text
stringlengths 198
630k
| id
stringlengths 47
47
| metadata
dict |
|---|---|---|
The temple was built in the mid 9th century by Sri Kahulunnan or Pramodhawardhani, the daughter of Samaratungga. the complex is made up of 174 small buildings, 116 are stupas and 58 are shrines. Many of the buildings have inscriptions. the dates of the inscriptions are between 825-850 AD.
©2013 Gregorius Suhartoyo
My images may not be reproduced in any form without my permission | <urn:uuid:c975cadf-afbc-4da8-b832-6042b6536cdb> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:22:46",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9386365413665771,
"score": 2.515625,
"token_count": 98,
"url": "http://shadowness.com/SuharLeonheart/glory-of-the-past"
} |
The Bigger Picture: Visual Archives and the Smithsonian
OUCH: Scary Pictures of Broad Daylight
Last month, I wrote a post about the fact that when photographs of patients were attached to CT scans, the radiologists who “read” them did a better job because they had a stronger connection to the patient pictured. More recently, I came across another interesting photography/radiation story on the Science News website. It describes how researchers at Boston University’s School of Medicine are using photography to convince pre-teens why they should avoid getting sunburned.
In a controlled experiment, some middle school students posed for UV photographs of their faces that show pigment changes due to chronic sun exposure; others didn’t. But all received sun protection lectures. In follow-up studies students who had not been photographed reported higher rates of sunburn and skin damage. Skin cancer is the most common type of cancer in the country, and Marie-France Demierre, professor of dermatology and medicine at Boston University, notes that, a "UV photograph represents an immediate ''picture'' of sun damage that can impact impressionable teens." I wonder what would happen if magazines did something similar and began to publish UV photos of perennially bronzed celebrities? | <urn:uuid:31342bf8-e062-434f-9bb8-cd1929ffb5a8> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:42:28",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9567703604698181,
"score": 2.546875,
"token_count": 254,
"url": "http://siarchives.si.edu/blog/ouch-scary-pictures-broad-daylight"
} |
Rejected in concept by local voters in 2000, Measure A would divide the Pasadena Unified School District into seven so-called sub-districts. Its primary purpose is to promote greater minority representation on the Board of Education although its advocates allege that it will result in greater democracy, more “local control,” cheaper elections and more access.
Actually, its only guaranteed effect will be to significantly reduce the voting rights of all voters and blocs thereof, wherever they live.
Under the current system of “at large” elections, citizens get to vote for (or against) all seven board members whenever they are up for election, and to affect the balance of power on the board every two years.
Under Measure A, voters will be limited to voting for one board member only, every four years – a single member from a single sub-district whose boundaries have been drawn in large part based on a committee’s perception of its overall racial/ethnic characteristics.
Such elections will ensure that six of the seven board members will have no political incentive to even pick up the phone when voters from outside their sub-district call whereas members elected at large have to develop a district wide constituency.
Measure A will result in racially-oriented, ward-based “what’s in it for me” politics and politicians.
The proposed sub-districts each contain about 29,000 residents. Three (and arguably four) of them are based almost wholly on perceptions of race/ethnicity despite ever-increasing diversity within each of them. These boundaries will exacerbate racial tensions between blacks and Hispanics at a time when they share many of the same neighborhoods, albeit in different proportions.
The Black population of Pasadena and Altadena has declined precipitously since the mid 1970’s when there were nearly 11,000 black students. Today, there are fewer than 3,000. Over the same period, the number of Hispanic students has grown from around 2,700 to over 11,000.
However, the black community still has greater numbers of registered voters and Hispanics are unlikely to elect one of “their own” for many years. The one Hispanic currently on the school board – currently elected at large – is not likely to prevail in his prospective sub-district!
The margin of victory in at-large PUSD elections is typically four to five percent, a margin which enables any group of voters that gets its act together to have a significant impact on every election and board member.
Measure A’s “one vote every four years for a single member” requirement will disenfranchise whole blocs of voters regardless of race, political persuasion or current “community of interest”, the real places where people live.
For example, Altadena’s overall electoral power will be divided by its own characteristics, east and west of Lake, and in part diluted by a significant bloc of East Pasadena voters. Sierra Madre’s voters now have great influence on district-wide races but it will be out-voted in its sub-district by the much more numerous residents of eastern and southeastern Pasadena.
Measure A’s boundaries also fail to reflect the distribution of students and schools. The three “minority districts” account for over 70% of the students. The district’s long-standing open enrollment policies further complicate matters of “representation”.
Greater access to local voters?
Given the geographic expanse of four of the proposed sub-districts, voters are not much more likely to have a board member walk the streets where they live than under the current system. And, it’s not that difficult to get a board member’s ear (or scalp) to affect board decisions.
To get elected in an at-large election, potential board members have to develop a broad constituency – before they are elected – to engage voters throughout the district, wherever they live, whatever their census profile. They are, in effect, vetted by the whole community and, therefore, have greater experience, credibility and legitimacy than would single sub-district members. If you doubt this, ask Mr. Bogaard!
However, the city’s electoral practices are not a model for the schools. City council members deal primarily with a set of finite matters – police and fire protection, water and power, traffic control, etc. which are of particular concern to particular neighborhoods or residents. School board members rarely deal with issues which are unique to a particular area of the district. Their obligations are limited by law to matters of policy and oversight, to ensure that the district’s $180 million budget is allocated to meet the needs of all students district-wide.
Currently, each winning at-large board member gets 7,000 to 8,000 votes from a broad political base across the district. Given historically consistent turnouts of about 13 percent of eligible voters for school board elections, winning sub-district members will prospectively have the support of as few as 1,000 voters, with nowhere to turn for four years if their choice proves unwise!
In fact, four sub-district members with as few as 4,000 votes between them – fewer than a single losing board member now gets – could take over the district, its budget and its future, to serve ends which though not yet defined are likely to be dominated by ward-level politics.
Measure A’s proponents argue that elections will be less costly. Maybe, and maybe not! West Pasadena City Council member Steve Madison spent in excess of $220,000 to retain his council seat in the last election, inside a sub-district 20% smaller than those proposed by Measure A.
Successful at-large candidates for the school board typically have a long history of involvement and experience in the schools and community. It does take money to run – although not nearly as much as Measure A’s advocates allege – but money doesn’t necessarily prevail against well-known candidates with an earned district-wide reputation.
Make it cheap to run and you may get “local” candidates who run merely to win the one real perk enjoyed by the school board members, a comprehensive family health insurance program worth at least $20,000 a year! Or, outside political groups could try to “buy” a seat on the cheap!
Measure A represents a significant step backward for PUSD and the increasingly diverse communities it serves. Forced to integrate its schools as a result of its own intransigence in 1970, now is not the time to force the district to divide itself based largely on race as Measure A would have it rendered. Now is not the time to reverse 40 plus years of progress.
Measure A would be irreversible but it is NOT inevitable. Vote no on Measure A.
Bill Bibbiani is a former PUSD Board of Education member. | <urn:uuid:2651001c-2797-4361-8255-25a4318b1235> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:43:43",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9710716605186462,
"score": 2.578125,
"token_count": 1420,
"url": "http://sierramadre.patch.com/groups/bill-bibbianis-blog/p/bp--blog-why-im-voting-no-on-measure-a"
} |
Members of the United Nations
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Member states of the United Nations)
Other websites [change]
All notes are based on Official list of member states
- Joined as Byelorussia. United Nations told of name change on 19 September 1991
- The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was an original Member of the United Nations. The Charter was signed on its behalf on 26 June 1945 and ratified (confirmed) on 19 October 1945. When Yugoslvia was dissolved the new countries of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia were formed.
- Zaire joined the United Nations on 20 September 1960. On 17 May 1997 it changed its name was to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
- The Republic of Croatia was admitted as a Member of the United Nations by General Assembly resolution A/RES/46/238 of 22 May 1992.
- the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic was an original Member of the United Nations from 24 October 1945. The Czech and Slovak Federal Republic separated on 31 December 1992 and that the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic, as successor States, were thus admitted as Member States on 19 January of that year.
- Egypt and Syria were original Members of the United Nations from 24 October 1945. Following a plebiscite (vote) on 21 February 1958, Egypt and Syria joined together as the United Arab Republic . On 13 October 1961, Syria, became an independent country, resumed its separate membership in the United Nations. On 2 September 1971, the United Arab Republic changed its name to the Arab Republic of Egypt.
- The Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic were admitted as members on 18 September 1973. The German Democratic Republic stopped being a member on 3 October 1990, when the two Germancountries united to form one sovereign country.
- On 20 January 1965, Indonesia said it was leaving the United Nations “at this stage and under the present circumstances”. On 19 September 1966, decided "to resume full cooperation with the United Nations and to resume participation (start joining) in its activities". On 28 September 1966, the General Assembly invited Indonesia to take its seats in the Assembly.
- By resolution A/RES/47/225 of 8 April 1993, "Macedonia" became a Member of the United Nations. In the United Nations Macedonia is called "The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" because of arguments about its name.
- The Federation of Malaya joined the United Nations on 17 September 1957. On 16 September 1963, its name was changed to Malaysia, when the new states of Singapore, Sabah (North Borneo) and Sarawak joined the union. Singapore became an independent country on 9 August 1965 and a Member of the United Nations on 21 September 1965.
- On 4 February 2003, the official name of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was changed to Serbia and Montenegro. Montenegro held a referendum (vote) on 21 May 2006 and declared independence from Serbia on 3 June. President of the Republic of Serbia told the Secretary-General that the membership of Serbia and Montenegro was being continued by the Republic of Serbia On 28 June 2006 Montenegro became a United Nations Member State by General Assembly resolution A/RES/60/264.
- The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was an original Member of the United Nations from 24 October 1945. On 24 December 1991, Boris Yeltsin, the President of the Russian Federation, told the Secretary-General that the Soviet Union's membership in the Security Council and all other United Nations organs was being taken over by the Russian Federation with the support of the 11 member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States.
- The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was admitted as a Member of the United Nations by General Assembly resolution A/RES/55/12 of 1 November 2000. On 4 February 2003 the official name of the country was changed to Serbia and Montenegro. On 3 June 2006, the President of the Republic of Serbia told the Secretary-General that the membership of Serbia and Montenegro was being continued by the Republic of Serbia, after Montenegro’s declaration of independence.
- The Republic of Slovenia was admitted as a Member of the United Nations by General Assembly resolution A/RES/46/236 of 22 May 1992.
- "U.N. Admits South Sudan as 193rd Member". foxnews.com. Associated Press (FOX News Network, LLC). 2011-07-14. http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/07/14/un-admits-south-sudan-as-13rd-member/. Retrieved 2011-07-14.
- Tanganyika was a Member of the United Nations from 14 December 1961 and Zanzibar was a Member from 16 December 1963. After the ratification on 26 April 1964 of Articles of Union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar, the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar continued as a single Member, changing its name to the United Republic of Tanzania on 1 November 1964.
- Yemen was admitted to membership in the United Nations on 30 September 1947 and Democratic Yemen on 14 December 1967. On 22 May 1990, the two countries merged and have been one Member with the name "Yemen". | <urn:uuid:065d3290-f236-4567-ad81-71b2ff14e601> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:14:05",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9717625379562378,
"score": 3.140625,
"token_count": 1092,
"url": "http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_states_of_the_United_Nations"
} |
For the past five years, Colombia's abysmal labor rights record has led congressional Democrats to freeze the proposed U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement (TPA). And for good reason: The agreement would, in part, benefit large-scale monocropping plantations and other economic projects -- many of whose owners utilize the "security" services of paramilitary groups to intimidate, assassinate, and displace not only trade unionists, but also Afro-Colombian and indigenous leaders and families viewed as getting in the way of economic operations’ owners.
In April, President Obama and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos defrosted the trade agreement, announcing a "Labor Action Plan" that details steps Colombia has committed to take in the coming months. Based on these promises, the TPA is likely to come up for a vote in the U.S. Congress before the end of 2011.
But the plan -- according to U.S. and Colombian trade unions, human rights groups, Afro-Colombians, indigenous Colombians, and rural farmer associations -- falls short. Far from guaranteeing fair and safe conditions for Colombian workers, the plan limits their ability to exercise their rights and ignores serious concerns about security, human rights, and Afro-Colombian and indigenous land rights.
In Colombia, being a trade unionist can be a death sentence. Colombia has the highest number of unionists killed in the world -- more than 1,000 during the last 10 years. Most workers are not unionized. A large number of workers are forced into "associative cooperatives" that then contract with employers; these not only impede unionization, but they also result in workers not having the labor protections that are afforded to direct employees. In the sugarcane industry in Valle del Cauca, where this model operates, Afro-Colombians work in slavery-like conditions.
Beyond labor rights, the announced plan also ignores the fact that, in Colombia, many large-scale "development" projects, including plantations of monoculture crops such as oil palm trees, have been illegally and violently imposed onto land belonging to Afro-Colombians and indigenous communities.
With 5.2 million internally displaced persons, Colombia competes with Sudan for the slot of largest internally displaced population in the world. In multiple rulings, Colombia's own Constitutional Court has highlighted the connection between large-scale monoculture agriculture, paramilitary violence, and displacement of Afro-Colombians and indigenous Colombians from their homes.
The underlying conditions that cause much of the violence -- the internal armed conflict and paramilitaries that operate with impunity -- are not addressed in the labor action plan agreed to in April. In that plan, Colombia commits to long-overdue steps, such as expanding protection programs for trade unionists and hiring 100 labor inspectors this year to address abuses in sugar, oil palms, ports, and mining cooperatives. But these steps do not go far enough. The plan does not require any decrease in violence against trade union members, or any progress toward justice for those already hurt or killed; it also does not deal with other important labor issues, such as allowing for industry-wide unions.
For five years, U.S. and Colombia labor movements and human rights organizations, as well as U.S. Democrats, have pressured Colombia to make these changes, yet little has been done. Given Colombia’s poor track record on other human rights issues, it is unlikely it will fundamentally change its current dismal labor environment by the end of the year.
Colombia has a long history of undelivered promises with regard to labor and human rights. Its Constitutional Court has issued orders urging Colombia to take action to protect ethnic minorities from further harm, but the country has not done so. If Colombia ignores directives from its own judicial system to protect the rights of those who would be impacted by the TPA, what reason is there to believe it will guarantee the rights of its own workers with the Labor Action Plan?
Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli is a senior associate for the Andes at the Washington Office on Latin America. | <urn:uuid:18ee3a75-df87-4a59-8906-a1d03f02fcdb> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:09:15",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9492514729499817,
"score": 2.578125,
"token_count": 848,
"url": "http://sojo.net/magazine/2011/07/undelivered-promises?quicktabs_web_extras=2"
} |
Sound Ethics: Book: The Good Doctors
Until the late 1960s, African American doctors were not permitted to belong to county medical associations.
And since it was those local associations that granted hospital privileges, African American physicians often were not permitted to admit patients to white-run hospitals in the south.
It wasnít until 1968 that the American Medical Association was pressured to change this policy, in part by the Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR).
Historian John Dittmer is the author of a book on that chapter of American history, called "The Good Doctors."
Today Dittmer tells Sound Medicineís Dr. Eric Meslin that the MCHR was made up of volunteer doctors from the north who had their own version of a civil rights freedom ride. | <urn:uuid:cb4b1080-7940-4a52-a8a8-5da64c346a58> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:28:17",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9750487804412842,
"score": 2.78125,
"token_count": 157,
"url": "http://soundmedicine.iu.edu/segment/2742/Book--The-Good-Doctors"
} |
There is an unfortunate side effect when using gdb to debug multi-threaded programs. If one thread stops for a breakpoint, or for some other reason, and another thread is blocked in a system call, then the system call may return prematurely. This is a consequence of the interaction between multiple threads and the signals that gdb uses to implement breakpoints and other events that stop execution.
To handle this problem, your program should check the return value of each system call and react appropriately. This is good programming style anyways.
For example, do not write code like this:
The call to
sleep will return early if a different thread stops
at a breakpoint or for some other reason.
Instead, write this:
int unslept = 10; while (unslept > 0) unslept = sleep (unslept);
A system call is allowed to return early, so the system is still conforming to its specification. But gdb does cause your multi-threaded program to behave differently than it would without gdb.
Also, gdb uses internal breakpoints in the thread library to monitor certain events such as thread creation and thread destruction. When such an event happens, a system call in another thread may return prematurely, even though your program does not appear to stop. | <urn:uuid:da0d0195-b882-4274-8e45-9b9d7f446458> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:15:03",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9253951907157898,
"score": 2.765625,
"token_count": 268,
"url": "http://sourceware.org/gdb/current/onlinedocs/gdb/Interrupted-System-Calls.html"
} |
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station enjoy holiday meals just as their families do here on Earth. Although the food is not mom's home cooking, it's also not the "tubes and cubes" of the first meals in orbit during the Apollo years.
Don't expect someone to break out the "good china," though. On the Station, the holiday table is set with bungee cords and Velcro. Astronauts eat from disposable plastic containers and aluminum pouches. Instead of a carving knife, scissors are more important for meal preparation. Not fancy, maybe, but man what a view. Also, as with holiday meals on Earth, it's the spirit of peace and good will that warms the hearts of the diners.
The ChallengesWith no refrigerator or freezer aboard the Station, food must remain good for long periods at room temperature. Freeze-drying is a good option for many foods. Others are thermostabilized, just like some foods found in grocery stores that do not require refrigeration. Just like on Earth, some items are vcanned while others like candy, nuts and cookies, are fine just the way they are.
The top Station chef is Food Scientist Vickie Kloeris. She has worked in space food systems at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston for 18 years. Kloeris oversees the area that manages the production and supply of Space Station and Space Shuttle food.
"Station crews have more than 250 food and beverage items they can select from the U.S. and Russian food systems, but they have to make their selections as early as a year before their flight," Kloeris said. "The choices range from barbecued beef to baked tofu, with probably the most popular item being shrimp cocktail," she said.
A Matter of TasteSome people claim that the way a person tastes changes in space. Kloeris said although there is no scientific data to verify changes, many astronauts report a preference for spicy and tart foods and drinks.
The environment aboard the station is also a factor when considering food choices. Crumbly or loose foods can float out and contaminate the Station atmosphere, becoming an annoyance or even a hazard to crews and equipment. Many entrees and vegetables are packaged in a thick sauce that helps hold them in a bowl while they are eaten. Tortillas are favored over sandwich bread, because they create fewer crumbs and are easier to handle in microgravity. They also stay fresh longer than sliced bread.
Stocking the Station cupboard is an international effort; half the food is from Russia and half from the United States. The U.S. food comes from a variety of sources. Some comes straight off the shelves with only repackaging needed. Other items are custom-manufactured for space. The combination of the two food systems increases the variety of foods available to Station crews.
Before the launch of the Space Station, when Space Shuttle flights stayed in orbit only about 18 days, the variety of food available was not as extensive. Variety has become much more important, since crews stay in space for up to six months. One of the more popular items eaten by Station crews is a variation on a children's favorite that can easily be tried at home:
SPACE PB&J WRAPIngredients:
- 1 Flour Tortilla
- Favorite Peanut Butter
- Favorite Jelly
Fold and enjoy.
Information about space foods and additional recipes are on the Internet. | <urn:uuid:4a65d873-ad22-4a74-98fe-98fcd716e437> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:30:13",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9592692255973816,
"score": 2.59375,
"token_count": 709,
"url": "http://space.about.com/cs/iss/a/issholidaymeal.htm"
} |
Thrust Chamber Assembly
When the fuel reaches the
thrust chamber, it is directed through 102 coolant channels in the
combustion chamber wall, providing regenerative cooling to the combustion
chamber walls, and then to the injector of the engine. The oxidizer
is routed directly to the injector. The platelet injector assembly
consists of a stack of plates, each with an etched pattern that
provides proper distribution and propellant injection velocity vector.
The stack is diffusion-bonded and welded to the body of the injector.
The fuel and oxidizer orifices are positioned so that the propellants
will impinge and atomize, causing the fuel and oxidizer to ignite
because of hypergolic reaction.
The contoured nozzle extension is bolted to the aft flange of
the combustion chamber. The nozzle extension is made of a columbium
alloy and is radiantly cooled.
The nominal flow rate of oxidizer and fuel to each engine is
11.93 pounds per second and 7.23 pounds per second, respectively,
producing 6,000 pounds of thrust at a vacuum specific impulse
of 313 seconds. | <urn:uuid:cfe82891-18b1-4933-b434-754ad0a01c43> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:22:42",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.8800126314163208,
"score": 2.875,
"token_count": 246,
"url": "http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/shutref/orbiter/oms/thchamber.html"
} |
Free Search (10899 images)
Oxygen makes Venus glow at night
Rating: 5.00/5 (1 votes cast)
- Title Oxygen makes Venus glow at night
- Released 11/04/2007 2:35 pm
- Copyright ESA/VIRTIS/INAF-IASF/Obs. de Paris-LESIA
This grey-scale image was taken on 3 June 2006 by the Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS) onboard ESA’s Venus Express, at a distance of 68 000 kilometres from the planet’s surface.
The image shows the oxygen airglow in the night-side of Venus, appearing as the bright features similar to ‘clouds’ visible at the bottom of the image, and also visible as the white ring surrounding the planet’s disk (limb). The oxygen airglow is fully detectable only at specific infrared wavelengths. This image was obtained at 1.27 micrometres.
The fluorescence of the airglow is produced when oxygen atoms, ‘migrating’ from the day-side to the night-side of the atmosphere of Venus under the push of the so-called sub-solar and anti-solar atmospheric circulation, recombine into molecular oxygen (or ‘O2’) emitting light.
The view was obtained from south, with the south pole at the top of the image. The lower horizon is at about 20 degrees South latitude, while the image centre is at 60 degrees East longitude (coinciding with midnight local time). | <urn:uuid:3791b13b-dba7-4225-98e9-3acc4aa5badf> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:38:49",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.889448881149292,
"score": 3.046875,
"token_count": 332,
"url": "http://spaceinimages.esa.int/Images/2007/04/Oxygen_makes_Venus_glow_at_night"
} |
The motion of the planets around the Sun is like a never-ending race. Each planet follows its own lane around the Sun, and moves at its own speed. And as you might expect, a planet in an inside lane always beats one in an outside lane.
Consider Earth and Mars.
Earth is the third planet out from the Sun. Our “lane” -- our path around the Sun -- is close to 600 million miles long. It takes us one year to complete one lap around the track, for an average speed of 67,000 miles per hour.
Mars is half-again as far out from the Sun, so its lane is longer than Earth’s. A body in a farther orbit moves more slowly, so Mars is moving about 13,000 miles per hour slower than Earth is, so it takes almost twice as long to finish a lap around the Sun.
As a result, the viewing angle to Mars is constantly changing.
Earth passed Mars early this month. As we approached the planet, it appeared to slow down, then reverse direction against the background of stars. The same thing would happen if you passed another car on the highway -- or the racetrack.
As we passed Mars, we were closest to it for the year, so the planet was at its brightest. And it’s still quite bright, shining like an orange star in the east as night falls.
Over the coming weeks and months, though, as the distance to Mars increases, it’ll fade rapidly. By late summer, it’ll be just one-eighth as bright as it is now. So look for Mars at its best -- before we leave the Red Planet behind.
Script by Damond Benningfield, Copyright 2012
For more skywatching tips, astronomy news, and much more, read StarDate magazine. | <urn:uuid:ca700fac-2ac5-45f8-85b4-ee2f94b763f3> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:22:05",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9533452987670898,
"score": 3.515625,
"token_count": 379,
"url": "http://stardate.org/print/8718"
} |
Author: Albert Ingalls
Hardcover: Volume 3 of 3
In the early 1920s a naturally curious fellow, Albert Ingalls, happened to read an article in an obscure magazine by an even more curious fellow, Russell Porter. The article was about the "Poor Man's" telescope and told the story of how a group of Vermont villagers built their own reflecting telescopes. It was to be a fateful event because Albert Ingalls was an editor of Scientific American magazine and telescope making was about to gain a much larger audience through America's preeminent science magazine. Ingalls and Porter would, during the next 30 years, create and inspire from others a body of literature that would eventually span a three-volume set of books.
Many people are surprised when they find out that the optics for a 6 or 8 inch Newtonian reflecting telescope can be made by hand using the simplest of tools and materials. Since the invention of the telescope about 400 years ago, telescope making has always had an amateur component. Some amateur telescope makers were fascinated by the process itself, while others (like the great observer of the night sky, William Herschel) became amateur telescope makers as a means to their ultimate objective of exploration.
Inevitably some of the more accomplished amateurs became professionals and made instruments for others, but these instruments were never cheap. Until the discovery of methods to coat glass with silver in the mid-1800s the telescope of choice was the refractor—in spite of its price. By the time aluminum replaced silver in the late 1930s, reflectors had almost completely replaced refractors in popularity. This series of books is one of the reasons why.
The ATM books were originally published at a time when it was costly to rearrange the contents once it was set in type, so with each edition and printing new material tended to be added at the back. Over the years they grew larger and less well organized. Yet, because they contained so much valuable information, telescope makers, even today, considered them to be the bible of telescope making.
These books are a rearrangement of the original three-volume work. Insofar as possible similar items are now grouped together; each as a Chapter within a descriptive Part. Chapters are usually divided into sections, subsections, etc. While the Table of Contents for a typical "ATM" of old was 2 pages it is now 3 to 5 times larger. The Index has similarly been expanded. The objective was not to rewrite but to logically rearrange the text into a more user-accessible format. Spelling, hyphenation and usage have been standardized, and errors-in-fact corrected, but almost all the original text remains fundamentally unchanged and now makes up nearly 1,800 pages of text and illustrations devoted to practical telescope making. | <urn:uuid:c33f0b78-038e-4a89-8176-ac7a724e6fce> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:44:13",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9700173139572144,
"score": 3.53125,
"token_count": 563,
"url": "http://starizona.com/acb/Amateur-Telescope-Making---Vol-3-P164C77.aspx?UserID=23668274"
} |
Deer more active this time of year in roadways | News
CAPE GIRARDEAU, MO (KFVS)- Troopers are warning drivers to be on the lookout for deer crossing Missouri's roadways.
Colonel Ron Replogle, superintendent of the Missouri State Highway Patrol says more deer are active this time of year especially during evening and early dawn hours.
He says that's mainly due to mating season, hunting and crop harvesting.
According to the Missouri Highway Patrol, in 2011 there were 3,563 traffic crashes involving deer in Missouri. Four people were killed and 367 injured. And, in 2011, 26.7 percent of the traffic crashes involving deer happened in urban areas.
Col. Replogle says the majority of deer-vehicle strikes occur from October-December, with the most strikes happening in November. He adds most deer strikes occur between the hours of 5 p.m. and 6:59 a.m.
Here are some tips to observe when driving this time of year:
-When you see deer, slow down and proceed with caution.
-In areas where there are streams or wooded corridors surrounded by farmland, look for more deer to cross roadways.
Copyright 2012 KFVS. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:ddd561e8-0412-4c9f-9eef-f40793b2c962> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:21:23",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9596933722496033,
"score": 2.578125,
"token_count": 258,
"url": "http://stoddard.kfvs12.com/news/news/58988-deer-more-active-time-year-roadways"
} |
What is Sustainable Agriculture?
Agriculture has changed dramatically, especially since the end of World War II. Food and fiber productivity soared due to new technologies, mechanization, increased chemical use, specialization and government policies that favored maximizing production. These changes allowed fewer farmers with reduced labor demands to produce the majority of the food and fiber in the U.S.
Although these changes have had many positive effects and reduced many risks in farming, there have also been significant costs.Prominent among these are topsoil depletion, groundwater contamination, the decline of family farms, continued neglect of the living and working conditions for farm laborers, increasing costs of production, and the disintegration of economic and social conditions in rural communities.
A growing movement has emerged during the past two decades to question the role of the agricultural establishment in promoting practices that contribute to these social problems. Today this movement for sustainable agriculture is garnering increasing support and acceptance within mainstream agriculture. Not only does sustainable agriculture address many environmental and social concerns, but it offers innovative and economically viable opportunities for growers, laborers, consumers, policymakers and many others in the entire food system.
This paper is an effort to identify the ideas, practices and policies that constitute our concept of sustainable agriculture. We do so for two reasons: 1) to clarify the research agenda and priorities of our program, and 2) to suggest to others practical steps that may be appropriate for them in moving toward sustainable agriculture.Because the concept of sustainable agriculture is still evolving, we intend the paper not as a definitive or final statement, but as an invitation to continue the dialogue.
Sustainable agriculture integrates three main goals--environmental health, economic profitability, and social and economic equity. A variety of philosophies, policies and practices have contributed to these goals. People in many different capacities, from farmers to consumers, have shared this vision and contributed to it. Despite the diversity of people and perspectives, the following themes commonly weave through definitions of sustainable agriculture.
Sustainability rests on the principle that we must meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Therefore, stewardship of both natural and human resources is of prime importance. Stewardship of human resources includes consideration of social responsibilities such as working and living conditions of laborers, the needs of rural communities, and consumer health and safety both in the present and the future. Stewardship of land and natural resources involves maintaining or enhancing this vital resource base for the long term.
A systems perspective is essential to understanding sustainability. The system is envisioned in its broadest sense, from the individual farm, to the local ecosystem, and to communities affected by this farming system both locally and globally. An emphasis on the system allows a larger and more thorough view of the consequences of farming practices on both human communities and the environment. A systems approach gives us the tools to explore the interconnections between farming and other aspects of our environment.
A systems approach also implies interdisciplinary efforts in research and education. This requires not only the input of researchers from various disciplines, but also farmers, farmworkers, consumers, policymakers and others.
Making the transition to sustainable agriculture is a process. For farmers, the transition to sustainable agriculture normally requires a series of small, realistic steps. Family economics and personal goals influence how fast or how far participants can go in the transition. It is important to realize that each small decision can make a difference and contribute to advancing the entire system further on the "sustainable agriculture continuum." The key to moving forward is the will to take the next step.
Finally, it is important to point out that reaching toward the goal of sustainable agriculture is the responsibility of all participants in the system, including farmers, laborers, policymakers, researchers, retailers, and consumers. Each group has its own part to play, its own unique contribution to make to strengthen the sustainable agriculture community.
The remainder of this document considers specific strategies for realizing these broad themes or goals. The strategies are grouped according to three separate though related areas of concern: Farming and Natural Resources, Plant and Animal Production Practices, and the Economic, Social and Political Context. They represent a range of potential ideas for individuals committed to interpreting the vision of sustainable agriculture within their own circumstances.
Water. When the production of food and fiber degrades the natural resource base, the ability of future generations to produce and flourish decreases. The decline of ancient civilizations in Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean region, Pre-Columbian southwest U.S. and Central America is believed to have been strongly influenced by natural resource degradation from non-sustainable farming and forestry practices. Water is the principal resource that has helped agriculture and society to prosper, and it has been a major limiting factor when mismanaged.
Water supply and use. In California, an extensive water storage and transfer system has been established which has allowed crop production to expand to very arid regions. In drought years, limited surface water supplies have prompted overdraft of groundwater and consequent intrusion of salt water, or permanent collapse of aquifers. Periodic droughts, some lasting up to 50 years, have occurred in California. Several steps should be taken to develop drought-resistant farming systems even in "normal" years, including both policy and management actions: 1) improving water conservation and storage measures, 2) providing incentives for selection of drought-tolerant crop species, 3) using reduced-volume irrigation systems, 4) managing crops to reduce water loss, or 5) not planting at all.
Water quality. The most important issues related to water quality involve salinization and contamination of ground and surface waters by pesticides, nitrates and selenium. Salinity has become a problem wherever water of even relatively low salt content is used on shallow soils in arid regions and/or where the water table is near the root zone of crops. Tile drainage can remove the water and salts, but the disposal of the salts and other contaminants may negatively affect the environment depending upon where they are deposited. Temporary solutions include the use of salt-tolerant crops, low-volume irrigation, and various management techniques to minimize the effects of salts on crops. In the long-term, some farmland may need to be removed from production or converted to other uses. Other uses include conversion of row crop land to production of drought-tolerant forages, the restoration of wildlife habitat or the use of agroforestry to minimize the impacts of salinity and high water tables. Pesticide and nitrate contamination of water can be reduced using many of the practices discussed later in the Plant Production Practices and Animal Production Practices sections.
Wildlife. Another way in which agriculture affects water resources is through the destruction of riparian habitats within watersheds. The conversion of wild habitat to agricultural land reduces fish and wildlife through erosion and sedimentation, the effects of pesticides, removal of riparian plants, and the diversion of water. The plant diversity in and around both riparian and agricultural areas should be maintained in order to support a diversity of wildlife. This diversity will enhance natural ecosystems and could aid in agricultural pest management.
Energy. Modern agriculture is heavily dependent on non-renewable energy sources, especially petroleum. The continued use of these energy sources cannot be sustained indefinitely, yet to abruptly abandon our reliance on them would be economically catastrophic. However, a sudden cutoff in energy supply would be equally disruptive. In sustainable agricultural systems, there is reduced reliance on non-renewable energy sources and a substitution of renewable sources or labor to the extent that is economically feasible.
Air. Many agricultural activities affect air quality. These include smoke from agricultural burning; dust from tillage, traffic and harvest; pesticide drift from spraying; and nitrous oxide emissions from the use of nitrogen fertilizer. Options to improve air quality include incorporating crop residue into the soil, using appropriate levels of tillage, and planting wind breaks, cover crops or strips of native perennial grasses to reduce dust.
Soil. Soil erosion continues to be a serious threat to our continued ability to produce adequate food. Numerous practices have been developed to keep soil in place, which include reducing or eliminating tillage, managing irrigation to reduce runoff, and keeping the soil covered with plants or mulch. Enhancement of soil quality is discussed in the next section.
Sustainable production practices involve a variety of approaches. Specific strategies must take into account topography, soil characteristics, climate, pests, local availability of inputs and the individual grower's goals. Despite the site-specific and individual nature of sustainable agriculture, several general principles can be applied to help growers select appropriate management practices:
- Selection of species and varieties that are well suited to the site and to conditions on the farm;
- Diversification of crops (including livestock) and cultural practices to enhance the biological and economic stability of the farm;
- Management of the soil to enhance and protect soil quality;
- Efficient and humane use of inputs; and
- Consideration of farmers' goals and lifestyle choices.
Selection of site, species and variety. Preventive strategies, adopted early, can reduce inputs and help establish a sustainable production system. When possible, pest-resistant crops should be selected which are tolerant of existing soil or site conditions. When site selection is an option, factors such as soil type and depth, previous crop history, and location (e.g. climate, topography) should be taken into account before planting.
Diversity. Diversified farms are usually more economically and ecologically resilient. While monoculture farming has advantages in terms of efficiency and ease of management, the loss of the crop in any one year could put a farm out of business and/or seriously disrupt the stability of a community dependent on that crop. By growing a variety of crops, farmers spread economic risk and are less susceptible to the radical price fluctuations associated with changes in supply and demand.
Properly managed, diversity can also buffer a farm in a biological sense. For example, in annual cropping systems, crop rotation can be used to suppress weeds, pathogens and insect pests. Also, cover crops can have stabilizing effects on the agroecosystem by holding soil and nutrients in place, conserving soil moisture with mowed or standing dead mulches, and by increasing the water infiltration rate and soil water holding capacity. Cover crops in orchards and vineyards can buffer the system against pest infestations by increasing beneficial arthropod populations and can therefore reduce the need for chemical inputs. Using a variety of cover crops is also important in order to protect against the failure of a particular species to grow and to attract and sustain a wide range of beneficial arthropods.
Optimum diversity may be obtained by integrating both crops and livestock in the same farming operation. This was the common practice for centuries until the mid-1900s when technology, government policy and economics compelled farms to become more specialized. Mixed crop and livestock operations have several advantages. First, growing row crops only on more level land and pasture or forages on steeper slopes will reduce soil erosion. Second, pasture and forage crops in rotation enhance soil quality and reduce erosion; livestock manure, in turn, contributes to soil fertility. Third, livestock can buffer the negative impacts of low rainfall periods by consuming crop residue that in "plant only" systems would have been considered crop failures. Finally, feeding and marketing are flexible in animal production systems. This can help cushion farmers against trade and price fluctuations and, in conjunction with cropping operations, make more efficient use of farm labor.
Soil management. A common philosophy among sustainable agriculture practitioners is that a "healthy" soil is a key component of sustainability; that is, a healthy soil will produce healthy crop plants that have optimum vigor and are less susceptible to pests. While many crops have key pests that attack even the healthiest of plants, proper soil, water and nutrient management can help prevent some pest problems brought on by crop stress or nutrient imbalance. Furthermore, crop management systems that impair soil quality often result in greater inputs of water, nutrients, pesticides, and/or energy for tillage to maintain yields.
In sustainable systems, the soil is viewed as a fragile and living medium that must be protected and nurtured to ensure its long-term productivity and stability. Methods to protect and enhance the productivity of the soil include using cover crops, compost and/or manures, reducing tillage, avoiding traffic on wet soils, and maintaining soil cover with plants and/or mulches. Conditions in most California soils (warm, irrigated, and tilled) do not favor the buildup of organic matter. Regular additions of organic matter or the use of cover crops can increase soil aggregate stability, soil tilth, and diversity of soil microbial life.
Efficient use of inputs. Many inputs and practices used by conventional farmers are also used in sustainable agriculture. Sustainable farmers, however, maximize reliance on natural, renewable, and on-farm inputs. Equally important are the environmental, social, and economic impacts of a particular strategy. Converting to sustainable practices does not mean simple input substitution. Frequently, it substitutes enhanced management and scientific knowledge for conventional inputs, especially chemical inputs that harm the environment on farms and in rural communities. The goal is to develop efficient, biological systems which do not need high levels of material inputs.
Growers frequently ask if synthetic chemicals are appropriate in a sustainable farming system. Sustainable approaches are those that are the least toxic and least energy intensive, and yet maintain productivity and profitability. Preventive strategies and other alternatives should be employed before using chemical inputs from any source. However, there may be situations where the use of synthetic chemicals would be more "sustainable" than a strictly nonchemical approach or an approach using toxic "organic" chemicals. For example, one grape grower switched from tillage to a few applications of a broad spectrum contact herbicide in the vine row. This approach may use less energy and may compact the soil less than numerous passes with a cultivator or mower.
Consideration of farmer goals and lifestyle choices. Management decisions should reflect not only environmental and broad social considerations, but also individual goals and lifestyle choices. For example, adoption of some technologies or practices that promise profitability may also require such intensive management that one's lifestyle actually deteriorates. Management decisions that promote sustainability, nourish the environment, the community and the individual.
In the early part of this century, most farms integrated both crop and livestock operations. Indeed, the two were highly complementary both biologically and economically. The current picture has changed quite drastically since then. Crop and animal producers now are still dependent on one another to some degree, but the integration now most commonly takes place at a higher level--between farmers, through intermediaries, rather than within the farm itself. This is the result of a trend toward separation and specialization of crop and animal production systems. Despite this trend, there are still many farmers, particularly in the Midwest and Northeastern U.S. that integrate crop and animal systems--either on dairy farms, or with range cattle, sheep or hog operations.
Even with the growing specialization of livestock and crop producers, many of the principles outlined in the crop production section apply to both groups. The actual management practices will, of course, be quite different. Some of the specific points that livestock producers need to address are listed below.
Management Planning. Including livestock in the farming system increases the complexity of biological and economic relationships. The mobility of the stock, daily feeding, health concerns, breeding operations, seasonal feed and forage sources, and complex marketing are sources of this complexity. Therefore, a successful ranch plan should include enterprise calendars of operations, stock flows, forage flows, labor needs, herd production records and land use plans to give the manager control and a means of monitoring progress toward goals.
Animal Selection. The animal enterprise must be appropriate for the farm or ranch resources. Farm capabilities and constraints such as feed and forage sources, landscape, climate and skill of the manager must be considered in selecting which animals to produce. For example, ruminant animals can be raised on a variety of feed sources including range and pasture, cultivated forage, cover crops, shrubs, weeds, and crop residues. There is a wide range of breeds available in each of the major ruminant species, i.e., cattle, sheep and goats. Hardier breeds that, in general, have lower growth and milk production potential, are better adapted to less favorable environments with sparse or highly seasonal forage growth.
Animal nutrition. Feed costs are the largest single variable cost in any livestock operation. While most of the feed may come from other enterprises on the ranch, some purchased feed is usually imported from off the farm. Feed costs can be kept to a minimum by monitoring animal condition and performance and understanding seasonal variations in feed and forage quality on the farm. Determining the optimal use of farm-generated by-products is an important challenge of diversified farming.
Reproduction. Use of quality germplasm to improve herd performance is another key to sustainability. In combination with good genetic stock, adapting the reproduction season to fit the climate and sources of feed and forage reduce health problems and feed costs.
Herd Health. Animal health greatly influences reproductive success and weight gains, two key aspects of successful livestock production. Unhealthy stock waste feed and require additional labor. A herd health program is critical to sustainable livestock production.
Grazing Management. Most adverse environmental impacts associated with grazing can be prevented or mitigated with proper grazing management. First, the number of stock per unit area (stocking rate) must be correct for the landscape and the forage sources. There will need to be compromises between the convenience of tilling large, unfenced fields and the fencing needs of livestock operations. Use of modern, temporary fencing may provide one practical solution to this dilemma. Second, the long term carrying capacity and the stocking rate must take into account short and long-term droughts. Especially in Mediterranean climates such as in California, properly managed grazing significantly reduces fire hazards by reducing fuel build-up in grasslands and brushlands. Finally, the manager must achieve sufficient control to reduce overuse in some areas while other areas go unused. Prolonged concentration of stock that results in permanent loss of vegetative cover on uplands or in riparian zones should be avoided. However, small scale loss of vegetative cover around water or feed troughs may be tolerated if surrounding vegetative cover is adequate.
Confined Livestock Production. Animal health and waste management are key issues in confined livestock operations. The moral and ethical debate taking place today regarding animal welfare is particularly intense for confined livestock production systems. The issues raised in this debate need to be addressed.
Confinement livestock production is increasingly a source of surface and ground water pollutants, particularly where there are large numbers of animals per unit area. Expensive waste management facilities are now a necessary cost of confined production systems. Waste is a problem of almost all operations and must be managed with respect to both the environment and the quality of life in nearby communities. Livestock production systems that disperse stock in pastures so the wastes are not concentrated and do not overwhelm natural nutrient cycling processes have become a subject of renewed interest.
In addition to strategies for preserving natural resources and changing production practices, sustainable agriculture requires a commitment to changing public policies, economic institutions, and social values. Strategies for change must take into account the complex, reciprocal and ever-changing relationship between agricultural production and the broader society.
The "food system" extends far beyond the farm and involves the interaction of individuals and institutions with contrasting and often competing goals including farmers, researchers, input suppliers, farmworkers, unions, farm advisors, processors, retailers, consumers, and policymakers. Relationships among these actors shift over time as new technologies spawn economic, social and political changes.
A wide diversity of strategies and approaches are necessary to create a more sustainable food system. These will range from specific and concentrated efforts to alter specific policies or practices, to the longer-term tasks of reforming key institutions, rethinking economic priorities, and challenging widely-held social values. Areas of concern where change is most needed include the following:
Food and agricultural policy. Existing federal, state and local government policies often impede the goals of sustainable agriculture. New policies are needed to simultaneously promote environmental health, economic profitability, and social and economic equity. For example, commodity and price support programs could be restructured to allow farmers to realize the full benefits of the productivity gains made possible through alternative practices. Tax and credit policies could be modified to encourage a diverse and decentralized system of family farms rather than corporate concentration and absentee ownership. Government and land grant university research policies could be modified to emphasize the development of sustainable alternatives. Marketing orders and cosmetic standards could be amended to encourage reduced pesticide use. Coalitions must be created to address these policy concerns at the local, regional, and national level.
Land use. Conversion of agricultural land to urban uses is a particular concern in California, as rapid growth and escalating land values threaten farming on prime soils. Existing farmland conversion patterns often discourage farmers from adopting sustainable practices and a long-term perspective on the value of land. At the same time, the close proximity of newly developed residential areas to farms is increasing the public demand for environmentally safe farming practices. Comprehensive new policies to protect prime soils and regulate development are needed, particularly in California's Central Valley. By helping farmers to adopt practices that reduce chemical use and conserve scarce resources, sustainable agriculture research and education can play a key role in building public support for agricultural land preservation. Educating land use planners and decision-makers about sustainable agriculture is an important priority.
Labor. In California, the conditions of agricultural labor are generally far below accepted social standards and legal protections in other forms of employment. Policies and programs are needed to address this problem, working toward socially just and safe employment that provides adequate wages, working conditions, health benefits, and chances for economic stability. The needs of migrant labor for year-around employment and adequate housing are a particularly crucial problem needing immediate attention. To be more sustainable over the long-term, labor must be acknowledged and supported by government policies, recognized as important constituents of land grant universities, and carefully considered when assessing the impacts of new technologies and practices.
Rural Community Development. Rural communities in California are currently characterized by economic and environmental deterioration. Many are among the poorest locations in the nation. The reasons for the decline are complex, but changes in farm structure have played a significant role. Sustainable agriculture presents an opportunity to rethink the importance of family farms and rural communities. Economic development policies are needed that encourage more diversified agricultural production on family farms as a foundation for healthy economies in rural communities. In combination with other strategies, sustainable agriculture practices and policies can help foster community institutions that meet employment, educational, health, cultural and spiritual needs.
Consumers and the Food System. Consumers can play a critical role in creating a sustainable food system. Through their purchases, they send strong messages to producers, retailers and others in the system about what they think is important. Food cost and nutritional quality have always influenced consumer choices. The challenge now is to find strategies that broaden consumer perspectives, so that environmental quality, resource use, and social equity issues are also considered in shopping decisions. At the same time, new policies and institutions must be created to enable producers using sustainable practices to market their goods to a wider public. Coalitions organized around improving the food system are one specific method of creating a dialogue among consumers, retailers, producers and others. These coalitions or other public forums can be important vehicles for clarifying issues, suggesting new policies, increasing mutual trust, and encouraging a long-term view of food production, distribution and consumption.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Contact the UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, (530) 752-7556. Written by Gail Feenstra, Writer; Chuck Ingels, Perennial Cropping Systems Analyst; and David Campbell, Economic and Public Policy Analyst with contributions from David Chaney, Melvin R. George, Eric Bradford, the staff and advisory committees of the UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program. | <urn:uuid:f935f0db-afc7-4423-9a4e-b059e912ef3b> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:28:15",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9328829050064087,
"score": 3.625,
"token_count": 4924,
"url": "http://studentfarm.ucdavis.edu/cg/sarep/about/def"
} |
You can use the Distance Measurement Tool to easily calculate the distance from one location to another in Google Maps.
To do this, follow these steps:
- Visit maps.google.com.
- Click the Maps Labs link at the bottom of the left-hand panel.
- Enable the Distance Measurement Tool.
- Click Save changes.
- Click the ruler icon at the lower left-hand corner of the map.
- Click your starting point on the map, then click your destination point to trace the path. A red path will appear on the map between the two locations, and the distance will be shown in the left panel.
Tips and tricks
- You can choose between two different units: Metric (in km) or English (in mi).
- Calculate the distance between multiple locations by clicking on more than one location on the map.
- If you sign in using your Google account, Google Maps will remember your Maps Labs preferences. | <urn:uuid:d87cd46a-d239-4a4b-a455-962c529f4b51> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:22:43",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.7845878601074219,
"score": 3.203125,
"token_count": 199,
"url": "http://support.google.com/maps/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1628031&ctx=cb&src=cb&cbid=-11ey0ggngr0fd&cbrank=3"
} |
How to search the contents of the current page for text or links
When you are viewing a website in Firefox, you can search for words and phrases on the page. Firefox will show you where the search phrase you've typed appears next on the page, and lets you highlight all the places where it appears.
Table of Contents
Using the Find bar
To start searching for text on a page:
- Open the Find bar:
- Use the Ctrlcommand+F keyboard shortcut.
- Click on the button ( menu on Windows XP), then select .
- Type a search phrase into the Find Bar's Find: field. Firefox will start highlighting instances of your search phrase as you type.
- If no instances of your search phrase occur on the page you're viewing, the Find bar will show Phrase not found.
When the Find bar is open, the following actions are available:
- X: Close the find bar.
- Next: Highlight the next instance of the search phrase you've entered.
- Previous: Highlight the previous instance of the search phrase you've entered.
- Highlight All: Highlight every instance of the search phrase you've entered. Click Highlight All again to turn off highlighting.
- Match case: Make searches case sensitive. Normally if you search for search phrase, instances of Search Phrase on the page will also be found when you use the Find bar. If you Match case is selected, only instances of the phrase as you've typed it will be found.
Search links only
If you want to find phrases that occur in links on the page you're viewing:
- Type ' (single quote character) to bring up the Quick Find (links only) bar.
- Type a search phrase into the Quick Find (links only) field. The first link that contains the phrase you've typed will be selected.
- Press Ctrlcommand+G to highlight the next link that contains your search phrase.
To close the Quick Find bar, wait a moment then press the Esc key on the keyboard, or click somewhere in Firefox that is not part of the Quick Find bar.
Find while typing on a page
Firefox can start searching for phrases you enter without having to open the Find bar. To enable this feature:
- At the top of the Firefox window, click on the button and then select At the top of the Firefox window, click on the menu and then select On the menu bar, click on the menu and select At the top of the Firefox window, click on the menu and select
- Select on the panel.
- Click on the tab.
- Check mark Search for text when I start typing.
- Click to close the Options windowClick to close the Preferences windowClose the Preferences window .
After you enable the feature:
- Type a search phrase while you are viewing a website. As you type, the first instance of your phrase will be highlighted.
- Press Ctrlcommand+G or F3 to highlight the next instance of your search phrase.
To close the Quick Find bar, wait a few moments for it to disappear then press the Esc key on the keyboard, or click somewhere in Firefox that is not part of the Quick Find bar. Since the the Quick Find bar is meant to disappear after a few moments, it does not have the Next, Previous, or Highlight All commands the full Find bar does.
If you find that the Quick Find bar interferes with typing in text fields, see Quick find bar opens when typing in text fields. | <urn:uuid:a257344e-5094-4e63-9158-16fa2bd84a5a> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:35:25",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.8060404062271118,
"score": 2.78125,
"token_count": 728,
"url": "http://support.mozilla.org/el/kb/search-contents-current-page-text-or-links"
} |
More lethal mutation risks in human-to-pig swine flu transmission - 2 Aug 2009
Officials in New South Wales, Australia estimate that around 2,000 pigs have become infected from a pig farmer and his staff, and they have quarantined the pigs to keep the virus from spreading.
Experts say that such events pose even wider dangers because while the pigs are infected, other human or bird flu strains could mix with the swine flu virus, for an even deadlier outcome. Meanwhile, the official number of swine flu cases, which represent only a fraction of the actual people afflicted, reached 184,435, with 1,247 who perished in more than 160 countries.
France and Lebanon both lost first lives to the swine flu, while Saudi Arabia, New Zealand and California, USA each reported the death of a health care worker. Saudi Arabia to date has had four fatalities as concerns remain heightened regarding the coming hajj pilgrimage. While Tamiflu remains the best known anti-viral medicine, a study in the United Kingdom reported that over 50 percent of children taking the drug are having side effects that include nausea, insomnia, and nightmares.
Australian officials and all health care personnel around the globe, you have our gratitude for your dedicated efforts as you even risk your lives for others.
We pray for the comfort of those who have lost loved ones and the recovery of victims. May lives be ever spared through our own choice of wellness in the immunity-fortifying organic vegan diet. | <urn:uuid:db3806da-4946-4e35-bfd9-3f666f8bc7a5> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:07:30",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9595522880554199,
"score": 2.875,
"token_count": 303,
"url": "http://suprememastertv.com/it/movie.php?bo_table=sos_it&wr_id=969&url=link1_0&eps_no=&show="
} |
I recently went through some of my Christmas pre-reading solos and revised them. I changed some of my art, tracking color, and anything else that I thought would help beginning students. Some of the finger numbers have been changed, too. I hope you enjoy the new look!
If it’s not too late in the season, here is a worksheet for first year students to draw lines to match up vocabulary words and symbols. Sometimes students arrive at group lessons early and it’s a good idea to have something to keep them busy! Or maybe you would like to do something different at the last lesson of the year.
When I drew this red and green border, I intended on making many levels of vocabulary words for all my students. But I think I got carried away drawing the border and ran out of time! I was interested in making something seasonal, but suitable for all ages. Maybe next year I can add to the series.
If you are looking for a simple game for beginners for the holidays, you might be interested in this game.
There are four cards in this PDF. I suggest laminating them if you want to keep them, because home printer ink will smear. The teacher calls out a letter and the students cover it with a bingo token. Students can win by covering all of one color or row. Younger children like to play several short games. Older beginners will want to play “black out” and cover all the ornaments.
If you have a few students in your group who are not beginners, make it more difficult for them. Give them a big staff and let them place a token on the staff note as well as the piano key. I have many big staves on my website you can use. There are always ways to make music games more difficult if you think about it.
I used to have some students who had trouble learning piano keys, no matter what cute little ideas I used at the piano. But once I started playing games like this, they learned the keys very quickly. It is a fact that if something is fun, students learn faster. Maria Montessori showed teachers a long time ago that children learn through play.
You know what’s fun for a Christmas group lesson? Instead of using bingo tokens, use green and red M&M’s.
Are you tired of seeing material that I make for my own students and wish you could make a quick worksheet for Christmas that suits your own needs? Now you can! You can use this one to match vocabulary words, rhythms, symbols, and even non-music concepts. You can make a lotto or bingo type game and call out words or rhythms for students to cover with magnetic chips and swoop up with a magnetic wand. You can have students color various concepts. Print on the back what colors should be used. You make an individual worksheet for each student, if your students are at different levels. My advice if you want to make one that you will put through a photo copy machine is to use a dark, not-to-thin marker, such as a sharpie. Otherwise it will not show up.
As long as you leave the copyright notice on the page, feel free to use this in your classroom. However, you may not make a worksheet out of PDF and post it on your own website, or publish it yourself, or put it in a collection for others to use.
Once you have made your worksheet, post a comment here to share your ideas with others. You might come up with something I have never thought of. Or take a picture and email it to me. You do not have to register to post a comment here, and your comments are anonymous. However, I do moderate comments to make sure I don’t get spam, so you might not see your comment right away.
I have so much on my website, www.susanparadis.com, that I have trouble keeping up with it. If I posted it and can’t even remember what I have, it must be really hard for someone new to navigate through all the material I’ve posted over the years. While there is a category on my website for “seasonal” music if you are looking for easy Christmas music to play, there is no seasonal category for my worksheets and games, so you will have to scroll through it all to find things. To help you out, today I am posting a list of worksheets, activities, and games you can use during the Christmas season. Some of this material is really old and needs to be updated, but for now I hope you and your students will forgive some of the wobbly art and odd layouts. All of the links below take you to the original blog post. From there you will have to click on the link to my website and then click on “preview” to download the PDF document.
Ornament notes This is very simple for beginning readers. Students color the ornaments that contain notes around middle C.
Christmas Worksheet I give these types of sheets to beginning students over and over to help them learn the notes on the staff. It takes a several years for notes to be secure in a student’s long-term memory. Beginning teachers often don’t realize you have to review this constantly.
Ornament Notes mixed up on a staff. Some teachers thought the worksheet above was too easy and asked for one with mixed up notes. Don’t use this with young beginners. It will take the entire lesson!
Color the Chanukah Gift We don’t want anyone to be left out when it comes to learning note names. My box is out of perspective, but it gets the job done! This one has hardly been downloaded at all. There is also a Chanukah composing activity on my website.
Peppermint Notes You can use any kind of candy with this one. I had some peppermints on hand and that’s why I made it. You can play many games with this PDF, however. You can even use magnetic bingo chips and write scales, chords, and key signatures.
Musical Christmas Lights This is a game for up to 6 students at the beginning level. Students learn rhythm values and some simple vocabulary words.
Draw the Ornaments This one is a little more challenging than the Ornament Notes above. There are more notes and the entire staff is used.
Gingerboy Keys I made this one for a student who just started lessons right after Thanksgiving. You might have some pre-school students or beginners who can use it.
Light up the Tree I made another note worksheet with more notes than Ornament Notes shown above. You can pick and choose which one you want to use. This one works well when printed in black and white. | <urn:uuid:60e0c4fa-6601-4e82-9174-f7227a5be277> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:29:01",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9602417349815369,
"score": 3.265625,
"token_count": 1417,
"url": "http://susanparadis.wordpress.com/2010/12/"
} |
For this reader one of the most interesting details of the Steve Jobs biography (highly recommended) was that Jobs’ most important heroes was Edwin Land, inventor of the Polaroid camera. With the ubiquity of digital cameras, many as part of our phones, and the images we take shared on social media sites instantly totaling in the trillions,, it’s easy to forget the time and effort that used to be involved capturing images. But the Polaroid, with its easy to use interface – point and shoot, and instantaneous (well, 60 seconds of wait time, but still..), was a revolution.
Slate has a gallery of images tracking the rise and fall of Polaroid.
And in the stacks:
Insisting on the impossible : the life of Edwin Land / Victor K. McElheny – TR540.L36 M36 1998
Polaroid book : selections from the Polaroid Collections of photography / edited by Steve Crist ; essay by Barbara Hitchcock- TR654 .P65 2005
Polaroids / Helmut Newton – TR679 .N49 2011
Guy Bourdin : Polaroids – TR647 .B67 2009
Instant light : Tarkovsky polaroids / edited by Giovanni Chiaramonte – TR655 .T37 2006
Polaroids : Mapplethorpe / Sylvia Wolf – TR647.M365 W65 2007 | <urn:uuid:0eb7f6a3-dd5d-4a9a-91e7-abe06994eee5> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:43:54",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.8455726504325867,
"score": 2.53125,
"token_count": 279,
"url": "http://svalibrary.wordpress.com/2012/11/16/"
} |
THE CASE OF JUDAS.
"It had been good for that man if he had not been born."—Matt. 26:24.
These words are supposed, by many professed religionists, to teach the endless perdition of Judas. How could it have been said of Judas, it is asked, "It had been good for that man if he had not been born," if he is finally to be saved? If he is to reach heaven at last, it certainly was good for him to have been born.
Many erroneous ideas have arisen in regard to the meaning of this passage by supposing that it had reference to the condition of Judas in the immortal state of existence. This language had not the least reference to the final condition of Judas. It was a common proverb among the Jews in our Savior's day, to indicate any severe calamity to befall an individual, without any reference to the future world. It had special application to events connected with this life. When any fearful calamity or judgment was to come upon an individual, it was common to say, "It were good for that man if he had not been born." It was a proverbial expression, or an expression in common use among the Jews, to denote any severe chastisement or great misfortune, or terrible calamity. The Savior, knowing its use, and aware of the fate of Judas, very appropriately applied it to him. Similar expressions had long been in use. Job cursed the day of his birth, and said: "Let the day perish wherein I was born." Job 3:1-3. Solomon said: "If a man live many years, and his soul be not filled with good; and also that he hath no burial: I say that an untimely birth is better than he." Eccles. 6:3. This is the same as saying, "It had been better if he had not been born." It was a common proverb to denote any great misfortune coming upon an individual; and as Judas would be overwhelmed with sorrow and smitten with grief and anguish, plunged into the greatest distress by a vivid sense of his sins, it was very properly applied to him without any reference to his immortal condition.
Kenrick says, in his Exposition, the expression—
"'It had been good for him, if he had never been born,' is a proverbial phrase, and not to be understood literally: for it is not consistent with our ideas of the divine goodness to make the existence of any being a curse to him, or to cause him to suffer more, upon the whole, than he enjoys happiness. Rather than do this, God would not have created him at all. But as it is usual to say of men who are to endure some grievous punishment or dreadful calamity, that it would have been better for them never to have been born, Christ foreseeing what Judas would bring upon himself, by delivering up his Master into the hands of his enemies, applies this language to him."
We call the reader's attention to the following from Dr. Adam Clarke, the Methodist commentator, upon this subject. He enters into a labored argument to show that Judas may be saved, and that his repentance was sincere, genuine, and acceptable to God. After mature deliberation, he thinks that "there is no positive proof of the final damnation of Judas in the sacred text." This is the opinion of one of the most learned and distinguished divines of the orthodox church. Dr. Clarke shows clearly that the language that stands at the head of this article was a proverbial expression to denote the state of any flagrant transgressor without regard to the future world. But we will let this distinguished commentator speak for himself. He says:
"Judas was indisputably a bad man; but he might have been worse: we may plainly see that there were depths of wickedness to which he might have proceeded, and which were prevented by his repentance. Thus things appear to stand previously to his end. But is there any room for hope in his death? In answer to this, it must be understood,—first: That there is presumptive evidence that he did not destroy himself; and, second: That his repentance was sincere. If so, was it not possible for the mercy of God to extend even to his case? It did so to the murderers of the Son of God; and they were certainly worse men, (strange as this assertion may appear), than Judas. Even he gave them the fullest proof of Christ's innocence: their buying the field with the money Judas threw down, was the full proof of it; and yet, with every convincing evidence before them, they crucified our Lord. They excited Judas to betray his Master, and crucified him when they got him into their power, and therefore St. Stephen calls them both the betrayers and murderers of that Just One, (Acts 7:52), in these respects they were more deeply criminal than Judas himself; yet, even to these very betrayers and murderers, Peter preaches repentance, with the promise of remission of sins, and the gift of the Holy Ghost. (Acts 3:12-26). If, then, these were within the reach of mercy, and we are informed that a great company of the priests became obedient to the faith, (Acts 6:7), then certainly Judas was not in such a state as precluded the possibility of his salvation. Surely the blood of the covenant could wash out even his stain, as it did that more deeply ingrained one, of the other betrayers and murderers of the Lord Jesus.
Should the 25th verse be urged against this possibility, because it is there said that Judas fell from his ministry and apostleship, that he might go to his own place, and that this place is hell. I answer,—first: It remains to be proved that this place means hell; and, second: It is not clear that the words are spoken of Judas at all, but of Matthias: his own place meaning that vacancy in the apostolate, to which he was then elected.
To say the repentance of Judas was merely the effect of his horror; that it did not spring from the compunction of heart; that it was legal and not evangelical, etc., is saying what none can with propriety say but God himself, who searches the heart. What renders his case most desperate, are the words of our Lord. (Matt. 26:24). "Wo unto that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It had been good for that man if he had not been born!" I have considered this saying in a general point of view in my note on Matt. 26:24, and were it not a proverbial form of speech among the Jews to express the state of any flagrant transgressor, I should be led to apply it, in all its literal import, to the case of Judas, as I have done in the above note, in the case of any damned soul; but when I find that it was a proverbial saying, and that it has been used in many cases, where the fixing of the irreversible doom of a sinner is not implied, it may be capable of a more favorable interpretation than what is generally given to it. I shall produce a few of those examples from Schoettgen, to which I have referred in my note on Matt. 26:24.
In Chagigah, fol. 2, 2, it is said, 'Whoever considers these four things, it would have been better for him had he never come into the world, viz.: That which is above; that which is below; that which is before; and that which is behind. And whosoever does not attend to the honor of his Creator, it were better for him had he never been born.'
In Shemoth Rabba, sect. 40, fol. 135, 1, 2, it is said, 'Whosoever knows the law, and does not do it, it had been better for him had he never come into the world.'
In Vayikra Rabba, sect. 26, fol. 179, 4, and Midrash Coheleth, fol. 91,4, it is thus expressed; 'It were better for him had he never been created; and it would have been better for him had he been strangled in the womb, and never have seen the light of this world.'
In Sohar Genes, fol. 71, col. 282, it is said, 'If any man be parsimonious towards the poor, it had been better for him had he never come into the world.' Ibid, fol. 84, col. 333. 'If any performs the law, not for the sake of the law, it were good for that man had he never been created.'
These examples sufficiently prove that this was a common proverb, and is used with a great variety and latitude of meaning; and seems intended to show that the case of such and such persons was not only very deplorable, but extremely dangerous; but does not imply the positive impossibility either of their repentance or salvation.
The utmost that can be said for the case of Judas is this: he committed a heinous act of sin and ingratitude; but he repented, and did what he could to undo his wicked act: he had committed the sin unto death, i. e., a sin that involves the death of the body; but who can say, (if mercy was offered to Christ's murderers, and the gospel was first to be preached at Jerusalem, that these very murderers might have the first offer of salvation through him whom they had pierced), that the same mercy could not be extended to wretched Judas? I contend, that the chief priests, etc., who instigated Judas to deliver up his Master, and who crucified him—and who crucified him, too, as a malefactor, having at the same time, the most indubitable evidence of his innocence — were worse men than Judas Iscariot himself; and that if mercy was extended to those, the wretched penitent traitor did not die out of the reach of the yearning of its bowels. And I contend farther, that there is no positive evidence of the final damnation of Judas in the sacred text.' —Clarke in loco.
This learned commentator contends that the repentance of Judas was genuine, and that "there is no positive evidence of the final damnation of Judas in the sacred text." Why, then, are we gravely asked, did he go and hang himself, as Matthew affirms? (Matt, 27:5) We would here state, that Luke gives a somewhat different account of his death. See Acts 1:18: "And falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out." How, then, are we to reconcile this apparent discrepancy between the two evangelists? One affirms that he hanged himself, the other that he fell headlong and burst asunder. The difficulty in question arises from an incorrect translation of the Greek word apegzato, here rendered "hanged himself." It does not necessarily have this meaning, and may be rendered, "was suffocated, as with grief or anguish." Eminent critics, as Dr. Clarke says, believe that Judas was suffocated with excessive grief. "Wakefield (he adds), supports this meaning of the word with great learning and ingenuity." Dr. George Campbell, an eminent Scotch Presbyterian divine, says that "the Greek word plainly denotes strangling, but does not say how, by hanging, or otherwise. It is quite a different term that is used in those places where hanging is mentioned." He also adds, that it may be rendered, "was suffocated." Wakefield renders it, "was choked with anguish." This rendering of the original is supported by high authority, and is evidently correct.
Judas was overwhelmed with a sense of his sin, and sincerely repented before God, carried back the ill-gotten gain, and died of excessive grief, "was chocked with anguish," or "was suffocated." His grief was most intense; his anguish so burdensome, that he reeled beneath the oppressive load of guilt and sorrow, and fell prostrate to the earth, being suffocated with grief. He gave every evidence possible of deep sorrow for sin, and of genuine repentance. | <urn:uuid:62cca209-1e1e-4417-a23b-5b034d2e9da3> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:43:41",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9874312877655029,
"score": 3.234375,
"token_count": 2572,
"url": "http://tentmaker.org/forum/bible-threatenings-explained/judas-better-if-he-had-not-been-born/msg120483/"
} |
We are always being asked by teachers how they can work more creatively with pupils so here is a fine example:
Teacher in Role
Teacher in role is a great dramatic technique to use. It basically means the teacher adopts a suitable role and directs the drama from within. By doing this the teacher is more able advance the development of the lesson by creating interest, provoking tension, offering choices, and initiating possibilities for the group to interact in role.
Working in role has a number of benefits:
- Information can be given in a fun and interesting way
- It allows pupils to work creatively and use their imaginations
- The drama gives any instructions or activities an added impetus.
- Pupils can be empowered, particularly if the character they meet needs help
You don’t have to be a great actor to do it. Children have great imaginations and you can make the role very simple; all you are doing is communicating the key emotions or beliefs of the character. You can use simple props, a piece of costume such as a scarf or even just use sitting on a chair to show when you are in or out of role.
Make sure you research or have created your character thoroughly and have some idea of what you are going to say, but also be open to responding to comments and questions from the children. Hot seating is a good way of getting started and becoming more confident about using the technique. Allow the students to question you in role. Once you feel more confident you can place the children in role as well.
There are numerous ways teacher in role can be utilised, here are some examples:
Take on the role of a newspaper editor at some significant event in history. You want the pupils to help you choose the most memorable moment from the event so you can write an exciting article. Challenging pupils to remember the most dangerous, thrilling and scary moments for your readers. Get help to set the tone of the article and create the right level of excitement for your readers then ask the pupils to write the article or draw a picture for the front page.
- Take on the role of a refugee. You do not speak very good English and you want to contact your family in a different land. Encourage the pupils to try out different ways of communicating with you such as hand signals, drawings or acting things out. Once they can communicate with you, see if they can work out exactly where you have come from and encourage them to explore different ways that they could help your character contact their family. You could also explore why your character has come to this country and why they had to leave their family behind.
- Take on the role of a Jeremy Kyle chat show host. Encourage a pupil to play the role of a young person suffering from peer pressure. Their friends have all started smoking/drinking/skipping school and they feel pressured to do it too, although they don’t want to. Get one of the pupils to play the friend who is encouraging them, and another to play a friend who is discouraging them. Allow the rest of the pupils to become the audience who gives advice to the characters.
Look out for more drama games and dramatic techniques next week and as always if you would like us to come to your school to perform a play in a day, drama workshop or assembly do get in touch using the enquiry form to the right. | <urn:uuid:6746f006-2a68-43bc-b6f5-72b2848dbdf8> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:21:35",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9646279215812683,
"score": 3.96875,
"token_count": 690,
"url": "http://theatre-education.co.uk/2012/05/drama-techniques/"
} |
Volvo Trucks Teaches Kids the Importance of Being Seen in Traffic - VIDEO STORY
STOCKHOLM - July 2, 2010: Sixty per cent of all accidents in which a truck collides with a pedestrian or cyclist can be blamed on the driver's blind spot. Many of the people injured are children. In Denmark, Volvo Trucks and several other organisations have therefore joined forces in a project designed to teach children how to behave when there are trucks around. The "Traffic Safety at Eye Level" campaign was launched in 2003; so far, more than 60,000 children throughout Denmark have done the course.
Click PLAY to watch video | <urn:uuid:e59c27c2-552a-4898-9407-ea09e8d7f672> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:30:12",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.950348973274231,
"score": 2.78125,
"token_count": 133,
"url": "http://theautochannel.com/news/2010/07/02/485627.html"
} |
Bacterial Meningitis is the swelling of the membranes, called meninges, which surround the brain and spinal cord. It’s symptoms of headaches, stiff neck and fever can appear quickly or over several days after exposure, with serious and sometimes fatal results. Other symptoms can include nausea, vomiting, increased sensitivity to light and altered mental state. Spread through the respiratory tract, those living in close quarters are most susceptible to meningitis. The disease can quickly spread through college dorms, army bases and boarding schools.
The good news is that most forms of bacterial meningitis are vaccine-preventable, but many families are unaware of the need to protect against this disease through immunization. Unfortunately, several Texas families have learned the hard way that the disease can cause devastation in the blink of an eye.
On February 11, 2011, Greg William’s life changed forever. That’s the day his 20-year-old son Nicolis, a junior at Texas A&M, died of complications from bacterial meningitis 72 hours after being diagnosed with flu-like symptoms at a campus clinic.
Losing our son was without a doubt the worst experience of our lives,” said Greg. “And, to discover later that his death could have been prevented intensifies the pain and guilt we hold in our hearts.”
Due, in part, to Greg’s efforts, Texas colleges now take an active role against the disease. The Jamie Schanbaum Act, named for a University of Texas student who lost her legs and fingers to the disease, was amended in 2011 and became the Jamie Schanbaum and Nicolis Williams Act. The law, which went into effect in 2012, requires that all students under the age of 30 who enroll in any Texas college show evidence that they have received the meningitis vaccine within the 5 years prior to enrollment. The law was a labor of love for both families and TIP was honored to assist.
“With TIP’s considerable help, we’re very proud to have been able to modify the law,” said Greg. “This is a huge and significant accomplishment for future generations of college students in Texas.”
Greg takes comfort in the fact that through the law, other families may be spared the pain of losing a loved one to meningitis.
Because the law is named in association with Nicolis Williams, our son has a legacy and the grief in our hearts is lightened,” said Greg. “We thank God for blessing us with Nicolis and we thank TIP for keeping his memory alive. Because of your efforts, no other college student in Texas will die or be disfigured from meningitis.”
To learn more about the Jamie Schanbaum and Nicolis Williams Act please visit our website.
Join us on April 24 as we observe World Meningitis Day. We invite you to visit our Facebook page and post comments from your experience with meningitis and why you chose to get your family vaccinated. | <urn:uuid:00fb39d6-2a59-436a-8051-344cea4d325c> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:15:08",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9649031162261963,
"score": 3.171875,
"token_count": 627,
"url": "http://theimmunizationpartnership.wordpress.com/category/tip-news/"
} |
Tutu’s Corner: Dog Safety
Column by Tutu and Me Traveling Preschool
How can you be sure that a dog will be a safe pet for your children? Statistics show that most dog bites causing serious injury involve medium to large sized dogs and children under the age of 5. The dog is usually known to the child or is the family’s pet.
A dog’s basic temperament, instincts, and training have the biggest effects on how that dog reacts to the world around him and his levels of tolerance. Very few bites happen without provocation – but the provocation may exist only in the dog’s mind!
Small children should never be left alone with any dog, no matter how reliable the dog has been before. A responsible adult needs to be on the scene to prevent any aggressive behavior by the dog and to keep the child from putting him or herself in danger. A dog may not want to be petted. The dog’s first instinctive reaction is to show his displeasure by giving a warning by growling. Walking away can also be considered a warning. Some warnings are more subtle – a stiffening of the body, for example. Few dogs bite without giving some indication beforehand. Small children (and some adults) don’t recognize a warning when they see or hear one. A very young child under age 6 doesn’t know what a growl means.
If the dog has tried to leave or has issued a warning with no response from the child, the dog (in his mind) has no other recourse – he bites. Running, playing, screaming kids can trigger an instinctive predator-prey reaction in some dogs. Children who rough house and wrestle with dogs unknowingly encourage them to use their teeth. Startling a sleeping dog or petting him when he’s eating can also provoke a bite.
Try this at home
• Obedience training (even for puppies) and socialization for a dog spending time with children. The dog needs to be taught to obey commands under all conditions, no matter how distracting.
• Teach children how to touch the dog properly, how to interpret the dog’s body language, and when the dog is not to be disturbed.
• Teach kids to ask the owner if the dog is friendly and if it’s okay to pet them and how to play only appropriate games with the dog.
• Practice “stand like a tree” and “lie like a log” for strange or unleashed dogs.
• When other children visit make sure that these children obey your ground rules.
Kids and dogs are wonderful together – when adults use common sense and put safety first. | <urn:uuid:857706a2-966b-4687-8b3c-192a4d71c142> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:43:24",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9506396651268005,
"score": 3.328125,
"token_count": 553,
"url": "http://themolokaidispatch.com/tutus-corner-dog-safety/"
} |
By Carl Weese
Light, natural or artificial, indoors or out, is constantly variable. We notice the warm, reddish light of sunrise and sunset, but there are subtle variations all the time. We generally don’t notice the color of ambient light because our eye/mind perceptual system adapts, much as it adapts to changes in light intensity. For example, from outdoors on a dark day, the windows of a house will look yellow if there are tungsten lights inside. The observer standing outside is adapted to the color of daylight and sees the yellow color of the interior light, but if we enter the house we adapt almost immediately. From inside, the room light seems normal while the view out a window can look bright blue. Concentrate on what you see through the window, and the color will quickly look right again.
The yellow/amber light from a standard light bulb has a lower color temperature than daylight. Why is it referred to as temperature? A black body radiator (think of an iron bar or fireplace poker) gives off energy in the form of light when it is heated. First it glows ruby red. When it is heated to a temperature of 3200 Kelvin, it gives off light the same color as a typical studio photoflood, so the studio lamp is said to have a color temperature of 3200 Kelvin and that’s the calibration for a typical tungsten color film. Sunlight is the color given off by a black body radiator heated to 5000–5500K so that’s the color temperature daylight film is calibrated for. The color temperature of overcast sky is in the range of 5800 to 7000K, while open shade under a clear blue sky can hit 9000–12000K. That's why a "warming filter" is needed to keep pictures in shade from looking bright blue on slide film. At the other end, low wattage light bulbs in a living room lamp can be way down around 2000K and candlelight is lower still. These light sources, like the heated iron bar, produce a continuous spectrum of light. The lower temperatures make warmer, redder light, and the higher temperatures produce cooler, bluer, light.
Fluorescent tubes, sodium-vapor lamps, and other forms of high efficiency energy-saving lighting usually produce a discontinuous spectrum. This means that while the light from a “daylight” fluorescent looks somewhat similar to real daylight, it is deficient in specific wavelengths, mostly in the magenta area. Our eyes don’t adapt to this deficiency as well as to different temperatures of a continuous spectrum, which is why these light sources often look unpleasant and unnatural to us. Color film without correction records fluorescent light with a strong green cast and sodium-vapor with an even more obnoxious green/brown palette.
Photographic recording media—film, or digital sensors—do not have our ability to adapt to the color of ambient light. That’s why color transparency film has always been made in both daylight and tungsten versions. Color negative films can be adjusted with filtration when they are printed in order to compensate for different color temperature light sources with a high degree of success. Magenta filtration over the camera lens does a good job of taking out the green cast transparency film registers from magenta-deficient fluorescents, though the filter costs a stop or more in light transmission.
Sophisticated color meters like the Minolta unit introduced in the 1980s gave two readings of incident light—color temperature in degrees Kelvin, and a second reading on “the green/magenta axis” of a theoretical color wheel. After reading the light and consulting a filter chart, a combination of a warming or cooling filter with a green or magenta one would closely match the light to the film and so provide the most accurate color possible. Basically, with the right filters, the ambient light would be converted to the nominal 5000° of daylight film, or 3200° of tungsten film. This was a lot of work, and expensive too. The meter with additional flash-reading head cost over $1,000 and a workable set of fragile gel filters cost hundreds more. But it allowed for accurate color recording of subjects either in studio or out on location.
Now, with digital capture, the problem is still there, but we can deal with it in software. The sensor can’t change its sensitivity to match different sources of ambient light, but the software that interprets the sensor data either to make in-camera JPEGs or to develop RAW files on the computer can adapt. Not only is it much easier than the old days, but no filters are required and you don’t have to buy a color meter. With RAW files, you can get accurate color simply by shooting a reference exposure of a test target each time the light changes. With JPEG files you really need to set the white balance properly before shooting because a severe WB error will be beyond the adjustment possible to the 8-bit JPEG without major quality loss. Setting a custom white balance is essential here, and luckily it’s not too difficult, though some cameras facilitate this better than others. Digital cameras all have built-in software that attempts to get the white balance right, and this ability is steadily improving as new cameras are introduced, but no auto white balance system is right all the time.
When you bring a RAW file into ACR (the RAW file interpreter for Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom: other RAW processors will have equivalent tools but PS is what I use so it will serve for examples) the top section of the working window (a hint that this is the first thing you should do) is a panel with two sliders, called Temp and Tint. This should be familiar to anyone who spent years working with that Minolta color meter. Temp is our old friend color temperature, expressed in degrees Kelvin, while Tint is that green/magenta axis expressed in arbitrary units. If you have recorded a file of a test target like the WhiBal shown below, to achieve the most accurate color your camera system is capable of you just need to adjust those two sliders until you have a perfectly neutral rgb reading from the target. In fact, you don’t need to use the sliders but can instead use the eyedropper tool to click on the test target and ACR instantly sets the sliders. Then apply that white balance to all of the pictures you shot under those conditions. So, no meters, no filters, just remember to shoot a frame of the reference target each time your subject or ambient light conditions change.
One problem that even digital capture white balance can’t fix is "mixed lighting." If a room is illuminated with a combination of windows, tungsten light bulbs, and fluorescent fixtures, there is no single white balance that will correct for all of them at once, though sometimes you can hit a compromise that's quite pleasant. Here’s an example:
The large armory building housing a model railroad exhibit had lots of fluorescent lights up in the rafters, and lots of daylight pouring through high windows. The camera's auto white balance has tried to compensate—it looks a lot better than unfiltered slide film would—but the result still has a nasty green cast.
I've selected the test frame and a picture I'm interested in, then held down the shift key to turn the cursor into the eyedropper, and clicked on the light gray area of the WhiBal card. The White Balance sliders adjust for neutral balance on both files.
Next I can tweak some of the other settings to improve the tone of the "real picture" file. Because of the mixed light, the color was different around the room depending on how much daylight and how much fluorescent was present. Half a dozen test exposures of the WhiBal made it much easier to get realistic looking color from shots made in different parts of the space.
What’s so important about accurate color? Well, it depends on what you’re trying to do with your pictures. An obvious example where accuracy matters would be a commercial photograph that is meant to show potential customers what a subject looks like. Architecture, fashion, a product that features a “trademark color,” all might need the most accurate possible rendition. Reproductions of works of art would be another perfect example. Portraits generally benefit from getting the subject’s skin, hair, and eye color right. Documentation of anything from storm damage to nature specimens will be more useful the more correctly it renders subject colors. And nobody likes that telltale fluorescent green cast.
All photographic systems have color reproduction shortcomings. None are fully accurate even under ideal conditions. But with an exposure of a reference target and one quick maneuver at the beginning of RAW development you can be sure that you are giving your system its best shot at accurate color.
Should you always strive for technically accurate color in your pictures? That’s the topic of Part II, so stay tuned.
A limited number of places are still available for Carl Weese's next Platinum/Palladium Workshop at Daytona Beach, Florida, in April 2009. Click here for more information.
Featured Comment by Tim (excerpt): "From my own experience of product photography, I find camera sensors react differently to different colors. If I photograph three colored objects at the same time, for instance, red, green and purple. I find it almost impossible to match at least one of the colors regardless of white balance. It's like doing a puzzle, you'll get the red correct and the purple will be wrong. Any thoughts on this?"
Carl replies: This is exactly the point of setting a neutral white balance. All systems have deficiencies and color rendering errors, and they'll do better with some colors than with others. If you attempt to correct the color that's rendered the worst, it can make other colors go crazy, so it becomes a garden path leading right down a rabbit hole. With a neutral balance you get the closest possible "across the board" correction for a given system, but the deficiencies are still there. | <urn:uuid:4775524a-2083-4589-a680-0a9ac78cbb34> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:14:53",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9223324060440063,
"score": 3.578125,
"token_count": 2084,
"url": "http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2008/12/white-balance-p.html"
} |
As the popularized side of the debate has led us to expect, the authors found that the coldest year (1863) and the coldest decade (1810s) are early in the record, well before the ballyhooed warming of the 20th century. Problematic from a climate change standpoint is the fact that the two distinct cold periods that made the 1810s the coldest decade followed an 1809 “unidentified” volcanic eruption and the eruption of Tambora in 1815 – unusual geologic events that defined the climate. However, of greater importance is the fact that the researchers found the warmest year on record to be 1941, while the 1930s and 1940s are the warmest decades on record. This represents very bad news for climate change alarmists, since the warmest period was NOT the last quarter of the 20th century. In fact, the last two decades of the 20th century (1981-1990 and 1991-2000) were colder across the study area than any of the previous six decades, dating back to the 1900s and 1910s. When examining the instrumental records of the stations it is apparent that no net warming has occurred since the warm period of the 1930s and 1940s.Ouch. The note concludes -
In a region of the world where climate models indicate that the greatest impacts of CO2-induced global warming will be most rapid and most evident, this recent extension of instrumental surface air temperature records produces a climate history that seems to suggest otherwise. If global climate models are correct, the increase in CO2 concentration since 1930 should be evidenced rather dramatically in air temperature across a high-latitude region of the Northern Hemisphere such as Greenland. The evidence provided by the instrumental record of air temperature along the western and southern coasts of Greenland produces doubt in the degree to which increased CO2 concentrations impact high latitude climate as represented by the climate models upon which climate change alarmists are hanging their hats.What's fascinating to this layman is how new observations are still being made which seem to challenge what is evidently not at all a settled body of theory.
And that theory - and a dodgy discount rate - are a basis for major action? | <urn:uuid:54298b9a-1cd7-4039-ba9b-013180e3e21a> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:07:57",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9543793797492981,
"score": 3.734375,
"token_count": 447,
"url": "http://thepurplescorpion.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html"
} |
Over 8,000 websites created by students around the world who have participated in a ThinkQuest Competition.
Compete | FAQ | Contact Us
Engineering 4U is a site where you can learn about how engineering is part of math and science. You can also learn about specific structures and famous landmarks with just a click of your mouse. If you are looking for fun facts and information on engineering marvels, this is the page to come to.
19 & under
Science & Technology > Technology > Construction & Structures
Math > Geometry | <urn:uuid:ac8abd6c-9c2a-4576-add2-19200141d53c> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:15:25",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9145838022232056,
"score": 2.640625,
"token_count": 110,
"url": "http://thinkquest.org/pls/html/f?p=52300:100:1049360160309976::::P100_TEAM_ID:501576749"
} |
The federal government has not set any national standards, but many states have mandatory newborn screening programs. Parents can opt out of genetic testing if they want. Parents should discuss genetic screening with their pediatrician or child's doctor so they can weigh the pros and cons.
Many states screen for more than 30 disorders and the screenings are often covered in the delivery and hospital charges. If a parent wants expanded testing on their newborn, they may have to pay an extra cost but it may be worth it to their baby.
To help guide states and parents determine what criteria should be used for genetic screening, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics just offered new guidelines.
The new guidelines say that all newborns should be tested for the genetic diseases that are included in their state's newborn screening panel, but anything beyond that is up to parents and the decision must be made in the child's best interest.
The recommendations distinguish between genetic testing for childhood onset conditions versus those for adult onset conditions.
"There is an important role for counseling before and after genetic screening," added policy author Dr. Lainie Friedman Ross, a pediatrician and ethicist at the University of Chicago. "The focus should be on education of families, counseling them and helping them make decisions that focus on the child's best interest."
Testing for disease in the presence of symptoms is another area addressed by the new recommendations. "Clearly, if a child has symptoms, we need a diagnosis to help the family make clinical decisions that are in the child's best interest. This is important even when the disease has no current therapies," Friedman Ross added.
She also said that the results should be explained to the child when they reach the appropriate age.
New technology offers direct-to-consumer genetic screening tests, but the authors caution parents about using these products because of a lack of oversight and results are open to interpretation.
Some experts agree that being forewarned is being forearmed, but are not fans of the direst-to-consumer genetic tests.
"We highly discourage these even on adults, and particularly on children, because there is nobody there to provide counseling and interpretation," says Dr. Joyce Fox, a medical genetics doctor at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y. These can also be very costly, and are likely not covered by insurance." Fox says.
Parents should educate themselves about genetic screening before the baby is born. Most babies are born healthy and glide right through the genetic screening. But there are cases when the genetic testing panel reveals serious conditions such as PKU or Sickle Cell Anemia.
If a baby's screening results are negative, it means the tests did not show any signs of the conditions in the screening. On the other hand, if there are any positive results, it means there are signs of one or more of the conditions included in the screening,
A positive result does not always mean that the baby has the condition. It does mean though, that further testing is needed to make a final determination.
Early treatment for some of the conditions screened for can prevent serious future complications; so don't delay if more tests are needed.
Pediatricians and geneticists say they approve of the new guidelines. The guidelines were published online in the journal Pediatrics.
Sources: Denise Mann, http://consumer.healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=673692 | <urn:uuid:8ac307a8-ec65-4a3b-86b7-82c38a5a13fa> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:09:22",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9566622376441956,
"score": 3.0625,
"token_count": 697,
"url": "http://tristatehomepage.com/fulltext/?nxd_id=35042&d=1"
} |
How Did The Weimar Republic Collapse?
Posted by John Hitchcock on 2012/11/07
Weimar Germany had an economic crisis.
The Germans elected a bunch of politicians who scapegoated large groups of Germans, pitting Germans against each other.
German political leaders turned their backs on their Constitution, and the German people followed along, like sheep, out of a sense of expediency and crisis.
Free Germany then collapsed into a totalitarian state, which soon crumbled into total devastation, but only after tens of millions of lives were lost.
We are repeating history. But this time, there’s no gleaming beacon on the hill to come to the rescue. We are the last bastion of Freedom left in the world. And We The People are willfully letting that freedom vanish.
DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT
One Response to “How Did The Weimar Republic Collapse?”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time. | <urn:uuid:ea8f2e91-fbbd-49e3-b7da-05f37d6a9dc7> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:13:59",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.954919695854187,
"score": 3.09375,
"token_count": 203,
"url": "http://truthbeforedishonor.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/how-did-the-weimar-republic-collapse/?like=1&_wpnonce=a32b89adfa"
} |
Marriage emerged as the most popular institution throughout history primarily because it was an effective arrangement to improve the care and upbringing of children. Marriage is not necessary to have children, but it has been of enormous importance in the rearing of children. Birds and other non-human species do not have “marriage”, but both parents are often involved in raising their offspring.
With the sharp declines in birth rates since 1970 in Western and other rich countries, including much larger fractions of adults who do not have any children, both men and women have significantly increased their ages at marriage, and sharply raised their propensities to divorce. In 1950, a typical woman and man married at ages 20.3 and 22.8, respectively, whereas now the typical marital ages are 26.0 and 27.7, respectively. These changes in age at marriage are related to reduced demand for many children, increased college education of both men and women but especially of women, much greater labor force participation of married and divorced women, and the narrowing of the gender gap in earnings.
There are several reasons to be concerned about the below population replacement fertility levels in all of Europe and about half the world’s population, including China and Japan. Low fertility makes it much harder to finance retirement benefits, medical care for the aged, and other entitlements that rely on taxing working age populations to pay for the support of older persons. Low birth rates in richer countries also induce increased migration of young workers from poorer countries with large families to provide the unskilled and other young workers that every society needs. Low birth rates lead to sex-selected abortions in societies with a strong preference for having at least one son, as in China and parts of India. Below replacement fertility eventually causes populations to decline (aside from migration), which has unknown consequences for economic growth and other macro economic and social developments. As important as these topics are, I will not discuss them further since our subject today is low marriage rates and high propensities to divorce, which raise distinct issues from the effects of low fertility.
The most important economic and social concerns due to low marriage rates are the effects on rearing of children. These effects are not due to lower marriage rates alone, but rather to the close connection between these low rates and high divorce rates, and to the greater propensity of women to have children without being married, or without living with the fathers of their children.
Although many single mothers do an absolutely wonderful job in raising their children, common sense and most academic findings suggest that having a father present during the raising of children generally has a positive effect on the development of non-cognitive traits of children. These include a general respect for authority and reduced rebelliousness in school, and the avoidance of gangs and other criminal activities. It also appears that the absence of fathers has a greater effect on the non-cognitive traits of sons than daughters, although that is a less well-established finding.
The sharp deterioration during the past 50 years in the stability of black families in America is responsible, I believe, for much of the continuing dismal record in school performance and in society more generally of children from black families. When over half of all black children are raised in families with only one parent, one can hardly be optimistic about their development. Black leaders were highly critical of Patrick Moynihan when in a famous report in 1965 he attributed the low achievement levels of many black children to the absence of fathers in their homes. However, most leaders of the black community have come around to sharing Moynihan’s views as a result of the further deterioration in black families since his report, and the continuing poor school performance, high crime rates, and low incomes and high unemployment of many black children and young adults.
Children in white and Hispanic families have also suffered from the growth in divorce rates and in single motherhood. Children of divorced parents and other children raised by single moms generally do worse in school, attend less good schools, are more likely to drop out of high school, and have poorer job market experiences. Although the moms in single parent families also have lower incomes and education, I believe that a sizable portion of the below average performance of children from single parent families is due to their family structures.
I am not claiming that children are worst off when their parents divorce if their parents were fighting a lot, or if they had abusive fathers. Rather, it appears that up to a significant point, children are better off in intact families even when their families are not ideal. If correct, this suggests a considerable gain not from encouraging marriage per se, but from policies that encourage families to stay together. One approach is for governments to subsidize intact families, whatever their income levels, rather than just subsidizing families with only one parent because they have lower incomes. Other approaches may be better, but the effects of single parenting on the development of children is a far more important question than the question of who can call themselves “married”, and other family issues that preoccupy the attention of many politicians and others. | <urn:uuid:8845f0c1-08c6-4003-9d0a-3e27b0db890d> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:21:11",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9764170050621033,
"score": 2.90625,
"token_count": 1024,
"url": "http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/beckerposner/2010/04/the-effects-on-children-of-the-decline-in-marriage-becker.html"
} |
Skip to main page content (AccessKey S)
Standing at the east end of Cathedral Street in Glasgow, and not far from where Castle Street becomes High Street is Glasgow Cathedral. One of the few Scottish medieval churches to have survived the Reformation unscathed, Glasgow Cathedral is truly magnificent, full of beauty and wonder. Yet any visit to Glasgow Cathedral is also tinged with sadness, for it brings home just how much was forever lost to the nation in the orgy of vandalism that destroyed or defaced so many other Scottish churches in the period from 1560.
It's worth starting the story of Glasgow Cathedral in the middle. The reforming mobs in the years after 1560 were no less zealous in Glasgow than elsewhere in the country. But the affection of the ordinary people of Glasgow for their cathedral was such that the organised trades of the city took up arms to protect it.
Perhaps what saved Glasgow Cathedral more than anything else was simply the size of the city's population: when the crisis arose, enough collective sanity remained to allow the defenders to outnumber the attackers. Elsewhere the story all too often had a different outcome.
Had Glasgow Cathedral fallen in the Reformation, a thousand years of history would have been lost. The Cathedral's origins date back to about AD550 when St Mungo, also known as St Kentigern, founded a religious community here around a small church. Today this church is the site of the Blacader Aisle in the Lower Church of the cathedral, the structure that extends beyond the very short South Transept.
During St Mungo's time the church was visited by St Columba (see our Historical Timeline), and St Mungo himself travelled widely, preaching in both Cumbria and North Wales, and going on pilgrimage to Rome. After his death on 13 January 614, St Mungo was buried close to his church. His tomb today lies in the centre of the Lower Choir, probably on the actual site of his grave.
St Mungo's original church was built of wood, and was probably changed and enlarged over the following five centuries. The first stone church on the site was consecrated in the presence of King David I in 1136 and occupied the area now covered by the nave, with part of the earlier church probably surviving off to one side. This first stone church was destroyed or badly damaged by fire within a very short time, and its replacement was consecrated in 1197 by Bishop Jocelin.
The earliest significant parts of what you can see today are the walls of the nave, up to the level of the bottoms of the windows. These date back to the next round of rebuilding, in the early 1200s. In the mid 1200s much of the rest of the cathedral appeared: in particular the upper and lower choirs were added to the east end of the nave.
In the 1400s a tower was built above the crossing, and two more at the western corners of the nave. At the same time the Blacader Aisle was built on the site of St Mungo's original church and the chapter house was added at the north east corner of the choir.
In the 1800s major repairs included the removal of the two western towers, sadly before it was realised that the available funds wouldn't cover their rebuilding. At around the same time alterations made since the Reformation to allow the cathedral to serve three congregations were reversed, leaving the cathedral much as you see it today.
Though not quite, because one of the joys of Glasgow Cathedral is the way it is continually changing and adapting. There are many examples of this, but the most striking is the beautiful Millennium Window (see below left) in the north wall of the nave. This was officially unveiled by HRH Princess Anne on 3 June 1999. It was commissioned by the thee schools holding annual services in the Cathedral, Glasgow Academy, Hutcheson's Academy and the High School of Glasgow.
It was produced by John Clark and is widely recognised as one of the most technically demanding stained glass windows ever produced. A range of complex traditional techniques were employed including multiple layer etching, painting and silverstaining.
As a result the window is true to the spirit of others in the Cathedral produced as far back as the 1400s. Although the methods of production used in the Millennium Window were traditional in origin, the imagery and overall appearance are a highly distinctive symphony of multiple shades of blue.
Today's visitor to Glasgow Cathedral finds an awe inspiring place. It is overlooked from the east by the Glasgow Necropolis and has a fine precinct resulting from the building in 1993 of the St Mungo Museum, which doubles as a Cathedral Visitor Centre.
The site on which the cathedral was built slopes down from west to east. This allowed the building of its most unique feature, a lower church effectively occupying the whole of the area under the choir. This is a beautifully vaulted space. At its heart lies the tomb of St Kentigern or St Mungo, while at its east end are a series of chapels.
These include the Chapel of St John the Evangelist, still containing part of what is believed to be the well used by St Kentigern in the late 500s. These chapels were particularly well used after 1451, when the Pope declared that a pilgrimage to Glasgow Cathedral would carry the same merit as one to Rome. In the same year he approved the foundation by the cathedral of the University of Glasgow.
The upper parts of the church are divided by the choir screen or pulpitum into the separate spaces of the nave and the choir. Despite this division, and despite the cathedral's relatively modest proportions, the overwhelming impression is one of great size and in particular of great height. Glasgow Cathedral is some 285ft (87m) long by 63ft (20m) wide, and the nave roof is 105ft (32m) high.
The towering internal spaces are enhanced by the apparent narrowness of the central potions of the nave and the choir, and by the very short transepts, which don't extend beyond the nave and choir walls.
Glasgow Cathedral deserves to be better known than it is: and would be if it were not to be found in Scotland's largest city, alongside many other competing attractions. But if you are coming to Glasgow, you really should add the cathedral to your must see list. | <urn:uuid:d413f1cc-1a54-42a3-8f44-09263206479b> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:15:12",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9793857336044312,
"score": 3.359375,
"token_count": 1318,
"url": "http://undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/glasgow/cathedral/index.html"
} |
Empowering women to participate fully in economic life across all sectors is essential to build stronger economies, achieve internationally agreed goals for development and sustainability, and improve the quality of life for women, men, families and communities.
The private sector is a key partner in efforts to advance gender equality and empower women. Current research demonstrating that gender diversity helps business perform better signals that self-interest and common interest can come together. Yet, ensuring the inclusion of women’s talents, skills and energies — from executive offices to the factory floor and the supply chain — requires intentional actions and deliberate policies.
The Women's Empowerment Principles offer practical guidance to business and the private sector on how to empower women in the workplace, marketplace and community. Developed through a partnership between UN Women and the United Nations Global Compact, the Principles are designed to support companies in reviewing existing policies and practices — or establishing new ones — to realize women’s empowerment.
In brief, the Principles are:
Subtitled Equality Means Business, the Principles emphasize the business case for corporate action to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment and are informed by real-life business practices and input gathered from across the globe. They also reflect the interests of governments and civil society and serve to support interactions among stakeholders, as achieving gender equality requires the participation of all actors at all levels.
Introduced on International Women’s Day 2010, the Women’s Empowerment Principles are adapted from the Calvert Women’s Principles®. The Calvert Women’s Principles were originally developed in partnership with UNIFEM (now UN Women) and launched in 2004 as the first global corporate code of conduct focused exclusively on empowering, advancing and investing in women worldwide. | <urn:uuid:aed7de6b-bb9a-4740-983a-46aeedbb86ab> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:21:53",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9360983371734619,
"score": 2.6875,
"token_count": 355,
"url": "http://unifem.org/partnerships/womens_empowerment_principles/"
} |
What is the holiday of Sukkot all about?
As Rabbi Dov Lipman explains in our video (click below to watch), we dwell in the Sukkah for seven days to recall the experience of the Israelites who lived in these booth during their sojourn in the desert after the exodus from Egypt. This teaches us that our shelter comes from God and that He protects us from the elements. The experience of living in the simple booth also helps to break down the barrier of materialism which prevents us from being more spiritual.
The mitzvah (commandment) of the Four Species further cements the idea of that everything we have comes directly from God. We take crops – from the lowliest crop to a high level crop – and wave them in the service of God to demonstrate that He is the source of these crops.
Sukkot is described as “the time of our rejoicing.” Why is this holiday the time for rejoicing and not other holidays? As explained in the video, once a person uses all these mitzvot to internalize that God is the source of all that we have, there can be no greater joy.
WATCH THE VIDEO TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE JOYFUL HOLIDAY OF SUKKOT
Click ‘LIKE’ if you enjoyed learning about the meaning of Sukkot.
And have a wonderful, meaningful, spiritual and FUN holiday.
Chag Sameach from Israel!Please 'SHARE' with your family and friends! | <urn:uuid:86f81f73-d71b-43f4-bfba-88619e1e0128> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:34:56",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.940549373626709,
"score": 3.328125,
"token_count": 314,
"url": "http://unitedwithisrael.org/video-the-essence-of-sukkot/"
} |
Thu September 6, 2012
Extreme Weather Means Extreme Food Prices Worldwide, Aid Agency Warns
Originally published on Wed September 19, 2012 2:11 pm
Reducing greenhouse gases and saving the polar bears tend to dominate discussions on climate change. But to the booming world population, one climate change issue may be even more pressing – hunger.
A new report by a leading international relief agency warns that climate change will increase the risk of large spikes in global food prices in the future, and lead to more hungry people in the world. That's because extreme weather like droughts, floods and heat waves are predicted to become much more frequent as the planet heats up.
"Our planet is boiling and if we don't act now, hunger will increase for millions of people on our planet," says Heather Coleman, climate change policy adviser for Oxfam America, which released the report today.
The combination of the severe drought in the U.S. this summer and droughts in Eastern Europe led to a sharp increase in world food prices in July, according to the World Bank. And the world's poorest are particularly vulnerable to spiking food prices, because they use most of their income on food.
As we reported last month, some of the sting may be yet to come. The drought in the U.S. is particularly hard on animal feed, and increases in meat prices may be on the way as a result, although they are not predicted to be as high here as you might expect.
Still, any price increases can make it difficult for poor families to get enough food, even in rich countries. For example, before the recession in 2008, one in 10 U.S. households couldn't find enough food. (The government calls them "food insecure.") For 2010 and 2011, as Pam Fessler reports, that number has increased to one in seven households.
But poor countries in Africa and the Middle East stand to suffer most. That's due in part to the fact that different countries handle price spikes differently.
For example, price swings between 2007 and 2008 resulted in an 8 percent increase in the number of malnourished people in African nations, according to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization.
Meanwhile, large, stable countries like China were able to stabilize grain prices for their people, but smaller countries were vulnerable to high global prices.
In 2010, when an extreme drought in Russia shriveled its crops, food prices there increased, so Russia banned wheat exports, which sent global grain prices soaring.
As climate change makes extreme weather events even more common, the Oxfam report warns that spikes in global food prices may "become the new normal."
As we reported earlier this year, the relationship between climate and hunger is a complex one.
But there are ways people are trying to protect the most vulnerable from the effects of climate change, says Siwa Msangi, a fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute.
Investments in water storage and irrigation systems can help countries get through droughts. Paving roads and improving ports can help prevent floods from disrupting food supplies. Better feeding programs can also help poor people keep their families fed despite price spikes, Msangi says. | <urn:uuid:0a771090-8769-4c9c-a147-86e141f8413f> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:29:45",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9567986726760864,
"score": 3.28125,
"token_count": 654,
"url": "http://upr.org/post/extreme-weather-means-extreme-food-prices-worldwide-aid-agency-warns"
} |
PRESENTING HISTORY AND CLINICAL SIGNS
Since acute lung injury and ARDS are secondary disease processes, animals may have a variety of historical findings and clinical
signs based on the primary disease. Animals will usually be hospitalized for the primary disease before acute lung injury
or ARDS becomes apparent. It often takes one to four days for acute lung injury or ARDS to develop after the onset of the
initial inflammation, so patients may originally be presented without marked respiratory signs and develop these complications
later. If respiratory disease was a patient's admitting complaint, a failure to improve or a decline in respiratory status
may indicate acute lung injury or ARDS.
Tachypnea, respiratory distress, cyanosis, hypoxemia, and, potentially, coughing are some of the more common clinical signs.6 On physical examination increased respiratory noises may be heard, including loud bronchovesicular sounds or crackles. The
patient may also display abdominal breathing, orthopnea, or foamy pink exudate coming from the respiratory tract.4,6,7 The key clinical sign is respiratory distress.
A typical scenario of acute lung injury or ARDS would be a dog that initially presented for one of the disorders listed in
Table 1. This patient may have no evidence of respiratory disease on initial presentation. After a few (one to four) days, the patient's
respiratory rate would begin to elevate, followed by the patient exhibiting increased respiratory effort and, finally, severe
respiratory distress. If the patient had already been managed at another hospital for a few days before referral, it may have
already had time to develop acute lung injury or ARDS and may present in respiratory distress as a complication of one of
Hospital-acquired respiratory distress occurs in animals that have been hospitalized for an unspecified length of time and
develop signs of respiratory distress while in the hospital. It may arise as an acute onset of respiratory signs in an animal
that previously was determined to have a normal respiratory status, or it may be a worsening of clinical signs in an animal
that already had respiratory compromise. The most common differential diagnoses for hospital-acquired respiratory distress
include acute lung injury and ARDS, aspiration or bacterial pneumonia, congestive heart failure (CHF) secondary to fluid overload,
and pulmonary thromboembolism.
Acute lung injury and ARDS were historically difficult to diagnose with confidence. So in 2007, a panel of veterinary experts
published a set of five criteria to accurately diagnose these conditions (Table 2).2 Four of these criteria are required for diagnosis, and the fifth is optional.
Table 2: Criteria for Diagnosing Acute Lung Injury or ARDS
No. 1—Acute onset
The rate of onset of tachypnea and dyspnea at rest should be < 72 hours and is easily determined based on a patient's history.
No. 2—Risk factors
Evaluating for risk factors involves establishing whether the patient has a severe primary disease that might have resulted
in acute lung injury or ARDS. This risk factor assessment is easily accomplished by obtaining a thorough history and performing
basic diagnostic tests (complete blood count, serum chemistry profile, urinalysis, imaging) that evaluate the patient for
an underlying disease listed in Table 1.
No. 3—Evidence of pulmonary capillary leak with normal pulmonary capillary pressure
This criterion requires that the patient have fluid in the lungs that does not appear to have been caused by left-sided CHF.2 Acute lung injury, ARDS, and left-sided CHF all cause pulmonary edema. The principal difference is that CHF produces edema
that has a low protein content because of high pressure within the lung vasculature (increased hydrostatic pressure), while
acute lung injury and ARDS produce edema that has a high protein content because of inflamed and permeable vessels and alveolar
epithelial lining.3 To properly evaluate a patient for this criterion, thoracic radiography and a cardiac function evaluation must be performed
to determine whether left-sided heart failure is present.
Imaging. The typical fluid distribution in acute lung injury and ARDS results in a bilateral or diffuse pattern of infiltrate on thoracic
radiographs that involves more than one quadrant or lobe (Figures 1A & 1B).2 These changes can be quite variable, however, and may range from increased interstitial and peribronchial patterns to diffuse,
bilateral alveolar infiltrates.6,8 Computed tomography of the lungs can reveal increased lung densities, especially in areas of dependent lung. Affected areas
may demonstrate a hazy increase in lung attenuation, with preservation of bronchial and vascular margins.8 Evidence of proteinaceous fluid in the conducting airways would also be supportive.
Figure 1A. A lateral thoracic radiograph of a dyspneic dog that demonstrates intense alveolar infiltrate in the caudodorsal
lung fields. The heart and the pulmonary vessels appear normal. These findings are consistent with a noncardiogenic pulmonary
Cardiac function assessment. If pulmonary infiltrates are seen, the next step is determining whether the edema is cardiogenic or noncardiogenic. In experimental
settings or in large-animal species, pulmonary capillary pressure can be directly measured by placing a pulmonary arterial
wedge catheter (or Swan-Ganz catheter). But direct measurement is often limited to referral hospitals, so cardiac function
is most commonly determined by history, clinical findings, and echocardiography. Echocardiography evaluates left atrial size
and systolic function quickly and accurately. A lack of left atrial enlargement or systolic dysfunction supports the finding
of noncardiogenic pulmonary edema associated with acute lung injury and ARDS. Echocardiography is also useful to exclude pulmonary
Figure 1B. A ventrodorsal thoracic radiograph of the same dog as in Figure 1A. The alveolar infiltrate is visible in the caudodorsal
lung field on each side but is more intense on the right. The heart and pulmonary vessels appear normal. | <urn:uuid:15eeba66-f97e-4b45-9e08-580fa1616f1c> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:29:13",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9060407280921936,
"score": 3.078125,
"token_count": 1287,
"url": "http://veterinarymedicine.dvm360.com/vetmed/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=640122&sk=&date=&%0A%09%09%09&pageID=2"
} |
Update based on OP's feedback
What might help you then is
=INDIRECT("Sheet" & ROW() & "!A1")
What this formula does is uses the current sheet's own row to help define what information is being pulled. In this case, starting with cell A1, the formula will be evaluated as
=INDIRECT does is allows you to use text strings to define reference ranges when pulling data, thus you can use
& to concatenate a string and insert an automated way of iterating through the various sheet numbers. To get the summarized data in A1 of all sheets, just drag the formula in the summary sheet all the way down the column to have the formula auto-fill each of the following roles. Here's a screenshot:
What's happening in my example is that on Sheet1 I have "Status" in cell A1. Looking at my formula in columnC, you'll notice that
=INDIRECT is pulling that value from A1. The following entries is from autofilling (click and drag) the formula down to other rows, making
=INDIRECT concatenate different Sheet #s based on the
OLD ANSWER Which does not use
Without knowing more about the format of your specific Groups' sheets, you have it almost correct in your example.
If you rename sheets in your document to a custom name, you need to reference them using quotes. If you add single quotes around the sheet name, you've got it:
You can also add summary information in a sheet, like:
Groups Total Sum
That will give you the sum of values in Sheet Group1, column B, rows 1 - 13.
Note: if you're ever confused as to how to reference a value from another sheet, you can always just:
- Go to the summary sheet
- Select the cell you'd like to edit
= to start a formula and then
- Click to another sheet/cell and see how the formula bar autofills the information. | <urn:uuid:c23bd570-9eef-4c38-8afc-4b73b8ee1157> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:29:04",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.8683486580848694,
"score": 2.890625,
"token_count": 421,
"url": "http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/37642/selecting-a-sequence-of-sheets-in-google-docs-spreadsheets"
} |
In this post we take our next step with the mathematical models, and it begins to show different kinds of results. To this point we have been looking at the Bible's four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. To expand our horizons a little, the next document I'd like to consider is Paul's letter to the Romans. It is an early letter within the Christian church, it has been vital in the formation of Protestant Christianity. In modern times the question has become more pointed: Did Paul stay with the direction laid out by Jesus, or was Paul responsible for a change of course? I will not presume to answer that question here, but I will point out some promising pieces of objective information that come to light with this kind of mathematical review.
To compare this letter to a gospel, then, I chose the Gospel of Luke. Since Luke was a companion of Paul's, I thought it could be a productive place to begin.
The Short Version of the Results
Shared Word Estimate (13/52) = 25%
Shared Emphasis Estimate: 27%
Much Different than Gospel-to-Gospel Comparisons
For the first time, all of the matching methods show less than a 50% match -- and here the match is significantly less than 50%. While the gospels consistently had a shared emphasis estimate higher than 50%, Paul's letter to the Romans matches Luke at roughly half that level.
There are several kinds of differences that are immediately seen. We will start at the top of the list with the most common word. The gospels all had the same word as the most common word: Jesus. The letter to the Romans has a different most-common word: God. In fact, "Jesus" doesn't appear until #8 on the list in Romans. However, "Christ" appears higher on the list than "Jesus".
What do we make of the fact that "Jesus" is the common way to speak of Jesus in the gospels, but "Christ" is more common in Paul's letter to the Romans? The word "Christ" does not appear on the common-words list of any of the four Biblical gospels. To be sure, even if the word "Christ" is not prominent in the gospels, still the idea that Jesus is the Christ is well-known from the gospels. They all make a point to explain that Jesus is the Christ, and to demonstrate it. In the gospels, the time when Peter identifies Jesus as the Christ is portrayed as a key teaching, and so is the moment at Jesus' trial where the political leaders ask whether Jesus is the Christ. The Gospel of John even explains that the reason the book was written is "that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ". So the concept of "Christ" is an important idea in the gospels, even though the word is not used often. We could say that calling Jesus by the title "Christ" shows the next stage of logical development after those gospel accounts. That is, calling Jesus "Christ" shows a prior acceptance of those teachings about Jesus. It is, in a way, summary-level talk, to call Jesus by the title of Christ. The gospels are interested in explaining and demonstrating that Jesus is the Christ; for the epistle to the Romans, this has already been explained to the readers' satisfaction and is now part of the foundation on which they build. So here we have a new kind of difference: a difference about the level of detail being used or the logical progression of ideas, whether something is demonstrated or already given. It is a difference in the level of the conversation, and in the starting point of the discussion.
But to what extent is it discussing the same subject matter? The action from the gospels, the physical settings and the people who first heard Jesus are not a large part of the picture in Paul's letter. The book of Romans does not commonly speak of "crowds" and "disciples", or "Peter" and "Mary", or "Jerusalem" and the "house", or "asked" and "answered" in the way that the Gospel of Luke commonly does. The actions from Jesus' life are not being narrated in his letter; the letter is a different type of material. Paul does have some interaction with people in his letter, but he interacts with the people that he expects to read his letter. So while there is no "crowd" in Paul, instead we have Paul's trademark where "greet" is on the common word list in Romans, and there is a small crowd reading the letter. (Anyone who reads a few of Paul's letters will notice that he spends a certain amount of time on personal greetings. We know many early Christians by name because Paul greeted them by name in his letters.)
Still, the differences go deeper. The gospels are all biographies, or we might say the fourth gospel is a memoir and reflection on Jesus' life. As records of Jesus' life, all four gospels share the same most common word: "Jesus". The letter to the Romans, on the other hand, has "God" as the most common word, then "sin" and "law". To be sure, "sin" and "law" are discussed in the gospels -- but not always enough to make the most-common-words list. For "sin" we may remember conversations about sins being forgiven. For "law", there are records of discussions between Jesus and other people over the interpretation of the law. Questions come up about matters of divorce, or tax, or ritual hand-washing, or which are the most important commandments, or a case of capital punishment, or whether certain religious leaders could claim that Jesus was morally in the wrong for performing miracles to heal people on the Sabbath, as it was a kind of work. So "sin" and "law" both have a presence in the gospels, either directly or by example. Paul discusses these ideas at a summary level, where "sin" and "law" are often abstractions. The same might be said of "faith" and "grace". These words are commonly used in Romans where Paul discusses them in a relatively abstract way. In the gospels these same words "faith" and "grace" are not often used directly, but are instead shown in living action.
But the major differences are not limited to the fact that Paul is more abstract, while the gospels show Jesus in action. By Paul's leading words in Romans ("God", "law", "sin"), we see Paul also trying to put Jesus in a context that his readers might know. He explains Jesus against a background familiar to his fellow Jews, back in his day when the Temple still stood in Jerusalem and sacrifices were still offered daily, where people made pilgrimages for the Torah's decreed feasts, where Torah-based Jewish legal courts had some degree of legal authority and might have jurisdiction over some cases, where someone might comment publicly about a lack of morals if someone failed to perform a ritual washing before a meal, where breaking the Sabbath might lead to a formal legal inquiry. We see Paul struggling with the question: For a Jew like him or many of his readers -- learning that Jesus is the Messiah and that the Messiah is about God's love, about grace and mercy, about good news and life -- what does that mean for their old understanding of law and sin? What does that mean for their ideas about righteousness before God?
We also see Paul spending some effort discussing "Jews" and "Gentiles", "Israel" and being "circumcised". What does it mean that even Gentiles are now included in a new covenant with God? What does it mean that Gentiles have a righteousness before God that did not come from the Law of Moses? What does that mean for whether the Law of Moses should apply to Gentiles? On the one hand, if the Gentiles do not need to be circumcised to be in the New Covenant, then is circumcision still relevant? On the other hand, if Gentiles are now numbered among God's chosen people -- which previously had meant Israel -- then is there still any advantage in being a Jew? Paul considers the implication that God has made a covenant for all people through Jesus; and Paul seems to have something of an identity crisis on what it means to be Jewish now, in light of God opening the gate wide to all nations. For him and his concept of his beloved Jewish nation's role in the world, it is not an easy transition to go from being an only child to being firstborn among many. This emphasis raises the question: to what extent was the letter to the Romans about universal themes for all people of all times, and to what extent was that letter meant to speak to the existential crisis of Judaism that Paul saw in God's new covenant for all nations? (In a few places Paul seems defensive of the special role of his people, and mentions several times that things are "first for the Jew" and then for the Gentile. I should mention that Paul's letter to the Romans is not the only philo-Semitic writing in the New Testament. I have become curious whether anyone has actually studied the philo-Semitism of the New Testament. In my readings through the materials, philo-Semitism seems far more prominent than any supposed "anti-Semitism", which is not surprising since most of the authors were themselves Jewish.)
A few advantages of the mathematical comparisons
- We may be able to determine whether something is rightly a classified as a "gospel" by whether it is mainly focused on Jesus. It may also matter whether the action/narration words, setting, and character names are still in a prominent place.
- We may be able to tell that a document is "next generation" material (from a logical point of view) if it starts by assuming that Jesus is the Christ, as shown by a high usage of the word "Christ" compared to "Jesus".
- We may need to look for relationships between key words -- like between "Jesus" and "Christ" -- where the difference shows that a historically earlier viewpoint is now taken as "given".
- To interpret the findings correctly, we may need to look for detail v. summary types of differences, or specifics compared to abstractions, like Jesus' kind encounters with various people as opposed to Paul's mention of "grace" or "mercy".
- The details of the differences between two documents can show, objectively, where the focus of an author lies and bring out themes that might be missed otherwise. | <urn:uuid:815cc499-d6e9-47fd-a622-23bded231cb8> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:21:30",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9676024317741394,
"score": 3.15625,
"token_count": 2167,
"url": "http://weekendfisher.blogspot.com/2013/01/beyond-biblical-gospels-comparing-luke.html"
} |
The Committee recalled that it had referred this nomination back to Australia in order that new material can be assessed. In presenting its revised evaluation, IUCN stated that the nomination had been submitted for its geological and not for its biological values, and that the sixteenth session of the Committee declined the nomination requesting Australia to consider Macquarie Island for its biological values and had noted its potential as part of an international World Heritage site with the Subantarctic Islands of New Zealand. Australia reported that it had consulted with New Zealand in 1996 and had found that New Zealand was not ready for a joint nomination. The Committee was informed that New Zealand had subsequently nominated its Subantarctic Islands for review by the twenty-second session of the Bureau. IUCN felt that the basis for the nomination of Macquarie Island was too narrow and recommended deferral of the nomination.
The Committee recalled that the Bureau discussed: (1) geological and biological values; (2) the sovereignty of States Parties to nominate properties and (3) the outstanding universal value of the nominated property, and that the Bureau by consensus decided to recommend the Committee to inscribe the property under criteria (i) and (iii).
The Committee decided that the site provides an unique example of exposure of the ocean crust above the sea level and of geological evidence for sea-floor spreading, and is an exposure of the oceanic plate boundary between the Pacific and Australian/Indian plates, exposed with active faults and ongoing tectonic movements.
The Committee decided to inscribe the site under criteria (i) and (iii) and took note of the reservations expressed by the Delegate of Thailand concerning criterion (iii). The Committee encouraged the Australian authorities to consider for the future a renomination with the Subantarctic Islands of New Zealand and to consider adding biological criteria in a future renomination. Australia indicated that the Australian Government was willing to consider both proposals. | <urn:uuid:24722551-2b39-45b4-b4f7-1f17203771f5> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:08:18",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9592529535293579,
"score": 2.890625,
"token_count": 388,
"url": "http://whc.unesco.org/en/decisions/2841"
} |
Les noms des biens figurent dans la langue dans laquelle les Etats parties les ont soumis.
1) Punakha Dzong: N27 35 28 E89 52 38
2) Wangdue Phodrang Dzong: N27 30 00 E90 10 00
3) Paro Dzong: N27 26 00 E89 25 00
4) Trongsa Dzong: N27 29 58 E90 30 17
5) Dagana Dzong: N27 4 12 E89 52 47
Dzong in Bhutan is a complex of fortified building which served as a principal seat of Buddhist school. Most of the Dzongs were built to be strategic footholds for gaining influence of particular Buddhist schools and controlling over the region under the power of the schools. It is said to be the medieval period in the 12th century when Dzongs were started to be built in "the southern land (Bhutan)" by clergies of different Buddhist schools established in Tibet.
It was in 1616 when Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyel, the linage holder of Drukpa-Kagyud Buddhist School arrived at the southern land escaping the conflict over recognition of the principal abbot of the School in Ralung, Tibet.
He, later becoming the unifier of Bhutan, started constructing several Dzongs in the process of gaining control over the country, which was at that time dominated by clergies and leaders of different Buddhist schools. Strategic location of the Dzongs is one of the main factors that have led the successful unification of the country. It is much elaborated in old literatures describing the prophecies of ancient saints and auspicious events how the location of the Dzongs was determined. These Dzongs built by the charismatic leader Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyel who is believed as the re-birth of Tsangpa Gyaray, the founder of Drukpa-Kagyud School and also an emanation of Avalokitesvara have great spiritual significance to the people of Bhutan.
Among the Dzongs founded by Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyel, five Dzongs notably took crucial roles to uphold the authority instituted by Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyel. After the unification of the country, he established the unique dual government system headed by Je Kenpo (the Head of religious affairs) and Desi (the Head of temporal affairs). Those Dzongs built as fortress during the power struggles faced by Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyel in the process of unifying the country were later expanded and modified by his successors in order to adapt court of clergies and administrators under the dual system of government.
Punthang Dechenphodrang Dzong in Punakha built in 1637 had served as the principal seat of Drukpa-Kagyud Buddhist School and thus, accommodated the Central Government. One year later, Wangduephodrang Dzong was built to put Sha-Dagyad (eight eastern regions adjacent to Punakha) under control of Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyel. Other three Dzongs were built as the bases to extend the supremacy to different regions in the country. Rinchenpung Dzong in Paro built in 1646 looked after the western regions, Trongsa Dzong built in 1647 for the eastern regions, and Daga Trashiyangtse Dzong built in 1651 for the southern regions. These three Dzongs headed by the appointed administrators titled Penlops gained immense power as a result of ruling vast areas.
The above five Dzongs had been stage for significant political events and cultural development throughout the history of Bhutan after its unification. These Dzongs have witnessed important events not only in the olden times but also in the modern era. Punthang Dechenphodrang Dzong served as the birthplace of the monarchy with the enthronement of the First King of Bhutan in 1907. The recent history of these Dzongs is marked by continuous efforts of adjusting their physical structures to the dynamism of governmental and social changes in the modern times. Due to such successful adaptation, these ancient Dzongs even today hold a significant status in the country as the centre of temporal and religious authorities amid rapid socio-economic development, which primarily began from 1960s, and more recent change of government from monarchy to constitutional democratic government system in 2008. These five Dzongs presently house the offices of the respective district authority and a number of temples, and serves as the residence of the district monk body.
The history of the listed Dzongs reflects the dynamism of Bhutanese history and culture since the unification of the country. Many important historical events had taken place in these Dzongs. Several renovation, alteration and expansion works of the Dzong structure are still traceable and are evidence of crucial roles played by these Dzongs as the centre of government and culture in the course of history of Bhutan. They are the living witness to the successive social development and cultural evolution of the country.
A large number of national treasures, including the remains of Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyel and the small self-created figure of Avalokitesvara from the remains of Tsangpa Gyaray (the founder of Drukpa-Kagyud Buddhist School) are inherited and housed in the Dzongs. Buddhist rituals and festivals are uninterruptedly being performed by the monk body. Therefore, these Dzongs have formed the main centre of spirituality of the nation.
These Dzongs are built on strategic locations such as on hill tops overlooking the valley or at a confluence of rivers providing military vantage. These Dzongs basically consist of Shabkhor, which are buildings rectangular in plan enclosing flat stone paved courtyard, and a most prominent towering structure called Utse standing at the inner courtyard containing the shrines of guardian deities and Buddhist masters. These Dzongs were later altered and extended in order to accommodate the functions under the dual government system. This has presumably led to development of two very distinct facades of the Dzongs; the outer facades formed by high and massive battered stone masonry fortification walls of Shabkhor and the inner façades consisting of sophisticated wooden structure often finished with elaborate carvings and paintings, creating ambience suitable for space for civil and state affairs. The Dzongs illustrate the peak of collective architectural achievements of the people of Bhutan.
There are a number of historical documents and literatures narrating the stories or events associated with these important Dzongs existing today. It includes literatures written and authenticated by the successors of Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyel. Therefore, the historical accounts of these Dzongs are clear and reliable.
Though there are other Dzongs established by Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyel and other clergies in the country, these five Dzongs were the main centre of authority ruling the country. They are the witness of most important historical events and embody cultural vitality of the nation even today since their establishment. They also represent the master-pieces of Bhutanese architecture. | <urn:uuid:95ca9826-0ca5-4331-8845-66ebeeb64df7> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:14:22",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9536669850349426,
"score": 2.59375,
"token_count": 1508,
"url": "http://whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid=326&l=fr&id=5695&action=doc"
} |
By Genevra Pittman
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - More children are being diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) now than were a decade ago, according to new research from a large California health plan.
It's not clear what's behind that trend, researchers noted. Possible explanations include better awareness of the condition among parents and doctors or improved access to health care for kids with symptoms, according to Dr. Darios Getahun, the study's lead author.
Prior research has also shown an increasing trend in ADHD diagnoses, according to Getahun, from the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Medical Group in Pasadena.
However, his team had strict criteria for determining which kids had ADHD, requiring a clinical diagnosis and prescriptions for ADHD medications. Past studies have relied on parent and teacher reports alone, Getahun noted.
In an analysis of Kaiser Permanente medical records, researchers found the proportion of five- to 11-year-olds diagnosed with ADHD increased from 2.5 percent in 2001 to 3.1 percent in 2010.
Consistent with past research, white children were more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than black, Hispanic and Asian kids, and boys were more likely to have the condition than girls.
On average, children were diagnosed when they were between eight and a half and nine and a half years old. Hispanic youth tended to receive a diagnosis at a later age than other kids - which could put them at a disadvantage, Getahun noted.
"One thing which is very important in ADHD is parents' awareness... and timely diagnosis of the disease is very important so the treatment is effective," he told Reuters Health.
"If you diagnose the child early when the disease occurs, the child may function better in school and also socially," said Getahun.
One study published last year found Icelandic kids who got early ADHD treatment did better on standardized tests than those who didn't get medication until they were preteens (see Reuters Health story of June 25, 2012: http://reut.rs/KXoQfY).
Common medications used to treat ADHD include stimulants such as Vyvanse, Ritalin and Concerta.
Not all kids with ADHD need medication - some get better with behavioral therapy or extra help at school. ADHD drugs can come with side effects, including appetite loss, sleep problems and stomach aches.
Just under five percent of more than 840,000 kids were diagnosed with ADHD during the entire study period, the researchers wrote Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
Parental reports suggest that closer to one in ten kids and teens has been diagnosed with ADHD, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and rates vary by state - from 5.6 percent of kids in Nevada to 15.6 percent of North Carolina youth.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/PogxGc JAMA Pediatrics, online January 21, 2013. | <urn:uuid:f4750d7c-9de9-46cd-9506-398dd0d26e2b> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:28:47",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9730497002601624,
"score": 2.734375,
"token_count": 602,
"url": "http://wnflam.com/news/articles/2013/jan/21/adhd-rates-creeping-up-in-california/"
} |
Key: "S:" = Show Synset (semantic) relations, "W:" = Show Word (lexical) relations
Display options for sense: (gloss) "an example sentence"
- S: (n) present, nowadays (the period of time that is happening now; any continuous stretch of time including the moment of speech) "that is enough for the present"; "he lives in the present with no thought of tomorrow"
- S: (n) present (something presented as a gift) "his tie was a present from his wife"
- S: (n) present, present tense (a verb tense that expresses actions or states at the time of speaking)
- S: (v) show, demo, exhibit, present, demonstrate (give an exhibition of to an interested audience) "She shows her dogs frequently"; "We will demo the new software in Washington"
- S: (v) present, represent, lay out (bring forward and present to the mind) "We presented the arguments to him"; "We cannot represent this knowledge to our formal reason"
- S: (v) stage, present, represent (perform (a play), especially on a stage) "we are going to stage `Othello'"
- S: (v) present, submit (hand over formally)
- S: (v) present, pose (introduce) "This poses an interesting question"
- S: (v) award, present (give, especially as an honor or reward) "bestow honors and prizes at graduation"
- S: (v) give, gift, present (give as a present; make a gift of) "What will you give her for her birthday?"
- S: (v) deliver, present (deliver (a speech, oration, or idea)) "The commencement speaker presented a forceful speech that impressed the students"
- S: (v) introduce, present, acquaint (cause to come to know personally) "permit me to acquaint you with my son"; "introduce the new neighbors to the community"
- S: (v) portray, present (represent abstractly, for example in a painting, drawing, or sculpture) "The father is portrayed as a good-looking man in this painting"
- S: (v) confront, face, present (present somebody with something, usually to accuse or criticize) "We confronted him with the evidence"; "He was faced with all the evidence and could no longer deny his actions"; "An enormous dilemma faces us"
- S: (v) present (formally present a debutante, a representative of a country, etc.)
- S: (v) salute, present (recognize with a gesture prescribed by a military regulation; assume a prescribed position) "When the officers show up, the soldiers have to salute"
- S: (adj) present (temporal sense; intermediate between past and future; now existing or happening or in consideration) "the present leader"; "articles for present use"; "the present topic"; "the present system"; "present observations"
- S: (adj) present (being or existing in a specified place) "the murderer is present in this room"; "present at the wedding"; "present at the creation" | <urn:uuid:6b4e81c9-90ae-44f2-8395-b4bdc6154540> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:13:55",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.948452353477478,
"score": 3.328125,
"token_count": 687,
"url": "http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?o2=&o0=1&o8=1&o1=1&o7=&o5=&o9=&o6=&o3=&o4=&s=present&i=8&h=0000100000100000000010000000000"
} |
Key: "S:" = Show Synset (semantic) relations, "W:" = Show Word (lexical) relations
Display options for sense: (gloss) "an example sentence"
- S: (n) room (an area within a building enclosed by walls and floor and ceiling) "the rooms were very small but they had a nice view"
- S: (n) room, way, elbow room (space for movement) "room to pass"; "make way for"; "hardly enough elbow room to turn around"
- S: (n) room (opportunity for) "room for improvement"
- S: (n) room (the people who are present in a room) "the whole room was cheering"
- S: (v) board, room (live and take one's meals at or in) "she rooms in an old boarding house" | <urn:uuid:cee99279-cd8c-4c2e-a3e1-02e6abaf9731> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:21:50",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9590508937835693,
"score": 3.078125,
"token_count": 188,
"url": "http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?o2=&o0=1&o8=1&o1=1&o7=&o5=&o9=&o6=&o3=&o4=&s=room"
} |
Key: "S:" = Show Synset (semantic) relations, "W:" = Show Word (lexical) relations
Display options for sense: (gloss) "an example sentence"
- S: (n) music (an artistic form of auditory communication incorporating instrumental or vocal tones in a structured and continuous manner)
- S: (n) music, euphony (any agreeable (pleasing and harmonious) sounds) "he fell asleep to the music of the wind chimes"
- S: (n) music (musical activity (singing or whistling etc.)) "his music was his central interest"
- S: (n) music ((music) the sounds produced by singers or musical instruments (or reproductions of such sounds))
- S: (n) music, medicine (punishment for one's actions) "you have to face the music"; "take your medicine" | <urn:uuid:6513cfb3-a741-4cf5-b1ed-ca05161eac53> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:14:16",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9196116328239441,
"score": 3.28125,
"token_count": 192,
"url": "http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=MUSIC"
} |
Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon provide the Second Sunday acrostic puzzles every second week. If you think that’s all they do, you need to read my interview with them from last year. This weekend we are treated to one of their Cryptic Crosswords.
I try to be careful writing about these puzzles because I’d rather not give too much away. Feel free to comment on any clues or answers, or to ask any questions, and we can let the conversation happen that way. If you’re new to these Cryptic shenanigans, it might be instructive to consider the first two clues, and then you’re on your own.
1 Across is “From stem to stern, tossed in the Sound (10).” The parenthetical number at the end tells us the number of letters in the answer. The trick to these puzzles is realizing that, for most clues, there are two parts that each point to the same answer. Often is it difficult to separate those parts, so you have to be on your toes. It looks as if this one might mean “from stem to stern” and there is a word meaning tossed inside another one meaning Sound.
That’s a perfectly logical parsing of the clue. It’s also wrong. Sound here means “sounds like,” so we’re looking for a single word meaning “from stem to stern” that sounds like a word or phrase meaning “tossed.” THROUGHOUT fits that description. Reread the explanation here if it doesn’t make sense right away.
The clue at 6 Across reads “Exchange hands, from right to left (4).” In this case, the answer is SWAP. It means exchange. What has swap to do with “hands from right to left”? Follow the directions in the clue to find out.
Cryptics are an acquired taste, but once you get over the hump, they’re great fun. They often benefit from solving with a friend, who might be able to look at the clues at a different angle when you’re stuck. | <urn:uuid:b2f69596-5687-49bf-9ec9-4da59cafa5d8> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:42:45",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9537226557731628,
"score": 2.53125,
"token_count": 450,
"url": "http://wordplay.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/cryptic-3/?apage=1"
} |
The Montgomery bus boycott looms as a formative turning point of the twentieth century: harbinger of the African American freedom movement, which in turn inspired movements for freedom around the globe; springboard for the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr. in civil rights, human rights and peacemaking; launching pad for the worldwide era of upheaval known as the “sixties”. The bus boycott stands for all times as one of humankind’s supreme democrtatic moments, a monumental struggle to actualize the American dream of freedom, equality and constitutionalism. The nonviolent uprising of 1955 and 1956 represented a new founding of American democracy that pushed the nation a quantum leap closer to keeping faith with parchment principles.
---from The Daybreak of Freedom
If any single event touched off the activist phase of the civil rights movement, it was the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-56. Triggered by the refusal of a black seamstress, Mrs. Rosa Parks, to take her place at the back of a city bus when the driver demanded it, this grass-roots movement led by the young Martin Luther King lasted for just over a year, from 1955 to late in the next year. For the first time since the depression, political initiative shifted from Washington back into the country itself, in this case the courts, schools, lunch counters, courthouses, streets and jails of the South.
---from The Experience of Politics | <urn:uuid:697d27b1-00a5-4fc0-9f66-995ef5e16fac> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:08:48",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9015672206878662,
"score": 3.8125,
"token_count": 287,
"url": "http://worldhistoryproject.org/perspectives/80c63a631642b897ca55870ae0422f03"
} |
Climate Witness: Pak Azhar, Indonesia
I have been living in Balikukup since 1999. Balikukup is a small island of 18 ha consisting mainly of sandbanks. However, the island’s size is not fixed as it depends on the tides. During low tide, a large sandbank is exposed, extending 1 km towards the sea.
The weather is a significant factor in the work of a sea cucumber fisherman
I started collecting sea cucumbers in 2001. There are 2 ways to catch sea cucumbers; some fishermen just search on the beaches around the island during low tide at night, while others dive underwater, down to depths of 10 m.
Sea cucumber fishermen are highly dependent on the weather to do their job. Fishermen cannot catch good harvests during rainy or stormy weather, as sea cucumbers hide underneath the sand during that time. Therefore, it is important for a sea cucumber fisherman to predict what the weather will be like before going to work.
Usually I observe the weather at dusk or in the early evening to predict whether it is going to rain or be stormy at night. But nowadays, it is getting harder to predict the weather accurately. For example, early evening yesterday I predicted that there would be no rain at night, but around midnight and early morning heavy rain came down.
In the old days, we fishermen could predict the weather. But not anymore. The elders on our island also mentioned the same thing. Since 2002, Atang, one of the fisherman elders whom we regard as the best expert in predicting the weather in Balikukup, said that the weather was getting unpredictable. Before, Atang could produce a very good prediction, even for the course of a full year.
‘Bulan janda’ or Widow month
One example of unpredictable weather is the gone phenomena of ‘bulan janda’, or ‘widow month’. It is called widow-month because when the fishermen went to the sea during the event, they rarely came home safely. Thus, their wives became widows. Widow month is an annual event when the wind blows very strongly for 44 days from the south. This wind stops for a short period of time (half an hour), and then goes back to blowing very hard. During that time it is impossible for fishermen to go at sea.
Fishermen who had saved enough money and food supply did not need to go at sea during ‘widow month’ because the conditions were too dangerous. However, other fishermen had no other option but to go to sea during the event.
The phenomenon of ‘widow month’ does not exist anymore. The last time it happened was in 1991 according to fishermen. After 1991, during the supposedly ‘widow-month’, there could be calm periods for up to 2 weeks. None of the fishermen understands why the ‘widow month’ phenomenon has slowly disappeared.
No clue when money will come
The unpredictable weather is a disadvantage for us fishermen because we no longer know when we can go fishing. It is difficult for us to predict when we will make money. Before, we could estimate when was the right time to make income and put some money on the side, as we could predict when we can go fishing. Now, whenever we have good weather, we just go fishing. We can no longer make financial plans.
Credit: WWF-Indonesia / Primayunta
Scientific reviewReviewed by: Dr Heru Santoso, Project Coordinator of the TroFCCA (Tropical Forests and Climate Change Adaptation) project, Indonesia
The witnesses told three natural phenomena that they considered climate related. They are increased land erosion, higher tides and unpredictable weather. Even though non-climatic factor could contribute to these phenomena, for example an increase in land erosion could be due to land mismanagement, or a higher tide could be the subsequent of regional subsidence, etc. However, in all three different locations the people observed an increase of wave energy and increasing unpredictable weather that could affect the sustainability of their villages and their livelihood.
There are very few scientific literatures to report whether the observed phenomena in this specific region are related to climate change. This region is open to Sulawesi and Sulu seas as flow paths of oceanic current from the western Pacific Ocean to Indian Ocean. Higher tides in Berau area could be related to the increase of sea surface level in the western Pacific during La Niña events. This phenomenon recently has become noticeable than in the past probably because global warming has accentuated the extent of this climate mechanism (Mimura et al. 2007).
For the same reason, unpredictable and abrupt change of weather has become noticeable. Abrupt changes are usually associated with high wind speed which could only happen if there is a significant difference in pressures between two areas. Striking heat, in particular over a heat sensitive land area, under a warmer condition could generate this high pressure difference quickly. Land sensitivity to heat is higher if the forest cover has gone or heavily degraded. The ‘widow month’, a regular phenomenon of strong southerly wind that has been disappearing, is normally associated with the monsoonal trade wind in which the easterly wind from eastern Indonesia turn northward to Asia. Global warming or higher regional temperature could alter the distribution of regional or subregional energy concentration and could also alter the scale and extent of circulation.
Therefore, global warming could have contributed to the increasing trend of recurrences of natural phenomena as reported by witnesses. However, it is quite proper to verify whether this global warming has accentuated climate mechanisms in this subregion by comparing with other climate variables. For example, during La Niña events warm waters from the east flow to the west and usually bringing more rains. The high tides in the Berau region which could be explained by this mechanism could be verified with rainfall data during that particular time of the events, preferably with a long period of observation data.
All articles are subject to scientific review by a member of the Climate Witness Science Advisory Panel. | <urn:uuid:17978afc-38d0-4b2f-ac01-3569ee170f80> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:08:56",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9595983624458313,
"score": 2.796875,
"token_count": 1253,
"url": "http://wwf.panda.org/?193564/Climate-Witness-Pak-Azhar-Indonesia"
} |
„Liviu Rebreanu” School, Romania
Church listed by the UNESCO as World Heritage Site. Panorama made under authority and approval of Mar...
Transylvania (Romanian: Ardeal or Transilvania; Hungarian: Erdély; German: De-Siebenbürgen.ogg Siebenbürgen (help·info), see also other denominations) is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term frequently encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical regions of Crişana, Maramureş, and (Romanian) Banat.
Transylvania was once the nucleus of the Kingdom of Dacia (82 BC–106 AD). In 106 AD the Roman Empire conquered the territory and after that its wealth was systematically exploited. After the Roman legions withdrew in 271 AD, it was overrun by a succession of tribes, which subjected it to various influences. During this time areas of it were under the control of the Visigoths, Huns, Gepids, Avars and Bulgars. Thereafter the Romanized Dacian inhabitants either moved into the mountains and preserved their culture or migrated southward. It is likely that elements of the mixed Daco–Roman population held out in Transylvania. There is an ongoing scholarly debate over the population of Transylvania before the Hungarian conquest (see Origin of the Romanians).
The Magyars conquered the area at the end of the 9th century and firmly established their control over it in 1003, when their king Stephen I, according to legend, defeated the native prince entitled or named Gyula. Between 1003 and 1526, Transylvania was a voivodeship of the Kingdom of Hungary, led by a voivod appointed by the Hungarian King. After the Battle of Mohács in 1526 Transylvania became effectively an independent principality ruled primarily by Calvinist Hungarian princes. Afterward, in 1566, Hungary was divided between the Habsburgs and the Turks, with the Transylvanian principality maintaining autonomy as an Ottoman subject.
The Habsburgs acquired the territory shortly after the Battle of Vienna in 1683. The Habsburgs, however, recognized the Hungarian sovereignty over Transylvania,[dubious – discuss] while the Transylvanians recognized the suzerainty of the Habsburg emperor Leopold I (1687), and the region was officially attached to the Habsburg Empire, separated in all but name from Habsburg controlled Hungary and subjected to the direct rule of the emperor’s governors. In 1699 the Turks legally conceded their loss of Transylvania in the Treaty of Karlowitz; however, anti-Habsburg elements within the principality only submitted to the emperor in the 1711 Peace of Szatmár. After the Ausgleich of 1867 the region was fully reabsorbed into Hungary as a part of the newly established Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Following defeat in World War I, Austria-Hungary began to disintegrate. The ethnic Romanian majority elected representatives, who then proclaimed union with Romania on December 1, 1918. In 1920, the Allies confirmed the union in the Treaty of Trianon. Hungary protested against the detach, as over 1,600,000 Hungarian people were living in the area in question, mainly in Szekler Land of Eastern Transylvania, and along the newly created border, which was drawn through areas with Hungarian majority. In August 1940, in the midst of World War II, Hungary regained about 40% of Transylvania by the Vienna Award, with the aid of Germany and Italy. The territory, however, reverted to Romania in 1945; this was confirmed in the 1947 Paris Peace Treaties.
In distant regions, Transylvania is also often associated with Dracula (Bram Stoker's novel and its film adaptations), and the horror genre in general, while in countries of Central and Eastern Europe the region is known for the scenic beauty of its Carpathian landscape and its rich history. | <urn:uuid:4ce2cd0c-b5fa-464c-a7a3-a1bcc8d25bac> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:45:21",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9556894898414612,
"score": 3.21875,
"token_count": 885,
"url": "http://www.360cities.net/fr/image/liviu-rebreanu-school-dragomiresti-maramures-rou-transsylvania"
} |
Space Station has to wait for its scientific Destiny
The International Space Station will now have to wait for delivery of first science facility - the US laboratory 'Destiny' - after the launch of space shuttle Atlantis was cancelled this week.
The US$1.4 billion Destiny is a laboratory module enabling experiments in the near-zero gravity of space. The module will end up with 24 payload racks supporting facilities for research in biotechnology, fluid physics, combustion and life sciences.
In microgravity - also called weightlessness - fluids no longer convect or flow because one part is lighter or heavier than the other. These conditions allow materials scientists to investigate the fundamental properties that control how materials form and behave.
The module is 8.5 metre long and 4.3 metre in diameter and consists of three cylindrical sections and two endcones with hatches that will be mated to other station components. It has an exterior covered by a debris shiled blanket made of a material similar to that used in bulletproof vests on Earth.
The current space station crew have passed their 73rd day in space and will live onboard for about 120 days before being replaced by another team of one Russian commander and two Americans. The ISS, which is a joint project of the US, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada orbits the Earth every 90 minutes at an altitude of 370 kilometers. It is scheduled for completion in 2006 and will have as much pressurised space as a 747 jumbo jet. | <urn:uuid:59f7d0b4-70c0-424b-8f5d-26503ea1f3a9> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:10:24",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9362234473228455,
"score": 3.109375,
"token_count": 301,
"url": "http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2001/01/17/234121.htm?site=science&topic=latest"
} |
Plan for an unmanned mission to Earth's core
First, split the ground open with cataclysmic force, then fill it with the world's entire supply of molten iron carrying a small communication probe - and the resulting 3,000 kilometre journey to Earth's core should take about a week, according to a U.S. planetary physicist.
"We would learn a lot more about the nature of Earth and how it works - the generation of the magnetic field, the origin of some kinds of volcanoes, the heat sources inside Earth, the stuff Earth is made of - in short, all the basic questions," he told ABC Science Online.
In his paper, Stevenson argues that "planetary missions have enhanced our understanding of the Solar System and how planets work, but no comparable exploratory effort has been directed towards the Earth's interior".
"Space probes have so far reached a distance of about 6,000 million kilometres, but subterranean probes (drill holes) have descended only some 10 kilometres into the Earth," he writes in his article.
The main barrier to travelling to the core is the dense matter of the Earth's mantle. The energy required to penetrate the mantle by melting is about a thousand million times the energy needed for space travel, per unit distance travelled.
Stevenson's scheme relies on principles observed in 'magma fracturing' - where molten rock migrates through the Earth's interior. He proposes pouring 100 million tonnes of molten iron alloy into a crack of about 300 metres deep in the Earth's surface.
This massive volume of iron, containing a small communication probe, would work its way down to the Earth's core, along the crack, which would open up by the force of gravity and close up behind itself. The crack would open downwards at 5 metres per second, giving a mission timescale of "around a week".
Such 'Earth dives' have not been tried before on any scale, nor is the technology yet available. "No, we can't do it now," said Stevenson. "But the basic scientific principles are understood. The same answer applied to the atomic bomb in 1940."
The initial crack would require a force equivalent to several mega tonnes of TNT, an earthquake of magnitude 7 on the Richter scale, or a nuclear device "with a capability within the range of those currently stockpiled". The amount of iron needed could be as much as the amount produced world-wide in a week.
Heat would be maintained through the release of gravitational energy and the partial melting of silicate rock walls. "But of course, the mantle is hot anyway," said Stevenson, "so once you get below the first 100 kilometres, there are alloys that would never freeze in equilibrium with the mantle." He said the probe would penetrate the outer core but the solid inner core of the Earth would probably stop it from going any further.
The grapefruit-sized probe embedded in the molten iron would contain instruments to measure temperature, conductivity, and chemical composition. It would rely on encoded sound waves to beam data to the surface, as the Earth's interior does not transmit electromagnetic radiation.
One of the existing Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatories (LIGO), used to detect tiny amounts of gravitational radiation from space, could be reconfigured to read the acoustic frequencies from the probe burrowing beneath.
"My paper is an idea, not a blueprint!" Stevenson told ABC Science Online. "But the physical process involved - with melt moving through the outermost 100 kilometres of earth - is something the Earth does every day."
"This proposal is modest compared with the space program, and may seem unrealistic only because little effort has been devoted to it," he concludes in Nature. "The time has come for action."
Click here to listen to a follow-up of this story broadcast on The Science Show, ABC Radio National. | <urn:uuid:e3d8cbe1-af62-4fab-911a-d7705b5c0ea2> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:19:13",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9473727941513062,
"score": 3.796875,
"token_count": 785,
"url": "http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2003/05/15/854796.htm?site=science&topic=latest"
} |
Lichen love space
Scientist have found the most complex organism to date that can survive direct exposure to space: lichen.
The European Space Agency (ESA), which sponsored the research, says the findings bolster the possibility that life was transferred between planets.
Researchers from Spain flew samples of lichen, which are made of algal cells in a mat of fungus, on the outside of a Russian capsule that spent two weeks in orbit.
The organisms survived the high levels of ultraviolet radiation, as well as the vacuum and extreme temperatures of space.
Dr Rosa de la Torre, from Spain's National Institute for Aerospace Technology in Madrid, says post-flight analysis shows the lichens not only survived, but still had the ability to photosynthesise upon their return.
Images taken by electron microscopes showed no cell damage.
"[The experiment shows] for the first time that complex organisms integrated by the association of seaweed and fungi, are able to resist the conditions of space without showing apparent damage," says Professor Leopoldo Sancho, with Complutense University of Madrid.
Sealed in a capsule
Two species of lichen, Rhizocarpon geographicum and Xanthoria elegans, were sealed in a capsule and launched on Russian Soyuz rocket on 31 May 2005.
Upon reaching orbit, the lid of the container holding the lichen was opened, exposing the samples to the space environment for 14.5 days.
The lid was then closed to protect the samples while the capsule returned to Earth.
"The lichens are probably some of the most resilient organisms that you can find," says astrobiologist Professor Charles Cockell, with the UK's Open University, who is familiar with the Madrid team's work.
Lichens have a mineral coating that apparently shields the organisms from the ultraviolet radiation of space, says Dr Rene Demets, who oversaw the project for the ESA.
On Earth, lichens are typically found on the surfaces of rocks and survive extreme conditions, such as high on mountaintops.
Previous studies have shown that simple organisms such as bacteria can survive in space and possibly even on the surface of Mars. Other organisms, such as plant seeds, have not fared as well.
"They could resist the absolute emptiness and the extreme temperatures, but not the radiation," Sancho says.
Follow-up ground and flight studies are planned for September 2007 to determine how long lichens might survive in space, and if they could survive re-entry forces if, for example, they are transported on a meteorite. | <urn:uuid:4d05952d-e1e3-4e24-b34a-454e5e481960> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:29:55",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9554303288459778,
"score": 4.21875,
"token_count": 526,
"url": "http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2005/11/22/1514148.htm?site=science&topic=latest"
} |
Ask a question about 'Luigi Pulci'
Start a new discussion about 'Luigi Pulci'
Answer questions from other users
was an Italian
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
best known for his Morgante
Morgante, sometimes also called Morgante Maggiore , is an Italian romantic epic by Luigi Pulci which appeared in its final form in 1483 .Based...
, an epic story of a giant who is converted to Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
and follows the knight Orlando
Roland was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne who became one of the principal figures in the literary cycle known as the Matter of France. Historically, Roland was military governor of the Breton March, with responsibility for defending the frontier of Francia against the Bretons...
He was born in Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
. His patrons were the Medici
The House of Medici or Famiglia de' Medici was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside,...
s, especially Lorenzo Medici, who sent Pulci on diplomatic missions. Even so, sometime around 1470 Pulci needed more money and went into the service of Robert Sanseverino, a northern condottiere
His brother Luca (1431–1470) was also a writer. His works, all in the Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, include Pistole
, Driadeo d'amore
, and Ciriffo Calvaneo | <urn:uuid:71305884-2330-4f3c-b5d1-837ea168794c> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:36:21",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.962117612361908,
"score": 3.34375,
"token_count": 578,
"url": "http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Luigi_Pulci"
} |
Receive weekly summaries of top business books, lessons in leadership, and inspiration, for free.
The Opposable Mind
Published by Harvard Business Press
Think of a Rubik’s cube. Those who can complete one (i.e. put all the coloured tiles where they belong) will tell you that one of the keys to accomplishment is keeping all the other tiles in mind while focusing on completing a certain placement. It’s not simply a matter of completing one side to the exclusion of the others, but rather the process of building one side while maintaining or building the others as well. Author/professor Roger Martin explains this process to be “integrative thinking”; the ability to face constructively the tension of opposing ideas and, instead of choosing one at the expense of the other, generate a creative resolution of the tension in the form of a new idea that contains elements of the opposing ideas but is superior to each.
Silly example? Maybe. And yet people fall back onto “either-or” choices all the time. Consider the story of Izzy Sharp – a hotelier interested in creating a new type of guest experience. He was told there were only two ways to run hotels: 1) small and intimate, but lacking enough guest rooms to support amenities like gyms, pools or business centres or, 2) large, fully equipped hotels that, due to their size, were run with cold and impersonal service. Sharp refused to accept the two existent models, choosing instead to take the best of each and create something entirely new – a hotel chain built around the exact desires (both spoken and unspoken) of his ideal clientele; huge capacity, yet with a complete and personalized catering to the guests’ individual needs. The hugely successful Four Seasons was the result.
The Opposable Mind teaches that leaders – true innovators – have the remarkable ability to hold two contradictory thoughts in their minds at one time, and then work through the unique strengths and challenges of each to create an even better, third option. In The Opposable Mind, Martin examines the topic brilliantly and, perhaps most important to our conversation, teaches how you can develop a more opposable mind yourself.
Your Rubik’s Lens
“Integrative thinking shows us a way past the binary limits of either-or. It shows us that there’s a way to integrate the advantages of one solution without cancelling out the advantages of an alternative solution. Integrative thinking affords us, in the words of the poet Wallace Stevens, ‘the choice not between, but of.”
The Opposable Mind, page 9
The human mind is a wonderful thing. From early in our childhood development, our minds begin to categorize and filter information vital to our survival. Through education and experience, we start to qualify objects, people and events as “safe” or “dangerous”, “beneficial” or “detrimental”. We do this for our own safety and survival, and we do it unconsciously as we grow. While the function of this process is strictly to keep us safe from physical harm, it actually begins to shape the way we see the world – a lens through which we experience reality, if you will. Virtually as soon as we are conscious of our actions, none of us are capable of seeing the world completely objectively, as we all see reality through the tint of our own upbringing.
Integrative thinking is about testing and expanding our own “lens” (or “reality-model”, as Martin calls it) by comparing and contrasting it with the lenses of the people around us, constantly seeking new, better alternatives to all. It’s about having a certain level of expectation as to what a solution could look like and refusing to lower that expectation simply because the ideal solution doesn’t yet exist.
According to Martin, there are six beliefs or “stances” that are possessed by leaders who practice integrative thinking:
Belief #1: The current solutions or models for a situation are simply the best solutions or models created to date, and not the absolute best solution available.
Belief #2: Conflicting solutions or models are not to be feared or resisted, but rather to be learned from, adding to the available data for study and creation of a new, superior model.
Belief #3: Better solutions are available, they are just yet to be discovered.
Belief #4: They are personally capable of creating or leading the creation of that better model from abstraction to reality.
Belief #5: “Messiness” or complexity of options and components is actually a good thing, as it assures no details (or fewer, at any rate) are being missed in the creation of an ideal solution.
Belief #6: Patience is needed to create the better model.
The Opposable Mind, page 111-3
It is Martin’s belief that we can expand our own capacity for integrative thinking through constant experience and reflection.
Learn from Picasso
“The great ones utilize their experiences to build and deepen their mastery while maintaining and expressing their originality. Average leaders do one or the other.”
The Opposable Mind, page 185
Even those who don’t have an intimate knowledge of the art world probably recognize the name Pablo Picasso. Renowned as one of the fathers of modern art, and the uncontested creator of the Cubism painting style, Picasso is remembered for his originality. And yet, as Martin reminds us, Picasso has often times attributed his pioneering skill to his deep roots in traditional forms of painting. It was his mastery of the dominant styles of his time that allowed him the opportunity and insight to see where things could be effectively adapted and changed.
True innovators overcame the weaknesses of existing models because they have become intimately familiar with them first, before they were able to create lasting change. The old admonishment for want-to-be-authors – “write what you know” – comes from the same lesson; you need to know something to the level of mastery before you can start to inject effective originality. Izzy Sharpe, as case in point, created and ran two successful hotels (one of each existent model) before he had the insight and skill to create the successful third.
If you want to see change in the world, immerse yourself in the existing models first, so you can clearly identify the points that need changing.
“Integrative thinkers don’t mind the mess. In fact, they welcome it, because the mess assures them that they haven’t edited out features that necessary to the contemplation of the problem as a whole. They welcome complexity because they know the best answers arise from complexity.”
The Opposable Mind, page 41
Simple options breed simple results. Typical results. Pre-planned results. If you want to create a new, better model – one that considers more aspects of true reality (and not just your own lens), you need to be willing to consider more details than those who came before you. You need to go looking for more “salient factors”, as Martin calls them – more potential pieces of the better picture.
Do you know all the details of what it is you want to change? Issy Sharp interviewed hundreds of his guests, at both hotels, to better learn what they really wanted. Not only that, he studied all aspects of the hotel experience – from amenities to the check in/check out process, staff feedback and needs, and beyond. He didn’t build the new, Four Seasons model to represent his version of a better hotel, he instead collected more data on what a better hotel would look like. He went beyond his own reality-model.
While having both mastery and originality play key roles in successfully creating a new model, collecting a wide amount of data, and being willing to sift through that data – patiently and with purpose – are also key factors to success.
The Opposable Mind is a groundbreaking book on a topic that, in this age of information overload, will play an ever increasingly crucial role in the lives of leaders. To avoid overload, it can be so tempting to specialize, to simplify, focusing on a small part of the whole as we attempt to improve or “fix”. While simplification certainly makes decisions easier, it hardly ever makes them better. Martin’s message, in a nutshell, is this: Next time you find yourself with an either-or decision to make, take a step back, take a breath, and see if you can’t find an “and” that surpasses both. Life’s a puzzle. Focus on the big picture. | <urn:uuid:0f7ff776-2bf1-4e5a-814f-46bbe850780b> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:07:58",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9500827193260193,
"score": 2.53125,
"token_count": 1828,
"url": "http://www.actionablebooks.com/summaries/the-opposable-mind/"
} |
Source: Africa Portal
Elizabeth Willmott Harrop
July 4, 2012
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – Africa has been dubbed the new frontier for inter-country adoption, and for good reason. As traditional sending countries in Eastern Europe and Asia have tightened the supply of available children in recent years, demand has dramatically shifted to Africa.
According to the African Child Policy Forum (ACPF), there are now 50 prospective adopters for every available African adoptee, and Ethiopia is only behind China in the total number of children it makes available for international adoptions. Between 2003 and 2011, more than 41,000 Africans were moved overseas – a three-fold increase over the previous eight years.
While these figures may seem small in the context of Africa’s estimated 58 million orphans, the trends were enough for government policymakers, NGOs and scholars from 20 African countries to convene at a ACPF conference on inter-country adoption in Addis Ababa in May 2012.
African officials and others are right to pay attention. According to Save the Children, over 80 percent of children in African orphanages have a living parent, just not one whocannot afford to provide for his or her child.In Ethiopia, the government recently attempted to trace the families of 385 different children from 45 different institutions. The families of all but 15 of them were located.
Seen through this lens, the African orphan crisis is largely one of insufficient family support. Officials presenting at the ACPF conference noted that there is no word for adoption in some African languages, and the concept is often misunderstood. Adoption agencies have been accused of profiting from this misconception as parents are persuaded to transfer their children into what they perceive as temporary arrangements that will provide stability and education before the child eventually returns home.
Due to increasing demand in Africa, countries across the continent now have to be wary of abusive adoption practices that have affected past sending nations. In Romania, for example, over 30,000 children were adopted in the 1990s – earning agencies over $900 million (all figures USD) but also exposing adoptees to legitimate and exploitative adopters from around the world.
Serious abuses resulting from adoptions in Africa are also well documented and the First Lady of Uganda, Janet Museveni, told the ACPF conference that inter-country adoption had facilitated trafficking for prostitution, sex slavery, organ harvesting and forced labour.The conference also heard of adoption agencies in Ethiopia accused of soliciting children directly from families, coercing women to relinquish newborns and,according to the NGO Against Child Trafficking, “parents are stated dead… dates of birth are falsified, false information is provided to the Courts”.
While Ethiopia has made progress in the past two years by placing 700,000 vulnerable children into alternative options such as community care placements and domestic adoption, Ethiopia’s story is typical of the way family reunification has been sidelined while impoverished parents are coerced into giving up their children in what has been called a “orphan creation” industry.
The finances involved in inter-country adoption provide insight into the economics of the problem. According to the Bureau of Consular Affairs in the United States, the world’s leading receiving country, adoption agencies charged prospective parents up to $64,000 for processing an inter-country adoption in 2011.Meanwhile, in Ethiopia, the cost of a month’s rent for a poor working family in Addis Ababa is just 25 cents per month, according to a mother speaking at the ACPF conference. Likewise, the total monthly budget that would allow that mother and child to stay together as a family unit can be as little as $15 per month.
David Smolin of Samford University notes that “the ethics of inter-country adoption becomes problematic where poverty induces the family to give up their child. Under such circumstances, even the cost of transporting the child from sending to receiving nation, if spent instead to aid the family, could have kept the family intact.”
Ironically, orphanage care is also often more expensive than providing direct assistance to family and community structures. A 2004 UNICEF report containing cost comparisons in Uganda shows thatorphanagecosts run14 times higher than those for community care. Orphanages are often established by international adoption agencies, however, which make them more cost-effective in the context of the vast profits which can be made from inter-country adoption.
Despite the presence of numerous inter-country adoption agencies in Africa, a central theme of international standards such as the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child is that foreign adoption should be used only as a measure of last resort. This principle of subsidiarity protects the child’s right to cultural identity and means domestic, family-based solutions should take precedence over international ones.
Comprehensive and well-enforced national legislation across African sending countries is therefore vital to maintain family units and connect the provision of social protection to adoption law. With these policies in place, inter-country adoption should only be applied in exceptional cases, and the need should be determined by the sending country and the best interests of the child.
As it stands, African countries are failing their children in allowing inter-country adoption to take precedence over family strengthening, depriving many of the home life they deserve. Let’s hope that policy makers heard that loud and clear in Addis Ababa.
Elizabeth Willmott Harrop is a freelance writer and consultant based in the UK. She has worked with numerous development agencies, including UNICEF, Amnesty International and Plan International. | <urn:uuid:e2dba0b9-fc54-4498-b5c6-63f259a7282f> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:21:06",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9539357423782349,
"score": 2.71875,
"token_count": 1147,
"url": "http://www.againstchildtrafficking.org/2012/07/policy-makers%E2%80%99-attention-needed-to-counter-inter-country-adoption/"
} |
All my Japanese language budo books are in my office, so a fuller reply will have to wait till I go and check, but I can answer your question to some extent now.
'Ik-ka-jo' simply means 'first item', or 'first point'. In the glossary referred to by Ubaldo, it is given as the first technique in Daito-ryu, but the Japanese characters are not given. One possibility is ‰ÓŹđ.
As someone else said, the 'kyo' of 'ik-kyo' means 'teaching' or 'religion'. When applied to aikido techniques, the meaning becomes somewhat artificial, but 'first teaching' seems a reasonable translation.
It should be understood that the Founder of aikido did not use any names for techniques. These were coined by the students in order to remember what they had been taught. It is plausible that ikkyo was preferred to ikkajo by members of the Aikikai. There is also a logical progression from 1-kyo to 4-kyo in the sense that the four forms can be done successively in one movement (from elbow, to base of thumb, to base of wrist, to nerve point in wrist).
P A Goldsbury | <urn:uuid:0e4f9fef-b732-495e-aaa3-0722892af7cf> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:36:21",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9636855721473694,
"score": 2.65625,
"token_count": 268,
"url": "http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11700&postcount=7"
} |
Clara Adams is little remembered today but she was well known as a pioneer of commercial aviation during the 1920′s, 30′s, and 40′s — and always as a paying passenger.
Known as a “First Flighter,” Clara Adams was aboard the maiden flights of the Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg airships, Pan Am Clipper flying boats, and other early airliners, and she became acquainted with many of the famous aviators of the day including Amelia Earhart (picture).
Mrs. Adams was married to George L. Adams, president of the American Leather Tanning company, who owned a series of tanneries in Pennsylvania. George Adams was 40 years older than his young wife and died in 1929, leaving Clara a wealthy widow with the time and money to indulge her passion for air travel.
First Time in the Air
Clara Adams made her first flight in March, 1914, in a Thomas flying boat piloted by Army Captain Walter E. Johnson: “I was a mere youngster but it was an experience that marked the beginning of years of flying. I have never handled the controls and have no desire to become a pilot.”
Clara Adams and the Zeppelins
Adams began her long association with zeppelins in 1924 with a letter of introduction to Hugo Eckener from Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, to whom she was related. (Clara Adams was born Clara Grabau, on December 3, 1884, to a German family living in Cincinnati, Ohio; her grandmother was Augusta von Hindenburg, a cousin of the German general and future president.)
Her letter of introduction to Eckener “opened the magic doors of the Zeppelin realm,” as she described it, and Eckener invited her to fly on one of the test flights of the LZ-126/ZR-III, which had been built for the Americans as war reparations and would become the United States Navy airship USS Los Angeles.
In 1928, Adams purchased the first transatlantic air ticket ever sold to a female passenger and was on the first flight of the airship Graf Zeppelin from North America to Europe in October, 1928.
The loss of the airship Hindenburg in May, 1937 apparently did not shake Adam’s enthusiasm for zeppelin travel; she later recounted that “on the day after the destruction of the Hindenburg, I wrote out my check for $100 to be held as a deposit for the first ticket for the new dirigible, LZ-130… This I did to prove that I had not lost confidence in dirigible travel.”
Across the Oceans by Flying Boat
Adams was also a pioneering passenger in the other leading aviation technology of the day, the flying boat. In 1931, she was the only paying woman passenger on the flight of Germany’s massive, twelve-engined Dornier DO-X flying boat from Rio de Janeiro to New York.
Clara Adams was also aboard many Pan Am Clippers for their inaugural flights, including the first passenger flight across the Pacific on Pan American’s “Hawaii Clipper.” The Martin M-130 left San Francisco on October 21, 1936 and flew to Manila in the Philippines, with stops at Hawaii, Midway, Wake, and Guam. And the following year Mrs. Adams was on the first flight of Pan Am’s Bermuda Clipper from New York to Bermuda in 1937.
Around the World by Air
Clara Adams made one of her most famous trips in 1939, when she set a world record for an around-the-world flight solely on scheduled passenger airlines. She left New York on June 28, 1939 aboard Pan American’s “Dixie Clipper” (a Boeing 314 flying boat which in 1943 would carry President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Casablanca Conference). Traveling on Pan American, Deutsche Lufthansa, KLM, and United Airlines, she circled the globe in 16 days and 19 hours, with stops in Horta, Lisbon, Marseille, Leipzig, Athens, Basra, Jodphur, Rangoon, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Manila, Guam, Wake Island, Midway Island, Honolulu, and San Francisco, returning to New York on July 15, 1939.
Clara Adams made another first flight in September, 1940, when she flew on Pan Am’s Boeing B-314 “American Clipper” as it made the first passenger flight from the United States to New Zealand.
Clara Adams, Eccentric?
Her flights brought her great publicity, but Clara Adams was also viewed as something of an eccentric. Time Magazine compared her to the “fire buffs” who chase fire engines in an August 3, 1931 article, and told readers that in her home town in Pennsylvania, “Mrs. Adams is considered something of a character… She owns several automobiles, yet is frequently seen walking the nine miles between Tannersville and Stroudsburg, or hailing motorists for a lift. Tall and lean, she dresses plainly, wears cotton stockings. She plays the piano with exceptional skill, is locally famed as a china-painter.”
Her Legacy to Commercial Aviation
While Adams may have been “a character” (she was infamous among Pan Am flight crews for pestering pilots for dozens of autographs), and while she did not contribute anything to the technological development of aviation, she did play an important role in the promotion of commercial aviation in its early days. Through her relentless self-promotion (she went on lecture tours describing her aerial adventures, made sure that she received as much newspaper coverage as she could generate, and autographed mountains of postcards, menus, and other memorabilia), Clara Adams brought passenger flight to the attention of the masses, and helped change the public perception of aviation from a dangerous enterprise for daredevils in leather helmets to something that could be enjoyed by a little old widow from Pennsylvania. Her round-the-world flight in 1939 was a very public demonstration of just how far aviation had come in so short a time; Charles Lindbergh had crossed the Atlantic in May, 1927, and just twelve years later it was possible for a woman to buy a ticket to fly around the world on scheduled airlines.
And Clara Adams made sure the world knew it. | <urn:uuid:b37f7019-f7d7-4ac7-9062-516fcab154b6> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:14:36",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9705511331558228,
"score": 3.03125,
"token_count": 1313,
"url": "http://www.airships.net/clara-adams-aviation-pioneer"
} |
Hellcat, the F6F in World War II
Largely responsible for crushing Japanese airpower wherever the American fast carrier force sailed, the Grumman F6F Hellcat was considered the most ... Show synopsis Largely responsible for crushing Japanese airpower wherever the American fast carrier force sailed, the Grumman F6F Hellcat was considered the most important Allied aircraft in the Pacific during 1943 and 1944. Designed for speed, range, and climb to compete with Japan's exceptional Mitsubishi A6M Zero, it succeeded not only in engaging the "Zeke" on equal terms but also in dictating the rules of combat. Fighters in every sense of the word, the Hellcats were credited with destroying more than five thousand Japanese aircraft, gaining outright air supremacy over the invasion beaches, and helping ensure Allied amphibious victories in the Central Pacific. Aviation historian Barrett Tillman presents the full story of the fighter plane--the men who built and tested it, the squadrons that flew it, and the heroes it created. Heavily illustrated with photographs from the pilots' own collections, this spirited, carefully documented operational history is an absolute must for anyone interested in aviation history. It is now available for the first time in paperback. | <urn:uuid:86c87c90-586a-456f-89a2-2d0113e7d9f3> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:28:40",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9358626008033752,
"score": 2.875,
"token_count": 250,
"url": "http://www.alibris.co.uk/booksearch?qwork=2863534&cm_sp=1rec-_-RHS-_-p1-0"
} |
- Historic Sites
Victory On Lake Champlain
Hundreds of miles from salt water, two tiny, improvised fleets hammered away at each other in one of the decisive naval engagements of the War of 1812
December 1963 | Volume 15, Issue 1
So the British had to find their own masts—at this distante it is impossible to discover how much delay this imposed—while the calm before the storm lay over the lake, except for idle skirmishing at the border. Elsewhere there was violent action; first Chippewa and then Lundy’s Lane, in Ontario: then the British raids on Washington and on Bangor, Maine. On August 15 Macdonough launched his Eagle ; on August 25 the senior British naval officer on the lake, Pring, launched the Confiance ; and on August 29, under orders from the War Department, three quarters of the American troops at Plattsburg marched oft to Lake Ontario, two hundred miles over the mountains to Sackett’s Harbor, from the vital and strategic point to one of minor interest. The residue left in Plattsburg was composed mostly of unorganized raw recruits, but the local militia had a keener sense of the strategic importance of Plattsburg, and in this desperate moment patriotism asserted itself despite the local yielding to the temptation to drive profitable bargains with John Bull. The traditional objection to service in another state was forgotten, and Macdonough ferried over the Vermont militia; the New Yorkers came marching in, and within a few days the llimsy entrenchments along the Saranac River, where it passed through Plattsburg, were fully manned again.
On September 2, with summer nearly over, there arrived at Isle aux Noix one of the unfortunate men of history, Captain George Downie, R.N. He had come to supersede Pring and take command of the British squadron on Champlain, and he was to hold that command for nine unhappy days. Prevost was clamoring for action, despite the fact that he had been informed some time back that Confiance could not be ready before September 15. Her guns were in, but her magazine was still under construction; she had her masts, but her rigging was not set up. The sailors destined to man her and some of the accompanying gunboats were still arriving. But Prevost, after this wasted summer, would not wait another week; perhaps he feared the consequences of a winter campaign on the Hudson, for New York, an easy day’s drive in a modern automobile, was a month’s steady marching away. He had put his army in motion from the Canadian border on the last day of August, and from the moment of Downie’s arrival Prevost began to send letters to fsle aux Noix that were most offensive in tone, demanding action on the part of the navy. Downie displayed no lack of energy; he acted with desperate haste. The Confiance was hauled out into the stream, and while the artificers worked at completing her construction and outfitting lier lor sea, the boats ol the squadron set about towing her against wind and current onto the lake. The laborious business took two days, and then at last the squadron dropped anchor in the narrows between Isle La Motte and Chazy. This was the night of September 8; it was only then—with the mechanics still at work—that the men could be given their stations at the guns.
Prevost had arrived in Plattsburg two days before, to find Brigadier General Alexander Macomb and his motley army drawn up behind their defenses, and Macdonough with his squadron anchored in Cumberland Bay, at long cannon shot from both Plattsburg and Cumberland Head. The Eagle had joined him a week earlier; the rest of his force had had the freedom of the lake since the end of May.
For two days Prevost had been studying the situation. A successful attack by Downie on the American squadron would result in isolating Macomb in Plattsburg, and thai wotdd involve his inevitable—and probably prompt—surrender. If Downie were to take station .south of Cumberland Head, cutting off the entrance of supplies, Macomb and Macclonough would be starved out and forced into action, especially if Prevost were to drag guns round the northern shore of Cumberland Bay and harass Macdonough at his anchorage. But no plan suited Prevost that involved the expenditure of time, not with winter at hand. Perhaps if he had assaulted the works at Plattsburg the very night of his arrival, before the Americans had fully settled in, he might have won a resounding success—the infantry who under Wellington had stormed Badajoz in the Peninsular War were hard men to stop; but the American militiaman behind breastworks was a different kind of soldier from the American militiaman in the open field. A repulse would have been an ominous opening for Prevost’s campaign. Having (rightly or wrongly,) allowed his best opportunity to go by, Prevost insisted on an attack by Downie, an instant, immediate attack; he went so far as to send a cavalry officer down to Chazy to keep an eye on Downie’s proceedings.
September 9 was spent at anchor in getting the British squadron into better order; a headwind on September io granted another day of grace, but even so, the mechanics were still hard at work when at midnight the wind came fair from the northeast, and Downie hove up his anchors and came gliding down the lake to his death. Sunday, September 11: dawn must have revealed a hint of mist here and there on the surface of the lovely lake. The first scarlet and the first gold must have been showing in the forests all around. | <urn:uuid:823a27be-abd4-405b-8ea1-79e7f00e2886> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:17:34",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9805340766906738,
"score": 3.265625,
"token_count": 1195,
"url": "http://www.americanheritage.com/content/victory-lake-champlain?page=4"
} |
Many insects, including flies, mosquitoes, gnats, ticks, and mites can inhabit or irritate the skin. Some of these insects carry diseases that they transmit to companion animals, causing more illness than the insect bite or sting itself. Very importantly, some of these insects can cause disease in human beings.
The pattern of itch from these insects can be generalized or be highly specific to the feeding patterns of the insect itself. And over time, symptoms that began with specific patterns of itching can generalize as the skin worsens and, especially, if secondary infections develop.
Ectoparasite identification can be easy or it can be challenging. A parasite that resides on the skin may be found in large numbers (Demodex mites) or in very small numbers (Sarcoptes mites). Or they can be difficult to collect in samples for examination (Cheyletiella mites). Dermatitis caused by a parasite that does not reside on the skin, such as mosquitoes or gnats (Culicoides species), can only be diagnosed by accurate history and physical examination. Sometimes the diagnosis is made by treating for a presumptive parasite and noting if symptoms resolve.
It is not uncommon for veterinary dermatologists to be referred cases that have had extensive (and expensive) allergy diagnostics without successful resolution of the itching. Ultimately, for many of these cases, a non-allergy cause of the discomfort is discovered and treated. | <urn:uuid:3aeb3c30-cb14-4091-97b1-7d567502adb6> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:08:47",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9438312649726868,
"score": 3.390625,
"token_count": 294,
"url": "http://www.animaldermatologycenter.com/ectoparasites.html"
} |
Wind turbine installations have grown significantly in the last decade as a result of the quest for alternative energy sources. For the past 10 years, worldwide total installed capacity has grown at nearly 28 percent annually. The Global Wind Energy Council expects total installed capacity to continue to grow at almost 21 percent annually, leading to over 400 GW by the end of 2014. Wind turbines represent an exciting opportunity for clean power production.
Courtesy TUV Nord e.V.
Most wind turbine power production comes from large machines, in the 2 MW to 3 MW range for land-based units. The turbines are huge, with blade lengths approximately 50 meters. As a result of the sheer size, engineering simulation is both important and challenging. Full-scale physical testing is difficult, time consuming and expensive. At the same time, the cost of getting it wrong is prohibitive.
ANSYS tools uniquely offer an optimal combination of high fidelity and breadth, empowering product designers to improve virtually every aspect of wind turbine design.
Wind turbine design involves the interaction of a range of physical phenomena and market demands:
- The aerodynamics comprise changing wind direction and speed, making it necessary for designers to understand the flow at the turbine installation and blade boundary scales as well as effects from the unsteady rotor–tower interaction.
- Rotors must be light, strong and flexible, which indicates the use of advanced engineered materials.
- Shaft and gearbox loads are high, yet operators demand dependability and low, predictable maintenance costs.
- The industry calls for high electric generator efficiency, even for low wind speeds. The electrical control system must safely manage operation of the turbine’s overall operating conditions.
- All mechanical components must be strong to meet reliability and durability targets. At the same time, components must be light weight — as they are usually mounted 100 meters above ground.
- Nearby communities and governments demand low noise and minimal environmental impact.
While large industrial wind turbine units provide much of today’s installed capacity, the application of smaller units is growing at fast pace. These machines provide personal and distributed power generation, sometimes in remote areas. The engineering challenges — and benefits of using the broad technology offering from ANSYS — are the same as for large industrial installations. | <urn:uuid:984b2148-9b2c-46d6-af81-b28d2699ba12> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:21:17",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9212284684181213,
"score": 3.375,
"token_count": 456,
"url": "http://www.ansys.com/Industries/Industrial+Equipment+&+Rotating+Machinery/Wind+Turbines"
} |
America's oil and natural gas industry is committed to protecting the environment and to continuously improving its hurricane preparation and response plans. After any hurricane or tropical storm, the goal is to return to full operations as quickly and as safely as possible. For the 2012 hurricane season, the industry continues to build upon critical lessons learned from 2008's major hurricanes, Gustav and Ike, as well as other powerful storms, such as 2005's Katrina and Rita and 2004's Ivan.
API plays two primary roles for the industry in preparing for hurricanes. First, it helps the industry gain a better understanding of the environmental conditions in and around the Gulf of Mexico during hurricane or tropical storm activity and then assists industry in using that knowledge to make offshore and onshore facilities less vulnerable. Second, API collaborates with member companies, other industries and with federal, state and local governments to prepare for hurricanes and return operations as quickly and as safely as possible.
API member companies also independently work to improve preparedness for hurricanes and other natural or manmade disasters. They have, for example, reviewed and updated emergency response plans, established redundant communication paths and made pre-arrangements with suppliers to help ensure they have adequate resources during an emergency.
The API Subcommittee on Offshore Stuctures, the International Association of Drilling Contractors, and the Offshore Operators Committee, serve as a liaison to regulatory agencies, coordinate industry review of critical design standards and provide a forum for sharing lessons learned from previous hurricanes.
These combined efforts are critical since the Gulf of Mexico accounted for about 23 percent of the oil and 8 percent of total natural gas produced in the United States (approximately 82 percent of the oil supply comes from deepwater facilities), and the Gulf Coast region is home to almost half of the U.S. refining capacity.
Upstream (Exploration and Production)
During the major 2005 hurricanes, waves were higher and winds were stronger than anticipated in deeper parts of the Gulf so the industry moved away from viewing it as a uniform body of water. Evaluating the effects of those and other storms, helped scientists discover that the Central Gulf of Mexico was more prone to hurricanes because it acts as a gathering spot for warm currents that can strengthen a storm.
The revised wind, wave and water current measurements ("metocean" data) prompted API to reassess its recommended practices (RPs) for industry operations in the region.
- The upstream segment continues to integrate the updated environmental (metocean) data on how powerful storms affect conditions in the Gulf of Mexico into its offshore structure design standards. This effort led to the publication in 2008 of an update to RP 2SK, Design and Analysis of Stationkeeping Systems for Floating Structures, that provides guidance for design and operation of Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit (MODU) mooring systems in the Gulf of Mexico during the hurricane season. API RP 95J, Gulf of Mexico Jack-up Operations for Hurricane Season, which recommends locating jack-up rigs on more stable areas of the sea floor, and positioning platform decks higher above the sea surface, was also updated.
API publications are available at our (Search and Order
API in the past six years also has issued a number of bulletins to help better prepare for and bring production back online after Gulf hurricanes. These include:
Production and Hurricanes (steps industry takes to prepare for and return after a storm)
- Bulletin 2TD, Guidelines for Tie-downs on Offshore Production Facilities for Hurricane Season, which is aimed at better-securing separate platform equipment.
- Bulletin 2INT-MET, Interim Guidance on Hurricane Conditions in the Gulf of Mexico, which provides updated metocean data for four regions of the Gulf, including wind velocities, deepwater wave conditions, ocean current information, and surge and tidal data.
- Bulletin 2INT-DG, Interim Guidance for Design of Offshore Structures for Hurricane Conditions, which explains how to apply the updated metocean data during design.
- Bulletin 2INT-EX, Interim Guidance for Assessment of Existing Offshore Structures for Hurricane Conditions, which assists owners/operators and engineers with existing facilities.
- Bulletin 2HINS, Guidance on Post-hurricane Structural Inspection of Offshore Structures, which provides guidance on determining if a structure sustained hurricane-induced damage that affects the safety of personnel, the primary structural integrity, or its ability to perform the purpose for which it was intended.
Refineries and Pipelines
- Days in advance of a tropical storm or hurricane moving toward or near their drilling and production operations, companies will evacuate all non-essential personnel and begin the process of shutting down production.
- As the storm gets closer, all personnel will be evacuated from the drilling rigs and platforms, and production is shut down. Drillships may relocate to a safe location. Operations in areas not forecast to take a direct hit from the storm often will be shut down as well because storms can change direction with little notice.
- After a storm has passed and it is safe to fly, operators will initiate "flyovers" of onshore and offshore facilities to evaluate damage from the air. For onshore facilities, these "flyovers" can identify flooding, facility damage, road or other infrastructure problems, and spills. Offshore "flyovers" look for damaged drilling rigs, platform damage, spills, and possible pipeline damage.
- Many offshore drilling rigs are equipped with GPS locator systems, which allow federal officials and drilling contractors to remotely monitor the rigs' location before, during and after a hurricane. If a rig is pulled offsite by the storm, locator systems allow crews to find and recover the rig as quickly and as safely as possible.
- Once safety concerns are addressed, operators will send assessment crews to offshore facilities to physically assess the facilities for damage.
- If facilities are undamaged, and ancillary facilities, like pipelines that carry the oil and natural gas, are undamaged and ready to accept shipments, operators will begin restarting production. Drilling rigs will commence operations.
Despite sustaining unprecedented damage and supply outages during the 2005 and 2008 hurricanes, the industry quickly and safely brought refining and pipeline operations back online, delivering to consumers near-record levels of gasoline and record levels of distillate (diesel and heating oil) in 2008. The oil and oil-product pipelines operating on or near the Gulf of Mexico continue to review their assets and operations to minimize the potential impacts of storms and shorten the time it takes to recover. While there have been some shortages caused by hurricanes, supply disruptions have been temporary despite extensive damage to supporting infrastructure, such as electric power generation and distribution, production shut-ins and refinery shutdowns. Pipelines need a steady supply of crude oil or refined products to keep product flowing to its intended destinations.
To prepare for future severe storms, refiners and pipeline companies have
Refineries and hurricanes (steps industry takes to prepare for and return after a storm)
- Worked with utilities to clarify priorities for electric power restoration critical to restarting operations and to help minimize significant disruptions to fuel distribution and delivery.
- Secured backup power generation equipment and worked with federal, state and local governments to ensure that pipelines and refineries are considered "critical" infrastructure for back-up power purposes.
- Established redundant communications systems to support continuity of operations and locate employees.
- Worked with vendors to pre-position food, water and transportation, and updated emergency plans to secure other emergency supplies and services.
- Provided additional training for employees who have participated in various exercises and drills.
- Reexamined and improved emergency response and business continuity plans.
- Strengthened onshore buildings and elevated equipment where appropriate to minimize potential flood damage.
- Worked with the states and local emergency management officials to provide documentation and credentials for employees who need access to disaster sites where access is restricted during an emergency.
- Participated in industry conferences to share best practices and improvement opportunities.
Pipelines and hurricanes (steps industry takes to prepare for and return after a storm)
- Refiners, in the hours before a large storm makes landfall, will usually evacuate all non-essential personnel and begin shutting down or reducing operations.
- Operations in areas not forecast to take a direct hit from the storm often are shut down or curtailed as a precaution because storms can change direction with little notice.
- Once safe, teams come in to assess damage. If damage or flooding has occurred, it must be repaired and dealt with before the refinery can be brought back on-line.
- Other factors that can cause delays in restarting refineries include the availability of crude oil, electricity to run the plant and water used for cooling the process units.
- Refineries are complex. It takes more than a flip of a switch to get a refinery back up and running. Once a decision has been made that it is safe to restart, it can take several days before the facility is back to full operating levels. This is because the process units and associated equipment must be returned to operation in a staged manner to ensure a safe and successful startup.
- If facilities are undamaged or necessary repairs have been made, and ancillary facilities - like pipelines that carry the oil and natural gas - are undamaged and ready to accept shipments, operators will begin restarting production.
- Pipeline operations can be impacted by storms, primarily through power outages, but also by direct damage.
- Offshore pipelines damaged require the hiring of divers, repairs and safety inspections before supplies can flow. Damaged onshore pipelines must be assessed, repaired and inspected before resuming operations.
- Without power, crude oil and petroleum products cannot be moved through pipelines. Operators routinely hold or lease back-up generators but need time to get them onsite.
- If there is no product put into pipelines because Gulf Coast/Gulf of Mexico crude or natural gas production has been curtailed, or because of refinery shutdowns, the crude and products already in the pipelines cannot be pushed out the other end.
- Wind damage to above ground tanks at storage terminals can also impact supplies into the pipeline.
: The 2008 hurricane season was very active, with 16 named storms, of which eight became hurricanes and five of those were major hurricanes. For the U.S. oil and natural gas industry, the two most serious storms of 2008 were Hurricane Ike, which made landfall in mid-September near Baytown, Texas, and Hurricane Gustav, which made landfall on September 1 in Louisiana.
Hurricane Gustav, a strong Category 2 storm, kept off-line oil and natural gas delivery systems and production platforms that had not yet been fully restored from a smaller storm two weeks earlier, and brought significant flooding as far north as Baton Rouge. Hurricane Ike, another strong Category 2 hurricane, caused significant portions of the production, processing, and pipeline infrastructure along the Gulf Coast in East Texas and Louisiana to shut down. Ike caused significant destruction to electric transmission and distribution lines, and these damages delayed the restart of major processing plants, pipelines, and refineries. As many as 3.7 million customers were without electric power following the storm, with about 2.5 million in Texas alone.
At the peak of disruptions, more than 20 percent of total U.S. refinery capacity was idled. The Minerals Management Service - now called Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE)
estimated that 2,127 of the 3,800 total oil and natural gas production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico were exposed to hurricane conditions, with winds greater than 74 miles per hour, from Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. A total of 60 platforms were destroyed as a result of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. Some platforms which had been previously reported as having extensive damage were reassessed and determined to be destroyed. The destroyed platforms produced 13,657 barrels of oil and 96.5 million cubic feet of natural gas daily or 1.05 percent of the oil and 1.3 percent of the natural gas produced daily in the Gulf of Mexico.
: The 2005 hurricane season was the most active in recorded history, shattering previous records. According to the Department of Energy, refineries in the path of hurricanes Katrina and Rita accounting for about 29 percent of U.S. refining capacity were shut down at the peak of disruptions. Offshore, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) estimated 22,000 of the 33,000 miles of pipelines and 3,050 of the 4,000 platforms in the Gulf were in the direct paths of the two Category 5 storms. Together the storms destroyed 115 platforms and damaged 52 others.
Even so, there was no loss of life among industry workers and contractors. An MMS report found "no accounts of spills from facilities on the federal Outer Continental Shelf that reached the shoreline; oiled birds or mammals; or involved any discoveries of oil to be collected or cleaned up".
: Hurricane Ivan was the strongest hurricane of the 2004 season and among one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record. It moved across the Gulf of Mexico to make landfall in Alabama. Ivan then looped across Florida and back into the Gulf, regenerating into a new tropical system, which moved into Louisiana and Texas.
The MMS estimated approximately 150 offshore facilities and 10,000 miles of pipelines were in the direct path of Ivan. Seven platforms were destroyed and 24 others damaged. The oil and natural gas industry submitted numerous damage reports to MMS, including for mobile drilling rigs, offshore platforms, producing wells, topside systems including wellheads and production and processing equipment, risers, and pipeline systems that transport oil and gas ashore from offshore facilities. | <urn:uuid:5a1087ae-92e7-46db-8ae2-20172a204f5d> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:14:43",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9519500136375427,
"score": 2.546875,
"token_count": 2794,
"url": "http://www.api.org/news-and-media/hurricane-information/hurricane-preparation.aspx"
} |
Islam and Other World Religions
Allah vs. the God of the Bible
An honest and objective reading of both the Quran and the Bible reveals a significant clash between the two both in terms of how to conceptualize God, as well as in their respective depictions of the behavior of deity. Allah says and does things that the God of the Bible did not and would not say or do. The Quran’s representation of the sovereignty of God (like Calvinism) contradicts the character of God by attributing actions to Him that are unlike deity.
For example, the Quran repeatedly represents God, on the occasion of the creation of Adam, requiring the angels/djinn to bow down and worship this first human. All do so with the exception of Iblis (i.e., Satan), who refuses to do so on the grounds that Adam was a mere mortal:
Verily We created man of potter’s clay of black mud altered, and the Jinn did We create aforetime of essential fire. And (remember) when thy Lord said unto the angels: Lo! I am creating a mortal out of potter’s clay of black mud altered, so, when I have made him and have breathed into him of My spirit, do ye fall down, prostrating yourselves unto him. So the angels fell prostrate, all of them together save Iblis. He refused to be among the prostrate. He said: O Iblis! What aileth thee that thou art not among the prostrate? He said: Why should I prostrate myself unto a mortal whom Thou hast created out of potter’s clay of black mud altered? He said: Then go thou forth from hence, for verily thou art outcast. And lo! the curse shall be upon thee till the Day of Judgement (Surah 15:26-35, emp. added; cf. 2:34; 7:11-12; 17:61; 18:51; 20:116; 38:72-78).
This characterization of deity is completely unacceptable. This one incident alone illustrates that Allah is not the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible simply would not do what the Quran says He did. Numerous Bible verses convey the complete impropriety—even blasphemy—that the worship of a mere human constitutes. Humans are forbidden to worship other humans (Acts 10:25-26; 14:14-15). Humans are forbidden to worship angels (Colossians 2:18; Revelation 19:10; 22:8-9). And, most certainly, angels are not to worship mere humans. The Law of Moses declared that worship is to be directed to God (Deuteronomy 6:13; 10:20). When Satan tempted Jesus, and Satan urged Jesus to worship him, Jesus quoted the deuteronomic declaration from the Law of Moses, and then added His own divine commentary: “and Him only you shall serve” (Matthew 4:10, emp. added). No one, and no thing, is the rightful object of worship—except deity!
Interestingly enough, Satan’s reasoning as reported in the Quran was actually biblical and right. Satan recognized that not only should angels not worship humans, but in view of his own angelic condition, Adam occupied a status that was beneath his own accelerated, celestial existence—a fact affirmed by the Bible: “What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels, and You have crowned him with glory and honor” (Psalm 8:4-5; cf. Hebrews 2:9). The Quranic depiction of God ordering Iblis/Satan to worship Adam is a serious breach of divine propriety and a further indication of the Quran’s conflict with the Bible. [Once again, the Quran appears to have been influenced by Jewish sources, since the Talmudists also represent the angels as bestowing special attention and honor on Adam (Sanhedrin 29; Midrash Rabbah on Genesis, paragraph 8)]. | <urn:uuid:78c2b431-83f0-4d86-991e-288b90ed3688> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:21:12",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9402672052383423,
"score": 2.828125,
"token_count": 852,
"url": "http://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=8&article=1174"
} |
new carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) webpage contains news,
updates, and links to a variety of resources on these drug-resistant bacteria.
reported earlier this week in News Now, physical therapists and physical
therapist assistants play an important role in protecting patients from CRE.
CRE have high mortality rates, killing 1 in 2 patients who get bloodstream
infections from them. Additionally, CRE easily transfer their antibiotic resistance
to other bacteria. CRE are usually transmitted person-to-person, often on the
hands of health care workers. Currently, almost all CRE infections occur in
people receiving significant medical care. However, their ability to
spread and their resistance raises the concern that potentially untreatable
infections could appear in otherwise healthy people, including health care | <urn:uuid:95f468fe-45e9-4320-a45e-e19daadef4eb> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:17:36",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.931275486946106,
"score": 2.78125,
"token_count": 164,
"url": "http://www.apta.org/PTinMotion/NewsNow/2012/12/5/2013/RollCall/?blogid=10737418615&id=10737429838"
} |
Teaching With Documents:
Alexander Graham Bell's Patent for the Telephone and Thomas Edison's Patent for the Electric Lamp
In 1876 Americans held a Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia to celebrate the nation's birth 100 years earlier. It was the first world's fair to be held in the United States, and it announced for all to see that the nation had come of age as an industrial power. Over 8 million Americans attended, many traveling the railways that now spanned the continent. Of all the exhibition buildings, Machinery Hall drew the most admiration and wonder. Its displays were powered by the world's largest steam engine. Inside, inventions by two of America's greatest inventors were on display. Alexander Graham Bell exhibited the first telephone, and Thomas Alva Edison presented the automatic telegraph, one of more than 1,000 inventions he would patent in his lifetime. Together their inventions changed American life in ways that still affect us today.
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) was born in Scotland and moved to Boston in 1872 to open a school for teachers of the deaf. He became a U.S. citizen in 1882. His early experiments included ways to improve and use telegraphy. The telegraph conveyed messages through a system of electrical sounds that, when decoded, could be translated into words. It was dependent on skilled technicians and never became a home appliance. Rather, it required you to go to a telegraph office to send or receive a message, or perhaps a messenger did this for you. Bell sought something revolutionary: to transmit not only the sound of the human voice, but audible words. With the telephone, Bell wrote in 1878, "It is possible to connect every man's house, office or factory with a central station, so as to give him direct communication with his neighbors."
Thomas Edison (1847-1931) was born in Ohio and grew up in Michigan. His formal education lasted at most four years, in part because his teachers complained that he asked too many questions. By age 12 he was a newsboy and candy seller on the railways. Working as a telegraph operator gave him some of his early lessons in the uses of electricity. Among Edison's many patents were ones for totally new inventions as well as those that dramatically improved the inventions of others. These included patents for the electric motor, motion picture projector, storage battery, Dictaphone, duplicating machine, typewriter, and phonograph ( his most original). But his most far-reaching achievement was his patent for improving the incandescent lightbulb.
Before the invention of the electric lightbulb, homes were lit by candle, kerosene-oil lamp, or gaslight. All flickered, were fire hazards, and emitted smoke and heat. Other inventors of the day were experimenting with a glass globe that, if emptied of air, could contain a light that would not burn out. But no one could find a suitable filament, or wire. The filament creates light when an electric current passes through it, but it must neither burn out quickly nor melt. Edison solved this problem by using carbonized cotton.
The Growth of the Corporation
A vision such as Bell's could not become a reality without enormous sources of capital (money) to mass-produce telephones, lay cables, and establish switchboards. Likewise the incandescent light was of little use until houses could be linked by electric wires to powerful generators.
Until the Industrial Revolution, a shop owner did not need to raise great sums of money to invest in expensive machinery. He probably made his goods by hand and sold them directly to the customer. He therefore did not need to advertise his goods far and wide. A business was usually the responsibility of one person, a proprietor, who hired others and accepted total financial responsibility if the venture went under. Partnerships were able to raise greater capital because two or more people pooled their money. But if their partnership failed, all the partners were personally liable; any assets they owned could be seized to pay their debts.
The Civil War gave impetus to many new industries on a scale never before seen in America. What was needed was a new way to fund them. The corporation solved the problem. Corporations are legal entities chartered by state governments. To establish a corporation, money is raised from many investors. Each investor then owns shares of the company, represented by the stock certificates the corporation issues to its shareholders. If the company earns a profit, the corporation will divide its profit with its investors and pay dividends. (The greater the number of shares you own, the greater your dividend.) The value of the corporation's stock will go up. But if the corporation fails, each investor will only lose what he or she invested.
When the U.S. government granted Edison and Bell their patents, it put them at a distinct advantage over their competitors. They and they alone were given the right to profit from their inventions for a specified time period (today it is 20 years). While both men were primarily inventors, not entrepreneurs, neither wasted time before either founding companies or granting their patent rights to others for manufacture. The Edison Electric Light Company was chartered in 1878 and led eventually to what we know as the General Electric Company. With his laboratory and many assistants at Menlo Park, New Jersey, Edison pioneered the establishment of the large research centers of today. The Bell Telephone Company was founded in 1877. In 1899 American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) became the parent company of the Bell System.
Corporations were not without their ill effects. They further distanced management from the workers, who did not share in the companies' profits as did stockholders. Left unregulated, huge corporations often ate up their smaller competition. By 1900 Bell Telephone had situated 800,000 phones in America, far more than any competitor. Long after Bell's patent expired, it had the edge in developing long-distance services, and it monopolized them. The Interstate Commerce Act (1877) and Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890) were passed to ensure that competition among companies could continue to thrive.
Mackay, James. Alexander Graham Bell: A Life. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1997. An up-to-date and scholarly account.
Silverberg, Robert. Light for the World: Edison and the Power Industry. Princeton, NJ: D. Van Nostrand Co., 1967. Especially good for the connection between invention and industry.
Twain, Mark. The Autobiography of Mark Twain. Edited by Charles Neider, New York: Harperperennial Library, 1959 (still in paper). See Chapter 45, which has a hilarious account of Twain's attempt to be an investor in new inventions, including the telephone.
Vries, Leonard de. Victorian Inventions. New York: American Heritage Press, 1971. A delightful pictorial account, including many fanciful ideas that were never marketed.
The Sound and the Silence. An excellent two-part video about the life of Alexander Graham Bell. Available from Turner Home Entertainment #6295.
This article was written by Joan Brodsky Schur, a teacher at Village Community School, in New York, NY. | <urn:uuid:bfff4cf1-2157-4cf1-bc94-a978b263b1ec> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:29:30",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9736230373382568,
"score": 3.40625,
"token_count": 1479,
"url": "http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/telephone-light-patents/index.html"
} |
The Scoop on Migratory Arthritis
Migratory arthritis is a particular form of arthritis. Arthritis is a disease that affects thousands of people who suffer from pain and swelling in their joints and have to deal with stiffness of movement. This is usually the result of inflammation in the joints.
Arthritis is classified by doctors into over100 different categories depending on the body area that is affected. Besides the arthritis directly associated with inflammation in the joints, there are forms of arthritis caused by diseases in other body organs and problems of other tissues. Arthritis can affect people of all ages, even children.
Migratory arthritis is the problem in which there is initial swelling which increases rapidly in one or two joints and subsides over the next few days. As the symptoms subside in the original affected areas, the same pattern appears in another joint, usually in an asymmetric location. This movement of the pain and swelling from joint to joint is the reason for the name of the problem. The pattern of asymmetrical movement of joint pain associated with migratory arthritis is associated with some specific conditions and diseases.
Among the possible causes listed by medical professionals are:
systemic lupus erythematosus
It is helpful to understand what happens when a person suffers from arthritis. The joint inflammation leads to pain, swelling and loss of motion and this is visible in the redness apparent in the affected area. There is usually inflammation in the body when it is affected by an injury or infected by a harmful agent such as a bacteria or a virus. The body’s reaction is communicated to the natural immune system which functions as the defense mechanism of the body. Cells move to help the affected area to deal with the threat to the body - by removing infected or damaged cells and by helping repair affected tissues. Once the problem is dealt with a normal healthy is restored the inflammation reduces.
In the case of arthritis, the inflammation does not reduce as it should in normal conditions. The continuing inflammation prolongs the problem and continues to damage more tissues and therefore the cyclical pattern of pain continues. This perpetuating pattern of pain and damage ends up affecting the bones and neighboring tissues leading to the stiffness of the joint and the difficulty in movement. This kind of breakdown of the immune system which hampers the proper functioning of the body is called an autoimmune disease.
Given that migratory arthritis is usually triggered by other health problems, it is important to have it properly diagnosed. You can list the sequence of your pain to your doctor and add details about other health issues to help with proper diagnosis. You can confer with your doctor to decide whether it will be helpful to see a rheumatologist. Self-aware patients, alert to their body’s patterns will help in a quick diagnosis of migratory arthritis.
The good news for patients is there are ways to manage the pain and to be proactive in dealing with disease. Arthritis patients today are normally treated with aspirin and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or NSAIDs such as ibuprofen, naproxen and dicolfenac. These help with the migratory variety of the disease also because they are effective analgesics and anti-inflammatory drugs. In the specific case of migratory arthritis, treatment for the root cause such as rheumatic fever or Lyme disease also helps in countering the effects of the arthritic pain.
Many people who suffer from chronic arthritis also seek alternative medical therapies to cope with the pain. Naturopaths, much like doctors, recommend a combination of exercise and good diet to support the medicines. Among supplements recommended by those practicing alternative medicine are Omega 3 oils, Glocosamine and Chondroitin.
It will be useful for those feeling the signs arthritis to analyze the patterns of their pain and to have a detailed consultation with their doctor to ensure an accurate diagnosis and to initiate an effective treatment. | <urn:uuid:0c1444ed-b61d-4555-ae45-304cbc5645af> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:20:51",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9421564936637878,
"score": 3.21875,
"token_count": 792,
"url": "http://www.arthritistypes.org/migratory_arthritis/migratory_arthritis.html"
} |
In 1999, a Task Force consisting of research and policy-oriented SLPs, people who stutter, and an epidemiologist (Ken St. Louis, Bobbie Lubker, Scott Yaruss, Jaan Pill, and Charles Diggs, respectively) convened to develop the first prototype of a questionnaire to measure attitudes toward stuttering.
Known as the Public Opinion Survey of Human Attributes (POSHA-E), it is handled like public opinion polls from a national polling organization, with respondents selected at random. Participants first answer baseline questions before filling out a demographic survey. Finally, they respond to follow up questions.
Here are examples of the most recent experimental version of the POSHA-E. It asks the respondents their overall impression of a person who is in one of nine categories: "left handed, mentally ill, obese, addicted to alcohol, has a stuttering disorder, is multilingual, has epilepsy, has HIV/AIDS, or uses a wheelchair." The respondents give their impression of the person, ranging from very negative, somewhat negative, neutral, somewhat positive, or very positive, to not sure.
Then the questionnaire asks the respondent, "I would want to be a person who" fits in one of those nine categories. Finally, the respondent answers follow-up questions on up to three of the listed categories. For example, "People who stutter (or are obese, or multilingual) are nervous or excitable; are dangerous to others; can raise a family." The respondents indicate whether they agree, disagree, or are not sure.
These survey questions have been asked of more than 1,200 adult respondents in 27 nonprobability (nonrandom) pilot study samples in 11 countries (Brazil, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Canada, Denmark, Nepal, Nicaragua, Macedonia, South Africa, Turkey, and the U.S.). Respondents completed questionnaires in either English or one of six other languages (Bulgarian, Macedonian, Portuguese, Turkish, French, and Spanish).
Since 1999, the team has undergone changes and the POSHA-E has been revised three times. One major change in the last version is that attributes of "old," "intelligent," and "good talker" were replaced by "epilepsy," "HIV/AIDS," and "alcohol addiction." Also, "overweight" was changed to "obese."
The research initiative using the results of the POSHA-E is known as the "International Project on Attitudes Toward Human Attributes" (IPATHA; also and previously known as the "International Project on Attitudes Toward Stuttering," IPATS).
Like most other measures of attitudes, the POSHA-E samples a variety of beliefs, reactions, behaviors, and emotions that would identify societal ignorance, stigma, and/or discrimination (e.g., Blood et al., 2003; Gabel et al., 2004; Hulit & Wertz, 1994; Klein & Hood, 2004). Like many instruments, it uses a paper-and-pencil format that asks for scaled responses that can compare one group of respondents to another. And like some attitude instruments, developers have paid considerable attention to validity, reliability, standardization, and user-friendliness. Once completed, the POSHA will be one of very few instruments that can be carried out with probability (e.g., random) sampling schemes consistent with solid epidemiological research.
The POSHA-E has a number of unique features. First, it places attitudes toward stuttering-or any of the other human attributes-within the context of a range of potential reactions ranging from very positive to very negative. Second, it seeks to reduce response bias by not stating specifically that stuttering (or any of the others) is the target attribute.
Third, it is designed to minimize cultural and linguistic bias, thereby enhancing translation to other languages and cross-cultural standardization. (For example, common words for some attributes carry negative connotations themselves, e.g., the word "stuttering" in Arabic often implies mental deficiency. In colloquial Spanish, there is no apparent difference between "overweight" and "obesity"; both translate to "fat." All items are worded directly and neutrally, minimizing idiom, to facilitate reading comprehension, reduce cultural bias, and permit more direct and accurate translations. Of course, simple translation errors can occur. In one case, "raise a family" was inadvertently translated as "to increase a family." To reduce these problems, IPATHA guidelines will mandate a "back translation" from a foreign language to English by another translator, unfamiliar with the study and the original translation, so that the eventual translated versions are as accurate as possible.)
Fourth, it is designed specifically to measure many of the responses that might be expected to change after public information campaigns designed to "improve attitudes" have been undertaken. For example, one series of questions asks where respondents have acquired their information. Even if attitudes may not have changed, it is likely that public awareness campaigns will result in different profiles of perceived knowledge acquisition. Fifth, consideration of the instrument's eventual recommended scheme for use must allow for probability sampling that is accurate but reasonably inexpensive for stakeholders.
Importantly, the POSHA-E is still in its developmental phase. It is not yet a user-friendly instrument, but we are making progress. For example, the response format has been progressively simplified in the three versions from an original 0-100 quasi-continuous scale, to a 1-9 equal-appearing interval scale, and finally to the above illustrated categorical "yes," "no," or "unsure" response mode (with a 1-5 scale for a few items).
This modification has progressively reduced respondent completion time and errors as well as data coding time and errors; both were achieved without appreciable loss in sensitivity to subtle differences in the attitudes of the nonprobability pilot samples studied. Also, as is the case with most standardized instruments, the POSHA-E contains many more items than the eventual version will. Forthcoming item analysis will identify those questions that are most discriminating and useful. After consideration of information available from pilot studies, redundant items will be eliminated. Also, confusing and ambiguous items will be eliminated or modified. The intent is to have a questionnaire that can be completed by most respondents in 10 minutes or less.
The next step is to carry out the difficult task of field-testing the near-final version of the POSHA-E with representative samples. Like political polling, this component is necessary to improve accurate representation of the attitudes of any target sampling area. A number of plans under evaluation, but one that may be the most cost efficient for stakeholders, could involve a public school-based sampling plan as follows. A probability (i.e., random) sampling scheme would be used to select public schools as the units from which random samples of children and, ultimately, progressively less random samples of parents, grandparents, and other adults would be generated as prospective respondents. All children in selected classrooms would be potential survey respondents. So, too, would one of their parents or guardians, one of their grandparents, and one of their adult neighbors. Probability sampling would determine school and classroom selection, but adults would be recruited by parents of children in these classrooms.
We hope that one outcome of the IPATHA initiative will be a data archive into which results from new studies may be added and against which results from isolated samples may be compared. Finally, in concert with other stakeholders around the world, we plan to develop strategies designed to reduce stigma and to measure their effectiveness.
Sample Pilot Results
In the process of gathering pilot data, a large amount of questionnaire data has been amassed from more than 1,200 adults. We have attempted not to be distracted from our primary purpose of instrument development. Accordingly, we have inspected the comparative data for trends showing consistent versus variable results that might suggest the best items for eventual inclusion and elimination. Following are some illustrations of what the pilot data have shown that is relevant to SLPs and to those interested in international comparisons (Knudsen et al., 2004; St. Louis et al., in press; St. Louis et al., 2004).
The table below provides selected demographic information from nine samples, ranging in size from 14 to 188 respondents. The first two (columns 2 and 3) compare probability samples of SLPs holding specialty recognition in fluency disorders with a sample of SLPs nationwide. It was thought that board-recognized specialists in fluency disorders might provide a "gold standard" for public attitudes toward stuttering. These are compared with a nonprobability sample of students from the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. (column 3). All three of these samples responded to the most recent version of the POSHA-E.
The other nonprobability samples were from six different countries, with those in Denmark (column 5), South Africa (column 6), and Nepal (column 7) being administered in English and those in the remaining three countries administered in respondents' native language: Brazilian Portuguese (column 8), Bulgarian (column 9), and Turkish (column 10), respectively. These groups responded to either the first version (drawing a vertical line on a horizontal scale marked on either end and the middle, with scores later converted to numbers from 0 to 100) or the second version (circling a number from 1-9 or a "?" for "I don't know."). The Table illustrates that the percentage of females to males, age, educational level, religion, and marital status varied widely across the nine samples.
Preliminary results indicate that multilingual, as well as intelligent and good talkers in the earlier versions of the POSHA, are regarded as desirable characteristics. Left handed-as predicted-is neutral. Old (in earlier versions) is neutral to somewhat undesirable. The remaining attributes, wheelchair use, obesity or overweight, mental illness, alcohol addiction, epilepsy, HIV/AIDS, and stuttering, are all regarded as conditions that respondents would not want to have or be. The only significant exception was that specialists in fluency disorders were less likely to rate stuttering as something they would not want to have. Respondents in the six countries, responding in English as a second language or in their native language showed similarity overall to profiles of adults in the U.S., but showed some interesting variations. For example, stuttering was the lowest item scored for the Turkish respondents while Brazilian and Bulgarian adults both scored mental illness lowest.
Data collected also confirm the well-known public confusion about the cause of stuttering. The data from specialists and generalist SLPs reveal general agreement for a genetic causal component and less certainty about psychological or learning components. Among the lay public, only the Danes believed that psychological etiology was not the strongest causal component; neither did they believe stuttering is learned. By contrast, all the other lay groups rated psychological etiology the strongest. Among all groups except fluency specialists, a disturbing minority regarded stuttering as an act of God, especially in South Africa, Nepal, and Turkey. The fact that ghosts, demons, or spirits as causal agents for stuttering was not completely rejected-even by all SLPs in the U.S.-suggests that stigmatizing beliefs still occur.
By contrast, most to nearly all respondents believe that people who stutter can lead normal lives, though least so in Nepal. While most respondent groups indicated that people who stutter could communicate effectively, they were less optimistic about whether or not they should work in jobs requiring a great deal of talking. An unsubstantiated stereotype holds that people who stutter are nervous, shy, and fearful (e.g., Blood, 1999; Shapiro, 1999), and the data here confirm that only the fluency specialists and Danes soundly rejected the nervousness component.
As for stuttering being related to shyness or fear, these same two groups, along with SLPs, were least likely to make a connection. Most of the other groups were unsure, but the Brazilians and Bulgarians confirmed the stereotype. Like the ghosts-demons-spirits question, the reduced intelligence question was included to identify the likelihood of potentially strongly stigmatizing attitudes. Nepalese and Bulgarian results suggest attitudes still are present that associate stuttering with reduced intelligence.
The best news about what people report they would do or feel if they found themselves talking to someone who stutters is that most (and virtually all SLPs and specialists who responded) would wait patiently and ignore the stuttering. (In fact, the latter question was changed in the last revision to "not make an issue of" rather than "ignore" because it is plausible that some might not make an issue yet not ignore the condition.) Specialist and generalist SLPs (and Danes) would be unlikely to fill in words or give advice to "slow down" or "relax" while talking with a person who stutters. By contrast, Turks and to a lesser extent, Nepalese, likely might behave in these ways. None of the groups are likely to joke about stuttering, but the chances for joking might be highest in Turkey or Bulgaria.
Feeling comfortable or relaxed during a conversational partner's stuttering varied the most for the different groups, ranging from being very to somewhat likely for specialists and generalists, respectively, to being moderately unlikely for Nepalese, Brazilians, Bulgarians, and Turks. Curiosity was quite uniformly neutral; pity ranged from slightly above neutral to highly unlikely (for SLPs). Reported embarrassment, anger, or fear were unlikely.
Taken together, all of the data from the pilot studies analyzed to date show that groups of people around the world perceive stuttering almost as negatively as mental illness and obesity (overweight), but more negatively than wheelchair use. The studies also suggest that the POSHA identifies subtle differences among sample groups, such as urban versus rural/suburban, student versus non-student adults, African Americans versus Caucasian Americans, speech-language pathology specialists in stuttering versus speech-language pathology generalists, and samples from low- to middle-income nations versus higher-income nations.
Responses indicated that the POSHA-E can be translated into other languages with results on attitudes that are similar to those from the English versions. Finally, the pilot studies showed that adult respondents could complete the questionnaire with relative ease and efficiency. | <urn:uuid:2ec4d0cc-d33f-4c7f-bf6b-37dcf32890d1> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:43:39",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9506638646125793,
"score": 2.546875,
"token_count": 2939,
"url": "http://www.asha.org/Publications/leader/2005/051018/051018d.htm"
} |
The Zero-Gravity Treadmill, which invites you to defy gravity, was created by a company called Alter-G for the purpose of rehabilitating athletes and increasing the performance capabilities of non-injured runners while eliminating their chances for injury. A user, when zipped into the environment of the apparatus, can reduce his or her body weight by increments of one percent down to 80 percent; imagine how much easier it would be to run further and faster if your body only felt the impact of 20 percent of your total body weight? The un-weighting process is what makes this treadmill unlike any other training apparatus available to runners and other athletes.
At a price tag of $75,000 to buy a Zero-Gravity Treadmill, most runners do not have one at their disposal. At this time, the FDA has cleared this piece of equipment for use in rehabilitating people with lower body and neurological injuries as well to aid sport specific training programs. Athletes at the highest levels are utilizing the apparatus to enable unheard of performance benefits without the risk of injury. Coaches are using the equipment to get the next level of potential from their runners. Injured athletes are rehabbing on this high-tech innovation. | <urn:uuid:b61ccea7-9e9f-4619-b329-f5400329d806> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:15:32",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.966337263584137,
"score": 2.671875,
"token_count": 247,
"url": "http://www.ask.com/explore/what-zero-gravity-treadmill"
} |
Significance and Use
This test method is designed to measure the permeability to air of a small sample of rock. By extrapolation, this test method also determines an equivalent of the liquid permeability. This parameter is used to calculate the flow through rock of fluids subjected to a pressure differential.
Note 1—Notwithstanding the statements on precision and bias contained in this test method, the measures of precision of this test method is dependent on the competence of the personnel performing them, and on the suitability of the equipment and facilities used. Agencies that meet the criteria of Practice D 3740 are generally considered capable of competent and objective testing. Users of this test method are cautioned that compliance with Practice D 3740 does not in itself assure reliable testing. Reliable testing depends on many factors; Practice D 3740 provides a means for evaluating some of those factors.
1.1 This test method covers the determination of the coefficient of specific permeability for the flow of air through rocks. The procedure establishes representative values of the coefficient of permeability of rocks or well-indurated soils.
1.2 This test method is limited to permeability values greater than 0.9869 pm2 (1.0 picodarcy), and is limited to rocks free of oil or unctuous matter.
1.3 The values stated in SI units are to be regarded as the standard. The values given in parentheses are mathematical conversions to inch-pound units that are provided for information only and are not considered standard.
1.4 This standard does not purport to address all of the safety concerns, if any, associated with its use. It is the responsibility of the user of this standard to establish appropriate safety and health practices and determine the applicability of regulatory limitations prior to use.
2. Referenced Documents (purchase separately) The documents listed below are referenced within the subject standard but are not provided as part of the standard.
D653 Terminology Relating to Soil, Rock, and Contained Fluids
D3740 Practice for Minimum Requirements for Agencies Engaged in Testing and/or Inspection of Soil and Rock as Used in Engineering Design and Construction
American Petroleum Institute Standard
flow and flow rate; permeability; Airflow performance; Coefficient of permeability; Flow and flow rate--soil/rock/related materials; Liquids; Permeability--soil/rock; Pressure testing--rock; Reciprocal mean pressure; Rock materials/properties/analysis;
ICS Number Code 93.020 (Earth works. Excavations. Foundation construction. Underground works)
ASTM International is a member of CrossRef.
Citing ASTM Standards
[Back to Top] | <urn:uuid:c45ec6a6-e6f7-4957-9adf-c58d51969ae5> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:29:04",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9022893309593201,
"score": 2.640625,
"token_count": 552,
"url": "http://www.astm.org/Standards/D4525.htm"
} |
Get ready for Comet PANSTARRS — 2013's first naked-eye comet
Comet PANSTARRS promises to be the brightest comet in six years when it peaks in March.
February 26, 2013
Luis Argerich from Buenos Aires, Argentina, captured Comet PANSTARRS in the sky above Mercedes, Argentina, on February 11, 2013. The comet shone at magnitude 4.5 to the left of an Iridium flare.
I’m here today to talk about what promises to be the brightest comet during the first half of 2013 and likely one of the brightest comets of the 21st century — so far. Comet PANSTARRS (C/2011 L4) will peak in March and remain bright well into April. If predictions hold, it should be an easy naked-eye object and will look great through binoculars for several weeks.
Astronomers discovered this comet June 6, 2011. As the fourth new comet detected during the first half of June that year, it received the designation “C/2011 L4.” And because researchers first spotted the object on images taken through the 1.8-meter Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System on Haleakala in Hawaii, it received the instrument’s acronym, PANSTARRS, as a secondary name. Astronomers credit this scope with more than two dozen comet discoveries, so the “C/2011 L4” designation is more precise even though it’s much easier to say “PANSTARRS.”
The comet is making its first trip through the inner solar system. Its journey began eons ago when a star or interstellar cloud passed within a light-year or two of the Sun. This close encounter jostled the so-called Oort Cloud, a vast reservoir of icy objects that lies up to a light-year from the Sun and probably holds a trillion comets. PANSTARRS has been heading toward the Sun ever since.
For complete coverage of Comet PANSTARRS, visit www.astronomy.com/panstarrs.
Southern Hemisphere observers had the best comet views during February. But by early March, PANSTARRS veers sharply northward and gradually becomes visible in the evening sky for Northern Hemisphere observers. The earliest views should come around March 6 or 7, when it appears a degree above the western horizon 30 minutes after sunset. Each following day, the comet climbs a degree or two higher, which dramatically improves its visibility.
It comes closest to the Sun (a position called “perihelion”) the evening of March 9, when it lies just 28 million miles (45 million kilometers) from our star. It then appears 7° high in the west 30 minutes after sunset. If predictions hold true — never a sure thing when it comes to comets making their first trip through the inner solar system — the comet will be a superb object through binoculars and probably an impressive naked-eye sight. Astronomers expect it to reach magnitude 0 or 1 at perihelion, although no one would be too surprised if it ends up one or two magnitudes brighter or dimmer.
From perihelion to the end of March, the comet moves almost due north through Pisces and Andromeda while its brightness drops by about a magnitude every five days. In the admittedly unlikely event that the tail of PANSTARRS stretches 10° or more March 13, it will pass behind a two-day-old crescent Moon. The comet should glow around 4th magnitude in early April, which would make the extended object visible only through binoculars or a telescope. It passes 2° west of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) on the 3rd, then crosses into Cassiopeia on the 9th. During the third week of April, the comet fades to 6th magnitude and is visible all night for those at mid-northern latitudes, where it appears highest before dawn.
If Comet PANSTARRS lives up to expectations, it should show two tails emanating from a round glow. The photograph at right shows Comet Hale-Bopp from 1997. Although PANSTARRS likely won’t get as bright as Hale-Bopp was, it lets us see the major components of a comet.
If Comet PANSTARRS lives up to expectations, it should show two tails emanating from a round glow. Although PANSTARRS likely won’t get as bright as 1997's Comet Hale-Bopp (pictured) did, it lets us see the major components of a comet. // Tony Hallas
The circular head, known as the “coma,” masks the comet’s nucleus. The nucleus is a ball of ice and dust that typically measures a mile or two across. As sunlight hits the nucleus, the ices boil off, and the process liberates dust particles. This cloud of gas and dust forms the coma, which can span a million miles or more. Sunlight removes electrons from the ejected gas molecules, causing then to glow with a bluish color. The solar wind carries this gas away from the comet, creating a straight bluish gas tail. The ejected dust gets pushed away from the Sun more gently, so it forms a curving tail. The dust particles simply reflect sunlight, so the dust tail has a white to pale-yellow color. Although Comet McNaught didn’t show much of a gas tail when it achieved fame in 2007, it more than made up for it with a 30°-long curving dust tail.
Will PANSTARRS rival Hale-Bopp or McNaught? The best way to find out is to plan a few observing sessions for this March and April. Even if PANSTARRS falls short of greatness, goodness is a fine attribute when it comes to comets. And remember that 2013 isn’t over yet. November and December should provide exceptional views of Comet ISON (C/2012 S1), which could be 100 times brighter than PANSTARRS. I’ll be back later this year with more details on viewing Comet ISON.
Expand your observing with these online tools from Astronomy magazine
- Special Coverage: Find everything you need to know about Comet PANSTARRS in Astronomy.com's Year of the Comet section.
- StarDome: Locate Comet C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS) in your night sky with our interactive star chart. To ensure the comet is displayed, click on the "Display..." drop-down menu under Options (lower right) and make sure "Comets" has a check mark next to it. Then click the "Show Names..." drop-down menu and make sure "Comets" is checked there, too.
Images: Submit images of Comet PANSTARRS to our Online Reader Gallery.
Discussion: Ask questions and share your observations in our Reader Forums.
- Sign up for our free weekly e-mail newsletter.
Look for this icon. This denotes premium subscriber content.
Learn more » | <urn:uuid:e69a0af5-424d-41c4-ae2e-f8bcfbc644b5> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:15:10",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9135695695877075,
"score": 3.109375,
"token_count": 1443,
"url": "http://www.astronomy.com/en/Columnists/Bob%20Berman/2012/09/~/~/link.aspx?_id=AC9F90EA366543F8A596D6C71B602F54&_z=z"
} |
Mars orbiter repositioned to phone home Mars landing
Without a repositioning maneuver, Odyssey would have arrived over the landing area about two minutes after Curiosity landed.
July 25, 2012
NASA scientists have successfully adjusted the Mars Odyssey spacecraft’s orbital location to be in a better position to provide prompt confirmation of the August landing of the Curiosity rover.
NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft passes above Mars' south pole in this artist's concept. The spacecraft has been orbiting Mars since October 24, 2001. Credit: NASA/JPL
NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft carrying Curiosity can send limited information directly to Earth as it enters Mars’ atmosphere. Before the landing, however, Earth will set below the martian horizon from the descending spacecraft’s perspective, ending that direct route of communication. Odyssey will speed up the indirect communication process.
NASA reported during a July 16 news conference that Odyssey, which the agency originally planned to provide a near-real-time communication link with Curiosity, had entered safe mode July 11. This situation would have affected communication operations, but not the rover’s landing. Without a repositioning maneuver, Odyssey would have arrived over the landing area about two minutes after Curiosity landed.
A spacecraft thruster burn Tuesday, July 24, lasting about six seconds, has nudged Odyssey about six minutes ahead in its orbit. Odyssey is now operating normally, and confirmation of Curiosity’s landing should reach Earth early August 6 EDT, as originally planned.
“Information we are receiving indicates the maneuver has completed as planned,” said Gaylon McSmith from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “Odyssey has been working at Mars longer than any other spacecraft, so it is appropriate that it has a special role in supporting the newest arrival.”
Two other Mars orbiters, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the European Space Agency’s Mars Express, also will be in position to receive radio transmissions from MSL during its descent. However, they will be recording information for later playback, not relaying it immediately, as only Odyssey can. | <urn:uuid:5b516b95-9adc-4bbe-9e3b-b2aff16732c9> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:15:13",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9465832710266113,
"score": 3.578125,
"token_count": 443,
"url": "http://www.astronomy.com/en/News-Observing/News/2012/07/Mars%20orbiter%20repositioned%20to%20phone%20home%20Mars%20landing.aspx"
} |
"Fugitive methane" released during shale gas drilling could accelerate climate change.
Robert Howarth, an ecologist and evolutionary biologist, and Anthony Ingraffea, a civil and environmental engineer, reported that fracked wells leak 40 to 60 percent more methane than conventional natural gas wells. When water with its chemical load is forced down a well to break the shale, it flows back up and is stored in large ponds or tanks. But volumes of methane also flow back up the well at the same time and are released into the atmosphere before they can be captured for use. This giant belch of "fugitive methane" can be seen in infrared videos taken at well sites.
Halliburton is the world's largest provider of hydraulic fracturing. Who would have guessed.
Wait, aren't they in the private war contractor business. It seems they've expanded to waging war on US water supplies.
According to Michael Shellenberger, president of the Breakthrough Institute in California, we can thank US government policy for fracking.
Government policy encouraged the new exploration for gas and should get much of the credit for the resulting reduction in emissions.
“The gas boom is largely from shale, which is the result of a concerted government push, and tax credits, starting in the 70’s, both of which are policies,...
Of course, he thinks fracking's good because it allows natural gas to replace coal.
Breakthrough Institute apparently is "luke-warmist". Essentially "Don't Worry, Be Happy About Our economic system".
“Luke-warmists” may be defined as those who appear to accept the body of climate science but interpret it in a way that is least threatening: emphasising uncertainties, playing down dangers, and advocating a slow and cautious response.
The effect of luke-warmers’ contributions has been to sow doubt in the public mind about the credibility of the scientific warnings and the need to respond, just as Exxon-funded think tanks have.
...emphasize the “inherent unknowability” and “systematic doubt” in the body of scientific knowledge. They express misgivings about the desirability of investments in renewable energy, referring to their “chilling history” and “serious financial and social consequences”, a theme pursued by the Breakthrough Institute and more recently taken upby Tea Party Republicans.
Here we get to the conservative heart of the luke-warmist position. For them the prevailing economic system is sacred, and any change must work around it.“Growth is sacrosanct” is another rendering of President George H.W. Bush’s celebrated declaration at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit: “The American way of life is not negotiable.”
To agree with environmental critics that our social and economic system—its power structure, its inherent goals, the forms of behaviour it endorses—could so damage the Earth that our future, and that of the system itself, is now in peril would require them to discard their essential faith in the benevolence of the status quo. [italics and bold mine]
Because in their eyes fracking is good, they brag that US government policies support it.
Don't Worry about Fracking
You can't be sure what would happen if the fire department used fracking-contaminated water, it's "inherent unknowable".
Have another margarita!
Big surprise, Koch Industries is involved in fracking.
Koch Industries is heavily involved in natural gas, as detailed in an article last spring by Lee Fang in the Republic Report. Its recent activities in the natural gas industry focus on services for fracking operations including pipelines, storage, processing, and supplies.
Fracking produces several orders of magnitude more water contamination than other sources of water pollution.
Risk analysts have concluded that the disposal of contaminated wastewater from hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”) wells producing natural gas in the intensively developed Marcellus Shale region poses a substantial potential risk of river and other water pollution.
Disposal of the large amounts of fracking well wastewater that is expected to be generated in the Marcellus Shale region—which covers approximately 124,000 square kilometers from New York to West Virginia—presents risks from salts and radioactive materials that are “several orders of magnitude larger” than for other potential water pollution pathways examined in the new study.
For a more personal account see States Fail to Enforce Their Own Oil, Gas Rules
Earthworks says failure to enforce oil and gas regulations means that states are not seeking, documenting, sanctioning, deterring, and cleaning up problems associated with irresponsible oil and gas operations such as chemical spills, equipment failure, accidents, and discharges into drinking water supplies.
Penalties are so weak that it is cheaper for violators to pay the penalty than comply with the law. “The total value of financial penalties in each state studied is less than or equivalent to the value of the gas contained in one single well,” Earthworks says in its report, “Breaking All the Rules: The Crisis in Oil & Gas Regulatory Enforcement.”
“I left my home in DISH because gas development threatened my family’s health,” said Calvin Tillman, former mayor of DISH, Texas."Tillman said that after drilling began near his home, his children developed nosebleeds when they were asleep. In their new home in another community, the nosebleeds stopped. [emphasis mine]
Fracking is secret in many states, see maps.
Whenever toxic materials are produced in huge quantities, opportunities open up for criminal "entrepreneurs". Remember how Chernobyl's radioactive zone was stripped of portable goods, that ended up in the hands of unaware buyers all over Russia? In a similar manner toxic Fracking waste was poured into PA neighborhoods.
On March 17, 2011 Greene County resident Robert Allan Shipman and his company, Allan’s Waste Water Service Inc., were charged with illegally dumping millions of gallons of natural gas drilling wastewater, along with restaurant grease and sewer sludge across six counties in Pennsylvania from 2003-2009.
“Shipman showed the drivers how to leave open the gas well valves and ordered them to discharge production water onto the ground and/or into the nearby waterways.” Drivers’ testimony added, “This activity would typically occur after dark or during heavy rain so that no one would observe the illegal discharge.” “He was pouring the stuff in any hole he could find.”
The Democratic Party chooses to ignore the environmental costs of fracking, to embrace "cheap abundant natural gas". They're also backing off on climate change.
Once again short term profit trumps avoidance of serious long term damage.
New Yorkers beware, the man in charge of fracking regulation is a Climate Science Denier.
Governor Cuomo relies on Bradley J Field -- a climate skeptic -- to head New York's Department of Environmental Conservation's Division of Mineral Resources. Unfortunately, Mr. Field has proven to be out of sync with the scientific community on the environmental issue with the greatest scientific consensus -- climate change. And despite this, he is responsible for making sure that New York's regulation of fracking is based on good science. | <urn:uuid:d92e6831-32be-4ca9-b34d-cb0fdfd4b5cc> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:23:25",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9482678174972534,
"score": 2.8125,
"token_count": 1507,
"url": "http://www.atheistnexus.org/group/environmentalatheists/forum/topics/fracking-emits-methane?xg_source=activity"
} |
On the final evening of the Democratic National Convention, the blogger Andrew Sullivan posted a picture of Congressman Barney Frank kissing his spouse. Frank is openly gay and what is striking about the picture is a total absence of reticence, and the swiftness with which our world has tumbled toward change. Sullivan noted that the picture would never had appeared at the GOP convention. This is true. But eight years ago, I doubt it would have appeared at a Democratic one.
Still it remains true that we have, as we always have had, two competing traditions toward human and civil rights in this country. One which believes in broadening those rights regardless of difference, and another which believes in restricting them to those who find the most favor among the body politic. That tradition is hewed to even in the extremes.
We all think of birtherism -- the belief held by many in the Republican Party -- as a kind of zany flight of fancy taken up by the kind of toothless eccentrics who also obsess over Area 51. In fact, birtherism has its historical roots much closer to home, in that same restrictionist tradition that would frown on Barney Frank, and has for much of this country's history directed its skeptical gaze at African-Americans. In 1790, when Congress first sat down to define citizenship it restricted it to "All free white persons."
The disreputable tradition continued afoot will into the 19th century with Stephen Douglas, in his famous debates with Abraham Lincoln, declaring that "this government was made on the white basis" and that our founding documents made "no reference either to the Negro, the savage Indians, the Feejee, the Malay, or any other inferior and degraded race, when they spoke of the equality of men."
After the Civil War, with the country reeling, and freedom on the march, newly minted President Andrew Johnson rejected blacks holding a stake in the country's politics noting that 'it must be acknowledged that in the progress of nations Negroes have shown less capacity for government than any other race of people. No independent government of any form has ever been successful in their hands. On the contrary, wherever they have been left to their own devices they have shown a constant tendency to relapse into barbarism."
And the tradition carried over right into the 20th century with William F. Buckley, intellectual godfather of the conservative movement, arguing that "the great majority of the Negroes in the South who do not vote do not care to vote, and would not know for what to vote if they could."
The right to lead one's country is the highest of all aspirations granted by (birthright) citizenship. That a black should wield such power still discomfits a certain portion of this country, just as it has for over 200 years. And while the particular history offered in this column focuses on the problem of the color-line, its applications are much broader. A similar history could be written of restrictionist attitudes toward the country's Latino, Asian-American and Native American populations. An even longer history could be written on the views of democratic societies toward women.
Doubtlessly, closeted gays and lesbians have served this country in powerful places and enjoyed their share of citizenship. But they did so under a shadow, mostly unable to fully display all aspects of who they were. What makes the picture of Barney Frank and James Ready (his spouse) caught in a kiss so profound is that the old prejudice is now beating a fighting retreat.
Looking at the two conventions of our major parties, you saw two visions: one of our restrictionist past, and the other of our increasingly open present. It is tempting to attack GOP leaders for fully embracing a tradition which, in a few years, even they will doubtlessly be forced to repudiate. But political parties represent actual people. Our past is with us and exerts a powerful hold over our politics. This is not to let Mitt Romney off the hook for the random birther joke. But what is most important isn't the joke -- it's the crowd in the background, raucously laughing.
(Ta-Nehisi Coates is a writer and senior editor for The Atlantic and its website. His blog can be found at http://www.theatlantic.com/ta-nehisi-coates.) | <urn:uuid:3d119397-ba36-47d1-8163-71be5bd5859d> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:08:04",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9696223139762878,
"score": 2.8125,
"token_count": 879,
"url": "http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/sns-201209071300--tms--amvoicesctnav-a20120907-20120907,0,98236.column"
} |
H.L. Mencken (18801956). The American Language. 1921.
by Jefferson. Charles Ledyard Norton has devoted a whole book to their etymology and meaning;27 the number is far too large for a list of them to be attempted here. But a few characteristic specimens may be recalled, for example, the simple agglutinates: omnibus-bill, banner-state, favorite-son, anxious-bench, gag-rule, executive-session, mass-meeting, office-seeker and straight-ticket; the humorous metaphors: pork-barrel, pie-counter, wire-puller, land-slide, carpet-bagger, lame-duck and on the fence; the old words put to new uses: plank, pull, platform, machine, precinct, slate, primary, floater, repeater, bolter, stalwart, filibuster, regular and fences; the new coinages: gerrymander, heeler, buncombe, roorback, mugwump and to bulldoze; the new derivatives: abolitionist, candidacy, boss-rule, per-diem, to lobby and boodler; and the almost innumerable verbs and verb-phrases: to knife, to split a ticket, to go up Salt River, to bolt, to eat crow, to boodle, to divvy, to grab and to run. An English candidate never runs; he stands. To run, according to Thornton, was already used in America in 1789; it was universal by 1820. Platform came in at the same time. Machine was first applied to a political organization by Aaron Burr. The use of mugwump is commonly thought to have originated in the Blaine campaign of 1884, but it really goes back to the 30s. Anxious-bench (or anxious-seat) at first designated only the place occupied by the penitent at revivals, but was used in its present political sense in Congress so early as 1842. Banner-state appears in Niles Register for December 5, 1840. Favorite-son appears in an ode addressed to Washington on his visit to Ports-mouth, N. H., in 1789, but it did not acquire its present ironical sense until it was applied to Martin Van Buren. Thornton has traced bolter to 1812, filibuster to 1863, roorback to 1844, and split-ticket to 1842. Regularity was an issue in Tammany Hall in 1822.28 There were primaries in New York city in 1827, and hundreds of repeaters voted. In 1829 there were lobby-agents at Albany, and they soon became lobbyists; in 1832 lobbying had already extended to Washington. All of these terms are now as firmly imbedded in the American Vocabulary as election or congressman.
Note 27. Political Americanisms : New York and London, 1890. [back]
Note 28. Gustavus Myers: The History of Tammany Hall; 2nd ed.; New York, 1917, ch. viii. [back] | <urn:uuid:de06b80a-c02b-400d-91a0-a0b9cc6ad350> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:23:16",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.957995593547821,
"score": 2.984375,
"token_count": 634,
"url": "http://www.bartleby.com/185/pages/page98.html"
} |
?When on March 26 the Supreme Court hears oral arguments about whether California’s ban on same-sex marriages violates the constitutional right to “equal protection of the laws,” these arguments will invoke the intersection of law and social science. The court should tread cautiously, if at all, on this dark and bloody ground.
The Obama administration says California’s law expresses “prejudice” that is “impermissible.” But same-sex marriage is a matter about which intelligent people reasonably disagree, partly because so little is known about its consequences.
When a federal judge asked the lawyer defending California’s ban what harm same-sex marriage would do to the state’s interests in “the procreation purpose” of heterosexual marriage, the lawyer said, “I don’t know.” This was mistakenly portrayed as a damaging admission. Both sides should acknowledge that, so far, no one can know.
A brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court concerning the California case by conservative professors Leon Kass and Harvey Mansfield and the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy warns that “the social and behavioral sciences have a long history of being shaped and driven by politics and ideology.” And research about, for example, the stability of same-sex marriages or child rearing by same-sex couples is “radically inconclusive” because these are recent phenomena and they provide a small sample from which to conclude that these innovations will be benign.
Unlike the physical sciences, the social sciences can rarely settle questions using “controlled and replicable experiments.” Today “there neither are nor could possibly be any scientifically valid studies from which to predict the effects of a family structure that is so new and so rare.” Hence there can be no “scientific basis for constitutionalizing same-sex marriage.”
The brief does not argue against same-sex marriage as social policy, other than by counseling caution about altering foundational social institutions when guidance from social science is as yet impossible. The brief is a pre-emptive refutation of inappropriate invocations of spurious social science by supporters of same-sex marriage.
For example, a district court cited Dr. Michael Lamb, a specialist in child development, asserting that the “gender of a child’s parent is not a factor in a child’s adjustment” and that “having both a male and female parent does not increase the likelihood that a child will be well-adjusted.” The conservatives’ brief notes that, testifying in the trial court, Lamb “had conceded that his own published research concluded that growing up without fathers had significant negative effects on boys” and that considerable research indicates “that traditional opposite-sex biological parents appear in general to produce better outcomes for their children than other family structures do.”
The brief is replete with examples of misleading argumentation using data not drawn from studies satisfying “the scientific standard of comparing large random samples with appropriate control samples.” The late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a distinguished social scientist, said the “pronounced” liberal orientation of the social sciences is “well established” and explainable: “Social scientists are frequently caught up in the politics which their work necessarily involves” because social science “attracts persons whose interests are in shaping the future.”
This helps explain why “Brandeis briefs” have shaped American law. Before joining the Supreme Court, Louis Brandeis defended constitutional challenges to progressive legislation by using briefs stressing social science data, or what purported to be such, rather than legal arguments. He advanced his political agenda by bald assertions inexcusable even given the limited scientific knowledge of the time. For example, in his 1908 defense of an Oregon law restricting the number of hours women could work, he said “there is more water” in women’s than in men’s blood and women’s knees are constructed differently.
Since Moynihan wrote the above in 1979, the politicization of the social sciences has become even more pronounced, particularly in matters of “lifestyle liberalism.” Hence the need for judicial wariness about social science that purports to prove propositions -- e.g., that same-sex marriage is, or is not, harmful to children or society -- for which there cannot yet be decisive evidence.
If California’s law is judged by legal reasoning, rather than by social science ostensibly proving that the state has no compelling interest served by banning same-sex marriage, the law may still be overturned on equal protection grounds. But such a victory for gay rights, grounded on constitutional values, and hence cast in the vocabulary of natural rights philosophy, would at least be more stable than one resting uneasily on the shiftable sand of premature social science conclusions.
George Will’s email address is [email protected].
Washington Post Writers Group
By George Will, Washington Post
Bastrop Daily Enterprise - Bastrop, LA
By George Will, Washington Post
Posted Mar. 18, 2013 @ 3:46 am
» EVENTS CALENDAR
Connect with Bastrop Daily Enterprise - Bastrop, LA | <urn:uuid:be53b962-65e7-461c-a289-268f4d0bd40b> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:36:48",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9385417699813843,
"score": 2.515625,
"token_count": 1087,
"url": "http://www.bastropenterprise.com/article/20130318/NEWS/130319749/0/features"
} |
Changing Times in Nativity Art: Images Throughout History Carry Social and Political Messages as Well as Spiritual OnesDec. 20, 2011
Follow us on Twitter:@BaylorUMediaCom
Jesus' mother Mary -- exhausted by childbirth and the trip to Bethlehem -- lies asleep in the hay. Next to her, Joseph tenderly holds the newborn son he hadn't counted on when he got engaged.
It's not a conventional illustration of the Nativity. That image, in a greeting card reproduction of art by Roger Loveless, would have startled Christians in earlier times. But that portrayal and other more recent ones, showing Mary and Jesus minus halos, the wise men in simple attire, and angels and the Star of Bethlehem absent from the scene, demonstrate how the story of a savior's birth has been captured in differing ways by artists across time, say art historians at Baylor University.
In today's techno-times, some people even Photoshop themselves into the Nativity for Christmas cards.
The message of hope and salvation is consistent, but "paintings of the Nativity, as well as most Christian art forms, tend to reflect the cultural backdrop of the artists and the anticipated receptivity of the community," said Swee Hong Lim, Ph.D., a Baylor University assistant professor of church music, who has researched Christian iconography and is co-moderator of the Worship Committee of the 10th General Assembly of the World Council of Churches.
"Art history offers glimpses to the socio-cultural world of the time when the work of art is created. Such paintings are also influenced by the theological outlook of that time. Context is important," Lim said.
In the first 300 years of Christianity, the inscriptions and paintings on walls of catacombs focused primarily on the Easter story, Lim said.
"Nativity scenes only caught on after Christianity was adopted by the Romans and the pagan festival of the birth of the Sun, after the winter solstice, was replaced with the Christian festival of Christmas -- birth of the Son," Lim said.
Art of the Nativity carried a spiritual message, but it often had social and political implications as well, according to Baylor University authors in an article about Christmas and the Epiphany in art, published in the current issue of Christian Reflection: A Series in Faith and Ethics.
For example, while shepherds and wise men are vital to the Christmas story, shepherds -- often viewed in Bible times as despicable and potentially violent -- played a minor role in art for centuries, wrote Heidi Hornik, Ph.D., a Baylor professor of Italian Renaissance and Baroque art history at Baylor, and Mikeal Parsons, Ph.D., the Kidd L. and Buna Hitchcock Macon Chair in Religion at Baylor. Both teach in the College of Arts & Sciences.
When shepherds did appear in art, it was often to contrast or complement the Magi's role, they wrote.
Traditional focus is on Jesus and Mary, with Joseph off to one side. That makes Loveless' illustration of interest. But it is not the first time Joseph has been featured prominently. Italian Renaissance artist Domenico Ghirlandaio placed Joseph -- portrayed as an old man with gray hair -- in the exact center of the painting, Hornik and Parsons wrote.
While a huge Star of Bethlehem lights up the sky in many Nativity works of art, some modern artists, among them David Lindsley and Jon McNaughton, have illuminated simple, intimate scenes with candles or lanterns held by Joseph or one of the visitors to the infant Jesus.
One Christian couple in Washington shared their Christmas card online, emulating a scenario by artist Lindsley. They draped blankets on their heads and Photoshopped themselves and their baby into the places of Mary, Joseph and Jesus, adding their two cats sporting angel wings.
While some might be puzzled or put off by digitally becoming part of the Nativity scene, the idea is not unlike wearing a cross on a chain, Lim said.
"These are symbolic acts of differentiating themselves from others or associating themselves with an action that gives them deep personal meaning," he said. "It asserts the strong personal value they place on their faith."
Baylor University is a private Christian university and a nationally ranked research institution, classified as such with "high research activity" by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The university provides a vibrant campus community for approximately 15,000 students by blending interdisciplinary research with an international reputation for educational excellence and a faculty commitment to teaching and scholarship. Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas through the efforts of Baptist pioneers, Baylor is the oldest continually operating university in Texas. Located in Waco, Baylor welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 80 countries to study a range of degrees among its 11 nationally recognized academic divisions.
ABOUT THE COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES
The College of Arts & Sciences is Baylor University's oldest and largest academic division, consisting of 27 academic departments and 13 academic centers and institutes. The more than 5,000 courses taught in the College span topics from art and theatre to religion, philosophy, sociology and the natural sciences. Faculty conduct research around the world, and research on the undergraduate and graduate level is prevalent throughout all disciplines.
Contact: Terry Goodrich, Assistant Director of Media Communications, (254) 710-3321 | <urn:uuid:6de2765d-b170-4a0f-a410-eea0c0f8e7c8> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:44:12",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9506986737251282,
"score": 3.296875,
"token_count": 1109,
"url": "http://www.baylor.edu/mediacommunications/news.php?action=story&story=106382"
} |
by Katie Hacker
Sponsored by: Beadalon®
Crimping is a jewelry making basic. In this Beading Lesson, we’ll cover all of the tools, materials and techniques you’ll need to make a perfect crimp every time.
Crimp beads are round like seed beads, while crimp tubes are cylindrical. Crimp beads are great for illusion designs or other projects where the crimp needs to be as small and unnoticeable as possible. Crimp tubes make more surface contact with the wire, so they’re great for attaching a clasp or making a continuous necklace.
Crimp beads and tubes come in different sizes, which you choose based on the diameter of the wire you’re using and the number of times the wire must pass through the crimp. Refer to the packaging for direction. They also come in a variety of metallic finishes.
Crimp covers are c-shaped beads that fit over crimp beads and crimp tubes to give your designs a more finished look.
There are different tools for use with the different sizes of crimps. Most people start with a standard crimping tool and then acquire the other tools as they get more serious about using crimps in their designs.
The Micro Crimper secures Beadalon #1 Crimp Tubes and sizes #0 and #1 Crimp Beads. The jaw grooves are comparably smaller to make a dependable closure on smaller crimp findings.
The Standard Crimper works with the mid-range crimp beads and tubes, like Beadalon #1 and #2 Crimp Beads or #2 Crimp Tubes. The Pocket Crimper has the same size jaws as the Standard Crimper with short, pocket-sized handles.
The Dual Crimper incorporates two medium crimping cavities to fit all of the crimp tubes and beads within the medium range. Each cavity is slightly larger (or smaller) than the other to give the user the ability to tighten the crimp properly.
Use the Mighty Crimper to secure larger Beadalon #3 Crimp Beads or #3, #4 Crimp Tubes. You can also use it to close crimp covers.
Place a crimp bead or tube onto the beading wire. Use the outer jaws to form an oval shape, then move the crimp to the inner jaws. Squeeze hard to make a crease in the crimp bead or tube. Move the crimp to the outer jaws and fold it in half. Use the tool to gently round the crimp bead or tube. | <urn:uuid:05ec3108-2996-4768-a584-7f42e420d6eb> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:28:02",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.916592001914978,
"score": 3,
"token_count": 539,
"url": "http://www.beadalon.com/bbj-1101.asp"
} |
History , Herstory, the stories of one life, several lives, all our lives!
Storytelling is part of the very fabric of our being and one way in which we try to make sense of our journey through life.
The oral tradition lives and, as the Government states in it’s English Curriculum, speaking and listening are the two most important language skills.
Storytelling may be an integral part of our developing realistic learning contexts for learning, such as “Mantle of the Expert”, or experienced as an activity in it’s own right.
We have recently linked with “Teabag Tales”, a company of storytellers!
Storytellers visiting Bealings:
There’s nothing like a real live interactive storytelling session from a master storyteller like Hugh Lupton, Tuup, Duncan Williamson, Paul Jackson! | <urn:uuid:08011aa8-b885-4866-8087-0f5e96c4473a> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:16:35",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9255716800689697,
"score": 2.90625,
"token_count": 184,
"url": "http://www.bealings.org.uk/activities/story-telling/"
} |
Dependent Personality DisorderEn Español (Spanish Version)
Dependent personality disorder is characterized by dependent and submissive behavior, often with the person deferring the majority if not all decision-making to someone else. People with this type of personality disorder are not aware that their thoughts and behaviors are inappropriate.
It is not clear what causes personality disorders, but it is likely a combination of genetic (inherited) factors and a person's environment.
The Central Nervous System
© 2008 Nucleus Medical Art, Inc.
A risk factor is something that increases your chance of acquiring a disease or condition.
The following factors are thought to increase the risk of dependent personality disorder:
Symptoms of dependent personality disorder may include:
- Irrational fear
- Relying on others for decision-making, reassurance, and advice
- Excessive sensitivity to criticism
- A strong fear of rejection
You will likely be referred to a psychiatrist or other mental health professional who will ask you about your symptoms and mental and medical health history. A diagnosis will be made after a complete psychiatric assessment that rules out other disorders such as avoidant personality disorder, agoraphobia , and major depression.
Talk with your doctor about the best treatment plan for you. Treatment options include:
Counseling may be beneficial for people with dependent personality disorder. Counseling sessions focus on learning how to manage your anxiety and be more assertive.
In some cases, medications, such as tricyclic antidepressants, monoamine oxidase inhibitors, or alprazolam, may help manage symptoms. For most patients, medications only provide a minimal amount of symptom relief.
Other treatments, such as group therapy and social skills training, can help you manage symptoms.
Mental Health America
National Institute of Mental Health
Canadian Mental Health Association
Canadian Psychiatric Association
Dependent personality disorder. EBSCO DynaMed website. Available at: http://www.ebscohost.com/dynamed/what.php. Accessed June 25, 2007.
Personality disorders. Mental Health America website. Available at: http://www.nmha.org/index.cfm?objectId=C7DF8E96-1372-4D20-C87D9CD4FB6BE82F . Accessed June 25, 2007.
Last reviewed April 2008 by Theodor B. Rais, MD
Please be aware that this information is provided to supplement the care provided by your physician. It is neither intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. CALL YOUR HEALTHCARE PROVIDER IMMEDIATELY IF YOU THINK YOU MAY HAVE A MEDICAL EMERGENCY. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider prior to starting any new treatment or with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
Copyright © 2011 EBSCO Publishing All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:41e43d58-6302-4816-bca7-9e510554b7a3> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:41:39",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.8810744285583496,
"score": 2.609375,
"token_count": 601,
"url": "http://www.beliefnet.com/healthandhealing/getcontent.aspx?cid=%0D%0A%09%09%09%09%09%09222873"
} |
I try to see the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater -- under the artistic direction of dancer par excellent Judith Jamison -- whenever they are in town. I happen to love this troupe that has performed for an estimated 23 million people in 71 countries on six continents. I totally relate to the dances and to the music that happens to be rooted in the unique African-American experience. I also love that while creating his dances, the late great formally trained founder, Mr. Ailey called forth his memories of the American south. He summoned the universal human experience so aptly expressed in the blues, gospel music, and Negro spirituals. Doing so caused him to create unbelievable works, one of which is his critically acclaimed and most popular, entitled Revelations.
Now don't get me wrong. The company performs ballet and other dance genres. They also strive to preserve the wholly American modern dance heritage. Therefore, knowing this, while watching the performers, whose ethnicities widely vary, I felt powerfully moved, and stirred, and I began to think about the origins of African Dance. Thus, there are a few things I'd like to share.
African dance has played a most vital role in the lives of tribal people since their earliest existence. Dance was used in many ways in everyday life. It was significant in religious rituals; it was used to request success from the supernatural, to deter danger, to express emotion, and to celebrate life’s milestones. I am aware that other ethnicities use dance in similar manners. However African dancers do what some others do not. They use their body’s different centers to create complex movements; whereas in parts of the world others dance by simply using the body as a whole. I love the isolation that African dance employs, causing different areas of the body to rhythmically move while creating a breathtaking whole.
I love the mood, set by the drum, the beat -- the actual steady heartbeat of the dance. The drum and the beat were carried to the 'new world' when the enslavement of Africans began, in the 15 and 1600's. In Portugal, Spain, the Caribbean, and in the Americas, dance and the drumbeat were used to keep alive the African's cultural connection with his and her homeland. However, in North America this became prohibited. Yet despite the often times degrading harshness of their new existence, the African found a way to allow his and her spirit to occasionally soar, through beautiful transcendent dance. They did so by allowing their moves, and their bodies -- unlike their souls and their dreams -- to adapt. Instead of lifting the feet, as prohibited, the hips took over, and the feet were slid or shuffled, while keeping the beat, the rest of the body continued to undulate.
This type of dance is a powerful thing to watch. Not only does it speak to those of African descent, it simply speaks...to humans no matter their race, or ethnicity. This is evidenced by the millions, who like me; flock to see the Ailey Dance Theater. This is also evidenced by the dances that we see throughout the world, innumerable dances that have been Afro-Rhythmically inspired. As an African-American, I am proud to say: beautiful dance – African dance, and ethnic dance -- will forever live on. | <urn:uuid:5617cc51-3627-40ed-b99c-c75b29e7e14e> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:21:07",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9732750654220581,
"score": 2.546875,
"token_count": 667,
"url": "http://www.bellaonline.com/ArticlesP/art20020.asp"
} |
Statistics show that the average American watches about 28 hours of television every week. Add to that hours spent using electronic devices and a good portion of time is gone. Television and electronics can stimulate conversation, can entertain us, and can even educate us; however, a lot of evidence indicates turning off these devices can lead to good health.
About 50 per cent of Americans admit to watching too much TV. No one knows whether the other 50 per cent are being active, are unwilling to admit they are couch potatoes or if they are simply in denial. What we do know is that for year’s studies have associated sedentary behavior like watching TV to weight problems. According to Harvard School of Public Health too much time in front of the TV can destroy diets and ultimately your good health.
RELATED READING: Give Your Own Massage for Pain Relief
Very few of us can say that we have not enjoyed a little television and snack at the same time, but for some people excessive TV watching and munching always go hand-in-hand. Studies show that watching the tube can be linked to increased calorie intake and poor diets. A lot of advertising on television is focused on low nutrient, high calorie foods. The Institute of Medicine has said that marketing practices in the food and beverage industry are putting the long-term health of children at risk. According to the National Heart Blood and Lung Institute children who have televisions in their bedrooms tend to watch up to 1.5 hours more TV each day than those who don’t.
In recent months more scientific evidence has pointed to how sitting still can start to chip away at your good health. An analysis published in the Journal of American Medical Association states that data collected from 8 studies shows every additional two hours people sit still watching television or staring at a computer, their risk of developing type 2 diabetes increases by 20 per cent, and their risk of heart disease increases by 15 per cent. Furthermore, research suggests that sitting for long periods of time may cause changes in a person’s metabolism that could lead to high cholesterol and ultimately weight gain.
Here are some suggestions for television watchers who want to maintain good health.
• No TV’s in bedrooms
• Keep a log of TV time
• Do stretches, leg lifts, jumping jacks or yoga during commercials
• Turn TV’s off during meal time
• Don’t use TV time as a reward or punishment
• If you have to snack, make it fresh fruits and vegetables
Diets and sedentary behavior aren’t the only issues to consider. There are studies that suggest watching television can have a negative impact on learning abilities. One report in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine demonstrated a potential link between very young children watching television and low cognitive outcomes. Pediatricians recommend no television watching for children under 3 and high quality, age-appropriate programming for kids 3 and older.
A 20-year-study conducted in New York State concluded that teenagers who watch several hours of television per day do much worse at school. The research shows they have attention problems and are less likely to continue past high school. The authors of the study did admit however, that the learning disorder is not clear; that the teenagers could be watching more television to pass the time because they find textbooks too difficult to read and understand.
While the debate over whether or not television is good exercise for the brain continues, most medical experts will agree that TV watching, as well as sitting around using computers and other electronics for several hours each day can be unhealthy in the long term. Doctors suggest that we can still enjoy our favorite television programs, (in moderation) but don’t forget about diets and exercise. | <urn:uuid:17d61112-cd3c-4216-ac54-5243d88f1109> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:42:36",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9642665386199951,
"score": 2.9375,
"token_count": 755,
"url": "http://www.belmarrahealth.com/weight-management/turn-off-electronics-for-good-health/"
} |
uses sound waves to make images of the heart. In transesophageal echocardiography, the ultrasound probe is passed down the throat
the esophagus. The esophagus is the tube that goes from the throat to the stomach. The esophagus sits very close to the heart. This method allows for clearer images of the heart than other methods.
Reasons for Procedure
This test is done to look for problems of the heart, including:
- Enlarged heart
- Thickening of the heart walls
- Heart valve malfunction
- Blood clots
- Other conditions
Abnormal Heart Walls
Copyright © Nucleus Medical Media, Inc.
What to Expect
Prior to Procedure
- Avoid alcohol for several days before the procedure. Alcohol may interfere with the type of sedative used.
- Do not eat or drink for 4-8 hours before the procedure.
- Arrange to have someone give you a ride home after the procedure.
You will be given a mild sedative through an IV. You will be sleepy throughout the procedure. A topical anesthetic may also be applied to the back of the throat. This will numb the throat.
Description of the Procedure
You will be asked to lie on your side in a hospital gown. The ultrasound probe will be slid down your throat and into the esophagus until it is near the heart. The device will create active images of the heart. When the imaging is done, the probe will be taken out.
How Long Will It Take?
Will It Hurt?
There may be some mild discomfort during the procedure. Most patients sleep through the procedure and remember very little of it. Your throat may be sore for a few days.
You will need a ride home from the procedure. Do not eat or drink until the numbness in your throat wears off. This will keep you from inhaling food or drink into the lungs. Be sure to follow your doctor’s instructions.
Talk to your doctor about the results of the test.
Call Your Doctor
Call your doctor if any of the following occurs:
- Sore throat does not subside or worsens
- Pain in the throat or chest develops
- Difficulty breathing
If you think you have an emergency, call for medical help right away. | <urn:uuid:6fc3b831-9797-4b5e-be20-2eab91b0be03> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:17:51",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9037820100784302,
"score": 2.671875,
"token_count": 474,
"url": "http://www.bidmc.org/YourHealth/ConditionsAZ/Ulcer.aspx?ChunkID=191606"
} |
Why an Indoor Bunny?
by Dana M. Krempels, Ph.D.
Every year, thousands of "Easter bunnies" are taken home, played
with for a few hours and then dumped in a hutch to be forgotten for
most of the rest of their lives. Not all hutch bunnies get proper
care, and many of those "Easter bunnies" die before they reach the age
of one year. Here are some ways you can avoid the health problems so
often seen in bunnies forced to live outdoors in Florida or other
areas where summer temperatures are very high.
SIZE OF THE CAGE
A rabbit needs at least four hours per day of running time inside the
house or in a fenced yard, supervised by a human to prevent attack by
predators. Our house rabbits are often never caged, but if you find
it necessary to keep your rabbit confined while you are away, then be
sure the cage is at least 3' x 4' on the floor dimensions, and at
least 2' high, so the rabbit can comfortably stand on her haunches to
look around. Large breeds (more than 6 lbs.) need an even larger
hutch to be comfortable and healthy.
DEALING WITH THE HEAT
Here in Miami where the summer weather often means 95+ (Farenheit) and
95%+ humidity, rabbits in outdoor hutches die in droves. The domestic
rabbit is the same species as the European rabbit; it is not related
to our wild rabbits. Domestic rabbits are not physiologically
equipped to handle temperatures any higher than about 78 degrees
Farenheit. When it gets hotter than that, the bunny *must* be brought
indoors where there is air conditioning.
Placing a fan near the bunny will not help. Since rabbits cannot
sweat, they cannot benefit from the evaporation cooling that humans
enjoy when the wind blows on their sweat.
If the rabbit absolutely *cannot* come indoors, you must place the
hutch in a very shaded area where the sun *never* shines directly on
the bunny. Even a half hour in the direct Florida sun can be fatal.
When the temperature rises above 78 degrees Farenheit, place a plastic
milk jug filled with frozen water (keep a few of these in the freezer
and rotate them into the cage) in the hutch so that the bunny can
rest against it to keep cool, and also be able to get away from it if
he feels cool enough.
THE DANGER OF PREDATORS
Most people don't realize that there is *no such thing* as a hutch
that is safe from predators. No matter how sturdy the cage may be, a
tenacious raccoon can grab an exposed toe and proceed to chew off a
foot or leg of the rabbit trapped inside.
Sometimes, even the *sight* of a predator can stress a rabbit so badly
that she dies of a heart attack, since she knows she has no where to
run or escape.
It is thus vitally important to keep the bunny indoors, safe from
predators, *especially at night* when most predators are active.
GENERAL HEALTH AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING
The sad truth is that rabbits living outdoors simply can't be
constantly monitored for the small changes in behavior that can
signal health problems. Being prey items, rabbits tend to hide their
symptoms until they are very sick, indeed. If they live indoors with
you, you can monitor them very well, and because you become familiar
with their behavior patterns, you will notice if they are the
slightest bit "off." Even not eating for one day or hunching quietly
in an unusual resting place can signify that something is terribly
wrong with your rabbit. If this happens, do NOT WAIT for the
condition to get worse. If a rabbit does not eat for 24 hours, it
should be considered an emergency, and you should get her to your
rabbit-experienced veterinarian immediately.
We receive far too many messages from people who write to ask why they
found their hutch bunny dead, for no apparent reason. They want to
know what happened, and how they can prevent this in the future.
Unfortunately, if the bunny was living alone in an outdoor hutch, the
owner usually has no idea of what symptoms of illness the bunny was
showing prior to death. Without this information, we cannot even
begin to guess at the multitude of possible causes of death. This
would be far less likely to happen if the bunny were living indoors
with the family. The signs of illness could be detected before the
problem became an emergency.
Leaving a bunny alone in a hutch (or even inside) is not necessarily
cruel in the sense that a hutch bunny is in physical discomfort.
However, having lived with rabbits indoors for over 15 years now, I
can say with certainty that most of them crave social interaction
and affection from their humans. They are, by nature, very social and
loving. Being stuck outside in a hutch all alone is NOT a fun life.
I would no sooner stick a bunny in an outdoor hutch all day than I
would do that to a Golden Retriever.
Rabbits deserve love and interaction with their human families.
They are not just giant gerbils or hamsters. (In fact, they are not
rodents at all!) Rabbits intelligent, sensitive and have delightfully
strong personalities. What a tragic waste of a spirit to put one in a
Give your bunny a chance to show you what a wonderful member of the
family s/he can become. Bring him/her indoors where s/he belongs.
You'll wonder how you ever went so long without a HOUSE rabbit!
Return to Rabbit | <urn:uuid:5edb61cd-3a13-4a65-88c4-afb068cab0ab> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:15:08",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9448453783988953,
"score": 2.828125,
"token_count": 1248,
"url": "http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/indoorbun.html"
} |
What about the invaded cell?
hboswell at netdoor.com
Wed Jan 10 15:08:49 EST 1996
I'm not a virologist, biologist, whatever - I'm a computer scientist who's
married to a HS biology teacher, and I asked her a question she couldn't
answer, so I thought I'd throw it out here. My understanding is that a virus
attacks by entering a cell and inserting DNA/RNA into the cell's chromosone
structure, causing the cell to produce copies of the virus. (Sorry if I've
oversimplified). If so, what happens to the original cell? Is it still
the original cell type? Has it itself become a viral cell? Or with it's
now-altered DNA, is it something else entirely?
Or, do I have this all wrong?
Thanks for any info,
Harry Boswell hboswell at netdoor.com
Home Page: http://www2.netdoor.com/~hboswell
More information about the Virology | <urn:uuid:4b8c91c4-ede2-4902-9c04-4eb609fc977c> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:08:35",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.913580596446991,
"score": 2.609375,
"token_count": 220,
"url": "http://www.bio.net/bionet/mm/virology/1996-January/005149.html"
} |
January 16 is the 16th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 349 days remaining (350 in leap years).
- 27 BC - Octavian Caesar given the title Augustus by the Roman Senate.
- 929 - Emir Abd-ar-rahman III of Cordoba declares himself caliph, thereby establishing the Caliphate of Cordoba.
- 1362 - A great storm tide in the North Sea destroys the German island of Strand and the city of Rungholt.
- 1412 - Medici family made official bankers of the Papacy.
- 1456 - Painter Filippo Lippi elopes with Lucrezia Buti, a young nun from the convent of Saint Margherita .
- 1492 - The first grammar of a modern language, in Spanish, is presented to Queen Isabella.
- 1547 - Ivan the Terrible becomes Tsar of Russia.
- 1556 - Philip II becomes King of Spain.
- 1572 - The Duke of Norfolk is tried for treason for his part in the Ridolfi plot to restore Catholicism in England.
- 1581 - English Parliament outlaws Roman Catholicism.
- 1605 - The first edition of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (Book One of Don Quixote) by Miguel de Cervantes was published in Madrid.
- 1761 - British capture Pondicherry, India from the French.
- 1777 - Vermont declares its independence from New York.
- 1780 - American Revolution: Battle of Cape St. Vincent.
- 1795 - French occupy Utrecht, Netherlands.
- 1809 - Peninsular War: The British defeat the French at the Battle of La Coruña.
- 1847 - John C. Fremont is appointed Governor of the new California Territory.
- 1883 - The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, establishing the United States Civil service, is passed.
- 1900 - The United States Senate accepts the Anglo-German treaty of 1899 in which the United Kingdom renounced its claims to the Samoan islands.
- 1909 - Ernest Shackleton's expedition finds the magnetic South Pole.
- 1917 - German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann sends the Zimmermann Telegram to Mexico, proposing a German-Mexican alliance against the United States
- 1919 - Temperance movement: The 18th Amendment, authorizing Prohibition, was passed by the Congress of the United States. It went into effect one year later, on January 16th, 1920.
- 1938 - Benny Goodman plays Carnegie Hall.
- 1945 - Adolf Hitler moves into his underground bunker, the so-called Führerbunker.
- 1956 - President Gamal Abdal Nasser of Egypt vows to reconquer Palestine.
- 1957 - The Cavern Club opens in Liverpool.
- 1961 - Mickey Mantle becomes the highest paid baseball player by signing a $75,000 contract.
- 1964 - The first musical version of Hello, Dolly! opens at New York City's St. James Theatre.
- 1966 - The Metropolitan Opera House opens at Lincoln Center in New York City.
- 1969 - Czech student Jan Palach commits suicide by self-immolation in Prague, in protest against the Soviets' crushing of the Prague Spring the year before.
- 1970 - Buckminster Fuller receives the Gold Medal award from the American Institute of Architects.
- 1970 - Curt Flood files suit, stating that major league baseball had violated the American anti-trust laws.
- 1977 - The Marx Brothers were inducted into the Motion Picture Hall of Fame .
- 1979 - The Shah of Iran flees Iran with his family and relocates to Egypt.
- 1986 - Herbert W. Armstrong, the founder of the Worldwide Church of God (the Church of God in Philadelphia Era) died.
- 1988 - Sports commentator Jimmy 'the Greek' Snyder is fired by CBS a day after publicly stating that African Americans had been bred to produce stronger offspring during slavery.
- 1991 - US serial killer Aileen Wuornos confesses to the murders of six men.
- 1992 - El Salvador officials and rebel leaders sign the Chapultepec Peace Accords in Mexico City that ends a 12-year civil war that claimed at least 75,000.
- 1997 - Ennis Cosby, the only son of actor Bill Cosby, is killed by a gunman while changing a flat tire in Los Angeles, California.
- 1998 - NASA announces that John Glenn will return to space when Space Shuttle Discovery blasts off in October 1998.
- 2000 - In Sacramento, California a commercial truck carrying evaporated milk is driven into the state capitol building killing the driver.
- 2001 - Congolese President Laurent-Désiré Kabila is assassinated by one of his own bodyguards.
- 2002 - A student shoots 6 people at the Appalachian School of Law . Three of those shot die.
- 2002 - John Ashcroft announces that so-called "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh would be tried in the United States.
- 2002 - The UN Security Council unanimously establishes an arms embargo and the freezing of assets of Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaida, and the remaining members of the Taliban.
- 2003 - Space Shuttle Columbia takes off for mission STS-107 which will be its final one. Columbia disintegrates 16 days later on re-entry.
- 2004 - Goatse.cx is shut down by the Christmas Island Registry
- 2005 - Adriana Iliescu gives birth at age 66 and becomes the oldest woman in the world to do so.
- 1245 - Edmund Crouchback, 1st Earl of Lancaster (d. 1296)
- 1821 - John C. Breckenridge, Kentucky Senator 1861-1861, Confederate General (d. 1875)
- 1838 - Franz Brentano, German philosopher and psychologist (d. 1917)
- 1874 - Robert W. Service, poet (d. 1958)
- 1881 - Sir Arthur Percy Morris Fleming , radio pioneer
- 1886 - John Hamilton , American actor (d. 1958)
- 1898 - Margaret Booth, film editor (d. 2002)
- 1901 - Frank Zamboni, inventor (d. 1988)
- 1901 - Fulgencio Batista, Cuban leader (d. 1973)
- 1902 - Eric Liddell, Scottish runner (d. 1945)
- 1907 - Paul Nitze, American government official (d. 2004)
- 1908 - Ethel Merman, American actress, singer (d. 1984)
- 1910 - Dizzy Dean, Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 1974)
- 1912 - Franz Tumler , Austrian narrator (d. 1998)
- 1917 - Buddy Lester , American actor (d. 2002)
- 1918 - Stirling Silliphant , writer, producer (d. 1996)
- 1921 - Francesco Scavullo, photographer (d. 2004)
- 1922 - Ernesto Bonino, Italian singer
- 1924 - Katy Jurado, actress (d. 2002)
- 1928 - William Kennedy, author
- 1931 - Johannes Rau, President of Germany
- 1932 - Dian Fossey, zoologist (d. 1985)
- 1934 - Marilyn Horne, American mezzo-soprano
- 1935 - Udo Lattek , football coach
- 1935 - A.J. Foyt, automobile racer
- 1943 - Brian Ferneyhough, composer
- 1944 - Jim Stafford , singer
- 1944 - Ronnie Milsap, country music singer
- 1946 - Kabir Bedi, actor
- 1946 - Ronnie Milsap, singer
- 1946 - Katia Ricciarelli , opera singer
- 1947 - Laura Schlessinger, psychiatrist, radio talk show host
- 1948 - John Carpenter, director
- 1948 - Dalvanius, New Zealand entertainer (d. 2002)
- 1948 - Cliff Thorburn, Canadian snooker player
- 1950 - Debbie Allen, actress, dancer, choreographer
- 1950 - Caroline Munro , actress
- 1954 - Nancy Richards-Akers , novelist (d. 1999)
- 1958 - Anatoli Boukreev, Russian climber (d. 1997)
- 1959 - Sade, singer
- 1969 - Roy Jones Jr., boxer
- 1974 - Kate Moss, supermodel
- 1977 - Jeff Foster, professional basketball player
- 1979 - Aaliyah, singer (d. 2001)
- 1980 - Albert Pujols, baseball player
- 1980 - Michelle Wild, Hungarian pornstar
- 1747 - Barthold Heinrich Brockes, German poet (b. 1680)
- 1794 - Edward Gibbon, historian (b. 1737)
- 1806 - William Pitt the Younger, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1759)
- 1876 - Edmund H. Sears , composer
- 1917 - George Dewey, Admiral (b. 1837)
- 1936 - Albert Fish, serial killer (electrocuted) (b. 1870)
- 1942 - Carole Lombard, actress (b. 1908)
- 1957 - Arturo Toscanini, conductor (b. 1867)
- 1962 - Ivan Meštrović, sculptor (b. 1883)
- 1972 - Ross Bagdasarian, actor, songwriter
- 1979 - Ted Cassidy, American actor
- 1981 - Bernard Lee, British actor
- 1982 - Red Smith , sports columnist
- 1983 - Meyer Lansky, gangster
- 1986 - Herbert W. Armstrong, evangelist, author, publisher
- 1988 - Ballard Berkeley , British actor
- 1989 - Trey Wilson , American actor
- 1995 - Eric Mottram - poet, teacher, critic, editor (b. 1924)
- 1998 - Emil Sitka , American actor
- 2001 - Laurent-Desire Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (assassinated; death officially confirmed on January 18)
- 2002 - Michael Bilandic, mayor of Chicago (b. 1923)
- 2002 - Eddie Meduza
- 2002 - Bobo Olson, American boxer
- 2002 - Ron Taylor, American actor (b. 1952)
- 2004 - Kalevi Sorsa, former Finnish prime minister (b. 1930)
- 2005 - Marjorie Williams, Washington Post columnist and contributing editor for Vanity Fair (b. 1958)
Holidays and observances
January 15 - January 17 - December 16 - February 16 -- listing of all days
|Top Encyclopedia Articles | <urn:uuid:feaf284e-1ec5-4798-b289-85f6e673a176> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:34:46",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.894091010093689,
"score": 3.3125,
"token_count": 2214,
"url": "http://www.biologydaily.com/biology/January_16"
} |
Fed-batch and perfusion culture are the two dominant modes of operation for mammalian-cell-culture based processes, especially
for the production of glycosylated proteins required in large amounts. This article provides an economic comparison for the
production of a typical glycosylated protein using the fed-batch, concentrated fed-batch (CFB), and concentrated perfusion
(CP) technologies. The CFB and CP processes are based on the ATF System, a platform technology developed by Refine Technology
for biologics production.
The market for protein-derived products has grown significantly in the past decade and continues to accelerate at a rapid
rate. As more recombinant therapeutic proteins enter development and get through the approval phase, more efficient large-scale
production of such proteins is necessary to meet the surging demand. Fed-batch and perfusion culture are the two dominant
modes of operation for mammalian-cell-culture based processes, especially for the production of glycosylated proteins required
in large amounts.1 Challenges in the industry (such as competitive products for the same indication or desired cost reductions) are forcing
many to explore new production options.
In fed-batch culture, there is a gradual addition of a fresh volume of selected nutrients during the growth–culture cycle
to improve productivity and growth. The culture is subsequently harvested and the product recovered. Fed-batch culture has
been an attractive choice for large-scale production due to its operational simplicity and familiarity as a carryover process
from fermentation. However, fed-batch mode of operation typically also involves high start-up costs, resulting from the need
for larger bioreactor plant capacity.
In perfusion culture, a continuous supply of fresh media is fed into the bioreactor while growth-inhibitory by-products are
constantly removed. The increasing interest in the use of perfusion culture can be attributed to the higher product output
from a reduced reactor size (hence, simplifying operation, cleaning, and sterilization). The cell densities achieved in perfusion
culture (30–100 x 106 cells/mL) are typically higher than for fed-batch modes (5–25 x 106 cells/mL).2 The principal aspect of perfusion operation, which is different from fed-batch, is the added requirement of a cell-retention
device. Cell-retention systems add a level of complexity to the process, requiring management, control, and maintenance for
successful operation. Perfusion bioreactors can suffer operational difficulties such as malfunction or failure of the cell-separation
device, which can lead to shortening of the production run, leading further, to increased operating costs. This has previously
limited their attractiveness.
In recent years, a platform technology has been developed for biologics production—the ATF System, introduced by Refine Technology
(Pine Brook, NJ). Used in the alternating tangential flow mode, it is a low shear filtration system that inhibits filter-membrane
fouling. This external cell-separation system is able to maintain continuous culture for extended periods of time and offers
the capability of rapid filter change without compromising the culture run.3 The ATF System allows increased volumetric productivity and reduced bioreactor size.
Concentrated fed-batch and concentrated perfusion are two production techniques based on the ATF System, which simultaneously
nourishes the culture and concentrates the product within the bioreactor. These manufacturing methods permit great increases
in cell and product concentrations as compared with fed-batch and perfusion. For example, in the concentrated fed-batch production
platform, one of Refine Technology's pharmaceutical clients has reported a protein product titer of 17 g/L with an unoptimized
Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell process.4 Higher titers are expected as process optimization continues. In the concentrated fed-batch operation, ultra-high cell densities
of (70–200) x 106 cells/mL have been achieved; similarly, extremely high cell densities in the region of (70–100) x 106 cells/mL have been achieved in systems using the concentrated perfusion mode.
The system scales on a linear basis from 1 L to greater than 1,000 L and can be used with traditional or disposable bioreactors
and with all cell types including anchorage-dependent lines. Table 1 indicates the working volume sizes for each ATF System
in the scale-up process. The figures in the table are provided as guidelines. Actual capacity and vessel size depend on process
Table 1. Guideline working volume sizes for each ATF system
This article compares the economic feasibility of a typical glycosylated protein manufactured using three production techniques—fed-batch
(FB), concentrated fed-batch (CFB), and concentrated perfusion (CP). The Excel-based process-cost modeling tool, BioSolve
from BioPharm Services (Chesham, Buckinghamshire, UK), was used for the economic assessment. The methodology, assumptions,
and key results of the cost model are described. The analysis will use the cost of goods (CoG) metric expressed on a per gram
basis for comparability. | <urn:uuid:c736c7e5-7252-4a96-8701-3da5a5bdc0c4> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:29:44",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9237045645713806,
"score": 2.609375,
"token_count": 1073,
"url": "http://www.biopharminternational.com/biopharm/Upstream+Processing/An-Economic-Comparison-of-Three-Cell-Culture-Techn/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/707022"
} |
Research on the Nature, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Obesity and Diabetes
The purpose of this study is to determine whether the level of FOXA2 expression in fat tissue is a biomarker of insulin resistance. To test this hypothesis, we will perform euglycemic-hyperinsulinemic clamps in normal and obese human subjects to calculate insulin sensitivity, and see if insulin sensitivity correlates with the FOXA2 expression in subcutaneous fat.
The investigators at Rockefeller University Hospital are engaged in research on the nature, diagnosis and treatment of obesity and diabetes. The investigators are trying to find out why insulin, a blood sugar lowering hormone that is released by the pancreas following a meal, does not work effectively in individuals with obesity or type 2 diabetes. The investigators have recently discovered a protein in fat cells of obese mice that helps fat cells to take up and break down sugar from the blood. This protein (called FOXA2) also prevents the generation of more fat cells. FOXA2 is only present in obese mice, but absent from fat stores of lean animals. Insulin can stimulate the production of FOXA2 in fat cells. Furthermore, the levels of FOXA2 protein correlate with the degree of blood insulin levels. In this study, we are would like to determine whether FOXA2 is also produced in fat cells of humans, and if its level correlates with the degree of obesity and insulin resistance.
Observational Model: Cohort, Time Perspective: Prospective
Rockefeller University Hospital
Results (where available)
- Source: http://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT00229268
- Information obtained from ClinicalTrials.gov on July 15, 2010
Medical and Biotech [MESH] Definitions
A syndrome with excessively high INSULIN levels in the BLOOD. It may cause HYPOGLYCEMIA. Etiology of hyperinsulinism varies, including hypersecretion of a beta cell tumor (INSULINOMA); autoantibodies against insulin (INSULIN ANTIBODIES); defective insulin receptor (INSULIN RESISTANCE); or overuse of exogenous insulin or HYPOGLYCEMIC AGENTS.
Diminished effectiveness of INSULIN in lowering blood sugar levels: requiring the use of 200 units or more of insulin per day to prevent HYPERGLYCEMIA or KETOSIS. It can be caused by the presence of INSULIN ANTIBODIES or the abnormalities in insulin receptors (RECEPTOR, INSULIN) on target cell surfaces. It is often associated with OBESITY; DIABETIC KETOACIDOSIS; INFECTION; and certain rare conditions. (from Stedman, 25th ed)
THIAZOLES with two keto oxygens. Members are insulin-sensitizing agents which overcome INSULIN RESISTANCE by activation of the peroxisome proliferator activated receptor gamma (PPAR-gamma).
Rare autosomal recessive syndrome of extreme insulin resistance due to mutations in the binding domain of INSULIN RECEPTOR. Clinical features include severe intrauterine and postnatal growth restriction, characteristic dysmorphic FACIES; HIRSUTISM; VIRILIZATION; multiple endocrine abnormalities, and early death.
Diabetes mellitus induced by PREGNANCY but resolved at the end of pregnancy. It does not include previously diagnosed diabetics who become pregnant (PREGNANCY IN DIABETICS). Gestational diabetes usually develops in late pregnancy when insulin antagonistic hormones peaks leading to INSULIN RESISTANCE; GLUCOSE INTOLERANCE; and HYPERGLYCEMIA.
A Prospective Double-Blinded, Placebo Controlled, Randomized Trial comparing a single dose of Vitamin D (Colecalciferol) 300.00UI to placebo on patients with insulin resistance. Primary Ou...
The literature suggests that there may be an association between hepatitis C and type 2 diabetes mellitus independent of the presence of cirrhosis, the likely mechanism for which is insuli...
Patients with Type 2 diabetes and severe insulin resistance with very large insulin requirements who have failed all previous insulin regimens using nonconcentrated forms of insulin (U100...
This research is to investigate the nutritional supplement chromium picolinate. A large number of people use chromium picolinate from health food stores to improve the function of the hor...
We believe that diet induced obesity leads to activation of the IKK/NF-kB inflamatory pathway and that chronic inflammation leads to insulin resistance and diabetes. In rodents, salicylate...
Insufficient insulin secretion and insulin resistance are hallmarks of diabetes. Recent studies indicate that insulin plays an important role in maintaining the glomerular filtration barrier. Mima et...
The main goal of this review is to provide more specific targets for prevention and treatment of insulin resistance and associated atherosclerosis. Modern technologies and medicine have vastly improve...
Insulin resistance is a clinical condition that is characterized by reducing glucose uptake in response to insulin. A major factor in the development of insulin resistance syndrome is obesity. NYGGF4...
Autoimmune syndromes characterized by either insulin receptor antibodies as a type B insulin resistance syndrome or insulin antibodies as an insulin autoimmune syndrome. We report here on a patient wh...
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is strongly associated with insulin resistance, and its prevalence is rising in parallel with worldwide increases in obesity and type 2 diabetes. However, the... | <urn:uuid:7ee2f87c-e447-4439-8218-fc931216cf19> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:15:11",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.8703724145889282,
"score": 2.765625,
"token_count": 1153,
"url": "http://www.bioportfolio.com/resources/trial/112737/Research-On-The-Nature-Diagnosis-And-Treatment-Of-Obesity-And-Diabetes.html"
} |
The amino-acid sequence (or primary structure) of a protein predisposes it towards its native conformation or conformations. It will fold spontaneously during or after synthesis. While these macromolecules may be regarded as "folding themselves", the mechanism depends equally on the characteristics of the cytosol, including the nature of the primary solvent (water or lipid), macromolecular crowding, the concentration of salts, the temperature, and molecular chaperones.
Subscribe in a reader
Most folded proteins have a hydrophobic core in which side chain packing stabilizes the folded state, and charged or polar side chains on the solvent-exposed surface where they interact with surrounding water molecules. It is generally accepted that minimizing the number of hydrophobic side-chains exposed to water is the principal driving force behind the folding process, although a recent theory has been proposed which reassesses the contributions made by hydrogen bonding The strengths of hydrogen bonds in a protein vary, i.e. they are dependent on their microenvironment, thus H-bonds enveloped in a hydrophobic core contribute more than H-bonds exposed to the aqueous environment to the stability of the native state.
The process of folding in vivo often begins co-translationally, so that the N-terminus of the protein begins to fold while the C-terminal portion of the protein is still being synthesized by the ribosome. Specialized proteins called chaperones assist in the folding of other proteins. A well studied example is the bacterial GroEL system, which assists in the folding of globular proteins. In eukaryotic organisms chaperones are known as heat shock proteins. Although most globular proteins are able to assume their native state unassisted, chaperone-assisted folding is often necessary in the crowded intracellular environment to prevent aggregation; chaperones are also used to prevent misfolding and aggregation which may occur as a consequence of exposure to heat or other changes in the cellular environment. | <urn:uuid:12126776-a149-4e0f-8ff9-22952df2e1dd> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:36:10",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.953698456287384,
"score": 3.6875,
"token_count": 409,
"url": "http://www.biosolutions.info/2008/10/how-proteins-fold.html"
} |
From 1900 to the early 1920s, an unusual community existed in America's
heartland: Buxton, Iowa, established by the Consolidation Coal Company.
The majority of Buxton's five thousand residents were African Americans -- a
highly unusual racial composition for a state which was over 90 percent white.
At a time when both southern and northern blacks were disadvantaged and
oppressed, blacks in Buxton enjoyed true racial integration -- steady
employment, above-average wages, decent housing, and minimal discrimination. For
such reasons, Buxton was commonly known as "the black man's utopia in
Iowa." Now, eighty years after the town's demise, this truly
interdisciplinary history of a unique Iowa community remains a compelling story.
Buxton: A Black Utopia in the Heartland
by Dorothy Schwieder, Joseph Hraba, and Elmer Schwieder
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
Publication Date: 2003
Format: Trade Paperback, 256 pages
Book Type: New | <urn:uuid:bd2a037d-a4d9-41aa-889d-2f48e493db79> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:22:13",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9111911058425903,
"score": 2.921875,
"token_count": 209,
"url": "http://www.blackbooksdirect.com/0877458529.html"
} |
So last time, Tetra was being enlightened by MC-kun about definitions. This actually arises from MC-kun using prime numbers as a motivating example.
Primes are megas important in mathematics and even more important today. The entire branch of mathematics called number theory is all about studying the properties of prime numbers. They’re so useful that we’ve done stuff like extend the notion of prime elements to algebraic structures called rings or apply analytic techniques to learn more about them, but we’ll stick with elementary number theory for now.
Now, for hundreds of years, we’d been studying number theory only because it’s cool and mathematicians love prime numbers. Last time, I mentioned some examples of math preceding useful applications. Well, number theory is a really good example of that, because in the 70s, we found a use for it, which is its main use today, in cryptography. There have been some new techniques using some algebra as well, but for the most part, modern cryptography relies on the hardness of factoring primes. Neat!
Okay, so we’re back to the original question that MC-kun tries to get Tetra to answer, which is, what is a prime number?
Definition. An integer $p$ is prime if and only if $p\geq 2$ and the only positive divisors of $p$ are 1 and itself.
MC-kun explains that the motivation for excluding 1 from the definition of a prime number is because we want to be able to say that we can write every number as a unique product of prime numbers. This is very useful, because now we know we can break down every number like this and we can tell them apart because they’re guaranteed to have a unique representation. This is called unique prime factorization.
Theorem. Let $a > 0$ be an integer. Then we can write $a = p_1p_2\cdots p_k$ for some primes $p_1,\dots,p_k$. This representation is unique up to changing the order of terms.
We can show this by induction on $a$. We’ve got $a=2$ so that’s pretty obvious. So let’s say that every integer $k\lt a$ can be decomposed like this and suppose we can’t decompose $a$ into prime numbers, assuming $a$ itself isn’t already a prime since it would just be its own prime decomposition. Then we can factor $a=cd$ for some integers $c$ and $d$. But both $c$ and $d$ are less than $a$, which means they can be written as a product of primes, so we just split them up into their primes and multiply them all together to get $a$. Tada.
As a sort of side note, I mentioned before that primes are so useful that we wanted to be able to extend the idea of prime elements into rings. Well, it turns out for certain rings, it isn’t necessarily true that numbers will always have a unique representation when decomposed into primes. This is something that comes up in algebraic number theory, which is named so because it involves algebraic structures and techniques. This was invented while we were trying to figure out if Fermat’s Last Theorem was actually true (which needed this and other fun mathematical inventions from the last century that implies that Fermat was full of shit when he said he had a proof).
So at the end of the chapter, after Tetra gets her chair kicked over by the megane math girl, we’re treated to a note that acts as a sort of coda to the chapter that mentions that there are infinitely many primes. How do we know this?
Suppose that there are only finitely many primes. Then we can just list all of the prime numbers, like on Wikipedia or something. So we’ve got our list of primes $p_1,p_2,\dots,p_k$. So let’s make a number like $N=1+p_1\cdots p_k$. Well, that number is just a regular old number, so we can break it down into its prime factors. We already know all the primes, so it has to be divisible by one of them, let’s say $p_i$.
Now we want to consider the greatest common divisor of the two numbers, which is just the largest number that divides both of them. We’ll denote this by $\gcd(a,b)$. So since $p_i$ is a factor of $N$, we’ve got $\gcd(N,p_i)=p_i$. But then that gives us $p_i=\gcd(N,p_i)=\gcd(p_i,1)=1$ by a lemma that says that for $a=qb+r$, we have $\gcd(a,b)=\gcd(b,r)$. This means that we have $p_i=1$, which is a contradiction, since 1 isn’t a prime number, and so I guess there are actually infinitely many primes.
So the nice thing is that we won’t run out of prime numbers anytime soon, which is very useful because as we get more and more computing power, we’ll have to increase the size of the keys we use in our cryptosystems. Luckily, because factoring is so hard, we don’t need to increase that size very much before we’re safe for a while. Or at least until we develop practical quantum computers. | <urn:uuid:64fa679e-b305-4951-86ba-269d9887820f> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:35:43",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9537848830223083,
"score": 3.203125,
"token_count": 1216,
"url": "http://www.blkmage.net/2012/02/11/suugaku-girl-supplementary-handout-for-chapter-2-prime-numbers/"
} |
This section provides a short description of all the major objects in the book. This can be printed out as a study guide for students, used as a "key" for leading a class discussion, or you can jump to the quiz/homework section to find worksheets that incorporate these descriptions into a variety of question formats.
Parisappears in Paris Spleen - The majority of the poems within this collection are in this setting, especially the poorer areas of the city.
Natureappears in The Artist's Confiteor - This frustrates a man who cannot capture it wholly.
Roomappears in The Double Room - The narrator dreams up this beautiful place.
Statue of Venusappears in The Fool and Venus - A jester stares at this in a park.
Public Parksappears in The Widows - These are described as the shady retreats that are the gathering places of those crippled by life.
This section contains 273 words|
(approx. 1 page at 300 words per page) | <urn:uuid:10dfe04c-59e1-4dfe-b201-dfd16ad59407> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:10:13",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.8897064924240112,
"score": 2.84375,
"token_count": 209,
"url": "http://www.bookrags.com/lessonplan/paris-spleen-1869/objects.html"
} |
This section provides a short description of all the major characters in the book. This can be printed out as a study guide for students, used as a "key" for leading a class discussion, or you can jump to the quiz/homework section to find worksheets that incorporate these descriptions into a variety of question formats.
Muhammad Bilal - This character is the son of a farmer who is stolen from Africa and sold as a slave.
Lizzy - This character is a slave on the Live Oaks plantation in South Carolina who never has a freedom dream.
Elijah Lewis - This character is intelligent and forward thinking and dreams of making enough money to help his family hold onto the Glory Field.
Luvenia Lewis - This character is tall and dark-skinned. He/she has ideas of his/her own and does not want to move to Curry Island with his/her...
This section contains 570 words|
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) | <urn:uuid:5d62c583-9e93-4909-ab3d-b04e84ed203f> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:38:13",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9362614750862122,
"score": 3.046875,
"token_count": 202,
"url": "http://www.bookrags.com/lessonplan/the-glory-field/characters.html"
} |
Table of Contents
There are times when a generic (in the sense of general as opposed to template-based programming) type is needed: variables that are truly variable, accommodating values of many other more specific types rather than C++'s normal strict and static types. We can distinguish three basic kinds of generic type:
Converting types that can hold one of a number of possible value types, e.g. int and string, and freely convert between them, for instance interpreting 5 as "5" or vice-versa. Such types are common in scripting and other interpreted languages. boost::lexical_cast supports such conversion functionality.
Discriminated types that contain values of different types but do not attempt conversion between them, i.e. 5 is held strictly as an int and is not implicitly convertible either to "5" or to 5.0. Their indifference to interpretation but awareness of type effectively makes them safe, generic containers of single values, with no scope for surprises from ambiguous conversions.
Indiscriminate types that can refer to anything but are oblivious to the actual underlying type, entrusting all forms of access and interpretation to the programmer. This niche is dominated by void *, which offers plenty of scope for surprising, undefined behavior.
The boost::any class (based on the class of the same name described in "Valued Conversions" by Kevlin Henney, C++ Report 12(7), July/August 2000) is a variant value type based on the second category. It supports copying of any value type and safe checked extraction of that value strictly against its type. A similar design, offering more appropriate operators, can be used for a generalized function adaptor, any_function, a generalized iterator adaptor, any_iterator, and other object types that need uniform runtime treatment but support only compile-time template parameter conformance.
|Last revised: March 15, 2003 at 23:12:35 GMT| | <urn:uuid:34ea8624-ad51-4e8f-8439-519cf0cc5d77> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:38:21",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.8924898505210876,
"score": 3.1875,
"token_count": 397,
"url": "http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_31_0/doc/html/any.html"
} |
BRI News Archive
A feature article that compiles the scientific evidence for why bird conservation is so critical to humanity. BRI's Adirondack Loon Study is quoted under the section "Winged Sentinels."
Still endangered in Maine, the species is recovering from devastating effects of DDT in the 1960s.
By North Cairn
BRI research is featured in the March issue of Discover Magazine.
Scientists are only beginning to understand the impacts of mercury contamination on birds, fish, and other wildlife populations. But what they are finding is alarming — even low levels can cause harm, and chronic exposure has unexpected and troubling effects.
by Rebecca Kessler
David Evers speaks to Steve Curwood, host of NPR's Living on Earth, about BRI's new report that describes hotspots of unsafe mercury levels around the world.
Negotiators Seek to Finalize Mercury Treaty As Groups Warn About Cost of Inaction
By: International Environment Reporter
Mercury poisoning is a growing global menace we have to address
Progressive Radio Network
84% of fish have mercury contamination, new study finds; united nations seeks treaty to reduce mercury poisoning
Mercury poisoning is a growing global menace we have to address
By: Robert F Kennedy Jr and Marc A Yaggi
Study By Researchers in Gorham Warns of Mercury in Fish
Maine Public Broadcasting Network
NEARLY A year ago, I interviewed David Evers, the executive director of Maine’s Biodiversity Research Institute, on the revelation that insect-eating inland songbirds can accumulate mercury at dangerous levels every bit as much as fish-eating river and coastal birds. He called the findings a “game-changing paradigm shift” for understanding mercury’s pernicious presence.
A new scientific report finds that humans and marine ecosystems around the world are contaminated with mercury and that mercury levels in humans and fish regularly exceed health advisory guidelines. The report, a collaboration between IPEN and Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI), highlights the urgent need for an overall reduction in mercury emissions when government delegates convene next week in Geneva in their final negotiating session to establish an international mercury treaty – the first global treaty on the environment in more than a decade by the United Nations Environment Programme.
Biodiversity Research Institute announced that the Institute has endorsed a technical-scientific cooperation agreement on the issue of mercury with México’s major federal environmental agency, the National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change (INECC). The agreement allows the Maine wildlife research group to conduct scientific research in México in full cooperation with that country’s federal government.
TORONTO – The current health benchmarks for mercury levels in fish are outdated and inadequate and should be strengthened worldwide, according to two international reports released on Tuesday.
Scientists say that consuming fish may be more hazardous to your health than you think, according to new reports published this week.
New reports released today find that mercury is widespread in fish, and that mercury exposure can be dangerous to human health at lower levels than previously thought. Maine Things Considered host Tom Porter spoke with Dr. David Evers, the executive director and chief scientist of the Biodiversity Research Institute, in Gorham, Maine, which released the latest data.
A report to be released Tuesday by the Biodiversity Research Institute in Gorham evaluates the amount of mercury in fish species around the world and suggests that levels of the toxin previously deemed safe are probably not.
Biodiversity Research Institute Invites You to a Global Webinar on New Findings on Mercury Exposure and Contamination
On December 4, 2012, the Zero Mercury Working Group, in cooperation with scientists from Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) and other prominent scientists, is organizing a global webinar to release new findings that demonstrate extensive mercury contamination of seafood and to summarize recent studies that show health effects from methylmercury occurring below the level that was considered “safe” just a few years ago. Scientists will highlight new research and explain why current government “safety limits” should be strengthened worldwide. The report will be released accompanied by a press release on December 4. This comes ahead of the final round of United Nations negotiations, scheduled in January 2013, for a global mercury treaty.
Click here for more information: http://www.briloon.org/uploads/BRI/index/FINALZMWG_MEDIA_%20ADVISORY.pdf
If you have questions please contact Deborah McKew at 207-839-7600 X222
The Maine Medical Center Research Institute Vector-borne Disease Lab (MMC) announces that it has received funding support from the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund to conduct surveillance for Eastern equine encephalitis virus (EEEv) in Maine’s songbirds in 2013. This funding was awarded following a collaborative pilot study in 2012 between MMC and the Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI), which found 7.4% of 28 songbirds sampled in the spring tested positive, indicating exposure to the disease. An additional 46 samples from the fall will be processed at the Centers for Disease Control in Fort Collins, CO.
Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) announces its fourth annual Spotlight on Ecoscience event, which will feature internationally renowned conservation biologist Thomas E. Lovejoy, Ph.D. This public presentation will be held on Wednesday, November 14 in the Hannaford Lecture Hall, Abromsom Center, at the University of Southern Maine's Portland campus. Opening remarks will begin at 7:00 pm, with a cocktail reception preceding at 6:00 pm.
Dr. H. Bruce Rinker, BRI’s director of scientific advancement and development, will speak at the 4th international EcoSummit in Columbus, Ohio (September 30 to October 5, 2012) on forest systems and Gaia theory.
BRI's Executive Director and naturalist Jim Fowler speak about biodiversity on MPBN's Maine Calling. Listen to the entire show here.
Reported By: Susan Sharon
BRI has been featured in a story by Portland Press Herald staff writer North Caim.
BRI's Executive Director to Speak at the International Conference on Heavy Metals in the Environment
David C. Evers, Ph.D., executive director of Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI), will present current mercury research at a special session at the 16th International Conference on Heavy Metals in the Environment (ICHMET) on September 26 in Rome, Italy.
BRI biologist Mike Chickering is featured in a National Public Radio broadcast.
You can listen to the full story here.
BRI biologist Mike Chickering is featured in a Maine Public Radio broadcast.
You can listen to the full story here.
In the early 1960s, a visionary American scientist named Gene Likens and his team were the first to show that acidified precipitation was damaging to ecosystems and human health, and this harmful “acid rain” was the direct result of smokestack and other emissions.
Read the entire piece here.
Wing asymmetry spells trouble for long-distance migrators like willets, says Dave Evers of the Biodiversity Research Institute. He's been researching the effects of mercury on wildlife for years and first discovered the problem of wing asymmetry in loons. More recently, he's documented mercury's impact on insect-eating songbirds.
Read the full story here.
Albany, NY–An extensive study of New York’s Adirondack loon population has revealed that mercury contamination can lead to population declines of the iconic bird. The research effort was a joint project between the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), the Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).
With Senator James Inhofe's (R-OK) move to roll back the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to regulate mercury -- both now and in the future -- the threat to the health of Americans is in the balance.
Dr. David Evers To Speak As Part Of The Great Lakes Air Deposition Atmospheric Toxics Webinar Series
The Atmospheric Toxics Webinar Series showcases recent research findings supported by the Great Lakes Air Deposition (GLAD) program. Dr. David Evers speaks about Intergrating Multimedia Measurements of Mercury in the Great Lakes Region on July 24, 2012, 2pm-4pm (ET).
Ever wonder what 's lurking in Falmouth's River Point Conservation Area? The Falmouth Conservation Commission and the Biodiversity Research Institute of Gorham are hoping to find out when they conduct one of the state's largest "Bio Blitzes" June 29-30.
Recently the Society for the Conservation and Study of Caribbean Birds, Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) and the Bahamas National Trust (BNT) came together in a major effort to assess the seabirds of the Cay Sal Bank.
Recently, the Society for the Conservation and Study of Caribbean Birds, Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) and the Bahamas National Trust (BNT) came together in a major effort to assess the searbirds of the Cay Sal Bank.
Recently the Society for the Conservation and Study of Caribbean Birds, Biodiversity Research Institute and the Bahamas National Trust came together in a major effort to assess the seabirds of the Cay Sal Bank.
BRI Executive Director, David Evers, Ph.D., speaks with the WAMC radio program EarthWise about the dangers of mercury in the environment.
BRI’s director of scientific advancement and development is featured in a new documentary called “Mahahual: Paradise Is Not Recyclable,” which draws attention to the problem of plastics pollution in our oceans. The documentary, an initiative by Sustenta.com and produced by Calypso Films, will debut on May 29 in Mexico.
The Muskie School of Public Service features BRI’s osprey work in their spring newsletter Connections: Environment, Economy, Community. The article, written by Chris DeSorbo, director of BRI’s raptor program, describes our surveys of osprey populations on Casco Bay.
One of the biggest contributors to the decline in migratory bird populations has gone largely unnoticed: white-tailed deer.
Last night, the first of four Peregrine Falcon eggs hatched at a nest site being monitored by Biodiversity Research Institute’s Peregrinecam live webcam.
BRI executive director, David Evers, published an editorial in the March issue of Science Chronicles. He collaborated on this piece with Tim Tear, director of conservation science for The Nature Conservancy in New York, and David Higby, director of federal government relations for The Nature Conservancy in New York.
Biologists at Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) confirmed today that the NextEra Maine Eaglecam1, located in Hancock Co., ME, has captured a bald eagle laying its first egg of the season; the egg was laid on March 26 and eagle behavior confirmed the egg on March 27. The webcam is one of two eagle web cameras set up and sponsored by NextEra Energy Resources and hosted and monitored by BRI that captures the breeding activity of these raptors in real time.
Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) announced today that its webcam has captured a peregrine falcon laying its first egg of the season; the egg was dropped in the early morning on Friday, March 16.
BRI marine bird scientist, Dr. Iain Stenhouse, is featured in the March-April 2012 issue of Audubon Magazine, Scott Weidensaul’s story, “Unlocking Migration’s Secrets.” Scientists are tapping into new technologies to uncover these secrets, and in the process are transforming everything we know – or think we know – about birds.
The Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) has an opening for a Wildlife Biologist with experience in boat surveys for marine birds and/or cetaceans. BRI is a growing non-profit based out of Gorham, ME. The mission is to assess emerging threats to wildlife and ecosystems through collaborative research, and to use scientific findings to advance environmental awareness and inform decision makers. Duties will include species identification of seabirds, cetaceans and other wildlife in aerial video footage; acting as an observer on offshore boat surveys; and project administration responsibilities. This is a full-time, one year position with possibility of extension. Approximate start date is March 19, 2012. Weather and other factors determine the work schedule. Position will be based in Maine, but the successful applicant must have ability to travel.
An exquisite Mexico beach, cursed by plastic
Sea currents act like a conveyor belt, depositing trash on a remote stretch of sand in an ecologically rich region of coral reef and mangrove forests. Locals can only pick up the pieces, bit by bit.
By Ken Ellingwood, Los Angeles Times
Written by Robert Lalasz
Published on January 24th, 2012
THIRTY YEARS AGO, WHEN I RETURNED TO NEW HAMPSHIRE’S Loon Preservation Committee as its director, the outfit was distributing a brochure entitled !e Vanishing Loon.
Reported By: Susan Sharon
A new report by the Gorham-based Biodiversity Research Institute and the Nature Conservancy finds high levels of mercury contamination in songbirds and bats throughout 11 Northeastern states. While the risk of the pollutant to people is well documented through the consumption of fish, this study finds that mercury concentrations in a wide-ranging number of birds and bats are enough to cause physiological and reproductive harm. And it's expected to cause a shift in ecotoxicological research and monitoring.
Written by Robert Lalasz
Published on January 24th, 2012
By ANTHONY DePALMA
Songbirds and bats suffer some of the same types of neurological disorders from mercury as humans and especially children do, says the study, “Hidden Risk,” by the Biodiversity Research Institute, a nonprofit organization in Gorham, Me., that investigates emerging environmental threats.
Topic: Wind Power Development and Wildlife
BRI Partners with the International POPs Elimination Network for a Global Mercury Monitoring Project
Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) announced today its partnership with IPEN (International POPs Elimination Network*) to conduct a joint mercury research and monitoring study. The goals of this Global Fish and Community Mercury Monitoring Project include generating new scientific data, raising awareness about global mercury pollution, and identifying mercury hotspots, primarily in developing and transition countries throughout Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
Listen as BRI biologists Patrick Keenan and Kate Williams set out into the field in search of saw-whet owls, and Susan Sharon of the Maine Public Broadcasting Network tags along.
Gorham, ME -- Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) announced today the launch of its new Wildlife Science and Marine Wind Energy Initiative, an international collaborative effort to inform policy makers and the public about areas of scientific consensus regarding the effects of marine wind energy development to wildlife.
The Initiative will kick off with a two day workshop that will bring leaders in this field together for the first time to pool their knowledge base.
Please join us for a discussion of the state of the science on mercury pollution and its long-term impacts on the nation’s ecosystems. This panel discussion will highlight policy-relevant findings from a major new scientific study by the Biodiversity Research Institute on mercury in the Great Lakes region that has been widely reported on in the media. The research suggests that the extent and severity of mercury in the Great Lakes region is greater than previously documented. New information will be presented on mercury levels in fish and wildlife and the health risks they pose. Highlights from mercury research in the Northeast will be provided. The panel will also introduce an upcoming national report by the Ecological Society of America on a range of air pollutants and their impacts on natural resources.
HEALTH RISK: ‘If you’re pregnant or planning to get pregnant you want to reduce fish consumption as much as possible’
By JOHN MINER, THE LONDON FREE PRESS
This is a test
Gorham, ME – Biodiversity Research Institute announces the award of a three-year, $4.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to collect ecological data--on birds, sea turtles, and marine mammals--that is required to inform siting and permitting processes for offshore wind energy development in the mid-Atlantic.
Gorham, ME — Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) today announced the appointment of Jonathan L. Atwood, Ph.D. as science director. In this newly created position, Atwood, educator, ornithologist, and conservation biologist, will be responsible for managing the Institute’s staff of 20 researchers working in 10 wildlife science programs.
Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) today announced the appointment of H. Bruce Rinker, Ph.D. as director of scientific advancement and development. In this newly created position, Rinker will build on the Institute’s strength as an innovator of wildlife science to further develop external relationships within the scientific and philanthropic communities.
In early 2012 Dr. Jim Paruk will be leading an Earthwatch Institute expedition studying the impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the common loon population in the Gulf of Mexico.
Seabirds declining as eagles in Maine recover - By Bill Trotter, BDN Staff
Bill Trotter speaks with Dr. Iain Stenhouse regarding declines in Marine birds on the coast of Maine.
Call of the Wild - BRI scientists provide insight about the common loon in this in-depth story by Kristen Laine.
Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) has established a new Wildlife and Renewable Energy Program to study and understand the movements of birds and bats and to assess the potential interactions between energy facilities and wildlife.
In partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), BRI is contributing in multiple ways toward the first international treaty of a globally binding instrument on mercury. The goal is for the intergovernmental negotiating committee (INC) to complete a document for the Governing Council by 2013.
Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Susan Collins has introduced legislation to create a comprehensive new program to measure mercury levels across the United States. The bipartisan "Comprehensive National Mercury Monitoring Act" is cosponsored by Senator Tom Carper (D-DE).
BRI's work with Northern Saw-Whet Owls in coastal Maine featured in Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors Magazine. | <urn:uuid:0e29121d-8afd-419a-94da-b1af5f77a790> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:41:58",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9179992079734802,
"score": 2.90625,
"token_count": 3890,
"url": "http://www.briloon.org/about-bri/news-events/news-article"
} |
Extremes in weather more likely - scientists
Wet areas have become wetter and dry areas drier during the past 50 years due to global warming, a study of the saltiness of the world's oceans by a team including CSIRO researchers has shown.
The intensification of rainfall and evaporation patterns, which is occurring at twice the rate predicted by climate change models, could increase the incidence and severity of extreme weather events in future.
The team's leader, Paul Durack, said the finding was important because reductions in the availability of fresh water posed more of a risk to human societies and natural ecosystems than a rise in temperature alone.
"Changes to the global water cycle and the corresponding redistribution of rainfall will affect food availability, stability, access and utilisation," said Dr Durack, a former CSIRO researcher now at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
The fact that hotter air can hold more water underpinned predictions that recent warming of the globe's surface and lower atmosphere could have already strengthened the natural evaporation and precipitation cycle – increasing rainfall where it was higher than average and decreasing it where it was lower.
Initial attempts to study this "rich get richer" effect, however, were hindered by a shortage of good rainfall records on land and a lack of long-term satellite measurements. So Dr Durack and his Australian colleagues studied the oceans.
"The ocean matters to climate," said Richard Matear, a CSIRO researcher and member of the team. "It stores 97 per cent of the world's water and receives 80 per cent of all the surface rainfall." The team analysed about 1.7 million records of surface sea salinity collected worldwide between 1950 and 2000.
Their results are published in the journal Science. They found regions near the equator and the poles, where greater rainfall keeps surface waters less salty than average, had become even fresher during the past half century. Saltier areas, such as in the centre of oceans where evaporation dominated, had become even saltier.
Brian Soden, a meteorologist at the University of Miami in the US, said the study had important implications for extreme weather.
Warmer water moving faster from the surface into the atmosphere could fuel violent storms, and floods and droughts could become more intense.
Susan Wijffels, a CSIRO researcher and team member, said a network of 35000 Argo floats throughout the world's oceans would be vital for continued observation of salinity changes. | <urn:uuid:63129401-a931-4a1a-ae80-52f42a886521> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:42:46",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9630337357521057,
"score": 3.59375,
"token_count": 507,
"url": "http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/climate-change/extremes-in-weather-more-likely--scientists-20120427-1xpq8.html"
} |
Clement VIArticle Free Pass
Clement VI, original name Pierre Roger (born c. 1291, Corrèze, Aquitaine [France]—died Dec. 6, 1352, Avignon, Provence), pope from 1342 to 1352.
Abbot of the Benedictine monasteries at Fécamp and La Chaise-Dieu, France, he became archbishop of Sens in 1329 and of Rouen in 1330. He was made cardinal in 1338 by Pope Benedict XII, whom he succeeded, being consecrated at Avignon on May 19, 1342. His pontificate was confronted by three problems: the last of the Crusades, the failure of the Florentine bankers, and the state of papal possessions in Italy.
Clement considered the crusade against the Ottoman Turks as the pope’s first duty. In 1344 he was responsible for a crusader naval expedition that took Smyrna, ending its piratical raids in the eastern Mediterranean. Smyrna was then entrusted to the Knights of St. John. The Florentine bankruptcies caused Clement to seek elsewhere for his bankers, but the problem was not a lack of revenue.
The papal territories in the Italian regions of the Romagna and the Marches were disputed by the noble Italian families. Clement dispatched his nephew Astorge de Durfort to reestablish papal authority in the Romagna. When Queen Joan I of Naples was suspected of the murder of her husband, Andrew, his brother King Louis I the Great of Hungary led an expedition against Naples. Joan fled to Avignon, in her county of Provence, to seek Clement’s protection. Acquitted of the murder charge, she sold Avignon to Clement. In Rome Clement at first supported (1347) the popular leader Cola di Rienzo, who attempted to create a state based on the ancient Roman Republic, but the pontiff later excommunicated him.
Clement helped secure the election in 1346 of the German king Charles IV, who allied with the papacy. He abandoned his vow of monastic poverty and opposed the Spirituals, Franciscan extremists who observed absolute material poverty. Enlarging the papal palace, he lived like a secular prince, patronized artists and scholars, and elevated his court to one of the most sophisticated of its time. During the Black Death (1348–50) one-fourth of Clement’s staff died at Avignon. He welcomed Jews there, though they were accused of starting the plague.
What made you want to look up "Clement VI"? Please share what surprised you most... | <urn:uuid:33e2de64-ab8e-4537-bfd6-6740a4cbc232> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:10:28",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9689370393753052,
"score": 2.984375,
"token_count": 551,
"url": "http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/121038/Clement-VI"
} |
6 weeks prior to visit
Review timeline, access online materials
4 weeks prior to visit
Present resources and online educational materials to your school's teachers at a faculty meeting using the website for Tree to Form
- Introduce Tree to Form exhibit using the information provided About the Exhibition.
- Open For Teachers and Parents
- Go over class pre- and post-visit activities via online access
- Review Tree to Form Interactive Glossary with Words in Action
- Open site for students using the “Have Fun” tab and discuss the Do It Yourself Projects and Woodworking Online Games for kids
We understand that your curricula are filled and time is tight.
- Most pre-visit activities are intended to take 15 to 30 minutes.
- The post-visit activities can be short, or longer, depending upon teacher preference.
- All resources and curricular activities have the links you need.
- By aligning the activities to fit into the Pennsylvania’s Department of Education’s Standard Aligned System we encourage incorporation into your current classroom curriculums. Each activity can be used by itself or as a platform to encourage cross-curricular thinking or real life application.
3 weeks prior to visit
1 week prior to visit
Begin to make announcements of Fun Facts About Wood. | <urn:uuid:da547e9e-6344-4eb6-8cfd-a6e42e7d088d> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:34:53",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.8736576437950134,
"score": 2.6875,
"token_count": 269,
"url": "http://www.bucks.edu/news/culture/artmobile/treetoform/timeline/"
} |
Could Crash Modeling Have Saved the Concordia?8 Mar, 2012 By: Robert Yancey
Viewpoint: Event simulation helps automobile manufacturers design safer vehicles — and it can do the same for shipbuilders.
The Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster has generated many questions, but one in particular haunts survivors and onlookers alike: Could this disaster have been prevented? It is clear that the captain made some unwise choices, which put the ship and its passengers in danger. Could something have been altered in the ship’s design to limit the impact of that poor decision-making on the crew and passengers?
Most automobile accidents are also caused by bad decisions. Some are caused by conditions beyond the control of the driver, but the vast majority are a result of drivers speeding, disobeying traffic regulations, attending to distractions, falling asleep at the wheel, etc. Automotive manufacturers have done a great deal to improve car safety, introducing features that minimize harm even when drivers perform poorly. Crumple zones, airbags, and energy-absorbing materials all reduce passenger injuries and fatalities in crashes. Automobile safety ratings for the past decade show a clear improvement — much of which is due to extensive simulation modeling of crash events.
In simulation modeling, engineers use a digital design of a vehicle to generate a simulation model that represents all of the key elements of the design, including material properties, mass properties, occupant models, and the impact event (e.g., side impact, frontal offset, etc.). Engineers have been working for years to correlate these simulation models with real-world test results. The result is that modern simulation models correlate very well with physical test data in regard to the deformation of the vehicle, the energy absorption of the vehicle, and — most importantly — the effects on the passengers.
The accuracy of these models is now so high that most automotive companies do extensive virtual testing of their vehicle designs before ever building prototypes, and the physical testing is really just a final verification of the crashworthiness of the design. In most cases, there are no surprises during the physical test.
From Land to Sea
Could ship designers follow the automotive industry's example? Could we employ simulation modeling to create more advanced designs that can better respond to the type of event that destroyed the Concordia? The answer is yes.
Engineers could use much of the technology developed for automotive crash modeling to model a ship’s impact on rocks, icebergs, sandbars, and other hazards. We cannot always prevent these events from happening, but if we can develop ship designs that more effectively respond to these impacts — especially to provide sufficient time to safely evacuate the passengers — we could improve passenger safety and confidence.
In the case of the Concordia, the ship’s hull was divided into several watertight compartments; one or two sections of the hull could flood without sinking the entire ship. The ship had longitudinal bulkheads, intended to keep it from listing when flooded. During the recent disaster, however, the ship came to rest on a rock ledge; this caused the vessel to become unstable on the uneven bottom and roll on its side. This position complicated the rescue operation, because many of the lifeboats could not be deployed with the ship listing to one side.
Disaster simulations could help ship designers prepare for uncommon scenarios, such as having a ship run aground and roll onto its side. Image courtesy of Roberto Vongher, via Wikimedia Commons.
This occurrence, and many other unusual situations, could be simulated on a computer. Just as a car-crash simulation varies according to speed, direction, impact zone, and other elements, a good simulation model of a ship could replicate many of the conditions that the vessel might encounter. Armed with the results of these simulations, engineers can adapt the ship design to better respond to each of these situations.
Simulation Offers Proven Benefits
In addition to the automotive industry, the ability of simulation to inform design is also evident in the aviation world. Airplane designers must ensure a safety by planning for a variety of events, including excessive turbulence, engine failure, bird strikes, and lightning. Redundancy is built into the design to ensure that the airplane can land safely, even under these circumstances. Simulation modeling is also used extensively in the aerospace industry to understand and design for these events.
Can simulation modeling help with the design of cruise ships? Twenty-five years of experience in the simulation field has taught me that simulation technology definitely can help this industry. The technology is available, it's proven, and it can be used successfully to improve safety.
In that case, the questions become: Will the industry embrace this technology? Will shipbuilders see value in performing these simulations? and — more importantly — Will the passengers who book passage on these ships demand a safer experience? Hopefully, the Concordia tragedy will bring shipbuilders, cruise ship operators, and passengers together to create a better outcome the next time a bad decision or unforeseen event causes significant damage to a ship.
Autodesk Technical Evangelist Lynn Allen guides you through a different AutoCAD feature in every edition of her popular "Circles and Lines" tutorial series. For even more AutoCAD how-to, check out Lynn's quick tips in the Cadalyst Video Gallery. Subscribe to Cadalyst's Tips & Tricks Tuesdays free e-newsletter and we'll notify you every time a new video tip is available. All exclusively from Cadalyst!
Tune in for my first AutoCAD 2014 webcast tomorrow morning! 21 May, 2013
When Physical Prototypes Aren’t an Option 21 May, 2013
Discover and Fix Your Vibration Vulnerability with SolidWorks Simulation 17 May, 2013 | <urn:uuid:e58a99b2-4147-475d-98a8-dbc4712a9940> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:29:51",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9350053668022156,
"score": 2.90625,
"token_count": 1164,
"url": "http://www.cadalyst.com/testing-analysis/could-crash-modeling-have-saved-concordia-14334"
} |
Saving Lives – Transforming Care
The discovery and development of new medicines and vaccines in Canada makes our communities and our country stronger. It creates jobs and contributes to the sustainability of our healthcare system. But most importantly, new medicines represent some of the most scientifically advanced, safest and most effective treatments available to help Canadians live longer, better and more productive lives.
Saving Lives - Transforming Care
Summary of Pharmaceutical Survey Findings on R&D Spending and Investments by Association Members
The Potential Impact of Pharmaceutical Interventions
Improving the Health of Canadians | <urn:uuid:74bca920-d179-4fcc-8819-0a53a74694d9> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:35:28",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.859458863735199,
"score": 2.578125,
"token_count": 112,
"url": "http://www.canadapharma.org/view.asp?x=342"
} |
New tool from the University of Nottingham may help screen patients at risk for VTE
Heart health is a major concern for many Americans, which is why individuals who are hoping to reduce their risk of experiencing a stroke choose to buy Plavix.
Heart health is a major concern for many Americans, which is why individuals who are hoping to reduce their risk of experiencing a stroke choose to buy Plavix. The condition arises due to the presence of serious blood clots. According to a paper published in the British Medical Journal, a new tool created at the University of Nottingham could be an effective way of identifying people who need preventive treatment for this ailment.
Funded by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, the tool is based on simple variables that are accessible to patients and can easily be integrated into computer systems. This could help assess people's risk of having serious blood clots and consequently developing venous thromboembolism (VTE) before they are admitted to the hospital. Additionally, the screening technique could help doctors decide whether to prescribe medications that carry an increased clotting risk.
Lead authors Julia Hippisley-Cox and Carol Coupland studied data from 3.5 million men and women between the ages of 25 and 84. The rate of VTE was about 15 cases per 10,000 people, according to their analysis.
"Further research is needed to assess how best to use the algorithm and whether, upon implementation, it has any impact on health outcomes," the scientists concluded.
See also ...
|IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE: All medical content and news articles on this website is supplied by an independent third party company. While the information can be useful, this website relies on others for its creation and cannot guarantee the accuracy, medical efficacy, or reliability of the information provided. In all circumstances, you should always seek the advice of your physician and/or other qualified health professional(s) for drug, medical condition, or treatment advice. This website does not provide any medical advice. The content provided on this website is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.| | <urn:uuid:6fd9c4cd-1f59-45a6-90e1-183f6ca092d2> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:28:39",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9596649408340454,
"score": 2.53125,
"token_count": 433,
"url": "http://www.canadianpharmacymeds.com/news/New-tool-from-the-University-of-Nottingham-may-help-screen-patients-at-risk-for-VTE--800578802"
} |
LEDs are commonly used in all kinds of applications. The tiny red and green indication lights found here and there on electronic equipment such as TVs and computers are LEDs. They are very efficient in converting an electric current directly into light, but their use was limited by technical constraints preventing the creation of colors other than red and green. In the 1990s, LED color display was made possible by the development of blue LEDs, and we are now witnessing rapid growth in LED applications. The outdoor displays you see on the sides of buildings and other locations on city streets use LEDs. They are also employed in the optical scanning units of color copying machines and image scanners.
Mechanism by Which Light Exposure Produces an Electric Current
To understand LEDs, let's first take a look at the mechanism by which light exposure produces an electric current, such as in solar batteries. Semiconductors, a term you probably hear daily, are a key component of electric circuits, including computers, and they are commonly made from silicon. Semiconductors either use "n-type" silicon, in which there are extra electrons, or "p-type" silicon, in which there are missing electrons that form "electron holes" or simply "holes." Combining these two types of silicon produces a "pn junction diode." When the pn junction is exposed to light, the p-type silicon becomes an anode and the n-type silicon a cathode. Attaching electrodes to either side and then connecting them to an external electrical conductor produces a current. This is also the principle behind solar batteries.
What do you suppose goes on inside a pn junction diode? When silicon is exposed to light such as that from the sun, electrons and electron holes are produced therein. Connecting the p-type silicon and n-type silicon to an external electrical conductor causes electrons in the electron-rich n-type silicon to move to the p-type silicon and the electron holes in the hole-rich p-type silicon to move to the n-type silicon. This in turn causes the excess electrons to flow out over the electrical conductor from the electrode attached to the n-type silicon and head towards the electrode on the p-type silicon, thereby generating an electric current. The flow of an electric current is defined as heading in the opposite direction of the flow of electrons, thus we get an electric current in which the p-type silicon is an anode and the n-type silicon a cathode.
Mechanism by Which Application of a Current Produces Light
Since exposing a pn junction diode to light produces an electric current just like a solar battery, the reverse should also hold true, i.e. applying an external electric current in the opposite direction should cause light to emit from the pn junction. This phenomenon does in fact occur. Making the n-type silicon the cathode and the p-type silicon the anode produces light. This is known as a light-emitting diode (LED). However, light emission from such rudimentary LEDs is inefficient, making them ill suited for practical applications. Only after creating pn junctions using semiconductor materials made of the compounds gallium arsenide, gallium phosphide, and gallium arsenide phosphide did LEDs become practical.
Semiconductor Lasers also Use pn Junctions
The semiconductor laser is another technology that uses pn junctions. Creating a pn junction within a semiconductor brings about "population inversion" by means of the electrons that flow into n-type silicon and the electron holes in p-type silicon. By skillfully placing two perpendicular mirrors with cleavage planes of semiconductor crystal on either end of the pn junction, we can intensify light by making it bounce back and forth between the planes, thus producing a laser beam comprising light with uniform phase and direction. Such semiconductor lasers are also called laser diodes. These devices are only about 300 micrometers square and 80 micrometers thick. Laser diodes using gallium arsenide phosphide, which emit a laser beam with a wavelength of 700 nanometers, are being mass produced for use in compact disc (CD) players and laser beam printers. | <urn:uuid:5b328f78-51eb-4863-9128-c6b167353bad> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:30:03",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9279385209083557,
"score": 4.03125,
"token_count": 854,
"url": "http://www.canon.com/technology/s_labo/light/002/04.html"
} |
Hydraulic fracking is a process of injecting proprietary chemicals into the ground in order to fracture rock and release natural gas. Many parts of North Carolina, mostly outside the Catawba basin, are considered to have good potential for "fracking" to release natural gas deposits.
Overview of Fracking
- Hydraulic fracturing, also known as hydrofracking (or "fracking"), is a process of extracting natural gas in gas shale deposits by drilling horizontally.
- The process of fracking involves injecting (with high pressure) sand, hundreds of chemicals and millions of gallons of water into a well.
- The pressure fractures the shale and props open fissures that enable natural gas to flow more freely out of the well.
- For a quick visual presentation of how this happens watch the video to the left or click here for an interactive demonstration.
Potential problems from Fracking
Fracking has the potential to pollute the air, groundwater, and surface waters. Potential devestating impacts include:
- pollution of surface waters (from drilling fluids and other wastes that are brought to the surface in the drilling process);
- groundwater contamination (from bad well construction and the fracking process);
- air pollution (from the wells and related truck traffic);
- strain on water supplies (fracking requires large quantities of water);
- hazardous material spills (fracking fluids and fracking wastes);
- heavy truck traffic;
- and disruption of local economies.
Reports on fracking and its wastewater disposal have caused some distressing problems in other states:
A Duke University study in Dimock, PA found that some residents’ water wells exploded or their water could be lit on fire.
- The EPA scientifically linked fracking as the cause of water contamination in Pavillion, Wyoming.
The following videos contain additional information about fracking:
- For our library of information about hydraulic fracking, click here
- For information about other issues, click here
- For even more information, go to: | <urn:uuid:425cba29-2e3c-42be-b976-7e1fabc75cc6> | {
"date": "2013-05-22T00:35:00",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-20",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9111031889915466,
"score": 3.671875,
"token_count": 405,
"url": "http://www.catawbariverkeeper.org/issues/hydraulic-fracking/hydraulic-fracking"
} |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.