments, students are given information on how they should approach giving feedback.
Student feedback could be collected both in the middle of a module and at the end. Mid-module evaluation should be used to identify what needs to be improved. Students prefer mid-module feedback because it benefits them directly, as changes can happen before the end of the module. Mid-module evaluation is also helpful because “at the end of a module it is easy to confuse/forget the earlier lectures”.
A mid-module feedback method called ‘Stop, Start, Continue’, whereby students are asked what they would like the tutor to START doing, STOP doing and CONTINUE doing, has been recommended. This could easily be set up anonymously in Moodle and would enable tutors to know at a glance how the course is going and to consider corrective actions. End-of-module and end-of-programme questionnaires combining rated and open-ended questions are equally important as these tell us more about the overall student learning experience.
Key points for effective practice
- Plan distribution of SEQs and feedback received within timelines of Annual Monitoring framework
- Consider issue of response rates and quality of feedback in context of your modules and programmes and experiment to find out what works
- Review methods of gathering feedback, the information being sought and the format and frequency of evaluation
- Make questionnaire as short as possible
- Ensure module coordinators and programme directors are involved in setting up questionnaires and understand the importance of closing the feedback loop
Page last modified on 06 aug 13 15:29
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(NaturalNews) Mothers may emit odors that teach their babies what to be afraid of, even if the fearful experience is one that the baby has never been exposed to, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Michigan and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The research may help explain a phenomenon that has perplexed scientists for generations: Children may have intense trauma reactions to events that they never experienced, but that their parents did. For example, children of Holocaust survivors often exhibit nightmares, flashbacks and avoidance behaviors associated with their parents' experiences, even if those happened before they themselves were born.
Adopting parental fears
According to lead researcher Dr. Jacek Debiec, who has studied grown children of Holocaust survivors, these reactions seem too deeply rooted to be the result of simply having heard stories about the frightening events.
"Our research demonstrates that infants can learn from maternal expression of fear, very early in life," Dr. Debiec said. "Before they can even make their own experiences, they basically acquire their mothers' experiences. Most importantly, these maternally transmitted memories are long-lived, whereas other types of infant learning, if not repeated, rapidly perish."
In the new study, Dr. Debiec and colleagues exposed non-pregnant rats to an unpleasant electric shock whenever they smelled peppermint. After the rats became pregnant and gave birth, the researchers again exposed the mother rats to peppermint smell, this time in the presence of their newborns. The mothers exhibited physical symptoms of fear.
When the newborns grew to maturity, the researchers again exposed them to the odor of peppermint. Though these rats had never been shocked when exposed to this smell, their levels of stress hormones rose in its presence, indicating fear. This reaction is particularly notable given that their prior exposure to peppermint had been when they were too young to see or otherwise observe their environments.
"During the early days of an infant rat's life," Dr. Debiec said, "they are immune to learning information about environmental dangers. But if their mother is the source of threat information, we have shown they can learn from her and produce lasting memories."
Learning by smell
The researchers later repeated the experiment, but this time, rather than exposing the mother to peppermint in the presence of her newborns, they did so while she was alone. They then piped in the air from the mother's enclosure to the newborns. When these rats were re-exposed to peppermint smell as adolescents, their stress hormone levels still went up -- suggesting that the information had been transmitted by smell.
Using brain imaging and data on genetic activity and stress hormone levels, the researchers determined that the region of the brain known as the amygdala might be responsible for teaching the newborns to adopt their mothers' fears. This was confirmed when the researchers gave the newborn rats a drug to block amygdala activity while exposing them to the smell of their mothers reacting to peppermint. These rats later showed no reaction to peppermint odor.
According to the researchers, the amygdala plays a key role in detecting and responding to threats.
Although the study was conducted in rats, the researchers believe that a similar mechanism may explain how parents (including fathers, if they are regular caretakers) transmit some fear to their children, such as fear of the dentist or extreme shyness. Other studies have already shown that babies can be calmed by the scent of their mother; perhaps they can absorb her fear, as well.
Humans might also signal fear to their offspring in other ways, such as through changes in facial expression, tone of voice or body language. |
When I lived in San Francisco, I often would marvel at the movement of goods through the ports across the bay in Oakland. Full container ships would enter the bay one after another and unload their cargo, which ultimately would be making its way to the many big box stores throughout the country. After a day or two parked in the bay, the ships would head back out across the Pacific Ocean to pick up more goods from the factories in Asia and bring them to the US and other rich countries for consumption. For those living in the bay area (or in any other major port city), this movement of goods seems very normal and has become simply a fact of life.
Do you ever wonder why we actually ship stuff all around the world?
Shipping Stuff Half Way Around The World Isn’t Good Economics, It’s A Waste Of Energy
I always wondered why human beings are engaging in a process to manufacture goods thousands of miles away from where they would ultimately be consumed. Was it because it was not possible to assemble them locally? No. Was it because the materials used in the production of those goods could not be found in the United States? Perhaps in a few cases this is true. But that isn’t the main reason why this practice continues.
There is a simple reason why corporations have engaged in this strategy. It’s cheaper. Not in terms of energy or physical resources used, but in terms of money. It is “cheaper” from a financial perspective to use massive quantities of physical resources to move materials all around the world, find people willing to work for lower wages, and visiting multiple factories in different locations to assemble various components of a final product before it was ultimately shipped back across the ocean and trucked to your local shopping mall.
This alone should point to how detached our economics has become from the real world. How could it actually be financially cheaper to use more physical resources to manufacture and deliver a product to market?
Part of the problem is that we do not pay the full cost of using fossil fuels, which make globalized trade possible. Traditional oil has an energy return on investment of 25:1 or more. That means for every unit of energy used in extracting the oil, twenty-five units of energy are available for use, making the building and operating of massive container ships relatively cheap. Because the costs to the environment in the form of pollution, climate change, and species extinction are not incorporated into the costs of using fossil fuels, it has led to oil companies becoming the most profitable businesses on earth. And they use those enormous profits to undermine the government whose job it is under traditional capitalist theory to correct market failures.
Globalization isn’t ‘cheaper’, it just hides its true costs.
A Faulty Accounting System
Globalized trade is only made possible because our economic system does not account for the true costs of using fossil fuels. If we did, the fuels that are used to power globalized trade would reflect their true cost and the practice would end overnight. How many more destructive practices would change if the industries associated could no longer get away with exporting costs onto society, the environment, and other wild species?
The truth is, from an energy perspective, it is far more expensive to ship cars from Japan, iPhones from China, and clothes from Malaysia than it is to produce them locally. Corporations are taking advantage of currency exchanges to find the cheapest labor. Because the cost of fuel to facilitate this movement of goods is so artificially cheap, labor costs become the dominant factor in relocating manufacturing facilities all around the globe. In this world of perverse economic incentives, somehow it makes sense to a CEO to close down a manufacturing plant in Detroit and move it to China to take advantage of the pinnacle of market failures – our use of fossil fuels.
Money isn’t a real physical commodity like fossil fuels. It primarily exists as bits in computers. All money that exists today is fiat, a simple accounting tool that measures how much we are able to extract from nature and turn into products and services for human consumption. The faulty assumption the modern economy is built on says that the more we consume in this economy, the better off we will all be, but there are obviously limits. Eating as much food as possible is not good for you. Continued physical exertion without rest is not good for you. The logic that maximizing GDP, which is just the summation of all goods and services exchanged for money, will somehow lead to a better world for all is so obviously flawed, yet it continues to be held in high regard by almost every mainstream economist.
Money isn’t real, but Energy is.
Globalization Is Unsustainable
This practice is obviously unsustainable. If we do not correct our market failures, then Mother Nature will do it for us in the form of severe droughts, heat waves, floods, and extreme weather. Given the current state of how money influences politics, there is no government or corporation that will be able to deal with this issue. Ultimately, it is up to each of us to change how we live, to reduce our demand for resources by ceasing to be referred to as “consumers”, and only buy things we need from locally-produced sources while recycling or upcycling the rest.
As the people in Greece are now realizing, access to global markets can end abruptly, leaving people with the inability to meet their needs. However, there is a growing movement that is aiming to reinvent life and economies in a post-oil world. It’s called the transition movement. It centers around building thriving communities and local supply chains where people are able to meet their needs without consuming goods produced far away from home. These communities involve everyday people working together to build a resilient economy that is far more egalitarian in nature. People can meet their needs by establishing their own local currencies bypassing the centralized global currencies that make globalized trade possible.
I believe in the resiliency of life. I believe that, when hard-pressed, people will find a way to meet their needs. That’s all an economy is after all – a system for allocating resources to needs – and there are far more alternatives than the hierarchical systems of capitalism and socialism that have dominated the world for centuries.
One solution to globalization is transition.
The logic that maximizing GDP, which is just the summation of all goods and services exchanged for money, will somehow lead to a better world for all is so obviously flawed, yet it continues to be held in high regard by almost every mainstream economist. |
How Does the Old Testament Law Fit Our New Testament Faith?
The Old Testament Law gets us started and points us to Jesus
Why is the Old Testament Law in the Bible? How is it relevant for us today? Many followers of Jesus ignore the Law they read in the Old Testament, and a few people pick which parts of it they want to follow and dismiss the rest.
As for me, I’m searching for a way to connect the Old Testament Law with my faith and make sense of it without being weighed down by it.
Courtesy of Matthew, we know that Jesus came to fulfill the Law but not eliminate it (Matthew 5:17). In addition, Paul writes that the Law of the Old Testament served as our “guardian” until Jesus came (Galatians 3:24). Does this mean we can get rid of the Old Testament Law? Not so fast.
The word guardian is interesting. Let’s dig into it. In considering some fifty translations of the Bible for this verse, Guardian occurs in 17 of them. Here are some of the words used in other versions:
- tutor (12 times),
- schoolmaster (7),
- disciplinarian (7),
- custodian (4),
- “in charge of us” (4),
- teacher (3),
- guide (3),
- governess (2),
- trainer (1),
- chaperone (1),
- babysitter (1),
- child-conductor (1),
- master (1), and
- gateway (1).
And just to be thorough, we have:
- pedagogue (1),
- under-master (1), and
- “watching over us” (1).
- Finally, the Message says, “we were carefully surrounded and protected by the Mosaic law,” that is, the Old Testament Law.
Education and the Old Testament Law
Let’s consider the theme of education (tutor, schoolmaster, teacher, guide, trainer, and more). In elementary school I learned the basics from my teachers. In junior high and high school, we built upon our basic education to more fully understand our lessons.
In college we expanded our understanding further. Then later still, our life lessons built upon all our formal education.
What my elementary school teachers taught me wasn’t wrong, but it was incomplete. The same goes for high school and college. Even now, I continue to build upon my initial levels of education as I grasp for a deeper understanding of the basics I once learned.
This same concept applies to most of the other words that the various translations use for this verse.We shouldn’t view the Old Testament law as wrong or as irrelevant, but it is incomplete. Click To Tweet
In the same token, we shouldn’t view the Old Testament Law as wrong or irrelevant, but it is incomplete. We must build upon it. The Law moves us forward in our faith in Jesus. Then, as we mature, our understanding transcends into something more, something much more.
It’s as if the Old Testament Law gets us started and points us in the right direction. Then Jesus furthers our education by building upon it. The Law isn’t something we should ignore, nor is it the goal. The Law is the beginning, and Jesus is the end.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices. Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates. |
We Are Open – Safety is Our Top Priority!
We’ve reopened in accordance with CDC, O.S.H.A., and State Dental Board guidelines to responsibly resume seeing our patients for regular dental appointments and treatment. We want to assure you of the measures we take to maintain a clean and safe environment so you can continue to receive needed dental care without fear or concern.
Examining the Top Causes of Sensitive Teeth
If eating ice cream and brushing your teeth are activities you dread because they trigger tooth pain, you’re probably experiencing sensitive teeth and gums. There’s no need to suffer. With a little effort, you can learn how to help sensitive teeth weather even the coldest beverages and the sweetest desserts.
The following list includes the biggest causes of tooth sensitivity and practical dental care suggestions to help reduce the symptoms.
- You have receding gums due to gum disease. Your dentist in Peoria can help by applying a sealant and treating the gum inflammation.
- You’re brushing too hard or using a hard-bristled toothbrush. This can wear down enamel and make sensitive nerves more accessible. Be gentle when brushing, and switch to a soft toothbrush.
- There is decay around the edges of a filling. Old fillings may fracture or leak, and acids and bacteria can lead to enamel breakdown. In most cases, replacing the filling will solve the problem.
- You have a cracked or chipped tooth. See your dentist as soon as possible.
- You’ve recently had a dental procedure. Some sensitivity after a root canal, extraction, or filling is common. If it continues, see your dentist to rule out infection.
- You’re grinding your teeth at night, which can expose dentin and allow irritants access to nerve tissue. Ask your dentist about a custom night guard.
- Acidic foods increase pain. Avoid tomatoes, citrus fruits, pickles, and other acidic foods and beverages to reduce symptoms.
- Tooth-whitening ingredients in your toothpaste, mouthwash, or other products could be causing sensitivity. If you’re suspicious, try switching brands.
- Alcohol or other mouthwash ingredients are causing sensitivity. Try a neutral rinse, or don’t use mouthwash at all.
It’s important to seek professional dental care, since tooth sensitivity can be due to serious underlying problems. Your dentist may recommend special toothpastes or treatments to strengthen enamel and reduce the symptoms of sensitive teeth and gums.
To get the dental care you deserve from an affordable dentist in Peoria, call Maple Shade Dental Group today or make an appointment.
Maple Shade Dental Group offers affordable family dentistry and gentle, compassionate dental care in Peoria. With 3 affiliated practices throughout Peoria, our offices are conveniently located with extended hours to meet your needs. At Maple Shade Dental Group, we provide most dental services, from basic preventative care and general dentistry to specialized procedures and complete dental reconstruction. We accept most dental insurance plans and offer affordable financial solutions for any budget. Patient satisfaction is our top priority and we strive to provide the exceptional, affordable dental care and personal touch that lead to lasting relationships. A smiling patient is our greatest reward and we look forward to keeping those smiles healthy, beautiful, and bright. Discover an affordable dentist who truly cares at Maple Shade Dental Group. |
Americans remain extremely downbeat about national economic conditions. More than nine-in-ten (92%) say the economy is in only fair (33%) or poor (59%) shape, while just 7% offer positive views. Assessments of the national economy have been stable over the past two months and are somewhat more negative than they were during the recession of the early 1990s. In August 1993, about nine-in-ten Americans (89%) said the economy was in only fair or poor shape and 10% said it was in excellent or good shape.
A growing percentage of Americans now describe current economic conditions as a recession. More than six-in-ten Americans (64%) say the U.S. economy is in a recession and an additional 20% say it is in a depression, compared with 58% and 19%, respectively, in late October. The view that the country is facing a recession has become more widespread across most demographic groups.
Democrats continue to offer more negative economic ratings than do Republicans and independents, but overwhelming majorities across partisan groups express dissatisfaction with the economy; 96% of Democrats say the economy is in only fair or poor shape, compared with 88% of Republicans and 91% of independents. Democrats, Republicans and independents are about equally as likely to describe current economic conditions as a recession (65%, 66% and 64%, respectively). Nearly a quarter of Democrats (23%) say the country is in a depression; 19% of independents and just 14% of Republicans share that view.
Democrats More Bullish
Most Americans think economic conditions will be either the same (36%) or worse (17%) a year from now. Still, a substantial minority (43%) is optimistic that things will be better in a year, virtually unchanged from when Pew last asked the question in early October (46%).
Views about the future of the economy do not vary significantly across demographic groups, including across income categories. Those with annual family incomes under $30,000 are about as likely as those with incomes of $100,000 or more to say the economy will be better in a year (45% and 46%, respectively).
There are, however, partisan differences in economic outlook. Democrats are considerably more optimistic about the future of the national economy than are Republicans and independents. Fully half of Democrats expect conditions to be better in a year, while about the same proportion (47%) thinks things will be worse or about the same as they are now. In contrast, nearly six-in-ten Republicans (59%) and 56% of independents say the economy will be worse or about the same in a year.
But Even the Optimists Are Guarded
While a sizable minority of Americans expect overall national economic conditions to improve over the next year, people are far less upbeat when asked about improvement in specific areas of the economy. Very few see unemployment, inflation or taxes actually decreasing in the coming year, and by nearly two-to-one most say the problems facing banks and financial institutions will only get worse.
Even those who are optimistic about overall economic prospects are guarded when asked about these specific issues. Nearly half (49%) of those who say the economy will be better a year from now believe the problems with financial institutions will get worse in the future; 47% say the worst is behind us. Those who say the economy will be the same or get worse a year from now overwhelmingly (74%) believe the problems of financial institutions will worsen.
Most people who think the economy will be better a year from now nonetheless say that unemployment will rise over the next 12 months; 53% say this, while just 23% of economic optimists say that unemployment will decrease; 21% say it will stay about the same. Among those who believe the overall economy will get worse in the next year, 72% say unemployment will rise.
Increase in Joblessness Predicted
In this regard, the belief that unemployment will rise over the next year is shared widely across demographic, class and income categories. However, well-educated people and those with higher incomes are more likely than those with less education and lower incomes to say that unemployment will increase.
Nearly seven-in-ten college graduates (69%) express this view, compared with 59% of those with no more than a high school education. Among those with household incomes of $75,000 or more, nearly three-quarters (73%) say unemployment rates will rise in the near future. In contrast, 54% of those earning less than $30,000 a year, while almost a quarter (24%) of this group say unemployment will decrease.
Democrats are slightly more optimistic than Republicans or independents about unemployment in the future (23% say it will decrease, compared to just 14% of Republicans and independents).
Taxes, Inflation, Interest Rates
Most Americans (55%) believe that taxes will increase over the next year, while 47% say they expect inflation to rise. About a third (31%) says they expect interest rates to increase.
A large majority of Republicans (71%) say they expect taxes to go up over the next year. In contrast, 57% of independents and just 41% of Democrats expect taxes to increase.
Republicans also are more pessimistic about inflation than Democrats. More than half of Republicans (54%) say they expect inflation to increase, compared with 41% of Democrats. A slim majority (52%) of self-described working-class Americans say inflation is on the rise. By contrast, just 43% of those in the professional/business class think inflation will increase.
Jobs More Difficult to Find
The percentage of Americans who say jobs are difficult to find in their area is now greater than at any point since 2001, when Pew first asked this question. Nearly three-quarters of Americans (73%) say jobs are hard to find where they live. This is significantly greater than the previous high in October 2003 (66%). Views of the labor market are not as pessimistic as they were in January 1992 when, according to a U.S. News and World Report poll, 79% of the public reported that jobs were difficult to find in their area.
Views of the job market have worsened significantly across all income categories, except among those making $100,000 a year or more. In lower income categories, there have been 10-point increases or more in the percentages saying jobs are scarce locally.
The education gap in perceptions of the local job market has widened since October. While about two-thirds of college graduates (66%) say that jobs are difficult to find, 79% of those with no more than a high school education say the same.
Republicans’ views of the job market in their local community have grown substantially more negative since October. Two-thirds of Republicans (66%) say that jobs are difficult to find, up from 53% two months ago. Nonetheless, more Democrats (77%) and independents (75%) continue to say that jobs are scarce locally, and these percentages also have increased since October.
Personal experience with unemployment is associated with views of job availability; 82% of those in households where someone has looked for work in the prior year say jobs are hard to find, compared with 68% of those in households that haven’t experienced recent unemployment.
Unemployment Hits Home
More than a third (35%) of Americans say that a member of their household has been without a job and looking for work over the past twelve months. This is an increase of seven percentage points since February of this year.
The increase has been most pronounced among those making between $50,000 and $100,000 a year.
Nonetheless, people with incomes of less than $30,000 a year remain the most likely to say that someone in their household has been unemployed over the past 12 months.
A majority of Americans younger than 30 (55%) have experienced household unemployment in the past year, compared to significantly lower rates among oth
er age groups. Household unemployment among those with college degrees (25%) continues to be substantially lower than unemployment in households of those who have not attended college (39%).
Among those who are currently employed, a majority (56%) now says jobs in their line of work are hard to come by in their area, a 10-point increase since February. Working people with annual household incomes of less than $50,000 are significantly more likely than those with higher household incomes to say jobs in their particular field of work are difficult to find (63% compared with 52% of those with incomes of $50,000 or more).
While most working Americans continue to characterize the financial health of their employers as excellent or good (69%), the proportion saying that the company or organization they work for is in only fair or poor financial shape has continued to rise over the course of the year. Currently, 35% describe their employer’s financial situation in this way, compared with 27% in February and 30% in October.
Individuals with lower household incomes are the most likely to provide negative ratings of their employer’s financial condition (43% of those with annual incomes of less than $50,000 say this, compared with 30% of those with family incomes of $50,000 or more).
Real Estate Slump
Americans have grown markedly more negative in evaluations of their local real estate markets since earlier this year. Fully 67% say that home prices in their area have declined a little (33%) or a lot (34%). In early October, 54% said prices had fallen a little (29%) or a lot (25%).
Since October, more people across all regions report that the values of their homes have gone down, although the increase has been somewhat smaller in the West. There continues to be a wide gap in the perceptions of the local home market between affluent and low-income Americans. More than eight-in-ten (82%) of those with incomes of $100,000 or more say home prices have declined, compared with 52% of those with incomes of less than $30,000. |
| February 27, 2015
'One small step' launched journey of a million miles
July 16: Forty years ago today, Apollo 11 left for the moon, chasing a goal set by JFK: to complete their mission before 1970. They were successful, and they changed all of mankind in the process. NBC's Tom Costello reports. |
With the announcement of Pope Benedict's resignation, many people have been talking about the "prophecy of the popes" attributed to St. Malachy.
Who was he, what is the prophecy, and what should we think of it?
Here are 9 things you need to know . . .
1. What is "the prophecy of the popes"?
It is an alleged private revelation given to the medieval figure St. Malachy.
The prophecy consists of a list of 112 short phrases--enigmatic mottoes in Latin that are supposed to represent the popes from St. Malachy's time onward.
2. Who was St. Malachy?
St. Malachy was the archbishop of Armagh, Ireland in the 1100s.
Reportedly, he made a visit to Rome in which he had a vision of the future popes and wrote them down.
3. Why are people talking about the prophecy now?
The next-to-last motto in the prophecy of the popes has been associated with Pope Benedict XVI. Since he is now at the end of his papacy, that would bring us to the last name in the prophecy of the popes, which many have taken to indicate the final pope at the end of the world.
This passage reads as follows:
Peter the Roman, who will nourish the sheep in many tribulations; when they are finished, the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the dreadful judge will judge his people. The end.
4. Is this an approved private revelation?
No, it is not. Although it has been influential in some Catholic circles for several hundred years, it is not approved by the Magisterium.
5. What evidence is there concerning its authenticity?
A significant mark against its authenticity is the fact that it was not published until 1595, though St. Malachy died in 1148. There is no record of the prophecy existing in the intervening 447 years.
Allegedly, this was because the prophecy lay, forgotten, in a Roman archive, and it was not rediscovered until 1590.
This explanation is possible in principle, but the fact that we cannot establish its existence for hundreds of years until after its supposed author's death is also consistent with the claim that it was a forgery composed around 1590 and then "salted" into the archive. ("Salting" is the term used for planting false records in archives.) It also may never have been in the archive but merely claimed to be.
While the fact that we have no mention of this document in the hundreds of years between the times of its reported composition and re-discovery does not prove that it is false, it does cast significant doubt on its authenticity.
6. How else can the reliability of the prophecy be evaluated?
If it is not possible to establish an external, historical record for the prophecy then the next logical approach is to examine its contents to see which theory of its origins they are more consistent with: Do the contents seem to suggest that it was written in the 1100s or do they suggest that it was written around 1590?
Many observers have thought the latter. One reason is that the "mottoes" for the period prior to 1590 are very easy to connect with the popes they allegedly represent.
By contrast, the mottoes assigned to the popes coming after 1590 are much harder to connect with the popes they allegedly represent, and often this can be done only in a contrived way.
The mottoes generally contain references to one of several things, including the pope's name (his papal name, his birth name, or his family name), his place of origin, or a heraldic crest connected with him (his papal arms, his family crest, or the crest of his order or place of origin).
They often involve plays on words regarding these things, though that is more obvious in Latin than in English.
7. What are some examples of mottoes that are easy to connect with popes prior to 1590?
Some examples include:
- Ex castro Tiberis ("From a castle on the Tiber"). This is connected with Celestine II (1143-1144), who was born in Citta di Castello (City of the Castle), which is on the banks of the Tiber river.
- Frigidus abbas ("Cold Abbot"). This is connected with Benedict XII (1334-1342), who had been the abbot of a monastery at Fontfroide ("Cold Spring").
- De parvo homine ("From a small man"). This is connected to Pius III (1503), whose family name was Piccolomini, which is derived from piccolo (small) and uomo (man).
8. What are some examples of mottoes that are hard to connect with popes after 1590?
Some examples include:
- Pia civitas in bello ("Pious city in war"). This is connected with Innocent IV (1591), but there is no good way to link him with this motto. Some have pointed to the fact that he was patriarch of Jerusalem before his election to the papacy, and Jerusalem could be thought of as a "pious city," but so could Rome and many others. Almost any Christian city would count, and Jerusalem was not a Christian city at this time. Furthermore, Jerusalem was not at war when he was patriarch.
- Aquila rapax ("Rapacious eagle"). This is connected with Pius VII (1800-1823), but there is no good way to link him with this motto. Some have proposed that his reign overlapped with that of Napoleon and that Napoleon could be described as a rapacious eagle (that is, a hungry commander of armies), but this is very tenuous and makes the motto not a description of the pope but of someone else who was on the world stage during his reign.
- Religio depopulata ("Religion destroyed"). This is connected with Benedict XV (1914-1922), but there is no good way to link him in particular with this motto. There is no obvious connection to his name, family, place of origin, or coat of arms. He did not destroy religion or religious life. Neither were either destroyed during his reign. He did reign during World War I, but that did not destroy either. He also reigned when Communism came to power in Russia. That didn't destroy religion in his day or in Italy. And again, we'd be connecting the motto with something other than the pope. If that were allowed then it would be possible to connect every motto with something that happened somewhere in the world during a pope's day, and the prophecies would have no particular value as they would all be applicable to any pope.
9. Should Catholics worry about the prophecy of the popes?
No. It is not an approved apparition, and the evidence is consistent with it being a forgery composed around 1590.
More fundamentally, Jesus indicated that we would not know the time of the end.
In keeping with Our Lord's warning, predictions of the end of the world based on the Bible have a dismal track record, and trying to predict the time of the end based on an unapproved private revelation that shows signs of being forged is even more foolish.
We should trust God, live according to his word, and leave the future in his hands.
As Jesus said:
"Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day" (Matt. 6:34).
What do you think?
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In the meantime, what do you think? |
Remote control drones have changed dramatically over the years along with the actual handheld controllers themselves. Technology has come so far that the drones have gone from a couple of minutes flying time and little added extras to nearly half an hour flying time with cameras and more while the remotes have gone from two levers (one to lift and one to steer) to a confusing looking device with an array of buttons.
Due to the availability of remote control drones and now affordable prices also, they are becoming ever more popular for recreational use with the market leader, DJI, reaching $1 billion in revenue last year. Smaller, cheaper drones are available to the beginner that plans to fly every so often while bigger and more expensive models are available to those who see it as a hobby and fly often.
Remote control drones are now also being used in many industries making them more efficient with a little investment; many oil and train companies for example, use remote controlled drones to help fix any problems that may occur on a day-to-day basis. A train company may use a drone to find out exactly where a part of the track may be broken. An oil company may fly a drone out in the sea to find the exact cause and location of an oil spill. Such is the advancements in technology; underwater drones are now becoming more popular because of their ability to dive deeper in the sea than any human meaning that we can access never before seen areas to conduct research. All these models of drone can end up saving lives as they are completing jobs that may be unsafe for the company’s workers.
The remote controls themselves have had to adapt to the many additions that have been made to drones in recent years. Not long ago, the handset would just include to sticks but now there are buttons to control the camera, a screen to watch where you are going as you fly and even ways to control the gimbal. The gimbal is a device that can be found on your drone that will lessen and ultimately remove the effects of vibration thus creating perfect conditions for taking high-quality pictures.
Although the handheld devices have changed to an extent, the communication methods that the drone uses have changed even more. GPS is now included on many models, this allows the user to know the exact location of their aircraft as well as set out a planned route. This can come in great use as the drone will only have a certain amount of flight time so you can plan a route keeping in mind that it will have to return to you after 20 minutes, for example. Wi-Fi can also be found on many devices which allow direct communication between the drone and the user via mobile/tablet applications. The video taken from a drone can now be livestreamed to the internet as a result and was put into practice by a New Yorker who livestreamed the Wall Street protests to hundreds of thousands of people watching from home. Bluetooth also adds another layer of communication. Finally, the iOS/android apps have grown in popularity in recent times and now boast many benefits including; flying the drone (once linked up), changing certain camera settings to ensure you get the best possible picture quality as well as inflight telemetry. |
While scientists have been buzzing about the catastrophic results of climate change, a new study says that climate change can also affect you on an individual level, the New York Times is reporting. A new report published in the public health journal The Lancet includes findings from 24 academic institutions and United Nations agencies. Researchers were able to conclude that as climate change gets worse, more and more people will begin to suffer from heat stress.
Heat stress can result in kidney or cardiovascular disease, or it can just directly kill you. Scientists are already beginning to see this possibility play out, with 157 million more people exposed to heat-related health risks in 2017 than in 2000. At the rate it is going, there could be 50 to 100 excess deaths per 1 million people due to heat by mid-century.
It’s also important to note that warmer temperatures will make it harder for some workers, like those involved in agriculture, to do their job. This can lead to tens of billions of hours of lost labor capacity each year.
“Prevalence of heatstroke and extreme weather will have redefined global labor and production beyond recognition,” the report read. “Multiple cities will be uninhabitable and migration patterns will be far beyond those levels already creating pressure worldwide.”
Health professionals around the ???? are increasingly responding to the growing #health challenge posed by #ClimateChange – a key message of the 2018 report in @TheLancet #LancetClimate18 https://t.co/TgG552dUQP
— Lancet Countdown (@LancetCountdown) November 29, 2018
Then there is the health system itself — the extreme weather patterns and natural disasters that occur due to climate change prevents people from having access to a hospital or health facility. It the population doesn’t see any improvement regarding climate change, even more disasters can be expected that “disrupt core public health infrastructure and overwhelm health services.”
Next, there is the National Climate Assessment, which points out extreme rainfall caused by climate change can flood water and sewer systems, resulting in shortages of drinkable water and higher chances of contracting a gastrointestinal disease. For U.S. states that are already hot, like Florida and Texas, even higher temperatures can lure the type of mosquito that that can spread multiple kinds of serious viruses such as dengue, Zika, chikungunya, and yellow fever. The authors of the study don’t believe that all of these health issues will slowly impact people one by one; they believe they will hit various populations at once.
“We don’t see these health impacts individually,” said Kristie L. Ebi, a professor of global health at the University of Washington and one of the authors of the Lancet study. “We see them jointly. We see them coming at communities all at the same time.” |
Greenfingers Garden Centre stocks a wide selection of common and unusual seed potato varieties. After purchasing your seed potatoes, carefully empty the seed potato contents into shallow boxes or trays. Egg boxes or apple trays are ideal. Protect from frost and store in a cool area.
Two weeks before you want to plant your early potatoes, you should move your potatoes into a light area of about 10 degrees Celsius to produce a strong, thick sprout and making sure that they are rose eye upwards. The potatoes will turn green when exposed to the light, but don't worry, as this is normal. This is called Chitting. There isn’t really much point in chitting maincrop varieties but it’s recommended with earlies to give you a head start on the season. Remember to protect from frost!
Spending a bit of time by preparing your soil in advance of the growing season will stand you well. The better your soil, then the better your crops will be and this goes for all your vegetable growing. To get tips on how to choose the right location and improve your soil, please real our article on Growing Vegetables - The Ultimate Guide Part 1.
To get the best from your potato crop, they like deep, fertile soil with a 5.5 pH approximately. Greenfingers Garden Centre can provide you with soil testing kits if you are unsure of your soil pH. Locate your plot in full sun and sheltered, so that your crop is not exposed to strong winds and not susceptible to low lying frost pockets.
First earlies, which include varieties such as Homeguard & Duke of York, can be sown in mid March to mid April and are small crops that mature fast, about 90 days, allowing you to sow a second crop later in July.
Your potatoes should be planted in drills that are 24"(60cm) apart from each other in your drills. Always make sure that the eyes are facing upwards and planted at a depth of between 4" - 6"(10cm - 15cm).
Second earlies, plant early April, are slower to mature(110 days) and can be harvested between July and September. Recommended varieties include Queens and Orla.
Maincrop, plant mid to late April, take about 135 days to mature and can be harvested from October onward. Recommended varieties include Kerr’s pink, Golden Wonder and Records.
Your potatoes should be planted in drills that are 28"(70cm) apart in each row. The potatoes should be planted 12" - 15"(30cm - 37.5cm) apart from each other in your drills. Always make sure that the eyes are facing upwards and planted at a depth of between 4" - 6"(10cm - 15cm).
When your potato plant shoots are approximately 20cm high you can begin to earth up around them. Earthing up is basically covering the growing shoots with soil. This can be dome about 3 times over the growing season and has a number of benefits so it is worth doing. Benefits include:
Keep an eye on local weather forecasts as they usually give warnings about the likelihood of blight conditions. However, you are unlikely to get blight before July so you should be fine with the early varieties. Blight is common during warm humid weather and wet periods in the late summer. The symptoms you can watch for are dark brown blotches appearing on the leaves. This is followed by white fungal spores developing around these lesions, on the undersides of the leaves, and further lesions develop on the stems. The result is that leaves and stems rapidly blacken and rot causing plant collapse. Another problem is that the spores are released on the wind and quickly spread to infect surrounding plants. Spores may also be washed down into the soil where they can infect potato tubers causing a red-brown rot directly beneath the skin.
There are two approaches to blight control. Either choose disease resistant seed potatoes or you can spray your crop with a protective fungicide. Begin spraying this potato blight treatment from about June, particularly when periods of wet weather are forecast and spray again after a few weeks to protect any new growth. If you notice an attack early you can just remove the affected leaves but if the attack is severe and persistent you should remove and destroy the entire plant. The IPM Potato Group's website has an extensive list of common varieties. By clicking on each one you can learn more about the varieties cropping season, blight & disease resistance, cooking type and storage expectancy.
Once the plants foliage has died back, you can harvest the potatoes. Waiting for this will give you the biggest and best potato crop yields. The browning foliage can be cut to the ground, then wait 10–14 days before harvesting to allow the potatoes to develop a thick skin, but not too long as the potatoes may rot. Harvesting should be carried out on a dry day, by digging up gently so not to puncture the tubers. To allow the skins to cure and to keep longer, freshly dug potatoes should be allowed to sit in a cool, dry, dark place. Brush off any excess soil but don't wash then until you are ready to use them as this will shorten their storage life. "New potatoes", ones that have been harvested early for their small size and tender skin should be eaten within a few days of harvest. |
The Knowledge Garden
> Plants > Sunflowers
Leaves, Seeds, Seed Dispersal, Photosynthesis, Pollination, Germination,
Phototropism, Biomass, Biogas, Biofuel
About Sunflowers… Did you know Native Americans used to make flutes out of
sunflower stems and dyes from the seed hulls? Sunflowers have a long and interesting environmentally
friendly past. What’s your Enviro
That Sunflower. There are more than 150 different species of
sunflowers. What kind are you
growing in your garden? See if
you can identify your sunflower using your powers of observation.
What’s In A Name? (preK-K) (grades: 1-2) (grades: 3-4). Most plants and animals have both a
scientific name and a common name.
The common name usually describes some feature about the plant or
animal, something you can recognize it by; for example, a red-eyed tree
frog. Do you know why a
sunflower is sometimes called a sun follower?
Growth Chart. How tall is your sunflower
today? How tall will it be tomorrow or next week? Track your plant as it grows.
Does Your Garden Grow? It takes more than just digging a hole and sticking
seeds or seedlings in the ground to make them grow. Young plants need
extra special care. Do you know what
a plant needs to grow?
Most plants need lots of water, especially during the hot summer
months. How often do you plan
on watering your plant? Use
this watering schedule worksheet to keep track of when you last watered
Many famous artists have drawn or painted pictures of flowers. How do you see sunflowers? Grab some crayons or a paintbrush
and express yourself!
TRY IT - Van Gogh’s Sunflower Series (preK-K)
If you can add or multiply, you can calculate how many sunflowers
Vincent Van Gogh painted when he was in France.
Inspector Kibbutz Adventure Maze. Can you help
Inspector Kibbutz discover the identity of the Sunflower Bandit? He’s hot on the trail, but he’ll
need wings to catch this thief.
Can you solve the mystery?
That Sunflower! Every story has a beginning, middle and end. In this one two young friends find
themselves lost in a sunflower field.
You can be a part of the story, solve the problem and help them find
their way out of the field!
Science, Math & Art Summer Activities
Download it TODAY! |
The UAE would like to thank the United States for prioritizing this important matter during its presidency of the Security Council.
The UAE recognizes the importance of food security to ensure human security. Therefore, the UAE has been actively supporting the UN in its global efforts to supply necessary provisions, including food, to those in need in conflict zones. This included the establishment of an air bridge operation in May 2020, in partnership with the WFP, that reconnected aid operations with a supply of medical equipment, goods and expertise in a time where food insecurity in conflict areas was exacerbated by COVID-19. The operation delivers needed supplies from the UAE to key locations across Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. In addition, the UAE recently announced USD 230 million in funding for the United Nations Humanitarian Response Plan for Yemen in continuation of its efforts to alleviate hunger and suffering in the region and across the world.
Conflict-driven food insecurity is causing millions to suffer in conflicts around the world, particularly in the Middle East and Africa. Protracted conflicts, in particular, pose grave risk for the health and livelihoods of women, men, and children. This was further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic which caused disruptions to humanitarian aid and worsened the situation, in areas already devastated by conflict. Therefore, the UAE welcomes Security Council Resolution 2565, which called for increased international cooperation to facilitate COVID-19 vaccine access in conflict situations. Furthermore, the impact of climate change, as both a driver of conflict and of food insecurity, exacerbates the worsening of the situation of civilians in conflict areas. By unanimously adopting resolution 2417, the Security Council showed its determination to address conflict-induced food insecurity.
The UAE believes that the Council must continue its efforts to ensure full implementation of this resolution. The UAE would like to make three recommendations to improve food security in conflict zones.
First, humanitarian aid cannot be used as a bargaining chip. What we have seen in places like Yemen where the Houthis repeatedly obstruct the delivery of aid is unacceptable. The Council must unequivocally condemn such acts by those armed groups and demand they fully respect their obligations under international humanitarian law.
Second, in his reports to the Security Council, the Secretary-General could incorporate lessons from scientific models that forecast natural disasters. Council members could take such risk factors into account when discussing the situation on issues on its agenda. Predictive modeling for natural disasters and disease outbreaks is sophisticated and could be an integral asset in the Council’s efforts for preventative action. While this does not apply to manmade disasters, anticipatory action can help us all prepare for the impact of natural phenomena on food insecurity.
Third, women and youth need to be part of the equation when it comes to reaching a sustainable solution for conflict-induced food insecurity. Both in the short and the long term, the specific needs of women and youth have to be prioritized since food insecurity disproportionately affect their lives.
We are encouraged by the Security Council’s continued attention to this topic. International collaboration is required if we are to mitigate and resolve this clear threat to international peace and security. The UAE will continue to focus on addressing this scourge during our Council term in 2022-2023. |
Some time ago (more than a year), my then 9 year-old daughter asked for a reading light. She likes to read before bed, but prefers paper books over digital. You can pick up reading lights in all forms on the cheap, but I saw this as a teachable opportunity. So we broke out the soldering iron, and went to work.
Reading lights are basic circuits. There is a power source, that is hooked up to a switch. When the switch is closed, the current runs through a suitable resistor, into an LED, and then to ground. When the switch is open, no current flows, and the reading light is effectively "off".
The project needed enough light to read by, and I was not sure that a standard 5mm white LED would be enough. I had 10mm diffused white LEDs lying around, but again, I was concerned about the brightness (or lack thereof). In the end, I went with a 10mm super bright white LED.
For power, I had a 4xAA battery cube from an old robot project that I figured would provide enough power for extended reading. The batteries provide 6V, while the LED has a forward voltage of 3.4V and a forward current of 80mA. Pop those values into Ohm's Law (or an LED calculator), and we need a 33 Ohm resistor. Rounding up to what I had on hand, landed me with a 47 Ohm resistor.
The reading light will also need an enclosure. It needed to be big enough to hold the electrical components, but small enough to be easily portable. It also had to be relatively easy to modify to be able to mount the switch and LED. As I order parts from SparkFun all the time, I had one of their small cardboard boxes on hand, which fit all my criteria.
I placed the LED in the top third of the lid of box, using an Xacto knife to make small holes for the leads. On the underside of the lid, I used glue to hold the LED in place. I placed the switch in the lid, by cutting the recommended hole size of 3/4 of an inch. With the outer components in place, I soldered the necessary wires in place. A flip of the switch, and we were in business.
Well, really just one problem. The battery cube was free floating inside the box. This meant that as the box/reading light itself was transported around, that the battery cube would move. This is not a problem for the battery, but over time, as we found out, it is a problem for the wires - namely the thin leads for the resistor. Enough back and forth, and the connections would break, rendering the light useless.
I figured this would be coming ahead of time, and shrink-wrapped the entire resistor, including wire connections. Unfortunately, the movement of the battery was still too much. To remedy this problem, I taped the battery cube to the inside of the box, as well as the resistor. No more movement.
The reading light has powered the LED for quite some time now. The reading light has made its way, along with my daughter of course, to several countries. It is so well traveled in fact that the box is beginning to deteriorate, and will need replacement soon.
As I look forward to the next generation of the reading light, it makes sense to leverage the software development lifecycle (SDLC, really just a software-specific Scientific Method), and gather some feedback. After discussing possible improvements to the reading light with my now 11 year-old daughter, here is what I learned.
- Too bright - It turns out that the 10mm super bright white LED, that produces 16,000 mcd is just too bright under most circumstances.
- Constant - I say under "most" circumstances, because there are conditions under which she needs all the light the LED can produce.
- Placement - Because there is no clip, the reading light generally gets placed on her pillow, next to her head. Also, the light is used as a flashlight in unfamiliar surroundings (camping, hotel).
To this list, I have my own upgrades that I would like to make for the next iteration.
- Power source - It turns out that the 4xAA cube has lasted a lot longer than I expected. I could probably go with a bit more refined source such as a LiPo battery. This of course means I will need a charging circuit as well.
- Enclosure - I am a stickler for custom enclosures. Anybody can show you a bunch of wires soldered together, it is the enclosure that makes the project. A smaller, more rugged package would be a good improvement.
With feedback collected, I am ready to embark on the next generation of my daughter's reading light. The five points of feedback actually represent a pretty sizable leap forward. Over the next several blog posts, I will document the process en route to the second version. |
Join Eduardo Corpeño for an in-depth discussion in this video String examination example, part of C Standard Library.
- [Instructor] All right, so let's illustrate…the string compare and strstr functions.…In this application, I have written a main function…in line seven that defines for strings.…They say strings in some programming language are easy.…And next I have a series of calls to a compare function…that will compare pairs of those strings,…and my compare function will print out…which of the strings is greater than the other…or less or if they are equal.…
That's why I made a function right there.…So our first task in line four is to write that function.…So our next task will be, as you can see in line 18,…we have a substring definition.…It's initialized as Java, and we will look…for that substring within one of those strings.…And so I'll write some code there so that…you can see strstr working.…Okay, so let's start with the compare function.…
I'll start writing codes in line five,…and it's as easy as calling the STRN Compare function…and analyzing its results.…So let me define an integer called cmp…that equals the result of STRN Compare.…
- Working with header files
- C constants and types
- Unformatted and formatted input/output
- Accessing files with C functions
- Generating random numbers
- Converting strings
- Sorting and searching for data
- Manipulating strings
- Using mathematical functions
Skill Level Intermediate
1. The C Standard Library
2. Input and Output Library: stdio.h
3. General Purpose: stdlib.h
4. String Functions: string.h
5. Mathematical Functions: math.h
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Symbiotes are a sapient amorphous species resembling a green gelatinous mass. They are made up of biological units much smaller than cells, more closely resembling viruses; and like a virus they live within the bodies of larger lifeforms, although they are able to survive outside a host, at least for some period of time.
Biology[edit | edit source]
Unlike most symbionts and parasites; these Symbiotes are highly generalist; able to survive inside many species of lifeforms native to different planets of the galaxy. Once entering a host, they can easily dodge around their natural defense system until they are capable of producing substances that cause the host's body to "accept" them. They can feed on practically anything organic, and would horribly kill the host if they acted on instinct alone. It is rather their intelligence and moral code that allows them to act symbiotically, and not parasitically.
Culture and society[edit | edit source]
For a number of spacefaring species, hosting Symbiotes is socially normal. They associate with a lifelong host with which they share a friendly relationship. They will feed on germs and other hazardous agents, take their share of nutrients and oxygen without causing damage to the host, and act like an efficient medical system capable of healing or alleviating many sorts of physical damages and diseases.
Like practically all species, however, criminals exist in their society, being particularly dangerous for their ability to live within a host for decades undetected. Symbiotes can communicate with their host through a number of ways. Usually they will decide upon joining which way is more comfortable to their host. When in direct contact with each other, Symbiotes can communicate using a complex chemical language, described as capable of higher levels of significance and nuance than most verbal idioms.
Appearances[edit | edit source]
- Needle, by Hal Clement (1950)
- Through the Eye of a Needle, by Hal Clement (1978)
Notes[edit | edit source]
- The word "symbiote" was unintentionally made up by Clement for the novel; he later apologized upon learning that the actual term is "symbiont".
- Regardless of orthography, however, the idea for the creature was quite original at the time; possibly the first example of an "unseen alien presence"-type that is principally benevolent. |
Agricultural Technology: Agricultural Mechanization
The Department of Agriculture's program in agricultural technology includes specializations in animal science, as well as agronomy, horticulture or agriculture mechanization. The interdisciplinary curriculum provides students with a background in all phases of agriculture, and specialized courses allow students to expand their knowledge in their degree of interest.
Agriculture students at UCM can expect more than just four years of class work. The department believes students should obtain the hands-on experience that employers expect and that high-tech agriculture careers demand. Students learn by doing through such opportunities as welding, repairing tractors, assisting in agronomic field test plot research and plotting cattle futures.
Each specialization prepares students for a wide variety of job opportunities in the day-to-day operation of Missouri's agriculture industry, the second largest sector of the state's economy. The Office of Career Services assists students and graduates in obtaining employment in their fields. In addition, the department plays a role in the placement of its graduates by maintaining contact with representatives of agri-business industries, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Missouri Department of Agriculture agencies and other agriculture-oriented businesses.
Faculty and Facilities
Dedicated faculty and well-equipped facilities, including a modern computer laboratory, offer students a quality learning experience. All department faculty members have earned doctorates in their field of specialization and, with a university student-faculty ratio of about 17 to 1, are able to provide personalized attention and instruction. Small classes allow for informal class sessions and increased access to the department's computers and laboratory facilities. In addition to typical classrooms, a greenhouse facility, and a joint program with Lincoln Electric, which offers state-of-the-art welding facilities in the Agriculture Mechanics Building, provide support for all phases of the instructional program. The 260-acre Prussing Farm, under development as a teaching unit, includes a new Agriculture and Conservation Classroom Building and a Trap and Skeet Range. It is also the home of Central Missouri's national champion Simmental herd. The show string provides interested students with the opportunity to compete in national shows.
Central Missouri's agriculture students participate in a number of departmentally sponsored organizations. The Agriculture Club is a social organization that sponsors an annual 4-H and FFA Steer and Heifer Show. Horticulture Club members visit horticulture-related businesses and sites and participate in regular plant sales that benefit members by raising funds for scholarships. UCM's Collegiate Farm Bureau provides an opportunity to interact with local farmers and to participate in agriculture activities at the same level. The Delta Tau Alpha national agriculture honor society strives to promote leadership and academic excellence for its members and the department through a multitude of activities such as traveling to the group's national convention. Students participating in the Agriculture Ambassadors program volunteer to represent the department at functions on campus and at area high schools. The Agriculture Student Advisory Board, elected by the student body, meets regularly with the faculty and provides important student input into the departmental decisionmaking process.
In addition to more than $4 million in merit-based scholarships and awards presented annually to UCM students by the university, the Department of Agriculture offers over $20,000 in awards specifically for agriculture majors. These include the Ag Partner's, E.F Low, Earle and Clara Low, Edward and Trudy Denham, Farm Bureau, Lawrence E. and Eva L. Flanders, Missouri Department of Agriculture, Clarence Pearce Agriculture Education, William Forrest Sterling, and Theiss Family Scholarships.
To Learn more
Department of Biology and Agriculture |
It’s February, and that means it’s American Heart Month.
Due to its severity, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) set this year’s focus on blood cholesterol.
According to the numbers from the American Heart Association, as cited by the CDC, almost 1 out of every 3 American adults have high blood cholesterol. This is terribly worrying as it is considered a high risk factor for both stroke and heart disease, yet, it can go unnoticed without any sings or symptoms.
So for a quick introduction to cholesterol:
Cholesterol is a fatty substance that travels around the body through the blood via Lipoproteins. While the body creates most cholesterol naturally, there are certain foods that contain it as well. Dairy products, meat, and other animal foods, for example, give us cholesterol.
High blood cholesterol also has several medical terms:
- lipid disorder,
- and hyperlipidemia.
Cholesterol isn’t all bad. In fact, it comes in 2 main forms:
The good type of cholesterol is called High Density Lipoprotein (HDL). It’s high density means that is has a low amount of fats. HDL stops the cholesterol from clogging up the arteries.
The other type of cholesterol, the one that people are much more afraid of, is called Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL). It’s low density means it has a higher amount of fat. LDL is dangerous because it can lead to cholesterol build-up in the arteries and clog them. This can lead to artery hardening, which can lead to chest pain and even heart attack.
To find out more about cholesterol and staying on top of your heart health, make sure to check out some of the CDC’s resources.
What do you do to protect your heart?
How do you keep your cholesterol levels safe?
Please share in the comments below. |
All grade levels
Science at Howard Gardner School is an inquiry process. Students wonder why, observe, explore and experiment both in the classroom and in the outdoor classroom of Mountain Lake and Robinson Park in our neighborhood. They may also take field trips related to their topic of study. Classes are held in the students’ homerooms.
The base of classroom study is the FOSS Kits (Full Option Science System) which were designed by University of California at Berkley. This program is a collection of activities aligned with the national science standards and covers topics in Life, Earth and Physical Science. Students collaborate in small groups on hands on experiments, recording data, creating graphs and reflecting on their results. They have the opportunity to apply skills of measurement and the scientific method. There are supplementary reading texts used after the activities as well as math connection problems.
Since our classes are multi-aged grouped the curriculum alternates years with the exception of Kindergarten which will study trees, leaves, wood and paper, and fabric each year.
Students in all classes are invited to suggest experiments to try in the class or to share results of investigations they do at home. At various times there may be mung beans sprouting for the primary class, wildflowers for the upper class or an avocado plant demonstrating phototropism for the intermediate class.
Environment and Ecology concepts are investigated by students during the fall and spring exploration of outdoor habitats. In addition students of the upper and senior classes do more observation of wetlands at Mountain Lake. We take only pictures and leave only footprints. (We do pick up garbage and collect data)
Personal interests of students in the upper class are developed through assignments such as current events in science and science careers presentations. They are encouraged to express themselves through nature sketching, writing song lyrics to remember concepts and a keeping a moon journal.
Members of the senior class have research assignments such as creating an advertisement for an element to learn about the periodic table. Students read the Science World magazine for current information on science and technology. They will have an end of the year project depending on the odd or even year, either designing, implementing and presenting an experiment demonstrating the scientific method or creating a personal reflection presentation of their relationship with the natural world.
I earned a Bachelor of Arts from Kutztown University and Elementary Education Certification from Marywood University. I have also continued to take classes in environmental education such as: Project Wild, PA Songbirds, Project Learning Tree, River of Words, PA Land Choices, Forest Stewardship, Project Wet & Wow, Healthy Water, Healthy People and Watershed Education.
My first teaching position was in Quito , Ecuador in 1987 where I taught first grade English and science. I returned to Scranton in 1990 and taught in the Upper Class of the Montessori School which became the University of Scranton Campus School which became the Howard Gardner School for Discovery. I served as interim Director of the Campus School for one year in 2001 and became the dedicated science specialist in 2003. I also serve as the Student Council support teacher.
During summers I I have taught for Carnegie Mellon C-MITES program for gifted students and the HGSD SCAMPS program.
I live in rural Dalton near the Lackawanna State Park and the Zeigler Preserve of the Countryside Conservancy where I enjoy hiking and kayaking.
I believe it is important to model what I teach and teach what I believe to be true so I volunteer with local environmental groups to test the water quality of streams in our community and participate in cleanups. |
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