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Home > Preview The flashcards below were created by user on FreezingBlue Flashcards. Ch 18 review question 1 What are the Bronsted-Lowry definitions of acid and base? An acid donates hydrogen ions and a base accepts hydrogen ions. When an acid is dissolved in water, what ion does the water form? The hydrogen ion quickly bonds to a water molecule to form a hydronium ion. When a chemical loses a hydrogen ion, is it behaving as an acid or base? When a chemical loses a hydrogen ion, it is acting like an acid. Why does a solution of a strong acid conduct electricity better than a solution of a weak acid with the same concentration? A strong acid means it ionizes completely and forms a lot of ions, which conduct electricity very well. A weak acid doesn't form as many ions. When can a solution of a weak base be more corrosive than a solution of a strong base? When the weak base is a lot more concentrated that then strong base, it can be more corrosive. What is true about the relative cncentrations of a hydronium and hydroxide ions in an acidic solution? How about a neutral solution? A base solution? In an acid, the concentration of hydronium ions is more than the concentration of hydroxide ions. In a base, the hydroxide concentration is more than the hydronium concentration. In a neutral solution, the hydronium concentration equals the hydroxide concentration. An acid and a base react to form a salt, which consists of positive and negative ions. Which forms the positive ions: the acid or the base? Which forms the negative ions? The base accepted the hydrogen ion, H+, and thus gained a positive charge. The base thus forms the positively charged ion. Conversely, the acid donated a hydrogen ion and thys lost a positive charge. The acid thus forms the negaively charged ion. Water is formed from the reaction between an acid and a base. Why is water not classified as a salt? A salt is the ionic compound produced from the reaction of an acid and a base. Water is a covalent compound. Many of the smelly molecules of cooked fish are alkaline compounds. How might these smelly molecules be conveniently transformed into less smelly salts just before eating the fish? Squeeze lemon juice on the fish. The citric acid found in lemon juice reacts with these smelly alkaline compounds to form less smelly salts. The smell and taste of the lemon also helps to mask any additional undesirable fishy odors. Why is the H-F bond so much stronger than the H-I bond? (Think atomic size) As can be deduced from their relative positions in the periodic table, the fluorine atom is much smaller than the iodine atom. The atoms of the H-F bond, therefore, are closer together than are the atoms within the H-I bond. When it comes to electrical attractions, closeness wins. Thus, the H-F bond is stronger. Which bond is easier to break, H-F or H-I? As given in the answer to exercise 13, the H-I bond is weaker and so it is easier to break. Which is the stronger acid: H-F or H-I? The H-I bond is weaker and so it is easier to break. This, in turn, means that the H-I molecule more readily splits apart to form the hydrogen ion. The H-I, therefore, is a stronger acid.
See “Seeing and Celebrating” on pages 30 and 31 in the We Are All Treaty People issue of Kayak: Canada’s History Magazine for Kids. Seeing and Celebrating There are lot of places and occasions to mark the importance of Treaties and the stories of First Nations people. Explore several places and occasions that mark the importance of Treaties and stories about the historic Treaty relationship between First Nations people and the Crown. Have students design, create, and construct a commemorative marker and/or plaque for the classroom that represents the Treaty relationship specific to your area or region. More classroom activities Students will explore historical significance as the process used by historians to evaluate what was important about particular events, people, and developments in the past. Focus on the importance of wampum belts for ceremonial and diplomatic purposes, as well as to mark agreements such as Treaties and covenants. Explain and expand upon the concept of unceded land. Explore the meaning and the significance of the phrase “We are all Treaty People.” Explore the symbolism in the Treaty medal. Have students create an invitation to an event celebrating Treaty Day. Taking a historical perspective means understanding the social, cultural, intellectual, and emotional settings that shaped people’s lives and actions in the past. Design a classroom Treaty with your students and use it throughout the year as the typical “class rules.”
Machine code, also known as machine language, is the elemental language of computers. It is read by the computer's central processing unit (CPU), is composed of digital binary numbers and looks like a very long sequence of zeros and ones. Ultimately, the source code of every human-readable programming language must be translated to machine language by a compiler or an interpreter, because Each CPU has its own specific machine language. The processor reads and handles instructions, which tell the CPU to perform a simple task. Instructions are comprised of a certain number of bits. If instructions for a particular processor are 8 bits, for example, the first 4 bits part (the opcode) tells the computer what to do and the second 4 bits (the operand) tells the computer what data to use. 01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111 00100001 Depending upon the processor, a computer's instruction sets may all be the same length, or they may vary, depending upon the specific instruction. The architecture of the particular processor determines how instructions are patterned. The execution of instructions is controlled by firmware or the CPU's internal wiring. Human programmers rarely, if ever, deal directly with machine code anymore. If developers are debugging a program at a low level, they might use a printout that shows the program in its machine code form. The printout, which is called a dump, is very difficult and to work with a tool called a dump. Utility programs used to create dumps will often represent four bits by a single hexadecimal to make the machine code easier to read and contain other information about the computer's operation, such as the address of the instruction that was being executed at the time the dump was initiated.
The COVID-19 pandemic has focused on a singular target—SARS-CoV-2—and how to neutralize it using an injection. But the issue of viral illness is so much larger than a single virus or one pandemic. Humans and viruses coexist. It’s a daily reality that you’ll be exposed to one or more of them, but not everyone will get sick. What determines how you fare when exposed to any given virus is a complex mix of genetics and toxic stressors that degrade your immune system. Those “toxic stressor exposures,” which can be chemical, physical, biological, or psychological in nature, hinder your immune system’s ability to fight off viruses, and they deserve greater recognition in the fight against COVID-19 and future pandemics. As noted by a team of researchers in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology, the role of toxic substance exposures is underreported in the COVID-19 pandemic: “Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and previous pandemics have been viewed almost exclusively as virology problems, with toxicology problems mostly being ignored. “This perspective is not supported by the evolution of COVID-19, where the impact of real-life exposures to multiple toxic stressors degrading the immune system is followed by the SARS-CoV-2 virus exploiting the degraded immune system to trigger a chain of events ultimately leading to COVID-19.” Viruses Won’t Be Going Away The notion of injecting our way out of viral illness ignores the crucial fact that viruses are all around us, and it’s impossible to develop an injection for every one that’s dangerous. Currently, there are about 263 viruses from 25 viral families known to infect humans. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. More than 1,100 viruses have been identified in animals and humans, but even this doesn’t give the full picture of how many viruses are circulating around us. The Global Virome Project revealed that about 1.67 million viral species may have yet to be discovered in mammals and birds, and up to 827,000 of them have zoonotic potential, meaning they’re capable of being transmitted from animals to humans. It should be noted that viruses aren’t all bad. Some viruses may offer beneficial effects, like helping to regulate gut microbiota and to protect against noninfectious diseases. Further, the very exposure to viruses is a necessary evil, one that primes, maintains, and strengthens your optimal immune response: “The mammalian virome includes diverse commensal [symbiotic] and pathogenic viruses that evoke a broad range of immune responses from the host. A subset of the virome (in particular, zoonotic viruses that appear to be pathogenic in humans) challenges the immune system continually. “This process appears to be a dual-edged sword. Healthy immune systems respond optimally to viral challenges and are further strengthened by the continual challenges, offering additional protection against other viral challenges.” Chronic Conditions Linked to COVID-19 Severity, Death According to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only about 5 percent of COVID-19 deaths list only COVID-19 on the death certificate. The other 95 percent have other comorbidities and underlying conditions that contributed to the death, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, cancer, or diabetes. Many of these underlying conditions that increase the risk of severe COVID-19 and death are caused by toxic exposures, such as poor diet, environmental chemicals, inactivity, and stress. “In short, it is the pervasive, constant exposure to toxic stressors in our environment, in combination with genetic factors, that cause us to develop diseases that impair our immune systems and make us susceptible to serious COVID-19 infection,” reported the Alliance for Natural Health. As the researchers noted, this includes factors such as: Lifestyle—This includes physical inactivity, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, poor diet including ultra-processed foods and refined grains, and chronic sleep deprivation. Pharmaceuticals and other medical side effects—Among adults 65 and older, 54 percent take four or more prescription drugs. Additionally, immunosuppressants, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), acetaminophen, antidepressants, antibiotics, nanomedicine products, adjuvanted vaccines, surgical stress, anesthesia, and ionizing radiation therapy can all degrade the immune system. Biotoxins and biomaterials—These refer to mold including aflatoxin, as well as viruses and bacteria. Occupational and environmental exposures—This type of exposure can include endocrine-disrupting chemicals, microplastics, heavy metals, pesticides, air pollution, radiation, PFAS, fine particulate matter, disinfection byproducts, and more. Psychosocial and socioeconomic factors—From depression to chronic stress, social isolation, stressful life events, and childhood adversity, these issues can also contribute to poor health. For instance, researchers from the University of Bologna in Italy analyzed 482 COVID-19 patients hospitalized between March 1, 2020, and April 20, 2020. “Obesity is a strong, independent risk factor for respiratory failure, admission to the ICU, and death among COVID-19 patients,” they wrote, and the extent of risk was tied to a person’s level of obesity. Even patients with mild obesity had a 2.5 times greater risk of respiratory failure and a five times greater risk of being admitted to an ICU compared to non-obese patients. Those with a BMI of 35 and over—moderate or severe obesity—were also 12 times more likely to die from COVID-19. Also, as with many viral infections, COVID-19 appears to have a nutritional component, by which you may lower your risk of severe outcomes by using vitamins and minerals therapeutically. Despite that, nutrient deficiencies continue to be ignored as official risk factors for COVID-19. COVID-19 patients given a combination of vitamin D, magnesium, and vitamin B12, for instance, were significantly less likely to require oxygen therapy or ICU care compared to patients who were not, according to a cohort study published in Nutrition in 2020. Focusing Only on Virology Misses the Importance of Toxicology The COVID-19 pandemic response has focused on short-term emergency measures like quarantines, lockdowns, and injections, which do nothing to address the long-term outlook for helping humans fight pathogenic viral diseases. Strategies that focus on boosting the immune system, however, are inexpensive, numerous, and readily available. Such strategies could save lives now and in future pandemics, say Ronald N. Kostoff and other researchers from the United States, Russia, Spain, and Iran in a review published in Food and Chemical Toxicology in 2020. “There are strong misconceptions about the role played by SARS-CoV-2 in the emergence of COVID-19, especially the severity of COVID-19 in selected demographic groups. These misconceptions result in treatments focused on virology without any consideration of toxicology: containing/attenuating SARS-CoV-2 exposure/viral loads rather than intrinsically strengthening the immune system,” they wrote. “These virology-based actions do not address the underlying toxicology-based problems that must be addressed properly in order to decrease human vulnerability to infectious diseases, including COVID-19.” Infectious diseases like COVID-19, SARS, and influenza have a lot in common, including that only a small fraction of those who are exposed develop symptoms and, of them, an even smaller percentage die from the infection, often due to pneumonia or acute respiratory distress syndrome. Those most likely to die from these infectious diseases include the elderly with underlying conditions. Having a comorbidity such as heart disease, chronic respiratory disease, cancer, obesity, or diabetes is a more reliable indicator of impaired immunity than even chronological age among older adults, the researchers wrote. Toxic stressor exposures contribute to these underlying conditions as well as metabolic stress. And those with chronic conditions often suffer elevated baseline inflammation, which further increases the risk of dying when exposed to a virus such as SARS-CoV-2. All of these factors add up to increased vulnerability to infectious disease—vulnerability that likely could be prevented, according to the researchers. “The most severe consequences from COVID-19 and influenza stem from a degraded/dysfunctional immune system, and the exploitation of the degraded immune system by the virus. For a healthy immune system, the virus would be unable to overcome its strong defenses, and would be neutralized,” the researchers wrote. In order to protect the public, however, a “quarantine” from toxins—in ultra-processed foods, environmental chemicals, wireless radiation, and much more—would be far more effective than quarantining from one virus, they wrote.
What Is Progressive Myopia? Nearsightedness or myopia is one of the most prevalent eye disorders worldwide and its incidence is increasing. In fact by 2050, myopia is projected to affect half of the world’s population! Many children diagnosed with nearsightedness (myopia) experience a consistent worsening of their vision as they grow into adolescence. This condition can be so aggressive that for some, each time they take their child to the eye doctor for a vision checkup, their prescription gets higher. This is called progressive myopia and can be a serious condition for many children now and in the future. Not only is there a financial burden and inconvenience associated with having to replace eyeglasses on a regular basis, but high myopia is a risk factor for many eye diseases later in life such as retinal detachment, early onset cataracts, glaucoma and macular degeneration. What Causes Progressive Myopia? Myopia is a refractive error that happens when the eye focuses incoming light in front of the retina, rather than directly on it, resulting in blurred distance vision. While an exact cause of progressive myopia is not known, most research indicates that a combination of environmental and genetic factors trigger the condition. First of all, there is evidence that a family history of nearsightedness is a contributing factor. Additionally, spending a lot of time indoors may play a role in myopia development, as studies show that children who spend more time outside have less incidence of myopia. Lastly, near point stress, which can be caused from looking at a near object for an extended period of time, can prompt the eye to grow longer and result in myopia. Several eye doctors recommend following the 20-20-20 rule when using digital devices (stopping every 20 minutes to look 20 feet away for 20 seconds) to reduce near point stress caused by computer use. What Can Be Done To Prevent or Treat Myopia? There are several treatments that have been shown to slow the progression of myopia. Also known as corneal reshaping, this treatment uses rigid gas permeable contact lenses that are worn while the patient sleeps to reshape the cornea, which is the clear, front part of the eye. During the day, the patient is usually able to see clearly, glasses-free. In addition to allowing glasses-free vision during the day, this treatment has been shown to reduce the progression of myopia in many children. Distance Center Multifocal Contact Lenses: This treatment uses distance center (which means the area for seeing at a distance is in the center of the lens) multifocal soft contact lenses to provide clear vision and slow the progression of myopia. The lenses are worn as normal contact lenses during the day. Atropine drops are a daily-use prescription eye drop that has been shown to reduce myopia progression. It can be used alone or in combination with ortho-k or multifocal contact lenses. Additional Myopia Treatments: While these treatments are available in all of North America, some countries offer additional options that are approved for myopia control. For example, in Canada, ZeissTM MyoVision glasses that have an innovative lens curvature design are available to help reduce the rate of myopia progression. Additionally some doctors in Canada offer Coopervision MiSight® lenses, which are 1-day contact lenses that are worn during the daytime. These contacts have a multifocal lens design with distance centre and near surround that is specifically designed for children. Myopia & Your Child If your child’s vision keeps getting worse, it's more than an annoyance - it can be a serious risk factor for their eye health and vision in the future. The best strategy for myopia control depends on the child and the severity of the case, and requires consultation with an experienced eye doctor in order to determine the best solution. If your child wears glasses, make his or her vision a priority; schedule an eye exam to ensure stable vision and healthy eyes.
South Africa is known as the Rainbow Nation because the people who live there have come from many different backgrounds. This fascinating book describes the holidays and family celebrations inspired by the many cultures of South Africa's people. This fascinating book describes the holidays and traditions of Israel. Most national holidays celebrate events in the Jewish religion. Young readers will also learn which holidays are observed by the country's many Muslims and how Israelis celebrate family occasions. Victoria Day is celebrated across Canada on the third Monday of May. It is a federal statutory holiday in honor of the birthday of England's Queen Victoria. It is informally considered the beginning of the summer season in Canada. Readers will learn about the importance of the first sovereign of confederated Canada, as well as Empire Day, celebrated in Britain. Millions of Jewish people all over the world celebrate this autumn festival five days after Yom Kippur. The holiday usually occurs in September or October. Jewish people take time to remember how the ancient Israelites lived. Vibrant images and clear text guide children and help them learn about building and decorating a sukkah, or shelter, the importance of the four species, and the special foods eaten during Sukkot. Canada is a multicultural country. English and French are its two official languages, but Canadians come from many different cultures. This colorful book describes the different holidays and traditions in various parts of Canada and the ways in which Canadians celebrate family occasions. The French calendar is filled with ftes, or festivals, which are celebrated with tasty food, colorful decorations, wonderful music, and exciting games. This informative book looks at France's major holidays and family celebrations. Dress like a king or queen, twirl your gragger, and make some noise - Purim is here! One of the happiest Jewish holidays on the calendar, this springtime holiday is celebrated with costume parties, parades, and special foods. Learn the story, customs, and good deeds that are celebrated on this religious holiday. Every year on June 19th, people of all backgrounds celebrate the day that African Americans were freed from slavery in the United States. People mark the occasion by gathering at parks for picnics and to hear music. There are even rodeos that celebrate famous black cowboys! Young readers will be fascinated to learn about the history of the Civil War and the law that freed the slaves. How do you celebrate the day you were born? In North America, children invite their friends and families to birthday parties where they play games and eat birthday cake. Some other countries have different birthday traditions. Learn how birthdays are celebrated around the world and why some ages are considered more special than others. Best known as the home of the Inca as well as other ancient civilizations, Peru is dotted with the ruins of their ancient buildings. Children will be delighted to read about the ingenuity of these ancient people in Spotlight on Peru. From high up on Lake Titicaca where llamas roam, down to the Amazon River where jaguars live in the rainforests, the wonders of Peru are described through simple text. Wonderful photographs also capture the people of Peru today and their way of life. Mexico is the southern neighbor of the United States. It is a country with a rich history and culture, a warm climate, diverse landscapes, and a variety of wildlife. From Mayan pyramids to busy cities to happy fiestas, Spotlight on Mexico offers a joyful experience to young readers. The book also includes recipes of some favorite Mexican foods that children will love to make! Spotlight on India introduces children to the land, people, and rich traditions of this beautiful country. Breathtaking photos feature the Himalaya Mountains, the Ganges and Indus Rivers, and major cities such as New Delhi. This joyful book also celebrates Indias unique mixture of peoples, monuments, such as the famous Taj Mahal, and its unique styles of music and dance. Holidays, celebrations, and symbols are highlighted in this up-to-date fact-filled introduction to the United States. Spotlight on the United States of America looks at the colonial history of the U.S., its government, and some of its important leaders. Many colorful pictures, maps, and illustrations highlight the different regions, climates, cities, and wildlife of this fascinating country. The spotlight is on China having been host to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Maps and illustrations highlight this beautiful introduction to this vast country covered with such diverse landforms as mountains, deserts, and jungles. Stunning photographs feature the sites of its cities including Shanghai and Hong Kong as well as its architectural wonders such as the famous Great Wall and the Forbidden City. Children will also enjoy learning about Chinas people, their holidays and celebrations, high flying martial arts, Chinese cooking, and horoscopes. Spotlight on Canada introduces children to Canada's multicultural people, its varied landscapes and climates, its exciting cities, and its joyful celebrations. A huge country with only one neighbor, the United States, Canada is divided into provinces and territories. French and English are its two official languages, and its rich history goes back to its French and English roots. This colorful book celebrates the diversity of this great country! This up-to-date and fact filled introduction to Australia features the unique people, land, and animals of this island country. Children will be fascinated to learn about the native Aboriginal peoples and their way of life, the harsh Outback wilderness, the Great Barrier Reef, and the many marsupials that are unique to Australia, including the kangaroo and the koala. Spectacular photographs also give young readers a close-up view of major cities. Thailand's culture is a blending of the Buddhist religion and ancient traditions passed down through centuries. This interesting book describes how influences from surrounding countries such as India, China, Cambodia, and others in southeast Asia have helped to develop many of the colorful festivals celebrated today. Young readers will also learn how the Thai people celebrate family occasions. Australia's culture is an interesting mix of ancient traditions passed down by the native peoples, as well as the traditions and culture of England, where most of its immigrant population came from. This interesting book describes how British influence and the traditions, beliefs, and rituals of indigenous peoples have developed into many of the lively and colorful festivals celebrated today. Young readers will also learn how the Australian people celebrate family occasions. Greek culture has influenced many other cultures around the globe for thousands of years. Many of the cultural traditions celebrated in Greece today have been passed down through the centuries by the people of this ancient civilization. This intriguing book describes how the traditions, beliefs, and rituals of people across the country are observed in the many different festivals celebrated today. Young readers will also learn how the Greek people celebrate family occasions. What began as a day to celebrate the birthday of George Washington, the first president of the United States of America, has grown to include every other president to serve as leader of the country. Learn all about Presidents' Day, from its earliest beginnings to how Americans celebrate this occasion today. Children will love this easy-to-understand introduction of this important national holiday. Spotlight on Italy introduces children to a country that has influenced the world throughout history. Children will be taken on a tour of the country from the towering Alps to the sandy beaches of the Mediterranean islands. The daily lives of modern Italians is also presented along with their customs and traditions. Spotlight on Russia gives children a fascinating introduction to the largest country in the world, which is part of two continents! Wonderful photographs feature Russias many diverse people, its unique plants and animals, and its dramatic landscape, including beautiful Lake Baikal. The traditions and symbols of Russia are also featured from classical ballet to the Moscow circus. Spotlight on the Philippines introduces this fascinating country in the Pacific Ocean, which is made up of over 7,000 islands. Children will learn about the daily lives of the people and the country's unique culture festivals and dances. Spotlight on Brazil introduces children to the country of Brazil, where almost half the population of South America lives. Children will read about Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, the daily lives of Brazilians in the cities, and why the way of life of native peoples in the Amazon rain forest is being changed forever. Spotlight on South Africa introduces readers to this vast country, from Table Mountain to the grasslands, where elephants, lions, and other wildlife live in protected parks. The daily lives and family traditions of the mix of people and cultures that make up South Africa today are highlighted. A special section features the joyful celebration of the World Cup of soccer held in South Africa in 2010.
Dialysis machines are used inside and outside of hospitals to treat kidney failure. In hemodialysis treatment, blood flows from the body into a dialyzer machine through a vein in one arm and out through another vein in the other arm. The machine filters your blood to remove waste products (including excess salt), extra water and urea as part of its cleaning process. The cleaned blood then returns to your body—where its healthy cells can use it again. A dialysis machine is a device that uses a special filter to remove waste, salt and extra water from the blood. The patient’s blood is pumped through the dialyzer, which is a filter. The filter removes waste products from your blood and also removes extra water from your blood. This allows you to get rid of liquids in your body without losing too many minerals or electrolytes (like potassium) that help maintain healthy cells. A dialysis machine is a large machine used to filter waste and extra water from the blood. This process is called hemodialysis, which means that hemo refers to the blood and dialysis refers to filtering. Dialysis machines are typically found in hospitals or outpatient clinics. They are often large because they are used on multiple patients at once, which reduces waiting time for each patient as well as costs for the hospital or clinic. Dialysis machines use a special tube called a catheter that goes into your vein through an opening in your arm so you can get better treatment than if you had to go under general anesthesia every time you need dialysis – this way you're awake throughout your entire treatment! Home hemodialysis machines are smaller than the ones in clinics and can fit on a countertop or bedside table. They're used to treat kidney failure, usually in people who are unable to travel to a clinic. The machine is hooked up to your blood vessels through tubing, which carries blood into the machine and removes waste products from it. The machine separates out these waste products from your blood with filters and drains them into containers you discard as medical waste every day or two after treatment. The drain is connected to a tube that empties into a bag. The bag should be emptied every 8 hours and hung on the side of your bed. You don't need to worry about anything else until you see your nurse. Dialysis machines are used to clean the blood. They are also used to remove waste and extra water from the blood. Finally, dialysis machines are used to remove extra salt from the blood. Over time, a person's kidneys stop working properly, which causes them to become unable to filter waste out of their body's fluids. This is called kidney failure or end stage renal disease (ESRD). The treatment for this condition is dialysis; it allows for removal of excess liquid in your body so that you can live longer without needing a kidney transplant or being on medication for chronic kidney disease management. Dialysis is usually done at home by people who have access to this medical equipment but some people choose not too because they don't want needles inserted into their bodies frequently - these patients may instead opt for peritoneal dialysis where fluid enters through their abdomen instead of an IV into their arm(s). A dialysis machine contains a cartridge filled with a synthetic substance called dialysis membrane. Dialysis membranes are made of various materials, but all of them share the trait of being porous. This allows waste to pass through the membrane and be removed from your blood by an artificial kidney called a peritoneal dialyzer or PD. PDs are usually inserted under your skin during surgery and then left in place for three days before they’re removed. As you may already know, dialysis machines are heavy and require a lot of power. If you have ever operated one before, then you probably know that they are connected to an external power supply or battery. A dialysis machine is connected to an external power supply or battery through cables that run from the machine to either a wall socket or a car battery. Some models of dialysis machines are also equipped with a feature that allows them to be used for up to 24 hours without being connected to an external power supply! This feature can prove very useful if your hospital does not have access to electricity and you need your patient on dialysis immediately without waiting for someone else's help in order get everything up and running again so quickly after being disconnected from their original source of energy (the wall socket). Dialysis machines have two large tubes that connect them to the patient's bloodstream. One of these tubes is connected to an artery in the patient's arm; the other is connected to a vein in their arm. The tubes are usually about an inch in diameter, and they are placed near where an IV would be inserted if you were receiving dialysis at home. The connection between these tubes and your blood vessels is made by a needle (or catheter). A dialysis machine filters the blood without removing it from the patient. This means that it filters waste and extra fluids out of the blood. A typical dialysis treatment lasts for several hours and is usually done in a clinic or hospital every week or two. Dialysis machines are often used to treat kidney failure, which occurs when your kidneys do not work properly anymore because they have lost their ability to filter excess fluid from your body. Dialysis can also be used if you have end-stage renal disease (ESRD), which happens when both of your kidneys stop working completely, or if you have other conditions that cause ESRD, such as diabetes mellitus (diabetes) or polycystic kidney disease (PKD). A dialysis machine is a machine that filters the blood without removing it from the patient. The process of filtering the blood takes about three hours per session and can be done at home or in a hospital. Dialysis machines are used to treat kidney failure, which occurs when your kidneys fail to filter toxins from your blood properly and they build up into harmful levels. If left untreated, kidney failure can lead to other serious health problems like high blood pressure and heart disease. In addition to treating kidney failure, dialysis machines are also used for other conditions such as liver disease and fluid overload (swelling). If you or someone you know has been diagnosed with kidney disease, it’s important to understand how dialysis works and what types of treatment options are available. Dialysis machines can be found in hospitals and outpatient clinics, as well as at home through home hemodialysis machines. This type of treatment helps patients live longer by removing waste products from their blood when their kidneys aren’t working properly anymore.
Intrauterine Growth Restriction, Causes and Prevention-Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) is defined as a fetal growth that is less than normal for the population and for the growth potential of a specific baby. It is a condition in which an unborn baby is smaller than it would be because it is not growing at a normal rate inside the womb. In the past, the term IUGR and small for gestational age (SGA) were used interchangeably. Although related, they are not synonymous. IUGR is the failure of normal fetal growth caused by multiple adverse effects on the fetus. Classification Intrauterine Growth Restriction. There are two major classifications of IUGR, which could be symmetrical asymmetrical. Here a baby is proportionally small. That means that all parts of the baby’s body are a similarly small size. Here the baby has a small size head and brain but the rest of the body is small. Delayed growth puts the baby at risk of certain health problems during pregnancy, delivery and after birth. They include; low birth weight, difficulty handling the stresses of vaginal delivery, decreased oxygen level, hypoglycemia(low blood sugar) low resistance to infection, low Apgar scores(a test given immediately after birth to evaluate the newborn’s physical condition and determine need for special medical care, meconium, aspiration ( inhalation of stools passed while in the uterus) which can lead to breathing, abnormal high blood cell count. In the most severe cases, IURG can lead to stillbirth. It can also cause long term growth problems. Intrauterine Growth Restriction, Causes and Prevention IUGR results when there is a problem that prevents the baby from getting adequate oxygen and nutrients from the mother via the placenta. This lack of nourishment slows the baby’s growth and development. The causes are grouped into following; - Poor nutrition (malnutrition) - Infections such as rubella cytomegalovirus, toxoplasmosis - Certain behavior such as smoking, drinking alcohol or abusing the drug. - Gestational diabetes - Pulmonary disease - Cardiovascular disease - Multible gestation (twin pregnancy) - Uterine malformation. - Chromosomal abnormalities - Intrauterine infection How can it be Prevented Although, IUGR can occur when a mother is perfectly healthy, there are things a mother can do to reduce the risk of IUGR and increase the odds of a healthy pregnancy. Ensure you keep all your prenatal appointments detecting potential problems early allows you to treat them early, a baby who does not move often or who stopped moving has a problem. If you notice changes in your baby.s movement visit the hospital. Check your medications, because sometimes a medication that mothers take for another illness can lead to problem with her unborn baby. Eat adequate meal, by ensuring you eat healthy food to help keep your body nourished. Get plenty of rest to help you feel better and even make your baby grow normally. Practice healthy lifestyle habits by avoiding alcohol consumption, smoking, and drug abuse. How can it be Managed If a baby has been diagnosed with IUGR, treatment is individualized for each patient depending on the baby’s condition and the women’s month of pregnancy. The baby will be closely monitored, usually with frequent prenatal visits and ultrasounds examinations to keep track of growth and watch for other potential problems. In some cases, the induction of labour may be recommended by the doctor if monitoring shows that the baby has stopped growing or has other problems. A cesarean section might be done if stress of vaginal delivery is considered too risky for the baby. Although early delivery might be necessary, the goal is to keep the baby safe in the womb for as long as possible. sometimes amniocentesis can help determine lung maturity and whether the baby is likely to be able to breathe on his own. In summary, IUGR is preventable, the best way to prevent it is by keeping all prenatal visits and testing appointments and adhering strictly to the health care provider’s recommendations. A pregnant woman should eat healthy diets to prevent anemia which is a major cause of IUGR . There is need for adequate rest, avoid alcohols,drugs, and tobacco intake.
Expressions That Use Math Terms Aligned To Common Core Standard: Grade 6 Expressions and Equations - 6.EE.A.2b How to Write a Sentence that Describes the Equations? An important step when solving a mathematical problem is to convert it into a sentence that is easy to understand and contains all basic instructions to solve the problem. A lot of kids find it difficult to create these sentences to describe an equation, which becomes an obstacle when solving a number problem. The key to converting an equation into a sentence is to know the describing words for every arithmetic operation. Addition - You can use words such as total, altogether, sum, and more than to define the addition operation Subtraction - You can use the words such as the difference between, less than, and minus to define the subtraction operation Multiplication - You can use the term product and multiples to define the multiplication operation. Division - You can use the term quotient and dividend to define the division operation. Example; Describe the equation: 4 ÷ (5 + 15) = z We can describe z as the quotient of 4 and the sum of 5 and 15. See! It is that easy! These worksheets and lessons help students learn how to master and understand all the terms found within an expression. Printable Worksheets And Lessons - Math Sentences In Words Step-by-step Lesson- Write the extended math sentence in words. This can be tricky! - Guided Lesson - More work on this skill. I also throw up the concept of coefficients. - Guided Lesson Explanation - If they have never seen coefficients, they will - Practice Worksheet - More reps on the skills we are focused on in this unit. - Variable Expressions Five Pack - Some of these are equations and some are expressions. Seemed like a good fit for this standard. - Matching Worksheet - What's the value of coefficient "a" or something else. The vocabulary word "coefficient" stumps kids the most here. - Homework 1 - What is the coefficient of x in the expression? - Homework 2 - Example: (3 × 6) + 13 = Y - Homework 3 - Which sentence best describes the equation? I would recommend that you do a full expression vocabulary lesson with students first. Math Skill Quizzes The skills get a little more difficult for each successive quiz here . - Quiz 1 - The sum of seven and a number is five less than twenty two. - Quiz 2 - Write the equation for: S is the difference of 17 and the quotient of 15 and 7. - Quiz 3 - Write the equation for: R is the difference of 85 and the quotient of 44 and 11.
Monday, January 30, 2017 The Beauty of Binary Boolean algebra was invented by George Boole in the mid-1800s, long before binary numbers had any practical purpose. While binary, which is base 2, is not the simplest numeral system for humans, it's ideal for computers. It's a simple way to store and transfer information. As a matter of fact, you can think of DNA as binary since it only has two combinations (CG or AT) that store all the genetic information of our makeup. (The simplest and oldest numeral system for humans is unary, which is base 1. Think: tallying numbers with four ones, 1111, while the fifth tally is a diagonal line striking through the four tallies to make one group of five. Actually, traditional tallying seems more like a cross between base 1 and base 5, but I digress.) There is an elegant simplicity in binary in that each digit is either a one or a zero. On or off. No room for any gray area, even though fractions and negative numbers can still be represented in binary. Additionally, some numbers that can't truly be expressed in one base, for example, 1/3 in base 10, can be simply written in, say, base 3 as 0.13. Since computers use binary, some integers operations are child's play to a computer, especially bit shifting. As humans, we can't easily figure out multiplication of large numbers in our head. For example, what is 123 x 45? That will require a pencil and paper or calculator. But, we can easily figure out the answer to 12345 x 100, even though the latter deals with much larger numbers because we simply shift the digits three places. But, for humans, this calculation only works for powers of 10, since we think in base 10. Computers, however, get this luxury when they're multiplying by integers that are a multiple of the base. Multiplying a base 2 number by 2, 4, 8 is as simple as shifting the bits by one, two, three, or four places. For a computer, like a human, this is a much simpler task than working through the traditional arithmetic.
Carter G. Woodson and his organization, the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), recognized Negro History Week. It was first celebrated during the 2nd week in February 1926. This week was chosen because of the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass who were symbols of freedom for Dr. Woodson. National Negro History Week became a celebrated time in African American life bringing awareness and education in schools about the importance and contributions of African Americans and Blacks in American History. In 1976 President Gerald R. Ford expanded Black History Week to a month-long celebration. Since then, each president has signed an African American History Month proclamation. ASNLH is now the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) and it continues to promote the study of Black history. We celebrate African American and Black History Month in February of each year. During this month African Americans and people of African descent look no further than their race for a reason to feel proud of the many positive contributions they have made in the world. African Americans have helped to shape the world and have brought respect, value, culture, knowledge, and more to the human race. These brave souls are honored for their bravery, tenacity, spiritual heart, and persistence. Every day, we should celebrate African Americans and those of African descent and every February we should bring extra attention to a job well done! Website by CS Design Studios Logo Design by Felicia Penza [email protected] Copyright. © 2022, African American Museum of Southern Arizona. All Rights Reserved. No image, sound or text from this site can be used without the expressed written permission of the museum’s Board of Directors.
The Romans conquered the Greek cities in Italy around three hundred years BCE and much of the Western world after that. The Roman problem of rulership involved the unity of disparity — from Spanish to Greek, Macedonian to Carthaginian — Roman rule had extended itself across the breadth of the known world and the myriad pacified cultures forming this ecumene presented a new challenge for justice. One way to look at the unity of Roman architecture is through a new-found realization of theory derived from practice, and embodied spatially. Civically we find this happening in the Roman forum (sibling of the Greek agora), where public participation is increasingly removed from the concrete performance of rituals and represented in the decor of the architecture. Thus we finally see the beginnings of the contemporary public square in the Forum Iulium, begun by Julius Caesar, where the buildings present themselves through their facades as representations within the space. The Romans widely employed, and further developed, the arch, vault and dome. by James Rex As the Romans chose representations of sanctity over actual sacred spaces to participate in society, so the communicative nature of space was opened to human manipulation. None of which would have been possible without the advances of Roman engineering and construction or the newly found marble quarries which were the spoils of war; inventions like the arch and concrete gave a whole new form to Roman architecture, fluidly enclosing space in taut domes and colonnades, clothing the grounds for imperial rulership and civic order. This was also a response to the changing social climate which demanded new buildings of increasing complexity — the colosseum, the residential block, bigger hospitals and academies. General civil construction such as roads and bridges began to be built. The Romans widely employed, and further developed, the arch, vault and dome (see the Roman Architectural Revolution), all of which were little used before, particularly in Europe. Their innovative use of Roman concrete facilitated the building of the many public buildings of often unprecedented size throughout the empire. These include Roman temples, Roman baths, Roman bridges, Roman aqueducts, Roman harbours, triumphal arches, Roman amphitheatres, Roman circuses palaces, mausolea and in the late empire also churches. Roman domes permitted construction of vaulted ceilings and enabled huge covered public spaces such as the public baths like Baths of Diocletian or the monumental Pantheon in the city of Rome. Art historians such as Gottfried Richter in the 1920s identified the Roman architectural innovation as being the Triumphal Arch and it is poignant to see how this symbol of power on earth was transformed and utilized within the Christian basilicas when the Roman Empire of the West was on its last legs: The arch was set before the altar to symbolize the triumph of Christ and the after life. It is in their impressive aqueducts that we see the arch triumphant, especially in the many surviving examples, such as the Pont du Gard, the aqueduct at Segovia and the remains of the Aqueducts of Rome itself. Their survival is testimony to the durability of their materials and design.
With so much learning that administrators and teachers are required to pack into a full school day, some schools’ lunch periods are so short that there is very little time for children to sit down, take a break and socialize with their friends, and eat an entire nutritious meal. According to a study by the National Public Radio (NPR), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Harvard School of Public Health, 1 in 7 parents stated that their kids receive 15 minutes or less every day for lunch at their school. This time includes leaving the classroom, waiting in line for lunch, finding a place to sit down, and then eating in the cafeteria, as the minutes whittle away. When children have inadequate time to eat lunch, it can cause nutritional and academic consequences, while taxing your school cafeteria staff and resources as well. Shortened Lunch Periods Promote Poor Food Choices According to a 2015 Harvard School of Public Health study, when students had less than 20 minutes to eat, they would consume unhealthy, less nutritious, and quick foods first. When the lunch period was over, they would throw more nutritional items, such as fruits and vegetables, into the garbage–completely untouched. Students are too often consuming fast foods and drinks as quickly as possible as time dwindles during their lunch period. School Lunches Affect Learning If you have ever spent time in a classroom with students that have skipped breakfast or lunch, then you know firsthand how it can affect their learning. It’s difficult to focus on learning when your stomach is growling loud enough for your classmates to hear. School breakfasts, or breakfasts at home, set students up for a positive start to their day, and school lunches provide the fuel they need to last throughout the remainder of their learning. Studies have shown that students score twice as well on tests and assessments when they aren’t trying to learn on an empty stomach. Nutritious Lunches Could Raise Test Scores and Improve Behavioral Problems There is a direct correlation between a healthy diet and a child’s ability to learn and manage impulsive behaviors. Deficiencies in minerals and vitamins, such as zinc, protein, and omega-3s, can lead to reduced cognitive development in children. Furthermore, when a student’s diet is high in unhealthy fats, it leads to decreased cognition. The same goes for conduct and behavior problems. The University of Southern California found that a diet lacking in iron, vitamin B, protein, and zinc can lead to behavioral issues, as well as foods high in artificial coloring, sugar, and preservative, which have shown to have the same effect. Making sure healthy foods and meals are available in a school’s meal program is just one part of comprehensive school nutrition planning. Ensuring students have adequate time to eat their lunch is another critical piece. And we know that is not an easy feat. Harris School Nutrition Solutions is here to help school administrators and food service directors speed up school lunchlines with customizable and comprehensive school lunch software solutions to serve students better and faster. Ready to learn more? Contact us today.
We want to give our children a wide variety of ways to explore the world and to express themselves. Learning through the Creative Arts provides sensory experiences as an engaging way of understanding the world. It stimulates creativity and imagination, enabling children to communicate what they see, feel and think using a variety of processes and materials, thus embedding understanding more meaningfully. Visits to museums, galleries, the theatre and the cinema provide rich cultural experiences for our children, supporting them to understand the role of the Arts in our history and culture. Learning through the Arts is enhanced by regular workshop and projects with a range of quality providers in the Arts such as Arts First and the House of Illustration. Creative outcomes are celebrated through displays, performances and sharing events. Art and Design Work in Art and Design is linked to the current Curriculum Theme. Children will have an opportunity to explore the work of a range of artists from a range of cultures and perspectives around the world. Children will learn a range of techniques and skills in printing, painting, 3D sculpture and sketching and drawing. Children will have many opportunities to use these skills to be creative, developing their own ideas and producing high quality creative outcomes. Children will have opportunity to explore a range of music from a range of cultures and contexts across the world and through time. Children will be taught how to listen to and appraise music, and how to create their own music, using musical notation to represent their compositions. Children will regularly be part of performances which will include singing and playing instruments. Children will have opportunity to explore and appraise a range of existing products to find out what their purpose is and how they work. They will learn a range of skills to design, create and evaluate their own products, adapting ideas when necessary. This includes food technology, where children will learn how to safely and hygienically prepare food, measuring and following recipes accurately. Children are taught to consider the potential impact of their product on the world.
This post describes eight Narrow reading techniques that have significantly enhanced my students’ vocabulary and reading skills. As explained in previous posts, Narrow Reading is a powerful technique based on the concept that getting your students to go over and over the same text through a range of comprehension tasks may be tedious for them; whilst by creating several reading passages (I tend to use three to six) that are very similar in terms of topic, structure, vocabulary and patterns, you will still be recycling the same target linguistic features but through a wider range of texts adding in and allowing for more variety. In my experience, Narrow reading texts are most effective, when they: - are near-identical in terms of patterns; - contain comprehensible input (90% accessible in meaning without resorting to dictionaried or extra-textual help); - are relatively short (very short for absolute beginners, of course, as shown in figure 1 below) Figure 1 – Example of Narrow reading texts for absolute beginners of English The activities I usually ask my students to perform on Narrow reading texts are different from the typical ‘true or false’, ‘who, where, what, when, etc.’ or other classical comprehension questions, because such tasks often encourage skimming and scanning, educated guesswork and picking details, rather than processing texts in a more thorough and meticulous way. Skimming and scanning, educated guesswork and inferencing are obviously very important skills, which should be fostered in the L2 classroom. However, I want my students to process the texts in their entirety paying attention to as much text as possible, in order to intensify the students’ exposure to the vocabulary and patterns I intend to recycle. Hence, what I have done over the years, is trying to come up with tasks which, whilst being engaging and involving problem-solving, aim to get them to do just that. In sum, the main aim of Narrow reading tasks is to ‘trick’ the students into processing what is basically the same text over and over again whilst making them read six. In this sense, they are possibly one of the most effective recycling tools ever, allowing L2 teachers to expose their learners to the core items in their syllabi many times over throughout the duration of the academic year. 2.Eight effective Narrow reading techniques The eight techniques described below, are Narrow reading tasks that I carry out in my lessons, day in day out and my students enjoy. Obviously, they are contextualised in the topic-at-hand. 1.Spot the differences – This is a narrow reading activity which typically involves 3 to 6 texts (the more the better) of around 100 words that are completely identical apart from a few key details. The task is for the students to spot such details in each text which are different from all the other five texts. So if text A in line 3 reads ‘she is tall’ all the other texts will read at the same line ‘she is short’ or ‘she is average height’. Obviously, you can make it into a competition under time constraints with the right group. The rationale for the activity is to trick the students into reading the same texts three to six times over (thereby recycling the same lexis, patterns and grammar) whilst giving them a task which requires them to pay attention to the slightest detail in order to find the differences. As a follow-up you can do a ‘Spot the differences’ Listening task in which you will re-use the same texts (changing the target details of course) and will read out to them. Since the focus will be on modelling you will be reading the text at modelling, not near-native speed. Same rationale: getting them to listen to the same text and patterns over and over again. Figure 2 – ‘Spot the differences’ (French example) 2.Bad translation -‘Bad translation’ is another very effective Narrow Reading technique I use a lot. It consists of a set of very similar texts (typical 3 or 4) and their respective translations. The task is for the students to spot four or five mistakes the teacher deliberately made in the translation to lay emphasis on certain vocabulary or structures. This forces the students to really process the Target language texts in great detail and learn vocabulary incidentally as they do so. By doing this task, you are again tricking the students in re-reading the same sort of text, patterns and vocabulary several times over but with the added benefits of the L1 translation,which may result in some learning of new vocabulary in the process. The same texts can be recycled as follow-up by placing gaps in the Target Language text or in the translations. The same technique can also be turned into a Listening activity in which the students are provided with the translation and listen to the teacher as he reads the Target Language text. 3.Summaries – In this activity, the students are once again given 3 to 6 texts on the same topic, not identical but very similar in structure and language content. You summarise each text in 40-50 words in the L1 or L2 , depending on the students’ level. The task is for the students to find which summary matches which text. To make the task more challenging, you may want to add an extra summary or two, as distractors. 4.Picture – select an image from the internet or the textbook in use, which refers to the topic-at-hand or to specific grammar structures or patterns you want to recycle. Then create three or more narrow reading texts which describe the picture in detail. Make sure, though, that only one text and one text only is a 100% accurate description of the picture, whilst the others have one or two details in excess which do not match the picture. The task is for the students to identify the only text that matches the picture in every single detail. This task kills two birds with one stone in that not only it does enhance the students’ vocabulary and reading skills but can also be used to prepare MFL GCSE students for the oral photocard task by modelling useful language and approaches to that task. 5.Questions – This narrow reading technique requires a bit more work. I created it in order to focus my students not only on the content of the target texts, but also on understanding L2 questions. After creating 3 to 6 texts that are very similar in content and structure, write a set of ten or more questions in the target language, making sure that each text contains the answer to all of the questions you created but one. The students’ task is to find the one question that does not apply to each specific text (i.e. there is no answer to that question in the text) 6.Overgeneralizations – This is kind of reminiscent of ‘Spot the differences’. After creating the texts you will write ten or more statements in the target language about them which are true of all the texts except for one (e.g. ‘All the people in the texts play a sport). The students’ task is to find for each of the statements the one text it does not apply to. The statement could be in English or in the L2. 7.List – Create as many narrow reading texts as you can on the same topic. Then display a long list of details in the L1 or L2 taken from the various texts and display it on the board. The task is for the students to match the information on the list to the text it comes from. 8.The most / The least – After creating the text, you will write a number of gapped sentences such as: the most positive person is…; the sportiest person is … the biggest house is…, the person who visited most places is… . Students are tasked with filling the gaps. This technique has the added benefit of drilling in superlatives, a structure that KS3 students of French find quite difficult to acquire. More traditional activities, classics such as true or false or other comprehension questions tasks, cloze, sorting information into categories (linguistic or semantic), ‘Find the French for the following’ etc, can of course follow and are indeed desirable as they truly enhance the power of Narrow Reading tasks. The risk is staying on the same texts a bit too long, which may disengage some students. Narrow listening tasks, recycling the same texts used for Narrow reading by changing a few details here and there are another very effective alternative, depending on the level of the students. Some classes may cope with receiving the same input aurally, some may not. You may have to shorten the texts and simplify the task, when adapting them for listening purposes. You will also have to read them at modelling speed, rather than native or near-native pace. Any other vocabulary tasks / games drilling in the language you embedded in the Narrow reading tasks will be useful before engaging in production. Structured and semi-structured ‘pushed-output’ written and then oral tasks in which the students will be asked to re-use the same language patterns and vocabulary found in the narrow reading texts would obviously be the icing of the cake. 4. Concluding remarks Narrow reading tasks constitute an effective and engaging way to increase exponentially the exposure your students get to the target patterns, vocabulary and grammar structures that you want them to acquire though the written medium. Such tasks are powerful because they do not ask students to simply pick details in response to questions asking who, where and what, which may encourage some of them to simply skim and scan through texts in search of clues which may prompt educated guesses or inferences, but ‘trick’ the students into processing the texts more closely and thoroughly, whilst giving them a problem to solve. This makes enhancing the exposure to the target items more effective and engaging. To-date, Narrow reading tasks have not been sufficiently used in published instructional materials because they are not a well-known technique and are time-consuming to make. You often find clusters of texts of similar topics that share some linguistic features; however, narrow reading texts are most effective, in my experience of using them for over a decade, when they are extremely similar in structure, repeat the same patterns over and over again and when the tasks associated with them have a problem-solving component and even a competitive element. Mounting research evidence shows Narrow reading texts do enhance students’ vocabulary. Moreover, we know from masses of empirical studies that high-frequency exposure to the same patterns (syntactic, morphologica, phonogical, etc.) does sensitize students to them, thereby facilitating acquisition.
字幕列表影片播放列印英文字幕 So, John-Green-Bot, you know when you let me use your computer the other day? Well, I went on YouTube and it was like seeing a completely different website. There were videos about restoring old VCRs and different kinds of cassette tapes, and ads for motor oil?! John-Green-bot: Yes, Jabril! I love learning about other machines. Jabril: Okay, but do you even know what humans are watching these days? What about those Boston Dynamics videos? John-Green-bot: No. The humans in those videos are so mean to the robots! What about Epic Computation Battles of History, or MKB-AI, or Robot Appétit? Jabril: …… what? INTRO Hi, I'm Jabril and welcome to Crash Course AI! Recommender systems are a type of AI that try to understand our brains and make useful recommendations to us. This kind of AI can guide the things we watch by recommending YouTube videos or shows on Netflix for example. On Amazon, it's recommending items to buy, when I search on Google, it's recommending relevant and interesting links. And everywhere online, advertisement servers are trying to recommend products and services. Recommender systems combine supervised learning and unsupervised learning techniques to learn about us. And because we're so complicated, recommending stuff to us is a tough problem that can produce lots of unexpected results. Maybe we get caught in an online bubble and only see tweets from our friends and people who think like us. Maybe we miss a new TV show because streaming sites don't think we'd like it. Or maybe that creepy thing happens where you're talking to your friends about supercomputers and then every single ad you see for the next day is for supercomputers?!? AI that make recommendations can really change what version of the internet we all see. But to understand the benefits and drawbacks of these algorithms, we have to understand where they get their data and how they work. As an example, let's focus on an algorithm that could recommend YouTube videos. Because “The Algorithm” is a really big deal if YouTube is your job, and everyone's talking about the mysterious changes behind the algorithm anyway. Three common approaches are content-based recommendation, social recommendation, and personalized recommendations. Content-based recommendations look at the content of the videos, not the audience. Like, for example, our algorithm may decide to recommend more recent videos, or videos that are made by someone on a list of “quality creators.” But this means someone has to decide who “quality creators” are, or program an AI that tries to predict creator quality. On the other hand, social recommendations pay attention to the audience. YouTube is on the internet so we can use social ratings such as “likes” or “views” or “watch time” to decide what people are watching and should be recommended. But not everybody likes the same stuff, so maybe pure popularity isn't the way to go. Different people have different preferences, so our AI can incorporate that with personalized recommendations. If you like this Crash Course video, maybe we'd recommend other Crash Course videos or videos from my channel. But the problem with personalized recommendations is that it might be difficult to stumble onto new interesting stuff. So, to get the best of all worlds, recommender systems generally use collaborative filtering, which combines all three of these recommenders. When we see a recommendation on YouTube, it could be because that video is similar to other videos that we've watched and liked and other people who have similar tastes watched and liked that video. Or (especially if you're new to Youtube) that video might be recommended because it's popular and lots of people are watching and liking it. Collaborative filtering combines several of the techniques we've already talked about in Crash Course AI. It uses unsupervised learning to find similar people or content, and it tries to use data from those things to predict how we would feel about something we haven't even seen yet. To see how collaborative filtering works, let's use a simple example. In this table, YouTube channels are represented as columns. So, here, one column represents CrashCourse, one is Jabrils, one is The Best of BattleBots, one is The Art Assignment, and so on. Specific users that watch YouTube videos are represented as rows. So this row is John-Green-bot, this one is me, these two are a couple random folks, this one is our producer Brandon, and so on. Each cell in the table corresponds to whether the user subscribes to a specific channel or not. 1 means they've watched at least one video and subscribed, 0 means they've watched at least one video and didn't subscribe, and the cell is empty if they haven't seen any videos. If we look at John-Green-bot's row, he subscribes to Crash Course and Jabrils, so those cells have a 1. He saw The Best of Battlebots and did not subscribe, because of all the robot-on-robot violence, so that's a 0. And he's never seen The Art Assignment so there's no information in that cell. To recommend new channels for John-Green-bot, our collaborative filtering AI needs to predict how likely he is to subscribe to a channel he's never seen before. In this case, let's see if The Art Assignment ends up in his recommendations. To make a prediction, the algorithm needs to look at which other people have subscribed to the Art Assignment. And because YouTube tastes are very personal, instead of looking at all other users, our algorithm will focus on finding the users who are most similar to John-Green-Bot. Finding similar things is a classic unsupervised learning problem. Our AI can look at all the rows, cluster together similar users, and then pick some of those that are most similar to John-Green-Bot, and who have seen The Art Assignment. Let's just say there are 1000 of these specific users, but there are other clusters with thousands of users too that these recommender systems take into consideration. Now, we have a classic supervised learning problem: training an AI to make predictions based on past examples. In this case, we're training an AI to predict a 1 or 0 (subscribe or not) for John-Green-bot based on other users. We can re-adjust the results so that ratings from the cluster of 1000 most similar users are given more weight in the final prediction, compared to those other clusters. And after the predictions are sorted, our AI does predict that John-Green-bot would subscribe to The Art Assignment, so it gets recommended to him… along with some other new channels. Recommender systems that use collaborative filtering AI can take in lots of different data, not just a 1 or a 0, for whether a user subscribed to a YouTube channel or bought a product. A movie rating site might use a one-to-five star rating system. Or a social media AI could keep track of the number of milliseconds a user dwells on a post. Regardless, the basic strategy is the same: use known information from users to predict preferences. And this can get complicated on big websites that gather lots of user information using a combination of different algorithms. The real world is full of a lot of data and there are three key problems that can lead to recommender systems making small or big mistakes. First, datasets that recommender system AIs get are usually very sparse. Most people don't watch most shows or videos -- there just isn't enough time! And even fewer people give social ratings such as “likes.” Doing any kind of analysis with sparse datasets is very computationally intense, which gets expensive, which means some companies are willing to lose some accuracy to reduce costs. Second, there's the cold start problem. When we go on a website for the first time, for example, the AI doesn't know enough about us to provide good personalized recommendations. And third, even if an AI makes statistically likely predictions, that doesn't mean those recommendations are actually useful to us. Online ads run into this failure a lot, where we'll be shown ads for sites we recently visited, or something we just bought. Sure, that's probably something I'm interested in, but I could've figured that out without a recommender system. In a potentially more harmful way, recommender systems don't understand important social context, so “statistically likely” recommendations can be worrying. Recommendations may stereotype users in a socially uncomfortable way. Like, for example, an AI might assume that because John-Green-Bot is a robot, he really wants to watch WALL-E and Robocop. Just because he's a robot doesn't mean he wants to watch robot stuff. Or recommendations might be inappropriate for certain users, like recommending a video that a parent would consider too violent to their children after they had watched a bunch of NERF War videos. And, on social media, recommendations can trap us in ideological echo chambers, where we tend to only see the opinions from people that agree with us, which can skew our knowledge about the world. This idea that we all see slightly different versions of the internet, and data is constantly being collected about us, can be a little concerning. But understanding how recommender systems work, can help us live more knowledgeable lives, and coexist with AI. When we don't want data added to a recommender system's model of us, we can use a private or incognito browser window and not log into sites. If we open a news homepage this way, we might see what the average human (or robot!) is being recommended. Of course, incognito browsers don't mean total privacy, but this strategy prevents sites from connecting data -- like, for example, my Twitter account with my searches for tiny polo shirts on Google (because I needed to get John-Green-bot a birthday present). Plus, since we spend so much time online, we might want to make the most of it with really personalized recommendations. So… seriously… “like, comment, and subscribe” to your favorite creators because as we leave ratings, reviews, and other traces of online activities, recommender systems can learn better models. Recommender systems are a part of the internet as we know it, whether we like it or not. And as AI becomes a bigger part of our lives,these kinds of recommendations will be too. So it's on us to be aware of this technology, so that we know what kind of world we're living in, and the ways AI might influence us every single day. And if you're here to learn how to build recommender systems, my advice would be to think explicitly about the trade-offs that are involved. Deciding how to define the clusters of users or items, can create more or less personalized spaces. In our next episode, we'll work together on some code to build a recommender system, and we'll get some hands-on experience with weighing some of these trade-offs. I'll see ya then. Speaking of recommendations, you should check out Sound Field. Sound Field is a new music education show from PBS Digital Studios that explores the music theory, production, history and culture behind our favorite songs and musical styles. Hosted by two supremely talented musicians, Arthur “LA” Buckner and Nahre Sol, every episode is one part video essay and one part musical performance. So go subscribe to Sound Field! Link in the description below. Crash Course AI is produced in association with PBS Digital Studios! If you want to help keep all Crash Course free for everybody, forever, you can join our community on Patreon. And if you want to check out Sound Field, click the link below.
The Irvine Ranch Natural Landmarks are home to hundreds of native species of plants and animals, both common and rare. In fact, scientists have identified this region as one of the world’s biodiversity “hot spots”, meaning this is one of the few areas in the world with such a high concentration of different species. Made up primarily of Chaparral and Coastal Sage Scrub ecosystems, the Irvine Ranch Natural Landmarks are symbolic of what Southern California looked like before large populations of people moved in. It is no secret that the growth of urban areas surrounding the lands have reduced the available habitat for native plants and animals, but that doesn’t mean we should give up on them… that’s where stewardship comes in. On October 9, 2017, a fire broke out in the area around Gypsum Canyon Road near the 91 Freeway. It quickly spread, burning thousands of acres within the northern portion of the Irvine Ranch Natural Landmarks, including all of Weir and Blind Canyons, and portions of Fremont Canyon. While much of the wildlife in the area was quick to recover, loss of habitat remains an issue. The fire burned through numerous patches of prickly pear cactus, key habitat for the endangered Cactus Wren. Oak woodlands were also impacted, although many of the larger more mature oak trees were able to survive. However, recovery efforts are underway, and there is strong reason to believe that with time the area will recover. “Most of the oak trees started showing signs of new growth soon after the fire, and much of the ground vegetation is back,” said Irvine Ranch Conservancy Project Manager Nathan Gregory, Ph. D. “It could take a few years for the shrub coverage to return to its status before the fire, and decades for oak trees to grow.” Generally found in well-developed canyons with a consistent water supply, these evergreen Oak trees are the cornerstone of Oak woodland habitats found throughout the Irvine Ranch Natural Landmarks. Their roots grow deep in order to tap into underground water sources, but their proximity to the coast allows them to take advantage of coastal fog as well. Their wide and dense canopy provides shade and habitat while their acorns provide a food source for many different animals that need healthy Oak woodland to survive. However, a recent influx of Gold Spotted Oak Borers has put the health of these Oak woodlands in danger. The Gold Spotted Oak Borer is a kind of beetle whose larvae feed below the protective bark layer of the tree, damaging the vital tissues needed to transmit water and nutrients throughout the plant. Extensive work is being done throughout the Landmarks to prevent the spread of this pest and recover lands already impacted. For more information please visit: https://letsgooutsi.de/2xTzmTH. The health and protection of our Coast Live Oak population is essential to preserving the delicate balance of the many interconnected ecosystems that make up the Irvine Ranch Natural Landmarks. Amongst the most commonly seen wildlife on the Irvine Ranch Natural Landmarks, the Mule Deer gets its name from the large ‘mule-like’ ears that help them listen for danger. Generally living up to 11 years in the wild, they feed primarily on high quality grasses and shrubs, preferring to eat at dawn and dusk. They typically flee at the first sign of danger, relying on their speed, stealth, and agility to outrun predators such as Mountain Lions and Coyotes. However, if cornered they will defend themselves, so please be cautious and respect their space if you come across one in the wild. Full grown males, called bucks, grow a new set of antlers every year so they can spar with other bucks for the right to mate with females, called does. Each doe can have up to three babies, called fawns, although most only give birth to one or two offspring at a time. Mule Deer are not considered endangered, but they are still an important part of our local ecosystem and worthy of our protection. Next time you're out on the land, keep an eye out for these beautiful mammals! Register for a stewardship program to help fight invasive species and follow the Landmarks’ social media on June 26 to watch butterflies thrive on the local lands. Summer is officially here! Native plants continue to bloom on the Irvine Ranch Natural Landmarks in the summer sun and butterflies can be spotted nearby. As native plant life thrives, so does the local butterfly community. Nature enthusiasts can discover how native plants help the butterfly community prosper during the first-ever Butterfly Social Media Takeover on the Landmarks’ social media channels on June 26. Join a program on the Native Seed Farm and learn how to help pollinators thrive. Birds, bats, bees, butterflies and beetles are just a few creatures that belong to a very special group of wildlife: pollinators. Although small in size, these pollinators make a big impact on the world around them. Nature lovers are encouraged to discover the positive effects pollinators have on the Irvine Ranch Natural Landmarks and beyond by joining a Native Seed Farm program during National Pollinator Week, June 18-24. Pollination is the first step in the process that produces seeds, fruits, and the next generation of plants. Over ten years ago, the U.S. Senate unanimously approved the designation of “National Pollinator Week,” marking a necessary step towards addressing the issue of declining pollinator populations. Without the actions of pollinators, agriculture, food supply, and habitats could decline. Register for an interpretive program this summer to enjoy the great outdoors and learn about the local lands. As we dive into the summer season, outdoor enthusiasts can lace up their hiking boots and prepare for the ultimate summertime adventure on the Irvine Ranch Natural Landmarks. Whether southern California residents are just discovering the Landmarks or consider the open spaces their second home, there is always something new to learn about the nearly 40,000 acres of protected land. Trail blazers can enjoy the natural habitat while connecting with the land by registering for an interpretive program. Welcome to the Irvine Ranch Conservancy "News from the Field" blog. These articles are written by Conservancy staff about activities and projects in and near the Irvine Ranch Natural Landmarks.
Scripture: Numbers 13-14 - Students will review the spies’ reporting back to Moses about the land of Canaan including the people’s distrust of God, Caleb and Joshua’s trust in God, God’s blessings, and God’s discipline. - Students will learn key trail marking signs to help prevent them from getting lost in the wilderness or on a trail. Guiding Question: How can we mark a trail so that we do not get lost? Materials: pebbles/stones, sticks, forest/hiking trail if possible Procedure: Review the story from Numbers 13-14. Encourage students to imagine what the journey would have been like for the spies to travel 40 days to Canaan. What do you think they saw? How would they know their way back? Review how the people’s distrust in God caused them to wander in the dessert for 40 years. Show them a map of their wandering. Notice that they wandered for a long time, but did not go very far. Ask students if they have ever been lost and how they felt. If they were hiking or exploring the woods/wilderness, how would they mark where they had been so that they could keep track of their trail? Introduce students to trail markings and explain that they can be used to mark one’s own trail, and/or as signs to others who come across the path. You may want to find sample pictures on the internet so that you can recreate some of them with the students. Here are some examples: 1. Turn left/right- make arrows out of sticks or stones 2. Go straight ahead- a small stone stacked on a little stone or arrow out of sticks 3. Do not go this way- Rocks in a horizontal line or sticks making an “X” 4. Start of trail- one stone placed above two stones like a pyramid 5. End of trail- one stone placed below two stones like an upside down pyramid 6. To determine which trail you took if you’re lost, break the branches of trees at a constant height level along your trail. Leave them so that they hang down, but are not completely severed from the tree. 7. Try to look for distinctive features in plants, trees and boulders. Consider if something in nature looks like an animal or person. Name it (example: Turtle Rock). This makes you more aware of your surroundings. Look for nests and caves. Try to focus on things that are stationary unlike animals. 8. If appropriate and you have the right tools/ sharp rock, carve a simple symbol in a tree trunk. Note: Explain that many parks use paint on tree trunks to let hikers know where the trails are. Emphasize that they should use natural signs and not litter or cause unnecessary harm to nature in the process. Let students experiment with making signs. They can even invent signs of their own. - How does it feel to be lost? How does it feel when you see a marker of a fellow trail blazer? - Even if we are alone, God is always with us. How can we show our trust in Him? - God disciplined the Israelites for not trusting Him. Does this mean he loved them any less? How did He still keep His promises? Supplemental Activity: Create a trail for students using the signs from the lesson. Students then have to follow the trail by interpreting the symbols. Students can even create trails for each other to follow.
Large galaxies and galaxy clusters sometimes act like lenses. Their gravity distorts the structure of spacetime, magnifying light from more distant objects. This effect, known as strong gravitational lensing, allows astronomers to study galaxies that would ordinarily be too far to see, map the distribution of mass in the galaxies doing the lensing, and measure the expansion rate of the universe. The CASTLeS (CfA-Arizona Space Telescope Lens Survey) is a program jointly managed by the Center for Astrophysics \| Harvard & Smithsonian and the University of Arizona, which used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to study multiple aspects of strong gravitational lensing as caused by galaxies. Today, CASTLeS team members maintain a catalog of these lenses, updated with new observational data. Credit: C.S. Kochanek, E.E. Falco, C. Impey, J. Lehar, B. McLeod, H.-W. Rix A Gravitational Catalog As predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity, massive bodies change the geometry of spacetime, which affects the paths of passing objects — including light. For very massive astronomical objects like large galaxies, the effect can be strong enough to create magnified, distorted, or even multiple images of more distant galaxies. This strong gravitational lensing effect is a powerful way to study both the lens galaxies and whatever they magnify. However, not every galaxy is a strong gravitational lens. The CASTLeS project began in the late 1990s as a way to catalog every known galactic gravitational lens and discover additional lenses. The project team used the Hubble Space Telescope to obtain high-resolution visible-light and infrared images of more than 20 lens galaxies. They used this data to obtain the galaxy masses and probed the internal structure of the lens galaxies to characterize how much interstellar gas and dark matter they contain. Since the end of the observational portion of CASTLeS, astronomers have identified many more strong lensing systems; as of 2019 the catalog contains 100 galaxies. The data is used to track the expansion rate of the universe and probe galactic structure. The CASTLeS team consists of Emilio Falco and Brian McLeod at CfA, Chris Impey of the University of Arizona, Christopher Kochanek of the Ohio State University, and Hans-Walter Rix of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany.
Whale is the common name for various marine mammals of the order Cetacea. The term whale sometimes refers to all cetaceans, but more often it excludes dolphins and porpoises, which belong to the suborder Odontoceti (toothed whales). This suborder also includes the sperm whale, killer whale, pilot whale, and beluga whale. The other Cetacean suborder, Mysticeti (baleen whales), comprises filter feeders that eat small organisms caught by straining seawater through a comblike structure found in the mouth called baleen. This suborder includes the blue whale, the humpback whale, the bowhead whale and the minke whale. All cetaceans have forelimbs modified as fins, a tail with horizontal flukes, and nasal openings (blowholes) on top of the head. Whales range in size from the blue whale, the largest animal known to have ever existed at 30 m (98 ft) and 180 tonnes (180 long tons; 200 short tons), to various pygmy species, such as the pygmy sperm whale at 3.5 m (11 ft). Whales collectively inhabit all the world’s oceans and number in the millions, with annual population growth rate estimates for various species ranging from 3% to 13%.
Sewage Plants Overlooked Source of CO2 Wastewater treatment plants may be responsible for emitting up to 23 percent more greenhouse gas than previously thought because of fossil fuels in detergent-laden water from residential showers, household washing machines and industrial sites, new research shows. Treatment plants emit greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide when they purify drain water containing detergents and personal care products derived from petroleum. International tallies of greenhouse gas emissions are underestimating the plants’ effect on the climate, however, because they do not account for carbon dioxide emissions when that water is processed, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. A sewage treatment plant in India. Credit: Asian Development Bank/flickr Wastewater treatment plants are responsible for an estimated 3 percent of greenhouse gas emissions globally. Countries will need to consider many different ways to cut emissions in order to meet their obligations under the Paris Climate Agreement and prevent global warming from exceeding 2°C (3.6°F). The study suggests that wastewater treatment plants hold one key to those greenhouse gas reductions. “With increasing interests to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, efforts should also be made to quantify these emissions more accurately,” said study lead author Linda Tseng, an environmental science professor at Colgate University. Food Waste Worsens Greenhouse Gas Emissions: FAO Waste CO2 Could be Source of Renewable Power Low-Income Area Copes with Oil Refineries, Toxic Waste Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change guidelines say explicitly that carbon dioxide emissions are not included in the panel’s tabulations for wastewater treatment plant emissions because they are thought to be derived from natural biological sources and are carbon neutral. The IPCC accounts only for methane and nitrous oxide emissions coming from decomposing human and other waste in water treatment facilities, the study says. But Tseng’s team shows fossil fuels make up a significant portion of a wastewater treatment plant’s greenhouse gas emissions. Tseng and her team of researchers in Australia and California used radiocarbon analyses to break down the sources of the carbon found in the wastewater samples they took from treatment plants in Australia, an industrial petrochemical plant in Southern California and a papermill in Canada. The team found that household wastewater could be composed of up to 28 percent petroleum-derived carbon, increasing estimates of total global greenhouse gases from wastewater treatment facilities by between 13 and 23 percent. The IPCC’s model assumes that all wastewater treatment facilities emit the same kinds of greenhouse gases, but the study found that emissions from industrial wastewater treatment facilities can differ dramatically. For example, the team found that emissions from a wastewater facility at a papermill include almost no carbon dioxide from fossil fuels, but a wastewater facility at an oil refinery contains only carbon dioxide from fossil fuels. Wastewater processing at a sewage treatment plant. “The results of this study provide an opportunity to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, including fossil carbon dioxide, from wastewater treatment facilities,” Tseng said. “Strategies could include developing on-site carbon sequestration technology that runs on renewable energy.” Zhiyong Ren, an associate professor of environmental and sustainability engineering at the University of Colorado-Boulder who is unaffiliated with the study, said the researchers’ use of radiocarbon analyses is a new approach to finding the source of specific emissions at wastewater treatment plants. “Wastewater treatment plants do contribute to global greenhouse gas emissions in multiple ways,” he said. “The majority of greenhouse gas emissions have been viewed as carbon neutral as they are from (non-fossil) carbon as the IPCC report mentioned. That’s why this study is interesting. It points out that actually it may not be true depending on the content and source of the wastewater.” Wastewater treatment plants have the opportunity to cut emissions by capturing the carbon dioxide they produce and converting it to different kinds of fuels — technology currently being researched, said Ren, who is on a federally-funded team to convert wastewater treatment plants into energy sources. “It will be huge to convert a whole industry from (being) a big energy consumer to an energy provider, and also potentially making it carbon neutral or negative,” Ren said. You May Also Like: Warm Temps Slow Arctic Sea Ice Growth to a Crawl Climate Change Increasing Length of Frost-Free Season Sandy’s Surge Was Extreme. It Could Become Normal Oil, Gas and Cows Culprits in Methane Spike, Study Says
What makes people do what they do? Why do some people succeed while others fail? The answer just might be motivation. We know that from an early age motivation prompts us to want to learn and exhibit different types of behavior and stimulates us to accomplish new feats of success. As we grow and mature through the different stages of our lives, we hopefully learn what motivates us and what does not. What is motivation? Motivation is generally defined as the force that compels us to action. It drives us to work hard and pushes us to succeed. Motivation influences our behavior and our ability to accomplish goals. There are many different forms of motivation. Each one influences behavior in its own unique way. No single type of motivation works for everyone. People’s personalities vary and so accordingly does the type of motivation, that is most effective at inspiring their conduct. Types of Motivation A form of motivation that involves rewards, both monetary and nonmonetary is often called incentive motivation. Many people are driven by the knowledge that they will be rewarded in some manner for achieving a certain target or goal. Bonuses and promotions are good examples of the type of incentives that are used for motivation. Fear motivation involves consequences. This type of motivation is often one that is utilized when incentive motivation fails. In a business style of motivation often referred to as the, “carrot and stick,” incentive is the carrot and fear is the stick. Punishment or negative consequences are a form of fear motivation. This type of motivation is commonly used to motivate students in the education system and also frequently in a professional setting to motivate employees. If we break the rules or fail to achieve the set goal, we are penalized in some way. Achievement motivation is also commonly referred to as the drive for competency. We are driven to achieve goals and tackle new challenges. We desire to improve skills and prove our competency both to others and to ourselves. Generally, this feeling of accomplishment and achievement is intrinsic in nature. However, in certain circumstances be motivation for achievement may involve external recognition. We often have a desire or need to receive positive feedback from both our peers and our superiors. This may include anything from an award to a simple pat on the back for a job well done. The need for self-improvement is truly an internal motivation. A burning desire to increase our knowledge of ourselves and of the outside world can be a very strong form of motivation. We seek to learn and grow as individuals. Motivation for growth can also be seen in our yearning for change. Many of us are wired by our personality or upbringing to constantly seek a change in either our external or internal environment or knowledge. We view stagnation to be both negative and undesirable. The motivation of power can either take the form of a desire for autonomy or other desire to control others around us. We want to have choices and control over our own lives. We strive for the ability to direct the manner in which we live now and the way our lives will unfold in the future. We also often aspire to control others around us. The desire for control is stronger in some people than others. In some cases, the craving for power induces people to harmful, immoral, or illegal behavior. In other situations, the longing for power is merely a desire to affect the behavior of others. We simply want people to do what we want, according to our timetable, and the way we want it done. Many people are motivated by social factors. This may be a desire to belong and to be accepted by a specific peer group or a desire to relate to the people in our sphere or in the larger world. We have an innate need to feel a connection with others. We also have the need for acceptance and affiliation. A genuine and passionate desire to contribute and to make a difference in the lives of others can be another form of social motivation. If we have a longing to make a contribution to the world around us, it is generally a sign that we are motivated by social factors. The real importance of understanding the different types of motivation is in our ability to determine which form of motivation is the most effective for inspiring the desired behavior in either others or ourselves. None of these styles of motivation is inherently good or bad, the positive or negative outcome is truly determined by the way they are used. (Photo credit: Businessman Placing Motivation via Shutterstock)Read full content Love this article? Share it with your friends on Facebook
Published at Sunday, 22 November 2020. Worksheets. By Faunia Mercier. There are basic skills every kindergarten needs to know before starting the school year. While the first portion of many school years is used to review basic concepts, teachers quickly move on to new subjects, assuming most children have had plenty of exposure to the basic concepts, including letter and number recognition. The ultimate goal in kindergarten is to get children ready to read, which takes a great deal of time. Teachers typically move on when a majority of the class is ready to learn the basics of reading. If your child is left behind, it could leave him behind for the rest of his school career. Quality may be a little more expensive, but good worksheets will motivate your child to produce neat work that they can be proud of. If you want to start preparing your child for preschool, kindergarten or even junior school, you need to find preschool worksheets that provide a variety of activities. Literacy, numeracy, reading, writing, drawing, social and natural sciences are some of the areas that children between the ages of 3 and 7 can and should start learning about. Look for variety in the worksheets, as repeating the same exercise over and over will bore your child. Lots of pictures, fun activities and clearly laid out worksheets are what you are looking for. If you are just looking for a few fun pages to keep the kids busy while you cook dinner, then many of the free printable worksheets available will be suitable. One way to teach them about money is to make a game out of it. Have some change available and let them win the change when asked a question. Make each question a different value. An example would be question number 1 would be worth 3 cents. Lay the money out for them to choose the three cents and if they do it correctly the first time they get to keep the money. Have some prizes at the end of the game so that they can purchase items again counting back the money to you to make that purchase. This will teach them how to count with out them realizing they are learning. To them it is just a game but they will learn how to count money. Any content, trademark’s, or other material that might be found on the Greenlistlouisville website that is not Greenlistlouisville’s property remains the copyright of its respective owner/s. In no way does Greenlistlouisville claim ownership or responsibility for such items, and you should seek legal consent for any use of such materials from its owner. Copyright © 2020 Greenlistlouisville. All Rights Reserved.
Focus: Atomic Clock Beats the Quantum Limit The best atomic clocks are limited by the uncertainty principle–quantum-scale fluctuations prevent measurements from being perfectly precise. But reports in the 19 February and 25 June Physical Review Letters show that the fluctuations can be moved into other measurable quantities that don’t affect the time measurement. Although the new clock isn’t as good as the best ones now available, it shows that the quantum limit can be evaded for future precision experiments and satellite-aided navigation. Atomic clocks are based on atoms that have a choice of two states, a ground state and an excited state. The difference in energy between the states determines the frequency of an intrinsic oscillation that is set up when the atom starts out in a combination state. Experimentalists can’t measure this oscillation directly, but it’s often represented by a point that continually rotates around the circumference of a circle or the surface of a sphere. The angle through which this point has moved since the beginning of an experiment is called the phase. A precise measurement of the phase is the goal of a clock because the rotation speed is a known quantity, fixed by the difference in energy of the two atomic states. But quantum fluctuations embodied in the uncertainty principle limit the precision with which this phase can be measured, and for a decade the best atomic clocks have approached this limit. In principle, though, researchers have known how to do better. The inherent uncertainty applies to the product of two variables, such as the momentum and position of a particle, so the uncertainty in one variable can be reduced at the cost of increasing the uncertainty in the other, a trick called squeezing. For the atomic clock, instead of position and momentum, the two “complementary” variables are phase and a quantity describing which of the two states the atom is in. To maximize the uncertainty in this quantity–and therefore minimize the phase uncertainty–it turns out that researchers must combine many atoms into a single “entangled” state, in which their individual properties are all linked. The state of this much larger quantum object is represented as a point on a correspondingly larger sphere, where phase is longitude and the complementary variable (state population) is latitude. The uncertainty is an ellipse around the point, and the goal is to make the ellipse extended in latitude and “squeezed” in longitude. Labs worldwide are trying several different squeezing schemes, but a team led by Vladan Vulević of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and another led by Eugene Polzik of the University of Copenhagen are the first to make a clock. In their February PRL paper, the MIT team described using laser-light pulses to entangle atoms in an optical cavity. The conditions allowed the two complimentary variables–phase and atomic state populations–to affect one another without either being measured directly. This situation led to entanglement and to narrowing of the uncertainty ellipse. In their latest work, the team translated their reduced phase uncertainty into a clock. To do this, they applied microwave pulses to put the state of the atoms on the equator–halfway between the ground and excited states (south and north poles)–and then allowed the state to move around the equator for a period of time. Then more pulses allowed the team to measure the progress of the state, that is, measure the phase and calculate the time. The procedure is mathematically identical to the way researchers rotate nuclear spins in spin-resonance experiments. The final timing fluctuations were about three times smaller than they measured without the squeezing. Still, the clock is “not, by absolute standards, a very good one,” admits MIT team member Ian Leroux, because other noise sources prevent the long observation times used in the most accurate clocks. But clock expert Christophe Salomon of the École Normale Supérieure in Paris says the new results are “a pleasure to read,” and he suspects that “there is no fundamental issue why [remaining] classical noise cannot be totally cancelled.” Don Monroe is a freelance science writer in Murray Hill, New Jersey. - A. Louchet-Chauvet, J. Appel, J. J. Renema, D. Oblak, N. Kjærgaard, and E. S. Polzik, “Entanglement-Assisted Atomic Clock beyond the Projection Noise Limit,” New J. Phys. 12 065032 (2010) Fountain Clock Keeps Good Time (Focus, 1999)
Basic purpose of this lecture is to present on How to Calculate Acceleration. Acceleration is the rate of change of velocity of an object. where a is acceleration, v is the final velocity of the object, u is the initial velocity of the object and t is the time that has elapsed. This equation can be rearranged to give: v = u + at. Here also focus on Types of acceleration: Increasing speed; Example: Car speeds up at green light. Decreasing speed; Example: Car slows down at stop light. Changing Direction; Example: Car takes turn.
Heartburn or sometimes referred to as acid reflux, is a common condition that affects many people. It occurs when acid, which normally resides in the stomach escapes back up into the esophagus (food pipe). The esophagus is not as well protected, therefore the acid from the stomach can irritate the lining which can cause painful symptoms that can last for a few minutes or a few hours. - Eating large meals can cause your stomach to produce too much acid. Physically 'overfilling' the stomach can also create pressure and cause acid to escape. - Eating irregularly or too quickly can mean that acid levels in the stomach don't have time to regulate. - Eating on the run or just before bedtime can make it easier for acid to escape back up into the esophagus (food pipe). - Fatty foods tend to stay in your stomach longer because fats are slower to digest. - Foods such as chocolate and mint may have a relaxant effect on the sphincter (ring of muscle) at the entrance to the stomach enabling acid to escape back up. - Spicy foods, onions and tomato products. - Caffeinated drinks and alcohol tend to increase acidity in your stomach. - Very hot drinks and citrus juices may also be triggers. - Hormonal changes during pregnancy. - The baby physically putting pressure on the woman's digestive tract. - Find out more. Other known triggers include - Some medicines, such as those for heart problems, asthma and high blood pressure. - Being overweight. - Wearing tight clothes which can put pressure on your stomach. - Smoking can encourage acid production and cause the sphincter to relax. Did you know? - 73% of people will suffer from both heartburn and indigestion interchangeably - 1 in 5 people suffering from heartburn may experience symptoms every week.
what we're learning... stay tuned each month for updates on curriculum being currently taught Letterland: Students will continue “vowel men” out walking with the vowel pair that makes the long a sound, ai and ay. They learn why ay is used at the end of words instead of ai. The vowel pair oa makes the long o sound. A story about Walter Walrus explains why ow (low) also makes the long o sound. In unit 24, students learn that Mr I and Mr O say their names but do not follow the familiar patterns we have learned thus far. (Magic e, vowel men out walking, or vowel men on the end). Most of the words we learn with this unit are rhyming words (old, cold, fold) and (kind, find, mind). They will also learn the story behind -mb. In unit 25 children learn the sound of ue, ui, and ew. In some words we hear the long u sound as in cue and few. In the words blue, fruit, and flew, the sound is the sound of oo (zoo). Students will learn that y can represent the long /e/ at the end of words. Reading: Students will compare two text on the same topic, discussing basic similarities and differences using illustrations, descriptions, and procedures. First Graders will also identify the reasons an author gives to support points in a text. Writing: We will use authors such as Amy Krouse Rosenthol and David Shannon as mentors. Math: We will continue to add and subtract within 20, while demonstrating fluency for addition and subtraction within 10. Students will use strategies such as counting on; making ten (e.g., 8 + 6 = 8 + 2 + 4 = 10 + 4 = 14); decomposing a number leading to a ten (e.g., 13 - 4 = 13 - 3 - 1 = 10 - 1 = 9); using the relationship between addition and subtraction (e.g., knowing that 8 + 4 = 12, one knows 12 - 8 = 4); and creating equivalent but easier or known sums (e.g., adding 6 + 7 by creating the known equivalent 6 + 6 + 1 = 12 + 1 = 13). Students will understand the meaning of the equal sign, and determine if equations involving addition and subtraction are true or false. Science: Students will be able to summarize the needs of living organisms for energy and growth. Social Studies: Students will explain how and why neighborhoods and communities change over time. They'll also explain ways people change the environment (Planting trees, recycling, cutting down trees, Building homes, building streets, etc.) as well as how people use natural resources in the community. 1st grade teacher at @WeatherstoneES, an aWESome Model NC STEM School of Distinction \| @leesvilleroadhs and @MeredithCollege graduate \| @Seesaw Ambassador \|
In nearly every culture around the world, the season of spring is an eagerly anticipated time of year that comes with a much needed dose of rejuvenation and change. As warmer days arrive and flowers begin to bloom, a renewed sense of hope can be felt in the air. While most of the world’s population commences the seasonal change rather informally, those in India celebrate spring’s arrival in the most extravagant way. In either February or March of each year, citizens across the country partake in one of Hinduism’s most notorious holidays. Holi, or the Festival of Colors, marks a time of celebratory rejoicing for Hindus throughout the holy lands. Although Holi is one of the least religious festivals found on the Hindu calendar, it none the less is one of the most beloved days of the year. Throughout India, citizens use the occurrence to celebrate the arrival of spring, rejoice in the victory of good over evil, and partake in colorful festival activities that captivate the outside world. Additionally, the arrival of spring is used as a time to repair broken relationships, play, laugh, love, and even disregard social norms that have been around since ancient times. As the famous Holi greeting tells us: Holi is a time to reach out with the colors of joy. It is the time to love and forgive. It is the time expresses the happiness of being loved and to be loved through colors.” The History of Holi: The festival of Holi has deep roots within the religion of Hinduism and has been celebrated throughout India for hundreds of centuries. Originally, the holiday was solely recognized as an important agricultural festival, marking spring’s arrival, but over time has transformed into a joyous national occurrence that is regionally celebrated for a wide variety of purposes and accompanied by a diverse set of rituals and ceremonious practices. In addition to being called the festival of colors, Holi is also commonly called the festival of love because citizens today use the occasion as a time to joyously interact with loved ones, make amends to broken relationships, and drop cultural stereotypes associated with the Hindu castes. Just as there is an array of Holi rituals and celebratory practices, there is also a variety of religious folklore stories associated with the holiday. One famous Hindu legend, however, is most commonly associated with the beloved festival. The ancient tale tells us that there was an evil and pompous king named Hiranyakashipu who forced the citizens he led to quit worshipping Hindu Gods and instead bow in homage towards him alone. In spite of this request, the king’s own son Prahlad, who was a devout follower of the adored Hindu God Vishnu, refused to honor his father’s wishes. After becoming enraged with Prahlad, the King cruelly punished his son, hoping to change his uncooperative behavior, but was unsuccessful in his efforts. Eventually, Hiranyakashipu encouraged his equally evil sister Holika, hence the festival name of Holi, to test Prahlad’s religious beliefs by challenging him to sit on a burning bonfire with her. Even though Holika was secretively wearing a cloak that made her immune to fire burns, and Prahlada was not, once the fire began blazing, the cloak miraculously flew off of Holika and encased Prahlada. The fabled story, which is commemorated each Holi, ends as Holika burns while Prahlada survives unscathed, and is used as a celebratory reminder of the enduring victory of good over evil. The Significance of Holi: Throughout the various states of India, the festival of Holi takes on special significance for different groups of people, but generally the holiday is celebrated to say goodbye to winter and welcome spring. Additionally, citizens use the festival of colors to start their own lives anew. Just as the spring weather brings about a vibrant and uplifting change to trees and flowers, Hindus use Holi as a fresh start to new beginnings. Here are a few of the most symbolic ways that Hindus use Holi as the spring season of their own lives: - Let Go of Past Mistakes: One of the chief purposes of the festival of colors is to use the day to forgive and forget past errors made by one’s self and others. For individuals who have made mistakes in the previous year, Holi serves as a perfect time to accept their actions, forgive themselves, and start again with a clean sheet. - Repair Mended Relationships: Just as Holi is thought of as a time to forgive one’s self and forget personal mistakes, it is similarly considered a time to do the same with other people. Hindus use the festival of love to end conflicts, pay or forgive debts, and restart relationships that were previously mended. - Forget About Cultural Differences: One of the most notable characteristics of Holi is that whole communities put aside cultural difference that stem from India’s ancient caste system. Holi is the one day each year where individuals of all backgrounds harmoniously coexist without caste driven labels, much of which results from individuals’ inability to distinguish one another while covered in the Holi powder known as Gulal. - Pray for One’s Inner Goodness to Shine Through: While the festival of Holi is considered to be one of the least religious holidays in India, it still is customary for individuals to pray for their own inner goodness to shine through. Just as Prahlada’s goodness triumped over the evil of Hiranyakashipu and Holika, Hindus ask God to help their inherent goodness triumph over their ego-driven evil. - Laugh & Have Fun: Overall, the festival of Holi is used as a time to celebrate life, laugh, and have fun with others. The day serves as an much needed break from the rigorous of life and Hindus use the day to let loose, forget about their problems, and enjoy the company of friends and strangers alike. Celebrating The Hindu Festival of Colors: Similar to many other Hindu festivals and holidays, Holi is spread out over a multiple day window that is filled with a variety of unique customs and rituals. While some other prevalent festivals like Diwali last nearly a full week, Holi is only a two day occurrence that starts on the full moon night of the Hindu month Phalgun. The specific date of Holi in India will change from year to year, but falls between the middle of February and the end of March on the western calendar. The festival of colors kicks off the night before the actual day of Holi with a ceremony known as Holika Dahan, or the burning of Holika. During this customary ritual, large public bonfires are set up in neighborhoods to symbolize the legendary Holi story of Holika’s burning and the victory of good over evil. As the sun sets or later in the evening, the bonfires are lit and citizens sing and dance around the flames in preparation of the Holi rituals the following day. The actual Holi ceremonies begin the following morning when citizens gathers in public places to partake in the playful ritual of throwing and rubbing Holi Gulal, the colored powered that is closely associated with the holiday, on one another. While traditional prayer is almost certainly part of most other significant Hindu holidays, the festival of colors is thought of only as a day for joyous fun. Upon competition of the colorful fun, citizens will clean up and visit with family and friends. Now, to end this article, it is most fitting to supply you with a short video showing the festival of colors unfolding firsthand:
The Mojave desert is home to an amazing variety of plants and animals, many found nowhere else on earth. Perhaps surprisingly, a large and growing number of them are threatened, with declining populations, reduced genetic variation, and limited prospects for survival. The desert is also the site for dozens of existing and proposed green energy installations that could provide solar and wind energy for the enormous human population of Southern California. Both endangered species and green energy are important, and they clash with each other in parts of the Mojave. With new funding from the state of California and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the La Kretz Center is developing a radical new genomic toolkit to learn more about how desert tortoises use their habitat—where they go, how they traverse the complex soils, vegetation types and topography of the desert, and how tortoises and their genes flow across the desert. By using a genomic approach, we can study literally thousands of genes scattered across the tortoise’s genome to learn, in great detail, how they move and what corridors they prefer in key areas of the desert. Our goal is then to predict, using landscape genetic models, the impact of alternative placements of solar installations on habitat connectivity from a tortoise perspective. Some placements may isolate and fragment the habitat much more than others, and our landscape genomic work should provide quantitative estimates of those effects, projected forward over the next 50 years or more. The La Kretz Center plans to provide this information quickly, so that our agency partners can use it to do proactive conservation planning. By encouraging the placement of green energy sites where they will have minimal impacts on tortoise populations now and in the future, it should be a win-win for tortoises and solar energy.
Hymenoptera: Megachilidae Megachile sculpturalis Smith about 0.75 inch (1.9 cm) Color: Black and yellow-brown Description: Giant resin bees are large with a cylindrical body and large jaws. They have a dark head and abdomen with yellow-brown hair on the face, thorax, and the first segment of the abdomen behind the "waist." The wings are a transparent brown color that darkens toward the tips. Male giant resin bees have a truncated, squared abdomen while the females have a more tapered, pointed abdomen. Giant resin bees can be distinguished from bumblebees and carpenter bees by their cylindrical bodies and the appearance of their abdomens. Giant resin bees do not have hairy abdomens like bumblebees, nor are their abdomens shiny like carpenter bees. Giant resin bees are found around decks, porches, and other wooden structures where the females make their nests in and between wooden boards. They are also seen foraging for pollen on ornamental trees. Females use their large jaws to collect resin, thus their common name "giant resin bee." These are solitary bees that do not form colonies, although several females may build their nests together in the same area. During the summer, females construct individual brood cells in an existing tube or cavity using wood particles and mud. The female provisions each brood cell with pollen that she collects and carries on the underside of her abdomen. She forms the pollen into a ball and lays a single egg on the pollen inside the cell before closing the cell. Brood cells are often capped with resin, mud, and wood fibers. The female will continue to construct other brood cells, often completing as many as eight or ten. The larva hatches from the egg and spends the winter inside the cell. After consuming the pollen ball, the larva pupates in the spring and emerges from the cell as an adult in early summer. Despite their large jaws, giant resin bees do not bore holes into wood. They use available holes made by carpenter bees or other insects. They do not enlarge existing holes or produce further damage to wood. Females will also build their nests in small crevices between wood boards. Chemical control is usually not recommended for giant resin bees, but if desired, locating and destroying each nesting hole will limit their population. Altering their habitat will dissuade giant resin bees from nesting in the area. Because giant resin bees cannot make their own nesting holes, control is based on discouraging carpenter bees from nesting in wood by painting the surface of the wood. Existing carpenter-bee holes can be filled with wood putty, which makes them unattractive to giant resin bees. If there are no nesting holes in the area, female giant resin bees should relocate to a different area where nesting holes are more accessible. Giant resin bees are native to Asia and probably arrived in the United States by ship. They were first identified in North Carolina in 1994. They have since spread throughout the southeastern United States. Given their large size and dark coloration, giant resin bees may appear threatening, but they are actually are quite harmless. The females are capable of stinging but seem to fly away rather than attack humans. Giant resin bees are a different species than the Africanized "killer" bee, so there is no chance that the two species will interbreed. Virginia Cooperative Extension materials are available for public use, re-print, or citation without further permission, provided the use includes credit to the author and to Virginia Cooperative Extension, Virginia Tech, and Virginia State University. Issued in furtherance of Cooperative Extension work, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Virginia State University, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture cooperating. Alan L. Grant, Dean, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences; Edwin J. Jones, Director, Virginia Cooperative Extension, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg; Jewel E. Hairston, Administrator, 1890 Extension Program, Virginia State, Petersburg. May 1, 2009
Colombia INCOME DISTRIBUTION Sources: The Library of Congress Country Studies; CIA World Factbook The question of who has benefited from economic growth has been the subject of considerable controversy in Colombia. In the opinion of some observers, growth during the 1970s worsened the skewed distribution of income. The World Bank, in contrast, has concluded that the real incomes of the poorest workers improved significantly during the 1970s. Data from a variety of sources suggest that there was a redistribution of income toward the two extremes of the population during the 1970s. Income growth was faster for those groups at both the top and the bottom of the income distribution ladder. By contrast, all the evidence suggests that the middle class, which did well in the 1960s, lost ground in the 1970s. For the poor, increased employment of females and other secondary workers at higher wage rates explained most of the improvements; for the rich, the higher income of the head of the household accounted for the betterment. Agricultural workers and small landholders made up the majority of the poor in Colombia in the late 1980s, although this proportion was decreasing. The urban poor consisted mainly of persons without primary education, who with their numerous children were grouped in large households where few of the members worked. The poorest households were often headed by a single parent--typically a woman. Those who worked were concentrated in domestic service, construction, manufacturing, and retail trade. The wages of the rural and urban poor stagnated until the mid-1970s, improved significantly in the latter half of the decade, but then deteriorated somewhat in the mid-1980s. Real earnings, however, improved more than the wage rates in view of greatly increased employment among household members, which was more significant in urban locations that had greater opportunities for female employment. The income per member of poor urban families also was likely to have benefited from the decline in fertility in urban areas. Relative wages in low-paid occupations tended to converge over the 1970s. Those paid the least at the beginning of the decade gained, the better-paid semiskilled workers faced stagnant or falling wages, and higher-paid workers suffered substantial setbacks. Important factors contributing to the improvement in the lot of the poor included rapidly expanding educational opportunities since the early 1950s, reinforced by population, nutrition, and related social policies since the late 1960s. Strongly complementary was the employment boom of the 1970s that enabled increasing numbers of women and other "secondary" workers in the poorer households to find jobs, significantly increasing household incomes. The economic positions of the higher-income group apparently also improved substantially during the 1970s. Rapid economic growth in this period provided ample opportunities for raising entrepreneurial profits, and substantial real interest rates were available to owners of capital. The decade also witnessed booming markets in coffee, emeralds, urban residential housing, and illegal trade. By contrast, persons in the intermediate range of the income distribution fared poorly. This situation was caused in part by the surging supply of educated workers during the 1970s. Data as of December 1988 NOTE: The information regarding Colombia on this page is re-published from The Library of Congress Country Studies and the CIA World Factbook. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Colombia INCOME DISTRIBUTION information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Colombia INCOME DISTRIBUTION should be addressed to the Library of Congress and the CIA.
Electricity & Magnetism Electricity & Magnetism are Connected You can explore these two related phenomena that we use every day here at the Lancaster Science Factory: - You may not be able to see a magnetic field, but you can see the shape of it. It sounds impossible but you can do it here. - Draw on the power of electricity to run motors and lights. Combine them in a different way and see if you need more power or less. - Muscle our you own electricity and power your own household objects. Electricity & Magnetism Exhibits The following are exhibits about Electricity & Magnetism currently on display in the Museum: - Crank Power - Various Science Café activities (rotating) - Electrical Circuits - Light It Up - Magnetic Field Visualization - Magnetic Sculpture
This is a teacher made assessment, 10 questions long, for the story Arctic Explorer. This assessment requires students to make inferences, draw conclusions, identify genres, analyze characters, identify metaphors and/or similes, analyze word usage at a higher level of critical thinking than the story assessments provided by the publisher with the text book. I have prepared an assessment for each story, 10 questions long (with the exception of the 2 page stories where the assessments are only 5 questions long), that will require students to make inferences and analyze the stories at a deeper level than the publisher assessments require. These tests will better prepare your students for both the Unit Assessments and the CST in May. These tests more accurately assess your students' reading comprehension levels, strengths and weaknesses, as well as teach them terms such as metaphor and simile by repetition. These tests expose the students to standardized test question formats as available on the Internet. A few of the test questions are purposely ambiguous so that students must find the "best answer" and can argue that the answer they chose is correct.
Characterictics of expository essays What characteristics make these essays expository both essays have the facts and evidence of each topic and to inform a thesis statement, in a non-biased manner the content of the essays have the support to use in the facts and informative process. What exactly is expository/informational writing the purpose of expository writing is as the salient characteristics of this kind of writing. Persuasive essay characteristics of a persuasive essay the narrative/expository and critical essays to see which one is a better match for your writing purpose. The essay ends with a conclusion that neatly wraps up your essay from the least important to the most important characteristics of a mammal four ways to develop an expository essay topic: systematically organizes information about a topic (someone or something) in the most logical fashion for example. Characteristics and types of expository essays purdue online writing lab defines an expository essay as “which will require the writer to delve into investigation, evaluation, and argumentative processes. Characteristics of expository essay the two essays i read were a soul as free as the air and cochlear implants some characteristics that make these two essays an expository essay are they both informed about the topic with a thesis as it is base, they used examples, and facts to explain the concepts of the essay. Learn how to write an expository essay with this guide to the different types of exposition find tips and strategies for writing an expository article. Characteristics of expository essay expository essay uses evidence, examples, or facts to explain a concept or thesis the information is presented fairly and in a. Characteristics pf expository essaycharacteristics of the expository essay what is an essay an essay, or personal-opinion paper, is an important part of your college experience because it requires critical thinking as well as organization and research. Assignment: characteristics of expository essays due day 7 [individual forum] course syllabus com/150 version 3 9 - answered by a verified writing tutor. Information about expository writing what is expository writing the author describes a topic by listing characteristics, features, and examples. In an expository essay, a type of informational text, the writer clarifies or explains something by using facts, details, and examples in a clear and concise way to write an effective expository essay, students need a basic. View notes - characteristics of expository essays from com 150 at university of phoenix characteristics of expository essays expository essays can have many different characteristics. Read this essay on characteristics pf expository essay come browse our large digital warehouse of free sample essays get the knowledge you need in order to pass your classes and more. Essays, reports and articles all come under this category in detail, scientific reports, reports, encyclopedia articles, term papers are expository writing information and explanation are two main aspects of expository writing characteristics of expository writing: • descriptive: it is one of the main features of this essay science related. In academic writing, an expository essay has three especially distinct characteristics first, it clearly defines the issue or event (etc) which is its subject second, it is very clearly and thoroughly organized from start to finish. In order to write a good expository paper, you need to know what its main features should be this article will present all of them in detail. Characterictics of expository essays Expository papers always require your explanation of something it can be tricky but luckily here's an article that will guide you through the process. What is an expository essay riding on an approach that would satisfactorily address the above interrogative heading would be the best way the expository essay definition is such a topic which has been attempted by many writers but answering what an essay is and then moving on to explain the concept of exposition would be ideal to have a clear. - In class writing what is your expository essay topic look over pages 3-8 in your little, brown handbook then, discuss: how you will limit your topic for the assignment. - When writing an expository essay, you need to show the deeper side of your chosen subject check out our expository essay samples to better understand the process of writing one yourself. - Characteristics of expository essay checkpoint setting the table how to clean fish on my expository essay checkpoint i chose the setting the table and how. Usually, an expository essay seeks to persuade the reader to think, act, or believe something the characteristics of an expository paper are a clear thesis, 3 or more reasons for supporting the thesis, examples which explain those reasons and a conclusion which tells the reader what they need to think about the thesis. What is expository writing expository is pamphlets, reports and research papers what are characteristics of expository writing focus on main topic. Who would characteristics of an expository essay you do not have a dedicated team that is not a rich student, so could you write your paper. In academic writing, an expository essay has three especiallydistinct characteristics first, it clearly defines the issue orevent (etc) which is.
Primary or baby teeth serve several major purposes in a child’s development. First, primary teeth are necessary for your child to learn to speak. In addition, they are necessary for proper chewing and eating. Finally, primary teeth provide space for the developing permanent teeth and help the jawbones and muscles to develop correctly. Teething is the process of baby (primary) teeth coming through the gums, and usually begins between the ages of 6-9 months. ► Read Also : ORAL HYGIENE: Brushing a baby's teeth The lower front (anterior) teeth are usually the first to erupt. All 20 teeth are in place by the age of 3. Around the age of 6-7, children begin losing their front baby teeth, and the back teeth (molars) are not lost until the age of 10-13. Youtube / Delta Dental of New Jersey and Connecticut
Further Information on What Assistive Technology Is A.T. helps people learn, communicate and live more independently. Assistive technology is any product or service that maintains or improves the ability of individuals with disabilities or impairments to communicate, learn and live independent, fulfilling and productive lives. Assistive technology is used in education, employment, healthcare, residential homes and domestic settings. It may be used by all ages, for a wide range of disabilities or impairments, and for a wide range of activities. The range of disabilities AT can help includes: - autism spectrum disorders - blindness and low vision - deafness and hard of hearing - difficulties with computer/web access - communication disorders - mobility impairment - manual dexterity difficulties - learning disabilities - cognitive disabilities The range of products AT covers (in broad terms) includes: - low tech like communication boards made of cardboard or fuzzy felt. tech such as special purpose computers, including those with eye gaze and head tracker - hardware such as prosthetics, attachment devices (mounting systems), and positioning devices, pencil holders. - computer hardware, like special switches, keyboards, and pointing devices. - computer software such as screen-readers or communication software. - inclusive or specialised learning materials and curriculum aids. - specialised curricular and educational software. - electronic devices to control the living or working environment Though the following are also examples of assistive technology (as most broadly defined), ‘architectural products (such as specialized elevators, lifts, ramps or grab bars), transport products (such as wheel chairs (though devices attached to them may be) and adapted motor vehicle), prosthetic devices (such as artificial limbs and eyes), and hearing aids, these are generally outside the range of AT products of BATA members. The range of AT offered by BATA members, in more detail, includes: AAccessible computer input – physical disabilities e.g., adapted or alternative keyboards and mouse, switches and switch access, word prediction, speech recognition, symbol based software, text to speech, word prediction and word banks, phonetic spell checkers, speech recognition, digital voice recorders, electronic memory aids. BAccessible computer input – visual impairment e.g. screen magnifiers and readers, speech recognition, Braille translation software CFor learning disabilities - symbol based software, text to speech, word prediction and word banks, phonetic spell checkers, speech recognition, digital voice recorders, electronic memory aids. Also includes software etc to assist mainstream learning. DVisual impairment – low tech e.g. white canes, talking clocks and watches, liquid level indicators, UV shields protect and increase contrast, writing aids incl signature guides. EVisual impairment – high tech e.g. CCTV magnifiers, reading machines, audio books and audio book players, Braille embossers, screen magnifiers and readers, speech recognition. FDeafness and hearing loss – hearing aids, teletext, close captioning, text messaging (SMS). GAugmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) – low tech (paper or object based e.g. communication books, cards, charts, PECS, eye gaze frames); light tech (simple technology with recording features e.g. single message recorders, sequencers, overlay VOCAs; hi-tech (computerised voice output communication devices VOCA) e.g. dynamic display, dedicated communication devices, computer based communication devices (and mounting solutions, associated aids and adaptations as required). HMobility impairment e.g. crutches, walkers, wheelchairs, scooters, car adaptations, seating, lifts and elevators, hoists. IEnvironmental control systems (ECS) e.g. door openers, curtain and blind openers, remote lights switches, control of TV, DVD etc, some built in AAC devices. JDurable medical equipment as used in the home to aid quality of life e.g. medical ventilators, oxygen tents, nebulizers, blood glucose and blood pressure monitors. Also includes telemedicine. KPersonal Emergency Response Systems (PERS) e.g. electronic sensors connected to alarm system, fall detectors, thermometers (for hypothermia), unlit gas cooker sensors, incontinence detectors. LAssistive technology services include: - the evaluation of the needs of a child or adult identified with a disability, including a functional evaluation of that person in his or her customary environment or place - purchasing, leasing, or facilitating the acquisition of assistive - selecting, designing, fitting, customizing, adapting, applying, maintaining, repairing, or replacing of assistive technology devices; and using other therapies, interventions, or services with assistive technology devices, such as those associated with education and rehabilitation plans and programmes; training or technical assistance for an adult or child (or, where appropriate, the family/carer of the child) - training or technical assistance for professionals (including individuals providing education and rehabilitation services), employers, or other individuals who provide services to, employ, or are otherwise involved in with individuals with an identified disability. British Assistive Technology Association, UK
Aphids are tiny, soft-bodied insects that huddle beneath the fresh, green leaves of vegetables, fruits, flowers, trees and shrubs. They use their pincher-like mouth parts to suck the fluid from the plant, leaving withered, yellow foliage behind. While many commercial pesticides are extremely effective against aphids, most are also hazardous to plants, beneficial insects, birds and mammals. To keep aphids away without harming nearby pets and plants, use a simple spray made from ordinary dish soap and vegetable oil. Make a standard, 1-percent soap solution by combining 3 tbsp. of mild, liquid dish soap and 1 gallon of water. While this is all that is truly necessary to rid the garden of aphids, it is not uncommon for people to include 3 tbsp. of vegetable oil in the mix, as this increases the viscosity of the liquid and helps it stick to the body of the bug. Combine the ingredients in a large bucket and stir briskly, until the mixture is thoroughly blended, then transfer the solution to a spray bottle and apply it to the affected plants. Alternatively, stir 1 tbsp. of liquid dish soap into 1 cup of vegetable oil and transfer the mixture to the canister of a hose-end sprayer; as the water flows through the hose it will dilute the concentrate, enabling you to apply the soap solution to large areas evenly and thoroughly. Spray both the tops and bottoms of the leaves, as this is where aphids tend to congregate. Wait three to four hours, then rinse the soap residue away by spraying the plants with clear water. Reapply the solution two to three times a week until the insects are no longer apparent. How it Works Soft-bodied insects, such as aphids, are protected by a waxy outer coating, rather than a hard shell. The grease-cutting ingredients in dish-washing detergents erode this coating, and as a result, the insects dehydrate. Additionally, aphids breathe through openings known as spiracles. When covered with soapy water, the resulting residue blocks these openings, causing the insects to suffocate. Accordingly, for a soap solution to be fully effective, it must thoroughly cover the body of the bug. Minor aphid infestations can be resolved by spraying the plants with a strong stream of water each morning; however, not all plants respond well to daily watering, and excess moisture can lead to additional problems as damp conditions encourage the growth of fungi and bacteria. Aphids can also be kept to a minimum by encouraging the presence of beneficial insects, such as ladybugs and lacewings. Invite these aphid predators into the garden by including flowering plants, such as marigold, flowering tobacco and sweet alyssum, in the garden’s design. - North Carolina State University Extension Service: Homemade Insect Spray - Oregon State University Extension; Using Home Remedies to Control Garden Pests; S.I. Rondon; December 2006 - "Extraordinary Uses for Ordinary Things"; Marylin Bader, et al; 2005 - "New Complete Guide to Gardening"; Susan A. Roth; 1997
Civilization has existed in Egypt for approximately 5,000 years. In the Neolithic period, nomad hunters settled in the Nile valley. In early Pharaonic times there were two kingdoms of Lower and Upper Egypt. Menes (approx. 3000 BC) was able to unite the kingdoms and wore the double crown of north and south. The Old Kingdom (2757 2134 BC) had a strong central government based in Memphis, which was also the religious centre and was characterised by the age of the pyramids, of which the Giza pyramids and the step pyramid of Sakkara are the most famous. The Middle Kingdom (approx. 2040 1640 BC) collapsed with the invasion of the Hyksos. The New Kingdom (approx. 1550 1070 BC) established its capital in Thebes (Luxor). During this period, Egypts rule extended to parts of Syria and Palestine. However a deterioration of the power of the pharaohs and a rise in the power of the priests weakened the central government. Egypt was successively invaded by Libyans, Ethiopians, Assyrians and Persians. In 332 BC, Alexander the Great conquered Egypt and made it part of the Greek Empire. Upon Alexanders death, his Macedonian general, Ptolemy I, became the ruler of Egypt. The Ptolemies ruled Egypt for three hundred years during which the country was the centre of Greek culture. The last Ptolemy, Cleopatra the Seventh was defeated by the armies of the Romans and Egypt became part of the Roman Empire. In 642, Egypt was conquered by the Arabs and became an Islamic country. In 969, the Fatimids decided to move their caliphate from Tunis to Egypt and built Cairo as their capital. The Fatimid dynasty ruled from Cairo until 1171 when Salah El Din El-Ayubi (Saladin) took power and established the Ayubid dynasty. In 1250, with the murder of the Ayubid Turanshah, the Mameluks came to power and established the Mameluk dynasty. In 1517, with the defeat of the last Mameluk Sultan Tuman Bey at the hands of the Ottoman army, Egypt became part of the Ottoman Empire. In 1798, Napoleons French expedition to Egypt placed the country under French rule for a brief period (1798 1801). After the French withdrew from Egypt, it returned to the status of semi-autonomous province of the Ottoman Empire. In 1805, Mohamed Ali Pasha, an Albanian soldier, was appointed governor wali by Istanbul. Mohamed Ali got rid of the remaining Mameluk princes and leaders and set about establishing an Egyptian army and modernising the country. During his reign, Egypt controlled Sudan as well as parts of Arabia. Ali Pashas grandson, Khedive Ismail, saw the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. In 1882, British military troops landed in Egypt to quell a rebellion and remained as occupying forces. In 1914, Egypt was declared a British protectorate. In 1936, Egypt gained its independence but the British retained its troops in the country. In 1952, an army officer, Gamal Abdel Nasser overthrew King Farouk, and in 1953 Egypt was declared a republic. The last British troops withdrew completely from Egypt in 1956. In 1958, Egypt and Syria united briefly to form the United Arab Republic, a union which disintegrated in 1962. Tensions between Israel and its neighbours - Egypt, Syria and Jordan - led to the outbreak of the Six Day War in June 1967 during which Israel inflicted heavy losses on the Arab armies. Nasser ruled until his death in 1970 and was succeeded by his vice president, Anwar Sadat. In 1977, Sadat shocked the world by flying to Israel as an overture for peace and in 1979 Egypt signed the Egyptian Israeli Peace Treaty. Sadat was killed by army officers in 1981 and was succeeded by the current president, Hosni Mubarak. According to the Egyptian Constitution, the country is a social democracy and Islam is the state religion. The President is elected every six years. President Mubarak has been in power since 1981. There are two governing bodies: the Legislative Peoples Assembly and the consultative Shura Council which are made up of elected as well as presidentially-appointed members. The President also appoints the Cabinet as well as the countrys 26 Governors. Egypt has fought four wars with its neighbour Israel and in 1979 was the first Arab country to sign a peace agreement with the Israeli state. The Emergency Law has been in place in Egypt since 1981 and has been extended every three years, the last time being in 2003. - US State Department Report on Human Rights Practices 2002 http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2002/18274.htm Geography, Society, and Economy Egypts population is largely concentrated in the Nile Valley while the rest of the country is mostly desert. The main cash crop is cotton. Egypt is self sufficient in energy, having petroleum and natural gas reserves. Main revenue sources are tourism, petroleum remittances from Egyptians working abroad and the Suez Canal (Central Bank of Egypt). Unemployment in Egypt is currently at 10.7%. Egypt has a high birth rate with a child birth every 23.6 seconds. Egypts population is expected to reach 96 million by 2026. Egypt is an emigration country with 1.9 million migrant workers, most of whom are working in Saudi Arabia, Libya, Jordan and Kuwait (Al-Ahram, 2004). Egypt reputedly extended refuge to the Holy Family; according to the Bible an angel appeared to St. Joseph in a dream and instructed him to take Jesus and Mary to Egypt and to remain there until it was safe to return to Palestine. Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you. -Matthew 2:13.
Broken Neutron Link in the Sky In stellar explosions, such as supernovae, chemical elements are produced in complex networks of nuclear reactions and decays, involving a large number of unstable nuclei that exist only for a tiny fraction of a second. These reaction chains produce characteristic patterns of element abundances. To understand how the elemental composition of the Universe came about, many properties of associated short-lived nuclei, such as their masses, decays, and reaction rates, have to be characterized. While those isotopes are nonexistent on Earth, particle accelerators at nuclear facilities, such as the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory and the future Facility for Rare Isotope Beams at MSU, allow to create and study unstable nuclei in laboratory conditions. Often, surprises are encountered. A case in point is a recent experiment executed by a collaboration of scientists from MSU, the University of Oslo, Central Michigan University, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. When they studied the radioactive decay of the exotic nucleus of 70Co leading to excited states of 70Ni that are unbound to neutron decay, it was observed that 70Ni subsequently preferentially emits energetic photons – or gamma rays – instead of the expected neutron. An explanation was found in the mismatch in the structure of excited states of 70Ni and 69Ni, the two nuclei that would have been connected by the expected emission of a neutron. This anomaly in the decay properties may have an impact on the synthesis of the elements as the hindered neutron emission is likely to divert the reaction network from the projected path. Contributed by: A. Spyrou (MSU & JINA-CEE), S. N. Liddick (MSU & JINA-CEE), ), A. Gade (MSU & JINA-CEE), ), and W. Nazarewicz (MSU)
Learn something new every day More Info... by email A vector voltmeter is a type of electrical test equipment that indicates both the level and difference in phase between the first and second input. It is a specialized voltmeter that is able to measure vector properties. A vector voltmeter is part of a wide range of test equipment known as vector meters. Vector meters are usually found in electrical design laboratories and special monitoring panels. Vector and scalar are two common representations of real-world quantities of various entities. The scalar unit has no direction, or the direction is implied. For instance, an 11 lb. (5 kg) mass, a scalar, will have a 5 kg weight, a vector. The direction of the 5 kg weight is implied as downward, and the weight of an object is also a vector because weight is a force pointing downward. Scalar quantities only have magnitude, while vector quantities have both magnitude and direction. When the voltage of a 1.5-volt (V) battery is measured with a voltmeter, the result is read as “positive 1.5 V.” When another battery is measured in series, the result may be read as “positive 3.0 V.” If one battery in the series connection has been reversed, the reading becomes 0 V. This is called vector cancellation. Vector cancellation happens when two vectors of the same magnitude but opposite direction are added together. Vectors may add or cancel each other totally or partially. Real-world vectors will not be exactly in-phase or out-of-phase. The phase difference will range from 0 to 360 degrees. A vector voltmeter is able to measure the vector difference between two voltage sources. One example is a three-phase power source where the three outputs have a 120-degree phase difference relative to each other. A vector voltmeter will be able to confirm the phase difference between the outputs. The so-called phase-to-neutral voltage may also be obtained. The reactive components in electrical and electronic circuitry produce a phase shift in the time-varying signals that are introduced. A phase shift can be anywhere between 0 and 360 degrees. The currents and voltages in condensers or capacitors and in inductors tend to have phase differences of 90 degrees. These reactive components in various circuit combinations produce a wide range of possible phase differences at different frequencies. Another use of the vector voltmeter is the measurement of the frequency and phase response of electronic amplifiers. The frequency response of equipment can be plotted by measuring and plotting the input and output levels at various test frequencies. By measuring the phase relationship of input and output at various frequencies, the phase response may also be plotted as a guide in implementing additional circuit stages to obtain the desired overall characteristics. One of our editors will review your suggestion and make changes if warranted. Note that depending on the number of suggestions we receive, this can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Thank you for helping to improve wiseGEEK!
Each of three small oval calcareous bodies in the inner ear of vertebrates, involved in sensing gravity and movement. - ‘All of the identifiable teeth and otoliths from the samples were identified and depth ranges were assigned to each taxon based on the known depths of living counterparts.’ - ‘Growth data from otoliths indicate that sneakers and nesting males represent separate life histories.’ - ‘Like the inner ear in humans, the otolith plays a role in hearing and balance.’ - ‘The macular neuromast organs bear otoliths, as described above.’ - ‘All teeth and otoliths were identified to species.’
Tens of thousands of patients each year are diagnosed with heart valve disease, with many in need of lifesaving surgery to treat the condition. Now, researchers at the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute are working on a tool that could help cardiologists care for patients with the disease. Using highly detailed imaging from CT scans, mechanical engineers are using 3-D printers to make an exact model of an individual patient’s heart valve. These one-of-a-kind models not only represent the size and proportion of the heart valve but can also mimic its physiological qualities — such as how it feels and responds to pressure. The goal is to provide doctors with a new tool for planning procedures to treat aortic stenosis, a condition in which the valves in the left side of the heart narrow, restricting blood flow and potentially leading to heart failure. The condition is commonly associated with elderly patients, and its prevalence is thought to be on the rise as the population ages. Read the complete article in Research Horizons magazine.
Resurgence of the World’s Rarest Penguin A new study has revealed that shifting trade winds and ocean currents have resulted in a doubling of their population over the past 30 years. The Galapagos Islands, a chain of islands 600 miles wide west of mainland Ecuador, are home to the only species of penguin in the Northern Hemisphere. The Galapagos penguin is also world’s rarest penguin. Added to the endangered species list in 2000, their numbers have plummeted in recent decades. The decline started in the early 1980s when a strong El Nino – a time when sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean are unusually warm – caused populations to fall from 2,000 to less than 500 individuals. Dogs, cats and rates introduced to the islands also attacked penguins, disturbed their nests and brought new diseases. However, a new study in Geophysical Research Letters has revealed that shifting trade winds and ocean currents have resulted in a doubling of their population over the past 30 years. Most Galapagos penguins live on the archipelago’s westernmost islands, Isabela and Fernandina, where they feed on fish that live in the cold pool of water on the islands’ southwestern coasts. The cold pool is fed by an ocean current called the Equatorial Undercurrent which flows towards the islands from the west. When the current runs into Isabela and Fernandina, water surges upwards and brings cold, nutrient-rich water to the surface. Algae and fish numbers have been bolstered, and penguin numbers have grown to more than 1,000 birds by 2014. The reason for the Equatorial Undercurrent’s movement 35 km (22 miles) north is shifts in wind currents, possibly due to climate change and natural variability. Climate change could continue to shift wind patterns and ocean currents, expand the cold pool even further and increase fish populations. Penguins, as well as other animals like fur seals and marine iguanas that feed and reproduce near the cold waters, may continue to rise in numbers as the coasts become even more habitable. Yet wind and ocean currents could change again and return to earlier conditions, leading to a decline in penguin populations. “The penguins are the innocent bystanders experiencing feast or famine depending on what the Equatorial Undercurrent is doing from year to year,” said lead author and climate scientist Kristopher Karnauskas. The new findings may help inform conservation efforts to save the Galapagos penguin. Their population growth could be supported by focusing on the northern coasts of the islands, as well as the expansion of marine protected areas north to where the birds are now feeding and breeding. The vast majority of marine organisms will be negatively affected by the rise in ocean temperatures and acidification across the world, caused by climate change. Nevertheless, the Galapagos penguin seems to be benefiting, for now. Karnauskas says: “With climate change, there are a lot of new and increasing stresses on ecosystems, but biology sometimes surprises us. There might be places – little outposts – where ecosystems might thrive just by coincidence.”
Science Highlight: Navigating Low Earth Orbit Via RAIDS When Christopher Columbus set off to circle the globe, he did so without knowing exactly what he would find. He did know, however, what he was looking for: improved human exploration. Likewise, the International Space Station navigates the thermospheric layer of Earth's atmosphere searching for answers to advance long-duration space flight. Flying within low Earth orbit, the station uses instruments like the Remote Atmospheric and Ionospheric Detection System, or RAIDS , to collect data on the atmosphere. In particular, this device measures the thermosphere, which creates atmospheric drag on space vehicles and satellites, and is effected by solar activity. RAIDS also studies the ionosphere, which has a strong influence on radio, radar, and satellite navigation signals. Dr. Scott Budzien, of the Naval Research Laboratory , asserts that understanding thermosphere and ionosphere via RAIDS is important to human space flight. "…analogous to the concept that understanding ocean currents allowed the first oceanic voyages, and understanding tropospheric weather was crucial for development of modern aviation. So too must we understand the near-Earth space environment for the future of routine space travel." RAIDS is an ultraviolet and visible remote sensing instrument observes the Earth's bright dayside atmosphere faint airglow, measuring global electron density profiles at altitudes of 100 to 350 km. It launched on September 11, 2009 and resides on the Japanese Experiment Module -- Exposed Facility, or JEM-EF , of the Kibo module Due to light sensitivity, there is a small margin of error during measurements. If RAIDS scans too close to the Earth, overexposure degrades sensitivity; too far from the Earth and there is not enough light. Likewise, a long viewing path (~1,800 km behind the space station) means small fluctuations in pitch create large alterations in altitude readings. Over the long term, the station momentum management capability allows for pitch oscillation control within three different ranges (± 1.25, ± 0.88, or ± 0.25 degrees), depending on the mission parameters. The advertised pointing accuracy of the station is ± 3.5 degrees, but recent updates by space station Guidance, Navigation and Control improved attitude oscillation control to an impressive ± 0.2 degrees. This increased stability amplified RAIDS science data return by a factor of two. The information from RAIDS will provide the most comprehensive survey of the ionosphere and thermosphere in over 20 years, improving knowledge of the Earth's atmosphere and guiding human spaceflight towards advanced exploration. by Jessica Nimon NASA's Johnson Space Center ISS Program Science Office
Climate change could be accelerated by any major thaw in Siberia’s permafrost, which covers 24%of the land surface of the northern hemisphere. Hundreds of gigatonnes of carbon dioxide and methane might possibly be triggered by the permafrost’s widespread melting. This melting, however, would occur over several decades, indicating the greenhouse gas involved would be initially released on a much smaller scale. Oxford University researchers led the study which focused on stalactites and stalagmites in Siberian caves that had taken shape over hundreds of thousands of years. Scientists can measure the growth and halting of stalactite and stalagmites by cutting through the structures at various points corresponding to given time periods in the Earth’s history. Researcher Anton Vaks of the Earth sciences department at Oxford said that he expects to see continuous permafrost thaw along the boundaries of the threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius in the future. Average temperatures globally are about 0.6 to 0.7 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Vak believes that climate modelers should account for permafrost melting in their models.
A ‘normal' voice is perceived by others when the following characters are present:- - pleasant vocal quality - proper balance of oral and nasal resonance(nasality) - appropriate loudness - a pitch level and range suitable to the age, size and sex of the child - appropriate voice inflections involving pitch and loudness A child with a voice problem may present with: Disturbed vocal quality which is characterised by hoarseness, harshness or breathiness. Resonance or tone problems, caused by improper balance of oral and nasal resonance resulting in Hypernasality (‘too' much nasal sound) or hyponasality (denasal or too little nasal sound which mirrors the nasality associated with nasal congestion). Loudness problems ie the voice is too soft or too loud. An abnormal pitch level that is too high or too low for age, size and sex of child/adult The most common voice disorders in children tend to be hoarseness, hypernasality and loudness problems. The causes of voice problems in children can be divided into four main categories: 1. Organic causes There are five primary sires of organic causes of voice disorders including the : (eg laryngomalacia, growths, trauma) - velopharyngeal area (eg cleft palate, adenoidectomy) - oral cavity (eg oral nasal fistula) (eg nasal obstruction) (eg hearing impairment which may influence loudness, pitch, resonance and vocal quality). Neurological disorders (eg cerebral palsy) and developmental delay may also place the child at risk of developing a voice disorder, which may influence loudness, pitch, resonance and vocal quality 2. Organic changes resulting from vocal abuse and misuse Many children present with vocal hoarseness, breathiness, loss of voice as a result of: - vocal abuse (shouting, excessive talking, coughing/throat clearing, abrupt phonation) - misuse (characterised by excessive loudness or inappropriate pitch levels) this can also result I vocal hoarseness and breathiness. - irritants such as smoking, alcohol or toxic sprays and particular substances inhaled can also cause damage to the vocal cords. The organic changes that can result from abuse, misuse and irritants include :- - vocal nodules ( most common pathological change) - phonation by the false vocal folds (dysphonia plicae ventricularis) - hyperkeratosis (small red thickening of edge of a vocal cord) - nonspecific laryngitis ( thickening and reddening of the vocal cords) 3. Functional causes A functional voice disorder is characterised by normal laryngoscopic examination of the larynx, with abnormal vocal cord vibratory patterns. Functional causes of voice problems in children are generally related to disturbed mutation during normal pubescent changes (eg retention of a high pitch voice in an adolescent male), psychological (eg hysterical aphonia, spastic dysphonia), imitation of abnormal voices in the child's environment and faulty learning (eg a child who speaks abnormally loudly due to his developed speech habits with say hearing impaired parents). Encouraging good vocal behaviour.
In this picture (some features of which are included in Fig. 9), the central star is surrounded by a conducting disk with an inner hole (with a radius RX determined by the magnetic field at the inner disk edge and the mass accretion rate through the outer disk). Shielding currents prevent the threading of the disk by field lines, thus an initially dipolar stellar magnetic field (connecting the polar regions by field lines crossing the equatorial plane at a large distance from the star) has to squeeze through the disks inner hole and is strongly compressed in the equatorial plane. In case of a nonideal disk, with some magnetic diffusivity and in the presence of accretion, the field will penetrate the innermost ring of the disk. This field threaded ring is termed the X-region. Since the disk material close to the star will be well ionized and coupled to any magnetic field, the (entire) ring of the disk threaded by the field (in steady state) has to corotate with the star in order to prevent a winding up of the field lines (i.e., the star has to adjust to the angular velocity of the inner disk edge: * = X = (GM*/R3X)½). The radial extent of the part of the disk which is threaded by the magnetic field is of the order of the thickness of the disk. Material in the innermost part of the X-region rotates at sub-Keplerian velocities and is thus ready to move further in. The magnetic field (which is similar to the undisturbed dipole very close to the star) channels this material in an accretion funnel flow towards some region close to the stellar pole. As the gas moves in, it would like to spin up due to angular momentum conservation. It is, however, attached to the rigidly rotating field lines and thus exerts a forward torque on the star and, more important, on the disk. The angular momentum of the accreting gas is thus stored in the X-region of the disk, which would thus be spun up. At the same time, the field lines threading the outer part of the X-region are inclined to the disk plane by only a very small angle (they have been squeezed through the disk in the equatorial plane from large distances). This part of the disk, rotating at super-Keplerian velocity, can thus launch a magnetocentrifugally driven disk wind: the X-wind. It is powerful enough to open the initially closed stellar field lines (which trace the weak field of the outermost parts of the stellar dipole), allowing the wind to expand. The X-wind efficiently removes angular momentum from the X-region which has been deposited there by the accretion flow. The density as well as the velocity of the X-wind increase strongly but smoothly towards the polar axis: the X-wind has a core-envelope structure. The degree of concentration towards the polar axis (i.e., the collimation of the flow) increases logarithmically slow with distance from the star. In the X-wind picture, the well collimated jets seen as Herbig-Haro or infrared jets are only the densest axial parts of a more extensive structure. The lower density, slower envelope might explain often observed wide-angle winds (e.g. Kwan & Tademaru 1988) and is supposed to be responsible for the widening of molecular outflow lobes (which are driven by the entire wind/jet). The X-wind driven molecular outflow may thus be regarded as a hybrid of a jet driven outflow and a cavity swept out by a wide angle wind. It is not yet clear whether the X-wind model really describes the processes at work in a protostellar outflow driving source. Its strength is that it is able to account for many observations in one, fairly self-consistent model (optical observations of time variable accretion/wind phenomena in T Tauri stars, the slow rotation rates of T Tauri stars, a number of the features of jets and molecular outflows, protostellar X-ray activity).
"Freakonomics" is a 2005 non-fiction book by economist Steven Levitt and "New York Times" journalist Stephen J. Dubner. This bestselling book is an alternative take on the often dry study of economics. Using the book is a good way to freshen up your classes and challenge your students to think outside the metaphorical box. A series of classes or a module on "Freakonomics" is a study of incentives. Download the free "Freakonomics" student and instructor guides. To access the instructor’s guide, you must email the Harper Collins publishing company. Break the book down into its component chapters. For example, the basic six topics based on the chapters would be: "Discovering Cheating," "Information Control," "Economics of Narcotics," "Legalized Abortion and Crime Levels," "Good Parenting and Education," and "Socioeconomic Patterns Regarding Names." This gives you six lessons to base classes on. Write a one-page summary of each chapter. Distill the main points, the counterpoints, examples and conclusions. Prepare a lesson plan for each topic. A basic lesson plan includes an introduction of the point and an example. Ask students to think of their own examples and discuss them. Provide contrasting examples for the class to discuss in groups. These can be examples in the book or original ones that you feel relate to the subject. Finish the lesson by assigning a mini-essay. This engages older students in the ideas of the class and makes them think about the true meaning of each chapter. For younger students, grades 6 to 12, consider worksheets or quizzes. - Wavebreakmedia Ltd/Wavebreak Media/Getty Images
British army, in the United Kingdom, the military force charged with national defense and the fulfillment of international mutual defense commitments. The army of England before the Norman Conquest consisted of the king’s household troops (housecarls) and all freemen able to bear arms, who served under the fyrd system for two months a year. After 1066 the Normans introduced feudalism and mounted troops (knights) and their auxiliaries, infantry, and military artisans. Mercenaries were employed during the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453) and the Wars of the Roses (1455–85) in combination with the militia. With the Battle of Crécy in 1346, archers became important, the longbow being a major innovation of warfare. The first English standing army was formed by Oliver Cromwell in 1645 during the Civil War. His New Model Army was highly disciplined and well-trained. Associated with the excesses of Cromwell’s Commonwealth, however, it was disbanded by Charles II in 1660 except for a household brigade (now the Coldstream Guards). After the Glorious Revolution (1688–89), the English Bill of Rights (1689) gave Parliament the control of the army that it maintains today. During the 18th and 19th centuries, as Britain consolidated its colonial empire, the army grew in size and developed as an effective fighting force. The army established standing forces in the colonies and distinguished itself during the Napoleonic Wars (1800–15). Reforms were carried out to improve its organization and efficiency in the late 1800s. Between 1905 and 1912 the Territorial Force (after 1921, Territorial Army) and Special Reserve were established. The army was greatly increased in size by conscription during World War I but was reduced to a minimum with an end to conscription after 1919. In July 1939, however, conscription was again enforced. Major changes in the British army occurred after 1945. Troops stationed overseas were returned home as the British colonies gained independence, and the military forces were placed in Europe or absorbed into the Home Guard. In 1960 conscription was ended and an all-volunteer army again created. With the introduction of nuclear weapons, the Territorial Army was greatly reduced. In 1964 the Ministry of Defense was established to administer all the armed forces, and in 1972 all army forces were placed under Headquarters United Kingdom Land Forces. The secretary of state for defense is responsible to the prime minister and the cabinet. He is advised by the chief of defense staff, who is aided by the three service chiefs. In the aftermath of the Cold War, both the regular army and its reserve forces were reorganized and reduced in strength.
Reef-building stony corals are a partnership between an animal host and symbiotic microalgae that live in the animal tissues. As with other plants, the algal symbionts use energy from sunlight to make sugars through photosynthesis, and this contribution is critical to the survival of the host because the coral receives most of its nutrition from the algae. Many external stress events (freshwater, unusually cold or hot temperatures) can cause coral bleaching (i.e., the paling of the coral tissues due to the loss of its algae and/or their photosynthetic pigments), but none is so devastating over large spatial scales as the abnormally warm sea temperatures linked to global climate change. The symbiosis between the coral host and its algal symbiont is sensitive to even small temperature increases; an increase of just 1.0–1.5 °C is typically enough to reach the point where the symbiosis breaks down and the coral host loses the majority of the algal symbionts. Past research by AIMS scientists has shown that different populations of the same coral species can be dominated by different genetic types of microalgae and that some of these symbioses are more heat stable than others. Further work has shown that some coral colonies contain more than one type of symbiont and that the symbiont community of a coral colony can change over time. The change is brought about by changing the order of dominance between coexisting types ("symbiont shuffling") rather than uptake of new symbiont types from the environment ("symbiont switching"). Initial reactions to these research findings have been varied but one of the most compelling arguments against the importance of symbiont shuffling as a mechanism to acclimatize to climate change is that only few corals have been shown to possess more than one type of symbiont. The latest results by AIMS scientists in collaboration with the Netherlands' University of Groningen show that the perception of low symbiont diversity within individual corals colonies is a significant underestimate that has been driven by the insensitivity of the current generation of genetic screens. The development of new techniques–100 times more powerful than conventional methods–has provided the first evidence that many coral colonies store an unrecognised diversity of microalgae, which make the potential of symbiont shuffling far greater than is currently thought.
Maneuvering in Space The point at which the spacecraft goes into orbit is generally the high point of its orbit, called the apogee. It then ‘falls’ around the earth to a low point, called the perigee. Here is where Kepler’s laws come into play again. At apogee, the spaceship’s speed is at its slowest. At perigee it is at its fastest. Very often, it is necessary to raise the perigee, and sometimes to change the elliptical orbit into a circular orbit. How is this done? The speed at apogee must be increased. Firing a rocket motor there will raise the perigee without affecting the apogee. By the same token, firing a motor at perigee will raise the apogee without affecting the perigee. This is how a LEO orbit can be changed into a higher orbit. Usually it is desired to raise both the apogee and perigee, and circularize the orbit. This requires two burns—one at each of the critical points in the orbit. These burns are called delta v, or changing velocity. In those we’ve discussed, the burns are done in the direction of travel and are called posigrade burns. It is also possible to move a spacecraft from a high orbit to a lower orbit with retrograde burns. In this case the burns are done opposite to the direction of travel. This of course is how the shuttle ends its flights and reenters the atmosphere. It is not just altitude and shape that can be changed by engine burns. A spacecraft enters orbit at a particular orbital inclination—that is, an angle to the equator. Inclination can also be changed with delta v, but it must be applied perpendicular to the direction of travel and in the direction of the desired inclination change. In low orbits, only very small inclination changes can be made. At very high orbits, inclinations can be changed as much as 30 degrees. This is possible because the orbital velocity is low, as low as around 6000 mph in some, and the pull of gravity is much less than in LEOs. Therefore, less energy is required to change the inclination.
The principle of linguistic relativity holds that the structure of a language affects its speakers' world view or cognition. Popularly known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, or Whorfianism, the principle is often defined to include two versions. The strong version says that language determines thought, and that linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive categories, whereas the weak version says that linguistic categories and usage only influence thought and decisions. The term "Sapir–Whorf hypothesis" is considered a misnomer by linguists for several reasons: Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf never co-authored any works, and never stated their ideas in terms of a hypothesis. The distinction between a weak and a strong version of this hypothesis is also a later invention; Sapir and Whorf never set up such a dichotomy, although often in their writings their views of this relativity principle are phrased in stronger or weaker terms. The idea was first clearly expressed by 19th-century thinkers, such as Wilhelm von Humboldt, who saw language as the expression of the spirit of a nation. Members of the early 20th-century school of American anthropology headed by Franz Boas and Edward Sapir also embraced forms of the idea to one extent or another, including in a 1928 meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, but Sapir in particular wrote more often against than in favor of anything like linguistic determinism. Sapir's student, Benjamin Lee Whorf, came to be seen as the primary proponent as a result of his published observations of how he perceived linguistic differences to have consequences in human cognition and behavior. Harry Hoijer, one of Sapir's students, introduced the term "Sapir–Whorf hypothesis", even though the two scholars never formally advanced any such hypothesis. A strong version of relativist theory was developed from the late 1920s by the German linguist Leo Weisgerber. Whorf's principle of linguistic relativity was reformulated as a testable hypothesis by Roger Brown and Eric Lenneberg who conducted experiments designed to find out whether color perception varies between speakers of languages that classified colors differently. As the study of the universal nature of human language and cognition came into focus in the 1960s the idea of linguistic relativity fell out of favor among linguists. A 1969 study by Brent Berlin and Paul Kay demonstrated the existence of universal semantic constraints in the field of colour terminology which were widely seen to discredit the existence of linguistic relativity in this domain, although this conclusion has been disputed by relativist researchers. From the late 1980s, a new school of linguistic relativity scholars has examined the effects of differences in linguistic categorization on cognition, finding broad support for non-deterministic versions of the hypothesis in experimental contexts. Some effects of linguistic relativity have been shown in several semantic domains, although they are generally weak. Currently, a balanced view of linguistic relativity is espoused by most linguists holding that language influences certain kinds of cognitive processes in non-trivial ways, but that other processes are better seen as arising from connectionist factors. Research is focused on exploring the ways and extent to which language influences thought. The principle of linguistic relativity and the relation between language and thought has also received attention in varying academic fields from philosophy to psychology and anthropology, and it has also inspired and coloured works of fiction and the invention of constructed languages. The strongest form of the theory is linguistic determinism, which holds that language entirely determines the range of cognitive processes. The hypothesis of linguistic determinism is now generally agreed to be false. This is the weaker form, proposing that language provides constraints in some areas of cognition, but that it is by no means determinative. Research on weaker forms have produced positive empirical evidence for a relationship. The idea that language and thought are intertwined is ancient. Plato argued against sophist thinkers such as Gorgias of Leontini, who held that the physical world cannot be experienced except through language; this made the question of truth dependent on aesthetic preferences or functional consequences. Plato held instead that the world consisted of eternal ideas and that language should reflect these ideas as accurately as possible. Following Plato, St. Augustine, for example, held the view that language was merely labels applied to already existing concepts. This view remained prevalent throughout the Middle Ages. Roger Bacon held the opinion that language was but a veil covering up eternal truths, hiding them from human experience. For Immanuel Kant, language was but one of several tools used by humans to experience the world. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the idea of the existence of different national characters, or "Volksgeister", of different ethnic groups was the moving force behind the German romantics school and the beginning ideologies of ethnic nationalism. In 1820, Wilhelm von Humboldt connected the study of language to the national romanticist program by proposing the view that language is the fabric of thought. Thoughts are produced as a kind of internal dialog using the same grammar as the thinker's native language. This view was part of a larger picture in which the world view of an ethnic nation, their "Weltanschauung", was seen as being faithfully reflected in the grammar of their language. Von Humboldt argued that languages with an inflectional morphological type, such as German, English and the other Indo-European languages, were the most perfect languages and that accordingly this explained the dominance of their speakers over the speakers of less perfect languages. Wilhelm von Humboldt declared in 1820: The diversity of languages is not a diversity of signs and sounds but a diversity of views of the world. The idea that some languages are superior to others and that lesser languages maintained their speakers in intellectual poverty was widespread in the early 20th century. American linguist William Dwight Whitney, for example, actively strove to eradicate Native American languages, arguing that their speakers were savages and would be better off learning English and adopting a civilized way of life. The first anthropologist and linguist to challenge this view was Franz Boas. While undertaking geographical research in northern Canada he became fascinated with the Inuit people and decided to become an ethnographer. Boas stressed the equal worth of all cultures and languages, that there was no such thing as a primitive language and that all languages were capable of expressing the same content, albeit by widely differing means. Boas saw language as an inseparable part of culture and he was among the first to require of ethnographers to learn the native language of the culture under study and to document verbal culture such as myths and legends in the original language. It does not seem likely [...] that there is any direct relation between the culture of a tribe and the language they speak, except in so far as the form of the language will be moulded by the state of the culture, but not in so far as a certain state of the culture is conditioned by the morphological traits of the language." Boas' student Edward Sapir reached back to the Humboldtian idea that languages contained the key to understanding the world views of peoples. He espoused the viewpoint that because of the differences in the grammatical systems of languages no two languages were similar enough to allow for perfect cross-translation. Sapir also thought because language represented reality differently, it followed that the speakers of different languages would perceive reality differently. No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached. On the other hand, Sapir explicitly rejected strong linguistic determinism by stating, "It would be naïve to imagine that any analysis of experience is dependent on pattern expressed in language." Sapir was explicit that the connections between language and culture were neither thoroughgoing nor particularly deep, if they existed at all: It is easy to show that language and culture are not intrinsically associated. Totally unrelated languages share in one culture; closely related languages—even a single language—belong to distinct culture spheres. There are many excellent examples in Aboriginal America. The Athabaskan languages form as clearly unified, as structurally specialized, a group as any that I know of. The speakers of these languages belong to four distinct culture areas... The cultural adaptability of the Athabaskan-speaking peoples is in the strangest contrast to the inaccessibility to foreign influences of the languages themselves. Sapir offered similar observations about speakers of so-called "world" or "modern" languages, noting, "possession of a common language is still and will continue to be a smoother of the way to a mutual understanding between England and America, but it is very clear that other factors, some of them rapidly cumulative, are working powerfully to counteract this leveling influence. A common language cannot indefinitely set the seal on a common culture when the geographical, physical, and economics determinants of the culture are no longer the same throughout the area." While Sapir never made a point of studying directly how languages affected thought, some notion of (probably "weak") linguistic relativity underlay his basic understanding of language, and would be taken up by Whorf. Drawing on influences such as Humboldt and Friedrich Nietzsche, some European thinkers developed ideas similar to those of Sapir and Whorf, generally working in isolation from each other. Prominent in Germany from the late 1920s through into the 1960s were the strongly relativist theories of Leo Weisgerber and his key concept of a 'linguistic inter-world', mediating between external reality and the forms of a given language, in ways peculiar to that language. Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky read Sapir's work and experimentally studied the ways in which the development of concepts in children was influenced by structures given in language. His 1934 work "Thought and Language" has been compared to Whorf's and taken as mutually supportive evidence of language's influence on cognition. Drawing on Nietzsche's ideas of perspectivism Alfred Korzybski developed the theory of general semantics that has been compared to Whorf's notions of linguistic relativity. Though influential in their own right, this work has not been influential in the debate on linguistic relativity, which has tended to center on the American paradigm exemplified by Sapir and Whorf. More than any linguist, Benjamin Lee Whorf has become associated with what he called the "linguistic relativity principle". Studying Native American languages, he attempted to account for the ways in which grammatical systems and language use differences affected perception. Whorf also examined how a scientific account of the world differed from a religious account, which led him to study the original languages of religious scripture and to write several anti-evolutionist pamphlets. Whorf's opinions regarding the nature of the relation between language and thought remain under contention. Critics such as Lenneberg, Black and Pinker attribute to Whorf a strong linguistic determinism, while Lucy, Silverstein and Levinson point to Whorf's explicit rejections of determinism, and where he contends that translation and commensuration is possible. Although Whorf lacked an advanced degree in linguistics, his reputation reflects his acquired competence. His peers at Yale University considered the 'amateur' Whorf to be the best man available to take over Sapir's graduate seminar in Native American linguistics while Sapir was on sabbatical in 1937–38. He was highly regarded by authorities such as Boas, Sapir, Bloomfield and Tozzer. Indeed, Lucy wrote, "despite his 'amateur' status, Whorf's work in linguistics was and still is recognized as being of superb professional quality by linguists". Detractors such as Lenneberg, Chomsky and Pinker criticized him for insufficient clarity in his description of how language influences thought, and for not proving his conjectures. Most of his arguments were in the form of anecdotes and speculations that served as attempts to show how 'exotic' grammatical traits were connected to what were apparently equally exotic worlds of thought. In Whorf's words: We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native language. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscope flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds—and this means largely by the linguistic systems of our minds. We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way—an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language [...] all observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar, or can in some way be calibrated. Among Whorf's best-known examples of linguistic relativity are instances where an indigenous language has several terms for a concept that is only described with one word in European languages (Whorf used the acronym SAE "Standard Average European" to allude to the rather similar grammatical structures of the well-studied European languages in contrast to the greater diversity of less-studied languages). Another is the Hopi language's words for water, one indicating drinking water in a container and another indicating a natural body of water. These examples of polysemy served the double purpose of showing that indigenous languages sometimes made more fine grained semantic distinctions than European languages and that direct translation between two languages, even of seemingly basic concepts such as snow or water, is not always possible. Another example from Whorf's experience as a chemical engineer working for an insurance company as a fire inspector. While inspecting a chemical plant he observed that the plant had two storage rooms for gasoline barrels, one for the full barrels and one for the empty ones. He further noticed that while no employees smoked cigarettes in the room for full barrels, no-one minded smoking in the room with empty barrels, although this was potentially much more dangerous because of the highly flammable vapors still in the barrels. He concluded that the use of the word empty in connection to the barrels had led the workers to unconsciously regard them as harmless, although consciously they were probably aware of the risk of explosion. This example was later criticized by Lenneberg as not actually demonstrating causality between the use of the word empty and the action of smoking, but instead was an example of circular reasoning. Pinker in The Language Instinct ridiculed this example, claiming that this was a failing of human insight rather than language. Whorf's most elaborate argument for linguistic relativity regarded what he believed to be a fundamental difference in the understanding of time as a conceptual category among the Hopi. He argued that in contrast to English and other SAE languages, Hopi does not treat the flow of time as a sequence of distinct, countable instances, like "three days" or "five years," but rather as a single process and that consequently it has no nouns referring to units of time as SAE speakers understand them. He proposed that this view of time was fundamental to Hopi culture and explained certain Hopi behavioral patterns. Malotki later claimed that he had found no evidence of Whorf's claims in 1980's era speakers, nor in historical documents dating back to the arrival of Europeans. Malotki used evidence from archaeological data, calendars, historical documents, modern speech and concluded that there was no evidence that Hopi conceptualize time in the way Whorf suggested. Universalist scholars such as Pinker often see Malotki's study as a final refutation of Whorf's claim about Hopi, whereas relativist scholars such as Lucy and Penny Lee criticized Malotki's study for mischaracterizing Whorf's claims and for forcing Hopi grammar into a model of analysis that doesn't fit the data. Whorf died in 1941 at age 44, leaving multiple unpublished papers. His line of thought was continued by linguists and anthropologists such as Hoijer and Lee who both continued investigations into the effect of language on habitual thought, and Trager, who prepared a number of Whorf's papers for posthumous publishing. The most important event for the dissemination of Whorf's ideas to a larger public was the publication in 1956 of his major writings on the topic of linguistic relativity in a single volume titled Language, Thought and Reality. In 1953, Eric Lenneberg criticised Whorf's examples from an objectivist view of language holding that languages are principally meant to represent events in the real world and that even though languages express these ideas in various ways, the meanings of such expressions and therefore the thoughts of the speaker are equivalent. He argued that Whorf's English descriptions of a Hopi speaker's view of time were in fact translations of the Hopi concept into English, therefore disproving linguistic relativity. However Whorf was concerned with how the habitual use of language influences habitual behavior, rather than translatability. Whorf's point was that while English speakers may be able to understand how a Hopi speaker thinks, they do not think in that way. Lenneberg's main criticism of Whorf's works was that he never showed the connection between a linguistic phenomenon and a mental phenomenon. With Brown, Lenneberg proposed that proving such a connection required directly matching linguistic phenomena with behavior. They assessed linguistic relativity experimentally and published their findings in 1954. Since neither Sapir nor Whorf had ever stated a formal hypothesis, Brown and Lenneberg formulated their own. Their two tenets were (i) "the world is differently experienced and conceived in different linguistic communities" and (ii) "language causes a particular cognitive structure". Brown later developed them into the so-called "weak" and "strong" formulation: - Structural differences between language systems will, in general, be paralleled by nonlinguistic cognitive differences, of an unspecified sort, in the native speakers of the language. - The structure of anyone's native language strongly influences or fully determines the worldview he will acquire as he learns the language. Brown's formulations became widely known and were retrospectively attributed to Whorf and Sapir although the second formulation, verging on linguistic determinism, was never advanced by either of them. Since Brown and Lenneberg believed that the objective reality denoted by language was the same for speakers of all languages, they decided to test how different languages codified the same message differently and whether differences in codification could be proven to affect behavior. They designed experiments involving the codification of colors. In their first experiment, they investigated whether it was easier for speakers of English to remember color shades for which they had a specific name than to remember colors that were not as easily definable by words. This allowed them to compare the linguistic categorization directly to a non-linguistic task. In a later experiment, speakers of two languages that categorize colors differently (English and Zuni) were asked to recognize colors. In this way, it could be determined whether the differing color categories of the two speakers would determine their ability to recognize nuances within color categories. Brown and Lenneberg found that Zuñi speakers who classify green and blue together as a single color did have trouble recognizing and remembering nuances within the green/blue category. Brown and Lenneberg's study began a tradition of investigation of linguistic relativity through color terminology. Lenneberg was also one of the first cognitive scientists to begin development of the Universalist theory of language that was formulated by Chomsky in the form of Universal Grammar, effectively arguing that all languages share the same underlying structure. The Chomskyan school also holds the belief that linguistic structures are largely innate and that what are perceived as differences between specific languages are surface phenomena that do not affect the brain's universal cognitive processes. This theory became the dominant paradigm in American linguistics from the 1960s through the 1980s, while linguistic relativity became the object of ridicule. Examples of universalist influence in the 1960s are the studies by Berlin and Kay who continued Lenneberg's color research. They studied color terminology formation and showed clear universal trends in color naming. For example, they found that even though languages have different color terminologies, they generally recognize certain hues as more focal than others. They showed that in languages with few color terms, it is predictable from the number of terms which hues are chosen as focal colors, for example, languages with only three color terms always have the focal colors black, white and red. The fact that what had been believed to be random differences between color naming in different languages could be shown to follow universal patterns was seen as a powerful argument against linguistic relativity. Berlin and Kay's research has since been criticized by relativists such as Lucy, who argued that Berlin and Kay's conclusions were skewed by their insistence that color terms encode only color information. This, Lucy argues, made them blind to the instances in which color terms provided other information that might be considered examples of linguistic relativity. Other universalist researchers dedicated themselves to dispelling other aspects of linguistic relativity, often attacking Whorf's specific points and examples. For example, Malotki's monumental study of time expressions in Hopi presented many examples that challenged Whorf's "timeless" interpretation of Hopi language and culture. Today many followers of the universalist school of thought still oppose linguistic relativity. For example, Pinker argues in The Language Instinct that thought is independent of language, that language is itself meaningless in any fundamental way to human thought, and that human beings do not even think in "natural" language, i.e. any language that we actually communicate in; rather, we think in a meta-language, preceding any natural language, called "mentalese." Pinker attacks what he calls "Whorf's radical position," declaring, "the more you examine Whorf's arguments, the less sense they make." Joshua Fishman argued that Whorf's true position was largely overlooked. In 1978, he suggested that Whorf was a "neo-Herderian champion" and in 1982, he proposed "Whorfianism of the third kind" in an attempt to refocus linguists' attention on what he claimed was Whorf's real interest, namely the intrinsic value of "little peoples" and "little languages". Whorf had criticized Ogden's Basic English thus: But to restrict thinking to the patterns merely of English […] is to lose a power of thought which, once lost, can never be regained. It is the 'plainest' English which contains the greatest number of unconscious assumptions about nature. […] We handle even our plain English with much greater effect if we direct it from the vantage point of a multilingual awareness. Where Brown's weak version of the linguistic relativity hypothesis proposes that language influences thought and the strong version that language determines thought, Fishman's 'Whorfianism of the third kind' proposes that language is a key to culture. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, advances in cognitive psychology and cognitive linguistics renewed interest in the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. One of those who adopted a more Whorfian approach was George Lakoff. He argued that language is often used metaphorically and that languages use different cultural metaphors that reveal something about how speakers of that language think. For example, English employs conceptual metaphors likening time with money, so that time can be saved and spent and invested, whereas other languages do not talk about time in that way. Other such metaphors are common to many languages because they are based on general human experience, for example, metaphors likening up with good and bad with down. Lakoff also argued that metaphor plays an important part in political debates such as the "right to life" or the "right to choose"; or "illegal aliens" or "undocumented workers". In his book Women, Fire and Dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind, Lakoff reappraised linguistic relativity and especially Whorf's views about how linguistic categorization reflects and/or influences mental categories. He concluded that the debate had been confused. He described four parameters on which researchers differed in their opinions about what constitutes linguistic relativity. One parameter is the degree and depth of linguistic relativity. Perhaps a few examples of superficial differences in language and associated behavior are enough to demonstrate the existence of linguistic relativity. Alternatively, perhaps only deep differences that permeate the linguistic and cultural system suffice. A second parameter is whether conceptual systems are absolute or whether they can evolve. A third parameter is whether the similarity criterion is translatability or the use of linguistic expressions. A fourth parameter is whether the locus of linguistic relativity is in language or in the brain. Lakoff concluded that many of Whorf's critics had criticized him using novel definitions of linguistic relativity, rendering their criticisms moot. The publication of the 1996 anthology Rethinking Linguistic Relativity edited by Gumperz and Levinson began a new period of linguistic relativity studies that focused on cognitive and social aspects. The book included studies on the linguistic relativity and universalist traditions. Levinson documented significant linguistic relativity effects in the linguistic conceptualization of spatial categories between languages. Separate studies by Bowerman and Slobin treated the role of language in cognitive processes. Bowerman showed that certain cognitive processes did not use language to any significant extent and therefore could not be subject to linguistic relativity. Slobin described another kind of cognitive process that he named "thinking for speaking" – the kind of process in which perceptional data and other kinds of prelinguistic cognition are translated into linguistic terms for communication. These, Slobin argues, are the kinds of cognitive process that are at the root of linguistic relativity. Researchers such as Boroditsky, Lucy and Levinson believe that language influences thought in more limited ways than the broadest early claims. Researchers examine the interface between thought (or cognition), language and culture and describe the relevant influences. They use experimental data to back up their conclusions. Kay ultimately concluded that "[the] Whorf hypothesis is supported in the right visual field but not the left". His findings show that accounting for brain lateralization offers another perspective. Psycholinguistic studies explored motion perception, emotion perception, object representation and memory. The gold standard of psycholinguistic studies on linguistic relativity is now finding non-linguistic cognitive differences in speakers of different languages (thus rendering inapplicable Pinker's criticism that linguistic relativity is "circular"). Recent work with bilingual speakers attempts to distinguish the effects of language from those of culture on bilingual cognition including perceptions of time, space, motion, colors and emotion. Researchers described differences between bilinguals and monolinguals in perception of color, representations of time and other elements of cognition. Lucy identified three main strands of research into linguistic relativity. The "structure-centered" approach starts with a language's structural peculiarity and examines its possible ramifications for thought and behavior. The defining example is Whorf's observation of discrepancies between the grammar of time expressions in Hopi and English. More recent research in this vein is Lucy's research describing how usage of the categories of grammatical number and of numeral classifiers in the Mayan language Yucatec result in Mayan speakers classifying objects according to material rather than to shape as preferred by English speakers. The "domain-centered" approach selects a semantic domain and compares it across linguistic and cultural groups. It centered on color terminology, although this domain is acknowledged to be sub-optimal, because color perception, unlike other semantic domains, is hardwired into the neural system and as such is subject to more universal restrictions than other semantic domains. Space is another semantic domain that has proven fruitful for linguistic relativity studies. Spatial categories vary greatly across languages. Speakers rely on the linguistic conceptualization of space in performing many ordinary tasks. Levinson and others reported three basic spatial categorizations. While many languages use combinations of them, some languages exhibit only one type and related behaviors. For example, Yimithirr only uses absolute directions when describing spatial relations — the position of everything is described by using the cardinal directions. Speakers define a location as "north of the house", while an English speaker may use relative positions, saying "in front of the house" or "to the left of the house". The "behavior centered" approach starts by comparing behavior across linguistic groups and then searches for causes for that behavior in the linguistic system. Whorf attributed the occurrence of fires at a chemical plant to the workers' use of the word 'empty' to describe the barrels containing only explosive vapors. Bloom noticed that speakers of Chinese had unexpected difficulties answering counter-factual questions posed to them in a questionnaire. He concluded that this was related to the way in which counter-factuality is marked grammatically in Chinese. Other researchers attributed this result to Bloom's flawed translations. Strømnes examined why Finnish factories had a higher occurrence of work related accidents than similar Swedish ones. He concluded that cognitive differences between the grammatical usage of Swedish prepositions and Finnish cases could have caused Swedish factories to pay more attention to the work process while Finnish factory organizers paid more attention to the individual worker. Everett's work on the Pirahã language of the Brazilian Amazon found several peculiarities that he interpreted as corresponding to linguistically rare features, such as a lack of numbers and color terms in the way those are otherwise defined and the absence of certain types of clauses. Everett's conclusions were met with skepticism from universalists who claimed that the linguistic deficit is explained by the lack of need for such concepts. Recent research with non-linguistic experiments in languages with different grammatical properties (e.g., languages with and without numeral classifiers or with different gender grammar systems) showed that language differences in human categorization are due to such differences. Experimental research suggests that this linguistic influence on thought diminishes over time, as when speakers of one language are exposed to another. A study published by the American Psychological Association’s Journal of Experimental Psychology claimed that language can influence how you estimate time. The study focused on three groups, those who spoke only Swedish, those who spoke only Spanish and bilingual speakers who spoke both of those languages. Swedish speakers describe time using distance terms like "long" or "short" while Spanish speakers do it using volume related terms like "big" or "small". The researchers asked the participants to estimate how much time had passed while watching a line growing across a screen, or a container being filled, or both. The researches stated that "“When reproducing duration, Swedish speakers were misled by stimulus length, and Spanish speakers were misled by stimulus size/quantity." When the bilinguals where prompted with the word “duración” (the Spanish word for duration) they based their time estimates of how full the containers were, ignoring the growing lines. When prompted with the word “tid” (the Swedish word for duration) they estimated the time elapsed solely by the distance the lines had traveled. Research continued after Lenneberg/Roberts and Brown/Lenneberg. The studies showed a correlation between color term numbers and ease of recall in both Zuni and English speakers. Researchers attributed this to focal colors having higher codability than less focal colors, and not with linguistic relativity effects. Berlin/Kay found universal typological color principles that are determined by biological rather than linguistic factors. This study sparked studies into typological universals of color terminology. Researchers such as Lucy, Saunders and Levinson argued that Berlin and Kay's study does not refute linguistic relativity in color naming, because of unsupported assumptions in their study (such as whether all cultures in fact have a clearly-defined category of "color") and because of related data problems. Researchers such as Maclaury continued investigation into color naming. Like Berlin and Kay, Maclaury concluded that the domain is governed mostly by physical-biological universals. Linguistic relativity inspired others to consider whether thought could be influenced by manipulating language. The question bears on philosophical, psychological, linguistic and anthropological questions.[clarification needed] A major question is whether human psychological faculties are mostly innate or whether they are mostly a result of learning, and hence subject to cultural and social processes such as language. The innate view holds that humans share the same set of basic faculties, and that variability due to cultural differences is less important and that the human mind is a mostly biological construction, so that all humans sharing the same neurological configuration can be expected to have similar cognitive patterns. Multiple alternatives have advocates. The contrary constructivist position holds that human faculties and concepts are largely influenced by socially constructed and learned categories, without many biological restrictions. Another variant is idealist, which holds that human mental capacities are generally unrestricted by biological-material strictures. Another is essentialist, which holds that essential differences[clarification needed] may influence the ways individuals or groups experience and conceptualize the world. Yet another is relativist (Cultural relativism), which sees different cultural groups as employing different conceptual schemes that are not necessarily compatible or commensurable, nor more or less in accord with external reality. Another debate considers whether thought is a form of internal speech or is independent of and prior to language. In the philosophy of language the question addresses the relations between language, knowledge and the external world, and the concept of truth. Philosophers such as Putnam, Fodor, Davidson, and Dennett see language as representing directly entities from the objective world and that categorization reflect that world. Other philosophers (e.g. Wittgenstein, Quine, Searle, Foucault) argue that categorization and conceptualization is subjective and arbitrary. Another question is whether language is a tool for representing and referring to objects in the world, or whether it is a system used to construct mental representations that can be communicated.[clarification needed] Sapir/Whorf contemporary Alfred Korzybski was independently developing his theory of general semantics, which was aimed at using language's influence on thinking to maximize human cognitive abilities. Korzybski's thinking was influenced by logical philosophy such as Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica and Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Although Korzybski was not aware of Sapir and Whorf's writings, the movement was followed by Whorf-admirer Chase, who fused Whorf's interest in cultural-linguistic variation with Korzybski's programme in his popular work "The Tyranny of Words". S. I. Hayakawa was a follower and popularizer of Korzybski's work, writing Language in Thought and Action. The general semantics movement influenced the development of neurolinguistic programming, another therapeutic technique that seeks to use awareness of language use to influence cognitive patterns. Korzybski independently described a "strong" version of the hypothesis of linguistic relativity. We do not realize what tremendous power the structure of an habitual language has. It is not an exaggeration to say that it enslaves us through the mechanism of s[emantic] r[eactions] and that the structure which a language exhibits, and impresses upon us unconsciously, is automatically projected upon the world around us.— Korzybski (1930) In their fiction, authors such as Ayn Rand and George Orwell explored how linguistic relativity might be exploited for political purposes. In Rand's Anthem, a fictive communist society removed the possibility of individualism by removing the word "I" from the language, and in Orwell's 1984 the authoritarian state created the language Newspeak to make it impossible for people to think critically about the government. Others have been fascinated by the possibilities of creating new languages that could enable new, and perhaps better, ways of thinking. Examples of such languages designed to explore the human mind include Loglan, explicitly designed by James Cooke Brown to test the linguistic relativity hypothesis, by experimenting whether it would make its speakers think more logically. Speakers of Lojban, an evolution of Loglan, report that they feel speaking the language enhances their ability for logical thinking. Suzette Haden Elgin, who was involved in the early development of neurolinguistic programming, invented the language Láadan to explore linguistic relativity by making it easier to express what Elgin considered the female worldview, as opposed to Standard Average European languages which she considered to convey a "male centered" world view. John Quijada's language Ithkuil was designed to explore the limits of the number of cognitive categories a language can keep its speakers aware of at once. Similarly, Sonja Lang's Toki Pona was developed according to a Taoist point of view for exploring how (or if) such a language would direct human thought. APL programming language originator Kenneth E. Iverson believed that the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis applied to computer languages (without actually mentioning it by name). His Turing award lecture, "Notation as a tool of thought", was devoted to this theme, arguing that more powerful notations aided thinking about computer algorithms. The essays of Paul Graham explore similar themes, such as a conceptual hierarchy of computer languages, with more expressive and succinct languages at the top. Thus, the so-called blub paradox (after a hypothetical programming language of average complexity called Blub) says that anyone preferentially using some particular programming language will know that it is more powerful than some, but not that it is less powerful than others. The reason is that writing in some language means thinking in that language. Hence the paradox, because typically programmers are "satisfied with whatever language they happen to use, because it dictates the way they think about programs". In a 2003 presentation at an open source convention, Yukihiro Matsumoto, creator of the programming language Ruby, said that one of his inspirations for developing the language was the science fiction novel Babel-17, based on the Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis. Ted Chiang's short story Story of Your Life developed the concept of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis as applied to an alien species which visits Earth. The aliens' biology contributes to their spoken and written languages, which are distinct. In the 2016 American film Arrival, based on Chiang's short story, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is the premise. The protagonist explains that "the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is the theory that the language you speak determines how you think". In his SF-novel The Languages of Pao the author Jack Vance describes how specialized languages are a major part of a strategy to create specific classes in a society, to enable the population to withstand occupation and develop itself. None of the audio/visual content is hosted on this site. All media is embedded from other sites such as GoogleVideo, Wikipedia, YouTube etc. Therefore, this site has no control over the copyright issues of the streaming media. 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Visit the museum and decide which area or exhibit will lend itself best to the activity. The museum portion of this activity can work particularly well when tied in with a specific curriculum area or theme. For example, if your students have been studying insects, you could take them to a natural history museum's insect display. There they could use what they've been learning, in addition to any information in the display, to create interesting dialogues between different insect specimens or between themselves and a specimen. Similarly, if your class has been learning about a particular period in art history, a visit to an art museum containing paintings from this period could provide plenty of material for students to write about. They could, among other things, write a dialogue between the characters in a particular painting. If possible, arrange to have a curator, museum educator, or docent work with your group when you get to the museum. Such a person can be on hand during your field trip to help answer questions students may have about the objects they've chosen to work with. Gather together at least a dozen objects. You will be using these objects in steps 2 through 4 of the In the Classroom portion of the activity, which models the museum portion. Just about any familiar objects will do, especially those with a clear function, such as kitchen utensils, household tools, and office supplies. Other possibilities include objects that students have an affinity for (CDs, radios, jewelry, rollerblades, soda cans) and objects that were once part of a living thing (seashells, feathers, leaves, bones).
- Education and Science» ESL/EFL Teachers - 10 Informal Learning Activities Informal Learning for ESL Students Informal learning sessions for your ESL students can be of great benefit if they are well structured and professionally prepared. I find them an interesting contrast to my more formal and rigid lessons and thoroughly recommend an informal approach from time to time. So, my message is: lighten up a little and have some fun with your students. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy? Teaching a class of students can be an intense experience for all and using a light-hearted approach from time to time can reap dividends. You might even play a game or two together! Don’t worry, your students will not be losing out! Just the opposite. Your careful planning will ensure a meaningful learning experience for everyone and, your group of students may find themselves bonding as never before. What kind of activities might be useful? Here are some ideas that will set you off in the right direction. With a more relaxed class the learning experience could well be enhanced. Informal Learning- Some Fun EFL/ESL Activities Informal learning can happen when your class has some free time or some spare moments - at the end of exam revision or before a lead-in to a more serious topic, for example. I've come up with some interesting ideas which you might like to experiment with. 1. Quiz - there are many forms of quiz you can create, from straightforward general knowledge to Mastermind type affairs! Mix things up with questions on grammar, culture and current affairs. - Tip : Your students should be challenged but not end up completely flummoxed. - You can find lots of quizzes on this link. 2. Crossword – invent your own simple crossword. You could suggest a topic; say planet earth, adjectives only, arts and crafts, travel. The choice is yours. - Tip: Limit the use of words to - past tense, adjectives, nouns? - Find more crosswords on this link. 3. Alphabet Challenge – go through the alphabet with your students, alternating as you go. For example, you could start with A for adverb, your students then follow B for better, and so on. - Tip:Spice it up with variations. A – Adam Always Angers Aliens….Big Bill Bounces Bob…Can Chris Crunch Cornflakes… 4. Song Lyrics – have your students choose a favourite song and get them to analyse the lyrics. This could be an interesting exercise. Song lyrics are often very well known but an objective look at the way the words are written down can deepen our understanding of them. - Tip: What if your students want to sing the song? Say yes! Set up a choir! 5. Create A Story – this can be a real challenge to the students but is a fun way of learning as it encourages use of the imagination. You start with the opening line (or two) and then ‘hand over’ to the students. For example. 'One day a friend and I decided to go for a picnic in the countryside........' Their task is to continue the storyline in a realistic fashion by adding to your first line (s). The exercise goes on, one passing the baton to the other, until an ending is reached, or a chapter finished. - Tip: Keep the story short if possible and don't worry if the story becomes funny or someone starts laughing. It's all part of the learning experience. Get the whole group to help if a student gets stuck. Try These Tongue Twisters! Unique New York! Unique New York! You know you need unique New York! Betty Botter bought a bit of butter. "But," she said, "this butter's bitter!If I put it in my batter, it will make my batter bitter!"So she bought a bit of butter better than her bitter butter,And she put it in her batter, and her batter was not bitter.So 'twas better Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter. Tim took Tony's toy, Tony tickled Tim's toes, Tim tip-toed timidly. More Informal and Cultural Learning Activities 6. Radio - find a suitable talk station and give your students 5-10 minutes listening time. You may choose a debate, a report from a foreign correspondent, a news programme. There are many options on the BBC, from Radio 4 to the World Service. Listen together. Suggest to your students they have a pen and paper ready to note down points of interest. Tip - commercial stations have regular 'ads'; have your students listen to a few and follow up with some research into the language used, the product offered and the effectiveness of the ad. 7. T.V. or DVD - why not watch a typically English or American t.v. programme or DVD. It could be a film, a play, a soap opera, a documentary. Select a scene that has a particular focus on dialogue for example. Or you may want to show a comedy that wil test your students' sense of humour. This will enable your students to learn more about English or American culture. Especially useful for those who are about to visit or live in the UK or USA. 8. Online - give your class a choice of subject to research for 25-30 minutes. Have them go online, take notes and come up with a paragraph of finished work they can 'present' to you. 9. Cultural visit – a day out at a museum, a theatre trip, a church or gallery can be stimulating and give fresh insights into how your students are progressing. Choose a destination that you know will be of interest! Even better, let your student choose! 10. Book or Poem Quote - give time for your class to select a poem or page or two from an author of their choice. Go through it together if needs be searching for themes, unusual words and other devices. Some More Simple EFL/ESL Ideas for Learning - Have your students read from their favourite novel, story or poem. - Set your class a mini art project - to create a collage, a picture, a montage on any subject. - Challenge your students to organise the trip for you both to the museum or gallery and have them report on how things went. - Give your class 'free space' to spend time on their own with a book or poem or news article. Spend 10 - 15 minutes on a question and answer session. - Your students may want to make a short film/video or presentation about their learning experiences. Encourage small group activities related to this idea. One group writing a script, the orher 'acting', a third group directing and working the camera. Great for bonding. Don't Forget Feedback As in previous sessions make sure there is plenty of time for quality feedback. Feedback allows your students to raise points that might otherwise be forgotten and allows you to focus on strengths and weaknesses and other important issues. A question and answer session of 10 minutes may yield good results. You could ask your class for a short written report or summary of their experiences following any of the above informal learning activities. Or coax responses out of them with your own observations and write them down on a board. Be open to suggestions and ideas. In this case your students may want to take photographs, create captions for them and put them together in a folder. Tip: From the feedback if it becomes clear that your students need to learn more grammar or want to use more advanced conversation for example, then base a future lesson around these topics. Informal learning can help with : - conversational skills. - class bonding Your students will have fun and hopefully want to repeat the experience at regular intervals. Research shows that learning is best achieved when students are relaxed yet motivated. (Why Relaxed Alertness Provides the Optimum Emotional Climate for Learning, Rick Reis, Stanford University,https://tomprof.stanford.edu/posting/1508). Keep your targets smart, but don’t forget to be inventive. How To Teach ESL/EFL © 2012 Andrew Spacey
Hoping to gain insights into what’s needed for creating artificial intelligence, scientists from the Universities of Sheffield and Sussex are embarking on a project to produce a computer simulation of a honeybee brain. The team said they will build models of the systems in the brain that govern a honeybee’s vision and sense of smell. They then hope to create the first flying bee robot able to sense and act as autonomously as a bee, rather than just carry out a pre-programmed set of rote instructions. Sheffield’s Dr James Marshall said that although the brain of a bee was relatively simple compared to mammalian brains, it was capable of creating complex behaviors. “So far, researchers have typically studied brains such as those of rats, monkeys, and humans, but actually ‘simpler’ organisms such as social insects have surprisingly advanced cognitive abilities” he explained. A big chunk of the processing for the artificial brain will be performed by hardware donated by the NVIDIA Corporation. The hardware is based on high-performance processors known as GPU accelerators that generate the 3D graphics on home PCs and games consoles. Marshall says these accelerators provide a very efficient way of performing the massive calculations needed to simulate a brain using a standard desktop PC – rather than on a large, expensive supercomputing cluster. The researchers involved in the project, known as “Green Brain,” believe that developing a model of a honeybee brain will drive forward our knowledge of how a brain’s cognitive systems work, leading to advances in understanding animal and human cognition. “Because the honeybee brain is smaller and more accessible than any vertebrate brain, we hope to eventually be able to produce an accurate and complete model that we can test within a flying robot,” said Marshall. “Not only will this pave the way for many future advances in autonomous flying robots, but we also believe the computer modeling techniques we will be using will be widely useful to other brain modeling and computational neuroscience projects,” added co-researcher Dr Thomas Nowotny. If successful, this project will meet one of the major challenges of modern science: building a robot brain that can perform complex tasks as well as the brain of an animal. Tasks the robot will be expected to perform, for example, will include finding the source of particular odors or gases in the same way that a bee can identify particular flowers. It is anticipated that the artificial brain could eventually be used in applications such as search and rescue missions, or even mechanical pollination of crops.
A team of scientists from Indiana University announced that they've managed to create a highly efficient, renewable biomaterial that is capable of "taking in protons and spitting out hydrogen gas." The scientists used the common bacteria Escherichia coli to produce the genetic material, required to create the modified enzyme (hydrogenase) which strives because it's being protected by the protein shell (capsid) of a bacterial virus (bacteriophage P22). The newly produced biomaterial, the modified enzyme called "P22-Hyd," is said to be 150 times more efficient than the unaltered form of the enzyme. One of its advantages lies in the fact that it can be easily produced at a room temperature via a simple fermentation process. "Essentially, we've taken a virus's ability to self-assemble myriad genetic building blocks and incorporated a very fragile and sensitive enzyme with the remarkable property of taking in protons and spitting out hydrogen gas," said Trevor Douglas, the Earl Blough Professor of Chemistry in the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Chemistry, who also led the study. "The end result is a virus-like particle that behaves the same as a highly sophisticated material that catalyzes the production of hydrogen." The new material is much cheaper and eco-friendlier to produce than any other material currently used to create fuel cells – for example, platinum, which is both costly and rare, but often used to catalyze hydrogen as fuel in products such as high-end concept cars. "This material is comparable to platinum, except it's truly renewable," Douglas stated in a press release. "You don't need to mine it; you can create it at room temperature on a massive scale using fermentation technology; it's biodegradable. It's a very green process to make a very high-end sustainable material." Additionally, P22-Hyd is able to both break the chemical bonds of water to create hydrogen and, on the other hand, to work in reverse to recombine hydrogen and oxygen to generate power. According to Douglas, the reaction runs both ways, so it can be used either as a hydrogen production catalyst or as a fuel cell catalyst.
You should follow the same structure that you would for writing any paragraph when you write an IELTS paragraph, though it may be shorter because of the limited time that you have. This limited time and space means that you have to get your ideas across as clearly and succinctly as possible. If you have planned well before you write, then you should be well on your way to being able to write your paragraphs quickly and clearly. The following has all the components of a good paragraph. Read it through and identify why this is. The 'text book' structure for a paragraph is as follows: 1. Topic Sentence The topic sentence states what the paragraph will be about. It gives the topic of the paragraph, and it also restricts the topic to one or two main ideas which can be explained fully in the space of one paragraph. The controlling idea is the specific area that the topic is limited to: Supporting sentences explain and develop the topic sentence. Specifically, they discuss the topic sentence by explaining the main ideas and discussing those more fully using reasons, examples, facts, results, statistics, or anything else that proves your ideas are true. The supporting sentences that explain the benefits of studying abroad are: People get a better job when they return home (1st supporting idea) - Better qualifications & experience mean better pay and promotion (reason) - Now has a high standard of living (result) Students gain independence (2nd supporting idea) - Students have to cope with the challenges of living alone and meeting new people from different cultures.(example) - Students will become more confident in their life and relationships (result) 3. Concluding Sentence (Optional) A concluding sentence can be used to signal the end of the paragraph. It tells the reader the important points to remember. It is often a paraphrase of the topic sentence. All in all, it is clear that studying abroad is a beneficial experience. Concluding sentences are optional and paragraphs often do not have them. You won't get marked down if you do not have a concluding sentence in IELTS, but it is a good way to add coherence to your paragraph. For good paragraph writing, there must also be unity and coherence. The examiner will assess your IELTS paragraphs on their unity and coherence, which is clearly shown in the IELTS public band descriptors under "Coherence and Cohesion" for what is required for a band 7: Unity means that you discuss only one main (central) topic area in a paragraph. The area that you are going to cover is usually introduced in the topic sentence, and your supporting sentences should only be used to develop that. For the topic sentence above, you could discuss only two benefits of studying abroad. You could not discuss three benefits, or start discussing the disadvantages of studying abroad. If you did, your paragraph would not have unity. Even if there is no specific topic sentence (more advanced writers do not always have an obvious topic sentence), the paragraph should still have one central topic area so it retains unity. Another element of good paragraph writing is coherency. This means your paragraph is easy to understand and read because (a) The supporting sentences are arranged in a logical order and (b) The ideas are joined by appropriate transition signals. (a) Logical Order For example, in the paragraph about studying abroad, there are two main ideas: People who study abroad can get a better job, and they will become more independent. Each of these ideas is discussed, one after the other, with examples, reasons and results to support them. This is logical order. (b) Transition Signals Furthermore, the relationship between the ideas is clearly shown by using appropriate transition words and phrases such as first of all, for instance, the result of this, another advantage, as a consequence, all in all. Using such words and phrases will guide the reader through your paragraph, making it coherent and, therefore, easy to understand. Home › IELTS Lessons › Paragraph Writing Brainstorming and Planning an Essay Writing an IELTS Essay Introduction Writing a Thesis Statement How to get an IELTS Writing band 7 Improving Essay Coherency with Pronouns Writing an IELTS Essay Conclusion Transitional Phrases for Essays Good Paragraph Writing How to write Problem Solution Essays Understanding IELTS Opinion Essays A more complex essay question Personal Pronouns in Essays Advantage Disadvantage Essay
Those members of the Franciscan Order who wanted to ‘observe’ the Rule of St Francis with no relaxation. The movement started in Italy in 1368 as a protest against the decline in religious life and discipline and drew its inspiration largely from the Spiritual Franciscans and early Papal pronouncements about the Rule. In 1517 the Observantines were separated from the Conventuals and declared the true Order of St Francis. In the 16th cent. they were divided into the Reformed, the Recollects, and the Discalced, but in 1897 these were all incorporated into a single Order of Friars Minor. A fourth group, the Capuchins, broke away completely in 1528.
Ever since Henrietta Leavitt discovered the period-luminosity relation for Cepheid variable stars, and Edwin Hubble used her work to demonstrate the relation between the redshifts of galaxies and their distances, we’ve had a pretty good idea that the universe was expanding. Since then we’ve gathered much more evidence on the connection between redshift and cosmic expansion, including redshift observations of distant supernovae that show the universe is undergoing cosmic inflation due to dark energy. While cosmic expansion is now well established, there have been some interesting mysteries along the way. One of these involves some seemingly strange behavior of quasars. Quasars were originally discovered as bright radio sources that appeared almost starlike. In fact the term quasar is derived from quasi-stellar radio source. We now know that quasars are powered by supermassive black holes, and are known as active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Because of their small apparent size, their distances can only be determined by their redshifts. This can be difficult to do, because the light they generate is produced near the black hole where things like gravitational lensing and gravitational redshift can occur. The spectral lines used to measure redshift can be swamped by the overall intensity of the quasar, making them difficult to analyze. Then there are strange cases like AO 0235+164, which is a quasar with a faint emission line with redshift z = 0.94, but an absorption redshift of z=0.524. It was results such as these that led some to wonder if perhaps the whole cosmic expansion idea might be wrong, or at least not quite as clear as we might think. In the late 1960s, Halton Arp made a survey of irregular galaxies and noticed that for about a hundred of them there appeared to be an associated quasar. In each case the quasar had a redshift that was much larger than the associated galaxy. This led Arp to propose that perhaps quasars are objects ejected from galaxies at very high speeds. Then in the late 1970s William G. Tifft observed that redshifts of galaxies appeared to have a periodicity to them, as if redshifts were somehow quantized. Based upon these results, Arp and others argued that redshift cannot be due to cosmic inflation, but must be due to some intrinsic process. At the time when these ideas were proposed they were worth considering. The evidence for ejected quasars was plausible, and even quantized redshift (though controversial even then) appeared to have some evidence to support it. But over the next 40 years we gathered more observational evidence. A lot more. Arp’s original quasar-galaxy connection was based upon about 100 galaxies. We now have large all sky surveys where we’ve measured the positions and spectra of a lot of galaxies and quasars. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey, for example, now has a database of more than 930,000 galaxies, and 120,000 quasars. We’ve also greatly increased our ability to analyze correlations and periodicities. What used to take months to analyze can now be done in an hour on a laptop computer. What we found was that the ideas of Arp and Tifft don’t agree with observation. What once hinted at redshift quantization is now seen to be due to a clustering of galaxies. When large number of galaxies or quasars are analyzed, the quantization pattern fades. We’ve also found the scale at which galaxies cluster matches the clustering prediction of cold dark matter. The idea that quasars are ejected from galaxies also doesn’t match the distribution of quasar redshifts. A recent study published in the Astrophysical Journal looked at both quasar periodicity (redshift quantization) and ejected quasar using the SDSS database, and found that neither matched observation. And AO 0235+164? Turns out that it’s a quasar behind a closer galaxy. The emission line with a higher redshift is from the quasar, and the absorption line with a lower redshift is from the closer (foreground) galaxy. There are several similar examples, and many of them also show gravitational lensing of the quasar’s light around the galaxy. So both of these models have been largely rejected. With nearly a million measured galaxies and quasars, it has become clear that the one model that best matches the data is an inflating universe with dark energy and cold dark matter. There are still a few researchers who strongly disagree. Their work sometimes get published in a peer reviewed journal, and that’s fine. It’s always good to have a few dissenters pushing to keep the rest of us honest. Of course there is another pattern that has arisen, and that is the one where every time somebody writes about how quantized redshift and Arp’s non-inflationary universe model doesn’t match the data, a flood of amateur commenters hit your page to declare how wrong you are. They troll your comments and send you angry personal messages. They’ll post link after link to other papers, and demand you go through each one in detail. When you don’t accept their view they accuse you of bias and closed mindedness. Which is why every time the topic comes up, it has astrophysicists seeing red. Paper: Su Min Tang and Shuang Nan Zhang. Critical Examinations of QSO Redshift Periodicities and Associations with Galaxies in Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data. ApJ 633 41 (2005) doi:10.1086/432754
Start a 10-Day Free Trial to Unlock the Full Review Why Lesson Planet? Find quality lesson planning resources, fast! Share & remix collections to collaborate. Organize your curriculum with collections. Easy! Have time to be more creative & energetic with your students! Martin Luther King, Jr. for Early Elementary Learners study the accomplishments of Martin Luther, Jr. and investigate how he worked to further tolerance and respect for others. 6 Views 16 Downloads Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Dream - Mini Book Celebrate the birthday of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. by sharing his dream of equality for all with young readers. This printable book includes simple sentences and one- and two-syllable words that make it a perfect... K - 3rd English Language Arts CCSS: Adaptable Martin Luther King Jr. and Nonviolence Using the book, Martin's Big Words, learners will discover the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Vocabulary is identified throughout the story by using several his famous protest speeches as examples. Class discussions on racism, during... K - 5th Social Studies & History Our Story: Martin Luther King Jr. and Nonviolence In this parent and child activity, young learners read Martin’s Big Words and a biography of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. There is a wonderful guided reading pdf that defines challenge words and provides reading tips. The object of this... 1st - 4th Social Studies & History Happy Birthday, Martin Luther King, Jr. Primary learners will embrace diversity and celebrate multiculturalism through these engaging activities. Which include reading the story Martin Luther King and singing the song "A Man Named King." They will also explore the concept of... K - 2nd Social Studies & History New Review Living the Dream: 100 Acts of Kindness Inspire kindness in and out of school with a activity that challenges scholars to perform 100 acts of kindness during the time between Martin Luther King Jr. Day to Valentine's day. Leading up to a celebration of friendship, learners... K - 2nd Social Studies & History CCSS: Designed RBG Dr. Martin Luther Jr. Studies Lesson Plan-Guide Explore Martin Luther King Jr. Students listen to a speech given by Martin Luther King, and interpret his message. They discuss civil rights and how Martin Luther King Jr. exhibited good citizenship, then brainstorm ways in which they... 1st - 6th Social Studies & History
What is hepatoblastoma and hepatocellular carcinoma? Hepatoblastoma and hepatocellular carcinomas are types of cancers that occur in the liver. The liver is an organ in the upper right side of the abdomen, protected by the rib cage. Its function is to store and filter blood, aid in digestion and clear waste products in the body. Liver tumors are rare in childhood and account for about 1.5 percent of all pediatric cancers. It appears to occur at the same rate in both males and females. Hepatoblastoma usually occurs in children under three years of age, and is rare after five years of age, while hepatocarcinoma is usually seen in older children and teens. Hepatocellular carcinoma can occur in livers damaged by serious disease or infection such as hepatitis B or C which are viral infections of the liver. It is not contagious and nothing you have done or not done is responsible for your child’s tumor. What are the symptoms of hepatoblastoma and hepatocellular carcinoma? The most common symptoms include swelling in the upper abdomen, pain, weight loss, vomiting, and occasionally jaundice or yellowing of the skin. How are hepatoblastoma and hepatocellular carcinoma diagnosed? The only way to diagnose and differentiate tumors of the liver is to obtain a piece of the tumor and examine it under the microscope. This surgical procedure is called a liver biopsy. Both types of liver tumors have the ability to spread, or metastasize, to other parts of the body including the lungs, lymph nodes, and central nervous system. In order to determine the extent of the tumor and if it has spread, your child will undergo various diagnostic tests. This may include any or all of the following: - Surgical biopsy. This is the most accurate way of diagnosing and is done for all liver tumors. A surgeon removes samples of the tumor and surrounding tissue and the pathologist examines the specimens. A pathologist is a doctor who tests tissue for disease using a microscope and other biology tests. Examining cells under the microscope will confirm the cancer diagnosis and shows if it has spread outside of the liver. Often, the slides of tumor tissue are sent to a central reference laboratory for further confirmation. A central reference lab has equipment and personnel specialized in diagnosis of cancer and other illnesses. A specimen collected at the time of diagnosis can be sent to a central reference lab and compared to a known specimen to verify diagnosis of a suspected condition. - X-rays. X-rays of the tumor site and surrounding area look at size and extent of the tumor. X-rays of the chest look for spread of the tumor in the chest area. - Bone marrow aspirate and biopsy. This is usually done at the time of diagnosis to determine if the tumor has invaded the bone marrow. - Computed tomography (CT) scan. This test produces images of the scanned body part and is used to see the size of the tumor and whether it has spread. - Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). A computerized magnetic scan of body tissues can help determine the extent of the tumor. - Bone scan. A dye is injected via an intravenous (IV) line and scans are taken to detect tumor in bones. - Ultrasound. Sound waves are used to look at the extent of tumor in the liver. - Blood tests. Blood tests may include alpha-fetoprotein (a tumor marker which is usually elevated in liver tumors), blood chemistries and enzymes, and a complete blood count. After the tests are completed and the diagnosis has been made, a group of doctors including oncologists, radiologists, pathologists, and surgeons discuss and determine your child’s condition, what stage the disease is in, and the most effective treatment for your child. The staging system used by your physicians is as follows: - Stage I. The tumor has been completely removed. - Stage II. The tumor has been resected but microscopic parts remain. There is no lymph node involvement. There is no “spilled” tumor. - Stage III. The tumor is not completely removed or the tumor is resected but there is lymph node involvement or tumor spill. - Stage IV. The tumor has spread (metastasized) to other organs of the body. How are hepatoblastoma and hepatocellular carcinoma treated? The treatment for liver tumors usually includes aggressive surgery to remove the tumor. It is possible to remove 85 percent of the liver and it will regenerate. Unfortunately, complete resection of the tumor is often not possible due to the extent and location of the tumor. Chemotherapy may be used to shrink the tumor for future surgical removal. Generally, most of your child’s chemotherapy will be given as an inpatient. A treatment plan will be mapped out and explained to you in detail. During and after treatment, various follow-up studies such as CT scans and blood tests will be done to closely monitor your child’s disease status. About treatment for hepatoblastoma and hepatocellular carcinoma at Children’s Children’s cancer and blood disorders program consistently achieves treatment results ranking it as one of the top 10 programs in the U.S. Children’s treats the majority of children with cancer and blood disorders in Minnesota and provides patients with access to a variety of clinical trials and new treatments. Through our renowned solid tumors program, patients experience unparalleled family support, a nationally renowned pain management team, and compassionate, coordinated care. If you are a family member looking for a Children’s hematologist or oncologist or wanting to schedule an appointment, please call our clinic at Children’s – Minneapolis at 612-813-5940. If you are a health professional looking for consultation or referral information, please call Children’s Physician Access at 1-866-755-2121 (toll-free) and ask for the on-call hematologist/oncologist.
London, March 31 (ANI): A team of scientists has developed a one-molecule-wide wire, which in other words is the smallest superconductor that can conduct electricity without any heat loss, thus spelling hope for cooler electronics in the future. Heat is produced by wires and components in proportion to their electrical resistance, and that increases at smaller scales. According to a report in New Scientist, the new wire, developed by Saw-Wai Hla's group at Ohio University in Athens, is a superconductor, a type of material through which current flows with zero resistance and hence no heat loss. The scientists made four-molecule-long wires - the smallest superconducting structure yet reported. The nanoscopic wires were made by placing a mixture of a large organic molecule and a salt of the metal gallium on a super-clean sheet of silver. The molecules in the mixture then automatically arrange themselves into long strings or wires, with the organic molecules on the outside and the salt in the centre. The researchers cooled this set-up to 5 kelvin (-268 degree Celsius), and used a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) to feel for the tiny wires and test their conductive properties. In isolation, neither the gallium salt nor the organic compound conducted electricity, but Hla and colleagues found evidence that the wires they made from the two together have superconducting characteristics. An STM works by applying a voltage between the microscope's tip and the material it is scanning, and then monitoring the change in current. When Hla's team varied the voltage and monitored the conductance, a plot of one versus the other showed a V-shaped "conducting gap" that gradually disappeared as the temperature was raised to 15 kelvin - behaviour characteristic of a superconductor. This superconducting gap was found in nanowires with as few as four salt molecules, but not in nanowires that were only three molecules long. "Finding out why will help explain how such tiny structures can perform as superconductors," Hla said. (ANI)
What is science? Most people will associate it with test tubes and experiments and miraculous inventions, but this only points to the unfortunate way we teach science. We neglect to learn the most valuable contribution of science which is the process of science. Ken Low from Action Studies defines science as disciplined knowledge creation. This systematic approach to understanding the world is an outgrowth of the explosion that was the industrial revolution. What is even more interesting about science is that it is also a form of collective disciplined knowledge creation. New discoveries are shared in journals so that others can challenge it or build on it. Scientists and engineers can then find ways of applying this body of knowledge to new or old problems. While admittedly human beings have always had a form of open collaborative in the marketplace or in philosophical and political debates, using empirical standards mixed with peer review in pursuit of a deeper understanding of the world is new. This wasn’t always the case. In the Roman times, many engineers and inventors took their inventions with them to the grave. Without a trusted community of explorers, individuals could not easily learn from other people’s failures. Today, a biologist can spend his whole life discovering the function of a specific hormone which can then contribute to future discoveries. This is not to say that scientists are altruistic knowledge seekers. There is prestige and fame that comes with being the first to publish in a journal. There is a kind of collaborative competition. This may seem paradoxical until one realizes that the latin root of competition means “to strive together”. Competition is a form of collaboration. The processes behind science are tremendously powerful. Let’s put it to good use.
The feudal Japanese society and feudal European societies took different moral attitudes and different stances about land ownership. Also, the feudal period of Japanese history was more persistent, partially due to Japan's self-imposed relative isolation from the outside world.Continue Reading One of the defining characteristics of feudalism is the relationship between the warrior class/nobility and the peasantry. In Japan, moral beliefs centered around filial piety and the idea of duty. The daimyo and samurai had a moral obligation to protect the peasants living on their land, while the peasants had a moral obligation to respect and pay food taxes to the nobility in return. Neither party, culturally speaking, could sway from this arrangement. By contrast, the knights and peasants of Europe viewed feudalism as a reciprocal benefit, but were more flexible on the moral aspect. The samurai of Japan did not independently own land. Instead, the daimyo allotted them a portion to live on and paid an income based in rice. The Japanese feudal system was also more resistant to change. After the unification of Japan in the early 1600s, the country expelled all foreigners in 1639, and it closed off the land, aside from a Dutch trading post in Nagasaki and a few other ports. This nearly eliminated foreign influence and most importantly firearms, which were a force equalizer that helped eliminate the knights' hold over Europe.Learn more about Middle Ages
Tracing Similarities And Differences In What percent of their genes match yours? \|\|100% - All humans have the same genes, but some of these genes contain sequence differences that make each \|\|98% - Chimpanzees are the closest living species to humans. \|\|92% - All mammals are quite similar genetically. \|A fruit fly? \|\|44% - Studies of fruit flies have shown how shared genes govern the growth and structure of both insects and mammals. \|\|26% - Yeasts are single-celled organisms, but they have many housekeeping genes that are the same as the genes in humans, such as those that enable energy to be derived from the breakdown \|A weed (thale cress)? \|\|18% - Plants have many metabolic differences from humans. For example, they use sunlight to convert carbon dioxide gas to sugars. But they also have similarities in their housekeeping Why Were Genes Used In This Comparison, and How Do They Relate Genes are the fundamental units of DNA function. In DNA terms, genes are discrete sections of the DNA sequence that are part of much longer DNA molecules. They provide the biochemical instructions for producing all of the components of biological organisms. Some genes specify visible physical traits, while others govern metabolic processes. Most traits, such as the shape of your face, require the actions of many genes. Why Are We So Similar? The DNA of these species is so similar because the basic organization of life is widely shared, with the largest differences found between plants and animals, or between tiny single-celled organisms like yeast and large multicellular organisms like ourselves. The similarities reflect a common ancestry that appears to be shared by all life Are People Really Identical? Even though humans share 100% of the same genes, the instructions contained within the genes are not entirely identical. Each person is unique. People have different hair colors, facial structures, and other traits. These differences between individuals result from very small differences in their DNA sequences. DNA also contains many so-called "housekeeping genes" that control important metabolic processes. As you will see, some of the differences in these genes can cause illness. Although the DNA of any two people on Earth is, in fact, 99.9% identical, even a tiny difference can have a big effect if this difference is located in a critical gene.
Kind Words for Friends: Introducing Dash and Dot to Kindergarten Lesson Plan for Kindergarten Prepared by Mrs. Davis OVERVIEW & PURPOSE We will explore how to use our words to encourage and be a friend to others by programming Dash and Dot to say kind words to each other. This is an introductory lesson to basic coding and understanding of robotic care. - 21st Century communication skills - 21st Century collaboration skills - K.L.1.2. Science concept of “life” ISTE Student Standard: Creative Communicator Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals. ISTE Student Standard: Computational Thinker Students develop and employ strategies for understanding and solving problems in ways that leverage the power of technological methods to develop and test solutions. - Recognition of the need to encourage the soft skills of empathy and problem resolution - Learning to use kind words with others - Discovering God’s desire for us to affirm each other - Learning to be respectful of our words - Problem solving real world things that hurt our feelings and how to respond - 8 Ipads - 4 Dash and 4 Dot robots for student pairs to use. - How did the problem make you feel? - Did you always feel like being nice to the person? - What did you do? - What did you learn? - What questions do you have? Students will be broken into pairs and taught how to program both Dash and Dot to speak. Students will then be given various scenarios that might cause conflict and they will program their robot to say something that would be an appropriate thing to say and then the other person would create an appropriate response to what is said. - Pretend like Dash and Dot have never met. What would be the polite way for the two robots to meet each other? Have them introduce themselves and say “hello.” - You can tell Dot has had a hard day and has been crying, what can Dash say that would let Dot know that he cares? What would be a good thing for Dot to say back to Dash? - Dash is often rude in class and mean on the playground. Most people do not like to play with Dash because of this. What could Dot say to Dash to be a friend? What would be a good thing for Dash to say back to Dot’s kind words? - Dot is embarrassed because he didn’t use his manners and burped in class. What is something nice Dot could say when this happens? What could Dash say to make Dot feel better? - Dash just seems mad today. What Could Dot say to help Dash get in a better mood? What would be the correct thing for Dash to say back to Dot? - Dash will not listen in class and is making it hard for Dot to hear instructions. What is a nice way Dot can ask Dash to make better choices? What would be the correct way for Dash to respond to Dot’s request? - Dot can tell that Dash feels left out. How can Dot make Dash feel more a part of what is going on? What should Dash say for being included? As we continue to discuss the importance of friendships in the kindergarten classes, we were able to introduced our new Dash & Dot smart robots during their STEAM period. This was an introductory lesson to basic coding and understanding proper robotic care. We used the GO app which is a very friendly age appropriate app, for our kindergartners and learned how to program the robots say kind words to friends. . To start the lesson, we reviewed critical steps the students must follow when using their robots. It is important to show them how to properly pick up the robots, such as by the legs and not the head; as well as, how to choose the correct app and sync their robot. In groups, the students were to take turns programming the robots to say kind things to friends given different situations. For instance, what would you say to a friend who is sad, or what would you say to a new friend you have never met before. The students loved it! I have received a lot of positive feedback from the parents about how much their students loved this activity!
The following is excerpted from the booklet "Woodpecker Damage: A Simple Solution to a Common Problem", listed at the left. There have been 16 species of woodpeckers recorded in Texas, including the Ivory-billed that is probably extinct. The group includes woodpeckers, flickers, and sapsuckers. Several of these species occur in urban settings and have become a problem by making holes in man-made structures. The main culprits in Texas are Pileated and Red-bellied woodpeckers, and the Northern Flicker. Problems can arise in places you wouldn't normally expect them, like heavily wooded areas where these birds appear to have an adequate supply of trees and snags (standing dead trees). These birds are simply searching for a place to call home and you can help provide them with such a place. Woodpeckers hammer or peck on wood or metal for three distinct reasons. The first has to do with foraging, and is the most commonly (yet incorrectly) used explanation for all the noise and damage created. The second reason for hammering is called drumming whereby the male announces his claim to a territory by tapping in rapid succession on resonating wood or metal. This is usually done before or during the breeding season, usually February through July, and serves a similar function as singing in songbirds. Drumming is loud, but it is typically short-lived and shouldn't be considered as an endless or destructive problem. The third form of hammering is destructive - and the word "nuisance" fits into the equation. It is called excavating (or chiseling) whereby either males or females construct a nest or roost hole with a chamber typically in trees. This is the most common cause of damage. The cavity produced is an upside down L-shaped chamber with an entrance tunnel that angles down at 90 degrees to the chamber where the bird sleeps or rears its young. Unfortunately, some woodpeckers try to place such a cavity in the side of a house, barn, utility pole, fence post, or other man-made structure. Like most birds, woodpeckers breed in the spring, but they roost in holes (one bird per cavity) each and every night of the year. When aggressive woodpeckers are a problem, all one has to do is provide a man-made nest box directly at the site that is being damaged. People often put up bluebird boxes or purple martin houses to attract those species; this is basically the same thing, but more to accommodate the woodpecker. As you continue to read this pamphlet, you will see plans for building such boxes, and you will read a true story behind the model home that experienced extensive woodpecker damage in the past. Over the years, there have been many solutions proposed for this problem. Most have come from "product-driven" companies trying to make a sale without identifying the actual cause of the problem. There are many expensive products: from pepper sprays to special paint additives that supposedly deter woodpeckers. These products usually do not work since woodpeckers are actively chiseling away wood and they do not ingest or taste what they are excavating. Woodpeckers even chisel away at creosote-soaked utility poles with no harmful effects to the bird. An exception to the woodpecker damage mentioned above are the feeding wells created by Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, a wintering bird in most urban sites in Texas. These sapsuckers make holes in the bark of any sap-flowing trees (usually young trees). The birds later visit these wells to eat the sap along with any insects caught in this sticky substance. This publication includes plans to construct your own nest/roost boxes. These plans were made available with permission from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Should you choose not to construct your own box, there are several places that sell them. Simply run a search on the internet, or visit your local bird supply store. Good luck in satisfying both you and the woodpecker; it can be done and it certainly makes a great conversational piece!
The human brain is routinely described as the most complex object in the known universe. It might therefore seem unlikely that pea-size blobs of brain cells growing in laboratory dishes could be more than fleetingly useful to neuroscientists. Nevertheless, many investigators are now excitedly cultivating these curious biological systems, formally called cerebral organoids and less formally known as mini-brains. With organoids, researchers can run experiments on how living human brains develop—experiments that would be impossible (or unthinkable) with the real thing. The cerebral organoids in existence today fall far short of earning the “brain” label, mini or otherwise. But a trio of recent publications suggests that cerebral-organoid science may be turning a corner—and that the future of such brain studies may depend less on trying to create tiny perfect replicas of whole brains and more on creating highly replicable modules of developing brain parts that can be snapped together like building blocks. Just as interchangeable parts helped make mass production and the Industrial Revolution possible, organoids that have consistent qualities and can be combined as needed may help to speed a revolution in understanding how the human brain develops.
Empowering Students through Creativity in a Choice-Based Classroom One group of students is practicing code on an app so they can create a painting with a robot. Another group is learning what types of objects are conductive to create a closed-circuit game. One child is individually designing each pixel for a video game creation, while a pair of students watch flipped classroom videos from an agency choice board of how to create sgraffito with paint. The rest of the students are heavily engaged with an assortment of tasks, including building, experimenting, designing, and planning. Students in the foreground are designing a movie set and characters and using technology to sync the photos together into a stop motion film. Their set consisted of recycled materials and figures made out of modeling clay or found objects. While this may sound like an ideal 21st century classroom focusing on the trending “Four C’s” (critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity), many educators might find this student-centered classroom a challenge, and with good reason. With so much at stake: grades, testing, and approval from stakeholders, it’s no surprise that some educators find comfort in a teacher-centered classroom. However, there are great benefits to moving from direct instruction to facilitating learning. In a student-centered classroom, students practice coming up with problems to solve, ask big questions, and see possibilities in the world around them (an important skill as screen time for this generation increases). These skill sets help students to engage more deeply in their learning, and will promote greater social skills, academic achievement, and potentially foster an appreciation for lifelong learning. In a choice-based classroom, students direct their own learning based on their interests. This helps them to ask big questions, see possibilities in the world outside their classroom, strive through challenges and build trust in themselves. Some other benefits of a choice-based classroom include: - • Students learn best and work harder when they are engaged in their learning. - • When students work on different things, there is less of a tendency for comparison, increasing confidence and celebrating the achievement of other students. - • Increased student-led scaffolding through inquiry, self-pacing, and developing specific skills needed to complete their individual tasks. - • With smaller groups and independent learners, the teacher is free to work more closely with the students, as well as help differentiate for individual student needs. That said, here are three important things to remember as you shift into the role of facilitator and allow for individualized learning. Don’t be afraid to say, “I don’t know, but let’s find out together.“ Your classroom is all about critical-thinking and problem-solving, but you can’t do it alone. Be transparent in your understanding if a concept or technology is new to you, and don’t be afraid to reach out to colleagues or students for help. Students will be more than happy to oblige in sharing their technology know-how. Removing the stigma of failure from the classroom can cause tremendous shifts in student participation, and provide a rich environment for growth and collaboration. Not to mention, transparency and honesty helps foster student trust and improves their identification with both the teacher and their peers. When I brought a borrowed Makerspaces Kit back to the classroom, I wasn’t sure how to use most of the technology in it. I was surprised how eager the students were to ‘play’ alongside me and try new things. They offered to come in and help out during any of their free time, including lunch. The engagement was priceless, and they often came up with ideas related to the content areas I was trying to match that I may not have thought of! They appreciate my honesty and sense of wonder, and enjoyed practicing being the one delivering instruction. Not to mention, you can never go wrong with having an ‘expert’ or two on a particular media in the classroom. Student learning comes first. You have an obligation to teach a set curriculum at a certain pace, and student test scores are reflected in evaluations. However, from an instructional standpoint, you also recognize the inherent importance of the parts of education that can be more difficult to measure: social and emotional learning, complex problem-solving, and critical thinking. Technology can actually help to synthesize these classroom needs more effectively. In order to provide the best environment for today’s learners in tomorrow’s workforce, we need to provide them with challenges and a variety of learning opportunities. Have conversations with your administrators about best grading practices, and the flexibility that age banded competencies provide for student growth. Develop a toolkit of programs, blogs, and resources that you find valuable. Your enthusiasm and ability to solve problems and learn from mistakes will be contagious in the classroom. The growth and research you do should be shared with the students. Stay Flexible. There is no one-size-fits-all learning approach. You know your own classroom, abilities, and students, and sometimes a combination of different approaches will work best. Technology is a tool that can enhance the classroom experience, but it need not overwhelm, avoid using it just for the sake of using it. Develop your ideas in bite-sized pieces, and be comfortable with learning as you go. Search out PD, attend trainings, contact your REMC representative or District Technology Specialist, and seek out the help of other teachers or Professional Learning Communities. We are in a very exciting time in education as we prepare our students to create, innovate, and explore as responsible citizens on a global level, and we should feel proud and empowered to help them develop these skills. Enthusiasm and vigor are contagious, and as teachers, we understand the beauty of lifelong learning; let technology be a tool to strengthen your pedagogy, and allow for creation and constructivism to play an integral role in your classroom. Sarah Bedford (@AltmansArt): Sarah teaches Creative Arts classes at Thunder Bay Junior High in Alpena, Michigan. She loves working with both students and other teachers to explore new ways of learning, and strives to keep her classes engaging, energetic, busy, and fun. You can connect with her on Twitter at @AltmansArt.
Help Students Build Numerical Reasoning Math is about more than finding the correct answer. It's about using numerical reasoning to find the best strategy for solving a problem. Created by Marilyn Burns, one of America's most trusted math educators, and a team of master educators, Do The Math® provides flexible, classroom-tested instruction for building numerical reasoning and confidence. Whether used for core instruction in numerical reasoning, pull-out intervention, or summer school settings, Do The Math provides effective instruction at any elementary grade level. Every Child Deserves a Confident Start Created by award-winning educator Marilyn Burns Supports any Response to Intervention (RTI) strategy Can be used with all core programs as supplemental or intervention Every student can succeed Hear about Do The Math from Marilyn Burns. Build a solid mathematical foundation with classroom-tested lessons "Classroom tested" means there's plenty of support in each module's 30 half-hour lessons. Teachers build capacity as students move from basic conceptual understanding to skills development in addition and subtraction, multiplication, division, and fractions. Addition and Subtraction Supports the development of quantity by using benchmark numbers, thinking flexibly about composing and decomposing numbers, and building facility with figuring sums. A: ADDITION WITH SUMS UP TO 100 Builds on the big idea that “10” is an organizer for our number system. B: SUBTRACTION WITH NUMBERS UP TO 100 Reinforces addition and subtraction as inverse operations and teaches the three meanings of subtraction: take-away, missing parts, and comparison problems. C: NUMBERS GREATER THAN 100 Applies these big ideas to calculations with greater numbers and provides strategies for solving word problems. A: BASIC CONCEPTS Provides visual and contextual models to help students understand the meaning of multiplication, supporting the shift from thinking additively to thinking multiplicatively. B: FACTS THROUGH 12x12 Uses an array model to represent the basic facts and demonstrate key concepts and strategies for multiplication. C: FACTORS GREATER THAN 12 Develops strategies for making estimates and computing products with two- and three-digit factors, using the distributive property and multiplying by multiples of 10. A: BASIC CONCEPTS Builds upon the idea that division is inverse to multiplication and provides computational methods for solving division problems, using contextual and concrete methods to support the two meanings of division—sharing and ungrouping. B: FACTS THROUGH 100÷10 Applies the inverse relationship between multiplication and division to make sense of divisibility and the concept of taking out a quantity by groups of 10. C: DIVIDENDS TO 1000 Extends to dividing two- and three-digit dividends by two-digit divisors, engages students in exploring divisibility, and provides experiences with solving contextual problems involving greater numbers. A: BASIC CONCEPTS Connects and builds upon the big ideas of whole numbers as they apply to fractions, using concrete materials to help students give meaning to the abstract idea of fractions. B: EQUIVALENCE AND COMPARISON Helps students learn key strategies for comparing and ordering fractions while keeping the instructional focus on the meaning of the fractions being compared. C: ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION Builds on what students have learned in order to develop the computational tools and strategies to add and subtract fractions, including improper fractions and mixed numbers with like and unlike denominators. Strategically placed formative assessments support students’ progress. Pre- and post-module assessments Students complete online assessments for a pre-module snapshot of what they know and a post-module portrait of all they’ve learned. Letters from Marilyn Detailed preparation materials before each set of five lessons include Letters From Marilyn. Every lesson begins with objectives, and then it’s on to detailed, step-by-step instruction. Every fifth lesson offers an assessment so teachers can regularly monitor student progress. Hands-on learning helps build conceptual understanding The Digital Student Experience Games and manipulatives Partner games and manipulatives play a crucial role in supporting and extending learning throughout the modules. The WorkSpace is designed to support students’ transition to independent work and to help teachers monitor students’ progress and understanding. The Digital Student Experience The digital student app gives each child full access to interactive visual models and partner games. Materials provide clear instructional guidance and professional support. Do The Math lesson example - Writing Fraction Equations The Teacher Bookcase All of the teaching resources for each module are stored in the teacher bookcase for clear instructional guidance and easy lesson planning. Thoughtfully designed lessons Every lesson models mathematical thinking, provides visual representations, and includes point-of-use support. The Digital Teacher Experience The digital tool includes professional development videos plus instructional add-ons, downloads, online games, and progress monitoring. Teachers Talk About Do The Math Learn more about Sara's experience using Do The Math and hear from other educators at John Muir Elementary. Read the Case Study (PDF) Rashida Carter, a first year teacher teaching fourth grade, especially liked the timeliness of these assessments. Kristin Matthews discusses the digital tools that come with Do The Math. Justin Stoddard, a third-grade teacher with 11 years of classroom experience reflects on his experience with Do The Math. Unlock the math potential in every student Do The Math Summer School helps students in Grades 1–5 rebuild their math foundation. Designed for at-risk and struggling students, as well as those who require more practice, the program provides the skills and understanding students need to progress to grade-level proficiency during the school year. Summer school specific design Do The Math experts and authors created detailed Planning Guides that address a variety of summer school implementations. Easy to implement From day one, teachers have the embedded professional learning and point-of-use support they need to confidently guide students through summer math. Rebuilds a solid foundation With scaffolded instruction, students progress from basics to more complex operational work and rebuild their understanding of key math concepts. Engaging for students Classroom-tested instructional practices facilitate differentiation and meet the needs of every student. Do The Math Getting Started PD and Coaching Do The Math Getting Started PD develops teachers’ understanding of the Do The Math supplemental program and how its classroom-tested instruction builds students’ numerical reasoning. Teachers learn how to support the development of their students’ understanding and skills with whole numbers and fractions by using Do The Math lessons, games, children’s literature, and assessments. During Do The Math Coaching coaches work with school leaders and classroom teachers to build on the Getting Started PD experience, creating learning partnerships that are sustainable, data-driven, and customized to participants’ particular needs. Focus on effective teaching Build and strengthen numerical reasoning Strengthen vocabulary for English learners Restore student confidence Research & Results Do The Math has a long history of turning research into practice. ESSA Evidence Criteria for Do The Math Overview of how Do The Math meets ESSA “MODERATE” evidence criteria. Read the Overview Do The Math Clear Creek Independent School District Efficacy Study Significant improvement was seen across the 51 Grade 2 classrooms that implemented Addition and Subtraction Modules A and B. Read the Study Do The Math St. Louis Park Public Schools Efficacy Study Students in grades 3-5 showed performance improvements on the NWEA MAP assessment and on ProgressSpace assessments after using Do The Math. Read the Study Meet the Authors Created by Marilyn Burns and a team of master educators. Marilyn Burns is one of today’s most highly respected mathematics educators. In 1984, she formed Math Solutions Professional Development, an organization dedicated to the improvement of math instruction in Grades K–8. Over the course of more than 55 years, Marilyn has taught children, led in-service sessions, and written acclaimed professional learning and children’s books. Marilyn continues to teach regularly in the classroom, finding the experience essential to developing and testing new ideas and materials. Marilyn and her Do The Math coauthors—Eunice Hendrix-Martin, Leo Kostelnik, Kris Lee, Melody Randel, Susan Scharton, Mallika Scott, Danielle Weill, Maryann Wickett, and Lynne Zolli—continue to refine their methods for supporting students who struggle with math so every child has a real chance for success. Follow Marilyn on Twitter @MBurnsMath
How the Federal Reserve Works Have you ever taken a close look at paper money? Each U.S. bill has the words "Federal Reserve Note" imprinted across the top. But many individuals may not know why the bill is issued by the Federal Reserve and what role the Federal Reserve plays in the economy. Here's an inside look. The Federal Reserve, often referred to as "the Fed," is the country's central bank. It was founded by Congress in 1913 to provide the nation with a safer, more flexible, and more stable monetary and financial system. Prior to its creation, the U.S. economy was plagued by frequent episodes of panic, bank failures, and limited credit.1 The Fed has four main roles in the U.S. economy. In addition to its other duties, the Fed has been given three mandates with the economy: maintaining maximum employment, maintaining stable price levels, and maintaining moderate, long-term interest rates.1 It's important to remember that the Fed cannot directly control employment, inflation, or long-term interest rates. Rather, it uses a number of tools at its disposal to influence the availability and cost of money and credit. This, in turn, influences the willingness of consumers and businesses to spend money on goods and services. For example, if the Fed maneuvers short-term interest rates lower, borrowing money becomes less expensive, and people may be motivated to spend. Consumer spending may stimulate economic growth, which may cause companies to produce more products and potentially increase employment. When short-term rates are low, the Fed closely monitors economic activity to watch for signs of rising prices. On the other hand, if the Fed pushes short-term rates higher, borrowing money becomes more expensive, and people may be less motivated to spend. This may, in turn, slow economic growth and cause companies to decrease employment. When short-term rates are high, the Fed must watch for signs of a decline in overall price levels. Supervise and Regulate The Fed establishes and enforces the regulations that banks, savings and loans, and credit unions must follow. It works with other federal and state agencies to ensure these financial institutions are financially sound and consumers are receiving fair and equitable treatment. When an organization is found to have problems, the Fed uses its authority to have the organization correct the problems. The Fed maintains the stability of the financial system by providing payment services. In times of financial strain, the Fed is authorized to step in as a lender of last resort, providing liquidity to an individual bank or the entire banking system. For example, the Fed may step in and offer to buy the government bonds owned by a particular bank. By doing so, the Fed provides the bank with money that it can use for its own purposes. Banker for Banks, U.S. Government The Fed provides financial services to banks and other depository institutions as well as to the U.S. government directly. For banks, savings and loans, and credit unions, it maintains accounts and provides various payment services, including collecting checks, electronically transferring funds, distributing new money, and receiving and destroying old, worn-out money. For the federal government, the Fed pays Treasury checks; processes electronic payments; and issues, transfers, and redeems U.S. government securities. Each day, the Fed is behind the scenes supporting the economy and providing services to the U.S. financial system. And while the Fed's duties are many and varied, its focus is to maintain confidence in banking institutions. A Decentralized Central Bank The Federal Reserve System consists of 12 independent banks that operate under the supervision of a federally appointed Board of Governors in Washington, D.C. Each of these banks works within a specific district, as shown. Source: FederalReserve.gov, 2023 1. FederalReserve.gov, 2023 The content is developed from sources believed to be providing accurate information. The information in this material is not intended as tax or legal advice. It may not be used for the purpose of avoiding any federal tax penalties. Please consult legal or tax professionals for specific information regarding your individual situation. This material was developed and produced by FMG Suite to provide information on a topic that may be of interest. FMG Suite is not affiliated with the named broker-dealer, state- or SEC-registered investment advisory firm. The opinions expressed and material provided are for general information, and should not be considered a solicitation for the purchase or sale of any security. Copyright FMG Suite.
As children grow and develop, their behaviour can be challenging at times. This is especially true in certain settings, like school or public places, where a child may become overwhelmed or overstimulated. It’s important that parents and educators provide appropriate behavioural support to ensure that children understand how to behave properly and are able to control their impulses. Behavioural support can come in many forms. For example, parents and teachers can set clear expectations for behaviour and provide positive reinforcement when those expectations are met. They can also model good behaviour themselves, reminding children of appropriate social responses and problem-solving strategies. In cases where a child is struggling to regulate their behaviour, additional support may be needed. This can include working with a behavioural specialist or therapist to develop strategies that help a child manage their emotions and impulses. In other cases, medication or other medical interventions may be necessary. The goal of behavioural support is to help children develop the skills they need to succeed both socially and academically. With patience, persistence and appropriate support, children can learn to manage their emotions and behaviour in a way that is healthy and beneficial to themselves and those around them.
A raindrop weighs 50 times a mosquito, so how does the lowly insect survive a collision with it? Mechanical engineer David Hu of Georgia Institute of Technology and colleagues investigated: The team constructed what it calls a "flight arena," a 20-centimeter-high acrylic cage covered with a mesh top that allowed water in but kept the mosquitoes from escaping. In an initial round of experiments, the researchers shot jets of water into the cage to simulate raindrops falling 10 meters, the height at which they achieve their maximum velocity. Six mosquitoes placed in the cage were then filmed with a high-speed video camera that captured 4000 frames per second. It was like a game of insect pinball. All six mosquitoes were able to recover from drop impacts without crashing to the bottom of the cage. In one typical example, a mosquito hit by a water drop tumbled a distance of 13 body lengths before separating itself from the drop and flying laterally to land on the side of the arena. To better picture what was happening, the team subjected 20 mosquitoes to drops that were falling more slowly. The videos showed that most of the collisions were glancing blows on the wings and legs rather than on the insects' bodies. The impacts caused the mosquitoes to pitch, yaw, or roll depending on where they were hit.
Lateral means located toward the side, away from the midline. In psychology, the term "lateral" might be used in a few different ways, depending on the context. Here are a few possible uses of the term: - In the context of neuroscience, "lateral" might refer to the side or direction of the brain. For example, the lateral aspect of the brain might refer to the outer surface of the brain, as opposed to the medial (inner) aspect. - In the context of psychology, the term "lateral" might also be used to describe something that is related to or involving the sides of the body or the left and right sides of the brain. For example, a person might talk about "lateral movements" to refer to movements that involve the arms or legs moving to the side, or "lateral thinking" to refer to a problem-solving approach that involves looking at things from different perspectives or angles. Here are a few examples of how the term "lateral" might be used in psychology: - A researcher might study the lateralization of brain function, meaning the way in which different functions are lateralized (i.e., specialized) in the left or right hemisphere of the brain. - A therapist might use lateral movements or other lateral body movements as part of a physical therapy or rehabilitation program. - A person might talk about using "lateral thinking" as a way of coming up with creative or innovative solutions to problems.
What is an open wound? An open wound is defined as an injury that causes tissues outside the body such as skin to tear. Most minor open wounds can be treated at home. Currently, there are still some people who apply many folk / oral wound care skills to make the wound heal faster. However, there have been many scientific studies and doctors advise to be careful and stay away from such folk ways because it will bring bad consequences. Some notes on how to care for an open wound - Do not clean open wounds immediately after injury There are many cases after the incident, the patient often thought that the wound was small, shallow only on the skin, so he did not pay much attention to it. The wound dressing process is carried out without the steps of wound cleaning. When the wound is not properly washed, cleaned and disinfected, it will cause even the smallest wound to become infected and become more serious, causing watering / ulceration that makes the healing process drag. longer than normal and cause damage to the patient both physically and mentally. - Do not sprinkle antibiotic powder on open wounds Sprinkle antibiotic powder on open wounds: burns, abrasions, lacerations, infected wounds, etc. is a fairly common wound treatment for many people. The drug used to sprinkle on the wound is the most common red anti-tuberculosis drug Rifampicin, followed by some other antibiotics such as Clocid (Chloramphenicol) … There are those who think that doing so is most effective in preventing infection because the drug is delivered most quickly directly to the wound. However, in reality, the act of sprinkling antibiotic powder on an open wound is completely unprofitable, but will still have many potential dangers, specifically as follows: – Easy to cause allergies, anaphylaxis When sprinkled with antibiotic powder directly on open wounds, it will irritate the skin, causing local inflammatory reactions, so it is easy to cause allergies and anaphylaxis for the patient. An antibiotic allergy is often very dangerous, even causing rapid death. – No anti-infective effect After a few hours of spraying, the antibiotic powder will be dry, the concentration of antibiotics will penetrate into the damaged tissue layers is not much, so it is not meaningful to prevent and fight infection. In many cases, a few days after the antibiotic powder was sprinkled, the wound became swollen, causing a fever. After peeling off the dried antibiotic powder on the outside, the inside contains pus and necrotic tissues. – Wounds heal long, young skin is slow After sprinkling antibiotic powder on the wound, a dry crust will form on the outside, creating a physical barrier to prevent the penetration of factors that help protect the body to go to the wound. Antibodies, white blood cells, blood, oral antibiotics, etc. are all hindered, so the body’s ability to protect against inflammation and infection will be greatly limited. This causes the wound to heal slowly, even worse. – Do not use hydrogen peroxide to clean open wounds There are some who believe that disinfecting open wounds with hydrogen peroxide or alcohol can help kill bacteria and protect the victim from unwanted infections. That could also be true. Because hydrogen peroxide is a very powerful oxidant that can help kill anaerobic bacteria (which need less oxygen to grow) and alcohol to help hydrolyze structural proteins and fats. so bacteria. In addition to killing bacteria, they also destroy white blood cells – platelets – newly healed tissues. That will make the wound take longer to heal, which can be an opportunity for an infection to develop. So using clean water or better, physiological saline is enough to wash your wound. How to take care of an open wound at home Step 1: Sanitize, wash your hands thoroughly with soap/sanitizer. Warm water and soap can be used to wash hands and remove dirt. When hands are dirty, avoid touching the wound because it can lead to infection. If clean water is not available there, it can be done with wet wipes/medical gloves. Step 2: Wash the wound. Be careful that any pieces of skin that have been peeled off are not severed (if the skin is still sticky). Gently pat the wound dry after rinsing. Step 3: Bandage the wound. If the peeled skin is still attached, put it back in place to cover the wound before applying a bandage. It will help the wound heal. Or you can also use non-stick gauze and tubular elastic bandages to better fix the gauze. Change the dressing 2-3 times a day, or when the dressing is wet/dirty. Carefully remove the old dressing, and gently re-wash the wound if a new dressing is needed.
“Play is an effective vehicle for fostering Mathematical concepts and developing positive attitudes to mathematics... Adults in the pre-school setting should seek to extend informally the mathematical experiences the children have already had in their home environment.” (Curricular Guidance for Pre- school Education) Maths in the Home Maths is everywhere in the home. With the support of parents, children can grasp many mathematical concepts through their play. Here are a few ways in which you can use play to learn mathematical concepts. Sand and Water Using sand can develop mathematical concepts and language, e.g. heavy, light, empty, full, big, little Conservation – how much will it hold Make shapes and patterns Provide boxes and materials of different shapes and sizes to compare weight and quantity Look at the differences between wet and dry as a means of looking at weights You can help to promote mathematical language such as – heavy, light, empty, full, long, short, big, small in relevant contexts Look at your home environment to develop language, especially positional words – small object in front of big object, behind, in, on The use of dough can help to develop a mathematical understanding for pre-school children. Develops mathematical language – short, long, fat, thin Make shapes of different dimensions – flat shapes, 3-d shapes Create opportunities to compare things that float with things that do not Simple activities like letting your child set the table for dinner can help develop counting skills, e.g. getting out three pieces of cutlery. Involve your child with household activities. After washing, allow your child to sort clothes into different colours, or different types of clothes, e.g. t-shirts and socks. This will help to develop a child’s knowledge of shapes and colours. Books and Rhymes Enjoy stories and rhymes with your child that has a mathematical element, e.g. “One-two, Buckle my Shoe”, This can also help to develop literacy skills by showing your child that the print reads from left to right. Let your child count out items in the books – how many animals are on the page, how many items are blue. Using rhymes can also help develop your Childs awareness of sequenceing Develop fine motor skills through physical activity, e.g. Sorting out a jigsaw, Threading beads Block play or playing with toy cars can help to develop sequencing by encouraging your child to sequence according to size, colour, use (e.g. bike, car, lorry) Playing with different sized blocks can help to develop an understanding of weight and dimensions. Tidying toys away allows children to sort into different sizes and colours. It can also develop mathematical language – first, second, third, how many are blue, which is largest / smallest. By planting seeds you can help to develop your child’s understanding of time and the life cycle of plants. Watch as the plants grow and even measure your plant – develop language such as taller. Teach your child about the different seasons and plant different items at different times of the year to compare colours, flowers, smells. Click on these pictures for links to online maths activities and games you could use at home. Peterbrook Primary School, High Street, Solihull Lodge, Shirley, Solihull, West Midlands, B90 1HR Tel: +44(0)121 4302545 [email protected]
The pulse beats several times a minute (the pulse beats a few times a minute is normal) There is a certain relationship between the heart rate. Generally speaking, within the normal range, the slower the heart rate, the longer the life span, and vice versa. But this is not absolute, because the heart rate cannot be infinitely slow. Strictly speaking, if the heart rate is within the normal range, it is better to have a relatively slow heart rate, especially for heart disease patients, which is better for the body. We’ve all heard of “heart rate”. In fact, like its pronunciation, there is a proper noun on the heart, called “heart rhythm”. Although the pronunciation is the same, the two meanings are different. Heart rate refers to the number of times a person’s heart beats per minute, for example, 75 beats per minute, that is, 75 beats per minute, 80 beats per minute, and 80 beats per minute. Heart rate is used to determine whether the rhythm of the heartbeat is normal, or whether the origin of the heartbeat is normal. The normal heart rate is called sinus rhythm, and other non-sinus rhythms refer to abnormal heart rates, such as atrial heart rate, junctional heart rate, ventricular heart rate, etc. So in our daily life, what is the normal heart rate? We learned in middle school textbooks that the normal range of heart rate is 60-100 beats per minute, but it also varies from person to person. Theoretically, the normal range of human heart rate is 60-100, but it cannot be generalized. For example, for a healthy heart, time is fast if it is fast, and time is slow if it is slow. When should it be soon? For example, our blood throughout the body increases after exercise. At this time, the heart needs to work faster, so it beats faster than usual. Sometimes it even jumps to 140 beats/min. Young people even soared to 160-180 beats per minute after strenuous exercise. So when should the heartbeat be slow? When we go to sleep, less blood is needed throughout the body, and the heart works less, slowing down the heart rate. It is normal for some people to keep their heart rate around 50 when they go into deep sleep. But in life, we usually judge the heart rate by looking at the resting heart rate. This is our heart rate when we are calm and awake. A study on the relationship between human lifespan and heart rate has been published in a foreign medical journal. Studies have shown that men with a heart rate above 75 beats have twice the risk of death and disease compared with men with a heart rate of around 55 beats. The report also shows that the death rate of people with a heart rate of more than 100 beats is much higher than that of people with a heart rate of about 55 beats. The study lasted 26 years, during which time heart rate was positively associated with an increase in mortality, and the trend was more pronounced in men. The above is the heart rate of a healthy person, so how do heart disease patients control their heart rate during treatment? Generally speaking, the ideal resting heart rate for patients with angina pectoris and myocardial infarction is around 60 beats, and the risk of complications is lower in this range. For patients with heart failure, the ideal resting heart rate should also be kept at around 60 beats. let’s focus on high bloodpressure on the patient. If the heart rate of hypertensive patients exceeds 80 beats per minute, the heart rate should be lowered as soon as possible. Only by controlling the heart rate as soon as possible can better control blood pressure and prevent cardiovascular diseases. [This article is exclusively produced by “Qian Jinfang” new media, and the pictures are from ***. Author Yan Qing, please do not reprint or copy without authorization]
Sodium chloride (NaCl), more popularly known as table salt, is one of the most common and important minerals on earth with culinary, commercial, and industrial value. This ionic compound is also essential to life. Many biological organisms would be unable to function properly without sodium chloride as an electrolyte component of cells, tissues, and systems. Sodium chloride is also crucial to our oceans. Approximately 77.76% of all salts in ocean water are composed of sodium chloride. This salinity of seawater affects the ocean current, as well as heat retention and the overall behaviour of the climate. Salinity also determines the type of life and ecology that can be sustained in a particular area. For example, the Dead Sea contains no macroscopic life (e.g. fish) because of its high concentration of salt, which is almost ten times the salinity of ocean water. In this post: What Does Sodium Chloride Do? NaCl is a simple mineral with ionic bonds organised into crystalline structures. Salt’s abundance, its ionic bonds, and its crystalline molecular structure make it important in several ways. Here are six examples of the many things sodium chloride can do. Its strong affinity with water makes this compound an excellent desiccant, or a substance which absorbs moisture and can maintain dryness. Sodium chloride can easily absorb moisture due to its ionic bonds, which attract the polar molecules of water. This makes it very useful as a preservative of organic materials and is why humans have used salt to preserve spoilable food like meat and fish over millennia. In fact, salt makes such a good desiccant that it can actually be used as a DIY dehumidifier. To do this, you first need a bucket or similar container with small holes along the sides and bottom. You then fill this with rock salt, place it in the area you want to dehumidify (like the kitchen or bathroom), and let it do its thing. When used in this way, salt can even help prevent mould forming in your home. When you sweat or urinate, you lose electrolytes. Sodium and chlorine ions from salt are important electrolytes that need to be regularly replenished, so incorporating salt into your diet is actually very important (in the right quantities, of course). In fact, despite its role as a desiccant, salt helps keep the body hydrated by allowing it to hold onto water. As an electrolyte in the body, sodium chloride ions have crucial roles in absorbing and transporting nutrients in the cells. These ions regulate blood pressure and maintain the right balance of fluid through osmosis. They’re also crucial in transmitting nerve signals that allow our muscles to work properly. - Climate Regulator On average, seawater is about 3% salt, but the range varies from 1% in polar regions to 5% in enclosed seas, like the Red Sea. In terms of proportion, sodium chloride is about 77.76% of all the salts dissolved in seawater. The other types of salts found here include: - Magnesium chloride (10.88%) - Magnesium sulphate (4.74%) - Calcium sulphate (3.60%) - Potassium chloride (2.46%) - Magnesium bromide (0.22%) - Calcium carbonate (0.34%) All of these salts contribute to the overall density of seawater, which fluctuates and has gradients depending on the area. For example, near polar regions, seawater is a bit more diluted because of the melting ice caps. As the most abundant salt in the ocean, sodium chloride has a direct effect on the climate. It regulates the oceans’ temperature and drives the ocean currents. Consequently, it also has a role in the formation of hurricanes. Small changes in the concentrations of sodium chloride in seawater can spell the difference between La Niña and El Niño. - Chemical Manufacturing About 250 metric tonnes of NaCl is produced or harvested each year for large-scale chemical processes. It can either be used as a precursor, reactant, or product of large-scale chemical manufacturing. For example, it’s used at the starting point of the chlor alkali industrial process of producing chlorine and sodium hydroxide through large-scale electrolysis. See the balanced chemical equation below: 2 NaCl + 2 H2O → Cl2 + H2 + 2 NaOH - Water Softening Another major application of sodium chloride is in water softening. Potable water sources contain minerals, such as calcium and magnesium compounds, that are dissolved as ions. These ions can build up and become a film of mineral deposits (scale) in household or industrial pipes. Sodium chloride is used to generate ion-exchange resins that remove the ions of other minerals in hard water. NaCl also plays an important role in the de-icing of roads and pavements. Salt is able to melt ice and prevent the formation of ice crystals because it reduces the freezing point of water. In the UK, the main source of salt for de-icing is a single salt mine in Winsford, Cheshire. What is the Formula for Sodium Chloride? Sodium chloride is a simple compound with only two elements: sodium (Na) and chloride, which is the negatively charged ionic form of chlorine (Cl). This is why its chemical formula is NaCl. This compound has a molar mass of 58.443 g/mol. The ionic bonds of a molecule of salt are so strong that it takes extremely high energy to break them. For instance, the melting point of salt is 800.7°C. The ionic bonds form strong lattice crystalline structures that have lattice energy of 787.3 kJ/mol. Nonetheless, its solubility is 360g/1000g of water at 25°C, making it highly soluble in water. Below is a tabulated summary of the lattice energies of alkali metals and halides in kJ/mol: Is Sodium Chloride Safe? Sodium chloride is an essential electrolyte that our bodies need to function normally. Therefore, it’s not only safe, but necessary. However, just like other substances that the body needs, it also has a toxic effect when taken excessively. For example, the estimated lethal dose concentration of salt is between 0.75-3 g per kilogram of body weight. For an adult weighing around 75kg, this would mean consuming 56-225 g of salt in one sitting could be fatal. Luckily, it’s very unlikely that you would ever consume this much salt at once. Similarly, the concentration of salt in seawater makes it undrinkable for humans. If taken in excess of the daily dietary recommendation, sodium chloride can cause several health problems, such as kidney disease, high blood pressure, water retention, and heart disease. What Foods Are High in Sodium Chloride? Sodium chloride is virtually ubiquitous in the food that we eat. Processed foods are particularly rich in salt, where it acts as both a preservative and a seasoning. Additionally, almost all dairy products contain salt, with some cheese brands having particularly high salt content. Here are some examples of food items that are high in sodium chloride: - Shrimp: A serving of 85g of non-breaded frozen shrimp may contain as much as 800 mg of sodium, which is 35% of the recommended daily intake (RDI) - Ham: A serving of 85g of roasted ham has an average sodium content of 1,117 mg, or 48% of the RDI - Cottage cheese: A mere 113g serving of cottage cheese has an average of 350 mg of sodium (15% of the RDI) - Pizza: A 140g slice of frozen pizza on average has 765 mg of sodium, or about 33% of the RDI - Hot dogs: A hot dog may contain 578 mg of sodium (about 25% of the RDI) - Biscuits: Just one biscuit made may contain 528 mg of sodium, which is 23% of the RDI The blog on chemicals.co.uk and everything published on it is provided as an information resource only. The blog, its authors and affiliates accept no responsibility for any accident, injury or damage caused in part or directly from following the information provided on this website. We do not recommend using any chemical without first consulting the Material Safety Data Sheet which can be obtained from the manufacturer and following the safety advice and precautions on the product label. If you are in any doubt about health and safety issues please consult the Health & Safety Executive (HSE).
Clay Heebner and Matt Spearly Linear Motion Device Experiments Our first experiment was a test to find which direction the propeller should spin in order to provide forward propulsion. After researching we found that an angled blade should catch the air and push it back. From here we designed an experiment to test the direction a propeller should spin. Hypothesis: A propeller must cut first with the upper part of the blade into the; this throws air behind the propeller. Materials: Light propeller from kite, stopwatch, and tape Independent Variable: Direction the propeller is spinning Dependent Variable: Time it takes for propeller to hit ground Procedure: 1. Mark one side of the propeller with a piece of tape 2. Hold propeller at a height of six feet with tape facing up and take notice of which way the blades are angled 3. Spin propeller clockwise as another student starts stopwatch 4. Stop the time when propeller hits ground 5. Record time 6. Repeat for another time 7. Hold propeller at the same height with the tape facing up 8. Repeat steps 3-6 but spin propeller counterclockwise Direction of Spin Clockwise 1 Clockwise 2 Counter Clockwise 1 Counter Clockwise 2 Time (s) 1.31 1.32 .77 .84 Part that Cut Air First Upper Upper Lower Lower The results of the test above show that when the propeller was spun clockwise, it stayed in the air longer. This because it was taking air from above it and throwing it behind, which provided lift. The Counter clockwise spin took air from under it and threw it up; this brought it to the ground faster than the clockwise spin. The results proved the research we had done was correct and our hypothesis was correct. Our second experiment went along with both air resistance and the corkscrew effect. The corkscrew effect is the spiraling air flow that is made when air has passed through the spinning propellers. Hypothesis: With more holes in the paper, air resistance will decrease and paper will fall at a faster rate. Materials: Piece of paper, scissors, and stopwatch Independent Variable: Amount of holes in paper Dependent Variable: Time it takes paper to hit ground Procedure: 1. Take whole sheet of paper and hold at a height of six feet 2. Drop the sheet and someone else starts the stopwatch 3. Stop the stopwatch when the paper hits the ground 4. Record time 5. Cut one hole 1” by 1” in the center of the paper 6. Repeat steps 2-4 7. Cut another whole in the paper 8. Repeat steps 2-4 9. Repeat steps 2-7 up to eight holes Number of Holes in Paper 0 1 2 4 5 3 6 7 8 Time to Hit Ground (s) 2.56 2.36 2.27 2.43 2.06 2.17 2.06 2.13 2.25 Time to Fall vs Holes in Paper 3 2.5 2 1.5 Time (s) 1 0.5 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 The results of this test are hard to interpret; the time has an overall drop but it fluctuates. One observation we made was that the pattern of the holes had an effect on the way the paper fell. Sometime the pattern would let it fall on a straight downward path, while others would make it swing back and forth on its decent. This then had an effect on the time. However, it did demonstrate that an objects movement can be effected by the pattern of holes through it. This will be helpful in creating our linear motion device. We decided to change the experiment to combat the flaws with the last experiment. We had to try to make the paper fall in a more stable manner and get rid of the variable of the pattern of holes in the paper. Hypothesis: With more holes in the paper, air resistance will decrease and paper will fall at a faster rate. Materials: Piece of paper, scissors, ruler, and a stopwatch Independent Variable: Size of hole in middle of paper Dependent Variable: Time it takes paper to hit ground Procedure: 1. Take a whole sheet of paper and hold at a height of six feet 2. Drop sheet as another person starts the stopwatch 3. Stop stopwatch when paper hits the ground 4. Record time 5. Cut a hole 1” by 1” in the center of the paper 6. Repeat steps 2-4 7. Increase the dimensions of the whole by 1” both ways 8. Repeat steps 2-7 till Size of Whole 0 1” by 1” 2” by 2” 3” by 3” 4” by 4” 5” by 5” Time to Hit Ground 2.12 2.08 2.08 1.96 1.75 1.78 Time to Fall vs Hole Size 2.5 2 1.5 Time (s) 1 0.5 0 0 1" 2" 3" 4" 5" The data of this test was far more stable than it was in the last test. There is a downward movement in time as the size of the whole in the paper becomes larger. At first there is little change and this was partially due to the papers instability which causes some variation; still, at sizes 3” by 3” and 4” by 4” there were significant drops. Also as the hole size became larger, the stability did increase.
Advection is the horizontal transport or transfer of a quality such as heat and cold from one point to another. Advective transfers occur either in the oceans by currents of seawater or by large-scale movement in the atmosphere where humidity (atmospheric moisture) is another important property. In both cases a major example is the transport of cold air or water masses from the polar regions to lower latitudes. Another good example for advection is advection fog. Advection fog forms as relatively warm and moist air is moved over a colder surface, either a much cooler sea current or cold land-masses in winter. The cold surface chills air to dewpoint, resulting in low clouds and fog. Vertical transport is more localized and is known as convection. Weather Fact: Dew Point Expert maps: Low cloud cover over British Isles Marine Weather: Water Temperatures
A rubric is an evaluation tool used to deliver clear, concise, and timely feedback. Rubrics promote consistency by using the same ratings for performance across individuals. Rubrics provide a visual representation of the components being rated such as tasks and assignments. They also describe acceptable levels of performance for each component's outcome. Rubrics are presented as a matrix with criteria in rows and a performance levels in columns. Rubrics can be numeric, attaching a numbered point scale to each level of performance indicator. Non-numeric rubrics don't have a point scale but rely on the description of each level of performance for a rating. The headers for each column and row are defined by a user. An inline editor is available at the intersection of each row and column so you can provide a detailed description of what's being rated and how it's being measured. Common uses for rubrics Rubrics are most commonly used for rating or scoring individual assignments within a course. When you use the same rubric across all sections of a course for a common assignment, students are consistently scored against the stated performance or achievement outcomes. This scoring promotes fairness and generates data that you use to measure larger trends across courses and programs. Using the same rubric to rate all programs offered at your institution standardizes the process of program review by providing a common rating and feedback tool for committee members, administrators and outside accrediting agencies. Administrators and committee members may also use rubrics to display how programs relate to the mission of the institution. This example represents a non-numeric rubric for peer course review. The rubric is associated with the course goals that have been entered into the Goals tool. The rubric has six rows with different criteria and three columns with levels of performance. At the intersection of each row and column, a description of how the criteria are rated is presented. \|Criteria\|\|Doesn't Meet Course Goal\|\|Meets Course Goal\|\|Exceeds Course Goal\| \|Course Overview and Syllabus\|\|A course overview isn't present or isn't clear and concise and can be subject to interpretation. A standard syllabus for all sections isn't used by all teaching faculty. The sequence of material covered isn't similar. Assignments aren't similar.\|\|Clear and concise course overview is present. Standard elements exist in the syllabus for all sections of the course. The sequence of material covered is similar. Assignments are similar.\|\|Clear and concise course overview is present and posted in course catalog and in all online courses. A standard syllabus exists and is used for all sections of the course. The sequence of material covered is similar. Assignments are similar and use a standard grading rubric.\| \|Learning Goals\|\|Learning goals aren't present or are not clear and measurable.\|\|Learning goals are present for major assignments. They are clear and measurable by using assessments.\|\|Learning goals are present for all assignments and relate to the course overview and syllabus. Assessments are based on measuring stated learning goals.\| \|Assessment\|\|Assessment of stated learning goals doesn't occur in a regular and predictable way. Assessments are limited to a final exam or final project. \|Assessments are linked to stated learning goals and occur in a regular and predictable ways. Students can demonstrate proficiency and achievement by making presentations, taking tests, and completing writing assignments.\|\|Assessments are linked to stated learning goals and measured or scored using rubrics. Students have the opportunity to demonstrate proficiency and achievement of stated goals using multiple self-selected and assigned methods including presentations, research, writing, group projects, peer review, and exams.\| \|Course Materials and Resources\|\|Course materials and resources are limited to textbook or other required reading materials and the instructor.\|\|Course materials include textbook and other reading material, audio/visual or computer-aided presentations, library reserve or special collections. Course resources include the instructor and other institutional professionals.\|\|Course materials include textbooks, other reading material, audio/visual and computer-aided presentations, chat rooms, blogs, discussion boards, and library and special collections items. Course resources include the instructor, institutional professionals, guest speakers, and business leaders.\| \|Learner Interaction\|\|Students participate in class question and answer sessions and may be assigned a lab partner or small group to work with on a project.\|\|Students are expected to participate in class to answer questions and lead discussions. Students are encouraged to work together and study together. At least one group project is part of the curriculum are part of class assessment.\|\|Students are expected to participate in class and may plan and lead discussions. Students work together on multiple group projects, taking different roles in each. Students use discussion boards and chat tools for peer review and assessment.\| \|Course Technology\|\|Technology used in class is limited to basic audio/visual or lab equipment. Students are responsible for using the computer lab or personal computer to complete assignments.\|\|Technology used in class can include audio/visual equipment, sophisticated lab equipment such as a DNA sequencer or PCR machine, and computers for making presentations. The course has a web-based component where students can use various tools to download documents, post assignments, and check schedules.\|\|Technology used in class can include audio/visual equipment, sophisticated lab equipment, computers for presentations, and students' personal computers for note taking and file sharing. A rich web-based course site is available for students to share work, complete assignments, do research, and interact. Students' technology use is part of student assessment.\| You can create rubrics within courses or at the system level. You can use system rubrics to evaluate collected evidence. More on how instructors use rubrics in courses Add a rubric New rubrics default to three rows and three columns. - Access the rubric interface from these areas: - Outcomes Assessment tab - My Institution tab > Tools - Select Create Rubric. - Type a rubric Name and, optionally, a Description. - Select a rubric type. Choose Points, or Point Range if you want to assign a point value to each rubric box. - Complete the rubric. - Edit the criteria and level of achievement headers. - Add or remove rows or columns as necessary. - To reorder, select Criteria or Levels of Achievement. A reorder pop-up window allows you to rearrange. - Type the descriptions for each. - Type the Points value, if you chose to create a point-based rubric. - Select Submit. Copy a rubric You can duplicate a rubric. Select Copy from a rubric's menu. A copy is created automatically with the name of the rubric in parentheses followed by the number 1. For example, you can copy "Introductory Speech" to create "(Introductory Speech)(1)." - Navigate to the rubric you want to copy and open its menu. - Select Copy.The copied rubric appears below the original. - You can edit a rubric's name to add a new name. Select Edit from the rubric's menu. The Edit Rubric page allows you to edit all the settings for a rubric. Modify a rubric Open any rubric's menu and select Edit. You can modify a rubric by adding and removing columns and rows from the grid. Use the text box located at the intersection of each row and column to add descriptions and explanations of the criteria and indicators. You can modify the properties of a rubric until it has been used in an evaluation. After an evaluation exists for the rubric, a copy must be made to make changes.
This is one in a series of blog posts introducing the Center for Universal Education’s 2017 Echidna Global Scholars. In Mexico, the opportunity to attend primary school is nearly equal for girls (49 percent) and boys (51 percent). Educational infrastructure has also been improving in the country through the construction of schools in rural areas. Despite this, the rates of out-of-school students are considerably higher among indigenous peoples (16.3 percent) than non-indigenous populations (6 percent). Research shows that indigenous girls in Mexico are more vulnerable than other girls, not only because of unequal treatment within the family and community but also because of discrimination against ethnic groups. Professor - Universidad Anáhuac Mayab, School of Economics and Business 2017 Echidna Global Scholar - The Brookings Institution Indigenous populations in Mexico are identified either by self-identification or in reference to their language. According to the National Institute of Indigenous Languages (INALI), more than 68 linguistic groups coexist in Mexico. However, primary education continues to be taught primarily in Spanish to children whose mother tongue is indigenous, which contributes to an uneven learning process in classrooms. Indigenous girls have to overcome multiple sociocultural barriers to obtain an education. Burdensome household work such as cleaning, caring for other children, and cooking is by custom attributed to women and girls and often keeps them out of school. In the southern Yucatan Peninsula, for example, school attendance for girls averages 8 years while rural Maya communities average only 5 years of schooling. The ability to attend school also regularly depends on the availability of transportation, which in rural areas is often inadequate. In addition, there are patriarchal hierarchies that limit the advancement of girls’ education. As a result, girls see their opportunities for professional development and economic self-sufficiency considerably diminished. The Importance of Education for Indigenous Populations According to the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (CONEVAL), 73 percent of indigenous people are living in poverty in Mexico. Research has shown that education plays a major role in addressing poverty by increasing individuals’ expectations and motivations to achieve better standards of living and well-being. Ensuring equal opportunities at all levels of education is an element of social change not only for the benefit of women, but also for their children, their family, and the community at large. Several studies conducted by Inmujeres, a Mexican federal institution that contributes to the advancement of gender equity in Mexican society, show that higher levels of education lead to improvements in women’s reproductive health, increases in productivity and income, and a greater degree of freedom and power over their life. As Amartya Sen notably argued, education is a strategic factor in improving the social status of women and can lead to relations that are more egalitarian and increase their standard of living, while allowing them to fight against the intergenerational transmission of poverty that happens in the absence of better opportunities. It is also important to recognize that gender inequality in education can lead to unequal participation in the labor market and in public life. The New Educational Model, Mexico’s latest educational reform, is based on skills development and lifelong learning, and would help to ensure the inclusion of a greater number of indigenous girls in the classrooms. The Maya girls’ context, however, has yet to be fully understood. Mexico’s education policy plans and government programs promote a more gender-inclusive education, but it is important to emphasize that equal educational opportunities do not only depend on such policies. Rather, it is essential to also consider that some of the elements affecting gender equality in education are related to other societal factors, such as family relationships, perceptions of gender roles in society, and expectations and daily practices within households and communities. As an Echidna Global Scholar, I am conducting research that will explore the cultural barriers Maya girls have to overcome within their rural communities. Preliminary findings from my field research have demonstrated that an indigenous Maya girl is more likely to continue studying if she has a positive female role model who has completed university. For example, one primary school student expressed her admiration for her sister saying, “When I grow up I would like to be a teacher like her.” Another girl, a high school student who wants to be a lawyer, mentioned in reference to a female church leader, “I really admire her, I want to help people like she does.” In this sense, it is necessary to produce leadership roles that the girls want to follow and to utilize the experience of Maya women who are political decisionmakers, entrepreneurs, doctors, engineers, and teachers in order to encourage girls and their parents to make decisions that encourage schooling for girls. With girls’ perspectives at the core and the participation of strategic community leaders and female aspirational models, the aim of my research is to support indigenous girls in their educational path to a more respected, well informed, and socially accepted position in Mexican society.
Re: Master Clock contact spark quenching toggle quoted messageShow quoted text When the switch breaks, current is still flowing in the magnet coil, as the magnetic field collapses in the iron core, reverse current is induced. Since the circuit is broken the voltage rises very high and a spark may jump the gap. When synchronomes were in service a resistor was used to drain the current and avoid the voltage reaching a level that would spark. The modern way is to use a silicon power diode (e.g. 1N4001) mounted in reverse across the switch. These were not available in the clock’s heyday, hence the resistor. A capacitor might delay the rise of the peak, but either a resistor or diode is really the way to go. On Jan 6, 2021, at 23:23, Andrew Nahum <andrew.nahum@...> wrote:
This KS3 Geography quiz will ask questions about the coastal scenery. There are thousands of headlands along the UK coast, often with beaches between them. These beaches have been created where the softer rocks next to the headlands have been eroded, forming sand that has not been moved away by longshore drift. The areas between two headlands are called bays and these can be anything from a few tens of metres across to several kilometres. One of the ways that cliffs are eroded is by abrasion. Pebbles are thrown against the base of the cliff and knock bits of rock off the cliff. This creates a wave cut notch. Eventually, the weight of the unsupported rocks above the notch can cause the cliff to partially collapse. Beaches have been a popular destination since tourism started. In order to prevent the sand on their beaches from being washed away by longshore drift, seaside town councils installed solid wooden fences called groynes. Not all beaches are sandy, there are also pebble beaches too. These can also be protected using groynes if necessary.
Posted by: Kirsten Pisto, Communications Endotherms on the other hand, can survive in harsher conditions since they don’t rely on the environment for their warmth. Another advantage is that endotherms can have internal reproduction, which depending on the predators in the environment, can be more successful than egg-based reproduction. Of course, all this internal temperature control takes a lot of energy, placing a strong dependency on food intake. “I got a fever of a hundred and three, come on baby…” We’ve all heard the term “hot blooded” in reference to unabashed lust, but this Valentine’s Day we are cooling things off with a little biology recap. Sorry, all you stud-muffins and flirtatious foxes, but using the term “hot blooded” is actually pretty uncool in the zoological community. In the recent past, hot blooded (or warm blooded) and cold blooded were ways to describe an animal’s thermoregulation. Within the last 30 years, studies in the field of animal thermophysiology have revealed just how wild temperature control is between each species, and it’s pretty sexy stuff! \|Flamingos pair up to create a stunning heart-shaped beak rub. Flamingos are endothermic homeotherms. By constantly ingesting shrimp, these water birds keep their luxurious pink feathers looking bright; the shrimp also keep their metabolic rate nice and even. (Photo by Mat \| There are three types of thermal stability in animals: Homeothermy: when an organism maintains a relatively constant body temperature. This temperature is usually higher than the average warmth of the subject’s environment. Most birds and mammals—which includes us humans—are homeotherms, and maintain thermal homeostasis. Poikilothermy: a poikilotherm is an organism whose internal temperature varies considerably, usually a consequence of variation in the ambient environmental temperature. Most reptiles and amphibians are included in this category and depend on their environment for heat and cooling. \|Grizzlies are heterothermic. A tent to keep warm? Nope, they thermoregulate naturally. By lowering their core body temperature and heart rate during long winter months they don’t need as much fuel (berries and groundhogs) to sustain them. But when spring rolls around, their energy intake will rise substantially… watch out huckleberries.(Photo by Mat \| Heterothermy: is a physiological term for creatures that share characteristics of both poikilothermy and homeothermy. Heterothermy has been found in a number of mammalian orders, but within the primates so far it seems to be restricted to one family of Malagasy lemurs. - Temporal heterothermy refers to animals that are poikilothermic or homoeothermic for a portion of the day, or year. Often, body temperature and metabolic rate are elevated only during activity. When resting, these animals reduce their metabolisms drastically, which results in their body temperature dropping to that of the surrounding environment. This makes them homoeothermic when active, and poikilothermic when at rest. Bats and hummingbirds go into what is known as torpor and bears hibernate. Both are examples of heterothermy; where the internal temperature of the animal drops during specific periods of time, usually when food is scarce. - Regional heterothermy describes organisms that are able to maintain different temperature zones in different regions of the body. This usually occurs in the limbs, and is made possible through the use of counter-current heat exchangers. These exchangers equalize the temperature between hot arterial blood going out to the extremities and cold venous blood coming back, thus reducing heat loss. Penguins and many arctic birds use these exchangers to keep their feet at roughly the same temperature as the surrounding ice which prevents the birds from getting stuck to ice sheets! Got it? Not so fast. There is another factor in determining whether an animal is so-called warm or cold-blooded. Organisms can generally be divided into two types of thermoregulators: endotherms and ectotherms. Endotherms (most mammals and birds) create most of their heat via metabolic processes, burning cell's energy, to produce heat, and are colloquially referred to as warm-blooded (deriving energy from food intake). For ectotherms (reptiles, fish and most amphibians), temperature is mostly a function of the environment, and they are sometimes referred to as cold-blooded (soaking up sunrays or laying on a hot rock). \|Nina, a western lowland gorilla, keeps her energy high with a Valentine’s treat. Gorillas constantly forage for nutritious snacks. (Photo by Ryan Hawk/WPZ)\| People are both endotherms and homeotherms; we maintain a constant temperature through our metabolic process (perhaps why we crave more carbs in the winter). Fish are ectotherms: if they live in a small stream that has varied temperatures, then they are poikilothermic; however, if they happen to live in a large body of water which keeps a stable temperature, then they become homeotherms. Most endotherms are also homeotherms, but not all ectotherms are poikilotherms…agh! Kalisa and Hubert enjoy an enrichment treat. Lions are predatory, eating very large meals less often. Both species are homeothermic endotherms, relying mainly on food intake to regulate body temperature. (Photo by Lauren LaPlante/WPZ) So, who holds the advantage? Like many things this time of year, it’s complicated. Ectotherms get most of their heat from environmental sources such as sunlight energy, therefore they have less dependence on respiration for generation of heat. Because of this, ectotherms such as reptiles can survive on just a single large meal per week. They are less vulnerable to fluctuations in food supply, increasing their chances of survival. On the other hand, tropical ectotherms may be particularly vulnerable to climate warming. Our advice for Valentine’s Day? Engage in some kleptothermy. Kleptotherms share, or steal, each other’s body heat! Animals that nest together increase their thermal inertia, reducing heat loss and providing each other warmth. There’s no discrimination amongst kleptotherms; an ectothermic animal can take advantage of an endotherm’s cozy burrow! The zoo can be a romantic spot for hot blooded creatures, especially on chilly February afternoons. Bring your sweetheart and take advantage of some kleptothermy of your own… we hear the Jaguar Cove is particularly cozy. Photo by Rathbone Images. Whether endo- or ectothermic, all animals regulate and maintain their body temperature with physiological adjustments and behavior. Snakes bask in the sun. Kangaroos lick their arms to cool down. Bears eat more berries and fat-rich salmon in the summer to store energy during the winter. Ostrich stick out their long necks so that they can conduct body heat to the air. Humans sweat when they are too hot, and shiver when they are too cold. (Shivering helps increase heat production as respiration is an exothermic reaction in our muscle cells.) Iguanas soak up the warmth from sun soaked rocks. Crocodiles seek cool mud in the hot afternoon. Orangutans cover themselves with large leaves when they feel too hot. Fox grow thicker fur in the winter. And hummingbirds simply head south. So, whether you are gearing up for roses and chocolate with your schnookie-pie or celebrating anti-Valentine’s Day with your friends, remember, we’re all just homeotherms trying to keep warm. Learn more at:
WALKING — a way of movement of the person and animals. Walking of the person is characterized by alternation of the periods of a support and transfer of each leg, and also existence of the two-basic period, during to-rogo both legs are on a support. Walking differs in it from the run (see) having a so-called flight interval, during to-rogo any of legs has no contact with a support. Walking is cyclic process: consecutive phases of the movement of legs and all body repeat through approximately equal time terms. At the same time almost all body is involved in the movement. The movements of hands in the course of walking of a protivofazna to the movements of legs — movement of the right leg is followed forward by the return movement of the right hand while the left hand follows the movement of the right leg. Also the movements of a basin and a shoulder girdle have antiphase character. In this regard the backbone during the walking «is alternately twisted» diversely. Such movements of hands and backbone promote smoothness of movements of a body. The center of gravity of a body during the walking moves not on a straight line forward, and on the difficult curve close to a sinusoid — up — down (amplitude of 4 — 6 cm) and to the left — to the right (amplitude apprx. 2 cm). In this regard also pressure of legs upon a support is not constant: at the moments when the leg steps on a support and makes a start (front and back dynamic pushes), pressure upon a support exceeds body weight, and between these moments — - it is less than the body weight. The size of dynamic pushes depends on the speed of movement. Speed of walking is defined by speed (quantity of steps in unit of time) and length of a step. Power consumption at increase in speed of movement ranging from 4 increases up to 6,5 km/h in direct ratio speeds. At big speeds power consumption increases more intensively. Calculation of power consumption on unit of the passable way showed that walking with a speed apprx. 4 km/h is followed by the minimum power consumption. Existence of a power minimum of walking is connected with the instinctive aspiration which is available for each person to choose optimum speed (apprx. 110 steps a minute) and the certain length of a step correlating with sizes and body weight. As in the course of walking almost all muscles of a trunk and extremities participate, this way of movement is followed by strengthening of ventilation of the lungs, blood circulation, increase in metabolic rate. The dynamic pushes accompanying process of walking contribute to normalization of a tone of blood vessels of legs, reduction of venous stagnation. Therefore the dosed walking is used as a preventive and medical factor, napr, at prevention of negative effects of a hypokinesia (see) and hypodynamias (see), at diseases of cardiovascular system (see) etc. The experience accumulated in the field of recreational and physiotherapy exercises (see Physical culture and sport), testifies to multilateral favorable effects of walking, and walking, thus, can be considered as organized and systematic training process with constantly carried out keeping track of by the size of loading (see the Training). Walking is among the high-automated movement skills (see the Movements). Various departments of c are involved in regulation of walking. N of page (see. Motor analyzer). In particular, movements of legs are carried out under control of structures of a spinal cord (see), stvolovomozzhechkovy mechanisms take part in regulation of balance during the walking (see Balance of a body). Walking of the healthy person has the specific features (see Gait). Disturbances of X. are observed at various defeats of c. the N of page and a musculoskeletal system, and for different forms of pathology are characteristic certain disturbances of gait. Allocate I antalgiche-will hold down (sparing, analgetic) the gait observed at patients with joint pains of legs, a backbone with obliterating defeats of vessels of extremities (see); ataxic gate (see the Ataxy), at a cut preservation of balance and the direction of the movement is complicated; spastic and akinetiko-ri-gidnuyu gait, etc. For a research of walking various methods of optical registration (see Tsiklografiya, Kimotsiklografiya), measurements of duration of phases of a support and transfer, length of steps, speeds and accelerations, etc. are used (see the Biomechanic). Quantitative indices of disturbances of rhythm and symmetry of walking (see Lameness) are used in the analysis of efficiency of means of motive rehabilitation. Bibliography: Bernstein N. A. About creation of movements, M., 1947; about N e, Sketches on physiology of movements and physiology of activity, M., 1966; Researches on biodynamics of walking, run, a jump, under the editorship of N. A. Bernstein, M., 1940; Physiology of the movement, under the editorship of V. S. Gurfinkel, etc., D., 1976; Neural control of locomotion, ed. by R. M. Herman a. o., N. Y. — L., 1976. V. S. Gurfinkel.
The attacks of September 11th 2001 were a symbolic attack on democratic, tolerant and pluralistic society. 17 years on from that atrocity, SINCE 9/11 is pleased to launch a suite of free teaching resources designed to protect and nurture the values and the type of society the terrorists sought to destroy. Since 2015, Schools have had a duty to promote the Fundamental British Values of Democracy, the Rule of Law, Individual Liberty and Mutual Respect and Tolerance for Different Faiths and Beliefs. The SINCE 9/11 Primary Education resources, designed in partnership with the world-acclaimed UCL Institute of Education, are here to support your efforts to teach and discuss these values in the classroom. Below you will find a comprehensive guidance document which will set out the meaning behind the values, as well as a discussion on teaching approaches to the topic. Towards the end of the guidance, you will find individual lesson plan guidance for each of the 10 lessons contained in this programme. Each Lesson consists of: A Powerpoint Slide Pack Activity Sheets to be printed and used in the classroom Download the resources below!
The outer ear consists of the pinna and external ear canal. These structures gather sound and direct it towards the ear drum. The middle ear consists of the ear drum and three very small bones – the hammer, anvil, and stirrup. These structures act as a transformer, converting air vibrations in the external canal, to mechanical vibration in the middle ear. The inner ear contains thousands of microscopic nerve endings bathed in fluid. These nerve endings transform the hydraulic energy into electrical impulses that travel along the auditory nerve into the brain where sound is interpreted and given meaning. A Conductive Hearing Loss may result from wax or infection in the external ear canal, from a hole in the ear drum, from middle ear infection, or from disease or trauma to any of the three middle ear bones. Conductive hearing losses are usually medically or surgically treatable by a physician known as an Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT) Specialist.A person with a conductive hearing loss may not hear speech loud enough. Once there is sufficient volume, words are usually understood. A conductive loss may be present at birth, it may be stable or get progressively worse over time, or it may fluctuate. Usually patients with conductive losses do not lose their hearing completely. If a conductive loss cannot be helped medically or surgically, hearing aids usually provide significant help.A Sensorineural Hearing Loss may be inherited; it may be caused by birth trauma, viral illness, head injury, or a number of other medical conditions. Excessive noise exposure and ageing are the most common causes.A nerve loss is usually not medically or surgically treatable. The hearing loss may remain stable or it may gradually worsen. Complete deafness rarely occurs. A person with a nerve loss can almost always be helped with prescription fit hearing aids and a self-help program provided by an Audiologist.People with nerve losses state that they can hear people talking but cannot understand the words clearly. They usually hear better in quiet environments than in background noise. They may have difficulty understanding TV and may turn the volume up. Individuals with nerve losses usually understand some people better than others depending on the tone of the voice. As the hearing worsens they may accuse others of mumbling or they may become frustrated and / or embarrassed. In some cases, personality and life style changes occur.Tinnitus is a sound heard in one ear, both ears, or in the brain itself that can be high pitched ringing, buzzing, hissing, or any one of a dozen other noises. Tinnitus varies in loudness from being barely noticeable only in a quiet room, or it can be loud enough to be distracting. It can begin suddenly or gradually. It can be present 24 hours a day or it can be intermittent.
Gaseous carbon dioxide is poured into a clear walled vessel containing four lit tea candles suspended at varying heights. The candles are extinguished one at a time from the lowest to the highest. Illustrate the concept of carbon dioxide not being able to support combustion, as well as showing that carbon dioxide is denser than air. Explanation of Experiment: Solid carbon dioxide (dry ice) sublimes at a temperature of -78.5 °C. At this temperature, it has a density of 1.56 g/L. The density of oxygen at 25 °C is 1.31 g/L. As the more dense carbon dioxide is poured into a vessel containing four lit candles suspended at varying heights, the candles are extinguished one at a time from the bottom up. Prepare a clear plastic tank by placing four jars and/or beakers of varying capacities inverted so that you have a cascading array. Place a tea candle on the bottom of each beaker/jar. Place a number of pieces of dry ice in a plastic pitcher and allow them to stand for ca. ten minutes in order to allow it to fill with carbon dioxide gas. Have a barbecue lighter ready to ignite the candles. Light the candles and slowly pour the carbon dioxide gas into the containment vessel. Point out that the heavy gas can be poured much like a liquid, but it cannot be seen. The candles will extinguish one by one from the bottom up. Handle dry ice with protective gloves. Keep flammables away from open flames. Never place dry ice in a sealed container. Wear appropriate eye protection. Allow excess dry ice to sublime. All other materials may be reused. Type of Reaction: - Bilash, B., Gross, G.R. and Koob, J.K. (2010), A Demo A Day - A Year of Chemical Demonstrations, Flinn Scientific Inc., p.25.
This lesson is on simplifying like terms. Your main objective in this lesson is to learn when and how we add (combine) variable terms. In algebra a term is the most basic part of what we work with. An example of a variable term would be “3x” or “-8y”. What you will learn in the lesson is how to simplify a variable expression by adding terms. Of course not all variable terms can be added and the lesson will go into detail on how to determine when you can combine variable terms. One special note: make sure you have mastered the rules of Real Numbers (positive and negative numbers) before starting this lesson.
Eliza Elyana November 25, 2020 Worksheet Numerous research studies have found that when students are actively engaged with the content, they have a much better chance of understanding and remembering what they have learned. Unfortunately, math worksheets tend to bore most students, especially those who need the most help in math. Engagement entails much more than rote repetition of a procedure. Math worksheets tend to present very similar problem types over and over, leading to mundane practice of disassociated skills. For students who understand the material and successfully complete an assignment, another worksheet becomes meaningless. On the other hand, for the students who don’t understand the material, an alternative method of instruction is what’s needed. Another worksheet simply adds to the student’s frustration, or worse, contributes to a belief that ”I’ll never understand math.” A cute image or a ”fill-in-the-blanks” riddle does nothing to increase engagement or learning (and let’s face it, those riddles are not funny!). Instead, teachers need to increase engagement by providing students with exercises in which they discover patterns and relationships, solve problems, or think creatively about math relationships. The same is true for mastery of working with fractions. So, in general, kids who don’t learn their multiplication tables and arithmetic with fractions usually don’t do well in math. It’s been proven that success in science depends to a great extent on success in math. So, these same kids usually don’t do well with science, either. In other words, they’re locked out of most of the growth that our economy is going to experience in the future. According to the federal government, eight out of ten jobs in the next twenty years are going to be computer related. If you want your child to have access to the major portion of jobs in the future, your child must master math. It’s that simple. Most of even beginning algebra depends on being able to do two things–one, doing multiplication quickly and accurately in your head, two, knowing how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide fractions. You might remember a concept in algebra called ”factoring.” Factoring means breaking up into parts that are multiplied together to give you the whole. You can factor numbers. For instance, 6 factors into 2 and 3–2×3 =6. In elementary algebra we learn to factor expressions such as x^2+4x+4. This particular expression is easily factorable into (x+2)^2. If this doesn’t make any sense to you, don’t worry about it. Just trust me, if you don’t know your multiplication tables, you can’t factor. If you can’t factor, you won’t do well at all in algebra, geometry, or trigonometry. Teaching needs to be more than passing out worksheets. Whether you are the classroom teacher, instructional specialist, or parent, the methods you use greatly impact the level of understanding achieved by your students. Here are five reasons why math worksheets don’t work if you want students to understand math, enjoy math, and think mathematically. Solving math is crucial and essential to generate superior and effective problem-solving skills amongst children. For this purpose a range of websites have sprung up online offering math assignment help helping those who find the task of solving problems daunting. These assignments are known to help people in their mathematical problems. They cater to people with problems right from the basic addition or subtraction to the complex algebra lessons and trigonometry problems. Especially, students are known to benefit tremendously from these online materials. This issue of NOT practicing mistakes is extremely important. Parents shouldn’t give worksheets as busy work and teachers should only use them if you are going to have a non-math teacher substitute. White boards with supervision are always a better way to practice skills. If you need some time to do chores, your child will get much more benefit by helping you with the chores. And maybe you can work in a little discussion of numbers or counting while you do chores together. Tag Cloudpercentage worksheets for grade 7 pdf fun math worksheets for middle school fun times tables worksheets fun multiplication worksheets grade 4 fun multiplication worksheets measurement worksheets grade 1 adding fractions with like denominators worksheets fun percentage worksheets learning numbers worksheets gcse maths revision worksheets with answers reverse percentages worksheet math aids division fun worksheets for 5th grade math coloring worksheets 3rd grade 8th grade algebra worksheets fun math activities printable subtraction word problems for grade 2
So-called ‘blocks’ in the jet stream can lead to extreme weather events such as heatwaves and winter cold snaps. But the reasons why they happen are still hotly debated by scientists despite decades of study. An atmospheric block typically occurs at the western edge of a continent when the jet stream splits, trapping a region of air thousands of kilometers across. The huge mass of stalled air can remain in that state for weeks, leading to potentially devastating weather impacts. In the summer of 2003, for example, a block in Western Europe caused a record-breaking heat wave that led to more than 70,000 deaths. Among the new theories for why blocks happen is one proposed by Harvard University atmospheric scientist Lei Wang, who linked the phenomenon to the behaviour at high latitudes of the Coriolis force, an effect of Earth’s rotation that can cause the jet stream to meander and contort. Other researchers have suggested that climate change may be playing a role in the phenomenon. US climate scientist Jennifer Francis has suggested that warming in the Arctic may be slowing down the jet stream and causing it to create larger block-like meanders, which in turn result in more extreme winter storms. Yet another theory that has emerged in recent years highlights the role that moisture in the atmosphere plays in block formation. Stephan Pfahl, an atmospheric dynamicist at the Free University of Berlin, found through case studies and modeling that many blocks persist only if fed air in which water vapor has condensed into clouds and rain. This moist air releases heat that uplifts the air mass contained in the block. But despite the recent theories and research on the phenomenon dating back to the early 1980s the scientific community is no closer to reaching a consensus on why blocks happen. Wang told Science Mag, “The lack of theory is really the root cause of a lot of the confusion we now have.”
All living plants and creatures need nutrients to survive and thrive. In this video, we’ve asked Ian Power to describe how two key nutrients – nitrogen and phosphorus – move around the farm environment. Ian is an environmental management specialist at Ballance Agri-Nutrients. IAN POWER – BALLANCE AGRI-NUTRIENTS Farmers use nutrients to produce food and keep plants and animals healthy. These nutrients come from a mix of natural cycles, fertiliser and feed.Understanding nutrient flows help farmers improve production, nutrient use efficiency and reduce nutrient losses.This is especially true for nitrogen and phosphorus where N and P losses can drive unwanted algae and weed growth in streams and lakes. Most of the Earth’s P is contained in rock minerals and moves very slowly as land is eroded and soil is formed and reformed. Some P is dissolved directly from rock into groundwater. Most New Zealand soils are naturally low in P and farmers boost this with P fertiliser. Imported feed also brings P into the farm system. The main P fertiliser in New Zealand is superphosphate, where the P is soluble and easily taken up by plants. A lot of fertiliser P ends up being strongly held by soil particles. Weathering and soil microbes mobilise this P, as well as soil organic P, making it available to plants via their roots. In a grazing farm, P returns to the soil via animal dung and decomposing plants. P is removed from the farm via farm products – animals, milk, wool and crops. P can be lost from the farm when heavy rainfall causes surface runoff which transports P contained in soil particles, animal dung and fertiliser. The amount of runoff P depends on the interaction between P sources and runoff pathways, minus any P capture before runoff reaches the receiving water body. The nitrogen cycle is quite different from the P cycle because most N is in the Earth’s atmosphere. Plants cannot use this N until it is converted into soluble ammonium or nitrate. This happens via N fixing plants like clover, or via fertiliser N manufacture, such as urea. N also arrives via imported feed and even lightning. N returns to the soil via animal urine and dung. Soil microbes help break down organic N into soluble forms which plants can use. leaves a farm in farm produce and via losses to the atmosphere and water. The main N loss pathway to water is leaching where soil nitrate N is flushed below the soil root zone by rainfall and irrigation. This N drains to groundwater which moves slowly towards springs, streams and lakes. Most N leaching on grazing farms comes from animal urine patches which contain more N than plants can use. This is especially true in late autumn and winter when plant growth slows, soils are much wetter and soil drainage is at its greatest. To sum up, farmers need to manage N and P inputs to meet production goals, while also recognising when and where the main N and P losses occur. Farmers can then act to minimise these losses to waterways and help protect water quality. Your nutrient advisor can help by preparing a nutrient budget and farm environment plan tailored to your needs.
- What are the most important muscles? - What is the most common type of muscle tissue? - What are the three types of muscle tissue quizlet? - What are the three types of muscles fibers? - What is the major function of muscles? - How do muscle fibers build? - What is the strongest muscle in the human body? - What are the 20 major muscles of the body? - What is the primary function of all types of muscle tissue? - What are the four characteristics of skeletal muscle? - What animal has the strongest muscle fibers? - What is the main function of smooth muscle? - What are the characteristics of the three muscle tissues? - What are the 3 types of muscle tissue and their functions? - What is the muscle tissue? - What are 6 major types of muscles? - What are the 4 types of muscles? - Where is muscle tissue found in the body? What are the most important muscles? The human heart is the most incredible muscle in the body, beating about 100,000 times to send 3,600 gallons of blood through 75,000 miles of blood vessels each day. Sure, skeletal muscles are vital to our ability to function, but the heart is truly a step above.. What is the most common type of muscle tissue? skeletal musclesContractions of skeletal muscles are voluntary, or under conscious control of the central nervous system via the somatic nervous system. Skeletal muscle tissue is the most common type of muscle tissue in the human body. What are the three types of muscle tissue quizlet? The three types of muscle tissue are skeletal, cardiac, and smooth. What are the three types of muscles fibers? The three types of muscle fiber are slow oxidative (SO), fast oxidative (FO) and fast glycolytic (FG). SO fibers use aerobic metabolism to produce low power contractions over long periods and are slow to fatigue. FO fibers use aerobic metabolism to produce ATP but produce higher tension contractions than SO fibers. What is the major function of muscles? The muscular system is composed of specialized cells called muscle fibers. Their predominant function is contractibility. Muscles, attached to bones or internal organs and blood vessels, are responsible for movement. Nearly all movement in the body is the result of muscle contraction. How do muscle fibers build? Muscle hypertrophy occurs when the fibers of the muscles sustain damage or injury. The body repairs damaged fibers by fusing them, which increases the mass and size of the muscles. Certain hormones, including testosterone, human growth hormone, and insulin growth factor, also play a role in muscle growth and repair. What is the strongest muscle in the human body? masseterThe strongest muscle based on its weight is the masseter. With all muscles of the jaw working together it can close the teeth with a force as great as 55 pounds (25 kilograms) on the incisors or 200 pounds (90.7 kilograms) on the molars. The uterus sits in the lower pelvic region. What are the 20 major muscles of the body? The masseter is the strongest muscle in your body.Masseter and temporalis muscles. The masseter lifts the lower jaw to close the mouth and it is the strongest muscle in your body. … Biceps brachii muscle. … Deltoid muscles. … Pectoralis major muscle. … Adductor longus muscle. … Soleus muscle. What is the primary function of all types of muscle tissue? Muscle is one of the four primary tissue types of the body, and the body contains three types of muscle tissue: skeletal muscle, cardiac muscle, and smooth muscle (Figure 15.2). The primary function of all muscle tissue is movement. What are the four characteristics of skeletal muscle? Four characteristics define skeletal muscle tissue cells: they are voluntary, striated, not branched, and multinucleated. Skeletal muscle tissue is the only muscle tissue under the direct conscious control of the cerebral cortex of the brain, giving it the designation of being voluntary muscle. What animal has the strongest muscle fibers? chimpanzee muscleOur results show that chimpanzee muscle exceeds human muscle in maximum dynamic force and power output by ∼1.35 times. This is primarily due to the chimpanzee’s higher fast-twitch fiber content, rather than exceptional maximum isometric force or maximum shortening velocities. What is the main function of smooth muscle? The primary function of smooth muscle is contraction. Smooth muscle consists of two types: single-unit and multi-unit. Single-unit smooth muscle consists of multiple cells connected through connexins that can become stimulated in a synchronous pattern from only one synaptic input. What are the characteristics of the three muscle tissues? By applying these classifications three muscle types can be described; skeletal, cardiac and smooth. Skeletal muscle is voluntary and striated, cardiac muscle is involuntary and straited and smooth muscle is involuntary and non-striated. What are the 3 types of muscle tissue and their functions? Each type of muscle tissue in the human body has a unique structure and a specific role. Skeletal muscle moves bones and other structures. Cardiac muscle contracts the heart to pump blood. The smooth muscle tissue that forms organs like the stomach and bladder changes shape to facilitate bodily functions. What is the muscle tissue? Muscle tissue is composed of cells that have the special ability to shorten or contract in order to produce movement of the body parts. The tissue is highly cellular and is well supplied with blood vessels. … Muscle tissue can be categorized into skeletal muscle tissue, smooth muscle tissue, and cardiac muscle tissue. What are 6 major types of muscles? Muscles and JointsSmooth Muscles. Smooth muscles — sometimes also called involuntary muscles — are usually in sheets, or layers, with one layer of muscle behind the other. … A Hearty Muscle. The muscle that makes up the heart is called cardiac muscle. … Skeletal Muscle. … Face Muscles. … Major Muscles. What are the 4 types of muscles? In the body, there are three types of muscle: skeletal (striated), smooth, and cardiac.Skeletal Muscle. Skeletal muscle, attached to bones, is responsible for skeletal movements. … Smooth Muscle. … Cardiac Muscle. Where is muscle tissue found in the body? Smooth muscle fibers are located in walls of hollow visceral organs, except the heart, appear spindle-shaped, and are also under involuntary control. Skeletal muscle fibers occur in muscles which are attached to the skeleton. They are striated in appearance and are under voluntary control.
Would you like to incorporate more historical materials into your classroom? American Memory is a wonderful digital collection that could be used in all subject areas. American Memory provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience. It is a digital record of American history and creativity. These materials, from the collections of the Library of Congress and other institutions, chronicle historical events, people, places, and ideas that continue to shape America, serving the public as a resource for education and lifelong learning. American Memory covers topics such as Native American History, sports and recreation, performing arts, literature, technology, environmental conservation, and more. One of the best things about this website is that it should not be blocked by your school’s/district’s internet filter because it is published by the Library of Congress. Why tell your students about early film and sound recording when they can access and explore a database of Edison’s work with sound and motion pictures? American Memory can provide your students the opportunity to see and experience the media associated with the American history events you may be covering in your classroom.
Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) and its role in children’s diet Pediatric Nutritionist, BSc, Post Graduate in Nutrition and Dietetics, PhD (Std) - Posted On April 04, 2017 Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) are the daily dietary intake level of a nutrient considered adequate by the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine to meet the requirements of 97.5% of healthy people in each age-stage and sex-group.Since it is age and gender specific, RDA is different for infants, children, pregnant and lactating women and adults. RDA takes in to account individual variation in nutrient need and the availability of nutrients that may vary from one diet to another depending on cultural and traditional differences. Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) originated in 1943 during World War II with the objective of providing standards to serve as a goal for good nutrition. The RDA helped to account for the various dietary essential nutrients necessary for people of different ages and gender. The dietary allowances in Indians were first recommended in 1944 by the Nutrition Advisory group and revised over the years by the national body ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) with detailed recommendation with respect to safe levels of intake of all nutrients through various age groups and gender. Why are following the RDA guidelinesfor children important? - We must ensure and meet a child’s daily requirements of nutrients, either by consuming foods rich in those nutrients or by taking a supplement. If The RDA for a certain vitamin is the optimal amount required that will help prevent deficiencies in most the children. - Recommended dietary allowances are set for both genders and are broken down into age groups from infants to adolescent’s keeping in consideration the different requirements at different ages owing to the physical and hormonal changes that occur during growth and then at puberty. How should the RDA for various nutrients be met for children? The RDAs serves as a guide such that a balanced diet meeting RDAs requirements will probably be adequate in all other nutrients. Therefore,diets should be composed of a variety of foods that are derived from the 5 major food groups.The losses of nutrients during the processing and preparation of food should be taken into consideration in planning diets for children and should be done under the guidance of a qualified paediatric nutritionist. Conditions that may require adjustments in the application of the RDA for children are as follows: Ordinarily an adjustment made by consuming adequate water in summers and warm foods in winters protects the body against heat and cold. Therefore, adjustments in dietary allowances to compensate for environmental temperature changes arerarely necessary. Prolonged exposure to high or low temperatures may cause changes in activity level, energy expenditure, and therefore food intake. Under extreme conditions, there may an additional requirement of nutrients in order for normal body functions to occur efficiently. - High Intensity Physical Activity Increased activity increases the need for energy and some nutrients. Such needs can be met by increasing the nutrient intake through calorie dense food and beverages over the RDA cut offs depending on the level of activity or sport the child is engaged in on a daily or a weekly basis. In hot environments, activity increases water and salt losses through sweating and, if prolonged, can also lead to measurable losses of other essential nutrients. Special attention should be given to the immediate need for water and salts under such conditions. - Clinical Conditions The RDA values are applicable for normal healthy children. They do not cover special nutritional needs arising from sports, nutrient deficiencies, and metabolic disorders like obesity, chronic diseases, injuries, premature birth, other medical conditions, and drug therapies.Therefore, children suffering from illness or any medical condition have specialized needs and must refer to a paediatric nutritionist or a child dietitian for their specialized needs and guidance. Fitterfly is a wellness company run by doctors, nutritionists and wellness experts with an aim to empower people with knowledge and tools for good health. Our qualified Nutritionists at Fitterfly provide detailed customized guidance according to your child’s age, health condition, cuisine and personal preferences. To know more download and use ‘Fitterfly’ app from play store or app store or write to us at [email protected] or just call us at +917045065225
Step 1: Research dyslexia and learn as much as you can before you decide what to do next. Before diving into talking with the school, or calling the phone number of someone you've found on the web, take the time to do some research and learn what you can. Then, you will be better prepared and know what to ask when you begin to talk with others. Here are a few suggestions: - Do an informal evaluation yourself by comparing your child's characteristics to a well-designed checklist. This Signs of Dyslexia Checklist is a quick but very accurate assessment of whether or not your child might have a problem. - Another excellent resource for learning more is this video: Could it be Dyslexia? There are also many other resources at the parent-friendly Bright Solutions for Dyslexia site. Next: How to get specific information from the school on exactly how well your child is reading.
Competition among conspecific males for fertilizing the ova is one of the mechanisms of sexual selection, i.e. selection that operates on maximizing the number of successful mating events rather than on maximizing survival and viability 1. Sperm competition represents the competition between males after copulating with the same female 2, in which their sperm are coincidental in time and space. This phenomenon has been reported in multiple species of plants and animals 3. For example, wild-caught D. melanogaster females usually contain sperm from 2-3 males 4. The sperm are stored in specialized organs with limited storage capacity, which might lead to the direct competition of the sperm from different males 2,5. Comparing sperm competitive ability of different males of interest (experimental male types) has been performed through controlled double-mating experiments in the laboratory 6,7. Briefly, a single female is exposed to two different males consecutively, one experimental male and one cross-mating reference male. The same mating scheme is then followed using other experimental male types thus facilitating the indirect comparison of the competitive ability of their sperm through a common reference. The fraction of individuals fathered by the experimental and reference males is identified using markers, which allows one to estimate sperm competitive ability using simple mathematical expressions 7,8. In addition, sperm competitive ability can be estimated in two different scenarios depending on whether the experimental male is second or first to mate (offense and defense assay, respectively) 9, which is assumed to be reflective of different competence attributes. Here, we describe an approach that helps to interrogate the role of different genetic factors that putatively underlie the phenomenon of sperm competitive ability in D. melanogaster. 27 Related JoVE Articles! Making Gynogenetic Diploid Zebrafish by Early Pressure Institutions: University of Oregon, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center - FHCRC. Heterozygosity in diploid eukaryotes often makes genetic studies cumbersome. Methods that produce viable homozygous diploid offspring directly from heterozygous females allow F1 mutagenized females to be screened directly for deleterious mutations in an accelerated forward genetic screen. Streisinger et al.1,2 described methods for making gynogenetic (homozygous) diploid zebrafish by activating zebrafish eggs with ultraviolet light-inactivated sperm and preventing either the second meiotic or the first zygotic cell division using physical treatments (heat or pressure) that deploymerize microtubules. The "early pressure" (EP) method blocks the meiosis II, which occurs shortly after fertilization. The EP method produces a high percentage of viable embryos that can develop to fertile adults of either sex. The method generates embryos that are homozygous at all loci except those that were separated from their centromere by recombination during meiosis I. Homozygous mutations are detected in EP clutches at between 50% for centromeric loci and less than 1% for telomeric loci. This method is reproduced verbatim from the Zebrafish Book3 Developmental Biology, Issue 28, Zebrafish, Early Pressure, Homozygous Diploid, Haploid, Gynogenesis Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) Protocol in Human Sperm Institutions: Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona. Aneuploidies are the most frequent chromosomal abnormalities in humans. Most of these abnormalities result from meiotic errors during the gametogenic process in the parents. In human males, these errors can lead to the production of spermatozoa with numerical chromosome abnormalities which represent an increased risk of transmitting these anomalies to the offspring. For this reason, the technique of fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) on sperm nuclei has become a protocol widely incorporated in the context of clinical diagnosis. This practice provides an estimate of the frequencies of numerical chromosome abnormalities in the gametes of the patients that seek for genetic reproductive advice. To date, the chromosomes most frequently included in sperm FISH analysis are chromosomes X, Y, 13, 18 and 21. This video-article describes, step by step, how to process and fix a human semen sample, how to decondense and denature the sperm chromatin, how to proceed to obtain sperm FISH preparations, and how to visualize the results at the microscope. Special remarks of the most relevant steps are given to achieve the best results. Cellular Biology, Issue 31, Fluorescence in situ hybridization, human, infertility, numerical chromosome abnormalities, spermatozoa A Noninvasive Method For In situ Determination of Mating Success in Female American Lobsters (Homarus americanus) Institutions: University of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, Boston University, Middle College. Despite being one of the most productive fisheries in the Northwest Atlantic, much remains unknown about the natural reproductive dynamics of American lobsters. Recent work in exploited crustacean populations (crabs and lobsters) suggests that there are circumstances where mature females are unable to achieve their full reproductive potential due to sperm limitation. To examine this possibility in different regions of the American lobster fishery, a reliable and noninvasive method was developed for sampling large numbers of female lobsters at sea. This method involves inserting a blunt-tipped needle into the female's seminal receptacle to determine the presence or absence of a sperm plug and to withdraw a sample that can be examined for the presence of sperm. A series of control studies were conducted at the dock and in the laboratory to test the reliability of this technique. These efforts entailed sampling 294 female lobsters to confirm that the presence of a sperm plug was a reliable indicator of sperm within the receptacle and thus, mating. This paper details the methodology and the results obtained from a subset of the total females sampled. Of the 230 female lobsters sampled from George's Bank and Cape Ann, MA (size range = 71-145 mm in carapace length), 90.3% were positive for sperm. Potential explanations for the absence of sperm in some females include: immaturity (lack of physiological maturity), breakdown of the sperm plug after being used to fertilize a clutch of eggs, and lack of mating activity. The surveys indicate that this technique for examining the mating success of female lobsters is a reliable proxy that can be used in the field to document reproductive activity in natural populations. Environmental Sciences, Issue 84, sperm limitation, spermatophore, lobster fishery, sex ratios, sperm receptacle, mating, American lobster, Homarus americanus Study of the DNA Damage Checkpoint using Xenopus Egg Extracts Institutions: University of North Carolina at Charlotte. On a daily basis, cells are subjected to a variety of endogenous and environmental insults. To combat these insults, cells have evolved DNA damage checkpoint signaling as a surveillance mechanism to sense DNA damage and direct cellular responses to DNA damage. There are several groups of proteins called sensors, transducers and effectors involved in DNA damage checkpoint signaling (Figure 1 ). In this complex signaling pathway, ATR (ATM and Rad3-related) is one of the major kinases that can respond to DNA damage and replication stress. Activated ATR can phosphorylate its downstream substrates such as Chk1 (Checkpoint kinase 1). Consequently, phosphorylated and activated Chk1 leads to many downstream effects in the DNA damage checkpoint including cell cycle arrest, transcription activation, DNA damage repair, and apoptosis or senescence (Figure 1 ). When DNA is damaged, failing to activate the DNA damage checkpoint results in unrepaired damage and, subsequently, genomic instability. The study of the DNA damage checkpoint will elucidate how cells maintain genomic integrity and provide a better understanding of how human diseases, such as cancer, develop. egg extracts are emerging as a powerful cell-free extract model system in DNA damage checkpoint research. Low-speed extract (LSE) was initially described by the Masui group1 . The addition of demembranated sperm chromatin to LSE results in nuclei formation where DNA is replicated in a semiconservative fashion once per cell cycle. The ATR/Chk1-mediated checkpoint signaling pathway is triggered by DNA damage or replication stress 2 . Two methods are currently used to induce the DNA damage checkpoint: DNA damaging approaches and DNA damage-mimicking structures 3 . DNA damage can be induced by ultraviolet (UV) irradiation, γ-irradiation, methyl methanesulfonate (MMS), mitomycin C (MMC), 4-nitroquinoline-1-oxide (4-NQO), or aphidicolin3, 4 . MMS is an alkylating agent that inhibits DNA replication and activates the ATR/Chk1-mediated DNA damage checkpoint 4-7 . UV irradiation also triggers the ATR/Chk1-dependent DNA damage checkpoint 8 . The DNA damage-mimicking structure AT70 is an annealed complex of two oligonucleotides poly-(dA)70 and poly-(dT)70. The AT70 system was developed in Bill Dunphy's laboratory and is widely used to induce ATR/Chk1 checkpoint signaling 9-12 Here, we describe protocols (1) to prepare cell-free egg extracts (LSE), (2) to treat Xenopus sperm chromatin with two different DNA damaging approaches (MMS and UV), (3) to prepare the DNA damage-mimicking structure AT70, and (4) to trigger the ATR/Chk1-mediated DNA damage checkpoint in LSE with damaged sperm chromatin or a DNA damage-mimicking structure. Genetics, Issue 69, Molecular Biology, Cellular Biology, Developmental Biology, DNA damage checkpoint, Xenopus egg extracts, Xenopus laevis, Chk1 phosphorylation, ATR, AT70, MMS, UV, immunoblotting Sequence-specific Labeling of Nucleic Acids and Proteins with Methyltransferases and Cofactor Analogues Institutions: RWTH Aachen University. -Adenosyl-l-methionine (AdoMet or SAM)-dependent methyltransferases (MTase) catalyze the transfer of the activated methyl group from AdoMet to specific positions in DNA, RNA, proteins and small biomolecules. This natural methylation reaction can be expanded to a wide variety of alkylation reactions using synthetic cofactor analogues. Replacement of the reactive sulfonium center of AdoMet with an aziridine ring leads to cofactors which can be coupled with DNA by various DNA MTases. These aziridine cofactors can be equipped with reporter groups at different positions of the adenine moiety and used for S of DNA (SMILing DNA). As a typical example we give a protocol for biotinylation of pBR322 plasmid DNA at the 5’-ATCGA T-3’ sequence with the DNA MTase M.BseCI and the aziridine cofactor 6BAz in one step. Extension of the activated methyl group with unsaturated alkyl groups results in another class of AdoMet analogues which are used for m ransfer of A roups (mTAG). Since the extended side chains are activated by the sulfonium center and the unsaturated bond, these cofactors are called double-activated AdoMet analogues. These analogues not only function as cofactors for DNA MTases, like the aziridine cofactors, but also for RNA, protein and small molecule MTases. They are typically used for enzymatic modification of MTase substrates with unique functional groups which are labeled with reporter groups in a second chemical step. This is exemplified in a protocol for fluorescence labeling of histone H3 protein. A small propargyl group is transferred from the cofactor analogue SeAdoYn to the protein by the histone H3 lysine 4 (H3K4) MTase Set7/9 followed by click labeling of the alkynylated histone H3 with TAMRA azide. MTase-mediated labeling with cofactor analogues is an enabling technology for many exciting applications including identification and functional study of MTase substrates as well as DNA genotyping and methylation detection. Biochemistry, Issue 93, S-adenosyl-l-methionine, AdoMet, SAM, aziridine cofactor, double activated cofactor, methyltransferase, DNA methylation, protein methylation, biotin labeling, fluorescence labeling, SMILing, mTAG Free Radicals in Chemical Biology: from Chemical Behavior to Biomarker Development Institutions: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche. The involvement of free radicals in life sciences has constantly increased with time and has been connected to several physiological and pathological processes. This subject embraces diverse scientific areas, spanning from physical, biological and bioorganic chemistry to biology and medicine, with applications to the amelioration of quality of life, health and aging. Multidisciplinary skills are required for the full investigation of the many facets of radical processes in the biological environment and chemical knowledge plays a crucial role in unveiling basic processes and mechanisms. We developed a chemical biology approach able to connect free radical chemical reactivity with biological processes, providing information on the mechanistic pathways and products. The core of this approach is the design of biomimetic models to study biomolecule behavior (lipids, nucleic acids and proteins) in aqueous systems, obtaining insights of the reaction pathways as well as building up molecular libraries of the free radical reaction products. This context can be successfully used for biomarker discovery and examples are provided with two classes of compounds: mono-trans isomers of cholesteryl esters, which are synthesized and used as references for detection in human plasma, and purine 5',8-cyclo-2'-deoxyribonucleosides, prepared and used as reference in the protocol for detection of such lesions in DNA samples, after ionizing radiations or obtained from different health conditions. Chemistry, Issue 74, Biochemistry, Chemical Engineering, Chemical Biology, chemical analysis techniques, chemistry (general), life sciences, radiation effects (biological, animal and plant), biomarker, biomimetic chemistry, free radicals, trans lipids, cyclopurine lesions, DNA, chromatography, spectroscopy, synthesis Creating Two-Dimensional Patterned Substrates for Protein and Cell Confinement Institutions: Washington University in St. Louis. Microcontact printing provides a rapid, highly reproducible method for the creation of well-defined patterned substrates.1 While microcontact printing can be employed to directly print a large number of molecules, including proteins,2 the formation of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) from long chain alkane thiols on gold provides a simple way to confine proteins and cells to specific patterns containing adhesive and resistant regions. This confinement can be used to control cell morphology and is useful for examining a variety of questions in protein and cell biology. Here, we describe a general method for the creation of well-defined protein patterns for cellular studies.5 This process involves three steps: the production of a patterned master using photolithography, the creation of a PDMS stamp, and microcontact printing of a gold-coated substrate. Once patterned, these cell culture substrates are capable of confining proteins and/or cells (primary cells or cell lines) to the pattern. The use of self-assembled monolayer chemistry allows for precise control over the patterned protein/cell adhesive regions and non-adhesive regions; this cannot be achieved using direct protein stamping. Hexadecanethiol, the long chain alkane thiol used in the microcontact printing step, produces a hydrophobic surface that readily adsorbs protein from solution. The glycol-terminated thiol, used for backfilling the non-printed regions of the substrate, creates a monolayer that is resistant to protein adsorption and therefore cell growth.6 These thiol monomers produce highly structured monolayers that precisely define regions of the substrate that can support protein adsorption and cell growth. As a result, these substrates are useful for a wide variety of applications from the study of intercellular behavior7 to the creation of microelectronics.8 While other types of monolayer chemistry have been used for cell culture studies, including work from our group using trichlorosilanes to create patterns directly on glass substrates,9 patterned monolayers formed from alkane thiols on gold are straight-forward to prepare. Moreover, the monomers used for monolayer preparation are commercially available, stable, and do not require storage or handling under inert atmosphere. Patterned substrates prepared from alkane thiols can also be recycled and reused several times, maintaining cell confinement.10 Bioengineering, Issue 55, Self-assembled monolayer (SAM), microcontact printing, protein patterning, patterned cell growth Polymalic Acid-based Nano Biopolymers for Targeting of Multiple Tumor Markers: An Opportunity for Personalized Medicine? Institutions: Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Tumors with similar grade and morphology often respond differently to the same treatment because of variations in molecular profiling. To account for this diversity, personalized medicine is developed for silencing malignancy associated genes. Nano drugs fit these needs by targeting tumor and delivering antisense oligonucleotides for silencing of genes. As drugs for the treatment are often administered repeatedly, absence of toxicity and negligible immune response are desirable. In the example presented here, a nano medicine is synthesized from the biodegradable, non-toxic and non-immunogenic platform polymalic acid by controlled chemical ligation of antisense oligonucleotides and tumor targeting molecules. The synthesis and treatment is exemplified for human Her2-positive breast cancer using an experimental mouse model. The case can be translated towards synthesis and treatment of other tumors. Chemistry, Issue 88, Cancer treatment, personalized medicine, polymalic acid, nanodrug, biopolymer, targeting, host compatibility, biodegradability From Voxels to Knowledge: A Practical Guide to the Segmentation of Complex Electron Microscopy 3D-Data Institutions: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Modern 3D electron microscopy approaches have recently allowed unprecedented insight into the 3D ultrastructural organization of cells and tissues, enabling the visualization of large macromolecular machines, such as adhesion complexes, as well as higher-order structures, such as the cytoskeleton and cellular organelles in their respective cell and tissue context. Given the inherent complexity of cellular volumes, it is essential to first extract the features of interest in order to allow visualization, quantification, and therefore comprehension of their 3D organization. Each data set is defined by distinct characteristics, e.g. , signal-to-noise ratio, crispness (sharpness) of the data, heterogeneity of its features, crowdedness of features, presence or absence of characteristic shapes that allow for easy identification, and the percentage of the entire volume that a specific region of interest occupies. All these characteristics need to be considered when deciding on which approach to take for segmentation. The six different 3D ultrastructural data sets presented were obtained by three different imaging approaches: resin embedded stained electron tomography, focused ion beam- and serial block face- scanning electron microscopy (FIB-SEM, SBF-SEM) of mildly stained and heavily stained samples, respectively. For these data sets, four different segmentation approaches have been applied: (1) fully manual model building followed solely by visualization of the model, (2) manual tracing segmentation of the data followed by surface rendering, (3) semi-automated approaches followed by surface rendering, or (4) automated custom-designed segmentation algorithms followed by surface rendering and quantitative analysis. Depending on the combination of data set characteristics, it was found that typically one of these four categorical approaches outperforms the others, but depending on the exact sequence of criteria, more than one approach may be successful. Based on these data, we propose a triage scheme that categorizes both objective data set characteristics and subjective personal criteria for the analysis of the different data sets. Bioengineering, Issue 90, 3D electron microscopy, feature extraction, segmentation, image analysis, reconstruction, manual tracing, thresholding Community-based Adapted Tango Dancing for Individuals with Parkinson's Disease and Older Adults Institutions: Emory University School of Medicine, Brigham and Woman‘s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital. Adapted tango dancing improves mobility and balance in older adults and additional populations with balance impairments. It is composed of very simple step elements. Adapted tango involves movement initiation and cessation, multi-directional perturbations, varied speeds and rhythms. Focus on foot placement, whole body coordination, and attention to partner, path of movement, and aesthetics likely underlie adapted tango’s demonstrated efficacy for improving mobility and balance. In this paper, we describe the methodology to disseminate the adapted tango teaching methods to dance instructor trainees and to implement the adapted tango by the trainees in the community for older adults and individuals with Parkinson’s Disease (PD). Efficacy in improving mobility (measured with the Timed Up and Go, Tandem stance, Berg Balance Scale, Gait Speed and 30 sec chair stand), safety and fidelity of the program is maximized through targeted instructor and volunteer training and a structured detailed syllabus outlining class practices and progression. Behavior, Issue 94, Dance, tango, balance, pedagogy, dissemination, exercise, older adults, Parkinson's Disease, mobility impairments, falls Technique and Considerations in the Use of 4x1 Ring High-definition Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (HD-tDCS) Institutions: Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador, Charité University Medicine Berlin, The City College of The City University of New York, University of Michigan. High-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) has recently been developed as a noninvasive brain stimulation approach that increases the accuracy of current delivery to the brain by using arrays of smaller "high-definition" electrodes, instead of the larger pad-electrodes of conventional tDCS. Targeting is achieved by energizing electrodes placed in predetermined configurations. One of these is the 4x1-ring configuration. In this approach, a center ring electrode (anode or cathode) overlying the target cortical region is surrounded by four return electrodes, which help circumscribe the area of stimulation. Delivery of 4x1-ring HD-tDCS is capable of inducing significant neurophysiological and clinical effects in both healthy subjects and patients. Furthermore, its tolerability is supported by studies using intensities as high as 2.0 milliamperes for up to twenty minutes. Even though 4x1 HD-tDCS is simple to perform, correct electrode positioning is important in order to accurately stimulate target cortical regions and exert its neuromodulatory effects. The use of electrodes and hardware that have specifically been tested for HD-tDCS is critical for safety and tolerability. Given that most published studies on 4x1 HD-tDCS have targeted the primary motor cortex (M1), particularly for pain-related outcomes, the purpose of this article is to systematically describe its use for M1 stimulation, as well as the considerations to be taken for safe and effective stimulation. However, the methods outlined here can be adapted for other HD-tDCS configurations and cortical targets. Medicine, Issue 77, Neurobiology, Neuroscience, Physiology, Anatomy, Biomedical Engineering, Biophysics, Neurophysiology, Nervous System Diseases, Diagnosis, Therapeutics, Anesthesia and Analgesia, Investigative Techniques, Equipment and Supplies, Mental Disorders, Transcranial direct current stimulation, tDCS, High-definition transcranial direct current stimulation, HD-tDCS, Electrical brain stimulation, Transcranial electrical stimulation (tES), Noninvasive Brain Stimulation, Neuromodulation, non-invasive, brain, stimulation, clinical techniques High-throughput Screening for Broad-spectrum Chemical Inhibitors of RNA Viruses Institutions: Institut Pasteur, CNRS UMR3569, Institut Pasteur, CNRS UMR3523, Institut Pasteur. RNA viruses are responsible for major human diseases such as flu, bronchitis, dengue, Hepatitis C or measles. They also represent an emerging threat because of increased worldwide exchanges and human populations penetrating more and more natural ecosystems. A good example of such an emerging situation is chikungunya virus epidemics of 2005-2006 in the Indian Ocean. Recent progresses in our understanding of cellular pathways controlling viral replication suggest that compounds targeting host cell functions, rather than the virus itself, could inhibit a large panel of RNA viruses. Some broad-spectrum antiviral compounds have been identified with host target-oriented assays. However, measuring the inhibition of viral replication in cell cultures using reduction of cytopathic effects as a readout still represents a paramount screening strategy. Such functional screens have been greatly improved by the development of recombinant viruses expressing reporter enzymes capable of bioluminescence such as luciferase. In the present report, we detail a high-throughput screening pipeline, which combines recombinant measles and chikungunya viruses with cellular viability assays, to identify compounds with a broad-spectrum antiviral profile. Immunology, Issue 87, Viral infections, high-throughput screening assays, broad-spectrum antivirals, chikungunya virus, measles virus, luciferase reporter, chemical libraries Isolation and In vitro Activation of Caenorhabditis elegans Sperm Institutions: Rutgers University. Males and hermaphrodites are the two naturally found sexual forms in the nematode C. elegans . The amoeboid sperm are produced by both males and hermaphrodites. In the earlier phase of gametogenesis, the germ cells of hermaphrodites differentiate into limited number of sperm - around 300 - and are stored in a small 'bag' called the spermatheca. Later on, hermaphrodites continually produce oocytes1 . In contrast, males produce exclusively sperm throughout their adulthood. The males produce so much sperm that it accounts for >50% of the total cells in a typical adult worm2 . Therefore, isolating sperm from males is easier than from that of hermaphrodites. Only a small proportion of males are naturally generated due to spontaneous non-disjunction of X chromosome3 . Crossing hermaphrodites with males or more conveniently, the introduction of mutations to give rise to Him (High Incidence of Males) phenotype are some of strategies through which one can enrich the male population3 Males can be easily distinguished from hermaphrodites by observing the tail morphology4 . Hermaphrodite's tail is pointed, whereas male tail is rounded with mating structures. Cutting the tail releases vast number of spermatids stored inside the male reproductive tract. Dissection is performed under a stereo microscope using 27 gauge needles. Since spermatids are not physically connected with any other cells, hydraulic pressure expels internal contents of male body, including spermatids2 Males are directly dissected on a small drop of 'Sperm Medium'. Spermatids are sensitive to alteration in the pH. Hence, HEPES, a compound with good buffering capacity is used in sperm media. Glucose and other salts present in sperm media help maintain osmotic pressure to maintain the integrity of sperm. Post-meiotic differentiation of spermatids into spermatozoa is termed spermiogenesis or sperm activation. Shakes5 , and Nelson6 previously showed that round spermatids can be induced to differentiate into spermatozoa by adding various activating compounds including Pronase E. Here we demonstrate in vitro spermiogenesis of C. elegans spermatids using Pronase E. Successful spermiogenesis is pre-requisite for fertility and hence the mutants defective in spermiogenesis are sterile. Hitherto several mutants have been shown to be defective specifically in spermiogenesis process7 . Abnormality found during in vitro activation of novel Spe (Spermatogenesis defective) mutants would help us discover additional players participating in this event. Developmental Biology, Issue 47, spermatid, spermatozoa, spermiogenesis, protease, pseudopod, nematode A High-Throughput Method For Zebrafish Sperm Cryopreservation and In Vitro Fertilization Institutions: University of California, Davis, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center - FHCRC. This is a method for zebrafish sperm cryopreservation that is an adaptation of the Harvey method (Harvey et al., 1982). We have introduced two changes to the original protocol that both streamline the procedure and increase sample uniformity. First, we normalize all sperm volumes using freezing media that does not contain the cryoprotectant. Second, cryopreserved sperm are stored in cryovials instead of capillary tubes. The rates of sperm freezing and thawing (δ°C/time) are probably the two most critical variables to control in this procedure. For this reason, do not substitute different tubes for those specified. Working in teams of 2 it is possible to freeze the sperm of 100 males per team in ~2 hrs. Sperm cryopreserved using this protocol has an average of 25% fertility (measured as the number of viable embryos generated in an in vitro fertilization divided by the total number of eggs fertilized) and this percent fertility is stable over many years. Developmental Biology, Issue 29, Zebrafish, sperm, cryopreservation, TILLING Nanomechanics of Drug-target Interactions and Antibacterial Resistance Detection Institutions: University College London. The cantilever sensor, which acts as a transducer of reactions between model bacterial cell wall matrix immobilized on its surface and antibiotic drugs in solution, has shown considerable potential in biochemical sensing applications with unprecedented sensitivity and specificity1-5 . The drug-target interactions generate surface stress, causing the cantilever to bend, and the signal can be analyzed optically when it is illuminated by a laser. The change in surface stress measured with nano-scale precision allows disruptions of the biomechanics of model bacterial cell wall targets to be tracked in real time. Despite offering considerable advantages, multiple cantilever sensor arrays have never been applied in quantifying drug-target binding interactions. Here, we report on the use of silicon multiple cantilever arrays coated with alkanethiol self-assembled monolayers mimicking bacterial cell wall matrix to quantitatively study antibiotic binding interactions. To understand the impact of vancomycin on the mechanics of bacterial cell wall structures1,6,7 . We developed a new model1 which proposes that cantilever bending can be described by two independent factors; i) namely a chemical factor, which is given by a classical Langmuir adsorption isotherm, from which we calculate the thermodynamic equilibrium dissociation constant (Kd ) and ii) a geometrical factor, essentially a measure of how bacterial peptide receptors are distributed on the cantilever surface. The surface distribution of peptide receptors (p ) is used to investigate the dependence of geometry and ligand loading. It is shown that a threshold value of p ~ 10% is critical to sensing applications. Below which there is no detectable bending signal while above this value, the bending signal increases almost linearly, revealing that stress is a product of a local chemical binding factor and a geometrical factor combined by the mechanical connectivity of reacted regions and provides a new paradigm for design of powerful agents to combat superbug infections. Immunology, Issue 80, Engineering, Technology, Diagnostic Techniques and Procedures, Early Diagnosis, Bacterial Infections and Mycoses, Lipids, Amino Acids, Peptides, and Proteins, Chemical Actions and Uses, Diagnosis, Therapeutics, Surface stress, vancomycin, mucopeptides, cantilever sensor Measuring Intracellular Ca2+ Changes in Human Sperm using Four Techniques: Conventional Fluorometry, Stopped Flow Fluorometry, Flow Cytometry and Single Cell Imaging Institutions: Instituto de Biotecnología-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Edison State College. Spermatozoa are male reproductive cells especially designed to reach, recognize and fuse with the egg. To perform these tasks, sperm cells must be prepared to face a constantly changing environment and to overcome several physical barriers. Being in essence transcriptionally and translationally silent, these motile cells rely profoundly on diverse signaling mechanisms to orient themselves and swim in a directed fashion, and to contend with challenging environmental conditions during their journey to find the egg. In particular, Ca2+ -mediated signaling is pivotal for several sperm functions: activation of motility, capacitation (a complex process that prepares sperm for the acrosome reaction) and the acrosome reaction (an exocytotic event that allows sperm-egg fusion). The use of fluorescent dyes to track intracellular fluctuations of this ion is of remarkable importance due to their ease of application, sensitivity, and versatility of detection. Using one single dye-loading protocol we utilize four different fluorometric techniques to monitor sperm Ca2+ dynamics. Each technique provides distinct information that enables spatial and/or temporal resolution, generating data both at single cell and cell population levels. Cellular Biology, Issue 75, Medicine, Molecular Biology, Genetics, Biophysics, Anatomy, Physiology, Spermatozoa, Ion Channels, Cell Physiological Processes, Calcium Signaling, Reproductive Physiological Processes, fluorometry, Flow cytometry, stopped flow fluorometry, single-cell imaging, human sperm, sperm physiology, intracellular Ca2+, Ca2+ signaling, Ca2+ imaging, fluorescent dyes, imaging Two Types of Assays for Detecting Frog Sperm Chemoattraction Institutions: University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Arizona State University . Sperm chemoattraction in invertebrates can be sufficiently robust that one can place a pipette containing the attractive peptide into a sperm suspension and microscopically visualize sperm accumulation around the pipette1 . Sperm chemoattraction in vertebrates such as frogs, rodents and humans is more difficult to detect and requires quantitative assays. Such assays are of two major types - assays that quantitate sperm movement to a source of chemoattractant, so-called sperm accumulation assays, and assays that actually track the swimming trajectories of individual sperm. Sperm accumulation assays are relatively rapid allowing tens or hundreds of assays to be done in a single day, thereby allowing dose response curves and time courses to be carried out relatively rapidly. These types of assays have been used extensively to characterize many well established chemoattraction systems - for example, neutrophil chemotaxis to bacterial peptides and sperm chemotaxis to follicular fluid. Sperm tracking assays can be more labor intensive but offer additional data on how chemoattractancts actually alter the swimming paths that sperm take. This type of assay is needed to demonstrate the orientation of sperm movement relative to the chemoattrractant gradient axis and to visualize characteristic turns or changes in orientation that bring the sperm closer to the egg. Here we describe methods used for each of these two types of assays. The sperm accumulation assay utilized is called a "two-chamber" assay. Amphibian sperm are placed in a tissue culture plate insert with a polycarbonate filter floor having 12 μm diameter pores. Inserts with sperm are placed into tissue culture plate wells containing buffer and a chemoatttractant carefully pipetted into the bottom well where the floor meets the wall (see Fig. 1). After incubation, the top insert containing the sperm reservoir is carefully removed, and sperm in the bottom chamber that have passed through the membrane are removed, pelleted and then counted by hemocytometer or flow cytometer. The sperm tracking assay utilizes a Zigmond chamber originally developed for observing neutrophil chemotaxis and modified for observation of sperm by Giojalas and coworkers2,3 . The chamber consists of a thick glass slide into which two vertical troughs have been machined. These are separated by a 1 mm wide observation platform. After application of a cover glass, sperm are loaded into one trough, the chemoattractant agent into the other and movement of individual sperm visualized by video microscopy. Video footage is then analyzed using software to identify two-dimensional cell movements in the x-y plane as a function of time (xyt data sets) that form the trajectory of each sperm. Developmental Biology, Issue 58, Sperm chemotaxis, fertilization, sperm accumulation assay, sperm tracking assay, sperm motility, Xenopus laevis, egg jelly Transgenic Rodent Assay for Quantifying Male Germ Cell Mutant Frequency Institutions: Environmental Health Centre. mutations arise mostly in the male germline and may contribute to adverse health outcomes in subsequent generations. Traditional methods for assessing the induction of germ cell mutations require the use of large numbers of animals, making them impractical. As such, germ cell mutagenicity is rarely assessed during chemical testing and risk assessment. Herein, we describe an in vivo male germ cell mutation assay using a transgenic rodent model that is based on a recently approved Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) test guideline. This method uses an in vitro positive selection assay to measure in vivo mutations induced in a transgenic λgt10 vector bearing a reporter gene directly in the germ cells of exposed males. We further describe how the detection of mutations in the transgene recovered from germ cells can be used to characterize the stage-specific sensitivity of the various spermatogenic cell types to mutagen exposure by controlling three experimental parameters: the duration of exposure (administration time), the time between exposure and sample collection (sampling time), and the cell population collected for analysis. Because a large number of germ cells can be assayed from a single male, this method has superior sensitivity compared with traditional methods, requires fewer animals and therefore much less time and resources. Genetics, Issue 90, sperm, spermatogonia, male germ cells, spermatogenesis, de novo mutation, OECD TG 488, transgenic rodent mutation assay, N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea, genetic toxicology Vascular Gene Transfer from Metallic Stent Surfaces Using Adenoviral Vectors Tethered through Hydrolysable Cross-linkers Institutions: The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania. In-stent restenosis presents a major complication of stent-based revascularization procedures widely used to re-establish blood flow through critically narrowed segments of coronary and peripheral arteries. Endovascular stents capable of tunable release of genes with anti-restenotic activity may present an alternative strategy to presently used drug-eluting stents. In order to attain clinical translation, gene-eluting stents must exhibit predictable kinetics of stent-immobilized gene vector release and site-specific transduction of vasculature, while avoiding an excessive inflammatory response typically associated with the polymer coatings used for physical entrapment of the vector. This paper describes a detailed methodology for coatless tethering of adenoviral gene vectors to stents based on a reversible binding of the adenoviral particles to polyallylamine bisphosphonate (PABT)-modified stainless steel surface via hydrolysable cross-linkers (HC). A family of bifunctional (amine- and thiol-reactive) HC with an average t1/2 of the in-chain ester hydrolysis ranging between 5 and 50 days were used to link the vector with the stent. The vector immobilization procedure is typically carried out within 9 hr and consists of several steps: 1) incubation of the metal samples in an aqueous solution of PABT (4 hr); 2) deprotection of thiol groups installed in PABT with tris(2-carboxyethyl) phosphine (20 min); 3) expansion of thiol reactive capacity of the metal surface by reacting the samples with polyethyleneimine derivatized with pyridyldithio (PDT) groups (2 hr); 4) conversion of PDT groups to thiols with dithiothreitol (10 min); 5) modification of adenoviruses with HC (1 hr); 6) purification of modified adenoviral particles by size-exclusion column chromatography (15 min) and 7) immobilization of thiol-reactive adenoviral particles on the thiolated steel surface (1 hr). This technique has wide potential applicability beyond stents, by facilitating surface engineering of bioprosthetic devices to enhance their biocompatibility through the substrate-mediated gene delivery to the cells interfacing the implanted foreign material. Medicine, Issue 90, gene therapy, bioconjugation, adenoviral vectors, stents, local gene delivery, smooth muscle cells, endothelial cells, bioluminescence imaging Production of Haploid Zebrafish Embryos by In Vitro Fertilization Institutions: University of Notre Dame. The zebrafish has become a mainstream vertebrate model that is relevant for many disciplines of scientific study. Zebrafish are especially well suited for forward genetic analysis of developmental processes due to their external fertilization, embryonic size, rapid ontogeny, and optical clarity – a constellation of traits that enable the direct observation of events ranging from gastrulation to organogenesis with a basic stereomicroscope. Further, zebrafish embryos can survive for several days in the haploid state. The production of haploid embryos in vitro is a powerful tool for mutational analysis, as it enables the identification of recessive mutant alleles present in first generation (F1) female carriers following mutagenesis in the parental (P) generation. This approach eliminates the necessity to raise multiple generations (F2, F3, etc. ) which involves breeding of mutant families, thus saving the researcher time along with reducing the needs for zebrafish colony space, labor, and the husbandry costs. Although zebrafish have been used to conduct forward screens for the past several decades, there has been a steady expansion of transgenic and genome editing tools. These tools now offer a plethora of ways to create nuanced assays for next generation screens that can be used to further dissect the gene regulatory networks that drive vertebrate ontogeny. Here, we describe how to prepare haploid zebrafish embryos. This protocol can be implemented for novel future haploid screens, such as in enhancer and suppressor screens, to address the mechanisms of development for a broad number of processes and tissues that form during early embryonic stages. Developmental Biology, Issue 89, zebrafish, haploid, in vitro fertilization, forward genetic screen, saturation, recessive mutation, mutagenesis Analysis of Oxidative Stress in Zebrafish Embryos Institutions: University of Torino, Vesalius Research Center, VIB. High levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) may cause a change of cellular redox state towards oxidative stress condition. This situation causes oxidation of molecules (lipid, DNA, protein) and leads to cell death. Oxidative stress also impacts the progression of several pathological conditions such as diabetes, retinopathies, neurodegeneration, and cancer. Thus, it is important to define tools to investigate oxidative stress conditions not only at the level of single cells but also in the context of whole organisms. Here, we consider the zebrafish embryo as a useful in vivo system to perform such studies and present a protocol to measure in vivo oxidative stress. Taking advantage of fluorescent ROS probes and zebrafish transgenic fluorescent lines, we develop two different methods to measure oxidative stress in vivo : i) a “whole embryo ROS-detection method” for qualitative measurement of oxidative stress and ii) a “single-cell ROS detection method” for quantitative measurements of oxidative stress. Herein, we demonstrate the efficacy of these procedures by increasing oxidative stress in tissues by oxidant agents and physiological or genetic methods. This protocol is amenable for forward genetic screens and it will help address cause-effect relationships of ROS in animal models of oxidative stress-related pathologies such as neurological disorders and cancer. Developmental Biology, Issue 89, Danio rerio, zebrafish embryos, endothelial cells, redox state analysis, oxidative stress detection, in vivo ROS measurements, FACS (fluorescence activated cell sorter), molecular probes Metabolic Labeling of Newly Transcribed RNA for High Resolution Gene Expression Profiling of RNA Synthesis, Processing and Decay in Cell Culture Institutions: Max von Pettenkofer Institute, University of Cambridge, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich. The development of whole-transcriptome microarrays and next-generation sequencing has revolutionized our understanding of the complexity of cellular gene expression. Along with a better understanding of the involved molecular mechanisms, precise measurements of the underlying kinetics have become increasingly important. Here, these powerful methodologies face major limitations due to intrinsic properties of the template samples they study, i.e. total cellular RNA. In many cases changes in total cellular RNA occur either too slowly or too quickly to represent the underlying molecular events and their kinetics with sufficient resolution. In addition, the contribution of alterations in RNA synthesis, processing, and decay are not readily differentiated. We recently developed high-resolution gene expression profiling to overcome these limitations. Our approach is based on metabolic labeling of newly transcribed RNA with 4-thiouridine (thus also referred to as 4sU-tagging) followed by rigorous purification of newly transcribed RNA using thiol-specific biotinylation and streptavidin-coated magnetic beads. It is applicable to a broad range of organisms including vertebrates, Drosophila , and yeast. We successfully applied 4sU-tagging to study real-time kinetics of transcription factor activities, provide precise measurements of RNA half-lives, and obtain novel insights into the kinetics of RNA processing. Finally, computational modeling can be employed to generate an integrated, comprehensive analysis of the underlying molecular mechanisms. Genetics, Issue 78, Cellular Biology, Molecular Biology, Microbiology, Biochemistry, Eukaryota, Investigative Techniques, Biological Phenomena, Gene expression profiling, RNA synthesis, RNA processing, RNA decay, 4-thiouridine, 4sU-tagging, microarray analysis, RNA-seq, RNA, DNA, PCR, sequencing Protocols for Vaginal Inoculation and Sample Collection in the Experimental Mouse Model of Candida vaginitis Institutions: Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center. Vulvovaginal candidiasis (VVC), caused by Candida species, is a fungal infection of the lower female genital tract that affects approximately 75% of otherwise healthy women during their reproductive years18,32-34 . Predisposing factors include antibiotic usage, uncontrolled diabetes and disturbance in reproductive hormone levels due to pregnancy, oral contraceptives or hormone replacement therapies33,34 . Recurrent VVC (RVVC), defined as three or more episodes per year, affects a separate 5 to 8% of women with no predisposing factors33 An experimental mouse model of VVC has been established and used to study the pathogenesis and mucosal host response to Candida3,4,11,16,17,19,21,25,37 . This model has also been employed to test potential antifungal therapies in vivo13,24 . The model requires that the animals be maintained in a state of pseudoestrus for optimal Candida . Under such conditions, inoculated animals will have detectable vaginal fungal burden for weeks to months. Past studies show an extremely high parallel between the animal model and human infection relative to immunological and physiological properties3,16,21 . Differences, however, include a lack of Candida as normal vaginal flora and a neutral vaginal pH in the mice. Here, we demonstrate a series of key methods in the mouse vaginitis model that include vaginal inoculation, rapid collection of vaginal specimens, assessment of vaginal fungal burden, and tissue preparations for cellular extraction/isolation. This is followed by representative results for constituents of vaginal lavage fluid, fungal burden, and draining lymph node leukocyte yields. With the use of anesthetics, lavage samples can be collected at multiple time points on the same mice for longitudinal evaluation of infection/colonization. Furthermore, this model requires no immunosuppressive agents to initiate infection, allowing immunological studies under defined host conditions. Finally, the model and each technique introduced here could potentially give rise to use of the methodologies to examine other infectious diseases of the lower female genital tract (bacterial, parasitic, viral) and respective local or systemic host defenses. Immunology, Issue 58, Candida albicans, vaginitis, mouse, lumbar lymph nodes, vaginal tissues, vaginal lavage Mouse Sperm Cryopreservation and Recovery using the I·Cryo Kit Institutions: Charles River , Charles River . Thousands of new genetically modified (GM) strains of mice have been created since the advent of transgenesis and knockout technologies. Many of these valuable animals exist only as live animals, with no backup plan in case of emergency. Cryopreservation of embryos can provide this backup, but is costly, can be a lengthy procedure, and generally requires a large number of animals for success. Since the discovery that mouse sperm can be successfully cryopreserved with a basic cryoprotective agent (CPA) consisting of 18% raffinose and 3% skim milk, sperm cryopreservation has become an acceptable and cost-effective procedure for archiving, distributing and recovery of these valuable strains. Here we demonstrate a newly developed I•Cryo kit for mouse sperm cryopreservation. Sperm from five commonly-used strains of inbred mice were frozen using this kit and then recovered. Higher protection ratios of sperm motility (> 60%) and rapid progressive motility (> 45%) compared to the control (basic CPA) were seen for sperm frozen with this kit in 5 inbred mouse strains. Two cell stage embryo development after IVF with the recovered sperm was improved consistently in all 5 mouse strains examined. Over a 1.5 year period, 49 GM mouse lines were archived by sperm cryopreservation with the I•Cryo kit and later recovered by IVF. Basic Protocols, Issue 58, Cryopreservation, Sperm, In vitro fertilization (IVF), Mouse, Genetics Protein WISDOM: A Workbench for In silico De novo Design of BioMolecules Institutions: Princeton University. The aim of de novo protein design is to find the amino acid sequences that will fold into a desired 3-dimensional structure with improvements in specific properties, such as binding affinity, agonist or antagonist behavior, or stability, relative to the native sequence. Protein design lies at the center of current advances drug design and discovery. Not only does protein design provide predictions for potentially useful drug targets, but it also enhances our understanding of the protein folding process and protein-protein interactions. Experimental methods such as directed evolution have shown success in protein design. However, such methods are restricted by the limited sequence space that can be searched tractably. In contrast, computational design strategies allow for the screening of a much larger set of sequences covering a wide variety of properties and functionality. We have developed a range of computational de novo protein design methods capable of tackling several important areas of protein design. These include the design of monomeric proteins for increased stability and complexes for increased binding affinity. To disseminate these methods for broader use we present Protein WISDOM (https://www.proteinwisdom.org), a tool that provides automated methods for a variety of protein design problems. Structural templates are submitted to initialize the design process. The first stage of design is an optimization sequence selection stage that aims at improving stability through minimization of potential energy in the sequence space. Selected sequences are then run through a fold specificity stage and a binding affinity stage. A rank-ordered list of the sequences for each step of the process, along with relevant designed structures, provides the user with a comprehensive quantitative assessment of the design. Here we provide the details of each design method, as well as several notable experimental successes attained through the use of the methods. Genetics, Issue 77, Molecular Biology, Bioengineering, Biochemistry, Biomedical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Computational Biology, Genomics, Proteomics, Protein, Protein Binding, Computational Biology, Drug Design, optimization (mathematics), Amino Acids, Peptides, and Proteins, De novo protein and peptide design, Drug design, In silico sequence selection, Optimization, Fold specificity, Binding affinity, sequencing Harvesting Sperm and Artificial Insemination of Mice Institutions: University of California, Irvine (UCI). Rodents of the genus Peromyscus (deer mice) are the most prevalent native North American mammals. Peromyscus species are used in a wide range of research including toxicology, epidemiology, ecology, behavioral, and genetic studies. Here they provide a useful model for demonstrations of artificial insemination. Methods similar to those displayed here have previously been used in several deer mouse studies, yet no detailed protocol has been published. Here we demonstrate the basic method of artificial insemination. This method entails extracting the testes from the rodent, then isolating the sperm from the epididymis and vas deferens. The mature sperm, now in a milk mixture, are placed in the female’s reproductive tract at the time of ovulation. Fertilization is counted as day 0 for timing of embryo development. Embryos can then be retrieved at the desired time-point and manipulated. Artificial insemination can be used in a variety of rodent species where exact embryo timing is crucial or hard to obtain. This technique is vital for species or strains (including most Peromyscus) which may not mate immediately and/or where mating is hard to assess. In addition, artificial insemination provides exact timing for embryo development either in mapping developmental progress and/or transgenic work. Reduced numbers of animals can be used since fertilization is guaranteed. This method has been vital to furthering the Peromyscus system, and will hopefully benefit others as well. Developmental Biology, Issue 3, sperm, mouse, artificial insemination, dissection In Vitro Nuclear Assembly Using Fractionated Xenopus Egg Extracts Institutions: Emory University. Nuclear membrane assembly is an essential step in the cell division cycle; this process can be replicated in the test tube by combining Xenopus sperm chromatin, cytosol, and light membrane fractions. Complete nuclei are formed, including nuclear membranes with pore complexes, and these reconstituted nuclei are capable of normal nuclear processes. Cellular Biology, Issue 19, Current Protocols Wiley, Xenopus Egg Extracts, Nuclear Assembly, Nuclear Membrane
The term “mindfulness” has been used to refer to a psychological state of awareness, the practices that promote this awareness, a mode of processing information and a character trait. To be consistent with most of the research reviewed in this article, we define mindfulness as a moment-to-moment awareness of one’s experience without judgment. In this sense, mindfulness is a state and not a trait. While it might be promoted by certain practices or activities, such as meditation, it is not equivalent to or synonymous with them. Several disciplines and practices can cultivate mindfulness, such as yoga, tai chi and qigong, but most of the literature has focused on mindfulness that is developed through mindfulness meditation — those self-regulation practices that focus on training attention and awareness in order to bring mental processes under greater voluntary control and thereby foster general mental well-being and development and/or specific capacities such as calmness, clarity and concentration (Walsh & Shapiro, 2006). Researchers theorize that mindfulness meditation promotes metacognitive awareness, decreases rumination via disengagement from perseverative cognitive activities and enhances attentional capacities through gains in working memory. These cognitive gains, in turn, contribute to effective emotion-regulation strategies. More specifically, research on mindfulness has identified these benefits:
You Have Everything You Need: Using Household Items for Early Intervention Children learn and develop through play, but does that mean you need to spend a lot of money on expensive toys? No. In fact, the best toys are often common household items. Young children learn best when they are in natural settings with the people and materials that are familiar to them. Early intervention providers may use this principle to help you choose materials already in your home, teach you how to use everyday objects to achieve your child’s developmental goals, and engage your child in activities using their interests. Remember a “toy” is just a tool to support your child’s developmental goals and “play” is just a method we use to teach. You play an important role in your child’s everyday experiences. You help your child grow stronger through play. Next, we share a list of common household items and related activities that you can use to support your child’s development. Empty Plastic Bottles Have you tried bottle bowling? This is a fun activity that can work on your child’s gross motor skills. First, fill several plastic bottles with the same amount of water. To make it colorful, add paint or food coloring into the water. Set the bottles up like bowling pins. Grab a ball and ask your child to knock the bottles down! In addition to building gross motor skills, you can also boost cognitive and communication development by asking your child to identify the colors in the bottles. A muffin tray is not only for muffins. You can use the tray as a color matching game. Get a muffin tray, colorful plastic balls (use balls bigger than ping pong size to avoid choking hazards), and colored paper that matches the colors of the balls. Place the colored paper in the muffin tray and have your child match the right ball with the correct colored tray. You can also encourage your child to identify different colors. This activity builds both fine motor and cognitive skills. Peeling a Clementine or Banana A very simple and healthy way to work on your child’s small muscles (e.g., finger strength, pincer grasp, bilateral coordination) is to have your child help peel their fruit (e.g., clementines, bananas). To make it easier, you can start to peel the fruit and then have your child finish. Couch Cushions, Pillows, Cardboard Boxes, and Masking Tape Do you want to work on your child’s gross motor skills when it’s cold or rainy? Gather couch cushions and pillows and arrange them in an obstacle course. If you have a large cardboard box, ask your child to crawl through it like a tunnel. Also, use masking tape to create lines on the floor and have your child to walk heel-to-toe on the line or jump over the line. The line can be straight or curvy. Then, join your child and have fun! Just get home from the grocery store? To build your child’s vocabulary and language skills, have your child name the products or encourage your child to describe the color and size of the products as you unpack the bags. Meanwhile, you can also play a guessing game by giving them three to five clues. For example, you may say “This item is a fruit. It looks round and red. It tastes juicy and yummy.” Then encourage your child to guess what it is. With a little creativity, you can use household items to create fun games between you and your child. If you have more questions on how to use household items to address your child’s developmental outcomes, talk to your service coordinator or early intervention providers. What Is a Developmental Therapist? In early intervention, you may have several therapists or specialists working with your child and family. One of those team members may be a developmental therapist. This team member is uniquely qualified to consider the whole child and the impact of a child’s development on the family. A developmental therapist holds a degree in early childhood education or a related field and has also completed educational experiences or training in the following areas: typical and atypical child development, collaboration with families, intervention strategies, and assessment. The developmental therapist will view your child’s overall development and enable families to help their children in areas of strengths and concerns. This might be done by - helping to provide accommodations within different environments, - recommending ways to use common household items to help achieve outcomes, and - being a sounding board for a family’s concerns. A developmental therapist works closely with families and additional members of a child’s team, including the service coordinator, to ensure that the services provided are appropriate to a family’s needs and desires. The developmental therapist participates in the assessment process, assists in the development of the individualized family service plan (IFSP), and communicates services and strategies to all team members. The developmental therapist also works with families to support the parent/child relationship, to help families find new ways to support their child’s development, and to help the family understand their rights and responsibilities as the child transitions out of early intervention. In addition, the developmental therapist can support the family in learning to observe and interpret their child’s behavior and help to identify resources that might be helpful to families. The developmental therapist works with a child and family in the home or another place that the child visits often (e.g., child care center). At each visit, the developmental therapist will review the child’s progress with the family or provider, discuss any new concerns or updates, and then model play interactions with the child. Upon completion of the visit, the developmental therapist reviews the day’s activities and plans for the next session. A developmental therapist is an important member of the EI team. By looking at a child’s overall development, the developmental therapist can enable a family to support their child in all areas of development. What Is Bagless Early Intervention? Early intervention providers, including developmental therapists, speech therapists, physical therapists, and occupational therapists, use bagless intervention to help improve a parent’s competence and confidence in supporting their children’s development in natural environments. Typically, early intervention service providers have brought bags of toys with them into the family home to address a child’s skills and goals. However, this approach may not always be appropriate. Instead, when service providers use toys or everyday items already available in a family’s home, parents may participate more in early intervention and engage in similar activities with the child even when the service provider is not present. Bagless intervention encourages providers to focus on routines, activities, and materials that are familiar to the child when addressing IFSP outcomes. This allows the caregiver to observe and participate in an activity that happens naturally within the child’s context. For example, a provider might focus on fine motor skills during a mealtime interaction. A toddler can peel a clementine or pick grapes off the vine. The provider can also observe the utensils that the family uses and determine what modifications are necessary, if any. A narrow handle on a spoon can be adapted by securing a sponge hair roller or a small stress ball around the handle. Bagless intervention is flexible, individualized, and adaptable. The parent-child interaction continues long after the provider has left the home because the toys/supplies used during the visit are still with the child! Written in collaboration with the family development early intervention team of the Military Families Learning Network (MFLN). For more information, visit http://militaryfamilieslearningnetwork.org/2018/09/12/a-bagless-approach-in-early-intervention-what-is-that/

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