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CDC Finds Dramatic Rise in Drug DeathsFeb 9, 2007 | AP
The number of accidental drug overdose deaths rose from 11,155 in 1999 to 19,838 in 2004, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The report was based on death certificates, which do not clearly detail which drugs played the greatest role. But CDC researchers said they believe sedatives and prescription painkillers like Vicodin and OxyContin were the chief cause of the increase.
OxyContin has been blamed for hundreds of deaths across the country in recent years, becoming such a scourge in Appalachia that it is known as "hillbilly heroin."
Deaths from falls climbed between 1999 and 2004 at a more modest rate, from 13,162 to 18,807, the CDC said. Motor vehicle crashes accounted for 40,965 fatalities in 1999 and 43,432 in 2004.
The South had one of the lowest fatal drug overdose rates in the nation in 1999, but it doubled by 2004. The South now ties the West for having the highest rate about 8 per 100,000 population.
"This is the first study really to describe the large relative increases in poisoning mortality rates in rural states. Historically, the drug issue has been seen as an urban problem," said Dr. Len Paulozzi, a CDC epidemiologist.
The federal report, issued this week, noted that accidental drug overdoses remain most common in men and in people 35 to 54. But the most dramatic increases in death rates were for white females, young adults and Southerners
- The death rates for men remained roughly twice the rate for women, but the female rate doubled from 1999 to 2004 while the male rate increased by 47 percent.
- The rate for white women rose more dramatically than for any other gender group, to 5 deaths per 100,000 population.
- The rate of overdose deaths among teens and young adults, ages 15 to 24, is less than half that of the 35-to-54 group. But it rose much more dramatically, climbing 113 percent in the study years, to 5.3 deaths per 100,000 population.
Earlier research suggests that deaths from illegal drugs appear to be holding steady.
"There is a misperception that because a drug is a prescription medicine, it's safe to use for non-medical reasons. And clearly that is not true," said Dr. Anne Marie McKenzie-Brown, a pain medicine expert at Atlanta's Emory Crawford Long Hospital. | <urn:uuid:a345a1c4-c454-4c5e-9ae6-2965a5d9a2bc> | {
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Criticism of POW Treatment
Criticism of POW Treatment
News Release Issued by the International Secretariat of Amnesty International
Amnesty International urged the United States to ensure respect for the human rights of all people who have been or may be transferred from Afghanistan to a US military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"The US is placing these people in a legal limbo. They deny that they are Prisoners of War (POWs), while at the same time failing to provide them with the most basic protections of any person deprived of their liberty," Amnesty International said. "The US has obligations under international law to ensure respect for the human rights of all persons in their custody -- including the duty to treat them humanely and ensure that they have recourse to fair proceedings, regardless of the nature of the crimes they are suspected of having committed."
Amnesty International considers that those who are held in Guantanamo, who are said to have been captured during the war in Afghanistan, are presumed to be POWs. If there is any dispute about their status, the US must allow a "competent tribunal" to decide, as required by Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention. This is also the position held by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the most authoratitive interpreter of the Geneva Conventions.
"It is not the prerogative of the Secretary of Defense or any other US administration official to determine whether those held in Guantanamo are POWs", Amnesty International said. "An independent US court, following due process, is the appropriate organ to make this determination."
POWs are afforded specific rights. For example, they should be held in conditions "as favourable" as those of US soldiers; they are not required to divulge information beyond their name, rank, serial number and date-of-birth; they cannot be tried merely for having taken up arms against enemy combatants in the context of the conflict and they should be granted access to delegates of the ICRC. POWs, unless they are to be tried for war crimes or other criminal offences, must be repatriated at the end of "active hostilities".
Any detainee who is suspected of a crime, whether or not they are POWs, must be charged with a criminal offense and tried fairly or released. Denying POWs or other people protected by the Geneva Conventions a fair trial is a war crime. Amnesty International is opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances.
The international safeguards governing the treatment of all detainees facing criminal charges include those of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the US is a party since 1992, and the UN Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment. These include the right to challenge the lawfulness of detention, to be brought before an independent tribunal, the right to silence, and access to legal counsel.
Amnesty International is also concerned about alleged ill-treatment of prisoners in transit and in Guantanamo, including reports that they were shackled, hooded and sedated during transfer, their beards were forcibly shaved, and that they are housed in small cages in Guantanamo that do not protect against the elements."Degrading treatment of prisoners is a flagrant violation of international law which cannot be justified under any circumstances," the organization stated.
You may repost this message onto other sources provided the main text is not altered in any way and both the header crediting Amnesty International and this footer remain intact. Only the list subscription message may be removed. | <urn:uuid:5526b189-67bb-4a84-b7d9-6cd08811d381> | {
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Quakes: Call on Turks and on Greeks
The "art" of photography was invented in 1826. The use of steel-reinforced concrete started around 1876.
So, for 135 years, from 1876 to this day (2011), it has been possible to have photos of steel-reinforced concrete buildings destroyed by quakes. Newspaper archives, worldwide, are full of innumerable photos of multistory steel-reinforced concrete buildings in which their occupants were crashed to death, in the most agonizing way, when the buildings collapsed, during an earthquake.
If observers from another planet could view the material and social changes that appeared on the face of the earth during the last one hundred years, they would conclude that one of the most important factors for the existing material and social reality on the planet has been the use of steel-reinforced concrete.
The ease and speed with which humans can make a concrete building frame has enabled them to construct multi-story buildings in infinite numbers. From the moment of the arrival of this type of building, life changed for the mass of twentieth century men and women. This kind of building allowed the state to cram a great part of the population into miserable apartments in multi-story concrete buildings. The social, political, psychopathological, and even anthropological aspects of the problem of cramming millions in these "buildings-machines" has yet to be seriously addressed.
This social problem of the multi-story apartment building is magnified to a fatal degree at those parts of the Earth which are earthquake-prone.
Concrete is an intrinsically brittle material, even when reinforced with steel. (Chalk is another brittle material). A multistory concrete building cannot survive a big earthquake, if hit directly by the earthquake. The damage from a quake to a building is site specific. A building can remain intact, while another one, even a few feet away, can be destroyed completely.
Naturally, it is reasonable to ask: who is responsible for the proliferation of the concrete multi-story apartment building? As already mentioned, it is the state. Not only because it crams the masses, like sardines, in these "buildings-machines", but because, with the help of its technical "commissars", the engineers, it permits and promotes the construction of these "death-traps", in earthquake-prone areas.
So, we reach to the, rather, strange conclusion that the thousands of deaths caused by quakes is a political problem!
Among the people that helped the state to propagate or use this multi-story-building "solution" to the problem of housing ordinary people, a prominent place is held by Le Corbusier (1887-1965). Le Corbusier was born in Switzerland and at the age of 43 he became a French citizen. He was quite "enamored" to the Nazis, and he was an admirer of Henry Ford and the...General Motors!
His contribution to humanity: part of the misery that the extraterrestrial man observed during his trip on the surface of the earth.
Unfortunately, this contribution to misery and quake-induced deaths has not been adequately recognized, if at all, by historians, engineers, and intellectuals.
How could, a rather not very competent architect, create such "havoc", almost single-handed?
My estimate: The cause is a strange tendency of humans, especially of ladies, to feel that it is de rigueur to be modern, to follow the fashion, etc. [Whether this tendency is innate or acquired, does not matter. What matters, is that it is so prevalent]. Le Corbusier and his creations were the epitome of...modernity. Maybe, that was why Le Corbusier became a French citizen; to be at the center of modernity, fashion, etc.
Aside from this rather droll, yet valid, explanation, there is a more sinister one: the greed of the Portland cement industry and the automobile industry in the "democratic" nations and authoritarianism in the non-democratic nations (the Soviets, Hitler, etc).
Let us take the case of Greece:
Around 79 years ago, between 1932 and 1933, what happened at the "Exarchia Square" in Athens helped decide the fate of the city concerning its buildings and consequently helped decide the way of the life of its inhabitants.
In 1932 the construction of one of the first steel-reinforced concrete multi-story buildings, designed by a young Greek architect, started to take place at the north-eastern corner of the "Exarchia Square".
[Parenthesis: "The Athens neighborhood of 'Exarchia' is considered the scene of the anarchic scene in Greece (today). The core of the neighborhood is a tiny triangular park (the 'Exarchia Square') with its longest side measuring around 150 feet. The police raid Exarchia regularly." (This from my ZNet Commentary, of January 30, 2009).
In 1932, the Exarchia area was an upper middle-class place with only one-story or at most two-storey houses, as was all of Athens. Therefore, the multi-story building at the square was quite a sensation. End of the parenthesis.]
Before the new multi-story building at Exarchia was completed Le Corbusier visited the place and after congratulating the Greek architect, he scrawled the words "C' est tres beau" (It is very beautiful) on a wall at the entrance of the unfinished building. The words stayed there on the wall for decades, to commemorate the approval of the "great" man. Le Corbusier was 45 years old at the time and already a French citizen.
Then to crown this "artistic" masterpiece the architect invited a friend of his, a painter, to choose the color of the outer surface of the building. The painter chose a very dark blue color, which turned the edifice into a legendary "monument" for modern Athens: the "Blue Apartment Building", as it is called to this day. Unfortunately, the dark color turned the building into an "oven" during the scorching Athenian summers, so it was painted with a lighter blue color, in later years.
The Greek "Blue Apartment Building" was not a blessed event for the Greeks only, similar happy events took place all over the planet. Hitler, Stalin, et al, were in line waiting to cram their lucky citizens into the "machines".
So, the "Blue Apartment Building" has been replicated in Athens and the rest of Greece, ad nauseam, to this day, resulting in a monstrous and, more importantly, a dangerous city, quakewise.
Unfortunately for the Greek people, it so happened that the "gift" of Le Corbusier to the state, the multi-story concrete buildings (the "buildings-machines") was also a "gift" to the US Empire as an instrument of domination. During the last half of the 1940s in Greece, the US "managed" what is usually referred to as the Greek "civil war"; the nationalist army, armed and managed by the US, fought the revolted Greek communists. Using Greece as a proving ground, the US initiated the "Phoenix" philosophy: to defeat a revolution you empty the villages where the revolutionaries get their supplies. So, a part of the population of northern Greece was forced to inundate Athens and start building the monster that exists today in Athens; tens of thousands of Le Corbusier "creations".
[Note: The next case of application of the "Phoenix Program" was in Vietnam. Unfortunately, there, part of the population of the villages were executed by the CIA.]
There is a strange and mostly ignored case, which could have been a "counter argument" to the Le Corbusier "curse", at least in later years, and that is the case of Christopher Alexander, Professor of architecture at Berkeley. But this is not the place to expand on this matter.
Going back to quakes, let us go a bit deeper. Is the expression "quake-prone", mentioned previously, completely realistic?
Here are two (rather) random "samples" of the quakes, above a magnitude of 2.5 Richter(R) for the US and adjacent areas, and above 4.5 for the rest of the world, that took place over the entire planet for two separate weeks, as recorded by the United States Geological Survey (USGS):
I. From October 17 to October 24, 2011:
- Total number of quakes: 229
- Number of quakes in Alaska (out of the 229): 45
- Number of quakes in the States of America (other than Alaska): 43
- Number of quakes in Turkey: 31
- Number of quakes in the world (excluding the US and Alaska): 141
- Number of different countries that were hit by a quake: 36
II. From October 31 to November 7, 2011:
- Total number of quakes: 239
- Number of quakes in Alaska (out of the 239): 53
- Number of quakes in the States of America (other than Alaska): 50
- Number of quakes in the world (excluding the US and Alaska): 136
- Number of different countries that were hit by a quake: 31
Looking at the above recorded data, one could conclude, for example, that Alaska is an intensely quake-prone area. Also, we "know" that according to science, quakes are crowded at the places where the continental plates meet one another, that quakes do not happen in the middle of the plates (continents), etc, and that when the latter happens, as in New Madrid, then we discover "ancient" faults and so on.
If quakes are a very serious matter, that is if an agonizing death is a serious matter, then we are obliged to see the quake-prone factor in a more conservative way.
For example, what if there are unknown "ancient faults" under Berlin, or Dresden, or Moscow, etc? Also, should we not take into account that the historical data that we have for quakes are minuscule?
Therefore, should we accept the axiom that any place on earth is quake-prone? The answer should be: Yes!
Furthermore, that there are more than 200 quakes per week all over the earth in more than 30 countries cannot be ignored. Also, the fact that the majority of those quakes have a Magnitude between 4 and 5 Richter, is deadly significant. Such quakes affect the structural integrity of buildings, even mildly, and the harm is cumulative. All materials have "memory", in relation to their strength.
So, having a planet "vibrating" with quakes and covered with concrete death-traps, what do we do?
A Call for a Solution
What follows is addressed mainly to the Turkish people, the Greek people, and the engineers and the technical universities of both countries:
After the collapse of a concrete building the "lucky" ones are those who die on the spot. An unknown number of trapped survivors, under hundreds of tons of concrete, are killed in a terrible manner by their...rescuers. At some point, a few days after the quake, the state (the politicians) orders the removal of the concrete mass with the use of heavy construction equipment, thus dismembering any survivors who are still alive. A couple of decades ago in Salonika, an engineering colleague of mine pleaded with the politicians not to use the construction equipment, as there might still be survivors under the mass of the concrete. They refused, and used the equipment only 48 hours after the quake. All my friend could do was to burst to tears. The same thing is happening this very minute (Nov. 11, 2011) in Turkey.
Is there a solution? Did the technical universities of the world try seriously to find a solution, for more than a century?
During this period of time, what the universities did was to try to find out how to "strengthen" the concrete buildings by devising scale models of buildings and experimenting on them. The Japanese, once, tried to be "realistic", by avoiding the scale models, and fixed a... rocket on the top of a multi-story building! All the benefit these "toys" offered to humanity, was more and more dead in collapsed concrete buildings.
If the extremely heavy and weak concrete of a tall building kills, what then could be the solution? Evidently, a low building made of light materials.
Such a building should meet three criteria:
1. It should be a low one-story structure.
2. It should be of light, but sturdy material.
3. It should be inexpensive
There has never been a serious effort by the technical universities of the world to design such a building for the benefit of ordinary people, to protect them from death when a quake hits.
The argument that is usually raised against this proposal is that if you eliminate the tall buildings then you are apt to cover the surface of the earth with one-story houses for the billions of its inhabitants; an ecological catastrophe.
Let us be honest. Where did all these humans use to live before they inundated the few big cities in all countries, from Greece to China? Was the surface of the earth covered to capacity with their home villages? The "brutal" motive for people to move to the cities was and is poverty. Actually, it is a "benign" Phoenix Program initiated by the world economic elite; a sequel to the original Greek and Vietnamese murderous programs.
Also, there is another, rather "vulgar" development that refutes the above argument. For example, there are Greek immigrants, admittedly not very numerous, who after having been "successful" by climbing the social ladder from dishwashers in New York or Frankfurt to restaurateurs, they then build summer-houses back in their home villages, usually mimicking, architecturally, Swiss chalets, thus occupying two times their... allotted domicile space on the face of the earth.
An additional objection to the proliferation of the one-story home, possibly by ecologists this time, might be that this is a boon for the proliferation of the automobile, Le Corbusier's fervent vision. Wrong! This problem had been solved around the turn of the 20th century. The solution: the steel wheel on a steel rail. That is: mass transportation by trains, light-rail and the streetcar. A solution, which was "erased" by the General Motors et al in the 1930s and 1940s.
Finally, for some people, storing humans vertically towards heaven in tall buildings in mega-cities, is a way to make humanity "more productive and efficient".
In the "Special Issue" on "Better Cities" of the "Scientific American" magazine, for September 2011, (page 38), Luis M.A.Bettencourt and Geoffrey B.West write: "What we can say with certainty,..., is that increased population [in cities] promotes more intense and frequent social interactions...as well as economic pressures that weed out inefficiencies. In a city with high rents, only activities that add substantial value can be profitable. These economic pressures push urbanites to come up with new forms of organizations, products and services that carry more value added. In turn, higher profitability, excellence and choice tend to attract more talent to the city, pushing rents higher still, fuelling the need to find yet more productive activities..."
About "weed out inefficiencies", "rents", "economic pressures", " value added", and "profitability", no comment is necessary.
However, given that the majority of "educated" people in the West, and probably the writers of the above excerpt, consider the foundation of their culture and of their social thought to be the product of the city of Athens around 2,500 years ago (see Martin Bernal's "Black Athena"), it is a bit of a contradiction to ignore the fact that the area covered by the city of Athens, at that time, around the Acropolis, is the same area covered today by a few dozen taverns, peddling "moussaka" to the tourists. How come such "wisdom" came out of a postage-stamp city, not a mega-city?
Furthermore, to invent the wheel or the transistor is the easy part. To understand the human nature is the hard one. Also, it is even harder to survive in a concrete multi-story building that was hit by an earthquake.
A possible outline of action by the ordinary people of Turkey and Greece to solve the deadly problem of the quake could be as follows:
- Both peoples should ignore their respective governing elites. Any action by both peoples should be at the grassroots level, in a pareconish way.
- Dialogue and cooperation between the two peoples should be the cardinal basis for finding a solution.
- Immediate and very close contact among the civil engineers and the civil engineering schools of both countries.
- Honest evaluation of the history of concrete in relation to quakes.
- If the ordinary men and women of Turkey and Greece, with the help of the universities and of the engineers of both countries, decide that the solution rests on the design of a one-story house of lightweight materials, then a long-range program should be made for the initiation of a process of replacing the existing tall structures with the new low lightweight ones, recycling almost all of the materials of the existing buildings. Obviously, this will take many decades, maybe about a half century.
As already mentioned, this is only an outline by a single individual. There are more than 80 million Turks and Greeks capable to start thinking about the problem. One additional benefit of such a program could be that it will evolve into a political and social contact between the two peoples that will allow them to live in peace and dignity.
Also, it is possible that in the future this program could involve and the peoples at the rim of the Mediterranean Basin; Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, etc.
The Turks and the Greeks can, of course, appeal to the rest of the world for cooperation and involvement in such a project. However, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois should definitely be involved in this Turko-Greek project. Especially, the University of Illinois, which has the best School of Civil Engineering in the world.
The history of the University of Illinois in relation to quakes is quite interesting. Part of this history are Nathan M. Newmark, Hardy Cross, and Fazlur R. Khan. All three were among the most brilliant minds of the contemporary science of the world.
- Newmark (1910 - 1981) was the head of the Civil Engineering Department of the U of Illinois, at Urbana, for 17 years. His work had a lot to do with earthquakes. All his life he tackled the most difficult engineering problems, even the design of structures to withstand a nuclear explosion, and gave brilliant solutions. He is famous for the quake-resistant design of the skyscraper "Torre Latinoamericana" in Mexico city. He was awarded The National Medal of Science and numerous other awards.
- Cross (1885 -1959) was the originator, in 1936 at the U. of Illinois, of what is known to all the civil engineers of the world as the "Cross method", a tool that helped them tremendously in the design of structures, especially of multi-story concrete structures.
- Khan (1929 - 1982) "was a native of Bangladesh... [he] is considered as one of the greatest geniuses in the history of civil engineering... Khan's revolutionary design of a skyscraper is that the most ECONOMICAL way to build a skyscraper is the one in which it is built with thin solid walls as a TUBE..." [This from my ZNet Commentary, "Of Pyramids and Skyscrapers", of September 30, 2001]. The WTC twin towers were designed on the basis of Khan's revolutionary method.
All these three great engineers devoted their life to solve technical problems for the erection of multi-story buildings. The opposite of what is proposed here. Yet, what could their reaction be to such a proposal for a low light-weight building? I would like to think that, ultimately, they would agree that losing the lives of the hundreds of thousands of ordinary people in multi-story concrete buildings has not been seriously examined by the engineering profession and that something should be done.
All three were serious and extremely rational individuals. Of these three, I had the chance to meet only Newmark, a polite, gentle, and honest person. About Khan it was written that he was a "technical genius with a sensitivity for people and the places in which they must live and work". Khan himself said: "I like to think myself a citizen of the world. If we don't have a sense of compassion on a world basis and on a man-to-man basis, we're never going to get out of the wars we're in". About Cross I do not know much. Yet, I am apt to think that he was not different from the other two.
It seems that these three exceptional individuals, in relation to quakes, had fallen to what might be called the "Robert Oppenheimer trap". After Oppenheimer tried to rationalize his involvement with the nukes, he said that he could not resist the feeling of "a technically sweet solution"!
My guess is that, today, all three would agree to the solution presented here.
[Parenthesis: Here is a rough outline of a possible solution for an one-story light-weight building:
1. Construction of a concrete wall as a "base" of the building. Concrete?! Yes, concrete. Even of plain concrete, without steel reinforcement. However, the height of the wall should not exceed 4 feet (1.20 meters). This low wall will give the building a solid base, as a quasi "ballast", which can withstand mainly wind forces. This 4-feet high ballast-wall, even if it fails (which is improbable), will not trap people under it, because of its small height.
2. The floor should be a concrete slab (plain or with minimal steel reinforcement) that is monolithically connected to the low wall, forming thus a box-like lower part of the building. This will be beneficial to the building even if there is liquefaction. (Transformation of the soil into a liquid, for a fraction of the duration of the quake.)
3. The remaining 6 feet, to gain the total height of 10 feet of the building, should be a lightweight construction, resembling a cage, made of steel members, thus securing that the upper part of the walls and the roof will not kill people by falling on them. The steel to be used, mostly by recycling, is already used today as reinforcement in the slabs and columns of the traditional concrete structures, which are going to be demolished.
4. The steel cage, of the upper part of the structure , should be covered on the outside and the inside with a thin "skin" of fiber-reinforced concrete of a thickness of only half inch. Strange as it sounds, there has been experience with such "thin" fiber-reinforced materials for decades. Students in most civil engineering schools in the US take part in an annual competition of building...canoes out of such a "skin".
5. The low concrete wall of 4 feet and the space between the outer "skin" and the inner "skin" should be thermally insulated (preferably with local, or recycled, or newly invented material).
This is only an outline of a solution by a single person. There could be hundreds of better ones from thousands of others; Turks, Greeks, MIT, the U. of Illinois, and so on. End of the Parenthesis.]
It should be pointed out that no architects should be involved in this project. My experience with Greek architects, in relation to quakes is...terrifying. I feel that Prof. Christopher Alexander, already mentioned above, has been saying similar things for years, if not about quakes, at least about the "offerings" of architacts to humanity.
Here is a deadly exercise in aesthetics by Le Corbusier. To make buildings more beautiful he introduced the notion of the "pilotis". That is, he let the building stand on stilts, by eliminating the walls of the ground floor and left only the concrete columns. Also, he said the less numerous columns the better.
There are two multi-story apartment buildings on Le Corbusier stilts, not far from my place. During the big quake of 1981 in Athens they were hit severely and all the concrete stilts were almost destroyed. The state with the help of its engineering "commissars" allowed the "repair" of the damage. Today, more than 40 families (about 160 humans) are living in a terrible death-trap.
This Commentary is addressed to the Turks and to the Greeks in general, and specifically to the inhabitants of Istanbul, of Athens, and of Lisbon.
Finally, to close this rather painful ZNet Commentary: There is no need to include here a list of the dead from quakes through the ages. The list can be found even in the yearly "Almanacs".
I feel that I have to justify why, while living in Athens with all the social and the political tempest around me, I chose to write once more a "Commentary" on quakes.
1. I know that this very minute tens of thousands of Turks are suffering extremely, because of the latest quake that hit them.
2. The Turks did not have a choice. During the 10 seconds of the duration of the quake the only choice you have is to try to avoid thinking about the way the concrete slabs will crash you to a pulp. The people of Athens have a choice: they can revolt. Which they do!
Given this chance to communicate with this Commentary, here is a very brief report on the situation in Athens:
I. Lately, there are numerous classified ads in the papers by young Greeks, who seek to exchange the family apartments in Athens with a small farm or a piece of farm-land in rural areas, so that they can escape from the city and survive economically.
II. Months ago the Greek government decided to add an extra tax to the property of the Greeks. To extract the money from the people, the Government decided to send the extra tax bill through the regular electricity bill and in case the family did not pay the extra tax to disconnect the family house from the electric grid.
Result: the labor union of the electricity workers decided to not disconnect the houses, in solidarity with the populace. The government hired private companies to do the dirty work. The unions threaten to use violence to protect the populace, against the private (enterprise) "thugs".
III. This is 11 a.m., in Athens. Four hours from now the huge annual march from the Polytechnic to the US Embassy to commemorate the 1973 uprising of the students against the US instigated military dictatorship will start on 3 p. m. There are 7,000 policemen on duty ready to carry out their Christian duty. Last time a similar situation existed, about 20 years ago, the pigs killed a young woman and a young man at Syntagma Square, by crushing their skulls. | <urn:uuid:5fc97bad-6647-4ff2-93fb-b552e8228ff8> | {
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Fake antivirus--false pop-up warnings designed to scare money out of computer users--represents 15 percent of all malware that Google detects on Web sites, according to 13-month analysis the company conducted between January 2009 and February 2010.
That's a five-fold increase from when the company first started its analysis, Niels Provos, a principal software engineer at Google, said in an interview.
Meanwhile, fake antivirus scams represent half of all malware delivered via advertisements, which is becoming a problem for high-profile sites that rely on their advertisers and ad networks to distribute clean ads.
Google analyzed 240 million Web pages and uncovered more than 11,000 domains involved in fake antivirus distribution for the study, which Google is set to unveil at the Usenix Workshop on Large-Scale Exploits and Emergent Threats Tuesday in San Jose, Calif.
For more on this story, read Google: Fake antivirus is 15 percent of all malware on CNET News. | <urn:uuid:5e23348a-4afb-4ceb-9f4b-5d4f1d79d55a> | {
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Unfortunately, the modern buildings we live and work in rival cars and factories as sources of harm to the environment, contributing to deforestation, global warming, overuse of water and energy and carbon dioxide emissions.
Sustainable building refers to those buildings that are built to have the least impact on the natural environment, both in terms of the building itself, its immediate surroundings and the broader global setting. To construct in a sustainable way, some basic rules need to be followed: (a) minimization of non-renewable resource consumption; (b) enhancement of the natural environment; and (c) elimination or minimization of toxic emissions.
Almost every step of the green building process is heavily focused on how building elements fit together to optimize efficiency and sustainability.
Sustainable development marries two important themes:
1. Environmental protection does not preclude economic development.
2. Economic development must be ecologically viable now and in the long term.
“Sustainable design” involves the planning and development of projects in a manner that minimizes impact on natural resources, such as water and energy. There are many aspects to the sustainable process, one of which involves “LEED” principles – Leadership in Engineering and Environmental Design, with standards for selecting materials and designing facilities established by the U.S. Green Building Council. Zurn strongly encourages organizations to consider including cost-effective and environmentally friendly practices in the design, construction and retrofit of buildings and facilities. In this way, your buildings and facilities not only exemplify your care for the environment and the well-being of the community that you serve, but they also decrease facility operating and maintenance costs. | <urn:uuid:180acaf8-94ec-4f00-abe3-803c9ec9f24d> | {
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The Neem Tree, Environment, Culture
and Intellectual Property
| TED Case Studies
Number 665, 2002
by Sara Hasan
The Neem Tree, Environment, Culture
and Intellectual Property
|Mandala Home||Trade Environment Database||Inventory of Conflict and Environment||Global Classroom|
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1. The Issue
The United States and India are currently involved in a biopiracy dispute over the rights to a tree indigenous to the Indian subcontinent, the neem tree. While the neem tree has been used in India for over 2000 years for various purposes such as pesticides, spermicides and toothbrushes, a US company has been suing Indian companies for producing the emulsion because they have a patent on the process. The dispute is over the rights of companies to conduct research and development by using patents against the interest of the people who live at the source of the resource. To what extent can multinational companies claim and patent resources from the develping countries, like India? The movement around the issue of the neem tree and trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) represents a challenge to the developing countries..
There are approximately 14 million neem trees (Azadirachta indica) in India. Access to neem products was very cheap (if not free) and easy to get. It is a tropical evergreen, related to the mahogany, that mainly grows in arid regions of India and Burma and Southwest Asia and West Africa. When temperatures do not drop below freezing, it may grow up to 50 feet tall. They are estimated to live up to 200 years.
The neem tree has many versatile traits that can be traced back to the Upavanavinod, an ancient Sanskrit treatise dealing with agriculture. This treatise cites the neem tree as a cure for ailing soil, plants and livestock. The tree has been referred to as the 'curer of all ailments' and the 'blessed tree' by both the Hindu and Muslim population in India. The leaves and the bark have been used to treat illnesses such as leprosy, ulcers, diabetes and skin disorder. It has also been used to make spermicides and pesticides. The neem tree is known as the tree for all seasons because of its versatility. Here is a list of its many uses::
1)Medicine - Many ancient and traditional medical authorities Indian texts place neem as a vital resource for pharmacy. They mention the usefulness of the leaves, bark, flowers, seeds and fruit for treating several diseases such as diabetes, ulcers and skin disorders. For example, some people chew neem leaves in the morning for 24 days to protect the body from diseases like hypertension and diabetes. The juice of the neem tree (5ml) mixed with equal amounts of honey reduces oozing from ears and also removes inflammation. The ash of the dry neem leaves is used to remove urinary stones. (www.healthlibrary.com/ready/neem/chap3.htm).
2)Timber - The chemical in neem makes it resistant to termites, which is an extremely useful quality to have in construction. It is interesting to note that there is a new EPA regulation that bans certain chemically treated wood.
3)Toiletries - Neem twigs have been used by millions of Indians (including my parents) as an antiseptic tooth brush. Its oil is used for preparing soap and toothpaste.
4)Contraception - The oil of neem is a potent spermicide.
5)Fuel - The oil can also be used as lamp fuel.
6)Agriculture - Even dating back to the ancient Sanskrit treatise dating about 600 BC dealing with forestry and agricultural, the Upavanavinod, neem was seen as a cure for ailing plants and livestock. The cake, or residue, is fed to livestock and its leaves increase the fertility of soil. The most important, and controversial, is its use as a potent insecticide. It is effective against approximately 200 insects.
Making pesticides emulsion does not take highly sophisticated equipment, as native peoples have been making it for over 2000 years. Indians have developed their own process of cracking off the top that would then be used on plants as a pesticide. Neem based pesticides, medicines and cosmetics have been produced by some laboratories in India, but there has not been an attempt to make ownership of the formula legal because Indian law does not allow agricultural and medicinal products to be patented.
In 1971, a timber company in the United States figured out that the neem tree's usefulness in acting as a pesticide and began planting neem tree seeds. He received a patent on it and, in 1988, sold the patent to the US based company W.R. Grace. In 1992, W.R. Grace secured its rights to the formula that used the emulsion from the Neem tree's seeds to make a powerful pesticide. It also began suing Indian companies for making the emulsion.
The controversy over who has the rights to the Neem tree raised many questions. India claims that what the US Companies are calling discoveries are the actual stealing and pirating of the indigenous practices and knowledge of its people. The Indians and members of the Green Party in the European Union oppose big businesses owning the rights to living organisms, otherwise known as biopiracy, because they believe that the rights of poor farmers in developing countries will be harmed.
The villager supplier of neem products ranging from pesticides to formulations for creams to cure skin disorders, Raju, was not the first in his family to use the "blessed tree" for as many purposes as possible. His family revered and know all of the tree's sacred qualities. While Raju did not know the exact word for the extract of the neem seed, Azadirachtin, he did know that it helped all the people in his village in one way or another.
One day his life changed drastically. An American company called W.R.Grace patented the natural insecticide that had been used for generations by Indian farmers. The company was allowed to patent the process of making the insecticide because the Indian government did not patent agricultural or pharmeceutical products. This patent caused many problems for Raju because he could no longer use the traditional method of smashing the neem seeds, scooping the emulsion from the top, and selling it to local farmers as pesticide. This was the method he and his family had used for generations. He was told that he had to pay the company royalties for using their innovation because farmers in India did not hold a patent for the process. It just did not make any sense. The economy seemed to be overtaking his society. The worst part about it was that the community, his people, did not get any benefits from the patents.
Raju often asks, how is it possible for American companies to come into our country, steal our knowledge and make money off of it? He was also concerend why the Indian government did not protect the neem emulsion through patents themselves. This is a question that many intellectual property disputes have to answer.
There is an increasing awareness in India of the commodification of neem will lead to the expropriation by multinational corporations, like W.R. Grace (Shiva, Vandana "Piracy by Patent: The Case of the Neem Tree," in The Case of the Global Economy: and for a turn toward the local, edited by Jerry Mander and Edward Goldsmith, Sierra Club: San Francisco, 1996, p. 154). On Indian Independence Day in 1995, farmers in from Karnataka rallied outside the district office to challenge the demands for made by multinational corporations for intellectual property rights. As part of their protest, the farmers carried twigs and branches from the neem tree as a symbol of their collective indigenous knowledge of the properties of the neem (Shiva: 154).
The United States, on the other hand, states that what they are doing will help the Indian economy. India is not against sharing its information about the Neem tree's virtues, but it is against countries and corporations that intend to stop India's present use of it.
Another issue is whether the neem tree is patenable, since it is a product of nature, which shows that it is not a result of innovation and discovery. The problem is that W.R. Grace does not have a patent on the tree itself, but rather on the process of making the emulsion. They believe that this process is a discovery because it entails manipulation yielding greater and better results. In other words, discovery seems to have both old and new definitions. The problem is over the use of novel scientific advances on traditional Indian techniques. According to Vandana Shiva, the director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy in India, "corporate processes are supposedly novel advances on Indian techniques" (Shiva: 152). She goes on to state that the reluctance of scientists in India to patent agricultural and pharmaceutical inventions may be a result of their recognition that the bulk of work had already been accomplished by generations of anonymous, Indian experimenters (Shiva: 153). For example, "Dr. R P Singh of the Indian Agricutural Research Institute asserts: `Margosan - O is a simple ethanolic extract of neem seed kernel. In the late sixties we discovered the potency of not only ethanolic extract, but also other extracts of neem ...... Work on the neem as pesticide originated from this division as early as 1962. Extraction techniques were also developed in a couple of years. The azadirachtin - rich dust was developed by me’" (http://www.healthlibrary.com/reading/neem/chap10.htm). Shiva also states that the discovery of the neem's properties and the means of processing the extract was not "obvious" but rather evolved through extended systematic development in non-Western cultures (Shiva: 153).
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is asking developing countries to open up to foreign direct investment from abroad and to liberalize their trade policies. There has been a restructuring of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) into the WTO. This resulted in agreements on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) made during the Uruguay Round. These agreements created a trend towards a legal framework for intellectual property rights including a consensus to follow and establish patent laws in conjunction with those of the developed world.
While this can be seen as a good sign for India, it still causes a problem because of the Indian government's reluctancy to issue patents on agricultural and pharmaceutical product. Also, there is a lack of knowledge of the legal process that surrounds intellectual property rights. Indian business owners argue that the lack of patents leads their technology to move to the developed world. India feels that by letting foreign companies control resources, they become more vulnerable to them. As a result, there has been a backlash on foreign investment and less joint ventures between India and the United States.
3. Related Cases
Basmati - Trade dispute between an American company, RiceTec Inc., and India.
Sandalwd - India's attempt to limit the exportation of sandalwood because of its current trend towards extinction.
Chipko - Problem of deforestation in India.
Beede - Beedi cigarettes, popular for teenagers in America, are often rolled by Indian children who were forced in bondage.
Bhopal - Example of how developing countries are vulnerable to industrial crises.
Banana2 - Trade dispute settlement between the United States and the European Union regarding the sale of bananas by American Companies.
Budweis - Issue between the United States and the Czech Republic.
Canola - Dispute between Saskatchewan farmers and an American company called Monsanto Co.
Tequila - In light of NAFTA, Mexico has demanded protection Tequila "as a geographically indicated product" under intellectual property law.
Ginseng - Ginseng acquiring a new niche in the international market had led to it possible extinction.
Mussel - Mussel harvesting is a new cause of concern for the sustainability of mussel populations.
4. Author and Date:
April 30, 2002
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is encouraging developing countries to expand their legal protection of intellectual property rights in order to be on a similar "playing field" with the developed countries. In an effort to standardize trade rule, the WTO is also asking developing countries to open up to foreign direct investment from abroad and to liberalize their trade policies. The WTO believes that the restructuring will lead to a development of more modern economies.
There has been a restructuring of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) into the WTO. This resulted in agreements on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) made during the Uruguay Round. TRIPS, the forum for dispute, created a trend towards a legal framework for intellectual property rights. It also forced countries to honor the northern/Western interpretation of patent rights (Shiva: 147). According to Shiva, "the northern countries argued that when southern farmer's attempted to retain free use of their own seeds, developed by them over thousands of years, it was a form of piracy, but the pirate's hat clearly belongs on the other head" (Shiva: 147).
One of the major parties involved is obviously the Indian government who has signed onto the TRIPS agreement. India's laws still do not allow patents on agricultural and pharmaceutical products. Another party involved is the business community (like W.R. Grace) that needs intellectual property rights to encourage development in foreign countries because it gives more incentive to the business owners that their property or "inventions" will be protected. They believe that the result of researching and development in foreign countries can lead to a greater public good because of the new discoveries of medicines and other innovations that will result.
Another forum for dispute surrounding the neem tree is the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) that took place in 1992 at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. Article 15 of the convention states bio-assets are the property of the sovereign states in which they are from. In other words, they are not the property of the world at large. India's claim is that what the Western world is calling discoveries is actually an indigenous method that they have been suing for years. They say that it is a bio-asset that is protected under Article 15 of the convention. While CBD emphasizes the rights of sovereign nations over biological resources, such as the neem tree, it still calls for the acceptance of intellectual property rights. What this means is the CBD calls for governments, such as India, to provide the proper patents or other forms of protection on the life forms and include pharmaceutical products.
Another WTO dispute that relates to the TRIPS agreement is a case that involves India, as well. This case is regarding Basmati rice. India feels that because the United States has granted a patent for Basmati rice, that it is violating the TRIPS agreement. They say that Basmati rice is exclusively associated with India and Pakistan. They want the United States to take away their patent on the rice because they felt it is an indigenous product of their country. India's problem with the neem tree is similar to the Basmati case because they have realized the importance for creating laws that conserve bio-assets and control piracy. They feel that protecting their assets through patents may protect them from other companies like Rice Tec that took advantage of the nonexistent Indian laws.
Indian farmers want to protect their cultural heritage. It seems the best way to do it is to change their philosophical attitude that natural resources should not be patented in order to protect and preserve India's biodiversity and also to conform to international laws and agreements like the TRIPS agreement. According to Shiva, there has been a new alliance of farmers and scientists to formulate an alternative form of intellectual property rights - what they term collective intellectual property rights (CIPR's) (Shiva: 157). It allows people to have the right to benefit commercially from traditional knowledge. In other words, the farmers want to solve their disputes at the local level or village organizations rather than through GATT panels.
5. Discourse and Status: Disagreement and In progress
6. Forum and Scope: WTO, GATT, TRIPS and Bilateral
7. Decision Breadth: The United States and India
8. Legal Standing: Treaty
9. Geographic Locations
a. Geographic Domain: Asia
b. Geographic Site: South Asia
c. Geographic Impact: India
10. Sub-National Factors: No
11. Type of Habitat: Temperate
12. Type of Measure: Intellectual Property
The trade measures that are most relevant to the neem tree case are intellectual property and patents. United States patents on neem tree products are seen as forms of "biopiracy" by the country of India, the Green Party and the European Patent Office. There are three main issues surrounding the patenting of local products used for medicinal or agricultural purposes by the United States. First, the farmers will no longer be able to use these products without paying royalties to the company that has a patent on it. Secondly, consumers will be deprived of cheap medicines and agricultural products. Last, local communities should receive a share of the profits because the companies learned the value of the species from local knowledge. (Source: Trade and Development Center: A joint Venture of the World Bank and the World Trade Organization www.itd.org/isues/india6.htm)
Since 1985, over a dozen of the U.S. patents by the United States and Japanese firms are for the neem-based solutions and emulsions. There are a total of four patents are owned by W.R. Grace. Three patents are owned by another U.S. company, the Native Plant Institute. Two others are owned by the Japanese company, Terumo Corporation (source: Vanadan Shiva's article "Piracy by Patent: The Case of the Neem Tree" in The Case Against the Global Economy ). Remember that these patents are used for the process of making the emulsion from the neem tree, not on the neem tree itself. The US Company had in fact created a new invention from the neem extraction process. The local population, however, has been extracting the substances from the seeds for years, too, using a more traditional method of "smashing the seeds" and "scooping the emulsion."
The neem is not the only living organism that has become a subject of "patent" debate. There are scientists and farmers around the world that are trying to gain rights to protect their organisms. For example the Africa Soapberry has properties for insecticidal soap, fish intoxicant and a spermicidal contraceptive that African have used for a very long time. In 1964, though, things changed due to Dr. Akililu Lemma's report to the Tropical Products Institute in Britain that it killed water snails (which are used to fight the disease, bilharzia).. At the time of his report, he was stunned to find out that the Institute placed a patent on the extraction process without consulting or crediting him (Shiva:157).
13. Direct v. Indirect Impacts: Direct and indirect
14. Relation of Trade Measure to Environmental Impact
a. Directly Related to Product: Yes - Wood
b. Indirectly Related to Product: Yes - Manufacturing
c. Not Related to Product: No
d. Related to Process: Yes - Deforestation
15. Trade Product Identification: Neem tree extract and seeds
Neem Facial Moisturiser
Neem Hand & Body Lotion
Neem Moisturizing Cream
Neem Organic Shampoo
Neem Organic Conditioner
Neem Eye Gel
Neem Lip Balm
Dragon Repellent Candle
Pet Flea Powder
Head Lice Attack Packs
Neem Incense Sticks
Bath Fizz Bombs
Powdered Neem Leaf
Pure Powdered Neem Tree
Neem Leaf Capsules
16. Economic Data
17. Impact of Trade Restriction: High
18. Industry Sector: Agricultural and Chemical (use in pesticides)
19. Exporters and Importers: United States and India
Patents on neem
U.S. Companies patents: The patents granted to W.R. Grace for extraction and storage processes are the most controversial.
Recent Indian patents:
*Information from Neem Tree Foundation Website: www.neemfoundation.org
20. Environmental Problem Type: Habitat Loss and Deforestation
21. Name, Type, and Diversity of Species
Name: Neem tree (Azadirachta indica) Type: Tropical Evergreen related to the mahogany
22. Resource Impact and Effect: Low and Production
23. Urgency and Lifetime: Low and 200 years
24. Substitutes: Like products
25. Culture: Yes
The controversy over the patents on the neem tree relates to environment and culture most importantly because the properties and utilities of the tree have been known to Indians for millennia in both the Muslim and Hindu traditions. In Sanskrit it is known as the "curer of all ailments" and in the Muslim tradition it is known as the 'blessed tree.' Neem trees are everywhere in India. The extraction of the seed oil and emulsions is not difficult, the process has been used for ages in India (Third World Network: http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/pir-ch.htm). The village neem tree is a symbol of Indian indigenous knowledge. It has also become a symbol of resistance against corporations that are trying to take the Indian's knowledge for their own profit.
The WTO's goal is to promote market competition throughout the world. It is not the just the neem tree, as a product, that is being affected by the patents. Culture, biodiversity, livelihoods, needs and rights are all reduced to the market The destruction of their livelihoods becomes reduced to the level of competition. Many Indians view fundamental life processes as sacred,not as commodities that should be bought and sold in the market. The idea of a disembedded economy, that Karl Polanyi discusses, is not applicable to the average poor Indian farmer. In other words, Indian farmers are not comfortable with having the economy be above society. They seek to protect themselves from the rise of the global economy and agreements, such as the TRIPS agreement, that will affect their lives for days to come. The problem with the farmers view is that due to the logic of patenting, they cannot keep resisting, instead they are going to have to join in. (http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Globalization/War_Against_Nature_VFTS.html.).
The issue of nationalism, in the wake of colonialism plays a vital role in the case of the neem tree. Indians do not want to lose their rights to their own indigenous resources to a Western power. They will do everything to protect their rights. They are now an independent nation, or are they? In the new global village, it is hard to say. They see American companies and the WTO dictating what they can and cannot do with the neem tree. The TRIPS agreement is essentially the globalization of western patent laws as instruments to conquest. It can be seen as a different form of colonialism. An interesting story is that the word "patents" is derived from "letter patents." According to Vandana Shiva, one of India's leading activists and founder of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, letter patents were the open letter granted by the European sovereigns to conquer lands or to obtain monopolies on imports. For example, Christopher Columbus used a letter patent issued by Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand, for his right to conquest the America's (Vandana Shiva: War Against Nature and the People of the South).
26. Trans-Boundary Issues: No
27. Rights: Yes
28. Relevant Literature
Mander, Jerry, and Edward Goldsmith eds., The Case Against the Global Economy: a turn towards the local, San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1996.
National Research Council, Neem: A tree for solving global problems: report of an ad hoc panel of the Board of Science and Technology for International Devlopment, Washington D.C.: National Academy Press, 1992.
Shiva, Vandana, Biodiversity: Social and Ecological Perspectives, London: Zed Books, 1991.
----------------, Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knolwedge, Massacusetts: South End Press, 1997.
----------------, Ecology and the Politics of Survival: Conflicts over Natural Resources in India, in association with J. Bandyopadhyay, Japan: United Nations University Press, 1991.
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Incidents and Offenses
The Uniform Crime Reporting Program collects data about both single-bias and multiple-bias hate crimes. For each offense type reported, law enforcement must indicate at least one bias motivation. A single-bias incident is defined as an incident in which one or more offense types are motivated by the same bias. A multiple-bias incident is defined as an incident in which more than one offense type occurs and at least two offense types are motivated by different biases.
- In 2007, 2,025 law enforcement agencies reported 7,624 hate crime incidents involving 9,006 offenses.
- There were 7,621 single-bias incidents that involved 8,999 offenses, 9,527 victims, and 6,962 offenders.
- The 3 multiple-bias incidents reported in 2007 involved 7 offenses, 8 victims, and 3 known offenders. (See Tables 1 and 12.)
An analysis of the 7,621 single-bias incidents reported in 2007 revealed the following:
- 50.8 percent were racially motivated.
- 18.4 percent were motivated by religious bias.
- 16.6 percent resulted from sexual-orientation bias.
- 13.2 percent stemmed from ethnicity/national origin bias.
- 1.0 percent were prompted by disability bias. (Based on Table 1.)
Offenses by bias motivation within incidents
Of the 8,999 single-bias hate crime offenses reported in the above incidents:
- 52.5 percent stemmed from racial bias.
- 16.4 percent resulted from religious bias.
- 16.2 percent were motivated by sexual-orientation bias.
- 14.0 percent were prompted by ethnicity/national origin bias.
- 0.9 percent resulted from biases against disabilities. (Based on Table 1.)
In 2007, law enforcement agencies reported that 4,724 single-bias hate crime offenses were racially motivated. Of these offenses:
- 69.3 percent were motivated by anti-black bias.
- 18.4 percent stemmed from anti-white bias.
- 6.0 percent were a result of bias against groups of individuals consisting of more than one race (anti-multiple races, group).
- 4.6 percent resulted from anti-Asian/Pacific Islander bias.
- 1.6 percent were motivated by anti-American Indian/Alaskan Native bias. (Based on Table 1.)
Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,477 offenses reported by law enforcement. A breakdown of the bias motivation of religious-biased offenses showed:
- 68.4 percent were anti-Jewish.
- 9.5 percent were anti-other religion.
- 9.0 percent were anti-Islamic.
- 4.4 percent were anti-Catholic.
- 4.3 percent were anti-multiple religions, group.
- 4.0 percent were anti-Protestant.
- 0.4 percent were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc. (Based on Table 1.)
In 2007, law enforcement agencies reported 1,460 hate crime offenses based on sexual-orientation bias. Of these offenses:
- 59.2 percent were classified as anti-male homosexual bias.
- 24.8 percent were reported as anti-homosexual bias.
- 12.6 percent were prompted by an anti-female homosexual bias.
- 1.8 percent were the result of an anti-heterosexual bias.
- 1.6 percent were classified as anti-bisexual bias. (Based on Table 1.)
Ethnicity/national origin bias
Of the single-bias incidents, 1,256 offenses were committed based on the perceived ethnicity or national origin of the victim. Of these offenses:
- 61.7 percent were anti-Hispanic bias.
- 38.3 percent were anti-other ethnicity/national origin bias. (Based on Table 1.)
There were 82 reported hate crime offenses committed based on disability bias. Of these:
- 62 offenses were classified as anti-mental disability.
- 20 offenses were reported as anti-physical disability. (See Table 1.)
By offense types
Of the 9,006 reported hate crime offenses in 2007:
- 32.4 percent were destruction/damage/vandalism.
- 28.5 percent were intimidation.
- 18.7 percent were simple assault.
- 12.4 percent were aggravated assault.
- 8.1 percent were comprised of additional crimes against persons, property, and society. (Based on Table 2.)
Offenses by crime category
Among the 9,006 hate crime offenses reported:
- 60.0 percent were crimes against persons.
- 39.7 percent were crimes against property.
- The remainder were crimes against society. (Based on Table 2.) (See Data Collection in Methodology.)
Crimes against persons
Law enforcement reported 5,408 hate crime offenses as crimes against persons. By offense type:
- 47.4 percent were intimidation.
- 31.1 percent were simple assault.
- 20.6 percent were aggravated assault.
- 0.2 percent consisted of 9 murders and 2 forcible rapes.
- 0.6 percent involved the offense category other, which is collected only in the National Incident-Based Reporting System. (Based on Table 2.)
Crimes against property
- The majority of the 3,579 hate crime offenses that were crimes against property (81.4 percent) were acts of destruction/damage/vandalism.
- The remaining 18.6 percent of crimes against property consisted of robbery, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, arson, and other crimes. (Based on Table 2.)
Crimes against society
Nineteen offenses were crimes against society (e.g., drug or narcotic offenses or prostitution).
By victim type
When considering the type of victims among property crimes:
- 53.7 percent were directed at individuals.
- 11.5 percent were against businesses or financial institutions.
- 7.4 percent were against government.
- 6.8 percent were against religious organizations.
- The remaining 20.6 percent were directed at other, multiple, or unknown victim types. (Based on Table 6.)
If you have questions about this information
Contact the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division via e-mail at [email protected] or by telephone at (304) 625-4995. | <urn:uuid:6423a06b-2900-463c-9ccd-4e2803bf3093> | {
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In accordance with the MPS Administrative Policy 2.16, District Accountability System, the Administration presents the Board and the community with its annual Report Card for the 2010-2011 school year. Requirements of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, otherwise known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), stipulate that school districts report two year performance trends of students on statewide assessments in reading and mathematics, disaggregated by ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, migrant status, disability status, and English proficiency status. According to NCLB, the graduation rate must be reported for high schools, and another indicator (attendance) must be reported for elementary and middle schools. Additionally, each school’s performance is to be compared with the state’s adequate yearly progress target, and professional qualifications of teachers must be reported.
The 2010-2011 Report Card presents three to five year trends in performance for state and district assessments, disaggregated by ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, English proficiency status, and disability status. Graduation, promotion, and attendance rates are reported for applicable grades. Recent guidance from the Department of Education requires districts to present state results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). NAEP results for the state of Wisconsin (2010-2011) are also presented. Other data of interest to the community, including GPA, mobility and stability rates, suspension rates, and enrollment information is reported. Results are reported in terms of all students enrolled (instead of only those enrolled for a full academic year) and for all schools serving MPS students. The Report Card also presents the tenth year of value-added analyses of student achievement information to complement the attainment results required under NCLB. These measures level the playing field between schools serving diverse populations of students and help to improve our understanding of schools’ achievement gains over time.
As noted above, NCLB requires that Report Cards also contain information regarding the percent of classes taught by “highly qualified” teachers. The district relies on the Department of Public Instruction’s annual reports to provide this information to the community. Please go to http://www.dpi.state.wi.us for these data. The Milwaukee Public Schools is in the third year of Working Together, Achieving More, an Action Plan to improve Milwaukee Public Schools, 2007-2012. A brief explanation of the strategic plan as well as three pages detailing the key measurable statistics as to progress, are included. | <urn:uuid:2f91d5dc-fb2e-4d89-a8a7-866ed8c28a78> | {
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While all curriculum areas share some of the same issues and concerns, individual curriculum areas seem to also have concerns specific to them and their courses. This list looks at the top ten concerns for social studies teachers.
1. Breadth vs. Depth
Social studies standards are often written so that it is virtually impossible to cover all the required material in the school year. For example, in World History
, the National Standards require such breadth of material that it is impossible to do more than just touch on each topic.
2. Dealing with Controversial Topics
Many social studies courses deal with sensitive and at times controversial issues. For example, in World History
teachers are required to teach about religion. In American Government
, topics like abortion and the death penalty can sometimes lead to heated debates. In these instances, it is important for the teacher to maintain control of the situation.
3. Making Connections to Students' Lives
While some social studies courses like Economics
and American Government
lend themselves well to making connections to students and their lives, others do not. It can be tough to connect what was going on in Ancient China
to a 14 year old's daily life. Social Studies teachers have to work very hard to make these topics interesting.
4. Need to Vary Instruction
It can be very easy for Social Studies teachers to stick to one method of instruction. There is a tendency to give a great deal of lectures
. It can be very tough to cover the depth of material without relying on lectures and whole group discussions. Of course, there are some teachers who go to the other extreme and have mainly projects and role playing experiences. The key is to balance the activities.
5. Staying at the Lower Level of Bloom's Taxonomy
Because much of teaching social studies revolves around names, places, and dates, it is very easy to create assignments and tests that do not move beyond the Recall level of Bloom's Taxonomy
6. History Is InterpretationThere is no such thing as "history" because it is truly in the eye of the beholder. Social Studies texts were written by humans and therefore are biased. A perfect example is two American Government texts that my school was considering adopting. It was obvious throughout that one was written by a conservative and the other by a liberal political scientist. Further, history texts might describe the same event in a different way based on who wrote them. This can be a tough one for teachers to deal with at times.
7. Multiple PrepsSocial Studies teachers are often faced with having to teach multiple preps. This can be especially tough for the newer teachers who have to prepare so many new lessons from scratch.
8. Too Much Reliance on TextbooksSome social studies teachers rely too much on their textbooks in class. Unfortunately, there are ditto masters out there who basically assign the students to read from their text and then answer a particular number of questions.
9. Some Students Have a Dislike of HistoryMany students come into a Social Studies class with a particular dislike of history. Some will complain that it has nothing to do with their lives. Others will just say it's boring.
10. Dealing With False KnowledgeIt is not rare for students to come into your class with inaccurate historical information that they were either taught at home or in other classes. This can be really hard to combat. One year I had a student who swore that Abraham Lincoln had slaves. There was really nothing I could to dissuade them of this belief. They had learned in in 7th grade from a teacher they loved. This can be really difficult to handle at times. | <urn:uuid:7003655b-434e-423e-91fa-38b9b5bdeb26> | {
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Previous | Session 117 | Next | Author Index | Block Schedule
S. J. Edberg (JPL/Caltech)
This poster serves to introduce a series of posters discussing Space Interferometry Mission PlanetQuest (SIM PlanetQuest) science prospects and plans across a wide range of astrophysics.
SIM is being designed and built for NASA's Navigator Program, an element of the Astronomical Search for Origins and Planetary Systems theme in the Science Mission Directorate. It will be the first optical interferometer in space dedicated to precision astrometry. Even though SIM PlanetQuest has undergone a significant redesign since last year, the principle parameters of the instrument and anticipated results from its flight have changed little. With astrometric modes yielding 1 microarcsecond and 4 microarcsecond measurements, SIM offers the opportunity to investigate a wide variety of phenomena. From effects due to planetary gravitation within the solar system to investigating the emission phenomena of quasars and AGNs, SIM will provide breakthrough science. SIM astrometry will provide positions, parallaxes (distances), and proper motions with unprecedented accuracies for thousands of stars.
Searches for Earth-like planets will be made. Investigations of other planetary systems are possible, including the masses and orbits of their planets. Characterizations of stellar masses, from brown dwarfs to stellar-mass black holes and across the H-R diagram are planned. Combined with ground-based observations, SIM observations of MACHOs should yield the masses of the microlensing objects for the first time. The ages of globular clusters will be determined and the Milky Way's mass and its distribution will benefit from the study of halo and tidal tail stars. SIM measurements of the motions of Local Group galaxies will enable tests of models of this system. Quasar jets will be investigated and quasars themselves can be used to tie down a significantly improved celestial reference frame.
This work was performed for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/SIM/sim\_index.cfm. This link was provided by the author. When you follow it, you will leave the Web site for this meeting; to return, you should use the Back comand on your browser.
Previous | Session 117 | Next
Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 37 #4
© 2005. The American Astronomical Soceity. | <urn:uuid:25c234cb-e520-44ac-8580-df4a7639b976> | {
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— Although they were established just 40 years ago, presidential debates are now a major feature of the election season. Take a look back at the highlights (and lowlights) of every presidential and vice-presidential debate since 1960.
Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy challenged Republican Vice President Richard Nixon, who was leading the polls, to a series of debates. The four, one-hour debates were the first ever presidential debates. The famed 1858 debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas occurred during the Illinois senatorial campaign.
In an echo of this year’s rhetoric, in one of the debates against Kennedy, Nixon said he was “very proud that President Eisenhower restored dignity and decency and frankly good language to the conduct of the presidency of the United States.”
September 26, 1960
Who: Sen. John F. Kennedy, Democrat and Vice President Richard M. Nixon, Republican Where: Chicago, Ill. Moderator: Howard Smith as moderator, plus a panel including Sander Vanocur, Charles Warren, Stuart Novins and Bob Fleming. Format: 8-minute opening statements; 2 ½-minute responses; optional rebuttal; 3-minute closing statements. Broadcaster: Networks Rating: 77 million viewers (60 percent of all households) In the first debate, Nixon learned the hard way about the importance of how one looks on television. His haggard appearance, compared to the telegenic Kennedy’s, caused some callers — including his own mother — to inquire about his health. However, the oft-cited “fact” that those who listened to the debate over radio rated Nixon the winner, while TV viewers rated Kennedy the winner, is based on “thin” evidence that’s still debated by scholars.
October 7, 1960
Who: Kennedy and Nixon Where: Washington, D.C. Moderator: Frank McGee as moderator, plus a panel including Paul Niven, Edward Morgan, Alvin Spivak and Harold Levy. Format: No opening statements; each candidate questioned; optional rebuttal Broadcaster: Networks Rating: 61.9 million viewers
October 13, 1960
Who: Kennedy and Nixon Where: Nixon in Hollywood, Calif., and Kennedy in New York City Moderator: Bill Shadel as moderator, plus a panel including Frank McGee, Charles Van Fremd, Douglass Carter and Roscoe Drummond. Format: No opening statements; 2 ½-minute responses; 1 ½-minute rebuttals; no closing statements. Broadcaster: Networks Ratings: 63.7 million viewers
October 21, 1960
Who: Kennedy and Nixon Where: New York City Moderator: Quincy Howe as moderator, plus a panel including Frank Singiser, John Edwards, Walter Cronkite and John Chancellor. Format: 8-minute opening statements; 2 ½-minute responses; 1 ½-minute rebuttals; 3-minute closing statements. Broadcaster: Networks Ratings: 61 percent of households. This debate focused exclusively on foreign policy.
(No presidential debates in 1964, 1968, or 1972)
The 1976 debates were the first televised debates to feature an incumbent president, President Ford. The debates between Republican Gerald Ford and Democrat Jimmy Carter were seen by more people than the 1960 debates. Seven in 10 adults tuned in to the first two debates of 1976 and six in 10 adults watched the third.
September 23, 1976 | <urn:uuid:c9d67d9d-d3e3-49c7-90d0-3812858aefa5> | {
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The Terrorism Act No 83 of 1967 (commenced 27 June) allowed the detention of an individual by a policeman of rank lieutenant-colonel or greater. Terrorism was very broadly defined in the Act and included most common criminal behaviour. People could be held indefinitely since the act allowed detention until all questions were satisfactorily answered or until no further useful purpose would be achieved by keeping the person in detention. Those held under the act were only permitted to be visited by a magistrate one every two weeks. No one else was allowed access (except the police and security services, of course).
Unlike the previous 90-day (General Law Amendment Act No 37 of 1963) and 180-day (Criminal Procedure Amendment Act No 96 of 1965) detention laws the public was not entitled to information about people held, including their identity this meant that people could effectively 'disappear' for official legal reasons.
In order to cover those arrested for the Rivonia trial and for anti-Apartheid acts in both South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) the Act was applied retroactively to 27 June 1962.
Repealed by the Internal Security and Intimidation Amendment Act 138 of 1991. | <urn:uuid:e7bd41d8-3c25-4a0f-a450-c184ad1b30cb> | {
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Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
Madame de Pompadour
She was born Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson in 1721. It is suspected that her biological father was the rich financier Le Normant de Tournehem, who became her legal guardian when her official father was forced to leave the country in 1725 after a scandal and she lived with her mother and sister. She was intelligent and educated; she also learned to dance, engrave and to play guitar. She was married in 1741 (at the age of 19) to Charles-Guilaume Le Normant d'Etiolles , nephew of her guardian. Contemporary opinion considered her quite beautiful, with her small mouth and oval face enlivened by her wit. Her young husband was soon mad about her and she reigned in the fashionable world of Paris.
She caught the eye of the monarch in 1745. A group of courtiers, including her father-in-law, endorsed her to Louis XV, who was still mourning the death of his second mistress, the Duchess of Chateauroux . Jeanne-Antoinette was invited to a royal masquerade ball in February 1745 that celebrated the marriage of the king's son. By March she had become a regular visitor, and the king installed her at Versailles. He also bought her Pompadour, the first of six residences. In July, Louis made her a marquise, had her legally separated from her husband, and on September 14 she was formally presented at court.
She kept to Louis' bed only a few years, but she was such a level-headed courtier that she was able to find him younger, prettier girls while she also retained a cordial relationship with the queen, Marie Leszczynska. Louis was lazy, and Mme de Pompadour prepared all business for the king's eye beforehand with the ministers, who met in her rooms at Versailles
Madame de Pompadour was an accomplished woman, with a good eye for Rococo interiors. She had a keen interest in literature. She had known Voltaire before her ascendancy, and the playwright apparently advised her in her courtly role. Contrary to popular belief - and contemporary opinion - she never had much direct political influence, but she supported Belle-Isle and endorsed the Duke of Choiseul to the king. Choiseul, it should be noted, encouraged the basic shift in French foreign policy away from Prussia and towards France's hereditary rival, the Austrian Habsburgs. This alliance eventually brought on the Seven Years War, with all its disasters, the battle of Rosbach and the loss of Canada; but Mme de Pompadour persisted in her support of these policies, and, when Bernis failed her, brought Choiseul into office and supported him in all his great plans, the Pacte de Famille , the suppression of the Jesuits, and the peace of Versailles that lost Canada. She also discreetly endorsed Diderot's Encyclopédie project.
Pompadour was a woman of verve and intelligence. She planned buildings like the Place de la Concorde and the Petit Trianon with her brother, the Marquis de Marigny .She employed the stylish marchands-merciers who were turning Chinese vases into ewers with gilt-bronze Rococo handles and were mounting writing tables with the new Sèvres porcelain plaques. Numerous other artisans, sculptors and portrait painters were employed, the court artist Jean-Marc Nattier, in the 1750s Francois Boucher, and later Francois-Hubert Drouais (illustration, left). Drouais has rendered her demurely at traditional lady's work with her tambour and embroidery silks, among luxurious fittings that include a Sèvres-mounted table with a goat's mask in the latest goût Grèc. She is not young, but there is freshness and sparkle to everything about her. There is no sign that she is sick and about to die.
Pompadour suffered two miscarriages in the 1740s and later in life arranged lesser mistresses for the king's pleasure. Although they did not sleep together after 1750, Louis XV remained devoted to her until her death in 1764 at the age of 43. At the time she was publicly blamed for the Seven Years' War.
The classic pink of Sèvres porcelain is rose de Pompadour. The Pompadour haircut is also named after her.
The contents of this article is licensed from www.wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License. Click here to see the transparent copy and copyright details | <urn:uuid:b758414b-ffb2-41a8-a4c0-d5c6f4cfe08f> | {
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Contents - Previous - Next
This is the old United Nations University website. Visit the new site at http://unu.edu
Letters to the editor
Vitamin A nutrition status in Costa Rica: was fortification necessary?
A national survey in Costa Rica in 1966 by the Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama (INCAP) in Costa Rica showed a high prevalence of low and deficient levels of serum vitamin A in 32 per cent of preschool children in rural areas. Only 12 per cent of the families in the same communities had an intake equal to or higher than that recommended for this vitamin. Clinical signs, however, were virtually absent, with not one case showing xerophthalmia or keratomalacia, and Bitot spots were present in only two children In urban areas, levels of serum retinol were higher, with low and deficient levels accounting for only 3 per cent of all cases. In general, the intake of vitamin A was much higher in the urban comunities studied than in the rural ones 11).
After that survey, vitamin A deficiency was considered to be a major nutritional problem in Costa Rica, together with protein-energy malnutrition, iron deficiency anaemia, and endemic goitre (1).
Afterwards, and following the technical recommendation of INCAP, the Government issued a decree in 1974 making mandatory the fortification of white table sugar (2). Fortification of this supposedly widely consumed food began with the sugar refined in 1975-1976. The process was followed through four consecutive years. However, supervision and control of the programme was practically non-existent, and basal information just prior to the beginning of this intervention was not obtained.
A national dietary survey made by the Ministry of Health two years later showed a striking improvement in the intake of vitamin A from food sources by preschool children, being well above the recommendations for their age group. Clinicians insisted that vitamin A deficiency was no longer a problem. A retrospective study was done on children admitted from 1964 to 1975 to the National Children's Hospital in San Jose with ocular manifestations suspected to have been caused by vitamin A deficiency. This study showed that only 17 cases among 909 had ocular signs compatible with vitamin A deficiency, 10 of them with unilateral or bilateral blindness. Most were found before 1970, all in children from rural areas 13).
At the end of 1978 and the beginning of 1979, in a joint effort undertaken by the Ministry of Health and the recently founded INCIENSA, with the advice of INCAP, serum retinol was measured in a representative sample of preschool children from the same rural and urban areas in which adequate intake had been found in the national survey. Only 2.5 per cent of 396 children studied showed low or deficient levels. In fact, only one child had a serum level below 10 mg/dl, and in all those with low levels, serum retinol was higher than 15mg/dl (4).
In a limited study done by INCIENSA on 123 pregnant women in a semi-urban area in the outskirts of San Jose, all had serum retinol levels higher than 50, m g/dl. A random sample of 50 lactating women contributing to a breast milk bank showed levels higher than 20 m g/dl in all individual samples. Although these data on the women are incomplete, the findings in preschool children allow us to conclude reasonably that hypovitaminosis-A is no longer a public health problem in Costa Rica. The obvious, immediate question is whether sugar fortification per se was largely responsible for the improvement. To answer that question, the Minister of Health suspended the program of fortification in the second semester of 1980. During the second semester of 1981, a new survey for serum retinol levels was done by the Ministry of Health in the same population of preschool children, showing that of 561 children, none had deficient levels, and only 1.8 per cent had low levels in spite of about one Year without vitamin A fortification of sugar (Minister of Health, personal communication, 1981). A new evaulation is to take place in two years.
It is important to note that the improvement in vitamin A nutritional status was not an isolated finding. Other positive changes in nutritional and health indicators in Costa Rica appeared in the 1970s, changing the disease profile from one classical for underdeveloped countries to one similar to that in the developed nations (5).
By that time, vigorous health programmes, such as community and rural medical care based mainly on auxiliary health care personnel, had gone into effect. These programmes facilitated not only health care but also massive programmes of vaccination and health education. Installation of facilities for proper disposal of excrete was another important undertaking, together with the development of an extended network of lines to supply potable water to most of the country's population. Complementary nutrition programmes for children and pregnant women were reinforced through the so-called Centres of Education and Nutrition and through meals at schools (5).
We tend to believe that the improvement in vitamin A nutrition status in Costa Rica was largely the result of a combination of indirect strategies aimed at improving public health, socio-economic, and educational levels. At the time of the survey in 1966, it was reasonable to recommend fortification. The problem was important, and in fact nobody would have predicted any significant improvement in health problems at that time. However, fortification of sugar was started about nine years after the problem had been identified, at a time when a general improvement in health was beginning to be apparent. Perhaps fortification came too late, and the expense and troubles inherent in the programme could have been avoided.
In principle, a fertile country like Costa Rica should not have to buy premixes of vitamin A at disproportionately high prices, especially at this time of severe economic problems. In spite of the well-known paradox of a higher prevalence of vitamin A deficiency in "ever green countries" (6), in Costa Rica the long-run public health strategy has apparently already succeeded in eradicating vitamin A deficiency (7).
By maintaining the programmes that led to this overall improvement, we believe that our population will be protected from vitamin A deficiency, and perhaps fortification will no longer be necessary.
1. Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama and the Inter departmental Committee on Nutrition for National Development, Nutritional Evaluation of the Population of Central/ America and Panama. Regional Summary 19651967, DHEW Publication No. (HSM) 72-8120 (Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Washington. D.C., USA, 19721.
2. G. Arroyave, J.R. Aguilar, M. Flores, and M.A. Guzmán, Evaluation of Sugar Fortification with Vitamin A at the National Level, PAHO Scientific Publication No. 38411979).
3. C. Fuscaldo, E. Mohs, and L. Mata, "Lesiones oculares por hipovitaminosis-A y otras causes en niños hospitalizados, 19641975, Acta Méd. Costarricense,, 20: 5 ( 1977 ).
4. Annual/ Report INCIENSA to Ministry of Health, Costa Rica (1979).
5. E. Mohs, "lnfectious Diseases and Health in Costa Rica: The Development of a New Paradigm," Pediat Infect. Dis.. (in press).
6. H.A.P.C. Oomen, "Deficiencia de vitamina A y xeroftalmia y ceguera, in Conocimientos actuales en Nutrición (INCALALAN, 1978), p. 80.
7. G. Arroyave J.C Bauernfeind, J.A. Olson, and B.A. Under. wood, `'Selection of Intervention strategies'', in Guidelines for the Eradication of Vitamin A Deficiency and Xerophthalmia: A Report of the International Vitamin A Consultative Group (IVACG) (Nutrition Foundation, Inc., New York, 1975).
Carlos de Céspedes
Instituto Costarricense de Investigación y
Enseñanza en Nutrición y Salud (INCIENSA)
Tres Ríos, Costa Rica
Reply to Dr. de Céspedes's letter
Dr. de Céspedes's letter is a timely comment on the recent development in Costa Rica related to the vitamin A nutritional status of the population. However, some added considerations seem important to avoid a one-sided view about a situation that may be somewhat more complex.
In the first place, I believe that the decision made by the Government of Costa Rica in the Year 1980 to suspend the national programme of fortification of sugar with vitamin A was a sound one. In fact, in light of the results of the 1978 dietary surveys that showed that the intake of vitamin A from natural sources by preschool children had become adequate, INCAP supported the interruption of the fortification programme. It also strongly recommended that this decision be followed some two years later by a new dietary and blood serum survey in order to determine whether the higher vitamin A nutritional status attained could be maintained without fortified sugar. For this purpose a special meeting was called by the Minister of Health, requesting INCAP to act as specific adviser.
It is evident from the follow-up surveys that the vitamin A nutritional level in preschool children, and possibly pregnant women, is still adequate. What is risky is to accept this as evidence that sugar fortification did not have any benefit, and that it probably was implemented "too late," resulting in "expense and troubles inherent in the programme" that "could have been avoided." As a scientist, I would consider it just as reasonable, on the basis of the circumstantial evidence available, to suggest that, even in the light of the long-run integrated nutritional programme in Costa Rica, the sugar fortification programme implemented in 1975-1976 served as the determining critical booster to bring the population rapidly to a new, adequate vitamin A status, a status that can now more easily be maintained with diet alone.
Strengthening this probability is the fact that in Guatemala, where the vitamin A sugar fortification programme also began in 1975-1976, but where the dietary and health status of the population at large had not changed for the better, a dramatic improvement in vitamin A nutritional status was shown after only six months to a year of the effective national sugar fortification programme. This was demonstrated by highly significant increases in serum retinol levels in preschool children, retinol in breast-milk, and liver retinol reserves.
In my opinion, the cost of the fortification programme at that time in Costa Rica of about US$300,000 per year was not a disproportionately large expense, and the operation of the programme was so simple that it could hardly have been considered troublesome. To me, both the expenditure and the "trouble" were well justified because: (a} the vitamin A that the population consumed during the years of fortification unquestionably contributed to the adequate vitamin A status now evident; (b) the vitamin A in the sugar went to essentially all of the population regardless of sex or age, while the integrated nutrition plan for dietary improvement in Costa Rica had small children as its principal target. The same dietary survey cited by Dr. de Céspedes showed, in fact, that the children had attained adequate vitamin A dietary status, but the adults within the same families still had clearly inadequate intakes in many instances; (c) if the above were not sufficient, INCAP's promotion of the fortification programme, which fed to its implementation in several Central America countries, awakened the interest and attention of the country to consider a potential specific nutrition problem that needed to be addressed. Even the surveys and analysis of the situation that are at the centre of these letters, as well as the information on the vitamin A nutritional status now available as a useful indicator of improvement, would not be at hand had it not been for the fortification programme at the national level.
I am, however, in agreement with the final statement of Dr. de Céspedes's letter, that if the programmes that led to nutritional improvements in Costa Rica are maintained, fortification should no longer be necessary.
Chief, Division of Clinical Biochemistry
Institute of Nutrition of Central
America and Panama
Guatemala City, Guatemala
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"Clearly, that would be a very logical assumption that someone is out there protecting us, somebody is making sure the chemicals that would harm our bodies or our environment wouldn't be in common products," says Debbie Raphael, Director of California's Department of Toxic Substances Control.
As a result, about 83,000 chemicals are not routinely tested for safety.
Raphael says California's new law affects every consumer product that may have any of more than 12-hundred "chemicals of concern."
"These are chemicals widely understood throughout the world to cause problems like cancer, like reproductive harm, polluting our waters, polluting our air, those kinds of chemicals becomes our list of chemicals of concern," says Raphael.
The prospect of regulating so many chemicals is daunting, so the department will target five chemicals in five products to begin with.
The list could include could formaldehyde in carpet, cadmium in jewelry, ammonia in cleaning products; the department hasn't decided.
"Basically the department is in a position to choose any product that it wants, at any time, and in the first year, two years, three years, five years, ten years down the road," says Gene Livingston, an attorney for the Green Chemistry Alliance.
It's a coalition that represents automobile, toy, plastics, paint, and detergent manufacturers among others.
He says the new law may sound reasonable…but its results are totally unpredictable.
"And that's how business is looking at this…what's going to happen in the future," says Livingston.
"The way they've organized the regulation could cause very serious economic impacts," says Loren Kaye is with the California Chamber of Commerce. "Initially it's going to affect manufacturers, but then manufacturers make products that get incorporated into further products, and then eventually it gets into distribution and retail, so it affects the whole stream of commerce."
Ultimately, he says the new chemical regulations will force consumers to pay more for products, or make some products unavailable.
Phillips says she thinks the regulations could have gone even further to include more chemicals that degrade water quality.
But she says the pending regulations are designed to protect consumers.
"It won't reduce the availability of household cleaners for instance it will just make sure that household cleaners are safer, children aren't exposed to toxic chemicals, mothers aren't exposed to toxic chemicals," says Phillips.
Manufacturers contend product reformulation can cost millions of dollars and they say alternatives to some chemicals can be more expensive or less effective.
The Department of Toxic Substances Control says it has accounted for contingencies.
"If the alternative is way more expensive or if it doesn't meet a performance standard or even if it smells bad and consumers wouldn't ever want to buy your product, well that isn't a viable alternative," says Raphael. | <urn:uuid:81cc2ce6-7a22-47ca-afdd-bcd16a144fb6> | {
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The bone marrow is more frequently involved in Hodgkin's granuloma than is suspected, as is shown by autopsy records. Ziegler found the marrow involved in 40 per cent of the cases, while Symmers noted medullary changes in 7 of 15 cases. These authors observed a proliferation of endothelial cells, fibrosis and, in some areas, an increase in normal cell elements of the bone marrow. Other changes characteristic of Hodgkin's granuloma were present.
Actual destruction of the bone has been reported from time to time with and without roentgenographic evidence. Since the advent of the roentgen rays, groups of cases are available in which the earlier symptoms referable to the bones together with the roentgenograms can be studied, and the progress of the disease followed to its termination.
Of 396 cases registered as Hodgkin's granuloma in the Memorial Hospital, the diagnosis was found to have been confirmed by biopsy | <urn:uuid:7fdf177f-ad43-457c-9e99-a1aec6a6546a> | {
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It is said that “binoculars are halfway to a telescope” for observing
the night sky. Not only this, but they are easier to use than a
telescope and far less than half the cost. So, binoculars make the
ideal “first scope” for someone newly interested in amateur
So, which binoculars should you buy?
First of all, if you already have a pair, go ahead and use them! Very
few pairs of binoculars are so bad as to be useless, and this way you
can start tonight (if it’s clear). If you have a starmap (you can see
one online at Sky and
Telescope or download a 55-page .pdf of a full sky atlas for free
at Guide to Backyard
Astronomy) take it outside and start finding things. Depending on
the time of year, good objects to look at are M42 (the Great Orion
Nebula) in Orion, the Double Cluster in Perseus, the Coathanger
Cluster in Vulpecula (between Altair and Vega), M13 (the Great
Hercules Cluster) in Hercules, M31 (the Andromeda Galaxy) in
Andromeda, M44 (the Beehive Cluster) in Cancer (Between Leo and
Gemini), MEL 111 (the Coma Star Cluster) in Coma Berenices at Leo’s
tail, or if you can see the Milky Way, just scan that for lots of good
If you wish to purchase a pair of binoculars, there are several things
to consider. Holding them steady can be a challenge, particularly if
they are heavy. High magnification amplifies the shaking, so that is
a consideration. To start with (especially a child) one would want to
limit himself to about 10x magnification and about 50mm for lens
diameter (written 10×50 in a binocular’s specs). In fact, 7×45 or
10×50 is an ideal place to start for most people. If you can handle
it, 11×70 is a good size that lets you see a bit more. (I most often
observe with my Oberwerk 11×70 binoculars). If possible, borrow a
pair of binoculars and try them to see what you can handle.
If you wear eyeglasses, you need at least 10mm, and preferably 15mm,
of eye relief (sometimes called “exit pupil distance”). This is how
far you hold your eye from the eyepiece lens to see the best image.
If you wear glasses, you need that extra distance. Many binoculars
have foldable eyecups–leave them unfolded if you do not wear glasses,
or fold them in if you do, to properly place your eyes.
Any type prism would work, but BAK4 is the best for astronomy. There are
differences of opinion on whether Porro prisms is better than Roof
prisms, but the difference seems slight to me. Roof prisms mean more
compact binoculars, while Porro prisms cost less.
You will want a pair with a focusing control. Fixed-focus or
focus-free binoculars are usually a little out of focus for
Either separate focusing knobs for each eyepiece, or a single focusing
knob and a diopter adjustment knob are helpful if one eye focuses
differently from the other.
Also, “zoom binoculars” often leave something to be desired in
performance, and add to the price.
Now, you generally want bright, high-contrast images, subject to
constraints above and to what you are willing to pay. Higher
magnification for a given lens size means better contrast for stars
(but not for extended objects like galaxies or nebulae–they get
larger but dimmer with higher magnification). Larger lens size for a
given magnification means brighter images.
You can get a feel for the brightness of an image through “exit pupil
diameter”. If not printed in the specs, you can compute this by
dividing the lens diameter, in millimeters, by the magnifcation. So
for 10×50 binoculars, the exit pupil diameter is 5mm. A child’s
pupils dilate to about 9mm, and an adults to 7mm, or maybe only 5mm
with old age. Generally, larger exit pupil means brighter
images…until the exit pupil is the size of your pupils. After that,
more exit pupil diameter doesn’t help.
If you do get big binoculars, you may want a tripod. Many find they
need a tripod for 11×70 binoculars. Most people would want one for
20×80 binoculars, and everybody would want one for 25×100 binoculars.
Make sure the tripod is sturdy enough for the weight of the
binoculars. A tripod made for a tiny video camera would probably be
insufficient. Also, check that the binoculars have a standard
mounting thread. You might have to purchase an L-shaped mounting
bracket separately depending on the type of tripod or where the
mounting thread is on the binoculars. Nearly all giant binoculars
have the mounting thread.
For (lots) more money, you can get electronic stabilizing binoculars,
but I have never tried them myself. In theory, they should allow you
to use larger binoculars while still getting a steady image.
Then, there are high-end brands that cost several thousand and give
really clear images. These are for the serious binocular astronomer.
But then by that time, you might be wanting a telescope instead. | <urn:uuid:90706e4d-21bb-4fde-8cbc-28d4c2e1a2f6> | {
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Portrait of Juana Inés de la Cruz at age 15
Juana Inés de la Cruz de Asuaje y Ramirez was born in San Miguel Nepantla, near Mexico City. She was the illegitimate child of a Spanish Captain, Pedro Manuel de Asuaje, and a Criollo woman, Isabel Ramirez. Her illegitimacy was due to her mother’s refusal to marry.
She learned how to read and write at the age of three. By age five, she could do accounts, and at age eight she composed a poem on the Eucharist. By adolescence, she had mastered Greek logic, and at age thirteen she was teaching Latin to young children. She also learned the Aztec language of Nahuatl, and wrote some short poems in that language.
In 1664, at age sixteen, Juana was sent to live in Mexico City. She asked her mother’s permission to disguise herself as a male student so that she could enter the university. Not being allowed to do this, she continued her studies privately. She came under the tutelage of the Vicereine Leonor Carreto, wife of Viceroy Antonio Sebastián de Toledo. The viceroy, wishing to test her learning and intelligence (she being then seventeen years old), invited several theologians, jurists, philosophers, and poets to a meeting, during which she had to answer, unprepared, many questions, and explain several difficult points on various scientific and literary subjects. The manner in which she acquitted herself astonished all present, and greatly increased her reputation. Her literary accomplishments soon made her famous throughout New Spain.
She was much admired in the vice-royal court, and declined several proposals of marriage, for in the spirit of her mother, she refused to marry. In 1667, she entered the Convent of the Discalced Carmelites of St. Joseph as a postulant. In 1669, she entered the Convent of the Order of St. Jérôme.
In Juana’s time, the convent was often seen as the only refuge in which a female could properly attend to the education of her mind, spirit, body and soul. It was Juana’s only refuge from marriage. Nonetheless, she wrote literature centered on freedom. In her poem Redondillas, she defends a woman’s right to be respected as a human being. Therein, she also criticizes the sexism of the society of her time, poking fun at and revealing the hypocrisy of men who publicly condemn prostitutes, yet privately pay women to perform on them what they have just said is an abomination to God. Sor Juana asks the sharp question in this age-old matter of the purity/whoredom split found in base male mentality: “Who sins more, she who sins for pay? Or he who pays for sin?” For these works, she is regarded as one of the first feminists.
Foolish men who wrongly accuse women, Without seeing that you are the cause of what you fault them for; You want with unthinking presumption to find in the woman you seek… Either love women for what you force them to be, or fashion them according to what you want them to be.
marvellous portrait and person.
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Fact Check: UK report criticizing wind is off base
A recent report being circulated in the United Kingdom casts some doubt on wind's ability to serve as a reliable source of electricity generation. Not surprisingly, its assertions seem largely questionable or off the mark. Stated in general terms, they are as follows:
Allegation: Wind turbines will generate on average 30% of their rated capacity over a year.
Fact: First, A conventional utility power plant uses fuel, so it will normally run much of the time unless it is idled by equipment problems or for maintenance. An average capacity of 40% to 80% is typical for conventional plants.
A wind plant is "fueled" by the wind, which blows steadily at times and not at all at other times. Although modern utility-scale wind turbines typically operate 65% to 90% of the time, they often run at less than full capacity. Therefore, an average capacity of 25% to 40% is common, although they may achieve higher average capacities during windy weeks or months.
While average capacity is almost entirely a matter of equipment reliability for a fueled power plant, it is not for a wind plant—for a wind plant, it is a matter of economical turbine design. With a very large rotor and a very small generator, a wind turbine would run at full capacity whenever the wind blew and would have a 60-80% average capacity—but it would produce very little electricity. The most electricity per dollar of investment is gained by using a larger generator and accepting the fact that the average capacity will be lower as a result. Wind turbines are fundamentally different from fueled power plants in this respect.
Second, the average capacity for wind turbines in the U.S. has improved consistently (15% every two years on average) and is in the 30% + range--see analysis by utility consulting firm Black & Veatch here (see specifically figures 5-4 and 5-5).
Allegation: While wind proponents say "the wind is always blowing somewhere," sometimes it is calm throughout the United Kingdom.
Fact: First, the statement "the wind is always blowing somewhere" applies to geographic areas quite a bit larger than the United Kingdom. The area covered by the Midwest Independent System Operator, which runs the utility system throughout several states in the upper Midwest, for example, is five times the size of the U.K. A number of studies by the government, system operators, and utilities in the United States indicate that when wind resources are aggregated over a large geographic area, nearly the entire energy output of the wind plants can be counted on for meeting power system capacity needs.
Second, no individual power plant operates 100% of the time. Predictability is what is needed for the utility system as a whole to deliver electricity reliably, and wind farms are generally quite predictable, because their output can be forecast and because that output changes slowly over time compared with conventional power plants that can suffer instantaneous outages. A noteworthy example of this advantage of wind's predictability occurred in February 2011, when millions of electricity consumers in the state of Texas experienced rolling blackouts because of the sudden loss of over 50 fossil-fired power plants totaling over 7,000 megawatts (MW). At the same time, wind plants continued to produce the approximately 3,500 MW they had been forecast and scheduled to produce, enough to power millions of typical homes.
Large coal and nuclear power plants frequently break down with no warning, taking 1,000 MW or more offline instantaneously. That is very difficult for grid operators to deal with--they must maintain expensive, fast-acting reserves 24/7/365, as such an outage can occur at any time. In contrast, changes in wind output occur gradually and are usually predictable, allowing grid operators to use slow-acting, non-spinning reserves that typically cost 40 times less than the fast-acting reserves needed for other power plants. Additionally, because the variability of wind energy is smaller than other sources of variability on the power system, particularly the large variability of electric demand, most of wind’s variability is canceled out so that adding wind to the grid only slightly increases aggregate power system variability.
Allegation: Periods of low wind are frequent in the United Kingdom, occurring on average every six days and lasting for an average of five hours at a time.
Fact: That data indicates that low winds occur about 3% of the time. That’s amazingly low–certainly not worth complaints! The 3% low wind time is considerably less than expected from a wind plant in a high-performing project in a great wind resource area, which is estimated to be at least 10% of the time.
Allegation: During periods of peak demand in the U.K., wind farms were producing only 6% of their rated capacity (due to low winds).
Fact: This may be true--in the U.S., wind farms normally generate somewhere between 10% and 40% of their rated capacity during periods of peak electricity demand. As mentioned earlier, though, the power system is designed to draw on a variety of different types of power plants, and no power plant operates 100% of the time.
Allegation: The U.K.'s pumped hydro storage capacity is not enough to rely on during periods when the winds are low.
Fact: This is essentially irrelevant. European countries like Denmark, Spain, Ireland, and Germany have successfully integrated very large amounts of wind energy without having to install new energy storage resources. In the U.S., numerous peer-reviewed studies have concluded that wind energy can provide 20% or more of our electricity without any need for energy storage.
How is this possible? The secret lies in using the sources of flexibility that are already present on the electric grid. Every day, grid operators constantly accommodate variability in electricity demand and supply by increasing and decreasing the output of flexible generators – power plants like hydroelectric dams or natural gas plants that can rapidly change their level of generation. Thus, the water kept behind a dam or the natural gas held in a pipeline may be thought of as a form of energy storage, with operators using this energy when it is needed and "storing" it when it is not. Grid operators use these same flexible resources to accommodate any variability introduced by wind energy.
A tremendous amount of flexibility is already built into the power system. Demand for electricity can vary by a factor of three or more depending on the time of day and year, which nationwide translates into hundreds of thousands of megawatts of flexibility that are already built into the power system. Because these power plants and other sources of flexibility have already been built, it is almost always much cheaper to use this flexibility than to build new sources of flexibility like energy storage facilities. While continuing advances in energy storage technology can make it more economically competitive as a provider of utility system flexibility, it is important to remember that resources like wind energy can already be cost-effectively and reliably integrated with the electric utility system without energy storage.
Fact sheet: Wind Energy and Energy Storage
Fact sheet: Wind Power: Clean AND Reliable
Fact sheet: Wind, Backup Power, and Emissions
Wind Power Myths Debunked, article by Milligan et al from Power Engineering magazine
AWEA Manager of Transmission Policy Michael Goggin and Senior Outreach Engineer John Dunlop provided valuable assistance on this article. | <urn:uuid:50e118b1-8bd5-49cd-bffb-ba8eb9c8f2cc> | {
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Now, with the release of the South Carolina Non-Population Census records on Ancestry.com, I can get an even more in-depth look at the war's impact. I found John Peter Quattlebaum on the 1860 and 1870 Non-Population census records. I don't know if John fought in the war, but I do know that his sons did.
The first thing I notice is that the family is not in the same location - Edgefield Distrist in 1860 and Hibler in 1870. In 1860, Edgefield County was organized into only three townships. By 1870, Edgefield County was organized into twenty different townships. On the populations census records, he neighbors are the same, so I assume that he did not move, but that county organization became more sophisticated.
I see that in 1860 and 1870 he had 308 acres of land, which helps to confirm that he is on the same property. In 1860, the cash value of his land is $2,250, but in 1870 his land is worth only $930. The value of his farming equipment has also plummeted. It would seem that physical equipment might be worth more and harder to find after the war, so perhaps he lost some of his equipment during the war.
The non-population census also records livestock holdings. From 1860 to 1870 John lost: two horses, a mule, four milk cows, two cattle, three sheep, and 37 swine. He gained two oxen. The total value of his livestock plummeted by $363.
His farming production has changed a lot (on second page not shown). In 1860, John made most of his money potato farming, producing over 100 bushels. By 1870 he's produced less than 20 bushels. He's made up for the difference with a slight increase in dairy production. The family has also lost all production of honey and homemade merchandise and their value of slaughtered animals has decreased dramatically.
Overall, it seems that John and his family suffered during the war. The value of their land decreased and they lost the means to earn money. Without the non-population census records, we wouldn't be able to see the detail of the changes in this family's life. | <urn:uuid:bd0a0935-34f6-4a75-9dde-da372011bd67> | {
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"Making Carbon Capture and Storage Work"
Book Chapter, Acting in Time on Energy Policy, pages 39-55
Author: Daniel Schrag, Steering Committee Member, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
Other Chapters in Acting in Time on Energy Policy:
- Policy for Energy Technology Innovation
- Electricity Market Structure and Infrastructure
- Barriers to Acting in Time on Energy and Strategies for Overcoming Them
- Acting in Time on Energy Policy
- Acting in Time on Climate Change
- Oil Security and the Transportation Sector
"This chapter focuses on how the United States can accomplish ... reducing carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels. I argue that demonstration and deployment of technologies to capture carbon dioxide from large stationary sources, storing the waste CO2 in geological formations, is likely to be an essential component of any carbon reduction strategy, both for the United States and for the world, and is also consistent with economic and security concerns. It also reviews the major technical challenges involved with widespread deployment of carbon capture and storage, and discusses policies that would lead to the specific goal of capturing and storing the CO2 from all large stationary sources by the middle of this century."
For more information about this publication please contact the ETIP Coordinator at 617-496-5584.
For Academic Citation: | <urn:uuid:893f193e-880f-427f-b00b-aab05146985a> | {
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Moses' father-in-law, Jethro, sheik of Midian, heard about all that God had done for Moses and His people Israel when He brought Israel out of Egypt.
Vayishma Yitro chohen Midyan choten Moshe et kol-asher asah Elohim le-Moshe ule-Yisra'el amo ki-hotsi Adonay et-Yisra'el miMitsrayim.
||Jethro brought along Moses' wife, Tzipporah, who had been sent home earlier,
Vayikach Yitro choten Moshe et-Tsiporah eshet Moshe achar shilucheyha.
See notes on Exodus 2:18, 3:1. According to some authorities, Jethro was Moses' brother-in-law (Ibn Ezra on Numbers 10:29).
There is a question as to whether or not the Torah is in chronological order here. According to some, Jethro came before the giving of the Ten Commandments, while according to others, he came afterward (Zevachim 116a; Ramban).
Actually, 'Jethro, father-in-law of Moses.' The same is true in Exodus 18:5 and 18:12, but for the sake of simplicity, it is abbreviated.
See Exodus 2:21.
|sent home earlier|
At Aaron's advice (Mekhilta; Rashi), soon after the episode of the circumcision (Exodus 4:25). | <urn:uuid:ecb904ce-c9cf-4678-a688-0b9058d548c1> | {
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In the aftermath of the Civil War, Americans of Union and Confederate persuasions had to effect reconciliation. They did so by seeking out that which they had in common rather than dwelling on their differences. Families on both sides shared the same Revolutionary War heritage, and that heritage became a subject which could reunite the country. Former Union Army General U. S. Grant occupied the White House after the war, and he presided over the centenary of the nation in 1876.
By the end of the Civil War, the Revolutionary War generation had become extinct. There were few Americans left alive who had personally looked upon such figures as George Washington and Nathaniel Greene. There was no one who could describe how they spoke. Americans had to face the fact that the United States had a history, and it was incumbent upon them to record it or lose it. As the nation approached 1876, each county was urged to write its history. Because most counties lacked someone with the skills of preparing their histories, private companies such as Goodspeed’s of Boston and Lewis Publishing Company of Chicago assembled staffs to write the county histories of the nation for a fee. They were meeting a need, providing a service, and hoping to earn a profit.
They took as their motto the great historian Macaulay’s quotation, “The history of a country is best told in a record of the lives of its people.” The publishers prepared mini-biographical sketches of the inhabitants of counties. If a prospective biographee agreed to purchase a copy, he would be included. If he were an avid supporter of the venture, the publishers would also include a copper plate engraving of his likeness for an additional fee. For even more money, his wife could be likewise featured. These images caused the publications to be dubbed “mug” books.
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For more information about subscribing to the Plus Edition of Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter, visit http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/plusedition.html. | <urn:uuid:8dc386c4-2a67-48e3-a031-c25bc2717c3c> | {
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Psychologists sometimes call the drenal glands the emergency centers of the body. As you can see above they sit just above the kidneys and produce adrenaline and cortisol. As you've probably experienced, adrenaline boosts energy production while still trying to conserve as much energy as possible while your muscles are busy smacking your friend for scaring you. Adrenaline actually does more than you would think.
-contraction of our heart muscle and constriction of our blood vessel to provide more blood to the body
-opening the tiny airways to the lungs to allow inhalation of more air
-breakdown of fat into glucose to energize our muscles
-opens the pupils (dilates) of our eyes to enable better sight during emergencies!
All of this together allows people to perform amazing acts of heroism in crisis situations (but are still constrained by physical limitations obviously). One mother was filled with adrenaline when her child was trapped under a heavy car, enough even to lift the end of the car some say up to four inches off the ground!
This shows how impressive the human body is and how it deals with intense situations. | <urn:uuid:d3a81ba6-3f4c-43ce-9aee-ce381f66d5b3> | {
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The Bickersons Battle Over Alpha
Meet Betty and Bart Bickerson, husband and wife quality analysts who work at different companies.
Betty and Bart argue about everything. They argue whether grey is a color. They argue whether tomato is a fruit. They argue whether the chicken came before the egg, and whether the egg tastes better fried, scrambled, or poached.
But their relationship didn’t get really rocky until they started to argue about what alpha level, also called the significance level, to use for a hypothesis test.
Note: The alpha level is the criterion against which you compare the p-value to determine whether a difference is statistically significant. The alpha level option for the 2-sample t test in the Minitab Assistant is shown below:
The Alpha Level: How Low Do You Go?
Listen in as Betty and Bart squabble over what alpha level to use when comparing the mean before and after a process change.
BART:"Well, Betty, I think I’m going to raise the alpha level for the test. Kick it up a notch from 0.05 to 0.10."
BETTY: "That’s funny, Bart. If anything, I was going to lower it a notch--down to 0.01. Why would you ever want to raise the level of risk?"
BART: "I want to boost the power of the test to detect a difference. If I use a higher alpha, I can be more certain I’m going to find a significant difference between the process means, if it’s really there."
BETTY: "But if you raise alpha, you’re also going to be less certain that any significant shift in the process mean that you find is really true—and not just a statistical fluke—a random error. You'll increase the risk of 'false-positives.'"
BART: "But Betty, by lowering alpha, you’ll increase the risk of 'false-negatives.' The last thing I want is to miss a possible effect on the process mean. Even after I raise alpha to 0.1, the risk of falsely finding a significant result will only be 10%."
BETTY: “Well, Bart, I don’t want to mistakenly conclude there’s a significant process change when there’s really not. That’s worse in my book."
Betty straightened her posture and adjusted the “Quality Counts” button on her lapel.
BETTY: “And if I find a significant difference, I’ll be 99% confident in my results—you’ll only be 90% confident.”
BART: “You don’t need to be sooo worried about reporting a significant effect that’s not there. ”
BETTY:“And you don’t need to be sooooooo paranoid about missing a significant effect.”
BART: “I’m not paranoid, you’re paranoid.”
BETTY: “Well at least I don’t snore like a leaf blower stuck in full throttle.”
BART: “And at least I don’t crack my toes in bed.”
Can Statistical Therapy Save this Relationship?
It was time for Betty and Bart to see a statistical therapist. After years of data analysis, Dr. Sigma Freud fully understood what constituted normality--and what didn't.
Dr. Freud listened patiently to Betty and Bart spar over the alpha level. After they had temporarily run out of lung capacity, she turned to Betty.
DR. FREUD: "Your fear of incorrectly concluding that a result is significant, when it’s really not, is completely justified. In fact, we have a special name for that faux pas in statistics, it’s called a Type 1 error."
Betty smiled and tried not to look too smug.
DR. FREUD: "And just as you say, Betty, you can reduce the chance of making a Type I error by lowering the alpha level for a hypothesis test."
Dr. Freud turned to Bart.
DR. FREUD: "And Bart, your concern is completely valid as well. If a hypothesis test does not reveal a significant difference, but a difference does indeed exist, we call that a Type II error. And one way to help guard against it is to raise the alpha level."
Was it Betty’s imagination, or was Bart’s normally concave chest starting to puff up a bit?
DR. FREUD: "So both of your concerns are valid. This push-pull dynamic of risk is a natural part of any healthy statistical relationship. What we need do is to find a way to balance those competing risks."
BETTY: "How can do we do that?"
DR. FREUD: “You know, what about just going with the default alpha level of 0.05? That’s what most couples would do. You'd be 95% confident that any shift in the process mean that you find is real.”
BETTY: “Hmmm. Sometimes I do wish we’d never clicked the arrow to see the options for alpha. Life was simpler.”
Bart shook his head.
BART: “Too many things have been said. We can’t go back now.”
Why Two Rights Don't Make a Wrong
DR. FREUD: “OK. Let’s take a step back and delve a little deeper. Why don’t you both tell me more about the projects you’re working on. Betty, let's start with you.”
BETTY: "I work for a medical device company. We've developed a new implant device for patients. We're excited because it might really improve patient outcomes. But it's more costly than the current device. Before we put it into production, we want to be doubly sure that the difference in patient outcomes is really there."
DR. FREUD: "So if you find a difference in outcomes--specifically, an improved outcome with the new device--and that difference really doesn't exist, the consequences could be very severe."
BETTY: "Absolutely. If the new device doesn't improve outcomes, and we don't realize it, we'd waste a lot of money producing it. Patients would also have to pay more for something that didn't really offer a real improvement over the current implant device."
DR. FREUD: "Well Betty, in your case, the consequences of a Type I error are more severe than a Type II error. So you're doing exactly what you should be by lowering the alpha level. Now, Bart, what about you?"
BART:"I work in an automotive plant. One of our parts suppliers has been raising prices. We want to switch to another supplier that offers the same part at a lower price. But before we do that we need to compare key dimensions of the part to make sure there's no difference. We don't want to sacrifice quality for reduced cost."
DR. FREUD: "So if you don't find a difference in the dimensions in the part between the two suppliers, and a difference really does exist, the consequences could be very severe."
BART: "Absolutely. If the dimensions are off, and we don't realize it, we could lose a lot of money with increased scrap rates. Overall product quality could also drop, and we might lose customers."
DR. FREUD: "Well Bart, in your case, the consequences of a Type II error seem to be more severe than a Type I error. So you're doing exactly what you should be by raising the alpha level."
BETTY/BART (together): "You mean we're both right?!"
DR. FREUD: "Absolutely! Now how about a little hug?"
The Bickersons embraced, overjoyed at finally understanding the alpha level.
BETTY: “I’m so glad I suggested coming here!”
BART: “Me, too! But, actually, didn't I suggest coming here?”
BETTY: “No, Bart, I’m sure it was my idea.”
BART: “Au contraire, Betty..."
Moral of the Story
Most of the time, you can leave the default alpha level (0.05) alone. Unless you’re in a situation like Betty or Bart.
If you need statistical therapy, check out the Minitab Assistant (open Minitab and choose Assistant). It’s like having a statistical therapist built right into the analysis itself.
If you'd prefer a real, live statistical therapist to personally help you design or analyze your quality improvement project, check out Mentoring by Minitab trainers.
Kangaroo photo by Pascal Vuylskeker and dedicated to Greg Fox, our blogger at-large in Sydney. | <urn:uuid:c84b462d-e54e-44d4-aa78-a25e485dab0c> | {
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Model T car by Henry Ford was a revolution, often called the TIN LIZZIE it put America on wheels in 1908. The Model T car was the first affordable car ever made and it democratized automobile ownership around the world. The Model T car creation led to the invention of suburbs, motels, drive-throughs, drive-ins and a long list of other Model T car pop culture phenomena.
MODEL T CAR
THE MODEL T Car painting DAWN OF A NEW DAY by artist James lumbers was inspired while he was walking through the grassy wooded field and found an abandoned old Model T car.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE MODEL T PAINTING
Model T Car Sketches
Back at the studio, James Lumbers was feeling passionately inspired by the abandoned decaying Model T car. James Lumbers penciled an idea of the Model T car on paper and then proceeded to paint some colour into the Model T car image. The first Model T car sketch and the first model T car color sketch can be seen below.
The Model T Car – 12 Steps To The DAWN OF A NEW DAY Model T Painting
The Model T car painting took several months to develop the idea of the abandoned Model T with the past & present concept that Canadian artist James Lumbers is renowed for all over the world. This past & present concept is known by James Lumbers’ enthusiasts & art collectors as “Moments In Time Painting Collections”. James Lumbers worked on this concept for the old Model T car found in an overgrown trail in the woods in his studio in Florida. Armed with his Model T car pencil sketch & Model T automobile colored image he further developed the DAWN OF A NEW DAY Model T car painting. Below his a 12 step process showing the evolution and a detailed progression of the Model t car painting.
MODEL T CAR PAINTING – DAWN OF A NEW DAY ORIGINAL PAINTING
This original Model T car painting DAWN OF A NEW DAY by James Lumbers along with the original Model T car pencil sketch & Model T car color sketch is part of a privately held collection that his valued at over $30,000.
For those Model T car enthusiasts & James Lumbers art collectors the Ford Model T car original painting has been made available as limited collector edition giclee prints for an affordable price ranging from $285, $342 & $1200 depending if you would like a Paper Giclee Print , or Artist Proofs(APs) Paper Giclee Print or Canvas Giclee Print.
Once the limited edition collection is sold out the only place you will be able to attain this Model T car painting(DAWN OF A NEW DAY) will be in the secondary art market. The price in the secondary art market may be higher depending on the popularity and demand of the Model T automobile painting. Traditionally, James Lumbers artwork are highly sought after in the secondary art market and are sold at a high premium.
MODEL T CAR GICLEE PRINTS – ABOUT THE PUBLISHER – MIROARTS PUBLISHING INC.
Miroarts Publishing Inc whom is the exclusive publisher & distributor of James Lumbers artwork has reproduced the original Ford model T car painting(DAWN OF A NEW DAY) into limited editions of high quality Model T car paper giclee prints & Model T automobile canvas giclee prints.
The limited edition collections are small – 350 signed & numbered Model T car paper giclee prints, 35 signed & numbered Artist Proofs(APs) Model T automobile Paper Giclee prints and 50 signed & numbered Model T car Canvas Giclee Prints.
All Ford Model T automobile paper & canvas giclees are signed & numbered by James Lumbers.
A Certificate of Authenticity is supplied with each reproduction by Miroarts Publishing Inc. to assure the authenticity of the Ford Model T car giclee print.
Model T car enthusiasts & James Lumbers art collectors can purchase the Ford Model T painting(DAWN OF A NEW DAY) online at www.MiroArts.com | <urn:uuid:a4e009df-ee4a-4bcc-bd14-89dbc0f243cb> | {
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Walk through the streets of the average Portuguese village during the day and you may wonder if the place has been abandoned. In the intense summer heat it seems most people shelter away from the sun inside the white-washed walls of their homes until the early evening, when the main square becomes a hive of social activity.
Wander into the tiny village of Luz on the banks of the Alqueva Lake in the Alentejo region of Portugal and the daytime emptiness hides a rather unique story. The modern houses give a clue that there’s something different about this village, but its real secrets (and many generations of history) can never again be discovered by taking a simple stroll. The reason for this eternal mystery is found in the lake; it is here that the old village lies submerged, flooded by the waters of Europe’s largest man-made lake less than 10 years ago.
When the reservoir was planned the government faced a tough decision. The old village of Luz was below the proposed water-line of the planned reservoir, but the benefits that the project would bring were such that the village could not be spared. Would they relocate people to the nearest town? Perhaps disperse the 300-odd residents around the local villages? After consultation with the villagers the authorities undertook what is considered to be a unique resettlement plan: they rebuilt Luz a couple of kilometres away on higher ground.
Those who had a house would get another, with the same amount of land. People would live next to their old neighbours where possible, although the road layout was modernised. And the church, the social hub of the village for generations, would be rebuilt with the important relics moved across to the new structure. Even the cemetery would be relocated, a traumatic process for many people and one that needed to be carried out with the utmost sensitivity.
People moved into the new Luz in November 2002 and the old buildings were destroyed before the waters of the lake claimed them forever. You can follow the line of a road to the south of the village as it drops into lake, emerging in the distance – a visible sign that things were not always as they now appear.
Thankfully the memories of old Luz, and of the whole process of moving a village, were captured on film and can be seen at the excellent museum at the edge of the village. The museum contains ethnographic exhibits from traditional life in Luz, but without doubt the highlight is the film that follows a dozen or so villagers as they prepare for the move, say goodbye to their old homes and move reluctantly to the new village. It is a film that is guaranteed to tug at the heartstrings, as it captures perfectly the emotions and losses faced by people whose families had owned those homes for hundreds of years. One old man laughs with sadness when he is told that the authorities will replace his fruit trees by planting new ones: “What’s the use? I wouldn’t be here to pick the fruit!” A schoolgirl, wise beyond her years, observes that “Everything happened at once so that it would seem nothing had changed.”
You can visit the Museu Da Luz while renting a houseboat on the Alqueva lake. There’s a marina around 1km from the village. Alternatively Luz is easy to reach by car, being only 5km from Mourao and around an hour’s drive from Evora. The museum is closed on Mondays. | <urn:uuid:95bb3335-604b-4191-8596-10cb1e7e69ec> | {
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On May 7-9, the CDC Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity, hosted a conference on Weight of the Nation™ in Washington, D.C. The conference served to highlight progress in the prevention and control of obesity through policy and environmental strategies. The Weight of the Nation is also the title of an HBO Documentary Films and Institute of Medicine (IOM) film series that premieres May 14 and 15.
HBO’s The Weight of the Nation website explains that each of the four films in the series will feature “case studies, interviews with our nation’s leading experts, and individuals and their families struggling with obesity.” The first film examines the scope of the obesity epidemic and explores the serious health consequences of being overweight or obese. The second discusses what science has shown about how to lose weight, maintain weight loss and prevent weight gain; the third focuses on obesity in children. The fourth film, titled Challenges, offers a systems perspective on the combined effects of the major driving forces causing the obesity epidemic. These include complex social and environmental factors—such as agriculture, economics, and food marketing; cultural and behavioral factors—such as American food culture and physical inactivity; and evolutionary biology.
Any explanation of the obesity epidemic has to consider both genetics and the environment. One explanation that is often cited is the mismatch between today’s environment and “energy-thrifty genes” that emerged in the distant past, when food sources were unpredictable. Current research on genetic variation that affects response to changes in diet and physical activity is still at an early stage. An updated feature on obesity and genetics is available from CDC’s Office of Public Health Genomics, along with a new page summarizing some genetic research findings related to obesity. | <urn:uuid:0f81392d-9aad-4819-ba94-b82e145b9dac> | {
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On this day in 1836, the City of Davenport was platted and named.
In order to understand the weight of history behind that simple sentence, one would have to look back at least to the treaty, signed on September 21, 1832, that ended the Black Hawk War and sold the land west of the Mississippi River to the United States government.
Chief Keokuk, considered by the United States to be the official leader of the Sac-Fox tribes, presented several acres on the bank of the Mississippi to Marguerite LeClaire, who was the granddaughter of Acoqua, a Sac chief, and wife to Antoine LeClaire, a government translator who assisted with the treaty. A condition of this gift was that the LeClaires build their home on the exact spot where General Scott signed the treaty. In the spring of 1833, Antoine built a log cabin on the site, later replacing it with a small clapboard house.
According to historian Franc Wilkie,* two other men had a prior claim to the gifted land. Forestalling a challenge, Antoine bought this quarter section from “Dr. Spencer and Mr. McCloud” for the boggling price (at the time) of “one hundred and fifty dollars!“ Mr. Wilkie went on to comment that “A splendid illustration is the sale of the immense fortunes made in the West by . . . judicious investment.”
But Antoine had plans. In the fall of 1835, he formed a company to organize the establishment of a town near what had come to be called the Treaty House. Among these gentlemen were Col. George Davenport, Major Thomas Smith, Alexander McGregor, Levi S. Colton, Philip Hambaugh, and Captain James May.
The company decided on the specific location of the new town with an eye to drainage, water power, and freedom from mosquito-laden marshes. They paid Antoine $1,750 for this perfect site, in which he retained an eighth interest. It was decided to name the town after Col. George Davenport.** And on May 14 of the following year, Major Gordon, a stockholder in the company, surveyed and laid the town out in a pattern of 7 blocks by 6 blocks-between Front Street (now River Drive) to 6th Street, and from Warren Street on the east side to Harrison on the west.
Davenport has grown just a little since then, beginning with Antoine LeClaire’s First Addition in 1841, which added Main and Brady Streets to the west side. From 42 blocks to 62 square miles in a little under 175 years-not bad!
This 1841 plat map shows the Original Town of Davenport as laid out 5 years previously,
plus the 8 blocks of LeClaires 1st Addition on the east side.
* Mr. Wilkie’s Davenport Past and Present was published in 1858, only 22 years after the founding of Davenport. One might think a town that young wouldn’t have generated enough of a past to warrant an entire book—but Mr. Wilkie and we beg to differ.
**A decision which deserves a blog entry of its own.
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Manoj Nair of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has devised a new possible method of detecting a deadly tsuami long before the wave crests to dangerous heights. And, in a bit of good news, much of it is already in place.
In a new study in next month’s Earth, Planets, and Space, Nair modeled the massive 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean and found that a tsunami picking up steam as it moves across the ocean emits a tiny electromagnetic signature of of about 500 millivolts. That’s enough to have an effect on the communication cables that stretch across the ocean floor, carrying internet messages and phone calls. The electromagnetic signal “is very small compared to a 9-volt battery, but still large enough to be distinguished from background noise on a magnetically quiet day,” said Nair [Daily Camera].
Nair says this kind of system could be a lower-cost alternative to the bottom pressure arrays that directly measure large movements of water. “What we argue is that this is such a simple system to set up and start measuring,” Nair says. “We have a system of submarine cables already existing. The only thing we probably need is a voltmeter, in theory” [Wired.com].
Oleg Godin, one of Nair’s research partners, said any small improvement could make a huge difference. “If you detect tsunamis in the deep ocean — and that’s what we’re working on — meaning far from shore, you have hours, certainly tens of minutes, to warn people,” he said. “If people are well educated, a 15-minute warning is enough to save everybody” [Daily Camera].
80beats: South Pacific Tsunami Kills More than 100 People
80beats: Geologists Find One Cataclysmic Tsunami in Every 600 Years of Thai Dirt
80beats: Haiti Earthquake May Have Released 250 Years of Seismic Stress
Image: flickr / epugachev | <urn:uuid:d92d22cd-5a95-40a9-8916-07fba0df37b8> | {
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The Lake Tahoe area on the California-Nevada border can be appreciated from a variety of perspectives: Some people focus on the stunningly beautiful alpine lake nestled in the Sierra Nevada range, while others see it as a mecca for skiers and winter sports enthusiasts. When climate scientists look around, though, they see change. Two recent studies suggest that global warming is already altering that beloved ecosystem.
The first report (pdf), produced by researchers at the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center, predicts that snowpack melts over the next century will have a drastic impact on both winter tourism and the water supply.
The average snowpack in the northern Sierra Nevada mountains that ring the lake on the California-Nevada border will decline by 40 to 60 percent by 2100 “under the most optimistic projections,” says the report from three researchers at the University of California, Davis.
Under less optimistic models, the melt-off could be accelerated. By the end of the century, precipitation in the region “could be all rain and no snow,” and peak snowmelt in the Upper Truckee River — which is the largest tributary flowing into Lake Tahoe — could occur four to six weeks earlier by 2100, the report says. [New York Times]
The changes to the region’s hydrology could lead to new problems with runoff, erosion, and overflowing stormwater basins. While the researchers note that there is always some uncertainty when predicting far into the future, they also point out that the computer models they used are based on 100 years of data describing the changes in temperature and precipitation that have already occurred in the Tahoe area.
The second study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, used infrared (heat) measurements from satellites to examine the changes to the planet’s lakes.
Two NASA scientists used satellite data to look at 104 large inland lakes around the world. They found that on average they have warmed 2 degrees [Celsius] since 1985. That’s about two-and-a-half times the increase in global temperatures in the same time period. [AP]
Lakes in the the Northern Hemisphere’s mid and upper latitudes showed the most warming. That includes Lake Tahoe, which has heated up by 3 degrees Celsius since 1985, putting it behind only Russia’s Lake Ladoga.
80beats: Water Maps Show Stress Spread Out Across the Planet
80beats: Water Woes: The Southwest’s Supply Dwindles; China’s Behemoth Plumbing Project Goes On
80beats: Arctic Report Card: Warm Weather and Melted Ice Are the New Normal
80beats: Aral Sea Shows Signs of Recovery, While the Dead Sea Needs a Lifeline
DISCOVER: 20 Things You Didn’t Know About… Water
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Remixing Melville: Moby Dick Meets the Digital Generation
In a traditional English class, a teacher might assign Herman Melville’s famous novel Moby Dick in small chunks. Students might complete their reading (or not), discuss major themes and perhaps write an essay at the end of the unit. But if a student never gets past the first few pages, the rest of that unit is lost.
It’s become a common refrain that traditional education isn’t serving a generation of students whose lives outside of school are completely disconnected from what happens inside. But there are plenty of teachers working hard to make reading material relevant to students, including a team of researchers from University of Southern California Annenberg’s Innovation Lab that includes Henry Jenkins and Erin Reilly. They’ve created a model of what they call participatory learning that engages students with materials on a personal level, often by incorporating different types of media into the classroom and offering varying points of entry to a text. Most recently, the team has put together a teacher’s strategy guide, Reading in a Participatory Culture: Remixing Moby-Dick in the English, Classroom and an interactive digital book, Flows of Reading, to provide models of their approach.
Moby Dick is a notoriously difficult book. “This book defeated me as an Advanced Placement kid,” Henry Jenkins said. He remembers hating the book, gritting his teeth to get through it and writing the worst essay of his high school career. That’s why he was so impressed by the work of the playwright Ricardo Pitts-Wiley who was teaching Moby Dick to incarcerated youth in Rhode Island, many of whom read below grade level.
Pitts-Wiley asked his students to reinterpret the novel in the context of their own lives. In their retelling Captain Ahab became a powerful drug dealer trying to avenge the death of his loved ones. His drug crew is forced to decide how far they’ll go for their charismatic leader. Together with his students Pitts-Wiley turned their re-interpretation into a play: Moby Dick: Then and Now. The students understood the themes when placed into familiar context and related to the character’s struggles when the story was no longer placed in an era and industry unfamiliar to them.
[RELATED READING: How Can Teachers Prepare Kids for a Connected World?]
Pitts-Wiley’s work correlates strongly to the research Jenkins has been doing on weaving more varieties of media into the classroom in order to make the learning experience more participatory, creative, multidisciplinary, and therefore meaningful to students. He teamed up with Wyn Kelley a Melville scholar from MIT, and a team of educational experts to design a curriculum around Moby Dick that would build in remixing, reinterpretation, and multimedia elements. They tested their new curriculum in six different schools.
“We want to raise a generation of kids who have a mouse in one hand and a book in the other,” said Jenkins. To do that the curriculum focuses on Melville as a master mash-up artist of 19th century culture; his book includes Shakespeare plays, the Bible, whaling culture and more. From there, the door is open for classes to discuss how remixed elements are allusions and what happens to a text when an author incorporates the work of others.
“Culture matters, history matters, the goal is to foster old fashioned close reading,” Jenkins said. A typical assignment might ask students to take one page of Moby Dick, highlight words they don’t know, define terms, draw pictures and share with one another. The idea is to focus closely in order to incite curiosity about the whole. And to let students creatively express their opinions and thoughts about the book, hopefully with a better understanding of what their own remixing might add to the broader cultural body of work around Moby Dick.
If this sounds a little messy and confusing – it is. That was the feedback teachers gave Jenkins’ team when they piloted these participatory learning strategies in the classroom. Teacher’s felt uncertain whether learning was taking place in this non-linear style. One teacher came to realize that if a student could get a purchase on the text anywhere, they understood how much more there is to learn about the book.
“That’s a different kind of learning outcome than we usually get when we convince people they’ve exhausted a book, that they’ve gotten it, when they’ve only touched it superficially,” Jenkins said. He sees the goal as both teaching something about Moby Dick in the moment as well as fostering a community of readers who know that reading Melville in high school English doesn’t mean they’ve conquered it.
[RELATED READING: How Do We Define and Measure 'Deeper Learning'?]
“We may be romanticizing what people got out of Moby Dick in the traditional classroom,” Jenkins said. “This is just taking ownership over that and allowing students to pursue their passion and interests.” Piloting this curriculum Jenkins’ team found that it worked less effectively when teachers used it more traditionally. “The closer we got to traditional school, the more they shut down,” Jenkins said. “No curriculum is idiot proof. You have to get teachers who understand the participatory mindset.”
The other part of the project, Flows of Reading, helps encourage participation around literature and models an expanded approach to literacy and the reading and writing that make up the discipline. The digital book allows readers to follow hyperlinks, enjoy embedded video content, and add to an online space for related work. It broadens the model beyond Moby Dick and applies it to reading at all age levels from a wordless picture book to the Hunger Games and Lord of the Rings. It offers four pathways or ways to view a text.
MOTIVES FOR READING
This pathway and assorted material address the idea that people read various kinds of textual content for all kinds of reasons. Reading a website may be different from reading a book, but they both require literacy and are appropriate at different points. This pathway explores how seemingly different kinds of reading might be more akin than they seem.
ADAPTATION AND REMIXING
While the book encourages students to elaborate and create material based on parts of a text that speak to them, this section also discusses appropriate and respectful adaptation and remixing. It brings in the ethics of attribution and fair use.
NEGOTIATING CULTURAL SPACES
This pathway discusses the various identities that each person brings to reading whether it is gender, ethnicity, specific experiences or anything else that shapes the reading process.
CONTINUITIES AND SPACES
These are “the spaces where your imagination can go wild,” said Erin Reilly, who led the effort to create Flows. This pathway explores how to creatively share stories and layer upon the original.
Throughout the research and implementation of this project Jenkins and Reilly knew they’d need to think about assessment. They brought in Dan Hickey from Indiana University to help develop assessments that are immediate and happen as part of the learning process. The state standards are a minimum, Reilly and Jenkins maintain should be easy to reach if students are engaged. They insist that learning activities should be open and free — a space for creativity; the reflection on that activity and how it ties back to the text is an area for worthwhile assessment. | <urn:uuid:efc27b01-c282-48f6-871e-447dc270b163> | {
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Last Wednesday the National Academy of Sciences held a press conference in Washington, DC, to introduce its newly completed report on priorities for the coming decade in solar and space physics. Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado chaired the committee that wrote the report. Thomas Zurbuchen of the University of Michigan was the vice chair. Together, they summarized the report’s highlights for the assembled reporters, scientists, and bureaucrats.
Like its counterparts in astronomy and planetary science, the latest solar and space physics decadal survey is more than just a shopping list of missions and facilities. Its authors begin by defining their field in a broad and inspiring way:
We live on a planet whose orbit traverses the tenuous outer atmosphere of a variable magnetic star, the Sun. This stellar atmosphere is a rapidly flowing plasma—the solar wind—that envelops Earth as it rushes outward, creating a cavity in the galaxy that extends to some 140 astronomical units (AU). There, the inward pressure from the interstellar medium balances the outward pressure of the solar plasma forming the heliopause, the boundary of our home in the universe. Earth and the other planets of our solar system are embedded deep in this extended stellar atmosphere or “heliosphere,” the domain of solar and space physics.
The report goes on to review past and present accomplishments in solar and space physics before defining the four overarching goals that guided the committee members as they drew up their final recommendations:
- Determine the origins of the Sun’s activity and predict the variations in the space environment.
- Determine the dynamics and coupling of Earth’s magnetosphere, ionosphere, and atmosphere and their response to solar and terrestrial inputs.
- Determine the interaction of the Sun with the solar system and the interstellar medium.
- Discover and characterize fundamental processes that occur both within the heliosphere and throughout the universe.
As I listened to Baker and Zurbuchen’s presentation, it became clear that two other overarching considerations informed the report. The first is a conceptual emphasis on viewing Earth’s aurorae, the solar wind, coronal mass ejections, and other heliospheric phenomena as part of a single system. It will be interesting to see whether this systemic view becomes manifest in journals, conferences, and courses. I, for one, have tended to think of solar physics as belonging more to astronomy than to heliospheric physics.
The second consideration is a realistic and—to use Baker’s word—responsible approach to costs. The committee retained Aerospace Corp, a nonprofit consultancy based in El Segundo, California, to carry out an independent cost appraisal and technical evaluation (CATE) of potential missions. For the most part, the total cost of the committee’s recommended suite of programs lies within the budget envelope that NASA provided the committee for the years 2013–22.
Physicists who remember chuckling when they first encountered the zeroth law of thermodynamics might be amused to learn that the committee’s first recommendation is also numbered zero—for good reason. As NASA and NSF, the other principal sponsor of heliospheric research, look to future missions and facilities, the committee recommends that they first complete their current program.
Among the lineup is Solar Probe Plus (shown here in an artist’s impression). The ambitious mission, whose price tag is $1.4 billion, aims to fly as close as possible to the Sun to determine how the solar corona is heated and how the solar wind is accelerated.
Diversify, realize, integrate, venture, educate
The committee’s second recommendation, numbered 1.0, is to implement an initiative that goes by the acronym DRIVE (for “diversify, realize, integrate, venture, educate”). As far as I can tell, DRIVE aims to reorganize and reinvigorate the way researchers and their students practice heliospheric science.
Surprisingly, given its high priority, DRIVE is not expensive. The committee projects that the initiative will cost at most about $50 million a year. To fulfill the goals embodied by its name, DRIVE seeks to make research opportunities more accessible to universities through small and mid-sized missions, including the shoebox-sized spacecraft called CubeSats.
Funding the analysis and interpretation of data adequately is a key element of DRIVE, as is fostering interdisciplinary approaches to heliospheric research. Indeed, the committee urges NASA and NSF to establish heliospheric science centers, where observers, theorists, and modelers can work together to solve the grand challenges of solar and space physics.
When Baker and Zurbuchen introduced DRIVE, it sounded somewhat woolly to me. Now, having read the DRIVE section of the report, I think it’s a bold and worthwhile model that could be profitably emulated in other fields, such as green energy or neuroscience. But to be effective, DRIVE will probably need a light administrative structure.
Accelerate and expand the Heliophysics Explorer program!
Recommendation 2.0 seeks to revitalize NASA’s Explorer program of modestly sized and priced spacecraft. Begun in 1958, the program, according to the committee, is “arguably the most storied scientific spaceflight program in NASA’s history.” Despite its success, which includes three Nobel prizes, funding for the Explorer program fell in 2004 and has languished since. To quote the report:
The medium-class (MIDEX) and small-class (SMEX) missions of the Explorer program are ideally suited to advancing heliophysics science and have a superb track record for cost-effectiveness. Since 2001, 15 heliophysics Explorer mission proposals have received the highest category of ranking in competition selection reviews, but only 5 have been selected for flight. Thus there is an extensive reservoir of excellent heliophysics science to be accomplished by Explorers.
Because MIDEX and SMEX missions are comparatively cheap, developing and launching more of them would not require a big outlay. The committee recommends that NASA augment the current Explorer program for solar and space physics by $70 million per year.
In addition to more money for the Explorer program, the committee also recommends establishing a faster, more nimble way of accommodating missions of opportunity—that is, missions that are conceived in response to new technologies, new scientific knowledge, or new partnership opportunities with other space agencies.
NASA: Let academia lead space science
Perhaps by coincidence, a commentary by Baker appeared in Nature two weeks before his committee released its report. Entitled “NASA: Let academia lead space science,” the commentary urged the space agency to fund more missions that are small enough in scope that university-based principal investigators (PIs) can develop and lead them.
Whether Baker’s fellow committee members endorsed his commentary is not clear. They do, however, evidently share his belief in the merits of PI-led missions. Recommendation 3.0 calls for NASA to transform its Solar Terrestrial Probes program from a large, centrally directed program to “a moderate-sized, competed, PI-led mission line that is cost-capped at approximately $520-million per mission.”
The STP program aims to elucidate the physics of the Sun’s influence on Earth, on the other bodies in the solar system, and on the interstellar medium. To avoid the risk that a competitive free-for-all would omit important aspects of STP science, the committee outlined three kinds of missions that it would like to see fly:
- IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) to characterize the zone where the Sun’s magnetohydrodynamic influence ceases to prevail in the solar neighborhood.
- DYNAMIC (Dynamical Neutral Atmosphere) to study how Earth’s ionosphere and thermosphere influence, and are influenced by, processes that occur at lower and higher altitudes.
- MEDICI (Magnetosphere Energetics, Dynamics, and Ionospheric Coupling) to determine how the magnetosphere-ionosphere-thermosphere system responds to solar and magnetospheric forcing.
The committee’s enthusiasm for modest missions is not unbridled, however. In the committee’s view, tackling the problem of how and why the Sun varies is a job for large, integrated missions. NASA’s Living with a Star program already includes the Solar Probe Plus and the Radiation Belt Storm Probes missions. Recommendation 4.0 is for Geospace Dynamics Constellation, a set of six formation-flying spacecraft that will characterize how the energy of geomagnetic storms is deposited and transformed in Earth’s atmosphere.
Recharter the National Space Weather Program
In March 1989 a geomagnetic storm caused the collapse of Hydro-Québec’s electricity grid. Five months later another geomagnetic storm shut down electronic trading on Toronto’s stock exchange.
Anticipating such storms—or space weather—and predicting their effects is more important, now that the world’s electrical infrastructure has expanded, the number of Earth-orbiting satellites has increased, and telecommunications have become economically and socially more important.
The current solar cycle, the 24th since records began in 1755, is set to peak next year. To monitor the cycle’s activity, the US relies on a set of spacecraft, such as the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, whose principal purpose is basic research and whose engineering lifetimes are coming to an end.
To avoid gaps in coverage, the committee recommends that NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Department of Defense should plan ahead and plan together. Of particular importance, the committee says, is maintaining a permanent monitoring capability at L1, the first Lagrange point of the Sun–Earth system. Lying between the two bodies 1.5 million km from Earth, L1 is an ideal vantage for tracking solar activity.
The US has a comprehensive plan, the National Space Weather Program, for dealing with space weather. The trouble is, as the committee puts it, “implementation of such a program would require funding well above what the survey committee assumes to be currently available.” Accordingly, the committee recommends that the NSWP
should be rechartered under the auspices of the National Science and Technology Council and should include the active participation of the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Office of Management and Budget. The plan should build on current agency efforts, leverage the new capabilities and knowledge that will arise from implementation of the programs recommended in this report, and develop additional capabilities, on the ground and in space, that are specifically tailored to space weather monitoring and prediction.
I haven’t read all 455 pages of the committee’s report. In venturing to summarize it, I have no doubt missed some important points and emphases. But what I have read has impressed me. Here is a plan to study the heliosphere as a system in a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, and cost-effective way. I hope its recommendations are heeded. | <urn:uuid:dfeab920-d146-490d-b528-0a5dc3071873> | {
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Ancient Roman proverbs can certaintly be confusing, but they are certainly rich in meaning. Here are some of my favorite proverbs :
adversus solem ne loquitor literally means, “do not speak against the sun. It’s used when someone is arguing or advocating something that is obviously and blatantly wrong. Since the sun is guaranteed to exist forever (assuming that a geologic catastrophe doesn’t occur), the proverb is saying that one shouldn’t argue against something that is so likely as the sun’s existence.
ignis aurum probat literally means, “the fire tests the gold”. When ancient Roman blacksmiths refined gold, they would do so in a hot fire. Therefore this phrase is used when someone’s character is being “refined” by adversity.
aquila non capit muscas means the eagle does not catch flies. In ancient Rome, eagles were considered majestic animals. Conversely, flies were considered insignificant and a nuisance. Therefore this proverb was used to imply that people of high rank (the eagle) won’t have the time or patience to deal with trifling matters (flies).
hic abundant leones means “here the lions abound”. The lions are a metaphor for the unknown, like uncharted territory. When the Ancient Romans were first starting to conquer other nations, some of the territories on their maps were labeled with this phrase.
auribus teneo lupum literally means, “I grasp a wolf by the ears”. It’s supposed to convey a situation where you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. In other words, grabbing on to the wolf’s ears or letting go could both end in disaster.
in cauda venenum which means, “poison in the tail” is a metaphor of a scorpion sting. This phrase is used when a situation starts without a hitch and becomes deadly in the end.
una hirundo non facit ver means, “one swallow does not make a summer”. In Ancient Rome, swallows were considered good fortune. Therefore it means that one good outcome (or swallow) doesn’t guarantee that a situation will be successful in every single instance. | <urn:uuid:b3d451a5-ce00-48fd-b9f8-85e2ff7b824f> | {
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An epic spanning more than half a century of Taiwan's history, this breathtaking historical novel traces the fortunes of the Pengs, a family of Hakka Chinese settlers, across three generations from the 1890s, just before Taiwan was ceded to Japan as a result of the Sino-Japanese war, through World War II. Li Qiao brilliantly re-creates the dramatic world of these pioneers -- and the colonization of Taiwan itself -- exploring their relationships with the aboriginal peoples of Taiwan and their struggle to establish their own ethnic and political identities.
This carefully researched work of fiction draws upon Li's own experiences and family history, as well as oral and written histories of the era. Originally published in Chinese as a trilogy, this newly translated edition is an abridgement for English-speaking readers and marks the work's first appearance in the English-speaking world. It was well-received in Taiwan as an honest -- and influential -- recreation of Taiwan's history before the relocation of the Republic of China from the mainland to Taiwan.
Because Li's saga is so deeply imbued with the unique culture and complex history of Taiwan, an introduction explaining the cultural and historical background of the novel is included to help orient the reader to this amazingly rich cultural context. This informative introduction and the sweeping saga of the novel itself together provide an important view of Taiwan's little known colonial experience. | <urn:uuid:b6315840-8173-48db-a692-dbd3adfed234> | {
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Climate Action for Nature
"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."
- Charles Darwin
ECCo scientists recognize that climate change has the potential to jeopardize much of the regional conservation and restoration work that has been done over the past 30 years. As a member of Chicago Wilderness (CW), an alliance of over 250 organizations dedicated to restoring biodiversity in the region, the team helped to develop and launch the CW Climate Action Plan for Nature (CAPN) in 2010. This Plan specifically addresses climate change impacts to the natural communities spanning across a four-state region and represents an ecosystem-based approach to responding to climate change. The CAPN complements the Chicago Climate Action Plan, focused on human health and the built and natural environments within the City of Chicago, and ECCo ecologists work collaboratively with Chicago's Department of Environment on urban ecosystem adaptation strategies.
The team serves on the CW Climate Change Task Force and is leading several of the efforts to implement the CAPN, including developing Climate Clinics aimed at building the capacity of CW members to put the Plan's actions into practice. In Spring 2011 ECCo ecologists completed a revision of CW's Biodiversity Recovery Plan, a road map to restoration and management in the region, that incorporates climate change impacts to biodiversity. These “climate-smart” management practices are intended to not only protect current conservation investments, but also increase the likelihood natural resources can continue to provide the ecological services both human and natural communities rely upon as the environment continues to shift.
To subscribe to the bi-monthly Chicago Wilderness
Learn more about ECCo's work Engaging Chicago Communities in Climate Action | <urn:uuid:d4a62a0b-82b9-44ee-bcbf-5980863b4df5> | {
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Should you choose to learn BSL using Makaton principles, the vocabulary stages are as follows:
Mum, Dad, Brother, Sister, Drink, Drink of Water, Biscuit, Dinner x2, Food, Toilet, Bed, Chair, Table, Washbasin, Bath, Shower, House, Home, Car, Bus, I, Me, You, Where, What, Here, There, To Sleep, To Drink, To Eat x2, To Look, To See, To Stand, To Get Up, To Sit, To Wash x2, To Bath, To Shower, To Go, To Come x2, To Give x2, More, Good x2, OK, Bad, Please, Thank You, Hello, Good Morning, Goodbye.
Man, Lady, Boy, Girl, Baby, Bread, Butter, Egg, Chapatti, Dal, Rice, Yoghurt, Noodles, Milk, Tea, Coffee, Juice, Sugar, Cake, Jam, Ice Cream, Knife, To cut with Knife, Fork, Spoon, Plate, Cup, Door, Window x2, Fire, Radiator, TV, Lamp, Phone, To Phone, Dog, Cat, Bird, Tree, Flower, Book, Teddy, Doll, Bricks, Ball, And, Hot x2, Cold, Clean, Dirty.
Chocolate, Crisps, Sweet, Cigarette, Banana, Orange, Apple, Fish, Rabbit, Chicken, Horse, Cow, Pig, Sheep, Butterfly, Boat, Train, Plane, Bike, To Have, To Run, To Walk, To Kick, To Dig, To Ride, To Ride a Horse ,To Ride a Bike, To Swim, To Jump, To Jump Off, To Jump On, To Jump Over, To Climb x2, To Fall Off, To Fall Over, To Smoke, Big, Small, Little, Up, Down, My, Your, Mine, Yours, Sorry, Now.
Teacher, Boss, Friend, Children, Name, School, Work, Outside, Cupboard, Pen, Pencil, Paper, Scissors, Picture, Sand, Water, String, Paint, Key, Box x2, To Put, To Create, To Do, To Sew x2, To Cook x2, To Sing, To Play, To Know, To Think, To Work, To Read, To Write, To Draw, To Paint, To Colour, To Cut, To Teach, To Build x2, To Create, To Break, We x2, Us x2, They x2, Them x2, In x2, On, Under.
Nurse, Doctor, Milkman, Milkwoman, Postman, Postwoman, Policeman, Policewoman, Police Officer, Firefighter, Ambulanceman, Ambulancewoman, Shop, Supermarket, Road, Garden, Blaze, Postbox, Money, Bag, Letter, Stamp, Time, Watch, To Carry, To Throw, To Catch, To Stop, To Help x2, To Like, To Want, To Love, To Quarrel, Quick, Fast, Slow, Happy, Sad, Difficult, Easy, Hard, Soft, Strong, Heavy, Clever, Angry, Frightened, To Be Patient, Trouble, Mistake, But.
Country, Town, Sea, Cinema, Disco, Holiday, To Start, To End x2, To Bring, To Ask, To Talk, To Listen, To Hear, Can, To Forget, To Grow x2, Same, Different, New, Old, Beautiful, Smart, Nice, Kind, Our x2, Ours x2, Their x2, Theirs x2, Another, With, Who, Which, Colour, Black, Blue, Brown, Green, Orange, Red, White, Yellow.
1-10, How, How Much, How Many, How Old, Many, A Lot, Some, Few, Time, Hour, Today, Tomorrow, Yesterday, Next Week, Last Week, Next Year, Last Year, Long Time Ago, Saturday, Sunday, Night, Day, When, Always, Again, Late, Early, Before, After, Wages, To Buy, To Save, Careful, Expensive, Sun, Rain, Wind, Snow, Stars, Moon, Sky, Snowman.
To Choose, To Win, To Dance, To Find, To Understand, To Remember, Birthday, Party, Present, Balloon, Photo, Camera, Mirror, Radio, Newspaper, Video Camera, Video Tape, Video Recorder, Music, Stereo x2, Audio Tape, Cassette Player, CD, Computer, First, Last, Next, Over, Through, Near x2, Between, Lucky, Hungry, Thirsty, Worried, True, Why, Because.
Deaf, Blind, Communication Problem, Medicine, Tablet, Injection, Operation, Sick, Ill, Pain, Dead x2, Hearing Aid x2, Glasses, Wheelchair, How are you, People, Airman, Airwoman, Soldier, Sailor, King, Queen, Prince, Princess, Farmer, Clothes, To Dress, To Undress, Hairbrush, To Brush Hair, Comb, To Comb, Shaver, To Shave, Toothbrush, To Brush Teeth, Soap, Towel, Bacon, Bagel, Beer, Burger, Canned Drink, Cereal, Cheese, Chicken, Chips, Curry, Fish, Fruit, Meat, Naan, Pasta, Pie, Pitta, Pizza, Potato, Salad, Sandwich, Sausages, Soup, Tomato, Vegetables, Wine, Al Salam Alicoom, Namaste, Shalom, Room, Bedroom, Bathroom, Dining Room, Lounge, Kitchen, A, The, This, That, You x4, Your x2, Yours x2, To Open x17, To Close x17. | <urn:uuid:fdca5ca2-7b92-41c5-92c4-fed6fe7de470> | {
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What is Christian Ethics?
The article tries to define “what is precisely Christian ethics” by systematically drawing the general question, “what is ethics to conclude with a specific definition of a Christian ethics from a jungle of definitions. Christian Ethics is one of many ways of reflecting ethical values but is a very distinctive one, as it is determined by theological premises of Christian faith about a loving God.
Outline of Christian Ethics
A rough outline of Christian Ethics is: “Discipline of reflection and analysis that lies between Christian theology on one side and social science on the other, or simply put, between faith and the facts. Christian theology transmits faith –premises that validate its moral norms while sciences that study empirical human behaviour bring understanding of complex factors involving reasons of human nature and cultural situations surrounding the problem of choice and decision. Without sciences, Christian ethics become moralistic, unrealistic and irrelevant to problems in decision a person must make. Vise versa, without Christian ethics, any decision based on data of social sciences, the choices in actions become unprincipled, normless and anomic.
When a problem is encountered with above sketch it “is-ought” problem. “What is called the naturalistic fallacy is the flaw of believing that moral is “ought” is derived only from empirical “is.” For instance, a news poll of how women should dress is not a sole criterion for deciding how the women should behave in public. In Christian ethics moral “ought” should come from the theological faith – premises affirm the transcendental will of God. How the will is understood is now subject of enquiry by the author.
The main types of ethical theories are between teleological and deontological ethics. Roman Catholics ethics are more teleological as it is based more on Aristotle’s eudaimonia (or “well being). It translates that telos into viseo Dei, the vision of God, to be attained by diligent cultivation of good habits of virtues, which leads one to beatific vision. Another example is the Protestant ethics of the Social Gospel Movement, whose goal is the kingdom on earth, toward which we will progress by systematic changes in the economic order. Roman Catholics also have deontological ethics in the form of Papacy encyclicals, which lay down rules for her members in matters regarding divorce, contraception etc which Protestants refer to Bible as the authority in which they found God’s commands toward such actions.
Roman Catholic Ethics
Another way of looking at the difference among the Christian Ethics is to distinguish the main historic church traditions: Roman Catholic and Protestantism ethics. Roman Catholic, since Thomas Aquinas based her ethics on issues of the world in teleological style, but with some deontological elements. In hierarchy of creatures, human beings are endowed with gifts of free will and reason, which enable us to make rational choices. We are endowed with a natural capacity to distinguish right from wrong. With proper training of the reason that can be called conscience, we have the capacity to apply universal principles to practical choices. The conscience and reason must guide person to achieve the 7 virtues of temperance, courage, justice, and prudence (from Greek philosophy) and theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. God sets two external guidelines to moral perfection. These are Divine law and Natural law. One principle of natural law is that good must be sought and evil avoided. Examples of good are self-preservation, private property for common use etc. Divine laws are special revealed laws of God in the Bible. When human being cultivate the virtues of Christian life and follow the precepts of natural law, they are on the road to eternal blessedness. The Church is the instrument of grace in which one who wonders off can receive forgiveness of sins. The principles of natural law and virtues of good life are for all people but special grace of God is in hand of the church. No true salivation can be found outside of Roman Church.
Protestant ethics, on other hand, comes from Martin Luther’s experience and teaching of “justification by grace through faith alone.” He questions the teleological ethics of earning salvation by work. His protested that authentic Christian faith is not a matter of mind but of heart. He did not discourage all the virtues and good Christian life but all good works must be a response of what God did for man when we believe and receive that pardon. Calvin stressed God’s absolute sovereignty and pervasive original sin of mankind, which one could only be saved by the grace of God.
Still another way of looking at Christian Ethics is Christ and culture issue. These are ways of explaining norms of Christian life that exists between demands of God in Christ and demands of secular culture in which Christians live and work. Troelttsch developed three typologies.1.a compromise between church and world where worldly things are renewed, accepted and blessed as Christian. 2. A sect-type where total withdrawal of worldly things and live in obedience to God, like the Quakers.3. Christian mysticism, similar to the sect-type but is more individualistic. Richard Niebuhr’s expanded on Troeltsch’s typology and came up with five different ways to show how Christians have tired to live within the tension between their culture and the moral demands of God in Christ. Christ against culture on one extreme, the ideal that denounces the world, the flesh and the devil and tries to preserve its ethical pristine. On other extreme, the ‘Christ of culture,’ accommodates Christ to various moral norms of secular culture, making him hero of secular values and thus resolving the tension. Between these two poles, lies three more types: Christ above culture,’ is a more Catholic approach, ‘Christ and culture in paradox,’ is a type of Luther’s ethics, and lastly “Christ transforming the culture. Example of the last type is the aim of the Calvinists and Puritans that seeks to mould the political order after the model of the Kingdom of God of righteousness. The Protestant Social Gospel movement is another group, which fought to transform the capitalistic economy from competitiveness to communal type of compassionate justice.
What do we make of Christian ethics after divergence and convergence of these traditions? What does it mean to be a Christian in these jungles of ethical backgrounds? What do we have in common? Since an issue can be approached from different angles, one can hear conflicting answers and can be confusing at times. Yet within this seemly chaotic ethical situation, remains integrity of Christian ethics. Within this difference is a shared faith premises, a trust in the loving God who is the sovereign power of all. His will for mankind is made known through Jesus Christ. Christian ethics, despite its diversity, consists in faithful and obedient response to that will by actions that seek the well- being of neighbours near and far. This is the ‘one’ shared though many varied historical and contemporary answers to the question, “what is Christian ethics? God is the final authority of the human reason and decisions.
Ernst Troeltsch, The Social Teachings of the Christian Church, Michigan, (two volume edition in translation by Harper Row, 1960
Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture, Michigan, Harper & Row, 1956 | <urn:uuid:f18a82a0-7746-424c-a0b3-2bc716da46ba> | {
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MORPHOLOGY: Megaladapis edwardsi had molars that were narrow with well-developed shearing crests (Fleagle, 1988). This species lacked upper incisors (Fleagle, 1988). The dental formula of this species was 0:1:3:3 on the upper jaw and 2:1:3:3 on the lower jaw (Martin, 1990). This species had a mandibular condyle which resembled that found in members of the extant genus Lepilemur (Martin, 1990). The nasal region of this species was pronounced (Fleagle, 1988). This species had a fused mandibular symphysis (Fleagle, 1988). The snout was long and the cranium was long and flat with a small braincase (Fleagle, 1988). The forelimbs of this species were long relative to the hindlimbs (Fleagle, 1988). The phalanges of this species were long and curved and the trunk was also long (Fleagle, 1988). The limbs of this species were relatively robust (Fleagle, 1988). This species had an average body mass of around 140.0 kilograms (Fleagle, 1988). The intermembral index of this species was 120 (Fleagle, 1988).
RANGE: Megaladapis edwardsi was found on the island of Madagascar (Fleagle, 1988).
Based upon dental morphology this was a folivorous species (Fleagle, 1988).
Based upon postcranial remains this species was most likely a terrestrial quadruped (Fleagle, 1988). This species probably also climbed vertical trunks and fed on leaves from a clinging position (Fleagle, 1988).
Fleagle, J.G. 1988. Primate Adaptation and Evolution. Academic Press: New York.
Martin, R.D. 1990. Primate Origins and Evolution: A Phylogenetic Reconstruction. Princeton University Press: Princeton, New Jersey. | <urn:uuid:59e0eb0b-b70f-49c6-96d4-b3f05caff0f4> | {
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Eleven years ago today, Al Gore, for one important moment, was the most powerful man in our republic. The day before, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 vote, halted the partial recount of presidential ballots in Florida that Gore had requested. But that did not mean the 2000 presidential election was over. George W. Bush could not declare victory until Gore conceded defeat.
This is our protocol in every presidential election, whether the results are clear on election night or weeks later. Our democratic political system works only when the losers give their consent to be governed by the winners. The first signal that this consent is granted comes with the losing candidate’s concession. At this moment, following a hard-fought election where passions have run high, the concession begins the process of reuniting an intensely divided country. Yet this vital service to the nation provided by losing presidential candidates is seldom appreciated.
It may seem unthinkable that Gore would not have conceded, particularly in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision, yet he had supporters who urged him to push on and further challenge the legitimacy of the results. He had, after all, won the national popular vote.
In many countries, losing candidates do not peacefully accept defeat, and their obstinacy leads to political chaos, riots and sometimes civil war. Gore understood the risks to America from a prolonged dispute over an unresolved election.
Our democratic political system works only when the losers give their consent to be governed by the winners.
So, on Dec. 13, 2000, Gore choose to begin a process of healing. He did not merely concede, he gave a remarkably upbeat and friendly concession speech and quoted an earlier losing candidate, Stephen Douglas, who pledged to Abraham Lincoln upon losing the 1860 presidential election, “Partisan feeling must yield to patriotism. I’m with you, Mr. President, and God bless you.”
Most presidential elections are close, with roughly half having been won with 51 percent or less of the popular vote. This even division in our partisan alignment means supporters of either party have a reasonable expectation of victory, so defeat can come as a shock. Despite this, from our first losing presidential candidate, Thomas Jefferson in 1796 (George Washington won the first two presidential elections unopposed), to our most recent, John McCain, America has been blessed with men who have set aside crushing personal disappointment and embraced their responsibility to help maintain national unity.
In a society that worships winners, unsuccessful presidential candidates are considered losers, no matter how successful they were before and after the election. As John W. Davis, the Democratic nominee in 1924 and a brilliant constitutional lawyer, put it after his losing candidacy was vilified, “I believe I have been a fair success in life except as a candidate for president.”
It is often the losing candidate who is prophetic, while time proves that it was the winning candidate who was stuck in the past.
Winning the presidency does not guarantee the winner will leave a great mark upon history; the office has certainly had its share of non-entities. Many losing candidates, though, helped bring into being political dynamics that still define our politics. Men like Henry Clay, William Jennings Bryan, Thomas Dewey, Barry Goldwater and George McGovern have created, transformed and realigned our political parties. Losing campaigns typically are the first to break barriers and expand participation. These include the first Catholic to be nominated for president, as well as the first woman and the first Jew to be named as vice presidential nominees.
Whether breaking barriers or introducing new policies, it is often the losing candidate who is prophetic, while time proves that it was the winning candidate who was stuck in the past. Andrew Jackson is an American icon, yet it was his nemesis Clay who more clearly understood that America’s future was as an industrial power, not a bucolic republic of yeoman farmers. The Democrat Bryan was considered a radical, yet the reforms he advocated — creating the Federal Reserve, enacting pure food and drug laws, granting women the right to vote and enacting a federal income tax — all became law within years of his candidacies. Adlai Stevenson first raised the idea of a nuclear test ban during his 1956 campaign, while Goldwater’s 1964 campaign, which analysts at the time thought had “discredited conservatism,” famously laid the groundwork for Ronald Reagan to be elected 16 years later.
Despite their belief that voters made the wrong choice, our losing presidential candidates have been almost unfailingly gracious, and suffered the wounds of defeat with good humor. Sometimes that humor is self-effacing, as when Goldwater lamented that America “is a great country where anybody can grow up to become president — except me.” And sometimes the humor is pointed, as when Adlai Stevenson was told his erudite campaigns against Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956 had educated the country and he replied, “But a lot of people flunked the course!”
Whether the election on Nov. 6, 2012, is a landslide or a nail-biter, and whether the victor is President Obama or his Republican opponent, the loser will have the same power that Gore wielded in 2000 and will be confronted with the same choice every losing candidate has had to make in the wake of defeat: bring America together or widen our divisions. Let’s hope that he or she will serve the national interest and recognize that while he lost an election, history may yet judge his political legacy a success. As Al Gore said in his concession speech in 2000, “defeat might serve as well as victory to shape the soul and let the glory out.”
Scott Farris is the author of “Almost President: The Men Who Lost the Race But Changed the Nation.” | <urn:uuid:7e75fcc4-8eeb-493e-8492-a15ccfde332c> | {
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Grief is a natural process, an intense fundamental emotion, a universal experience which makes us human. It is a process that entails extremely hard work over a period of many painful months or years. People grieve because they are deprived of a loved one; the sense of loss is profound. The loss of a spouse, child or parent affects our very identities—the way we define ourselves as a husband, wife, parent or offspring. Moreover, grief can arise from the survivor's sudden change in circumstances after a death and the fear of not knowing what lies ahead.
The death of someone close can be a life-changing experience. If you are the primary caregiver of someone you love, this experience can affect every aspect of your life for some time. It is natural to grieve the death of a loved one before, during and after the actual time of their passing. The process of accepting the unacceptable is what grieving is all about.
If someone has had a prolonged illness or serious memory impairment, family members may begin grieving the loss of the person's "former self" long before the time of death. This is sometimes referred to as "anticipatory grief." Anticipating the loss, knowing what is coming, can be just as painful as losing a life. Family members may experience guilt or shame for "wishing it were over" or seeing their loved one as already "gone" intellectually. It is important to recognize these feelings as normal. Ultimately, anticipatory grief is a way of allowing us to prepare emotionally for the inevitable. Preparing for the death of a loved one can allow family members to contemplate and clear unresolved issues and seek out the support of spiritual advisors, family and friends. And, depending on the impaired person's intellectual capacity, this can be a time to identify your loved one's wishes for burial and funeral arrangements.
A death that happens suddenly, unexpectedly, is an immeasurable tragedy. This type of loss often generates shock and confusion for loved ones left behind. Incidents such as a fatal accident, heart attack, or suicide can leave family members perplexed and searching for answers. In these cases, family members may be left with unresolved issues, such as feelings of guilt that can haunt and overwhelm a grieving person. These feelings may seem to take over your life at first. But over time it is possible to get past these thoughts and forgive yourself and your loved one. Give yourself plenty of time; it's virtually impossible to makeyourself "move on" before you're ready.
People experiencing the sudden loss of a loved one have a particular need for support to get through the initial devastating shock, pain and anger. Family members, close friends, and clergy can be vital lifelines for the griever.
How Long Does Grieving Last?
Grief impacts each individual differently. Recent research has shown that intense grieving lasts from three months to a year and many people continue experiencing profound grief for two years or more. Others' response to this extended grieving process may sometimes cause people to feel there is something wrong with them or they are behaving abnormally. This is not the case. The grieving process depends on the individual's belief system, religion, life experiences, and the type of loss suffered. Prolonged bereavement is not unusual. Many people find solace in seeking out other grievers or trusted friends. However, if feelings of being overwhelmed continue over time, professional support should be sought.
Symptoms of Grief
Grief can provoke both physical and emotional symptoms, as well as spiritual insights and turmoil.
Physical symptoms include low energy or exhaustion, headaches or upset stomach. Some people will sleep excessively, others may find they are pushing themselves to extremes at work. These activity changes may make an individual more prone to illness. It is important to take care of yourself during this period of bereavement by maintaining a proper diet, exercise and rest. Taking care of your body can help heal the rest of you, even if you do not feel inclined to do so.
Emotional symptoms include memory gaps, distraction or preoccupation, irritability, depression, euphoria, wailing rages and passive resignation. Some people identify strongly with the person who died and his/her feelings. If you have experienced a loss and are hurting it is reasonable that your responses may seem "unreasonable." Nonetheless, it is important not to judge yourself too harshly as you experience conflicting and overwhelming emotions.
Like grief itself, people's coping strategies vary. Some people cope best through quiet reflection, others seek exercise or other distractions. Some have a tendency to engage in reckless or self-destructive activities (e.g., excessive drinking). It is vital to obtain support in order to regain some sense of control and to work through your feelings. A trained counselor, support group, or trusted friend can help you sort through feelings such as anxiety, loss, anger, guilt, and sadness. If depression or anxiety persist, a doctor or psychiatrist may prescribe antidepressant drugs to help alleviate feelings of hopelessness.
Spirituality: you may feel closer to God and more open to religious experiences than ever before. Conversely, many people express anger or outrage at God. You may feel cut off from God or from your own soul altogether—a temporary paralysis of the spirit. If you are a person of faith, you may question your faith in God, in yourself, in others or in life. A member of the clergy or spiritual advisor can help you examine the feelings you are experiencing. Learning to deal with grief is learning to live again.
Stages of Grief
Often portrayed as a grief "wheel," these stages do not necessarily follow a set order. Some stages may be revisited many times as an individual goes through a grieving period.
- Emotional release.
- Depression, loneliness and a sense of isolation.
- Physical symptoms of distress.
- Feelings of panic.
- A sense of guilt.
- Anger or rage.
- Inability to return to usual activities.
- The gradual regaining of hope.
- Acceptance as we adjust our lives to reality.
Most people who have lost someone close go through all or some of these stages, although not necessarily in this specific order. This kind of healthy grieving can help a person move through a significant loss with minimal harm to self, either physical or mental.
Often family members and caregivers are faced with the decision to allow someone to die naturally or to prolong their death and maintain life through artificial means. Physician training, hospital and nursing home policies often dictate the use of "heroic means" to sustain life. "Reviving" a very ill person after a stroke or using a respirator for someone deemed medically "brain dead" are standard procedures used in many hospitals.
If at all possible, it is important to learn and document a person's wishes about using artificial life support beforeany crisis arises. A living will or durable power of attorney for health care (DPAHC) expresses a person's wishes when he or she can no longer speak for him/herself. These documents can help instruct hospitals or nursing homes on an appropriate course of action to be taken at a critical moment. By law, all hospitals must now inform patients about their right to fill out these documents.
When a person is confused, or otherwise unable to express preferences, family members are often put in the position of becoming surrogate decision makers. Such decisions present a thorny array of medical, legal, and moral questions. Decisions to provide or withhold life support are based on personal values, beliefs, and consideration for what the person might have wanted. Such decisions are painful. Family members should give themselves ample time to cope with these life and death decisions and to process feelings of doubt or blame which may surface.
Tips for Helping the Bereaved
- Be available. Offer support in an unobtrusive but persistent manner.
- Listen without giving advice.
- Do not offer stories of your own. This can have the effect of dismissing the grieving person's pain.
- Allow the grieving person to use expressions of anger or bitterness, including such expressions against God. This may be normal behavior in an attempt to find meaning in what has happened.
- Realize that no one can replace or undo the loss. To heal, the individual must endure the grief process. Allow him/her to feel the pain.
- Be patient, kind and understanding without being patronizing. Don't claim to "know" what the other person is feeling.
- Don't force the individual to share feelings if he/she doesn't want to.
- Physical and emotional touch can bring great comfort to the bereaved. Don't hesitate to share a hug or handclasp when appropriate.
- Be there later, when friends and family have all gone back to their routines.
- Remember holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries which have important meaning for the bereaved. Offer support during this time. Don't be afraid of reminding the person of the loss; he/she is already thinking about it.
Practical Assistance for the Bereaved
Things a person can do without asking:
- Send a card or flowers.
- Bring food.
- Water or mow their lawn.
- Donate blood.
- Contribute to a cause which is meaningful to your friend or family member.
Things a person can do to help but should ask first:
- Offer to stay in the home to take phone calls, receive food and guests.
- Offer child care on a specific date.
- Offer to care for pets.
- Offer transportation.
Ballard, E. L., Managing Grief and Bereavement: A Guide For Families and Professionals Caring for Memory Impaired Adults and Other Chronically Ill Persons, Duke Family Support Program, Durham, NC.
Bozarth-Campbell, A., 1982, Life Is Goodbye, Life Is Hello,CompCare Publications, Minneapolis, MN.
Harris Lord, J., 1990, Beyond Sympathy, Pathfinder Publishing, Ventura, CA.
Sankar, Andrea, 1991, Dying at Home: A Family Guide for Caregiving, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD.
Westberg, Granger E., 1976, Good Grief, Philadelphia: Fortress Press.
Caring For a Dying Relative: A Guide for Families, D. Doyle, 1994, 2001 Evans Road, Cary, NC 27513, Oxford University Press. (919) 677-0977.
On Death and Dying, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, 1969, The Macmillan Co., New York, NY. Available at bookstores or P.O. Box 1387, Bryan, TX 77806. (800) 364-2665.
Don't Take My Grief Away, Doug Manning, 1979, P.O. Box 42467 N.W. Expressway, Suite 100, Oklahoma City, OK 73116, In-Sight Books. (800) 658-9262.
Dying at Home: A Guide for Caregiving, Andrea Sankar, 1991, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 701 W. 40th St., Baltimore, MD 21211-2190.
<<span class="bodycopy" />How Can I Help?/What Will Help Me?, James E. Miller, 1994, Willowgreen Publishing, 509 W. Washington Blvd., P.O. Box 25180, Fort Wayne, IN. (219) 424-7916.
Managing Grief and Bereavement: A Guide for Families and Professionals Caring for Memory Impaired Adults and Other Chronically Ill Persons (booklet), 1993, Duke Family Support Program, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710. (919) 660-7510.
Family Caregiver Alliance
785 Market Street, Suite 750
San Francisco, CA 94103
Web Site: www.caregiver.org
Family Caregiver Alliance (FCA) seeks to improve the quality of life for caregivers through education, services, research and advocacy.
Through its National Center on Caregiving, FCA offers information on current social, public policy and caregiving issues and provides assistance in the development of public and private programs for caregivers.
For residents of the greater San Francisco Bay Area, FCA provides direct family support services for caregivers of those with Alzheimer's disease, stroke, head injury, Parkinson's and other debilitating disorders that strike adults.
Center for Loss and Life Transition
3735 Broken Bow Road
Fort Collins, CO 80526
Foundation for Hospice and Home Care
513 C Street, NE
Washington, DC 20002-5809
National Hospice Organization
1901 N. Moore St., Suite 901
Arlington, VA 22209
National Research and Information Center
(Death, Grief and Funerals)
2250 East Devon Ave., Suite 250
Des Plaines, IL 60018
Reviewed by Patrick Arbore, Ed.D., Center for Elderly Suicide Prevention & Grief Related Services, and Andrew Scharlach, Ph.D., Professor, School of Social Welfare, University of California, Berkeley. Prepared by Family Caregiver Alliance in cooperation with California's Caregiver Resource Centers, a statewide system of resource centers serving families and caregivers of brain-impaired adults. Funded by the California Department of Mental Health. Printed December 1996. © All rights reserved.
E-mail to a Friend | <urn:uuid:2f3c8007-862f-4e62-8c80-dd1efe18acfc> | {
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Search: chef's hat
Why: On When Parents Text:
Answer: La toque blanche! Like a tuque, only not Canadian. And its origins are legendary. Theories:
- Head cooks in Assyrian households were allowed to wear high cloth headdresses patterned on the crowns of their royal masters. This encouraged valuable servants to remain faithful to their masters, who lived in constant fear of being poisoned.
- The ribs or pleats in the headdress represented the ribs in the king's crown and were stitched into the cloth and stiffened with starch.
- The pleats - there are 100 of them - represent the 100 ways that a good chef should be able to cook eggs.
- Today's toque blanche is a result of the gradual evolution of head coverings worn by cooks through the centuries.
French cooks of the 18th century generally wore the casque a meche or stocking cap, the colors of which varied according to rank. Mr. Boucher, chef to the French statesman Talleyrand (1754-1838), is credited with introducing white as the standard color when he insisted for sanitary reasons that his cooks wear white caps. During this period, Spanish cooks wore berets of white wool or ticking; Germans wore pointed Napoleonic hats with a decorative tassel; the British wore starched Scotch caps and black skull caps sometimes referred to as librarians' caps. In addition to stocking caps, French pastry cooks wore a bank of linen or ticking with a central mound of the same fabric pleated on the edge. By the end of the 18th century, it was full, heavily starched and held in the middle with a circular whalebone, producing the effect of a halo. Under Napoleon III (1808-1833), the Greek bonnet ornamented with a tassel was in vogue. Bald cooks purportedly wore caps in velour or heavy cloth while persons with hair wore them in linen or netting.
It's kind of gross that surgeons wear green and blue and chefs wear white, right? Shouldn't we all be washing our clothes of stains all the time, no matter how much food or blood is on them?
Source: Wikipedia, Chef Harvey
The More You Know: There are so, so many types of hats. I really don't like any of them, especially when they're purely ornamental. I hate hats, everyone. | <urn:uuid:b76736c2-0687-4df7-8022-ad1dcd471bc1> | {
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Introduction to the Life of Saint Francis de Sales:
St. Francis de Sales, bishop of Geneva and a doctor of the Church, is renowned for the clarity of his teaching and preaching. Intellectually and spiritually tormented in his youth by debates over predestination, Saint Francis, upon arriving at a proper understanding of the question, was better able to treat with charity the Calvinists of Geneva, many of whom he brought back to the Catholic Church. He remains today a model of (in the words of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, which as taken Saint Francis as one of its three chief patron saints) "living the truth in charity."
- Feast Day: January 24
- Type of Feast: Memorial
- Readings: Hebrews 7:25—8:6; Psalm 40:7-8a, 8b-9, 10, 17; Mark 3:7-12 (full text here)
- Dates: August 21, 1567 (Thorens, Duchy of Savoy, France)- December 28, 1622 (Lyons, France)
- Symbols: Sacred Heart of Jesus
- Patron of: Catholic press, confessors, deaf people, educators, journalists, writers, Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales, Salesians of Don Bosco, Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, Oblate Sisters of St. Francis de Sales, Sisters of St. Joseph
- Beatification: January 8, 1661, by Pope Alexander VII
- Canonization: April 8, 1665, by Pope Alexander VII; proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius IX on November 16, 1877
The Life of Saint Francis de Sales:
Francis de Sales was born on August 21, 1567, to a noble family in the Duchy of Savoy, in modern-day France. His father wished him to become a magistrate judge, and Francis received an appropriate education in rhetoric, law, and the humanities. At the Collège de Clermont in Paris, where Francis studied under the Jesuits, he began to study theology as well. It was while at Clermont that Francis was exposed to debates over predestination and became convinced that he was damned. In the midst of despair, he prayed before a miraculous image of the Blessed Virgin Mary at St. Etienne-des-Grès in Paris, and came to know the boundless love of God. Freed from his doubts, about his own fate, Francis resolved to dedicate himself to Christ and to help others who had been led astray by Calvinist misunderstandings of predestination.
While Francis continued his education in law and theology at the University of Padua, Italy, his father remained steadfast in his hope for a secular career for his son. He finally relented and allowed Francis to receive holy orders when the bishop of Geneva wished to appoint Francis provost of the chapter (governing body) of the Cathedral of Geneva in 1593. Six years later, the same bishop chose Saint Francis as his coadjutor, which meant that Francis would succeed him as bishop of Geneva, and he did so in 1602.
By this point, Saint Francis was already well known for his preaching and his evangelization, having converted many prominent Calvinists. But Saint Francis was not satisfied simply with winning souls back to the Church; he wanted to ensure that Catholics were not led astray as he had almost been. As bishop, he began programs of catechesis, for adults as well as children, and reformed the clergy and religious congregations under his control. He continued to preach constantly and to hear confessions, as well as to write great works of apologetics, especially his Treatise on the Love of God, and of spiritual direction, including An Introduction to the Devout Life, which the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913, in its entry on St. Francis de Sales, calls "a masterpiece of psychology, practical morality, and common sense" aimed at the development of piety in the layman. Four centuries later, An Introduction to the Devout Life remains one of the most popular works of spiritual direction.
Greatly beloved by his flock and sought out by Catholics throughout France, Saint Francis lived an austere life and dedicated himself to the poor. While bearing the immense responsibilities of a bishop, he preached daily, especially in his final years, and offered spiritual direction by correspondence to lay Catholics, rich and poor, noble and common.
Traveling to Lyons, France, with the court of the duke of Savoy in 1622, he suffered a stroke on December 27 and died the next day, declaring, "God's will be done!" His body was returned to Annecy, the French town south of Geneva where the bishopric of Geneva had been moved after the Calvinist occupation of the city, but the people of Lyons convinced the Church to allow his heart to remain in the city where he had died. On January 24, 1623, Saint Francis was buried in Annecy at the convent of the Institute of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin, which he had cofounded with St. Jane Frances de Chantal. His tomb remains a place of pilgrimage today.
St. Francis de Sales' reputation for sanctity was so great that he was beatified by Pope Alexander VII less than 40 years after his death, and canonized in 1665. The clarity of Saint Francis's spiritual writing convinced Pope Pius IX to add him to the list of the doctors of the Church in 1877. | <urn:uuid:e22fc0e5-00d2-492f-ac5d-d52fd6a221ec> | {
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New insect species make their way into the United States every year by hitching rides in shipping crates and on automobiles, clothing and shoes. They hide in produce, plants and firewood while they are transported to uninfested areas.
Upon arrival, invasive insects quickly begin to attack their new habitats, making themselves at home. Many different types of termites, beetles, carpenter ants and bees bore into trees and make themselves at home in wood structures, such as decks, play sets and patio furniture. Numerous varieties of caterpillars, moths and mites fashion meals out of plants, discoloring and deforming leaves and sometimes stripping foliage away completely.
“While it’s difficult to prevent invasive insects from making their way into your outdoor spaces, using an integrated pest management approach (IPM) can stop them from doing harm to your family and the environment,” says Aaron Hobbs, president of RISE (Responsible Industry for a Sound Environment) - a national organization representing manufacturers, formulators and distributors of pesticide products use around the home and yard.
IPM is a common sense approach to managing pests that combines property maintenance, watching pest populations and applying pesticides when necessary.
“Keeping outdoor spaces clean and tidy, without piles of wood or trash, will make them less attractive to invasive insects. When used properly as part of an overall IPM approach, pesticides are the most effective way to remove damaging pests from your property and provide protection from future infestations,” adds Hobbs.
“When selecting a pesticide product read the label to ensure you’ve got the right solution for your pest and location,” says Hobbs. “There are many products available for consumers to use when eliminating invasive insects from outdoor spaces. Consumers should remember to always read and follow all label directions.”
The globalization of markets and growth in both national and world travel raises the numbers of invasive insects finding new habitats in neighborhoods across the country. Following an integrated approach that uses registered pesticides is the best strategy to take back outdoor living areas and keep them pest-free so you can enjoy the summer. | <urn:uuid:6ff6d0f1-a5ff-48e2-bdb4-b3fc044e1f5b> | {
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The Natural Resource Conservation Agency (NRCS), an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture, provides technical assistance to Districts in order to help us implement our conservation programs. In 1993, NRCS expanded its focus on natural resource problems to include not only soil issues, but water quality, wetlands, and wildlife habitat.
NRCS's Web Soil Survey
NRCS's Conservation Programs
United States Department of Agriculture
Conservation Reserve Program (Continuous and Standard)
The CRP is a voluntary program that offers annual rental payments, incentive payments for certain activities, and cost-share assistance to establish approved cover on eligible cropland.
The program encourages farmers to plant long-term resource-conserving covers to improve soil, water, and wildlife resources. Assistance is available in an amount equal to not more than 50 percent of the participant's costs in establishing approved practices. Contract duration is between 10 and 15 years.
Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP)
Since its inception in 1996, EQIP has been NRCS' leading cost-share program for implementing conservation practices. EQIP, through 2-10 year contracts, can provide up to 75% in cost-sharing assistance to producers to implement conservation practices as part of a tract based total resource management system.
Examples of practices installed with EQIP funding include: grassed waterways, field borders, and livestock watering systems.
Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP)
The Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP) is a voluntary program for people who want to develop and improve wildlife habitat primarily on private land. Through WHIP USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service provides both technical assistance and up to 75 percent cost-share assistance to establish and improve fish and wildlife habitat. WHIP agreements between NRCS and the participant generally last from 5 to 10 years from the date the agreement is signed. WHIP has proven to be a highly effective and widely accepted program across the country. By targeting wildlife habitat projects on all lands and aquatic areas, WHIP provides assistance to conservation minded landowners who are unable to meet the specific eligibility requirements of other USDA conservation programs.
Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP)
This program strives to restore and protect wetlands and riparian areas for wildlife. Landowners have the option of setting up permanent easements, 30 year easements, or restoration cost share agreements. This program offers landowners an opportunity to, establish, at minimum cost, long-term conservation and willdife habitat enhancement practices and protection. | <urn:uuid:d0450147-63b0-4164-afb5-6db51491fa70> | {
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CLEAN AIR RESOLUTION
Resolution Regarding Air Quality in Cumberland County
Authored by the Clean Air Board of Central Pennsylvania
pollution from diesel engine emissions has been proven to be harmful to our health. Diesel exhaust can contain 40 hazardous air pollutants, 15 of which are known human carcinogens. Fine particles from diesel emissions have been linked to heart attacks, asthma, stroke, stunted lung growth and premature death. Children and seniors are at the greatest risk from these emissions1; and
air quality has been shown to be especially degraded in Cumberland County and EPA has designated the County as being in non-attainment of fine particle (PM 2.5) and ozone standards. The average lifetime diesel soot cancer risk here is 393 times greater than the accepted EPA cancer level of one in one million2. Cumberland County is among the 2% most polluted counties in the nation for fine particle pollution3; and
in August 2005 more than 100 doctors in the region submitted a paid advertisement to local media citing statistics about air pollution and attributing the problem primarily to fine particle pollution from diesel exhaust and the heavy concentration of trucks in the area; and
“the earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it,” as the Psalmist says, and human beings are called to be responsible stewards of God’s creation;
Therefore, the undersigned members of the Cumberland County faith community hereby ask that:
1. Planning and municipal authorities in Cumberland County take air quality factors into account in land use planning decisions, particularly with regard to diesel trucks and buses that contribute to air quality degradation.
2. Cumberland County enact ordinances to limit air pollution from the idling of diesel-powered vehicles.
3. Truck facilities in Cumberland County implement programs to reduce diesel emissions, including installation of electrification units to eliminate the need for extensive diesel-powered truck idling.
4. School districts in Cumberland County enact policies limiting school bus idling and aggressively pursue grant funding and programs to retrofit and upgrade school bus diesel engines with devices to help control harmful emissions.
1. Clean Air Task Force, “Diesel and Health in America,” February 2005. Available online at http://www.catf.us/publications/view/83
2. Clean Air Task Force, Diesel Project. Available at http://www.catf.us/projects/diesel/
3. American Lung Association, “State of the Air 2005.” Available online at http://lungaction.org/reports/stateoftheair2005.html
4. The Sentinel: Carlisle, PA. August 23, 2005 | <urn:uuid:d1cf2a25-c8d6-43d6-acb7-f6abe178b0fa> | {
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By Cass R. Sunstein
WASHINGTON — Almost 70 percent of Americans have been overweight or obese in recent years, and more than 78 million people in the country have been counted as obese.
The problem has many sources, but one of them is obvious: increased portion sizes. We have a lot of evidence that people will eat whatever is put in front of them, even if they aren't hungry. As portion sizes expand, waistlines expand as well.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the average U.S. restaurant meal is more than five times larger than it was in the 1950s. The average hamburger, once less than 4 ounces, is now more than 12 ounces. The average order of French fries, once less than 3 ounces, is now more than 6 ounces. There is a clear correlation between increases in portion sizes and increases in obesity.
That correlation helps explain why obesity has been more prevalent in the United States than in France. The French eat high-calorie food, but their portion sizes are smaller. In supermarkets and restaurants, and in portion sizes recommended in cookbooks, Americans are given significantly bigger servings. Even at McDonald's, where we might expect identical sizes, servings of soda and French fries have been found to be larger in Philadelphia than in Paris.
Brian Wansink, a Cornell University professor of consumer behavior, helps to explain why portion sizes have such a large effect. He finds that much of our eating is mindless or automatic in that we tend to eat whatever is in front of us. If you are given a half-pound bag of M&M's, chances are that you will eat about half as much as you will if you are given a one- pound bag. People who receive large bowls of ice cream eat a lot more than those who get small bowls.
In one of Wansink's fiendish experiments, people were provided with a large bowl of Campbell's tomato soup and told to eat as much as they liked. Unbeknownst to them, the soup bowls were engineered to refill themselves (with empty bottoms connected to machinery beneath the table). No matter how much soup the subjects ate, the bowl never emptied. The result? Soup consumption skyrocketed. Many people just kept eating until the experiment was ended.
The good news is that once we isolate the sources of excessive eating, we will be able to identify potential solutions. Google found that its New York cafeteria, which offered a lot of high-calorie items, was producing a lot of unwanted pounds. In response to employee complaints, it initiated changes to nudge people toward healthier choices. Large plates and takeout containers were exchanged for smaller sizes, and employees were encouraged to eat less with a sign stating, "People who take big plates tend to eat more."
The redesigned cafeteria took a number of smart steps to make healthy choices simpler and more convenient (and to make less healthy choices less so). As a result, it helped to produce big reductions in both calories and fat consumed from candy.
A striking feature of the Google initiative was that employees were grateful for the nudges. There is reason to think that many consumers would respond the same way. In a series of studies, researchers told fast-food servers to ask customers whether they wanted to "downsize" their high-calorie side dishes. A substantial number (from 14 percent to 33 percent of those served) consistently agreed to do so. Strikingly, they accepted the offer whether or not they were offered a nominal 25 cent discount. Their total calorie consumption was reduced, on average, by more than 200.
Evidence is increasing that lower-calorie servings can be good for business. One reason is consumer demand. Many customers like, and reward, restaurants that provide light options; an easy way to provide such options is to cut portion sizes. Another reason is the increasing practice, often undertaken voluntarily and eventually to be required by the Affordable Care Act, of posting calorie counts on menus. Customers can be surprised to see just how many calories come from the standard portions of their favorite meals. They may not want to switch to a meal they enjoy less, but a smaller portion may suit them just fine. (Parents and dieters, please take note.)
The broader lesson is that obesity levels, in the U.S. and elsewhere, are hardly inevitable. They are a product of the social context in which people's choices are made. With careful attention to the subtle social cues that lead to excessive eating, we should be able to make a real dent in a serious public health problem.
Cass R. Sunstein, the Felix Frankfurter professor of law at Harvard University, is a Bloomberg View columnist. He is the former administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the co-author of "Nudge" and author of "Simpler: The Future of Government," to be published in April. | <urn:uuid:1fd8b8cd-f34e-401b-a177-88046bb98985> | {
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Following the Easter Rising of 1916, a significant challenge for the republican movement was sourcing weapons and ammunition to rearm itself. One particular incident on the Dublin docks in 1918 saw the Irish Citizen Army secure a huge windfall of ammunition from an American transport vessel, the Defiance, which had served as a cargo ship in the United States Navy during the late stages of the Great War. Having first sailed from San Francisco in September 1914, she delivered cargo to Dundirk in France, and at the end of the war she briefly spent some time in Dublin, for the purpose of shipping back army huts and stores which belonged to the United States Expeditionary Force.
While in Dublin the ship fell victim to a well-planned raid carried out by the Irish Citizen Army, the small but militant workers militia that emerged first from the Lockout of 1913, and which fought in the Easter Rising. A brilliant and colourful account of the raiding of the ship is contained in R.M Fox’s 1944 work The History of the Irish Citizen Army, and here we have republished some of the account of this raid from that long out of print work. It shows the role Dublin dockers played in the revolutionary period, and gives an idea of ICA activity in the years after rebellion.
In his study, Fox notes that the vessel attracted the attention of dockers, and that:
Dublin dockers at work loading up the boat wondered at the extraordinary precautions taken. By each gangway was an armed guard of United States Marines. Other guards were placed in position by the deck and the hold. No man could get off the ship without a permit, and he had to run the gauntlet of the guards. The dockers looked round and discovered the hold contained piled up cases of revolvers, rifles and ammunition that were being shipped from England back to America. The Citizen Army was instantly on the alert. Seamus McGowan, the arms expert, was smuggled in as a docker, to arrange about getting some of this stuff ashore.
The cases had to be broken open in the hold by dockers without being observed by the guards. Then all the stuff had to be concealed to get it across the gangway. No parcels were allowed. In spite of all the difficulties the booty was too valuable to lose, and relays of Citizen Army men were down on the quays for eight hours a day, taking the revolvers and ammunition from those who succeeded in getting the necessary shore permits. The little tin lavatories on the quays made excellent transfer stations. Soon the bag consisted of 56 .45 revolvers, 2,000 rounds of revolver ammunition, 5,000 rounds of Springfield ammunition in canvas bandoliers and an assortment of Verey lights and pistols. Arrangements were also made with a member of the crew to deliver 34 .45 automatics, which had been served out to the crew. He lowered these over the side in a canvas bucket to a boat which crept out in the darkness. Captain Poole was in charge of the boat operation.
Unfortunately the Springfield rifles proved too cumbersome to get ashore. It was easy enough to break the cases in the hold. But no one could hope to get along the gangway holding a rifle. They were left very reluctantly. Attempts were made to unscrew the butts and so reduce the length, but this proved impossible. If it hadn’t been for the length of the rifles, America would have played a still bigger part in arming Ireland in her fight for freedom!
For several days ammunition and revolvers were landed without difficulty. Then one morning the captain and his mate descended to the hold in a state of great agitation. The captain walked straight across to a dark corner which had been screened by a number of big cases. Here he saw rows of boxes, broken open and empty. The arms and ammunition had vanished. All the dockers were immediately ordered ashore under armed guard. They were taken into a shed – the same shed which had been used to receive the stores from the foodships in 1913. There they were told they were going to be searched. Indignant objections were raised, but all knew they had taken their last load. They were paid off on the spot, and the Defiance raising anchor departed without waiting for any more cargo. Suspicions had been aroused by an imprudent Irish Volunteer asking the mate if they had any guns for sale. He went back and told the captain, and they started investigations at once. Much of the stores and the equipment that they left behind was auctioned on the quays. Liberty Hall secured furniture at this auction to make up for the devastation of 1916.
From R.M Fox ‘The History of the Irish Citizen Army’ (Dublin, 1944) | <urn:uuid:de0d6477-a9e2-4ec3-9290-f3d5513b3ed4> | {
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I had the privilege of attending a conference called “Asperger Syndrome and Adolescence: Building Skills for the Real World” hosted by The Gray Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan last week. It consisted of two speakers. The first, Talmer Shockley, was an adult diagnosed with Asperger’s who spoke openly and honestly about his personal experiences. He offered insight into all the challenges that present themselves to him on a daily basis. The second speaker was Teresa Bolick, Ph. D., who spoke about strategies to help individuals with Asperger Syndrome better understand the social world around them. I would recommend that anyone who gets a chance to hear Dr. Bolick speak should do so. She was an entertaining and thoughtful presenter with many suggestions and ideas for intervention. Following are a few highlights from her presentation:
- The concept of “Social Capitol” is very important when looking at what behaviors are acceptable and what behaviors are unacceptable. Kids with social capitol have a reputation within a social network. There is a sense of trust and reciprocity that has been established over time and allows for forgiveness of social mistakes (which none of us are exempt from making). The example Dr. Bolick provided explained it quite well: when the cute 7th grader who everyone has a crush on puts a pea up his nose, it’s funny. When a “quirky” kid puts a pea up his (or her) nose, it’s weird. Social capitol is gained over time and kids with Asperger’s need help building it. Learning how to do some of the following will help: make a good impression, listen to others and remember what they say, get involved with other people, contribute, be a good sport.
- Using and teaching “low and slow.” When agitation starts to increase it’s important to remember to bring everything down. We often don’t think of ourselves as threatening but the simple fact that we’re bigger than most of the kids we work with automatically puts us in that position. If a child is in distress or quickly moving in that direction, how you approach them will greatly impact the situation. Here are some things to remember: Low: lower your body to the child’s level, lower the pitch and volume of your voice, lower the complexity of your language and decrease questions. Slow: slow down your heart rate by taking deep breaths, slow your speech and pause between sentences, slow your movements, slow down your agenda.
- The idea of creating an “ACCEPTS” book to help with self regulation. Each page focuses on a different positive theme and it can be brought out when a child needs a boost. The sections are as follows: A = Activities (what makes you smile?), C = Contributing (how did you help someone?), C = Comparisons (how far have you come?), E = Emotions (a collage of positive feelings), P = Pushing Away (note some worries that can be pushed away), T = Thoughts (self-affirming), S = Sensations (memories of calming/regulating sensory input). Kids can cut out pictures from magazines, use photographs, or anything else they might want to include on the pages.
- Suggesting that social stories should be used to reflect successes as well as challenges. They’re a great tool for positive reinforcement and won’t get the reputation of only coming out when things aren’t going well.
- Make Beliefs Comix: You can choose your own character, facial expression, body positions and speech bubbles on this website. A great resource!
- Charting and visuals can make a huge difference. It takes things that are intuitive to most of us and presents them in an analytical way. This can make them much easier to approach and process for people with social cognitive deficits. The charts don’t have to be fancy, it often just helps to see things categorized and written out (for example, a table defining what topics are appropriate to discuss in what situations).
These highlights are just a sample of the information that was presented but they were some of the things that stood out to me. I hope you’ll find them useful! | <urn:uuid:853baa60-f4e3-46d3-954d-16f4cf5b9f97> | {
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I get lots of questions from parents about how to work on improving their child’s use of personal pronouns. It’s not unusual for children on the autistic spectrum to demonstrate what’s referred to as pronoun confusion or pronoun reversal. Since this is something that we work on a lot of Communication Therapy, I thought I would share some ideas that can be used to work on this skill at home:
- Use visuals. Keep them posted around the house so you can easily reference them when needed. The visual to facilitate use of the pronoun “I” usually consists of an individual gesturing to himself or herself, paired with the written “I”.
- Read Mercer Mayer’s “Little Critter” books with your child. These books are written in first person and consist of simple sentences of a repetitive nature. The stories are simple and often label emotions clearly. The pictures are not overwhelming and have a few reoccurring characters that children usually enjoy looking for on each page, which can also be used to model pronouns. For example, take turns finding the spider or cricket on each page and model self talk while you do so: “Okay, it’s my turn. I’m looking for the spider…I found him!”
- Draw self portraits along with your child. These can be as simple as drawing stick figures and will allow for lots of clear modeling. Choose a part to draw and describe what you’re doing: “I’m drawing my hair. I have brown hair.” Gesture to yourself as you emphasize the word I. Repeat similar, simple sentences with each thing you draw (eyes, nose, legs, feet, etc.). If your child is confused by the concept of drawing themselves- they may want to draw you, as you’re doing- try having a picture of each of you to look at while you draw. This will help make it clear that you are each drawing yourselves.
- Make a book for your child. You can use pictures of things they’ve done, places you’ve visited, pictures of friends and family members, or just things they enjoy. Narrate the book so it’s written from your child’s perspective. Again, keep the language simple and emphasize use of personal pronouns. It’s okay it if sounds repetitive; we learn from repetition.
If you have a chance to try any of the suggestions, please share and let us know how it worked for you! If you find ways to expand on ideas or come up with any new ones, please share those too! | <urn:uuid:f541c065-46d1-4cbe-9c9a-260bba2452c6> | {
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The WHO confirms a most horrifying trend in their recent study: one billion individuals cannot afford paid health care of any kind. Reuters reports the issue is even more complicated than that, however. Each year, the high cost of medical care takes 100 million paying customers to the arms of poverty. Post resource - One billion people cannot afford health care, says WHO by Personal Money Store.
Nations that cannot afford medical care must improve efficiency
The WHO's global report on health care pays particular attention to financing, as the number of countries with large numbers of individuals who cannot afford medical care has growth significantly. It's extremely essential, with universal coverage as the goal, that there are methods to make medical care more affordable by doing things like fund-raising measures and improving taxes.
Who’s director of health systems financing in David Evans. He explained that individuals end up making the decision to go without medical care because of the current state of health care worldwide.
“When (health services) are not really affordable, it means you either choose not really to use them or you suffer severe financial hardship,” he said.
World Health Organization intends to improve worldwide medical care
In order to keep those who do pay for medical care from sliding into poverty, the World Health Organization recommends that health care and insurance business practices ought to be tweaked so that 15 to 20 percent of a country's total health spending amounts to direct, out-of-pocket payments. There are 33 low-to middle-income nations right now that pay way too much in out of pocket payments. Over 50 percent is paid for them. With the suggestion of sin, taxes, currency transaction taxes and wealth taxes in the report that governments could diversify their revenue sources with, there ought to be less spent.
Medical care being unused
Health care is wasted when you will find one billion individuals world health organization can’t afford to get it. According to WHO director general Margaret Chan, 20 percent to 40 percent of all worldwide medical care spending is wasted through purchase of expensive, unnecessary drugs and treatments. Lack of proper medical training also contributes to such inefficiency. Some countries end up paying 67 times more than the international average for some medications that they need. Many see this and know that solving the medical care dilemma isn’t going to take place quickly.
"There is no magic bullet to achieving universal access,” said Chan. “Nevertheless, a wide range of experiences from all more than the world suggests that nations can move forward faster."
The need for health care reform in India | <urn:uuid:fc86d172-c91b-44a9-9e42-4828777acef6> | {
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Treecycling with Urbanwood
In the urban forest, a felled tree used to be a dead tree. Too commonly, city and suburban trees leveled by wind, insect plagues like the emerald ash borer, and other bad breaks are headed for the wood chipper or hauled off to factories to be ground into mulch, particle board material, and end products bearing little resemblance to their leafy forebears.
Now, take the locavore mindset of consuming products within their communities of origin – a movement which started with food – and apply it to trees.
"This idea of reclaiming those kinds of trees is really picking up steam across the country. It first really got its start a couple decades ago in California. There were some small businesses that were working together with communities that were doing it, and the U.S. Forest Service has been doing a lot over the last two decades to promote this across the country...Southeast Michigan has really become a showplace for it now," says Jessica Simons, a natural resources specialist with the Southeast Michigan Resource Conservation & Development Council.
To wit: the rise of the Urbanwood Project
, a partnership between the Southeast Michigan Resource Conservation & Development Council
, Recycle Ann Arbor
, the Genesee Conservation District
, the Genesee County Habitat for Humanity ReStore
, and local small businesses that is tasked with the recycling of Southeast Michigan's fallen urban trees for lumber, flooring, millwork and cabinetry, counter and tabletop slabs, and other household uses.
Tanya Muzumdar discusses the resurrection of wood with Jessica Simons.
What is Urbanwood about and what was behind its inception?
We [the Council] started working on some projects together with the U.S. Forest Service and with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources back in 2004, and at that point, the area was right in the middle of the huge emerald ash borer outbreak...And so we were trying to figure out how much wood was going to be coming out of communities because of emerald ash borer, where it was going to go, if there were already businesses that could handle it...One of the things that we found pretty quickly, there were far more sawmills in the area than we realized. Except they were very small, they were typically family-owned, they didn't really advertise much...Most of them were milling trees from communities anyway...They were kind of ideally suited for the ash borer crisis. They were nimble, they could work directly with communities, so we were trying to figure out what we could do to boost the profile of these sawmills in the area, and at the same time help create more of a market for the products that they produced...
Recycle Ann Arbor was refinishing their conference room at the time...and they wanted to put new flooring in, and they always tried to highlight sustainable materials...Then the Reuse Center customers started asking about it, so Recycle Ann Arbor said that they would put up a small shelf with a little bit of the wood on it to see if reuse customers were interested. Fast forward about seven years, and now...1,600 square feet of the Reuse Center at Recycle Ann Arbor is now the Urbanwood Marketplace and has wood from six different vendors.
The first Marketplace opened at Recycle Ann Arbor's ReUse Center in 2005, followed by the Genesee County Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Flint last spring. How are the marketplaces doing since they were opened?
They're projecting right now to sell over $100,000 worth of lumber there this year. And so we think that that's great success. A couple of the mills that we worked with have credited us with keeping them in business during the slow economy...
What we're excited about the products that Urbanwood carries is that there's a tremendous variety and it's very different from what you'd see at your typical lumberyard. It's not just filled with standard dimensional lumber for a few species, like what you would see going to look at the 2X4s at Lowes. At any time there could be 25-30 different species of lumber at the Marketplace...What it represents is the species of trees that come out of the urban areas in southeast Michigan. If walnut comes out, great, walnut's always in high demand... If a mulberry tree or an osage orange comes out of a community, well, that's what gets milled too. The unpredictability of the supply and the variety of the supply is what makes Urbanwood different...Sometimes the wood has much more character than what you'd find at your traditional store. We do still carry the clear things without any kind of knots...but we also carry material that has huge knotholes, or that has staining, or that has bark still attached on the edge.
What is the cost range per board-foot?
It is all over the board.
No pun intended.
(Laughs.) We have everything from – one of the local mills sells boxes of cutoff pieces – small scrap pieces for someone who likes to carve small wooden pieces of art. You can get a large box of cutoff pieces for $15 or you can buy a tabletop slab that is $1,500...The range is enormous. It's possible to walk out with a board for a couple of bucks, but if you're looking for something high-end, spectacular, you can get that too.
With what happened with the emerald ash borer, with the fact that people in SEMI, in that urban area, are looking at forestry problems and realizing that they live in an urban forest and realizing they have to care for an urban forest, it has also made them more receptive to hearing about what can be done with the products of that urban forest.
Are other communities following your lead?
This whole cooperative structure that we've developed is really something that is increasingly going to be looked at as a model for other regions. We've been in a lot of contact with the folks who are trying to promote the same thing in different other metropolitan areas around the country. There are some people in the Chicago area who are doing it, there are people in Madison, Wisconsin, and in Milwaukee who are trying to do it, there are people in North Carolina, people in California. There are pockets all around the country where you see these initiatives taking place. As far as I know, the cooperative we have, the combined marketplaces that we have with a whole group of small sellers, that's the only one we know of selling urban material like this that we know of in the country. And so we're getting a lot of calls from other areas where urban wood use is taking off...We're hoping to see more of this happen...I think it was one of those cases where out of disaster, something good bloomed. With just the volume of waste that was created by emerald ash borer and the awareness that it created, I think it actually gave us the perfect environment for something like this to grow.
The Traverwood branch of the Ann Arbor Public Library has a lot of reclaimed ash flooring and shelving in its interior.
Yes, we worked on the Traverwood branch
... Part of the harvesting and milling of the ash trees that went into that building, that was paid for through a grant that our council got from the U.S. Forest Service.
What's another significant project using recycled wood?
Paul Hickman is a local designer in Ann Arbor...He is working using our partners as suppliers, and he's producing a whole line of picture frames made from urban wood. His business is called Urban Ashes and he uses the wood and works with people from the local workforce development group and actually is doing job training and development with people who are coming out of corrections, people who are in transitional labor for one reason or another, who are producing these high-end picture frames...He's using Michigan glass in the picture frames, he's using Michigan paper for the backing. It's an entirely Michigan product and he's getting great reception from boutique gift stores throughout Michigan and also even throughout the country.
And what's next for Urbanwood?
"In the bigger picture, we would really just love to see more markets develop. We are very open to the idea of creating a couple more marketplaces throughout southeast Michigan and just getting more people aware that this wood is available, that this can happen with their own trees, that we can see more communities buy into the concept as well...We would love to see every city that has a plan for managing their urban forest to include a plan for how they manage the wood when the trees come down."
Tanya Muzumdar is a freelance writer, poet, and the Assistant Editor of Concentrate and Metromode. Her last feature column was "German Park is Heimplatz for Summer Festivities".
All photos by Doug Coombe | <urn:uuid:49efe94f-7274-4117-b617-382d20520bb0> | {
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A printed book or PDF download version of The Congo Cookbook is available from lulu
names of African foods
It could be argued that Africa's linguistic diversity is greater than its gastronomic diversity. Simply put, the number of African languages is greater than the number of African foods. The African continent is home to hundreds, maybe thousands, of languages (though perhaps only 40 African languages are spoken by two million or more people), but there are far fewer foodstuffs. This means that a certain food prepared a certain way might be known by one name in one place, and by another name in another place. For example, what can be called Black-Eyed Pea Fritters, or Bean Croquettes, or Bean Balls (in English) are called Akara in The Congo Cookbook. That is one name for them in at least one language in Western Africa, but they are also known as Binch Akara, Kosai, Koose, and Kwasi, and probably many other things. Akara may or may not be the most common name. As if there were not enough African languages, things are further complicated by the fact that African words are spelled differently in different languages like English, French, Portuguese, German, or Italian that came to Africa in the colonial era. For example, the Moambé Stew recipe could just as easily have been titled Mwambé.
When African words are written in English, a good rule to follow is to pronounce each vowel as a seperate syllable. For example: Matoke is pronounced "ma-toe-kee". French accents are sometimes used, for example, "Moambé" is pronounced "mwam-bay".
Alice Werner provided much the same advice for pronouncing words from the Bantu languages in her Myths and Legends of the Bantu (London: George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd, 1933), in which she wrote:
A word as to the pronunciation of African names. No attempt has been made to render them phonetically, beyond the rough-and-ready rule that vowels are to be pronounced as in German or Italian, consonants as in English, every syllable as ending in a vowel, and every vowel to be pronounced. Thus it has not been considered necessary to put an acute accent over the e in Shire (which, by the by, ought to be Chiri) and Pare. Where ng is followed by an apostrophe, as in 'Ryang'ombe' (but not in 'Kalungangombe'), it is sounded as in 'sing,' not as in 'finger.'
Search this website:
Congo Cookbook recipes using Palm OilRecipes by Ingredient | <urn:uuid:011673ee-249a-41bc-9f58-2effbfede05e> | {
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The bulletin of Atlanta University
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Number 187 Atlanta, Georgia January, 1909 The Southern Educational Association Negro Education The question of Negro education was given a prominent place in the program of the recent meeting of the Southern Educational Association in Atlanta, an entire morning session being given to its consideration. We regret that the local newspaper reports failed to convey the liberal spirit which characterized the discussion. The prevailing sentiment was decidedly in favor of more and better work for the Negroes and there was general recognition of the sad limitations which characterize their present public school opportunities. It was held that the burden of Negro education must fall largely on the Southern people, and in this connection the missionary schools established and largely supported by people from the North met with some criticism. The question was raised as to whether people who lived in another section of the country could possibly understand the needs of the Negro race and prepare them for useful life as effectively as the Southerners among whom their lot is cast. Rev. George Sale, D. D., was on the program to speak upon The Past, Present and Future of Mission Schools in the South for the Education of the Negro. He used the opportunity this afforded to meet the criticisms which had been made. He showed the relation which these schools bore to the whole system of Negro education, being, as they are, the training schools for the teachers. He showed, moreover, that the development of character and of the spirit of service was fundamental in the purpose of all such institutions, and said that criticism of them was usually based upon misapprehension. He urged the people of the South to acquaint themselves more fully with the work of such schools. When the meeting was open for discussion Pres. G. R. Glenn, of the North Georgia Industrial School, spoke. Dr. Glenn was formerly Commissioner of Public Schools of the state of Georgia. There is no man more familiar with the problems of education in the South than he. In a few words, beautifully chosen, he expressed, as a Southern man, his deep appreciation of the work that had been accomplished in the mission schools and his admiration for the young people who had, as missionaries, come to the South in the '60's and '70's, and devoted themselves to so unpopular a cause as Negro education. Mention should be made also of the forceful address of Ex-Governor W. J. Northen. He earnestly advocated education as a means for the prevention of lawlessness and would have the state of Georgia introduce compulsory education for all her people of school age, both white and black. Some Phases of the Negro Problem (Quoted from Mr. Taft's speech before the North Carolina Society) The proposal to repeal the Fifteenth Amendment is utterly impracticable and should be relegated to the limbo of forgotten issues. It is very certain that any party founded on the proposition would utterly fail in a National canvass, and that the hope is futile. What we are considering is something practical, something that means attainable progress. It seems to me to follow, therefore, that there is or ought to be a common ground upon which we can all stand in respect to the race question in the South, and its political bearing, that takes away any justification for maintaining the continued solidity of the South to prevent the so-called Negro domination. The fear that in some way or other a social equality between the races shall be enforced by law or brought about by political measures really has no foundation except in the imagination of those who fear such a result. The Federal Government has nothing to do with social equality. The war amendments do not declare in favor of social equality; all that the law or Constitution attempt to secure is equality of opportunity before the law and in the pursuit of happiness, and in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property. Social equality is something that grows out of voluntary concessions by the individuals forming society...... Ultimately, of course, the burden of Negro education must fall on the Southern people and on Southern property owners. Private charity and munificence, except by way of furnishing an example and a model, can do comparatively little in this direction. It may take some time to hasten the movement for the most generous public appropriations for the education of the Negro, but the truth that in the uplifting of the Negro lies the welfare of the South is forcing itself on the far-sighted of the Southern leaders. Primary and industrial education for the masses, higher education for the leaders of the Negro race, for their professional men, their clergymen, their physicians, their lawyers, and their teachers, will make up a system under which their improvement, which statistics show to have been most noteworthy in the last forty years, will continue at the same rate. . . . Public Schools in Atlanta When a city becomes its own severest critic there is great hope of improvement. The following paragraphs are quoted from the annual address of Mr. Asa G. Candler, President of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce: All the school houses are overcrowded, and in several the board of education, in order to accommodate the children who have sought entrance, have been compelled to use ill-lighted and poorly ventilated basements for class rooms. The wooden buildings are heated by stoves ; their only means of ventilation are windows through which cold drafts of vitiated air come, inviting and producing disease and death to our children, if in the providence of a merciful God they escape cremation by a burning building. Poor and perilous as are these buildings, they are wholly inadequate even if they were such structures as they ought to be. Atlanta has about 20,000 children of school age, boys and girls, between the ages of six and fourteen. The total enrollment in our overcrowded and ill-housed schools is less than 14,000. It is reliably estimated that 7,200 children of school age are not in school at all. Of these 2,800 are white and 4,400 black. Gentlemen, take note, the spring time of life comes but once and when gone, is forever gone, with all its solemn eternity of meaning. Can any community afford to take such chances on the young life of future generations? Can we blast the seed time and hope for the harvest? Prof. George Norton Ellis, of Berea College, visited us the last day of the old year and spoke to the students at morning chapel.
|Title||The bulletin of Atlanta University, 1909 no. 187|
Universities & colleges
|Description||The bulletin of Atlanta University was a publication sent to faculty, friend and alumni of the institution; Telling of the institution's progress and present needs. This issue is January 1909, no. 187.|
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What we perceive in the world is highly influenced by what we are looking for. That is old news. Now European researchers have used this theory to create a convincing and engaging ‘mixed reality‘, and they have put together a cookbook so others can do it, too. That is new news.
Reality is WYSIWYG: What You See Is What You Get. But what you see depends largely on what you are looking for.
In a famous experiment, a group of volunteers observed a video of two teams, one dressed in black and one in white, passing a ball between them. The volunteers had to count the number of times the ball was passed directly from one player in black to another player in black. They performed the task excellently.
What they failed to notice was the man in the gorilla suit who walked on screen and jumped up and down during the game. It proved that what you see is strongly influenced by what you are looking for.
In ophthalmology, researchers have found the eye does not see everything you perceive; neural processing fills in parts of the scene by inferring from those bits that are observed. In quantum physics, researchers discovered that particles change behaviour depending on whether you are looking at them or not.
In field after field researchers have discovered that perception is not linear; it is fuzzy; and it can be strongly influenced by carefully choosing the right cues.
The cues do not necessarily require complex technology. The Wii, a very popular gaming platform, abandoned the arms race of ever-more powerful processors and graphics cards and instead incorporated a simple motion sensor. Now users' gestures and reflexes drive the game, changing the pastime from a solitary, passive experience into an active, social one.
Those two additions, sociability and physicality, dramatically enhance the sense of experienced reality engendered by the game. This is very interesting. Up to now technologies, such as virtual and mixed reality, were thought by most to rely on more power, more technologically advanced interfaces, more animation and textures; but it now seems mixed reality is more powerfully and realistically evoked by combining perceptual dimensions with novel technologies in order to create a greater depth of experience.
“The greater the combination of senses engaged, the greater the chance of the user feeling immersed or present in the experience,” explains Rod McCall, a researcher at the Fraunhofer Institute and coordinator of the IPCity project.
In IPCity, a major EU-funded mixed reality project, researchers studied dozens of technologies to find those that dramatically enhance a user’s experience of a given task, all in an effort to increase citizens’ participation in civic life.
V-Ex and the city
Using virtual experiences (or V-Ex if you want) like this to bring citizens closer to the city, the project embarked on what is probably the largest concerted effort, looking at the widest variety of mixed reality implementations, in recent times.
The project created applications for town planning, gaming, environmental awareness and storytelling. It enhanced engagement with the social, cultural and historical fabric of a city through location awareness and mapping, and it developed social storytelling rooted at locations within the streetscape.
Using a combination of easy-to-understand yet state-of-the-art technologies and location sensing, the researchers were able to create convincing cross-reality experiences by engaging multiple senses in parallel.
From the lab to the real world
The project took perceptual and mixed reality research out of the lab and into the real world with a combination of large-scale field trials and longitudinal studies. As a result, the IPCity team has developed cookbook-like guidelines for creating mixed reality experiences.
Take Urban Renewal, an urban redesign application. Here, the researchers used a wide variety of media and interfaces to engage citizens in an exercise for redesigning an urban space.
IPCity’s Colour Table is a particularly innovative interface, using tokens to represent elements within a scene, such as buildings or other objects. An overhead camera projected the design table onto a wall, revealing changes as they developed from a bird’s eye view.
Another camera ‘interprets’ the tokens and projects virtual mock-ups onto a backdrop of the real site. Meanwhile on a screen, users can see how they have arranged the tokens, and on another they see how that would impact the real landscape.
The entire set-up, along with other tools, is part of a mobile tent that is transported to the actual location for the new building, so participants can visualise the real-world environment. The combination of these technologies, along with subtle audio streams, evokes a very convincing air of engagement in the task.
“In the Urban Renewal showcase you have coloured tokens on the table and these represent buildings or another object in the space. So rather than having participants moving graphical objects on the screen you have them physically moving real objects on the table,” stresses McCall.
This physicality makes it easier for other people who are there to grasp what's going on – it starts a much richer discussion around the design through this physical relationship with it.
Another showcase by IPCity, CityWall in Helsinki, uses a very large multi-touch screen on a central street. “People can do whatever they want with content which is uploaded to flickr. But they appropriate the CityWall in hundreds of different ways. People play 'Pong' with the content, throwing it across the screen to one another, and it becomes [an] expressive space, far more perhaps than people showing pictures on their computer monitor,” McCall notes.
A sociable science
Social elements form a part of all the applications developed by IPCity, deliberately so. “We figured out pretty early on that a shared experience is much richer, that is why two people work together in our game, TimeWarp. It becomes a shared, new reality,” McCall explains.
Active, physical engagement, too, is important. McCall reveals that because it is impossible to cover a city entirely in virtual objects, the project developed activities that players need to complete, such as walking through a time portal or following a beer cart through the city. As non-players cannot see what the players are doing it often led to confused looks by passers-by in Cologne when it was demonstrated there.
In many respects, IPCity’s work represents the state of the art for mixed reality experiences and promises to offer a lot of food for thought to tourism, social gaming and mobile phone companies, among many others, including the performing arts. In fact IPCity’s work could be applied in some fashion to almost any area, to dramatically enhance the experience.
IPCity has applied the theory on perception in novel, compelling ways and its work will go on to enhance the theory further and lead to even more subtle and ingenious applications of V-Ex, in the city and elsewhere.
This is the first of a two-part special feature on IPCity appearing on ICT Results.
The IPCity project received funding from the FET Proactive strand of the EU’s Sixth Framework Programme for research.
Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided ICT Results is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you do republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the ICT Results site (http://cordis.europa.eu/ictresults). Let us know if you republish so as to help us provide you with a better service. If you want further contact information on any of the projects cited in this story please contact us. | <urn:uuid:ce8edb2f-38e3-4b9c-b541-ad6a4ce07fd5> | {
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ALS researchers aim for the fences
By Alissa Poh
Nobody likes bad news. Especially when it's a grim medical diagnosis like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
ALS, a rapidly progressing, fatal neurodegenerative disease, usually strikes people between 40 and 60 years of age; those afflicted have an average survival of just two to five years. Amyotrophic, a word with Greek origins, means "no muscle nourishment." Lateral identifies the areas of the spinal cord where motor neurons—nerve cells that signal muscles—are found. And sclerosis refers to the scarring and hardening this region undergoes as it degenerates. But though the brain becomes increasingly unable to control the muscles, it maintains its cognitive abilities. So ALS patients are painfully aware of their progressive loss of function.
"It's a hard disease to treat, to tell patients that they have it," says Dartmouth neurologist Elijah Stommel,M.D., Ph.D. He sees patients at DHMC's nationally recognized ALS center and also conducts research exploring the underlying mechanisms of the disease. One of the most common neuromuscular diseases in the world, ALS entered the national lexicon when the career of Yankee slugger Lou Gehrig was cut short by the condition in the 1930s. In the U.S. today, about 20,000 people have it at any given time and about 5,000 new cases are diagnosed each year.
Role: It's not yet known what causes ALS, but there's increasing evidence that neuroinflammation is involved. Stommel and DMS neuropathologist Brent Harris, M.D., Ph.D., have looked at the role of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-a), a pro-inflammatory molecule present at elevated levels in ALS patients. Their study, published in the April issue of Neuroscience, showed that TNF-a induces the redistribution of mitochondria
About 5,000 new cases of ALS are diagnosed each year.
in motor neurons grown in the lab. Mitochondria generate energy as well as release substances that can cause cell death. In the experiment, TNF-a caused the mitochondria to cluster where the axon—the part of the nerve cell that carries signals to other cells—meets the cell body. Similar mitochondrial clustering has been noted in patients who died of ALS.
Test tube: But Stommel would extrapolate the finding to humans "with trepidation." He says that "it's very hard to be sure that what you're looking at under the microscope, or in the test tube, has very much in common with what's going on in a live human or a live animal." The team will continue to study the significance of neuroinflammation and mitochondrial dysfunction in ALS.
Stommel and Harris are also running a
Phase II clinical trial to treat ALS using thalidomide, a TNF-a blocker. Phase II trials test whether a therapy, at a safe dose, works against a given disease (while Phase I assesses safe dosing, and Phase III compares new therapies to established therapies and/or placebos). About 20 patients are enrolled in the trial but the dropout rate has been high, says Stommel, mostly due to thalidomide's unpleasant side effects—including sedation, constipation, and blood clotting. Thalidomide was once used to treat morning sickness in pregnant women but was banned in the 1960s in the U.S. after it caused birth defects in thousands of babies. But it has since been approved to treat some cancers. The team hopes to also test lenalidomide, a related drug that is more potent but has fewer side effects.
The researchers believe that multiple risk factors are involved in the development of ALS, including genetic makeup and, as Stommel puts it, "walking into the wrong situation at the wrong time." Some scientists suspect that exposure to environmental toxins such as aluminum, which is neurotoxic in high doses, might play a role.
Clusters: Stommel and Harris have also undertaken an epidemiological study of several ALS clusters—areas with an unusually high incidence of the disease—in New Hampshire and Vermont. They plan to test the water in those areas to measure levels of a neurotoxin produced by cyanobacteria that live in some lakes in the region.
They agree that discovering a biomarker for ALS is key. "My guess is that to find successful treatments for ALS is going to require finding out about the disease very early, before the motor neurons are irreversibly damaged," Stommel says. "By the time you're diagnosed with ALS, probably the majority of your motor neurons are already dead or dying and not salvageable."
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These days, nearly every college student owns a cell phone. In the classroom, cell phones are generally seen by the instructor as nothing more than a distraction. Step into any college classroom during a long lecture or in-class film, and chances are you’ll see a handful of students typing away and sending text messages to their friends. With this behavior becoming all too common, it is no doubt why professors despise the devices and are asking students to turn their cell phones off completely during class.
However, what students and instructors aren’t always realizing is the potential of cell phones in education. Students have access to very powerful devices, especially with the rising ownership of smartphones. An article published recently by Edudemic questions the next step of cell phones in education and offers the following interesting ways to harness the device’s power for effective use in education:
- Text Reminders: Since students generally check their cell phone more frequently than their email, the website Remind101 has come up with a way to reach students when they are away from their computer, but not their phone. The site allows instructors to create assignment reminders that are sent to students via text message. All the students have to do is register with the site and subscribe to the class’ reminders.
-Using the cell phone as a study tool: For students who want to study on-the-go, but don’t want to drag their heavy computer around there’s sites like StudyBoost. Once the student registers, they can create their own series of study questions. Then, using their phone, they can have the questions sent to them via text message. From there, the student answers the questions by replying to the StudyBoost number, and will instantly receive their results.
-Voting: Using Poll Everywhere, instructors can gather opinions and votes in their classroom. This tool also provides real time data, which is especially appealing to professors looking to save time.
-Accessing Twitter: Interestingly enough, Twitter is becoming increasingly present in the classroom. Obviously, smartphones have the ability to instantly access Twitter via apps or an internet browser. However, there are also easy ways to access Twitter with a basic phone! Users can tweet by registering their phone and sending a text message to their country’s short code. If the user isn’t able to send text messages, TweetCall is also an option. TweetCall is a free service that lets the user call a phone number, speak their tweets, and have them transcribed into text.
-Scavenger Hunt: Educational scavenger hunts are already a popular activity with cell phones in the classroom. There are many different programs and apps to run your scavenger hunt on, but the recommended program is SCVNGR. The program is compatible with both basic cell phones and smartphones, as many scavenger hunt apps are designed for smartphones with a GPS function. | <urn:uuid:7c971106-8135-49d8-91eb-8412746822dc> | {
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I have read and heard that warm-up and cool down are important in preventing pulled muscles and preventing muscle soreness. Exactly how long and strenuous should they be?
Warm-up should last about 5 to 10 minutes and would be performed at a work rate or speed that is well below that used for the main workout. For example, a jogger might use walking as a warm-up, or a slow jog a minute or two slower per mile than the pace used in the main body of the workout. Walkers should start out easily and work their way up to a brisk pace. Weight trainers might do 5 to 10 minutes of light aerobic exercise such as described here before ever picking up the first weight. Even then, the first set of each exercise should be light, approximately half the weight to be used in the heaviest set. For example, someone who will bench press 120 pounds in the last set might use about 60 pounds in the first set.
The value of warm-up extends beyond pulled muscles. Other benefits include shifting blood flow to the muscles and heating up the muscle and connective tissues so that they are more resistant to strain, but also because they work more effectively. Warm muscle promotes the speed of chemical reactions that release energy for contraction. The addition of blood to the muscle allows for more of the energy needed for the muscle contraction to be released through oxidative chemical reactions rather than reactions not dependent on the presence of oxygen. This reduces the amount of lactate, a waste product, developed in the muscle. Lactate interferes with chemical reactions and makes one breathe faster and deeper. Together, all of these benefits make your body work more efficiently, comfortably, and safely.
One study found vigorous exercise performed without the customary warm-up to be dangerous for the heart. Most of the young, healthy subjects were found to experience abnormalities in their EKG during the vigorous exercise. This indicates that middle-aged and older exercisers in particular need to warm up thoroughly before starting to exercise.
Cool down is the light exercise that is performed after the main part of the workout. Like warm-up, it should last about 10-15 minutes. Contrary to popular opinion, cool down does not reduce muscle soreness. Instead, it is always recommended because the easy movements during cool down promote the return of blood from the veins back to the heart. If one stopped running suddenly and simply stood still, the blood in the veins tends to remain there which reduces the volume of blood the heart receives which in turn reduces the amount it can pump. With reduced blood leaving the heart, the tissues rapidly become hypoxic (low oxygen content) leading to dizziness, possible fainting, and nauseousness.
By continuing to move after exercise, albeit at a slower pace, the veins are squeezed by surrounding skeletal muscles which pushes the blood back to the brain, muscles, skin, etc. Consequently, we recover much faster and feel better sooner.
Failure to cool down properly can lead to cardiac arrhythmia (a heart that fails to contract at a constant rate) and even a heart attack. As with lack of warm-up, middle-aged and older exercisers should view cool down as a critical part of a safe and healthy exercise program.
0 comments - Feb 1, 1995
Diabetes Health is the essential resource for people living with diabetes- both newly diagnosed and experienced as well as the professionals who care for them. We provide balanced expert news and information on living healthfully with diabetes. Each issue includes cutting-edge editorial coverage of new products, research, treatment options, and meaningful lifestyle issues. | <urn:uuid:c58f6b87-427f-4c97-81bd-3a8ce1505cd5> | {
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Human genes for retinal degeneration
Retinal degeneration [DOID:8466]
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a medical condition which usually affects older adults and results in a loss of vision in the center of the visual field (the macula) because of damage to the retina. It occurs in “dry” and “wet” forms. It is a major cause of blindness and visual impairment in older adults (>50 years). Macular degeneration can make it difficult or impossible to read or recognize faces, although enough peripheral vision remains to allow other activities of daily life.
Synonyms: retinal degeneration, DOID:8466, RETINA degeneration, degeneration of retina (disorder), retina degeneration ... | <urn:uuid:1ff9bdfb-656a-455b-8520-690dc2dd653a> | {
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|relevant research · login|
We Just Disagree - Billy Dean
So let's leave it alone,
As the song notes, sometimes "we just disagree". In economic life people often disagree about how resources should be used. Some may want to use a tract of land to build houses, another to farm, and still another may want to have the land used as a nature preserve. In his article, The Problem of Social Cost, Ronald Coase talks about the "reciprocal nature of the problem". What does Coase's insight tell us about how disagreements can be settled efficiently? What barriers exist to solving these problems efficiently in real life?
[Will Luther assisted with this assignment.] | <urn:uuid:1addc22f-46db-467d-b89c-74a7cd0b6057> | {
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Re: New alvarezsaurid
> Anything that allows an animal to control its motion while
>airborne, no matter how slightly, becomes a flight characteristic or
I guess it just depends on your definition of flight. Me, I would say
that anything that allows an animal to control itself during gliding or
parachuting is a gliding or parachuting adaptation.
>Flapping flight is a specialized form of flight that evidently appeared
>in the evolution of birds well after numerous flight features had
>evolved--indeed, it's not yet clear whether _Archaeopteryx_ itself was
>flapping flier. I would certainly agree that many flight adaptations
>for reasons other than flapping flight; but I would tend to disagree
>evolved for reasons other than flight (for the most part), as I have
Why would it appear that flapping flight is a characteristic that
evolved late in bird evolution?
I think that it is quite clear that Archaeopteryx was a flapping flier.
It has characteristics that are only seen in volant, flapping birds:
1) Assymetric flight feathers.
2) Curved remiges.
3) Ventral furrow on the shaft of the flight feathers.
4) Hypertrophied furcula that has not degenerated or formed an obtuse
5) Elongate coracoid that faces posteriorly.
6) Heart-shaped ulnarae.
Basically I think that volant adaptations must have evolved for reasons
other than flight for flight to evolve and only after flight has evolved
have some of the more advanced flight features evolved (strut-like
coracoid for example).
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com | <urn:uuid:1d5d3b32-3e24-4335-8a1f-d2644e736cdc> | {
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Light Scattering System
NanoBiophysics Core Facility has a full set of Light Scattering equipment from Wyatt including Multiangle Light Scattering (MALS) device, Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) device, and HPLC system (Agilent) linked to MALS.
Light scattering is a non-invasive technique for characterizing macromolecules and a wide range of particles in solution. In contrast to most methods for characterization, it does not require outside calibration standards. In this sense it is an absolute technique. Wyatt Technology instruments make two different types of light scattering measurements for absolute molecular characterization:
* Classical light scattering: Here, the intensity of the scattered light is measured as a function of angle. For the case of macromolecules, this is often called Rayleigh scattering and can yield the molar mass, rms radius, and second virial coefficient (A2). For certain classes of particles, classical light scattering can yield the size, shape, and structure.
* Quasi-elastic (QELS) or dynamic light scattering (DLS): In a QELS measurement, time-dependent fluctuations in the scattered light signal are measured using a fast photon counter. QELS measurements can determine the hydrodynamic radius of macromolecules or particles.
Light scattering is a technique that can be applied in either batch or chromatography mode. In either instance the sample may be recovered at the end of the measurement. Since light scattering provides the weight-averaged molar mass for all molecules in solution, it is generally more useful to utilize the chromatography mode, though each technique has its advantages.
Although absolute molecular weights can be determined also via mass spectrometry, membrane osmometry, and sedimentation equilibrium (analytical centrifugation), only light scattering covers so broad a range of macromolecules including their oligomeric states. Most importantly, light scattering permits measurement of the solution properties of macromolecules. While a sedimentation equilibrium run may require 72 hours, a size exclusion chromatography/light scattering study may be completed in well under an hour, and a batch mode analysis in a few minutes. These comparatively short run times coupled with the absolute determination of molar mass, size, and A2 make light scattering the method of choice for accurate and fast macromolecular characterization.
For more information go to www.wyatt.com
Core Facility will help you with obtaining free downloads of manuals, tutorials and software. | <urn:uuid:383315da-e20e-4bfd-8cad-7c0c4da0230a> | {
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Dragons are creatures with nearly unlimited life spans. They can survive for long periods of time, and no one has found a dragon that has died of old age. Adolescence is usually marked by the growth of a hatchling’s wings, although not all breeds of dragons grow wings and some breeds have other traits that indicate the beginning of maturation. Once they hit adolescence, hatchlings change quickly, maturing to their full forms in only 2 years.
Dragons don’t communicate with each other verbally, but they will growl to scare off predators and frighten prey. Young dragons will emit an extremely high-pitched squeal when they are frightened. To communicate, they use telepathy with each other and to speak to other creatures.
Spitfires are a desert breed of dragon. Their dull brown bodies contrast with their brilliant turquoise markings, and they only blaze brighter when these dragons fight. Spitfires are notorious for their territorial natures, and the wing-edges of most are ripped and tattered before their first year is out. Spitfires are also noteworthy for their brilliant blue fire, which is used not for hunting or fighting, but rather for making glass caves from the sand, in which the dragons can soak up the sun. | <urn:uuid:4fb154d9-d6dd-47b0-9bf6-27a9befc5815> | {
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Location sensing within mobile devices is reaching a new phase of development and distribution. This new phase, now commercially available for augmented reality developers, delivers powerful local search solutions.
Morton Heilig introduces Sensorama to the world, a machine capable of providing entertainment that engages all five senses. Built similar to arcade amusements, the user experienced a virtual world. Production of the Sensorama spawned for Heilig, another great idea: the head-mounted display.His Telesphere Mask became the prototype for head mounted displays that are used in military fighter jets – the uses of which were first seen by many in "Star Wars."
During this time, Ivan Sutherland devised one of the first complete augmented reality systems built with wire-frame graphics and a head-mounted display that required a head sensor which measured the position and angle of the user’s head. The system would then change the location of augmented objects depending on the view angle.
Boeing engineers Tom Caudell and David Mizell began applying augmented reality in the design process.It's Caudell who is considered to have coined “augmented reality.” Augmented reality goes industrial in helping to design, build, and maintain objects.
The era of virtual reality grows in development and application and seizes the imagination of Hollywood and other industries including games, educational, and defense.
Librarians begin to explore AR to protect priceless manuscripts and books. The technology allows searchers to flip the pages and read the table of contents of rare old books and identify missing books from a shelf or collection.
Robert Azuma in his HRL Lab published a paper describing his team’s latest AR discoveries in both indoor and outdoor environments. There was also a big thrust in the '90s for enterprise Bluetooth, RFID, and other wireless local LAN technologies. It would be the late 1990s that would bring wireless data communications. So when Azuma and his team calculated an outdoor solution for AR applications it was big news. The solution from HRL Lab compensated for user motion which inspired freedom of use beyond the confines of a stationary presentation. The solution used a rate gyro, compass, and attitudinal sensors to display virtual text labels over distant points of interest.
This era also saw Mixed Reality Systems Lab in Singapore and Project Arvika in Germany study augmented reality in both head-mounted displays and video screen interfaces.
Philippe Kahn introduces his newborn daughter Sophie to the world on the first mobile camera phone that enabled him to share her picture with over 2,000 relatives and friends. Kahn created a makeshift camera phone in the hospital by pulling together a cell phone and a digital camera to send photos in real time. His invention was the beginning of LightSurf Technologies which now powers mobile phones for most of the leading global manufacturers.
Benefon Esc! NT2002 becomes the first GSM device with built-in GPS.
2000s and the Future
In 2001, Stargate SG1 showcased the long-term side affect of retinal scan display (RSD) on the user, including permanent optical nerve and brain damage.
Although AR has been around for over four decades it's only now the technology is taking off. Head mounted displays using (RSD), which displays the image directly onto the eye, may reduce the need for bulky headsets, but consumers need to be wary of using technology that impacts our sight and hearing just because it is cool.
Pattie Maes of MIT’s Fluid Interfaces group is creating a new digital "sixth sense" for humans. Maes’ group is interested in how people can mix into their environment using a wearable device that turns any surface into an interactive display screen. Maes intends to augment the data derived from our five senses with those that can be generated from a mobile computing device. To see more about Mae’s solution, watch his TED presentation.
The fundamentals of location-based augmented realityLocation sensing within mobile devices is reaching a new phase of development and distribution. This new phase, now commercially available for developers of augmented reality, delivers powerful local search solutions.
Mobile AR solutions finally have the components available to deliver solutions for mass adoption.
Basic requirements for all mobile location based AR solutions include a browser enabled smart phone with a high resolution camera, geo-positioning, accelerometer, light sensor, direction sensing, motion sensors and stabilizers, a processor able to calculate the visual information and decide overlay data to present and how it should be presented. Additionally, the solution requires at least a 3G network and a data plan.
When network coverage is slow to non-existent
When national network coverage is non-existent, metropolitan area networks kick into gear. Proximity location sensors determine if an object is within a distance-frame of a known location, e.g. WiFi access hot spots within a campus setting that can provide triangulation data. There are two other methods for determining proximity and they include detecting physical contact such as pressure and touch: mobile touch screens and observing auto ID such as point-of-sale terminals, road-way toll passes, and UPC product codes.
What this means is even if the carrier network is slow, mobile search AR can be used on a university campus, at an enterprise company with multiple buildings, within a defined tourist area, and a shopping mall as long as the mobile device shakes hands with the WiFi network.
Beware of open-source solutions
Open source technology enabled apps are rarely supported by the carrier or handset manufacturer, thus if there is a problem the most likely outcome is the user will need to delete of the app and a require a refund. Consumers and the brand advertisers behind the AR apps need to ensure that their AR apps are fully supported by the developer.
Augmented reality in real life
Toppan Printing Co Ltd in Japan supplies AR terminals for mass distribution. Their terminals – about the size of a soda or mobile phone vending machine – are located in market places. Based on the simple ability of a mobile phone snapping a QR code to acquire enhanced item descriptions on digital signage, provide new features to display windows, and help shoppers find stores, the Toppan AR Terminal when used with a mobile phone housing a high-quality camera, can recognize the package of a sample product, display a description of the product, and provide a view of the product outside of its security packaging.
If you've discovered a real life augmented reality mobile solution, please share. | <urn:uuid:1c353230-1df5-49ad-bac4-14e26c69c4ee> | {
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Description from Flora of China
Herbs, clambering subshrubs, shrubs, or lianas. Leaves alternate or opposite, entire, exstipulate. Flowers small, bisexual or unisexual, or sterile and reduced, subtended by 1 membranous bract and 2 bracteoles, solitary or aggregated in cymes. Inflorescences elongated or condensed spikes (heads), racemes, or thyrsoid structures of varying complexity. Bracteoles membranous or scarious. Tepals 3-5, membranous, scarious or subleathery, 1-, 3-, 5-, or 7(-23)-veined. Stamens as many as tepals and opposite these, rarely fewer than tepals; filaments free, united into a cup at base or ± entirely into a tube, filament lobes present or absent, pseudostaminodes present or absent; anthers (1- or)2-loculed, dorsifixed, introrsely dehiscent. Ovary superior, 1-loculed; ovules 1 to many; style persistent, short and indistinct or long and slender; stigma capitate, penicillate, 2-lobed or forming 2 filiform branches. Fruit a dry utricle or a fleshy capsule, indehiscent, irregularly bursting, or circumscissile. Seeds lenticular, reniform, subglobose, or shortly cylindric, smooth or verruculose.
Morphology of the androecium, perianth (tepals), and the inflorescence has traditionally been used to circumscribe genera and tribes. Pseudostaminodia are interstaminal appendages with variously shaped apices. Filament appendages are the lateral appendages of filaments (one on each side). The basic structure of the inflorescence is the cyme (branchlets arising from the bracteole axils, the bracteoles serving as bracts for upper flowers), which can be reduced to one flower with two bracteoles and a bract. Units of dispersal vary considerably (capsules opening with lower part persistent, flower and bracteoles falling together, or cymose partial inflorescences breaking off above bract) and can be characteristic for genera. Several genera possess long trichomes serving dispersal at the base of the tepals.
Digera arvensis Forsskål (Fl. Aegypt.-Arab. 65. 1775) has been reported from Anhui. However, we have seen no specimens and are therefore unable to treat it in this account.
About 70 genera and 900 species: worldwide; 15 genera (one introduced) and 44 species (three endemic, 14 introduced) in China.
(Authors: Bao Bojian (包伯坚) ; Steven E. Clemants , Thomas Borsch)
Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 20 Nanxincun, Xiangshan, Beijing 100093, Peoples Republic of China.
Herbarium, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 1000 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn, New York 11225-1099, U.S.A.
Abteilung Systematik und Biodiversität, Botanisches Institut und Botanischer Garten, Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, Meckenheimer Allee 170, D-53115 Bonn,
Kuan Ke-chien. 1979. Amaranthaceae. In: Kung Hsien-wu & Tsien Cho-po, eds., Fl. Reipubl. Popularis Sin. 25(2): 194–241. | <urn:uuid:6d422f8f-ce27-435f-a538-4985a467ce12> | {
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Elementymology & Elements Multidict
Zilver – Silber – Argent – Plata – 銀 – Серебро – 銀
Sulver Frisian (West)
Argint Romanian - Moldovan
SlavicСребро [Srebro] Bulgarian
Серабро [serabro] Belarusian
Сребро [Srebro] Macedonian
Серебро [Serebro] Russian
Сребро [Srebro] Serbian
Срібло [sriblo] Ukrainian
Airgead Gaelic (Irish)
Airgead Gaelic (Scottish)
Argid Gaelic (Manx)
Other Indo-EuropeanΑργυρος [argyros] Greek
Արծաթ [artsat'] Armenian
Æвзист [ævzist] Ossetian
Нуқра [Nukra] Tajik
Indo-Iranian/Indo-Aryanরূপা [rūpā] Bengali
نقره [nqrh] Persian
ચાંદી [cā'dī] Gujarati
चाँदी [chā.ndī] Hindi
Эзысь [Èzys'] Komi
Ший [Šij] Mari
Сия [sija] Moksha
Кĕмĕл [Kĕmĕl] Chuvash
Күміс [kümis] Kazakh
Кумуш [Kumuš] Kyrgyz
Мөнгө [möngö] Mongolian
كۈمۈش [kümüş] Uyghur
Other (Europe)Zilarra Basque
ვერცხლი [verc'xli] Georgian
Afro-Asiaticفضة [fiDDah] Arabic
כסף [kesef] Hebrew
銀 [gin] Japanese
은 [eun] Korean
เงิน [ngoen] Thai
銀 [yin2 / ngan4] Chinese
Other Asiaticവെള്ളി [veḷḷi] Malayalam
வெள்ளி [veļļi] Tamil
North-AmericaIztāc teōcuitlatl Nahuatl
South-AmericaQullqi q'illay Quechua
CreoleSrivru Sranan Tongo
New namesSilveron Atomic Elements
History & Etymology
"And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold." (Gen. 13:2)The Egyptians considered gold to be a perfect metal, and gave it the symbol of a circle. Since silver was the closest to gold in perfection, it was given the symbol of a semi-circle. Later this semi-circle led to a growing moon symbol, probably due to the likeness between the shining metal and the moon glow.
The noble metals, gold and silver, are found in the native state, and as is well known, gold and silver were used to make jewelry and sheet metal due to the great ductility and lustre of the pure metals. Its malleability and ductility make it ideal for ornamental purposes. It was also used for paying debts, in personal and religious places decoration and in utensils of the wealthiest houses.
Some mineral scums in old mines of the Near-East and in some islands of the Aegean sea seem to reveal that by 5000 b.C. a method was already known to separate silver from lead. Early gold and silver ornaments from the Indian subcontinent are found from Indus Valley sites such as Mohenjodaro (ca 3000 BC).
The monetary use of silver may well be as old as that of gold but the abundance of the native metal was probably far less, so that comparable supplies were not available until a method of winning the metal from its ores had been discovered. It appears, however, that by perhaps 3000 BC a form of cupellation was in operation in Asia Minor and its use gradually spread, so that silver coinage was of crucial economic importance to all subsequent classical Mediterranean civilizations.
In astrology alchemy the seven heavenly bodies known to the ancients were associated with seven metals also known in antiquity:
The long history of Silver is reflected in the many different words for this metal. See the list of names to the left and in the overview of Silver in over 100 languages (click here).
We can identify at least seven diffent roots.
The names in the Roman languages (except some on the Iberian peninsula), in the Celtic languages and in Albanian are derivations from the Latin.
It is the only element after which a country is named (Argentina > argentum).
SILVER, the proverbially bright metal,
(Argentum), is of a bright white colour
With brilliant lustre, not affected
By pure Aire. Silver Suboxide is black,
The Monoxide is brown. Silver is the best
Known conductor of Electricity
And Heat; 'tis extremely ductile; fine Silver wire
Of seventy-eight one-thousandth inch diameter
Will support one hundred and eighty pounds weight
Without breaking. Sulphur, if present in Air,
In time tarnishes Silver articles.
From Andis Kaulins, Indo-European Afro-Asiatic Words for Metals - Copper Lead Tin Iron Bronze Gold Amber: | <urn:uuid:0962bf9e-456a-4c60-af7a-3ca0187d6447> | {
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Two Centuries of Thought
Richard Burton - 1964
Two centuries later, Hamlet still muses; Hamlet still broods; and most critics still base their thinking on the vision of Hamlet created by the Romantics. He is a poet or philosopher by nature, and his reflections lead to internal conflict that inhibits actions. The following excerpt from the writing of Yale University professor, Harold Bloom, serves as a good representative of the preservation, and continuing development of this line of thought.
The largest mistake we can make about the play, Hamlet, is to think
that it is the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind because
(presumably) he thinks too much.... The fundamental fact about Hamlet
is not that he thinks too much, but that he thinks too well. His is
simply the most intelligent role ever written for the Western stage;
indeed, he may be the most intelligent figure in all the world of
literature, West or East. Unable to rest in illusions of any kind,
he thinks his way through to the truth, which may be a pure nihilism,
yet a nihilism so purified that it possesses an absolute nobility,
even a kind of transcendentalism.
Harold Bloom finds a foundation for this emendation of the Romantic view in Fredrich Neitzsche's The Birth of Tragedy.
|Montaigne's experiential man avoids Dionysiac transports as well as
the sickening descents from such ecstasies. Nietzsche unforgettably
caught this aspect of Hamlet in his early The Birth of Tragedy,
where Coleridge's view of Hamlet (like Coleridge) thinks too much is
soundly repudiated in favor of the truth, which is that Hamlet thinks
too well. I quote this again because of its perpetual insight:
While appearing to refute the notion that Hamlet's excess thought prevents him from action, Harold Bloom argues that it is the quality of his thought that prevents action. | <urn:uuid:e20d2d77-b23b-491d-b35f-37bb151ece67> | {
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Mirad/Orthography and Pronunciation
Last modified on 1 November 2010, at 22:49
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Orthography and Pronunciation
- The Mirad alphabet has both lower-case and upper-case letters. The alphabet has the same base letters as Latin or English, except that the letters Qq, Xx, and Yy are considered non-native and are used only in foreign names and borrowings. Also, the letters Hh and Ww are additional to Agapoff's original Unilingua alphabet and are unique in that they have no inherent semantic values; they are used for various grammatical-only purposes. A unique feature of Mirad is that every native letter is a semantically-significant atom in the language and can be thought of as bricks in lexical construction. See Word-building
- The order of the native alphabet is as follows:
- a á à â b c d e é è ê f g h i í ì î j k l m n o ó ò ô p r s t u ú ù û v w z
- The above lower-case letters can also be represented as upper-case letters. In Unicode representations and indexing, the uppercase graphemes precede the lowercase values. Uppercase letters are used much as in American English, that is, for the first letter in sentences, proper nouns, etc. See #Orthography for more details. As mentioned above, the Mirad graphemes Ww and Hh are additional to the letters in the original Unilingua and are used to form the passive voice of verbs and the correlative deictics, respectively. Foreign names and borrowings sometimes also incorporate Hh, Qq, Xx, and Yy.
- The following are classified as consonants:
- b c d f g h j k l m n p r s t v w z
|*Note: The author of Unilingua did not include the letters Hh or Ww as native graphemes. They have been added in Mirad in order to encompass word structures not included by Agapoff, in addition to interjections and foreign names. See more on this under #Vowels.|
- Vowels, or more accurately, vowel nuclei consist of plain vowels and yodified vowels, that is, vowels that have a y-glide sound before, after, or around them. A synonym of yodified is palatalized.
- The plain vowels are (only miniscules listed here):
- a e i o u
- The yodified vowel nuclei are:
- á é í ó ú (pre-yodified)
- à è ì ò ù (post-yodified)
- â ê î ô û (circum-yodified)
|Note: The author of Unilingua used non-Roman letters to represent some of the pre-yodified vowels (я = á, е = é, ø = ó, and ю = ú. The author employed a hacek (called ille in French) over the vowel to represent post-yodification (ă = à, ě = è, etc.). This revised Mirad textbook, however, uses the acute accent (as in French été) for the pre-yodified vowels, the grave accent (as in French père) for the post-yodified vowels, and the circumflex accent (as in French fête) for the circum-yodified vowels. It must be remembered, however, that á, ô, and other yodified vowels are considered single vowels or vowel nuclei in any analysis of the language, not dipthongs or tripthongs). In other words, the accents are merely graphemic devices to distinguish vowels qualitatively, and thereby semantically.|
- Despite Agapoff's idiosyncratic system of punctuation, the punctuation symbols and usage in Mirad are just like those of American English.
- Capitalization in Mirad follows the same rules as in English. European learners need to be especially careful to capitalize the first letter of the names of languages, nationalities, and inhabitants, which in most European languages are left in lowercase.
- Note the following examples. The words are all capitalized because the root word is the name of the country China:
|Kina||Chinese (people or nation) [adj.]|
|Kinad||Chinese (language) [n.]|
|Kinada||Chinese (language) [adj.]|
|Kinadè||in Chinese [adv.]|
|Kinadaer||to speak Chinese (pronounced: kee-nah-dah-EHR)|
|Kinader||to utter in Chinese|
|Kinadrer||to write Chinese|
|Kina vidrun||Chinese calligraphy|
|Kinadéder||to read Chinese|
|Kinénà||in the Chinese way [adv.]|
|Kin-Amerika véani||Sino-American relations|
|Kinconi||things Chinese (pronounced: keen-SOH-nee)|
|Kinaser||to sinofy (pronounced: kee-nah-SHEHR)|
|Kintun||Sinology (pronounced: keen-TOON)|
- This chart shows the closest phonetic approximations of the Mirad consonant graphemes in English and some other familiar languages, along with the exact value in IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet):
|c||s||see||hace||garçon||Watch out! Sounds like "s".|
|h||h||how||jota||--||Closer to the English value.|
|j||ʒ||mirage||--||jour||As in "Dr. Zhivago.|
|r||r||--||toro||--||Dental flap or trill|
|s||ʃ||shed||--||chaise||A fricative "sh" sound!|
|Note! Be very careful that the c and the s are not pronounced as their English or European equivalents. Think of the c as being the French c cedilla (ç).|
Simple vowel sounds
- a as in Spanish la (IPA:/a/)
- e as in French thé (IPA:/e/)
- i as in Spanish sí! (IPA:/i/)
- o as in Spanish no (IPA:/o/)
- u as in Spanish tú (IPA:/u/)
Pre-yodified vowel sounds
- These vowels are pronounced the same as the simple vowel above, but with a y-glide at the beginning.
- á is like ya as in English yacht
- é is like ye as in German jeder or English yes
- í is like yi as in French yippie or English ye (without the final y-glide)
- ó is like yo as in German Joga or English yo-yo (without the final w-glide)
- ú is like yu as in German Juli or English unit
Post-yodified vowel sounds
- These vowels are pronounced like the simple vowels, but with a y-glide at the end.
- à is like ay as in English Thai
- è is like ey as in English fey
- ì is like iy as in English see
- ò is like oy as in English boy
- ù is like uy as in English fooey
Circum-yodified vowel sounds
- These vowels are pronounced with a y-glide at both the beginning and end.
- â is like yay as in English yikes!
- ê is like yey as in English yea!
- î is like yiy
- ô is like yoy
- û is like yuy
|Note the difference in pronunciation between aá, which is pronounced like A-ya as in Spanish "playa", and àa, which sounds like AY-a as in English diagram.)|
Syllabification and Stress
- A closed syllable is one that ends in a consonant or a y-glide (i.e., a post- or circum-yodified vowel). A syllable consists of [C]V[C], where V, the vowel nucleus, can begin or end with a y-glide, but contain only one of the set of vowels [aeiou], and where C consists of one or two homorganic consonants, i.e. [bcdfgjknpstvz]+[lrwy].
- The rule for stress is: If a word ends in a closed syllable, then the last syllable receives the stress, otherwise, the penultimate (next-to-last) syllable receives the stress.
|Hàfa||HAY-fa||(Israeli town of) Haifa|
|gracer||gra-SER||to be extreme|
- Every vowel in Mirad is given its full syllabic pronunciation, even when juxtaposed in what English or European speakers might consider dipthongs:
|Mirad · Word-building →|
|Orthography and Pronunciation · Word-building · Word Families · Grammar · Conversation Lessons ·| | <urn:uuid:f7d50f38-dff8-46c1-9633-4d590e4c37b4> | {
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||This article relies largely or entirely upon a single source. (June 2009)|
|Look up award in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.|
An award is something given to a person or a group of people to recognize their excellence in a certain field; a certificate of excellence. Awards are often signified by trophies, titles, certificates, commemorative plaques, medals, badges, pins, or ribbons. An award may carry a monetary prize given to the recipient; for example, the Nobel Prize for contributions to society or the Pulitzer Prize for literary achievements. An award may also simply be a public acknowledgment of excellence, without any tangible token or prize.
Awards can be given by any person or institution, although the prestige of an award usually depends on the status of the awarder. Usually, awards are given by an organization of some sort, or by the office of an official within an organization or government. For instance, a special presidential citation (as given by the President of the United States) is a public announcement giving an official place of honor (e.g., President Ronald Reagan gave a special presidential citation in 1984 to the Disney Channel for its excellent children's television programming.)
However there are exceptions like some quality labels, for which it is neither person nor organizations that are rewarded, but products. This is the case for the World Quality Selections organized by Monde Selection. These international awards are assigned to beverages, foods, cosmetics and diet products, which stand out for their quality.
People who have won certain prestigious awards, such as the Nobel Prize, a championship title in a sport, or an Academy Award (Oscar), can have the award become their identity, thereafter being known primarily for winning the award, rather than for any other achievement or occupation. To distinctly be categorized as an 'Award', rather than some other type of ceremonial or arbitrary recognition, there should be a clear process of nominations, award criteria and appropriate judging process. Generally, recognition by a set of peers, acknowledging quality of work, rather than a 'popularity contest' is considered to be an authentic award.
Mock awards, which typically recognize failures or atypical achievements, are also popular. They are usually given by people and organizations of lower or average prestige, such as comical organizations and individual writers. Popular mock awards include:
- Golden Raspberry Awards (Razzies), a satirical counterpart to the Academy Award which recognizes the worst acting, screenwriting, songwriting, directing, and films that the film industry had to offer
- Ig Nobel Prize, a satirical counterpart to the Nobel Prize, given for achievements that "first make people laugh, and then make them think."
- Darwin Awards, "given to people who seem to improve the human gene pool by accidentally killing or sterilizing themselves during a foolish or careless mistake."
One common type of award in the United States is the Employee of the Month award, where typically the recipients' names are listed in a prominent place in the business for that month. A common mock award is the wooden spoon, given to an individual or team which has come last in a competition.
Some awards are given only after a fee is paid by the recipient, such as the German Design Award.
- The Kentucky Derby Trophy is an award worth $70,000 with an estimated 1000 man hours of labor.
- Ken Bensinger (2006-12-14). "The Bogies: Radar nominates the most bogus awards in America". Radar Online. Archived from the original on 2007-06-03. Retrieved 2007-06-07. | <urn:uuid:7b0aea92-85af-416e-9f8d-15a98662f52b> | {
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Central Weather Bureau
|Central Weather Bureau|
|Zhōngyāng Qìxiàng Jú|
|Jurisdiction||Republic of China|
|Agency executive||Tzay-Chyn Shin (辛在勤), Director-General|
|Parent Agency||Ministry of Transportation and Communications|
The Central Weather Bureau (Chinese: 中央氣象局; pinyin: Zhōngyāng Qìxiàng Jú; often abbreviated to CWB) is the government meteorological research and forecasting institution of the Republic of China (Taiwan). In addition to meteorology, the Central Weather Bureau also makes astronomical observations, reports on sea conditions, and conducts research into seismology and provides earthquake reports. The Central Weather Bureau is headquartered in Taipei City and is administered under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.
While Taiwan was under Japanese rule, the government set up five weather monitoring stations on the island, located in Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, Hengchun, and Penghu. On December 19, 1897, the Governor-General moved the headquarters to the present location occupied by the eventual successor agency of the Japanese "Taipei Observatory": the Central Weather Bureau. In 1945 when the Kuomintang took control of Taiwan the various stations set up by the Japanese were incorporated into the new Taiwan Provincial Weather Institution, under the Chief Executive of Taiwan Province, Chen Yi. When the position of Chief Executive was abolished in 1947 (the new head of local government being the Governor of Taiwan Province) the institution became an agency of the Taiwan Provincial Government.
The Central Weather Bureau itself was established in 1941 in Chongqing under the Executive Yuan of the Republic of China. In 1947 (and again from 1971 onwards) it was re-assigned to the Ministry of Transportation and Communications. After the Kuomintang defeat in the Chinese Civil War and their subsequent flight to Taiwan in 1949, the Central Weather Bureau relocated from Mainland China to Taiwan. From 1949 to 1958 it was under the control of the Taiwan Provincial Weather Institution, then from 1958 onwards it was resurrected to become the principal meteorological organisation of the government. In 1971 the Central Weather Bureau switched from being a part of the Taiwan Provincial Government to the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, under central government authority.
The Central Weather Bureau has a number of responsibilities, represented by the various departments.
Weather Forecast Center
The Weather Forecast Center (Chinese: 氣象預報中心; pinyin: Qìxiàng Yùbào Zhōngxīn) is the department responsible for monitoring actual weather conditions and making short and medium term forecasts concerning the weather. It also issues severe weather advisories for conditions including heavy rain, cold snaps, typhoons and storms, and dense fog. In the case of typhoons, the department closely monitors all tropical storms which might impact the island and issues warnings and predicted typhoon path and severity based on the collected data.
The Seismological Center (Chinese: 地震測報中心; pinyin: Dìzhèn Cèbào Zhōngxīn) of the Central Weather Bureau was founded in 1989, with a mission to monitor seismic activity in and around the island, publish reports on significant earthquakes, study earthquake precursor phenomena, issue tsunami warnings where appropriate, and provide information to the public of earthquake precautions. Taiwan is in a seismically active region on the Pacific Ring of Fire, with 44 deadly earthquakes occurring there during the twentieth century. The center has 150 seismological monitoring stations through Taiwan, Penghu, Jinmen and Matsu.
Marine Meteorology Center
The Marine Meteorology Center (Chinese: 海象測報中心; pinyin: Hǎixiàng Cèbào Zhōngxīn) was established in 1993 to monitor sea conditions and make predictions about weather at sea for shipping, fisheries, tourism and other interested parties. Variables including wave height, tides, sea level variations, sea surface temperature, and ocean currents are measured to provide an accurate picture of current conditions. The center is also responsible for informing the public of tide times, and cooperates with local tourism bureaux and Fishermen's Associations to erect electronic billboards in harbours to inform seafarers of ocean conditions.
The Bureau also includes the following departments:
- The Meteorological Satellite Center (Chinese: 氣象衛星中心; pinyin: Qìxiàng Wèixīng Zhōngxīn), which receives and analyses weather satellite data for observation and prediction purposes.
- The Astronomical Observatory (Chinese: 天文站; pinyin: Tiānwén Zhàn), which not only observes astronomical phenomena such as sunspots and eclipses, but also publishes an annual almanac and provides information on astronomy to the public.
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Central Weather Bureau ROC|
- "南區氣象中心 (Southern Meteorological Center)" (in Chinese). Central Weather Bureau.
- "氣象博物館 (Meteorological Museum)" (in Chinese).
- "Brief History & Organization". Central Weather Bureau.
- "Missions". Central Weather Bureau. Retrieved 2009-08-08.
- "Weather Forecast Center". Central Weather Bureau.
- "二十世紀(1901-2000)台灣地區災害性地震" (in Chinese). Central Weather Bureau. Retrieved 2009-07-17.
- "Seismological Center". Central Weather Bureau.
- "Marine Meteorology Center". Central Weather Bureau.
- "Meteorological Satellite Center". Central Weather Bureau. | <urn:uuid:993c7cb8-70af-467f-9e89-a8deb55553be> | {
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||This article is written like a personal reflection or opinion essay rather than an encyclopedic description of the subject. (February 2009)|
Direct-to-video (also known as direct-to-DVD, direct-to-VHS, direct-to-digital, made-for-video, straight-to-video, shot-on-video, or straight-to-DVD) is the release of a film to the public on home video formats (historically VHS) without being released in theaters or broadcast on television. Because sufficiently inferior sequels, prequels, or midquels of larger-budget films may be released direct-to-video, references to direct-to-video releases are often pejorative. Still, direct-to-video releases have become something of a lifeline for independent filmmakers and smaller companies.
Reasons for releasing direct-to-video
A production studio may decide not to generally release a TV show or film for several possible reasons: poor quality, lack of support from a TV network, negative reviews, controversial nature, or a simple lack of general public interest. Studios, limited in the annual number of films to which they grant cinematic releases, may choose to pull the completed film from the theaters, or never exhibit it in theaters at all. Studios then generate additional revenue through video sales and rentals.
Direct-to-video releases have historically carried a stigma of lower technical or artistic quality than theatrical releases. Some films released direct-to-video are films which have been completed but were never released in movie theaters. This delay often occurs when a studio doubts a film's commercial prospects would justify a full cinema release, or because its release window has closed. A release window refers to a timely trend or personality, and missing that window of opportunity means a film, possibly rushed into production, failed to release before the trend faded. In film-industry slang, such films are referred to as having been "vaulted".
Direct-to-video releases can be done for films which cannot be shown theatrically due to controversial content, or because the cost involved in a theatrical release is beyond the releasing company.
Animated sequels and feature-length episodes of animated series are also often released in this fashion. The Walt Disney Company began making sequels of most of its animated films for video release beginning with The Return of Jafar (the sequel to Aladdin) in 1994. Universal Studios also began their long line of The Land Before Time sequels that same year.
Studios may also release sequels or spin-offs to a successful live action film straight to DVD. These are commonly referred to as "cheapquels" due to the lack of quality and budget in comparison to the original. Examples are the Behind Enemy Lines series of films.
The family film segment is a major part of direct-to-video sales. According to the LA Times,
"Often, the downfall of live-action family films at the box office is their strength on video. Their appeal is to families with young children, who may go to only a couple of movies per year but who will watch many videos multiple times. The teens and young adults who drive blockbuster box-office statistics stay away from family movies."
During the Golden Age of Porn in 1970, many films were released in theatres, some of which became some of the highest grossing films in their release years and in the porn industry altogether. Towards the 1980s porn began to shift to video release, because video allowed the producers to work on extremely low budget, and neglect some film elements like script. During the 1990s porn began releasing through paysites on the internet, which made distribution easier to millions of customers around the world, but also created a problem as it became an easy target to piracy and posting in free porn sites.[original research?]
Direct-to-video films screened theatrically
Occasionally, a studio that makes a movie that was prepared as a direct-to-video film will release it theatrically at the last minute due to the success of another film with a similar subject matter or an ultimate studio decision. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is an example of this. However, despite the movie's critically acclaimed success, its box-office performance was very poor, which has been blamed on its last minute decision to be released theatrically. The film had much better commercial success in its subsequent home video releases. Another example which garnered a large cult following is the 2001 psychological thriller Donnie Darko, which was originally slated for a direct-to-video release. Doug's 1st Movie was also intended as a direct-to-video release, but due to the success of The Rugrats Movie, it went into the theaters in Spring 1999. While the film did poorly with critics, it was a moderate box-office success.
Other times, a direct-to-video movie may get a limited theatrical screening in order to build excitement for the actual release of the video such as was done for 2010's Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths and Planet Hulk.
As DVDs gradually replaced videocassettes, the term "direct-to-DVD" replaced "direct-to-video" in some instances. However, the word "video" does not necessarily refer to VHS cassettes. Many publications continue to use the term direct-to-video for DVDs or Blu-ray Discs. The new term sometimes used is DVDP ("DVD Premiere"). Such films can cost as much as $20 million (about a third of the average cost of a Hollywood release) Some direct-to-video releases also feature formerly well-known actors, such as Jean-Claude Van Damme, Ray Liotta, Steven Seagal, Wesley Snipes, Dolph Lundgren, Ving Rhames, Val Kilmer, Rose McGowan, 50 Cent, Christian Slater, Vinnie Jones, Forest Whitaker, Steven Dorff and Cuba Gooding, Jr.. Salaries for such actors range from $2 to $4 million (Van Damme) to $4.5 to $10 million (Seagal). According to Variety, American Pie: Band Camp sold a million copies in one week, despite retaining only two actors from the original trilogy.
As of 2005, DVDPs collectively grossed over $3 billion annually.
Direct-to-iTunes is an online distribution method that avoids all upfront DVD production, marketing and distribution costs as well as upfront cinema distribution and marketing costs. It has revolutionized short film distribution and on occasion has been used for feature length films. Apple distributes the film for 30% of the revenue, while an additional 10-15% may go to the person who formats the film for iTunes compatibility. The first independently produced feature length motion picture to pursue the direct-to-iTunes marketing scheme was Ed Burns' Purple Violets, which debuted on iTunes on November 20, 2007. It was the first feature length film to "premiere exclusively on iTunes". It was distributed exclusively on iTunes at a price of US$14.99 for a month before being made available through other distribution channels. The movie, which was produced at a cost of $4 million, had premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April, where it was reviewed positively, but only received modest distribution offers. At the time of the Purple Violets release, most studios were not distributing via iTunes early in the process and only Walt Disney Studios, which was the first movie studio to distribute via iTunes, was distributing at iTunes simultaneously with DVD distribution. It was not very common for consumers to make digital movie purchases at the time. The Polish brothers' 2011 For Lovers Only, which had virtually no production costs and was released to iTunes on July 12, is regarded as the first profitable feature length direct-to-iTunes product. The direct-to-iTunes method is also becoming common with both books and music.
When Purple Violets was released, several short films had already been distributed through iTunes. Previously, marketing of short films had been prohibitive. However, Apple distributed the February 25, 2007 79th Academy Awards nominees for the Animated Shorts, Live Action Shorts and Documentary Shorts as well as half of the 2007 Sundance Film Festival shorts, beginning a new era.
The V-Cinema and OVA markets in Japan
In Japan, direct-to-video titles referred to as "Original Video" (オリジナルビデオ) carry different connotations, being a niche product rather than a fallback. Despite having lower budgets than features intended for theater release, Japanese direct-to-video productions are rarely marred by the poor storyline and lower quality production often associated with the DTV market in the US. So-called V-Cinema has more respect from the public, and affection from film directors for the greater creative freedoms the medium allows. DTV releases are subject to fewer content restrictions and less creative dictates than other formats.
In the case of anime, this is called Original Video Animation (OVA or OAV), and their production values usually fall between those of TV shows and movies. They're often used to tell stories too short to fill a full TV season, and were particularly common in the early 1990s. Sometimes OVAs garner enough interest to justify commissioning a full TV show, such as Tenchi Muyo!, El Hazard, and Read or Die.
With the advent of the 13 episode season format, OVAs are less common now. The majority of OVAs released in today's market are usually continuations or reworkings of recently completed TV show. For instance, the DVD release of a TV show might include a bonus episode that was never broadcast as a sales hook.
- B movie
- Home video
- List of Disney direct-to-video films
- Television film
- Category:Direct-to-video films for a list of Direct-to-video productions.
- Alvarez, Max J (1994-12-30). "Big Names Look For Bright Lights In Videoland". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2010-12-07.
- Lerman, Laurence (September 17, 2001). "Independents' 'Bread and Butter'". Video Business 21 (38). Section: Video Premieres
- Barlow, Aaron (2005). The DVD Revolution: Movies, Culture, and Technology. Praeger/Greenwood. p. 19. ISBN 0-275-98387-0. "Films that flop in theaters or which are never theatrically released can prove profitable through longer-term video and DVD sales."
- Goodale, Gloria (October 23, 1998). "'Straight to Video' Picks up Steam". Christian Science Monitor
- Bernstein, Adam (2004-12-12). "Silent Films Speak Loudly for Hughes". The Washington Post. TVWeek p. Y06.
- "More Films Jump Straight to DVD". USA Today. August 6, 2003. Section: Life, p. 03d
- Cheapquel - Urbandictionary.com
- Matzer, Marla (1997-04-16). "Direct-to-Video Family Films Are Hitting Home". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 4 June 2011.
- Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths gets big-screen Premieres on Two Coasts - Comicmix.com - February 5, 2010
- Berardinelli, James. "DVD's Scarlet Letter". Retrieved 2007-01-13.
- For one example of many uses of the term, see "Paramount grows DVDP slate". Retrieved 2007-01-13.
- DVD Exclusive Online. "Stars, Money Migrate To DVDP (archived)". Archived from the original on 2006-05-15. Retrieved 2007-01-13.
- Carl DiOrio (2004-03-23). "Average cost of a film: $102.9 million". Video Business Online. Retrieved 2007-01-21. The figure cited in the title includes marketing costs; as of 2004, when this article was written, the average production cost was $63.8 million.
- Variety.com (2005-12-29). "Spending on DVDs up 10%". Retrieved 2007-01-13.
- Halbfinger, David M. (2007-10-23). "Facing Competition, iTunes Revs Up Its Film Section". The New York Times. Retrieved 2011-08-25.
- Graser, Marc (2007-10-25). "Ed Burns offers 'Violets' on iTunes: Feature to skip theatrical release". Variety. Retrieved 2011-08-25.
- "Edward Burns - Movie Going Direct To Itunes". contactmusic.com. 2007-10-25. Retrieved 2011-08-25.
- Kirsner, Scott (2007-11-02). "Studio's Digital Dilemma: Apple Calling Shots as Biz Tries To Control Market". Variety. Retrieved 2011-08-26.
- "Stana Katic and Mark Polish Interview about For Lovers Only on Bloomberg West". Bloomberg News. YouTube. 2011-08-24. Retrieved 2011-08-25.
- Mike Mayo (1997). VideoHound's Video Premieres: The Only Guide to Video Originals and Limited Releases. Visible Ink Press. p. 431. ISBN 0-7876-0825-4. | <urn:uuid:f6b40d07-001e-4a3a-8b14-9abb24acdf42> | {
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History of writing in Vietnam
Until the beginning of the 20th century, government and scholarly documents in Vietnam were written in classical Chinese (called chữ nho "Confucian script," or chữ Hán "Chinese script"), using Chinese characters with Vietnamese approximation of Chinese pronunciations.
At the same time popular novels and poetry in Vietnamese were written in the chữ nôm script, which used Chinese characters for Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and an adapted set of characters for the native vocabulary.
The terms chữ Hán ("Han script") and chữ nho (𡨸儒 pronounced [cɨ̌ˀ ɲɔ] "Confucian script") are largely interchangeable. Both mean writing of Chinese in Chinese characters. However in modern Vietnamese usage chữ Hán can also refer to characters in the modern Chinese or Japanese languages - for example in reference by the journal of the Linguistics Academy of Vietnam to the introduction of pinyin in the PRC in 1958.
The term chữ ("character") is in regular use in Vietnamese, for example "chữ thập" means the Chinese "10" character (十, Vietnamese thập, used as the "cross" in Chữ thập đỏ "Red Cross"). The ideogram for chữ (𡨸 "script") is normally not found in Chinese printed texts and Unicode character 21A38 may also may fail to display in html browsers) and is sometimes substituted by the character for tự (字 "character"), the characters nho (儒 "Confucian") and Hán (漢) are part of the common Chinese-Japanese-Korean-SinoVietnamese character set. chữ Nho is often capitalized in Vietnamese texts. Nho is written and pronounced with a different tone from chữ nhỏ, "miniscule font".
The term Hán tự ([hǎːn tɨ̂ˀ] 漢字, "a Chinese character") is mainly used in typographic, calligraphic and lexical contexts, and used in Vietnamese to describe Sino-Vietnamese characters, as well as Japanese kanji or modern Chinese hanzi. The term Hán tự is still used in relation to individual ideograms, (or Chinese hanzi or Japanese kanji); an individual character is distinguished as "chữ," for example "chữ vật (物)" for the Chinese character "thing" (物) pronounced "vật" in Vietnamese.
Hán-Việt or "Sino-Vietnamese" is a term which is used by modern scholars in relation to Vietnam's Chinese-language texts to emphasize local characteristics and particularly the phonology of the Chinese written in Vietnam, though in regard to syntax and vocabulary this Sino-Vietnamese was no more different from Chinese used in Beijing than medieval English Latin was different from the Latin of Rome. The term "Hán-Việt transliteration" is also used for Chinese place names in Vietnam.
The term chữ nôm (𡨸喃 "script for talking") refers to the former transcription system for vernacular Vietnamese-language texts, written using a mixture of original Chinese characters and locally coined nôm characters not found in Chinese to phonetically represent Vietnamese sounds." However the character set for chữ nôm is extensive, up to 20,000, and both arbitrary in composition and inconsistent in pronunciation.
Hán - Nôm may mean either both Hán and Nôm taken together, as in the research remit of Hanoi's Hán-Nôm Institute, or refer to texts which are written in a mixture of Hán and Nôm, or refer to some Hán texts with parallel Nôm translations. There is a significant orthographic overlap between Hán and Nôm and many characters are used in both Hán and Nôm with the same reading.
The term quốc ngữ (國語 "National language") means Vietnamese written in Romanized script. This is different from the historical term quốc âm (國音 "National sound") meaning chữ nôm, found in the title of the 16th Century poetry collection Quốc âm thi tập.
The Chinese domination
No writings in Chinese by Vietnamese writers survive from the Chinese domination.
In Imperial Vietnam (939-1919), formal writings were, in most cases, done in classical Chinese. This was true both of the language of government and administration, and also of entry into government and administration by the wholly Chinese-language Confucian examination system in Vietnam. Chinese was also the language of medicine, astrology, religion, science and high literature such as poetry. Vietnamese existed only as an oral language, before the creation of the nom script to preserve and circulate less serious poetry and narrative literature. These writings are indistinguishable from contemporaneous classical Chinese works produced in China, Korea, or Japan. As are the first poems in chữ nho by the monk Khuông Việt and the Nam Quốc Sơn Hà by general Lý Thường Kiệt.
Localisation and Sino-xenic pronunciation
In Vietnam Chinese text Hán Văn (Hán Văn/漢文) was read with the vocalization of Chinese text as such, equivalent to the Chinese On-readings in Japanese kambun (漢文), or the assimilated vocalizations in Korean hanmun (한문). This occuring alongside entry of Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary into the vernacular Vietnamese language. And creating, in Samuel Martin's term, a Sinoxenic dialect. The Sinologist Edwin G. Pulleyblank was the one of the first linguists to actively employ "Sino-Vietnamese" to recover the earlier history of Chinese.
Period of coexistence of two languages and two scripts
From the 13th Century the dominance of Chinese writing - chữ nho - began to be challenged by a system of modified and invented characters modeled loosely on Chinese characters called chữ nôm, which, unlike the system of chữ nho (or chữ Hán), allowed for the expression of purely Vietnamese words, was created in Vietnam at least as early as the 13th century. During the Ming dynasty occupation of Vietnam chữ nôm printing blocks, texts and inscriptions were destroyed, so that the earliest surviving texts are from after the period. While designed for native Vietnamese speakers, chữ nôm required the user to have a fair knowledge of chữ Hán, and thus chữ nôm was used primarily for literary writings by cultural elites (such as the poetry of Nguyễn Du and Hồ Xuân Hương), while almost all other official writings and documents continued to be written in chữ nho (or chữ Hán) as Hán Văn (classical Chinese) until the 20th century.
French colonial period
The use of classical Chinese, and its written form, chữ nho (or chữ Hán), died out in Vietnam early in the 20th century during the middle years of French Indochina. At this time there were briefly four competing writing systems in Vietnam; chữ nho, chữ nôm, quốc ngữ, and French. Although the first romanized script quốc ngữ newspaper, Gia Dinh Bao, was founded in 1865, Vietnamese nationalists continued to use chữ nôm until after the First World War when quốc ngữ became the favoured language of the Vietnamese independence movement. Some scholars still study it today although its application is mostly confined to the historic context of Vietnamese texts.
Use of quốc ngữ for education in both North and South Vietnam from 1945-1975, and then all of Vietnam since 1975, has rendered most Vietnamese unable to read earlier Vietnamese texts, whether written in Chinese chữ nho, or vernacular chữ nom. Hán Nôm Institute is the national centre for academic research into both Hán and nôm texts. Since the mid-1990s a small resurgence in teaching of Chinese characters, both for chữ nho and the additional characters used in chữ nom, to enable the study of Vietnam's history has emerged. Additionally many Vietnamese study Hán tự characters as part of learning modern Japanese and Chinese. The significance of the characters has occasionally entered Western depiction of Vietnam; for instance novelist E. M. Nathanson mentions the characters in A Dirty Distant War (1987).
- Asian & Pacific quarterly of cultural and social affairs - Volumes 20 - 21 Cultural and Social Centre for the Asian and Pacific Region 1988 - Page 7 "... known script that was used by the Vietnamese, the "Southerners," to transcribe their language, in contrast to the Chinese ideographs (called chữ Hán i.e., "Chinese script," or chữ nho i.e. "Confucian script") of the "Northerners," the Chinese."
- Vietnam 10 - Page 522 Nick Ray, Yu-Mei Balasingamchow, Iain Stewart - 2009 "For centuries, the Vietnamese language was written in standard Chinese characters (chữ nho). Around the 13th century, the Vietnamese devised their own writing system called chữ nôm (or just nôm), which was created by combining two Chinese words or by using single Chinese characters for their phonetic value. Both writing systems were in use until the 20th century – official business and scholarship was conducted in chữ nho, while chữ nôm was used for popular literature. The Latin-based quốc ngữ script, widely used since WWI, was developed in the 17th century by Alexandre de Rhodes (see the boxed text, right). Quốc ngữ served to undermine the position of Mandarin officials, whose power was based on traditional scholarship in chữ nho and chữ nôm, scripts that were largely inaccessible to the masses."
- Nguyễn Đình Hòa Vietnamese London Oriental and African Language Library Vol.9. John Benjamins Publishing Company 1997 Page 6 "1.7 Writing Systems - The language has made use of three different writing systems: first, the Chinese characters, ... 1.7.1 Chữ nho or chũ Hán - Chinese written symbols, shared with Japanese and Korean—the two other Asian cultures that were ... Indeed from the early days of Chinese rule (111 B.C. to A.D. 939) the Chinese governors taught the Vietnamese not only Chinese calligraphy, but also the texts of Chinese history, philosophy and classical literature (while the spoken language ..."
- Ngôn ngữ & đời sống (Language and Life magazine) Hội ngôn ngữ học Việt Nam (Linguistics Academy of Vietnam) 2006 Nos 125/134 - Page 35 - "Phiên âm tự mẫu" là bộ chữ cái La tinh dùng đề chú âm (phố thông) cho chữ Hán, được Chinh phù Trung Quốc công bố năm 1958." Translation "Pinyin Zibiao" is the Latin alphabet used to give the pronunciation (Putonghua) to Chinese kanji, promulgated by the Chinese government in 1958.
- Unicode character 21A38
- Ái Nguyễn, Từ điển công nghệ thông tin điện tử viễn thông Anh-Việt English-Vietnamese Information Technology Dictionary. Nhà xuất bản Khoa học và kỹ thuật Ban từ điển. Science and Technology Publishing House 2000 Page 838 "... minuscule chữ nhỏ, chữ thường Trong in ấn, ký tư thường."
- Effective Designs of the Computer-Assisted Chinese Learning Program for Beginning Learners of Chinese Characters MT Lu, G Hallman, J Black 2010 "A character is a logograph used in written Taiwanese (Hanji), written Japanese (Kanji), written Chinese (Hanzi), written Korean (Hanja), and written Vietnamese (hán tự). A logograph is a grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme."
- Hoa Sơn Hò̂ng Hán tự nhập môn: tự học chữ Hán Âm Việt (Introduction to Hán tự - Teach Yourself Hán script with Vietnamese pronunciation) 1992
- Phan Van Giuong Tuttle Compact Vietnamese Dictionary: Vietnamese-English 2008 Page 392 "tự 1 n. (= chũ) Chinese character, letter: courtesy name: Hán tự Chinese character; biếu tự fancy name, nickname; van tự writing, written language"
- Tứ thư bình giải Lý Minh Tuấn biên soạn, Nguyễn Minh Tiến hiệu đính 1990 "Như thế, trí có nghĩa là thông suốt, thấu hiểu sự lý. Ở đây, trí là dùng miệng nói để thành tựu cho vật. Trong Hán tự, chữ vật (物) chỉ chung các loài trong trời đất."
- David G Marr Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1920-1945 1984 p141 "Because the Chinese characters were pronounced according to Vietnamese preferences, and because certain stylistic modifications occurred over time, later scholars came to refer to a hybrid "Sino-Vietnamese" (Han-Viet) language. However, there would seem to be no more justification for this term than for a Fifteenth Century "Latin-English" versus the Latin written contemporaneously in Rome.8"
- Essays into Vietnamese pasts Keith Weller Taylor, John K. Whitmore - 1995 p20 "Phu falls into this category; it was originally a Tang (Chinese) word but was written in a Hán-Việt transliteration. ... Dang VSn Lung and Thu Linh hypothesize that Phu Dong is the Hán-Việt transliteration of the name of an ancient Tay area, .."
- Hugh Dyson Walker East Asia A New History -2012 Page 262 "...chu nom, Vietnamese transcription, using Chinese and nom characters for Vietnamese sounds."
- Hannas: Asia's Orthg DILM Paper - Page 82 Wm. C. Hannas - 1997 "The linguistic defects are the same as those noted throughout this book for Chinese characters generally, caused by the large number of tokens (some twenty thousand in chu' nom), the arbitrariness of their composition, and the inconsistent "
- Eva Hung, Judy Wakabayashi Asian translation traditions 2005 Page 174 "A large portion of the lexicon of the Vietnamese language in recent centuries derives from Hán. Consequently, there is a significant orthographic overlap between Hán and Nôm, which is to say that many characters are used in both with the same meaning. This is primarily a lexical, not a syntactic, phenomenon, although Hán grammar did influence Nôm prose to a relatively significant extent (Xtankevich 1986)"
- John DeFrancis Colonialism and language policy in Viet Nam 1977 Page 88 "Contemporary handling is indicated by the following entries for Quoc Ngu and the related term Quoc Am from the work by ... must become the writing of the country' he may specifically have had 88 Colonialism and Language Policy in Viet Nam.. "
- George Cœdès The Making of South East Asia 1966 Page 87 "No work of literature from the brush of a Vietnamese survives from the period of Chinese rule prior to the rise of the first national dynasties; and from the Dinh, Former Le, and Ly dynasties, all that remains are some poems by Lac Thuan (end of the tenth century), Khuong Viet (same period), and Ly Thuong Kiet (last quarter of the eleventh century). Those competent to judge consider these works to be quite up to the best standards of Chinese literature.
- Lonely Planet Vietnam Nick Ray, Yu-Mei Balasingamchow - 2010 "Sino-Vietnamese literature was written in Chinese characters (chữ nho). Dominated by Confucian and Buddhist texts, it was governed by strict rules of metre and verse. Modern Vietnamese literature (quoc am) includes anything recorded in ..."
- Alexander Woodside Vietnam and the Chinese Model: A Comparative Study of Nguyen and ... 1971 - Page 53 "Although traditional Vietnamese scholars called Sino- Vietnamese literature "serious literature" and nom literature "the literature of pleasure," this dichotomy is obviously misleading."
- Bjarke Frellesvig A History of the Japanese Language 2010 - Page 258 "... the rendition of Chinese text in Japanese, which affected grammar and usage (see 9.1) and (kanbun-)ondoku, the vocalization of Chinese text as such, which paved the way for the intake of a large number of loanwords from Chinese (9.2).
- Nichibunken newsletter Kokusai Nihon Bunka Kenkyū Sentā 1996- No23-36 - Page 52 "The novel was then translated from Chinese into Vietnamese by a Vietnamese revolutionist. Knowledge of kanbun (classical Chinese) was quite common among Vietnamese intellectuals, and the new kanbun style of Liang Zhi-chau ..."
- Wm. C. Hannas - Asia's Orthographic Dilemma 1997 - Page 77 "Sifting out Sinitic from native vocabulary is more of a problem in Vietnamese than in Japanese or even in Korean because of the longer history of contact between Chinese and Vietnamese, and because of the intimacy (most Vietnamese would... Vietnam was under Chinese "suzerainty ... During this long period, the Vietnamese language itself was overshadowed and to some extent replaced by Chinese, opening the door to thousands of Chinese terms..."
- Language research - Seoul University Language Research Centre 1990 - Volume 26 - Page 327 "The term Sinoxenic dialects was first used by Samuel Martin to refer to the foreign readings of Chinese characters, such as Sino-Korean, Sino-Japanese, and Sino- Vietnamese. By Sino-Korean, Sino- Japanese, and Sino- Vietnamese, ..."
- John R. Bentley A Descriptive Grammar of Early Old Japanese Prose 2001 - Page 39 "... (1975:195, fn. 3) and his reconstructions, but it is interesting to note that Pulleyblank' s work actually supports Miller's claims. ... to have been one of the first linguists to notice the importance of SV in reconstructing earlier stages of Chinese."
- Laurence C. Thompson A Vietnamese Reference Grammar University of Hawaii Press 1965 revised 1987 Page 53 "Chữ nôm apparently existed for several centuries alongside the standard written Chinese of the royal court (called chữ nho 'scholar's characters' or chữ Hán 'Han [i.e., Chinese] characters')."
- Mark W. McLeod, Thi Dieu Nguyen Culture and Customs of Vietnam 2001 Page 68 - "In part because of the ravages of the Ming occupation — the invaders destroyed or removed many Viet texts and the blocks for printing them — the earliest body of nom texts that we have dates from the early post-occupation era ..."
- Ha Minh Nguyen, Bac Hoai Tran, Tuan Duc Vuong Colloquial Vietnamese: The Complete Course for Beginners Routledge 2012 Page 3 "Because of thousands of years of Chinese domination and influence, the Vietnamese used Chinese characters known as chu nho as their official written language for many centuries. However chu nho was not easy to learn and only the ..."
- D. W. Sloper, Thạc Cán Lê Higher Education in Vietnam: Change and Response 1995 Page 45 "All teaching materials are written in Han, Chinese classical characters known as chu nho. From about the thirteenth century a Vietnamese system of writing, chu nom or simply nom, was developed. ... chu nho was used for official business and scholarship, while chu nom was used for popular literature."
- Andrew Simpson Language and national identity in Asia 2007 Page 428 "..there existed a situation in which there were briefly four different available writing systems in Vietnam, chu nho, chu nom, quoc ngu, and Romanized French. ... (4) The acceptability of quoc ngu was then further heightened by its use to translate works of literature from Chinese and chu nom, as well as through its ..."
- Simon Eliot, Jonathan Rose A Companion to the History of the Book - Page 124 2009 "The first publication in quoc ngu was the first Vietnamese newspaper, Gia-dinh báo (Daily Paper, 1865), ... During World War I, the colonial administration encouraged quoc ngu journalism for propaganda purposes, and as a result journals"
- Vietnam Economic Times Volume 98 - Page 14 Viện kinh tế thế giới (Vietnam) "Today calligraphy is considered one of their most respected art forms. Vietnam also has a long history of calligraphy, but in its earliest form it was called Han Nom, a way of using the Chinese characters to convey Vietnamese words."
- Simon Eliot, Jonathan Rose A Companion to the History of the Book Page 124 - 2011 "Since the use of quoc ngu for education has rendered most Vietnamese now incapable of reading earlier Vietnamese ... an increasing commitment to the publication of translations from Chinese or of transcriptions from nom texts to render ..."
- E. M. Nathanson Dirty Distant War 1987 Page 121 "So they took the Chinese ideographs for those words, changed them a little to make them distinctive from the Chinese characters, and in that way developed a written language. That's the script that became what we refer to today as chữ nho."
- 漢字 Hán tự: A Vietnamese-Chinese wordlist (via Wayback Machine)
- Từ điển Hán Việt Thiều Chửu (漢越辭典) (via Wayback Machine)
- Từ điển Hán Nôm
- Hán Việt chú thích, Chinese-to-Vietnamese transliteration | <urn:uuid:6e9c7431-91cf-48c4-aec8-a3188fa26951> | {
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Nuclear power in Japan
Prior to the earthquake and tsunami of March 2011, and the nuclear disasters that resulted from it, Japan generated 30% of its electrical power from nuclear reactors and planned to increase that share to 40%. Nuclear energy was a national strategic priority in Japan, but there had been concern about the ability of Japan's nuclear plants to withstand seismic activity. The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant was completely shut down for 21 months following an earthquake in 2007.
The 2011 earthquake and tsunami caused the failure of cooling systems at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant on March 11 and a nuclear emergency was declared. This was the first time a nuclear emergency had been declared in Japan, and 140,000 residents within 20 km of the plant were evacuated. The total amount of radioactive material released is unclear, as the crisis is ongoing. On 6 May 2011, Prime Minister Naoto Kan ordered the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant be shut down as an earthquake of magnitude 8.0 or higher is likely to hit the area within the next 30 years.
Problems in stabilizing the Fukushima I nuclear plant had hardened attitudes to nuclear power. As of June 2011, "more than 80 percent of Japanese now say they are anti-nuclear and distrust government information on radiation". As of October 2011, there have been electricity shortages, but Japan survived the summer without the extensive blackouts that had been predicted. An energy white paper, approved by the Japanese Cabinet in October 2011, says "public confidence in safety of nuclear power was greatly damaged" by the Fukushima disaster, and calls for a reduction in the nation’s reliance on nuclear power.
Many of Japan's nuclear plants have been closed, or their operation has been suspended for safety inspections. The last of Japan's 50 reactors (Tomari-3) went offline for maintenance on May 5, 2012., leaving Japan completely without nuclear-produced electrical power for the first time since 1970. Despite protests, on 1 July 2012 unit 3 of the Ōi Nuclear Power Plant was restarted. As of September 2012, Ōi units 3 and 4 are Japan's only operating nuclear power plants, although the city and prefecture of Osaka have requested they be shut down.
In 1954, Japan budgeted 230 million yen for nuclear energy, marking the beginning of the program. The Atomic Energy Basic Law limited activities to only peaceful purposes. The first nuclear reactor in Japan was built by the UK's GEC and was commissioned in 1966. In the 1970s, the first light water reactors were built in cooperation with American companies. These plants were bought from U.S. vendors such as General Electric and Westinghouse with contractual work done by Japanese companies, who would later get a license themselves to build similar plant designs. Developments in nuclear power since that time have seen contributions from Japanese companies and research institutes on the same level as the other big users of nuclear power.
Robert Jay Lifton has asked how Japan, after its experience with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, could "allow itself to draw so heavily on the same nuclear technology for the manufacture of about a third of its energy". He says:
There was resistance, much of it from Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors. But there was also a pattern of denial, cover-up and cozy bureaucratic collusion between industry and government, the last especially notorious in Japan but by no means limited to that country. Even then, pro-nuclear power forces could prevail only by managing to instill in the minds of Japanese people a dichotomy between the physics of nuclear power and that of nuclear weapons, an illusory distinction made not only in Japan but throughout the world.
Japan's nuclear industry was not hit as hard by the effects of the Three Mile Island accident (TMI) or the Chernobyl disaster as some other countries. Construction of new plants continued to be strong through the 1980s, 1990s, and up to the present day. While many new plants had been proposed, all were subsequently canceled or never brought past initial planning. Canceled plant orders include:
- The Maki Nuclear Power Plant at Maki, Niigata (Kambara)—Canceled in 2003
- The Kushima Nuclear Power Plant at Kushima, Miyazaki—1997
- The Ashihama Nuclear Power Plant at Ashihama, Mie—2000 (the first Project at the site in the 1970s was completed at Hamaoka as Unit 1&2)
- The Hōhoku Nuclear Power Plant at Hōhoku, Yamaguchi—1994
- The Suzu Nuclear Power Plant at Suzu, Ishikawa—2003
However, starting in the mid-1990s there were several nuclear related accidents and cover-ups in Japan that eroded public perception of the industry, resulting in protests and resistance to new plants. These accidents included the Tokaimura nuclear accident, the Mihama steam explosion, cover-ups after an accidents at the Monju reactor, among others, more recently the Chūetsu offshore earthquake aftermath. While exact details may be in dispute, it is clear that the safety culture in Japan's nuclear industry has come under greater scrutiny.
On April 18, 2007, Japan and the United States signed the United States-Japan Joint Nuclear Energy Action Plan, aimed at putting in place a framework for the joint research and development of nuclear energy technology. Each country will conduct research into fast reactor technology, fuel cycle technology, advanced computer simulation and modeling, small and medium reactors, safeguards and physical protection; and nuclear waste management. In March 2008, Tokyo Electric Power Company announced that the start of operation of four new nuclear power reactors would be postponed by one year due to the incorporation of new earthquake resistance assessments. Units 7 and 8 of the Fukushima Daiichi plant would now enter commercial operation in October 2014 and October 2015, respectively. Unit 1 of the Higashidori plant is now scheduled to begin operating in December 2015, while unit 2 will start up in 2018 at the earliest. As of September 2008, Japanese ministries and agencies were seeking an increase in the 2009 budget by 6%. The total requested comes to 491.4 billion Japanese yen (4.6 billion USD), and the focuses of research are development of the fast breeder reactor cycle, next-generation light water reactors, the Iter project, and seismic safety.
A 2011 independent investigation in Japan has "revealed a long history of nuclear power companies conspiring with governments to manipulate public opinion in favour of nuclear energy". One nuclear company "even stacked public meetings with its own employees who posed as ordinary citizens to speak in support of nuclear power plants". An energy white paper, approved by the Japanese Cabinet in October 2011, says "public confidence in safety of nuclear power was greatly damaged" by the Fukushima disaster, and calls for a reduction in the nation’s reliance on nuclear power. It also omits a section on nuclear power expansion that was in last year’s policy review. Nuclear Safety Commission Chairman Haruki Madarame told a parliamentary inquiry in February 2012 that "Japan's atomic safety rules are inferior to global standards and left the country unprepared for the Fukushima nuclear disaster last March". There were flaws in, and lax enforcement of, the safety rules governing Japanese nuclear power companies, and this included insufficient protection against tsunamis.
As of 27 March 2012, Japan had only one out of 54 nuclear reactors operating; the Tomari-3, after the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa 6 was shut down. The Tomari-3 was shut down for maintenance on 5 May, leaving Japan with no nuclear-derived electricity for the first time since 1970, when the country's then only two reactors was taken offline five days for maintenance. On 15 June 2012, approval was given to restart Ohi Units 3 and 4 which could take six weeks to bring them to full operation. On 1 July 2012 unit 3 of the Ōi Nuclear Power Plant was restarted. This reactor can provide 1,180 MW of electricity. On 21 July 2012 unit 4 was restarted, also 1,180 MW.
The National Diet of Japan Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission (NAIIC) is the first independent investigation commission by the National Diet in the 66-year history of Japan’s constitutional government. NAICC was established on December 8, 2011 with the mission to investigate the direct and indirect causes of the Fukushima nuclear accident. NAICC submitted its inquiry report to both houses on July 5, 2012.[a] The 10-member commission compiled its report based on more than 1,167 interviews and 900 hours of hearings. It was a six-month independent investigation, the first of its kind with wide-ranging subpoena powers in Japan's constitutional history, which held public hearings with former Prime Minister Naoto Kan and Tokyo Electric Power Co's former president Masataka Shimizu, who gave conflicting accounts of the disaster response. The commission chairman, Kiyoshi Kurokawa, declared with respect to the Fukushima nuclear incident: “It was a profoundly man-made disaster — that could and should have been foreseen and prevented.” He added that the "fundamental causes" of the disaster were rooted in "the ingrained conventions of Japanese culture." The report outlines errors and willful negligence at the plant before the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011 and a flawed response in the hours, days and weeks that followed. It also offers recommendations and encourages Japan's parliament to "thoroughly debate and deliberate" the suggestions.
Japan has had a long history of earthquakes and seismic activity, and destructive earthquakes, often resulting in tsunamis, occur several times a century. Due to this, concern has been expressed about the particular risks of constructing and operating nuclear power plants in Japan. Amory Lovins has said: "An earthquake-and-tsunami zone crowded with 127 million people is an un-wise place for 54 reactors". To date, the most serious seismic-related accident has been the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.
Professor Katsuhiko Ishibashi, one of the seismologists who have taken an active interest in the topic, coined the term genpatsu-shinsai (原発震災), from the Japanese words for "nuclear power" and "quake disaster" to express the potential worst-case catastrophe that could ensue. Dr Kiyoo Mogi, former chair of the Japanese Coordinating Committee for Earthquake Prediction, has expressed similar concerns, stating in 2004 that the issue 'is a critical problem which can bring a catastrophe to Japan through a man-made disaster'.
Warnings from Kunihiko Shimazaki, a professor of seismology at the University of Tokyo, were also ignored. In 2004, as a member of an influential cabinet office committee on offshore earthquakes, Mr. Shimazaki "warned that Fukushima's coast was vulnerable to tsunamis more than twice as tall as the forecasts of as much as five meters put forth by regulators and Tokyo Electric". Minutes of the meeting on Feb. 19, 2004, show that the government bureaucrats running the committee moved quickly to exclude his views from the committee's final report. He said the committee did not want to force Tokyo Electric to make expensive upgrades at the plant.
Hidekatsu Yoshii, a member of the House of Representatives for Japanese Communist Party and an anti-nuclear campaigner, warned in March and October 2006 about the possibility of the severe damage that might be caused by a tsunami or earthquake. During a parliamentary committee in May 2010 he made similar claims, warning that the cooling systems of a Japanese nuclear plant could be destroyed by a landslide or earthquake. In response Yoshinobu Terasaka, head of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, replied that the plants were so well designed that "such a situation is practically impossible". Following damage at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant due to the 2007 Chūetsu offshore earthquake, Kiyoo Mogi called for the immediate closure of the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant, which was knowingly built close to the centre of the expected Tōkai earthquake. Katsuhiko Ishibashi previously claimed, in 2004, that Hamaoka was "considered to be the most dangerous nuclear power plant in Japan".
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has also expressed concern. At a meeting of the G8's Nuclear Safety and Security Group, held in Tokyo in 2008, an IAEA expert warned that a strong earthquake with a magnitude above 7.0 could pose a 'serious problem' for Japan's nuclear power stations. Before Fukushima, "14 lawsuits charging that risks had been ignored or hidden were filed in Japan, revealing a disturbing pattern in which operators underestimated or hid seismic dangers to avoid costly upgrades and keep operating. But all the lawsuits were unsuccessful". Underscoring the risks facing Japan, a 2012 research institute investigation has "determined there is a 70% chance of a magnitude-7 earthquake striking the Tokyo metropolitan area within the next four years, and 98% over 30 years". The March 2011 earthquake was a magnitude-9.
Between 2005 and 2007, three Japanese nuclear power plants were shaken by earthquakes that far exceeded the maximum peak ground acceleration used in their design. The tsunami that followed the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, inundating the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, was more than twice the design height, while the ground acceleration also slightly exceeded the design parameters.
In 2006 a Japanese government subcommittee was charged with revising the national guidelines on the earthquake-resistance of nuclear power plants, which had last been partially revised in 2001, resulting in the publication of a new seismic guide — the 2006 Regulatory Guide for Reviewing Seismic Design of Nuclear Power Reactor Facilities. The subcommittee membership included Professor Ishibashi, however his proposal that the standards for surveying active faults should be reviewed was rejected and he resigned at the final meeting, claiming that the review process was 'unscientific' and the outcome rigged to suit the interests of the Japan Electric Association, which had 11 of its committee members on the 19-member government subcommittee. Ishibashi has subsequently claimed that, although the new guide brought in the most far-reaching changes since 1978, it was 'seriously flawed' because it underestimated the design basis earthquake ground motion. He has also claimed that the enforcement system is 'a shambles' and questioned the independence of the Nuclear Safety Commission after a senior Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency official appeared to rule out a new review of the NSC's seismic design guide in 2007.
Following publication of the new 2006 Seismic Guide, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, at the request of the Nuclear Safety Commission, required the design of all existing nuclear power plants to be re-evaluated.
The standard of geological survey work in Japan is another area causing concern. In 2008 Taku Komatsubara, a geologist at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology alleged that that the presence of active faults was deliberately ignored when surveys of potential new power plant sites were undertaken, a view supported by a former topographer. Takashi Nakata, a seismologist from the Hiroshima Institute of Technology has made similar allegations, and suggest that conflicts of interest between the Japanese nuclear industry and the regulators contribute to the problem.
A 2011 Natural Resources Defense Council report that evaluated the seismic hazard to reactors worldwide, as determined by the Global Seismic Hazard Assessment Program data, placed 35 of Japan's reactors in the group of 48 reactors worldwide in very high and high seismic hazard areas.
Nuclear power plants
Following the Fukushima I nuclear accidents Prime Minister Naoto Kan has announced that all 6 of the reactors at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant will be decommissioned. The plant operators had previously stated that reactors 1 to 4 would never operate again. For a list of nuclear reactors in Japan, see List of nuclear reactors.
In terms of consequences of radiation release and core damage the Fukushima I nuclear accidents in 2011 were the worst experienced by the industry in addition to ranking among the worst civilian nuclear accidents, though no fatalities were caused and no serious exposure of radiation to workers occurred. The Tokaimura reprocessing plant fire in 1999 had 2 worker deaths, one more exposed to radiation levels above legal limits and over 660 others received detectable radiation doses but below permissible levels, well below the threshold to affect human health. The Mihama Nuclear Power Plant experienced a steam explosion in one of the turbine buildings in 2004 where 4 workers were killed and seven others injured.
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster
According to the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan, "by April 27 approximately 55 percent of the fuel in reactor unit 1 had melted, along with 35 percent of the fuel in unit 2, and 30 percent of the fuel in unit 3; and overheated spent fuels in the storage pools of units 3 and 4 probably were also damaged". The accident exceeds the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in seriousness, and is comparable to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. The Economist reports that the Fukushima disaster is "a bit like three Three Mile Islands in a row, with added damage in the spent-fuel stores", and that there will be ongoing impacts:
Years of clean-up will drag into decades. A permanent exclusion zone could end up stretching beyond the plant’s perimeter. Seriously exposed workers may be at increased risk of cancers for the rest of their lives...
On March 24, 2011, Japanese officials announced that "radioactive iodine-131 exceeding safety limits for infants had been detected at 18 water-purification plants in Tokyo and five other prefectures". Officials said also that the fallout from the Dai-ichi plant is "hindering search efforts for victims from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami".
Problems in stabilizing the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have hardened attitudes to nuclear power. As of June 2011, "more than 80 percent of Japanese now say they are anti-nuclear and distrust government information on radiation". The ongoing Fukushima crisis may spell the end of nuclear power in Japan, as "citizen opposition grows and local authorities refuse permission to restart reactors that have undergone safety checks". Local authorities are skeptical that sufficient safety measures have been taken and are reticent to give their permission – now required by law – to bring suspended nuclear reactors back online.
Two government advisers have said that "Japan's safety review of nuclear reactors after the Fukushima disaster is based on faulty criteria and many people involved have conflicts of interest". Hiromitsu Ino, Professor Emeritus at the University of Tokyo, says "The whole process being undertaken is exactly the same as that used previous to the Fukushima Dai-Ichi accident, even though the accident showed all these guidelines and categories to be insufficient".
In 2012, former prime minister Naoto Kan was interviewed about the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and has said that at one point Japan faced a situation where there was a chance that people might not be able to live in the capital zone including Tokyo and would have to evacuate. He says he is haunted by the specter of an even bigger nuclear crisis forcing tens of millions of people to flee Tokyo and threatening the nation's existence. "If things had reached that level, not only would the public have had to face hardships but Japan's very existence would have been in peril". That convinced Kan to "declare the need for Japan to end its reliance on atomic power and promote renewable sources of energy such solar that have long taken a back seat in the resource-poor country's energy mix".
Other accidents of note include:
- 1981: almost 300 workers were exposed to excessive levels of radiation after a fuel rod ruptured during repairs at the Tsuruga Nuclear Power Plant.
- December 1995: the fast breeder Monju Nuclear Power Plant sodium leak. State-run operator Donen was found to have concealed videotape footage that showed extensive damage to the reactor.
- March 1997: the Tokaimura nuclear reprocessing plant fire and explosion, northeast of Tokyo. 37 workers were exposed to low doses of radiation. Donen later acknowledged it had initially suppressed information about the fire.
- 1999: a fuel loading system malfunctioned at a nuclear plant in the Fukui Prefecture and set off an uncontrolled nuclear reaction and explosion.
- September 1999: the criticality accident at the Tokai fuel fabrication facility. Hundreds of people were exposed to radiation, three workers received doses above legal limits of whom two later died.
- 2000: Three Tokyo Electric Power Co. executives were forced to quit after the company in 1989 ordered an employee to edit out footage showing cracks in nuclear plant steam pipes in video being submitted to regulators.
- August 2002: a widespread falsification scandal starting in that led to the shut down of all Tokyo Electric Power Company’s 17 nuclear reactors; Tokyo Electric's officials had falsified inspection records and attempted to hide cracks in reactor vessel shrouds in 13 of its 17 units.
- 2002: Two workers were exposed to a small amount of radiation and suffered minor burns during a fire at Onagawa Nuclear Power Station in northern Japan.
- 9 August 2004: four workers were killed after a steam explosion at the Mihama-3 station; the subsequent investigation revealed a serious lack in systematic inspection in Japanese nuclear plants, which led to a massive inspection program.
- 2006: A small amount of radioactive steam was released at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant and it escaped the compound.
- 16 July 2007: a severe earthquake (measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale) hit the region where Tokyo Electric's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant is located and radioactive water spilled into the Sea of Japan; as of March 2009, all of the reactors remain shut down for damage verification and repairs; the plant with seven units was the largest single nuclear power station in the world.
Nuclear organizations in Japan
- Nuclear Safety Commission 原子力安全委員会 - The Japanese regulatory body for the nuclear industry.
- Japanese Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) 原子力委員会 - Now operating as a commission of inquiry to the Japanese cabinet, this organization coordinates the entire nation's plans in the area of nuclear energy.
- Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) 原子力安全・保安院 - The NISA performs regulatory activities and was formed January 6, 2001, after a reorganization of governmental agencies.
These organizations are government funded research organizations, though many of them have special status to give them power of administration separate from the Japanese government. Their origins date back to the Atomic Energy Basic Law, but they have been reorganized several times since their inception.
- Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI) - 日本原子力研究所
- The original nuclear energy research organization established by the Japanese government under cooperation with U.S. partners.
- Atomic Fuel Corporation - 原子燃料公社
- This organization was formed along with JAERI under the Atomic Energy Basic Law and was later reorganized to be PNC.
- Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation (PNC) - 動力炉・核燃料開発事業団
- This organization succeeded the AFC in 1967 in order to perform more direct construction of experimental nuclear plants, and was renamed JNC in 1998.
- Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute (JNC) - 核燃料サイクル開発機構 (semi-governmental agency)
- Was formed in 1998 as the direct successor to the PNC. This organization operated Lojo and Monju experimental and demonstration reactors.
- Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) - 日本原子力研究開発機構
- This is the modern, currently operating primary nuclear research organization in Japan. It was formed by a merger of JAERI and JNC in 2005.
Electric utilities running nuclear plants
Japan is divided into a number of regions that each get electric service from their respective regional provider, all utilities hold a monopoly and are strictly regulated by the Japanese government. For more background information see Energy in Japan. All regional utilities in Japan currently operate nuclear plants with the exception of the Okinawa Electric Power Company. They are also all members of the Federation of Electric Power Companies (FEPCO) industry organization. The companies are listed below.
- Regional electric providers
- Hokkaidō Electric Power Company (HEPCO) - 北海道電力
- Tōhoku Electric Power Company (Tōhoku Electric) - 東北電力
- Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) - 東京電力
- Chūbu Electric Power Company (CHUDEN) - 中部電力
- Hokuriku Electric Power Company (RIKUDEN) - 北陸電力
- Kansai Electric Power Company (KEPCO) - 関西電力
- Chūgoku Electric Power Company (Energia) - 中国電力
- Shikoku Electric Power Company (YONDEN) - 四国電力
- Kyūshū Electric Power Company (Kyūshū Electric) - 九州電力
- Other companies with a stake in nuclear power
- JAPC was created by special provisions from the Japanese government to be the first company in Japan to run a nuclear plant. Today it still operates two separate sites.
- Electric Power Development Company (EDPC, J-POWER) - 電源開発
- This company was created by a special law after the end of World War II, it operates a number of coal fired, hydroelectric, and wind power plants, the Ohma nuclear plant that is under construction will mark its entrance to the industry upon completion.
Nuclear vendors and fuel cycle companies
Nuclear vendors provide fuel in its fabricated form, ready to be loaded in the reactor, nuclear services, and/or manage construction of new nuclear plants. The following is an incomplete list of companies based in Japan that provide such services. The companies listed here provide fuel or services for commercial light water plants, and in addition to this, JAEA has a small MOX fuel fabrication plant. Japan operates a robust nuclear fuel cycle.
- Nuclear Fuel Industries (NFI) - 原子燃料工業
- Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited (JNFL, JNF) - 日本原燃
- The shareholders of JNFL are the Japanese utilities. JNFL plans to open a full scale enrichment facility in Rokkasho, Aomori with a capacity of 1.5 million SWU/yr along with a MOX fuel fabrication facility. JNFL has also operated a nuclear fuel fabrication facility called Kurihama Nuclear Fuel Plant in Yokosuka, Kanagawa as GNF, producing BWR fuel.
- MHI operates a fuel manufacturing plant in Tōkai, Ibaraki, and contributes many heavy industry components to construction of new nuclear plants, and has recently designed its own APWR plant type, fuel fabrication has been completely PWR fuel, though MHI sells components to BWRs as well. It was selected by the Japanese government to develop fast breeder reactor technology and formed Mitsubishi FBR Systems. MHI has also announced an alliance with Areva to form a new company called Atmea.
- Global Nuclear Fuel (GNF)
- GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) - 日立GEニュークリア・エナジー
- This company was formed July 1, 2007. Its next generation reactor, the ESBWR has made significant progress with US regulators, and as of July 2007, has been submitted to English regulators as well for the generic design assessment (GDA) process.
- Toshiba - 東芝 電力システム社 原子力事業部
- Toshiba has maintained a large nuclear business focused mostly on Boiling Water Reactors. With the purchase of the American Westinghouse by 5.4 Billion USD in 2006, which is focused mainly on Pressurized Water Reactor technology, it increased the size of its nuclear business about two fold. Toshiba has plans to continue significant expansion in the next decade.
- Recyclable-Fuel Storage Co.
- Japan Atomic Industrial Forum (JAIF) 日本原子力産業協会 is a non-profit organization, established in 1956 to promote the peaceful use of atomic energy.
- The Atomic Energy Society of Japan (AESJ) 日本原子力学会 is a major academic organization in Japan focusing on all forms of nuclear power. The Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology is the academic journal run by the AESJ. It publishes English and Japanese articles, though most submissions are from Japanese research institutes, universities, and companies.
- Japan Nuclear Technology Institute (JANTI) 日本原子力技術協会 was established to by the nuclear power industry to support and lead that industry.
- Japan Electric Association (JEA) 日本電気協会 develops and publishes codes and guides for the Japanese nuclear power industry and is active in promoting nuclear power.
Other proprietary organizations
- Established in 1978 as by Sumimoto Metal Mining Co. this company did work with Uranium conversion and set up factories at the Tokai-mura site. Later, it was held solely responsible for the Tokaimura nuclear accident
Long one of the world’s most committed promoters of civilian nuclear power, the negative impact of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster has changed attitudes in Japan. Political and energy experts describe "nothing short of a nationwide loss of faith, not only in Japan’s once-vaunted nuclear technology but also in the government, which many blame for allowing the accident to happen". Sixty thousand people marched in central Tokyo on 19 September 2011, chanting "Sayonara nuclear power" and waving banners, to call on Japan's government to abandon nuclear power, following the Fukushima disaster. Bishop of Osaka, Michael Goro Matsuura, has called on the solidarity of Christians worldwide to support this anti-nuclear campaign. In July 2012, 75,000 people gathered near in Tokyo for the capital’s largest anti-nuclear event yet. Organizers and participants said such demonstrations signal a fundamental change in attitudes in a nation where relatively few have been willing to engage in political protests since the 1960s.
Anti-nuclear groups include the Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, Stop Rokkasho, Hidankyo, Sayonara Nuclear Power Plants, Women from Fukushima Against Nukes, Article 9 group, and the National Network of Parents to Protect Children from Radiation. People associated with the anti-nuclear movement include: Jinzaburo Takagi, Koide Hiroaki, Haruki Murakami, Kenzaburō Ōe, Nobuto Hosaka, Mizuho Fukushima, and Tetsunari Iida.
Thousands of protesters marched in Tokyo on March 11, 2013 calling on the government to reject nuclear power. More than 30,000 people marched on June 2 near the Diet building in Tokyo against the government's plan to restart nuclear power plants. Marchers had gathered more than 8 million signatures in a petition against Japan's plan to restart nuclear power plants.
- Energy in Japan
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- Japan's non-nuclear policy
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- Benjamin K. Sovacool. A Critical Evaluation of Nuclear Power and Renewable Electricity in Asia, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol. 40, No. 3, August 2010, pp. 380.
- "A look at Japan's history of nuclear power trouble". Bloomberg Businessweek. Associated Press. March 17, 2011.
- The Mihama Nuclear Power Plant Accident
- Nagata, Kazuaki, "Vicious nuclear fuel cycle proving difficult to break", Japan Times, 18 September 2012, p. 3
- Kyodo News, "Work resumes on Aomori atomic fuel storage site", Japan Times, 17 March 2012, p. 2.
- Japan Atomic Industrial Forum.
- Atomic Energy Society of Japan.
- Japan Nuclear Technology Institute.
- Convention on Nuclear Safety; National Report of Japan for Fourth Review Meeting Government of Japan, published September 2007, accessed 2011-04-07
- (Japanese) Work Japan Electric Association, accessed 2011-04-07
- Martin Fackler (March 8, 2012). "Japan’s Nuclear Energy Industry Nears Shutdown, at Least for Now". New York Times.
- David H. Slater (Nov. 09, 2011). "Fukushima women against nuclear power: finding a voice from Tohoku". The Asia-Pacific Journal.
- Sean McDonagh (March 6, 2012). "After Fukushima, Vatican joins growing army of opponents of nuclear power". The Irish Times.
- Mure Dickie (July 17, 2012). "Japanese anti-nuclear demonstrations grow". Washington Post.
- Tina Gerhardt (July 22, 2012). "Japan's People Say NO to Nuclear Energy". Alternet.
- Thousands in Japan anti-nuclear protest two years after Fukushima Reuters
- United Press International (June 2, 2013). "60,000 protest Japan's plan to restart nuclear power plants". UPI Asia.
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Nuclear power plants in Japan|
- Nuclear power in Japan on the World Nuclear Association website
- The Future of Nuclear Energy in Japan, Q&A with Daniel Aldrich (July 2011)
- Japan's New Wave of Protest Songs, New York Times | <urn:uuid:7b9392d5-90ad-48f6-9077-34e9db9cee39> | {
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A government-owned corporation, state-owned company, state-owned entity, state enterprise, publicly owned corporation, government business enterprise, commercial government agency, public sector undertaking or parastatal is a legal entity created by a government to undertake commercial activities on behalf of an owner government. Their legal status varies from being a part of government to stock companies with a state as a regular stockholder. There is no standard definition of a government-owned corporation (GOC) or state-owned enterprise (SOE), although the two terms can be used interchangeably. The defining characteristics are that they have a distinct legal form and they are established to operate in commercial affairs. While they may also have public policy objectives, GOCs should be differentiated from other forms of government agencies or state entities established to pursue purely non-financial objectives.
Government-owned corporations are common with natural monopolies and infrastructure such as railways and telecommunications, strategic goods and services (mail, weapons), natural resources and energy, politically sensitive business, broadcasting, demerit goods (alcohol) and merit goods (healthcare).
GOCs can be fully owned or partially owned by government. As a definitional issue, it is difficult to determine categorically what level of state ownership would qualify an entity to be considered as "state-owned", since governments can also own regular stock, without implying any special interference. As an example, the Chinese Investment Corporation agreed in 2007 to acquire a 10% interest in the global investment bank Morgan Stanley, but it is unlikely that this would qualify the latter as a government-owned corporation. Government-owned or state-run enterprises are often the result of corporatization, a process in which government agencies and departments are re-organized as semi-autonomous corporate entities, sometimes with partial shares listed on stock exchanges.
The term 'government-linked company' (GLC) is sometimes used to refer to corporate entities that may be private or public (listed on a stock exchange) where an existing government owns a stake using a holding company. There are two main definitions of GLCs are dependent on the proportion of the corporate entity a government owns. One definition purports that a company is classified as a GLC if a government owns an effective controlling interest (>50%), while the second definition suggests that any corporate entity that has a government as a shareholder is a GLC.
A quasi-governmental organization, corporation, business, or agency (parastatal) or a "quasi-autonomous national government organisation" (Quango) is an entity that is treated by national laws and regulations to be under the guidance of the government but separate and autonomous from the government. While the entity may receive some revenue from charging customers for its services, these organizations are often partially or majorly funded by the government. They are usually considered highly important to smooth running of society and are sometimes propped up with cash infusions in times of crisis to help surmount situations that would bankrupt a normal privately owned business. They may possess law-enforcement authority, usually related to their functions.
Government-owned corporations often operate in sectors where there is a natural monopoly, or where the government has strategic interest. However, government ownership of industry corporations is common.
Nationalization also forcibly converts a private corporation into a government-owned corporation.
In most OPEC countries, the governments own the oil companies operating on their soil. A notable example is the Saudi national oil company, Saudi Aramco, which the Saudi government bought in 1988 and changed its name from Arabian American Oil Company to Saudi Arabian Oil Company. The Saudi government also owns and operates Saudi Arabian Airlines, and owns 70% of SABIC, as well as many other companies. They are, however, being privatized gradually.
In monarchical Commonwealth countries, particularly Australia, Canada and New Zealand, country-wide government corporations often use the style "Crown corporation." Equivalent terms include "State-owned enterprises" and "Crown entities" in New Zealand, and Government Business Enterprise (GBE) in Australia. Examples of Crown corporations include the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Air Canada before the latter underwent privatization. Cabinet ministers (Ministers of the Crown) often control the shares in such public corporations.
At the level of local government, territorial or other authorities may set up government corporations such as "Local Authority Trading Enterprises" (LATEs). Many local authorities establish services such as water supply as separate corporations or as a business unit of the authority.
In Australia the predominant term used for Commonwealth government-owned companies is "government business enterprise" (GBE). Various Australian states also have GBEs, especially with respect to the provision of water and sewerage, but many state-based GBEs were privatized in some states during the last decade of the twentieth century.
Commonwealth GBEs include:
- the Australian Broadcasting Corporation – fully owned and funded;
- the Special Broadcasting Service – fully owned, and combines government funding and commercial funding;
- Australia Post – the Australian postal service; and
- NBNCo – fully owned and responsible for the rollout of the National Broadband Network.
These corporations are overseen by the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.
Former Commonwealth government-owned corporations include Telstra, established in the 1970s as Telecom Australia. Telstra, now Australia's leading telecommunications company, was privatized in 1997 by the government of John Howard. As of June 2010 Telstra owned a majority of the copper wire infrastructure in Australia (the rest is owned by Optus) and is pending sale to its former parent, the Australian government, for a non-binding amount of 11 billion Australian dollars, as ducts in the copper wire tunnels are needed to install the fiber optic cable.
In Victoria many GBEs were sold in the 1990s to reduce the state's level of debt. The State Electricity Commission of Victoria and the Gas and Fuel Corporation were the best-known government enterprises to be disaggregated and sold.
In Canada, state-owned corporations often use the style Crown corporation, indicating that an organization is established by law, owned by the sovereign, and overseen by Parliament and the Cabinet. Examples of Crown corporations include the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canada Post, and ViaRail. Former Crown corporations before their privatization include Air Canada, St. Lawrence Seaway Authority, and Petro-Canada. Ministers of the Crown often control the shares in such public corporations, while Parliament both sets out the laws that create and bind Crown corporations and sets their annual budgets.
Crown corporations also exist at the provincial level in Canada. Saskatchewan has maintained the largest number of Crown corporations, including SaskEnergy, SaskPower, SaskTel, SaskWater, and Saskatchewan Government Insurance. Crown corporations of British Columbia include BC Hydro, BC Ferries, BC Housing Management Commission and the British Columbia Lottery Corporation.
Privatization, or the selling of Crown corporations to private interests, is very common throughout Canada. Petro-Canada, Canadian National Railway, and Air Canada are examples of former federal Crown corporations that have been privatized. At the provincial level, privatized former Crown corporations include Alberta Government Telephones (which merged with privately owned BC Tel to form Telus), BCRIC, Manitoba Telecom Services, and Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan which retained its name and has become the world's largest producer of potash.
Key federally owned corporations include:
The Government of Canada owned the airport infrastructure but did not operate the airport (transferred to local airport authorities from Transport Canada):
- Toronto Pearson International Airport
- Vancouver International Airport
- Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport
- Calgary International Airport
- Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport
- Edmonton International Airport
- Halifax Stanfield International Airport
- Winnipeg James Armstrong Richardson International Airport
- Victoria International Airport
- Kelowna International Airport
- St. John's International Airport
- Regina International Airport
- Saskatoon John G. Diefenbaker International Airport
- Prince George Airport
- Québec City Jean Lesage International Airport
- London International Airport
- Thunder Bay International Airport
- Montréal-Mirabel International Airport
- Aéroport international Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau de Montréal
- Fredericton International Airport
- Greater Moncton International Airport
- Saint John Airport
- Gander International Airport
In New Zealand, the terms used for government-owned companies include "state-owned enterprises" and "crown entities". Local government councils and similar authorities also set up government corporations, such as water supply companies and "local-authority trading enterprises" (LATEs) (New Zealand), as separate corporations or business unit of the councils concerned.
Government owned businesses which are the crown entities:
State-owned enterprises include:
- New Zealand Post
- Meteorological Service of New Zealand Limited
- Airways New Zealand
- Transpower New Zealand Limited
- Mighty River Power
- Meridian Energy
- Genesis Power
- Learning Media Limited
- Solid Energy
- Crown Fibre Holdings
State-owned enterprises which has been privatised and then renationalised:
After extensive privatizations of publicly owned companies during the Margaret Thatcher administration, there remain few publicly owned corporations in the UK. Ongoing privatizations lasted from the end of the 1970s, through the 1980s until 1990 with the privatization of British Rail. After the Hatfield rail crash accident, the British government had to intervene and renationalize some companies.
- Central government
- East Coast Trains
- Royal Mail to be privatized before 2014
- NATS Holdings (49%) privatization to be completed soon.
- National Nuclear Laboratory
- London and Continental Railways
- Network Rail
- Rescued banks
- Devolved government
- Scottish Water (Scottish Government)
- Caledonian MacBrayne (Scottish Government)
- Translink (Northern Ireland Government)
- Northern Ireland Water (Northern Ireland Government)
- Local government
- Manchester Airport (Greater Manchester local authorities)
- Manchester Metrolink (Transport for Greater Manchester)
- Tyne and Wear Metro (Tyne and Wear Integrated Transport Authority)
- London Underground (Transport for London)
In Western Europe there was a massive nationalization throughout the 20th century, especially after World War II to ensure Government control over natural monopolies and to some extent industry. Typical sectors included telecommunications, power, petroleum, railways, airports, airlines, public transport, health care, postal services and sometimes banks. Many large industrial corporations were also nationalized or created as Government corporations, including among many British Steel, Statoil and Irish Sugar. Starting in the late 1970s and accelerating through the 1980s and 1990s many of these corporations were privatized, though many still remain wholly or partially owned by the respective governments.
A state-run enterprise needs to be distinguished from an ordinary limited liability corporation owned by the state. For example, in Finland, state-run enterprises (liikelaitos) are governed by a separate act. Even though responsible for their own finances, they cannot be declared bankrupt; the state answers for the liabilities. Stocks of the corporation are not sold and loans have to be government-approved, as they are government liabilities. In contrast, the state also owns controlling interest in ordinary limited liability corporations. A state-run enterprise is technically not always a corporation, it might also be a separate state entity, or simply a governmental agency acting as an enterprise, perhaps having its own budget. Conversely, the state can directly fund unprofitable business, such as railway services to remote areas, regardless of whether the operator is a private corporation.
- National Railway Company of Belgium
- Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroeporganisatie
- Belgacom (53.3%)
- Belgischer Rundfunk
- Brussels Airport (25%)
Region of Wallonia owns the:
The fully owned corporations (51% or more) of the Republic of France:
- La Poste
- France Télévisions
- Radio France
- Régie autonome des transports parisiens
- Réseau ferré de France
- Areva (89.9%) 8,4% directly by the French State and 85% owned by *Commissariat à l'énergie atomique which is state-owned.
- Électricité de France (84.4%)
- Aéroports de Paris (52%)
- Française des jeux (72%)
The state of France owns a minority stake in:
- GDF Suez (35,9%)
- France Télécom (13,2%)
- Safran (30,2%) (+ 7,4% by Areva )
- Air France-KLM (16%)
- Renault (15.01%)
- Thales (27%)
- Marché international de Rungis (33,34%)+ + 18.79% by local area +4.60 by Caisse des dépôts et consignations
- Government-owned Open joint-stock company
- OJSC Russian Railways (100% owned by state)
- OJSC Rusnano
- OJSC Aeroflot – Russian Airlines (51%)
- OJSC Channel One Russia (75%)
- OJSC RusHydro (65%)
- OJSC Sberbank (50%+1)
- OJSC Gazprom (50%+1)
- OJSC Rosneft (75%)
- OJSC Rostelecom (56,8%)
- Unitary enterprise
In Russia and some other post-Soviet states, a unitary enterprise (Russian: унитарное предприятие) is a commercial organization that have no ownership rights to the assets used in their operations. This form is possible only for state and municipal enterprises, operating with state or municipal property, respectively. The owners of the property of a unitary enterprise have no responsibility for its operation, and vice versa.
The assets of unitary enterprises belong to the Federal government, a Russian region, or a municipality. A unitary enterprise holds assets under the right of economic management (for both state and municipal unitary enterprises) or operative management (for state unitary enterprises only), and that such assets may not be distributed among the participants, nor otherwise divided. A unitary enterprise is independent in economic issues and obliged only to give its profits to the state. Unitary enterprises would have no right to set up subsidiaries, but, with the owner's consent, can open branches and representation offices.
- State corporation
By contrast, a state corporation (Russian: государственная корпорация) is a non-profit organization which manages its assets as described in its charter. State Corporations are not obliged to submit to public authorities documents accounting for activities (except for a number of documents submitted to the Russian government) and, as a rule, are subordinate not to the government, but to the Russian president, and act to accomplish some important goal. Control by the Government is implemented on the basis of annual corporation meetings, an annual report on the audit opinion of accounting and financial reporting (accounting), as well as the conclusion of the auditing commission on the results of verification of financial (accounting) statements and other corporation documents. Any other federal government departments, organs of state power of subjects of the Russian Federation, and the local governments have no right to interfere in the activities of State corporations.
Here is the government owned of the Swiss Confederation:
In 2009, the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan formed the Afghan Public Protection Force (APPF) as a "state owned enterprise" subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior. By Presidential Decree, the APPF is mandated to replace all non-diplomatic private security companies by 20 March 2013 to become the sole provider of pay-for-service security contracts within Afghanistan.
China, People's Republic of
After 1949, all business entities in the People's Republic of China were created and owned by the government. In the late 1980s, the government began to reform the state-owned enterprise, and during the 1990s and 2000s, many mid-sized and small sized state-owned enterprises were privatized and went public. There are a number of different corporate forms which result in a mixture of public and private capital. In PRC terminology, a state-owned enterprise refers to a particular corporate form, which is increasingly being replaced by the listed company. State-owned enterprises are governed by both local governments and, in the central government, the national State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission. As of 2011, 35% of business activity and 43% of profits in the People's Republic of China resulted from companies in which the state owned a majority interest. Liberal critics, such as The New York Times, allege that China's state-owned companies are a vehicle for corruption by the families of ruling party leaders who have sometimes amassed fortunes while managing them.
China, Republic of (Taiwan)
The founding father of the Republic of China and of the Kuomintang, Sun Yat-sen, was heavily influenced by the economic ideas of Henry George, who believed that the rents extracted from natural monopolies or the usage of land belonged to the public. Sun argued for Georgism and emphasized the importance of a mixed economy, which he termed "The Principle of Minsheng" in his Three Principles of the People.
"The railroads, public utilities, canals, and forests should be nationalized, and all income from the land and mines should be in the hands of the State. With this money in hand, the State can therefore finance the social welfare programs."
Kuomintang leader, and later President of the Republic of China on the mainland and Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek, crushed pro-communist worker and peasant organizations and the rich Shanghai capitalists at the same time. Chiang continued Sun Yat-sen's anti-capitalist ideology-Kuomintang media openly attacked the capitalists and capitalism, demanding government-controlled industry instead.
The Kuomintang Muslim Governor of Ningxia, Ma Hongkui promoted state-owned monopoly companies. His government had a company, Fu Ning Company, which had a monopoly over commerce and industrial activity in Ningxia.
The Chinese Muslim 36th Division (National Revolutionary Army) governed southern Xinjiang from 1934 to 1937. The General Ma Hushan was chief of the 36th Division. Chinese Muslims operated state-owned carpet factories.
In India, a government-owned corporation is termed a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU). This term is used to refer to companies in which the government (either the federal Union Government or the many state or territorial governments, or both) own a majority (51 percent or more) of the company equity. There are 251 PSU companies in India as of 2012.
Some examples include:
- Air India
- Balmer Lawrie
- Bharat Electronics Limited
- Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited
- Bharat Petroleum
- Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited
- Bank of India
- Biotech Consortium India Limited
- Coal India Limited
- Engineers India Limited
- Cotton Corporation of India
- Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu
- Engineering Projects India Limited (EPIL)
- Food Corporation of India
- Heavy Engineering Corporation
- Hindustan Aeronautics Limited
- Hindustan Cables
- HMT Limited
- Indian Oil Corporation
- Indian Telephone Industries Limited
- Jute Corporation of India Limited
- State Bank of India
- Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited
- Mazagon Dock Limited
- MECON Limited
- Modern Food Industries
- NTPC Limited
- Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd
- Oil and Natural Gas Corporation
- PowerGrid Corporation of India
- State Bank of India
- Syndicate Bank
- Steel Authority of India Limited
- Tamil Nadu Electricity Board
- Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation
- Kerala State Road Transport Corporation
- Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation Limited
- Tamil Nadu Transmission Corporation Limited
- Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation
- State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu
- Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation
- Tamil Nadu Newsprint and Papers Limited
- Tamil Nadu Cement Corporation Limited (TANCEM)
- Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation
- Poompuhar Shipping Corporation Limited
Government-owned corporations are easy to recognise by their names. Company names with suffix PERSERO mean that the company is wholly/majority owned by the government. The government takes control of the state corporations under one single ministry, the Ministry of State Enterprises, which acts like the CEO of a holding company. Some of the government-owned corporations are;
- Bank Mandiri, Bank Rakyat Indonesia and Bank Negara Indonesia – Banking sector
- Pertamina – Energy, Oil/fuel, and gas sector
- Garuda Indonesia – Transport sector (international airline)
- Telkom Indonesia – Telecommunications sector
- Perusahaan Listrik Negara – the Electric company, Energy sector (national electricity utility)
- PT Kereta Api Indonesia – Transport sector (national railway)
- Pos Indonesia – Postal service sector
- TVRI – National television channel
- PT Krakatau Steel – Steel producer
- PT Dirgantara Indonesia – Manufacture (aircraft manufacture)
- PT Industri Kereta Api – Manufacture (train manufacture)
- PT Barata Indonesia – Manufacture
- PT Boma Bisma Indra – Manufacture
- Antara- News agency
In January 2012, the Minister of State Enterprises decided to unite manufacturing companies and for the first stage PT Barata should acquire PT Bisma to make an effective manufacturing sector.
In Japan, Japan Post was reorganized into Japan Post Group in 2007 as a material step of the postal privatization. It is currently wholly owned by the government, but is planned to be sold into private ownership. Japan Railways Group (JR), Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) and Japan Tobacco (JT) were formerly owned by the government.
Government owned and controlled corporations, or GOCCs, include a wide variety of different independent organizations. Some have a commercial purpose, such as the Philippine National Oil Company, while others like the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), or the Philippine Institute for Development Studies fulfill more traditional government roles. The leadership, budget, and funding of the corporations are independent of the Philippine National Government but to varying degrees. Some such as the National Food Authority receive quite a bit of subsidy from the National Government.
The economy of Singapore is dominated by government-linked corporations that produce as much as 60% of the country's GDP. These government-linked companies are owned by a government holding agency, Temasek Holdings. Notable Government-linked corporations include Singapore Airlines, SingTel, ST Engineering, MediaCorp and Singapore Temasek Holdings.
Here is the government owned corporation owned by the kingdom of Thailand. The Kingdom of Thailand as shareholding of 51% or more.
- Airports of Thailand
- Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand
- Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand
- Krung Thai Bank
- Metropolitan Waterworks Authority
- Port Authority of Thailand
- Provincial Waterworks Authority
- PTT Public Company Limited
- Thai Airways International
Parastatals in Kenya, partly from a lack of expertise and endemic corruption, have largely inhibited economic development. In 1979, a presidential commission went as far as saying that they constituted "a serious threat to the economy", and, by 1989, they had still not furthered industrialization or fostered the development of a Black business class.
In South Africa "the Department of Public Enterprises is the shareholder representative of the South African Government with oversight responsibility for state-owned enterprises in key sectors, including: Defence, Energy, Forestry, ICT, Mining and Transport". The current (March 2011) Minister of Public Enterprises is Malusi Gigaba.
The corporate entities that this department is responsible for are:
- Alexkor – Mining sector (diamond mining)
- Broadband Infraco – ICT sector (national backbone and international connectivity)
- Denel – Aerospace and Defence sector (armaments manufacturer)
- Eskom – Energy sector (national electricity utility)
- PBMR – Energy sector (development of Pebble Bed Modular Reactor nuclear energy technology)
- South African Airways – Transport sector (international airline)
- SA Express – Transport sector (regional and feeder airline)
- SAFCOL – Forestry sector (manages forestry on state owned land)
- Transnet – Transport and related infrastructure sector (railways, harbours, oil/fuel pipelines and terminals)
- Telkom SA – Telecommunications sector (national fixed line telephone network (PSTN))
Government-owned companies are divided into public enterprises (empresa pública) and mixed-economy companies (sociedade de economia mista). The public enterprises are subdivided into two categories: individual – with its own assets and capital owned by the Union – and plural companies – whose assets are owned by multiple government agencies and the Union, which have the majority of the voting interest. Caixa Econômica Federal, Correios, Embrapa, and BNDES are examples of public enterprises. Mixed-economy companies are enterprises with the majority of stocks owned by the government, but that also have stocks owned by the private sector and usually have their shares traded on stock exchanges. Banco do Brasil, Petrobras, Sabesp, and Eletrobras are examples of mixed-economy companies.
Beginning in the 1990s, the federal government of Brazil launched a privatization program inspired by the Washington Consensus. Public-owned companies such as Vale do Rio Doce, Telebrás, CSN, and Usiminas (most of them mixed-economy companies) were transferred to the private sector as part of this policy.
Government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) are a group of financial services corporations created by the United States Congress. The United States GSEs are private corporations owned by their stockholders, rather than government-owned corporations. Their primary function is to generate profits for their stockholders, but they are structured and regulated by the U.S. government to enhance the availability and reduce the cost of credit to targeted borrowing sectors. Congress created the first GSE in 1916 with the creation of the Farm Credit System; it initiated GSEs in the home finance segment of the economy with the creation of the Federal Home Loan Banks in 1932; and it targeted education when it chartered Sallie Mae in 1972 (although Congress allowed Sallie Mae to relinquish its government sponsorship and become a fully private institution via legislation in 1995). The residential mortgage borrowing segment is by far the largest of the borrowing segments in which the GSEs operate. Together, the three mortgage finance GSEs (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks) have several[quantify] trillion dollars of on-balance sheet assets. The federal government possesses warrants which, if exercised, would allow them to take a 79.9% ownership share in the companies. The federal government has not currently[when?] exercised these warrants.
Government sponsored enterprises include:
The federal government chartered and owned corporations are a separate set of corporations chartered and owned by the federal government, which operate to provide public services, but unlike the federal agencies (Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Indian Affairs), or the federal independent commissions (e.g., the Federal Communications Commission, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, etc.), they have a separate legal personality from the federal government, providing the highest level of political independence. They sometimes receive federal budgetary appropriations, but some also have independent sources of revenue. These include:
- Commodity Credit Corporation
- Corporation for National and Community Service (Americorps)
- Corporation for Public Broadcasting[dubious ]
- Export-Import Bank of the United States
- Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation
- Farm Credit Banks
- Federal Crop Insurance Corporation
- Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
- Federal Financing Bank
- Federal Home Loan Banks
- Federal Prison Industries
- The Financing Corporation
- Gallaudet University
- Government National Mortgage Association
- Legal Services Corporation
- National Consumer Cooperative Bank
- National Fish and Wildlife Foundation
- Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation
- Millennium Challenge Corporation
- National Corporation for Housing Partnerships (NCHP); Washington, DC.
- National Credit Union Administration Central Liquidity Facility
- National Endowment for Democracy
- National Park Foundation
- National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak)
- Overseas Private Investment Corporation
- Panama Canal Commission
- Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation; Washington, DC.
- Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
- St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation
- Securities Investor Protection Corporation
- Tennessee Valley Authority
The federal government acquired corporations are a separate set of corporations that were not chartered or created by the federal government, but the federal government has come into possession of and operates. These are corporations temporarily in possession of the government as a result of a seizure of property of a debtor to the government, such as a delinquent taxpayer. Usually these are awaiting auction, and most are too small to note.
There exists a second level of sovereign government in the United States after the federal government, those of the several states of which compose the United States. State governments are bodies sovereign, like the federal government, and other sovereigns; they have sovereign existence deriving from the consent of the sovereign people of their territories who created them and wrote their state constitution; they are not bodies corporate, as they are not created by the acquis of the federal government and exist with or without that Government's consent. As sovereigns, they have the power to hold radical title to land, to exercise the four fundamental powers, taxation, eminent domain, police power, and escheat, as well as numerous other powers, including the power to grant charters, and implicit in that power to charter is the power to charter corporations, which they do, extensively. The vast majority of non-governmental corporations in the United States are chartered by the states of the United States, and not the federal government, this includes most charitable corporations (though some charities of national repute are chartered by the federal government, and not by a state government), non-profit corporations, and for-profit corporations. States, as sovereigns, also have the power to charter corporations that they own, control, or are responsible for the regulation and finance of. These include municipal corporations and state chartered and owned corporations. Municipal corporations are public corporations that have devolved, democratic control over local matters within a geographic region; they are often styled villages, towns, townships, boroughs, cities, or counties. Though these municipal corporations are often regulated and sometimes financed by the state government, and often can collect taxes, they are arms-length, non-sovereign, devolved public entities, and a state government which charters them is not legally responsible for their debts in the event of a municipal bankruptcy. State government chartered and owned corporations are numerous and provide public services. Examples include North Dakota Mill and Elevator and South Dakota Public Broadcasting. Generally speaking, a statute passed by a state legislature specifically sets up a government-owned company in order to undertake a specific public purpose with public funds or public property. Lotteries in the United States are also run by government corporations, such as the Georgia Lottery Corporation and many others.
There exists a third level of sovereign government in the United States as well, the sovereignty of the Native American tribal governments. Native American tribes are comprehended as ancient sovereigns, established by their sovereign people since time immemorial, and recognized as sovereign by the federal government of the United States as well as the several states, and as such, the Native American (and Alaska Native) tribal governments have rights appertaining to sovereigns, including the power to hold radical title to land, to exercise the four fundamental powers, taxation, eminent domain, police power, and escheat, as well as other powers, for instance, the power to charter corporations and undertake public undertakings that might benefit their tribal citizens, Native Americans and Alaska Natives also being citizens of their respective U.S. state, and also citizens of the United States. For example, a tribal council could establish a public service broadcaster along the lines of RTE and partially fund it with a television licence on tribal land and partially through advertising as a means of uniting the tribe and giving it a voice as well as a commercial venture.
The Alaska Natives are particularly advanced in using their tribal sovereignty to incorporate corporations that are owned by and for the benefit of their tribal citizens and often compete in highly competitive economic sectors through the Alaska Native Regional Corporations. The Native American tribes in the lower 48 states often use their sovereignty and their ability to charter to compete using regulatory easements; for instance, Native American tribal corporations often trade in goods that are highly taxed in surrounding states (such as tobacco), or engage in activities that surrounding states have (for reasons of public policy) forbidden, such as the operation of casinos or gaming establishments. Most of these endeavors have proven very successful for Native American tribal sovereigns and their tribal corporations, bringing wealth into the hands of Native Americans.
Uruguay had the first welfare state of Latin America under the presidency of José Batlle y Ordoñez in 1904. Government-owned corporations monopolize services such as electricity (UTE), land-line communications (Antel) and water (OSE). Antel competes with private corporations in the cell-phone lines and international telephony markets. In 1992, under the presidency of Luis Alberto Lacalle, the government attempted to privatize all its companies, following the neoliberal Washington Consensus. However, a referendum won by 75% of the population kept the companies in the hands of the government. By the end of his term, president Lacalle alleged that he had achieved a successful modernization of the companies, which had made them more efficient.
In this list, government-owned corporations are classified on their legal status: silver color represents legal monopolies, where no competition is permitted; light green represents a corporation that has private competitors; yellow means that although competition is legally permitted, there are no other corporations de facto, and uncolored refers to a free market, regulated or not.
|Postal||Railways||Pharmacy||Gambling||Alcohol||Health care||Universities||Telephone||Broadcasting||Oil & Gas||Energy||Water||Airports||Highways|
|Australia||yes (Australia Post) monopoly on postal delivery of letters to 250g||mix varies by State||mix (PBS funding only) (no retail competition)||mix varies by State||no||mix (Medicare)||mix||no||mix (ABC) (SBS)||no||mix varies by State|
|Brazil||yes (Correios)||mix (pt:VALEC, pt:CBTU)||no||yes (Caixa Econômica Federal)||mix (ethanol only)||mix (SUS)||mix||mix (Telebras)||mix||mix (Petrobras)||mix (Eletrobras)||mix varies by State||mix (Infraero)||no|
|Canada||yes (Canada Post)||mix
(Via Rail), passenger rail. Freight is private.
|no||varies by province||varies by province (LCBO, SAQ, SLGA)||mix||mix||varies by province (Sasktel)||mix (CBC)||mix||varies by province (Hydro-Québec, BC Hydro, Hydro One, Manitoba Hydro, Nalcor, SaskPower)|
(Correos de Chile)
(Televisión Nacional de Chile)
|Colombia||yes (4-72)||no||no||Etesa [a]||varies by department||Nueva EPS||Universidad Nacional plus various local ones||(Telefónica Telecom) (Empresas Públicas de Medellín)||mix (Radio Televisión Nacional de Colombia)||(Ecopetrol)||(ISA Emgesa)|
|Czech Republic||yes (Česká pošta)||yes (České dráhy)||no||yes (Sazka)||no||yes (VZP)||mix||(České Radiokomunikace)||mix (Česká televize) (ČRo)||no||yes (ČEZ)|
|Finland||de facto (Itella)||de facto (VR)||no||yes
(Veikkaus, RAY, Fintoto)
|yes (Alko)||mix (municipal)||yes||mix (TeliaSonera)||mix (YLE)||de facto (Neste)||mix (Fortum)||yes (municipal)||yes (Finavia)||yes (Finnish Transport Agency)|
(Française Des Jeux)
|no||mix||mix||mix (France Telecom)||mix (France Television)||no||mix (EDF)|
|mix (DB)||no||no||no||mix (BG)||mix||mix (DTAG)||mix (ARD)||?||?|
|de facto (OSE, TrainOSE)||no||mix
|no||mix (ESY)||yes||mix (OTE)||mix (ERT)||mix (ELPE)||mix (DEI)|
|Iceland||de facto (Íslandspóstur)||no railways in Iceland||no||no gambling in Iceland||yes (ÁTVR)||mix||mix||no||mix (RÚV)||no oil industry in Iceland||mix|
|India||yes (India Post)||yes (Indian Railways)||yes (IDPL)||no||no||mix||mix||mix (BSNL)||mix (Doordarshan)||mix (ONGC)||yes|
|Ireland||yes (An Post)||yes (Iarnród Éireann)||no||mix (Prize Bond)||no||mix||mix||no||mix (RTE, TG4)||no||mix (ESB)|
|Italy||de facto (Poste italiane)||mix (FS)||no||yes (AAMS)||no||mix (SSN)||mix||no||mix (RAI)||mix (Eni)||mix (Enel)|
|Indonesia||yes (Pos Indonesia)||yes (PT Kereta Api)||yes||no||no||mix||mix||yes (Telkom Indonesia)||mix||mix (Pertamina)||yes (Perusahaan Listrik Negara)|
|mix (JR)||no||yes (JRA etc.)||no||mix||mix||mix (NTT)||mix (NHK)||no||no|
|Korea, Republic of||de facto
(Korea Railroad Corporation)
|no||yes (Kangwon Land Inc.)||no||de facto
(KBS), (EBS), Etc.
(Korea Expressway Corporation)
(Servicio Postal Mexicano)
|mix (e.g. in public hospitals)||no||no||mix (Mexican Social Security Institute, Institute for Social Security and Services for State Workers)||mix (National Autonomous University of Mexico, National Polytechnic Institute and state universities among others)||no||mix
(Once TV México, XEIMT-TV)
(Comisión Federal de Electricidad)
(varies by state/municipality)
(Aeropuertos y Servicios Auxiliares, Benito Juárez International Airport)
(Caminos y Puentes Federales)
|Netherlands||no||mix (Nederlandse Spoorwegen),[b] passenger rail. Freight is private||no||yes
|no||mix||yes||no||mix (Netherlands Public Broadcasting)||no||no|
|New Zealand||yes (NZ Post)||yes (Kiwi Rail)||no||no||no||mix||yes||no||mix (TVNZ)||no||mix (Genesis Power, Meridian Energy, Mighty River Power, Solid Energy, Transpower New Zealand Limited))|
|Norway||yes (Posten Norge)||yes (NSB)||no||yes (Norsk Tipping)||yes (Vinmonopolet)||mix||mix||mix (Telenor)||mix (NRK)||mix (Statoil)||State owned(Statkraft) and various municipally owned companies|
|Peru||yes (Serpost)||no||no||no||no||yes (EsSalud)||yes (local ones, including (Universidad Mayor de San Marcos)||no||yes (TV Peru)||yes (Petroperú)||yes (only in local water supply and sewage services, including Sedapal)|
|Philippines||yes (PhilPost)||yes (PNR)||no||yes (PAGCOR)||no||yes||yes (U.P.)||no||yes (PTV)||mix (PNOC)||mix (NAPOCOR)|
|Sweden||de facto (Posten)||de facto (SJ)||mix (Apoteket)||yes||yes (Systembolaget)||mix||yes||mix (Telia)||mix (SVT)||no||mix (Vattenfall)|
|Thailand Kingdom||yes (Post)||yes (State Rail)||no (Pharmacy)||yes (State Lotto)||Alcohol Permit||mix(Medical)||(University)||mix(Telcom)||mix (Thai Television)||mix (Petro)||yes (Electric)|
|Turkey||yes (PTT)||yes (TCDD)||no||no||no||mix||mix||no||mix (TRT)||mix (TPAO)||mix|
|United Kingdom||mix (Royal Mail)||mix
(Northern Ireland Railways, East Coast) (Network Rail)[c]
|no||mix (Premium Bonds)||no||mix (NHS)||mix (University of Buckingham), (BPP Holdings)||no||mix|
|United States||yes (USPS, an agency)||mix
(Amtrak), passenger rail. Freight is private.
|no||Mix (All State Lotteries)||varies by state (ABC store states)||mix||mix (U.S. military service academies, public universities)||no||mix (PBS)||no||mix (TVA)|
|Uruguay||yes (Correo Uruguayo)||yes (State Railways Administration of Uruguay)||no||mix (Casinos del Estado)||mix||mix||mix||mix (ANTEL)||mix Channel 5||mix (ANCAP)||yes (UTE)|
- Etesa is a company wholly owned by the Colombian government and holds the exclusive right to gambling activities. However, it sublicenses gambling permits to any private company who applies and fulfills legal requirements.
- Nederlandse Spoorwegen is a company wholly owned by the Dutch government.
- Network Rail is a private company whose debts are guaranteed by the UK Government, which has caused controversy over whether it is state owned or not.
- Constitutional economics
- Government agency
- Non-departmental public body
- Political economy
- Public benefit corporation
- Public bodies
- Public company (public corporation)
- Public ownership
- Regulatory agency
- Rule according to higher law
- Special-purpose district
- State within a state
- Stock market
- State-owned enterprises of New Zealand
- Statsforetak (Norwegian state enterprise)
- Statutory Agency
- Statutory corporation
- Volkseigener Betrieb (East German state enterprise)
- Profiles of Existing Government Corporations, pp. 1–16
- : Official Afghan Public Protection Force Website.
- Keith Bradsher (November 9, 2012). "China’s Grip on Economy Will Test New Leaders". The New York Times. Retrieved November 10, 2012.
- Simei Qing "From Allies to Enemies", 19
- Parks M. Coble (1986). The Shanghai capitalists and the Nationalist government, 1927–1937. Volume 94 of Harvard East Asian monographs (2, reprint, illustrated ed.). Harvard Univ Asia Center. p. 263. ISBN 0-674-80536-4. Retrieved 2011-05-15.
- A. Doak Barnett (1968). China on the eve of Communist takeover. Praeger. p. 190. Retrieved 2010-06-28.
- Werner Draguhn, David S. G. Goodman (2002). China's communist revolutions: fifty years of the People's Republic of China. Psychology Press. p. 38. ISBN 0-7007-1630-0. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
- Andrew D. W. Forbes (1986). Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia: a political history of Republican Sinkiang 1911–1949. Cambridge, England: CUP Archive. p. 131. ISBN 0-521-25514-7. Retrieved 2010-06-28.
- "Dahlan Iskan to merge Barata with Boma Bisma Indra". January 14, 2012.
- Cabuag, V.S. (8 March 2012). "Government subsidies to GOCCs grew by 155% in 2011". Business Mirror. Retrieved 5 July 2012.
- "CountryRisk Maintaining Singapore's Miracle". Countryrisk.com. Retrieved 2012-05-31.
- Himbara, David (1993). "Myths and Realities of Kenyan Capitalism". Journal of Modern African Studies 31 (1): 93–107.
- Productivity performance in Kenya. p. 43.
- Conflicting Information Over Kenya Airways' Layoffs.
- "About the DPE". DPE.gov.za. Retrieved 2012-05-31.
- Profiles of Existing Government Corporations, pp. 18, 24
- Profiles of Existing Government Corporations, pp. 18, 44
- Profiles of Existing Government Corporations, pp. 18, 60
- Profiles of Existing Government Corporations, pp. 18, 50
- Profiles of Existing Government Corporations, pp. 18, 77
- Profiles of Existing Government Corporations, pp. 18, 82
- Profiles of Existing Government Corporations, pp. 18, 105
- Profiles of Existing Government Corporations, pp. 18, 120
- Profiles of Existing Government Corporations, pp. 18, 125
- Profiles of Existing Government Corporations, pp. 18, 131
- Profiles of Existing Government Corporations, pp. 18, 145
- Profiles of Existing Government Corporations, pp. 18, 149
- Profiles of Existing Government Corporations, pp. 18, 165
- Profiles of Existing Government Corporations, pp. 18, 180
- Profiles of Existing Government Corporations, pp. 18, 162
- Profiles of Existing Government Corporations, pp. 18, 168
- Profiles of Existing Government Corporations, pp. 18, 214
Profiles of Existing Government Corporations—A Study Prepared by the U.S. General Accounting Office for the Committee on Government Operations. 1988. (Document: H402-4) Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office]
- The Public Firm with Managerial Incentives by Elmer G. Wiens. | <urn:uuid:cd82c9af-8724-4b84-8c7e-3a0122c3f21c> | {
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One small step
(Redirected from It's one small step for man)
Neil Armstrong's words when he first walked on the surface of the Moon have been used and subverted in a wide variety of genres.
- That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.
- Words said when Neil Armstrong first stepped onto the moon (20 July 1969). In the actual sound recordings he apparently fails to say "a" before "man" and says: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." This was generally considered by many to simply be an error of omission on his part. Armstrong long insisted he did say "a man" but that it was inaudible. Prior to new evidence supporting his claim, he stated a preference for the "a" to appear in parentheses when the quote is written. In September 2006 evidence based on new analysis of the recordings conducted by Peter Shann Ford, a computer programmer based in Sydney, Australia, whose company Control Bionics helps physically handicapped people to use their own nerve impulses to communicate through computers, indicated that Armstrong had said the missing "a." This information was presented to Armstrong and NASA on 28 September 2006 and reported in the Houston Chronicle (30 September 2006). The debate continues on the matter, as "Armstrong's 'poetic' slip on Moon" at BBC News (3 June 2009) reports that more recent analysis by linguist John Olsson and author Chris Riley with higher quality recordings indicates that he did not say "a".
- Many short-sighted fools think that going to the Moon was just a stunt. But the astronauts knew the meaning of what they were doing, as is shown by Neil Armstrong's first words in stepping down onto the soil of Luna: "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."
- Robert A. Heinlein, The Pragmatics of Patriotism (1973)
- Better if he had said something natural like, "Jesus, here we are."
- Edmund Hillary, The Sunday Times [London] (21 July 1974) | <urn:uuid:15ee1df1-49aa-4680-a289-fff0d8eb3428> | {
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Family: Ursidae, Bears view all from this family
Description A very large, white bear of the Arctic. Longer neck and relatively smaller head than other bears. Fur may appear yellow in summer. Females first breed at age 5-6, and pregnant females may weigh up to 500kg.
Dimensions 2.3-2.6m, 7-12cm, 400-800kg; / 1.9-2.1m, 7-12cm, 175-300kg
Warning All North American bears can be dangerous in the following situations: when accompanied by cubs, when surprised by the sudden appearance of humans, when approached while feeding, guarding a kill, fishing, hungry, injured, or breeding, and when familiarity has diminished their fear of humans. There have been several recorded cases of Polar Bears attacking humans.
Breeding Breeding season is April-May but delayed implantation slows gestation until fall, and cubs are born in December. Neonates are tiny (600g) but grow quickly in the den, and emerge at 10-12kg in March or April. Cubs remain with their mother for 2.5 years, learning to hunt seals on the sea ice. Only pregnant females overwinter in dens; all others remain active.
Habitat Offshore waters, Beaches, shorelines & estuaries
Discussion Ringed seals are the prey of choice, but they also take bearded seals, and occasional harp seals, hooded seals, walruses, belugas, narwhals, and even sea ducks. They are able to fast for up to 8 months if food is unavailable. Threatened by melting ice associated with global warming and airborne pollutants that accumulate in polar regions. Home ranges may exceed 300km_ in areas of receding ice. Pursues fish and seal prey in pack ice and coastal regions. | <urn:uuid:8643784a-1ed3-4e81-b1a6-ab95f4730cb3> | {
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See also: 1984 Summer Paralympics[?]
The Games of the XXIII Olympiad
were held in 1984
in Los Angeles
, United States
. Los Angeles was the only city to bid to host the 1984 Summer Olympics.
- After the American-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, the Eastern Bloc, including the Soviet Union, East Germany and Cuba boycotts these Olympics (the USSR announced their intention not to participate on May 8, 1984). Notably, Romania is represented in LA and wins a large amount of medals. The boycott influenced a large number of events that were normally dominated by the absent countries.
- The organisers of the Los Angeles Olympics are able to produce a profit of over $ 200 million.
- Carl Lewis equals the performance of Jesse Owens of 1936 and wins four gold medals.
- Nawal El Moutawakel of Morocco becomes the first female Olympic champion of an Islamic nation, and the first of her country in the 400 m hurdles.
- A marathon for women is held for the first time at the Olympics, won by Joan Benoit[?]. The event is also noted because of Swiss runner Gabi Andersen-Schiess[?], who - suffering from heat exhaustion - stumbled through the last lap, providing dramatic images.
- Synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics debut in Los Angeles as Olympic events, as doeswind surfing.
- China returns to the Olympics after a long absence and wins 15 gold medals. In weightlifting, athletes from Taiwan and China win a medal in the same event.
See the medal winners, ordered by sport:
1896 | 1900 | 1904 | 1906 | 1908 | 1912 | 1920 | 1924 | 1928 | 1932 | 1936 | 1948 | 1952 | 1956 | 1960 | 1964 | 1968 | 1972 | 1976 | 1980 | 1984 | 1988 | 1992 | 1996 | 2000 | 2004 | 2008 | 2012
1924 | 1928 | 1932 | 1936 | 1948 | 1952 | 1956 | 1960 | 1964 | 1968 | 1972 | 1976 | 1980 | 1984 | 1988 | 1992 | 1994 | 1998 | 2002 | 2006 | 2010
All Wikipedia text
is available under the
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One of the greatest composers of all time, Franz JosephHaydn made an enormous contribution in the creation and development of virtually all musical forms and genres. 1760, Haydn was appointed the official musician for the Esterhazy Princes. Only in 1790, Haydn was released and allowed to travel. Haydn went to London where he became the most important and influential musician. Haydn retired in Vienna still being in the service of Prince Nikolaus. Haydn remains one of the most popular musicians. | <urn:uuid:904fe78e-1aa3-4ae2-82a8-987d562d6f4a> | {
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A great conductor and composer, Richard Strauss created a new form and style of symphonic tone-poem. After 1900, Strauss received worldwide recognition with his operas, often at a grand scale. Later in his compositions, Strauss used a more classical approach. Straussís association with the Nazi Germany forced him to move to Switzerland. Strauss came back to him native Bavaria a few months before his death.
More Richard Strauss sheet music download on EveryNote.com | <urn:uuid:97f8db2c-f623-4b73-b4ed-1276fcbfb6c7> | {
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Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
One of the most famous pictures of the Holocaust. German stormtroopers force Warsaw ghetto dwellers of all ages to move, hands up, during the Jewish Ghetto Uprising in April-May 1943.
Photo credit: Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi War Crimes, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives.
A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust
Produced by the Florida Center for Instructional Technology,
College of Education, University of South Florida © 1997-2013. | <urn:uuid:32db8e18-f949-40da-8ad3-a423d72a49ea> | {
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Bringing new beetles to light
2012 REU Project:
The beetle family Staphylinidae – the rove beetles – is the largest beetle family in the world, with over 57,000 species and nearly 3,600 genera already described. Several hundred new species and at least two dozen new genera are described every year, the largest proportion of them from Asia. The faunas of Australia, New Zealand, and southern South America also include many new genera awaiting naming and description but have received less attention. This relative lack of attention means that even identifying specimens belonging to described genera is difficult, because there are no comprehensive identification guides. International collaborative work is just beginning on two guides to beetle genera, one focused on Australia and one on southern South America, similar to the two-volume work American Beetles published in 2000 and 2002. Margaret Thayer is a coordinator of the rove beetle chapters of both guides, and hopes to describe the 20 currently known new genera from those areas so they can be included in these guides. The guides will promote more detailed work on those faunas by any researchers, including describing additional species, synthesizing information on all the species, and analyzing their distributions and evolution. This REU project will involve primarily describing one of the new genera (and, if necessary, new species) belonging to the subfamily Omaliinae, based on existing museum specimens from the collections of The Field Museum and others. The intern might also help with some aspects of work on other genera.
Research methods and techniques: Research work will include training in beetle skeletal morphology; dissecting, microscopy, and imaging techniques (probably including some SEM – scanning electron microscopy); databasing and georeferencing specimen collecting records; and using the georeferenced records to map the known distribution of one or more species. The intern will work with the sponsoring curator on writing, for publication, a modern description of the genus with illustrations (drawings, digital macro- and microphotos, SEM) and comparisons to other genera of Omaliinae. This project will provide experience with museum collections, entomological study techniques, and scientific literature on rove beetles. It may also involve developing and/or testing identification keys, potentially either traditional dichotomous or interactive ones. Although not directly involving the genus being studied, some local fieldwork would be possible to enable the intern to see other rove beetles in the field.
Curator/Advisor: Dr. Margaret Thayer (Zoology - Insects)
REU Intern: ANTHONY DECZYNSKI
Entomology/Wildlife Conservation double major
University of Delaware
Symposium Presentation Title: Wingless in Tasmania: A New Genus of Flightless Rove Beetle from Tasmania (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Omaliinae)
Symposium Presentation Abstract: The family Staphylinidae – the rove beetles – is the largest family of beetles in the world and also one of the least understood. There are currently over 57,000 described species in over 3,600 genera and more are still being discovered at a rapid rate. In this project we describe a new flightless staphylinid genus from Tasmania belonging to the tribe Omaliini of the subfamily Omaliinae, extending knowledge of the highly endemic Australian fauna. We studied the beetles whole as dry specimens and in alcohol as well as cleared and dissected in permanent or temporary microscope slides. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) allowed us to examine and image selected characters not clearly visible with optical microscopy. Using these sources of data we prepared descriptions and images of the beetles including species-specific genitalic structures and compiled all known distributional and ecological data. We added the genus into an ongoing phylogenetic analysis of World Omaliini by the second author to infer its phylogenetic placement. While we initially believed that this genus consisted of a single undescribed species from Tasmania we discovered that there are actually two species inhabiting different areas of that island. Several other genera of Omaliini have austral disjunct distributions that probably reflect an ancient origin on Gondwana. Our new genus needs to be compared carefully with several undescribed species of wingless Omaliinae known from southern New Zealand to assess whether they are all phylogenetically close – representing another disjunct genus – or convergently wingless. | <urn:uuid:9e05d8ba-8b8a-4ce4-91da-c14334f00dc4> | {
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A 4,000-year-old skeleton discovered in India is the oldest known archaeological evidence of leprosy. The fact that the skeleton survived suggests the person was an outcast: Hindu tradition calls for cremation, and only those deemed unfit were buried.
Before this skeleton was found, there was a question where the disease originated.
The latter half of the third millennium B.C. was a period of social complexity in this civilization, characterized by urbanization, a system of writing, standardized weights and measures, monumental architecture, and trade networks that stretched to Mesopotamia and beyond.
The presence of leprosy in India toward the end of this period indicates that M. leprae existed in South Asia at least 4000 years ago, which lends support to the idea that the disease migrated between Africa and Asia during a period of urbanization, increasing population density, and regular inter-continental trade networks. | <urn:uuid:6ff9b5f9-e5c1-455a-b321-f266efbeed06> | {
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Social skills of children with 22q11 Deletion Syndrome: A social cognitive neuroscience approach
The 22q11 DS is the most common genetic deletion syndrome. The deletion is believed to result in the dysregulation of the dopamine, GABA, and glutamate systems which, in turn, affects the prefrontal cortex, associated circuitry, and cognitive abilities governed by these brain regions. Research suggests that 22q11 DS children experience attention and executive function deficits; clinical observation also suggests impaired social abilities. This study sought to empirically identify if 22q11 DS children experience social skills, executive function, and/or executive attention impairments, and how these skills may be associated. A social cognitive neuroscience approach was used that attempted to relate these three areas of functioning (neurochemical, neurocognitive, and social). ^ The study was conducted as part of a longitudinal project at Rockefeller University. Fifty-one 22q11 DS children and 30 control participants took part in the study. Parents completed the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS) and Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF). The children were administered two computerized tests, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test: 64 - Computer Version (WCST: 64-CV) and the Attention Network Test for Children (ANT). ^ When compared with control participants, 22q11 DS children were found to: (1) have more impaired social skills, (2) be more likely to score in the clinically impaired range on the BRIEF global and subscale measures, and (3) have more perseverative responses and errors on the WCST: 64-CV. No significant group differences were found on the ANT; however a group x age interaction was detected. Correlational analysis revealed a significant, negative association between the BRIEF and SSRS total scores. A simple regression found that the BRIEF Global Composite score accounted for 42.4% of the variance in affected children's social skills. ^ Secondary analyses revealed significant associations between SSRS and BRIEF subscale scores. A multiple regression revealed that emotional control, planning, and monitoring skills were significant predictors of Total Social Skills Scores in affected children. A significant group x socio-economic status interaction was also found. ^ This study suggests that social and executive function skills are associated in 22q11 DS children. This has direct implications for remediation efforts and supports the validity of utilizing a social cognitive neuroscience approach. ^
Psychology, Developmental|Psychology, Clinical|Psychology, Physiological
"Social skills of children with 22q11 Deletion Syndrome: A social cognitive neuroscience approach"
(January 1, 2004).
ETD Collection for Fordham University. | <urn:uuid:eda8f990-9c12-4623-b09a-990e09c202ce> | {
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Dorcas, a word which means "gazelle", was sometimes called Tabitha. She was a very kind person who spent her time caring for the widows of Joppa.
Dorcas lived in Joppa, a seaport town. She was a loving person who showed kindness to others and especially to the poor. She made coats for the widows so they would have something to keep them warm in the winter.
One day she became ill and died. Her friends were so sad and upset. Their dear friend was gone.
They had heard that Peter had been performing miracles of healing sick people. At this time no apostle had raised anyone from the dead, but Dorcas' friends believed that Peter could do even that, so they sent two men to Lydda, a nearby town where Peter was staying.
Peter went back to Joppa with the men, and when he got there, he was led to an upper room where her friends had laid Dorcas. The room was filled with widows who were crying and showing one another the coats and other clothing which Dorcas had made for them while she was alive. Each stitch showed her faithfulness and the love she had for them.
Peter told them all to leave the room, then he got down on his knees and prayed, asking God to bring life back into her still body. He said to her, "Tabitha, get up."
She opened her eyes and when she saw Peter, she sat up. He took her by the hand and she stood up.
He called for the people to come back into the room, and there they saw their friend, alive again. What joy they felt!
The news spread quickly through the town of Joppa. Dorcas is alive again! Because of the miracle many people believed in the Lord. | <urn:uuid:8991d904-d86a-4c2f-8fba-2bee8617070b> | {
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Graphic Design Exercises
InDesign: Lists & Dropcaps
To learn InDesign layout and production techniques by recreating
Drop caps and lists can be made easily in InDesign with just a click. But customizing these functions will require the use of character styles. In this exercise, we'll learn some tricks on how to make production of repetitive tasks more efficient.
A note on colored type: text type should only print in black or a solid ink color. If there are any tints (less than 100% of an ink color), the halftone dots will affect readability should there be any registration problems. In this exercise, we are making an exception by using two solid inks for the text type.
prepping for the exercise
- download starter files
- open "list.indd" in InDesign
- practice Adobe navigation keyboard shortcuts: space+cmd=zoom in; space+cmd+opt=zoom out; cmd+zero=fit in window
- practice InDesign preview shortcuts: opt+space=hand; cmd+opt+I (show/hide hidden characters); W (normal/preview mode)
making paragraph styles
- window > paragraph styles: edit basic paragraph: 12/16 ITC Century Book, hyphenation=no, justification=adobe single line composer, character color=green (note formula)
- style head: 36/32, fill=purple, make new paragraph style "h1"
- style intro: 14/18 italic, make new paragraph style "intro"
- style subheads: bold, fill=red, make new paragraph style "h2"
- apply style to other subheads
making character styles
- select initial cap character ("T"): remove italic, make new character style "book"
- insert sample ballot box character: window > glyphs: font= ITC Zapf Dingbats, choose solid square
- select bullet character: fill=none, stroke=.5 (green); make new character style "ballot box"
making a drop cop
- window > paragraph styles: edit "intro": drop cap: lines=2, character=1, character style=book
- adjust kerning
- select a range of list items
- window > paragraph: bullets & numbering (flyout menu), preview=on
- list type: bullet, add square Zapf dingbat, character style=ballot box, left indent=1p3, first line indent=–1p3
- make new paragraph style "ballot list"
- apply style to other list items
- clean up text (add forced line breaks)
- submit PDF in Angel for grading
- print and file graded proof in your 3-ring binder for individual review | <urn:uuid:9f120c11-ed1d-45e1-82c3-bc8954c96ec5> | {
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Today is the Day of the Census! No, it is not an April Fool’s joke. When you receive your Census form, all the questions asked are based on the status of your household today, April 1, 2010. The U.S. Census has been taken every 10 years since 1790 to ensure fair representation, taxation and fund allocation for our communities. As genealogists, the Census helps us determine the locality our ancestor lived, members of the household and their relationships, ages, marital status, birthplaces, immigration patterns, occupations, military service, and much more. When we receive our 2010 Census, we should take the time and complete our forms, so our future generations will be able to discover us on the 2010 Census. | <urn:uuid:6b11c152-fdfd-4677-a675-c4ed8ffce0bd> | {
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Amos 1:1 identifies the author of the Book of Amos as the Prophet Amos.
Date of Writing:
The Book of Amos was likely written between 760 and 753 B.C.
Purpose of Writing:
Amos is a shepherd and a fruit picker from the Judean village of Tekoa when God calls him, even though he lacks an education or a priestly background. Amos' mission is directed to his neighbor to the north, Israel. His messages of impending doom and captivity for the nation because of her sins are largely unpopular and unheeded, however, because not since the days of Solomon have times been so good in Israel. Amos' ministry takes place while Jeroboam II reigns over Israel, and Uzziah reigns over Judah.
Amos 2:4, "This is what the LORD says: 'For three sins of Judah, even for four, I will not turn back [my wrath]. Because they have rejected the law of the LORD and have not kept his decrees, because they have been led astray by false gods, the gods their ancestors followed."
Amos 3:7, "Surely the Sovereign LORD does nothing without revealing His plan to His servants the prophets."
Amos 9:14, "I will bring back my exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit."
Amos can see that beneath Israel's external prosperity and power, internally the nation is corrupt to the core. The sins for which Amos chastens the people are extensive: neglect of God's Word, idolatry, pagan worship, greed, corrupted leadership and oppression of the poor. Amos begins by pronouncing a judgment upon all the surrounding nations, then upon his own nation of Judah, and finally the harshest judgment is given to Israel. His visions from God reveal the same emphatic message: judgment is near. The book ends with God's promise to Amos of future restoration of the remnant.
The Book of Amos ends with a glorious promise for the future. “’I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them,’ says the LORD your God” (9:15). The ultimate fulfillment of God’s land promise to Abraham (Gen. 12:7; 15:7; 17:8) will occur during Christ’s millennial reign on earth (see Joel 2:26,27). Revelation 20 describes the thousand-year reign of Christ on the earth, a time of peace and joy under the perfect government of the Savior Himself. At that time, believing Israel and the Gentile Christians will be combined in the Church and will live and reign with Christ.
Sometimes we think we are a "just-a"! We are just-a salesman, farmer or housewife. Amos would be considered a "just-a." He wasn't a prophet or priest or the son of either. He was just a shepherd, a small businessman in Judah. Who would listen to him? But instead of making excuses, Amos obeyed and became God's powerful voice for change.
God has used "just-a's" such as shepherds, carpenters, and fishermen all through the Bible. Whatever you are in this life, God can use you. Amos wasn't much. He was a "just-a." "Just-a" servant for God. It is good to be God's "just-a." | <urn:uuid:622fad00-3e3f-4da7-a12a-c723b2b08780> | {
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Functions and Variables in Physical Science Experiments
Almost all true science experiments involve designing a series of trials where one variable is manipulated and another variable changes as a result of this manipulation. All other variables are held constant. A variable is said to be a function of another variable if, for various values of x, it is possible to establish corresponding values of y, i.e. y = 6x.
In todayıs lab you will be working with various weights that can be hung on a spring. Work in pairs to determine any connections between the variables that you choose to investigate. Any spring will deform if you put a large amount of weight on it. The purpose of this lab is NOT to see how much weight a spring will take before it breaks or deforms. Deforming a spring by using an excess of weight, will ruin your experiment and it will force us to buy new springs. You can keep the lab fees from increasing if you use a reasonable amount of weight on the springs. Be nice to your springs.
When you have written a question and identified the variables you want to investigate, conduct an experiment to see what effect changing one variable has on another variable. Prior to beginning your experiment, you need to check your question and your procedure with your instructor. Please be sure to describe what experiment you are conducting and what materials you are using (the procedure) in your lab notebook (or if this is the first lab, use this sheet of paper). The level of detail you include in your procedure should allow someone to repeat your experiment just by reading your procedure. All data, observations, calculations, graphs, diagrams, etc. should be recorded in your lab notebook as well. Be sure to include appropriate units with all measurements and results of calculations. You will need to follow the rules for working with significant figures.
The expectations for this lab experiments are: a) you need to run a minimum of two different experiments, b) you need to collect a minimum of five data points for each experiment, c) you need to run each experiment twice and average your data, d) record your data for each experiment in a data table, e) there are at least two different types of springs, use them, describe them, make a comparison, f) for each experiment you do, plot a graph using the average values of your variables (when appropriate), g) identify at least two resulting relationships, h) include an algebraic expression (a mathematical equation and a written statement) describing the correlation between your variables, i) show how your data fits the equation.
Beginning Questions: In this lab you are faced with determining relationships between multiple variables. What are two initial questions that can be answered by doing this lab activity?
Procedure. Identify your dependent variable and your independent variable. What variables are kept constant?
Data/ Observations: (attach a separate piece of paper) Record all data and observations. Include appropriate units.
Graphs (attach graph paper). The dependent variable is plotted on the _____ axis and the independent variable is plotted on the _____ axis. Be sure to calculate the slope of each graph.
Claims: Based on the data collected, the graphs, etc. what claims can be made?
Evidence: Support your claims with appropriate evidence.
Reading/ Reflection: What are some of the principles that you have learned or applied in this lab? How does this compare to other groups? How does this compare to information found in a physics textbook? Compare graphs when using the thick wire/heavy spring vs. the thin wire/light spring, what physical variable does the slope of these graphs represent?
Please show how you arrived at your answers to each of the following questions using a) your algebraic expression, b) your graph. How does your equation or graph tell the difference between the two springs?
If a 63 gram weight is hung on the longer spring, what would be the amount of stretching? What would be the length of the spring? Does it make a difference if you investigate the length of the spring or the amount of stretching of the spring?
If a 63 gram weight is hung on the shorter spring, what would be the amount of stretching? What would be the length of the spring? | <urn:uuid:6f94b2b9-5fbc-4865-99d3-00a46b0e2828> | {
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Paul Barry, organizer, SFFD Historical Society
On April 19th, 1906, this hydrant, now known as THE LITTLE GIANT, was found to have water. A hose lead was made, and the water supply from this hydrant has been credited with stopping the conflagration from advancing any further into the Mission district. In previous years, Chief of the San Francisco Fire Department, Joanne Hayes-White began the annual hydrant painting. Everyone present will be invited to join in with the painting of this famous hydrant.
*Please Note: The start time of this event coincides with the Lotta's Fountain ceremonies. As the SFFD is involved in both events, should the fountain ceremonies extend longer than planned, the Gold Hydrant painting ceremony will begin later than the scheduled 7:00 AM.
When: April 18, 2009 - 7:00 AM
Where: Gold Hydrant, 20th & Church Streets
Relevance: A traditional 1906 Earthquake and Fire commemoration ceremony, happening annually for more than 35 years.
Audience: General public
Contact: For more information, contact: Paul Barry, SFFD, 415-706-7994 | <urn:uuid:a140cd9c-dee0-4330-812a-609b16289d00> | {
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I watched the movie Die Hard for the nth time over the weekend. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that John McClane is like a modern John Wayne, and John Wayne is the quintessential American hero of our stories.
What defines the American hero?
First, there's rugged individualism, which is probably the most American trait. I feel the need to point out that rugged individualism is not the same as the selfish libertine attitude that modern Hollywood writers like to give protagonists. It's not individualism without a care for others, or doing things differently just to be different. Rugged individualism means stubborn self-sufficiency and a willingness to fight against any odds.
Most of John Wayne most memorable characters are polite and soft-spoken, but also no-nonsense persons who don't let law or manners get in the way of justice (if they were D&D characters, their alignment would be Neutral Good). Wayne usually ends up punching somebody. McClane isn't so polite -- definitely rough around the edges -- but he's similarly decisive in response to problems and quick to give jerks their due.
The American hero doesn't want to be heroic. He wants a quiet, ordered life; but he accepts a personal duty to protect the weak against evil and injustice. Incidentally, the American hero is in this sense very similar to the farmer-soldier of ancient Rome -- he does his duty, then returns to a quiet, humble life.
The American hero is humble (which is definitely harder to see in McClane). In the film McClintock, Wayne's character owns most of the land around town and is a sort of unofficial mayor, yet most of the townsfolk admire him because he's fair and respects the lowliest people. He's gives money to the town bum, despite knowing the money will be spent on liquor, and jokes around with the bum as a friend. He's friends with the same indians who put arrows in him years ago, and even represents them against his own government. The American hero is usually uneducated, relying on street smarts and a poor man's wisdom.
Which, perhaps, is another characteristic of the American hero: an open heart. He's friends with unlikely people... people who are very different from him. He might not even understand them, but he still travels with them, jokes with them, and fights for them. You see this with McClane, too, in the way he befriends a young, aloof limo driver or an eccentric airport groundskeeper. The American hero isn't multicultural. Wayne and McClane aren't worldly. They are proud of their own culture and not too interested in learning others, but they are accepting of people from any origin.
What else might be a characteristic of the archetypal American hero?
And can you think of any game characters that come close? I think the Master Chief in Halo and Marcus Fenix in Gears of War might.
I've asked my English friend, David, to describe who he thinks is the quintessential British/English hero from film and literature. His gut reaction was Sean Connery as James Bond. I'll be interested to see how American heroes compare to heroes of other cultures. My guess is that heroes cross-culturally are basically the same, but there are a number of significant nuances. Humility, for example, is not a virtue in all cultures. | <urn:uuid:18a1ff21-5585-43a1-a61b-a0427d08924e> | {
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The Role of Assessment in Teaching ED 670 Glinda & Cresta August 1, 2005 Presentation Overview Classroom Assessment Classroom assessment is the collection, evaluation ...
The Role of Assessment in Teaching.ppt - Search assessment glinda cresta august presentation overview classroom evaluation
Teaching What is it? Teaching How should mathematics be taught? So as a teacher what does research tell us: What is most important? Content? Pedagogy?
Definitions of Teaching taken in part from B. O. Smith’s Definitions of Teaching Operational Definitions of Teaching "the action of a person who teaches; the ...
Book: Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching Author: Diana Larsen-Freeman Second Edition, 12 chapters Slide production: Dr. H. Iravani Shahriar Center
TEACHING STUDENTS TO READ INFORMATIONAL TEXT Reference: What Research Has To Say About Reading Instruction, by Alan E. Farstrup (2002) Advocate for the explicit ...
TEACHING_STUDENTS_TO_READ_INFORMATIONAL_TEXT.ppt - Search students informational research about reading farstrup advocate explicit
Teaching Techniques and Strategies in Foreign Languages Presented by Dr. G. Sakinah Abdur-Rashied, Assistant Professor of Modern Foreign Languages
INNOVATIVE TEACHING STRATEGIES Chris Keegan, CST, MS, FAST Vincennes University Teaching Strategies Begin with assessing your students Understand their LEARNING ...
2009_Conference_Innovative_Teaching_Strategies.ppt - Search innovative strategies chris vincennes university begin assessing understand their learning
Teaching Communication Skills to Healthcare Professionals: Role play & Role modeling Lee Grumbles, MD Department of Internal Medicine Palliative Care Program
How To Survive Your First Year Teaching Melissa Kettner Special Topics Project CEP 841 “Overwhelming and Not Without Tears.” This is how too many first-year ...
How To Survive Your First Year Teaching.ppt - Search survive first melissa kettner special topics project overwhelming without first-year
Co-Teaching Team 2 AKA (Dan DeLuca, Jen Borman, Tim Jump, Regina Ratzlaff & Christine Nystrom) What is Co-Teaching Two (or more) educators or other certified staff ...
Teaching Plot Structure Through Short Stories Plot is the literary element that describes the structure of a story. It shows the a causal arrangement of events and ...
PlotStructure.pps - Search structure through short stories literary element describes shows causal arrangement events
Teaching Across Generations Effective Teaching and Learning Department [email protected] © 2005 Baker College Opening Activity Take a few moments to think ...
Suffering or Having Fun - Importance of perceived workload in teaching with computer simulation POON, Tat Hong (Ted) Department of Management The Hong Kong ...
ted.ppt - Search suffering having importance perceived workload computer simulation department management
Teaching, Learning, and Technology Quotations Complied by Diana Dell, Ed.S. It is possible to store the mind with millions of facts and still be entirely uneducated.
Teaching for Successful Intelligence Robert J. Sternberg Yale University Contact Information Robert J. Sternberg, Director PACE Center Department of Psychology Yale ...
sternberg.ppt - Search successful intelligence robert sternberg contact information director center psychology
Teaching Procedures and Skills Jennifer Peel, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Anesthesiology Director of Education, GME Office Remember being taught procedures in 3rd Year?
Teaching Reading Comprehension in the Middle School Timothy Shanahan University of Illinois at Chicago [email protected] Why teach reading in the middle school?
Teaching Creativity and Teaching for Creativity What is Creativity? The Definition of Creativity: » “The application of knowledge and skills in new ways, to ...
TEACHING IN A MULTICULTURAL SETTING Introduction Globalization & technological advancement created new complex problems. Cultures bring together diverse backgrounds ...
walingo.PPT - Search multicultural setting introduction globalization technological advancement created complex cultures bring together diverse backgrounds
Teaching Styles Michele B. Lundy M.D. University of Arizona Faculty Development March 5, 2009 Facilitative Style Elicits/accepts student feelings Offers feelings ... | <urn:uuid:07fd34e3-6260-4b98-9960-97fa2d389245> | {
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عالم حواء للرشاقة و الجمال و احدث الازياء و الموضة و ديكور المنزل و كل ما يهم العروسة , فساتين افراح , دبل الخطوبة و اطقم ذهب , العناية بالشعر و البشرة مع وصفات حصرية بالفيديو من مطبخ همسه
الاثنين، 29 أغسطس، 2011
What is a Pennyweight of Gold? What is a Gram of Gold?
These are the most frequently asked questions we receive at GoldFellow. It's problematic for everyone as it doesn't relate to any measurement we currently use in our daily life. Pennyweights, however are still commonly used in the U.S. jewelry industry but we prefer to use the more accurate and globally recognized Grams (metric) as our unit of measure.
There are 20 pennyweights also referred to as DWT in an ounce. There are also 31.1 grams in an ounce. As we are talking about precious metals I'll use gold in my example throughout this post.
Many of our customers are weighing their valuables on home kitchen or postal scales of either mechanical or digital make. Most measure in grams and ounces, particularly when weighing food. The grams shown on your scale are not the same as the grams used in gold! You are measuring on a device that uses 28 grams per ounce while gold is measured in troy ounces. There are 31.1 grams per Troy ounce. The simplest way to use your home scale is to multiply the number showing as ounces by 20. That's it. If your scale shows 3.5 oz you have approximately 70 pennyweight. 1.5oz is about 30 pennyweight and so on. (Same for silver and platinum)
Ok, now for measuring your gold in grams. The scale shows 3.5 ounces. Multiply by 31.1 and it comes to 108.85 grams of gold. If it's 1.5 oz x 31.1=46.65 grams.
Lastly, if you would like to know a price per gram, follow this formula. $20 per pennyweight is$12.86 per gram. To convert simply divide $20 by 1.555=$12.86. Try $18 dwt divided by 1.555 and you get $11.58 gram
As the founder of the largest wholesale gold jewelry manufacturer in the United States, I built a reputation upon doing business ethically. My company supplied gold jewelry to the most respected jewelry stores, department stores, discount big box retailers and TV shopping networks in America. Though I sold my company to Warren Buffet’s Berkshire-Hathaway in 2007, my reputation in the jewelry industry remains impeccable.
Our founders began selling gold jewelry to America's leading jewelry retailers in 1977, ultimately becoming the largest manufacturer and distributor of gold jewelry in the United States. During 30 years of working in the gold jewelry industry, GoldFellow’s™ founders sold and distributed over 50 million pieces of 10kt, 14kt and 18kt gold jewelry such as chains, bracelets, necklaces, rings, earrings and more. That's over 300 tons of GOLD!
Over the course of time, many of these jewelry items ended up in drawers, locked away for safe keeping or at the bottom of your jewelry box.
These gold items are made from precious metal, and with gold prices at an all time high, have significant value when sold to the right company. GoldFellow™ is that company. GoldFellow™ was started with the goal of providing consumers a trusted, safe and convenient way to sell their unwanted gold, platinum and silver jewelry for cash. We now offer our 30 years of expertise to you. GoldFellow’s™ mission is to pay you top dollar for your gold, platinum and silver | <urn:uuid:f5279595-4bf1-4a82-b268-06355f6ad760> | {
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(HealthDay News) -- Nosebleeds are common during childhood, especially during the preschool years. Though they can be scary, they usually aren't caused by a serious problem.
The American Academy of Pediatrics says common causes of nosebleeds include:
- Allergies or a cold, which can lead to nasal swelling or irritation.
- Trauma to the nose, from blowing too hard, picking or putting an object in the nose.
- Exposure to a very dry environment or harsh fumes.
- An abnormal anatomical structure of the nose.
- An abnormal growth inside the nose.
- A blood-clotting problem.
- Taking medication that dries out the nasal passages.
Copyright © 2012 HealthDay. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:c4d7fb94-3731-4c95-afe8-ac12228a318f> | {
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A new study challenges previous work that found a link between marijuana use and lower IQ, but the authors of the original paper stand by their findings.
Last August, Madeline Meier of Duke University and her colleagues published the results of a study assessing the effect of marijuana use on cognition, as measured by IQ. The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), found that people who started using cannabis weekly before they turned 18 and continued to use heavily into adulthood lost an average of eight IQ points over that period. That’s enough to move someone with an average IQ of 100 from the 50th percentile of scores down to the 29th percentile.
The study also showed that this level of decline was seen mostly in about 8% of people who started using cannabis early and qualified for a diagnosis of marijuana addiction no fewer than three times between ages 18 and 38. The results suggested that marijuana was having a negative effect on brain development.
But now another analysis published in the same journal calls the IQ findings into question. Although the initial research involved a relatively large number of participants and controlled for factors such as alcohol dependence and schizophrenia that might also affect cognitive development, the new study suggests that the original one did not account for the effects of poverty, which can affect the way IQ changes over time. Using mathematical modeling, the new research found that because education can affect the trajectory of IQ development differently in people of different socioeconomic status, the environment, and not marijuana, may be the source of the poorer cognitive development.
“[Their] statistical models are unable to distinguish between a causal effect of cannabis on IQ-development and a non-causal correlation,” Ole Rogeberg, the author of the study and a research economist at the Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research in Norway, said in an e-mail discussing the work. In the paper itself, he puts it more bluntly, “[The] estimated effect on of adolescent-onset cannabis use on IQ is likely biased and the true effect could be zero. It would be too strong to say that the results have been discredited but fair to say that the methodology is flawed and the causal inference drawn from these results is premature.”
The authors of the original paper disagree. In a statement they released by e-mail responding to the criticism, they write: “Dr. Rogeberg’s…challenge is based on simulations. We used actual data on 1,037 people to carry out the analyses he suggested. While Dr. Rogeberg’s ideas are interesting, they are not supported by our data.” Meier and her colleagues also note that in their investigation, only 23% of the participants were from lower-income families, which made it unlikely that the effect of poverty was strong enough to skew the results for the entire group. They examined both middle and low socioeconomic groups and saw IQ changes linked to marijuana use in both. “By restricting our analysis to only include children from middle-class homes, our findings of IQ decline in adolescent-onset cannabis users remain unaltered, thereby suggesting that the decline in IQ cannot be attributed to socioeconomic factors alone,” they wrote.
Still, Rogeberg claims that poor children tend to start smoking pot at a much younger age than rich or middle-class kids do. Early exposure to marijuana and other recreational drugs is linked to a higher risk of addiction, which the Duke study found connected to IQ loss.
Marijuana may also lead to higher dropout and expulsion rates from school, which may be an indirect way that marijuana is connected to IQ. “As you consider groups with higher and higher exposure to cannabis, these groups will have higher and higher shares of participants from low SES backgrounds,” says Rogeberg, who also notes that other research has not found a connection between teen marijuana use and lowered IQ.
“The issues raised by Rogeberg are those that confound all observational studies: no matter how carefully controlled a study appears to be, there are always other variables that may alter the conclusions once they are uncovered,” says Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “In fact, for something like IQ, it would be surprising for one variable to be 100% causal to a particular outcome.”
Neither research group is insisting that is the case; clearly IQ is affected by myriad factors that scientists are only beginning to tally. But whether marijuana is directly affecting brain development — or whether factors like school dropout or expulsion are more influential — is not yet clear. | <urn:uuid:709ed2ad-6857-496d-acc3-9b0cab83b63c> | {
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Joseph Smith may have been alone when he experienced his First Vision and subsequently met with the angel Moroni, but he did not stand alone in his home. His mother, father, and siblings formed a supportive family network. He could confide in his parents. He could rely on his siblings. Joseph’s wife, Emma, bore with Joseph the demands and strains of leadership, opposition, and persecution. Other friends, such as Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, and David and John Whitmer, stood with Joseph as he brought forth the Book of Mormon, organized the Church, and embarked upon his quest to build a Zion society.
Equally notable among those whose connections strengthened and sustained Joseph during his many trials and travails were the extended Knight family and their neighbors in Colesville, New York. Allying themselves with the young Joseph Smith, they followed him into the budding Church, defended him, and formed the nucleus of one of the first branches of the Church. The story of the Knights and the Colesville Branch testifies of the power of kinship and friendship in the restoration of the gospel and the building up of the Lord’s kingdom.
The story of the Colesville Saints began with Joseph’s visits to the region in the mid-1820s, when he began working for Josiah Stowell of neighboring South Bainbridge, New York, in a failed treasure-seeking venture. Though that quest proved unsuccessful, it yielded Joseph Smith’s close friendship with Joseph Knight Sr. and his son Newel Knight. Later, Joseph Knight Sr. aided Joseph in his courtship of Emma Hale. He was present at the Smith homestead the night Joseph Smith, with Emma’s help, retrieved the Book of Mormon plates from the Hill Cumorah, and he provided food and writing materials to Joseph Smith during the Book of Mormon translation.
Knight family members and some of their neighbors were among the first to join the Church in 1830. Later that year, they became the nucleus of one of the first (if not the first) branches organized in the Church. In July 1830, Joseph was counseled in two revelations now found in Doctrine and Covenants 24 and 26 to visit the members in Colesville, including the Knights, to devote his time to “studying the Scriptures & to preaching & to confirming the Church at Colesvill” (see D&C 26:1). Hyrum Smith stayed in the area in late 1830 and presided over the branch for several months. His successor was Joseph Knight Sr.’s son Newel.
The Move to Ohio
When instructions were given in December 1830 and January 1831 (D&C 37 and 38) for the New York members to move to the Ohio Valley region, the Colesville Branch members made significant financial sacrifices and prepared themselves for the move west. The families associated with the Colesville Branch included, among others, the Knights, Pecks, DeMills, Stringhams, Culvers, Slades, Badgers, Hineses, and Carters. Everyone was expected to gather in Ohio, and the poor were not to be left behind. Setting aside their former lives and homes, the branch, under Newel Knight’s leadership, began the journey to the Kirtland area in April 1831. When they arrived in May, they were advised to “remain together, and go to a neighboring town called Thompson, as a man by the name of [Leman] Copley had a considerable tract of land there which he offered to let the brethren occupy.”
Copley had offered his land perhaps in response to an earlier revelation (D&C 48) given to answer a key question among the Ohio Saints in early 1831: “What preperations we shall make for our Brethren from the East & when & how?” The revelation answered, “[I]nasmuch as ye [have] lands ye shall impart to the Eastern Brethren” (see D&C 48:2). Copley welcomed the Colesville Branch and shortly after their arrival in Thompson they began to plant and build on his ample 759-acre farm.
On May 20, Joseph Smith received another revelation, now identified as Doctrine and Covenants 51, directing those who settled in Thompson to be among the first to practice the recently revealed principles of consecration and stewardship. Newly called Bishop Edward Partridge was to “receive the properties of this People which have covenanted with me” and “appoint unto this People their portion every man alike according to their families according to their wants & their needs” (see D&C 51:3). Although the revelation made it clear that Ohio would be a temporary gathering location, they were reminded that the “hour & the day is not given unto them” for their anticipated move to the future city of Zion. They were to “act upon this land as for years” (see D&C 51:17).
However, the Colesville Branch members had precious little time to comply with the commandment to implement the law of consecration. Leman Copley’s resolve to impart of his land was put to the test in early May when he participated in a mission to his former Shaker congregation. The experience seemed to raise doubts that weakened his testimony, and shortly after his return to Thompson he broke his agreement and evicted the Saints from his property. In June 1831, their future clouded and their lives in disarray, the Knights and other members of the Colesville Branch sought counsel and guidance from Joseph Smith as to what they should do next.
Instruction came in the form of a revelation now known as Doctrine and Covenants 54: “Take your Journey
s into the regions westward unto Missorie unto the borders of the Lamanites & after you have done Journeying Behold I say unto you seek ye a living like unto men untill I prepare a place for you & again be patient in tribulation” (see D&C 54:8-10). Newel Knight later described the situation, “We now understood that [Ohio] was not the land of our inheritance—the land of promise, for it was made known in a revelation that Missouri was the place chosen for the gathering of the church, and several were called to lead the way to that state.” Banding together once again, the Colesville members prepared for their journey. They selected Newel Knight to continue to preside over them despite his previous call, by revelation, to serve a proselytizing mission (see D&C 52). In a revelation canonized as Doctrine and Covenants 56, he was authorized to set aside his mission call and instead travel to Missouri as the head of the Colesville Branch.
The Move to Missouri
Leaving Thompson in early June 1831, sixty members of the branch reached Kaw Township in Jackson County, Missouri, on July 26 after a journey of about a thousand miles. Though Joseph Smith had arrived shortly before the Colesville Saints, they had the distinction of being the first branch of the Church to settle the land that had been dedicated as Zion on August 2, 1831, by Sidney Rigdon. Sadly, Joseph Knight Sr.’s wife, Polly, died a few days after their arrival. According to his later history, Joseph Smith “attended the funeral of sister Polly [Peck] Knight. … This was the first death in the church in this land, and I can say a worthy member sleeps in Jesus till the resurrection.”
That same day, Joseph received the revelation now known as Doctrine and Covenants 59, outlining how the Church was to observe the Lord’s day. In that revelation, the Lord included words of comfort for Polly Knight’s family and friends: “Blessed … are they who have come up unto this land with an eye single to my glory according to my Commandments for them that live shall inherit the earth and them that die shall rest from all their labours & their works shall follow them they shall receive a crown in the mansions of my Father which I have prepared for them” (see D&C 59:1-2).
Joseph Smith visited his friends in the Colesville Branch in Missouri again in April 1832. On that occasion, Joseph sealed the members of the branch up to eternal life.During the Jackson County mobbing of 1833, the Colesville Branch fled with many other Saints into neighboring Clay County. They settled together there for a time, even building a chapel. However, once the Church moved on to Caldwell County in 1836, the branch membership was scattered and their time together as one of the first organized units in the Church came to an end.
The Knights and others from the former branch joined many of the Saints in escaping to Illinois in the aftermath of the Missouri Mormon War of 1838. The Knights settled in the Nauvoo area and remained faithful members of the Church and friends of Joseph Smith. After Joseph’s martyrdom in 1844, the Knight family followed the leadership of the Quorum of the Twelve. Both Joseph Knight Sr. and his son Newel died in 1847 during the exodus from Nauvoo to the Salt Lake Valley.
For more on the sections mentioned in this article, see the forthcoming volume, Michael Hubbard MacKay, Gerrit J. Dirkmaat, Grant Underwood, Robert J. Woodford, William G. Hartley, eds. Documents: July 1828-June 1831. First volume of the Documents series of The Joseph Smith Papers, edited by Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, and Richard Lyman Bushman. Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2013. | <urn:uuid:2026ca1b-c7f6-4ef3-a9bb-b9f4be707577> | {
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This is the recording of the large Kermadec Islands earthquake of June 6, 2011, recorded on our schools seismology SEP seismometer here at Keele University in the UK.
Being at an epicentral distance of 155.3° from the epicentre, the first arrival is the PP phase as the direct P-wave is obstructed by the core.
The event is somewhat unusual as one would normally expect an earthquake of this magnitude along a subduction system to be a low-angle thrust event along the plate boundary between the Pacific and Australian Plates dipping gently to the west. However, the CMT focal mechanism determined is one of a normal fault. This event is right on the trench so it was possibly caused as the subducting Pacific Plate is forced to flex in order to subduct beneath the Australian Plate. The historical data show a magnitude 6.6 event from 2008, also on the position of the trench with a similar mechanism.
The ‘quake seems to have caused a ~1m tsunami wave locally but a more regional tsunami alert was cancelled.
Further details from the USGS. | <urn:uuid:5ee65e07-d87d-43cc-894f-11477aa21107> | {
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Data appendix for economic growth in the long run
AbstractThis extended data appendix describes the sources and methods used to construct the data used in our paper "Economic Growth in the Long Run."
Download InfoIf you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Bibliographic InfoPaper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number 41325.
Date of creation: 14 Sep 2012
Date of revision:
physical capital; human capital; investment; schooling;
Find related papers by JEL classification:
- O11 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
- O47 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Measurement of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
- O15 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
- J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
- Schoellman, Todd, 2008.
"The Causes and Consequences of Cross-Country Differences in Schooling Attainment,"
9243, University Library of Munich, Germany.
- Todd Schoellman, 2007. "The Causes and Consequences of Cross-Country Differences in Schooling Attainment," 2007 Meeting Papers 297, Society for Economic Dynamics.
Blog mentionsAs found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
- The latest on growth accounting
by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2012-10-11 14:41:00
by himaginary in himaginaryの日記 on 2012-10-13 07:00:00
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Ekkehart Schlicht).
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form. | <urn:uuid:00c908b7-30b1-46aa-9565-aab6228df884> | {
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Photo: Scott Zona
There is nothing more emblematic of spring and summer than flowers, but why do plants have flowers, and how did they evolve?
Botanists know that flowering plants, that is, plants that reproduce by producing seeds, evolved from non-flowering plants. According to evolutionary theory, nature would have selected plants with flowering tendencies because it gave these plants a reproductive advantage. It’s within the protective casing of flower petals, after all, that flowers are pollinated and make seeds. The strategy has been hugely successful. The vast majority of plants today are flowering plants.
The precise origin of flowering plants, though, is puzzling. In fact, exactly when, how, and why plants first developed flowers remains one of the biggest mysteries of evolutionary paleontology.
However, two discoveries have begun to unravel the mystery of how plants got flowers. Four years ago, scientists in China found a fossil of the oldest known flowering plant. The reed-like plants lived at least 125 million years ago in a lake, suggesting that flowering plants first evolved in water. The scientists speculate that the plant’s seeds floated along the shore and germinated near the banks.
More recently, scientist William Friedman of the University of Colorado found a clue in a plant called Amborella trichopoda, which grows in South Pacific rain forests. The plant’s female reproductive system has an extra, sterile egg cell. Friedman thinks that the extraneous part is a remnant from a more primitive reproductive apparatus and could link the plant to non-flowering plants like pines and firs.
The origin of flowers is still a difficult puzzle, of course, but with further discoveries and research, flowering plants will become a bit less mysterious. | <urn:uuid:8a9b6621-ec71-444c-9309-238303e6477a> | {
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Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Rekhta: Rekhta was language of common man (lingua franca) in Indo-Muslim society in the thirteenth and fourteenth century. It was a mixture of various languages adopted by Lakshkar (army) in its camp (Urdu) and gradually followed by the people in cities (Hindavi or Dehlavi) especially among those who had converted to Islam.
Authority Referred: J. L. Mehta: Advanced Study in the History of Medieval India; Vol III: Medieval Indian Society and Culture.
Amira Khusaro ka Hindavi kavya: Springara sangraha ki Barlina prati sahita
Hindavi bhasha aura usaka sahitya: Visesha sandarbha sekha Asarapha ka Nausarahara
A House Divided: The Origin and Development of Hindi/Hindavi | <urn:uuid:bdf75f24-5f29-4f57-b1c5-2ceb8a156faa> | {
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The Barren Isles archipelago, off the west coast of Madagascar in the Mozambique Channel, is one of the few remaining refuges of marine life in the western Indian Ocean. In addition to housing some of Madagascar’s healthiest and most productive coral reefs, this diverse ecosystem supports more than 4,000 traditional vezo fishers. The vezo live along Madagascar’s west coast and rely almost exclusively on the sea for survival and cultural identity. …
14 Jun 2013 | Article
Inspiring Places - Promote your Protected Area
The most viewed pages of our website
Inspiring Places are the most viewed section of our website, your text will not only be on the homepage of the website for 2 weeks, it will also be an integral part of our bi-monthly newsletter.
If you would like to promote your protected area, please email Delwyn [email protected] with the following information
- Approximately 15 high resolution images of the protected area (together with an authorization allowing IUCN to use these images on Flickr
- 1 map
- About an A4 Page of text including:
- Short background: about 150 words describing the PA, its conservation objectives, the IUCN category, the management authority, the governance arranagements, and other relevant information, e.g. if it has world heritage status;
- Context, location and size: Something about the region where it is located, the size of the PA in square kilometers, and other PAs in the vicinity, including transboundary context;
- Biodiversity and cultural features protected: a short description of about 150 words, giving information on geology, fauna and flora, cultural features, species on the IUCN Red List etc.
- Threats: Describe threats to the site and what is being done to address threats
It would certainly be helpful if you could check the current information on the PA in ProtectedPlanet, to ensure that the information is correct, and to make a submission on ProtectedPlanet if you find discrepancies.See www.protectedplanet.net
If you would like to write it in another language than english that’s fine, we just need a translation, but as for the Canadian sites we will put both languages up. | <urn:uuid:ae1a566e-926d-49bb-bedc-da02b821c3ca> | {
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