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Translated by Gloria Berkenstat Freund
The charitable activities of the Goniadzer in America began approximately 50 years ago. As Avraham Warshah of Detroit reports, in 1908 the Goniadzer in America collected the sum of 600 dollars and sent this to Goniadz in order to found a loan and savings fund. They sent the money to the rabbi and according to the Russian rate of exchange it amounted to 1,200 rubles. The rabbi and the business owners chose Pinkhas, the rabbi's son, as treasurer and director.
Many remember how Goniadzer Jews would go to borrow money without interest. The bankl [small bank], that is what we called it, existed until the First World War.
The old Goniadzer in America also cared for their landsleit [people from the same town] in Goniadz. Immediately after the First World War, when no bank or post office accepted any money for Poland, the Goniadzer and Trestiner Young Men's Society sent out a special delegate, Doctor Blum, to personally bring the money for the poor
[Meirim Rubin, see photo on page 237]
and for relatives. When normal times returned and the Polish currency stabilized, the first Goniadzer emigrants, Benyamin the soyfer [scribe] and his children, came here.
Benyamin went to the old Goniadzer who were members of the Goniadzer synagogue on Ridge Street in New York to ask that they tax themselves for the poor people in Goniadz for matzo for Passover. Meanwhile, they asked him to lay out his own hundred dollars. The hundred was not returned But the young Goniadzer who joined the Goniadzer and Trestiner Young Men's Society gave their 200 dollars so that it became a tradition with the young Goniadzer of the Young Men's Society on every eve of Passover to send three hundred dollars for Goniadz and three
First row from the right: Zeidl Fidronski, Mishkovski, (son-in-law of Chaim Kopelman), Yehezkiel Perets Tshedniak, Miltshon, Leizer Sodorovitsh.
Second row: Moshe Furman, Zelig Nievadovski, Volf Piekodski, Dr. Blum, Chaim Kopelman, Efriam Halperin, Jakov Rubin, Beilach, Avraham Gelbard, Ezrial Hauptman.
Third row: Treshtshanski, Josl Oltanicki, Leyzer Trachimovski, Jakov Yevreyski, Chana (?).
Fourth row: Yehoshaya Tsviklic, Eli-Hirsh Niyevodovski
hundred dollars for Trestina [Trzcianne]. The tradition continues today; they give this sum to the Goniadzer Aid Committee and also to the Trestiner Aid Committee every year.
In 1927 the Goniadzer Ladies Auxiliary in New York, with the help of the Goniadzer and Trestiner Society, decided to build a school with instruction in Hebrew and Yiddish on the synagogue hill and the building was completed over several years. They also supported the school, paying tuition monies to the teachers, clothing and lunches without cost for the poor children.
The school existed until the Nazi destruction.
A group of 15 young people was arrested in Goniadz in 1938 because they had the courage to hit back the Gentiles who incited and beat the Goniadzer Jews.
The Polish police did not arrest the Gentiles and arrested the Jews and sent them to the Bialystok jail. The arrestees' parents turned to us in New York; we should collect money for a good lawyer (advocate), in order to free their children.
The Goniadzer and Trestiner Society contributed 25 dollars and a sum of 150 dollars was assembled and sent by telegraph.
Benyamin the scribe, may he rest in peace, excelled in the aid work, which was his own initiative. In addition to money he also collected used clothing and shoes, made packages and sent them to poor people and poor brides.
From 1920 to 1939 he alone sent 1,400 dollars and 150 packages of clothing.
On erev [eve of] Rosh Hashanah, Benyamin would go to the Goniadzer beis-olem (cemetery) to recite the El Male Rakhamim [God full of compassion prayer for the deceased]. He also would go to weddings to collect money and he would send this money to the Goniadzer poor.
Once, when we, all of his daughters and sons-in-law, were at a wedding and sat at one table, he stood up and went to collect donations from the Goniadzer landsleit.
His devoted wife also worked with him fully in making the packages.
I commented to him that it wasn't nice to ask for donations at a wedding. He answered: You need to understand, I collected 35 dollars. Seven poor families will have income for a week from the 35 dollars. Are they worth less than my honor?
In 1946 when the Goniadzers in New York learned about the Jewish destruction, the idea arose to create an aid committee on a great scale that would not only consist of the Goniadzers who belonged to the Young Men's Society, but also the Goniadzer Ladies Auxilary in New York and also all Goniadzers who did not belong to the Society, as well as those from all cities in America, New York, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Montreal and so on.
Benyamin the scribe gave us the addresses of many Goniadzers in America, Canada and South Africa.
At that time we did not know anything about who among the Goniadzers had survived.
Moshe Malazowski received the only message from his neighbor's son who was in the American army in Germany. He met a sick man in a camp who asked about Mosheke Malazowski from Goniadz. This was Zeydka (the son of Notka the farmer) Altshuler. Moshe immediately wrote a letter to him and immediately received an answer. He asked us to
find his relatives who were here in New York.
We learned from Benyamin the scribe that Notka the farmer came from Lomza. We found the address of Zeydka's relatives from the Lomza Society. We went to them immediately and told them the news that their relative had survived. But they received us very coldly; we realized that we could not rely on them and we immediately sent a food package to Germany.
Meanwhile, Zeydka found other Goniadzer who had survived and we immediately sent food packages to them.
The committee decided to hold a memorial evening in the Bialystoker Center in November 1946 that was announced in the newspapers. Two Goniadzer refugees (Hershl Beker married in Goniadz and the second one, a Sztucziner, a relative of the Szilewskis) unexpectedly came to the memorial evening.
When they described to us what had happened to our dear parents, relatives and friends, there was not one person who did not shed tears.
One thousand eight hundred dollars was donated at the memorial evening.
At that time we learned of another 10 Goniadzer refugees who were in German camps.
After the evening our committee was enlarged. Josef (Mendele's son) Bobrowski, may he rest in peace, our dear, beloved Goniadzer, of Norfolk, Connecticut, joined and became vice chairman. In a short time we had the addresses of 20 refugees.
We appreciate all of the devoted, noble work of Moshe Bachrach for writing letters of comfort to all of the Goniadzer refugees
and his sincere wife, Chaya, for preparing clothing and food packages. The writer of these lines helped them greatly in buying, packing and sending the packages from the first day after the founding of the committee. We would go through the stores with a child's wagon, buying food and clothing, make packages and send them by mail to Germany.
In 1947 Goniadzer refugees from Soviet Russia arrived. We also adopted Goniadzer grandchildren.
We once called a meeting at Louis Goldberg's office. Gedelia Seid, Josef Mendels , Moshe Bachrach and the writer of these lines came to the meeting.
Moshe declared that we had no money in the fund for packages, which we would send every three weeks for 300 dollars. Josef said to Gedelia: You write a check for 150 dollars and I will do the same thing. It should be mentioned that Josef and Gedelia had earlier donated 200 dollars at the memorial evening.
At that time we would assemble about 4,000 dollars a year from the Goniadzer landsleit. We would immediately distribute it among the refugees.
In time the Goniadzer Aid Committees were created in Detroit Avraham Warshah, chairman, Max Szwarc, may he rest in peace, secretary, Elihu Gradman, treasurer; Chicago Moshe Gelbord (Dokler), chairman, Golda Hoyrst-Rubin, secretary, Moshe Tikocki (son of Josl Szmeker), treaurer; Los Angeles Meir Farber, (Shlomo Moshe Shmeun's son), chairman, Mrs. Raye Salomon (Yenta Ruchl's daughter), secretary, Morris Forman (Moshe'ke Nekhema's son), treasurer; Montreal Max Bayer, chairman and treasurer, Mrs. Ruchl Bayer (Leyzer's wife) and Mrs. Finczun, treasurers.
Sitting, from the right: 1. Avraham Warshah (son of Yona'khe), chairman; 2. Mrs. Sadie Winer, chairwoman; 3. Hyman Winer (son of Chona Benyamin), member.
Standing: 1. Abe Szwarc (son of Avraham'l Alter), member; 2. Eli Grodman (son of Elya Khaske), treasurer
Standing (from right to left): 1. Leo Majnkes, vice chairman; 2. Morris Gelbord (Moshe'ke Dokler), chairman; 3. Morris Tokor, treasurer.
Sitting: 1. Nemy Monarkh, (daughter of Chaim Welwl, the dyer), member; 2. Perl Rapoport, recording secretary; 3. Golda Rubin-Hoyrst , secretary
When Moshe arrived in Los Angeles, the committee unanimously elected the writer of these lines as secretary.
During Moshe's departure in February 1949, the sum of 10,000 dollars was collected. Up to now we have collected the sum of 30,000 dollars.
In time all of our refugees left Germany. Several of them came to America, others to Australia. The majority of them settled in the Land of Israel.
The refugees who made aliyah [immigrated] to Israel still needed our support.
In the course of 10 years of the existence of our aid committee, we gave support at the time and in the place, first in Germany, Austria and now in Israel.
The aid committee in the Land of Israel is led by our friends Dovid Bachman, Fishel Yitzhaki, Chatskl Perets Czerniak and Sura Rajgradski-Brkai. Our support for the landsleit in Israel is always sent according to their recommendations.
When Mr. and Mrs. Gedelia Seid visited Israel in 1950, the Goniadzer in Israel arranged a meeting for them. A loan fund was founded then with
the purpose of helping our Goniadzer in Israel.
The fund exists with success until today.
At the same time each year we send certain sums of money from America especially for the loan fund. At the same time the Goniadzer in Israel asked that we in America create a yizkor [memorial] book in memory of our shtetl. Their plan for this book pleased us. Mr. and Mrs. Gedelia Seid and Josef Bobrowski promised their help and cooperation.
To our great sadness, Josef Bobrowski and Gedelia Seid were prematurely torn from us. I did not give up our plan to create the book and with the help of our chairwoman, Mrs. Sarah Seid, who provided me great effort as well as contributions over the course of four years, we succeeded in collecting the necessary sums for the yizkor book.
Our committee still has a great responsibility after the publication of our book. We will try every means to distribute it among all Goniadzer on the American continent, as well as among Jewish libraries, so that our dear home city will be immortalized in Jewish history.
1. This probably is referring to Josef, the son of Mendel, as in Josef (Mendele's son) above. Return
2. The name is given as Hoyrst-Rubin on a previous page. Return
JewishGen, Inc. makes no representations regarding the accuracy of
the translation. The reader may wish to refer to the original material
JewishGen is not responsible for inaccuracies or omissions in the original work and cannot rewrite or edit the text to correct inaccuracies and/or omissions.
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Goniadz, Poland Yizkor Book Project JewishGen Home Page
Copyright © 1999-2013 by JewishGen, Inc.
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GEL is a dynamically scoped language. We will explain what this means below. That is, normal variables and functions are dynamically scoped. The exception are parameter variables, which are always global.
Like most programming languages, GEL has different types
of variables. Normally when a variable is defined in a function,
it is visible from that function and from all functions that are
called (all higher contexts). For example, suppose a function
f defines a variable
and then calls function g. Then
function g can reference
a. But once f returns,
a goes out of scope.
For example, the following code will print out 5.
The function g cannot be called on the
top level (outside f as
will not be defined).
function f() = (a:=5; g()); function g() = print(a); f();
If you define a variable inside a function it will override any variables defined in calling functions. For example, we modify the above code and write:
function f() = (a:=5; g()); function g() = print(a); a:=10; f();
ato 5 inside f does not change the value of
aat the top (global) level, so if you now check the value of
ait will still be 10.
Function arguments are exactly like variables defined inside the function, except that they are initialized with the value that was passed to the function. Other than this point, they are treated just like all other variables defined inside the function.
Functions are treated exactly like variables. Hence you can locally redefine functions. Normally (on the top level) you cannot redefine protected variables and functions. But locally you can do this. Consider the following session:
genius> function f(x) = sin(x)^2 = (`(x)=(sin(x)^2)) genius> function f(x) = sin(x)^2 = (`(x)=(sin(x)^2)) genius> function g(x) = ((function sin(x)=x^10);f(x)) = (`(x)=((sin:=(`(x)=(x^10)));f(x))) genius> g(10) = 1e20
Functions and variables defined at the top level are
considered global. They are visible from anywhere. As we
said the following function f
will not change the value of
a to 5.
a=6; function f() = (a:=5); f();
ato the value 3 you could call:
The set function always sets the toplevel global. There is no way to set a local variable in some function from a subroutine. If this is required, must use passing by reference.
So to recap in a more technical language: Genius operates with different numbered contexts. The top level is the context 0 (zero). Whenever a function is entered, the context is raised, and when the function returns the context is lowered. A function or a variable is always visible from all higher numbered contexts. When a variable was defined in a lower numbered context, then setting this variable has the effect of creating a new local variable in the current context number and this variable will now be visible from all higher numbered contexts.
There are also true local variables, which are not seen from anywhere but the current context. Also when returning functions by value it may reference variables not visible from higher context and this may be a problem. See the sections True Local Variables and Returning Functions. | <urn:uuid:0a75caa1-d419-405f-a5a1-a844a1b452be> | {
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MCP Spelling Workout Homeschool Bundle Level A (Grade 1)
Spelling Workout Primary Levels have a high phonics base and the upper grades study word origins and vocabulary. Spelling practice is provided through riddles, puzzles, interactive activities and reviews, and reinforces what has been previously learned. This program uses a test-study method. Your child will first take a pre-test of words not introduced and then, under your direction, will self-correct the test, rewriting correctly any missed word. The spelling words will be studied as your child works throughout the practice exercises, and then a final test will be given. This bundle includes: Student Edition, Teacher's Edition, & Parent Guide. | <urn:uuid:e18a1760-f81c-4336-9927-bd09caac21f7> | {
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Resource Finder at Kennedy Krieger Institute
A free resource that provides access to information and support for individuals and families living with developmental disabilities.
Appetite for Life
Mealtimes can be a source of tension for many families with young children. From cajoling finicky eaters to eat their broccoli to battling restless youngsters who simply refuse to sit at the table and finish their dinner, parents can face an uphill battle when it comes to feeding their children balanced meals every day.
However, while as many as 50 percent of children experience some degree of feeding difficulties, between three and 10 percent develop severe feeding disorders conditions serious enough to threaten their ability to consume enough varied nutrients for healthy growth. In children with disabilities, from prematurity and chronic medical conditions to developmental disabilities like autism, cerebral palsy, and intellectual disabilities, the occurrence of severe feeding disorders is often higher than 50 percent. Over time, these disorders can have serious consequences, including failure to thrive, developmental delays, behavioral problems, and strained parent-child relationships. Because severe feeding disorders can lead to dependence on tube feedings, children might begin to feel socially isolated, and the whole family can feel the economic impact of the more expensive tube feeding supplies.
For children with these severe conditions, Kennedy Krieger Institute's Pediatric Feeding Disorders Unit (PFDU) can have a tremendous, positive affect on a child's health and development. Part of the Institute's Feeding Disorders Continuum, the PFDU focuses on children whose feeding-related impairments require 24-hour nursing, medical supervision, and/or fluid intake. Like its continuum partners, an intensive day program and an outpatient feeding clinic, the PFDU strives to help children increase weight, intake by mouth, and all types and textures of food consumed while decreasing tube or bottle dependence, inappropriate mealtime behavior, and mealtime vomiting. The program has existed for over 15 years and is one of the first in the nation to take an interdisciplinary approach to treatment, combining gastroenterology, behavioral psychology, nutrition, social work, occupational therapy, and speech-language pathology.
This approach is key, say program leaders, because most children's feeding disorders have more than one cause. "There's a good paradigm called the biopsychosocial model that illustrates the sources of most feeding disorders," says Anil Darbari, M.D., a gastroenterologist and medical director of Kennedy Krieger's feeding programs. "For most children, it's a combination of structural and/or anatomical abnormalities such as strictures in the trachea or esophagus that prevent food from passing through; medical conditions such as problems with gastrointestinal motility, celiac disease, or allergies; and environmental variables such as their parent's response to their food refusal.
Let's say a child has severe gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). They begin to connect the idea of eating with getting sick, so eventually they refuse."
The longer the child refuses, the longer he or she goes without developing chewing and swallowing skills, which only complicates the problem.
That's what happened with Lexi Spence. Diagnosed with a brain stem tumor at six months old, Lexi endured multiple surgeries to remove the tumor, one of which resulted in some vocal cord paralysis. That paralysis affected Lexi's ability to swallow, so surgeons also inserted a g-tube when she was nine months old. After the surgeries, she went through three-and-a-half years of chemotherapy.
"The chemotherapy made her so sick that we assumed it was better to keep the tube in, even if her paralysis had gotten better," her mother Dawn Spence, says. "That way, we knew she was getting nutrients. When her chemotherapy finally ended, she was five years old and didn't know how to eat, but that was the least of our worries she was never even supposed to make it past five. Any time she tried to swallow anything other than water, she'd throw up. It was time for her to learn to eat."
Referred to Kennedy Krieger by her pediatrician, the Spences traveled to Baltimore from their home in Michigan. Once doctors determined that Lexi's paralysis had improved, she was admitted to the PFDU.
"For the first few days, they watched me try to feed Lexi, but she'd just turn away and start talking, or worse, throw up," recounts Spence. "Her tongue didn't know what to do with the food. And it was tough on her she lacks experience eating, and she has a life history of illness. She doesn't want to get sick anymore. Her oral aversions were so severe, the team set a goal for her to consume just 50 percent of her foods by mouth by discharge. They never expected the results they got."
For the next seven weeks, Lexi's behavioral psychologists watched carefully as she responded to different foods. They learned which toys Lexi preferred and allowed her time to play with them if she took the number of bites they requested. Occupational therapists and speech-language pathologists helped Lexi develop the strength she needed in her mouth and jaws to chew and swallow.
"One of the more unique aspects of our program is how data driven we are," explains Charles Gulotta, Ph.D., a behavioral psychologist and director of the PFDU. "We know exactly what's going on and how the child is responding to each change. We'll make it easy for them at first, asking them to take a couple bites then offering reinforcement. The object is to get them to trust food again. We've got to break that history of eating being an aversive event.
This is especially true of kids with underlying medical conditions we approach children with autism a little differently, since most of them can eat pretty well, but have strong flavor, color, or texture preferences. The battle's half-fought already we just need to use reinforcement to encourage them to try new foods."
This approach has generated considerable success, with 70 percent of patients consuming at least 75 percent of their nutrients by mouth at discharge.
"Her team was so persistent," Spence admits. "I had a hard time being assertive with her, because she's been through so much. But they really connected with her and figured out what makes her tick. She craves attention and praise; so, eventually, this process became exciting for her, and she just did better and better."
Throughout Lexi's admission, Spence watched her daughter's therapists carefully, picking up the techniques they used. Two weeks prior to Lexi's discharge, her mother began engaging in role playing with the therapists and, later, feeding Lexi with the team observing to demonstrate that she'd be able to keep up Lexi's feedings at home. By the time she was discharged, Lexi was consuming 100 percent of her nutrients by mouth although the food she consumes is more similar in texture to baby food than the solids most six-year-olds enjoy.
"Lexi's gained a lot of weight she's now in the seventh percentile for height and twelth in weight for her age group she wasn't even on the chart before and she has so much more energy," says Spence. "But the best part is, she gets to experience taste now. She knows she likes chocolate better than vanilla. And I know so much more is in her future."
Of course, one of the keys to Lexi's progress was her physical recovery the paralysis that affected her swallowing had already improved by the time of her admission. For children still facing medical concerns, healthy eating can remain a challenge.
Willie Burson entered the feeding program at two-and-a-half in February 2005, shortly after doctors had inserted a g-tube. Born six weeks premature and eventually diagnosed with a number of conditions including hydrocephaly, damage to his central nervous system, low muscle tone, a swallowing disorder, and severe gastric reflux, Willie couldn't eat anything by mouth. After eight weeks in the program, he still had a lot of trouble with vomiting. When his parents tried to continue the feeding techniques at home, he began aspirating into his lungs and developing pneumonia. He even had trouble keeping tube feedings down.
"It was really a nightmare," says his mother, Caroline Morton Burson. "He ended up in the hospital six times that year. Then, in January 2006, he had a procedure called a Nissen fundoplication that basically involves wrapping part of his stomach around his esophagus so food can travel down, but can't come back up."
Willie is still 100% tube fed, but the surgery has allowed him to make great strides in other therapy areas. He comes to Kennedy Krieger several times a week for speech-language pathology and occupational therapy. "Right now, he just can't physically eat as much as he needs," Burson notes. "But the therapy is focused so intently on his oral motor skills and giving him the strength he'll need to chew. He used to be so far behind, but now that he's getting the proper nutrition, it's really given him a jump start.
"Two years ago, I was told that Willie might never walk or talk. Now, he's in a preschool, is making friends, and is in a developmental soccer program," adds Burson. "The difference is amazing." | <urn:uuid:0ee1daa6-de98-4383-8a1b-15622b564bb4> | {
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Most Active Stories
Shots - Health Blog
Thu February 2, 2012
Researchers Say Malaria Deaths Are Twice The Official Count
If the new numbers are right, it means there's little chance that malaria deaths can be cut to near-zero by 2015, just three years from now. That's the official goal set last year by the World Health Organization.
"We estimate that if decreases from the peak year of 2004 continue, malaria mortality will decrease to less than 100,000 deaths only after 2020," write Christopher Murray and his colleagues in this week's edition of The Lancet.
The group does ratify what a Lancet editorial calls the "phenomenally successful" campaign that has reduced malaria deaths in Africa by 30 percent since the 2004 peak.
"It's rare in global health that we see such a clear quantitative story," Murray told Shots. "You can see the money flowing in, you can see the expansion of interventions, and you can see the outcome."
He says the success has been driven by the distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets (145 million in 2010 alone) and effective combination drug therapy (181 million courses in 2010).
Murray, whose specialty is triangulating disease and death incidence from maddeningly sparse and incomplete data, says there's more uncertainty about malaria deaths than from any other cause.
After all, death certificates and cause-of-death data are nonexistent in many of the 99 countries where malaria is still a problem.
One of the principal ways the researchers get around this is to use "verbal autopsies." The technique involves extensive interviewing of families and neighbors of deceased people to put together a picture of their symptoms and infer the cause of death.
"With a lot of effort, we ended up with 163 verbal autopsy studies that met our quality criteria," Murray said.
With those studies, other kinds of fill-in-the-gap indicators and a lot of fancy extrapolation, the team has come up with what it calls "the most systematic assessment to date of malaria mortality."
Their most important finding is that in 2010 there were 433,000 more malaria deaths worldwide among people over age 5 than the WHO estimates.
This challenges a widespread belief about malaria deaths – that they mainly involve young children. The WHO says 86 percent of such deaths are children under 5, and 91 percent occur in Africa.
But Murray says his group's finding runs counter to the traditional wisdom "at least as I learned it in medical school, that you acquire immunity as a child and don't die of it as an adult." In other words, children who don't die of it grow up to be resistant to the malaria parasite, more or less. They may get sick from it, but they're not very likely to die, as conventional wisdom has it.
That's the reason one tenet of anti-malaria strategy is to focus prevention efforts, such as distribution of bednets, on young children and mothers.
Murray acknowledges that young children are much more likely to die of malaria – perhaps 10 times more likely – but "there are a lot of people over age five, so even a lower risk adds up to a lot of deaths."
The new estimates are likely to prove controversial, just as previous work was questioned when it suggested a much higher malaria death rate in India, using such techniques as verbal autopsies. (The Murray group also says India contributes far more malaria deaths to the global total than the WHO estimates.)
"I would be very cautious" about the new estimates, Sarah Kline, director of the UK branch of the advocacy group Malaria No More told Shots. "It is a dramatic increase from what the WHO says, and it contributes to the overall discussion, but it's unclear if it will lead to significant policy change. The tools to combat malaria are the same."
The problem is, will the funds keep flowing to use those tools? The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, which has lately accounted for two-thirds of the world's anti-malaria spending, is in fragile condition. It suspended its next round of grants last fall, and everyone is wondering when and if the fight to end malaria will get back on track. | <urn:uuid:98308d7c-5ab3-47fe-b7b9-425785ed89ae> | {
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Did you know that many gadgets in your home suck up energy – and your hard-earned dollars – even when they are turned off? De-fang these "energy vampires" and you'll lower your monthly energy bills.
What is a "vampire appliance" and how is it sucking up money?
Many electronic devices use what is called "standby power" when they're turned off--as long as they are plugged in. That way, you don't have to wait the few seconds it takes for the device to "power up" when you turn it on. But that "Instant-On" convenience wastes a ton of energy and dollars.
First clue that an appliance is an energy vampire--if it has a glowing LED light or lit clock, it's using energy even when it's turned off:
- DVD players
- Video game consoles
- Microwave ovens
- Computers (laptops especially)
- Music systems
- Rechargeable appliances such as hand-held vacuums and tools
Other unplugable energy wasters: phone and battery chargers. Do you leave the charger plugged into the wall even when your phone is not attached? That vacant charger is costing you money. Read: "Top 5 Energy-Sucking Vampire Appliances".
Also, check out this standby energy chart to see which devices use the most energy when not in use.
Just how much these "energy vampires" are costing you?
Federal regulations have cut back on the amount of electricity “vampire appliances” can consume, but they still account for as much as 5 – 10% of the electricity used in the average home. In other words, $0.05 to $0.10 out of every dollar spent on electricity could be eliminated, according to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
One TV can waste about $150 a year in standby energy (depending on the type and age of the TV); many video game consoles another $25 a year. Multiply those TVs, DVD players and other appliances and the dollars really add up!
What's the easiest way to eliminate these unnecessary energy costs?
The cheapest option is to just unplug the suckers. When you turn off your TV, video game player or other electronic device or appliance, unplug it from the electric outlet. That keeps the device from continuing to draw power. Simplify unplugging appliances by bundling them on a power strip. This is a smart practice anyway, because the power strip protects sensitive electronics from power surges and outages. And with the touch of a button all of the devices on the power strip will be disconnected from the power supply.
Best of all, look into purchasing "smart power strips". These reduce your power usage by automatically shutting down power to products that go into standby mode. There are even some smart power strips that included infrared motion detectors that turn off appliances when nobody is in the room. These will cost around $80 per power strip, but will pay off with the energy you save.
Finally, when purchasing new appliances and electronics, be sure they are ENERGY STAR®- qualified products.
For more money-saving tips and info on discounts and incentives on energy-saving products and services, visit PSOklahoma.com/save
This post is sponsored by PSO. | <urn:uuid:8a1db8c1-b79a-40ec-b0e3-8422345c6fc9> | {
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Healthy pregnancy diet
During pregnancy, the extra demands on your body can deplete your stores of important vitamins and minerals - making healthy eating habits even more important for you and your developing baby.
Want to ensure your baby's nutritional needs are being met while also maintaining your own sensible eating plan? Avoid fast food and sweet, sugary treats, instead filling your shopping basket with a wide variety of nutritious foods.
These should include the five food groups:
- Bread, cereals, rice, pasta and noodles (preferably wholegrain or wholemeal)
- Vegetables and legumes
- Fruit and vegetables
- Milk, yoghurt and hard cheese (preferably low-fat)
- Meat, poultry, some fish (link to foods to avoid), cooked eggs and nuts
Even if your pre-pregnancy eating habits were not as healthy as could have been it is not too late to make changes to your diet. Take inspiration from remembering that what goes into your mouth affects your baby's health and growth. By making small changes to your everyday diet during your first trimester will make it easier to incorporate ongoing changes throughout your pregnancy.
Healthy pregnancy eating tips
Have a piece of fresh fruit for a mid-morning or afternoon snack, instead of reaching for chocolate or biscuits.
By carrying a small bottle of water when you are out ensures you are well hydrated, and not tempted by sugary soft drinks.
Each week, prepare a couple of meals using beans, lentils and pulses. Incorporating these low-glycemic index foods into your balanced diet will help blood sugar level control. As an alternative to meat, chicken, fish and eggs, these plant-based foods are rich in important carbohydrates and also protein - much needed to build healthy new muscle tissue and body cells. Search our food section for healthy recipes and meal ideas.
Experimenting with different grains, such as barley, couscous or brown rice, will add healthy variety to your favourite recipes.
Preparing raw vegetables sticks (cucumber, carrot and celery) and storing in containers in the fridge will ensure you always have healthy, fresh food at your fingertips for a smart snack alternative.
Choose low-fat dairy products
Remember:Some foods can put your unborn baby at risk. For more information, see Foods to avoid.
This article was written by Claire Halliday for Kidspot New Zealand. Sources include Royal Women's Hospital, Melbourne and Commonwealth Government Department of Health and Ageing (The Australian Guide to Healthy Eating).
- 1. Cord Blood Banking
- 2. Assisted deliveries: Getting help when you need it
- 3. Important pregnancy decisions: Choosing the right birth partner
- 4. How to choose the perfect maternity bra for you
- 5. Choosing the best place to give birth
- 6. The truth about pregnancy skin
- 7. Exercise reduces C sections
- 8. What your partner needs to know about pregnancy
- 9. 10 ways to keep him interested in your pregnancy
- 10. Bonding with your bump: Ways to communicate with your baby | <urn:uuid:7997fcd3-5a32-4eab-b5c9-61afd2b820e3> | {
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 6th, 2012 at 2:11 pm and is filed under art projects, creativity, family, Kid's Activities. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Using apples to make an apple print is a standard art project. Did you know you could get a butterfly design from an apple?
Cut an apple in half, from the top stem to the bottom. This creates the butterfly shape. Pour some paint on a paper plate. Dip the cut side of the apple into the paint and then press on paper. As soon as the paint dries, use markers to add antenna, eyes and a few spots. Different color paints produce multi-colored butterflies.
Adapt this project by using fabric paint and creating butterflies on T-shirts.
Project by Sondra and Silvana Clark | <urn:uuid:66af0034-1c6a-42d2-86ae-2ce91b2c665a> | {
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The advent of industrialization, known as the Second Wave, has brought economic well-being and general renovation to many fields in our life. This was one of the most influential revolutions of all time, spreading across the world, but it also brought about problems.
Pollution occurred as a result of rapid development and a rise in population, leading the ecosystem including humans to suffer.
Contamination of the environment has destroyed the ecological balance and environmental problems are now a globally shared concern. Many experts do not anticipate the Earth to take this much longer.
The cause for this devastation lies in the general concept of industrialization and developments, which is “environmental possibilism.”
Environmental possibilism, a theory asserting that humans have the ultimate power to take advantage of their environment, has been the dominant conception across the world for a few centuries, especially in the field of business and science. To people, nature was a gift from God to humanity, which could be developed in any way for the sake of the well-being of the people.
Only recently have we been starting to realize that nature should coexist with humanity, instead of being a mere tool to boost the economy and make some people better off.
Serious pollution and its devastating results have caught the attention of people, and calls for corporations to take responsibility have risen. Awakening alarms from nature have made people keen on new policies from corporations.
Fortunately, positive steps are being taken. Efforts to prevent further environmental contamination by the industrial world are underway. The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) has made it clear that it will enhance eco-friendly businesses. As a result, an environmental management system has become a trend among many corporations in the world.
Last year, in my school's environmental science club, ECHO, we debated over whether this environmental management system will actually last and bring about a better outcome regarding the environment surrounding us. After a year, we finally came up with a report based on the research on these eco-friendly corporations and their sustainability.
Surprisingly, there were already myriads of enterprises adapting this system, and their policies seemed quite plausible and hopeful.
For example, Philips has made continuous efforts and has taken action for a healthy environment.
It has set up an eco-marketing program called “eco-vision” to prevent a further worsening of the environment and fully monitors the life span of its products and the production process to discover improvements regarding sustainability and annually reports on its work. However, some limitations and flaws in environmental management also captured our attention.
It is undeniable that is an ongoing controversy on whether some corporations are pursuing eco-friendly enterprises as a means of mere image making.
By broadcasting advertisements full of kindhearted keywords such as “responsibilities” and “volunteering,” consumers may be deceived by some corporations that are not as wholly into energy saving as they appear to be.
Also, concerns over corruption and graft are high. As it is much more challenging to keep the balance between profit and eco-friendly strategies, many environmentally-friendly companies fail to satisfy the thresholds of the environmental management system, and inevitably choose to violate the regulations.
Numerous companies have recently violated regulations by dumping noxious pollutants indiscriminately.
Looking over some cases, it draws us to the conclusion that environmental friendly corporations and environmental management systems are still at an early stage and need more preparations to make this idea realistic.
However, it is essential for people to realize how meaningful this work is, as humans and nature can no longer continue in a master-servant relationship. Threatening nature means threatening the lives of all species on the planet, including humans. For our future generations, we need to find a compromise from an ecological view.
Kim Sung-bin is a third-year student at Busan International High School. Contact her at [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:c0716f66-ec31-4c36-94f9-41b39ac85649> | {
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Hundreds of fish have died in the Olifants River about 15 km from Olifants Camp in the Kruger National Park (KNP). According to Dr Thomas Gyedu-Ababio, KNP’s aquatic biodiversity conservation manager, the fish are believed to have died from oxygen starvation. Excluding the dead fish eaten by feasting birds, Gyedu-Ababio found at least 500 fish lying dead on the banks of one particular pool in what remains of the Olifants River.
The fish were mostly catfish, yellowfish and tilapia. He was alerted to the problem by field ranger Claire Ntshane and visited the site on Wednesday August 24, 2005. Once the Olifants River was one of the largest continuously flowing rivers in South Africa. At this time of year, it is now reduced to a series of pools in Kruger, kept alive by water released from the Phalaborwa Barrage.
At the time of going to press, Balule Camp had no water as the Olifants’ flow was so diminished. Hippos are forced to congregate in the remaining pools of water. In the pool where the fish died, Gyedu-Ababio found almost 100 hippos in less than 500 metres. In a total reversal of their normal behaviour, Gyedu-Ababio says, “The hippos ran out of the water when they saw people,” as there was not enough water in the pool to cover them.
The hippo have been living and defecating in the pools, producing an excessive quantity of dung that is now decomposing. The decomposition removes oxygen from the water, causing the fish to suffocate and die. Fish jumping out of the water in other pools indicate oxygen shortages in these pools as well. Samples have been taken to the laboratory to confirm the probable cause of the fish deaths.
The Phalaborwa Barrage is required to release water for the ecological needs of the Olifants River, but it is also required to provide water for people’s basic needs. According to Gyedu-Ababio, flow out of the barrage for several days prior to the fish deaths was so low that the gauging weir in the Park could not accurately measure it.
The barrage has very limited water storage, as almost 90 percent of the dam is occupied by silt. It is estimated that there is only enough water in the barrage when it is full for two to three days’ water supply. In the dry season, the barrage relies on water releases from the Blyde Dam to boost the flow of the Olifants River.
From August 18 to 24, the Blyde Dam continuously released water for the barrage on request from Lepelle Northern Water, increasing the flow by a factor of six from the 22nd to the 24th. The water is estimated to take three days to reach the barrage, and so should have reached the barrage a few days prior to the fish deaths.
At this point, measurements of water flow at the gauging weir in the Kruger Park show that the flow into the park is what is would be during drought conditions. The park has had to request a higher flow from the barrage as the Olifants River is not reaching Balule Camp, and there is no water in the camp at the time of going to press. | <urn:uuid:67b67ecb-df2d-46cb-babe-fa204fe3a84b> | {
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Most Active Stories
KRWG.ORG-The Region's Home Page
Mon December 10, 2007
Nationwide ACLU Racial Discrimination Report Highlights New Mexico
By Evan Woodward
Las Cruces, NM – December 10th is celebrated worldwide as International Human Rights Day, and Monday, in observance of the holiday, the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU released a detailed report on racism in America. The state of New Mexico is used as a negative example numerous times in the publication. A press conference was held in Las Cruces at the ACLU of New Mexico's Southern Regional Office to explain the findings. As KRWG's Evan Woodward reports, the ACLU claims the government is failing to protect the residents of New Mexico from racially discriminatory policies. | <urn:uuid:f02ad326-710b-4ac6-8191-c31b9f6266e4> | {
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Keratosis pilaris is a common genetic skin condition which appears as rough, bumpy, sometimes red skin most often found on upper arms, thighs, and cheeks. These bumps are due to a buildup of keratin, a hard protective protein found in skin, hair, and nails. This built up keratin forms a plug which blocks the opening of hair follicles. When these plugs, or bumps, become irritated it causes redness.
Keratosis pilaris usually presents in childhood, often at its worst during puberty, but can continue into adulthood. The condition usually improves in warmer weather, while dry weather seems to exacerbate symptoms.
There is no known cure for Keratosis pilaris, though steps can be taken to keep minimize bumps and redness. | <urn:uuid:aa21b69c-110f-43c1-b53b-cc50cf5e46ea> | {
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Scientific studies by Switzerland’s of Pharmacology and Toxicology conducted in 2001 prove chemical sunscreens have detrimental consequences. Chemical compounds in sunscreens can accumulate in body fats and in mother’s breast milk. These chemicals mimic estrogen and can cause hormonal changes within the body such as increasing the size of the uterus.
Additionally, synthetic sunscreens are not immediately effective, requiring a 20-30 minute delay after application before it becomes effective.
A 100% natural mineral sunblock: Titanium Dioxide in cream form is a preferred delivery method. . This is absolutely safe, even for children, and protects immediately against UV A, B & C rays. It does not alter the healthy functioning of internal organs and reproductive hormones.
Synthetic sunscreen chemicals to avoid:
- 4-Methyl-Benzylidencamphor (4-MBC)
- Oxybenzone Benzophenone-3
- Octyl-methoyl-cinnamates (OMC)
- Octyl-Dimethyl-Para-Amino-Benzoic Acid (OD-PABA) | <urn:uuid:1e5ae9f0-f88d-440f-8482-55d94551c257> | {
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REDUCED FOOD & FLUID INTAKE:
Loss of appetite and decrease in thirst are common. The body is beginning to shut down and does not need nourishment. People commonly feel it is necessary to encourage the person to eat in the hope of sustaining life; however, food and fluid may cause discomfort. The person may ask for ice chips, popsicles, ice cream or some other food choice. Do not be surprised if only a mouthful or two is taken. When swallowing is no longer possible, mouth care provides moisture and comfort. Do not offer a fluid if swallowing is not possible.
Output of urine and stool will decrease as the food and fluid intake decreases. Urine and stool may also change colour, be passed less frequently and in smaller amounts. Other factors such as immobility and medication may contribute to this.
Your loved one may lose control of bladder or bowel function as the muscles begin to relax. In this instance it may be necessary to use an incontinence brief.
Ask the health care professional about the management of these symptoms. It is important to provide skin care and cleansing on a routine basis.
Sleeping an increased amount of time is common. It may become more difficult to waken the person. As death nears, the person may slip into a coma and become unresponsive.
RESTLESSNESS AND DISORIENTATION:
Confusion as to time, place and recognition of people, even family members and close friends is common.
At times your loved one may become restless. For example, he/she may reach out to unseen objects, pull at bedclothes or try to get out of bed. This can occur for many reasons such as lack of oxygen circulation to the brain or changes in condition or medications. It would be helpful to discuss these changes with a health care professional.
CHANGES IN BREATHING:
Regular breathing patterns may change. Breathing may stop for 10 to 30 second periods or there may be periods of rapid, shallow panting. These breathing patterns are normal and indicate the natural progression towards death.
A moaning sound occurs as the breath passes over the relaxed vocal cords.
Gurgling sounds, often loud, occur when a person is unable to cough up normal secretions. This does not normally cause pain or discomfort. It may be helpful to turn the person to one side and gently wipe away secretions with a moist cloth. As secretions build up, keeping the head of the bed elevated (by using pillows) will make breathing easier. Sometimes medications can be ordered to help dry up secretions.
Oral suctioning may be done, however, this usually causes an increase in secretion production.
You may notice the skin begin to change colour and become cooler to touch.
The face may be pale and the feet and legs a purple-blue mottled colour. The circulation of the blood is slowing down.
Although your loved one is cool to touch, he/she is usually comfortable. Offer a warm blanket but avoid using an electric blanket to prevent the risk of skin burns. | <urn:uuid:404310f5-840d-4e6a-a67f-667326e806c0> | {
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I recently saw the movie "Amazing Grace," about the end of the slave trade in England. How does libertarianism respond to the American Civil War and the Civil rights movement? In both of them, government action was used to enhance freedom.
Government action made slavery possible, and kept it possible -- and the government only backtracked when the citizenry objected.
For example, prior to the Civil War, slavery was legal and enforced by governments of both North and South. Slaves who escaped to the North were returned -- by law -- to their Southern "owners." It was against the law in the North to help slaves escape. To fight slavery it was necessary for freedom lovers to fight the law.
Members of the Underground Railroad, who tried to get the escaped slaves to Canada where they couldn't be extradited, were routinely hauled into court. Courageous individuals serving on the juries refused to convict. (Juries have the constitutionally-granted power to "nullify" laws that they believe to be unjust; to learn more, see the Fully Informed Jury Association)
Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was not issued until the Civil War had been underway for years, and it only "emancipated" slaves in states that had joined the Confederacy. Towards the end of the Civil War, indignant abolitionists, supported by President Lincoln, lobbied for an amendment to the Constitution to free the blacks still enslaved in Northern states.
Although Southern states didn't vote on this amendment, it still did not pass easily.
Similarly, government power enforced, and often mandated, compulsory racial segregation in the South in the first half of the twentieth century. For example, economist Thomas Sowell points out that racially segregated seating on public transportation, far from being a traditional Southern policy, only began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries -- and it was government that created the problem.
Writes Dr. Sowell:
"Many, if not most, municipal transit systems were privately owned in the 19th century and the private owners of these systems had no incentive to segregate the races.
"These owners may have been racists themselves but they were in business to make a profit -- and you don't make a profit by alienating a lot of your customers. There was not enough market demand for Jim Crow seating on municipal transit to bring it about.
"... Private owners of streetcar, bus, and railroad companies in the South lobbied against the Jim Crow laws while these laws were being written, challenged them in the courts after the laws were passed, and then dragged their feet in enforcing those laws after they were upheld by the courts.
"These tactics delayed the enforcement of Jim Crow seating laws for years in some places. Then company employees began to be arrested for not enforcing such laws and at least one president of a streetcar company was threatened with jail if he didn't comply.
(Dr. Sowell discusses this in greater detail in his book Preferential Policies, An International Perspective, 1990, pp.20-21.]
This is not to say that these transportation company owners were not racists, or were champions of black freedom. They simply wanted to make money. And free markets make racial discrimination extraordinarily, even prohibitively, expensive.
Because of such government-mandated discrimination, the modern Civil Rights movement was pioneered by individuals such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, who practiced peaceful civil disobedience. Without the courageous sacrifices of such people, it's unlikely that Congress would have been inspired (shamed?) into action.
Dr. Ruwart's outstanding books Healing Our World and Short Answers to the Tough Questions are available at the Advocates Liberty Store. | <urn:uuid:bf597805-6f60-41ba-a409-3bdb3284d06d> | {
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I am trying to solve this question :
Exercise: The N'th triangular number is defined to be 1 + 2 + 3 + ... + N. Alternatively, we could give a recursive definition of triangular number as follows:
T(n) = 1 if n = 1
T(n) = n + T(n-1) if n > 1
Use the recursive definition to help you implement a linearly recursive function (triangular N) that returns the N'th triangular number. Enter your function definition into a text file. Then load it into LISP. Evaluate (triangular 6).
Below is my code :
(defun triangle (N)
"Compute the Triangular Number of N."
(if (= N 1)
(+ N (triangular (- N 1)))))
When I loaded it into the Debug Window using (load "CallTriangle") , it says Loading C:\acl82express\CallTriangle.cl. How do I evaluate (triangular 6) ? | <urn:uuid:52a1c1fb-1d3d-44b1-871d-bb9544eee6a8> | {
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New Research Could Lead to Better Depression Medication
Depressive disorders change a person’s mood, emotions and physical well-being and can co-occur with anxiety disorders and substance abuse. A study in January found half of Americans with severe depression don't get treatment.
“There are big drawbacks in the current therapies for depression,” says senior author John Traynor, professor of pharmacology at the University of Michigan Medical School. “Therapeutic benefits are delayed, there are unwanted side effects, and it’s not unusual for depressive symptoms to return.”
The high relapse rate indicates a need for additional treatment options for the estimated 20.9 million Americans with depression, Traynor and colleages write this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The best current treatments for depression are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs. These drugs work by flooding the brain’s synapses with serotonin, a neurotransmitter linked with mood, and increasing serotonin signaling through the more than 20 serotonin receptors in the brain.
However, the team of researchers showed one particular pathway, the serotonin 5HT1a receptor is linked with antidepressive and antianxiety behavior in mice.
“Rather than activating all serotonin receptors as SSRIs do, one could increase signaling through the one critical serotonin receptor that our research shows is important for antidepressant behavior,” says co-author Richard R. Neubig, M.D., Ph.D., co-director of the U-M Center for Chemical Genomics and professor of pharmacology at the U-M Medical School.
The new research details the complex actions of a family of proteins, known as RGS proteins, that act as brakes on neurotransmitter signaling.
Researchers created a mutant mouse to boost serotonin signaling at the 5HT1a receptor. This was done by genetically inhibiting the activity of braking proteins. Without the normal brake on serotonin signaling, these mutant mice showed antidepressive behavior even without being given antidepressant drugs. The mice were also more responsive to SSRIs.
Further research could lead to drugs capable of inhibiting the RGS proteins and which would target the antidepressant signal where it is required on critical 5HT1a receptors, the researcher said.
The study was funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences and the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
- Depression Rx: Get Married
- The Science (and Art) of Depression Medication
- Why Did Evolution Produce Depression?
MORE FROM LiveScience.com | <urn:uuid:83d6982c-eba2-402e-9c30-f2667b4b82d8> | {
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Living SustainablyIssue 3 - Oct 2006
Who Cares about the environment in 2006? is a survey of NSW people's environmental knowledge, attitudes and behaviours.
The survey tracks changes and identify trends with respect to what NSW people think about environmental issues, the effects of government policies and programs and the ongoing impact of education, training, business, community activities, education campaigns and media reporting.
The survey forms part of the DEC Social Research Series and is conducted every three years since 1994.
Survey findings will be available online from November in the Education Resources > Scientific & Social Research section at environment.nsw.gov.au.
> More information
Contact Lynne McLoughlin in Community Education on (02) 8837 6045. | <urn:uuid:47a1d159-deca-4465-a439-41b02b4daa01> | {
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Created by Ericsson, provider of telecommunications equipment, in 1994, Bluetooth has become the industry standard for short-range wireless connectivity. Today, Bluetooth technology can be found in a vast array of devices including computers, mobile phones, tablets, music players, game consoles and even medical sensors and home appliances.
Over time, the Bluetooth standard has evolved in order to provide faster data transfer, simpler pairing, enhanced encryption, reduced costs and greater battery life.
Many desktop and laptop computers (including all Apple® Mac® computers) come with Bluetooth capabilities out of the box, in which case no external receiver is needed. PCs that don’t have embedded Bluetooth can use a simple USB adapter to enable it to communicate with Bluetooth devices like keyboards and mice. Either way, Bluetooth technology provides a fast, reliable connection from up to 30 feet away. | <urn:uuid:2a4582e1-1b89-43a0-ac85-0dc736bdc927> | {
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Obtaining Informed Consent from human subjects is a necessary and important part of research that reflects the principle of respect for persons. Informed consent assures that prospective human subjects will understand the nature of the research and can knowledgeably and voluntarily decide whether or not to participate.
The Informed Consent process should be tailored to each individual project; what is appropriate and approved for one project may not be appropriate or approved for another. When developing Informed Consent procedures and forms Investigators should keep in mind the prospective participant population, the risk involved in the research, the sensitivity of the research, and the research procedures.
The IRB has developed the guidance documents below to help Investigators develop appropriate Informed Consent procedures and forms.
- General Information about Informed Consent
- Information regarding Waiving Informed Consent or Required Elements of Informed Consent
- Methods for Obtaining Documentation of Informed Consent
- Information regarding Waiving Documentation of Informed Consent
- Information regarding Informed Consent with Minors or individuals who are Mentally Impaired
- Consent Form Template
- Policy for Translated Informed Consent Forms (for Non-English Consent Forms)
Things to Keep in Mind when Developing Informed Consent Procedures for your Project:
Regarding the Prospective Participant Population:
Will prospective participants be old enough to provide legal consent?
If participants will not be old enough to provide legal consent, Investigators generally needs to obtain consent from a parent/guardian as well as assent from the minor. For more information, please review the IRB's Guidance on Informed Consent for Research with Minors.
In some cases, the IRB may approve requests to Waive Informed Consent of parents for research with minors. In order to Waive the Informed Consent of parents, Investigators would need to show that their research qualifies for a Waiver. The criteria to apply for a waiver are on the Request for a Waiver of Informed Consent or Elements of Informed Consent form.
Will prospective participants be literate?
Will prospective participants be able to speak and read English? Will they be able to speak and read another language?
What reading comprehension level do you expect prospective participants will have?
If you are conducting research with another cultural group, is it culturally appropriate to ask participants to read and sign informed consent forms?
Information that should be included in the IRB application regarding Informed Consent procedures
- When will participants be given the Informed Consent information?
- How will participants receive Informed Consent information?
- Will the Investigator be reviewing the consent information with participants, or will participants review it on their own?
- Who from the research team will administer the Informed Consent process (e.g. the Principal Investigator, a research assistant)?
- Will the consent process be administered separately to each individual or in a group with other participants?
- How much time will prospective participants have to review the information before they are asked to decide if they will participate in the research?
- How will participants indicate they consent to participate?
- If prospective participants will be signing Informed Consent Forms, how will they return the forms to the Investigator? | <urn:uuid:89266c1a-fba3-4147-bedf-a49dd98ebae0> | {
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There are a couple of different ways to execute commands or run programs on a remote machine and have the output, be it text or graphics, sent to your workstation. The connections can be secure or insecure. While it is of course advised to use secure connections instead of transporting your password over the network unencrypted, we will discuss some practical applications of the older (unsafe) mechanisms, as they are still useful in a modern networked environment, such as for troubleshooting or running exotic programs.
The rlogin and rsh commands for remote login and remote execution of commands are inherited from UNIX. While seldom used because they are blatantly insecure, they still come with almost every Linux distribution for backward compatibility with UNIX programs.
Telnet, on the other hand, is still commonly used, often by system and network administrators. Telnet is one of the most powerful tools for remote access to files and remote administration, allowing connections from anywhere on the Internet. Combined with an X server, remote graphical applications can be displayed locally. There is no difference between working on the local machine and using the remote machine.
Because the entire connection is unencrypted, allowing telnet connections involves taking high security risks. For normal remote execution of programs, Secure SHell or ssh is advised. We will discuss the secure method later in this section.
However, telnet is still used in many cases. Below are some examples in which a mail server and a web server are tested for replies:
Checking that a mail server works:
[jimmy@blob ~] telnet mailserver 25 Trying 192.168.42.1... Connected to mailserver. Escape character is '^]'. 220 m1.some.net ESMTP Sendmail 8.11.6/8.11.6; 200302281626 ehlo some.net 250-m1.some.net Hello blob.some.net [10.0.0.1], pleased to meet you 250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES 250-8BITMIME 250-SIZE 250-DSN 250-ONEX 250-ETRN 250-XUSR 250 HELP mail from: [email protected] 250 2.1.0 [email protected]... Sender ok rcpt to: [email protected] 250 2.1.5 [email protected]... Recipient ok data 354 Enter mail, end with "." on a line by itself test . 250 2.0.0 g2MA1R619237 Message accepted for delivery quit 221 2.0.0 m1.some.net closing connection Connection closed by foreign host.
Checking that a web server answers to basic requests:
[jimmy@blob ~] telnet www.some.net 80 Trying 188.8.131.52... Connected to www.some.net. Escape character is '^]'. HEAD / ;HTTP/1.1 HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 10:05:14 GMT Server: Apache/1.3.22 (UNIX) (Red-Hat/Linux) mod_ssl/2.8.5 OpenSSL/0.9.6 DAV/1.0.2 PHP/4.0.6 mod_perl/1.24_01 Last-Modified: Fri, 04 Jan 2002 08:21:00 GMT ETag: "70061-68-3c3565ec" Accept-Ranges: bytes Content-Length: 104 Connection: close Content-Type: text/html Connection closed by foreign host. [jimmy@blob ~]
This is perfectly safe, because you never have to give a username and/or password for getting the data you want, so nobody can snoop that important information off the cable.
As we already explained in Chapter 7 (see Section 7.3.3), the X Window system comes with an X server which serves graphics to clients that need a display.
It is important to realize the distinction between the X server and the X client application(s). The X server controls the display directly and is responsible for all input and output via keyboard, mouse and display. The X client, on the other hand, does not access the input and output devices directly. It communicates with the X server which handles input and output. It is the X client which does the real work, like computing values, running applications and so forth. The X server only opens windows to handle input and output for the specified client.
In normal operation (graphical mode), every Linux workstation is an X server to itself, even if it only runs client applications. All the applications you are running (for example, Gimp, a terminal window, your browser, your office application, your CD playing tool, and so on) are clients to your X server. Server and client are running on the same machine in this case.
This client/server nature of the X system makes it an ideal environment for remote execution of applications and programs. Because the process is actually being executed on the remote machine, very little CPU power is needed on the local host. Such machines, purely acting as servers for X, are called X terminals and were once very popular. More information may be found in the Remote X applications mini-HOWTO.
If you would want to use telnet to display graphical applications running on a remote machine, you first need to give the remote machine access to your display (to your X server!) using the xhost command, by typing a command similar to the one below in a terminal window on your local machine:
davy:~> xhost +remote.machine.com
After that, connect to the remote host and tell it to display graphics on the local machine by setting the environment variable DISPLAY:
[davy@remote ~] export DISPLAY="local.host.com:0.0"
After completing this step, any application started in this terminal window will be displayed on your local desktop, using remote resources for computing, but your local graphical resources (your X server) for displaying the application.
This procedure assumes that you have some sort of X server (XFree86, X.org, Exceed, Cygwin) already set up on the machine where you want to display images. The architecture and operating system of the client machine are not important as long as they allow you to run an X server on it.
Mind that displaying a terminal window from the remote machine is also considered to be a display of an image.
Most UNIX and Linux systems now run Secure SHell in order to leave out the security risks that came with telnet. Most Linux systems will run a version of OpenSSH, an Open Source implementation of the SSH protocol, providing secure encrypted communications between untrusted hosts over an untrusted network. In the standard setup X connections are automatically forwarded, but arbitrary TCP/IP ports may also be forwarded using a secure channel.
The ssh client connects and logs into the specified host name. The user must provide his identity to the remote machine as specified in the sshd_config file, which can usually be found in /etc/ssh. The configuration file is rather self-explanatory and by defaults enables most common features. Should you need help, you can find it in the sshd man pages.
When the user's identity has been accepted by the server, the server either executes the given command, or logs into the machine and gives the user a normal shell on the remote machine. All communication with the remote command or shell will be automatically encrypted.
The session terminates when the command or shell on the remote machine exits and all X11 and TCP/IP connections have been closed.
When connecting to a host for the first time, using any of the programs that are included in the SSH collection, you need to establish the authenticity of that host and acknowledge that you want to connect:
lenny ~> ssh blob The authenticity of host 'blob (10.0.0.1)' can't be established. RSA fingerprint is 18:30:50:46:ac:98:3c:93:1a:56:35:09:8d:97:e3:1d. Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes Warning: Permanently added 'blob,192.168.30.2' (RSA) to the list of known hosts. Last login: Sat Dec 28 13:29:19 2002 from octarine This space for rent. lenny is in ~
It is important that you type "yes", in three characters, not just "y". This edits your ~/.ssh/known_hosts file, see Section 10.4.4.3.
If you just want to check something on a remote machine and then get your prompt back on the local host, you can give the commands that you want to execute remotely as arguments to ssh:
lenny ~> ssh blob who jenny@blob's password: root tty2 Jul 24 07:19 lena tty3 Jul 23 22:24 lena 0: Jul 25 22:03 lenny ~> uname -n magrat.example.com
If the X11Forwarding entry is set to yes on the target machine and the user is using X applications, the DISPLAY environment variable is set, the connection to the X11 display is automatically forwarded to the remote side in such a way that any X11 programs started from the shell will go through the encrypted channel, and the connection to the real X server will be made from the local machine. The user should not manually set DISPLAY. Forwarding of X11 connections can be configured on the command line or in the sshd configuration file.
The value for DISPLAY set by ssh will point to the server machine, but with a display number greater than zero. This is normal, and happens because ssh creates a proxy X server on the server machine (that runs the X client application) for forwarding the connections over the encrypted channel.
This is all done automatically, so when you type in the name of a graphical application, it is displayed on your local machine and not on the remote host. We use xclock in the example, since it is a small program which is generally installed and ideal for testing:
SSH will also automatically set up Xauthority data on the server machine. For this purpose, it will generate a random authorization cookie, store it in Xauthority on the server, and verify that any forwarded connections carry this cookie and replace it by the real cookie when the connection is opened. The real authentication cookie is never sent to the server machine (and no cookies are sent in the plain).
Forwarding of arbitrary TCP/IP connections over the secure channel can be specified either on the command line or in a configuration file.
|The X server|
This procedure assumes that you have a running X server on the client where you want to display the application from the remote host. The client may be of different architecture and operating system than the remote host, as long as it can run an X server, such as Cygwin (which implements an X.org server for MS Windows clients and others) or Exceed, it should be possible to set up a remote connection with any Linux or UNIX machine.
The ssh client/server system automatically maintains and checks a database containing identifications for all hosts it has ever been used with. Host keys are stored in $HOME/.ssh/known_hosts in the user's home directory. Additionally, the file /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts is automatically checked for known hosts. Any new hosts are automatically added to the user's file. If a host's identification ever changes, ssh warns about this and disables password authentication to prevent a Trojan horse from getting the user's password. Another purpose of this mechanism is to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks which could otherwise be used to circumvent the encryption. In environments where high security is needed, sshd can even be configured to prevent logins to machines whose host keys have changed or are unknown.
The SSH suite provides scp as a secure alternative to the rcp command that used to be popular when only rsh existed. scp uses ssh for data transfer, uses the same authentication and provides the same security as ssh. Unlike rcp, scp will ask for passwords or passphrases if they are needed for authentication:
lenny /var/tmp> scp Schedule.sdc.gz blob:/var/tmp/ lenny@blob's password: Schedule.sdc.gz 100% |*****************************| 100 KB 00:00 lenny /var/tmp>
Any file name may contain a host and user specification to indicate that the file is to be copied to/from that host. Copies between two remote hosts are permitted. See the Info pages for more information.
If you would rather use an FTP-like interface, use sftp:
lenny /var/tmp> sftp blob Connecting to blob... lenny@blob's password: sftp> cd /var/tmp sftp> get Sch* Fetching /var/tmp/Schedule.sdc.gz to Schedule.sdc.gz sftp> bye lenny /var/tmp>
|Secure copy or FTP GUIs|
Don't feel comfortable with the command line yet? Try Konqueror's capabilities for secure remote copy, or install Putty.
The ssh-keygen command generates, manages and converts authentication keys for ssh. It can create RSA keys for use by SSH protocol version 1 and RSA or DSA keys for use by SSH protocol version 2.
Normally each user wishing to use SSH with RSA or DSA authentication runs this once to create the authentication key in $HOME/.ssh/identity, id_dsa or id_rsa. Additionally, the system administrator may use this to generate host keys for the system.
Normally this program generates the key and asks for a file in which to store the private key. The public key is stored in a file with the same name but .pub appended. The program also asks for a passphrase. The passphrase may be empty to indicate no passphrase (host keys must have an empty passphrase), or it may be a string of arbitrary length.
There is no way to recover a lost passphrase. If the passphrase is lost or forgotten, a new key must be generated and copied to the corresponding public keys.
We will study SSH keys in the exercises. All information can be found in the man or Info pages.
VNC or Virtual Network Computing is in fact a remote display system which allows viewing a desktop environment not only on the local machine on which it is running, but from anywhere on the Internet and from a wide variety of machines and architectures, including MS Windows and several UNIX distributions. You could, for example, run MS Word on a Windows NT machine and display the output on your Linux desktop. VNC provides servers as well as clients, so the opposite also works and it may thus be used to display Linux programs on Windows clients. VNC is probably the easiest way to have X connections on a PC. The following features make VNC different from a normal X server or commercial implementations:
No state is stored at the viewer side: you can leave your desk and resume from another machine, continuing where you left. When you are running a PC X server, and the PC crashes or is restarted, all remote applications that you were running will die. With VNC, they keep on running.
It is small and simple, no installation needed, can be run from a floppy if needed.
Platform independent with the Java client, runs on virtually everything that supports X.
Sharable: one desktop may be displayed on multiple viewers.
More information can be found in the VNC client man pages (man vncviewer) or on the VNC website.
In order to ease management of MS Windows hosts, recent Linux distributions support the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), which is implemented in the rdesktop client. The protocol is used in a number of Microsoft products, including Windows NT Terminal Server, Windows 2000 Server, Windows XP and Windows 2003 Server.
Surprise your friends (or management) with the fullscreen mode, multiple types of keyboard layouts and single application mode, just like the real thing. The man rdesktop manual provides more information. The project's homepage is at http://www.rdesktop.org/.
Cygwin provides substantial UNIX functionality on MS Windows systems. Apart from providing UNIX command line tools and graphical applications, it can also be used to display a Linux desktop on an MS Windows machine, using remote X. From a Cygwin Bash shell, type the command
/usr/X11R6/bin/XWin.exe -query your_linux_machine_name_or_IP
The connection is by default denied. You need to change the X Display Manager (XDM) configuration and possibly the X Font Server (XFS) configuration to enable this type of connection, where you get a login screen on the remote machine. Depending on your desktop manager (Gnome, KDE, other), you might have to change some configurations there, too.
If you do not need to display the entire desktop, you can use SSH in Cygwin, just like explained in Section 10.4.4. without all the fuss of editing configuration files. | <urn:uuid:4a280ad5-772a-4171-8668-26764448e867> | {
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Programmatic Support and Technical Assistance Branch
Maryland's Early Intervention and Preschool Special Education (Birth through 5)
The supports and services provided through early intervention and preschool special education can help infants, toddlers and children and their families make the powerful connections to improve their ability to learn and play. These services are all based on the federal Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA), which ensure that all children with disabilities have the opportunity to receive a free and appropriate education (FAPE) to support their unique development and learning needs. The evidence has shown that one of the most effective ways to achieve this mandate is to reach children with developmental delays and disabilities when they are very young. Early intervention and education helps to open the window of opportunity for young children with disabilities and their families. | <urn:uuid:4f87e3a9-f463-4117-8af6-e54f01538ffe> | {
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Common Snapping Turtle
Common Snapping Turtle
RANGE:the Americas, from southern Canada to Ecuador
HABITAT:inland and coastal waterways including ponds, lakes, marshes, swamps, slow-moving rivers
DIET: OMNIVOREsmall animals of almost any type, aquatic vegetation, and carrion
LIFESPAN:30-40 years on average
OFFSPRING:20-40 eggs per clutch, on average
LENGTH:carapace (top shell): up to 20 inches
WEIGHT:20-30 lbs on avg., but 40-60 pounders are not unusual
“Where I live”
Snapping turtles are common and widespread from southern Canada to Ecuador, and across most of the United States. They inhabit inland and coastal waters of many types, but seem to prefer slow-moving bodies of water with soft mud bottoms and plenty of submerged and emergent plants.
“How I live there”
Common snapping turtles are one of the largest species of freshwater and salt-marsh turtle in North America. They are active year-round in the southern parts of their range, and overwinter in the northern parts of their range by burying themselves in mud at the bottom of a pond or lake. They tolerate cold water well, though, and remain inactive for only a short period of time.
Snapping turtles spend most of their time in water rather than on land. Defensively and otherwise, they are well designed for life on the bottom. They have large carapaces (top shells) that protect them from attack from above. They have small plastrons (bottom shells), but few predators can or would attack them from below.
Like other turtles and all other reptiles, snapping turtles need to bask in the sun in order to warm themselves and maintain an optimal internal body temperature. However, snapping turtles rarely come out of the water to bask. You might see one on a log from time to time, but you are more likely to see one floating at the water’s surface with most of its carapace and snout showing.
Snapping turtles are most active at dawn and dusk, and this is when they do most of their feeding. They are opportunistic omnivores that eat just about anything that presents itself, including fish, frogs, tadpoles, salamanders, insects, aquatic plants, snails, leeches, worms, snakes, bird eggs and nestlings, small mammals, and carrion. They grab their food with a quick snapping motion.
“Making my mark”
The snapping turtle’s ferocious reputation matches its ferocious appearance but is only somewhat deserved. In the water, snapping turtles will quickly swim away from any human disturbance. On land, they are more vulnerable and therefore more defensive. They will react to any threat aggressively.
Be well aware that snapping turtles are dangerous to handle. They can strike quickly forwards, sideways, or backwards (with their heads upside down), and their necks can stretch 2/3 the length of their carapaces!
Snapping turtles breed during the spring and early summer months. During breeding season, males may battle each other, and their scuffles can last upwards of an hour. Males fight each other somewhat like sumo wrestlers, banging up against each other with bodies upright, grabbing hold of each other in a tight grip with their plastrons pressed together, and rolling over and over in the water. There can be quite a lot of biting, kicking, and scratching, but rarely do the battles end in serious injury or death.
After mating, females will leave their aquatic homes and come onto land to search for suitable nesting sites. They may locate their nests near the shoreline of a pond or lake, or further away from water, in an open field, gravel bank, railroad bed, or sand dune. A female will dig a nest, deposit her eggs (which are perfectly round and about the size of a Ping-Pong ball), and cover them by scooping sand or dirt into the nest. Immediately after depositing her eggs, she will head back to the pond or water source from which she came.
Many, if not most, nests are ransacked by predators. Those eggs that survive will hatch in late summer, and the temperature at which they were incubated determines the sex of the hatchlings. Baby snapping turtles are about one inch long at hatching, with tails about the same length. Depending on the group, the babies will either emerge within a few days and head straight for water or remain in their nest through the winter. Once hatchlings reach water, they stay in the shallows clinging to underwater vegetation until they become stronger swimmers.
“What eats me”
Snapping turtle eggs and babies are extremely vulnerable to predation. Skunks, foxes, raccoons, and mink frequently raid nests and eat eggs. Hatchlings are also eaten by a variety of predators, including herons, hawks, alligators, large fish, raccoons, snakes, and larger turtles.
Adult snapping turtles have fewer predators, but these include alligators, otters, coyotes, bears, and most significantly man.
A threatened snapping turtle will turn to face its attacker head-on. It will hiss and, if unable to escape, deliver a very strong bite.
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Catholic social teaching, sometimes referred to as the social doctrine of the Church, is a body of official Church teachings on the social order, composed of papal statements and conciliar or synodal documents. These social teachings originated with Pope Leo XIII and continue to the present.
The Catholic social tradition, however, is much older than this body of teachings, and is rooted in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures as well as in the patristic writings, which go back as far as the fifth century. This tradition provides a framework and an intellectual legacy from which the more recent (dating from the nineteenth century) social teachings draw. This tradition is a point of reference against which the social teachings are tested, even as the latter develop beyond the tradition by applying it to new issues and questions.
Catholic social teaching is rooted in the dignity of the human person as created in the image of God, and the human rights and duties that protect and enhance this dignity. Catholic social teaching is also concerned with the social nature of the human person, the concept of the common good, the relationship between society and the state, the theory of justice, an "option for the poor," and the concepts of subsidiarity and solidarity.
Campus Ministry | Swartz Center for Spiritual Life | [email protected] | (570) 961-4723 | <urn:uuid:179fd1f6-215b-4791-ad46-55c38538295b> | {
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Mississippi Board of Education
The Mississippi Board of Education is made up of nine members. Each member is appointed according to the rules in the Mississippi Constitution. The Board appoints the State Superintendent of Education, sets public education policy and oversees the Mississippi Department of Education.
Section 203 of the Mississippi Constitution was amended on July 1, 1984. It requires that the Mississippi Governor shall appoint one (1) member from Mississippi's Northern Supreme Court District, one (1) member from Mississippi's Central Supreme Court District, one (1) member from Mississippi's Southern Supreme Court District, one (1) member who is employed as a school administrator, and one (1) member who is employed as a public school teacher. Additionally, the Lieutenant Governor shall appoint two (2) members at-large, and the Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives shall appoint two (2) members at-large.
Educational Priorities and Board Mission
In its role as a policy maker, the Board of Education has a vision, mission, and set of goals. To further its efforts to create a world-class education system, the Board has also published its legislative priorities for the 2013 legislative year. You can view the board's 2013 legislative priorities here.
Current Board Members | <urn:uuid:1ad1e653-541c-4b2d-b6a2-01c8fb0a5d09> | {
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(Bacterial Arthritis; Infectious Arthritis; Pyogenic Arthritis)
Septic arthritis is a serious infection of the joints caused by bacteria. This infection causes the joint to be filled with pus cells. These pus cells release substances directed against the bacteria. However, this action can damage the joint structures, bone, and surrounding cartilage.
This condition should be treated as a medical emergency. If left untreated, it causes loss of function in the affected joint. It can lead to septic shock , a potentially fatal condition. With early treatment, recovery is usually good.
Copyright © Nucleus Medical Media, Inc.
Septic arthritis develops when bacteria spreads from the source of infection through the bloodstream to a joint. It can result from:
- Infection due to an injection
- Other infections
Septic arthritis can also be caused from injury or trauma. It can result from:
- A penetration wound
- An injury that affects the joint
Septic arthritis can strike at any age. But, it occurs most often in children aged three and younger. In infants, the hip is a frequent site of infection. In toddlers, it is the shoulders, knees, and hips. In children, the most common bacterial causes are:
- Staphylococcus aureus ( staph infection )
- Streptococcus species (eg, group B strep infection)
- Streptococcus pneumoniae (a common bacterial cause of pneumonia )
Septic arthritis rarely occurs from early childhood through adolescence. After that, its occurs more often. In adults, it most commonly affects weight-bearing joints, such as the knees. In adults, the most common causes are:
- Staphylococcus aureus
- Neisseria gonorrhoeae (the bacteria that causes gonorrhea)
The following factors increase your chance of developing septic arthritis. If you have any of these risk factors, tell your doctor:
- Diseases that weaken the immune system, such as HIV , or taking drugs that suppress immunity
- A history of joint problems or having other types of arthritis , gout , or lupus
- A history of IV drug use
- Chronic illnesses (eg, anemia , diabetes , sickle cell , kidney failure )
- Joint replacement or organ transplant surgery
- Recent injections (eg, cortisone or hyaluronic acid)
- Skin conditions (eg, psoriasis , eczema )
If you experience any of these symptoms do not assume it is because of septic arthritis. These symptoms may be caused by other, less serious conditions.
Newborn or infants
- Crying when a joint is moved (eg, during a diaper change)
- Immobility of the limb of a joint
- Swelling and redness
- Persistent crying for any reason
Children and adults
- Intense joint pain
- Joint swelling and redness
- Immobility of a joint or its limb
Your doctor will ask about you or your child’s symptoms and medical history. A physical exam will be done. Your doctor may refer you to a specialist.
Your doctor may need to test your bodily fluids. This can be done with:
- Synovial fluid (fluid that lubricates the joint) testing
- Blood tests
Your doctor may need pictures of your joints. This can be done with x-rays.
Antibiotic therapy is started as soon as a diagnosis is made. In the beginning, antibiotics are given by IV. This is to ensure that the infected joint receives medicine to kill the bacteria. The specific medicines used depend on the type of bacteria that is causing the infection. The remaining course of antibiotics may be given orally.
Fluid may be removed from the joint to reduce the likelihood of joint damage. This may be done either by placing a needle in the joint or through surgery.
Rest, preventing the joint from moving, and warm compresses may be used to manage pain. Physical therapy or exercises may also speed recovery.
If you are diagnosed with septic arthritis, follow your doctor's instructions .
To help reduce your chance of getting septic arthritis, get prompt treatment of infections that could lead to septic arthritis.
Last reviewed November 2012 by Michael Woods, 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. | <urn:uuid:f1dc2da1-810f-4d2f-9bdc-6fe524fe496e> | {
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Definition of Miscarriage, multiple
Miscarriage, multiple: More than one miscarriage for a woman. In multiple miscarriages, there is about a 5 percent chance that one member of the couple is carrying a chromosome translocation responsible for the miscarriages. Other causes of multiple miscarriage include Rh incompatibility, continuing exposure to teratogens (agents that can injure the fetus), and physical problems in the mother that make it difficult for her to carry a fetus to term.
Last Editorial Review: 6/14/2012
Back to MedTerms online medical dictionary A-Z List
Need help identifying pills and medications?
Get the latest health and medical information delivered direct to your inbox FREE! | <urn:uuid:1c921df0-dce9-42b5-9c27-7ec742adf4e0> | {
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look like very large bananas. They should always be eaten cooked. Unripe plantains are green and very firm. As they ripen they turn a yellow orange color, much more orange than a regular banana. Then they turn black and become very soft, even mushy. They can be cooked in any stage of ripeness, including complete black. The darker the skin color, the sweeter the taste. The most common cooking methods are either cutting into two inch pieces and boiling with the skin on, or peeling and cutting into very small pieces and frying. Frying a green plantain yields crunchy pieces and ripe pieces yield very sweet soft pieces.
Green Bananas. Can only be eaten cooked, either fried or boiled. A popular roadside snack in India is Fried plantain crisps.
starchy bananas, that must be cooked to be eaten, a common side dish in Latin America.
Also known as machos. The plantain is a green skinned, pink fleshed banana which is usually flatter and longer than a regular banana. It also contains more starch and less sugar. It is usually eaten fried, mashed, or in stews in South American, African, and West Indian cuisine. Back to the top | <urn:uuid:7968296b-0920-4e69-abc3-68efca78c993> | {
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The striped textiles of Yemen were famous throughout the Islamic world. They were made in the resist‑dyed ikat technique to form patterns of arrowheads and diamonds. Inscriptions on Yemeni ikats are often painted, as in this example. Such inscribed textiles were called tiraz, from the Persian word meaning "embroidery." They were produced in tiraz workshops under royal control. Such textiles usually bore inscriptions naming the current ruler or caliph to whom the recipient owed loyalty. Tiraz textiles were presented by rulers as robes of honor at formal ceremonies. | <urn:uuid:e4ee92d6-7390-46d9-ad8e-337f0044fdf4> | {
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Conflict of Principles
[Included in The Bastiat Collection (2011), this article appeared in Economic Sophisms (1845).]
There is one thing that confounds me, and it is this. Sincere publicists, studying the economy of society from the producer's point of view, have laid down this double formula:
"Governments should order the interests of consumers who are subject to their laws, in such a way as to be favorable to national industry."
"They should bring distant consumers under subjection to their laws, for the purpose of ordering their interests in a way favorable to national industry."
The first of these formulas gets the name of protection; the second we call outlets, or the creating of markets, or vents, for our produce.
Both are founded on what we call the balance of trade: "A nation is impoverished when it imports; enriched when it exports."
For if every purchase from a foreign country is a tribute paid and a national loss, it follows, of course, that it is right to restrain, and even prohibit, importations.
And if every sale to a foreign country is a tribute received, and a national profit, it is quite right and natural to create markets for our products even by force.
The system of protection and the colonial system are, then, only two aspects of one and the same theory. To hinder our fellow citizens from buying from foreigners, and to force foreigners to buy from our fellow citizens, are only two consequences of one and the same principle.
Now, it is impossible not to admit that this doctrine, if true, makes general utility to repose on monopoly or internal spoliation, and on conquest or external spoliation.
I enter a cottage on the French side of the Pyrenees.
The father of the family has received but slender wages. His half-naked children shiver in the icy north wind; the fire is extinguished, and there is nothing on the table. There are wool, firewood, and corn on the other side of the mountain; but these good things are forbidden to the poor day-laborer, for the other side of the mountain is not in France. Foreign firewood is not allowed to warm the cottage hearth; and the shepherd's children can never know the taste of Biscayan wheat, and the wool of Navarre can never warm their benumbed limbs. General utility has so ordered it. Be it so; but let us agree that all this is in direct opposition to the first principles of justice. To dispose legislatively of the interests of consumers, and postpone them to the supposed interests of national industry, is to encroach upon their liberty — it is to prohibit an act; namely, the act of exchange, that has in it nothing contrary to good morals; in a word, it is to do them an act of injustice.
And yet this is necessary, we are told, unless we wish to see national labor at a standstill, and public prosperity sustain a fatal shock.
Writers of the protectionist school, then, have arrived at the melancholy conclusion that there is a radical incompatibility between justice and utility.
On the other hand, if it be the interest of each nation to sell, and not to buy, the natural state of their relations must consist in a violent action and reaction, for each will seek to impose its products on all, and all will endeavor to repel the products of each.
A sale, in fact, implies a purchase, and since, according to this doctrine, to sell is beneficial, and to buy is the reverse, every international transaction would imply the amelioration of one people and the deterioration of another.
But if men are, on the one hand, irresistibly impelled toward what is for their profit, and if, on the other, they resist instinctively what is hurtful, we are forced to conclude that each nation carries in its bosom a natural force of expansion, and a not less natural force of resistance, which forces are equally injurious to all other nations; or, in other words, that antagonism and war are the natural state of human society.
Thus the theory we are discussing may be summed up in these two axioms:
Utility is incompatible with justice at home.
Utility is incompatible with peace abroad.
Now, what astonishes and confounds me is that a publicist, a statesman, who sincerely holds an economical doctrine that runs so violently counter to other principles that are incontestable, should be able to enjoy one moment of calm or peace of mind.
For my own part, it seems to me that if I had entered the precincts of the science by the same gate, if I had failed to perceive clearly that liberty, utility, justice, peace, are things not only compatible, but strictly allied with each other, and, so to speak, identical, I should have endeavored to forget what I had learned, and I should have asked,
"How God could have willed that men should attain prosperity only through injustice and war? How He could have willed that they should be unable to avoid Injustice and War except by renouncing the possibility of attaining prosperity?
"Dare I adopt, as the basis of the legislation of a great nation, a science that thus misleads me by false lights, that has conducted me to this horrible blasphemy, and landed me in so dreadful an alternative? And when a long train of illustrious philosophers have been conducted by this science, to which they have devoted their lives, to more consoling results — when they affirm that liberty and utility are perfectly reconcilable with justice and peace — that all these great principles run in infinitely extended parallels, and will do so to all eternity, without running counter to each other — I would ask, Have they not in their favor that presumption which results from all that we know of the goodness and wisdom of God, as manifested in the sublime harmony of the material creation? In the face of such a presumption, and of so many reliable authorities, ought I to believe lightly that God has been pleased to implant antagonism and dissonance in the laws of the moral world? No; before I should venture to conclude that the principles of social order run counter to and neutralize each other, and are in eternal and irreconcilable opposition — before I should venture to impose on my fellow citizens a system so impious as that to which my reasonings would appear to lead — I should set myself to re-examine the whole chain of these reasonings, and assure myself that at this stage of the journey I had not missed my way."
But if, after a candid and searching examination, 20 times repeated, I arrived always at this frightful conclusion, that we must choose between the right and the good, discouraged, I should reject the science, and bury myself in voluntary ignorance; above all, I should decline all participation in public affairs, leaving to men of another temper and constitution the burden and responsibility of a choice so painful.
The French word employed is meture, probably a Spanish word Gallicised — mestura, meslin, mixed corn, as wheat and rye. — Translator. | <urn:uuid:2993ee91-a935-4945-85ec-d8a2367427b5> | {
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Report: Flint, Detroit more blighted than hurricane-ravaged New Orleans
The article is based on a study from the Greater New Orleans Data Center, which has been tracking blight in six cities notorious for urban decline.
New Orleans held the unwanted "most blighted" among the six cities -- which also include Cleveland, Baltimore and Youngstown, Ohio -- for five years until the report for 2011, the most recent data available to the Center.
About 21 percent of all New Orleans properties were blighted in 2011, compared with 27 percent in Flint and 24 percent in Detroit, the report says.
The percentage of blight was based on the number of blighted addresses or empty lots plus vacant but habitable homes according to data kept by the U.S. Postal Service.
The study notes that measuring blight can be a challenge because "each municipality defines blight differently, and some don’t track blight at all."
The 2011 data for New Orleans is also the first year of the study that includes estimates by the study authors and a larger margin of error because of a change in how the USPS recorded data, according to the study.
Click here to view the report. | <urn:uuid:6be9bd9f-d0da-4c4a-944d-1d5c0b8e31cb> | {
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Definition of orc
n. - The grampus. 2
The word "orc" uses 3 letters: C O R.
Words formed by adding one letter before or after orc (in bold), or to cor in any order:
a - arco orca c - croc d - cord e - cero core f - corf i - coir k - cork rock m - corm n - corn p - crop s - cors orcs rocs t - torc w - crow y - cory
Shorter words found within orc:
All words formed from orc by changing one letter
Browse words starting with orc by next letter | <urn:uuid:707b2f6c-af98-4c20-871e-86b6d59f093e> | {
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This project just makes a wireless fm microphone which looks very simple in its structure. It is a useful device in our day-today life. A wireless microphone, as the name implies, is a microphone without a physical cable connecting it directly to the sound recording or amplifying equipment with which it is associated. More commonly known as a Radio Microphone, there are many different standards, frequencies and transmission technologies used to replace the microphone's cable connection and make it into a wireless microphone. They can transmit, for example, in radio waves using UHF or VHF frequencies, FM, AM, or various digital modulation schemes. Some low cost models use infrared light. Infrared microphones require a direct line of sight between the microphone and the receiver, while costlier radio frequency models do not. Some models operate on a single fixed frequency, but the more advanced models operate on a user selectable frequency to avoid interference and allow the use of several microphones at the same time. It can be used in seminar halls, class rooms, for a school or college radio etc. One such piece costs 100-300 rupees in the market. The coming sections give the entire idea of making a miniature wireless microphone. We hope that you will find this quite interesting as you go through this particular project.
2. BLOCK DIAGRAM AND ITS DESCRIPTION
Figure 1: Block Diagram
Above diagram shows the block diagram of the simple wireless fm microphone. It consists of simple audio amplifier, modulated tuned amplifier & a condenser mic. Here a microphone (condenser) captures the audio signal and a simple audio amplifier amplifies this signal before the modulation is done. A modulated tuned amplifier modulates the signal with self generated carrier frequency. The carrier frequency can be varied by changing the capacitor and inductor value in the tank circuit. Then the modulated signal is fed to the antenna. As a trimmer capacitor is used in the L-C circuit, we can vary the transmitting frequency anywhere in the whole FM band.
4. COMPONENTS DESCRIPTION
A resistor is a two terminal electronic component that opposes an electric current by producing a voltage drop between its terminals in its terminals in proportion to the current, that is in accordance with Ohm's law: V=IR. The electrical resistance R is equals to the voltage drop V across the resistor divided by the current / through the resistor. Resistors are used as part of electrical networks and electronic circuits.
An electrical signal can be amplified by using transistors that allows a small current or voltage to control the flow of a much larger current. In analog circuit transistors are used in oscillator, amplifier and linear regulated power supply. Transistors are also used in digital circuits where they function as electronic switches. Digital circuits include logic gates, RAM and micro processors. Here we use 2N3904 transistor. It is a common NPN bipolar junction transistor. It is used for general purpose low power amplifying and switching applications. It is designed for low current and power, medium voltage and can operate at moderately high speed. This transistor is of low cost and is widely available. When looking at the flat side,with the base pointed downwards, the three wires emerging from the base are, left to right, the emitter ,base and collector leads.
The inductor used in the circuit is a handmade coil using 22 SWG (Standard Wire Gauge) enameled copper wire. The length, inner diameter, number of turns etc are the important parameters to be considered while making the inductor. Then only the inductor resonates in the 88-108 band FM frequency. For this circuit, the coil radius was selected as 0.26 inches (outer diameter) and 0.13 inner diameter. Coil can be wound around a screw driver (with same diameter) to get a 5 turn coil of 0.2
inch long. Remove the coil from the screw driver and use the 5 turn Air core coil. Remove the enamel from the tips and solder close to the transistor.
The inductance of the coil can be calculated using the formula :
L =n2r2/ (9r + 10 x)
Where r is the inner radius of the coil, x is the length of the coil and n, number of turns. The resulting value is in Micro Henry.
An inductor is just a coil of wire and you need to wind one for this circuit. An inductor is characterized by its length, radius and the number of turns of wire in the coil. Magnet wire (Radio Shack part 278-1345) was used to build the inductor but you can use standard solid strand 22 AWG gauge copper wire. Some on-line and printed articles describe winding the wire around a pencil. Unfortunately, pencils come in different diameters and hence a McDonald’s soda straw was used; the yellow-red-white striped straw, found in every McDonalds in the world, is the same size. The straw’s radius is exactly 0.1325 inches (diameter = 0.2650 inches) and 1/4 inches was snipped off the straw.
4. 4 CONDENSER MIC
The condenser MIC is used to pick up the sound signals. The diaphragm inside the MIC vibrates according to the air pressure changes and generates AC signals. Variable resistor VR1 adjusts the current through the MIC and thus determines the sensitivity of MIC. The condenser MIC should be directly soldered on the PCB to get maximum sensitivity. Sleeving the MIC inside plastic tubing can increase its sensitivity error.
A capacitor is an electrical/electronic device that can store energy in the electric field between a pair of conductors (called "plates"). The process of storing
energy in the capacitor is known as "charging", and involves electric charges of equal magnitude, but opposite polarity, building up on each plate. Capacitors are often used in electric and electronic circuits as energy-storage devices. They can also be used to differentiate between high-frequency and low-frequency signals. This property makes them useful in electronic filters. Practical capacitors have series resistance, internal leakage of charge, series inductance and other non-ideal properties not found in a theoretical, ideal, capacitor.
4.6 TRIMMER CAPACITOR
A small button type variable capacitor with a value of 40 pF can be used to adjust the resonant frequency of the tank circuit. The variable capacitor and the inductor coil form the Tank circuit (LC circuit) that resonates in the 88-108 MHz. In the tank circuit, the capacitor stores electrical energy between its plates while the inductor stores magnetic energy induced by the windings of the coil. The resonant frequency can be calculated using the formula:
f = 1 / 2 π √LC = Hz
Where f is the frequency in hertz, x is the coil length, C is the capacitance of trimmer in Farads, and L is the inductance of coil in Henry.
4.7 TANK CIRCUIT
Every FM transmitter needs an oscillator to generate the radio Frequency (RF) carrier waves. The name ‘Tank’ circuit comes from the ability of the LC circuit to store energy for oscillations. The purely reactive elements, the C and the L simply store energy to be returned to the system. In the tank (LC) circuit, the 2N3904 transistor and the feedback 4.7 pF capacitor are the oscillating components. The feedback signal makes the base-emitter current of the transistor vary at the resonant frequency. This causes the emitter-collector current to vary at the same frequency. This signal fed to the aerial and radiated as radio waves.
A plastic wire or Telescopic aerial can be used as antenna. The length of the antenna is very important to transmit the signals in the suitable range. As a rule, the length of the antenna should be ¼ of the FM wave length. To determine the length of antenna, use the following equation. By multiplying the Wave frequency and wave length will give the speed of light.
Speed of Light = Frequency of Oscillation x Wavelength = in kms/ sec
Wave length = Speed of light / Frequency = in meters
Antenna length = 0.25 x wavelength = in meters
Antenna length = 0.25 x wavelength = in meters
By using this formula it is easy to select the antennal length. For the circuit mentioned above, a 25-27inches long antenna is sufficient.
5. FM (FREQUENCY MODULATION)
In telecommunications and signal processing, frequency modulation (FM) conveys information over a carrier wave by varying its instantaneous frequency. This is in contrast with amplitude modulation, in which the amplitude of the carrier is varied while its frequency remains constant.
In analog applications, the difference between the instantaneous and the base frequency of the carrier is directly proportional to the instantaneous value of the input signal amplitude. Digital data can be sent by shifting the carrier's frequency among a set of discrete values, a technique known as frequency-shift keying.Frequency modulation can be regarded as phase modulation where the carrier phase modulation is the time integral of the FM modulating signal.
FM is widely used for broadcasting of music and speech, and in two-way radio systems, in magnetic tape recording systems, and certain video transmission systems. In radio systems, frequency modulation with sufficient bandwidth provides an advantage in cancelling naturally-occurring noise.
Frequency-shift keying (digital FM) is widely used in data and fax modems.
Suppose the baseband data signal (the message) to be transmitted is xm(t) and the sinusoidal carrier is , where fc is the carrier's base frequency and Ac is the carrier's amplitude. The modulator combines the carrier with the baseband data signal to get the transmitted signal:
In this equation, is the instantaneous frequency of the oscillator and is the frequency deviation, which represents the maximum shift away from fc in one direction, assuming xm(t) is limited to the range ±1.
Although it may seem that this limits the frequencies in use to fc ± fΔ, this neglects the distinction between instantaneous frequency and spectral frequency. The frequency spectrum of an actual FM signal has components extending out to infinite frequency, although they become negligibly small beyond a point.
5.1.1 SINUSOIDAL BASEBAND SIGNAL
While it is an over-simplification, a baseband modulated signal may be approximated by a sinusoidal Continuous Wave signal with a frequency fm. The integral of such a signal is,
Thus, in this specific case, equation (1) above simplifies to:
where the amplitude of the modulating sinusoid, is represented by the peak deviation (see frequency deviation.
The harmonic distribution of a sine wave carrier modulated by such a sinusoidal signal can be represented with Bessel functions - this provides a basis for a mathematical understanding of frequency modulation in the frequency domain.
5.2 MODULATION INDEX
As with other modulation indices, this quantity indicates by how much the modulated variable varies around its un-modulated level. It relates to the variations in the frequency of the carrier signal:
where is the highest frequency component present in the modulating signal xm(t), and is the Peak frequency-deviation, i.e. the maximum deviation of the
instantaneous frequency from the carrier frequency. If , the modulation is called narrowband FM, and its bandwidth is approximately .
If , the modulation is called wideband FM and its bandwidth is approximately . While wideband FM uses more bandwidth, it can improve signal-to-noise ratio significantly. For example, doubling the value of while keeping fm constant, results in an eight-fold improvement in the signal to noise ratio. Compare with Chirp spread spectrum, which uses extremely wide frequency deviations to achieve processing gains comparable to more traditional, better-known spread spectrum modes.
With a tone-modulated FM wave, if the modulation frequency is held constant and the modulation index is increased, the (non-negligible) bandwidth of the FM signal increases, but the spacing between spectra stays the same; some spectral components decrease in strength as others increase. If the frequency deviation is held constant and the modulation frequency increased, the spacing between spectra increases.
Frequency modulation can be classified as narrow band if the change in the carrier frequency is about the same as the signal frequency, or as wide-band if the change in the carrier frequency is much higher (modulation index >1) than the signal frequency. For example, narrowband FM is used for two way radio systems such as Family Radio Service where the carrier is allowed to deviate only 2.5 kHz above and below the center frequency, carrying speech signals of no more than 3.5 kHz bandwidth. Wide-band FM is used for FM broadcasting where music and speech is transmitted with up to 75 kHz deviation from the center frequency, carrying audio with up to 20 kHz bandwidth.
5.3 CARSON'S RULE
A rule of thumb, Carson's rule states that nearly all (~98%) of the power of a frequency-modulated signal lies within a bandwidth of
where , as defined above, is the peak deviation of the instantaneous frequency from the center carrier frequency .
The noise power decreases as the signal power increases; therefore the SNR goes up significantly.
FM signals can be generated using either direct or indirect frequency modulation.
· Direct FM modulation can be achieved by directly feeding the message into the input of a VCO.
· For indirect FM modulation, the message signal is integrated to generate a phase modulated signal. This is used to modulate a crystal controlled oscillator, and the result is passed through a frequency multiplier to give an FM signal.
Many FM detector circuits exist. One common method for recovering the information signal is through a Foster-Seeley discriminator. A phase-locked loop can be used as an FM demodulator. Slope detection demodulates an FM signal by using a tuned circuit, which has its resonant frequency slightly offset from the carrier frequency. As the frequency rises and falls, the tuned circuit provides a changing amplitude of response, converting FM to AM. AM receivers may detect some FM transmissions by this means, though it does not provide an efficient method of detection for FM broadcasts.
FM is also used at audio frequencies to synthesize sound. This technique, known as FM synthesis, was popularized by early digital synthesizers and became a standard feature for several generations of personal computer sound cards.
Edwin Howard Armstrong (1890–1954) was an American electrical engineer who invented wideband frequency modulation (FM) radio. He patented the regenerative circuit in 1914, the super-heterodyne receiver in 1918 and the super-regenerative circuit in 1922. He presented his paper: "A Method of Reducing Disturbances in Radio Signaling by a System of Frequency Modulation", which first described FM radio, before the New York section of the Institute of Radio Engineers on November 6, 1935. The paper was published in 1936.
As the name implies, wideband FM (WFM) requires a wider signal bandwidth than amplitude modulation by an equivalent modulating signal, but this also makes the signal more robust against noise and interference. Frequency modulation is also more robust against simple signal amplitude fading phenomena. As a result, FM was chosen as the modulation standard for high frequency, high fidelity radio transmission: hence the term "FM radio" (although for many years the BBC called it "VHF radio", because commercial FM broadcasting uses a well-known part of the VHF band—the FM broadcast band).FM receivers employ a special detector for FM signals and exhibit a phenomenon called capture effect, where the tuner is able to clearly receive the stronger of two stations being broadcast on the same frequency. Problematically however, frequency drift or lack of selectivity may cause one station or signal to be suddenly overtaken by another on an adjacent channel. Frequency drift typically constituted a problem on very old or inexpensive receivers, while inadequate selectivity may plague any tuner.
An FM signal can also be used to carry a stereo signal: see FM stereo. However, this is done by using multiplexing and de-multiplexing before and after the FM process. The rest of this article ignores the stereo multiplexing and de-multiplexing process used in "stereo FM", and concentrates on the FM modulation and demodulation process, which is identical in stereo and mono processes.
A high-efficiency radio-frequency switching amplifier can be used to transmit FM signals (and other constant-amplitude signals). For a given signal strength (measured at the receiver antenna), switching amplifiers use less battery power and typically cost less than a linear amplifier. This gives FM another advantage over other modulation schemes that require linear amplifiers, such as AM and QAM.
Frequency-shift keying is the frequency modulation using only a discrete number of frequencies. Morse code transmission has been implemented this way, as were most early telephone-line modems Radio teletype also use FSK.
FM modulation is also used in telemetry applications, radar, seismic prospecting and newborn EEG seizures modeling.
5.9 SUPER HETERODYNE RECIEVER
In electronics, a super heterodyne receiver (sometimes shortened to superhets) uses frequency mixing or heterodyning to convert a received signal to a fixed intermediate frequency, which can be more conveniently processed than the original radio carrier frequency. Virtually all modern radio and television receivers use the super heterodyne principle.
The diagram at right shows the minimum requirements for a single-conversion super heterodyne receiver design. The following essential elements are common to all superhet circuits:[ a receiving antenna, a tuned stage which may optionally contain amplification (RF amplifier), a variable frequency local oscillator, a frequency mixer, a band pass filter and intermediate frequency (IF) amplifier, and a demodulator plus
additional circuitry to amplify or process the original audio signal (or other transmitted information).
Figure : Block Diagram of Super heterodyne Receiver
5.10 CIRCUIT DESCRIPTION
To receive a radio signal, a suitable antenna is required. This is often built into a receiver, especially in the case of AM broadcast band radios. The output of the antenna may be very small, often only a few microvolts. The signal from the antenna is tuned and may be amplified in a so-called radio frequency (RF) amplifier, although this stage is often omitted. One or more tuned circuits at this stage block frequencies which are far removed from the intended reception frequency. In order to tune the receiver to a particular station, the frequency of the local oscillator is controlled by the tuning knob (for instance). Tuning of the local oscillator and the RF stage may use a variable capacitor, or varicap diode. The tuning of one (or more) tuned circuits in the RF stage must track the tuning of the local oscillator.
5.11 MIXER STAGE
The signal is then fed into a circuit where it is mixed with a sine wave from a variable frequency oscillator known as the local oscillator (LO). The mixer uses a non-linear component to produce both sum and difference beat frequencies signals, each one containing the modulation contained in the desired signal. The output of the mixer may include the original RF signal at fd, the local
oscillator signal at fLO, and the two new frequencies fd+fLO and fd-fLO. The mixer may inadvertently produce additional frequencies such as 3rd- and higher-order intermediation products. The undesired signals are removed by the IF bandpass filter, leaving only the desired offset IF signal at fIF which contains the original modulation (transmitted information) as the received radio signal had at fd.
Historically, broadcast AM receivers using vacuum tubes would save costs by employing a single tube as a mixer and also as the local oscillator. The pentagrid converter tube would oscillate and also provide signal amplification as well as frequency shifting.
5.12 INTERMEDIATE FREQUENCY STAGE
The stages of an intermediate frequency amplifier are tuned to a particular frequency not dependent on the receiving frequency; this greatly simplifies optimization of the circuit. The IF amplifier (or IF strip) can be made highly selective around its center frequency fIF, whereas achieving such a selectivity at a much higher RF frequency would be much more difficult. By tuning the frequency of the local oscillator fLO, the resulting difference frequency fLO - fd (or fd-fLO when using so-called low-side injection) will be matched to the IF amplifier's frequencyfIF for the desired reception frequency fd. One section of the tuning capacitor will thus adjust the local oscillator's frequency fLO to fd + fIF (or. less often, to fd - fIF) while the RF stage is tuned to fd. Engineering the multi-section tuning capacitor and coils to fulfill this condition across the tuning range is known as tracking.Other signals produced by the mixer (such as due to stations at nearby frequencies) can be very well filtered out in the IF stage, giving the superheterodyne receiver its superior performance. However, if fLO is set to fd + fIF , then an incoming radio signal at fLO + fIF will also produce a heterodyne at fIF; this is called the image frequency and must be rejected by the tuned circuits in the RF stage. The image frequency is 2fIF higher (or lower) than fd, so employing a higher IF frequency fIF increases the receiver's image rejection without requiring additional selectivity in the RF stage.
Usually the intermediate frequency is lower than the reception frequency fd, but in some modern receivers (e.g. scanners and spectrum analyzers) it is more convenient to first convert an entire band to a much higher intermediate frequency; this eliminates the problem of image rejection. Then a tunable local oscillator and mixer converts that signal to a second much lower intermediate frequency where the selectivity of the receiver is accomplished. In order to avoid interference to receivers, licensing authorities will avoid assigning common
IF frequencies to transmitting stations. Standard intermediate frequencies used are 455 KHz for medium-wave AM radio, 10.7 MHz for broadcast FM receivers, 38.9 MHz (Europe) or 45 MHz (US) for television, and 70 MHz for satellite and terrestrial microwave equipment.
5.13 BANDPASS FILTER
The received The IF stage includes a filter and/or multiple tuned circuits in order to achieve the desired selectivity. This filtering must therefore have a band pass equal to or less than the frequency spacing between adjacent broadcast channels. Ideally a filter would have a high attenuation to adjacent channels, but maintain a flat response across the desired signal spectrum in order to retain the quality of signal. This may be obtained using one or more dual tuned IF transformers or a multipole ceramic crystal filter.
The received signal is now processed by the demodulator stage where the audio signal (or other baseband signal) is recovered and then further amplified. AM
demodulation requires the simple rectification of the RF signal (so-called envelope detection), and a simple RC low pass filter to remove remnants of the intermediate frequency. FM signals may be detected using a discriminator, ratio detector, or phase-locked loop. Continuous wave (morse code) and single sideband signals require a product detector using a so-called beat frequency oscillator, and there are other
techniques used for different types of modulation. The resulting audio signal (for instance) is then amplified and drives a loudspeaker. When so-called high-side injection has been used, where the local oscillator is at a higher frequency than the received signal (as is common), then the frequency spectrum of the original signal will be reversed. This must be taken into account by the demodulator (and in the IF filtering) in the case of certain types of modulation such as single sideband.
6. CIRCUIT DIAGRAM OF WIRELESS FM MICROPHONE
7. CIRCUIT DESCRIPTION
The above figure shows the circuit diagram of wireless FM microphone .It has two transistor stages. The first one is the common emitter amplifier .The second stage is the voltage controlled oscillator. Capacitor and self-made inductor will vibrate at frequencies in the FM radio band (88 to 108 MHz) and it constitutes the L-C circuit. It is also called tank circuit. It consists of one inductor and two capacitors. This is called Colpitt's oscillator. The physics lying behind this is that the capacitor stores charges between its plates, while the inductor coil stores energy in the magnetic field induced by the coil winding. The tank circuit vibrates at resonant frequency. The resonant frequency is given by
f = 1 / 2 π √LC Hz
Where f is the frequency in hertz, C is the capacitance of trimmer in Farads, and L is the inductance of coil in Henry. The performance of an FM transmitter depends on two important aspects
· Tuning of the FM transmitter to the desired frequency. Even a slight change in the coil specification or slight change in the variable capacitor value can shift the harmonic frequency of the 88 to 108 MHz FM band.
· Length of the Antenna used to transmit the frequency.
The important parameters for the optimum performance of an FM transmitter are :
· Transmitter frequency, output power and range of transmission.
· Antenna length.
· Coil diameter, length, number of turns and gauge of the wire used for coil winding.
The electric microphone has a resistance that depends on how loudly you speak into it. This microphone is battery powered and according to the V=IR Ohm’s Law,
changes in resistance for fixed voltage will result in proportional changes in current. This wireless FM microphone is easy to construct and its transmissions can be picked up on any standard FM radio. It has a range of up to 1/4-mile (400 meters) or more, depending on the line of sight, obstructions by large buildings, etc. If you decide to substitute transistors with something similar you already have, it may be necessary to adjust the collector voltage of Q1 by changing the value of R2 or R3 (because you change transistors, it changes this bias on the base of Q1). It should be about half the supply voltage (about 4 or 5). To find the signal on receiver, make sure there is a signal coming in to the microphone, otherwise the circuit won't work.
To use the microphone, set up a radio in the area at least 10 feet (3 meters) from the project. Find a blank spot on the FM dial and tune the radio up so you can hear the static. Connect a 9-volt battery to the transmitter and listed to the radio. Slowly adjust the trimmer capacitor until "quiet" the receiver; this is the tuned spot. When move hand from the transmitter, then detune the circuit somewhat. It is usually best to leave it detuned and tune the radio in to get the best reception. If you get the tuning range you desire, you can squeeze the coils in the tank circuit closer together to raise the frequency, or pull them apart just a little to lower it.
8. PCB DESIGN
8. 1 PCB DESIGN PROCEDURE
PCB preparation can be done using the following steps.
· Prepare the PCB layout of the circuit in a graph sheet.
· Cut the copper clad sheet in proper dimension and wash it.
· PCB layout is coated with paint or sticker.
· Prepare the ferric chloride solution
· Dip the PCB in to Ferric chloride solution for etching non printed surface.
· Wash cleanly with detergent.
· Drill the holes in necessary any position.
9. PCB LAYOUT
Soldering is the process of joining two or more similar or dissimilar maters by melting another meters having lower melting points. Soldering is an alloy of tin and lead, used for fusing the metals at relatively low temperature about 260uk to 315uk.The joint where the two metal conductors are to be fused is heated and solder is applied so that it can melt and cover the connection. The reason for soldering connections is that it makes a good bond between the joining metals , covering the joints completely to prevent oxidization. The coating of solder provides protection for practically long period of time. The trick in soldering is to heat the joint, not the solder. When the soldering is hot enough to melt the solder, it follows smoothly to fill all cracks forming a shiny cover without any space. Do not move the joint until the solder has set. Either the soldering iron or soldering gun can be used rated at 25W to 100W.In addition to this solder flux is used to remove any oxide films on the metal being joint. Otherwise they cannot be joined together.
9.1 SOLDERING FLUXES
In order to make the surface accept the solder readily, the component terminals should be for from order and other abstractly films. Soldering flux cleans the orders from the surface of the metal. Zinc chloride, aluminums chloride, and rosin at the commonly used fluxes.
Solder is used for joining two or more mental at temperature below their melting point. The popularly used solders on alloy are alloys of tin (60%) and lead (40%) that metals at stiff and solidifies when it cools.
9.3 SOLDERING IRON
It is used the melt the solder and apply at the joints in the circuit.
Ø Working with a simple dry cell power supply.
Ø It is user friendly.
Ø Low cost.
Ø Easy to install.
Ø Simple circuit.
Ø Greater freedom of movement for the artist or speaker.
Ø Avoidance of cabling problems common with wired microphones, caused by constant moving and stressing the cables.
Ø Sometimes limited range (a wired balanced XLR microphone can run up to 300 ft or 100 meters). Some wireless systems have a shorter range, while more expensive models can exceed that distance.
Ø Possible interference with or, more often, from other radio equipment or other radio microphones, though models with many frequency-synthesized switch-selectable channels are now plentiful and cost effective.
Ø Operation time is limited relative to battery life; it is shorter than a normal condenser microphone due to greater drain on batteries from transmitting circuitry, and from circuitry giving extra features, if present.
Ø Noise or dead spots (places where it doesn't work, especially in non-diversity systems).
Ø Limited number of operating microphones at the same time and place, due to the limited number of radio channels (frequencies).
Ø It is used in seminar halls, class rooms, for a school or college radio etc.
The mini project 'wireless FM microphone' is developed from the elementary idea of making a wireless hand piece, which can be used in a seminar hall, auditorium etc. This idea forced us to proceed with our project. As our project deals with transmitter & the most common receiver is FM receiver, we decided to make the FM Transmitter.
15. FUTURE SCOPE
As the field of Information Technology and Communication is developing day-by-day, the necessity of more sophisticated equipments and discoveries is raising up. Hence, more enhanced version of our project, wireless FM microphone can be implemented in various circuits. | <urn:uuid:7a89424a-adcc-499c-a57c-a51f0cf88bc6> | {
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Science, Technology & Society B.S.
Course DescriptionProject Management
This course provides an introduction to project management. Students learn project management concepts and how to use appropriate tools and software to manage various types of projects from start to finish. Students are challenged with the wide range of issues professional project managers are required to master: planning, prioritizing, scheduling, budgeting, negotiation, organizing, controlling cost, and handling change. Project management applies to a wide spectrum of real-world projects both within and outside the technical sciences. This course emphasizes learning through lecture, homework, student participation and presentations. Class projects give students hands-on experience applying project management skills and use of software tools. Prerequisites: CITA 110 or CITA 101 and BSAD 300 or permission of instructor 3 credits (2 lecture hours, 2 laboratory hours), fall and spring semester | <urn:uuid:9c81081e-bdc3-41b6-acc8-2274e5e3cac8> | {
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Mount Union Students Face Their Fears
October 18, 2012
ALLIANCE, Ohio — For the third year in a row, University of Mount Union students enrolled in assistant professor of psychology Dr. Kevin Meyers’ abnormal psychology course had the opportunity to overcome a specific phobia at Cedar Point Amusement Park.
Students learned to overcome their phobias through a process known as “exposure therapy.” This year’s ‘Face your Fears’ project was held at Cedar Point in Sandusky, OH. Students explored and overcame the “roller coaster phobia” which falls into the category of anxiety disorders known as specific phobias.
Specific phobias can be focused on certain objects or certain environments and their impact on the individual. A person with a specific phobia disorder is commonly diagnosed with behavioral disorders and the individual can suffer from anxiety attacks, persistent fear and the action of avoiding the object or environment to which their fear stems from.
This is where the concept of exposure therapy comes into play. Exposure therapy is a type of cognitive behavioral therapy in which the individual is gradually exposed to their fear over time. According to Meyer, Cedar Point is a prime location to expose students to their roller coaster fears since Cedar Point has moderate to medium to extreme roller coaster varieties available.
The overall goal of the ‘Face your Fear’ project is to expose students to a real-world application of how a specific therapeutic method can be applied to successfully treat a behavioral disorder. Students were active in collecting various types of data, serving as an active sample in a real-time working study, and will have the opportunity to integrate what they learn into a course project. Through this process, several individuals will in fact overcome their roller coaster phobia, opening up a previously inaccessible source of fun and excitement they can now be free to explore.Back to Previous Page | <urn:uuid:c0231749-1c9b-4d9f-a8bc-f997ce6e0a82> | {
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Fun Learning with Printable Flash Cards
Here you will find our selection of free printable flash cards for preschool learning (and beyond!). Flash cards are a great way for kids to learn the basic elements and memorize them through short repeat sessions. You’ll find helping them learn their first abc, animal names and numbers incredibly rewarding.
A few minutes here, a few minutes there, whether at home, traveling, in the park or at Auntie’s it’s learning on the go. These lovely cards turn learning into playing (… but we also love decorating kids’ rooms by sticking them on the wall or putting them in picture frames.)
We’ve made all our printable flash cards here free for everybody and of course you can print them as many times as you like!
Alphabet Flash Cards
Helping the little one’s first learning fun and sweet!
Vocabulary Flash Cards
Learning new words and concepts is great fun!
Number & Math Flash Cards
Various flash cards for all your math activities.
Shapes & Colors Flash Cards
Try combining abstract shapes and pretty colors with various colorful activities.
We have a growing selection of children’s resources for preschool, homeschool & classroom learning activities. Please check back soon to see what’s new. Thank you!
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The use of pressure of the fingers and hands for massage and to stimulate qi (vital energy) flow throughout the body. It is used well with tension and stress ailments. Acupuncture - The use of thin needles to restore energy balances. It is believed that the body has special channels of energy, called meridians, running throughout the body. By stimulating special points on these meridians with acupuncture needles, energy balance is restored to normal functioning.
An educational technique, rather than a therapeutic technique, that teaches a method of adjusting body postures and movement to relieve damaging stresses.
The therapeutic use of bee venom to help alleviate pain and various conditions.
A science that tests nerve and muscle groups throughout the body to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the various organ systems. It is also used to determine the body's receptivity to various remedies thereby assisting health restoration. Additional modalities like nutrition, massage, and acupressure are then added for treatments. Bee Sting
See Apitherapy Chiropractic - A technique of manipulating and adjusting the spine to restore normal flow of nerve function throughout the spinal column to heal and to alleviate p Homeopathy - The field of medicine that treats disease and restores health by giving minute amounts of medicinal substances that would produce the same symptoms of the disease in healthy persons. This field uses the principle that "like cures like."
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
See Oxygen Therapy
Magnetic Field Therapy
The use of magnets and electromagnetic fields for medical treatments of many conditions including pain and stress. There is current ongoing research in this field.
Music and Sound Therapy
The use of sounds and music to promote health through its calming and soothing effects and through energizing effects on the central nervous system. It is being widely spread for use in hospitals and schools. Treatment programs have been used for stress reduction, pain alleviation, improvements in movement, balance, and cognition, and promotion of strength and endurance.
The use of oxygen to destroy pathogens in the body through oxygenation or oxidation. The use of oxygen therapy in the United States is controversial, even though use in Europe is wide spread. The legal use of oxygen therapy varies from state to state.
A therapy that utilizes motion and soft stretching and rotations to promote relaxation and to improve flexibility and range of motion.
View these alternatives
Health and Well Being - diet, exercise, herbs, vitamins, apitherapy, hyperbaric oxygen
Stress - massage, reflexology, meditation, guided imagery, biofeedback, tai chi, yoga
(Last reviewed 7/2009) | <urn:uuid:1fcfc434-2d4f-40e2-b82b-6a7a46993a9c> | {
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Dishing it out
The woman, with two children at her side, is breast-feeding an infant. She may symbolise the act of Charity. The figurine is an example of one of the more decorative pieces produced by the porcelain factory in Bow. The piece dates from the middle of the 1750s.
The Bow Porcelain factory was founded at Stratford in 1747. Bow porcelain was created to compete with the popular imported oriental porcelain. But it soon established its own market within Britain. Unlike London's other main porcelain factory of the time at Chelsea, Bow focused on wares for everyday use such as cups and bowls. These were decorated in blue and white patterns imitating oriental designs.
Centre for industry
With its location east of London, on the banks of the River Lea, Bow was well-situated for deliveries of raw materials. Other factories nearby included a calico-printing works.
Museum number NN2707 | <urn:uuid:ae180f29-4ac8-4750-8a67-9d191ab10261> | {
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Do you bite your nails?
You may be deficient in MINERALS
What are minerals?
Yes, nail biting often begins with boredom or impatience or fidgeting.
If you are among the millions who regularly bite their nails, you've probably said to yourself "I wish I could stop biting my nails!"
But often your body needs the minerals in the nail material that your body is recycling. So the reward-cycle begins and continues.
Studies show that the mineral content of hair or nails is similar to the mineral content of bone.
The human body, like everything else in nature, is made up of chemicals.
Since the trace minerals group includes over 50 chemical elements, scientists further subdivide this group into three categories, to separate the minerals that are important in health from others that are in our bodies just because they are in the environment and probably have no special role. The first category is the essential trace minerals. These are minerals that are required in the diet for full health, and when the intake is insufficient, symptoms of deficiency will arise. They include nine known to be essential: zinc, copper, selenium, chromium, manganese, molybdenum, iodine, fluoride, and cobalt. About 10 more minerals are thought to be essential but the full proof is not yet in; these are arsenic, boron, bromine, cadmium, lead, lithium, nickel, silicon, tin, and vanadium.
You will note in this list several minerals (arsenic, cadmium, lead) that are normally thought to be toxic. This leads to the second category of trace minerals, the toxic trace minerals. The term is used for minerals that give problems with toxicity at levels that may be encountered normally in the environment and for which health concerns are more likely to arise from too much rather than too little in the body. This category is fairly loose, changing from time to time, and includes aluminum, arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury, and tin.
Actually, all nutrients are toxic if too much is ingested; how much is too much depends on the nutrient. For essential minerals like copper, there is a definite gradation for health; if the intake is below the requirement, illness due to deficiency will develop; as the intake goes up, health will improve until a plateau is reached, where small increases in intake will not make any difference to health; above the top safe level (the end of the plateau), increases in intake will cause toxic illness. In extreme cases, both deficiency at one end and toxicity at the other end of the spectrum may get so severe as to cause death. This pattern is seen for all nutrients, including, for example, vitamins, macro-minerals, and protein.
Some will cause debilitating disease. A classic example is vanadium which can cause manic depression.
The third category of nonessential trace minerals is everything else: all the other minerals that are present in the body but are not essential in the diet and are not thought to have any function, and that do not cause any concern over toxicity or deficiency. In practice, virtually everything is essential.
Biting your nails becomes addictive because of the reward process. You're probably deficient in minerals.
Find out more about minerals
Send e mail to Body Language Site sponsored by SureScreen Diagnostics Ltd www.surescreen.com Copyright exists on all material within this site. Please ask approval before you refer to it. This page last modified: August 15, 2005. | <urn:uuid:5bbd6fa9-1f0d-4add-914a-0187a7e43616> | {
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Most ingrown nail infections
can be described as a simple foreign body reaction. The nail grows into
the skin and acts as a foreign body, just like a splinter or a piece of glass.
Continued pressure by the nail against the skin causes inflammation and a soft
The most common reason we develop ingrown
nails is due to improper trimming of the nail. The nail is very weak when
twisted (torsion). If the nail is trimmed so that a small spur, called a spicule, is left on the border of the nail, the nail
will continue to grow forcing the spicule into the skin. As the skin
responds to this 'foreign object' it becomes inflamed and sore. The area
adjacent to the nail will become increasingly more difficult to trim, and so
begins the vicious cycle that we call an ingrown nail.
The majority of ingrown nails are on the hallux
(big toe). Pain is usually tolerable until the nail is bumped or stepped
on. Ingrown nails are extremely common in adolescent boys and in women 2-3 months
postpartum. Why? Young boys seem to have little regard for regular hygiene and
pregnant women have a difficult time reaching their feet during the last several
months of their pregnancy, not to mention the additional burden of their feet
The shape of the nail can also be a contributing
factor for ingrown nails. Pincer nails( as shown to
the left), a term used for nails that have a
pinched appearance, put pressure on the periungual folds. As
shoe pressure is exerted on the nail, the edges of the nail push into the skin
just as the weight of something put on a table pushes through the legs of the
table to the floor.
Other contributing factors that may cause ingrown
nails include trauma to the nail, pressure from adjacent
toes and the shape or profile of the forefoot in relationship to the shape of
the toe box of the shoe. Medical conditions, such as fungal infections or
psoriasis, can change the shape of the nail and contribute to ingrown nails.
Treatment for ingrown nails
Ingrown toenails are treated much the same as a splinter.
Antibiotics and soaking can help to reduce the inflammation associated with the
ingrown nail, but until the foreign object (ingrown nail) is removed, the stale
mate between the nail and adjacent skin will continue. Removal of the
offending border of nail is necessary in most cases of ingrown nails.
Many have suggested the 'proper' way to trim the
nail, but in actuality, every nail is a bit different from the next nail.
Therefore, it's most important to trim the nail with
quality nail trimmers in a way that it is not going to
irritate the periungual fold. Trimming the nail straight across may work
for some but is ineffective for others. Some advocate cutting a groove or
V in the distal tip of the nail. This is also ineffective. Cotton under
the edge of the nail has been tried, even metallic clips that 'lift' the nail,
but each of these will fail in time unless the offending border of the nail is
removed. NailEase may
help to lift the edges of the nail in a limited number of cases. Many pregnant
women develop ingrown nails due to their inability to reach their feet. NailEase
is a great product for them since they are poor surgical candidates until they
The technique used most commonly today to treat
infected ingrown nails is called a phenol-alcohol procedure (P&A procedure). This
procedure is performed in the office under a local anesthetic on
an out-patient basis. After the toe is numbed and cleaned with a
disinfecting agent, a thin margin of nail is removed. Phenol, which is 77%
carboxylic acid, is applied to the nail matrix to kill the cells that produce
that small margin of nail only. The phenol is then flushed out with
alcohol. Patients can return to a Band-Aid and regular shoes the next day.
The interesting thing about the phenol-alcohol
procedure is the lack of pain experienced by patients following their
surgery. This is due to the fact that phenol has a topical anesthetic
property that last for 2-3 weeks. Although the procedure will drain for
several days, the benefit of using phenol is significant. Phenol is best
know as the active ingredient in Chloroseptic Mouthwash Spray. In
Chloroseptic, phenol is used in a more dilute concentration but has the same
effect in that it inhibits sore throat pain.
Other surgical procedures may be used with or
without phenol and include the use of a CO2 laser or other chemicals to destroy
the matrix cells. The decision to remove one border, both borders or the
entire nail should be discussed with your doctor.
The following images show the steps involved in correcting an
ingrown nail with a P&A or phenol alcohol procedure. Image 1 shows
administration of local anesthesia. Once the nail has been anesthetised,
the foot is prepped with a Betadine or comparable solution. Image 2
shows a small tourniquet (Penrose drain) around the toe to inhibit bleeding (hemostasis).
A nail splitter is being used to create a clean split to remove just the borders
of the nail. Image 3 shows a hemostat being used to remove the nail.
The nail bed is then scraped with a small curette to physically destroy the nail
matrix. In image 4 we see the application of phenol. Phenol
application is normally done 3 times for 5-10 seconds each application.
And image 5 shows the final bandage. This procedure is completed in 10
minutes and is performed in an office setting. Post-op care varies, but
steps are taken to promote drainage of the nail and may include Epsom Salt soaks
or application of steroid/antibiotic drops. Patients return to a normal
shoe the day after surgery wearing just a 1 inch Band-Aid. Healing takes | <urn:uuid:05f70e0a-0534-4d34-a38b-3d6629e9c438> | {
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Prepare this delightful combination of potatoes and vegetables on the grill or in the oven. It can be made ahead of time and served at room temperature or reheated.
By Patty James
Why is it important to eat lots of different colored fruits and vegetables? Because each colored vegetable and fruit has unique properties and there is strong evidence of interactions between the colors that are beneficial to your health. Eating by the Rainbow is vitally important to your well-being.
Here are the colors:
Red foods contain lycopene that helps rid the body of damaging free radicals and protects against prostate cancer, as well as heart and lung disease. The red foods are loaded with antioxidants thought to protect against heart disease by preventing blood clots, and may also delay the aging of cells in the body.
Orange and Yellow foods contain alpha carotene, which protects against cancer, but also contain beta-carotene, which the body converts to vitamin A, protecting the skin against free-radical damage. Beta-carotene is also good for night vision.
Yams and sweet potatoes
Oranges and Tangerines
Yellow summer or winter squash
Green foods contain the chemicals that help ward off cancer by inhibiting carcinogens. Chlorophyll is the component that makes plants green, and it is purifying in the body. Many green foods also contain calcium and minerals.
Kale, spinach, and other leafy greens
Blue, Indigo, and Violet foods contain the compound anthocyanins that not only give food their color but also have been shown to reduce the risk of high blood pressure and increasing heart health.
Plums, fresh and dried
White foods, though not part of the color of the rainbow, contain properties that have anti-tumor qualities, such as allicin in onions as well as other health-improving antioxidants such as the flavanoids. The white foods, like bananas and potatoes, contain potassium as well.
So how do you incorporate these fruits and vegetables into your daily eating habits?
Here are some sample menus to get you started:
An orange. Sauté 1/2 red pepper, ½ onion, 2 shitake mushrooms, and 2 cloves garlic. Add 3 cups leafy greens (spinach leaves are fine) and 3 eggs. Cook until eggs are done and serve.
Strawberries. Oatmeal made with cubed butternut squash or pureed pumpkin, topped with raw walnut pieces and raw pumpkin seeds.
Turkey sandwich on whole grain bread with sprouts, lettuce, tomato slices, avocado, and grated carrots. Serve with a 2-cup salad made with romaine lettuce and raw cauliflower, broccoli, and garbanzo beans.
Spinach salad topped with black olives, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, green onions, and cauliflower. Add beans or chicken if you like. Toss with fresh lemon juice and either olive oil or flax oil or a combination of the two. Sprinkle fresh parsley, chopped, on top.
Grilled fish or chicken breast or black beans and brown rice (protein). Coleslaw made with green and red cabbage with red onions and grated carrots. Baked yam.
Pasta primavera made with spinach fettuccini, sautéed red peppers, onions, garlic, zucchini, carrots, and whatever else is in season.
1 cup blueberries and cantaloupe
Jicama slices with salsa and celery with hummus or peanut or almond butter
Pineapple chunks and banana slices
Raw veggies with your favorite dip. Hummus is a good choice.
Tangerine slices with herb tea
Remember that you need 5–9 cups of vegetables and fruits a day for good health. Make sure at least half of your veggies are raw. Don't forget that juicing can incorporate many colored fruits and veggies easily and may be a good choice for those who may not be able to chew raw fruits and veggies.
Patty James is a Certified Natural Chef with a Master's degree in Holistic Nutrition and was founder and director of the Patty James Cooking School and Nutrition Center, the first certified organic cooking school and nutrition center in the country. She created the Patty James Health Guide, a guide to life-long healthy eating and lifestyle. Patty is a frequent guest speaker in public and private schools around the US, the Clinton Foundation in New York, as well as to health practitioners and organizations. Patty runs Shine the Light on America's Kids, an organization whose mission is to shine the light on all aspects of kids' health in America. She is the author of More Vegetables, Please! Website: PattyJames.com and ShineTheLightOnKids.org
Copyright (c) 2010 Studio One Networks. All rights reserved.
*DISCLAIMER*: The information contained in or provided through this site section is intended for general consumer understanding and education only and is not intended to be and is not a substitute for professional advice. Use of this site section and any information contained on or provided through this site section is at your own risk and any information contained on or provided through this site section is provided on an "as is" basis without any representations or warranties.
WTXF-TV 330 Market Street Philadelphia, PA 19106-2796 | <urn:uuid:f56f1be2-b9d4-4957-bcef-011d0061f6b0> | {
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Jacob's Diverse Family
Jacob found it in his heart to embrace all his children, though they chose different paths.
Provided by the Jewish Outreach Institute, an organization dedicated to creating a more open and welcoming Judaism.
We have come to the end of Jacob's tumultuous life. And as he gathers his children to his on his deathbed, Jacob offers each one a blessing. In these blessings are contained wishes for his children that emanate from his own experience of life and his relationship with each one. Rather than being cut of divine cloth and thereby a form of revelation, these blessings emerge from the kind of wisdom that only comes from the experience of human living.
Of the many lessons that Jacob teaches us, we learn from him that old age can be a powerful teacher, as well as a calming influence particularly as they relate to those issues that seem to tear families apart only years before. The things that were once so important are eclipsed by the hovering shadow made so poignant by the angel of death. If we can reconcile at the end of life, why can't we do so earlier? What will it take to do so earlier?
Jacob's family was certainly diverse and its members had traveled different paths in their lives. Yet he found it in his heart to embrace them all, including his grandchildren, the children of Joseph. This diversity reflects his final and complete transformation from Jacob to Israel (which we read about in a previous section).
If our communities are to be diverse and supportive of the foundational values of inclusion, then our families--which are already diversifying--can do no less. | <urn:uuid:0f75caaf-a378-4dc0-b506-af9035aa0647> | {
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Joined: 16 Mar 2004
|Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 11:39 am Post subject: New Method Creates Nanowire Detectors Exactly Where Needed
|New Method Creates Nanowire Detectors Exactly Where Needed
There seems to be little doubt among cancer researchers that new detection systems using nanowires and microfluidics hold the promise of providing a quantum leap in the detection of cancer-related molecules and genes. However, researchers also know that there are significant technical barriers that must be overcome to realize that promise, including the current difficulty in creating microfluidic devices built around nanowire detectors.
Now, a team of investigators at the Nanosystems Biology Cancer Center, one of eight NCI-funded Centers of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence, has developed a method for creating conducting polymer nanowires in place within microfluidic circuits.
The team, led by Hsian-Rong Tseng, Ph.D., of the University of California, Los Angeles, and James Health, Ph.D., of the California Institute of Technology, reported their work in the journal Chemical Communications.
The researchers create the nanowires using standard microelectrodes built into the microfluidics device specifically for the purpose of carrying out electrochemical reactions within the channels of the device. This allows them to use the microfluidic channels to introduce the precursor molecules, or monomers, needed to create the conducting polymer nanowires and trigger an electrochemical reaction at the exact place where the nanowires are needed to function as biomolecule detectors. This reaction causes the monomers to link to one another, forming the conducting polymer nanowires. This process can create two different types of polymer nanowires, one made of polyaniline, the other of polypyrrole. The chemical reactions are completed within 40 minutes.
Once formed, the nanowires can function immediately as detectors, with the electrodes used to form the nanowires now functioning as the circuitry that connects the nanowires to electrical signal recorders. The investigators demonstrate that these detectors are highly sensitive to changes in pH and to changing ammonia concentrations, though they note that these nanowires should be able to be used to detect a wide range of biomolecules.
This work, which was supported in part by the National Cancer Institute, is detailed in a paper titled, “Electrochemical fabrication of conducting polymer nanowires in an integrated microfluidic system.”
This story was first posted on 26th September 2006. | <urn:uuid:05aa96f1-4573-4ed6-a24c-f08440ed4788> | {
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Joined: 16 Mar 2004
|Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 11:55 am Post subject: New Line of Lasers for Biomedicine
|Dundee Leads EU Project to Develop Next Generation of Lasers
Laser technology has revolutionised the world of medicine in ways never before thought of. More and more often the scalpel is giving way to a new generation of lasers. Now the FAST-DOT project, backed by the EU with €10.1 million in financing, is underway to develop a new line of lasers for biomedical applications.
Led by a team located at the University of Dundee, 18 European partners from 12 countries will pool their knowledge and resources to develop the next generation of lasers which will be used for biomedical applications. Their combined efforts mean that they are able to conduct nearly 100 person years of work in a fraction of the time.
According to Professor Edik Rafailov of the University of Dundee, 'This project will revolutionise the use of lasers in the biomedical field, providing both practitioners and researchers with pocket sized ultra high performance lasers at a substantially lower cost, which will make their widespread use affordable.'
The new lasers that will be developed will not only be much smaller but also more energy efficient than current lasers in use. Current lasers are not portable and are heavy on energy consumption. The new lasers will be designed for use in microscopy and nanosurgery, where high precision cutting, imaging and treatment therapies will be made possible.
According to Neil Stewart, FAST-DOT project manager, 'The objectives of the project are to use a technology called quantum dot materials, probably gallium arsenide, and exploit their lasing characteristics for use in biomedical applications, such as laser tweezing for microsurgery.'
The new lasers will mean that surgeons and life scientists will have access to much higher performance and lower cost lasers than are currently available and will open up exciting new application areas for lasers in biomedicine. There is also hope that new lasers under development will also decrease in size.
Currently, lasers are roughly the size of a shoebox. FAST-DOT hopes to bring down the size to that of a matchbox while bringing the cost down to a tenth of what they currently are.
Dr Stewart also claimed that the new lasers would be applicable in the field of micro-surgery. 'With these lasers we ought to be able to take that down to about a very few microns. And because of the differences in the way the energy is controlled, it enables us to deliver very controlled amounts of energy so we are also going to be investigating things like tissue welding,' he said.
Application of lasers in nanosurgery procedure: Ablation of a single mitochondrion inside a living fibroblast cell, before (left) and after (right) laser ablation.
Laser systems for use in medicine were initially seen as a surgical tool which is minimally invasive, and were used for the ablation, cutting, or coagulation of tissue. As a result, their earliest application was witnessed in the field of general surgery and laparoscopic surgery. By the 1990s lasers were gaining popularity in the field of ophthalmology for sight correction.
Now however lasers are being used in a diagnostic sense thanks to their non-invasive capabilities as well as being utilized for the detection and monitoring of certain diseases. | <urn:uuid:f3058f00-68e1-4ae6-858c-194efbd80988> | {
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Biologists have known for decades that cells use tiny molecular motors to move chromosomes, mitochondria, and many other organelles within the cell, but no one has been able to understand what "steers" these engines to their destinations. Now, researchers at the University of Rochester have shed new light on how cells accomplish this feat, and the results may eventually lead to new approaches to fighting pathogens and neurological diseases.
Michael Welte, associate professor of biology, shows in a paper published in today's issue of Cell that the mechanisms that control the molecular motors are quite different from what biologists have previously believed. Before these findings, scientists assumed that the number of motors attached to an organelle determined how far and fast the organelle could travel, but Welte and colleagues have discovered that it is not the number of motors, but yet-to-be-discovered molecules that are likely the master regulators.
"The fact that motor number has nothing to do with regulating transport is extremely surprising, and somewhat unsettling to people working in vitro," says Welte. "It says we're really missing something when we study these motors only in the test tube instead of in a living cell."
Intracellular transport is crucial to a cell's health, says Welte. For instance, during cell division, one copy of each of the cell's chromosomes migrates to one side of the cell while the other copy moves to the other side. If this movement is disturbed, it could cause an imbalance of chromosomes in the daughter cells, which might die or become cancerous. Similarly, neurons, some of which are as much as three feet in length, manufacture proteins and organelles at one end and then must move that precious cargo all the way to the far end where they'll be used. This is an enormous task, says Welte, and defects in this transport are thought to cause a number of neurological diseases.
Given the difficulty of investigating these tiny motors acting within the cell, biologists have performed basic experiments on them outside of the cell in a carefully controlled environment. This led them to believe that the speed and distance an organelle could be transported depended on how many motors were pulling it, says Welte. Thus, the scientists reasoned, perhaps the cell simply attaches the right number of motors to an organelle to send it the right distance. Although this "multi-motor" hypothesis is very simple and elegant, says Welte, whether it actually holds true within living cells had never been tested.
Welte's graduate student, Susan Tran, decided to perform that test. She created fruit-fly eggs lacking a type of molecular motor called kinesin and found that certain organelles stopped moving—strong evidence that kinesin is responsible for their transport. Tran then made another type of mutant eggs, this time ones that produced only about half the number of kinesin motors of a regular egg. In both types of eggs, organelles were transported with the same speed and the same distance.
Welte needed to know if this equality was because the normal egg was simply utilizing only half the available kinesin motors, or if some master regulator was controlling the organelle's progress, regardless of the number of motors moving it. To do this, Welte turned to Steven Gross, associate professor of developmental and cell biology at the University of California. Gross' group uses an apparatus called "optical tweezers" that employs laser light to measure the tiny forces the motors generate. The team found that organelles in regular cells are pulled with twice the force of Tran's mutant, low-kinesin cells.
"That clinched it for us," says Welte. "Yes, there are multiple motors moving organelles around, but exactly how many doesn't matter. There is something else in the cell that's controlling all the motors. That opens up a big area for research—find what's driving these motors and maybe we can control them all by controlling one thing."
Welte and his team are now looking at where in the cell this signal comes from and how it influence the motors. Although Welte's team studied fruit fly eggs, the motors moving the organelles are present in all animals and employed for many tasks, including transport in human neurons.
Welte also points out that viruses, including HIV, make use of the same kind of motors to move about the cell, first to get from the site of penetration to the nucleus, where they multiply, and then to get progeny viruses back to the cell surface. If Welte and others can figure out how cells normally control these motors, it may be possible to prevent HIV from taking control of the motors and thus to keep it, and other intracellular pathogens, at the edge of the cell where they can do little harm.
This research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, and includes researchers from the University of Rochester, the University of California Irvine, and University of Texas at Austin. | <urn:uuid:7509ef7b-8994-402e-a924-65bea8d3e7eb> | {
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Edwards Middle School Students Like Four-footed Martian Robots
It was the video of robots looking like geckos crawling on Mars that did it.
That's the catalyst that brought a gymnasium full of middle school students to life during a visit by NASA Dryden Flight Research Center director Kevin Petersen, astronaut Pam Melroy, and local graduate Shelby Hagenauer, now a legislative assistant to Representative William M. Thomas from California's 22nd Congressional District.
Image right: NASA Dryden Flight Research Center Director Kevin Petersen talks to Edwards Middle School students on April 9. NASA photo by Tom Tschida.
The students, some 350-strong, attend Edwards Middle School on Edwards Air Force Base, where NASA Dryden is located. Dryden supports the school as a NASA Explorer School, one of a growing number of schools around the country who are partnering with NASA to achieve exciting learning projects.
Petersen, Melroy and Hagenauer each had messages of encouragement for the students. The Edwards community is a savvy audience; many of the students' parents fly aboard, or support, experimental aircraft tested by the Air Force at this Mojave Desert location. When Petersen spoke about cutting-edge experiments flying overhead every day, it was the straight scoop from NASA Dryden's top insider, delivered to an audience whom, he said, may have the opportunity to contribute to the planned exploration of Mars.
"Let's go do something really hard," Petersen encouraged his audience. "We'll learn some things we can all use."
Pam Melroy captivated the students with descriptions of space travel taken from her two space shuttle missions. When asked what it was like to sleep in outer space, Melroy smiled and replied, "Sleep? It's worse than the night before Christmas times a thousand!" She wanted to stay awake to experience everything, knowing she had but a short stay on orbit. But sleep in space is necessary, and she said astronauts sometimes strap themselves to a wall to get the feeling of something at their backs, like the feeling of a mattress on Earth. In zero gravity conditions, up and down don't matter, and some astronauts "hang upside down like bats" to sleep, she told the Edwards Middle School crowd.
Image left: NASA astronaut Pamela Melroy answers students' questions at Edwards Middle School. NASA photo by Tom Tschida.
Melroy reminded her audience, "Someone between the age of about five and 15 right now will be the one to step on Mars." Prophetic words that Melroy and her co-hosts would be delighted to see come true for someone from Edwards.
Shelby Hagenauer, a 1994 graduate of Desert High School next door, elaborated on Petersen and Melroy's comments about the value to future space explorers of studying math and science now. "We also need people to study history and political science," she told the students, since there are many ways to support the dream of exploration.
The personal contact with Petersen, Melroy and Hagenauer continued to animate the students who clustered around to ask questions after the program's conclusion. Teacher Kim Cantrell was pleased with what the Explorer School program has done so far; one student has said doors have opened up in her mind since the exposure to NASA Explorer School activities.
Frederick A. Johnsen
NASA Dryden Flight Research Center | <urn:uuid:5a747468-089a-4d67-92be-625f328fb172> | {
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21 May - 3 October 2010
‘The Glass Delusion’ was the name given in the late Middle Ages and Baroque times to a form of depression. Sufferers were obsessive, compulsive, driven by irrational fears, and imagined themselves to be made of glass, hence brittle and fragile. So pervasive was the condition that it entered world literature, philosophy and history. Cervantes wrote the novel The Glass Licentiate, Descartes mentions it as a premise to his syllogism I think therefore I am, and Charles VI of France had iron ribs sewn into his clothes to protect himself from breaking. Victims allegedly travelled padded in straw and refused to sit down fearing their body weight would fracture their buttocks.
The syndrome evokes a psychological separation between reality and imagination, between a strength and a vulnerability that we all experience at times. Glass is a barrier, yet allows light to pass through it; it magnifies and shrinks; it can be delicate as well as deadly. Its attributes are appropriated in symbolic ways: the Glass Brain and the Glass Man; mirror image, alter ego, Doppelganger, and split personality all come to mind. More than any other material glass has the ability to combine opposites and it is this duality that is the inspiration for this exhibition. | <urn:uuid:4151a7a2-cc4c-4078-8480-03fe0078ee6d> | {
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Water in the ear
Living in Thailand is great for those of us who enjoy swimming and water sportsBut the hot and tropical climate doesn't mean that you are safe from "swimmer's ear syndrome" or otitis.
Swimmer's ear or otitis externa is an inflammation, irritation or infection of the skin of the outer ear canal. After swimming or showering, water remaining in the ear leaves the ear canal moist, making it a good environment for bacterial growth. Rubbing the ear with a finger or using cotton tips to clean the ears lead to abrasions of the ear canal skin. Bacteria then invade the skin and cause infection of the ear canal or swimmer's ear. Swimming in polluted water and excessive cleaning worsen the infection.
Symptoms of swimmer's ear start with itching and mild discomfort, then progress to pain, swelling and redness in the ear, feeling of fullness or a blocked ear, fluid (pus) drainage from the ear, lymph node swelling and fever. The diagnosis is made by history, symptoms and ear examination. Pain, redness or swelling of the outer ear canal leads to the diagnosis of otitis externa (swimmer's ear). However, in recurrent infections, the doctor may collect discharge from the ear canal for culture to identify the causative bacteria. Treatment for swimmer ears includes cleaning of the ear canal, application of eardrops that inhibit bacterial or fungal growth and reduce swelling, and/or oral antibiotics. Pain relief medication may be given to minimise the discomfort.
As with all infections, prevention is better than cure. Below are some tips that should keep you safe from otitis externa.
1. Keep your ear dry because a dry ear is unlikely to become infected. Tip your head to the side to drain water out of your ear after swimming and showering. Swim mould can also be used to prevent water to the ear.
2. Do not swim in polluted water.
3. Do not put anything into your ear including finger, cotton, cloth or paper.
4. If you have an ear infection, do not go swimming.
Dr Savitree Chaloryoo, is a specialist paediatric audiologist at the Hearing Center, on the third floor of Samitivej Srinakarin Hospital. She can be contacted at (02) 378 9000. | <urn:uuid:2a2aedd8-b4b0-4902-93e5-5d7401e27079> | {
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On a trip to Ireland a few years ago, I was struck by a number of faces among the crowds. They were children with the tell-tale look of Down syndrome.
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What struck me was the realization that I hardly ever see these young faces out on the street in the United States.
A fascinating probe by the Associated Press suggests the reason. Gene testing of parental carriers is leading to the birth of fewer and fewer children with inherited diseases in the United States. Other conditions such as Down syndrome, which uses prenatal testing of the fetus, are also apparently being screened out in greater numbers.
By encouraging genetic testing for potential parents of European background, fewer and fewer children in the U.S. are being born with cystic fibrosis. Aggressive programs to offer genetic testing to a subset of Jewish ancestry has, over the last decade, resulted in a situation in which only about a dozen new cases of fatal Tay-Sachs Disease occur each year in babies in the United States. Experts believe that wider testing of parents may produce in the years to come a sharp decline in the number of children born with sickle cell disease and Fragile X syndrome, a leading cause of cognitive impairment in boys.
Reducing the burden of disease is obviously a good thing. But genetic testing of parents, and, as is now happening with increasing frequency, embryos, raises some difficult ethical challenges as well.
In many cases, genetic testing of parents may discourage them from trying to have a child but, in situations where there is risk but not certainty, some parents will try to conceive. Then, aware of the risk, they pursue further prenatal testing, and end any pregnancy in which a fetus could be affected.
Destroying an embryo is obviously a difficult ethical and personal choice. Not as obvious are two other ethical challenges that more and more testing creates: The impact on those with genetic disabilities and their families and the likely expansion of genetic testing to more and more conditions in the years to come.
As some families with a Down syndrome child have noted, fewer kids with Down may mean fewer public programs, fewer resources in schools and for housing and less political clout. If some genetic diseases begin to fade away, will society’s willingness to provide support for the diminishing numbers of those born with such diseases fade as well? And are we headed to a time when parents who choose not to be genetically tested find themselves condemned as morally irresponsible parents?
There may be broad agreement that getting rid of a disease like Tay-Sachs, which produces a slow, miserable and inevitable death, usually by age 4, morally justifies aggressive genetic testing and even decisions to abort pregnancies where the fetus has the disease. But, could the same ethical consensus be brought to bear concerning conditions such as deafness or dwarfism, which also have a genetic component?
And what about using genetic testing on parents to pick out those at high risk for passing on conditions such as breast cancer, depression, Alzheimer’s or addiction — conditions that involve genetic risks but that may not appear until mid-life or later and for which therapies may well be found in the future?
And at the far extreme will companies be free to tout genetic testing of would-be parents simply to try and make matches that would result in a "better" baby?
As with many scientific advances, the good they do comes with some very hard dilemmas for you and me.
Arthur Caplan is director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.
© 2013 msnbc.com. Reprints | <urn:uuid:02da5f14-3de6-4c37-afa6-be36f22bfb9e> | {
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Patrick Henry: Violent Extremist?
Just as today, Americans enjoyed more freedom and less taxes than any nation in Europe. Yet they opposed a tax on tea (today’s equivalent of taxing coke) with violent vigor. Laws like the Stamp Act, which are reasonable by today’s standards, caused violent opposition that bordered on treason. Where the colonists crazy?
After the British repealed many of these duties, the Sons of Liberty hurled entire chests of perfectly fresh, well priced tea, into Boston Harbor with significant public support. Were the colonists just trying to provoke the wrath of the British?
When that wrath did come, politicians like Patrick Henry shouted phrases like “Liberty or Death!” when in the direct warpath of the most powerful military in the world.
The founders did these things because they believed in the principle of individual rights. Individual rights is the idea that the government’s sole job is the protection of the life liberty and property of individuals, and the belief that any compromise, any deviation from that principle, is unacceptable. Today, the principle of individual rights is hardly ever mentioned, and compromise is considered a virtue.
The colonists were not protesting against the level of taxes (as Republicans do today) they protested the fact that they were being collected by the whim of a single man, just as today they are collected at the whim of a simple majority, or at the whim of whatever pressure group manages to lobby congress. They recognized that any amount of taxes collected in this way violated the principle and was therefore completely wrong.
The Boston Tea party was a demonstration against the British government bailing out the East India Company by giving the failing business a trade monopoly. They recognized that if the government had the arbitrary power to save a failing company, it also had the arbitrary power to destroy their liberties. Imagine what we would think of the Sons of Liberty today if they were caught tossing Chevy Volts into the sea.
When Patrick Henry shouted “Give me liberty or give me death!” he understood that life means nothing if it is bought at the cost of liberty. If he spoke such words today he would be viewed as a “violent extremist”. Intellectuals would condemn his position as too “black and white” to account for the nuances of politics.
Instead of protesting taxes that are “too high” or that government regulations are “too much” we should remember the principles involved. The purpose of government is to protect individual rights. When it does things other than that, it stands in violation of that principle. It is our failure to recognize this principle that has caused government to grow out of control.
There can be no “compromise” on issues like these. Either a government accomplishes the legitimate role of government, or it does not.
The colonists did not hold bipartisan committees to compromise with the unjust laws; they recognized them as a threat and used all means, from violent protest, to vandalism, to war to fight them.
The American colonists were extremists, unwilling to settle for anything but total liberty. It is time we adopt that same attitude. | <urn:uuid:8f1478f6-c335-4117-9a9b-7d305f7e4581> | {
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In what's being described as the largest, most complete genetic mapping project for a single disease, scientists Monday announced a plan to obtain the genetic make-up of more than 800 individuals enrolled in an Alzheimer's research study.
The research will determine all 6 billion letters in each individual's DNA. The new data -- vast and shared worldwide with eligible researchers -- may explain how genes cause changes in the body that lead people to develop Alzheimer's disease.
"It's probably dozens or scores of genes that are contributing to whether you get it and how severe it is in you," said Dr. Robert Green, a physician-scientist at Harvard Medical School who is tasked with coordinating the genetic sequencing. "The genome is a complicated place. It's not just about identifying a gene that puts you at risk. It's about identifying other genes that modify those genes. It's about identifying genes that protect you."
The $2 million genetic sequencing project is being conducted by the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative in partnership with the Alzheimer's Association and the Brin Wojcicki Foundation.
The sequencing will be completed in three months.
It will take much longer to know whether the study participant's decoded genomes yield any breakthrough strategies to treat the more than 5 million Americans who have Alzheimer's disease.
"I would expect it to point us to new areas we might want to investigate for therapies," said William Thies, chief medical and scientific officer at the Alzheimer's Association. "I expect that it may point us to new areas that will allow us to predict who's at high risk for Alzheimer's disease and who could be treated early before they have any signs of dementia." | <urn:uuid:bc309c3f-0b96-4615-a145-1d8551cc8eb0> | {
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MANY geologists rather dismiss man-made climate change. On the timescales they work in, they figure nature will absorb anything we throw at it. Not David Archer. The Long Thaw shows how, by digging up and burning our planet's carbon, we are determining climate for millennia hence. It also shows how we may soon unleash changes to the carbon cycle that will cancel the next ice age, and maybe the one after that, not to mention melting enough ice to flood land less than 20 metres above sea level. A beautifully written primer on why climate change matters hugely for our future - on all timescales.
To continue reading this article, subscribe to receive access to all of newscientist.com, including 20 years of archive content. | <urn:uuid:afce46c1-c3eb-4974-8bef-ada8cf58d2b5> | {
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By Dr. Perry Kendall
Provincial Health Officer
Aug. 14, 2012
VICTORIA - As summer vacations come to an end, and we begin to look forward to the fall, it is a good time to start thinking about how to best protect ourselves and our loved ones from illnesses like influenza.
The Public Health Agency of Canada estimates that between 2,000 and 8,000 Canadians die every year from influenza and its complications.
British Columbia provides the flu shot for free each year to those considered at higher risk of developing influenza complications, or those who care for them. That list includes:
- People over age 65 and their caregivers.
- Children and adults with chronic health conditions and their household contacts.
- Health-care workers.
- Emergency responders.
- Healthy children aged six months-five years.
- Household contacts and caregivers of children aged zero-five years.
- Pregnant women who will be in their third trimester during the influenza season.
- Residents of nursing homes and other chronic-care facilities.
- Aboriginal peoples.
- People who are very obese (those with a body mass index of 40 or greater)
Even if you are not considered a person of high risk, if you regularly interact with or work around someone who is, I strongly encourage you to get vaccinated for their sake. High-risk populations can suffer severe consequences from influenza, including death. Bacterial pneumonia, an infection of the lungs, is the most common complication from influenza, especially in elderly people. It can also lead to more complications for people who have heart, lung or other health conditions.
For these reasons, it is especially important that health-care workers get their flu shot each year, and I would like to acknowledge and thank those health-care workers who do get vaccinated.
As a physician myself, I know how important it is to protect patients. All of the major professional health care bodies, such as the College of Registered Nurses of British Columbia, support vaccination of health-care workers. Unfortunately, each year throughout B.C., fewer than 50 per cent of health-care workers get immunized against influenza. This rate is too low - patients deserve better. Some jurisdictions in the United States have managed to achieve 95 per cent coverage of health-care workers. There is significant evidence in long-term care facilities that high health-care worker influenza vaccine coverage results in diminished illness and fewer deaths. Getting the flu shot should be considered standard patient safety practice for all health-care workers who come into contact with patients - as important as following effective hand hygiene practices, staying home when ill or wearing a mask in the operating room.
I would like to briefly address the concerns that some people have about the vaccine, as each year far fewer people get vaccinated than we in the public health community would like to see. The flu vaccine is extremely safe. It is not possible to contract the flu from getting a flu shot, because the publicly funded vaccines use only killed - inactive - virus particles. There is also no risk of developing conditions like autism from the flu vaccine (or any vaccine, for that matter). It is far safer to get the vaccine than to get sick - especially if you or someone you love is considered high risk.
Vaccines have been one of the most important medical advances of the modern era and have been responsible for wiping out (or nearly eliminating) once common illnesses, such as smallpox. This year, if you are eligible for a free flu shot, I encourage you to get immunized. If you care for vulnerable people, I especially urge you to get immunized, and if you are a health-care worker providing care to patients, the National Advisory Committee on Immunization considers influenza immunization an essential component of the standard of care. Finally, if you are a parent, ensure that your child's other vaccinations are up-to-date. Vaccines are safe and effective. They reduce illness and save lives. | <urn:uuid:165cf05a-0106-4744-a7f0-487c0e8c1939> | {
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The pulling power of chaos
Our Science Essay ponders the riddle of the wandering stars. Starting with Poincaré, complex maths i
What is the most efficient way to get a space probe to its target? When Apollo 11 went to the moon in 1969 it followed a conventional Hohmann transfer orbit. Imagine an egg-shaped outline, with the earth at the bottom. As the spacecraft comes up the left-hand side, it burns fuel to accelerate, and swings into orbit around the moon.
This was the quickest route – aside from the impractical one of flying straight out by burning fuel the whole time – and, in a manned mission, speed was of the essence. However, we now know that when efficient use of fuel is the main objective, and time is unimportant, less direct routes can be much better. When Nasa sent the Cassini probe to Saturn, it first went inwards in the solar system, undergoing two close encounters with Venus. Then it swung back past the earth and on to Jupiter before making a sharp turn to meet Saturn.
Trajectories such as this exploit the slingshot effect, in which the spacecraft steals energy from a planet. The tiny spacecraft speeds up considerably, pulled towards the planet by gravity; the massive planet slows down very slightly, but not enough to notice. Yet there is another, subtler effect of orbital dynamics which is also being used to get spacecraft to their targets using as little fuel as possible: chaos.
The technique was first used in 1991. A Japanese space probe, Hiten, had been surveying the moon. Having completed its mission and returned to orbit the earth, it had pretty much run out of fuel. Edward Belbruno, an orbital analyst at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Los Angeles, came up with an idea that sounded impossible. He wanted to extend its useful life and enhance its scientific value by sending it back to the moon. Then it would visit the moon’s Trojan points – the points in space 60 degrees ahead of and behind the moon in its orbit where gravity and centrifugal forces cancel each other out. There it could search for cosmic dust that might have become trapped.
It sounded crazy, but Belbruno knew a way to do it. Mathematicians and physicists had realised that the motion of bodies under gravity can be chaotic – highly irregular, despite obeying entirely deterministic laws. Chaotic orbits are sensitive to very small disturbances. Normally, this feature is seen as an obstacle to prediction, but Belbruno realised that it could be used to advantage. Very small changes in position or speed, which use very little fuel,
can cause large changes to the trajectory. That makes it easy to redirect the spacecraft in a fuel-efficient, though possibly slow, manner.
One place where chaotic orbits can arise is somewhere called the “L1 Lagrange point” between the earth and the moon, where the net gravitational force is zero (essentially, objects are “suspended” between the two bodies because of the forces generated by each). Belbruno designed a new orbit that took Hiten close to the L1 point, where a short, carefully calculated burst of its rockets would loop it out to where he wanted it to go. He faxed his proposals, unsolicited, to the Japanese team; they loved the idea. When the probe arrived at L1, it found there was no more dust than you’d expect; after a few years orbiting the moon, Hiten was crashed into its surface in 1993. Still, it had ushered in a new era of space travel. A similar trick was used for Nasa’s Genesis mission to bring back samples of the solar wind.
The first Oscar
Our fascination with the planets goes back to prehistoric times, when human eyes watched the star-spangled splendour of the night sky and human minds were awed by the cosmic spectacle. Countless stars moved across the sky, pinpricks of light on a gigantic, rotating velvet-black bowl.
A few of those pinpricks of light, however, did not obey the rules. They went walkabout. The Greeks called them planetes – wanderers; we call them planets. Their paths are complicated and sometimes loop back on themselves. It is not surprising that the ancients attributed their movements to the caprices of supernatural beings.
Ptolemy, a Roman who lived in Egypt around AD120, began the lengthy process of taming the solar system, proposing that we live in an earth-centred universe in which everything revolves around humanity in complex combinations of circles supported by giant crystal spheres. Around 1300, the Persian Islamic philosopher Najm al-Katibi proposed a heliocentric (sun-centred) theory, but changed his mind. The big breakthrough came in 1543 when Nicolaus Copernicus published On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres. He was clearly influenced by al-Katibi, but he went further, setting out an explicitly heliocentric system. Among its implications was the novel thought that human beings were not at the centre of things. To the Christian Church, this suggestion was contrary to doctrine, and explicit heliocentrism was heresy.
The riddle of the wandering stars was finally answered in 1609 by Johannes Kepler, an assistant to the astronomer Tycho Brahe. When his employer died unexpectedly, Kepler took over as court mathematician to Emperor Rudolph II. His main role was casting imperial horoscopes, but he also had time to analyse the orbit of Mars. For years, he tried without success to fit the planet’s orbit to an egg-shaped curve, sharper at one end than the other. In 1605 he decided to try an ellipse, equally rounded at both ends. He discovered that this shape fitted the observations, and declared: “Ah, what a foolish bird I have been!”
In 1609, Kepler published A New Astronomy, stating two basic laws of planetary motion. First law: all planets move in ellipses with the sun as a focus. Second law: a planet moves along its orbit in such a manner that it sweeps out equal areas in equal times. In 1619 he returned to planetary orbits in The Harmony of the World. The book contained many curious ideas – for example, that planets emit musical sounds as they roll round the sun. But it also contained his third law: the squares of the time taken for planets to orbit are proportional to the cubes of their distances from the sun.
This work led to one of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time. In his Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy of 1687, Isaac Newton proved that Kepler’s three laws are equivalent to a single universal law of gravitation. Two bodies attract each other with a force that is proportional to their mass and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. Newton’s law of gravity had a huge advantage over Kepler’s ellipses: it applies to any system of bodies, however many there might be. The price to be paid is the way the law prescribes the orbits – not as geometric shapes, but as solutions of a mathematical equation. The problem is to solve it.
Newton achieved that for two bodies – a planet plus the sun – and the answer is what Kepler had already discovered: the bodies move around their common centre of gravity in elliptical orbits. But some questions involve more than two bodies. If you want to predict the motion of the moon with high precision, you have to include both the sun and the earth in your equations. So, fresh from Newton’s success with the motion of two bodies under gravity, mathematicians and physicists moved on to three bodies. Their initial optimism rapidly dissipated; the three-body problem turned out to be very different from the two-body problem. In fact, it defied solution.
Only in the late 19th century did its true complexity become apparent, however, when Henri Poincaré tried to win a scientific prize. The 60th birthday of Oscar II, king of Norway and Sweden, happened in 1889. The Norwegian mathematician Gösta Mittag-Leffler persuaded the king to mark the occasion by announcing a prize for calculating the motion of any number of bodies under gravity and finding out whether the solar system is stable.
Poincaré decided to start with the simplest case: two bodies (say the sun and a planet) moving in perfect circles, with the third body being a dust particle of negligible mass. Even that version proved too ambitious and he failed to solve it, but he made so much progress that he was awarded the prize anyway.
In particular, Poincaré proved that sometimes the orbit of the dust particle became extraordinarily messy. He deduced this from some highly original ideas that made it possible to infer features of the solutions without actually solving the equations, saying: “One is struck by the complexity of this figure that I am not even attempting to draw.” We now recognise Poincaré’s discovery as a sign that the dynamics of such a system are chaotic. The equations are not random, but their solutions can be very irregular, sharing features with properly random processes. This idea is colloquially known as chaos theory, and it all goes back to Poincaré and his Oscar award.
Well, that’s the story that historians of mathematics used to tell. Around 1990, however, June Barrow-Green found a copy of Poincaré’s prize-winning memoir in the depths of the Mittag-Leffler Institute in Sweden. She realised that when he submitted his work he had overlooked the chaotic solutions. He spotted the error before the memoir was published, and paid to have the original version destroyed and a corrected version printed. His initial oversight lay undiscovered for a century.
Building on Poincaré’s discovery, we now know that the three-body problem does not have simple solutions. Even so, vast progress has been made on the many-body problem in special cases; for example, when all of the bodies have the same mass. This is seldom a realistic assumption in celestial mechanics, but it is sensible for some models of elementary particles, such as electrons. In 1993, Cristopher Moore at the Sante Fe Institute found a solution to the three-body problem in which the bodies play follow-my-leader along the same orbit. Even more surprising is the shape of the orbit – a figure of eight.
Stranger than imagination
In 2000, the Spanish mathematician Carles Simó used a computer to show that this configuration is stable: it persists after small disturbances. Indeed, it remains stable even when the three masses are slightly different, so, somewhere in the universe, there might be three stars of almost identical mass, chasing each other along a figure-of-eight path.
The same year, Douglas Heggie of Edinburgh University estimated that the number of such triple stars lies somewhere between one per galaxy and one per universe. The figure-of-eight orbit is a planetary dance in which the bodies return to the same positions but swap their identities, each occupying the location that the body in front of it has vacated. This kind of orbit is called a choreography. Using a computer, Simó has found a huge number of choreographies, which can involve a large number of bodies.
The solar system is, was, and will be, far stranger than we imagine. Consider the comet Oterma. A century ago, Oterma’s orbit was well outside that of Jupiter. After a close encounter with the giant planet, its orbit shifted inside that of Jupiter. After another close encounter,
it switched back to outside again. We can confidently predict that Oterma will continue to switch orbits in this way every few decades, not because it breaks Newton’s law, but because it obeys it. Oterma’s gyrations are a far cry from Kepler’s tidy ellipses. The explanation is straight out of science fiction. In Pandora’s Star, Peter Hamilton portrays a future where people travel to planets encircling distant stars by train, running the railway lines through a wormhole, a short cut through space-time.
In his Lensman series, Edward Elmer “Doc” Smith came up with the hyperspatial tube, which malevolent aliens used to invade human worlds from the fourth dimension. Although we don’t have wormholes or aliens from the fourth dimension, the planets and moons of the solar system are tied together by a network of multidimensional mathematical tubes that provide energy-efficient routes from one world to another. If we could visualise the ever-changing gravitational landscape that controls the planets, we would see these tubes, swirling along with the planets as they orbit the sun.
Oterma’s orbit lies inside two tubes, which meet near Jupiter at a Lagrange point. One tube lies inside Jupiter’s orbit, the other outside.
At the Lagrange point the comet can switch tubes, or not, depending on chaotic effects of Jovian and solar gravity; once inside a tube, however, Oterma is stuck there until the tube returns to the junction. Like a train that has to stay on the rails, but can change its route to another set of rails if someone switches the points, Oterma has some freedom to change its itinerary, but not a lot.
As such, the way to plan an efficient mission profile is to work out which tubes are relevant to your choice of destination. Then you route your spacecraft along the inside of the first inbound tube, and when it gets to the associated Lagrange point you fire a quick burst on the motors to redirect it along the most suitable outbound tube. That tube naturally flows into the corresponding inbound tube of the next switching point . . . and so it goes on.
Plans for future tubular space missions are already being drawn up. In 2000, Wang Sang Koon, Martin Lo, Jerrold Marsden and Shane Ross used the tube technique to plot what they described as a “Petit Grand Tour” – an energy-efficient route – around the moons of Jupiter, ending in orbit around Europa. In 2005, Michael Dellnitz, Oliver Junge, Marcus Post and Bianca Thiere used tubes to plan an energy-efficient mission from the earth to Venus.
Their route would use one-third of the fuel required by the European Space Agency’s Venus Express mission, which has observed Venus since 2006.
Past, present, future The influence of tubes may go further. Dellnitz has discovered evidence of a natural system of tubes connecting Jupiter to each of the inner planets. This remarkable structure, known as the Interplanetary Superhighway, hints that Jupiter, long known to be the dominant planet of the solar system, also plays the role of a celestial Grand Central Station. In the past, its tubes may well have organised the formation of the entire solar system, determining the spacings of the inner planets.
So, is the solar system stable? The answer is a definite “maybe”. Two research groups, run by Jack Wisdom of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Jacques Laskar of the Observatoire de Paris, have pioneered highly accurate computational methods to understand the probable future of the solar system. Wisdom’s group has found that Pluto behaves chaotically over timescales of several hundred million years.
In 1999, Norman Murray of the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics and Matthew Holman of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory discovered that the orbit of Uranus can also change chaotically, so that it occasionally gets close to Saturn, with the possibility that Uranus would then be ejected from the solar system. However, it will probably take about one quintillion years for this to happen. (The sun will blow up into a red giant much sooner, about five billion years from now. The earth will move outwards and might just escape being engulfed, even though tidal interactions will probably pull it into the sun. In any case, our planet’s oceans will boil away long before that. And, anyway, the typical lifetime of a species is no more than five million years.)
It’s not just the future that is chaotic; the same methods can be used to investigate the solar system’s past. In 1993, Renu Malhotra of the University of Arizona realised that the early solar system must have been far more dynamic than had been assumed. As the planets were condensing from the primal gas cloud surrounding the sun, there came a time when Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were nearly complete. Among them circulated huge numbers of rocky and icy “planetesimals”, small bodies about ten kilometres across. Many of these were ejected into the wider solar system, reducing the energy of the four giant planets. Neptune migrated outwards. So did Uranus and Saturn. Jupiter, the big loser in the energy stakes, moved inwards.
So, our solar system’s apparently stable plan arose through an intricate dance of the giants, in which they threw the smallest bodies at each other in a riot of chaos.
Is the solar system stable? Probably not, but don’t worry: we won’t be around to find out.
Ian Stewart is emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of Warwick. His latest book is “17 Equations That Changed the World” (Profile, £15.99)
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- Eleanor Margolis | <urn:uuid:e341a786-6a4a-4849-be8e-f303cb373b58> | {
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Raising 'good cholesterol' may not always cut heart attack risk
Washington, May 17 (ANI): A new study has cast doubts on a popular assumption that raising a person's HDL - the so-called 'good cholesterol' - will necessarily lower the risk of a heart attack.
The new research underscores the value of using genetic approaches to test biological hypotheses about human disease prior to developing specific drugs.
A team led by researchers from the Broad Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) explored naturally occurring genetic variations in humans to test the connection between HDL levels and heart attack.
By studying the genes of roughly 170,000 individuals, the team discovered that, when examined together, the 15 HDL-raising variants they tested do not reduce the risk of heart attack.
"It's been assumed that if a patient, or group of patients, did something to cause their HDL levels to go up, then you can safely assume that their risk of heart attack will go down," said senior author Sekar Kathiresan, director of preventive cardiology at MGH, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and an associate member of the Broad Institute.
"This work fundamentally questions that."
Each of the variants Kathiresan and his colleagues studied reflects potentially distinct ways the body might raise HDL.
The findings raise significant questions about whether developing drugs against the genes explored in this study, which involves an international team of investigators to bring together patient samples, will prove effective in lowering heart attack risk across the population.
"Our study highlights the value of human genetic information in understanding disease biology prior to developing and testing drugs in the clinic," said co-author David Altshuler, director of the Program in Medical and Population Genetics at the Broad Institute and a Harvard Medical School professor at MGH.
"This kind of research is not about personalized prediction - rather, it's about testing mechanisms and therapeutic hypotheses before drug discovery."
In the blood, cholesterol is carried by particles called lipoproteins, which come in different sizes and densities. These include HDL, or high-density lipoprotein, and LDL, or low-density lipoprotein.
There is a well-studied connection between elevated LDL, often called the "bad cholesterol," and heart attack. Decades of research, including studies of genetic disorders in humans and the discovery of the LDL receptor and its role in cholesterol regulation, paved the way for the development of life-saving drugs known as statins.
This work showed beyond any reasonable doubt that many different methods of reducing a person's LDL levels lower the risk of heart disease.
Large-scale studies of genetic variation tied to LDL have been revealing, but the data on HDL are not so clear.
More than 30 years ago, human epidemiological studies first revealed an association between HDL and risk for heart attack: the higher the levels, the lower the risk.
Experiments in cells and mice further support the idea and suggest that HDL is protective because it may remove cholesterol from the sites where it can do damage.
However, it has been difficult for researchers to prove conclusively that raising HDL levels is beneficial, primarily for two reasons.
First, studies of human genetic diseases where individuals have very low HDL levels have not yielded definitive answers as to the impact on heart attack. And second, because there are currently no drugs that specifically elevate HDL levels, it has been difficult to prove in humans that such an intervention will lower heart attack risk.
"There are many biomarkers measurable in the blood that track with disease but only a very small number are actually causal and directly participate," said first author Benjamin Voight, who since completing this work has left the Broad and MGH for a position as an assistant professor at University of Pennsylvania.
"The reason you want to distinguish between causal and non-causal biomarkers is because of the implications for therapy."
To investigate, Kathiresan teamed up with colleagues from MGH, the Broad Institute, and beyond, including Voight and co-first author Gina Peloso. Together, the researchers looked to the human genome for help.
Individuals typically carry two copies of each gene in the genome; which copy a child will inherit from each parent is essentially a random decision, like flipping a coin.
This phenomenon, sometimes called "Mendelian randomization," provides a powerful means of testing connections between genes, biomarkers, and disease - similar to the way that randomized controlled clinical trials can evaluate the effectiveness of new drugs.
Using this technique, researchers study two groups of people - those who carry a particular gene variant, and those who do not. When sufficiently large groups are studied, both groups should be similar in every factor, except for the specific gene variant or biomarker of interest, allowing researchers to home in on whether the biomarker actually causes a particular trait or condition. By harnessing this method, Kathiresan and his team tested whether certain genetic variants that can dial up a person's HDL levels impact the chances of developing heart attack.
What they found was surprising. Individuals who carried a particular variation in a gene called endothelial lipase had HDL levels that were elevated about 6mg/dl, or 10 percent - a change expected to decrease heart attack risk by about 13 percent.
However, these individuals showed no difference in their risk of heart disease compared to people without the variant.
Similarly, the researchers identified a panel comprised of not just one but 14 different HDL-raising variants.
They devised a scoring system based on the total number of copies of the gene variants a person carries - ranging from 0 to 28 - and then asked whether that score relates to the risk of heart attack. Here also they uncovered no association.
Kathiresan emphasized that these results do not diminish the value of HDL levels as a predictor - a so-called biomarker - that can help estimate the likelihood of a person going on to develop heart attack.
"We know that HDL is a great biomarker - it's quite useful in identifying individuals at higher risk of having a heart attack in the future," said Kathiresan.
"But we have shown that you cannot assume that raising HDL by any mechanism will help patients. Perhaps other mechanisms exist that can lower risk, but we will need to keep searching for them," Kathiresan added. (ANI)
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May 21, 2013 at 9:58 PM | <urn:uuid:a361031c-1714-4b66-bcaf-6dc83329131b> | {
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Turner to Monet
A large, ambitious scene of arctic exploration, imagined fifty years after the event and half a world away, seems an unlikely Australian project. Jenner, a self-taught English immigrant painter, tried to establish a cultivated artistic climate in Queensland at the end of the nineteenth century. Such grand history paintings, employing all the stratagems of the Sublime, would make the artist’s reputation unassailable, he thought, as well as serving another purpose, that of elevating public taste.
His subject was Sir John Franklin’s doomed expedition of 1845, to find the fabled Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The venture fascinated the public, writers, and the press for decades; the British government, prodded by Lady Franklin, sent thirty-two expeditions to find the vanished explorers, Swinburne wrote a long poem in 1860, and Jules Verne published two novels inspired by the topic in the 1870s. Reports of cannibalism among survivors kept the story alive and scandalous.
Jenner remembered arctic scenery and details from a journey taken in his youth. He sailed in the early 1850s, he said, on ‘a voyage to Lapland, Nova Zembla and Spitzbergen’.1At the age of eighteen in 1855, Jenner joined the Royal Navy for a decade, then retired to his birthplace, Brighton, to become an artist. Unhappy with his prospects as a marine and genre painter there, he emigrated with his large family to Brisbane in 1863. En route he witnessed the effects of Krakatoa’s eruption, another instance of Nature’s grand and sublime spectacles.
For his modern history painting Cape Chudleigh, Coast of Labrador, Jenner painted icebergs in Labrador, populated by hundreds of great auks – large, penguin-like birds, hunted to extinction in the 1840s. The whole is lit by a full moon under a cloudy sky. Apart from icy white and blue for freezing water, sea and sky, atmosphere and rocks are rendered in smoky brown and grey, with red reflected from the ship on fire behind an iceberg.2
The ghostly theatre of Franklin’s fatal voyage is accentuated by Jenner’s spectral depiction of translucent ice, a disappearing mountain and bizarre spectating birds, scattered like the ill-fated crew through the sea and absent land. Jenner’s invisible hero, Franklin, was linked closely to colonial Australia’s brief history: he accompanied Matthew Flinders on the Investigator’s initial circumnavigation of the continent in 1801–04, and served as Governor of Tasmania from 1836 to 1843.
Nonetheless, the artist’s extravagant vision of the voyage was profoundly unfashionable. The extremes of the Sublime, especially delight in terror and heightened emotions, had dissipated their effect by the end of the century, while unsuccessful English explorers no longer caught the imagination of poets and engravers. European aesthetic manners and themes were replaced in Australia by the local and immediate paintings of the Heidelberg school.3 Jenner was triply unfortunate, in that his subject and style were no longer appreciated, and any audience was sparse. Nonetheless, he ensured some posterity by reworking and donating this large canvas to the infant Queensland National Art Gallery upon its opening in 1895.
1 Margaret Maynard, ‘Jenner, Isaac Walter (1837–1902)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, online edition, viewed November 2007, adb.online.anu.edu.au.
2 Gavin Fry, Bronwyn Mahoney, Bettina MacAulay, Isaac Walter Jenner, Sydney: Beagle Press, 1994, p. 34.
3 See Glen R. Cooke, Catalogue worksheet for Acc. number 1:0014, Queensland Art Gallery, ms. | <urn:uuid:7a078f59-c360-4d60-840d-db12a846b2b9> | {
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A new species of dinosaur is the smallest ever found in North America scientists report in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B today.
The pigeon-sized Fruitadens haagarorum lived 150 million years ago in the Late Jurassic period. It was an agile fast runner, handy as it lived at the same time as other giant dinosaurs such as the long-necked Brachiosaurus and the meat-eating Allosaurus.
Tiny jaw fossil of the Fruitadens dinosaur showing 5 teeth © The Dinosaur Institute, Los Angeles Museum of Natural History
An international team led by Dr Richard Butler of the Bavarian State Collection for Palaeontology, Germany, and the Natural History Museum, London, made the discovery by re-examining fossils uncovered in the 1970s.
'This discovery demonstrates just how remarkably diverse and successful the dinosaurs were,' says Dr Butler. 'We have this diminutive dinosaur living alongside titans such as Brachiosaurus that probably weighed 40,000 times as much.'
The team studied fossils from 4 Fruitadens individuals that were uncovered from the Morrison Formation in Colorado and kept at the Natural History Museum, Los Angeles County. Tiny details inside the leg bones revealed Fruitadens grew to about 70cm in length and weighed less than 1kg.
Fruitadens had a combination of different shaped teeth including canine-like teeth at the front of the lower jaw and leaf-shaped teeth in the cheek area. This, combined with its small size, means Fruitadens was probably an omnivore, eating both plants and small animals.
Fruitadens belonged to the heterodontosaurids, an important group of early dinosaurs previously unknown from North America, and is one of the latest surviving members of this group.
Heterodontosaurids, also had the unusual combination of canine-like and leaf-shaped teeth. Earlier members of this group were larger than Fruitadens and adapted to have a diet of tough vegetation. The more recent Fruitadens evolved to be smaller and have a more generalised varied diet.
Fossil experts have been studying the Morrison Formation rocks where Fruitadens was uncovered for 130 years.
Dozens of dinosaur species have been discovered there and there could be many more to come.
Dr Butler says of the site, 'It is still possible to discover completely unique and remarkable species. If dinosaur ecosystems were that diverse, who knows what astonishing beasts are waiting for us to discover?' | <urn:uuid:ed6bcddd-39b7-459a-aa24-c0b6777d7e60> | {
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The Nobel Prize in Physics 2001
Eric A. Cornell, Wolfgang Ketterle, Carl E. Wieman
Bose-Einstein Condensation in a Dilute Gas; The First 70 Years and Some Recent Experiments
Eric A. Cornell held his Nobel Lecture December 8, 2001, at Aula Magna, Stockholm University. He was presented by Professor Mats Jonson, Chairman of the Nobel Committee for Physics.
Summary: Fundamental ideas behind creating Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in a gas are outlined. Starting with Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, the formation of Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) is explained as occurring when the interatomic spacing is comparable to thermal de Broglie wavelength. The conditions for creating BEC in a gas are described, and the necessary ingredients for creating BEC in a gas are listed in an "Ultra Cold Alkali Tool Kit".
Copyright © Nobel Web AB 2001
Credits: Kamera Communications (webcasting)
Read the Nobel Lecture
Pdf 447 kB
Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 2001
From Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 2001, Editor Tore Frängsmyr, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 2002
MLA style: "Eric A. Cornell - Nobel Lecture: Bose-Einstein Condensation in a Dilute Gas; The First 70 Years and Some Recent Experiments". Nobelprize.org. 22 May 2013 http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2001/cornell-lecture.html | <urn:uuid:e599b6f4-d04f-4617-b151-3ff1bce3b832> | {
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That child who doesn’t have enough to eat isn’t going to do as well in school.
And is likely to get sick more often.
She’s less likely to graduate from high school and go on to college, which will have a negative impact on her economic future.
If this happens, then twenty years from now, she’s much less likely to be able to earn enough to feed her family.
We’re putting a stop to child hunger in America by connecting families with the resources they need to provide their children with enough nutritious food, every day, to thrive.Learn more about the solutions.
Childhood hunger is a major problem in our country - but it’s solvable. Help us end child hunger in America.Be a part of the solution. | <urn:uuid:841b9d02-0aa0-4bac-8390-75c3a6f8d8c9> | {
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Question: My mother is pre-diabetic and has begun changing her eating habits along with walking & exercising. Besides cutting out processed food, bad carbs and sugar, are their any other tips that she could look into and start adding to her daily or weekly routine? I've read for example that Apple Cider Vinegar could help as well as drinking lemon in water. Any information or tips would be greatly appreciated!
Answer: First of all, thank you for your question. Prediabetes is an important issue to address. According to the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, in 2005-2008, 79 million Americans aged 20 years or older with prediabetes.
Prediabetes is defined as a fasting blood sugar between 100-125, or a post meal blood sugar between 140-200. Basically, it means your body is struggling to manage its blood sugars already, and if you don’t do something about, it will continue to worsen and may eventually be labeled as Type 2 diabetes.
Prediabetes in seniors, I believe, is often a function of age. Your body just can’t do its job as well anymore. Prediabetes in kids, young adults, or middle-age adults is often caused by poor lifestyle habits such as poor food choices and eating habits, and lack of physical activity. If this is the case, changing your lifestyle and losing 5-10% of your body weight may cut your risk for Type 2 diabetes in half.
Making healthy food choices and having a healthy, consistent eating pattern are the best things you can do nutritionally to prevent diabetes. Choose whole grains, fruits, vegetables, lean proteins and low-fat dairy products to fill your diet. Eat small frequent meals. Large meals spike your blood sugars more and burnout what ability your body has left to manage its blood sugars. Limit junk foods, and foods that are high in fat and sugar, both in portion and frequency.
Accompany your healthy eating with more physical activity. 150 minutes of exercise per week is typically recommended. This may sound like a lot, but this can be cut into 5 –30 minute walks throughout the week. If 30 minutes is more time than you can afford at once, break it into 3-10 minute increments. You will still get benefits from the activity.
There are claims out there about natural “cures” and supplements for blood sugar management. Prediabetes is not “reversible,” but it can be easily managed and the progressions to Type 2 diabetes can be prevented. While some dietary supplements have research to back up their blood sugar-lowering potential, these supplements, apple cider vinegar or lemon juice are not going to have anywhere near the effect that the healthy eating, increased activity, and resulting weight loss will. | <urn:uuid:a2c0f640-87a8-4c85-8f46-ba5a6ec16c97> | {
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Greek Myths and Christian Mystery
by Hugo Rahner, by S.J., translated by Brian Batteshaw
Harper & Row, 399 pp., $10.00
Who came first, Homer or Moses? That question was vigorously debated between Christian and pagan apologists in the last centuries of antiquity, and often it was turned into a blunter question, Who plagiarized from whom? As an anonymous writer of about the year 200 phrased it,
I think you are not ignorant of the fact…that Orpheus, Homer and Solon were in Egypt, that they took advantage of the historical work of Moses, and that in consequence they were able to take a position against those who had previously held false ideas about the gods.
Among his many “proofs” were the “borrowing” of the opening of Genesis for one bit of the description of the shield of Achilles in the Iliad, the portrayal of the Garden of Eden in the guise of the garden of King Alcinous in Book VII of the Odyssey; and Homer’s referring to the corpse of Hector as “senseless clay,” copied from “Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return.”
There were Jewish precedents for this kind of nonsense, especially in the Hellenized environment of Alexandria, going back at least to the middle of the second century B.C. In one sense the motivation is only too obvious. Claims of priority are common propaganda in all sorts of movements: we have had some remarkable examples in our own day. But there was much more to it in the Homer-Moses debate. At that time Judaism and Christianity were unique in their exclusiveness. Conversion to either religion required the complete abandonment of all previous beliefs, whereas among the prevailing polytheisms one could add new gods or new rites to the old, or create new combinations. Only with the former is it proper to speak of conversion at all, and the psychological difficulties are enormous. In the year 200, for example, what happened to a Graeco-Syrian from Antioch or a Graeco-Egyptian from Alexandria who, in his adult years, was converted to Christianity, still very much a minority religion and a persecuted one to boot? Was he capable, emotionally and psychologically, of ridding himself totally of the Mother Goddess or Isis or Serapis, of all the associations which went with their worship, of all his personal experiences (even of his language) which had in one way or another been connected with these cults up to the moment of conversion? Could he tell himself that it had all been falsehood, superstition, and idolatry, and then wipe the slate clean?
There can be no wiping of slates, however much one may change one’s intellectual position. Nor need there be, when there are so many other ways of adjusting one’s past experience to present needs. On the purely cerebral level, the priority argument offers one solution. Crude as it appears, it nevertheless attracted some of the most powerful of the apologists on both sides, Celsus and Porphyry, Origen and Tatian, for example. Another, more interesting and more satisfying, procedure—still on the cerebral level—is to resort to allegory … | <urn:uuid:559fdf21-2bd6-4778-8124-beeed4dac60e> | {
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Britain and the Jews of Europe 1939-1945
by Bernard Wasserstein
Oxford University Press, for the Institute of Jewish Affairs, 389 pp., $17.95
In a well-known work on the Eichmann trial Hannah Arendt perversely floated the notion of the banality of evil. What seems to lie behind this idea is that Eichmann was no more than a dim little man whose crimes were simply a byproduct of the daily official routine to which it was his duty as a bureaucrat to attend. But bureaucrats are also human beings, and part of what makes a human being is the capacity to make choices, and specifically moral ones. Contrary to Miss Arendt’s glib phrase, choices of this kind can never be banal. If they were, we would not, every time we hear or read about the Nazi treatment of the Jews, feel intimately and profoundly devastated. The horror which Nazi actions will continue to inspire arises in part from our inability to fathom, and fully account for, their monstrousness. The malice which, without the shadow of a provocation, and for no seeming advantage, diligently and relentlessly destroyed the happiness, security, and lives of whole multitudes will always be matter for awed puzzlement. None of its manifestations can possibly ever be judged banal.
The multitudes who were thus hounded to their deaths were citizens or subjects of states on which they had a legitimate claim for protection. This they were in most cases denied. Fellow-feeling was generally stilled, the Jews were isolated from other citizens and made into aliens and outlaws. The achievement in these countries of a Rechtstaat, the result of centuries of civility, supposed to restrain the violence of lawless appetite and secure for all undisturbed enjoyment of the fruits of their labor, was by the devilry of the Nazis suddenly destroyed. Poles, Hungarians, Rumanians, Slovaks, Croats, Italians, Frenchmen (both men in authority and ordinary people) became in this the accomplices of their conquerors, and were tainted with their evil. Such was the bitter culmination of a European development which at its inception a hundred and fifty years earlier had seemed full of promise—the promise of a new social contract to bind the inhabitants of a country into one political community, in which religious belief or ethnic origin would have no bearing on the citizen’s rights or his duties.
A merciful Providence prevented the stain of this abomination from spreading to the English-speaking world, where relations with the Jews are not burdened by the memory of those unspeakable crimes and of the murder of trust between neighbors and fellow citizens. But the fate of the Jews on the European continent could not but concern, in a variety of ways, the British government (which for a time stood alone in facing the triumphant Nazis), and the US government as well. How the British (and to a lesser extent the American) government reacted to the Jewish predicament is the subject of Dr. Wasserstein’s lucid, comprehensive, indeed exemplary, account.
The Nazi war on the Jews began in 1933, and it created a stream of refugees which went on swelling during the Thirties as …
'The Banality of Evil' March 20, 1980 | <urn:uuid:be03878a-b291-4265-8302-92345d5d0966> | {
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University of Otago researcher Dr Paul Tankard has sparked international media attention after tracking down a series of lost illustrations for The Lord of the Rings, which were highly praised by author J.R.R. Tolkien but never published.
The illustrations, by a previously little-known English artist, Mary Fairburn, now aged 78, widowed and living in Victoria, Australia, and Dr Tankard's research have just been highlighted by a front page story in the Times Literary Supplement.
Dr Tankard is an Australian-born senior lecturer in the Otago English department.
In May 1968, Tolkien was sent some samples of illustrations for The Lord of the Rings by Miss Fairburn, 35-year-old London-born artist and art teacher, writing from Winchester.
At that stage, Tolkien, a former Oxford University professor, was aged 76 and living in retirement in Oxford.
He initially wrote back to her saying her works were "splendid".
But a few weeks later, Tolkien's "life and affairs were thrown into chaos" when he was hospitalised, Dr Tankard said.
Miss Fairburn later explained to Tolkien she had been "sleeping on the floor of a condemned basement", and faced significant hardship and debts.
But her hopes of being able to illustrate The Lord of the Rings were to be dashed.
She later emigrated to Australia, where she has lived for more than 40 years, and the academic world knew nothing about Tolkien's praise for her or about the pictures she had produced.
All that quickly started to change after Dr Tankard travelled to Castlemaine, a small city in Victoria, Australia, about 120km north of Melbourne, in late 2010 to visit family members.
Told an artist living there had apparently had links with Tolkien, Dr Tankard went to see her, and was shown letters from Tolkien, and knew he was "on to something".By John Gibb | <urn:uuid:06e3ba09-27b3-4c77-9f25-c172b0616ef4> | {
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Adena Springs won't cause harm to springs or aquifer
Published: Sunday, May 20, 2012 at 6:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, May 18, 2012 at 8:21 p.m.
North and Central Florida are experiencing drought ranging from severe to exceptional. This is one of the periodic irritating — sometimes devastating — ironies of Florida weather. We know spring months will be dry. But when a dry spring combines with a really bad drought, the lack of rain for extended periods can lead to reduced water levels in our lakes, rivers, springs and even the aquifer.
It is, therefore, probably not the most psychologically advantageous time for a Marion County rancher to be asking the St. John's River Water Management District (SJRWMD) to approve a new groundwater withdrawal of up to 13.2-million gallons a day from his property, Adena Springs Ranch.
However, the one thing we know about Florida weather is that it is unpredictable. As many of us recall, an even more severe drought in 2001-02 was followed by a year of unprecedented hurricanes and tropical storms in 2004.
Water-use permit applications like Adena Springs Ranch must be judged on their long-term impact on water resources and not on current climatic conditions. It would make no more sense to permit Adena Springs Ranch during a period of extreme flood than it would to reject the permit application during a period of drought.
Also, on a map, the ranch appears to be located close to several lakes, and at least a half a dozen natural springs, one of which is the already stressed Silver Springs, one of Florida's greatest natural wonders. Predictably, some individuals and environmental groups forecast disaster if SJRWMD approves the water-use permit for Adena Springs Ranch. They argue a withdrawal of 13.2 mgd will lead to certain damage, perhaps even destruction of Silver Springs and other natural springs in the area, as well as dropping levels in area lakes. It is an emotional, and sometimes politically effective, argument.
But emotional and effective don't add up to factual.
A highly regarded environmental engineering firm from Sanford, Fla., used a peer-reviewed, hydrologic model developed by the SJRWMD to assess the impact of the proposed withdrawal on environmental features and private wells surrounding Adena Springs Ranch. The results of this model are that the proposed withdrawal will have virtually no impact on Silver Springs, other natural springs, lakes and private wells.
Adena Springs Ranch is proposing to withdraw water from the Floridan aquifer, which is one of the largest, most prolific aquifers in the world stretching from Southern Georgia to the southern tip of Florida. It is estimated the Floridan aquifer contains more than a quadrillion (that's 1 followed by 15 zeros, i.e., 1,000,000,000,000,000) gallons of water, equivalent to all the Great Lakes combined.
The Floridan aquifer isn't a bathtub, all of which drains toward the same outlet as the water level falls evenly. Rather, it is a massive layer of irregularly contoured limestone about 2,000 feet deep in this part of Florida, with widely varying water storage and transmissive properties. In some areas of the aquifer, the effects of water withdrawal can be felt many miles away, while in other areas, the effects dissipate quickly.
The environmental engineer who studied the permit application found that the effect of the withdrawal of water from the Adena Springs Ranch dissipates before it reaches Silver Springs, other springs, lakes and private wells.
Therefore, the impact on these environmental features is virtually nonexistent. For example, the predicted decline of the Floridan aquifer at Silver Springs due to the proposed withdrawal will be about an inch. This impact is so small that it could not be measured even with the most sophisticated monitoring equipment available to modern science, and will not perceptibly impact the Spring flow.
To provide an even greater level of assurance concerning the impact of the proposed withdrawal on the Floridan aquifer, Adena Springs Ranch was requested by the SJRWMD to perform a pump test on its property to verify the results of the hydrologic model performed by its environmental engineer. That test consists of pumping water from a production well like the ones that will be used on the property and measuring the actual change in water levels in surrounding monitor wells. Adena Springs Ranch has completed this test and will soon be reporting the results to the SJRWMD.
Opponents of the permit also claim the aquifer and the natural springs in the area will be polluted with nutrients through over-fertilization and other cattle-ranching activities. However, it has always been Adena Springs Ranch's intent to only use the minimum amount of fertilizer necessary that can be absorbed quickly by the plants, while maintaining sufficient growth to supply the forage needs of the cattle, and to spread the cattle manure so the nutrients therein will not leach into groundwater. The process will be in accordance with recommendations from a certified agronomist and best-management practices approved by Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS), and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. In fact, Adena Springs Ranch is developing a state-of-the art nutrient management plan and irrigation plan to ensure that no additional nutrient loading will occur on the property as a result of the proposed cattle-ranch activities.
Ed de la Parte is a Tampa water-use permitting attorney working for Adena Springs Ranch.
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged. | <urn:uuid:80d7a8b8-3d21-4de2-9f94-e3092eca6588> | {
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The International Guidelines on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights
OHCHR and UNAIDS published the International Guidelines on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights in 1998 as a tool for States in designing, co-ordinating and implementing effective national HIV/AIDS policies and strategies. The Guidelines were drafted by experts at an international consultation in 1996 and provide the framework for a rights-based response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic by outlining how human rights standards apply in the context of HIV/AIDS and translating them into practical measures that should be undertaken at the national level, based on three broad approaches:
- improvement of government capacity for multi-sectoral coordination and accountability;
- reform of laws and legal support services, with a focus on anti- discrimination, protection of public health, and improvement of the status of women, children and marginalised groups; and
- support and increased private sector and community participation to respond ethically and effectively to HIV/AIDS.
OHCHR encourages governments, national human rights institutions, non-governmental organisations and people living with HIV and AIDS to use the Guidelines for training, policy formulation, advocacy, and the development of legislation on HIV/AIDS-related human rights.
In light of developments in adressing the epidemic, a Third International Consultation in 2002 revised Guideline 6 on access to prevention, treatment, care and support.
A consolidated version of the International Guidelines on HIV-AIDS and Human Rights was launched in August 2006 to coincide with the XVIth International AIDS Conference and the tenth anniversary of the Guidelines themselves. | <urn:uuid:c42a6d05-3121-4d34-b7d6-5bd7d1e87fae> | {
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• Incubation: 18-20 days
• Clutch Size: 4 eggs
• Young Fledge: 16-21 days after hatching
• Typical Foods: insects, aquatic invertebrates and seeds
Female red phalaropes are stunning -- they are a rich chestnut color with a dark crown and white face. However, virtually all Ohio birds are in drab non-breeding plumage.
Habitat and Habits
This species prefers the open waters of Lake Erie. It is most typically found along stone jetties and breakwalls in sheltered harbors. The flight call is similar to that of the red-necked phalarope, but generally higher pitched.
Reproduction and Care of the Young
Breeding takes place in Alaska and northern Canada. Nests are hollows in the ground of marshy tundra. The male raises the young. | <urn:uuid:5822656d-7af7-48bb-9307-359a74f2061e> | {
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The International Olympic Committee is the supreme authority of the Olympic Movement.
Acting as a catalyst for collaboration between all parties of the Olympic family, from the National Olympic Committees (NOCs), the International Sports Federations (IFs), the athletes, the Organising Committees for the Olympic Games (OCOGs), to the TOP partners, broadcast partners and United Nations agencies, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) shepherds success through a wide range of programmes and projects. On this basis it ensures the regular celebration of the Olympic Games, supports all affiliated member organisations of the Olympic Movement and strongly encourages, by appropriate means, the promotion of the Olympic values.
In detail the role of the IOC, according to the Olympic Charter, is:
- To encourage and support the promotion of ethics in sport as well as education of youth through sport and to dedicate its efforts to ensuring that, in sport, the spirit of fair play prevails and violence is banned;
- To encourage and support the organisation, development and coordination of sport and sports competitions;
- To ensure the regular celebration of the Olympic Games;
- To cooperate with the competent public or private organisations and authorities in the endeavour to place sport at the service of humanity and thereby to promote peace;
- To take action in order to strengthen the unity and to protect the independence of the Olympic Movement;
- To act against any form of discrimination affecting the Olympic Movement;
- To encourage and support the promotion of women in sport at all levels and in all structures with a view to implementing the principle of equality of men and women;
- To lead the fight against doping in sport;
- To encourage and support measures protecting the health of athletes;
- To oppose any political or commercial abuse of sport and athletes;
- To encourage and support the efforts of sports organisations and public authorities to provide for the social and professional future of athletes;
- To encourage and support the development of sport for all;
- To encourage and support a responsible concern for environmental issues, to promote sustainable development in sport and to require that the Olympic Games are held accordingly;
- To promote a positive legacy from the Olympic Games to the host cities and host countries;
- To encourage and support initiatives blending sport with culture and education;
- To encourage and support the activities of the International Olympic Academy (IOA) and other institutions which dedicate themselves to Olympic education. | <urn:uuid:48b173be-6756-4b97-9abd-51e594bba179> | {
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UNICOSUNICOS is the standard operating system for VSMP (Cray Vector Symmetric multi-processor) computers and established since 1985. It was derived from the UNIX System V, a far common and well ported operating system programmed in C. The UNICOS system also was affected by the 4th generation of BSD and extended by super computing abilities to provide high performance to support the science and development market. UNICOS is the first 64 bit implementation of UNIX and a UNIX similar file system. UNICOS system offers a stable base from small servers up to gigantic computer plants.
Photos: Cray Inc.
The UNICOS system makes extremely flexible and robust calculating machines with support of the following hard and software characteristics possible:
The UNICOS system is the first high performance UNIX based operating system which supports SMP.
Multi-processor and multi-threading operating system
The UNICOS system is scalable on more than 32 processors. Cray aims at a small CPU percentage for the consumption of system processes, also in the greatest and the most extensive configuration.
High performance I/O bandwidth and capacity.
UNICOS I/O scales with the number of processors in the system. The standard UNIX was modified around a file system for up to 8 tbyte to support large files. The support of several devices in a system, multiple types of fixed disks and memory devices in a file system (for build in memory solutions) and the file storage strategy with the used algorithm were specified. Cache support is availably for physical devices in addition to the file system. Through this a high efficiency is made possible for some devices and file systems. The UNICOS system allows combining of buffered and direct access to I/O devices without integrity loss of the data which are not natural for the devices of other systems. For Cray is performance not acceptable without data integrity
Low waiting times for I/O processes
The I'/O path by the UNICOS system is high optimized. As much as possible user data transmittings are finished directly to reduce the need for temporary buffering and copying actions. The UNICOS system created asynchronous I/O for UNIX systems. Many interfaces are designed for the flexible programming to check I/O processes. The UNICOS system contains an optimized path for asynchronous I/O to avoid extra controls or background processes which reduce the total performance. The UNICOS system facilitates I/O in the direct access for the user in most cases as a standard.
Great product extensions
The Batch support is made possible by the NQE/NQS subsystem which is designed completely as a multi-system for the evaluation and control of the jobs. The interaction of many users jobs and processes of a mixed batch and interactive system is protected by job and processing limitations. These limits are made possible by an easy to use administration menu with the name User Database (UDB). Together with the file system and Quotas it allowas the flexible control over users and user groups.
The fairly configured usage planner ensured the safe allocation of resources for users and processes in the two areas batch and interaction mode is possible. Previous planned dates of the mixed processing, that is Batch and interactive mode, is supported by administrative control possibilities .
Extension for the system availability around the processing (for example, checkpoint and restart) can be executed automatically for the support of batch and interactive process recovery. Redundand devices like mirrored fixed harddisks and alternative ways guarantee the fault-tolerant operation. Online diagnoses and ability allowing the control of development problems as CPU error detection and speed reductions.
Multilevel Security (MLS) features like security logging, ACL control, security level and classifications ensure the privacy without influencing of the performance. Settings for the restriction of operator and administrator privileges are possible. Both is a necessary for MLS security and solves a deficit which was recognized by the community.
User accounts were improved for the UNICOS system to guarantee the correctness. On a UNIX system a user can pay for computing time that he has not consumed and is not usual for him. UNICOS system accounts create very detailed recordings for requirements like cost control for computing time and performance analyses.
UNICOS contains an excellent support for tape drives and everything necessary for large systems with multi-volumes and control abilities which are base requirements in a computing centre. Products like the REELlibrarian (CRL) Band Library Management Package and the Cray Data Migration Facility (DMF) are in addition supported for completely transparently data backup to tapes and for automatic or manual recovery.
UNICOS supports the execution of a program on several processors by multitasking. It is the first that contains several function-related interfaces for multitasking and also supports the standard POSIX to protect previous investments in software applications. The UNICOS system supports also the high speed control of thread changes under an application and planned controls to ensure the defined CPU time and resources by the administrator.
The UNIX-based development environment contains a number of applications like Compiler, Loader, Debugger and performance tools.
|1986 April||Unicos 1.0|
|1986 Dec.||Unicos 2.0|
|1987 Sept.||Unicos 3.0|
|1988 July||Unicos 4.0|
|1989 May||Unicos 5.0|
|1991 Feb.||Unicos 6.0|
|1992 Oct.||Unicos 7.0|
|1994 March||Unicos 8.0|
|1995 Sept.||Unicos 9.0|
|1996 March||Unicos 9.1|
|1997 Jan.||Unicos 9.2|
|1997 Nov.||Unicos 10.0|
|1998 May||Unicos 10.0.0.2|
|1998 Oct.||Unicos 10.0.0.3|
|1999 Feb.||Unicos 10.0.0.4|
|1999 May||Unicos 10.0.0.5|
|1999 June||Unicos 10.0.0.6|
|2000 Jan.||Unicos 10.0.0.7|
|2000 Nov.||Unicos 10.0.0.8|
|2001 June||Unicos 10.0.1.0|
|2002 Aug.||Unicos/mp 1.0, based on the IRIX 6.5 kernel|
|2002 Dec.||Unicos/mp 2.0|
|2003 March||Unicos/mp 2.1|
|2003 July||Unicos/mp 2.2|
|2003 Nov.||Unicos/mp 2.3|
|2004 March||Unicos/mp 2.4|
|2004 Nov.||Unicos/mp 2.5|
|2005 March||Unicos/mp 3.0| | <urn:uuid:79ffedf6-8b2c-4a11-849e-74451959e691> | {
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In the early 1990s, researchers, including Itzhaki, found evidence suggesting that as we age, the herpes virus begins moving from its hideout near the bottom of the skull directly into the brain (possibly because our immune systems lose some bite). Indeed, one Journal of Pathology study found the virus in a high proportion of postmortem brain samples taken from people who'd died in their later decades, while it was absent in those from people who'd died in youth or middle age.
What effect does the virus have when it reaches your brain? The short answer: That depends. In certain people it seems to do much less damage than in others; just as some of us never develop cold sores, some of us can have the herpes virus inside our brains without any horribly ill effects. But Itzhaki believes that in other people—specifically those who carry APOE e4, a gene form, or allele, strongly linked to Alzheimer's—the virus is not only reactivated by triggers like stress or a weakened immune system, but also actually begins to create the proteins that form the plaques and tangles presumed to be responsible for Alzheimer's.
If you're looking for evidence, Itzhaki can show you a stack of it. In two studies, for example, she and several colleagues took brain samples from 109 deceased people—61 of whom had had Alzheimer's, 48 of whom hadn't—to search for any correlation between herpes, APOE e4, and Alzheimer's.
Their results: People who had both the APOE e4 gene and the herpes virus in their brains were 15 times more likely to have Alzheimer's than people who had neither. (The researchers also found, intriguingly, that people who suffered from recurrent cold sores were almost six times as likely to have the APOE e4 gene as those who didn't get cold sores.)
A decade later, Dr. Federoff, then working at the University of Rochester, administered the herpes virus to four different groups of mice, each of which had a different variation or absence of the APOE gene. He found that in mice with the specific APOE e4 variation, the virus was slower to become dormant than it was in mice with APOE e2, APOE e3, or no APOE gene, suggesting that the virus could be replicating faster in the e4 mice. "The results definitely suggest there's something different about having APOE e4," says Dr. Federoff.
Still other research shows the direct impact of HSV-1 itself. In 2007, a study by Itzhaki and Wozniak found that infecting lab samples of brain cells with the virus caused a buildup of the protein (beta amyloid) that's the primary component of the plaque clogging the brains of Alzheimer's patients. The same study also found a similar result in the brains of mice that had been infected with HSV-1.
Then there was January's study in the Journal of Pathology. In it, Itzhaki and Wozniak looked at brain samples from 11 deceased people; six had had Alzheimer's and five hadn't. While both groups had plaques (not surprisingly, the Alzheimer's group had far more) and evidence of the herpes virus in their brains, there was a crucial difference in the concentration of the virus: In the Alzheimer's patients, 72 percent of the virus's DNA was found in the plaques, compared with only 24 percent that was found in the plaques of the non-Alzheimer's brains. Not surprisingly, all but one of the Alzheimer's sufferers also carried the APOE e4 gene, compared with none of the samples from the non-Alzheimer's people.
Wozniak is confident that these last two studies point to the same conclusion: "The results strongly suggest that HSV-1 is a major cause of amyloid plaques—and probably of Alzheimer's disease."
Most Popular in Health | <urn:uuid:a943b959-781e-4efa-aaac-6d416b1c524e> | {
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Health-conscious and environmentally aware consumers have been opting for veggie burgers in lieu of beef for years now, but a common industrial method of processing soybeans involves the use of hexane, a neurotoxin and registered air pollutant.
That's probably not what the typical veggie-burger buyer is bargaining for. "A lot of people who eat veggie burgers are doing so because they're conscious of their food choices and the impact on the environment," says Charlotte Vallaeys, Farm and Food Policy Analyst for The Cornucopia Institute, a sustainable-farming advocacy group. "But companies are either promoting themselves as natural or even 'made with organic' ingredients and then using hexane."
Vallaeys' report investigating the questionable soy processing procedures used to produce some soy veggie burgers was released last year, but a recent Mother Jones article brought the issue back into the public eye. Vallaeys explains that in soy veggie burgers not qualified for the USDA-certified organic seal, food manufacturers generally douse whole soybeans in a hexane solvent bath to break down the bean, separating the oil from the proteins.
WHAT IT MEANS:
It is not clear whether any hexane remains in the food, but it is certainly released into the atmosphere. Vallaeys says food processors are among the worst emitters of the air contaminant. And aside from concerns about hexane, there are issues with how the soy is grown. In the United States, about 90 percent of the soy supply comes from genetically engineered crops, a relatively new food practice that has not been tested for its impact on human health. Some researchers have linked genetically engineered food to food allergies, digestive diseases, and even accelerated aging. Genetically engineered crops are manipulated to either produce their own pesticide inside the plant (which we wind up eating) or to withstand heavy dousing of pesticides that are linked to everything from learning problems in kids to diabetes and Parkinson's disease in adults. | <urn:uuid:5583cadb-b4ec-4e99-b503-bea6f50947f4> | {
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Early Learning Center
SPRINGFIELD ? The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) encourages families to establish and maintain good health and study habits as schools across the state open doors for the start of a new academic year. The onset of the school year provides a prime opportunity to review academic skills and implement positive habits and routines.
“Students need to arrive at school ready for new challenges and experiences,” said State Board of Education Chairman Gery J. Chico. “Families can help their children excel by developing habits that ensure children get enough sleep, a good breakfast and a dedicated study time and place. Most importantly, they can pass on a positive attitude about education. Learning doesn’t just happen during the school day but every moment adults spend with children.”
As students approach the new school year, families might start new bedtime hours for an easier transition during the first week of school. Setting aside a quiet dedicated study space, with good light and appropriate supplies, may help children focus as they do homework.
A review of academic skills before the start of the school year may also help students succeed in the classroom. Some ideas include: | <urn:uuid:ef424a5b-bcf4-488a-b572-29a3d437c61a> | {
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"A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman
done more for you than anyone in the world. And candy! You take a box to Mother —
and then eat most of it yourself. A pretty sentiment."
-- Anna Jarvis, promoter of the establishment
of Mother's Day and expert guilt-trip giver
Mothers--we've all got ‘em. We wouldn't be here if it weren't for Mom!
The beginning of Mother's Day in this country began as a fringe suggestion by Julia Ward Howe, a Unitarian and Women's Rights Activist, in a Proclamation of Peace in 1870. And the world thought that she was batty! How right Howe was because many ancient cultures including the Greek, Romans, and Celtics commemorated mother and creation with celebrations.
Text on OTRCAT.com ©2001-2010 OTRCAT INC All Rights Reserved-Reproduction is prohibited.
During the turn of the century Anna Jarvis picked up the fight to celebrate Mothers in the United States and dedicated her life to writing letters and influencing people to celebrate their mothers. It was quite a feat and in 1908 Nebraska Senator and Mom-lover, Elmer Burkett, suggested that the congress pass a resolution to establish Mother's Day, but it was defeated. Many senators were reminded by their moms about the 20 hours of labor they went through to bring the future law makers into the world for this, but it took another 6 years to establish a National Mother's Day! The resolution was signed in 1914 by President Woodrow Wilson to celebrate the Mom. Mama Wilson cheered as did the rest of the world.
This collection includes old time radio shows with moms of all sorts—pretty mamas, sweet mamas, mama's boys, unbearable and murderous mamas-in-laws.
Thank you to Moms Everywhere!
(Mother's Day is always the second Sunday in May.)
See also: Crazy Mamas and Father's Day Collection | <urn:uuid:1cec27a6-3f3c-41cb-b1ff-06df2cb197c8> | {
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Sunday, November 02, 2008
She ain't heavy - she's my sister
Look again at the photograph above and see if your assumption about the pilot sitting in front of a Soviet Yak-9 fighter is correct. Because the Soviet Union was the first country in the world to give women legal equality their military flying schools were open to both men and women. This meant that during World War Two Russian women piloted both fighters and bombers. Despite technical equality women flyers were not given military roles until after the German invasion in June 1941. As the Nazi threat increased Russian women were hastily trained for aircrew combat duties, and were issued with male flying clothing - including underwear. It is one of those women pilots in the photo.
Training of the women was overseen by the legendary Soviet woman aviator Marina Raskova who had previously studied piano at academy level. Three all-female regiments (squadrons in Western parlance) were formed by the Russians, and between 1941 and the end of the war they flew more than 30,000 missions. The photo below shows three of the Soviet aircrew preparing for a sortie. Marina Raskova was killed when her bomber crashed in January 1943 en route to the front at Stalingrad. She was given the first state funeral of the war and was buried in Red Square. In June 1943 an American Liberty Ship was named after her.
Russia's western allies also used women aircrew, although the attitudes towards them were sometimes less enlightened. In Britain women flew planes for the Air Transport Auxiliary, a civilian organisation that pioneered equal opportunities for those with physical disabilities and equal pay for women. But the British government kept the ATA's use of women secret for the very chauvinist reason that they didn't want the Germans to know they were so desperately in need of pilots that they had to call upon women. Across the pond WASP (Women Airforces Services Pilots) was formed in August 1943 in America by merging two existing organisations. My photo shows three WASP crew members at Laredo, Texas in 1944. The WASP flew sixty million miles, carried out 80% of US ferrying missions in the war, and thirty-eight of them died on flying missions. But the story of the WASP does not have a happy end.
Unlike their British counterparts the WASP were paid 30% less than their male colleagues, and, in common with ATA pilots, they did not have military status. In 1944 a bill was introduced into Congress to make WASP a woman's service within the USAAF. The bill was defeated and WASP remained civil servants without the benefits contained in the GI Bill. As well as the loss of medical coverage and life insurance this meant that when a woman crew member died on duty the US government was not obliged to pay for her body to be shipped home and buried. But worse was to come. After the defeat of the militarisation Bill pressure came from a powerful lobby of male civilian pilots who wanted the WASP jobs. This resulted in the disbandment of WASP in December 1944, eight months before the war ended. It was not until 1977 that President Jimmy Carter granted WASP veteran status.
German women were not allowed to fly in combat for the Third Reich. But a small number flew ferry missions for the Luftwaffe in the dangerous skies over Gerany. One was Beate Uhse who ferried classic German warplanes such as the Stuka and Messerschmitt 109 to combat zones. After the war Uhse struck the ultimate blow for women's liberation. In 1972 she opened the world's first sex shop in Flensburg in Germany. She died in 2001 but her name is immortalised in Beate Uhse AG, Germany's most successful erotica chain.
The story of the American and Soviet women military pilots World War II is magnificently told in Amy Goodpaster Strebe's new book Flying For Her Country (Praeger Security International ISBN 9780275994341). My text and photos are based on her book, which was borrowed from the invaluable 2nd Air Division Memorial Library in Norwich. The copy of the book was donated by Marion Stegeman Hodgson, who was herself a WASP. The Woman's Collection at Texas Woman's University provided material for the book and I know the path has at least one regular reader at TWU. The photo below shows a WASP in conversation with a male colleague on the wing of an A-25 Helldiver at Camp Davis, North Carolina.
That great anti-war statement, Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, was written for the 1962 re-consecration of Coventry Cathedral, which had been destroyed by German bombs in 1940. Britten had written the parts of the two soldiers for the British Peter Pears and German Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and the role of celebrants for the Russian soprano Galina Vishnevskaya (who was married to Mstislav Rostropovich) together with full chorus and orchestra. The Russian Minister of Culture refused permission for Vishnevskaya to sing in the premiere and her place was taken by Heather Harper. But Vishnevskaya was able to sing in the definitive 1963 recording conducted by Britten, and my photo below shows them together at the sessions.
Marina Raskova was killed when her bomber crashed flying to Stalingrad. A reproduction of the Madonna of Stalingrad, which was drawn by a German doctor and clergyman who died in the siege of the city, is housed in Coventry Cathedral, where the War Requiem was first performed. The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin was destroyed by Allied bombers in November 1943. A wonderful new church with a fine organ has risen from the ruins in Berlin, and houses the original Madonna of Stalingrad.
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk | <urn:uuid:d720344c-f031-43d3-ae2b-7ff837549e41> | {
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If you have a student in the marketing area, they will enjoy talking about how features of a product/service should be translated into benefits. This article will provide you with some background and some ideas to feed in to the discussion:
The text in the box below is based on phrases given in the article.
1 Write on the board these words: Features tell, Benefits sell.
You might have to establish the meaning of ‘feature’: something interesting or important about a product.
And you will probably want to give (or elicit) a few quick and obvious examples of features and their benefits, such as power steering (feature) makes a car easier to park (benefit); or innovative design of a product (feature) means you look cool and stylish when you use it (benefit); or small size of a product (feature) means it easily fits into your bag or pocket (benefit).
2 Have a warmer discussion on this topic. Marketing people will have a lot to say about this (marketers understand that you have to appeal to people’s emotions, not just give them dry information).
3 After a general discussion, write the text below on the board.
Now ask the students to use the language on the board to write a few sentences about one of their own products/services and two of its features and resulting benefits.
4 When they finish, the students can read out their sentences and there will be further discussion, this time more specific to the students’ own business. | <urn:uuid:b4e65b77-81d1-4751-ba8b-21551427163e> | {
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Pelican Beach Resort
There are over ten diverse cultures present in Belize, many of which still place great importance on traditional activities and practices that span generations. These traditions are often rooted in practicality and provide great benefits to those that keep them going.
In southern Belize, two of the most prominent cultural groups are the Garifuna and the Maya. These groups still continue with many daily practices started by their ancestors.
- Schedule a "Garifuna cultural experience", on a cassava baking day near a small farm. Learn how to grate the manioc root, strain, sieve, and bake on an open hearth. Then enjoy the finished cassava biscuit with Serre la Sus - fresh fished sauteed in coconut milk with mashed plantains.
- Pass by a neighborhood wake, "9 night" or "Dugu" and share in the honoring of Garifuna ancestor spirits via drumming and song. A "9 night" is similar to a wake and is held as a memorial usually 9 nights after someone has been buried.
- Garifuna songs and dances are vehicles for teaching newer generations about their history. These dances are filled with meaning, and an evening of entertainment can be arranged with a local dance group.
Visit the village of Maya Center at the entrance to the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary and:
- Shop at the Women's Craft Cooperative, where Mayan women sell souvenirs crafted from materials found in the nearby tropical forest
- Visit the Maya Museum and learn more about the rich history of the Maya in Belize
- Walk the medicinal trails inside the sanctuary itself, and learn the myriad uses for some of the herbs and plants that grow within the Cockscomb Basin. | <urn:uuid:295cb003-8a9d-48f7-9961-87868b5747ae> | {
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The unique design of Literature & Thought provides the literature and teaching support you need to meet the challenges of the Common Core English Language Arts curriculum.
Close reading strategies
Writing to sources
Appropriate text complexity
Academic vocabulary support
Text dependent questions and tasks
Essential questions (whole book) and cluster questions (units) focus on developing specific critical thinking skills through careful reading,
textual analysis, discussion, and writing activities.
Outstanding literature and content-rich nonfiction and informational texts engage student's interest and focus attention on the critical thinking questions.
Selections provide the text complexity and academic vocabulary required by the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).
NEW! Professional learning—interactive online courses with experts from the Great Books Foundation in close reading of literary texts, strategic reading of informational texts, and more are included with each Teacher Package.
NEW! Interactive whiteboard lessons—explicit modeling and instruction of critical thinking and reading skills, writing rubrics, and much more.
NEW! Expanded Teacher Guides—informational text strategies, citing evidence to support analyses and claims, practice with academic vocabulary, specific support for CCSS in each selection (including detailed CCSS correlations), and multiple assessment options.
Great Books Discussion Guides for Teachers—specific questioning strategies developed by the Great Books Foundation supporting close text reading and discussion. | <urn:uuid:ffe10044-cb7d-4de7-91a3-892bae9c0285> | {
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12/03/2007 - American Indian children are overrepresented in the nation's foster care system at more than 1.6 times the expected level, according to a new report by the National Indian Child Welfare Association and the national, nonpartisan Kids Are Waiting campaign, a project of The Pew Charitable Trusts. The report was released Nov. 20 at the annual national convention of the National Congress of American Indians in Denver. NCAI has been a partner with NICWA on several child welfare initiatives.
The report, ''Time for Reform: A Matter of Justice for American Indian and Alaska Native Children,'' details how Congress created the mechanisms for foster care funding that excluded Indian children who are receiving case management from tribal social services. States receive about $7 billion from the Title IV-E fund in 2006, which accounts for 50 percent of the federal child welfare funds provided to state-administrated foster care.
David Simmons, NICWA director of government affairs and advocacy, spoke at the event at which the report was released and said that state governments can access up to seven different federal programs to provide foster care programs. Tribal governments, who carry approximately 15,000 foster child caseloads every year, can only access up to five federal programs and are excluded from directly accessing the largest source of federal child welfare funding in meeting the needs of the children and families in their care.
Read the full article Native Children Overrepresented in Foster Care, Report Finds on Indian Country Today Web site. | <urn:uuid:2dacbc5a-3b33-4ffb-88e5-4b17f126680a> | {
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European Decorative Arts and Sculpture
Armor for Use in the Tourney Fought on Foot over the BarriersMade in Milan, Italy, Europe
Armor made by Pompeo della Cesa, Italian (active Milan), c. 1537 - 1610
Engraved, etched, and partially gilded steel; brass, textiles, and leather replaced
Currently not on view
1977-167-37Bequest of Carl Otto Kretzschmar von Kienbusch, 1977
LabelThis armor was used in a form of tournament where a barrier separated the contenders, who fought on foot with either a pike or a sword. Since the barrier provided a defense for the lower portion of the body, this type of armor leaves the wearer's abdomen and legs unprotected. | <urn:uuid:e942c97b-7715-4880-8dfe-7a39fde8fb50> | {
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O ye, of little faith
This is the rebuke levelled at the disciples of Christ, when seeming to doubt his divinity. The phrase is also more widely used to describe any Christian doubter. In a secular setting it may be intended as a humorous jibe when doubting someone's abilities.
There are several places in the Bible in which this phrase is used with reference to those who demonstrate their lack of faith in Jesus' power to perform miracles. Here is an example from Miles Coverdale's Bible, 1535:
Luke 12:27 Considre the lilies vpo the felde, how they growe: they laboure not, they spynne not. But I saye vnto you: that euen Salomen in all his royalte was not clothed like one of these.
Luke 12:28 Wherfore yf God so cloth the grasse, yt is to daye in ye felde, and tomorow shalbe cast in to the fornace, how moch more shal he clothe you, o ye of litle faith?
In the 17th century, the people that we would now call atheists were called nullfidians. The state of insufficient faith was also of common enough interest to be given a name - petty fidianism. John Trapp, in his Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, 1647, recorded the term:
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The Onions are the nests of the Pikmin. Olimar named them so because of their resemblance to a vegetable native to his home planet. These bulbous plant-hives have brightly colored bodies with a black and white band across the midsection. At the spots the Onions land at the start of each day, there are concentric circles on the ground, which are never referred to in-game. Three stilt-like legs suspend the Onions out of the reach of hungry predators, and provide access to the inside for Pikmin. In Pikmin, Olimar states that he inspected the Onion's legs, and saw they were covered with tiny little hairs. There are three known types of Onion, each with unique coloration corresponding to either Red, Yellow or Blue Pikmin, and only one of each has ever been seen. Subterranean Pikmin species such as Purple Pikmin, White Pikmin and Bulbmin do not have Onions, or at least none that have yet been discovered.
During the daytime, Pikmin hunt and bring food, such as pellets or slain beasts, to the Onion, which in turn produces new Pikmin seeds. If there are fewer than 100 Pikmin on the field, the seeds are ejected and take root in the ground; if not, they are stored inside the Onion, along with any other Pikmin not on the field. When night falls and all the Pikmin have returned, the Onion folds its legs and lifts off from the ground, presumably using its flower petals like rotor blades to propel itself into the low atmosphere, where it hovers until daybreak. If an Onion loses all its Pikmin, it will produce a single seed the following day to prevent extinction.
When the Onions are first discovered in Pikmin, they are dormant. They have a dark grayish color, are flowerless, and their legs are buried in the ground until Olimar comes upon them, at which point they spring to life and spit out a single seed. It is not known exactly what triggers this hibernation.
In Pikmin 3, a mechanical spherical object with legs that resembles an Onion is shown. However, it isn't confirmed what this object does.
Red Onion
The Red Onion is the first Onion to be discovered in both games. In Pikmin, the Red Onion is found at The Impact Site, dormant in the ground not far from where the S.S. Dolphin crashed. Once awakened, it will release a single Red Pikmin seed which Olimar can use to harvest nearby red Pellet Posies and spawn enough Pikmin to retrieve the Main Engine. In Pikmin 2, Louie finds this Onion in the Valley of Repose when he falls out of the Ship's cockpit and gets lost.
Yellow Onion
The second Onion the player will come across in both games. In Pikmin, it is found dormant in The Forest of Hope amidst several yellow Pellet Posies and free-standing yellow pellets. In Pikmin 2, the Yellow Onion is located in the Perplexing Pool behind a poison gate protected by a Fiery Bulblax, so White Pikmin and Red Pikmin are required to reach it. There are a few yellow Pellet Posies nearby which will not regrow once they've been harvested.
Blue Onion
In Pikmin, it can be found in The Forest Navel in a pool near the landing site, and is the third Onion the player discovers. Several blue Pellet Posies are in the immediate vicinity, as well as a free-standing blue 5 pellet. In Pikmin 2, the Blue Onion is located in the Awakening Wood; although it can be seen relatively early in the game, it lies behind an electric gate, meaning that Yellow Pikmin from the Perplexing Pool are required to access it. A small pool blocks the only direct path up to the gate, so the Pikmin must be thrown onto a nearby ledge (while taking care not to disturb the Cloaking Burrow-nit lying in wait there). The Captain can then walk around through some water to reach them, and order them to defeat the beast and demolish the gate, allowing him to find the game's first 5 Blue Pikmin.
For some unknown reason, when landing on an area, the Blue Onion seems to hover a bit before landing, therefore landing slower than the Red Onion and Yellow Onion.
At the end of Pikmin, there is a rather confusing part where fourteen Onions, of colors that have not appeared in a Pikmin game so far, fly above the Planet of the Pikmin. It is unknown whether they are trying to follow Captain Olimar or merely hovering for the night. This could mean that more colors may yet be introduced in Pikmin 3. Interestingly, one of the Onions seen is purple, and Purple Pikmin were indeed introduced in Pikmin 2, but without an Onion.
In Super Smash Bros. Brawl
In Brawl, the three Onions appear as a trophy and on the "Distant Planet" stage. Here, when a pellet is thrown into one, an item is ejected. The number on the pellet thrown is the amount of items that will appear. More items will appear if the pellet and Onion have the same color, similar to the way it works in the Pikmin games. The Onions can also be hit, and will eventually fly away.
Brawl Trophy Description
"Items considered to be the places where Pikmin are born. As to the actual biology of the process, much is still unclear. Onions absorb the prey that Pikmin capture and use it to produce new Pikmin. In addition, Onions can take in Pikmin and later release them. These organisms are crowned with distinctive propeller-like sets of leaves that spin around, enabling them to fly."
- For the music in the Forest of Hope, at some points, the propeller petals of an Onion can be heard.
- When Olimar first came upon the Red Onion in Pikmin, he was knocked over by one of the legs as it sprang out of the ground. When he finds the other two later on in the game, he is a little more cautious and backs away.
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The fortunes of war favoured Hrothgar. . . .
So his mind turned to hall-building: he handed down orders
for men to work on a great mead-hall
meant to be a wonder of the world forever . . .
– from Beowulf (trans. Seamus Heaney)
Back in the 7th century (thereabouts), once one had vanquished thine enemies and smite their lands, the task that lay before any great warrior was to build a great mead-hall — in short, now that the fields of neighbouring barley had been plundered, it was time to get down and build a drinking palace of epic proportions. Beowulf, the founding tale of English literature, now a horrendous relic of a 3D film, teaches us all this traditional lesson: never let a great victory go by without a tremendous amount of post-traumatic drinking.
Thankfully, Western civilization has evolved beyond the thick, syrupy honey-broth known as mead. Mead is closer to a meal. With the aftertaste of rancid honey and the consistency of oatmeal, even the mediaeval knights were increasingly unable to down this alcoholic stew. The mead-hall withered into disrepair. Hrothgar's descendents were eaten and avenged by the monsters of Cain.
With the Enlightenment came refinements in the aesthetics of booze. After the Reinheitsgebot was ratified in 1516 — better known as the Bavarian purity laws — there was at least some sense as to what beer should (and should not) be. A century before Galileo searched the heavens and Spinoza perfected eyeglasses and ethics, the Germans ensured some order to the coming celebration of the Copernican revolution: beer should consist of water, barley, and hops.
Of course this was quickly fooled with. Thanks to post-Enlightenment scientists concerned with better states of drunk — Louis Pasteur, actually, in the late 19th century — yeast was identified as the active agent in recycled sediment; thereafter it was intentionally added. Wheat malt and cane sugar were toyed with, along with all matter of strange flavours in the mash, from grapefruit to pumpkins, cinnamon and other spices to apples and oranges. Barley was originally singled out to keep the beermakers from using up all the breadmakers' dough (the peasant population could not be drunk all the time — they had to eat something). Once agriculture became proto-industrialized and the guild laws disintegrated, weissbier followed. Such is the inevitability of beer, and its long-historical trajectory to where we are today: the post-Renaissance renaissance of the microbrew. This is our alcoholic eschaton, and Homer Simpson's theory of progress has been confirmed as correct: at the end of history lies beer heaven.
Or so goes this tale of tastes (don't quote it in school, kids).
A class culture of the craft
May 21, 2013, 2:00 PM
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WhistlerUnfiltered advertising campaign extends into summer More...
May 20, 2013, 8:30 AM
Police investigating mischief calls over long weekend More... | <urn:uuid:b96636a0-6b77-4aa9-9fca-ba96e9e37daa> | {
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Although Diesel was born in Paris, his parents were German. His father was a leather craftsman, and his mother a governess and language tutor.
Rudolf was a good student in primary school and was admitted at the age of 12 to the Ecole Primaire Superieure, then regarded as the best in Paris. On the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, however, he and his parents were considered enemy aliens, and were deported to neutral asylum in London. A cousin helped him to return to his father's home town, Augsburg, where he entered the Royal County Trade School. From there he won a scholarship to the Technische Hochschule of Munich, where he was an outstanding student. He became a protegé of Carl von Linde, the pioneer of refrigeration. He was a devout Lutheran.
After graduation, he was employed for two years as a machinist and designer in Winterthur, Switzerland. After this, he returned to Paris, where he was employed as a refrigeration engineer at Linde Refrigeration Enterprises. In Paris he became a connoisseur of the fine arts and an internationalist. He married in 1883, and had three children. He set up his first shop-laboratory in 1885 in Paris, and began full-time work on his engine. This continued when he moved to Berlin, working again for Linde Enterprises. In 1892 he was granted a German patent for the engine, and found some support for its continued development, this time in Augsburg.
Rudolf Diesel developed the idea of an engine that relied on a high compression of the fuel to ignite it, eliminating the spark plug used in the Nikolaus Otto internal combustion engine. He received a patent for the device on February 23, 1892 and a major milestone was achieved when he was able to run a single piston engine for one minute on February 17, 1894. The engine was fueled by powdered coal injected with compressed air. This machine stood 10 feet (3 m) tall, and achieved a compression of 80 atmospheres (8100 kPa). He built an improved prototype in early 1897 while working at the Maschinenfabrik Augsburg (from 1906 on the MAN) plant at Augsburg. Diesel's engine had some similarities with an engine invented by Herbert Akroyd Stuart in 1890. Diesel was embroiled for some years in various patent disputes and arguments over priority, but in the end he prevailed, and his invention came to be called the diesel engine. He continued its development over the next three years, began production (the first commercial engine was at a brewery in the United States), and secured licenses from firms in several countries. He became a millionaire.
Diesel was something of an unstable character, having several nervous breakdowns, and was somewhat paranoid at times. He defended his priority of invention tenaciously. Diesel toured the United States as a lecturer in 1904, and he self-published a two volume work on his social philosophy. He died under suspicious circumstances during a crossing of the English Channel to Harwich on September 29, 1913, possibly by suicide. A cross in his journal on the date he died was an indicator of suicide. A briefcase containing a very small sum of money and a large amount of bank statements showing debts, was left to his wife, Martha. Another theory revolves around the German Military, which was beginning to use his engines on their submarines—something which Mr. Diesel opposed—and perhaps feared his potentially providing the technology to the British Royal Navy for use in their own submarines. His body was found in the Channel a few days later. As was usual at the time, the seamen only took his belongings (identified later by Diesel's younger son Eugen) and then threw the body back into the sea.
After Diesel's death, the diesel engine underwent much further development, and became a very important replacement for the steam engine in many applications. This engine required a heavier, more robust construction than the gasoline engine, making it unsuitable for certain applications (such as aviation), but allowed the use of cheaper fuels. Diesel was especially interested in using coal dust or vegetable oil as fuel for the engine, but this never materialized in any major way, at least until recent rises in fuel prices and concerns about oil reserves lead to more widespread use of vegetable oil and biodiesel—most Diesel engines will function just as well using either. But the primary source of fuel has been what became known as diesel fuel, an oil byproduct derived from the refining of petroleum. The Diesel engine became widespread in many other applications, such as stationary engines, submarines, ships, and much later, locomotives.
Recently, Diesel engines have been designed, certified and flown that have overcome the weight penalty in light aircraft. These engines are designed to run on either diesel fuel or more commonly Jet fuel.
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I recently watched a BBC documentary entitled Out of Africa, a five-part series chronicling the migration of Homo sapiens out of Africa and into Asia, Australia, Europe, and the Americas. Although all five parts were fascinating, I was particularly rapt by the arrival of Homo sapiens (modern humans) into Europe some 40,000 years ago after a 70,000 year trek out of Africa, only to discover that Neanderthals, a proto-human and distant cousin had arrived some 100,000 years earlier. Neanderthals were a heartier, huskier species than Homo Sapiens, had a larger brain and more advanced technology, and had long since adapted to harsh European winters. However, 20,000 years or so later, Neanderthals had died out — completely. To this day, no Neanderthal genetic markers have been found in modern humans.
How is it possible that a physically more powerful, better environmentally adapted, and technologically more advanced proto-human did not survive, while Homo sapiens, the weaker, less advanced interloper, not only survived but burgeoned to eventually populate the entire globe and create the marvelously modern societies of today?
Paleoanthropologists hot on the Homo sapien trail out of Africa have discovered in Europe a marked difference between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals: Homo sapiens may not have produced better weapons and tools, at least then, but they did make a quantum leap to produce art. They carved, pottered, sculpted, painted, and even made musical instruments, all with an eye on style rather than just making meaningless pretty. More importantly, their art embodied and transmitted — as art does — their identity, spirituality, and, their strong affinity for community.
Early Homo sapien art strongly suggests that our predecessors engaged in an intellectual endeavor to create a unique and dynamic culture and to communicate that culture through art. Homo sapien civilization, it seems, was predicated on the notion that life must be more than just survival, and that working together to survive allowed room for higher pursuit. Conversely, there is no evidence of this intellectual “artsy” undertaking among Neanderthals, who seem to have clung to a strictly utilitarian life for survival, which, ironically, led to their extinction when Europe became encased in 13 feet of ice.
Because Homo sapiens had cultivated a common cultural bond and strong communal ties, they were able to come together and huddle together, literally and figuratively, and, although large numbers perished during the Ice Age, enough adapted to a starkly altered environment and survived to carry on to become “us.” Neanderthals, on the other hand, were literally and figuratively left out in the cold — to perish everlastingly.
The inevitable machinations of evolution are tied up in minute and initially imperceptible changes over vast stretches in time to produce an optimum species. Our ancient ancestors, Homo sapiens, and their distant cousins, Neanderthals, hardly understood the long-term repercussions of their actions because they did not have the benefit of eons and eons of the recorded “heart and mind” of humankind nor the technology to access it. They could not look back thousands, hundreds of thousands, and millions of years and make decisions about their survival and their future based on that knowledge. But we can — and like it or not, we are a global community and our well-being and survival will likely depend upon our ability to indiscriminately come together and “huddle” together against adversity.
But make no mistake about it, whatever path humankind chooses, evolution will be our judge about whether or not we chose wisely.
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons | <urn:uuid:56ae886f-bf28-47e1-bfbd-1e8365f92ba8> | {
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Geoscience experts have developed a system of smart buoys that can predict the formation of self-reinforcing underwater waves, or solitons, 10 hours before they threaten the safety of oil rigs and divers. In 2008, Martin Goff and his colleagues at FUGROS, a geoscience consulting agency, successfully tested the system for three months in the Andaman Sea. Now, Global Ocean Associates have acknowledged the device as "the first deployed system with real-time warning capability."
Scientists discover ancient rocks on the sea-floor that give them a window into the Earth's mantle
By Gregory Mone
Posted 04.14.2008 at 8:28 am 0 Comments
No, you can't hike or spelunk or even tunnel down to the center of the Earth, even if movies like The Core or this summer's 3D adventure flick, Journey to the Center of the Earth, suggest otherwise. To find out about our planet's insides, scientists rely on very different tricks. And, apparently, a little luck.
Five amazing, clean technologies that will set us free, in this month's energy-focused issue. Also: how to build a better bomb detector, the robotic toys that are raising your children, a human catapult, the world's smallest arcade, and much more. | <urn:uuid:67de25b3-2aa5-4eb7-8108-2b29a04d3ecc> | {
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Never mind the movie stars pulling up to the Oscars in their Priuses. When the U.S. Army announces, as it did recently, that it is developing a new hybrid Humvee to save fuel and extend range, you can be sure that hybrid technology has arrived.
Hybrid vehicles improve efficiency by integrating a combustion engine with an electric drive train-a combo that recaptures braking energy, stores unused idle power, and reduces engine weight to increase mileage. But as today´s generation of hybrids flies out of showrooms, the stage is set for the next fleet, which will slash gas use and emissions much further. They´re called plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), and they recharge overnight in home garages to take advantage of low off-peak electric rates.
"The implications for our national oil addiction are profound," says Daniel Kammen, director of the University of California at Berkeley´s Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory. "If the current U.S. vehicle fleet were replaced overnight with PHEVs, oil consumption would decrease by 70 to 90 percent, eliminating the need for oil imports and leaving the U.S. self-sufficient in oil for many years to come." Even if the electrical power for those vehicles were drawn from coal-fired power plants, CO2 emissions would drop by more than half. If the power were produced by renewable energy sources, and the fuel in the tank were biodiesel or ethanol [facing page], the proposition gets exponentially better.
Clearly, though, it´s not going to happen overnight. With the exception of DaimlerChrysler, which has built a plug-in prototype based on its Dodge Sprinter cargo van, automakers have been slow to get into the plug-in hybrid market. Aftermarket conversion kits will hit the streets for the first time later this year [see "Can I Plug In My Prius?" on page 84], tempting mileage-obsessed Prius owners like David K. Garman, undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Energy. "Like most Americans," he says, "I drive less than 40 miles a day, back and forth to work. If I´m able to drive in all-electric mode, I won´t need to use the gas tank. That, to me, is a game changer."
It may not be the only agent of change. Whether cars are run by hybrid or conventional drive trains, the fuel-saving potential of reduced vehicle weight is often overlooked, says Amory Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, a natural-resources think tank in Colorado. "By substituting high-strength, lightweight composite materials for steel," he says, "automakers could roughly double the efficiency of hybrids. In terms of fuel-efficiency, that´s by far the most effective and doable approach."
Moreover, sometimes the simplest tweaks can have big effects. A recent study by the federal National Renewable Energy Laboratory found that
if every car and truck on America´s roads was equipped with ventilated seats, air-conditioning-related gasoline consumption could be reduced by 7.5 percent, dropping fuel intake by 522 million gallons a year. Now, there´s a cool idea.
The 300mpg drag racer
In the late 1940s, Andrew Frank was a hot-rodding teenager who mounted a Cadillac V12 engine in his 1936 Ford. By the 1990s, he was a mechanical-engineering professor at the University of California at Davis who pulled big engines out of SUVs and swapped them for smaller ones boosted by plug-in electric motors. His first "plug-in hy-brid" got 68 mpg without sacrificing horsepower.
Frank is now fielding a student team for the U.S. Department of Energy´s clean-vehicle competition, Challenge X. The group is building a 300- mpg plug-in hybrid with an ethanol-powered gasoline engine and a solar-powered electric motor. Sounds responsibly efficient. But the professor is still a hot-rodder at heart: "Last year we had a Ford Explorer that we converted into a plug-in hybrid, and it had so much torque that we couldn´t keep the axles from snapping. With six of my students in there, it could still burn rubber."
He is now fielding a student team for the U.S. Department of Energy´s clean-vehicle competition, Challenge X.
"We were getting 64 miles per gallon without sacrificing anything on the power side," Frank says. "But I saw that the most important thing is that energy for cars could be supplied by solar energy and wind using existing technology."
Five amazing, clean technologies that will set us free, in this month's energy-focused issue. Also: how to build a better bomb detector, the robotic toys that are raising your children, a human catapult, the world's smallest arcade, and much more. | <urn:uuid:a9b97656-dcff-4e0c-b375-e64ac4f66f69> | {
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Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Lauran Neergaard / The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — A staggering 1 in 3 seniors dies with Alzheimer's disease or other types of dementia, says a new report that highlights the impact the mind-destroying disease is having on the rapidly aging population.
Dying with Alzheimer's is not the same as dying from it. But even when dementia isn't the direct cause of death, it can be the final blow — speeding someone's decline by interfering with their care for heart disease, cancer or other serious illnesses. That's the assessment of the report released Tuesday by the Alzheimer's Association, which advocates for more research and support for families afflicted by it.
"Exacerbated aging," is how Dr. Maria Carrillo, an association vice president, terms the Alzheimer's effect. "It changes any health care situation for a family."
In fact, only 30 percent of 70-year-olds who don't have Alzheimer's are expected to die before their 80th birthday. But if they do have dementia, 61 percent are expected to die, the report found.
Already, 5.2 million Americans have Alzheimer's or some other form of dementia. Those numbers will jump to 13.8 million by 2050, Tuesday's report predicts. That's slightly lower than some previous estimates.
Count just the deaths directly attributed to dementia, and they're growing fast. Nearly 85,000 people died from Alzheimer's in 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated in a separate report Tuesday. Those are people who had Alzheimer's listed as an underlying cause on a death certificate, perhaps because the dementia led to respiratory failure. Those numbers make Alzheimer's the sixth leading cause of death.
That death rate rose 39 percent in the past decade, even as the CDC found that deaths declined among some of the nation's other top killers — heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes. The reason: Alzheimer's is the only one of those leading killers to have no good treatment. Today's medications only temporarily ease some dementia symptoms.
But what's on a death certificate is only part of the story.
Consider: Severe dementia can make it difficult for people to move around or swallow properly. That increases the risk of pneumonia, one of the most commonly identified causes of death among Alzheimer's patients.
Likewise, dementia patients can forget their medications for diabetes, high blood pressure or other illnesses. They may not be able to explain they are feeling symptoms of other ailments such as infections. They're far more likely to be hospitalized than other older adults. That in turn increases their risk of death within the following year.
"You should be getting a sense of the so-called blurred distinction between deaths among people with Alzheimer's and deaths caused by Alzheimer's. It's not so clear where to draw the line," said Jennifer Weuve of Chicago's Rush University, who helped study that very question.
The Chicago Health and Aging Project tracked the health of more than 10,000 older adults over time. Weuve's team used the data to estimate how many people nationally will die with Alzheimer's this year — about 450,000, according to Tuesday's report.
That's compatible with the 1 in 3 figure the Alzheimer's Association calculates for all dementias. That number is based on a separate analysis of Medicare data that includes both Alzheimer's cases and deaths among seniors with other forms of dementia.
Last year, the Obama administration set a goal of finding effective Alzheimer's treatments by 2025, and increased research funding to help. It's not clear how the government's automatic budget cuts, which began earlier this month, will affect those plans.
But Tuesday's report calculated that health and long-term care services will total $203 billion this year, much of that paid by Medicare and Medicaid and not counting unpaid care from family and friends. That tab is expected to reach $1.2 trillion by 2050, barring a research breakthrough, the report concluded. | <urn:uuid:f98d5188-4a2b-46ab-b6a5-dbdef4b73f6e> | {
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Growing Older, Driving Safely
Safe driving requires complex visual processing – abilities that may begin to decline as we age. A loss in your visual abilities could endanger you and others on the road. But you can maintain your independence and drive safely longer if you:
1. Get a complete eye exam regularly,
2. Know the vision issues that can affect your driving,
3. Understand the laws in your state about driving as you age, and
4. Talk to your eye doctor about maintaining your fitness to drive
It is important to note that visual processing is but one component of safe driving. Other key factors include 1) the motor ability to scan rapidly changing environments; 2) the sensory ability to perceive information in a rapidly changing environment; 3) the attentiveness to process multiple pieces of information; and 4) the cognitive and motor ability to judge information in a timely fashion and to make appropriate decisions.
Know the Law in Your State ► Know the Law in Your State ▼
Vision and Driving
Visual Acuity ► Visual Acuity ▼
Visual acuity makes it possible for you to notice moving and still objects that you must see, and often notice quickly, to make safe driving decisions. With good acuity, you can read traffic signs, street names, and addresses at a distance with time to react safely to conditions. You also rely on your visual acuity to see any object or hazard on or near the road.
Vision in Low Contrast Situations ► Vision in Low Contrast Situations ▼
Low-contrast visual acuity lets you see and drive safely in rain, snow, fog, or at dusk. Objects do not always stand out clearly from their surroundings, such as potholes, cars without lights on at dusk, pedestrians crossing in front of you in the rain, and almost anything at night not directly in range of your headlights. When your visual acuity for low contract objects decreases, you may not be able to see potential dangers soon enough to respond safely.
Keeping Track of Visual Information ► Keeping Track of Visual Information ▼
When driving, you must scan your surroundings constantly for potential conflicts with other road users. At the same time, you must pay attention to road features like traffic signs and signals, and landmarks or other information that helps you find your way as you drive. This is most important at intersections, where the majority of serious crashes occur. When you are about to start moving after a traffic light turns green, you look to your left and right and then across the intersection in the direction you’re driving. Being able to locate safety threats quickly and make immediate driving decisions based on information from many different places is a critical part of driving.
What you are aware of in your field of view, and how quickly you become aware of it, can determine whether or not you can drive safely and avoid crashing at an intersection, a shopping center parking lot, or in any driving situation. If your ability to keep track of and process visual information decreases with age, you may have problems identifying and reacting to safety threats.
Visit an eye doctor regularly ► Visit an eye doctor regularly ▼
One very important thing you can do to make sure you can drive safely longer is get your eyes checked regularly by an eye doctor—at least once every other year—if you are 55 or older. You should visit your eye doctor even if you have no problems seeing, and talk to your eye doctor about driving and your vision.
Budget for proper eye care ► Budget for proper eye care ▼
You should budget for the cost of a regular eye exam at least every other year or more frequently if your doctor recommends it. Most people want to protect their vision and ability to maintain independence (including driving), even it if involves a cost. Proper eye care doesn't have to be expensive. Think of it as an investment in good vision and in your quality of life. | <urn:uuid:878aea05-54ca-45ab-9717-8eff50a740fe> | {
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Farmers in Mozambique trying to adapt farming to climate change
As the rain and water in Mozambique becomes less predictable and less suited to subsistence farming, aid groups and the local government are trying to help some change the way they farm so they're not so paralyzed by a flood or a drought. But there's a lot of work to do.
Over the past two decades, Mozambique has suffered more than its fair share of weather disasters.
The east African nation has seen more devastating cyclones, droughts and floods than any country on the continent. Farmers in Mozambique have been particularly hard hit. This year alone, torrential rains in the mountains sent flood waters onto fields below, submerging tens of thousands of acres of crops.
And now, farmers are in the midst of another rainy season, which started in December.
Officials at Mozambique’s National Institute for Disaster Management have to prepare for rescue operations this time of year. Figueredo de Araujo, the institute's information manager, said the emergency operations center is equipped with rescue boats as well as warehouses with various goods for humanitarian assistance: maize flour, tents, tarps, boots and rain coats among them.
Caia, where Mozambique’s main highway crosses the Zambezi river, sits in the middle of a vast, flat, floodplain that is home to nearly a million people. In 2000, the area was hit by the worst flooding in memory. The floods killed 700 people, displaced 100,000, and cost Mozambique a 1.5 percent loss in GDP through destruction of crops.
To Belem Monteiro, the emergency center's director, much of Mozambique’s misfortune is a matter of geography.
"The fact that we have a problem is not news to us: given its location, Mozambique could only be vulnerable to these changes in climate," Monteiro said.
Nearly 80 percent of Mozambican families are subsistence farmers, relying on rain-fed agriculture to produce their food. After the 2000 floods, farmers near the Zambezi River repeatedly lost their homes and crops.
"In the past, it happened every five years, now we have annual emergencies, which shows that the situation has changed," Monteiro said.
But that's presented a major challenge for the disaster management institute, which was conceived to intervene during freak emergencies, but has been forced to evolve to a permanent mission.
Some 30 miles from Caia, a resettlement zone called Tchetcha Um is home to some 5,000 families who were moved to higher ground. The organization Save the Children has partnered with the government in a program promoting livelihood resilience, diversifying their income sources, said Clemente Lourenço, a project officer for the group.
Farmer Rui Alberto Campira received a grant from Save the Children in 2009, which enabled he and 11 other farmers to built a 5-acre farm where they can grow crops for both consumption at home and sale at the local market. Campira says the soil is great for cash crops.
"It's good. Especially for tomatoes. Tomatoes, onions, cabbage, collard greens. That's what we usually plant here. There we only plant maize. Maize and sweet potatoes," Campira said of his former home.
The land he's farming now will also flood during the rainy season, but the irrigation system the grant enabled him to install allows him to farm during the dry season, when cash crops would typically die.
About 55 associations like Campira's have formed in Caia district, not just growing cash crops, but trading in fish, beans, and clothing, and using animal traction to plow fields. Save the Children funds about 4500 farmers across three provinces.
Joao Novage is raising seven goats, as part of another association. The grant originally bought 40 goats that have in turn born another 20.
"When I see that I have 12 or 13 goats, I’ll take four and sell them to buy school supplies and clothes for my children. Children are our wealth. They’ll bring a better future for us," Novage said.
Though the projects have been wildly successful, everyone admits they serve an insignificant portion of the population at this point. It remains to be seen if they can be expanded to make a measurable difference in the unger and poverty around this portion of east Africa.
Hosted by Bruce Gellerman, "Living on Earth" is an award-winning environmental news program that delves into the leading issues affecting the world we inhabit. More about "Living on Earth." | <urn:uuid:e993d387-e2aa-46dd-893c-635c3df53bed> | {
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What is a Canonical Tag?
A canonical tag looks like this: <link rel=”canonical” href=http://www.example.com/” /> this should be inserted into the head section of the HTML of a page within a website. (See below)
What Does it Look like?
Why is it Important?
Many SEO technicians suggest a canonical tag appears on every single page of a website for ‘good practice’ – but why?
The main functionality of a canonical tag is to signal to Google which page you consider to be the most important from a group of pages which can have very similar content.
This can be very useful when you have duplicate pages on your website e.g. the homepage or you have a number of similar product pages which produce multiple URLs on different sort filters or tracking parameters.
AND WE ALL KNOW DUPLICATE CONTENT IS BAD
Examples of when to use it:
Often on websites the homepage and folder levels will be duplicated. This is because the page and its content can be found in another folder for example
Is the same as
When you’re a webmaster or SEO it is important to know how to look for these. The duplicate homepage at folder level can be found by adding a range of different default naming conventions to the top level domain, depending on which server your website is hosted.
There are 2 main server
There are 2 main servers
/Default.aspx /Index.asp /Home.asp /Index.htm
/Index.html /Index.php /Default.php /Home.php
Finding Duplicate Content through Google:
Google will automatically omit web pages from its search results that it considers to be duplicated. However this doesn’t mean that it cannot see them which will be causing damage to your SEO.
To find out exactly what Google considers to be duplicate content, we can use a ‘site colon’ to identify the pages.
For example: ‘site:www.riverisland.com’
If we scroll then through the results to the end this, is what we will come across:
So take a note of the last URL in the SERP’s and then scroll through to this. When you find it (it should be around the same position) any URLs after this will then be shown as being very similar in the search engines eyes and may need to have canonical tags inserted.
Sorting and Filtering
Another example where to use the Canonical tag is when a website features a sort filter. This is very common on e-commerce websites:
The top level of the category forms on this URL
However when we sort it by ‘latest in stock’ the URL forms like this
and if we filtered it by prices low to high the URL changes to this:
Now theoretically much of the content on these pages is similar, so in order to signal that we would like http://www.riverisland.com/Online/men/t-shirts–vests to be considered the main page for all of these variations what do we need? Yes you guessed it…
<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.riverisland.com/Online/men/t-shirts–vests“ />
We need the canonical tag on Example 1 and Example 2 and any other example of filtering which can be found throughout the website.
UPPERCASE and lowercase
*One more thing to take into account is issues with uppercase and lowercase. For example:
If a page resolves on both of these this can also be classed as duplicate content and will need to be redirected to the preferred URL or have a canonical tag present.
Duplicate Content Caused by URL Parameters, Like Session IDs or Tracking IDs
Tracking parameters exist to identify the different sources through which traffic is driven to a given page. Session IDs exist to identify a specific user. Whilst both are extremely useful, they can cause duplicate content. If a user links to the URL
It could then appear in the eyes of Google as a URL.
A canonical tag will need to be applied to this to avoid the issue of duplicate content.
The Canonical tag should be used in situations where duplicate content may be an issue due to similar pages within your website, duplicate pages where they cannot be redirected and for pages created through tracking parameters just like the examples previously mentioned.
It is important to remember however, that even though Google strongly adheres to the canonical tag, it is always better to redirect when it is safe and possible.
If you have any questions about the canonical tag and could use it for your website, feel free to comment in the space below and Prodo will happily respond. | <urn:uuid:3410b3d0-0131-497d-ae9f-590d4ee08522> | {
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Intracranial tumors comprise approximately 2% of all adult cancers, but form a larger fraction within the group of childhood tumors. Gliomas account for approximately 60% of all intracranial tumors and are classified according to the suggested cell of origin, differentiation and malignancy grade. The prognosis for high-grade gliomas is poor due to limited possibilities of curative treatment.
Gliomas are tumors of neuroepithelial tissue and comprise a complex and heterogeneous group of tumors representing counterparts to various normal inhabitant cells of the central nervous system (CNS). The most common form of glioma is astrocytoma, representing approximately one third of all gliomas.
Astrocytomas are defined based on morphological features such as cellularity, nuclear atypia, mitotic rate, endothelial proliferation and necrosis, and assigned to grades I-IV according to the current WHO classification system. These include pilocytic astrocytoma (Grade I), astrocytoma (Grade II), anaplastic astrocytoma (Grade III), and glioblastoma (Grade IV). The various forms of glioma are highly vaiable and several phenotypically different cell types exist, including gemistocytic glioma cells. Gemistocytic cells resemble a morphological alteration that can also be found in reactive astrocytes and is characterized by eosinophilic staining of a large, swollen cytoplasm.
Approximately 15% of gliomas are oligodendrogliomas. Histologically, oligodendrogliomas commonly show uniform cell architecture with increased numbers of delicate blood vessels. The tumor cell nuclei are mainly round and regular, and often surrounded by an artifactual perinuclear clearing that results in the so called ?fried egg? appearance. High-grade oligodendrogliomas (anaplastic oligodendrogliomas) are recognized by features such as increased cellularity, mitotic activity and nuclear pleomorphism, as well as necrosis and endothelial proliferation.
Additional forms of glioma include mixed gliomas such as oligoastrocytoma and ependymal tumors. Examples of other neuroepithelial tumors that grow within the CNS are neuronal and mixed neuronal-glial tumors, as well as embryonal tumors including neuroblastoma and medulloblastoma.
The distinction between different forms of brain tumors is mainly based on morphological features, but immunohistochemistry plays an important role to distinguish between different tumor types, in particular when the tumor is poorly differentiated. In neuropathological diagnostics, antibodies directed towards proteins such as Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein, Synaptophysin, EGFR, p53 and the proliferation marker Ki-67 are commonly used.
Normal tissue: Cerebral cortex | <urn:uuid:c71faa1f-b8c1-4e51-abe7-7a648b7792f9> | {
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There has been a recent push by Army Secretary John McHugh to improve soldier’s “resilience” by strengthening the military’s mental health programs.1,2 In particular, there is significant concern over the rate of suicide among soldiers, as well as psychiatric illnesses such as PTSD.
PTSD is a psychiatric illness resulting from a physical or psychological trauma that is sometimes related to warfare, but of course occurs in the case of civilian trauma as well. However, wars have been a propitious time for studying PTSD. In an article by Robert Wilbur and me, the Soldier’s Private War with PTSD is briefly discussed, along with current treatment approaches.3
In a related video (below), a veteran and counselor in Upstate New York gives a short, poignant outreach message to veterans with invisible wounds.4 The Invisible Wound movement is gaining momentum and is an organization created by warriors for warriors with PTSD. It is a grassroots organization that focuses on PTSD advocacy, community, and support for warriors and their families. The secondary mission of the organization is educating the public about the issues surrounding PTSD.5 | <urn:uuid:36f8e360-1402-4cb3-8a0b-b1ca8d4f21b8> | {
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Why Argue? Helping Students See the Point
Read the comments on any website and you may despair at Americans’ inability to argue well. Thankfully, educators now name argumentive reasoning as one of the basics students should leave school with.
But what are these skills and how do children acquire them? Deanna Kuhn and Amanda Crowell, of Columbia University’s Teachers College, have designed an innovative curriculum to foster their development and measured the results. Among their findings, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, dialogue is a better path to developing argument skills than writing.
“Children engage in conversation from very early on,” explains Kuhn. “It has a point in real life.” Fulfilling a writing assignment, on the other hand, largely entails figuring out what the teacher wants and delivering it. To the student, “that’s its only function.”
Kuhn and Crowell conducted a three-year intervention at an urban middle school whose students were predominantly Hispanic, African-American, and low-income. Beginning in sixth grade, two classes totaling 48 children participated; a comparison group of 23 were taught in a more conventional way.
Each year comprised four 13-class segments. Each quarter, the students entertained one social issue—beginning with subjects close to their lives, such as school discipline, and proceeding to issues of broader social consequence, such as abortion and gun control. Choosing their sides and working in groups, students prepared for debate—enumerating and evaluating reasons for their beliefs, surmising opponents’ arguments, and considering counterarguments and rebuttals. Then, pairs of same-side students debated opposing pairs.
In years two and three, participants were asked during each cycle to generate questions whose answers would help them make their arguments—a way of promoting their appreciation of evidence. Soon, they not only generated many questions but also volunteered to research the answers.
The debates took place via computer—another innovation of the intervention—so the dialogue remained on the screen, promoting reflection. The cycle culminated in a lively “showdown” between the teams, in which students individually took the “hotseat” debating an opponent but could turn to their teammates for tactical “huddles.” Finally, students wrote individual essays justifying their positions on the topic.
The comparison class engaged in full-class teacher-led discussions of similar topics and wrote essays—14 annually compared to the intervention groups’ four.
Before the intervention and after each year, all students wrote essays on entirely new topics. The researchers analyzed these for the kinds and number of arguments—those focused on the virtues of one’s own side; those addressing the opposing side (“dual perspective”); and those attempting to weigh pros and cons of each side (“integrative perspective”). They also looked at the questions the students would like answers to.
On each count, the experimental group did better, making more of the higher forms of arguments and listing more questions of substance than the control group.
Crucially, says Kuhn, the children embraced a core value of citizenship: informed argument matters. They expressed it too. “We have gotten a little complaint from nearby classrooms that it’s a bit noisy,” she adds.
For more information about this study, please contact: Deanna Kuhn at [email protected].
The APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. For a copy of the article "Dialogic Argumentation as a Vehicle for Developing Young Adolescents’ Thinking" and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Tiffany Harrington at 202-293-9300 or [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:8ead8580-7238-40d0-9844-592d344e84a7> | {
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Race in the CourtThe Execution of Willie Francis: Race, Murder and the Search for Justice in the American South
They called the Louisiana electric chair Gruesome Gertie and in her years of service to the state, no case was more notorious than that of long-forgotten Willie Francis. A 16-year-old teen at the time of his 1945 arrest, Francis was barely literate, the youngest of 13 children in a desperately poor, devoutly Roman Catholic, African American family.
The story begins in November, 1944 with the murder of 53- year-old Andrew Thomas, the well-liked owner of Thomas’s Drug Store in the pastoral Cajun town of St. Martinville, Louisiana. Thomas, who was white, was hit by five shots fired at close range. Theories of who might have killed him were abundant. The lifelong bachelor and purported Don Juan was suspected of numerous romantic liaisons with married women, but after a nine-month investigation, all leads had run cold.
That changed in August 3, 1945 when police in Port Arthur, Texas, 150 miles from St. Martinville, happened upon Willie Francis who was there visiting his sister. Francis was carrying a large valise and the cops, on the lookout for drug traffickers, took Francis into custody for questioning.
In short order, Francis convinced his interrogators that he was not a narcotics dealer. Nevertheless, the cops noted that he stuttered—a mannerism they determined indicated guilt—and proceeded to ask him about his involvement in numerous robberies and assaults in the Port Arthur area.
King reports that police accounts reveal a startling—maybe even unbelievable— turn of events. According to Port Arthur Chief of Police Claude W. Goldsmith, “who did not keep any notes or records of the interrogation, Willie confessed to the St. Martinville murder [of Thomas] in a matter of minutes.” What’s more, when they inspected Francis’ wallet they found an ID bearing the name of Andrew Thomas.
Francis’ written statement, replete with spelling errors, admits that he stole a .38 pistol for the planned murder. His statement further concedes that he took Thomas’ wallet, containing $4, along with a gold watch which he later pawned. No counsel was present at the time of this alleged confession.
A month later Francis was indicted by a grand jury and in no-time flat a trial was scheduled. A jury of twelve white men— clearly not Francis’ peers—was selected. As testimony unfolded the jurors learned that there was no forensic evidence linking Francis to the crime. “Also missing,” King writes, “were the murder weapon and bullets that had been recovered from the scene.” Both had been lost in transit to the FBI Crime Lab. Worse, King writes, “no fingerprints had been lifted from the gun. Without the alleged murder weapon or the wrist watch as evidence, the bulk of the District Attorney’s case rested exclusively on confessions obtained by police while the teenaged Willie Francis was in custody and without legal counsel.” Later, attorneys and journalists reviewing the trial transcript dubbed the proceedings “a farce and travesty.”
Nonetheless, Francis was found guilty and sentenced to die in Gruesome Gertie.
His executioners were Angola Prison captain Ephie Foster and prisoner Vincent Venezia. Both men were charged with transporting the contraption to St. Martinville and insuring Francis’ death by electrocution. They had done this before and ostensibly knew how to proceed. Indeed, they were so relaxed that they opted for a night of serious drinking in the hours immediately before the scheduled execution.
Eyewitnesses report that the pair were visibly drunk when they arrived at the jail the following morning. Still, they did the state’s bidding and strapped Francis into the chair before applying the current.
Then something surprising happened—despite being zapped by electricity, Francis did not die. Spectators were horrified, then relieved to learn that the mechanical malfunction would be corrected and a second execution ordered.
What happened next can only be described as a whirlwind. Attorney Bertrand DeBlanc, a deeply religious white man just returned from serving in World War II, agreed to take Francis’ case – pro-bono. During the next year-and-a-half, he would share legal work with the NAACP and with another white attorneylater- judge named J. Skully Wright.
The more DeBlanc learned about Francis’ case, the angrier he became. At the same time he never challenged Francis’ guilt—Francis himself never proclaimed his innocence or took issue with his arrest or conviction—but instead zeroed in on proving that a second execution would constitute cruel and unusual punishment and amount to double jeopardy.
The case bounced from court to court and eventually wound up in D.C. where the U.S. Supreme Court heard DeBlanc’s argument. King’s rendering of the proceedings is fascinating. “Sixty years later,” he begins, “alleged violations of double jeopardy, cruel and unusual punishment, and due process would constitute unquestionably valid legal strategies for attorneys. But not in 1946. Not once, not twice, but many times the U.S. Supreme Court had held that the first ten amendments to the Constitution, rights citizens decades later would take for granted, simply did not exist for litigants in a case originating at the state level—cases like Willie’s. In other words, one’s right not to be tried twice for the same crime could only be invoked if one was being tried in a federal court…The Supreme Court had ruled that in a state court a man [sic] could be tried twice for the same murder. Furthermore, in 1908, the Supreme Court held that the Fifth Amendment—the right regarding self-incrimination—did not apply to state court trials.”
DeBlanc, Wright and the NAACP pushed forward anyway, arguing that the Bill of Rights should apply to the states. They also argued that a second encounter with Gruesome Gertie would be cruel, unusual and patently illegal.
The Court disagreed. In a five-to-four decision, issued one day after Francis turned 18, the Justices opted to send him back to the chair. Despite seething and eloquent dissents, the Court refused to save Willie Francis’ life.
His attorneys were despondent and tried to push the Justices to reconsider; they simultaneously petitioned Louisiana governor Jimmie Davis to commute Francis’ sentence to life imprisonment. In a bizarre turn, Justice Felix Frankfurter, who voted with the Court majority, petitioned Davis on Francis’ behalf.
Their efforts failed. On May 9, 1947, Francis was executed, making him the 24th state resident killed by Gruesome Gertie.
To this day no one knows what really happened between Francis and Thomas. Years later, rumors that Thomas was gay—and that his friendships with married women never strayed beyond the platonic—began to circulate. Francis’ one-time assertion— his enigmatic explanation of what had transpired, “it was a secret about me and him”—was never probed. Whether this was because of squeamishness, incompetence, or negligence is unknown.
King’s exploration of Willie Francis’ tragic life and the myriad efforts to save him is riveting. Well-researched and fast-paced, Francis’ poignant story showcases the collision between social justice activists and a legal system hell-bent on maintaining the status quo. But it does more than this, reminding us of the ripples beneath the surface of most social change efforts. In this case, even though DeBlanc and colleagues could not save Francis, their courage, fortitude, and resistance set other acts of resistance into motion. Indeed, their tireless advocacy emboldened others and helped catapult racial injustice and the inhumanity of killing youthful offenders into public consciousness.
PRA is an affiliate of:
Unless otherwise noted, all material on this website is copyright 1981-2013 by Political Research Associates
Political Research Associates • 1310 Broadway, Suite 201 • Somerville, MA 02144
Voice: 617.666.5300 • Fax: 617.666.6622 • [email protected] | <urn:uuid:d47c3f4d-f615-4b1f-9bbb-b7d83dbe571e> | {
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Wind Energy | previous page
South Dakota Wind Energy Potential
South Dakota ranks in the top five states for wind energy potential. In a recent study, South Dakota was estimated to have the potential to produce more than 3 million gigawatt-hours of energy on annual basis. If this entire wind energy potential of South Dakota was harnessed, it would be nearly enough to provide power for the entire United States. While it is not feasible to harness every breeze, wind farms in the state have reported higher than industry standard capacity factors, which means the quality of South Dakota wind is high. This wind resource map shows how the wind is classified throughout South Dakota. NREL has also developed a wind resource map for South Dakota's tribal lands.
Web site links found throughout www.puc.sd.gov are intended to provide helpful resources. Inclusion of a Web link on this site is not necessarily an endorsement of an organization, product or service. | <urn:uuid:7b1637d8-b5c9-496e-91bc-4a513be3b20b> | {
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Spotting the Symptoms of Skin Cancer
Skin cancer can affect any area of your body exposed to sun, including the scalp. And believe it or not, it can even crop up in lesser-exposed areas like the palms of your hands, between your toes, even on your genitals. According to experts, cancerous skin lesions can appear suddenly or develop slowly, and the American Cancer Society advises that people see their doctors immediately if they see any of the following symptoms.
Basal Cell Carcinoma
These can be flat, firm, pale areas or small, raised, pink or red, translucent, waxy areas that may bleed following a minor injury. They may be characterized by one or more irregular blood vessels; a lower area in their center; and/or blue, brown, or black sections. Large basal cell carcinomas may have oozing or crusted areas.
Squamous Cell Carcinoma
These are growing lumps, often with a rough, scaly, or crusted surface. They may also look like flat reddish patches in the skin that grow slowly. Like basal cell carcinomas, this types of non-melanoma skin cancer may develop as a flat area showing only slight changes from normal skin.
Also known as solar keratosis, this is a precancerous skin condition caused by too much sun exposure. Actinic keratoses are small rough spots that may be pinkish-red or flesh-colored, usually on the face, ears, back of the hands, and arms of middle-aged or older people with fair skin. They also can develop on younger people or on other sun-exposed areas of the skin. Some can grow into squamous cell cancers, but others may stay the same or even shrink. Because they can turn cancerous, such areas should be checked regularly by a doctor.
The most serious form of skin cancer and the one responsible for the most deaths can develop on normal skin or in an existing mole. It often appears on the upper back or the face.
Learn Your ABCDs
According to the American Cancer Society, people should follow the ABCD rule when inspecting their skin for melanomas:
- A Is for Asymmetry: One half of a mole or birthmark does not match the other half.
- B Is for Border: The edges are irregular, ragged, notched, or blurred.
- C Is for Color: The color is not the same all over and may include shades of brown or black, sometimes with patches of red, white, or blue.
- D Is for Diameter: The spot is larger than six millimeters across (about one-quarter inch, the size of a pencil eraser) or is growing larger.
Other important signs of melanoma include:
- Changes in size, shape, or color of a mole
- Appearance of a new spot that may not fit the ABCD rule
- A sore that does not heal
- A new growth
- spread of pigment from the border of a spot to the surrounding skin
- Redness or a new swelling beyond the border
- Change in sensation, such as itchiness, tenderness, or pain
- Change in the surface of a mole, such as scaliness, oozing, bleeding, or the appearance of a bump or nodule
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Richard Childress Racing
January 25, 2013
Science on the Fast Track
"Racing teaches you to think broad, and people who are used to working in intense environments are valued members of the team."
Author: Rachel Kaufmann
Date: Jan. 11, 2013
Along a racetrack's "pit road," crew chiefs and race engineers for various NASCAR teams await their drivers' inevitable pit stop. The souped-up racers need fresh tires and to top off their fuel. Every 30-second lap, the ground shakes as 43 cars whip past at 200 miles per hour.
Stock car racing isn't rocket science—and yet the track is usually crawling with people who are, in effect, rocket scientists. You might not expect it from a sport that evolved out of bootleggers racing their moonshine down twisty Appalachian roads, but modern racing teams use computational fluid dynamics simulations, wind tunnels, and the highly technical know-how of engineers to eke milliseconds out of each driver's lap time.
"If you go to these race shops, you think you walked into a hospital operating room. It's absolutely spotless," says Robert Johnson, dean of the College of Engineering at the University of North Carolina (UNC), Charlotte, and co-founder of the college's motorsports program. "These are not shade-tree mechanics having some fun."
Instead, these are highly skilled engineers pushing automobiles to their limits, sometimes using that experience as a springboard to advance their careers.
Engineered for speed
When Eric Warren began working in motorsports, he didn't know of any other Ph.D.-level scientists or engineers in NASCAR. "Now, on my team alone, there are four different Ph.D.s.," he says. Warren, whose degree is in aerospace engineering, oversees engineering and also "the whole racing effort" for Richard Childress Racing in Welcome, North Carolina.
As a graduate student in the mid-1990s, Warren bumped into the owner of Kranefuss-Haas Racing (now Penske Racing) when visiting a friend at the team’s North Carolina headquarters. "He said, 'Call me, we need somebody like you,' " Warren says. "He convinced me to get into racing, which was very difficult to comprehend at the time. At the time, NASCAR wasn't seen as a technical thing. It was like, 'OK, I've been working on research in aerodynamics, working with NASA Langley [Research Center].' [NASCAR] was probably not seen as a good use of education."
Yet, Warren was eventually drawn in by the technical engineering challenges offered by the sport. Racing is a surprisingly complex field, he says. Cars driving near the track's edge will handle differently than they will if a driver takes a tight corner. The presence of other vehicles on the track can also cause the car to handle differently. Even the fuel in the gas tank affects a car's center of gravity, so each lap is different as the car burns through and then is refilled with gas. Also, each track has its own personality. At Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway, for example, the tracks are banked so steeply that cars would reach speeds of 220 miles per hour if not for mandatory restrictor plates, which limit the amount of oxygen entering the engine and, thus, the cars’ top speed.
To read the article as it appears on ScienceCareers.com Click Here. | <urn:uuid:c547d6d3-ad4a-4e05-a034-3631a85e7ba4> | {
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Using an ultra-bright electron source, scientists at the University of Toronto have recorded atomic motions in real time, offering a glimpse into the very essence of chemistry and biology at the atomic level. Their recording is a direct observation of a transition state in which atoms undergo chemical transformation into new structures with new properties.
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A fried breakfast food popular in Spain provided the inspiration for the development of doughnut-shaped droplets that may provide scientists with a new approach for studying fundamental issues in physics, mathematics, and materials. The doughnut-shaped droplets, a shape known as toroidal, are formed from two dissimilar liquids using a simple rotating stage and an injection needle.
The massive ball of iron sitting at the center of Earth is not quite as "rock-solid" as has been thought, say two Stanford University mineral physicists. By conducting experiments that simulate the immense pressures deep in the planet's interior, the researchers determined that iron in Earth's inner core is only about 40% as strong as previous studies estimated.
Graphene has dazzled scientists ever since its discovery more than a decade ago. But one long-sought goal has proved elusive: how to engineer into graphene a property called a band gap, which would be necessary to use the material to make transistors and other electronic devices. New findings by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers are a major step toward making graphene with this coveted property.
With the hand of nature trained on a beaker of chemical fluid, the most delicate flower structures have been formed in a Harvard University laboratory—and not at the scale of inches, but microns. These minuscule sculptures, curved and delicate, don't resemble the cubic or jagged forms normally associated with crystals, though that's what they are. Rather, fields of flowers seem to bloom from the surface of a submerged glass slide.
A new joint innovation by the National Physical Laboratory and the University of Cambridge could pave the way for redefining the ampere in terms of fundamental constants of physics. The world's first graphene single-electron pump provides the speed of electron flow needed to create a new standard for electrical current based on electron charge.
Described as the "most beautiful experiment in physics," Richard Feynman emphasized how the diffraction of individual particles at a grating is an unambiguous demonstration of wave-particle duality and contrary to classical physics. A research team recently used carefully made fluorescent molecules and nanometric detection accuracy to provide clear and tangible evidence of the quantum behavior of large molecules in real time.
Bubble baths and soapy dishwater and the refreshing head on a beer: These are foams, beautiful yet ephemeral as the bubbles pop one by one. Now, a team of researchers has described mathematically the successive stages in the complex evolution and disappearance of foamy bubbles, a feat that could help in modeling industrial processes in which liquids mix or in the formation of solid foams such as those used to cushion bicycle helmets.
An international team of physicists has found the first direct evidence of pear-shaped nuclei in exotic atoms. The findings could advance the search for a new fundamental force in nature that could explain why the Big Bang created more matter than antimatter—a pivotal imbalance in the history of everything.
From powerful computers to super-sensitive medical and environmental detectors that are faster, smaller, and use less energy—yes, we want them, but how do we get them? In research that is helping to lay the groundwork for the electronics of the future, University of Delaware scientists have confirmed the presence of a magnetic field generated by electrons which scientists had theorized existed, but that had never been proven until now.
Physicists working with optical tweezers have conducted work to provide an all-in-one guide to help calculate the effect the use of these tools has on the energy levels of atoms under study. This effect can change the frequency at which atoms emit or absorb light and microwave radiation and skew results; the new findings should help physicists foresee effects on future experiments.
Physicists in Switzerland have demonstrated one of the quintessential effects of quantum optics—known as the Hong-Ou-Mandel effect—with microwaves, which have a frequency that 100,000 times lower than that of visible light. The experiment takes quantum optics into a new frequency regime and could eventually lead to new technological applications.
The allure of personalized medicine has made new, more efficient ways of sequencing genes a top research priority. One promising technique involves reading DNA bases using changes in electrical current as they are threaded through a nanoscopic hole. Now, a team led by University of Pennsylvania physicists has used solid-state nanopores to differentiate single-stranded DNA molecules containing sequences of a single repeating base.
An international research team led by astronomers from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy used a collection of large radio and optical telescopes to investigate in detail a pulsar that weighs twice as much as the sun. This neutron star, the most massive known to date, has provided new insights into the emission of gravitational radiation and serves as an interstellar laboratory for general relativity in extreme conditions.
Using uniquely sensitive experimental techniques, scientists have found that laws of quantum physics—believed primarily to influence at only sub-atomic levels—can actually impact on a molecular level. The study shows that movement of the ring-like molecule pyrrole over a metal surface runs counter to the classical physics that govern our everyday world.
In a process comparable to squeezing an elephant through a pinhole, researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology have designed a way to engineer atoms capable of funneling light through ultrasmall channels. Their research is the latest in a series of recent findings related to how light and matter interact at the atomic scale.
Cancer cells that can break out of a tumor and invade other organs are more aggressive and nimble than nonmalignant cells, according to a new multi-institutional nationwide study. These cells exert greater force on their environment and can more easily maneuver small spaces.
One simple phenomenon explains why practical, self-sustaining fusion reactions have proved difficult to achieve: Turbulence in the superhot, electrically charged gas, called plasma, that circulates inside a fusion reactor can cause the plasma to lose much of its heat. This prevents the plasma from reaching the temperatures needed to overcome the electrical repulsion between atomic nuclei. Until now.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s sound-restoration experts have done it again. They’ve helped to digitally recover a 128-year-old recording of Alexander Graham Bell’s voice, enabling people to hear the famed inventor speak for the first time. The recording ends with Bell saying “in witness whereof, hear my voice, Alexander Graham Bell.”
Researchers at University of California, Santa Barbara in collaboration with colleagues at the École Polytechnique in France, have conclusively identified Auger recombination as the mechanism that causes light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to be less efficient at high drive currents.
A Harvard University-led team of researchers has created a new type of nanoscale device that converts an optical signal into waves that travel along a metal surface. Significantly, the device can recognize specific kinds of polarized light and accordingly send the signal in one direction or another.
The planet-hunting Kepler telescope has discovered two planets that seem like ideal places for some sort of life to flourish. According to scientists working with the NASA telescope, they are just the right size and in just the right place near their star. The discoveries, published online Thursday, mark a milestone in the search for planets where life could exist.
Throughout decades of research on solar cells, one formula has been considered an absolute limit to the efficiency of such devices in converting sunlight into electricity: Called the Shockley-Queisser efficiency limit, it posits that the ultimate conversion efficiency can never exceed 34% for a single optimized semiconductor junction. Now, researchers have shown that there is a way to blow past that limit.
Scientists in Australia have recently demonstrated that ultra-short durations of electron bunches generated from laser-cooled atoms can be both very cold and ultra-fast. The low temperature permit sharp images, and the electron pulse duration has a similar effect to shutter speed, potentially allowing researchers to observe critical but quick dynamic processes, such as the picosecond duration of protein folding.
A University of Missouri engineer has built a system that is able to launch a ring of plasma as far as two feet. Plasma is commonly created in the laboratory using powerful electromagnets, but previous efforts to hold the super-hot material through air have been unsuccessful. The new device does this by changing how the magnetic field around the plasma is arranged.
Physicists operating an experiment located half a mile underground in Minnesota reported this weekend that they have found possible hints of dark-matter particles. The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search experiment has detected three events with the characteristics expected of dark matter particles. | <urn:uuid:38bd495e-a715-4cfc-97e2-fee204e62652> | {
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A Close-Up View of Mercury's Colors
October 30, 2008
- Date Acquired: October 6, 2008
- Instrument: Wide Angle Camera (WAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
- Scale: The width of this scene is 620 kilometers (390 miles)
Of Interest: After MESSENGER made its closest approach to Mercury, flying just 200 kilometers (124 miles) above the surface, and as soon as the sunlit side of Mercury was fully in view, MDIS captured the highest-resolution color images ever obtained of Mercury (500 meters/pixel (0.3 miles/pixel)). This area was also seen by Mariner 10, whose lower-resolution two-color images hinted at the variety and nature of regions of different colors, and hence composition, on Mercury. Viewed here at high-resolution and in enhanced color, the relationship between the relatively young smooth plains on the left and older, dark blue material on the right is clear. The younger smooth plains cover the lower parts of rougher pre-existing topography and infill older craters, like the 120-kilometer (75-mile) diameter Rudaki crater lower-left of center. Dark, relatively blue material was ejected from the 105-kilometer (65-mile) diameter crater on the right side of the image, covering older smooth plains. A relatively young, small crater then excavated through this blue material to reveal the smooth plains beneath. This scene is centered at 4° South, 310° East and is outlined by a white rectangle on the enhanced color equatorial view of the side of Mercury seen during MESSENGER's second Mercury flyby. | <urn:uuid:bd46c5e1-9271-4a92-bf66-0b6c973a70d5> | {
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Although they are
Only breath, words
which I command
In her memoir Assault on Mount Helicon, Mary Barnard '32 writes that while working on her translation of the Greek poet Sappho, "I searched for the truly equivalent phrase in living, not lexicon English." This brief but telling remark helps explain why her translation of Sappho's poetry has been continuously in print for more than 40 years and has sold more than 100,000 copies. Barnard has taken the fragmentary remains of one of antiquity's greatest poets and made them live and breathe for a modern audience.
Only a few things are known for certain about Sappho. She was born on the Greek island of Lesbos sometime after 650 B.C. and wrote poetry in the Aeolic Greek dialect. She was one of the most famous Greek lyric poets, and a poem attributed to Plato praises her as the tenth Muse. Her poetry was collected later in antiquity into nine books. Only one complete poem and fewer than 200 fragments of her poems remain today. The majority of the fragments were preserved as brief quotations in the works of later Greek writers, with a few others surviving on badly damaged papyrus rolls from Egypt. | <urn:uuid:ae864aad-4576-44c7-bf02-3764ec802e2e> | {
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The Reef-World Foundation is a UK-based charity that has worked with local people to conserve coral reefs in South East Asia, the world centre for biodiversity, for over 10 years.
Our field of expertise is working with both the diving community and local fishing communities to provide information about coral reefs and the associated marine life and helping members of those communities find their own role in wider plans to protect reefs and related ecosystems in the face of a changing climate.
| Our Mission |
"To inspire and empower people to act in conserving and sustainably developing coastal resources, particularly
coral reefs and related ecosystems."
Coral reefs are home to 25% of all marine life, a variety rivalling that of the tropical forests of the Amazon or New Guinea. This biodiversity translates directly into food security, income, sources of medicinal advances, coastal barriers to storms and a whole host of other benefits to people and ocean health. It is estimated that one billion people worldwide have some dependence on this natural resource for food and income. This is especially true for people from developing Asian countries where communities are highly dependent on reefs for their livelihoods and are the most vulnerable to the impacts of loss of reef health. However, coral reefs are under threat. Recent research indicates that already one quarter of global reefs are damaged beyond repair. | <urn:uuid:144ff793-cbe6-4ca3-a99d-9013021640f8> | {
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