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|Apple trees can grow to a height of 30 feet and a width of 15 feet with a growth of 8 to 12 feet per year. They require rich soil, moderate watering, good drainage and full sun. When planting, space trees according to their ultimate size. To prevent corrective pruning later on, frequent light pruning during the tree's early years is required. It is recommended to prune mature trees to allow new growth and to permit sunlight to reach into the tree to discourage mildew. Scab is the most troublesome disease that affects apple trees. Fire blight, apple rust disease, black rot, and bitter rot can all be a problem as well as the following insect pests: aphids, red mite, flat-headed apple-tree borer, friot-tree bark beetle, codling moth, and apple maggots. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44736000 |
Rubbermaid® Reduces Environmental Impact with Dishwasher-Safe Reusable Bottles
Reusable water bottles that require hand washing have a higher environmental impact than those that are dishwasher safe, according to an independently third-party reviewed lifecycle assessment study (LCA) sponsored by Rubbermaid® and conducted by Environmental Resources Management.
The household washing of reusable water bottles represents the largest component of a bottle’s environmental impact because the energy needed for a residential water heater is much higher than the electricity consumption for a dishwasher when washing the same amount of place settings. As plastic and stainless steel bottles are recommended to be dishwasher safe, they were found to have significantly lower environmental impact across a wide range of categories when compared to aluminum bottles.
“At Rubbermaid, our goal is to make products that fit consumers’ lifestyles and we take into consideration how consumers will use our products,” said Dave Zak, Director of Research & Development at Rubbermaid. “This study validated our strategy of making only dishwasher-safe bottles. In addition to being more convenient for consumers, they also create significantly less environmental impact in the long run.”
The LCA examined the four most widely-available water bottle materials in the U.S. and Canada — aluminum, stainless steel and two forms of plastic (TRITANTM co-polyester and polypropylene, which are used by Rubbermaid and other plastic bottle makers). The study assessed the products from cradle to grave (from manufacturing to disposal) including the effects associated with the extraction of raw materials, bottle manufacturing and packaging, distribution to retail locations, use of the water bottle and disposal. Conclusions from the study stemmed from an assessment of 10 environmental impacts, including global warming, non-renewable energy, mineral extraction and carcinogens.
One of the most critical differentiators between water bottle types, with regard to environmental impact, was the method of washing. Manufacturers of aluminum bottles recommend hand washing, and manufacturers of steel bottles recommend hand and dishwashing, while Rubbermaid recommends putting its plastic bottles, which are BPA-free, in the dishwasher.
“We are committed to continuing this kind of work,” said Zak, “so we can ensure our products create the minimum environmental impact possible, while at the same time continuing our legacy of quality and innovation.”
[via PR Newswire] | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44740000 |
Mean distance from Sun: (1,784,860,000 miles) 2,872,460,000 km
Orbital period (year): 30,685 Earth days (just over 84 Earth years)
Rotation period (day): 17 hours 14 minutes - but the atmosphere rotates faster
Diameter at equator: (31,763 miles) 51,118 km
Tilt of axis: 98 degrees
Uranus (pronounced YOUR-uh-nuss) is nearly twenty times as far from the Sun as Earth is.
It takes over 84 years to go once around the Sun. That is a long year. You wouldn't have very many birthday parties there even if you lived to be quite old.
Uranus was the first planet discovered with a telescope.
William Herschel discovered Uranus in 1781. Until then people thought that there were no more planets after Saturn. Yet in good conditions, if you know where to look, you can see Uranus without a telescope or binoculars. This makes it the farthest planet visible with the unaided eye.
Uranus was almost named George.
Herschel wanted to name his planet after the king of England George III, who was supporting him in his work. The Latin name Georgium Sidus meant George's star, but other astronomers didn't much like this idea. German astronomer Johann Bode suggested Uranus, Roman sky god and father of Saturn, which was acceptable.
Uranus is an ice giant.
Uranus is a giant planet. It's almost a twin of Neptune, but they're both smaller than Jupiter and Saturn. In addition, Jupiter and Saturn are almost all hydrogen and helium, the two lightest elements in the universe. However Uranus is made up mostly of ices - frozen water, ammonia and methane. These are made of heavier elements, oxygen, carbon and nitrogen.
Uranus is a blue-green color.
Its atmosphere is 83% hydrogen and 15% helium, but it also contains methane. Methane crystals in the atmosphere soak up red light and reflect blue light, giving Uranus its color.
Uranus has rings.
Saturn has the prettiest rings in the Solar System, but Uranus does have at least thirteen rings. They're difficult to see because Uranus is far away and the rings are thin and very dark.
Uranus has 27 known moons.
Many Solar System bodies have names from classical mythology. Unusually, the moons of Uranus are named after characters from English literature, mainly Shakespeare. For example, one of the moons is named Juliet, but there is no Romeo to keep her company.
The fastest winds on Uranus blow at about 450 miles per hour (720 kilometers per hour).
That is three times the speed of typical hurricanes on Earth and much faster than the strongest tornado ever measured on our planet.
Most of what we know about Uranus comes from a space probe.
Uranus was something of a mystery until Voyager 2 visited it in 1986. More recently, powerful telescopes help us to study Uranus, but still most of what we know is from Voyager's visit.
The axis of Uranus is tilted by 89 degrees.
This means that Uranus has seasons nothing like the ones we are used to. Earth is tilted by 23 degrees on its axis which gives us four seasons as Earth orbits the Sun. For example, when your hemisphere is tilted towards the Sun, you have summer and people living in the opposite hemisphere have winter.
But Uranus is tilted so much, it orbits lying on its side. If Earth were like this, each hemisphere would have three months of summer where it didn't get dark at all. There would also be three months of winter without seeing the Sun. In spring and fall everyone would have days of about the same length. If this sounds strange, just think of Uranus itself where the seasons are twenty years long! | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44753000 |
No, I'm not that crazy .
Debian per definition is not a complete OS. Debian rather means and provides the management tools and programs/software necessary to administer and use a system i.e. it's not a full OS, but one part of it. To make up a full OS, a kernel is necessary, and Debian primarily uses the Linux kernel, hence why the most common flavour of Debian is indeed Debian GNU/Linux.
But there are also some non-Linux ports of Debian, i.e. ports of the tools and utilities that it consists of and uses to manage the system, to other kernels, FreeBSD's being one of them. Other non-Linux Debian ports use the Hurd, NetBSD or OpenSolaris kernel.
From Debian GNU/kFreeBSD's page:
Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is a port that consists of GNU userland using the GNU C library on top of FreeBSD's kernel, coupled with the regular Debian package set.
(GNU userland = important Unix commands and libraries to perform basic operations.)
An analogy would be if I decide to build my own car, I can build the chassis , the steering wheel, the brakes, etc. i.e. almost everything but in the end, I'll still need an engine because without one, the car will still be pretty much worthless and the other way round, it's the same – what should I do with an engine, but without a car to put it into? So, I may decide to use an engine built by, say, BMW or another one built by Mercedes. The car will still look and drive roughly the same, but it'll have another engine in it and I may have to assimilate some of the parts to be compatible with the other engine. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44755000 |
BGSA Web Hosting now offers health and complete food products, in terms our employees are RISK for many illness in thier work duties specially at night shift.
Barley (Hordeum vulgare) grows in over one hundred countries in the world. It is a grain plant like wheat, cereal, corn and rice.
Barley used to be the most important crop. In the ancient times, barley was regularly served in the variety of bread and porridge. It was Barley and neither wheat nor rice that was the primary grain of the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and Hebrews during the old ages.
Please watch the videos below
To ORDER this Sante Barley products, please click here | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44758000 |
Debridement is the removal of unhealthy tissue from a wound to promote healing. It can be done by surgical, chemical, mechanical, or autolytic (using your body's own processes) removal of the tissue.
Surgical Debridement of Lower Leg Wound
Copyright © Nucleus Medical Media, Inc.
Complications are rare, but no procedure is completely free of risk. If you are having a debridement, your doctor will review a list of possible complications, which may include:
- Delayed healing
- Removal of healthy tissue with mechanical debridement
Factors that may increase the risk of complications include:
- Pre-existing medical conditions
- Use of steroid or other immunosuppressive medicines
- Poor nutrition
- Poor circulation
- Immune disorders
What to Expect
Prior to Procedure
Your doctor will likely do the following:
- Physical exam
- Take a measurement of the wound
- Provide pain medicine before changing debridement dressings (for nonsurgical procedures)
Arrange for a ride to and from the procedure
If you will be getting general anesthesia, do not eat or drink anything after midnight the night before the procedure
Anesthesia may be used for deep pressure ulcers or other wounds. Local anesthesia will numb the area.
will allow you to sleep through the procedure.
Description of Procedure
The following four methods are often used in combination:
Surgical debridement is done using scalpels, forceps, scissors, and other instruments. It is used if your wound is large, has deep tissue damage, or if your wound is especially painful. It may also be done if debriding your wound is urgent. The skin surrounding the wound will be cleaned and disinfected. The wound will be probed with a metal instrument to determine its depth and locate any foreign matter. The doctor will cut away dead tissue. The wound will be washed out to remove any free tissue. In some cases, transplanted skin may be grafted into place. Sometimes, cutting away the entire contaminated wound may be the most effective treatment.
A debriding medicine will be applied to your wound. The wound will be covered with a dressing.
The enzymes in the medicine will dissolve the dead tissue in the wound.
Mechanical debridement can involve a variety of methods to remove dead or infected tissue. It may include using a whirlpool bath, a syringe and catheter, or wet to dry dressings. Wet to dry dressing starts by applying a wet dressing to your wound. As this dressing dries, it absorbs wound material. The dressing is then remoistened and removed. Some of the tissue comes with it.
This form of debridement uses dressings that retain wound fluids that assist your body's natural abilities to clean the wound. This type of dressing is often used to treat pressure sores. This process takes more time than other methods. It will not be used for wounds that are infected or if quick treatment is needed. It is a good treatment if your body cannot tolerate more forceful treatments.
Immediately After Procedure
Samples of the removed tissue may be sent to a lab for examination.
How Long Will It Take?
The length of treatment depends on the type of debridement. Surgical debridement is the quickest method. Nonsurgical debridement may take 2-6 weeks or longer.
How Much Will It Hurt?
During a surgical debridement, general anesthesia prevents pain during the procedure. When local anesthetic or sedative is given, some patients report discomfort. Often, patients will be sore while recovering from the procedure. Pain medicines may be given to help relieve pain.
Mechanical debridement and chemical debridement often cause pain. Pain medicine can be given before changing the dressing to help manage pain.
Average Hospital Stay
Depending on the reason for the debridement, you may be able to go home on the same day. If you are already in the hospital, this procedure should not extend your stay.
It may take the wound many weeks to heal. A specific wound-care program will be suggested to speed your recovery.
Follow your doctor's
for wound care. If you are unsure about any aspect or unable to manage your care, discuss your concerns with your doctor.
- Keep the wound and dressings clean and dry.
- Ask your doctor about when it is safe to shower, bathe, or soak in water.
- Take medicines as ordered. Do not stop medicines early, even if the wound starts to look better.
Call Your Doctor
After you leave the hospital, contact your doctor if any of the following occur:
- Signs of infection, including fever and chills
- Redness, swelling, increasing pain, excessive bleeding, or discharge at the wound site
- Chalky white, blue, or black appearance to tissue around wound
- If general anesthesia was used—cough, shortness of breath, chest pain, or severe nausea and/or vomiting
- Pain that you cannot control with the medicines you have been given
In case of an emergency, call for medical help right away. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44760000 |
Wildlife along the Trail
With its panoramic views and low, alpine vegetation, the Pinnell Mountain Trail offers ample opportunities for observing wildlife. For information on how to improve your chances of observing wildlife, see our wildlife viewing tips.
Caribou (Rangifer tarandus). Until the 1960s the ridges of the Pinnell Mountain Trail lay on the main migration route of the Fortymile Caribou Herd, whose calving grounds were then located in the White Mountains. Travelers and biologists reported seeing hundreds of thousands of caribou crossing the Steese Highway near Eagle Summit. The herd no longer moves to the White Mountains for calving, but portions of the herd may visit the area in fall or winter. Small groups of caribou seen here during the summer are more likely resident members of the smaller White Mountains Caribou Herd, which numbers about 700 animals.
Caribou are unique in the deer family in that both females and males have antlers. Males shed their antlers after rut (breeding) while some pregnant females carry their antlers all winter and shed them in late spring. Caribou eat mostly lichens in winter, but their more varied summer diet includes willows, scrub birch, grasses, and sedges such as cottongrass. During annual migrations they travel between calving grounds and winter feeding areas.
Marmots. Hoary marmots (Marmota caligata) live in rock outcrops and rubble fields, including those around the North Fork Shelter Cabin. Marmots are social animals that live in colonies. When startled, they usually sound a loud whistle. Some marmots near the shelter cabins have already become habituated to people. Please do not make the situation worse by feeding them.
Pika. The northern or collared pika (Ochotona collaris) is a short-eared relative of the rabbit. Listen for its shrill chirp around rock slides or talus slopes. Consider yourself lucky if you see these highly alert animals.
Wolves, grizzly bears, and moose are occasionally seen along the trail. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44781000 |
The three major types of actions which are exempt from NEPA procedural or documentation requirements are: 1) congressionally exempt actions, 2) emergency actions and 3) rejections of proposed actions based on statutory or regulatory authority. If an action is exempt from NEPA, then no further NEPA review is conducted. Review and compliance for other laws and regulations, however, may still be conducted.
Categorically Excluded Actions
Certain categories of actions have been determined to have an insignificant effect and generally do not require preparation of an EA or EIS. This list of categorically excluded actions is determined by the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management at a national level. If an action is categorically excluded, it is compared to a list of exceptions. The list of exceptions describe circumstances where an activity with normally insignificant effects might be considered to have significant effects. If one or more exception circumstances apply to the proposed action, the proposal may be modified so the circumstances no longer apply. If modifications are not possible, then an EA or EIS is prepared.
If no exception circumstance applies to the proposed action, the interdisciplinary team documents the project details, reviews the project for compliance with other laws and regulations, and determines if there are any special stipulations for approving the action.
Previously Analyzed Actions
If an action has been addressed in an existing NEPA document, the interdisciplinary team will review the existing NEPA document to determine if it adequately addresses the proposed action. If the proposed action is adequately addressed, the determination will be documented. If the existing document does not adequately address the proposed action, a new EA will be prepared.
Preparation of an Environmental Assessment
An interdisciplinary team is assembled to review project design, identify impacts and develop mitigation. Project design is reviewed against standard operating procedures or practices that pertain to the particular type of project. A standard operating practice for a powerline might be to use a design that prevents electrocution of large birds. Potential impacts of the action are identified after review and only necessary modification of the project. Measures to reduce the potential impacts, mitigation measures, are developed. If after modification and application of mitigation measures the residual impacts of the action are not significant, the project may be approved. If the residual impacts are significant, the project is modified further or an EIS is prepared | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44782000 |
Together with despotism and inextricably mingled with it is the second great Islamic enthusiasm—the belief in the supremacy of force. With violence the Muslim kingdom was to be attained. Mahomet gave to the battle lust of Arabia the approval of his puissant deity, bidding his followers put their supreme faith in the arbitrament of the sword. He knew, too, the value of diplomacy and the use of well-calculated treachery, but chief of all he bade his followers arm themselves to seize by force what they could not obtain by cunning. In the insistence upon these two factors, complete obedience to his will as the revelation of Allah’s decrees and the justification of violence to proclaim the merits of his faith, we gain the nearest approach to his character and beliefs; for these, together with his conception of fate, are perhaps the most personal of all his institutions.
Mahomet has suffered not a little at the hands of his immediate successors. They have sought to record the full sum of his personality, and finding the subject elude them, as the translation of actions into words must ever fall short of finality, they have overloaded their narrative with minutest and almost always apocryphal details which leave the main outlines blurred. Only two biographies can be said to be in the nature of sources, that of Muhammad ibn Hischam, written on the model of an earlier biography, undertaken about 760 for the Abbasside Caliph Mansur, and of Wakidi, written about 820, which is important as containing the text of many treaties made by Mahomet with various tribes. Al-Tabari, too, included the life of Mahomet in his extensive history of Arabia, but his work serves only as a check, consisting, as it does, mainly of extracts from Wakidi. By far the more valuable is the Kuran and the Sunna of tradition. But even these are fragmentary and confused, bearing upon them the ineradicable stamp of alien writers and much second-hand thought.
In the dim, pregnant dawn of religions, by the transfusing power of a great idea, seized upon and made living by a single personality, the world of imagination mingles with the world of fact as we perceive it. The real is felt to be merely the frail shell of forces more powerful and permanent. Legend and myth crowd in upon actual life as imperfect vehicles for the compelling demand made by that new idea for expression. Moreover, personality, that subtle essence, exercises a kind of centripetal force, attracting not only the devotion but the imaginations of those who come within its influence.
Mahomet, together with all the men of action in history, possessed an energy of will so vast as to bring forth the creative faculties of his adherents, and the legends that cluster round him have a special significance as the measure of his personality and influence. The story, for instance, of his midnight journey into the seven heavens is the symbol of an intense spiritual experience that, following the mental temper of the | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44792000 |
is a cultural monument of the Czech Republic and an integrated part of the extended system of fortifications built to defend the former Czechoslovakia during the second half of the 30s. It consists of five mighty bastions (three infantry blocks, one artillery block and the entrance block), which were built to the strongest level of construction. Deep inside the mountain, the blocks are connected by an extended systems of tunnels and caverns, which contained everything the garrison of 316 carefully selected and specially trained soldiers of the border guard needed to accomplish their combat task. Visitors entering this fortification museum can see long underground galleries, barracks, ammo dumps, narrow-gauge railway, power station, infantry blocks, emergency exits, shaft for the retractable gun turret etc. During WW II the German army tested various weapon system, explosive charges and several elements of fortification engineering there. By the German occupation, structural changes after the war, and the dismantling activities of a scrap enterprise in the 50s, the fortification Bouda became strongly devastated. In spite of that, it represents one of the best of five structurally completed artillery fortifications on Czech territory, which has been renovated and made open for the public. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44797000 |
A procedure in which a dye and/or radioactive substance is injected near the cancer. The dye or radioactive substance flows into the lymph nodes. The first lymph node that it reaches is called the sentinel lymph node. It is also the first lymph node that cancer cells might spread to after breaking away from the main cancer in the breast. Sometimes there is more than one sentinel node. A surgeon finds the sentinel lymph node, or nodes, by looking for the dye or detecting the radioactive substance. Then the node or nodes are removed and checked to see if there are cancer cells in them.
Read about sentinel lymph node dissection.
Audio contributed by: Thora Birch | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44801000 |
In order to understand solving logarithmic equations, students must understand the basics of logarithms, and how to use exponentiation to access the terms inside the logarithm. Some more complicated instances of solving simple logarithmic equations require knowledge of the product, quotient and power rules of logarithms in order to simplify complex terms.
Solving simple logarithm equations and what I mean by simple logarithm equations is basically logarithm equation that is in logarithm form. so basically you have a log, a base, your term and then an answer. So basically, 3 things, I'll call this a simple logarithmic equation.
Really all you have to do whenever you're solving something in this form is put into exponential form, okay? No matter what the x is we're going to deal with x's in all 3 of these spots. Just put into exponential form and solve, okay? So this one the 3 is going to come up and around leaving us with x=3 to the -2 and this problem has now just turned into evaluating an exponent. The negative puts everything in the bottom, the 2 squares it and we end up with x=1 over 9.
So whenever we ha- any time we have an equation in logarithm form, in order to solve it put an exponential and then solve it as you would in the other exponential equations. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44803000 |
Constantinople AgreementArticle Free Pass
Constantinople Agreement, (March 18, 1915), secret World War I agreement between Russia, Britain, and France for the postwar partition of the Ottoman Empire. It promised to satisfy Russia’s long-standing designs on the Turkish Straits by giving Russia Constantinople (Istanbul), together with a portion of the hinterland on either coast in Thrace and Asia Minor. Constantinople, however, was to be a free port. In return, Russia consented to British and French plans for territories or for spheres of influence in new Muslim states in the Middle Eastern parts of the Ottoman Empire. This first of a series of secret treaties on the “Turkish question” was never carried out because the Dardanelles campaign failed and because, when the British navy finally did reach Istanbul in 1918, Russia had made a separate peace with Germany and declared itself the enemy of all bourgeois states, France and Britain prominent among them.
What made you want to look up "Constantinople Agreement"? Please share what surprised you most... | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44804000 |
Declaration of Arbroath
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...holiday resort, Angus council area and historic county, Scotland. Arbroath Abbey, once the richest in Scotland, was founded in 1178 by King William I (the Lion) of Scotland, who is buried there. The Declaration of Arbroath, asserting the independence of Scotland following Robert the Bruce’s victory over the English at Bannockburn (1314), was composed by the Scottish Parliament in Arbroath Abbey...
...and as a military leader specializing in harrying tactics; it is ironic that he should be remembered best for the atypical set-piece battle that he incurred and won at Bannockburn in 1314. The Declaration of Arbroath of 1320 is perhaps more informative about his methods. Ostensibly a letter from the magnates of Scotland to the pope, pledging their support for King Robert, it seems in...
What made you want to look up "Declaration of Arbroath"? Please share what surprised you most... | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44805000 |
Archean EonArticle Free Pass
Archean Eon, also spelled Archaean Eon, the earlier of the two divisions of Precambrian time (about 4 billion to 542 million years ago). The Archean Eon began about 4 billion years ago with the formation of the Earth’s crust and extended to the start of the Proterozoic Eon 2.5 billion years ago; the latter is the second division of Precambrian time. Records of Earth’s primitive atmosphere and oceans emerge in the earliest Archean (Eoarchean Era), and evidence of the earliest primitive life-forms—bacteria and blue-green algae—appears in rocks about 3.5 billion years old. Archean greenstone-granite belts contain many economic mineral deposits, including gold and silver.
The start of the Archean Eon is only defined by the isotopic age of the earliest rocks. Prior to the Archean Eon, the Earth was in the astronomical (Hadean) stage of planetary accretion that began about 4.6 billion years ago; no rocks are preserved from this stage. The earliest terrestrial materials are not rocks but minerals. In Western Australia some sedimentary conglomerates, dated to 3.3 billion years ago, contain relict detrital zircon grains that have isotopic ages between 4.2 and 4.4 billion years. These grains must have been transported by rivers from a source area, the location of which has never been found; it was possibly destroyed by meteorite impacts—quite frequent on both the Earth and the Moon before 4 billion years ago.
It is thought that the oxygen content in today’s atmosphere must have slowly accumulated through time starting with an atmosphere that was anoxic during Archean times. Although volcanoes exhale much water vapour (H2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2), the amount of free oxygen (O2) emitted is very small. The inorganic breakdown (photodissociation) of volcanic-derived water vapour and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would have produced only a small amount of free oxygen. The bulk of the free oxygen in the Archean atmosphere was derived from organic photosynthesis of carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O) by anaerobic cyanobacteria (blue-green algae), a process that releases oxygen as a by-product. These organisms were prokaryotes, a group of unicellular organisms with rudimentary internal organization.
Archean oceans were likely created by the condensation of water derived from the outgassing of abundant volcanoes. Iron was released then (as today) into the oceans from submarine volcanoes in oceanic ridges and during the creation of thick oceanic plateaus. This ferrous iron (Fe2+) combined with oxygen and was precipitated as ferric iron in hematite (Fe2O3), which produced banded-iron formations on the flanks of the volcanoes. The transfer of biologically produced oxygen from the atmosphere to the sediments was beneficial to the photosynthetic organisms, because at the time free oxygen was toxic to them. When banded-iron formations were being deposited, oxygen-mediating enzymes had not yet developed. Therefore, this removal of oxygen allowed early anaerobes (life-forms not requiring oxygen for respiration) to develop in the early oceans of the Earth.
Carbon dioxide emissions are abundant from modern volcanoes, and it is assumed that the intense volcanism during the Archean Eon caused this gas to be highly concentrated in the atmosphere. This high concentration most likely gave rise to an atmospheric greenhouse effect that warmed the Earth’s surface sufficiently to prevent the development of glaciations, for which there is no evidence in Archean rocks. The CO2 content in the atmosphere has decreased over geological time, because much of the oxygen formerly bound in CO2 has been released to provide increasing amounts of O2 to the atmosphere. In contrast, carbon has been removed from the atmosphere via the burial of organic sediments.
Throughout the Archean, oceanic and island arc crust was produced semi-continuously for 1.5 billion years; thus, most Archean rocks are igneous. The oldest known rocks on Earth, estimated at 4.28 billion years old, are the faux amphibolite volcanic deposits of the Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt in Quebec, Canada. The second oldest rocks are the 4-billion-year-old Acasta granitic gneisses in northwestern Canada, and a single relict zircon grain dated to 4.2 billion years ago was found within these gneisses. Other ancient sediments and lavas occur in the 3.85-billion-year-old Isua belt of western Greenland (which is similar to an accretionary wedge in the trench of a modern subduction zone) and the 3.5-billion-year-old Barberton Complex in South Africa, which is probably a slice of oceanic crust. A huge pulse in the formation of island arcs and oceanic plateaus took place worldwide from 2.9 to 2.7 billion years ago.
Archean rocks mostly occur in large blocks hundreds to thousands of kilometres across, such as in the Superior and Slave provinces in Canada; the Pilbara and Yilgarn blocks in Australia; the Kaapvaal craton in southern Africa; the Dharwar craton in India; the Baltic, Anabar, and Aldan shields in Russia; and the North China craton. Smaller relicts of Archean rocks in various stages of obliteration occur in many younger Proterozoic and Phanerozoic orogenic (mountain) belts. Some Archean rocks that occur in greenstone-granite belts (zones rich in volcanic rocks that are primitive types of oceanic crust and island arcs) formed on or near the surface of the Earth and thus preserve evidence of the early atmosphere, oceans, and life-forms. Other rocks that occur in granulite-gneiss belts (zones of rocks that were metamorphosed in the Archean mid-lower crust) are exhumed remnants of the lower parts of the Archean continents and thus preserve evidence of deep crustal processes operating at the time.
In greenstone-granite belts there are many oceanic lavas, island arcs, and oceanic plateaus; therefore, they commonly contain rock types such as basalts, andesites, rhyolites, granitic plutons, oceanic cherts, and ultramafic komatiites (lavas enriched in magnesium, a special product of the melting of the hot Archean mantle). These igneous rocks are host to multitudes of economic mineral deposits of gold, silver, chromium, nickel, copper, and zinc, which are the mainstay of the economies of Canada, Australia, and Zimbabwe.
In granulite-gneiss belts the roots of many Andean-type active continental margins are exposed, the rocks being highly deformed and recrystallized during metamorphism in the deep crust. Common rocks are tonalites (a granitic-type rock rich in plagioclase feldspar) transformed into tonalitic gneisses, amphibolite dikes, and amphibolites derived from volcanic activity. Few mineral deposits occur in granulite-gneiss belts, in common with the deep crust of younger orogenic belts, which are relatively barren of ore concentrations.
What made you want to look up "Archean Eon"? Please share what surprised you most... | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44806000 |
Lutheran Council in the United States of America (LCUSA)Article Free Pass
Lutheran Council in the United States of America (LCUSA), cooperative agency for four Lutheran churches whose membership included about 95 percent of all Lutherans in the U.S., established Jan. 1, 1967, as a successor to the National Lutheran Council (NLC). The member churches were the Lutheran Church in America, the American Lutheran Church, the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, and the Synod of Evangelical Lutheran Churches.
The NLC, organized in 1918, had served eight Lutheran churches as a cooperative organization and had developed various programs, including social service, missions, public relations, service to military personnel, service to students, and overseas aid. When it seemed probable in the late 1950s that the eight member churches of the NLC would merge into two churches (subsequently the American Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church in America ), it became necessary to restructure the NLC.
In 1959 the Missouri Synod accepted an invitation to consider a more inclusive Lutheran agency, and consultations in 1960 and 1961 led to agreements to establish the LCUSA. This was a breakthrough in cooperation among Lutherans in the United States, because the conservative Missouri Synod had previously refused to consider joining a cooperative agency unless doctrinal agreement had been reached by all participants. It agreed, however, to join the LCUSA when it was assured that all participants would take part in doctrinal discussions as part of the program of the council. Subsequently, the small (21,000 members in the late 1960s) Synod of Evangelical Lutheran Churches also agreed to join in forming the new council. In 1977 the Missouri Synod withdrew from the council.
The LCUSA continued much of the work of the NLC, with the added emphasis on doctrinal and theological discussions and study.
What made you want to look up "Lutheran Council in the United States of America (LCUSA)"? Please share what surprised you most... | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44807000 |
Put-in-BayArticle Free Pass
Put-in-Bay, village, Ottawa county, northern Ohio, U.S. It is situated in Put-in-Bay Harbor of South Bass Island, off Marblehead Peninsula in Lake Erie, 35 miles (56 km) east of Toledo. The spot is famous for the American naval victory known as the Battle of Lake Erie, fought offshore against a British squadron on September 10, 1813, with Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry commanding an American flotilla. The event is commemorated by a towering 352-foot (107-metre) shaft topped by an open-air promenade and surrounded by a 25-acre (10-hectare) national area. This monument (Perry’s Victory and International Peace Memorial, completed 1915) is just outside the village, near the Canadian line, and also commemorates the international peace between Canada and the United States and their common unguarded boundary. The village is a resort noted for fishing and boating. South Bass Island itself is 3.5 miles long by 1.5 miles (5.6 km by 2.4 km) wide and is shaped like a pudding bag, the name of which is commonly believed to have been corrupted to the village’s place-name, Put-in-Bay. The island is known for its caves, wineries, and fish hatcheries. Pop. (2000) 128; (2010) 138.
What made you want to look up "Put-in-Bay"? Please share what surprised you most... | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44809000 |
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levels of intelligence
...called national), tactical, and counterintelligence. The broadest of these levels is strategic intelligence, which includes information about the capabilities and intentions of foreign countries. Tactical intelligence, sometimes called operational or combat intelligence, is information required by military field commanders. Because of the enormous destructive power of modern weaponry, the...
...is conducted at two levels, strategic and tactical. Strategic intelligence is information that is needed to formulate policy and military plans at the international and national policy levels. Tactical intelligence is intended primarily to respond to the needs of military field commanders so they can plan for and, if necessary, conduct combat operations. Essentially, tactical intelligence...
What made you want to look up "tactical intelligence"? Please share what surprised you most... | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44810000 |
Judy Chicago: The Dinner Party
- Dates: September 20, 2002 through February 9, 2003
- Collections: Decorative Arts
Celebrating 1,038 actual and mythical women of achievement, The Dinner Party is a monumental tribute to all women. In 1974, Judy Chicago began work on this elaborate installation, which over the course of five years would ultimately become a collaboration between the artist and about four hundred women and men.
The main part of The Dinner Party is introduced by six tapestries with "visionary" texts, three panels acknowledging the artist’s hundreds of collaborators, and seven panels documenting the lives of the specific women featured in the work. These multifaceted elements surround The Dinner Party’s focal point; a massive triangular table adorned with thirty-nine place settings, each honoring a female figure who helped form and inform Western civilization. Through artistic media traditionally associated with women—notably china painting and embroidery—Chicago designed these settings to reflect each woman's unique accomplishments, though all the plates share a general imagery of butterflies, flowers, and vulvae. The table stands on the Heritage Floor, which is inscribed with the names of the other 999 women celebrated by this work.
The Dinner Party has made an important contribution to feminist thinking and to the history of art. This complex artistic statement helped point the way toward changing the once small, exclusive, and male-dominated art world into the inclusive scene we know today. Marking the twenty-second anniversary of its first showing at the Brooklyn Museum in the same space, this presentation of The Dinner Party invites visitors to contemplate anew the enduring significance of this landmark work of American art.
The Brooklyn Museum of Art is grateful to The Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation for the gift of The Dinner Party and for enabling us to preserve its legacy for future generations. In the summer of 2004, The Dinner Party will lend its permanent home in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art on the fourth floor of the Museum. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44811000 |
A four-masted steel barque built in 1894 by J. Reid & Co., Glasgow.
Dimensions: 91,91×13,15×7,46 meters
[301'7"×43'2"×24'6"] and tonnage GRT and NRT.
Rigged in jubilee fashion i.e. nothing over double top and topgallant sails.
- 1894 June
- Launched at the shipyard of J. Reid & Co., Glasgow,
for Aitken, Lilburn & Co., Glasgow. Captain Colin McLeod.
- Sold to Rhederei Akt. Gesellschaft von 1896, Hamburg, and renamed Octavia. Captain E. Butz.
- Destroyed by fire when the cargo coal ignited off the
Patagonian coast. The burnt out hull lay in Bahia Blanca
- The hull was used in building of the steamer
- Once more destroyed by fire, this time at Puerto Deseado.
- Port quarter. Under tow. [NMM P.408]
Updated 1998-01-02 by Lars Bruzelius.
Sjöhistoriska Samfundet | The Maritime History Virtual Archives |
Four-masted ships & barques |
Copyright © 1996 Lars Bruzelius. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44813000 |
Fleet management began as a static process, with transportation companies largely in the dark with regards to the exact whereabouts of their assets. These companies relied on physical inventories and the conscientiousness of operators for fleet data usually manually collected and entered into a simple application. Fleet management has evolved dramatically over the years.
Globally, the demand for fossil fuels is beginning to outpace the world’s supply. The imperative to reduce fossil fuel consumption for the sake of the environment is now made more attractive to businesses given the opportunity to cut costs through the use of renewable energy resources.
Deploying renewable energy remains a popular topic as politicians and policymakers discuss different energy generation options. These leaders will discuss varying degrees of support for wind, solar, nuclear, natural gas, coal, and petroleum to power our homes and vehicles.
As domestic carbon emissions continue to increase and cheap energy prices are memories of the past, the Federal government has embarked on a plan to lead the public and private sector in reducing energy consumption and associated carbon emissions.
In Executive Order 13514, President Obama asks Federal agencies to lead by example with regard to sustainability, but if that isn’t enough motivation for other organizations to draft a strategic sustainability plan, government leaders should do it to cut costs and do more with less.
A coordinated technological architecture that combines expanded use of sensors, seamless information sharing and effective data analysis can lead to successful achievement of cost control and reduction in energy use.
As we have seen in earlier posts, organizations that can successfully execute a strategy to reduce energy usage can potentially realize significant cost savings. In this entry, we will look at some different ways to pay for an energy cost savings program.
A new focus on reducing our consumption of energy is vital for the national interest. While it may be considered easy to some to address “why” reducing energy consumption is incredibly important, concentrating on “how” these changes will be implemented becomes much more challenging.
The 2010 IBM Eco-Efficiency Jam highlighted the need for the entire enterprise to collaborate on the development of strategies and tactics that create operational eco-efficiencies, particularly in energy efficiency. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44817000 |
An expert panel asked by Congress to recommend ways to deal with global warming said Thursday that the U.S. should not wait to substantially reduce the pollution responsible and any efforts to delay action would be shortsighted.
But that's exactly what Republicans and some Democrats in Congress are trying to do.
With a majority in the House and many freshman lawmakers skeptical of the science behind climate change, Republicans are pushing measures to block the federal government from controlling greenhouse gases.
The House passed a bill to do that last month. An identical measure failed to get enough votes in the Democratic-controlled Senate, but a majority there did support reining in the Environmental Protection Agency's plans to reduce heat-trapping pollution.
The report released Thursday from a 22-member panel assembled by the National Research Council strongly suggests that the U.S. should be heading in a different direction. But it also recognizes that some strategies may be politically infeasible.
"We know enough, know that acting sooner is better than acting later, and that uncertainty is a reason for acting rather than not acting," said Albert Carnesale, the chairman of the committee, which included scientists, economists, former politicians and business leaders.
"Politics are different now, and they will change over time," said Carnesale, an engineer and chancellor emeritus at the University at California Los Angeles. The recommendations the panel is making, he said, will be relevant years down the road.
The report is the last in a series requested by Congress in 2008, when Democrats controlled both the House and Senate. It offers a stern warning about the risks of global warming and irrefutably affirms what it says is a preponderance of scientific evidence showing that pollution from the burning of fossil fuels is to blame.
With every ton of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere, the panel says, the U.S. is putting itself more at risk and increasing how much it will cost to reduce pollution later.
The best and most economical way to address global warming, the panel concludes, is to put a price on carbon pollution through a tax or a market-based system. The Democratic-led House, with the support of President Barack Obama, passed a bill nearly two years ago that would have set up a market for greenhouse gas emissions. It died in the Senate amid concerns that it would raise energy prices and a Republican campaign calling it "cap-and-tax."
Obama said after the election last year that he would seek other ways to combat global warming, since the new House majority would not support his preferred approach.
At a meeting in New York Thursday with Associated Press editors and reporters, U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres said that Congress' failure to pass legislation is a "very serious hand brake" on global efforts to fight global warming.
"I don't think it's a permanent state of affairs that the world will be able to live with," said Figueres of the U.S. stance. The U.S. is alone among industrial countries in rejecting the existing global agreement.
The expert panel Thursday said the next-best ways to reduce pollution would be to expand efforts at the local, state and regional levels and for the federal government to adopt standards under the Clean Air Act. The EPA's use of that law is what Republicans in Congress are attacking.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who drafted the bill that passed the House in 2009, said the committee's conclusions should be a wake-up call.
"Republicans in the House should be ashamed of their votes denying climate change and handcuffing the Environmental Protection Agency," Waxman said. "If we wait to act, it may be too late to save the planet from irreversible changes."
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who attempted to get a similar bill through the Senate, said Thursday that he didn't know what additional proof was needed to prompt action on global warming.
"They should use these scientific findings as more than kindling in the bonfire of partisanship that's stood in the way," Kerry said.
But Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., one of Congress' most vocal skeptics of the science behind global warming and the sponsor of a Senate bill to bar EPA from reducing greenhouse gases, seemed undeterred by the panel's findings.
"What is clear and irrefutable is that the NRC's proposals to address climate change would impose massive costs without meaningful benefits," Inhofe said, referring to the belief that U.S. action alone would do little to help reduce the Earth's rising temperature. The panel recognized the global nature of the problem, but focused on the task assigned to it by Congress -- what the U.S. response should be.
Advocates pressing for action and dismayed at the course Congress is taking said Thursday they hoped lawmakers heeded the report's message.
"House leaders can choose to ignore this advice and side with polluters over the public's health if they like," said Dan Lashof, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's climate center. "But they can't hide behind a veil of scientific uncertainty if they continue to take this dangerous course."
Associated Press Special Correspondent Charles J. Hanley in New York contributed to this report.
National Research Council www.nationalacademies.org/nrc
Dina Cappiello can be reached at http://twitter.com/dinacappiello | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44818000 |
online interesting ethnobotanical traditions relating to the use
of medicinal herbs, especially plants used in the treatment of cancer.
material on the natural habitat and growing conditions required
by the plants so that environmentalists, cultivators, farmers,
and gardeners can contribute to the long-term availability of medicinal
sources for seeds and starters needed for the propagation
of medicinal plants.
to those who are committed to sustainable agricultural and harvesting
practical and ethical issues surrounding botanical medicine making.
help connecting with herbal laboratories and practitioners.
with ethnobotanists; environmentalists; conservationists; organic,
biodynamic, and sustainable agriculturalists; herbal laboratories
and pharmacies; medicinal herbalists, researchers, educators, and
those seeking to integrate natural medicine in their practices
or health regimes.
Hosted by Ingrid Naiman
A Botanical Approach to Treatment
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please subscribe, using the link button below. You can cancel your
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St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland was chartered in 1784 upon a most liberal plan for the benefit of youth of every religious denomination. In 1937 the New Program, under which the college still operates, was instituted. Under it, we help our students learn to ask fundamental questions and practice thoughtfulness in public. We introduce them to the textual tradition of reason that illuminates such central features of modern life as democracy and technology, as well as to the literary and musical tradition of the West. We are committed to the use of a list of great books that is both fairly stable and under continual review. These are books agreed to be excellent, to form a coherent sequence, and to raise most cogently questions we want our students to consider. We foster literacy in three kinds of texts: verbal, mathematical, and musical.
Read more… We want our students to develop the intellectual virtues of courage in inquiry, caution in forming opinions, candor about their ignorance, open attentiveness to the words of their colleagues, industry in preparation, and meticulousness in verbal translations as well as in mathematical demonstrations. We give our students the experience of living in a community of learning imbued with attitudes of consideration and respect that foster moral virtues appropriate to their future lives as citizens. We think that the college has a wider mission in contributing to the invigoration of American education by giving help to other institutions that ask for it, by encouraging our students to become teachers, and by providing to a wide constituency occasions for actual learning in the spirit and through the materials of our program. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44842000 |
As we get ready to celebrate our nation’s birth, we thought this would be a perfect time to share a little trivia about Independence Day and the early history of our country.  Some of it might come as a surprise to you and it just might come in handy during your Fourth of July cookout or get-together.  How well do you know your American history?  Read on to find out.
A)¬† America’s independence was actually declared by the Continental Congress on July 2, 1776.¬† The Declaration of Independence was adopted on the fourth, as is indicated on the document itself, which is, one supposes, the cause for all the confusion. ¬†As one scholar has observed, what has happened is that the document announcing the event has overshadowed the event itself.
John Adams refused to acknowledge the Fourth of July as the nation’s Independence Day, firmly believing that July 2nd was the birth of our nation, and rejected all invitations to celebrate the Fourth of July.
Genuine independence was secured on September 3rd, 1783 with The Treaty of Paris in which Great Britainformally abandoned any claim to theUnited States.
B)¬† “Yankee Doodle” is often thought of as a patriotic song.¬† It’s even the state anthem of Connecticut.¬† However, it was originally sung by British officers making fun of backwoods Americans.¬† The Macaroni wig was an extreme fashion in the 1770s and became contemporary slang for foppishness.¬† The implication of the verse was that the Yankees were so unsophisticated that they thought simply sticking a feather in a cap would make them the height of fashion.
After the tide began to turn during the War of Independence, Americans embraced the song and made it their own, turning it back on those who had used it to mock them.
C)  The stars on the original American flag were arranged in a circle to ensure that all colonies were equal.  The design of the flag has been officially modified 26 times since it was created in 1777.
D)  In 1778, General George Washington marked July 4th with a double ration of rum for his soldiers and an artillery salute.  Across the Atlantic Ocean, ambassadors John Adams and Benjamin Franklin held a dinner for their fellow Americans inParis,France.
E)¬† Betsy Ross did not actually design the U. S. flag.¬† That distinction belongs to Frances Hopkinson.¬† He is also credited with designing theU.S.seal.¬† We don‚Äôt know who sewed the first flag, but researchers doubt it was Ms. Ross.¬† It’s a nice story though, created by her ancestors nearly a century later and kept going by grade school text books and a few historians who didn’t bother to check their facts.
F)¬†¬†The national anthem (The Star-Spangled Banner) is actually set to the tune of an old British drinking song called “To Anacreon in Heaven”.¬† The lyrics come from the poem, “Defense¬†of Fort McHenry” written in 1814 by a lawyer named Francis Scott Key.¬† The song didn’t become the national anthem until March 3rd, 1931.
G)  Our 2nd, 3rd and 5th Presidents (John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe) all died on the Fourth of July.   The 4th President, James Madison, missed dying on Independence Day by just a few days (June 28th).  Adams and Jefferson both died on July 4th, 1826 as the nation celebrated the Jubilee of Freedom event (50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence).  Coincidentally, Adams and Jefferson were the only Declaration signers to be elected as Presidents.
H)  Calvin Coolidge is the only President to be born on the Fourth of July.
I)¬† Benjamin Franklin proposed the wild turkey as the national bird, but was overruled by John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who wanted the bald eagle.¬† Regarding the bald eagle, Franklin wrote:¬† ‚Äú… he is a bird of bad moral character, he does not get his living honestly… Besides he is a rank coward; the little king bird, not bigger than a sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the district.‚ÄĚ
J)  The first Fourth of July party held at the White House was in 1801 while John Adams was President.
K)  Before automobiles became the preferred method of travel, Independence Day was the worst time of the year for horses.  The poor animals were harassed by loud noises and unruly children threw firecrackers at them.
L)  The Fourth of July is one of the few federal holidays that have not been moved to the nearest Friday or Monday.
M)  Each year, the U. S. spends more than $200 million importing fireworks from China.
N)¬† Sadly, the majority of our nation’s flags and patriotic paraphernalia in relation to the Fourth of July are actually made in China and Mexico, not theU.S.
O)¬† The famous Fourth of July event, Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, started back in 1916.¬† It was supposedly started as a way to settle a dispute among four immigrants as to who was the most patriotic.
P) ¬†Samuel Wilson was a meat packer who provided food forU.S.soldiers in the early 1800‚Ä≤s. ¬†He stamped the initialsU.S.on his packaged products and supposedly some soldiers began to joke that it stood for Uncle Sam, giving way to the symbolic ‚ÄúUncle Sam‚ÄĚ of the United States government.
Captivation Media hopes everyone enjoys our nation’s Independence Day.  We’re proud to be Americans.  And we’re proud to call all of you our friends.
Be safe and have a happy Fourth! | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44844000 |
What is a robot? It depends on who you ask, but a robot is generally defined as a machine capable of sensing, thinking, or acting in a particular way. These three abilities are the nuts and bolts of roboworld™ and, with dozens of exhibit stations, our robotic all-stars can't wait to show their stuff!
Learn what makes a robot a robot, then meet a few of the bots that have found themselves at home in roboworld™.
Check out this prescription-filling robot that works with today's doctors in Pittsburgh hospitals. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44847000 |
This note considers bullying, in particular cyber-bullying
(harassment of people via the net, SMS or other digital
media). That harassment may have a lasting psychological
impact. It is often associated with physical assaults.
The note covers -
- academic studies, government report and primers regarding
victims, bystanders - making sense of bullying
- questions about culture and bullying in police forces,
the military and religious institutions
- digital bullying of students and teachers
- bullying in the electronic workplace
law - criminal law, common law, occupational health
& safety, discrimination law and other Australian
law regarding bullying
1 - selected Australian litigation regarding school
and workplace bullying
2 - further Australian bullying cases
3 - recent Australian cases and controversies
- an indication of damages awarded in Australian bullying
- Australian responses to bullying, including sacking
- litigation and anti-bullying developments in the UK,
Canada, New Zealand and other countries
- bullying in literature
- accounts by bullies and the bullied
in Australian bullying litigation.
supplements discussion elsewhere on this site regarding
security and the shape
of Australian law.
People have been nasty to each other as long as there
has been recorded history. Bullying is not a new phenomenon.
It is evident in accounts of schools in mediaeval Europe
and China, workplace initiations in Renaissance Florence
and 1920s Chicago, bastardisation in Pharaonic Egypt and
in Australia's Royal Military Academy during the 1960s
and 1990s, university common rooms in the 1850s and 1980s,
and courts over the past two millennia.
It may involve an individual or a group. It has variously
been characterised as bullying, mobbing, harassment and
even psychoterror. Injuries can be physical and/or psychological,
with those experiencing bullying on occasion being driven
to a breakdown, forced out of jobs or pushed to suicide.
It has been addressed through a range of law, including
workplace safety, criminal, anti-discrimination, employment
and common law, on occasion with substantial penalties
for perpetrators and organisations that have permitted
mistreatment of an individual.
Digital technology allows bullies new opportunities to
"mess with your head", through SMS texts, instant
messaging, defamatory web pages and comments in online
It has been argued that digital harassment is particularly
potent because -
is pervasive (an issue for what has been dubbed the
"always on generation") and
pseudonymity - or merely the relaxation of inhibitions
associated with much virtual contact - allows bullies
to express themselves with a vehemence that might be
tempered in face to face contact in the playground,
office or factory.
following pages explore cyberbullying in Australian schools
(and of students or teachers outside the playground or
classroom) and workplaces.
They highlight day by day responses, which for some victims
have involved abandonment of communication tools such
as mobile phones, and questions about legal frameworks.
They also highlight selected Australian litigation before
considering overseas experience.
There are few statutory definitions of bullying.
As the following pages indicate it has often been conceptualised
terms of particular outcomes (setting fire to an apprentice
for example being treated as a criminal act) or
terms of particular enactments and common law (for example
regarding stalking, discrimination,
hate-speech, occupational health & safety, defamation
and misuse of telecommunication networks).
in Australian law is discussed here.
Perceptions of what is bullying and what is socially (and
legally) acceptable 'rough play' or institutional discipline
have changed over time.
The Law Society of NSW thus offers one definition of workplace
and inappropriate workplace behaviour includes bullying,
which comprises behaviour which intimidates, offends,
degrades, insults or humiliates an employee possibly
in front of co-workers, clients or customers and which
includes physical or psychological behaviour.
Belsey characterised cyber-bullying as using -
and communication technologies such as e-mail, cell
phone and pager text messages, instant messaging, defamatory
personal Web sites, blogs, online games and defamatory
online personal polling Web sites, to support deliberate,
repeated, and hostile behaviour by an individual or
group, that is intended to harm others.
Key elements of bullying are behaviour that is unreasonable
and that both -
intimidates, offends or humiliates
places someone's physical or psychological welfare at
behaviour usually involves repeated and persistent action.
It may be passive or active, by an individual or a group,
in private or in a public space such as a meeting-room,
schoolyard or online forum. It may involve threats and
coercive behaviour such as seizure of the target's property,
sarcasm or unreasonable teasing. It may involve physical
isolation or ignoring the target.
Bullying may be direct or indirect, physical or psychological.
It is shrugged off by some targets. Other people experience
lasting hurt. It is an area of disagreement, with some
observers claiming that it is pervasive and serious, other
observers warning against a contemporary moral panic or
efforts to wrap children in cotton wool.
next page (studies) | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44850000 |
Belfast Jewish Cemetery, Belfast, 4. Northern Ireland, UK
Notes: The Jewish section of the Belfast City Cemetery was acquired in 1871: the first burial took place 2 years later on 2 Feb 1873, and the last on 11 Jun 1964.
From 1884 to 1929 no headstones were allowed for those buried in the Jewish ‘poor ground’. Following the reversal of this decision, a memorial stone to all those buried there was erected in 1931. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44863000 |
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Of all people diagnosed with a mental illness, 29% experience problems with alcohol or drug use.
How does a person develop co-occurring disorders?
There are many ways in which co-occurring disorders develop. Most people with co-occurring disorders report that the symptoms of mental illness began first, and that they used alcohol or other drugs to cope with the symptoms (often known as self-medication).
For example, if you feel depressed, you may find that a couple of drinks or a little cocaine makes the depression lift, at least for a while.
When the buzz or the high wears off though; you will probably feel worse. The solution may be to drink or use more. The more you drink or use, the worse you feel, and the cycle of co-occurring disorders begins.
The cycle gets worse when the other consequences of substance use -- family difficulties, employment problems, legal issues, or financial troubles – come into play.
The cycle doesn’t have to start with symptoms of mental illness though. For some people with co-occurring disorders, the cycle begins with substance use.
The alcohol or drugs may trigger a genetic predisposition to a mental illness, or the consequences of substance use may generate depression or anxiety.
Finally, it is possible that the mental health and substance use problems develop independently of each other.
No matter how the co-occurring disorders developed, the symptoms of the disorders interact, typically resulting in increased symptoms of both or all disorders. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44864000 |
UNESCO states, “The Second Protocol further elaborates the provisions of the Convention relating to safeguarding of and respect for cultural property and the conduct of hostilities; thereby providing greater protection than before. It creates a new category of enhanced protection for cultural heritage that is particularly important for humankind, enjoys proper legal protection at the national level, and is not used for military purposes. It also specifies the sanctions to be imposed for serious violations with respect to cultural property and defines the conditions in which individual criminal responsibility shall apply. Finally, it establishes a 12 member Intergovernmental Committee to oversee the implementation of the Second Protocol and de facto the Convention.
The Second Protocol does not replace the Hague Convention; it complements it. In other words, the adoption of the Second Protocol has created two levels of protection: the basic level under the Hague Convention for its States Parties and the higher level of protection under the Second Protocol for its States Parties.”
The Second Protocol was adopted on March 26, 1999 and entered into force on March 9, 2004. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44866000 |
A research group at Rice University (Houston; www.rice.edu) has developed a method for vaporizing water into steam using sunlight-illuminated nanoparticles, with only a small fraction of the energy heating the fluid. Sub-wavelength metal or carbon particles...
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A discount on full delegate pass to ChemInnovations. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44869000 |
What is Dynamic Combinatorial Chemistry?
DCC methodology utilizes cyclic structures which interchange via reversible covalent bond formation to create a dynamic library of potential receptors. When this thermodynamically controlled mixture is incubated with an analyte of interest, the library responds by shifting the equilibrium towards the receptor that best binds the analyte, i.e. the best receptor is amplified relative to the non-templated state. This is best visualized with the following simple graphic:
The experiment begins with a library of “monomers”, each of which has two reactive groups on it; in the example above, the reactive groups are thiols. Prior to adding the analyte, the dithiols are oxidized and equilibrated to the complex mixture of disulfides; three are shown but statistically many hundreds are possible. An analyte is then added under conditions where the library is in equilibrium, such that the library constituents can respond to the analyte by shifting towards the best host-guest pair to establish a new equilibrium. In this competitive binding situation, the best receptor is identified by determining which compound(s) was amplified. This differs from a traditional (static) combinatorial library because the method simultaneously generates the library and dynamically amplifies/identifies the winner.
Funding for the CDCC comes from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency Basic Research program administered by the Army Research Office (W911NF04D0004) | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44873000 |
If you can read this on your own, you can probably turn on the faucet to brush your teeth. And if you can reach the faucet, it's a good bet you can get your own drinking glass from a kitchen cabinet.
These are all signs that you're getting bigger and growing up. But for some kids, growing up comes with something doctors call growing pains.
What Are Growing Pains?
Growing pains aren't a disease. You probably won't have to go to the doctor for them. But they can hurt. Usually they happen when kids are between the ages of 3 and 5 or 8 and 12. Doctors don't believe that growing actually causes pain, but growing pains stop when kids stop growing. By the teen years, most kids don't get growing pains anymore.
Kids get growing pains in their legs. Most of the time they hurt in the front of the thighs (the upper part of your legs), in the calves (the back part of your legs below your knees), or behind the knees. Usually, both legs hurt.
Growing pains often start to ache right before bedtime. Sometimes you go to bed without any pain, but you might wake up in the middle of the night with your legs hurting. The best news about growing pains is that they go away by morning.
What Causes Growing Pains?
Growing pains don't hurt around the bones or joints (the flexible parts that connect bones and let them move) — only in the muscles. For this reason, some doctors believe that kids might get growing pains because they've tired out their muscles. When you run, climb, or jump a lot during the day, you might have aches and pains in your legs at night.
What Can I Do to Feel Better?
Your parent can help your growing pains feel better by giving you an over-the-counter pain medicine like acetaminophen or ibuprofen. Kids should not take aspirin because it can cause a rare but serious illness called Reye syndrome.
Here are three other things that might help you feel better:
- placing a heating pad on the spot where your legs hurt
- stretching your legs like you do in gym class
- having your parent massage your legs
When to Go to the Doctor
If you have a fever, are limping when you walk, or your leg looks red or is swollen (puffed up), your parent should take you to the doctor. Growing pains should not keep you from running, playing, and doing what you normally do. If the pain is bothering you during the day, talk to your parent about it.
You might never feel any growing pains, but if you do, remember that before you know it, you will outgrow them!
Reviewed by: Steven Dowshen, MD
Date reviewed: July 2012 | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44876000 |
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Dokdok is a scarecrow who can talk and move. His friends are Nouras the sea gull, Gharab the crow, and Abou Fasada the bird. This story is about the importance of knowledge and learning. Dokdok is alone in the field and makes sounds that echo. We learn that the moon comes out at night, followed by the sun in the morning which moves in the sky. They take a look at the city, the zoo, and the field. Dokdok hears a loud voice saying "Vou Vou Va" and the sound scares him. Each of his friends keep on guessing what this sound is and they are all frightened except for the sun and the moon. The friends keep saying it is a ghost and are so frightened until a farmer explains it to them. It is the sound of the wind over the well.
RITSEC - Egypt
High National Committee for "Reading for All Program" - Egypt
Link to This Book | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44877000 |
has felt fear at some time in their lives, fear of certain things
and people. A normal response of fear is triggered by something
that other people can fully understand to be a cause of fear. If
this cause is removed, then the feeling of fear disappears with
it. By contrast, a phobia typically is a continuous condition with
no apparent cause. People suffering from a phobia are severely limited
in their daily activities. The main symptom of a phobia is a feeling
of fear, but this can also be accompanied by psychosomatic symptoms
such as a racing heart, trembling, restlessness, difficulties in
swallowing, suffocating sensations, failures of perception and thought,
urge to pass water, diarrhoea and nausea. Phobics may experience
veritable attacks of panic for no apparent reason. In some patients,
the state of fear can become chronic.
About 17 per
cent of the population suffer from states of fear or anxiety. According
to experts, this percentage will double in the next 25 years, owing
to causes of a personal nature, but also to political, religious,
social and cultural problems.
Become the ruler
over your fear ! Build your own Empire of Fear and wipe out everything
and everybody that wants to make use of your fears ! You have the
right and you have the power! FEARPOWER!
at June 11, 2003 02:01 PM | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44881000 |
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Purifying Your Drinking Water
Few things are more important to your health and survival during a long emergency than having water that is safe to drink. Knowing how to purify water can help you if your regular water supply becomes contaminated or if you are in a place where clean water is not available. Even if you have stored clean water to use in an emergency, you may run out before the emergency situation has ended.
Water purification can greatly reduce your chance of getting sick from bacteria, viruses, and other living organisms in the water. You can disinfect water using one of the following methods:
- Bring the water to a rolling boil for 1 minute. If you are at an elevation of 6500 ft (2000 m) or higher, boil the water for 3 minutes. This is the most effective purification method. But may be impractical if you need large quantities of water. It also requires a heat source, which you may not have in some emergency situations. If fuel or power for your heat source is limited, bringing the water to a boil will usually disinfect it, even if you cannot boil it for the recommended time.
- Or add 16 drops of household liquid bleach for each gallon of water, stir, and let it stand for 30 minutes. If the water does not smell slightly like bleach after 30 minutes, add 16 more drops of bleach and let it stand for another 15 minutes. You should notice a bleach smell.
- Or use iodine or chlorine purification tablets or drops. You can get these at stores that sell camping equipment and at some drugstores. Follow the instructions on the package. Purification tablets are not as effective as boiling or disinfecting with bleach. But they do kill some types of organisms.
- Or use water filters that can get rid of some microorganisms and improve the taste of water. There are many different types of filters. So be sure that you know what kinds of organisms your filter is effective for.
None of the purification methods described above eliminates heavy metals, salts, chemicals, or radioactive dust or dirt (fallout) from water. Many of these substances can be removed by distilling water, a more complicated method of purifying water.
Radioactive fallout can also be minimized using a homemade filter:
- Punch holes in the bottom of a bucket, and cover the bottom with 1.5 in. (3.8 cm) of gravel. Cover the gravel with a towel.
- Place the bucket over a larger container, and pour the water into the bucket so that it filters through the towel and gravel and drains into the container below.
- Disinfect the water by boiling, adding chlorine bleach, or using purification tablets as described above.
- Replace the gravel after every 50 qt (47 L) of water.
|Primary Medical Reviewer||E. Gregory Thompson, MD - Internal Medicine|
|Specialist Medical Reviewer||Christine Hahn, MD - Epidemiology|
|Last Revised||April 22, 2011|
|By:||Healthwise Staff||Last Revised: April 22, 2011|
|Medical Review:||E. Gregory Thompson, MD - Internal Medicine|
Christine Hahn, MD - Epidemiology
© 1995-, Healthwise, Incorporated. Healthwise, Healthwise for every health decision, and the Healthwise logo are trademarks of Healthwise, Incorporated. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44883000 |
Soviet war crimes gives a short overview about serious crimes committed by the Red Army's (1918-1946, later Soviet Army) leadership and an unknown number of single members of the Soviet armed forces from 1919 to 1990 inclusive including those in Eastern Europe in late 1944 and early 1945, particularly murder and rape. The Red Army ( Russian: Рабоче-Крестьянская Красная Армия R aboche- K rest'yanskaya K rasnaya A rmiya The Red Army ( Russian: Рабоче-Крестьянская Красная Армия R aboche- K rest'yanskaya K rasnaya A rmiya Eastern Europe is a general term that refers to the Geopolitical region encompassing the easternmost part of the European continent. Murder is the unlawful killing of another human person with Malice aforethought, as defined in Common Law countries Rape, also referred to as Sexual assault, is an Assault by a person involving Sexual intercourse with or Sexual penetration of another person Neither by any international military jurisdiction nor the Red Army’s leadership have any of its members have ever been charged with war crimes by a court of law. War crimes are "violations of the laws or customs of war" including but not limited to "murder the ill-treatment or deportation of civilian residents of an occupied
On the part of the Axis powers an ethnic superiority ideology played a primary role in starting World War II and led to immediate, constant and systematic war crimes against the Soviet civilian population during the German invasion and occupation of Russia (1941-45). The Axis powers also known as the Axis alliance Axis nations Axis countries or sometimes just the Axis were those Countries The racial policy of Nazi Germany refers to the policies and laws implemented by Nazi Germany, asserting the superiority of the so-called " Aryan race " and World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including War crimes are "violations of the laws or customs of war" including but not limited to "murder the ill-treatment or deportation of civilian residents of an occupied An estimated 20 million civilians in the Soviet Union lost their lives during the war as a direct or indirect result of combat operations and a policy of systematic annihilation. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991
On the Soviet side, the Red Army was ideologically orientated and indoctrinated from its first day. It was created in 1918 by the communist Soviet regime in order to defend the new regime in the bloody Russian Civil War. Communism is a Socioeconomic structure that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless Society based The Russian Civil War (1917–1923 was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed Leon Trotsky, founding father of the Red Army, used propaganda, indoctrination and ruthless terror to defeat the White Army. Leon Trotsky ( Russian:, Lev Davidovich Trotsky, also transliterated Leo, Lyev, Trotskii, Trotski, Trotskij The White movement (Beloie Dvijenie Белое движение whose military arm is known as the White Army (Belaia Armia Белая Армия or White Guard As a result of severe famine that started during World War I and disease, the deaths of civilians in the Russian Civil War were several times higher than those of combatants. Some sources state that the number of civilian dead in this conflict was 9 times higher than that of troops in the field. The Soviet Union did not recognize Tsarist Russia's assent to the Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907) as binding on the new regime and refused to sign it until 1955. The Hague Conventions were international treaties negotiated at the First and Second Peace Conferences at The Hague, Netherlands in 1899 and The Red Army had also helped carry out genocide under Stalin, including helping oversee the deaths of millions in Ukraine from the Holodomor and elsewhere due to collectivization of argiculture, dekulakization, and the resulting famine. Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction in whole or in part of an ethnic racial religious or national group Joseph Stalin ( ნამდვილი გვარი ჯუღაშვილი|Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; March 5 1953 was General Secretary of the Communist Party Ukraine (Україна Ukrayina, /ukrɑˈjinɑ/ is a country in Eastern Europe. The Holodomor (Голодомор is the famine that took place in Soviet Ukraine during the 1932-1933 agricultural season Collective farming is an organization of agricultural production in which the holdings of several farmers are run as a joint enterprise Dekulakization (раскулачивание was the Soviet campaign of Political repressions including Arrests, Deportations and Executions
Following the repulse of the German attack on the Soviet Union and Soviet troops entering Germany and Hungary in 1944, the number of war crimes, plunder, murder of civilians, and especially rape, reached a level of previously unknown proportions. Operation Barbarossa ( Unternehmen Barbarossa) was the Codename for Nazi Germany 's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II The Eastern Front of World War II (die Ostfront 1941-1945, der Rußlandfeldzug 1941-1945 (Russian campaign or der Ostfeldzug 1941-1945 (Eastern Campaign Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. Hungary (Magyarország 'mɔɟɔrorsaːg) officially in English the Republic of Hungary ( Magyar Köztársaság, literally Magyar (Hungarian Republic Rape, also referred to as Sexual assault, is an Assault by a person involving Sexual intercourse with or Sexual penetration of another person In Soviet and present Russian history books on the "Great Patriotic War" these war crimes are hardly mentioned. Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending The term Great Patriotic War (Великая Отечественная война Velikaya Otechestvennaya Vojna) is used in Russia and some other With rare exceptions (notably Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Lev Kopelev) this evidence was found and published by Western historians after some of the Soviet archives were opened to the public following the Cold War. Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn ( Алекса́ндр Иса́евич Солжени́цын) (December 11 1918 – August 3 2008 was a Russian Novelist Lev Zalmanovich Kopelev (also Lev Zinovevich Kopelev; Russian: Лев Залма́нович Ко́пелев or Лев Зино́вьевич Ко́пелев Cold War is the state of conflict tension and competition that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR and their respective allies from the
Crimes committed by the Red Army in occupied territories (Poland, the Baltic states, Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovenia) between 1939 and 1941 and the follow-up atrocities of 1944–1949 have been present in the historical consciousness of these countries since the crimes were committed. Poland (Polska officially the Republic of Poland The Baltic states (Balti riigid Baltijas valstis Baltijos valstybės or Baltic countries are three countries in Northern Europe, all members of the Romania ( dated: Rumania, Roumania Hungary (Magyarország 'mɔɟɔrorsaːg) officially in English the Republic of Hungary ( Magyar Köztársaság, literally Magyar (Hungarian Republic The Czech Republic ( ˈt͡ʃɛskaː ˈrɛpuˌblɪka short form in Česko ˈt͡ʃɛskɔ also called Czechia, Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia (Republika Slovenija) is a Country in southern Central Europe bordering Italy to the west Nevertheless, a systematic, publicly controlled discussion could begin only after the fall of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union 's collapse into independent nations began early in 1985 . This is also true of the territories occupied by Soviet forces in Manchuria and the Kuril Islands after the Soviet Union breached its neutrality pact with Japan in 1945. Manchuria ( Romanized Manchu: Manju,, Маньчжурия Mongolian: Манж is a historical name given to a vast geographic region in northeast The Kuril Islands (ˈkʊrɪl or /ˈkjuˈriˈl/ Кури́льские острова́ əstrʌˈva ru-Latn ''Kuril'skie ostrova'' or Kurile Islands in Russia The was a Pact between the Soviet Union and the Empire of Japan signed in 1941 two years after the brief Soviet-Japanese Border War (1939. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics.
From 1941 on, Stalin was willing to strike back against the invading Axis forces at all costs and led the war with extreme brutality, including against his own soldiers. Joseph Stalin ( ნამდვილი გვარი ჯუღაშვილი|Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; March 5 1953 was General Secretary of the Communist Party The Eastern Front of World War II (die Ostfront 1941-1945, der Rußlandfeldzug 1941-1945 (Russian campaign or der Ostfeldzug 1941-1945 (Eastern Campaign The Red Army took much higher casualties than any other military force during World War II, in part because of high manpower attrition and inadequate time for training. Faced with badly equipped infantry units barely capable of standing up against machine guns, tanks and artillery, the tactics of Soviet commanders were often based on mass infantry attacks, inflicting heavy losses on their own troops. The Infantry is the oldest and most numerous of the Combat Arms in the Armed forces, and consists For other uses of the phrase see Machine Gun (disambiguation. A tank is a tracked, Armoured fighting vehicle designed for Front-line combat which combines Operational mobility and tactical Artillery (from French artillerie) is a military Combat Arm which employs any apparātus machine This tactic was also used for clearing minefields, which were ‘attacked’ by waves of infantry soldiers in order to clear them. In accordance with the orders of Soviet High Command, retreating soldiers or even soldiers who hesitated to advance faced being shot by rearguard SMERSH units: Stalin’s order No 270 of August 16, 1941, states that in case of retreat or surrender, all officers involved were to be shot on the spot and all enlisted men threatened with total annihilation as well as possible reprisals against their families. SMERSH (acronym of SMERt' SHpionam, Russ СМЕРть Шпионам Eng Death to Spies) were the counter-intelligence departments in Order No 270, dated August 16, 1941, was issued by Joseph Stalin acting as People's Commissar of Defense .
The Continuation War was fought between Finland and Soviet Union between 1941 and 1944. The Continuation War (Jatkosota Fortsättningskriget Советско-финская война ( 25 June 1941 &ndash 19 September 1944) During the war Soviet commando units conducted raids into Finnish territory and attacked mostly civilian targets, such as isolated houses and villages. In November 2006, pictures showing atrocities were declassified by Finnish authorities. The pictures include images of slain women and children. They had been kept secret for so long in order not to disturb relations with the powerful neighbor to the east.
The Red Army invaded and occupied the eastern part of Poland in accordance with the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Later it occupied the Baltic States and parts of Ukraine and Bessarabia. Ukraine (Україна Ukrayina, /ukrɑˈjinɑ/ is a country in Eastern Europe. Bessarabia ( Basarabia in Romanian, Бесарабія in Ukrainian, Бессарабия in Russian, Бесарабия in Bulgarian
The Soviet policy in all newly controlled areas was ruthless, showing strong elements of ethnic cleansing. Ethnic cleansing is a Euphemism referring to the persecution through imprisonment expulsion or killing of members of an ethnic minority by a majority to achieve ethnic homogeneity NKVD task forces followed the Red Army to clean the conquered territories of "Soviet-hostile elements. " The Polish historian Tomasz Strzembosz has noted parallels between the German Einsatzgruppen and these units. Tomasz Strzembosz (11 September 1930 - 16 October 2004 was a Polish historian specializing in history of Poland during Second World War, Harcmistrz. Einsatzgruppen ( German: "task forces" "intervention groups" were Paramilitary groups formed by Heinrich Himmler and Many tried to escape from the Soviet NKVD, and those who failed were mostly taken into custody by the Red Army and afterwards deported to Siberia and/or vanished in the "Gulag". Siberia (Сиби́рь Sibir) is the name given to the vast region constituting almost all of Northern Asia and for the most part currently serving The Gulag was the government agency that administered the penal labor camps of the Soviet Union.
During 1939-1941, for example, nearly 1. 5 million inhabitants of Soviet-controlled areas of former Poland were deported, of whom 63. 1% were Poles or other nationalities and 7. 4% were Jews. PLEASE TAKE NOTE************ Only a fraction of these deportees survived the war.
According to the American professor Carroll Quigley, at least 100,000 out of 320,000 Polish prisoners of war captured by the Red Army in 1939, were exterminated. Carroll Quigley ( November 9, 1910 - January 3, 1977) was a noted historian polymath and theorist of the evolution of civilizations
Deportations, executions, torture as well as numerous other crimes against the population (murder, hostage taking, burning down of villages) increased when the Red Army was forced to retreat from the advancing Wehrmacht in 1941. Many political prisoners arrested by the NKVD were massacred in order to prevent their falling into German hands. In the Baltic States, Byelorussia, the Ukraine, and Bessarabia, imprisoned opponents were executed by the NKVD and attached units of the Red Army rather than left behind. Belarus ( Belarusian Беларусь / Biełaruś is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Russia to the north and east Ukraine (Україна Ukrayina, /ukrɑˈjinɑ/ is a country in Eastern Europe. Bessarabia ( Basarabia in Romanian, Бесарабія in Ukrainian, Бессарабия in Russian, Бесарабия in Bulgarian These actions by the Soviets increased the hatred of those who had helped the Soviets, or were suspected of being Soviet allies, in particular the Jews. PLEASE TAKE NOTE************ As another result, in these countries the Einsatzgruppen could rely heavily on volunteers, willing to participate in their brutal operations, and tip-offs, especially in the Baltic States. (See also NKVD prisoner massacres. The massacre of prisoners refers to a series of mass executions committed by the Soviet NKVD against prisoners in Poland, the Baltic states, )
From the turning point of the war on, the Red Army did not give up territories to the Wehrmacht, but mainly regained lost ground on the Eastern Front. The Battle of Stalingrad is a commonly used name in English sources for several large operations by Germany and its allies and Soviet forces conducted with the The Eastern Front of World War II (die Ostfront 1941-1945, der Rußlandfeldzug 1941-1945 (Russian campaign or der Ostfeldzug 1941-1945 (Eastern Campaign This resulted in revenge actions against all those who were accused of being collaborators during the German occupation, similar to the trials of collaborators in liberated France in France after D-Day. Collaboration is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together toward an intersection of common goals — for example an intellectual While in France this part of history is documented, debated and subject of many scientific reviews, very little is known today about what happened in the path of the Red Army, re-conquering former Soviet territory of the Baltic States. But some men of these countries voluntarily joined Waffen-SS divisions to defend their homelands against the Soviets, whenever the Red Army was approaching. See also List of Waffen SS units All divisions in the Waffen-SS were ordered in a single series regardless of type
In Poland, Nazi atrocities ended in late 1944, but Soviet oppression continued. The role of the Red Army during the Warsaw Uprising remains controversial and is still disputed by some historians. The Warsaw Uprising ( Powstanie Warszawskie) was a World War II struggle by the Polish Home Army ( Armia Krajowa) to liberate Warsaw Soldiers of Poland's Home Army (Armia Krajowa) were persecuted, sometimes imprisoned, and often executed following staged trials (as in the case of Witold Pilecki, the organizer of Auschwitz resistance). Witold Pilecki (May 13 1901 &ndash May 25 1948 ˈvitɔld piˈletski Codenames Roman Jezierski Tomasz Serafiński Druh Witold) was a Soldier "Auschwitz" redirects here For the town see Oświęcim Auschwitz-Birkenau () was the largest of Nazi Germany (See also Lack of outside support in the Warsaw Uprising. The Warsaw Uprising, in 1944 ended in the capitulation of the city and its near total destruction )
For further information see Flight and expulsion of Germans during and after WWII. German exodus from Eastern Europe. The German exodus from Eastern Europe refers to the exodus of ethnic German populations from lands to the east of present-day Germany and Austria. Evacuation of German civilians during the end of World War II. Plans to evacuate German population from the occupied territories in Central and Eastern Europe and from Eastern Germany were prepared by German authorities
According to historian Norman Naimark, the propaganda of Soviet troop newspapers and the orders of Soviet high command were jointly responsible for excesses by members of the Red Army. Norman Naimark, is a historian and acclaimed author specialising in modern East European history Genocide and Ethnic cleansing. The general tenor in the writings was that the Red Army had come to Germany as an avenger and judge to punish the Germans. The Soviet author Ilya Ehrenburg wrote on January 31, 1945: The Germans have been punished in Oppeln, in Königsberg and in Breslau. An author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created Ilya Grigoryevich Ehrenburg (Илья́ Григо́рьевич Эренбу́рг) ( Kiev, Russian Empire) &ndash August 31, 1967 ( Opole (Oppeln is a city in southern Poland on the Oder River (Odra Königsberg (Karaliaučius Low German: Königsbarg; Królewiec see also other names) was until 1946 the name of Kaliningrad. Wrocław (Breslau Vratislav Vratislavia or Wratislavia Yiddish: ברעסלוי) is the chief City of the historical region of Lower Silesia They have been punished, but yet not enough. Some have been punished, but yet not all of them . . .
Calls of Soviet generals spurred on the soldiers, in addition. On January 12, 1945, army General Cherniakhovsky turned to his troops with the words: There shall be no mercy - for nobody, as there had also been no mercy for us. Ivan Danilovich Chernyakhovsky, also Cherniakhovsky, (Ива́н Дани́лович Черняхо́вский Uman, current Cherkasy . . The land of the fascists must become a desert …
On the German side, any organized evacuation of civilians was forbidden by the Nazi government to boost morale of the troops, now for the first time defending the "Fatherland," even when the Red Army entered German territory in the last months of 1944. German civilians, however, were well aware of the way the Red Army was conducting war against civilians from reports by friends and relatives who had served on the eastern front and feared the Red Army. Also, Nazi propaganda--originally meant to stiffen civil resistance by describing in gruesome and graphic detail Red Army atrocities such as the Nemmersdorf massacre--backfired and created panic among civilians. Nemmersdorf in East Prussia (today's Mayakovskoye, Kaliningrad Oblast) was one of the first pre-war German villages
As a result and whenever possible, when Nazi officials had already left, civilians began to flee westward at the last moment and on their own initiative.
Fleeing from the advancing Red Army, more than two million people in the eastern German provinces of (East Prussia, Silesia, Pomerania) died, some from cold and starvation, in the post-war ethnic cleansing, or killed when they got caught up in combat operations. East Prussia (Ostpreußen; Rytų Prūsija or Rytprūsiai; Prusy Wschodnie Восточная Пруссия or Vostochnaya Prussiya) refers to the main part Etymology One theory claims that the name Silesia is derived from the Silingi, who were most likely a Vandalic (East Germanic people The main death toll, however, occurred when the refugee columns were caught up by units of the Red Army. They were overrun by tanks, looted, shot, murdered; women and girls were raped and afterward left to die (see also: Prussian Nights). Prussian Nights (Ostpreussische Nächte is a long poem by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a Captain in the Soviet Red Army during the Second In addition, fighter bombers of the Soviet air force penetrated many kilometers behind the front lines and attacked columns of refugees. Ground-attack aircraft are military aircraft designed to attack targets on the ground and are often deployed as Close air support for and in proximity to their own ground forces An air force, also known in some countries as an air army or historically an army air corps, is in the broadest sense the national military or armed service
Those who did not flee suffered by taking the burden of Red Army's occupying rules: Murder, rape, robbery, and expulsion. For example, in the East Prussian city of Königsberg, in August 1945 there were approximately 100,000 German civilians still living there after the Red Army had conquered the city. Königsberg (Karaliaučius Low German: Königsbarg; Królewiec see also other names) was until 1946 the name of Kaliningrad. When the Germans were finally expelled from Königsberg in 1948, only about 20,000 were still alive (see also expulsion of Germans after World War II). The expulsion of Germans after World War II was the Forced migration and Ethnic cleansing of German nationals ( Reichsdeutsche) and ethnic
The rampage which the Red Army in Germany went on during the occupation of the rest of Eastern Germany often led to incidents like Demmin, a small city conquered by Soviet forces in the spring of 1945. Demmin (dɛˈmiːn is a Town in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany. Despite the unconditional and complete surrender of Demmin to the Red Army without any prior fighting in or around the city, nearly 900 people committed suicide after Demmin had been declared open for looting and pillaging for three days by Soviet commanders.
Although mass executions of civilians by the Red Army are not reported on a regular basis, there is a known incident in the Treuenbrietzen, where at least 88 male civilians were rounded up and shot on May 1, 1945. Treuenbrietzen is a town in the Bundesland of Brandenburg, Germany. This atrocity took place after a victory celebration of Soviet soldiers, at which numerous girls from Treuenbrietzen were raped and a lieutenant-colonel of the Red Army was shot by an unknown person. Lieutenant Colonel ( Lieutenant-Colonel in English from the French grade 's spelling is a rank of Commissioned officer in the armies Some sources claim even up to 1,000 executed in this event.
Upon seizure of Polish territories occupied by German forces, Soviet soldiers often engaged in plunder, rapes and banditry against Poles, turning the attitude of population to dislike, fear, and even hate the Soviet regime. Red Army troops participated in anti-Polish actions (e. g. , in Augustów region, where about 600 perished). The Augustów chase 1945 ( Polish Obława augustowska) was an extraordinary operation undertaken by Soviet forces of the Red Army, the NKVD For more information about this subject, look at Cursed soldiers. The ' cursed soldiers' (Żołnierze wyklęci is a name applied to a variety of Polish Resistance movements that were formed in the later stages of World War II
Following the Soviet capture of Berlin in 1945, one of the largest and most horrible cases of mass rape occurred. Soviet troops raped German women and girls. Estimates of the total number of rape victims range from tens of thousands to two million. After the summer of 1945, Soviet soldiers caught raping were usually punished to various degrees, ranging from arrest to execution. The rapes continued, however, until the winter of 1947-48, when Soviet occupation authorities finally solved the problem by confining the Soviet troops to strictly guarded posts and camps,“ completely separating them from the residential population of Eastern Germany.
Norman Naimark writes--in The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949--that not only had each victim to carry the trauma with her for the rest of her days, [but] it [also] inflicted a massive collective trauma on the East German nation (the German Democratic Republic). The German Democratic Republic ( GDR; Deutsche Demokratische Republik DDR; commonly known in English as East Germany) was a Socialist state Naimark concludes "The social psychology of women and men in the Soviet zone of occupation was marked by the crime of rape from the first days of occupation, through the founding of the GDR in the fall of 1949, until, one could argue, the present. "
Just during the occupation of Budapest, (Hungary), it is estimated that 50,000 women and girls were raped in this city alone. The Siege of Budapest was a siege of the Hungarian Capital city of Budapest, fought towards the end of World War II in Europe Budapest ( also /ˈbʊ-/) is the capital city of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary it serves as the country's principal Political, Hungary (Magyarország 'mɔɟɔrorsaːg) officially in English the Republic of Hungary ( Magyar Köztársaság, literally Magyar (Hungarian Republic
Hungarian girls in general were taken to the Soviet quarters where they were incarcerated, raped and sometimes also murdered. The nationality of the rape victims meant nothing to the soldiers, who even attacked the Swedish legation.
Although the Red Army only crossed a very small part of Yugoslavia in 1944, the northeastern corner, its activities there caused great concern for the communist partisans that feared that the resulting rape and plunder by their communist allies would weaken their standing with the population. At least 121 cases of rape were documented later, 111 of which also involved murder. In addition 1,204 cases of looting with assault were documented. Stalin responded to a Yugoslav partisan leader's complaints at the Red Army's behaviour with "Can't he understand it if a soldier who has crossed thousands of kilometers through blood and fire and death has fun with a woman or takes some trifle?".
The Slovak communist leader Vlado Clementis complained to Marshal I. S. Konev about the behaviour of Soviet troops in Slovakia. Ivan Stepanovich Konev ( Ива́н Степа́нович Ко́нев ( &ndash May 21, 1973) was a Soviet military commander who led Red The response was to blame the activities mainly on Red Army deserters.
Thanks to the better discipline in Marshal Tolbukhin's army, the relative similarity in cultures, a century of friendly relations, and an open welcome of the Soviet troops, there was a relative absence of rapes in Bulgaria, especially when compared with the situation during the occupation of Romania and Hungary.
The Red Army cooperated with the NKVD against Polish partizans and civilians. During the Augustów chase 1945, more than 2000 Poles were captured, and about 600 of them perished. The Augustów chase 1945 ( Polish Obława augustowska) was an extraordinary operation undertaken by Soviet forces of the Red Army, the NKVD
A number of rapes committed by the Soviet soldiers were recorded. Where Soviet soldiers advanced, girls and women fled from their villages and small towns, leaving only boys and men to be found by the Soviet soldiers.
In general, Red Army officers declared all cities, villages and farms open to pillaging and looting in Romania, Hungary and Germany. A written order, though, does not exist. But there are several documents in which the way the Red Army’s behaviour pattern is described. One of them is a report of the Swiss legation in Budapest, describing the events when the Red Army entered the city in 1945. Switzerland (English pronunciation; Schweiz Swiss German: Schwyz or Schwiiz Suisse Svizzera Svizra officially the Swiss Confederation A legation was the term used in Diplomacy to denote a diplomatic representative office lower than an Embassy. Budapest ( also /ˈbʊ-/) is the capital city of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary it serves as the country's principal Political, It states, for example: During the siege of Budapest and also during the following fateful weeks, Russian (Soviet) troops looted the city freely. They entered practically every habitation, the very poorest as well as the richest. They took away everything they wanted, especially food, clothing and valuables. Every apartment, shop, bank, etc. was looted several times. Furniture and larger objects of art, etc. that could not be taken away were frequently simply destroyed. In many cases, after looting, the homes were also put on fire, causing a vast total loss. Bank safes were emptied without exception--even the British and American safes--and whatever was found was taken.
Walter Kilian, the first mayor of the Charlottenburg district in Berlin after the war, who was brought into office by the Soviets, reported extensive looting by Red Army soldiers in the area: Individuals, department stores, shops, apartments . Charlottenburg is a locality of Berlin within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, named after Queen Sophia Charlotte (1668-1705 . . all were robbed blind.
In the Soviet occupied zone, party members of the SED reported to Stalin that looting and rapes by Soviet soldiers could possibly result in a negative reaction of the German population in the respect of the Soviet Union and for the future socialism in East Germany in general. The Socialist Unity Party of Germany ( German: Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, SED) was the governing party of the German Democratic Stalin reacted to the worries of his German comrades with the words "I shall not tolerate anybody dragging the honour of the Red Army through the mud. "
Any evidence, such as reports, pictures and other documents of looting, rapes, burning down of farms and villages etc. by the Red Army was therefore deleted from all archives in the Soviet occupied zone in Germany, which later was to become the GDR. The German Democratic Republic ( GDR; Deutsche Demokratische Republik DDR; commonly known in English as East Germany) was a Socialist state In private memories, diaries and photo albums, however, the events of 1945 had been kept as far as possible or thought to be worth it.
On many occasions Soviet soldiers set fire to buildings, villages and parts of cities, shooting anybody trying to extinguish the flames, such as on May 1, 1945, when Soviet soldiers set fire to the city centre of Demmin and stopped anyone from extinguishing the fire. Of all the buildings around the marketplace only the steeple survived the inferno. Most Red Army atrocities took place only in what was regarded as hostile territory (see also Przyszowice massacre). The Przyszowice massacre (Zbrodnia przyszowicka or tragedia przyszowicka) was a massacre perpetrated by the Red Army against civilian inhabitants of the Nevertheless, soldiers of the Red Army together with members of the NKVD frequently looted transport trains in 1944 and 1945 in Poland.
The Soviet Union did not recognise the entry of the tsarist Russia to the Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907) as binding for itself and refused to sign it until 1955. The Hague Conventions were international treaties negotiated at the First and Second Peace Conferences at The Hague, Netherlands in 1899 and This had already led to barbaric treatment of POWs on both the Polish and the Soviet side during the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-21. Moreover, the Soviet Union did not sign the Genevan Prisoners of War convention of 1929 until 1955. The Geneva Conventions consist of four Treaties formulated in Geneva, Switzerland, that set the standards for International law for humanitarian Accordingly, the Red Army treated at first Polish and later prisoners of war from Germany, Germany's allies and Japan in a cruel way from the first days of World War II on.
During 1941 emergency landing German flight crews were shot frequently after the capture. Torture, mutilation, murder and other violations of international law were carried out on German aircrews frequently . During the winter of 1941/42 the Red Army took approximately 10,000 German soldiers as prisoner each month, but the death rate became so high that the absolute number of the prisoners decreased (or was bureaucratically reduced). The murder of the prisoners was arranged every now and then by instructions, reports and statements of Soviet commanders. Throughout the war, 300,000 German POWs in Soviet captivity died, a loss rate of 14. 9%. By contrast, some 3. 3 million Soviet POWs died in German captivity, a loss rate of 65%. German prisoners were not released after the war but many were kept in captivity until as late as 1956 under similar conditions as before.
The Treuenbrietzen massacre took place during the last days of April and the first days of May 1945, after a tough battle in which the Red Army took and lost control of the village on more than one occasion; the Red Army rounded up around 1000 (mostly male) civilians and executed them in the nearby forest. Treuenbrietzen is a town in the Bundesland of Brandenburg, Germany. These executions were allegedly made as retaliation for the death of a high-ranking Soviet officer during the battle for control of the village.
According to the United Nations Report of the Special Committee on the problem of Hungary (1957): Soviet tanks fired indiscriminately at every building from which they believed themselves to be under fire. The UN commission received numerous reports of Soviet mortar and artillery fire into inhabited quarters in the Buda section of the city despite no return fire. The UN commission received reports of "haphazard shooting at defenseless passers-by. " According to many witnesses Soviet troops fired upon people queuing outside stores. Most of the victims were said to be women and children. Many cases of Soviet fire upon ambulances and red cross vehicles were reported.
For decades, Western scholars have generally explained these atrocities in Germany and Hungary as revenge for German atrocities in the territory of the Soviet Union and for the mass killing of Soviet POWs (3,6 million dead of total a 5,2 million POWs) by the German army. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 ( Hungarian: 1956-os forradalom) was a spontaneous nationwide Revolt against the Stalinist government of The Prague Spring ( Czech: Pražské jaro, Slovak: Pražská jar) was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during The Soviet war in Afghanistan, also known as the Soviet-Afghan War or just the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, was a nine-year conflict involving The April 9 tragedy refers to the events in Tbilisi, Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic on April 9, 1989, when an Anti-Soviet demonstration January 1991 events in LatviaThe January Events (Sausio įvykiai were a series of events that occurred from January 11–13 1991 in Vilnius, Lithuania. This explanation is now disputed by military historians such as Antony Beevor, at least in regard to the mass rapes. Antony James Beevor (born 14 December 1946) is a British Historian, educated at Winchester College and Sandhurst. Beevor claims that Red Army soldiers also raped Russian and Polish women liberated from concentration camps, and contends that this undermines the revenge explanation. The Polish people, or Poles, (Polacy) are a Western Slavic Ethnic group of Central Europe, living predominantly in Poland. Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people commonly in large groups without trial Beevor's claims have encountered vast criticism from historians in Russia and the Russian government. The Russian ambassador to the UK said "It is a disgrace to have anything to do with this clear case of slander against the people who saved the world from Nazism. " O. A. Rzheshevsky, a professor and President of the Russian Association of World War II Historians, has charged that Beevor is merely resurrecting the discredited and racist views of Neo-Nazi historians, who depicted Soviet troops as subhuman "Asiatic hordes". The term neo-Nazism refers to post- World War II Political movements Social movements and ideologies seeking to revive Nazism, Other prominent historians such as Richard Overy have criticised Russian "outrage" at the book and defended Beevor. Richard Overy (born 1947 is British historian who has Published extensively on the History of World War II and the Third Reich. Overy accused the Russians of refusing to acknowledge Soviet war crimes, "Partly this is because they felt that much of it was justified vengeance against an enemy who committed much worse, and partly it was because they were writing the victors' history" Polish sources claim that there are cases of mass rapes in Polish cities taken by Red Army, that in Kraków Soviet entry brought mass rapes on Polish women and girls, as well as plunder of all private property by Soviet soldiers. Kraków, in English also spelled Krakow or Cracow (ˈkrækaʊ M-W: krăk'ou krāk'ō is one of the largest and oldest cities in Poland According to them, this behaviour reached such scale that even communists installed by Soviets were preparing a letter of protest to Joseph Stalin himself, while masses in churches were held in expectation of Soviet withdrawal. Joseph Stalin ( ნამდვილი გვარი ჯუღაშვილი|Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; March 5 1953 was General Secretary of the Communist Party .
Year 1997 ( MCMXCVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1997 Gregorian calendar | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44885000 |
There are many maxims on how to make and save money, but media mogul Edward W. Scripps has some that are a little unorthodox.
Scripps began building his media empire in 1878. Now, it encompasses 20 newspapers, broadcast television stations, cable networks and along with other media enterprises, it spans many states.
Scripps was very keen on ethics and keeping his money, business and life in balanced perspective. In his life, he followed a 23-point code of conduct which he detailed in his essay "Some Outlandish Rules for Making Money."
Here are some highlights:
Never spend as much money as you earn. The smaller your expenditures, the larger your profits. If you're always just breaking even, you're setting yourself up for trouble. Any bump in the road could spell disaster.
Never do anything today that you can put off until tomorrow. This may sound like procrastination, but there are always too many things to do in a single day. It is important to prioritize and to apply your time and energy only where it's needed. You may even find the things that are not worth doing today are not worth doing at all.
Never do anything yourself when you can get someone else to do it for you. This may sound like laziness, but when you delegate tasks to others, you are able to focus on the things only you can do -- and do them well.
Never do anything that someone else is already doing. Why compete with anyone else when you could have a monopoly in a different field? Find a need within your community that isn't being addressed, and design a service to take care of it. If something compels you to compete in a market, make sure that what you are doing is different in every way possible from your competitor.
Never do the same thing twice. There is always a better way of doing something. Make sure that every time you succeed, you try to find out how to make the next round better. This will keep you ahead of any competition, keep you on forward-moving track, and your customers will appreciate the effort.
If you're succeeding, keep the "how" and "why" under wraps. If you share your key to success, someone else can try to copy your formula. It's better to keep your best hand a secret.
Save Money. No one can save themselves rich, but savings are capital. Capital can transform into security, investments and additional opportunities.
Thinking should be the hardest work you do. With a business, each decision should be carefully examined. Success brings more questions and requires sharper thought to continue growth. Push yourself to question conventions and examine your business and finances at all times. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44890000 |
Climate Change Emergency
Leading climate change experts and organizations have observed that the world urgently needs a worldwide emergency response to the deteriorating planetary climate change crisis.
CLIMATE CHANGE EMERGENCY MEDICAL RESPONSE provides the online resources for this most vital emergency response ever.
Scientists, clinicians, and health professionals have called for attention to climate change on both practical and ethical grounds. Several well-established principles point to a vigorous, proactive public health approach to climate change. But this is not happening.
— Howard Frumkin, MD, DrPH,
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
to the American Public Health Association, March 2008
The mission of
CLIMATE CHANGE EMERGENCY MEDICAL RESPONSE
is to secure a SAFE GLOBAL CLIMATE
for today's children worldwide and for future generations.
To do this we propose that global climate change be addressed as the human rights / population health / survival issue of our time, potentially of all time.
Clearly, the current "management model" is not working. A new, more effective approach would be the well known and proven medical emergency assessment and management model. Over the past couple of decades, the field of medicine has developed a specialized medical emergency and management model that is super effective and is very different from standard medical assessment and management.
Right now the life of the planet (the essential ecosystems of the biosphere) — meaning the health and survival of future generations — is in peril. According to Hansen et al (2007), tipping points could be breached at any time. If we allow this to happen, we will have no way of controlling the situation and a planetary cataclysm will be unleashed (ibid). Right now then, Code Red must be called for the Earth, in the hope of saving our planet and our future.
The medical model would include integrated climate change risk assessment (specifically for the health and survival of human populations) and precautionary catastrophic-risk-averse medical model mitigation (treatment) plans.
This would be a major upgrade to how global change is being addressed now. Global climate change is a uniquely deadly threat to humanity and needs a uniquely effective extreme precautionary risk assessment and management model.
GLOBAL "CLIMATE SAFETY" FIRST
Our hope is to catalyze an international
DECLARATION OF THE DANGEROUS GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE
STATE OF EMERGENCY
led by the human rights, education, and health care communities.
As the May 2009 Lancet-University College London report, Managing the Health Effects of Climate Change, pointed out, global climate change needs to be solved by leading professionals from several disciplines, who all have a stake in the crisis, all working together.
Our intention is to focus discussions of global climate change on the worst risks to the most vulnerable populations, rather than the current approach of assessing the most likely impacts based on computer model projections. We also need to work for the inclusion of carbon feedbacks in scientific assessments of global climate change.
Our goal is to provide an ethics-based human rights and population health definition of "dangerous interference with the climate system," to inform the decisions of governments and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations.
Our mission is ...
- to help raise a strong voice for the ethic of precaution and population survival risk assessment, which should be given first priority in planning and policy making for the protection of human population health from global climate change, for this and all future generations;
- to give strong support to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) endangerment finding that greenhouse gases are pollutants, and to work for other nations to follow the example ;
- to provide a one-stop planetary emergency response site for human rights, aid, education, and healing professionals;
- to educate these concerned and influential professionals about the unprecedented planetary emergency of global climate change, in order to enable them to educate their professional associations and policy makers at all levels;
- to contribute to a global climate response of these concerned professionals who will inform, on an ethics-driven scientific (non political) basis, leaders of government, institutions and professions that there is now
- a huge risk to the survival of large regional climate-change-vulnerable populations (eg, in Africa and Asia)
- a high risk to the sustainability of civilization, and
- a real risk to the "very survival of humanity" (UNEP GEO-4, 2007);
- to strengthen the influence and ability of concerned professionals to sound the alarm for the rights of vulnerable regional populations and future generations to live safe from the risks of disastrous and catastrophic global climate change, through dissemination of what they have learned;
- to gather a group of concerned citizens from all walks of life to support this initiative;
- to provide a continually updated
state of the climate
based on the most current peer-reviewed published literature; and
- to disseminate a statement in support of a planetary climate change emergency declaration.
On 7 December 2009, the Administrator of the EPA signed two distinct findings regarding greenhouse gases under section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act.
Endangerment Finding: The Administrator finds that the current and projected concentrations of the six key well-mixed greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) — in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.
Cause or Contribute Finding: The Administrator finds that the combined emissions of these well-mixed greenhouse gases [...] contribute to the greenhouse gas pollution which threatens public health and welfare.
Doctors can lead from the front — just as we did when we came to understand the evidence of the harmful effects of smoking.... Doctors can understand. We can change the world by speaking up and acting — together and individually — internationally, nationally, and locally....
— Richard Smith, Editor, British Medical Journal (1997)
Return from Mission to Homepage | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44891000 |
The recognized authority for satellite observations of Amazon deforestation is the Brazilian Space Research Institute (Portuguese acronym, INPE). This organization has been monitoring Amazon deforestation since 1988. Currently, INPE publishes monthly reports (for example, see the August 2009 [PDF] report in Portuguese) describing the latest satellite data and deforestation rates estimated from them. The area shown here is in the southern part of Mato Grosso, which had the highest deforestation rate among all Brazilian states between 2001 and 2005 (and subsequently surpassed by Pará state [PDF]). The images come from INPE, but were provided to Climate Central by Dr. Ruth DeFries (Columbia University) and Dr. Douglas Morton (University of Maryland).
Close to 20% of total human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide come from deforestation. Trees, other vegetation and soil return carbon to the atmosphere when forests are cut or burned down. There are many causes of deforestation. Analysis by Tim Searchinger and colleagues found that biofuels crop production in countries like the U.S. may be one contributing factor because of pressure it may generate to increase the amount of land cultivated for food production abroad. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44892000 |
Autologous Bone Marrow Stem Cells for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders
The purpose of this study is to determine whether the plasticity of autologous intrathecal hematopoietic cells would improve the neurologic and the social skills of pediatric patients with autism spectrum disorders.
|Study Design:||Allocation: Non-Randomized
Endpoint Classification: Safety/Efficacy Study
Intervention Model: Crossover Assignment
Masking: Open Label
Primary Purpose: Treatment
|Official Title:||Autologous Bone Marrow Stem Cells for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders|
- IDEA Improvement [ Time Frame: 6 months ] [ Designated as safety issue: Yes ]Improvement in IDEA evaluation
- CARS improvement [ Time Frame: 6 months ] [ Designated as safety issue: Yes ]Improvement in CARS evaluation
|Study Start Date:||November 2012|
|Estimated Primary Completion Date:||November 2013 (Final data collection date for primary outcome measure)|
Experimental: Experimental: Patients
Children who will receive intrathecal autologous stem cells
Other: Stem cells
We will evaluate with IDEA and CARS scales the control group for 6 months with the possibility to change arms after that time.
Other: Stem cells
There is accumulating evidence that shows that the administration of hematopoietic cells into the brain in the patients with spectrum autism could help in the physiopathology of the illness.
It has been found that after introducing hematopoietic cells in the subarachnoid space of the spinal cord, these cells may be transported through the cerebrospinal fluid and can be delivered more efficiently to the injured area, when compared to the intravenous route.
Patients will be stimulated for 3 consecutive days with granulocyte colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) and then their bone marrow will be harvested according to their weight. Bone marrow will be processed in order to obtain CD34+ cells and minimize the amount of red blood cells. An inoculum of 5 to 10mL of stem cells will be infused intrathecally. Patients will be evaluated with two scales "CARS" and the "IDEA" also we will check the clinical history. On days 0, 30 and 180.
|Contact: Laura Villarreal-Martinez, MD||+52 81 83 48 61 36 ext [email protected]|
|Contact: Consuelo Mancias-Guerra, MD||+52 81 83 48 61 36 ext [email protected]|
|Hematology Service, Hospital Universitario Dr. Jose E. Gonzalez||Recruiting|
|Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, 64460|
|Contact: Laura Villarreal-Martinez, MD +52 81 83 48 61 36 ext 413 [email protected]| | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44894000 |
This archived Web page remains online for reference, research or recordkeeping purposes. This page will not be altered or updated. Web pages that are archived on the Internet are not subject to the Government of Canada Web Standards. As per the Communications Policy of the Government of Canada, you can request alternate formats of this page on the Contact Us page.
On November 30, the Deputy Minister of Justice replied that the proposed questions were unacceptable. First, he said, the only power allowing admission into the Senate was conferred by the BNA Act upon the Governor General. It was evident that the exercise of that power rested on the interpretation of the word “persons” in section 24. Therefore, the only relevant question was to determine if this word included women. As for the other two questions, he explained, the BNA Act does not confer any power of amendment to the Parliament of Canada.
Irene Parlby (1878-1965), suffragette and politician. She was elected president of the women’s branch of the United Farmers of Alberta in 1916 and became a member of the Alberta legislature in 1921. She was still a member of Parliament at the time of the Persons Case. Photo: Courtesy of the Glenbow Archives, Canada, Alberta. NA-2204-12
It was not until April 24, 1928 that the Supreme Court of Canada rendered its decision and declared that women were not persons. Yet, in spite of that decision, Minister of Justice Ernest Lapointe declared that women had a legal right to sit in the Senate and that measures would be taken to amend the BNA Act accordingly. But Emily Murphy was not going to wait for some hypothetical amendment. In May 1928, undaunted, she resolved to appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London, England, which was, at that time, the final court of appeal for Canadians. “Nothing can stop us from winning”, she wrote to her colleagues in arms.11
A copy of her May 1928 letter and a copy of the petition were sent to the Deputy Minister of Justice on July 26, 1928. Emily Murphy explained in the letter the reasons for the appeal. In the Supreme Court, she said, discussion had been centred on the meaning of the word “qualified” (used in section 24 of the BNA Act) as it applied to the word “persons”. The true issue rested elsewhere and their question remained therefore unanswered. She added, a few months later, that by appealing to the British Privy Council she had wished to remove the issue from the political arena and have it addressed from a purely legal aspect.12
On November 16, 1928, she obtained permission to appeal to the Privy Council.13 The hearing on the “Persons” case, which was postponed several times, was finally set for July 18, 1929, and continued on July 23 and 25.
The appellants had argued before the Supreme Court that nothing in the BNA Act stated that the word “persons” did not apply to women. On the contrary, the proof was that the right to vote given to women at the federal level stemmed from an interpretation of the word “persons” that included women. The Crown based its defence, however, on historical considerations and stated that, at the time the BNA Act was drafted, women could not hold public positions. There had thus been no intention in the Act of admitting women into the Senate.14The British Privy Council rejected this argument. According to the members, if in the past no women had acceded to such a position, it was because custom prevented it, and that customs became traditions stronger than law and remained unchallenged long after they had lost their raison d’être. On October 18, 1929, the British Privy Council ruled in favour of women, declaring that they were indeed persons and therefore eligible to sit in the Senate of Canada.15
The “Persons” case cost a total of $23,368.47 in lawyers’ fees, paid by the government of Canada; $21,000 was for the appeal to the Privy Council.
Four months later, in February 1930, Mackenzie King seized the opportunity to be the first leader of the Government to allow women into the Senate and appointed Canada’s first woman senator, Cairine Reay Wilson. She had been active in the Victorian Order of Nurses, the Young Women’s Christian Association, the Salvation Army, the Twentieth Century Liberal Association and the National Federation of Liberal Women of Canada. When she was appointed, she had just celebrated her 45th birthday.
Opening this male-dominated bastion to women was an investment in the future, for in 1930 their political role was still undefined. For many more years, women would be limited to voting, and few women would be elected to the Senate, the House of Commons or to provincial legislatures. The appointment of Cairine Wilson reassured the senators, one of whom said in a speech: “We of the humble and gentle sex were apprehensive that one of those strong-minded and determined women with a mission in life and a pair of horned rimmed spectacles would be appointed and we knew that if so she would immediately commence to reform a number of matters that we did not wish reformed...”16 Behind this humourous speech transpires the heartfelt sentiment of a senator from Edmonton: “Oh, we never could have had Mrs. Murphy in the Senate. She would have caused too much trouble.”17Newspapers echoed the senators’ sentiments, noting how slim the new senator was, how youthful she looked in spite of having had eight children; in one word, they all emphasized her femininity.18
Neither Emily Murphy, who had so wanted to become Canada’s first female senator, nor Nellie McClung, nor any of the Famous Five ever got to sit in the Red Chamber. In King’s opinion, Emily Murphy was “a little too masculine and perhaps a bit too flamboyant”.19 She died in 1933 without ever being appointed to the position for which she had fought so hard.
Today, a bronze plaque at the entrance to the Senate, unveiled in 1938, recalls the victory of the Famous Five. Moreover, a Governor General’s Commemorative Award, created in 1979, rewards exceptional contributions to the promotion of equality for women in Canada.
The Famous 5 Foundation [http://www.famous5.org/]
Key dates in the history of Canadian Women throughout the 20th Century [http://www.swc-cfc.gc.ca/dates/whm/index_e.html]
The Irene Parlby Fonds from the General Inventory of the National Archives
- RG 13, op.cit., attachment to Emily Murphy’s letter to the Deputy Minister of Justice, July 26, 1928.
- National Archives of Canada, Supreme Court of Canada Fonds, RG 125. See Petitioners’ Factum and Factum on behalf of the Attorney General.
- RG 13, op. cit.,Judgment of the Lords of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, October 18, 1929.
- National Archives of Canada, Cairine Wilson Fonds, MG 27 III, C.6, vol. 8, speech by H.P. Hill at a banquet honouring Senator Cairine Wilson. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44914000 |
The University of Colorado was selected to contribute one of 24 miniature satellites, known as CubeSats, to fly as auxiliary payloads aboard rocket missions scheduled to launch in 2014, 2015 and 2016, NASA announced Tuesday.
CubeSats, as described by NASA, belong to a class of research spacecraft called nanosatellites. They measure about 4 inches on each side, are about 1 quart in volume and can weigh less than 3 pounds.
The selections announced on Tuesday represent the fourth round of NASA's CubeSat Launch Initiative. Those selected in the this round will be eligible for flight after final negotiations and when an opportunity for flight is available. The satellites conduct science missions, educational research and technology demonstrations, and usually are the product of significant student contributions.
Other institutions with CubeSat proposals selected by NASA in the latest round come from institutions as diverse as NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., and Merritt Island High School, Fla. (in partnership with California Polytechnic State University).
NASA has selected 63 missions for flight in three previous rounds of the CubeSat initiative, Twenty-two CubeSat missions are scheduled for flight this year.
This is not the first time CU has been selected to participate in the CubeSat missions. The Colorado Student Space Weather Experiment, a collaborative effort between the engineering department and the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics aimed at studying solar flares, launched last year on an Atlas V rocket along with 10 other CubeSat satellites. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44917000 |
Forecast shows Eastern Wash. water demand to grow
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) -- A preliminary report shows that agricultural and municipal water demands in the Columbia River basin are likely to increase more than water supplies over the next 20 years.
The increased demand can be attributed to influences of climate change, population growth and economic trends.
The state Department of Ecology is conducting three workshops this week to discuss the report that was required by the Legislature under a 2006 bill that appropriated $200 million to improve water storage and conservation. A final report is due to lawmakers in November.
Farmers and other water users in Thursday's meeting in Richland said they believe the report should better reflect the positive economic impacts, such as job creation, from increasing water use. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44919000 |
India’s economy is one of the fastest growing in the world. It has seen an explosion in the increase of foreign business investment, outsourcing and Indian companies venturing overseas. Doing business in India offers immense benefits for international organisations, however there are a number of key cultural challenges that can create misunderstanding and conflict as well as huge direct and indirect costs to the organisation if overlooked.
Navigating the challenges of doing business in India can be difficult without a comprehensive understanding of Indian social and business culture. Going through cultural awareness training like Communicaid’s Doing Business in India programme will ensure you and your organisation have the right level of knowledge and skills to successfully deal with some of the following key challenges of doing business in India.
Attitudes towards Authority – Traditionally a caste society with roots in Hinduism, Indian culture places a high importance on authority and status. Communication between levels is relatively closed so valuable insight or suggestions from employees in lower positions will rarely be shared with their superiors. Without understanding the complexity of Indian attitudes to authority and how they impact business, organisations doing business in India will struggle to implement change as quickly as necessary, and fail to harness the experience and value of its employees.
Concepts of Time – India is a polychronic culture, in other words, people tend to change priorities depending on their importance and attitudes towards punctuality are relaxed. Most large global organisations require adherence to strict deadlines and fast decision-making, so they struggle to cope with the idea that when doing business in India, time cannot be controlled and is not absolute. Cultural awareness training can help you better understand Indian concepts of time and develop strategies for dealing with them.
Adherence to Rules – India has a high tolerance to uncertainty and has created a society which runs on the basis of a set of assumptions. It generally accepts social etiquette and norms instead of rules and regulations. Even though rules do exist, the low level of adherence to them creates huge challenges for organisations setting up business in India who are required to follow a set of home-country regulations.
Building Relationships – The Indian business culture focuses a lot on relationship and trust building rather than working hard and quick towards specific business objectives. A Doing Business in India cultural awareness course helps you to develop strategies to avoid the immense frustration, delayed projects, failure to reach tangible results and general clash as a result of different preferences for relationships and tasks and processes.
Levels of English – Most university graduates and Indians residing in major urban centres have a very high level of English. Understanding Indian English can be challenging, however, as a result of the different vocabulary and expressions as well as heavy accents. Many people are unaware of these differences and expect communication with Indians to be simple. Instead, many international organisations incorrectly interpret the Indian English they use to be a result of poor education and language skills. Being aware of Indian English can help you reduce misunderstandings and loss of time.
Communication Style – Indians have a preference for indirect, high context communication. In other words, Indians prefer to see the whole picture, place a high importance on the impact relationships, body language and emotion have on communication and will often avoid saying ‘no’. The differences in communication style can cause a large challenge to overcome for someone who is used to communicating in a more direct and low context way.
Understanding the cultural differences which exist when doing business in India is only the first step. International organisations must also understand the what, why and how behind them to develop strategies to effectively cope with these cultural challenges. A Doing Business in Indiacultural awareness training programme will help organisations maximise the immense opportunities and benefits of doing business in India while it will also help develop an interculturally competent workforce, giving the organisation a huge advantage in this fiercely competitive global world.
© Communicaid Group Ltd. 2010 | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44923000 |
PDT Staff Report
According to the National Weather Service, Scioto, Pike, Adams, Jackson and Lawrence Counties in Ohio are under a Severe Thunderstorm Watch. Greenup County in Kentucky is also under a Severe Thunderstorm Watch. For each county, the watch expires at 6 a.m.
A severe thunderstorm as defined by the National Weather Service is a storm with hail equal to or larger than 3/4 of an inch in diameter or convective wind gusts equal to or greater than 58 miles per hour. Even if a storm is not severe, it still remains a potential killer. Lightning, flash flooding, wind blown hail (even small hail), and general thunderstorm wind gusts pose a threat to life and/or property. Severe thunderstorms also have the potential of producing a tornado with little or no advanced tornado warning.
Power outages often accompany severe thunderstorms.
The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) is reminds Ohioans exercise caution during power outages. Downed electric lines, equipment and vegetation can potentially be hazardous and should be avoided.
Do not attempt to touch or move downed electrical lines and equipment. Downed lines pose a serious hazard to anyone who comes in contact with them and can be deadly. Immediately report downed lines to emergency responders and your local utility. Do not attempt to move fallen debris in the vicinity of a downed power line and keep at a safe distance at all times.
Additional safety tips during a power outage include:
•If using a generator, be sure it is properly ventilated to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning.
•Do not attempt to use a gas stove or oven to heat your home.
•Unplug electrical devices in case of a power surge. Leave one lamp on so you know when power has been restored.
•If possible, use only battery-powered light sources for emergency lighting instead of candles. Matches, lighters and candles are fire hazards.
•Check on your neighbors, friends and family to ensure they are okay.
•Call an electrician if you have standing water near electrical wiring or appliances. Do not enter the flooded area.
For additional safety tips during electrical power outages, visit the Ohio Emergency Management Association’s website at www.ema.ohio.gov.
To review the PUCO’s guide to being prepared for power outages, please visit the PUCO website at www.PUCO.ohio.gov. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44924000 |
This tutorial, developed for high school physics students, uses multiple graphs and animations to study the relationship between the motion of an object and its graph of Velocity vs. Time. Users explore the relationship between position and velocity, positive and negative velocities, slope and shape of graphs, and acceleration. Interactive self-evaluations are included. See Related Materials for an accompanying lab by the same author.
This item is part of The Physics Classroom, a comprehensive set of tutorials and multimedia resources for high school physics.
Editor's Note:Education research indicates that many students have difficulty differentiating velocity and acceleration, and often plot velocity graphs as the path of an object. See Related Materials for a free research-based diagnostic tool to probe misconceptions related to velocity.
6-8: 4F/M3b. If a force acts towards a single center, the object's path may curve into an orbit around the center.
9-12: 4F/H1. The change in motion (direction or speed) of an object is proportional to the applied force and inversely proportional to the mass.
9-12: 4F/H8. Any object maintains a constant speed and direction of motion unless an unbalanced outside force acts on it.
9. The Mathematical World
9B. Symbolic Relationships
6-8: 9B/M3. Graphs can show a variety of possible relationships between two variables. As one variable increases uniformly, the other may do one of the following: increase or decrease steadily, increase or decrease faster and faster, get closer and closer to some limiting value, reach some intermediate maximum or minimum, alternately increase and decrease, increase or decrease in steps, or do something different from any of these.
9-12: 9B/H4. Tables, graphs, and symbols are alternative ways of representing data and relationships that can be translated from one to another.
9-12: 9C/H3c. A graph represents all the values that satisfy an equation, and if two equations have to be satisfied at the same time, the values that satisfy them both will be found where the graphs intersect.
Common Core State Standards for Mathematics Alignments
Expressions and Equations (6-8)
Represent and analyze quantitative relationships between
dependent and independent variables. (6)
6.EE.9 Use variables to represent two quantities in a real-world problem that change in relationship to one another; write an equation to express one quantity, thought of as the dependent variable, in terms of the other quantity, thought of as the independent variable. Analyze the relationship between the dependent and independent variables using graphs and tables, and relate these to the equation.
Understand the connections between proportional relationships,
lines, and linear equations. (8)
8.EE.5 Graph proportional relationships, interpreting the unit rate as the slope of the graph. Compare two different proportional relationships represented in different ways.
Use functions to model relationships between quantities. (8)
8.F.5 Describe qualitatively the functional relationship between two quantities by analyzing a graph (e.g., where the function is increasing or decreasing, linear or nonlinear). Sketch a graph that exhibits the qualitative features of a function that has been described verbally.
High School — Functions (9-12)
Interpreting Functions (9-12)
F-IF.4 For a function that models a relationship between two quantities, interpret key features of graphs and tables in terms of the quantities, and sketch graphs showing key features given a verbal description of the relationship.?
Linear, Quadratic, and Exponential Models? (9-12)
F-LE.1.b Recognize situations in which one quantity changes at a constant rate per unit interval relative to another.
F-LE.1.c Recognize situations in which a quantity grows or decays by a constant percent rate per unit interval relative to another.
F-LE.2 Construct linear and exponential functions, including arithmetic and geometric sequences, given a graph, a description of a relationship, or two input-output pairs (include reading these from a table).
Common Core State Reading Standards for Literacy in Science and Technical Subjects 6—12
Craft and Structure (6-12)
RST.9-10.4 Determine the meaning of symbols, key terms, and other domain-specific words and phrases as they are used in a specific scientific or technical context relevant to grades 9—10 texts and topics.
Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity (6-12)
RST.9-10.10 By the end of grade 10, read and comprehend science/technical texts in the grades 9—10 text complexity band independently and proficiently.
This resource is part of a Physics Front Topical Unit.
Topic: Kinematics: The Physics of Motion Unit Title: Graphing
A companion to the resource above, this online tutorial explores the importance of the slope of v-t graphs as a representation of an object's acceleration. Self-guided evaluations help students overcome common misconceptions.
%0 Electronic Source %A Henderson, Tom %D June 1, 2011 %T The Physics Classroom: The Meaning of Shape for a v-t Graph %V 2013 %N 19 June 2013 %8 June 1, 2011 %9 text/html %U http://www.physicsclassroom.com/Class/1DKin/U1L4a.cfm
Disclaimer: ComPADRE offers citation styles as a guide only. We cannot offer interpretations about citations as this is an automated procedure. Please refer to the style manuals in the Citation Source Information area for clarifications. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44925000 |
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The Einstein Cannon model computes and displays the trajectory of cannonballs (particles) shot from a cannon in the vicinity of a black hole. It was created for the study of Einstein's theory of general relativity and the Schwarzschild metric. The main window displays a map of space in the vicinity of the black hole using Schwarzschild coordinates and a cannon located a distance r0 from the center black hole's center. The position and firing angle of the cannon can be adjusted by dragging a marker and the number of cannon balls and their initial speed can be changed using input fields. The maximum speed of the cannon ball is the speed of light c=1 in accordance with Einstein's theory. Newton suggested that a cannon ball fired from a high mountain could fall to Earth, orbit the Earth, or fly away depending on how it was fired. The same is true in general relativity but there are many important differences. This model demonstrates these differences.
The Einstein Cannon model is a supplemental simulation for the article "When action is not least for orbits in general relativity" by C. G. Gray and Eric Poisson in the American Journal of Physics 79(1), 43-55 (2011) and has been approved by the authors and the American Journal of Physics (AJP) editor. The simulation was developed using the Easy Java Simulations (EJS) modeling tool and is distributed as a ready-to-run (compiled) Java archive. Double clicking the ejs_gr_EinsteinCannon.jar file will run the program if Java is installed.
Last Modified June 12, 2013
This file has previous versions. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44926000 |
July 27, 2011 in Solar energy
Semprius just unveiled an teenie solar cell that is half the size of a pinhead, which when combined with powerful inexpensive lenses can concentrate sunlight more than 11,000 times and convert it to electricity!
Semprius has been a leader in Concentrated solar research and development. In 2008 they had come out with a method to slice monocrystalline solar wafers thin enough to be flexible and partially transparent but still maintain their high solar efficiency. The slender silicon slices are then imprinted onto a substrate using Semprius’s patented microtransfer printing process.
Semprius’ patented micro-transfer printing technology brings for the first time, high performance semiconductors to virtually any surface, including glass, plastic or metal substrates or even other semiconductor wafers. By liberating the semiconductor devices from their traditional substrates, Semprius technology enables the construction of a wide variety of new products with large-area, thin, and lightweight form factors, high reliability and low cost. The resulting circuit devices have levels of performance comparable to the original semiconductor.
Smaller and more efficient! Wonderful news for Solar and alternative energy market; if only it were affordable sooner.
Read the entire article here | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44927000 |
A new tool to identify the calls of bat species could help conservation efforts.
Because bats are nocturnal and difficult to observe or catch, the most effective way to study them is to monitor their echolocation calls. These sounds are emitted in order to hear the echo bouncing back from surfaces around the bats, allowing them to navigate, hunt and communicate.
Many different measurements can be taken from each call, such as its minimum and maximum frequency, or how quickly the frequency changes during the call, and these measurements are used to help identify the species of bat.
However, a paper by an international team of researchers, published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, asserts that poor standardisation of acoustic monitoring limits scientists’ ability to collate data.
Kate Jones, chairwoman of the UK-based Bat Conservation Trust
told the BBC that “without using the same identification methods everywhere, we cannot form reliable conclusions about how bat populations are doing and whether their distribution is changing.
"Because many bats migrate between different European countries, we need to monitor bats at a European - as well as country - scale.”
The team selected 1,350 calls from 34 different European bat species from EchoBank, a global echolocation library containing more than 200,000 bat call recordings. This raw data has allowed them to develop the identification tool, iBatsID
, which can identify 34 out of 45 species of bats.
This free online tool works anywhere in Europe, and its creators claim can identify most species correctly more than 80% of the time.
There are 18 species of bat residing in the UK, including the common pipistrelle and greater horseshoe bat.
Monitoring bats is vital not just to this species, but also to the whole ecosystem. Bats are extremely sensitive to changes in their environment, so if bat populations are declining, it can be an indication that other species might be affected in the future. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44934000 |
There were two important publishing events in the field of nutrition this past week. One was bad science about what is good for you; the other was good science about what is bad for you.
The New England Journal of Medicine published a study on diet and heart disease that found significant benefits to cardiovascular health from eating a “Mediterranean diet.” The New York Times wrote, “About 30 percent of heart attacks, strokes and deaths from heart disease can be prevented in people at high risk if they switch to a Mediterranean diet.” According to the Times article, “the magnitude of the diet’s benefits startled experts.”
(The Mediterranean diet groups ate the foods typically associated with that diet — e.g., fish, beans, peas, lentils, olive oil and wine — but also were allowed poultry and smaller quantities of red meat, soft drinks and baked goods. The control group was told to eat a low-fat diet, but the study reports the people pretty much just ate the diet they had been eating.)
One of the study’s authors told The Washington Post he’s going to begin another large study. In this one, everyone will eat the same Mediterranean diet — but the study will test the added effect of exercise, calorie restriction and body weight.
Hold on. The 30 percent reduction is good news. But what about the 70 percent who are sick and dying of heart disease while eating the Mediterranean diet? Doesn’t anybody care about them?
In reality, even that 30 percent reduction is a bit of a distortion. The study said, “Only the comparison of stroke risk reached statistical significance.” The Mediterranean dieters showed no significant reduction in heart attacks and deaths.
OK, that’s depressing. So let’s look just at the good news — the decline in stroke risk. Clearly, when the researchers saw the greater number of strokes in the control group, they concluded that it must have been something the people ate. But the Mediterranean dieters had strokes, too (and heart attacks and deaths). So if the members of the control group got their strokes because of something they ate, maybe the Mediterranean dieters got their strokes because of something they ate. They just had fewer strokes because they ate less of what causes strokes. But then — what is it that causes strokes? And could we please not eat it?
Please, scientists: What is the best diet if I don’t want to die?
They’re not telling.
Why not? One of the study’s authors said: “Usually, doctors tell you not to do pleasant things. But this is very tasty and easy to follow. You do not need to suffer for the Mediterranean diet.”
This man seems torn between being a scientist and being a menu planner.
This has to be frustrating for Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, the author of a landmark study showing that a plant-based diet with whole grains, fruits, vegetables, beans and nuts — with no meat, poultry, fish or fats — can reverse heart disease.
The diet has worked in patients whose cardiologists told them they would not live out the year.
Disclosure: I’m a fan of Dr. Esselstyn’s. I have introduced him to some Washington policymakers, and I tried to help him get in touch with Bill Clinton after the ex-president had surgery to reopen a clogged artery in 2010. We failed to reach Clinton — or thought we had, until Clinton mentioned Esselstyn on a CNN interview when he was describing the diet he adopted after his surgery.
Esselstyn’s father had his first heart attack at 43 and died young. Esselstyn is 79 years old and looks like Zeus. He received his surgical training at the Cleveland Clinic, where he has been the president of the medical staff, a member of the board of governors, the chairman of the breast cancer task force and the head of thyroid and parathyroid surgery.
He has served as president of the American Association of Endocrine Surgeons. He also is an Olympic gold medalist and was awarded a Bronze Star for his work as an Army surgeon in Vietnam, which has nothing to do with it but is fun to say.
Esselstyn’s research into heart disease, begun in 1985, has been cited by Thomas Lee, M.D., the editor-in-chief of the Harvard Heart Letter, and endorsed by Dr. Bernadine Healy, former director of the National Institutes of Health.
The second important publication was Michael Moss’ new book, “Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us.” In the book, Moss profiles Howard Moskowitz, who holds a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Harvard. Moskowitz has perfected the practice of feeding customers snacks, gathering their responses and then using statistical methods to discover the perfect blend of salt, sugar, fat, textures, flavors and mouth feel to achieve the “bliss point” and create the biggest crave. In the book, Moskowitz reflects on his work: “Why do we crave chocolate, or chips? And how do you get people to crave these and other foods?”
Here’s the point: The food corporation scientists are using all their experimental savvy to maximize the addictive power of foods, while nutritional scientists flinch from discovering and publicizing the full healing power of foods.
True, people in good general health are not likely to deprive themselves of food they like based on something they read in a study.
But what about a young father with a stroke or heart attack who is determined to do everything possible to live so he can raise and support his kids? What can we tell him? “Try your luck with the Mediterranean diet. People on this diet have strokes and heart attacks and die, but it’s tasty.”
Much of the most highly publicized research into a healthy diet doesn’t try to discover what is optimal. In that sense, their research is trumped and skewed by the work of the corporate food scientists. The nutritional researchers don’t tell us what the healthiest diet is; they just recommend the healthiest diet they think we can bear to eat given how hard it is to deprive ourselves of the foods that the corporate scientists have taught us to crave.
Tom Rosshirt was a national security speechwriter for President Bill Clinton and a foreign affairs spokesman for Vice President Al Gore. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44936000 |
The Confederate evacuation of Petersburg began about 8 p.m. on the night of the 2nd. The artillery moved first, after disabling heavy guns that could not be carried along. There is a story that some cannon were buried and were given head boards to make the spots resemble graves and that blacks later revealed the locations to Union soldiers. The infantry followed. Then came the pickets and, last the engineer troops who were to destroy the bridges across the Appomattox. Longstreet's and Hill's corps and the pickets crossed over the Battersea pontoon bridge, headed toward the River Road in Chesterfield County.
Later Gordon's corps and the pickets crossed the Pocahontas and railroad bridges, headed toward Hickory Road. Lee is believed to have crossed the Battersea bridge. At the mouth of Hickory Road he paused to watch the passing of the troops. The greater part of the infantry had crossed over into Chesterfield not long after midnight. The infantry withdrawn from Petersburg numbered about 12,500, from the Richmond-Petersburg line between 28,000 and 30,000. The last soldier killed in the defense of Petersburg may have been a North Carolinian who went back across Pocahontas bridge to get some baggage and was struck in his side by a fragment of a shell.
The withdrawl itself was a difficult movement which was made in good order. Some of the residents went out to watch the passing of armies, and even in the hour of evacuation a few soldiers found time to visit homes where they had made friends. When a private of artillery dropped dead on West Washington Street, his comrades placed his body in the yard of the Second Presbyterian Church, with a note, "Please bury me," pinned on it.
Beginning their early morning assault, units of the IX Corps advanced across empty works. Meeting at 4 o'clock as agreed, members of the common council broke up into little squads which proceeded to the principal entrances of the city carrying a paper signed by Mayor W.W. Townes, D'Arcy Paul, and Charles F. Collier, as a committee of the Common Council, offering surrender of the city and requesting protection of persons and property Some carried white handkerchiefs on walking sticks. They went out Bollingbrook, Bank, Wythe, South Sycamore, Harding, Halifax, Farmer and Washington Streets. Papers of surrender are said to have been accepted by other officers, including General Wright of the VI Corps, but the city officially was surrendered at 4:28 on the morning of the 3rd to Colonel Ralph Ely, of the IX Corps. Assurance of protection was given, and guards were placed on the streets.
Grant entered the city about 9 a.m. and made temporary headquarters at the residence of Thomas Wallace. He was eager to be on his way, but he had invited Lincoln to visit him. Lincoln, wearing a high silk hat and a long-tailed black frock coat, had come part of the way on the military railroad and the remainder on horse. An aide doubted he had ever had a happier moment in his life. Observers of the historic scene consisted chiefly of blacks dressed in their Sunday best. After Lincoln left, Grant moved on to the business at hand. He spent the night near Sutherland Station on the Southside Railroad.
Most of the white people in Petersburg---estimated by Union sources at fewer than 5,000...remained behind closed doors and drawn blinds. Sutlers moved into vacant stores and began doing business; hard money came out of hiding to be invested in such things as cheese and coffee. Those who had no hard money and were willing to sacrifice pride were given food by the Union commissary, which indeed continued to issue rations through November, 1865.
There were some ugly episodes, but Union guards established order. Residents who ventured into the streets found that decorum prevailed. One who said he had never seen so many people together estimated the total at 50,000. Union soldiers with whom residents talked said they had been surprised to enter the city without a fight and could hardly believe they were in Petersburg. One called it the handsomest southern city he had seen, although it suggested a combination of city and village.
Although cotton and tobacco had been burned the day before, there was still tobacco which could be had without the asking. Supplies of apple brandy were discovered, and the effects were soon visible. In vain an undertaker tried to prevent the seizure of 30 rosewood coffins, on the grounds they were private property and not the spoils of war. Major R.C. Eden and Captain C.H. McCreery occupied the plant of the Petersburg Express and began publishing Grant's Petersburg Progress; the property was returned to its owners in about two weeks.
A column of black troops singing "John Browns Body," stood in South Market Street before being ordered to turn west on Washington Street. The Second Brigade, First Division, XI Corps was left behind for provost duty. Major General George L. Hartsuff was named district commander and established headquarters at Center Hill.
Most of the Union troops moved westward from the points where they were stationed and did not have an opportunity to gratify any curiosity they may have felt about the city which they had faced so long. Troops of the IX Corps, cheering and waving banners, passed through Petersburg, but only because it lay across their direct route.
Of a sudden Petersburg had ceased to be militarily important. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44940000 |
The Crum Creek Watershed Conservation Plan (Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, 2006) is a guidebook for landowners, municipalities, conservation groups, and citizens interested in taking concrete steps to enhance the long-term health of Crum Creek. The Plan can be accessed on line by clicking here (link to be added soon), or a copy may be purchased from CRC.
Other Studies and Plans about Crum Creek
Crum Creek Watershed Action Plan, Chester County Water Resources Authority, 2002.
Crum Creek Act 167 Stormwater Plan, Delaware County Planning Department, to be completed in 2007)
Crum Creek Source Water Assessment, Schnabel Engineering, 2001.
Crum Creek Biological and Chemical Stream Assessment Study in the Upper Watershed, Conestoga High School students, 1995. Available from CRC.
Crum Creek Landscape Conservation and Greenway Plan, Natural Lands Trust, 2004.
Crum Woods Stewardship Plan, Natural Lands Trust and Continental Conservation (Roger Latham), 2004. .
Upper Crum Watershed Assessment and Restoration Plan, Willistown Conservation Trust, Willistown Township. Copy is accessible at CRC office.
Watersheds, Chester County Water Resources Authority, 2001.
Watershed Assessment of Crum Creek: Decision Support for Community Based Partnership, Swarthmore College Engineering Department, 2001. Contact Dr. Arthur Mc Garrity.
Delaware County Natural Areas Inventory, PA Office, Nature Conservancy, 1992. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44941000 |
1. A fatal disease of cattle that affects the central nervous system.
4. The small projection of a mammary gland.
8. The act of slowing down or falling behind.
11. A drug combination found in some over-the-counter headache remedies (Aspirin and Phenacetin and Caffeine).
12. Goddess of the dead and queen of the underworld.
13. A hospital unit staffed and equipped to provide intensive care.
14. A police officer who investigates crimes.
15. Divulge information or secrets.
16. A logarithmic unit of sound intensity equal to 10 decibels.
17. A radioactive element of the actinide series.
19. A range of mountains (usually with jagged peaks and irregular outline).
24. Open-heart surgery in which the rib cage is opened and a section of a blood vessel is grafted from the aorta to the coronary artery to bypass the blocked section of the coronary artery and improve the blood supply to the heart.
25. A piece of furniture that provides a place to sleep.
27. Resinlike substance secreted by certain lac insects.
29. A family of Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in southeastern Asia.
31. A highly unstable radioactive element (the heaviest of the halogen series).
34. An official prosecutor for a judicial district.
35. A soft silvery metallic element of the alkali earth group.
36. (Greek mythology) Goddess of the earth and mother of Cronus and the Titans in ancient mythology.
38. The protoplasm of the germ cells that contains chromosomes and genes.
41. The blood group whose red cells carry both the A and B antigens.
42. A summary that repeats the substance of a longer discussion.
46. Aircraft landing in bad weather in which the pilot is talked down by ground control using precision approach radar.
47. Call upon in supplication.
49. (Irish) Mother of the Tuatha De Danann.
50. United States liquid unit equal to 4 quarts or 3.785 liters.
51. A condition (mostly in boys) characterized by behavioral and learning disorders.
52. A strategically located monarchy on the southern and eastern coasts of the Arabian Peninsula.
53. A loose sleeveless outer garment made from aba cloth.
1. A Chadic language spoken south of Lake Chad.
2. A detailed description of design criteria for a piece of work.
3. (computer science) A coding system that incorporates extra parity bits in order to detect errors.
4. A bachelor's degree in theology.
5. The fatty flesh of eel.
6. By bad luck.
7. A sock with a separation for the big toe.
8. A small faint zodiacal constellation in the southern hemisphere.
9. Sour or bitter in taste.
10. A Russian prison camp for political prisoners.
18. A person forced to flee from home or country.
20. Liquid containing proteins and electrolytes including the liquid in blood plasma and interstitial fluid.
21. Not divisible by two.
22. English essayist (1775-1834).
23. A white metallic element that burns with a brilliant light.
26. (Akkadian) God of wisdom.
28. A compartment in front of a motor vehicle where driver sits.
30. The sixth month of the civil year.
32. United States abolitionist (1786-1865).
33. A Bantu language spoken by the Chaga people in northern Tanzania.
37. In bed.
38. Being ten more than one hundred ninety.
39. Someone who works (or provides workers) during a strike.
40. The arch of bone beneath the eye that forms the prominence of the cheek.
43. The capital and largest city of Japan.
44. A rotating disk shaped to convert circular into linear motion.
45. (Irish) Mother of the ancient Irish gods.
46. A heavy brittle diamagnetic trivalent metallic element (resembles arsenic and antimony chemically).
48. A ductile silvery-white ductile ferromagnetic trivalent metallic element of the rare earth group. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44948000 |
Math + test = trouble for US economy
First-of-its kind study shows US lags many other nations in real-life math skills.
For a nation committed to preparing students for 21st century jobs, the results of the first-of-its-kind study of how well teenagers can apply math skills to real-life problems is sobering.Skip to next paragraph
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American 15-year-olds rank well below those in most other industrialized countries in mathematics literacy and problem solving, according to a survey released Monday.
Although the notion that America faces a math gap is not new, Monday's results show with new clarity that the problem extends beyond the classrooms into the kind of life-skills that employers care about. And to the surprise of some experts, the US shortcoming exists even when only top students in each nation are considered.
"It's very disturbing for business if the capacity to take what you know ... and apply it to something novel is difficult for US teenagers," says Susan Traiman, director of education and workforce policy at the Business Roundtable.
Grim results on such international tests helped build political support for higher standards in US schools in the 1990s, and especially for more consistent testing and tougher accountability measures in the No Child Left Behind Act, a centerpiece of President Bush's domestic program in his first term.
The president campaigned to extend that testing regime into US high schools in his second term. The new test results are likely to be Exhibit A as the Bush administration prepares a new round of education reforms aimed at US high schools.
The tests also give educators some clues about teaching programs that are successful and might be transplanted to the US.
"These tests are enormously instructive to the US, especially when we look at the instructional programs in other countries to see what works," says Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools.
A key to the success of students in other nations is a very focused curriculum, maintained over time, he adds. "We can't do it nationally," because the US is a vast, diverse country with little appetite for a national curriculum. "But we can do it in cities, and we are."
The international survey was done by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2003, testing 15-year-olds.
But PISA, unlike previous international assessments, is measuring not just whether students have learned a set math curriculum, but whether they can apply math concepts outside the classroom. In the US, 262 schools and 5,456 students participated in the two-hour, paper and pencil assessment. Most answers were constructed responses, not just the multiple choice format.
In one question, students are asked to calculate the number of dots on the bottom face of six dice, given the rule that the total number of dots on two opposite faces is always seven. Only 63 percent of US students got it right, compared with 68 percent of their peers in OECD countries. (This question was ranked Level 2, out of three proficiency levels.) Other problems involved constructing simple decision tree diagrams for a lending library, figuring out which gate is stuck closed in an irrigation system, and generating graphics on computers. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44952000 |
New discoveries may locate Earhart plane
Published: Thursday, August 23rd, 2012
Civil Air Patrol Crazy Horse Squadron had a special meeting on Thursday, Aug. 16, when Jeff Glickman, forensic imaging specialist, gave a presentation about the decades-old search for Amelia Earhart’s plane.
Glickman was one of many other The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) members featured in a Discovery Channel documentary about the search for the plane that disappeared in 1937. Glickman was in the area visiting family and gave the presentation as a favor to Crazy Horse Squadron Capt. Sharon Moad.
Glickman was asked 15 years ago by Ric Gillespie, executive director of TIGHAR, to help with the case by looking at old photographs taken in the area Earhart was believed to have landed. The photos were taken by Eric Bevington in an effort to expand the British Empire through a series of small islands just south of Howland Island, where Earhart was expected to land to refuel the aircraft.
Glickman was able to identify a small object in the photo, which was no larger than a grain of rice. Glickman pored over the small image for nearly two years before tracking down a larger copy of the original photograph. In April 2010, Oxford sent a digital scan of the photo to Glickman from which he was able to measure the object at 36” tall. He later found the object to match part of the tire on Earhart’s plane.
“I started studying the landing gear of her plane and even traveled to a museum in Arizona that had the same model and make of Amelia’s plane,” Glickman said.
Available only in the print version of the Custer County Chronicle. To subscribe, call 605-673-2217.
Click Here To See More Stories Like This | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44958000 |
A laparoscopy (lap-uh-ROSS-coe-pee) is a surgical procedure in which a small instrument is inserted through an incision in the navel. This instrument, called a laparoscope (LAP-uh-roe-scope), functions like a miniature telescope, with a light on the end, giving doctors an internal view of the abdominal cavity. Sometimes, the abdomen is inflated with carbon dioxide gas, so internal organs can be re-positioned as needed. A laparoscopy may be done to investigate a problem like pelvic pain, or infertility when a tubal blockage is suspected. It's also used to remove an ectopic embryo, which is one that's developed in a fallopian tube by mistake, instead of in the uterus. One of the most common uses of laparoscopy is in tubal sterilization procedures. Here, both the laparoscope and the laser or other cutting instrument are passed through the navel, thus eliminating any abdominal scar. Examination of the liver, gallbladder, and appendix may also be done by laparoscopy. Regardless of its purpose, the operation is typically done under general anesthesia, on an outpatient basis. To find out more about laparoscopy, speak with a physician. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44963000 |
How the Wild West REALLY looked: Gorgeous sepia-tinted pictures show the landscape as it was charted for the very first time
By Rob Cooper
These remarkable 19th century sepia-tinted pictures show the American West as you have never seen it before - as it was charted for the first time.
The photos, by Timothy O'Sullivan, are the first ever taken of the rocky and barren landscape.
At the time federal government officials were travelling across Arizona, Nevada, Utah and the rest of the west as they sought to uncover the land's untapped natural resources.
Breathtaking landscape: A view across the Shoshone Falls, Snake River, Idaho in 1874 as it was caught on camera by photographer Timothy O'Sullivan during Lt. George M. Wheeler's survey west of the One Hundredth Meridian that lasted from 1871 to 1874. Approximately 45 feet higher than the Niagara falls of the U.S and Canada, the Shoshone Falls are sometimes called the 'Niagara of the West'. Before mass migration and industrialisation of the west, the Bannock and Shoshone Indians relied on the huge salmon stocks of the falls as a source of food. And the John C. Fremont Expedition of 1843, one of the first missions to encounter the falls reported that salmon could be caught simply by throwing a spear into the water, such was the stock
Land rising from the water: The Pyramid and Domes, a line of dome-shaped tufa rocks in Pyramid Lake, Nevada photographed in 1867. Taken as part of Clarence King's Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, O'Sullivan's mesmerising pictures of the other-wordly rock formations at Pyramid Lake committed the sacred native American Indian site to camera for the first time
Famous photographer: Timothy O'Sullivan whose childhood and background are the subject of debate among photographic scholar was of Irish ancestry. It is known that as a teenager he worked in the studio of the legendary 19th century photographer Mathew Brady, who is seen as the father of photo-journalism. A veteran of the American Civil War in its first year, O'Sullivan turned his hand to photographing the horrors of war in during the final three years of the conflict before setting out on his cross-continental expeditions.
Timothy O'Sullivan, who used a box camera, worked with the Government teams as they explored the land. He had earlier covered the U.S. Civil War and was one of the most famous photographers of the 19th century.
He also took pictures of the Native American population for the first time as a team of artists, photographers, scientists and soldiers explored the land in the 1860s and 1870s.
The images of the landscape were remarkable - because the majority of people at the time would not have known they were there or have ever had a chance to see it for themselves.
O'Sullivan died from tuberculosis at the age of 42 in 1882 - just years after the project had finished .
He carted a dark room wagon around the Wild West on horseback so that he could develop his images. He spent seven years exploring the landscape and thousands of pictures have survived from his travels.
The project was designed to attract settlers to the largely uninhabited region.
O'Sullivan used a primitive wet plate box camera which he would have to spend several minutes setting up every time he wanted to take a photograph.
He would have to assemble the device on a tripod, coat a glass plate with collodion - a flammable solution. The glass would then be put in a holder before being inserted into a camera.
After a few seconds exposure, he would rush the plate to his dark room wagon and cover it in chemicals to begin the development process.
Considered one of the forerunners to Ansel Adams, Timothy O'Sullivan is a hero to other photographers according to the Tucson Weekly.
'Most of the photographers sent to document the West's native peoples and its geologic formations tried to make this strange new land accessible, even picturesque,' said Keith McElroy a history of photography professor in Tucson.
'At a time when Manifest Destiny demanded that Americans conquer the land, he pictured a West that was forbidding and inhospitable.
'With an almost modern sensibility, he made humans and their works insignificant.
'His photographs picture scenes, like a flimsy boat helpless against the dark shadows of Black Canyon, or explorers almost swallowed up by the crevices of Canyon de Chelly.'
Native Americans: The Pah-Ute (Paiute) Indian group, near Cedar, Utah in a picture from 1872. Government officials were chartering the land for the first time as part of Lt. George M. Wheeler's survey west of the One Hundredth Meridian which O'Sullivan accompanied the Lieutenant on. During this expedition O'Sullivan nearly drowned in the Truckee River (which runs from Lake Tahoe to Pyramid Lake, located in northwestern Nevada) when his boat got jammed against rocks.
Breathtaking: Twin buttes stand near Green River City, Wyoming, photographed in 1872 four years after settlers made the river basin their home. Green River and its distinctive twin rock formations that stand over the horizon was supposed to the site of a division point for the Union Pacific Railroad, but when the engineers arrived they were shocked to find that the area had been settled and so had to move the railroad west 12 miles to Bryan, Wyoming.
19th century housing: Members of Clarence King's Fortieth Parallel Survey team explore the land near Oreana, Nevada, in 1867. Clarence King was a 25-year-old Yale graduate, who hired Irish tough guy O'Sullivan for his Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel. Funded by the War Department, the plan was to survey the unexplored territory that lay between the California Sierras and the Rockies, with a view toward finding a good place to lay railroad tracks while also looking for mining possibilities and assessing the level of Indian hostility in the area.
Incredible: Tents can be seen (bottom, centre) at a point known as Camp Beauty close to canyon walls in Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Arizona. Photographed in 1873 and situated in northeastern Arizona, the area is one of the longest continuously inhabited landscapes in North American and holds preserved ruins of early indigenous people's such as The Anasazi and Navajo.
On this rock I build a church: Old Mission Church, Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico pictured in 1873 where the Zuni people of North have lived for millennia. O'Sullivan was famous for not trying to romanticise the native American plight or way of life in his photographs and instead of asking them to wear tribal dress was happy to photograph them wearing denim jeans.
9. Native Americans: Boat crew of the 'Picture' at Diamond Creek. Photo shows photographer Timothy O'Sullivan, fourth from left, with fellow members of the Wheeler survey and Native Americans, following ascent of the Colorado River through the Black Canyon in 1871. O'Sullivans work during Lt. George M. Wheeler's survey west of the One Hundredth Meridian in Black Canyon has been called some of the greatest photography of the 19th century and a clear inspiration for that other great American photographer Ansel Adams.
Landscape: Browns Park, Colorado, as seen by Timothy O'Sullivan in 1872 as he chartered the landscape for the first time. Historians have noted that even though the photographer had become a more-than-experienced explorer at this point, the ordeals of the Wheeler survey tested him to the extremes of his endurance
Rockies: A man sits on a shore beside the Colorado River in Iceberg Canyon, on the border of Mojave County, Arizona, and Clark County, Nevada in 1871 during the Wheeler expedition. Lieutenant Wheeler insisted that the team explore the Colorado River by going upstream into the Grand Canyon--apparently to beat a rival, who had first gone downriver in 1869. There was no particular scientific reason to do the trip backward.
Timothy O'Sullivan's darkroom wagon, pulled by four mules, entered the frame at the right side of the photograph, reached the center of the image, and abruptly U-turned, heading back out of the frame. Footprints leading from the wagon toward the camera reveal the photographer's path. Made at the Carson Sink in Nevada, this image of shifting sand dunes reveals the patterns of tracks recently reconfigured by the wind. The wagon's striking presence in this otherwise barren scene dramatises the pioneering experience of exploration and discovery in the wide, uncharted landscapes of the American West.
Industrial revolution: The mining town of Gold Hill, just south of Virginia City, Nevada, in 1867 was town whose prosperity was preserved by mining a rare silver ore called Comstock Lode. On the United States Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, Clarence King insisted that his men dress for dinner every evening and speak French, and O'Sullivan had no difficulty fitting in.
Early rails: A wooden balanced incline used for gold mining, at the Illinois Mine in the Pahranagat Mining District, Nevada in 1871. An ore car would ride on parallel tracks connected to a pulley wheel at the top of tracks. Because of his work in U.S Civil War of 1861 to 1865, the organisers of the two geological surveys that he photographed knew that O'Sullivan was made of stern stuff and therefore could cope with the rigors of life outdoors far from home
Silver mining: Here photographer Timothy O'Sullivan documents the actvities of the Savage and the Gould and Curry mines in Virginia City, Nevada, in 1867 900ft underground, lit by an improvised flash -- a burning magnesium wire, O'Sullivan photographed the miners in tunnels, shafts, and lifts. During the winter of 1867-68, in Virginia City, Nevada, he took the first underground mining pictures in America. Deep in mines where temperatures reached 130 degrees, O'Sullivan took pictures by the light of magnesium wire in difficult circumstances
Untouched landscape: The head of Canyon de Chelly, looking past walls that rise some 1,200 feet above the canyon floor, in Arizona in 1873. Inspiring millions of amateur photographers, O'Sullivan's first pivotal Canyon de Chelly pictures, with his views of Indian life and his New Mexican churches are now the archetypal images of Arizona
Barren: Two men sit looking at headlands north of the Colorado River Plateau in 1872. As they sailed upstream into the Grand Canyon, the team commanded by Lieutenant Wheeler used three boats and O'Sullivan commanded one named 'Picture'. During the voyage, 'Picture' was lost along with hundreds of O'Sullivan's negatives and food
Portrait: Native American (Paiute) men, women and children pose for a picture near a tree. The picture is thought to have been taken in Cottonwood Springs (Washoe County), Nevada, in 1875. Known for his dispassionate views towards native Americans on his travels, O'Sullivan was more interested in photographing the true lifestyles of the indigenous people and not a preconceived image that those back east had. Never asking any native American to change his or her dress, O'Sullivan's portraits are noted for their simplicity and truth
Natural U.S. landscape: The junction of Green and Yampah Canyons, in Utah, in 1872. O'Sullivan has been described as the right person who was there at the right time as he managed to document the re-birth of the nation through war in the early 1860's and then managed to be at the nexus of the great wave of exploration and migration westwards as the United States assumed what it thought to be its manifest destiny
An earlier visitor: Nearly 150 years ago, photographer O'Sullivan came across this evidence of a visitor to the West that preceded his own expedition by another 150 years - A Spanish inscription from 1726. This close-up view of the inscription carved in the sandstone at Inscription Rock (El Morro National Monument), New Mexico reads, in English: "By this place passed Ensign Don Joseph de Payba Basconzelos, in the year in which he held the Council of the Kingdom at his expense, on the 18th of February, in the year 1726"
Insight: Aboriginal life among the Navajo Indians. Near old Fort Defiance, New Mexico, in 1873. With this simple picture of the Navajo Indians, O'Sullivan managed to capture the domesticity of a dying people as wave after wave of migration snuffed out their way of life. It is noticeable that there is nothing romantic about the pictures and one profile of Timothy O'Sullivan described these scenes as of 'a defeated people trying their best to put back together a life.'
Incredible backdrop: The Canyon of Lodore, Colorado, in 1872. After O'Sullivan spent one last season with Clarence King in 1872, he returned back to Washington D.C to marry Laura Pywell in E Street Baptist Church, although his parents thoughts on this non-Catholic marriage went unrecorded
Settlement: View of the White House, Ancestral Pueblo Native American (Anasazi) ruins in Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, in 1873. The cliff dwellings were built by the Anasazi more than 500 years earlier. At the bottom, men stand and pose on cliff dwellings in a niche and on ruins on the canyon floor. Climbing ropes connect the groups of men. Anthropologists and archeologists place the Anasazi peoples of Native American culture on the continent from the 12th Century BC. Their unique architecture incorporated 'Great Houses' which averaged up to 200 rooms and could take in up to 700
Sailing away: The Nettie, an expedition boat on the Truckee River, western Nevada, in 1867. This was the river that O'Sullivan almost died in and according to the magazine Harper's 'Being a swimmer of no ordinary power, he succeeded in reaching the shore... he was carried a hundred yards down the rapids...The sharp rocks...had so cut and bruised his body that he was glad to crawl into the brier tangle that fringed the river's brink.' He is also supposed to to have lost three hundred dollars worth of gold pieces during the accident too
Taking a dip: A man bathing in Pagosa Hot Spring, Colorado, in 1874. Coming to the end of his adventures, O'Sullivan returned to Washington to live with his wife Laura and worked as a commercial photographer for Lieutenant Wheeler. In 1876, he buried his only child who was stillborn and it is thought that O'Sullivan buried the baby himself.
A man sits in a wooden boat with a mast on the edge of the Colorado River in the Black Canyon, Mojave County, Arizona. Photo taken in 1871, from an expedition camp, looking upstream. At this time, photographer Timothy O'Sullivan was working as a military photographer for Lt. George Montague Wheeler's U.S. Geographical Surveys West of the One Hundredth Meridian.
Native: Maiman, a Mojave Indian, guide and interpreter during a portion of the season in the Colorado country, in 1871. It has been observed that 30 years before Edward S Curtis began his famous study of native American's dying way of life, O'Sullivan was working without prejudice within the field of his photographic art. Trying to capture the everyday aspects of life for the indigenous people's of North America, O'Sullivan did not use a studio to capture imagery of native Americans, like many other photographers were at the time
Valley view: Alta City, Little Cottonwood, Utah, in 1873. O'Sullivan's amazing eye and work ethic allowed him to compose photographs that evoked the vastness of the West that future generations would come to recognise in the work of Ansel Adams and in the films of John Houston
Remarkable landscape: Cathedral Mesa, Colorado River, Arizona in 1871. O'Sullivan's second expedition employer, Lieutenant George Wheeler, 'was just interested in knowing what kind of fuss the Indians would put up,' according to a profile in the Tucson Weekly and the photographs were used to grease the wheels of expansion westwards
Mountains: Big Cottonwood Canyon, Utah, in 1869. A man can be seen with his horse at the bottom near the bridge (right). As people in the east came to see O'Sullivan's photographs the legend of the pioneering west as a land of limitless opportunity even for Americans came to form.
Rock formations in the Washakie Badlands, Wyoming, in 1872. A survey member stands at lower right for scale. Tragically, O'Sullivan's health declined after the death of his boy and he contracted tuberculosis. His wife Laura died from the same disease in 1881.
Tree-mendous: Oak Grove, White Mountains, Sierra Blanca, Arizona in 1873. In 1881, O'Sullivan returned to his parent's home in Staten Island where he died from tuberculosis. Seen as an irony as he had survived some of the most inhospitable conditions known to man beforehand, such as Death valley and the Grand Canyon
Shoshone Falls, Idaho near present-day Twin Falls, Idaho, is 212 feet high, and flows over a rim 1,000 feet wide. it is pictured in 1868. These were some of the first iconic pictures of the western expeditions that O'Sullivan took on the United States Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel. They were also one of the last places he photographed before he returned home to the East Coast and Washington D.C
Rocky: The south side of Inscription Rock (now El Morro National Monument), in New Mexico in 1873. The prominent feature stands near a small pool of water, and has been a resting place for travellers for centuries. Since at least the 17th century, natives, Europeans, and later American pioneers carved names and messages into the rock face as they paused. In 1906, a law was passed, prohibiting further carving.
Very plain landscape: A distant view of Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1873. Santa Fe is one of the oldest continually inhabited places in North America. Thought to have been settled by native American's in around 1050 AD, the city has grown into one of the most prosperous in New Mexico and the Southwestern United States | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44966000 |
Previous DailyTech stories have detailed recent cooling experienced by the planet, and highlighted some of the scientists currently predicting extended global cooling. Even the UN IPCC has stated that world temperatures may continue to decline, if only briefly.
Now, an expert in geophysics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico has added his voice to the fray. Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at UNAM's Institute of Geophysics, has predicted an imminent period of cooling intense enough to be called a small ice age.
Speaking to a crowd at a conference at the Center for Applied Sciences and Technological Development, Herrera says the sun can both cool and warm the planet. Variations in solar activity, he says, are causing changes in the Earth's climate.
"So that in two years or so, there will be a small ice age that lasts from 60 to 80 years", he said. "The most immediate result will be drought." Herrera says satellite temperature data indicates this cooling may have already begun.
Recent increases in glacier mass in the Andes, Patagonia, and Canada were given as further evidence of an upcoming cold spell.
Herrera also described the predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as "erroneous". According to Herrera, their forecasts “are incorrect because are only based on mathematical models which do not include [factors such as] solar activity".
Herrera pointed to the so-called "Little Ice Age" which peaked in the 17th century, as a previous cooling event caused by solar fluctuations.
Herrera made his remarks at UNAM, located in Mexico City, is the oldest university on the North American continent. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44973000 |
Indian space program was rocked by a setback on Christmas Day.
An unmanned Indian rocket lifted off from
the Satish Dhawan Space Center on Saturday and blew
up live on television after its launch because of a
malfunction. The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle
(GSLV) was carrying an advanced GSAT-5P
communication satellite into orbit when it veered off its
intended path and exploded moments after take-off. The Indian
Space Research Organization (ISRO) is citing electronic
failure as the cause.
performance of the (rocket) was normal up to about 50 seconds. Soon
after that the vehicle developed large altitude error leading to
breaking up of the vehicle," ISRO
Chairman K. Radhakrishnan said.
indicates commands from onboard computers ceased to reach circuits of
the first stage (engines) but what caused the interruption needs to
be studied and we hope to get an assessment of what triggered
to some reports, the rocket was deliberately blown up by mission
control following the malfunction.Originally scheduled for
December 20, engineers postponed the launch after they found a leak
in one of the Russian-made cryogenic
engines of the GSLV.The failed launch is the second
this year for the space agency. The first rocket plunged into
the Bay of Bengal during a developmental flight in April.India
has scheduled its first manned space flight for the year 2016. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44974000 |
New Solar Cell Gives Its "110 Percent" in Efficiency
December 20, 2011 6:23 PM
comment(s) - last by
Like Tebow, these new solar cells are giving their "110 percent" week in and week out.
Gains to quantum efficiency could yield around a 35 percent gain in conversion efficiency, the key metric
Using quantum dots -- tiny nanometer scale semiconductor crystals -- researchers at the
U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory
have cracked an important physical barrier and achieved levels of performance long considered impossible for a solar cell.
I. Giving its 110 Percent
The special design used by the team utilized
quantum dot nanocrystals
in the 1-20 nm range. The nanocrystals were composed of lead selenide treated with ethanedithol and hydrazine.
The photon-harvesting quantum dot-populated plane was sandwiched between a nanostructured zinc oxide layer and a thin gold electrode. A top layer was formed using a transparent conductor.
The overall design is in line with the "thin-film" methodology, which is currently rising in commercial production. Thin film cells tend to rely on scarce (i.e. expensive on a per mass basis) resources, such as rare earth metals. However, they use so little of them -- given the low mass of the thin film -- that they are not significantly more expensive than existing polycrystalline silicon cells. Generally, the only major extra cost to thin film is the initial cost of shifting the production technology.
The new NREL cell shatters the quantum efficiencies of previous designs, posting a peak external quantum efficiency of 114 ± 1% and a peak internal quantum efficiency of 130%.
In order to understand these numbers and how any power efficiency device can be more than "100 percent" efficient, you must understand the meaning of quantum efficiency (QE), which is overall quite different, but related to conversion efficiency (which will
be over 100 percent -- or even
to 100 percent -- in traditional physics).
The new cell is a thin film design. [Image Source: NREL]
Quantum efficiency is a measure of how many electrons come out of a cell for every photon that goes into the cell. Traditional silicon solar cells can achieve near 100 percent quantum efficiency at around 600 nm, but drop to around 80 percent on either end of the 500-1000 nm range (visible light is 380 to 740 nm). What this means is that the perfect "color" of light for silicon cells is orangish, while purple light can have a less than 45 percent conversion rate. As white light (sunlight) is a mixture of different wavelengths, the lower quantum efficiency of certain parts of the spectrum leads to lower average quantum efficiency.
External efficiency directly uses the number of input photons and the number of output electrons from a device. Internal efficiency, by contrast, uses theory to adjust these numbers to account for losses due to reflection and absorption.
We took the liberty of borrowing (Fair Use clause
TITLE 17 > CHAPTER 1 > § 107
) the charts for their 0.72 eV bandgap cell (their best-performing design) and comparing it to a traditional PC silicon cell, adding a helpful reference that shows what eVs roughly correspond to in the visible light range:
Comparing the external quantum efficiencies of the new NREL design (top) and the PS silicon design (bottom) over the visible light range (middle bar), we see that the new cell is slightly less efficient in capturing red-end light, but is much more efficient in capturing blue-end light.
(The black line in bottom graph and the blue line in the top right graph are the internal QEs.)
Overall this could grant up to a 35 percent efficiency gain versus today's standard PS silicon cells, according to the paper's authors.
II. You "Cannot Change the Laws of Physics" -- So Pick a Better Law!
The better blue-range performance comes thanks to multiple exciton generation (MEG), a unique quantum effect, which like other oddball quantum effects, occurs at an extremely small scale. In an MEG scenario, a single photon hits an atom, but rather than simply knocking off one electron via the
formation of an "exciton"
(an electron/hole pair), it puts multiple electrons into the flow.
MEG -- multiple exciton generation -- bends the traditional laws of physics.
[Image Source: Los Alamos Science & Tech Mag./U.S. Department of Energy's NNSA]
The exact quantum mechanics of this phenomena are being debated by physics. Currently the three leading hypotheses are:
-- the high energy exciton ("X") becomes a "multi"-X, decaying through a dense range of multi-X states.
-- a mixed "virtual" state consisting of multi-X and X (think superposition) is triggered by photon energetic absorption.
-- photon absorption creates standard X, but in the special material X waffles back and forth, switching identity from X to multi-X and back, slowly dropping in energy, in the process.
Without MEG, no solar cell can have more than a 100 percent internal or external QE. Hence no traditional solar cell has had greater than a 100 percent QE, even at its optimal part of the spectrum (e.g. orange light for silicon cells). This means that the overall
efficiency (CE) of a traditional cell -- even if perfectly optimized -- would not exceed 32 percent. Cumulatively this 100/32 (QE/CE) limit is named the Shockley-Queisser limit after its discoverers (S-Q Limit, for short).
As Scotty would say "you cannot change the laws of physics." But sometimes you
have your cake and eat it to, if only you find the right quirk in complex and poorly understood physics of our universe.
That's fundamentally what has been done here. MEG was first theorized by NREL researcher Arthur J. Nozik, Ph.D back in 2001, and was later confirmed to work in quantum dots, thanks to their special scale. This method is also known as "hot carrier generation". Using this quantum effect, later proved in the laboratory, the S-Q performance barrier could be shattered.
A useful property of quantum dots, is that their size determines their band gap, and hence the efficiency. Thus building the "perfect" MEG cell is simply a matter of picking the right size dots. As the bandgap tends to decrease as the quantum dot size and efficiency increase, the trick is to pick a quantum dot that is as big as possible, without losing the quantum effects.
Quantum dots don't just look pretty, they have some handy physics quirks too!
[Image Source: Elec-Intro]
Quantum dots also generate electron/hole pairs easier, with room temperature being enough excite (generate electricity) in some quantum dot materials.
The most recent paper was
[abstract] in the peer-reviewed journal
, with Matthew C. Beard taking the distinction of senior author and Octavi E. Semonin the distinction of being first author. Professor Novik was listed second to last, after four additional NREL colleagues.
III. Third Generation Solar Cells -- Finally a Solar Tech. Worth Investing In
"First" and "second" generation solar cells use various bulk semiconductors such as silicon, cadmium telluride, or copper indium gallium (di)selenide, which are then mixed with third, fourth, and fifth column (in the periodic table) elements to improve performance.
Ideally quantum dot cells could be combined with these traditional thin-film semiconductor cell designs, or applied using a mixture of nanocrystalline quantum dots optimized for different wavelengths. Either methodology could yield an optimized "third" generation (aka. next generation) design. Such a cell would enjoy the best of both worlds -- silicon cells' excellent red range performance, along with quantum dots excellent performance on the higher end (blue) of the visible light spectrum.
One approach to make a third generation ultra-efficient cell is to use a mixture of wavelength optimized quantum dots.
[Image Source: Los Alamos Science & Tech Mag./U.S. Department of Energy's NNSA]
While quantum dots are generally thought to be amenable to thin film cell "roll-to-roll" printing processes, the precise methods to do this on a mass production scale still have to be ironed out. Furthermore, the quantum dot cells measured in this study exhibited a pretty low 4.5 percent efficiency. While that sounds quite bad, it’s largely a result of the lower amount of quantum dots used in the absorbing layer.
If quantum dot deposition techniques can be refined, the aforementioned "third" generation mixed cell could be finally realized. If somebody is going to do that, it will probably be Professor Nozik's team at the NREL. After all, they're who first discovered how to play the grand MEG prank on the laws of physics in the first place.
With these third generation solar cells, the technology may finally have the legs under it to compete with cheaper power generation methods (e.g. carbon-based fuels and nuclear energy). That's not only good news for mankind's terrestrial future; it's good news for future interstellar travellers, who will likely rely heavily on a mixture of solar and
nuclear (fusion) energy
This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled
RE: The break through needed
12/20/2011 10:17:47 PM
You can also allow more water to flow through hydro dams at night and when overcast, the point is not to be dependent on one source.
RE: The break through needed
12/21/2011 4:13:34 AM
Exactly. There is too much negativity towards solar. Of course it won't work if this is our sole method of power generation but it definitely has its place.
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Fine, David J.
Jewish Integration in the German Army in the First World War
- Together with "Wartime Shanghai and the Jewish Refugees from Central Europe" by Irene Eber, this volume opens up the new series "New Perspectives on Modern Jewish History".
- This ground-breaking study on Jewish officers in the German army utilizes published and unpublished sources - including letters, diaries, memoirs, military service records, press accounts, photographs, drawings, and tomb stone inscriptions.
- Additional material from Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums
Aims and Scope
In Jewish Integration in the German Army in the First World War David J. Fine offers a surprising portrayal of Jewish officers in the German army as integrated and comfortably identified as both Jews and Germans. Fine explores how both Judaism and Christianity were experienced by Jewish soldiers at the front, making an important contribution to the study of the experience of religion in war. Fine shows how the encounter of German Jewish soldiers with the old world of the shtetl on the eastern front tested both their German and Jewish identities. Finally, utilizing published and unpublished sources including letters, diaries, memoirs, military service records, press accounts, photographs, drawings and tomb stone inscriptions, the author argues that antisemitism was not a primary factor in the war experience of Jewish soldiers.
- xii, 180 pages
- Type of Publication:
- Anti Semitism; Christianity; World War I; Judaism; Jewish Identity; Religion | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-44997000 |
Defining a Wireless Solution, Page 2
5.1 Wireless Building Blocks
Before jumping into the mechanics of solution development, it is worth reviewing the basic building blocks that compose a complete wireless solution. While wireless solutions vary widely in characteristics, they all draw items from four categories of architectural components: client devices, wireless applications, information infrastructure, and wireless networks. These components are shown in Figure 5.2.
Client devices are the most visible component of a wireless solution. They are the physical platform for wireless applications and provide services such as voice communications, data capture and display, information processing, and location detection. These devices may be carried by users, mounted within shipping containers, or installed inside a car. Client devices include smart phones, pagers, PDAs, e-mail appliances, and special-purpose units for scanning, bar coding, and credit card reading.
The Components of a Complete Wireless Solution
Wireless applications supply the business functionality behind the wireless solution. They can cover any need from personal productivity to safety and asset monitoring. Depending on the functionality required, these applications may be "off-the-shelf" packages, custom developed, or "re-purposed" from existing web applications.
The information infrastructure is the repository of knowledge incorporated within the wireless solution. Although these data components are invisible to most users, access to information is the "raison d'être" for most wireless solutions. This information may be environmental data captured on an oil rig for display at a monitoring station or it may be an amalgam of customer information drawn from a variety of corporate information systems and databases. The information infrastructure consists of the back-end applications, databases, voice systems, e-mail systems, middleware, and other components needed to support the information requirements of the chosen wireless application.
Wireless networks serve as the conduit, or transport mechanism, between devices or between devices and traditional wired networks (corporate networks, the Internet, etc.). These networks vary widely in cost, coverage, and transmission rates; they include options such as infrared, Bluetooth, WLAN, digital cellular, and satellite.
Together, these four components constitute the wireless solution's architecture. In the simplest case, this architecture consists of a single device type, using a single application and connected to a single network. However, many business solutions will be more complex, supporting multiple client devices, offering a variety of applications, and stitching together multiple networks to gain the desired level of coverage.
The solution's Implementation and Support Infrastructure provides the processes, tools, and resources used to create, operate, and support the wireless solution. This infrastructure ensures that users are trained, data is backed up, secured and synchronized, system and application software is kept up-to-date, devices remain functional, and networks operate efficiently. Although not part of the wireless architecture, the quality of this infrastructure is crucial for the success of the overall solution. As such, it merits as much consideration as the other wireless components when designing the solution.
Business Processes form the final component of a complete wireless solution. These are the processes that inspired the solution in the first place. Depending on the goals of the project, the wireless solution should enable your company to perform these processes faster, cheaper, and more efficiently than before. Gaining these benefits, however, requires redesigning and implementing new versions of processes that take advantage of the wireless solution. To capture the benefits of immediate, on-site invoicing offered by the field service example in Chapter 2, a company needs to change processes and job responsibilities in the customer service, field service, and billing organizations. Without these changes, work orders will still be entered manually in the company's systems by customer service, invoices will still be produced by the billing department, and the wireless device will simply end up as a new toy in the hands of the field service worker. While they are an integral part of a successful solution, business processes are usually outside the scope of responsibility of the technical team implementing and supporting the wireless solution. Implementing new business processes is its own project and requires knowledgeable resources backed by management commitment to the change. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45007000 |
In 2006, a new class of medicine for Type 2 diabetes was introduced to the U.S. market. Called DPP-4 inhibitors, these drugs work in a way that is different from any previous diabetes treatment. Sitagliptin (brand name Januvia) was the first drug in this class to be approved; it can be used alone or in combination with other oral diabetes drugs. Saxagliptin (Onglyza), another DPP-4 inhibitor, received approval in July 2009.
At the turn of the 20th century, several different researchers were examining the role of the intestines and the pancreas in diabetes. Research soon demonstrated, through experiments with animals and autopsies of people who had died of diabetes complications, that Type 1 diabetes was caused by a problem with the pancreas. After extracts of the pancreas were shown to treat diabetes, a research team at the University of Toronto (Frederick Banting and Charles Best) isolated insulin in 1921.
Further experiments went on to explore the relationship between the pancreas and the intestines. Some of these demonstrated that intestinal extracts could lower blood glucose by stimulating the pancreas to produce more insulin. Hormones from the intestines with this effect are called incretins. Significant research on incretins was not conducted again until the 1960’s, when researchers were faced with a puzzle: When people were given the same amount of glucose at different times by vein and by mouth, the amount of insulin produced was much greater when the glucose was given by mouth. The researchers concluded that the gastrointestinal tract was signaling the pancreas to produce insulin. The hunt was on for the exact chemicals involved in this process, and finally a hormone was isolated: gastric inhibitory polypeptide, or GIP. A second hormone called glucagon-like polypeptide 1, or GLP-1, was later isolated.
GLP-1 was found to have a profound effect on stimulating the release of insulin from the pancreas. It was also found to be active for a very short time in the blood. This is because it is broken down quickly by an enzyme called dipeptidyl peptidase 4, or DPP-4. A drug that could inhibit the action of DPP-4 would extend the insulin-releasing effect of GLP-1.
Function in the body
Drugs that inhibit the action of DPP-4 are intervening in a complex set of reactions that occur when food is eaten. In response to meals, specialized cells in the intestines called L cells secrete GLP-1. L cells are mainly found in the ileum, the last segment of the small intestine, and in the large intestine (also known as the colon). GLP-1 appears to be secreted, however, before food from a meal reaches these areas of the intestines. The L cells have receptors for a variety of hormones secreted by the digestive system, which helps them determine the type of nutrients that have been consumed and control the amount of GLP-1 they release. It is thought that hormonal signals from the upper intestine, as well as a chemical released by nerves in response to eating, stimulate the release of GLP-1.
GLP-1 has several effects in the body other than stimulating the release of insulin. It also slows stomach emptying, inhibits the release of glucagon (glucagon is a hormone that signals the liver to release glucose and is usually elevated in people with Type 2 diabetes), and enhances the survival and growth of pancreatic beta cells, which secrete insulin. It has been found in laboratory studies that animals treated with DPP-4 inhibitors seem to have an increased number of pancreatic beta cells, indicating that these drugs may stimulate beta-cell growth (most likely through the action of GLP-1). This effect has not yet been demonstrated in humans, but if confirmed, it means that DPP-4 inhibitors could play a significant role in delaying and possibly reversing the progression of Type 2 diabetes.
DPP-4 is a protein that is found both circulating in the blood and attached to cell membranes. It breaks down several hormones, not just GLP-1, and helps transmit signals from outside cells to the inside. DPP-4 was originally identified as a protein on lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell in the immune system. It was later found on many different types of tissue, including the kidneys, lungs, liver, intestines, pancreas, blood vessels, and brain. The breakdown of GLP-1 occurs within several minutes of DPP-4 being released into the blood.
Several studies have shown that people with Type 2 diabetes tend to have impaired GLP-1 secretion as well as elevated DPP-4 activity. This combination results in substantially reduced insulin production. Researchers have found that after gastrointestinal surgery to treat obesity (such as gastric banding or gastric bypass), GLP-1 levels increase and glucose control improves, suggesting that enhanced GLP-1 activity may be one way that these surgeries help reverse Type 2 diabetes in many patients.
Since DPP-4 inhibitors only enhance the body’s own ability to release insulin and regulate blood glucose, these drugs can only treat Type 2 diabetes. Their effect is dependent on some function of the insulin-releasing beta cells in the pancreas, and people with Type 1 diabetes generally do not have a significant number of functioning pancreatic beta cells.
Results of clinical trials
Many compounds believed to inhibit the activity of DPP-4 have been tested in humans. The ones that have been developed the furthest for medical use are sitagliptin (Januvia), approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2006, saxagliptin (Onglyza), approved by the FDA in 2009, and vildagliptin (Galvus), whose approval has been delayed by the FDA pending further data on people with kidney disease. (Vildagliptin was approved in Europe in 2007.) Another drug in the same family, alogliptin, was recently tested in large, Phase III trials (the results of Phase III trials provide much of the information that the FDA requires to grant marketing approval).
Numerous studies have been carried out to evaluate the effects of DPP-4 inhibitors in people with diabetes. These studies have generally shown an increase in both GLP-1 and insulin, as well as a decrease in blood glucose and glucagon levels after meals with use of the drugs. Long-term DPP-4 inhibition has been shown to reduce HbA1c levels, as well (HbA1c is a measure of blood glucose control over the previous 2–3 months). Since only sitagliptin is currently available in the United States, studies of it are probably the most widely relevant.
Sitagliptin was tested as a stand-alone treatment in five large studies whose size ranged from 151 to 743 participants. In the largest study, subjects had an average starting HbA1c level of 7.9%. The participants were divided into six groups, with one group receiving a placebo (inactive pill), four groups receiving different doses of sitagliptin, and one group receiving glipizide, a diabetes drug that stimulates the pancreas to release more insulin. All groups were treated for 12 weeks. When compared with the placebo group, all of the drug-treated groups had a reduction in average HbA1c level. The group that took 50 mg of sitagliptin experienced an average drop of 0.77%, and the glipizide group saw a drop of 1.0%. (A 1% drop in HbA1c level has been found to reduce microvascular complications, like diabetic eye and kidney disease, by 35% and is believed to reduce the risk of heart disease and overall death, as well.) While the glipizide group had a greater average reduction in HbA1c level, that group also had a much higher rate of low blood glucose, or hypoglycemia, (17%) than groups that took sitagliptin (4%) and experienced greater average weight gain (2.4 pounds versus no change in weight).
In another 12-week study, participants with an average starting HbA1c level of 7.8% were divided into four sitagliptin groups with different dose sizes and a placebo group. The group that received 100 mg once daily had the greatest average reduction in HbA1c level, 0.56%.
The three other studies tested daily doses of either 100 mg or 200 mg of sitagliptin over a period of 12–24 weeks. These studies showed average reductions in HbA1c level of 0.60% to 1.05%. Sitagliptin used alone to treat Type 2 diabetes generally lowered HbA1c levels 0.77% more than a placebo did.
Sitagliptin was also tested in combination with other drugs in four major trials. Three of the trials used sitagliptin combined with one other drug. These include studies that compared sitagliptin plus pioglitazone (Actos) with pioglitazone alone, and ones that compared sitagliptin plus metformin with both metformin alone and glipizide plus metformin. The studies ranged in length from 24 to 52 weeks. When sitagliptin was combined with metformin and with pioglitazone, the average HbA1c level of participants decreased by 0.65% and 0.70% more, respectively, than in those who took metformin alone and pioglitazone alone. When sitagliptin plus metformin was compared with glipizide plus metformin, there was no significant difference in reduction of HbA1c levels; both groups experienced an average drop of 0.67% (from an average starting HbA1c level of 7.5%).
Sitagliptin was also tested in combination with both glimepiride and metformin. (Like glipizide, glimepiride stimulates the pancreas to release more insulin.) In this study, participants were divided into four treatment groups, receiving either glimepiride only, sitagliptin and glimepiride, metformin and glimepiride, or sitagliptin, metformin, and glimepiride. Compared with glimepiride alone, the addition of sitagliptin reduced the average HbA1c level by 0.6% more, and compared with metformin plus glimepiride, the addition of sitagliptin caused a drop of 0.9% more.
Based on all of the studies mentioned, the recommended dose of sitagliptin is 100 mg taken once daily, either alone or in combination with metformin, a sulfonylurea drug such as glipizide or glimepiride, or a thiazolidinedione such as pioglitazone. It should be noted that these recommendations were created prior to the new warnings that thiazolidinediones may lead to an increased rate of heart problems, notably congestive heart failure. Sitagliptin is also available in a combination pill with metformin (Janumet) in two dose sizes.
Pros and cons
As the studies that were just described show, sitagliptin tends to lower HbA1c levels about as much as glipizide (and in some cases, not quite as much). It is not automatically clear, then, how sitagliptin should fit into diabetes treatment. The American Diabetes Association has not said in a definitive way how DPP-4 inhibitors should be used; it simply states that they may play a role in diabetes care. This is due to the relatively few studies done on sitagliptin compared with the wealth of information available for other drugs, as well as the newness of the data on sitagliptin.
Yet sitagliptin does have potential advantages over other drugs, as well as known disadvantages and side effects. One disadvantage is that compared with placebo, sitagliptin causes a small weight gain (about 1 pound on average). used in combination with metformin, however, it is associated with a loss of 5.5 pounds on average, compared with a gain of 2 pounds from the combination of metformin and glipizide.
Since sitagliptin is metabolized, or broken down, primarily by the kidneys and only metabolized by the liver to a small extent, the potential for it to interact with other drugs is relatively low; this finding has been confirmed in studies that have directly tested drug interactions in humans. However, this also means that the dose size of sitagliptin may need to be reduced for people in the later stages of kidney disease.
Sitagliptin results in a low incidence of hypoglycemia, comparable to that of placebo, when tested as a stand-alone therapy. It is associated with a somewhat higher rate of hypoglycemia when used in combination with other drugs, especially with a sulfonylurea such as glipizide or glimepiride.
As mentioned earlier, DPP-4 was discovered through its association with the immune system, and some researchers thought that inhibiting it might impair the immune system. So far, data from clinical studies have not demonstrated a serious immunosuppresive effect. They do indicate, though, that sitagliptin increases the risk of upper respiratory infections and nasopharyngitis (inflammation of the nose and pharynx), found in 6.3% and 5.2% of study subjects, respectively, who took sitagliptin versus 3.3% and 3.4% for placebo.
The most worrying side effects are those reported since the drug came onto the market. These reactions seem to be allergic in nature and include anaphylaxis, a bodywide reaction that results in low blood pressure, and angioedema, a swelling of the tongue, face, and throat. Both of these may be life-threatening. The reactions have occurred anytime from immediately after taking the first dose until three months after starting the drug. There have also been reports of skin reactions, including a very severe type of drug reaction called Stevens–Johnson syndrome. Other diabetes drugs are not typically associated with Stevens–Johnson syndrome.
One more choice
DPP-4 inhibitors may be a useful addition to the treatment options for Type 2 diabetes. While the current DPP-4 inhibitors do not seem to have major, clearcut advantages over other therapies, they may be a reasonable alternative for people who cannot take certain other drugs. They may also be used with metformin when blood glucose control is not ideal. Whether these drugs could be used to preserve or improve pancreatic beta-cell function, as well, will be determined through further clinical trials. As options for treating Type 2 diabetes expand, new drugs, including DPP-4 inhibitors, help make it possible for more people to follow an effective, individualized plan for their diabetes. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45014000 |
You can continue to add to your list of positive characteristics and skills by being in tune to the things other people say about you. How often has someone tried to pay you a compliment and rather than thanking them for their kind words and recognition, you tell them they are wrong? Not only are you not accepting the compliment, but you are not accepting them or their opinion, and you are likely making it less likely for them to say such things to you again in the future.
If you are struggling with self-esteem, let those around you tell you those things that make you special. Often those closest to you have a more accurate view of you than you do. If you have a healthy support team, you will hear positive things about yourself, not negative. Teach yourself to say “Thank you” to every compliment!
Would you allow someone else to put your child or best friend down in front of you or him/her? Do not allow people to do the same to you. Most importantly, do not accept negative comments from yourself! We are often our own harshest critics. The thoughts you have about yourself directly effect your self-esteem.
Have you ever listened to the messages you give yourself, the things you say within your own head or even say about yourself to others? How much of what you say is positive and uplifting v. negative and defeating? No matter how supportive those around you are, you cannot escape yourself and you have the most impact on yourself, your feelings, and your self-assessment. If you were choosing a roommate, best-friend, or significant other, someone that would be around you frequently, you would want to choose someone who wasn’t saying negative things about you. Are you treating yourself as well as you would treat someone else? Start responding to the negative things you say to yourself like you would respond to someone you care about if you heard them say those same things about themselves.
Instead of thinking about how slowly you’re losing weight, remind yourself of how often you are working out and how you are drinking more water every day. Instead of focusing on all the tasks that need to be done, remind yourself of all that you have achieved and that you are capable of doing the rest in time. Instead of focusing on your height, consider your adorable nose. I would love to hear some positive messages that you use and could help others!
March 4th, 2009 | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45016000 |
|Related fields and sub-fields|
Information technology (IT) is the application of computers and telecommunications equipment to store, retrieve, transmit and manipulate data, often in the context of a business or other enterprise. The term is commonly used as a synonym for computers and computer networks, but it also encompasses other information distribution technologies such as television and telephones. Several industries are associated with information technology, such as computer hardware, software, electronics, semiconductors, internet, telecom equipment, e-commerce and computer services.
In a business context, the Information Technology Association of America has defined information technology as "the study, design, development, application, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems". The responsibilities of those working in the field include network administration, software development and installation, and the planning and management of an organisation's technology life cycle, by which hardware and software is maintained, upgraded, and replaced.
Humans have been storing, retrieving, manipulating and communicating information since the Sumerians in Mesopotamia developed writing in about 3000 BC, but the term "information technology" in its modern sense first appeared in a 1958 article published in the Harvard Business Review; authors Harold J. Leavitt and Thomas L. Whisler commented that "the new technology does not yet have a single established name. We shall call it information technology (IT)." Based on the storage and processing technologies employed, it is possible to distinguish four distinct phases of IT development: pre-mechanical (3000 BC – 1450 AD), mechanical (1450–1840), electromechanical (1840–1940) and electronic (1940–present). This article focuses on the most recent period (electronic), which began in about 1940.
History of computers
Devices have been used to aid computation for thousands of years, probably initially in the form of a tally stick. The Antikythera mechanism, dating from about the beginning of the first century BC, is generally considered to be the earliest known mechanical analog computer; it is also the earliest known geared mechanism. Comparable geared devices did not emerge in Europe until the 16th century, and it was not until 1645 that the first mechanical calculator capable of performing the four basic arithmetical operations was developed.
Electronic computers, using either relays or valves, began to appear in the early 1940s. The electromechanical Zuse Z3, completed in 1941, was the world's first programmable computer, and by modern standards one of the first machines that could be considered a complete computing machine. Colossus, developed during the Second World War to decrypt German messages was the first electronic digital computer. Although it was programmable, it was not general-purpose, being designed to perform only a single task. It also lacked the ability to store its program in memory. Instead, programming was carried out using plugs and switches to alter the internal wiring. The first recognisably modern electronic digital stored-program computer was the Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM), which ran its first program on 21 June 1948.
Early electronic computers such as Colossus made use of punched tape, a long strip of paper on which data was represented by a series of holes, a technology now obsolete. Electronic data storage, which is used in modern computers, dates from the Second World War, when a form of delay line memory was developed to remove the clutter from radar signals, the first practical application of which was the mercury delay line. The first random-access digital storage device was the Williams tube, based on a standard cathode ray tube, but the information stored in it and delay line memory was volatile in that it had to be continuously refreshed, and thus was lost once power was removed. The earliest form of non-volatile computer storage was the magnetic drum, invented in 1932 and used in the Ferranti Mark 1, the world's first commercially available general-purpose electronic computer.
Most digital data today is still stored magnetically on devices such as hard disk drives, or optically on media such as CD-ROMs. It has been estimated that the worldwide capacity to store information on electronic devices grew from less than 3 exabytes in 1986 to 295 exabytes in 2007, doubling roughly every 3 years.
Database management systems emerged in the 1960s to address the problem of storing and retrieving large amounts of data accurately and quickly. One of the earliest such systems was IBM's Information Management System (IMS), which is still widely deployed more than 40 years later. IMS stores data hierarchically, but in the 1970s Ted Codd proposed an alternative relational storage model based on set theory and predicate logic and the familiar concepts of tables, rows and columns. The first commercially available relational database management system (RDBMS) was available from Oracle in 1980.
All database management systems consist of a number of components that together allow the data they store to be accessed simultaneously by many users while maintaining its integrity. A characteristic of all databases is that the structure of the data they contain is defined and stored separately from the data itself, in a database schema.
The extensible markup language (XML) has become a popular format for data representation in recent years. Although XML data can be stored in normal file systems, it is commonly held in relational databases to take advantage of their "robust implementation verified by years of both theoretical and practical effort". As an evolution of the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), XML's text-based structure offers the advantage of being both machine and human-readable.
The terms "data" and "information" are not synonymous. Anything stored is data, but it only becomes information when it is organised and presented meaningfully. Most of the world's digital data is unstructured, and stored in a variety of different physical formats[a] even within a single organization. Data warehouses began to be developed in the 1980s to integrate these disparate stores. They typically contain data extracted from various sources, including external sources such as the Internet, organised in such a way as to facilitate decision support systems (DSS).
Data transmission has three aspects: transmission, propagation, and reception.
XML has been increasingly employed as a means of data interchange since the early 2000s, particularly for machine-oriented interactions such as those involved in web-oriented protocols such as SOAP, describing "data-in-transit rather than ... data-at-rest". One of the challenges of such usage is converting data from relational databases into XML Document Object Model (DOM) structures.
Hilbert and Lopez identify the exponential pace of technological change (a kind of Moore's law): machines' application-specific capacity to compute information per capita roughly doubled every 14 months between 1986 and 2007; the per capita capacity of the world's general-purpose computers doubled every 18 months during the same two decades; the global telecommunication capacity per capita doubled every 34 months; the world's storage capacity per capita required roughly 40 months to double (every 3 years); and per capita broadcast information has doubled every 12.3 years.
Massive amounts of data are stored worldwide every day, but unless it can be analysed and presented effectively it essentially resides in what have been called data tombs: "data archives that are seldom visited". To address that issue, the field of data mining – "the process of discovering interesting patterns and knowledge from large amounts of data" – emerged in the late 1980s.
In an academic context, the Association for Computing Machinery defines IT as "undergraduate degree programs that prepare students to meet the computer technology needs of business, government, healthcare, schools, and other kinds of organizations .... IT specialists assume responsibility for selecting hardware and software products appropriate for an organization, integrating those products with organizational needs and infrastructure, and installing, customizing, and maintaining those applications for the organization’s computer users."
The business value of information technology lies in the automation of business processes, provision of information for decision making, connecting businesses with their customers, and the provision of productivity tools to increase efficiency.
|Category||2012 spending||2013 spending|
|Data center systems||141||147|
- Breaches of copyright by those downloading files stored without the permission of the copyright holders
- Employers monitoring their employees' emails and other Internet usage
- Unsolicited emails
- Hackers accessing online databases
- Web sites installing cookies or spyware to monitor a user's online activities
- "Format" refers to the physical characteristics of the stored data such as its encoding scheme; "structure" describes the organisation of that data.
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The Spitzer Space Telescope prior to launch
|Organization||NASA / JPL / Caltech|
|Major contractors||Lockheed Martin
|Launch date||2003-08-25, 05:35:00 UTC|
|Launched from||Cape Canaveral, Florida|
|Launch vehicle||Delta II 7920H ELV|
|Mission length||2.5 to 5+ years
(9 years, 9 months, and 25 days elapsed)
|Mass||950 kg (2,100 lb)|
|Type of orbit||Heliocentric|
|Orbit period||1 year|
|Location||Orbiting the Sun|
|Wavelength||3 to 180 micrometers|
|Diameter||0.85 m (2 ft 9 in)|
|Focal length||10.2 m|
|MIPS||far infrared detector arrays|
The Spitzer Space Telescope (SST), formerly the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), is an infrared space observatory launched in 2003. It is the fourth and final of the NASA Great Observatories program.
The planned mission period was to be 2.5 years with a pre-launch expectation that the mission could extend to five or slightly more years until the onboard liquid helium supply was exhausted. This occurred on 15 May 2009. Without liquid helium to cool the telescope to the very cold temperatures needed to operate, most of the instruments are no longer usable. However, the two shortest wavelength modules of the IRAC camera are still operable with the same sensitivity as before the cryogen was exhausted, and will continue to be used in the Spitzer Warm Mission.
In keeping with NASA tradition, the telescope was renamed after its successful demonstration of operation, on December 18, 2003. Unlike most telescopes which are named after famous deceased astronomers by a board of scientists, the new name for SIRTF was obtained from a contest open to the general public.
The contest led to the telescope being named in honor of Lyman Spitzer, one of the 20th century's great scientists. Though he was not the first to propose the idea of the space telescope (Hermann Oberth being the first, in Wege zur Raumschiffahrt, 1929, and also in Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen, 1923), Spitzer wrote a 1946 report for RAND describing the advantages of an extraterrestrial observatory and how it could be realized with available (or upcoming) technology. He has been cited for his pioneering contributions to rocketry and astronomy, as well as "his vision and leadership in articulating the advantages and benefits to be realized from the Space Telescope Program."
It follows a rather unusual orbit, heliocentric instead of geocentric, trailing and drifting away from Earth's orbit at approximately 0.1 astronomical unit per year (a so-called "earth-trailing" orbit). The primary mirror is 85 centimetres (33 in) in diameter, f/12 and made of beryllium and was cooled to 5.5 K (−449.77 °F). The satellite contains three instruments that allowed it to perform astronomical imaging and photometry from 3 to 180 micrometers, spectroscopy from 5 to 40 micrometers, and spectrophotometry from 5 to 100 micrometers.
By the early 1970s, astronomers began to consider the possibility of placing an infrared telescope above the obscuring effects of Earth's atmosphere. In 1979, a report from the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, A Strategy for Space Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 1980s, identified a Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) as "one of two major astrophysics facilities [to be developed] for Spacelab", a Shuttle-borne platform. Anticipating the major results from an upcoming Explorer satellite and from the Shuttle mission, the report also favored the "study and development of ... long-duration spaceflights of infrared telescopes cooled to cryogenic temperatures." The launch in January 1983 of the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, jointly developed by the United States, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, to conduct the first infrared survey of the sky, whetted the appetites of scientists worldwide for follow-up space missions capitalizing on the rapid improvements in infrared detector technology.
Earlier infrared observations had been made by both space-based and ground-based observatories. Ground-based observatories have the drawback that at infrared wavelengths or frequencies, both the Earth's atmosphere and the telescope itself will radiate (glow) strongly. Additionally, the atmosphere is opaque at most infrared wavelengths. This necessitates lengthy exposure times and greatly decreases the ability to detect faint objects. It could be compared to trying to observe the stars at noon. Previous space-based satellites (such as IRAS, the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, and ISO, the Infrared Space Observatory) were operational during the 1980s and 1990s and great advances in astronomical technology have been made since then.
Most of the early concepts envisioned repeated flights aboard the NASA Space Shuttle. This approach was developed in an era when the Shuttle program was expected to support weekly flights of up to 30 days duration. A May 1983 NASA proposal described SIRTF as a Shuttle-attached mission, with an evolving scientific instrument payload. Several flights were anticipated with a probable transition into a more extended mode of operation, possibly in association with a future space platform or space station. SIRTF would be a 1-meter class, cryogenically cooled, multi-user facility consisting of a telescope and associated focal plane instruments. It would be launched on the Space Shuttle and remain attached to the Shuttle as a Spacelab payload during astronomical observations, after which it would be returned to Earth for refurbishment prior to re-flight. The first flight was expected to occur about 1990, with the succeeding flights anticipated beginning approximately one year later. However, the Spacelab-2 flight aboard STS-51-F showed that the Shuttle environment was poorly suited to an onboard infrared telescope due to contamination from the relatively "dirty" vacuum associated with the orbiters. By September 1983 NASA was considering the "possibility of a long duration [free-flyer] SIRTF mission".
Spitzer is the only one of the Great Observatories not launched by the Space Shuttle, which had been originally intended. However after the 1986 Challenger disaster, the Centaur LH2/LOX upper stage, which would have been required to place it in its final orbit, was banned from Shuttle use. The mission underwent a series of redesigns during the 1990s, primarily due to budget considerations. This resulted in a much smaller but still fully capable mission which could use the smaller Delta II expendable launch vehicle.
One of the most important advances of this redesign was an Earth-trailing orbit. Cryogenic satellites that require liquid helium (LHe, T ≈ 4 K) temperatures in near-Earth orbit are typically exposed to a large heat load from the Earth, and consequently entail large usage of LHe coolant, which then tends to dominate the total payload mass and limits mission life. Placing the satellite in solar orbit far from Earth allowed innovative passive cooling such as the sun shield, against the single remaining major heat source to drastically reduce the total mass of helium needed, resulting in an overall smaller lighter payload, with major cost savings. This orbit also simplifies telescope pointing, but does require the Deep Space Network for communications.
The primary instrument package (telescope and cryogenic chamber) was developed by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., in Boulder, CO. The individual instruments were developed jointly by industrial, academic, and government institutions, the principals being Cornell, the University of Arizona, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Ball Aerospace, and Goddard Spaceflight Center. The infrared detectors were developed by Raytheon in Goleta, California. Raytheon used indium antimonide and a doped silicon detector in the creation of the infrared detectors. It is stated that these detectors are 100 times more sensitive than what was once available in the beginning of the project during the 1980s. The spacecraft was built by Lockheed Martin. The mission is operated and managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Spitzer Science Center, located on the Caltech campus in Pasadena, California.
- IRAC (Infrared Array Camera), an infrared camera which operates simultaneously on four wavelengths (3.6 µm, 4.5 µm, 5.8 µm and 8 µm). Each module uses a 256×256-pixel detector—the short wavelength pair use indium antimonide technology, the long wavelength pair use arsenic-doped silicon impurity band conduction technology. The two shorter wavelength bands (3.6 µm & 4.5 µm) for this instrument remain productive after LHe depletion in the spring of 2009, at the telescope equilibrium temperature of around 30 K, so IRAC continues to operate as the "Spitzer Warm Mission". The principal investigator is Giovanni Fazio of Harvard University; the flight hardware was built by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
- IRS (Infrared Spectrograph), an infrared spectrometer with four sub-modules which operate at the wavelengths 5.3–14 µm (low resolution), 10–19.5 µm (high resolution), 14–40 µm (low resolution), and 19–37 µm (high resolution). Each module uses a 128×128-pixel detector—the short wavelength pair use arsenic-doped silicon blocked impurity band technology, the long wavelength pair use antimony-doped silicon blocked impurity band technology. The principal investigator is James R. Houck of Cornell University; the flight hardware was built by Ball Aerospace.
- MIPS (Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer), three detector arrays in the far infrared (128 × 128 pixels at 24 µm, 32 × 32 pixels at 70 µm, 2 × 20 pixels at 160 µm). The 24 µm detector is identical to one of the IRS short wavelength modules. The 70 µm detector uses gallium-doped germanium technology, and the 160 µm detector also uses gallium-doped germanium, but with mechanical stress added to each pixel to lower the bandgap and extend sensitivity to this long wavelength. The principal investigator is George H. Rieke of the University of Arizona; the flight hardware was built by Ball Aerospace.
As an example of data from the different instruments, the nebula Henize 206 was imaged in 2004, allowing comparison of images from each device.
The first images taken by SST were designed to show off the abilities of the telescope and showed a glowing stellar nursery; a big swirling, dusty galaxy; a disc of planet-forming debris; and organic material in the distant universe. Since then, many monthly press releases have highlighted Spitzer's capabilities, as the NASA and ESA images do for the Hubble Space Telescope.
As one of its most noteworthy observations, in 2005, SST became the first telescope to directly capture the light from extrasolar planets, namely the "hot Jupiters" HD 209458b and TrES-1. (It did not resolve that light into actual images though.) This was the first time extrasolar planets had actually been visually seen; earlier observations had been indirectly made by drawing conclusions from behaviors of the stars the planets were orbiting. The telescope also discovered in April 2005 that Cohen-kuhi Tau/4 had a planetary disk that was vastly younger and contained less mass than previously theorized, leading to new understandings of how planets are formed.
While some time on the telescope is reserved for participating institutions and crucial projects, astronomers around the world also have the opportunity to submit proposals for observing time. Important targets include forming stars (young stellar objects, or YSOs), planets, and other galaxies. Images are freely available for educational and journalistic purposes.
In 2004, it was reported that Spitzer had spotted a faintly glowing body that may be the youngest star ever seen. The telescope was trained on a core of gas and dust known as L1014 which had previously appeared completely dark to ground-based observatories and to ISO (Infrared Space Observatory), a predecessor to Spitzer. The advanced technology of Spitzer revealed a bright red hot spot in the middle of L1014.
Scientists from the University of Texas at Austin, who discovered the object, believe the hot spot to be an example of early star development, with the young star collecting gas and dust from the cloud around it. Early speculation about the hot spot was that it might have been the faint light of another core that lies 10 times further from Earth but along the same line of sight as L1014. Follow-up observation from ground-based near-infrared observatories detected a faint fan-shaped glow in the same location as the object found by Spitzer. That glow is too feeble to have come from the more distant core, leading to the conclusion that the object is located within L1014. (Young et al., 2004)
In 2005, astronomers from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Whitewater determined, on the basis of 400 hours of observation on the Spitzer Space Telescope, that the Milky Way Galaxy has a more substantial bar structure across its core than previously recognized.
Also in 2005, astronomers Alexander Kashlinsky and John Mather of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center reported that one of Spitzer's earliest images may have captured the light of the first stars in the universe. An image of a quasar in the Draco constellation, intended only to help calibrate the telescope, was found to contain an infrared glow after the light of known objects was removed. Kashlinsky and Mather are convinced that the numerous blobs in this glow are the light of stars that formed as early as 100 million years after the big bang, red shifted by cosmic expansion.
In March 2006, astronomers reported an 80-light-year-long nebula near the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, the Double Helix Nebula, which is, as the name implies, twisted into a double spiral shape. This is thought to be evidence of massive magnetic fields generated by the gas disc orbiting the supermassive black hole at the galaxy's center, 300 light years from the nebula and 25,000 light years from Earth. This nebula was discovered by the Spitzer Space Telescope, and published in the magazine Nature on March 16, 2006.
In May 2007, astronomers successfully mapped the atmospheric temperature of HD 189733 b, thus obtaining the first map of some kind of an extrasolar planet.
Since September 2006 the telescope participates in a series of surveys called the Gould Belt Survey, observing the Gould's Belt region in multiple wavelengths. The first set of observations by the Spitzer Space Telescope were completed from September 21, 2006 through September 27. Resulting from these observations, the team of astronomers led by Dr. Robert Gutermuth, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics reported the discovery of Serpens South, a cluster of 50 young stars in the Serpens constellation.
Scientists have long wondered how tiny silicate crystals, which need high temperatures to form, have found their way into frozen comets, born in the very cold environment of the Solar System's outer edges. The crystals would have begun as non-crystallized, amorphous silicate particles, part of the mix of gas and dust from which the Solar System developed. This mystery has deepened with the results of the Stardust (spacecraft) sample return mission, which captured particles from Comet Wild 2. Many of the Stardust (spacecraft) particles were found to have formed at temperatures in excess of 1000 K.
In May 2009, Spitzer researchers from Germany, Hungary and the Netherlands found that amorphous silicate appears to have been transformed into crystalline form by an outburst from a star. They detected the infrared signature of forsterite silicate crystals on the disk of dust and gas surrounding the star EX Lupi during one of its frequent flare-ups, or outbursts, seen by Spitzer in April 2008. These crystals were not present in Spitzer's previous observations of the star's disk during one of its quiet periods. These crystals appear to have formed by radiative heating of the dust within 0.5 AU of EX Lupi.
In August 2009, the telescope found evidence of a high-speed collision between two burgeoning planets orbiting a young star.
In October 2009, astronomers Anne J. Verbiscer, Michael F. Skrutskie, and Douglas P. Hamilton published findings of the "Phoebe ring" of Saturn, which was found with the telescope; the ring is a huge, tenuous disc of material extending from 128 to 207 times the radius of Saturn.
Spitzer observations, announced in May 2011, indicate that tiny forsterite crystals might be falling down like rain on to the protostar HOPS-68. The discovery of the forsterite crystals in the outer collapsing cloud of the proto-star is surprising, because the crystals form at lava-like high temperatures, yet they are found in the molecular cloud where the temperatures are about minus 170 degrees Celsius. This led the team of astronomers to speculate that the bipolar outflow from the young star may be transporting the forsterite crystals from near the star's surface to the chilly outer cloud.
In January 2012, it was reported that further analysis of the Spitzer observations of Ex Lupi can be understood if the forsterite crystalline dust was moving away from the protostar at a remarkable average speed of 38 kilometres per second. It would appear that such high speeds can only arise if the dust grains had been ejected by a bipolar outflow close to the star. Such observations are consistent with an astrophysical theory, developed in the early 1990s, where it was suggested that bipolar outflows garden or transform the disks of gas and dust that surround protostars by continually ejecting reprocessed, highly heated material from the inner disk, adjacent to the protostar, to regions of the accretion disk further away from the protostar.
GLIMPSE and MIPSGAL surveys
GLIMPSE, the Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire, is a survey spanning 300° of the inner Milky Way galaxy. It consists of approximately 444,000 images taken at four separate wavelengths using the Infrared Array Camera.
MIPSGAL is a similar survey covering 278° of the galactic disk at longer wavelengths.
On June 3, 2008, scientists unveiled the largest, most detailed infra-red portrait of the Milky Way, created by stitching together more than 800,000 snapshots, at the 212th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in St. Louis, Missouri. This composite survey is now viewable with the GLIMPSE/MIPSGAL Viewer.
Artificial color image of the Double Helix Nebula, thought to be generated at the galactic center by magnetic torsion 1000 times greater than the sun's.
A cluster of new stars forming in the Serpens South cloud
- Spitzer Space Telescope (2008). "About Spitzer: Fast Facts". NASA / JPL. Archived from the original on 2007-02-02. Retrieved 2007-04-22.
- Spitzer Space Telescope. "Spitzer Technology: Telescope". NASA / JPL. Archived from the original on 2007-02-24. Retrieved 2007-04-22.
- Spitzer Science Center. "Cycle-6 Warm Mission". NASA / JPL. Retrieved 2009-09-16.
- "Who was Lyman Spitzer?". Nasa: For Educators. California Institute of Technology and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 11 March 2004. Retrieved 6 January 2009.
- "Up close and personal". Physics World (Institute of Physics). 2 March 2009. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
- Please refer to Hubble Space Telescope.
- Hubble vision: further adventures with the Hubble Space Telescope. CUP Archive. 1998. p. 193. ISBN 0-521-59291-7.
- Zimmerman, Robert (2008). The universe in a mirror: the saga of the Hubble Telescope and the visionaries who built it. Princeton University Press. p. 10. ISBN 0-691-13297-6.
- William Harwood (December 18, 2003). "First images from Spitzer Space Telescope unveiled". Spaceflight Now. Retrieved 2008-08-23.
- Watanabe, Susan (2007-11-22). "Studying the Universe in Infrared". NASA. Retrieved 2007-12-08.
- Kwok, Johnny (Fall 2006). "Finding a Way: The Spitzer Space Telescope Story". Academy Sharing Knowledge. NASA. Archived from the original on 2007-09-08. Retrieved 2007-12-09.
- Spitzer Science Center Home Page -- Public information.
- SSC Observatory general information page, 4 Oct 2009.
- SSC Observatory Overview, 4 Oct 2009.
- SSC Science Information home page, 4 Oct 2009.
- Spitzer Observers' Manual, reference for technical instrument information, Ver 8, 15 Aug 2008.
- SSC IRAC (Mid IR camera) science users information page, 4 Oct 2009.
- SSC IRS (spectrometer) science users' information page, 4 Oct 2009.
- SSC MIPS (long wavelength 24um, 70um, & 160um) imaging photometer and spectrometer science users' information page, 4 Oct 2009.
- Press Release: NASA's Spitzer Marks Beginning of New Age of Planetary Science.
- Infrared Glow of First Stars Found: Scientific American.
- JPL News | Spitzer Catches Star Cooking Up Comet Crystals
- Ábrahám et al. (published online May 14, 2009). "Episodic formation of cometary material in the outburst of a young Sun-like star". Nature 459 (7244): 224–226. arXiv:0906.3161. Bibcode:2009Natur.459..224A. doi:10.1038/nature08004.
- BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Traces of planet collision found
- Verbiscer, Anne; Michael Skrutskie, Douglas Hamilton (published online October 7, 2009). "Saturn's largest ring". Nature 461 (7267): 1098–100. Bibcode:2009Natur.461.1098V. doi:10.1038/nature08515. PMID 19812546.
- NASA Mission News | Spitzer Sees Crystal Rain in Infant Star Outer Clouds
- Poteet, C. A., et al. (published online June, 2011). "A Spitzer Infrared Spectrograph Detection of Crystalline Silicates in a Protostellar Envelope". The Astrophysical Journal Letters 733 (2): L32. arXiv:1104.4498. Bibcode:2011ApJ...733L..32P. doi:10.1088/2041-8205/733/2/L32.
- Juhász, A., et al. (published online January, 2012). "The 2008 Outburst of EX Lup—Silicate Crystals in Motion". The Astrophysical Journal 744 (2): 118. arXiv:1110.3754. Bibcode:2012ApJ...744..118J. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/744/2/118.
- Liffman K. and Brown M. (published online October, 1995). "The motion and size sorting of particles ejected from a protostellar accretion disk". Icarus 116 (2): 275–290. Bibcode:1995Icar..116..275L. doi:10.1006/icar.1995.1126.
- Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire, University of Wisconsin–Madison Department of Astronomy
- Press Release: Spitzer Captures Stellar Coming of Age in Our Galaxy
- Released Images and Videos of Milky Way Mosaic
- GLIMPSE/MIPSGAL Viewer
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Spitzer space telescope|
- Spitzer Space Telescope official site
- Spitzer Space Telescope Profile by NASA's Solar System Exploration
- Spitzer images
- Spitzer newsroom
- Spitzer podcasts
- Spitzer video podcasts
- Simulation of Spitzer's orbit
- Zoomable version of the GLIMPSE/MIPSGAL surveys
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By: Brian Montopoli, CBS Political News
President Obama won the popular presidential vote in November by slightly less than five million votes: The president received about 65.9 million votes to Mitt Romney's 60.9 million. Of course, it's not the popular vote that matters, as 2000 popular vote winner Al Gore could tell you. It's electoral votes that decide who becomes president.
Mr. Obama's electoral vote victory was actually significantly larger than his 3.9 percentage point popular vote advantage: He took 332 electoral votes to 206 for Romney. Why the disparity? In part because of the way electoral votes are allocated. Most states allocate their electoral votes based on who wins the popular vote: Even though Mr. Obama only won Florida narrowly in November, for instance, he got all 29 of its electoral votes.
There are two states that do things differently. In Nebraska and Maine, electoral votes are allocated based on who wins each congressional district. That means that the winner of the statewide popular vote doesn't necessarily get all of a state's electoral votes - or even the majority of them.
The allocation system used by Nebraska and Maine has never been seen as a big deal, because neither state plays a very big role in deciding the president. (Between them, they only controlled nine electoral votes in 2012.) But a push by Republicans in some crucial swing states to adopt the system used in those two small states has Democrats accusing the GOP of effectively plotting to steal the next presidential election.
Republican lawmakers in at least five big states that went to Mr. Obama in November have floated measures to allocate electoral votes based on the outcome in congressional districts: Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. In Virginia, a bill to shift to such a system goes to a state senate committee on Tuesday. State Sen. Charles W. Carrico Sr., who sponsored the bill, told the Washington Post that it would mean that smaller, non-urban communities would have more say in the presidential election. "The last election, constituents were concerned that it didn't matter what they did, that more densely populated areas were going to outvote them," he said. (In Carrico's bill, the state's two at-large electors would go to whoever wins the most congressional districts.)
Mr. Obama won four districts in Virginia in 2012. Romney won seven. Under Carrico's plan, Romney would have taken nine of Virginia's 13 electoral votes, while Mr. Obama would have taken just four - despite winning the statewide vote by almost 150,000 votes. This is due in large part to the fact that Romney won most of his districts relatively narrowly - he took more than 60 percent of the vote in just one of them - while Mr. Obama won his districts by large margin, taking at least 60 percent of the vote in three of his four districts.
"It's sore losers, it's a sore losers bill," said Virginia Democratic state senator and former gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds. "We're going to do everything we can to defeat it."
Emory University political science professor Alan Abramowitz, who considers the Carrico proposal and those like it to be "profoundly undemocratic" because it skews election results toward the party that has drawn gerrymandered congressional districts, found that if all states had allocated electoral votes in 2012 by congressional district, Romney would have taken 276 electoral votes (and with them the presidency) to Mr. Obama's 262 electoral votes. That's despite Mr. Obama's nearly 5 million vote advantage in the popular vote. (Abramowitz' calculation was based on the notion that the two at-large electors would go to the statewide popular vote winner, not whoever won the most congressional districts.)
According to Abramowitz, Romney would have won 12 out of 18 electoral votes in Ohio, nine out of 16 electoral votes in Michigan, 12 out of 20 electoral votes in Pennsylvania, and five out of 10 electoral votes in Wisconsin - despite losing all four states, in some cases by large margins. (Because of incomplete data, he had to estimate from previous data in some Pennsylvania districts.)
It's no coincidence that the states where Republicans are pushing proposals to shift to allocation based on congressional districts were all won by Mr. Obama in November - but are controlled by Republicans on a statewide level. Reince Priebus, the newly reelected chair of the Republican National Committee, said Friday that while such efforts are a "state issue," he is "pretty intrigued by it" and believes "in some cases they should look at it." In Michigan, Rep. Pete Lund, a Republican who plans to introduce a bill soon, told the Detroit News that it would make the system "more representative of the people -- closer to the actual vote." Lund, who introduced a similar measure last year, added that part of the reason it did not get traction lat time is that there "were people convinced Romney was going to win and this might take (electoral) votes from him."
Click on CBS News to read full story | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45020000 |
06 August 2012
With its high poverty levels and low degree of industrialization, Africa arguably faces the largest development gap of any region. Beyond the usual misery indices and welfare evaluation metrics, we have fundamental challenges that impede meaningful sustainable development. Energy is an incontrovertible challenge across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).
Data from the World Bank and International Energy Agency (IEA) on energy poverty does not make for good visuals. Two out of three of SSA households—585 million people—live without electricity. In stark contrast, 99 percent of North African households have electricity supply. Only 14 percent of rural SSA households are linked to the grid. This compares unfavorably with Latin America where 74 percent of rural households are connected to power. The figures mask a more disturbing fact about electricity supply in most SSA countries: a high frequency of blackouts and unstable power supply. The World Bank estimates that SSA households experienced 91 days of blackouts in 2007.
Beyond low electrification, energy poverty extends into inefficient and perilous forms of domestic energy for cooking attributable to a lack of modern fuels and clean cookers. According to IEA reports, more than 80% of SSA households—653 million people—use biomass for cooking, with devastating consequences for people and the environment. In 2009, more than 1.45 million African lives were lost to household pollution caused by inefficient biomass cooking stoves. Fewer people died from malaria.
Business and Household Implications
The most inimical constraints faced by SSA businesses and households revolve around inadequate social infrastructure: electricity, water, communication services, security and transportation. Whereas businesses and households on other continents have come to take these services for granted, for African economic units, they remain prohibitively expensive, inadequate and, in some areas, unavailable.
As a rule, most businesses in my native Nigeria provide a large portion of their own utility services—sometimes pooling with others, but often solo—with dramatic implications for business viability. If you conflate these “extraneous” costs with extant country-specific costs, then the threshold for business viability escalates to deleterious levels.
To illustrate this phenomenon, let’s consider a glass manufacturer I helped raise capital for a few years ago. For confidentiality reasons, let me label it company X. The company, located near a port city in Nigeria, had as primary competitors two ailing local manufacturers and low-cost exporters from South East Asia. On paper, company X should have been very competitive given its seaport location, locally abundant primary raw materials, low real interest rates, and proximity to the domestic market. In reality, its products were uncompetitive with imported products.
Glass manufacturing requires blasting a furnace round the clock, every day of the week. Shutting the furnace abruptly or too quickly could result in very expensive damage. It also requires copious amounts of water for cooling. Since the public grid is epileptic, fluctuates when available and was believed destructive for sensitive equipment, Company X built its own electricity generation capacity. Two plants—each with 150 percent of the required capacity—ran in sequence as the primary energy source. The public grid served as back-up power for none-core equipment. The company also installed a large fuel storage tank and maintained a three-week fuel reserve as a necessary buffer against perennial fuel shortage. The story continues. Company X built a borehole, water treatment, and distribution equipment for the factory. It also required certain industrial chemicals as additives in the production process. These chemicals cost roughly the same in South East Asia, however, shipping costs (in 2010 Nigeria had the second-highest shipping insurance costs on earth) and an obtuse clearing process at the port, spiked the costs. In the final analysis, Company X’s products cost significantly more than its foreign competitors in the domestic market without an appreciable quality advantage. Without tariff protection, its performance outcomes fell below projections.
The Energy Challenge
A similar narrative exists with small businesses and households. These economic units face challenges in energy supply, potable water, transportation, and—in urban areas—security. While the more affluent households have power generators, boreholes, and private security arrangements, poorer households—which happen to comprise the majority—live with dilapidated public utilities or pre-modern forms of energy supply. Increasingly available mobile communications, Internet access, and school enrollment, convolve to increase the need for domestic energy. Today, more than one in two Africans owns a cell phone (ITU data 2011) and the attendant energy requirement for charging handsets. In a similar vein, more than two of three children are enrolled in school and often need lighting to read at night. There are also a multitude of public and private projects across the region that aim to increase computer usage, ownership and Internet access. Increasing urbanization, high urban poverty levels, urban congestion, scarcity and cost of modern fuels have deepened the energy challenge households face for cooking.
Middle-income households and small businesses have either adapted through a bewildering array of sub-optimal solutions or avoided certain modern necessities entirely.
Energy and the Environment
There is a temptation to accept the notion that low environmental standards are permissible for countries at a lower stage of development. Some emerging market nations—notably China—have argued for exemption from environment protection requirements applicable to OECD nations. Their contention is premised on (i) equity and (ii) development necessity. The equity argument is philosophical at its core. In this paradigm, wealthy industrialized nations produced the preponderance of historic pollution, either in absolute terms or on a per capita basis. Wealthier nations should therefore bear a proportional portion of emission reduction. Development necessity is a more tenuous argument, given the state of technology today. It is difficult to subscribe to the nation that large-scale development is incompatible with rigorous environmental standards. I believe the following ingredients can catalyze environmentally friendly development: intelligent engineering and design; sound public policy; pragmatic regulatory frameworks; and, stakeholder education.
Domestic Energy Solutions
Decades of planning, international conventions, and development aid have failed to resolve the energy challenge for SSA. If we borrow a leaf from the telecommunications industry, growth and access to communications occurred when the public sector relegated its role to mostly regulation and opened up the industry to private business. Furthermore, technology enhanced the scalability and unit cost of mobile telephony to overcome constrains earlier faced by fixed telephony infrastructure.
Today, scientists have made significant advancements in affordable and clean domestic energy solutions. American researchers continue to create ingenious designs that use a diverse range of energy sources—solar, biomass, fossil fuels, chemicals, and hydro—that can provide domestic energy at affordable costs. The challenge is commercializing these ideas by providing manufacturing scale, distribution, and logistics competence.
The prospective market is huge. At Viridis Energy, we project 180 to 300 million SSA consumers can purchase capital products that will provide domestic lighting, low electricity and cooking needs. Our vision is to provide affordable, clean retail energy solutions to SSA households and small businesses. We are currently building a pipeline of partnerships with innovative individuals and institutions to provide retail energy solutions. We have commenced relationships with researchers, industrial designers and an academic institution with a view to bringing two innovative retail products to market by first quarter 2013. Our criteria for product development qualification are simple: A product concept must be affordable, environmentally neutral and easy to transport. We are currently building distribution, support and marketing channels in Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya.
We are optimistic that private sector involvement in investment, and healthy policy contestation and collaboration with governments and non-profits, would secure energy supply without worsening climate change. Market-driven measures can improve lighting, access to power, clean cooking facilities and ultimately lead to a massive reduction in energy poverty.
Matthias Chika Mordi spent over two decades in the finance industry across Africa where he led and co-led the turnaround of three ailing financial institutions. The most notable one is United Bank for Africa PLC, now one of Africa’s largest banking groups.
This article was originally published in the July/August edition of the Diplomatic Courier. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45021000 |
Library Collections: Document: Item Description
Helen Keller's Big Audience
This was Helen Keller day at the fair, and when she arrived at the Hall of Congresses, where the exercises were held, the crowd was so dense that every aisle, window, and doorway was filled. Jefferson Guards finally forced a passageway through one of the windows...
|Title:||Helen Keller's Big Audience|
|Date:||October 19, 1904|
|Publication:||The New York Times|
|Source:||Available at selected libraries|
|Keywords:||Anne Sullivan; Blind; Deaf; Deaf-blind; Entertainment, Leisure & Recreation; Helen Keller; Media; Missouri; Sensory Disability; St. Louis, MO; World Fairs| | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45022000 |
Almost 70 million Americans suffer from chronic sleep loss, which translates for adults as getting less than 7 hours each night. New research suggests that not enough sleep leads to weight gain and even obesity. In one study, sleep-deprived folks appeared to burn the same number of calories as people who were well-rested, but they consumed about 300 more calories each day, which can add up to 30 extra pounds a year.
Dr. Michael Breus, author of The Sleep Doctor’s Diet Plan, supports the theory of sleep loss being the missing link in understanding America’s obesity epidemic. Lack of sleep slows your metabolism and raises your level of cortisol, the stress hormone that increases food cravings for both high-fat and high-carb items such as packaged snack foods. You end up craving fatty and starchy edibles because they release serotonin, the feel-good hormone, which you seek out to help your system calm down. Plus, more cortisol is tied to insulin resistance, a risk factor for both diabetes and obesity.
People who lack sleep also produce more of the hormone ghrelin, which increases hunger, and less of the hormone leptin, which helps put the brakes on overeating. Lastly, those who are not getting at least 7 hours of shuteye every night are losing precious REM sleep, that deep, restful stage where you burn the most calories.
In sum, lack of sleep can undermine even the most dedicated dieter. But here’s the good news: Increasing your sleep by just 1 hour a night – from 7 to 8 hours – can actually help you lose up to 14 pounds a year. All you have to do is follow this easy 4-step plan. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45028000 |
Scientists in Oregon have created embryos with genes from one man and two women, using a provocative technique that could someday be used to prevent babies from inheriting certain rare incurable diseases.
The researchers at Oregon Health & Sciences University said they are not using the embryos to produce children, and it is not clear when or even if this technique will be put to use. But it has already stirred a debate over its risks and ethics in Britain, where scientists did similar work a few years ago.
The genes they want to replace aren't the kind most people think of, which are found in the nucleus of cells and influence traits such as eye color and height. Rather, these genes reside outside the nucleus in energy-producing structures called mitochondria. These genes are passed along only by mothers, not fathers.
About 1 in every 5,000 children inherits a disease caused by defective mitochondrial genes. The defects can cause many rare diseases with a host of symptoms, including strokes, epilepsy, dementia, blindness, deafness, kidney failure and heart disease. The new technique, if approved someday for routine use, would allow a woman to give birth to a baby who inherits her nucleus DNA but not her mitochondrial DNA. Here's how it would work:
Doctors would need unfertilized eggs from the patient and a healthy donor. They would remove the nucleus DNA from the donor eggs and replace it with nucleus DNA from the patient's eggs. So, they would end up with eggs that have the prospective mother's nucleus DNA, but the donor's healthy mitochondrial DNA.
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. (Psalm 139:13-16)Because of the Fall, some children are born with illness, just as, because of the Fall, some men and women suffer illness in their later years. Because of the Fall, some children may even be the product of horrific circumstances, but this does not make them any less of a creation of God. This does not make them unworthy of life.
Earlier this week, controversy arose when Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock stated that when a woman becomes pregnant during a rape "that's something God intended." It is impossible to not acknowledge the fact that Mourdock terrifically garbled his words in this instance. As Al Mohler stated, "The cause of defending the unborn is harmed when the argument for that defense is expressed badly and recklessly, and Mourdock’s answer was both reckless and catastrophically incomplete." Nevertheless, even some liberal media realized that, taken in context, Mourdock did not in any way intend to condone rape, but rather was affirming that all life, even when created in tragedy, is intentionally created by God.
Mourdock clarified his intended meaning and later said,
"I think that God can see beauty in every life," Mourdock said. "Certainly, I did not intend to suggest that God wants rape, that God pushes people to rape, that God wants to support or condone evil in any way." (Source)Of course, what this man intended to say was that, in spite of the atrocious and tragic circumstances by which a child of rape is brought into this world, it nevertheless is still a human child. That child cannot help how it was conceived, and it does not deserve to be punished with death for the sins of its father.
When we read the above verses from Psalm 139, we can almost see in our mind's eye the delicate manner in which our Lord created each precious child. And yet we as a nation do not even flinch at the idea of instantly and violently ripping that life away before it even has a chance to open its eyes in this fallen, yet still beautiful world.
When we read those verses, we cannot help but gasp in utter awe and wonder at the perfect design wrought by God as He brings together the genes of one man and one woman. Yet now we are willing to push God aside, take the reigns ourselves, and attempt to do better.
God, forgive us for our prideful, idolatrous, self-elevating aspirations. We are not You. Forgive us for thinking that we are.
Professing Christian Obstetrician Explains "Why I Perform Abortions"
Repentance and Faith: The Two Cannot Be Separate | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45031000 |
List of Threatened Species
Threatened Species Lists A-Z
Threatened Live Bearing Seastar
(Patiriella vivipara). Photo: S Bryant
Species listed under Tasmanian Threatened Species Protection Act 1995
Process for Listing Threatened Species
Threatened Flora within Catchments and Local Government Areas
Threatened Species Protection Act 1995. As nominations are being received all the time, the species or their status may have already changed. Where available, these lists contain links to listing statements and recovery plans.
More than 600 species of plant and animal are currently threatened in Tasmania and are listed on the Schedules of the Threatened Species Protection Act 1995.
Threatened species are classified into three levels in Tasmania to reflect their risk of extinction. These are endangered, vulnerable or rare. Definitions of these terms are outlined in our What These Terms Mean web page.
More information on Tasmania's approach to conserving Tasmania's threatened species can be obtained from the Threatened Species Strategy.
above. For similar information on threatened fauna species, see the Threatened Fauna Handbook.
Contact: Threatened Species Section - EnquiriesThreatened Species Section
3rd floor, 134 Macquarie Street
(GPO Box 44 Hobart 7001)
HOBART TAS 7000
Phone: 03 6233 8759
Fax: 03 6233 3477
Department switchboard: 1300 368 550 (local call cost within Australia)
Tasmania Online | Service Tasmania
This page - http://www.dpipwe.tas.gov.au/inter.nsf/WebPages/SJON-58E2VD?open - was last published on 11 June 2013 by the Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment. Questions concerning its content can be sent to Internet Coordinator by using the feedback form, by mail to GPO Box 44, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia 7001, or by telephone.
Please read our disclaimer and copyright statements governing the information we provide on this site.
A text version of this page is also available. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45039000 |
About the Main Monument
When was it dedicated? Sept. 14, 1887.
What is it made out of? Sculpture: Amherst, Ohio silver grey sandstone; Base: Amherst, Ohio silver grey sandstone.
What size is it? Sculpture: approx. 12 ft. 4 in. x 3 ft. 1 in. x 3 ft. 1 in.; Base: approx. W. 6 ft. x D. 6 ft.
Who made it? King, R. R., sculptor. Karkadoulias Bronze Art, founder.
What does it depict? Sculpture consists on a shaft on a two-tiered base. On the front face of the shaft is a uniformed soldier crouching behind a stone fence. He is firing his rifle and is kneeling on his proper right knee. The 11th Corps crescent appears at the top front. This is the site’s only sandstone monument and the only Ohio monument built with Ohio materials. Unfortunately, the soft stone does not weather well like harder stones such as granite and the monument is actually slowly melting away under the elements. Little can be done to correct this problem
What does it honor? It marks the location where the 55th Ohio held the ground that the 1st and 11th Corps retreated to on July 1, 1863. The 55th Ohio maintained its position through July 2 & 3.
How is it inscribed? 55TH/OHIO INFANTRY/ARRIVED AT 2:20 P.M. JULY 1, IN/THIS POSITION WHICH IT HELD/THROUGHOUT THE BATTLE/WITH SEVERE LOSS./ITS SKIRMISHERS DROVE BACK/THOSE OF THE ENEMY/AND SEIZED A BARN BETWEEN/THE LINES,/WHERE 12 OF ITS MEN WERE SURROUNDED AND CAPTURED BY/THE ENEMY’S MAIN LINE./CASUALTIES/6 KILLED. 31 WOUNDED./12 MISSING.
When was this photograph taken? August 26, 2011.
Where is it located? Located Gettysburg National Military Park, East junction of Taneytown Road, Steinwehr Avenue, and Washington Street, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania 17325. Monument is located East side of the Taneytown Road at its junction with Steinwehr Avenue and Washington Street.
Is this monument located along the NPS Auto Tour route? No.
Has this monument been moved or changed? This monument has not been moved. New bronze inscription plaques were added in April 1989 by Karkadoulias Bronze Art.
Commander: Col. Charles B. Gambee (1827-1864)
Number Engaged: 375
Casualties: 6 killed, 31 wounded, 12 missing
Soldiers Buried in the Ohio Plot of the Gettysburg National Cemetery:
- Pvt. Haskell E. Farr, Company G, E-6
- Pvt. Ozias C. Ford, Company A, B-8
- Pvt. Joseph Klinegelter, Company F, A-27
- Pvt. Jacob Mitchell, Company C, C-13
- Pvt. John R. Myer, Company C, B-5
- Pvt. Henry Opher, Jr., Company E, B-3
- Pvt. William E. Pollock, Company C, C-15
Medal of Honor Winners: STACEY, CHARLES. Rank and organization: Private, Company D, 55th Ohio Infantry. Place and date: At Gettysburg, Pa., 2 July 1863. Entered service at: ——. Birth: England. Date of issue: 23 June 1896. Citation: Voluntarily took an advanced position on the skirmish line for the purpose of ascertaining the location of Confederate sharpshooters, and under heavy fire held the position thus taken until the company of which he was a member went back to the main line.
Raised: Erie, Huron, Sandusky, Seneca, and Wyandot counties.
Regimental History ~ Dyer’s Compendium of the War of the Rebellion:
Organized at Norwalk, Ohio, September to December, 1861. Mustered in January 25, 1862. Ordered to Grafton, W. Va., January 25. Attached to Schenck’s Brigade, Railroad District, West Virginia, to March, 1862. Railroad District, Dept. of the Mountains, to April, 1862. Schenck’s Brigade, Dept. of the Mountains, to June, 1862. 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, 1st Corps, Pope’s Army of Virginia, to September, 1862. 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, 11th Army Corps, Army of the Potomac, to May, 1863. 2nd Brigade, 2nd Division, 11th Army Corps, Army of the Potomac, to October, 1863, and Army of the Cumberland, to April, 1864. 3rd Brigade, 3rd Division, 20th Army Corps, Army of the Cumberland and Army of Georgia, to July, 1865.
SERVICE.–Moved from Grafton to New Creek, W. Va., February 3, 1862. Expedition to Romney February 6. Expedition to Moorefield February 12-16. Action at Moorefield February 12. Moved to Grafton February 19, and duty there until March 31. Moved to Green Spring River March 31, thence to Romney April 10. Ordered to Join Milroy at Monterey. Battle of McDowell May 8. March to the Shenandoah Valley May 26-29. Near Franklin May 26. Harrisonburg June 6. Battle of Cross Keys June 8. At Middletown until July 7, and at Sperryville until August 8. Reconnaissance to Madison Court House July 16-19. Battle of Cedar Mountain August 9 (Reserve). Slaughter Mountain August 10. Pope’s Campaign in Northern Virginia August 16-September 2. Catlett’s Station August 22. Battles of Bull Run August 28-30. Duty in the Defenses of Washington, D.C., until December. Reconnaissance to Bristoe Station and Warrenton Junction September 25-28. Moved to Fredericksburg December 12-16. “Mud March” January 20-24, 1863. At Falmouth until April. Chancellorsville Campaign April 27-May 6. Battle of Chancellorsville May 1-5. Gettysburg (Pa.) Campaign June 11-July 24. Battle of Gettysburg July 1-3. Pursuit of Lee July 5-24. At Catlett’s Station, Va., July 25 to September 24. Movement to Bridgeport, Ala., September 24-October 3. Reopening Tennessee River October 26-29. Battle of Wauhatchie, Tenn., October 28-29. Chattanooga-Ringgold Campaign November 23-27. Orchard Knob November 23. Tunnel Hill November 24-25. Mission Ridge November 25. March to relief of Knoxville, Tenn., November 28-December 17. Duty in Lookout Valley until May, 1864. Atlanta (Ga.) Campaign May 1 to September 8. Demonstrations on Rocky Faced Ridge May 8-11. Buzzard’s Roost Gap May 8-9. Battle of Resaca May 14-15. Cassville May 19. Advance on Dallas May 22-25. Action at New Hope Church May 25. Operations on line of Pumpkin Vine Creek and battles about Dallas, New Hope Church and Allatoona Hills May 26-June 5. Operations about Marietta and against Kenesaw Mountain June 10-July 2. Pine Hill June 11-14. Lost Mountain June 15-17. Gilgal or Golgotha Church June 15. Muddy Creek June 17. Noyes Creek June 19. Cassville June 20. Kolb’s Farm June 22. Assault on Kenesaw June 27. Ruffs Station July 4. Chattahoochie River July 5-17. Peach Tree Creek July 19-20. Siege of Atlanta July 22-August 25. Operations at Chattahoochie River Bridge August 26-September 2. Farmer’s Ferry August 27. Occupation of Atlanta September 2 to November 15. March to the sea November 15-December 10. Siege of Savannah December 10-21. Campaign of the Carolinas January to April, 1865. Lawtonville, S.C., February 2. North Edisto River February 12-13. Reconnaissance on Goldsboro Road, near Fayetteville, N. C., March 14. Taylor’s Hole Creek, Aversyboro, March 16. Battle of Bentonville March 19-21. Occupation of Goldsboro March 24. Advance on Raleigh April 10-14. Occupation of Raleigh April 14. Bennett’s House April 26. Surrender of Johnston and his army. March to Washington, D.C., via Richmond, Va., April 29-May 19. Grand Review May 24. Moved to Louisville, Ky., June 10, and duty there until July. Mustered out July 11, 1865. Regiment lost during service 7 Officers and 136 Enlisted men killed and mortally wounded and 119 Enlisted men by disease. Total 262.
Ohio at Gettysburg
4th Infantry :: 5th Infantry :: 7th Infantry :: 8th Infantry :: 25th Infantry :: 29th Infantry :: 55th Infantry :: 61st Infantry :: 66th Infantry :: 73rd Infantry :: 75th Infantry :: 82nd Infantry :: 107th Infantry :: 1st Cavalry :: 6th Cavalry :: 1st Artillery H :: 1st Artillery I :: 1st Artillery K :: 1st Artillery L | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45045000 |
High Blood Pressure (Hypertension)
Learn about simple tests that assess you risk of having a heart attack or stroke?
Blood pressure is the pressure of the blood against the walls of the arteries. Blood pressure results from two forces. The heart creates one force as it pumps blood into the arteries and through the circulatory system. The other is the force of the arteries as they resist the blood flow. The higher, systolic number represents the pressure while the heart contracts to pump blood to the body. The lower, diastolic number represents the pressure when the heart relaxes between beats.
The systolic pressure is always stated first and the diastolic pressure second. For example: 118/76 (118 over 76); systolic = 118, diastolic = 76. According to the American Heart Association, blood pressure below 120 over 80 mmHg (millimeters of mercury) is considered ideal for adults. A systolic pressure of 120 to 139 mmHg or a diastolic pressure of 80 to 89 mmHg is considered "pre–hypertension" and needs to be watched carefully. A blood pressure reading of 140 over 90 or higher is considered elevated or high. High blood pressure usually has no symptoms. In fact, many people have high blood pressure for years without knowing it. That's why it's called the "silent killer." Hypertension is the medical term for high blood pressure. It doesn't refer to being tense, nervous or hyperactive. You can be a calm, relaxed person and still have high blood pressure.
The only way to find out if you have high blood pressure is to have your blood pressure checked. Your doctor or other qualified health professional should check your blood pressure at least once every two years, or more often as necessary. A single elevated blood pressure reading doesn't mean you have high blood pressure, but it's a sign that further observation is required.
How can I tell if I have high blood pressure and what is truly normal?
High blood pressure or hypertension is the most common medical diagnosis in the United States with 35 million office visits occurring each year. Current treatments to control our nation’s elevated blood pressure leave a lot to be desired. Most people still have less than ideal blood pressure in spite of medication use.
High blood pressure is not the consequence of aging. It is the result of the Standard American Diet (SAD) utilized by most developed countries in the world today. Rich in processed foods, salt and saturated fat animal products, over many years, takes a toll. As a result, our blood vessels age, stiffen and lose their elasticity.
Truly "normal" blood pressure readings should remain below 115 over 75. A recently published meta-analysis pooling the results of 61 studies demonstrated that for every incremental increase of 20 mg of systolic blood pressure above 115, heart attack death rates doubled. High blood pressure is also associated with an increased risk of heart failure, kidney failure and strokes (CVA – cerebral vascular accidents). It also predisposes to dementia and heart arrhythmias.
You may have been told in the past that, if your blood pressure is below 140/90, it is normal. Unfortunately, this is not true. It is average for those above the age of 60, but certainly not normal. Being average in America means you are heavily diseased. Over 90 percent of adult Americans who die in car accidents show atherosclerosis in their coronary arteries on autopsy. The unfortunate reality is that if you eat the Standard American Diet you will have a 90 percent chance of developing high blood pressure when you get older. You cannot escape from the biological law of cause and effect.
The Standard American Diet is simply heart attack and stroke causing. The only reason the 140 over 90 figures had been used in the past is that it represents the midpoint of blood pressure readings of Americans older than sixty. The risk for strokes and heart attacks starts climbing at 115/75.
Nevertheless, you can make a decision not to have high blood pressure and not to have a heart attack or a stroke. You must educate yourself with life-saving information that, when put into action, can prevent the possibility of a heart attack or stroke. This is the purpose of the information here on this site and in my book, Eat To Live. I am hoping to develop a huge army of heart attack-proof and stroke–proof individuals.
Primitive populations that did not salt their food demonstrate child–like blood pressure readings in their elderly. In societies where we do not see high rates of heart disease and strokes, we do not see blood pressure increase with age. In rural China the healthy elderly had the same low blood pressure readings as they did when they were children.
Almost all Americans have blood pressure readings that are unacceptably high. At a minimum, we should consider blood pressure higher than 120/80 abnormal. With nutritional excellence, which includes salt restriction, we have the opportunity to add many quality years to our lives and free ourselves from the fear of these potentially deadly diseases.
The majority of elderly Americans develop high blood pressure. The years of dietary abuse eventually takes its toll. Before long, doctors will inform you that you have high blood pressure and must take medication for the rest of your life. I encourage my patients to do what it takes to normalize their blood pressure so they do not require medication. Prescribing medication for high blood pressure has the effect of a permission slip. Medication has a minimal effect in reducing heart attack occurrence in patients with high blood pressure because it does not remove the underlying problem — predominantly atherosclerosis, which created stiff blood vessels. Medication just treats the symptoms; it does not melt away the diseased plaque lining the vessels.
The biggest problem with medications is that the patients given medication falsely believe they are protected, and they continue to follow the same disease–causing lifestyle that caused the problem to begin with, until the inevitable occurs – their first heart attack or stroke. Maybe, if high blood pressure medications were never invented, doctors would have been forced to teach healthful living and nutritional disease causation to their patients. Patients would then be forced to lower their blood pressure with an unsalted diet of natural foods. Their arteries would gradually lose the risky plaque that predisposes them to create blood clots, and millions of lives could have been saved, but now they have succumbed to death from heart attack and strokes.
Do not expect to receive valuable health advice from your typical doctor. Physicians usually do not disseminate information to reverse disease. They rush through their patient appointments, especially in the current HMO climate, because they are paid so poorly for each visit and are pressured to see as many patients as possible each day. Physicians just write prescriptions to dispense drugs. Drugs offer only a slight benefit, still leaving blood pressure sufferers at relatively high risk. Your physician is likely doing just as poorly as you are and eating just as unhealthily or worse. After following my guidelines in Eat To Live, you could improve your doctor’s health and reduce his or her risk of premature death more than he or she could help yours. Even when physicians offer their fullest time and effort, their recommendations are invariably too mild to have a significant benefit.
Patients should be given the clear facts that medications do not have a significant impact on reducing heart attacks, the leading cause of death in people with high blood pressure. In fact, because of their negative effect on lipids and glucose levels, drug treatments such as beta-blockers and diuretics may even increase the risk of heart attacks in some individuals. Some of the side effects of high blood pressure medication are hard to ignore. They include fatigue, headache, swelling, nausea, dizziness and many others. For example, I routinely see patients complaining of sexual dysfunction who are anxious to get off their medication. The main message is that this band-aid approach to high blood pressure is inadequate. For individuals who want to truly protect themselves, they have to look for a comprehensive approach that removes the cause of atherosclerosis and high blood pressure, allowing the body to get well.
Don’t Be A Medical Statistic — Disease–Proof Your Body
Weight loss, high vegetable diets and lots of uncooked fruits and vegetables have all been shown to be effective at reducing blood pressure. With the nutritional interventions I offer my patients, almost all of them are able to normalize their blood pressure and stop taking high blood pressure medication. Most physicians do not offer their patients sufficiently aggressive dietary advice to enable them to improve their condition enough to stop medications. Patients come to me looking to get well and not just trying to cover up their symptoms with medication. Clearly, this advice is not for everyone, but it's for those who want to extend their years of vibrant health and life. My book, Eat To Live, explains my dietary methods that most effectively normalize blood pressure, without using medication.
The difference is that the patient has not merely lowered their blood pressure; they have improved the flow of blood in their vessels by restoring elasticity, removing plaque and restoring a more youthful normalcy to their tissues. Instead of the continuation of a disease, causing diet leading to their premature demise, they have chosen a health, promoting diet leading to disease reversal and health protection.
When I discuss the futility of medical interventions and the superior results obtained with the methods described in Eat To Live with my medical colleagues or even with the esteemed physician-researchers at the medical school that I attended, their typical comment is that very few people will want so restrictive a dietary approach no matter how effective. Whether this is true or not is irrelevant. We must, at least, offer patients the alternatives open to them and to let them make the decision. It is unethical to decide for them paternalistically and withhold evidence of the effectiveness of this natural nutritional approach.
I believe many physicians would be surprised at the large percentage of patients who would choose a natural approach to recover their health rather than resort to continuous drugging and medical interventions. When individuals are educated about the side effects and risks of drugs and how they treat only the symptoms of high blood pressure without addressing the underlying cause, they routinely become very interested in the natural approach. When they find out it is possible to dramatically lower their blood pressure without drugs and prevent a heart attack or stroke from occurring, they want to learn more. I am surprised at the large number of people who are willing to make the necessary dietary modifications, especially when you introduce delicious new recipes that are healthful and show them how delicious healthy eating can be.
Numerous scientific investigations have shown that the following interventions have some degree of effectiveness in lowering blood pressure:
- Weight loss
- Sodium restriction
- Increased potassium intake
- Increased calcium and magnesium intake
- Alcohol restriction
- Caffeine restriction
- Increased fiber intake
- Increased consumption of fruits and vegetables
- Increased physical activity or exercise
Studies have shown controlling sodium intake and weight loss to be effective in reducing blood pressure, even in the elderly. How can you implement these interventions into your lifestyle? It’s easy. To start, first read the dietary guidelines in Eat To Live and you will be on the road to better health.
Nutritional Supplements, Instead Of Drugs
Even though dietary excellence is the foundation of care for those with high blood pressure, after a lifetime of eating the Standard American Diet, dietary modification may not result in sufficient protection in the short run. We want to assure the blood pressure and cholesterol levels achieve favorable levels, and we want to achieve this if possible without the use of medications. The judicious use of appropriate nutritional supplements can also be used to lower the blood pressure, lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of blood vessel disease, strokes and heart attacks. I recommend my patients with high blood pressure to take my supplements designed to accelerate reversal of their blood vessel disease.
LDL Protect – Combines 4 natural cholesterol lowering agents to effectively reduce cholesterol without the side effects risks and toxicity of medications.
DHA+EPA Purity – An all vegetable-derived (vegan) omega-3 supplement containing DHA and EPA, beneficial fatty acids normally found in fish-oil tablets.
Detailed descriptions of these uniquely designed supplements are found in the store here at DrFuhrman.com
My approach combines dietary modifications, utilizing natural foods that lower cholesterol and blood pressure (incorporating delicious recipes that do not use salt for flavor), with intelligent supplementation to further reduce and remove disease risks, without taking on a new set of risks from medications themselves. This program enables people to achieve dramatic reversal in their health conditions and dramatic protection from disease. It is the wisest way to address your problem with blood pressure and cholesterol. This does not mean that medication never has to be used to bring blood pressure down, but it does mean that the necessity for medication will be a very rare occurrence.
The majority of patients with high blood pressure die of heart attack, not strokes. Medications, therefore, have been shown to have little or no effect in reducing overall cardiovascular mortality in major clinical trials. Even when researchers lumped together all nine of the major hypertensive trials to achieve the statistical power of very large numbers, no significant trend was noticed in the ability of high blood pressure medication to reduce the mortality or morbidity of coronary heart disease.
In the United States, about 400,000 people a year suffer from strokes. Forty percent of these strokes may be fatal, but the 60 percent that live are often doomed to a life of suffering and disability. The cost of strokes is not just measured in the billions of dollars lost in work, hospitalization and the care of survivors in nursing homes, but the major cost or impact of a stroke is the loss of an independent lifestyle that occurs in 30% of the survivors. After a stroke, a self-sustaining and enjoyable lifestyle may lose most of its quality as the person can no longer walk, feed, or express him/her self normally. The family members find themselves in a new role as caregivers; it is a true tragedy. What makes these events even more heartbreaking is that they never had to happen in the first place.
When patients are given all of the facts, including the real benefits of removing the disease rather than merely disguising its existence with drugs, they almost invariably choose the natural way to a healthy heart, the Eat To Live way. Don’t be a statistic! You can choose to protect yourself from both heart attacks and strokes.
Remember, if you are on medication the effects of this nutritional program are so decisive that you may find yourself dangerously over-medicated. It is important to work with a competent physician who can lower your dose of medications accordingly as your blood pressure and weight decrease. Besides office visits, I also offer phone consultations for those needing advice on medication adjustment that will be necessary for those with medical conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure.
Lewington S, Clarke R, Qizilbash N, et al. Age-specific relevance of usual blood pressure to vascular mortality: a meta-analysis of individual data for one million adults in 61 prospective studies. Lancet 2002;360:1903-1913. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45050000 |
Have you ever stared at a blank computer screen hoping for some inspiring topic to pop into your mind so you can start writing?
This can be very frustrating because it not only wastes your precious time, but prevents you from going forward with other business tasks.
Here are some simple steps to writing an article.
1. Select a topic
Choosing a topic is easy if you know where to look. Visit forums, blogs, article directories, create google alerts. Create a folder of article topics or write them down on paper as they enter your mind. When reading books, add sticky notes to the pages that contain headings of possible topics on the content you’re reading.
2. Write an introductory paragraph
The first paragraph of your article should point out the a specific problem. Describe how bad the problem is by tapping into the emotions of your reader. Make them feel the pain then point out the solutions.
3. Write the main content
The body of your article should contain the main content. Outline several solutions to the problem you described in the introduction by writing a paragraph on each one.
Don’t worry about spelling or grammar as you write. Just focus on writing to keep your creative juices flowing. If you stop and correct each sentence your creative ideas won’t be spontaneous and you’ll struggle with writing the rest of the content.
Write short paragraphs of approximately 5 sentences. If you create create white space between paragraphs and use bullet points it will be easier to read the content.
4. Write a concluding paragraph
This paragraph summarizes the content of your article. Don’t use the same words you used in the body but use synonyms.
5. Create a resource box
This contains a call to action, a little about yourself or your business and a link to your web site. Try to include 2 links…one that contains link text and the other your full web site address.
6. Proof read your article
Don’t just run your article through a spell checker, but read it aloud to yourself or get someone else to read it. If the sentences sound strange, rewrite them until they sound and flow well.
Leave the article for a few hours or a day then read it again. Taking a fresh look at the content helps you to find better ways to write it and have greater impact on your readers.
7. Submit to article directories
Manually submit your article to the top article directories in the correct categories. Don’t submit to thousands of directories using automatic submission software. Search engines don’t spider duplicate content. It’s more important how to submit your article correctly than to blast it to thousands of directories.
If you want to attract a continuous stream of NEW visitors to
your website without spending a dime on advertising pick up a copy of
my new ebook”Article Marketing Strategies“…
to receive immediate and long-term traffic to your web site.
Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Design, Web Hosting, SEO | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45052000 |
New Technology Aims to Prevent Drunk Driving
Cars and trucks one day may have built-in blood alcohol detectors, The Wall Street Journal reports. Research on the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS) is progressing more quickly than expected, and could be available within eight to 10 years, experts say.
The technology could be built into a vehicle’s dashboard or controls. It would check a driver’s blood alcohol level, and would not start if the level were above the legal limit. Researchers developing the system are working with the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
The next goal would be to develop a commercially produced vehicle that could drive a drunk owner home, the article notes.
About one-third of drivers killed in car crashes have blood alcohol levels of 0.08 or higher, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
Devices called alcohol interlocks are already available to disable a car if the driver is intoxicated. They are primarily used for people who have been caught with blood alcohol levels above the legal limit. About 16 states require people convicted of drunk driving to install these devices in their vehicles. Drivers must blow into a tube to verify they are sober before they can start the car.
The new technology being developed would not require blowing into a tube. It could be embedded in a starter button or shift lever.
A proposed federal transportation bill would give the NHTSA’s alcohol detector program $24 million over two years. The funding would allow the agency to equip 100 or more cars with prototypes of the new alcohol detection devices. One device would measure alcohol in the driver’s breath, while the other would take a reading from the driver’s skin. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45054000 |
There are many diseases that follow seasonal patterns, especially infectious diseases.
For many people, it is not common to associate infections with the summer season because we are all most familiar with the winter cold and flu season. Yet certain infections are most common in the summer.
Among young children, common summer viral infections include a group of viruses known as enteroviruses. Some members of this family are notorious, such as poliovirus.
Members of my parents’ generation recall public-health admonitions to avoid swimming pools during the summer because of concerns about polio, a virus that can infect the nervous system and produce chronic paralysis. Like other enteroviruses, poliovirus is transmitted by the so-called fecal-oral route, in which fecal material contaminates water or hands and is transmitted to the mouth when the mouth is touched.
Fortunately, the development of an effective vaccine and its routine use has virtually eliminated polio except in a few remote areas of the world.
Other common enteroviruses, for which vaccinations do not exist, continue to produce summer illness, albeit not as severe as poliovirus. Common symptoms of enteroviral infection in young children can include fever and rash. Most such infections resolve without treatment or complication. Such infections can be avoided altogether through effective hygiene, such as hand-washing.
Other summertime infectious illnesses include those transmitted by bugs, such as mosquitoes and ticks.
Tick-borne diseases are endemic to many areas of the United States, including Colorado. Colorado tick fever affects up to 15 percent of campers in the state. It is caused by a tick-borne virus and produces fever and flu-like illness within a few days of the tick bite. Fortunately, symptoms usually resolve without treatment or complications once the tick is removed.
Lyme disease, which can cause rash, arthritis and neurological problems, is not common locally, but can affect summer travelers in the Northeast, Midwest and Pacific Northwest. Many other tick-borne illnesses are common in other parts of the United States.
Tick-borne diseases are preventable by wearing protective clothing, use of permethrin-containing insect repellants on clothing and skin and also by carefully inspecting for ticks after activities such as hiking or camping.
Summer infectious diseases are also transmitted by mosquitoes, including viral diseases caused by the arbovirus and flavivirus families of viruses.
Many such illnesses actually infect birds, horses and livestock, and are transmitted to people through a mosquito bite. Examples are western and eastern equine encephalitis, St Louis encephalitis and West Nile virus.
Most persons infected with mosquito-borne viral diseases such as West Nile virus remain asymptomatic but a small percentage of those infected will develop a flu-like illness. This often resolves without complication, but a very small percentage of those infected may suffer from serious neurologic problems including meningitis or encephalitis.
Preventing mosquito-borne diseases involves avoiding mosquito bites. Mosquitoes are most commonly found near water and are typically active in the cooler early morning and evening hours.
Dr. Matthew A. Clark is a board-certified physician in internal medicine and pediatrics practicing at the Ute Mountain Ute Health Center in Towaoc. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45062000 |
The Inanda Heritage Route takes in some of the most important, albeit little-known, historical sites of Durban. Winding its way through the Inanda Valley, it provides a snapshot of critical South African history as well as, perhaps surprisingly, India's past.
Inanda's recent history dates back to the early 1800s, when KwaZulu Natal was a Boer Republic. It was a farm then, which passed hands several times as the Boers left and the British arrived, and then when African and Indian farmers came here to farm sugar cane.
But it was the events that unfolded at the turn of the century that shaped its future. First Mahatma Gandhi, then a lawyer, arrived in the region to represent an Indian client. After being thrown off a train for sitting in a "whites only" section, Gandhi stayed on here and started his passive resistance movement.
Then, in the 1960s, Inanda became home to the thousands of people displaced from urban areas under apartheid laws. It quickly grew into a shanty town and then, as segregation laws took further hold, a dense informal settlement that was later the site of intense political violence.
In 1994, Inanda's outlook changed as democracy was born in South Africa. To mark the occasion, Nelson Mandela cast his vote in this historic election at Inanda's Ohlange Institute, fitting given that the first-ever president of the African National Congress (ANC), Dr. John L. Dube, established this school in 1901.
It's this wealth of history that you can explore on the Inanda Heritage Route. The trail starts in Phoenix Settlement, established in 1904 by Gandhi. Here you can see Gandhi's house, and his International Printing Press and Museum. Next it moves on to the Ohlange Institute, Dube's house - a national monument - and his grave.
A second educational institution on the trail is Inanda Seminary, the first secondary school for African girls and one of the oldest in South Africa. Finally the route stops at Ebuhleni with a look at the elaborate rituals of the Shembe Church.
Combined with a visit to the picturesque Inanda Dam nearby, this makes for a fascinating day outing. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45064000 |
Quick Tips for Lowering Cholesterol
6. Know Your Sources Of Trans Fat
Since 2006, the FDA has required food manufacturers to list reportable amounts of trans fat on the nutrition facts label. What’s considered reportable? Food manufacturers don’t have to report the trans-fat content if it’s less than 0.5 gram per serving. So check the ingredients list for hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated vegetable oils even if the nutrition facts label reports 0 grams of trans fat.
Next: 7. Go Fish » | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45075000 |
Estimations of magnetic core loss are of great interest to power electronics engineers and magnetic material scientists. However, conventional measurement methods, like four-wire and calorimeters are typically not accurate at high frequency, or are too complicated and time consuming.
A CPES research team has developed a series of new methods to measure high-frequency magnetic core loss that are simple, fast, accurate and adaptive for any excitation waveform and dc flux level. The new methods compare the core being tested with air core by using reactive cancellation concept, explains Mingkai Mu, a Ph.D. student who invented these methods. “Since the air core is lossless,” he says, “the difference in the two cores represents the loss for the core being tested.”
The measurement accuracy of the new method is more robust with phase discrepancy, which is the major problem for high-frequency core loss measurement, he notes. The new methods are appropriate for high frequency (1 MHz–100 MHz, or even higher) measurement. “With these new methods, core loss for different flux waveforms can be accurately measured and many magnetic phenomena and models can be verified,” he says. The new methods can be the standard methods for high-frequency magnetic materials loss characterization, and be built as high-accuracy measurement instruments.” | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45078000 |
Methods Used in Air Pollution Prevention
Air pollution is a major fear, particularly in very inhabited places around the world. The more traffic and people there is in some country the more air pollution that is registered. A little air pollution sums quite fast and with a crowded environment that has in mind in little time at all.
The consequences of air pollution can be really damaging to people and animals. It is really abusive to children and those with respiratory problems. Experiencing clean air is fundamental for a good quality of life and that is wherefore there is a major concentrate on air pollution prevention.
Air Pollution Threats
Transportation is the most evidential sphere that adds to air pollution. The air pollution induced by vehicles, airplanes, trains and other fashions of transportation is the biggest amount. Of course, air pollution can come from other sources.
Air pollution can be from chemicals, waste material, oil production, nuclear weapons and another toxic substances. On a smaller level air pollution is as well caused by house appliances and cigaret smoking. An important point about air pollution is that even tiny amounts of pollution sum up when there is a heavily inhabited domain.
The Clean Air Act is a superb representation of the government’s role in air pollution prevention. This act aids to influence and enforce laws that attempt to eliminate or dilute the causes of air pollution. The administration sets the standards and serve up to get everyone engaged for cleaner air.
The Environmental Protection Agency as well runs a significant role in air pollution prevention. The EPA is working hard to shape the discharges of vehicles. Standards are rigorously updated to ensure that the coming vehicles are to a greater extent environmentally friendly then those of the past times.
In the engagement for air pollution prevention the newest efforts have involved brand-new applied science and educational activity. Technologies like hybrid cars have been one of the greatest break throughs for the prevention of air pollution.
Vehicles contribute greatly to air pollution and through the use of hybrids that pollution level is greatly minimized. This is likewise being supplemented with ideas for innovative energy forms that can even allow a car to operate with no pollution being emitted.
Education of the public about air pollution and how to prevent it is evenly being found of the essence. The more people know about the damages of air pollution and what induces it, the better fit they are to do their portion. Air pollution prevention in truth is about everyone working together. Thus, everyone has to understand the situation and be armed with the necessary info so they can practice their part to prevent air pollution.
Eco Friendly Posts:
- Air Pollution Prevention Information Brings Importance of Issue to Light
- Freshwater Pollution Prevention: Clean Drinking Water For Everyone
- The Link Between Al Gore and Pollution Prevention
- Air Pollution Control Measures
- Learning About the Air Quality Index | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45081000 |
One issue addressed in my lab is: What are the key synaptic proteins that regulate activity-development of the cerebral cortex and how do they regulate synaptic development?
The brain develops as a result of a complex interplay between genetic instruction (Nature) and experience (Nurture). Our laboratory is interested in genes that allow the brain to learn and store information during development.
At the heart of both childhood and adult learning and memory are the molecules that regulate the way neurons communicate, namely neurotransmitter receptors and their downstream signaling pathways.
Recently several forms of childhood cognitive impairment, including Fragile X Syndrome (FXS), have been shown to result from genetic alteration of genes encoding proteins that regulate glutamate receptors signaling and synaptic development.
FXS is the most common form of genetically inherited cognitive impairment with a prevalence of approximately 1:4000 boys and 1:8000 girls.
FXS results from genetic silencing of the fragile X mental retardation gene (Fmr1), which encodes the fragile X mental retardation protein (FMRP).
FMRP is a key regulator of synaptic development and belongs to a family of “synaptopathies” caused by genetic disruption of genes that encode synaptic proteins that result in altered synaptic development.
Other synaptic proteins being examined in the laboratory whose disruption leads to cognitive impairment in humans include SynGAP and SAP-102.
Finally we are examining the role of the Tuberous Sclerosis genes (Tsc1 and Tsc2) in cortical development.
The research projects in my laboratory are addressing several key issues:
McMahon AC, Barnett MW, O’Leary TS, Stoney PN, Collins MO, Papadia S, Choudhary JS, Komiyama NH, Grant SGN, Hardingham GE, Wyllie DJA and Kind PC (2012) Activity-dependent alternative promoter usage and alternative splicing enable SynGAP isoforms to exert opposing effects on synaptic strength. Nature Communications. 3.
Martel M-A, Ryan T, Bell KF, Fowler JH, McMahon A, Al-Mubarak B, Komiyama N, Horsburgh K, Kind PC, Grant SG, Wyllie DJ, Hardingham GE The subtype of GluN2 (2012) C-terminal domain determines the response to excitotoxic insults. Neuron. 74:543-556.
Till SM, Wijetunge LS, Seidel VG, Harlow E, Wright A, Bagni C, Contractor A, Gillingwater TH, Kind PC (2012) Genetic deletion of FMRP alters the trajectory of specific cellular processes during cortical development. Human Molecular Genetics. 21:2143-2156
Jaffer S, Vorobyov V, Kind PC, Sengpiel F (2012) Experience dependent regulation of functional maps in synaptic protein expression in cat visual cortex. Eur. J Neurosci. in press.
Kind PC, Sengpiel F, Beaver CJ, Kelly GM, Matthews RT and Mitchell DE (2012) Development and Activity- Dependent Expression of Aggrecan in the Cat Visual Cortex. Cerebral Cortex. in press.
Harlow EG, Till SM, Russell TA, Wijetunge LS, Kind PC and Contractor A (2010) Critical period plasticity is disrupted in the barrel cortex of Fmr1 knockout mice. Neuron, 65, 385-398.
Thomson RE, Kind PC, Graham NA, Etherson ML, Kennedy J, Fernandes AC, Marques CS, Hevner RF, Iwata T. (2009) Fgf receptor 3 activation promotes selective growth and expansion of occipitotemporal cortex. Neural Dev. 4:4.
Wijetunge L, Till S, Ingham C, Gillingwater T and Kind PC (2008) mGluR5 Regulates Glutamate-Dependent Development of the Mouse Somatosensory Cortex. J. Neurosci. 28:13028-13037.
Watson RF, Abdel-Majid RM, Barnett MW, Willis BS, Katsnelson A, Gillingwater TH, McKnight GS, Kind PC*, and Neumann PE (2006) Involvement of Protein Kinase A in Patterning of the Mouse Somatosensory Cortex. J. Neurosci. 17:5393-5361. *PC Kind is communication author.
Mitchell DE, Kind PC Sengpiel F, Murphy K (2006) Short periods of concordant binocular vision prevent the development of deprivation amblyopia. Eur. J. Neurosci. 23:2458-2466.
Barnett MW, Watson R, Vitalis T, Porter K, Komiyama NH, Stoney PN, Gillingwater TH, Grant SGN and Kind PC SynGAP regulates pattern formation in the trigeminal system of mice. J. Neurosci. 26:1355-1365.
Porter K, Komiyama NH, Vitalis T, Kind PC & Grant SGN (2005) Differential expression of two NMDA receptor interacting proteins, PSD-95 and SynGAP during mouse development. Eur. J. Neurosci. 21:351-362.
Spires TL, Molnar Z, Kind PC, Cordery PM, Upton AL, Blakemore C, Hannan AJ. (2005) Activity-dependent Regulation of Synapse and Dendritic Spine Morphology in Developing Barrel Cortex Requires Phospholipase C-b1 Signalling. Cereb. Cortex 15:385-393.
Mitchell DE, Kind PC, Sengpiel F, Murphy K. (2003) Brief daily periods of binocular vision prevent deprivation-induced acuity loss. Curr. Biol. 13:1704-8.
Sengpiel, F and Kind, PC (2002) The role of activity in the development of the visual system. Curr. Biol. 12:R818-826.
Vitalis T, Cases O, Gillies K, Hanoun N, Hamon M, Seif I, Gaspar P, Kind PC, and Price DJ (2002) Interactions between TrkB-signalling and serotonin excess in the developing murine somatosensory cortex: a role in tangential and radial organisation of thalamocortical axons. J. Neurosci. 22:4987-5000.
Kind PC, Mitchell DE, Ahmed B, Blakemore C, Bonhoeffer T and Sengpiel F (2002) Correlated binocular activity guides recovery from monocular deprivation. Nature 416:430-433.
Hannan AJ, Blakemore C, Katsnelson A, Huber K, Roder JK, Bear M, Kim D, Shin H and Kind PC (2001). Phospholipase C-?1, activated via mGluRs, mediates activity-dependent differentiation in cerebral cortex. Nat. Neurosci. 4, 282-288.
This article was published on Aug 6, 2012 | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45089000 |
Make Art Like the Ancient Greeks: Black-Figure Vase Painting
When is a vase just a vase and when is it art? Can it ever be both? In ancient Greece, vases were not only utilitarian but they were also visual masterpieces. Decorating a vase in the style of the ancient Greek artists isn't difficult at all; all you need are a few basic materials and your imagination. So grab your supplies, find a space to work, and get ready to go back in time!
Hands-on activities like this are a great way to spark your child's interest in art history and ancient cultures by bringing the subject to life. Reading about Greek vases in a textbook can be dull, but making your own is a lot of fun!
What You Need:
- Art books on ancient Greek art from the library or images downloaded from the Internet
- Plain, unadorned terracotta flower pot (any size)
- Black permanent markers (fine and extra fine) or acrylic paint
What You Do:
- Before beginning the vase, start by doing a little research into classic Greek black-figure pottery with your child. Flip through the art books from the library or look at the images downloaded from the Internet. As you do, talk about recurring design motifs and the overall style of the black-figure paintings.
- Using a pencil, have him sketch a design onto the flower pot. While the Greeks most often painted scenes from literature, mythology, or daily life on their vases, creating an original design is the most fun part of the project. Encourage him to be imaginative and creative with his pattern design or scene.
- When he is satisfied with his design, have him erase any stray marks and make sure that his outline is dark enough to guide him when he starts painting.
- Now have him go over his design in either Sharpie or with black acrylic paint. For highly detailed designs, it's best to use an extra-fine Sharpie. Also keep in mind that the Greeks weren’t afraid of leaving blank space on their vases so remind him to let some of the natural terracotta show through!
Did You Know?
There were a number of steps to making and decorating a vase in ancient Greece. After the potter shaped the vase on a pottery wheel and allowed it to dry, the designs were painted on using a slip that would change color when fired. Additional details could be incised after the pot was fired or added using a special glaze. Greek vases are one of the most important artifacts left to us by this ancient culture because they reveal not only the culture’s values and beliefs, but they also serve as a reminder of what highly advanced and skilled craftspeople the Greeks were. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45097000 |
8. Scurrula buddleioides (Desrousseaux) G. Don, Gen. Hist. 3: 421. 1834.
滇藏梨果寄生 dian zang li guo ji sheng
Shrubs 0.5-2 m tall, young branchlets, leaves, and inflorescences with dense short grayish yellow, rarely brown, verticillate and stellate hairs. Branches brownish, glabrous, scattered lenticellate. Leaves opposite; petiole 4-12 mm, pilose; leaf blade ovate, ovate-oblong to oblong, 6-10 × 3.5-8 cm, papery or thinly leathery, abaxial surface minutely tomentose, adaxial surface glabrous, lateral veins 4 or 5 pairs, base obtuse to rounded, apex acute. Racemes 2-5-fascicled, axillary, sometimes at leafless nodes, 3-5(-7)-flowered; peduncle and rachis 1.5-5 mm, brownish or grayish yellow tomentose. Flowers densely alternate; bracts ovate, ca. 1 mm. Pedicel 1-1.5 mm. Calyx pyriform, 2-3 mm, limb annular, ciliate. Mature bud tubular, 1.5-2 cm, tip ellipsoid. Corolla red, slightly curved and inflated, tomentose, lobes lanceolate, ca. 5 mm, reflexed. Style red; stigma subcapitate. Berry pyriform, 8-10 × 3.5-4 mm, pilose, base tapering into stalk. Fl. and fr. Jan-Dec.
Forests, thickets, mountain slopes, valleys; 1100-2200 m. Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan [India].
Recorded hosts include species of Caprifoliaceae, Coriariaceae, Fagaceae, Moraceae, Rosaceae, Rutaceae, and Tiliaceae. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45102000 |
Origin and Taxonomy of Einkorn Wheat
Derived from the German term “einkorn”, meaning “single grain”, einkorn wheat is either Triticum boeoticum (wild wheat), or Triticum monococcum (domesticated species). Domesticated and wild forms of wheat may be considered either as separate species, or as Triticum monococcum’s subspecies.
Einkorn is among hulled wheat’s diploid species, with its grains being tightly enclosed with tough husks, also called the hull. Apart from the larger seeds and the intact nature of the ear when ripe, cultivated forms of einkorn wheat are similar to its wild counterparts. Although einkorn wheat was found in abundance millennia ago, it is limited to only a few regions today. The crop is not often planted, and has become popular as a super food in recent times.
Origins of Einkorn Wheat
Along with Triticum dicoccum (emmer wheat), einkorn wheat is recognised among the forms of wheat that were first cultivated by humans. Grains of the wild form were traced back to tens of thousands of years ago, and the first domestication of wild einkorn was recorded approximately around 7500 BC. It is believed to originate from the fertile areas of the Tigris-Euphrates regions. The origination of the wheat is believed to be a result of crossing the Triticum speltoides (wheat grass) and Triticum monococcum (domesticated wheat) naturally.
DNA finger-printing has shown evidence to suggest the domestication of einkorn wheat was carried out close to the mountains of Kacara Dag, located in the south-eastern parts of Turkey. However, the Bronze Age saw a decrease in the cultivation of the grain.
The crop can be found in mountainous regions of Morocco, France, Turkey, and parts of the former Soviet Union. It survives and thrives on soils where most other forms of wheat do not flourish. Einkorn was among the first cereals that were cultivated, following its wide distribution around Transcaucasia, the Middle East, south-western Europe, the Balkans and the Mediterranean areas.
Taxonomy of Einkorn Wheat
Einkorn wheat differs from varieties of modern wheat. Similar to other ancient forms of the crop (spelt and emmer), einkorn is classified as “covered wheat”. If un-branched, the inflorescence or head of cereal crops such as einkorn wheat is referred to as a spike. Spikelets or flowers make up these spikes and they are arranged on the stem’s extension also known as rachis. The flowers arise from rachilla – the nodes found on the rachis. The flowers are enclosed by the glumes, bracts, or chaff.
The cultivated and wild forms of einkorn wheat can be differentiated by the rachis’ brittleness. While wild einkorn has brittle rachis and is known for quick disarticulation of the flowers when mature, cultivated einkorn wheat has rachis, which is not as fragile, and is known to remain intact until it is thrashed. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45103000 |
Can Childhood Obesity Hinder the Brain?
Reading, Math Worse in Kids With Many Obesity-Related Risk Factors
By Denise Mann
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD
The risks for metabolic syndrome include:
Researcher Antonio Convit, MD, says the bottom line is, "We are seeing brain changes in kids with metabolic syndrome and we don't know if this is reversible."
Children with metabolic syndrome scored 10% lower on mental tasks that are important for learning, he says. The findings appear in Pediatrics.
What to Do?
In the new study, obese or overweight teens with metabolic syndrome could not read as well, scored worse on math tests, and took longer to complete tasks than children who did not have metabolic syndrome. What's more, their brains also had physical differences.
The new study included 49 teens with metabolic syndrome and 62 without it. The more metabolic syndrome risks that participants had, the more pronounced the brain changes were, the study shows.
Convit calls for testing for insulin resistance among at-risk children, particularly those who are very overweight and those who have a family history of diabetes or heart disease.
Other solutions include having physical education programs in school. "We should invest more in physical education so kids are fitter and less likely to have insulin resistance, which is the main driver of these brain changes."
Insulin Resistance Affects Brain
Insulin is a hormone that helps the body turn sugar into energy. Insulin resistance occurs when the body does not use insulin properly.
Michele Mietus-Snyder, MD, says the new findings should serve as a wake-up call.
"Every cell in every organ system requires energy to live and insulin is the gatekeeper," she says. "Insulin resistance has reached beyond the traditional organ systems to the brain."
"We need to be very vigilant when children start to gain belly fat because we don't want children to fall behind the metabolic eight ball." If that occurs, it becomes a catch-22. "How can you expect someone to make healthy choices when they are [mentally] impaired?"
Scott Kahan, MD, MPH, is the director of the National Center for Weight and Wellness in Washington, D.C. "Metabolic syndrome was unheard of in kids until recently," he says. "It is striking that a significant number of kids have metabolic syndrome, but the fact that we can show further consequences in the brain is even more striking."
SOURCES: Antonio Convit, MD, professor of psychiatry and medicine, NYU School of Medicine, New York. Scott Kahan, MD, MPH, director, National Center for Weight and Wellness, Washington D.C. Michele Mietus-Snyder, preventive cardiologist, co-director, Obesity Institute, Children's National Medical Center, Washington, D.C. Yau, P. Pediatrics, 2012.
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English Plus+ News, December 1998
Last week, for the second time in the 222 year history of the United States a president was impeached. The lower legislative body, the House of Representatives, voted to accuse President Clinton of certain crimes including perjury and obstruction of justice. According to the U. S. Constitution, the charges are sent to the Senate, the upper legislative body, where a trial is held and the Senate votes on whether or not to remove the president from office.
Almost immediately there were calls for some kind of compromise or plea bargain. Most of these calls were for censure. And that is where the language problems began.
Censure and censor are similar-sounding and involve some kind of government regulation or judgment. However, these two words mean something very different. If you do not confuse them, it will help you follow a variety of political events more closely.
Both words are politically loaded. I have seen them frequently misused, even by people who should know better. In the case of censor, I believe that sometimes the people do know better, they do it deliberately.
Censure is a "formal rebuke" or "official displeasure." It is done by someone, usually some kind of assembly, in authority. The s in the word is pronounced like as sh, just as in the word sure. The U.S. Congress has censured its members a number of times for unbecoming conduct. Usually there is no specific punishment, just an official notice. In the U.S. Congress, that may mean the end of a political career, but not always. About ten years ago two congressmen were censured for sexual activity with underage house pages. One resigned as a result of the censure; the other has been re-elected and still serves.
Censure can be either a noun or a verb, though the verb is more common. Noun example--"The censure of Sen. McCarthy effectively ended his career." Verb example--"The Synod voted to censure the priest for his unauthorized activities."
Censor means "to regulate or prohibit writing or speech." This is normally a verb. When used as a noun, censor is "a person who censors." Verb example--"Soldiers' letters from war zones are frequently censored to avoid passing on sensitive information." Noun example--"The soldier would have to carefully word his letter so that it would pass the censor."
The activity or condition of censoring is called censorship, the suffix is like the -ship suffix in friendship. I recently heard one of the elected representatives speak of "Censureship of the president." There is no such word. One would think that a professional lawmaker would understand that. Now if the president were sent to prison, then what he wrote might be censored by prison authorities. (Please understand, I am trying to carefully not take a stand here on the political issue: I am just using this as an example.)
The word censor has been bandied about loosely in political contexts. We sometimes read of parents of schoolchildren or patrons of libraries objecting to certain books. Teachers' unions and some activist organizations may refer to such things as "censorship" or such parents or patrons as "censors." This is not censorship in most cases. There is usually no call to legally ban or rewrite the books in question. It is usually a call to either not have their own children read them or to remove the book from the curriculum. (I teach; I have experienced this). On the other hand, the Lord's Prayer has been censored, at least in U.S. public schools, since 1963. That was an official act of the Supreme Court limiting this kind of speech in public schools.
Occasionally college incidents that may involve censorship make the news. Many campuses have "underground" or "alternative" newspapers. On a few campuses, students opposed to the these papers have seized as many copies as they could before the papers could be distributed. In some cases there were hardly any copies left. Such students were acting as censors, though they had no official backing. At at least three campuses in the United States, the administration supported such seizures. When it became officially sanctioned as it was in these cases, then the act became censorship.
If there were any questions of censorship surrounding President Clinton's difficulties, they had to do with the content of the Special Prosecutor's Report and testimonies of some of the witnesses. Some did argue that the Special Prosecutor's report should have been censored to remove some of the explicit details the way that the Nixon tapes were during the Watergate hearings. The famous "expletive deleted" from the transcripts of the Watergate tapes is an example of censorship.
To sum up, censoring is regulating or prohibiting types of speech or writing. Censuring is an official rebuke of a person for some offense. This may help you as you sort through the news in the coming weeks.
I do hope to continue with the idea of what a grammar checking program can and cannot do next time.
Our program Grammar Slammer Deluxe includes many words like censor/censure that people often confuse. These words are ones that spell checkers and grammar checkers often overlook because both are real words in English. Grammar Slammer Deluxe has two components--Grammar Slammer (demo available for download) and Spelling Slammer (Grammar Slammer demo includes sample). This handy resource will help you overcome such confusion.
Go to http://englishplus.com/pub/grmslm20.zip for latest Grammar Slammer Demo
The weekly computer magazine Infoworld has been carrying a series of articles on what it calls the "technopropisms" caused by unthinking dependence on spell and grammar checkers. Grammar Slammer Deluxe was created to help you overcome this. Some of those articles are linked below.
A recent article on the seizure and destruction of campus newspapers can be found at http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/981207/7john.htm.
For the original work on Freedom of the Press and Speech, see Milton's Areopagitica from 1644 at
A "modernist" interpretation of Areopagitica is at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/lawschool/occpaper/blasi.htm
We wish you the best in 1999, and may all your anguish be vanquished,
Your friends at English Plus+
Any suggestions for our web site, please send them to [email protected] | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45117000 |
This park is part of ...
The Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage Area
The Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage Area is a series of over 40 rainforest national parks and reserves stretching along the Great Escarpment from Barrington Tops to south-east Queensland and including Iluka Nature Reserve on the NSW coast. They form part of the World's Heritage, inscribed on the World Heritage List in recognition of their outstanding universal value.
World Heritage Areas are irreplaceable sources of life and inspiration—places of such value that the international community has agreed they must be conserved for all time.
The Gondwana Rainforests contain plants and animals with direct linkages to the ancient forests of Gondwana; a fascinating landscape history of volcanoes and massive continental uplift, and habitats for a great variety of threatened plant and animal species of outstanding universal value.
Explore the amazing Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage Area within north-east NSW and southeast Queensland. Experience its natural treasures, yours to visit, explore and appreciate. It offers breathtaking views of the Great Escarpment, shield volcanoes and waterfalls. Take a scenic drive, go bushwalking, have a picnic or go camping. Most parks have visitor facilities and are easily accessible by sealed or graded gravel roads from major towns.
For more information | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45122000 |
The Atlantic mixed forests ecoregion includes coastal vegetation formations of dunes and heathlands with vegetation that thrives in salty soil. Sand dune systems occur along the southwestern coast of France, the region known as Les Landes, covered by both natural and planted forests of maritime pine (Pinus pinaster). They are rich in plant life, and home to a number of endemics. Bird diversity is particularly high--over 440 species have been recorded in the Netherlands alone. Most of the ecoregion’s mammals are widespread in other parts of Europe. Several are listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources Red List, including otter, European mink, and several species of bat. Only fragments of natural vegetation remain in this ecoregion, as most of the area was converted long ago into intensive agriculture or pasture.
Location and General Description
This ecoregion is located at the western coast of the Eurasian continent. The eastern limits are determined by the progressive disappearance of oceanic species and the appearance of continental species. Long-term human activities have wiped out most evident signs of natural forests, so it is difficult to establish a definitive biogeographic boundary. The topography consists of flat and undulating lowlands except for the hills of Brittany. Sand dune systems occur along the southwestern coast of France, the region known as Les Landes. These dunes are covered by both natural and planted forests of maritime pine (Pinus pinaster). Rich in plant life, they are home to a number of endemics.
Temperature variation and precipitation levels are not limiting factors to biodiversity. Mean annual temperatures are between 9° and 12°C from north to south, and annual precipitation ranges from 700 to 1000 millimeters (mm). Soils are generally acidic in sedimentary basins, and on hercynian crystalline bedrock in Brittany. The Loire River, the only remaining European lowland river without major riverbed regulations is found here, as are the Gironde, Seine, Rhine, Ems, Weser, and Elbe rivers at lower elevations.
Several mixed oak forests are also found in the ecoregion, dominated by Quercus robur and Betula pendula, or Q. robur and Fagus sylvatica. On the coastline, heathlands with Ulex gallii occur, adapted to local ecological conditions of wind and sea spray. In general, heathlands with Ericaceae (Calluna, Erica, and Ulex spp.) have replaced natural forests. Further south, different oaks appear, including Q. petraea and Q. pubescens, but many forests are planted with Pinus sylvestris (Pinus maritimus further south) mainly on poor sandy soils.
The Netherlands alone has recorded over four hundred and forty species of avifauna, including the threatened Ortolan bunting (Emberiza hortulana), Garganey (Anas querquedula), Snipe (Gallinago gallinago), Kentish plover (Charadrius alexandrinus), Corn bunting (Miliaria calandra), and Spotted crake (Porzana porzana). Other notable species of birds in this ecoregion include Wryneck (Jynx torquilla), Red backed shrike (Lanius collurio), Black grouse (Lyrurus tetrix), Savi's warbler (Locustella luscinioides), and Great reed warbler (Acrocephalus arundinaceus)
The mammal fauna of the ecoregion is mostly composed of species widespread throughout Europe: red deer (Cervus elaphus), fallow deer (Dama dama), Roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), badger (Meles meles), stone marten (Martes foina), and pine marten (Martes martes). Several of the mammals found in the ecoregion are listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources Red List, including otter (Lutra lutra), European mink (Mustela lutreola), and several species of bat (Rhinolophus euryale, R. hipposideros, Barbastella barbastellus, Myotis bechsteini, M. dasycneme, and M. emarginatus).
Holocene Evolution of the Ecoregion
The ecoregion has undergone considerable transformation over the prior eight to ten thousand years. The prior 8850 years have reflected vegetative changes in the ecoregion which have generally tracked orbital and sub-orbital climate variability. There was a pronounced temperature decline from 6650 BC until the Time of Christ. In particular, the climate variation from 6740 BC until 6370 BC led to an expansion of Corylus woodlands at the expense of deciduous oak woodlands. This forest transition was accentuated by the 8.2 kyr sudden cooling event and concomitant North Atlantic winter ice expansion.
Reduction in overall forest cover due to human deforestation began by the end of the mesolithic period in this ecoregion. Between 6000 and 2000 BC the Holocene Thermal Maximum is deduced to have occurred in this ecoregion, based upon pollen core records and maximum expansion of Quercus dominated woodland. These climatic correlations are clearer in northwestern France and northerly sections of the ecoregion and less clear in the more southern mid-latitudes on the coastal European continent. Since the Time of Christ the evolution of the Atlantic mixed forests ecoregion was more affected by deforestation and land cover changes due to humans than to climate variability. The inexorable human population expansion of the region has led to massive destruction of most elements of the ecosystems within the Atlantic mixed forests over the most recent two millennia.
Only fragments of natural vegetationremain in this ecoregion, as most of the area was converted long ago into intensive agriculture (barley, wheat, sugar beets, and corn) or pasture. These agricultural lands include some of the most productive soils of Western Europe. There are several Important Bird Areas (IBAs) in the ecoregion: the Wadden Sea and Voordelta of the Netherlands, Baie de Quiberon and Archipel de Molène of France, Nissum Fjord and Ringkobing Fjord of Denmark, and the Lower Rhine area in Germany. Basses Vallées du Cotentin et Baie des Veys in France serves as an important Biogenetic Reserve as does the Waddenzee Biogenetic Reserve in The Netherlands.
Types and Severity of Threats
Agricultural expansion and intensification are the most serious threat affecting IBAs across Europe. Additionally, urbanization accompanied by the pollution of air, water, and soil brings increased problems. Recreation and tourism, unsustainable exploitation, development and habitat fragmentation, agricultural abandonment, and disturbance of wildlife are other major threats.
Justification of Ecoregion Delineation
This ecoregion comprises two DMEER units: the Southern Temperate Atlantic and Northern Temperate Atlantic. These units include several vegetation units from Bohn et al. These include areas of lowland to submontane beech and mixed beech forests, lowland to submontane acidophilous oak and mixed oak forests, sub-Mediterranean and meso-supra-Mediterranean downy oak forests, fen and swamp forests, as well as floodplain, estuarine, and freshwater polder vegetation in the Aquitanian Plain, Armorican Massif, Paris Basin and Netherlands.
- For a terser summary of this article, see the WWF WildWorld profile of this ecoregion.
- Bohn, Udo, Gisela Gollub, and Christoph Hettwer. 2000. Reduced general map of the natural vegetation of Europe. 1:10 million. Bonn-Bad Godesberg
- Davis, S.D., V.H. Heywood, and A.C. Hamilton. 1994. Centres of plant diversity. Vol. 1: Europe, Africa, Southwest Asia and Middle East. WWF and IUCN, Washington DC. ISBN: 283170197X
- Heath, M.F., and M.I. Evans, editors. 2000. Important bird areas in Europe: Priority sites for conservation. 2 vols. BirdLife International, Cambridge, UK. ISBN: 0946888361
- IUCN 2000: The Global Redlist of Species, of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
- Filipa Naughton, Jean-francois bourillet, Maria Gernanda Sanchez Goni, Jean-Louis Turon and Jean-Marie Jouanneau. 2007. Long term and nillennial scale climate variability in northwestern France during the last 8850 years. Sage Publications
- Ozenda, P. 1994. Végétation du Continent Européen. Delachaux et Niestlé, Lausanne, Switzerland. ISBN: 2603009540
- Wheatley, N. 2000. Where to watch birds in Europe and Russia. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. ISBN: 069105729X
Disclaimer: This article contains some information that was originally published by the World Wildlife Fund. Topic editors and authors for the Encyclopedia of Earth have edited that content and added new information. The use of information from the World Wildlife Fund should not be construed as support for or endorsement by that organization for new information added by EoE personnel, or for any editing of the original content. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45124000 |
PAO: Policy Activities » Briefing (November 2, 2011)
Using Science to Improve Flood Management
On November 2, 2011, ESA sponsored a congressional briefing: “Using Science to Improve Flood Management.” Emily Stanley (University of Wisconsin, Madison) and Jeff Opperman (The Nature Conservancy, Ohio Field Office) addressed the function of floodplains and managing rivers as systems and for multiple benefits.
Emily Stanley’s presentation focused on the work of rivers and the function of floodplains. Industry, transportation, and recreation all constitute work done by rivers. Less well known and valued is the work done by floodplains, responsible for such desirable services such as flood attenuation, fish production, improved water quality and groundwater recharge. Stanley noted that aging US levee and other infrastructure provide an opportunity to move beyond structural flood control and take greater advantage of the functions of floodplains.
Jeff Opperman’s presentation focused on the logic of managing rivers as a system and for multiple benefits. These include risk reduction for people and infrastructure as well as benefits such as water storage during droughts and increased fisheries production. Opperman said that because the Mississippi River is managed as a comprehensive system, the recent flood was far less damaging than that of 1927 even though a greater volume of water passed through the system in 2011. Opperman also pointed to the success story of California’s Yolo Bypass, which has reduced flood risk while increasing goods and services.
To view the complete presentations, please click on the links below: | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45129000 |
When will we hear again the glorious music of Giacomo Meyerbeer?
From 1830 until the end of the 19th century no composer of opera was more famous, more successful or more sought after throughout Europe than Giacomo Meyerbeer. It wasn't until the 1850s when Verdi wrote his masterpieces that anyone challenged his supremacy, but Meyerbeer remained a firm favorite until the beginning of the First World War. This bold statement must come as a surprise to many who have neither heard of him nor listened to his music. After 1930 Meyerbeer's popularity gradually diminished and even here in Israel his works have been sadly neglected and seldom played.
Meyerbeer was born Yaakov Lieberman Beer in 1791, the eldest of three sons of Judah and Malka Beer in Germany, an extremely financially successful, well established Jewish business family. Yaakov's musical talents developed at an early age, his first public appearance being as a pianist at nine years of age. At seventeen he was appointed court composer in Damstaat and by the age of twenty four he had composed several modest oratorios and operas in German. He was then advised by Antonio Salieri to go to Italy to study art composing for the voice. There he met and became friendly with Rossini who, by that time, was a well known, successful composer of operas. Yaakov's grandfather, Liebermann Meyer Wulff, died during his stay in Italy and Yaakov inherited a vast fortune from him on condition that he changed his name to Meyerbeer. He then changed the Yaakov to Giacomo and adopted the name of Giacomo Meyerbeer. Rossini recommended to Meyerbeer that he move to Paris where the opera house was relatively new, having been built in 1812, and could offer numerous resources for the presentation of his works.
So it came to be that just after the French revolution of 1830 when the autocratic Charles 10th was replaced by the more liberal minded Citizen King Louis Phillipe, that the Paris opera was turned over to a directeur-entrepreneur to manage the opera for six years at his own risk and fortune. The first of such men to accept that position was Louis Véron, a physician turned business man. A veritable fop who understood the mentality of the French public and promptly fired all the staff and brought in new blood, composers, conductor, librettist, stage managers, dancing teachers and last, but not least, the chef de claque. The claque was a body of men who were responsible for leading the applause, the screams, sobs, tears, laughter, hissing, howls, the booing, the insults and so on for a fee. It would have been folly for any performer to appear on the stage without first engaging the chef de claque and agreeing on terms of service for leading the right response at the right moment from the audience. By the turn of the century, the Paris Opera had become the richest and most successful in Europe.
Meyerbeer had a great talent for the theater and wrote successfully for the voice, particularly dazzling coloratura and unusual harmonies. He knew what the public wanted and wrote his operas to satisfy them. His priority was to please the new bourgeoisie public and this he did by writing operas which were spectacular and historically correct in every detail. He knew that they had to have brilliant vocal parts so that no one would be bored by long mediocre arias. He knew that the orchestration had to be glittering and powerful with massed super-fortissimos and that there had to be massed choruses, huge crowd scenes and five acts with a ballet. Absolutely everything had to be grand and spectacular to cater for the demands of the rising middle classes. What the Paris opera house resources couldn't supply, Meyerbeer readily paid for out of his own private income. He had a gift for management and publicity, effectively creating the lavish press conference with dinner and fine wines to announce the forthcoming presentations.
Meyerbeer's first great success was Robert le Diable in 1831, with words by the librettist, Eugene Scribe. It was performed using gas lighting for the first time on the Paris stage. It was a romantic opera about medieval knights and the devil. Its success outshone all previous performances, everything about it was spectacular and grand. In the first eight years it was performed in 1,845 theaters. Rossini's final opera in Paris was William Tell in 1829. After that he stopped writing operas and for the next forty years lived the life of a retired gentleman. Meyerbeer on the other hand went on to compose several other highly successful grand operas, the main ones being The Huguenots 1836, Le Prophete 1849, L'Etoile du Nord 1855, Dinorah 1859, and L'Africain' 1865. It was the role of Marguerite in The Huguenots that Dame Joan Sutherland chose for her farewell performance on the operatic stage.
Berlioz said to Schlesinger, the publisher of the score of Les Huguenots 1836: “Tell me about a score like that, it is superb! I would love to see Meyerbeer and shake the hand that wrote such beautiful things.” March 12th 1836.
Meyerbeer was a practicing Jew and unlike several of his Jewish contemporaries did not attempt to convert to Catholicism. He saw it as his duty to carry out the principles of humanitarian Judaism as stated by Moses Mendelssohn. However, Felix Mendelssohn, Heinrich Heine the poet, and later Jacques Offenbach and Gustav Mahler all became practicing Christians. From 1933 onwards the Nazis banned performances of all works by Jewish artists and removed the statue of Felix Mendelssohn in Leipzig. In 1839 Meyerbeer wrote to Heine, 'I believe that Jew-hatred is like love in theaters and novels, no matter how often one encounters it in all shapes and sizes, it never misses its target if effectively wielded. What can be done? No pomade or bear grease, not even baptism, can grow back the foreskin of which we were robbed on the eighth day of life; those who did not bleed to death from this operation shall continue to bleed an entire lifetime, even after death.' It is not surprising that several of his masterpieces deal with the problem of religious intolerance.
Meyerbeer died suddenly in Paris on May 2, 1864 whilst rehearsals for his final opera L'Africaine were taking place. After a great funeral procession in Paris, a special train for the coffin was sent from Berlin by the Prussian government. He was buried alongside his mother in the Jewish cemetery in Schönhauser Allee among other members of the Beer family. In Paris today you will find Rue Meyerbeer adjacent to Rue Halevy and a bust of Meyerbeer is in front of the opera house alongside other famous composers. The Belgian town of Spa which Meyerbeer visited frequently has a statue of him standing in a public park.
Hans von Bülow (1830-1894), a conductor and pianist of worldwide reputation and founder of many stylistic interpretations of classic and romantic symphonies, made the following observations on Meyerbeer: "After all, Meyerbeer was a man of genius. If we fail to recognize Meyerbeer's genius, we are not only unjust but also ungrateful. In every sense, in his conception of opera, in his treatment of orchestration, in his handling of choruses, even in stage setting, he gave us new principles by which our modern works have profited to a large extent."
It is to be hoped that Meyerbeer's music will soon be heard again ringing throughout our concert halls.
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- life's journey – exploring relationships, resolving conflicts. a review
- schneider children's medical center not just any hospital
- children without shadows
- stop driving before it is too late
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- watt lights my light | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45133000 |
Rugby (pop. 63,000) is a market town sitting on the River Avon at the boundary of Warwickshire, Leicestershire and Northamptonshire. It is renowned for its prestigious Rugby School, one of the country's oldest public school (i.e. an expensive private school in the UK - see Eton), founded in 1567. Some of the famous people who attended Rugby School include Alice in Wonderland's author Lewis Carrol, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, and essayist Salman Rushdie.
However, the town's main claim of fame is to have invented the sport that bears its name. The ball sport was first played by William Webb Ellis (1806-1872) in 1823, a student of Rugby School, who disrespecting the rules of football (AmE = soccer), took the ball into his hands and started running with it. The claim that he invented the game did not surface before 4 years after his death though.
Rugby School also educated the Australian Tom Wills, who in 1859 first codified the rules of Australian football.
The region of Rugby was settled since the Iron Age. The River Avon marked the boundary between the Dobunni and the Coritani Celtic tribes. The Roman founded Tripontium near present-day Rugby. Not until the 13th century did Rugby develop into a small town, after gaining a market charter.
1567 marks the founding of Rugby School by Lawrence Sheriff, a local grocer who left money for the establishment of a school for local boys. Fee-paying pupils were soon accepted to pay the bills, and Rugby gradually became a largely fee-paying school.
Rugdy's population remained around 1,000 until the Oxford Canal (linking Oxford to Coventry via Rugby) opened in the 1770's. The town only came into prominence in the 1820's when the school's headmaster, Dr Thomas Arnold, pioneered new teaching methods and changed radically public school education in England. Most of the buildings in th centre of Rugby date from this period.
As the railway was developing throughout England in the 1830's, Rugby became a major junction. It became so congested that Charles Dickens satirized it in his short story Mugby Junction (1866).
From the 1950s, Rugby gained a substantial Afro-Caribbean community, and a sizeable community from the Indian sub-continent, making Rugby a multi-cultural town (it even has a Hindu temple).
The town as it exists now is mostly Victorian in architecture, with a few older timber-framed houses. Rugby's town centre is said to have the highest concentration of pubs in England.
The 19th-century grandeur of Rugby School combined with the relaxing calm of Oxford Canal make for a pleasant stroll around the town.
How to get there
Rugby is located 24km south-east of Coventry, about half-way between Birmingham and Northampton.
Trains link Rugby to London Euston (55min, £19.90), Northampton
(20min, £3.30) and Birmingham
National Express has buses to Coventry (2h, £13).
Train timetables & reservations | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45136000 |
Modest Weight Loss Can Reap Prolonged Health Benefits
Study found reduced diabetes risk, even if weight returned.
THURSDAY, Aug. 2, 2012 (HealthDay
News) — Even modest weight
loss can give overweight and obese people a decade's worth of
important health benefits, according to a new study.
The study included 3,000 overweight people with impaired glucose
tolerance — a pre-diabetic
condition — who were shown how to change their behavior rather than
being prescribed drugs.
The behavioral strategies used by the participants to help them lose
weight included keeping track of everything they ate, reducing the amount of
unhealthy food they kept in their home and increasing their amount of physical
Even a modest weight loss — an average of 14 pounds —
reduced the risk of developing type
2 diabetes by 58 percent. And the health benefits of this weight loss
lasted up to 10 years, even if people regained the weight, said study author
Rena Wing, professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University in
The study was scheduled for presentation Thursday at the American
Psychological Association annual meeting in Orlando, Fla.
"Helping people find ways to change their eating and activity
behaviors and developing interventions other than medication to reinforce a
healthy lifestyle have made a huge difference in preventing one of the major
health problems in this country," Wing, who is also director of the Weight
Control and Diabetes Research Center at the Miriam Hospital in Providence, said
in an association news release.
"Weight losses of just 10 percent of a person's body weight ...
have also been shown to have a long-term impact on sleep apnea, hypertension
and quality of life, and to slow the decline in mobility that occurs as people
age," she noted.
Wing is now leading a 13-year study of 5,000 people with type 2
diabetes to determine whether an intensive behavioral intervention can lower
the risk of heart disease and heart attacks.
"We are trying to show that behavior changes not only make people
healthier in terms of reducing heart disease risk factors but actually can make
them live longer," she said.
Because this study was presented at a medical meeting, the data and
conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45141000 |
Herpes HSV-1 and HSV-2, affects 80 million people in the United States and the most common way to control outbreaks for adults is to use Lysine and Arginine, and prescribed medicine. The two amino acids keep the virus at a distance but if you are ingesting artificial sweeteners you can suffer and outbreak within as little as 24 hours. Monsanto developed the first artificial sweetener, saccharin in 1879 and has since poisoned the world and the controversy has followed it. In today’s society of “don’t ask, don’t tell” many chemicals are at the bottom so-called food and beverages which have no nutritional value and do more harm. Artificial sweeteners are used 200 times more than regular sugar.
The immune system
Artificial sweeteners, (splenda, sucralose, saccharin, acesulfame-K, nutra sweet, equal, nectresse, sugar alcohol, stevia, neotame, sunnette, sweet and safe one, cyclamates, high-fructose-these ingredients can also be listed as inactive ingredients) neurotoxins come in just about every type of food, beverage, hydrolyzed protein, and even some medications and vaccines (because it has a very long shelf life) these days in the name of being “sugar-free” or “diet,” it’s almost as hard to avoid as it is to stay avoid eating GMO’s. The best thing to do is to become aware of the variety of names and read your labels to avoid ingesting them altogether. People are known to drink three to four liters of the artificial sweetener-containing beverages a day.
The main action of any artificial sweetener is to break down the immune system and once that happens on top of stress all hell (herpes) breaks loose. The problem with non-nutritive artificial sweeteners is they don’t breakdown (metabolize) once they are in your body. Your body works double-time to fight the toxic chemical once it has been ingested. Keep ingesting it over time and your immune system goes on overload from the long voracious battle. The immune system is able to heal cancer but it can’t heal a chemical made by man constantly being poured into the body
HSV-1 oral herpes, or HSV-2 genital herpes is a virus running amok in the body. One of the first lines of defense is to change the diet, by that eating whole foods and fresh fruits, vegetables, meats and avoiding processed foods. The reason for this is natural hygiene keeps the body strong and on the defense. Artificial sweeteners contain no calories and are mostly used by diabetics. There is no correlation between weight loss and diet sodas (also associated with the loss of kidney function). Sodas or pop also erode tooth enamel and bone density. Scientists have linked pre-diabetes symptoms to the use of artificial sweeteners.
Side effects of the taste that kills
Monsanto’s silent killer. Besides herpes outbreaks, once can of beverage containing an artificial sweetener has been proven to cause:
- ear buzzing,
- thyroid disorders,
- heart problems,
- pancreatic inflammation,
- dizziness and death are the top two.
- brain-pancreatic-breast tumors,
- slurred speech,
- fluid retention-around the waist,
- neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s,
- “optic nerve atrophy-decreased vision by 25% and there is no return,” testified in front of U.S. Congress, and
Lupus is triggered by artificial sweeteners as well as multiple sclerosis. Artificial sweeteners do not produce oxygen once in the body because it is a chlorocarbon that causes organ, genetic and reproductive damage.
Artificial sweeteners break down into:
- Methanol, formaldehyde-immune and nervous system damage
- Aspartic acid-Emergen C contains apartic acid.
- Aspatylphenylalanine Diketopiporazine
The AMA and the FDA both released statements saying no methanol levels increased, in a child drinking 12 ounces of orange juice containing aspartame, her levels increased significantly 350%, in others the levels increased as high as 600%. When Monsanto performed the their own tests they were done on lab monkeys and give 3000mg, that same dose would kill a human being. A proven method to insure methanol and formaldehyde safety is that it exists in the body so it must be safe. The reason for this is because the medical community sees low levels of methanol and formaldehyde in the body as safe because the pharmaceutical drugs they hand out also induce such reactions in the body.
Herpes outbreaks, when compared to the actual damage being done to your body by artificial sweeteners) is seemingly mild in comparison. Fox5 and “60 Minutes” have done reports on the subject, this is not new news. Their reports are counteracted in various methods by the medical community and Monsanto in the news, commercials and on the internet. All it takes is one commercial repeated over time about artificial sweetener safety and the people follow after it like the pied piper and the rats. The best place to shop is a health food store where the toxin is not prevalent.
The best detox for immune system breakdown from chemical poisoning is clay to absorb it from every pore of the body. The damage from aspartame is slow and silent, most people don’t even notice it unless you are mindful of your body. The body detoxifies on it’s own naturally, but if you would like to rid yourself of the damage being done at once, a cleansing of the bowels, liver, kidney, lungs and blood is needed. Special bentonite (fine volcanic clay) mixed with your bath water draws the chemical out like a magnet Detoxification symptoms are less so than using a chelation method for optimum health. The more you sue the quicker you detox. Cherynobyl used the French green clay after the disaster and found a way to put it in chocolate bars and handed them out to the residents to remove the residues of radiation, with no side effects.
To get the latest updates from Atlanta Holistic Health Examiner Tina Ranieri ‘click’ the subscribe button above. To view her body of articles ‘click’ Tina Ranieri, National Holistic Health Examiner, or Atlanta Fishing Examiner. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45146000 |
The Big Show
British Cinema Culture in the Great War (1914-1918)
Subjects: Film History
The Big Show looks at the role played by cinema in British cultural life during World War One.
In writing the definitive account of film exhibition and reception in Britain in the years 1914 to 1918, Michael Hammond shows how the British film industry and British audiences responded to the traumatic effects of the Great War.
The author contends that the War’s significant effect was to expedite the cultural acceptance of cinema into the fabric of British social life. As a result, by 1918, cinema had emerged as the predominant leisure form in British social life. Through a consideration of the films, the audience, the industry and the various regulating and censoring bodies, the book explores the impact of the war on the newly established cinema culture. It also studies the contribution of the new medium to the public’s perception of the war.
List of Illustrations; Acknowledgements; Introduction; Chapter 1: Local Tracks: Exhibition Culture in Southampton; Chapter 2: The Crisis of Total War and New Audiences; Chapter 3: Anonymity and Recognition: The Roll of Honour Films; Chapter 4: Education or Entertainment? Public and Private Interpretations of Battle of the Somme; Chapter 5: Artful and Instructive: Respectability and The Birth of a Nation; Chapter 6: Civilization: A Super-film at the Palladium, 1917; Chapter 7: Chaplin: A Transatlantic Vernacular; Chapter 8: 1918: Anguished Voices and Comic Slackers; Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Filmography; Index
‘…the diversity of materials focused in this book through the specifics of cinema exhibition in Southampton provides vivid access to the social, cultural and aesthetic currents that must cross in any historicized moment of viewing. It is therefore both essential reading for anyone concerned with pursuing the further development of cinema in Britain and a model for historical analysis.’ (Screen, 48.1. Spring 2007) ‘There are many reasons to call this book an exceptional endeavor. From the complex intertextual network Hammond draws, emerges a vivid panorama of British cinema culture in the war years. So far, no other study has shed such a bright light on the cinema culture from that era and film scholars as well as (media) historians will benefit from the fresh approach and vigorous insights of this book.’ ‘The book is written clearly and with relatively little recourse to jargon, and hits two areas of growing interest in film history: reception studies and British silent film history.’ (Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, June 2007) ‘The book is written clearly and with relatively little recourse to jargon, and hits two areas of growing interest in film history: reception studies and British silent film history.’ (Early Popular Visual Culture, Vol. 6, No. 2, July 2008) ‘…Michael Hammond has written a wonderful book. The Big Show is carefully researched, well organized and both persuasively and imaginatively argued. It is an ambitious book and well worth the reading of anyone seeking to understand the way movies came to take pride of place among the leisure activities of Britons creating a ‘cinema culture’.’ (Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film, Volume 35, Number 1, Summer 2008)
Michael Hammond is a lecturer in Film in the Department of English at the University of Southampton. He has written extensively in the area of reception of early cinema in Britain, including a contribution to Young and Innocent? The Cinema in Britain, 1896-1930, edited by Andrew Higson (UEP, 2002).
New Titles List
Exeter Studies in Film History
- 'Film Europe' And 'Film America' - Cinema, Commerce and Cultural Exchange 1920-1939
- Alternative Empires - European Modernist Cinemas and Cultures of Imperialism
- Alternative Film Culture in Interwar Britain
- The Appreciation of Film - The Postwar Film Society Movement and Film Study
- The Big Show - British Cinema Culture in the Great War (1914-1918)
- British Cinema and Middlebrow Culture in the Interwar Years
- Cecil Hepworth and the Rise of the British Film Industry 1899-1911
- Charles Urban - Pioneering the Non-Fiction Film in Britain and America, 1897 - 1925
- A Chorus Of Raspberries - British Film Comedy 1929-1939
- Going to the Movies - Hollywood and the Social Experience of Cinema
- The Great Art Of Light And Shadow - Archaeology of the Cinema
- Hollywood, Westerns And The 1930S - The Lost Trail
- Legitimate Cinema - Theatre Stars in Silent British Films, 1908-1918
- The Lost Jungle - The Hollywood Sound Serial of the 1930s and 1940s
- Marketing Modernity - Victorian Popular Shows and Early Cinema
- Multimedia Histories - From Magic Lanterns to Internet
- Parallel Tracks - The Railroad and Silent Cinema
- A Paul Rotha Reader
- Popular Filmgoing in 1930s Britain - A Choice of Pleasures
- Reading the Cinematograph - The Cinema in British Short Fiction, 1896-1912
- The World According To Hollywood,1918-1939
- Young And Innocent? - The Cinema in Britain, 1896-1930 | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45148000 |
Business Across Cultures: The Meaning of Words
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One of the most common sources of intercultural friction in a multinational office in Indonesia is a misunderstanding between a foreign professional and an Indonesian manager. Often there is no fault to be found in such a circumstance. It may well be because of the way people's understanding of the meaning of words or concepts differs between cultures.
For instance, Indonesian managers often speak of the need for respect and politeness in business transactions. The meaning of those terms, “What is respect?”, “What is Polite?” vary with the perceptions of the person or persons involved. What can be considered impolite in Indonesian Business Culture may be a commonplace and accepted facet of Western Business Culture. However, the miscommunication or misperception of meanings by a foreign co-worker is often a reason for cultural friction.
One of the most frustrating conflicts in meaning for both Western and Indonesian managers is the question of proper feedback or of “Closing the Loop”. What may seem sufficient response and information on an on-going assignment to one party, may be considered grossly insufficient by another and this insufficiency may never be properly addressed.
One of the benefits of a cross-cultural training program is having the different cultural sides of a team or office sit down together and decide on what terms and words mean exactly in the separate cultural context of their own office.
It should be a basic premise of these programs that Indonesians are not expected to become Westerners in outlook and neither are the expatriates expected to become Indonesian, but rather both have to work towards establishing a separate corporate culture one that works best to meet the bottom-line goals of their company in Indonesia.
“Closing the Loop” normally involves four distinct information steps. These are giving, receiving, acting, and reporting. Each of these steps are important and each contain the seeds for misinterpretation.
For instance, there is often a general disagreement as to the level of the reporting or “feedback” required in an office. The feeling of many Indonesian managers is that a lesser level of feedback to superiors is considered sufficient than many expatriate managers are comfortable with. One thought on the Indonesian side being that delays may not be within the manager's power to control.
Many expatriate managers disagree that such lower levels of feedback are acceptable feeling that Indonesian managers should not wait until an action is completed before reporting progress on an action being important also.
These are issues that need to be discussed and decided by the people who work on the team or in the office. Ignoring or complaining that the other party is not giving proper feedback, or worse, that the other party is incompetent, will not improve the harmony of the office.
These miscommunications can be resolved if the different cultural sides of an office take the time and effort to try to understand one another. For instance, I recently facilitated a mixed, cross-cultural program for a major multinational operating in the financial sector. The Indonesian and expatriate sides in the discussion thought that they had understood what each other expected. As it turned out, there was a large gap in those expectations. After several hours of guided discussions, the following agreement on meaning was reached.
“Closing the Loop” is taking responsibility that you give information clearly, that you indicate that you have received and understood the information, that you act promptly on that information, and that you report back not only when the action is complete, but when there is additional information that is of importance.“
Some Western managers think that these kind of Mission Statements 'go without saying'. That they are clearly understood by anyone working in an international business environment. I sometimes wonder how many times I have heard an expatriate participant on one of my programs exclaim, ”Well, they [Indonesian managers] must understand that!' when it is clear that they do not.
The culture that one grows up in effects the entire way that he or she perceives actions and words. These perceptions are altered through personal observation, experience, and training. However, the assumption that someone else looks at a particular situation the same way that you do is often incorrect and can lead to many cross-cultural conflicts.
The way around these cultural barriers is through mutual understanding. Multicultural offices and teams need to take the time and effort to set the ground rules for future cooperation. They need to determine the meaning of words and concepts so that their understanding is clear. Denial, often a criticism of Indonesian managers in problem resolution, is one trait that is also often found in their expatriate counterparts.
This article was generously contributed by George B. Whitfield, III when he was a Technical Advisor with Executive Orientation Services.
Copyright © 1997-2012, Expat Web Site Association Jakarta, Indonesia http://www.expat.or.id All rights reserved. The information on Living in Indonesia, A Site for Expatriates may not be retransmitted or reproduced in any form without permission. This information has been compiled from sources which we, the Expat Web Site Association and volunteers related to this site, believe to be reliable. While reasonable care has been taken to ensure that the facts are accurate and up-to-date, opinions and commentary are fair and reasonable, we accept no responsibility for them. The information contained does not make any recommendation upon which you can rely without further personal consideration and is not an offer or a solicitation to buy any products or services from us. Opinions and statements constitute the judgment of the contributors to this web site at the time the information was written and may change without notice. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45150000 |
Hugh the Great
Hugh the Great, d. 956, French duke; son of King Robert I and father of Hugh Capet. Excluded from the succession on his father's death by his brother-in-law Raoul, he supported the candidacy of Louis IV, the Carolingian heir, after Raoul's death (936). Hugh hoped to rule through this weak king who had been raised in England. Louis IV attempted to increase his strength, however, and his reign was marked by warfare between king and vassal, in which Hugh, excommunicated (948) at the insistence of Louis, was forced to submit (950). Although Hugh never held the title of king, his vast possessions made him the virtual ruler of France.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
More on Hugh the Great from Fact Monster:
See more Encyclopedia articles on: French History: Biographies | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45154000 |
In Christianity there are many diverse beliefs and denominations which include Pentecostals, apostolic faith, 7th day Adventists, and Jehovah witness amongst others. Some believe we should not eat certain foods, some say a certain day should be esteemed more than the other, some don’t believe in celebrating festive periods. Others include prohibition from wearing certain clothes, jewelleries amongst others (more reference in Romans 14). Rom 14: 17 “for the kingdom of GOD is not meat and drink; but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost”
Whichever belief we may have as Christians, we should not judge our fellow Christians based on our different beliefs or values. No belief is superior to the other; that someone doesn’t consent to your belief does not make yours superior or inferior. Rather we should see ourselves as one as long as we believe in GOD and our LORD Jesus Christ.
Christianity is more of a personal relationship with GOD. At the end of the day, GOD will not judge us based on our denominations but on our personal relationship with GOD. Rom 14:12 – “so then every one of us shall give account of himself to GOD”
In conclusion, GOD is a GOD of diversities not divisions. That there are diverse beliefs even in Christianity does not mean that we should be divided. As someone rightly said “what we belief may divide us but in whom we belief should unite us”.
1 Corinthians 14:33 – “For GOD is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints”
If you died today, are you absolutely certain that you would go to heaven? You can be! TRUST JESUS NOW
Read more articles by EFEZOKHAE GRACE or search for articles on the same topic or others. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45157000 |
Know what you're getting into
We believe in safe DIY. That's why we've always been reluctant to show readers how to open a breaker box and connect a new circuit. Even with the power shut off, there's a chance you could touch the wrong parts and kill yourself. But then we figured if we didn't show you, you'd just go search the Internet. And that scared us even more. So we're going to walk you through the process, showing you the safest way to open the breaker box, wire a new breaker and test your work.
Opening the main breaker box and installing a new circuit is actually pretty easy. You only have to connect three wires, and each is color-coded. But there are some safety precautions, and if you ignore them, you could kill yourself. Really. If you follow our safety steps in order and to the letter, you'll be fine. But if at any point you're unsure how to proceed or feel uncomfortable with the project, call an electrician.
Stay away from the large wires and lugs. They're always live, even with the main breaker (service disconnect) shut off. If you touch them, you could die. Cover the live areas with a cardboard shield to prevent accidental contact while installing the new circuit. If you have any doubts about which areas stay live, contact an electrician.
Know what's what
A: Main lugs. They're always live—even when the main breaker is off. NEVER TOUCH THEM.
B: Main cables. The black ones are always live. And although they're insulated, avoid touching them.
C: Main breaker. Always switch it off before removing the panel's cover.
D: Breaker. The hot wire (usually red or black) from each circuit connects to a breaker. If you're installing an AFCI breaker (as shown on the following pages), you'll also connect the neutral wire to the breaker.
E: Breaker bus. Distributes power from the main breaker to the individual circuit breakers. Each breaker snaps onto the bus.
F: Neutral bus. All ground and neutral (white) wires connect here. If you're installing a standard breaker, the neutral (white) wire connects here, too. If you're installing an arc-fault circuit interrupter (AFCI) breaker, you'll connect the neutral to the breaker and run a “pigtail” wire to the neutral bus.
G: Breaker space. This panel has room for three more breakers. You can install your new breaker in any open space.
Get the right parts and tools
Before you go shopping, open the door of your breaker box and copy the manufacturer's name, the box model number, and the style numbers of the breakers that are approved for your box. Then buy one of those breakers. If your home center doesn't sell the right model or brand, you'll have to go to an electrical supplier. You cannot install a circuit breaker style that isn't specifically approved for use in your box—even if it fits inside the box. While at the store, pick up a few 1/2-in. plastic snap-in cable clamps to secure the new cable. They're safer than metal clamps because you don't put your hand in the panel to install them.
You have to shut off the power to your whole house, so you'll need a powerful work light. An LED headlamp is also a great idea so you won't have to juggle a flashlight, wire strippers and a screwdriver. Round up a utility knife, wire strippers, electrical tape, a circuit tester (not a voltage sniffer), and a flat-blade screwdriver or No. 2 square-drive tip for your multi-bit driver.
Power down, then remove the cover
Turn off all computers in the house before you switch off the power. Then switch off the main breaker (the service disconnect) and follow the cover removal procedure shown in the photo.
Test to make sure it's dead
It's dangerous to assume the power is really off just because you've flipped the service disconnect to the off position. There's a slim chance that the service disconnect didn't work properly, keeping power to some breakers. So test each and every breaker to make sure it's really dead. If the test light lights up, stop and call an electrician.
Insert a cardboard safety shield, remove a knockout, and feed in the cable
You can insert the new cable into any knockout on the top, bottom or sides of the box. Find the least congested area and remove one small knockout. Then snap in a plastic cable clamp (the screw-style ones shown aren't as easy to use).
Hold the cable up to the box to determine how much of the outer jacket you should strip off. Slice off the jacket and remove the paper insulator. Then wrap the ends of the loose wires with electrical tape to prevent them from touching a live portion of the box.
Route the cable and install the breaker
Neatly route the black and white wires to the empty breaker space. Attach the wires to the breaker and then snap it into the box, or install the breaker first and insert the wires last. Just be aware that wiring an AFCI-style breaker is different from wiring ordinary breakers. The neutral (white) from the new cable attaches to the AFCI. On a main panel, you connect the ground wire from the new cable and the neutral (white) pigtail from the AFCI to the neutral bus. If you're installing a breaker on a subpanel, place the neutral and ground on separate bus bars.
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Test the installation and finish the job
Remove the panel cover plate knockout that corresponds to the slot where you installed the new breaker (bend it back and forth until it breaks off). Then install the cover and turn on the main breaker. Switch the new AFCI to “ON.” Wait a few seconds and press the “TEST” button. The breaker should trip. If it doesn't trip, refer to the package instructions for troubleshooting or call an electrician.
Check wire gauge with your loose change.
Fourteen-gauge wire is the thickness of a dime;
12-gauge is the thickness of a nickel.
How to Plan a New Branch Circuit
- You can usually mix lighting and receptacles on the same circuit. But it's not a good idea to place lighting and receptacles in the same room on a single circuit. If the breaker trips, you'll lose all the light fixtures and receptacles at the same time.
- If you're wiring living areas, you can install 10 to 13 lights and receptacles on a single 15-amp circuit. Locate the receptacles so you're never more than 6 ft. away from one on each wall.
- Run a separate 15- or 20-amp circuit for each of these watt-sucking appliances: garbage disposer, dishwasher, microwave, vent hood, trash compactor and space heater.
- Run a separate 20-amp circuit to each bathroom and laundry room. Install a minimum of two 20-amp circuits for the kitchen. Protect the receptacles with a ground-fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) breaker or GFCI-style receptacles.
- Use 12-gauge cable for 20-amp circuits and 14-gauge for 15-amp. Many cable manufacturers color-code the outer jacket of their cable, but the color schemes are not universal. So always double-check the wire itself to be sure.
- New branch circuits to all “living areas” (bedroom, living room, family room, den, dining room, library, sunroom, closet, hallway and similar locations) must be connected to an arc-fault circuit interrupter (AFCI). AFCI breakers are pricey ($40), so you may be tempted to buy
an ordinary $5 breaker. Don't. The electrical inspector will just make you change it out. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-45158000 |
Subsets and Splits