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The NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) is participating in an international, multi-agency effort to study invasive species, water quality, fisheries, and climate change in Lake Huron this field season—pursuing key knowledge gaps in the ecosystem. The Coordinated Science and Monitoring Initiative (CSMI) coordinates across U.S. and Canadian agencies to conduct intensive sampling in one Great Lake per year, on a five-year cycle. The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which is administered by the U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is funding this research.
“While GLERL has had a long-term research program focused on Lake Michigan, we are using this initiative to advance long-term research on Lake Huron,” said GLERL Director Deborah Lee. “Invasive species, warming temperatures, and changes in nutrient loading are putting as much stress on Lake Huron as on Lake Michigan. We want to better understand the Lake Huron ecosystem and develop modeling tools to predict how the lake is changing.”
Henry Vanderploeg, Ph.D., chief of GLERL’s Ecosystem Dynamics research branch and lead researcher for GLERL’s efforts in the pelagic (open water) portion of the initiative comments, “GLERL plays a critical role in the CSMI, addressing key science questions. GLERL’s high frequency temporal and spatial sampling will help determine nutrient and energy flows from tributaries, nearshore to offshore. This type of data is critical to effectively manage Lake Huron for water quality and fish production.” Frequent spatial surveys are key to understanding food web connections throughout the seasons.
Researchers from GLERL will expand upon their recent work in Lake Michigan (CSMI 2015) and past work in Huron (2012) to determine fine-scale food-web structure and function from phytoplankton to fishes along a nutrient-rich transect (from inner Saginaw Bay out to the 65-m deep Bay City Basin) and along a nutrient-poor transect (from inner Thunder Bay out to the Thunder Bay basin) during May, July, and September. GLERL will collect additional samples of fish larvae and zooplankton along both transects in June to help estimate larvae growth, diet, density, and mortality and to identify fish recruitment bottlenecks.
“GLERL was instrumental in establishing the long-term monitoring efforts that provide the foundation for current CSMI food-web studies,” said Ashley Elgin, Ph.D., research ecologist in the Ecosystem Dynamics research branch. Elgin serves as the NOAA representative on the CSMI Task Team, part of the Great Lakes Water Quality Act Annex 10, alongside partners from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), EPA, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Environment and Climate Change Canada, and the Ontario Ministries of Natural Resources and the Environment and Climate Change. This year, Elgin is conducting critical mussel growth field experiments in Lake Huron, expanding upon work she developed in Lake Michigan. She will be addressing the following questions: (1) How does quagga mussel growth differ between regions with different nutrient inputs?; and (2) How do growth rates compare between Lakes Michigan and Huron? Elgin will also coordinate a whole-lake benthic survey, which will update the status of dreissenid mussels and other benthic-dwelling organisms in Lake Huron.
GLERL’s key research partner, the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research (CIGLR), will deploy a Slocum glider for a total of sixteen weeks to collect autonomous measurements of temperature, chlorophyll, colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM), and photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) between outer Saginaw Bay and open waters of the main basin. Deployment times and coverage will be coordinated with other glider deployments by the EPA Office of Research and Development (ORD) and/or USGS Great Lakes Science Center, spatial research cruises, and periods of expected higher nutrient loads (i.e., following runoff events).
CSMI research cruises began in late April and will continue through September. Researchers are using an impressive fleet of research vessels, including EPA’s 180-foot R/V Lake Guardian, GLERL’s 80-foot R/V Laurentian and 50-foot R/V Storm, and two large USGS research vessels, the R/V Articus and R/V Sterling. Sampling missions will also be conducted aboard Environment Canada’s Limnos across Lake Huron. The Laurentian is fitted out with a variety of advanced sensors and sampling gear, making it especially suitable for examining fine-scale spatial structure.
Scientists from the USGS Great Lakes Science Center, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, and the University of Michigan are also participating in the Lake Huron CSMI. | <urn:uuid:f3fae900-c153-420c-93e3-422f756aac13> | {
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Battle of the Dumbos: Elephant Warfare From Ancient Greece to the Vietnam War
Elephants have fought in wars for 2,300 years
Elephants were the tanks of the ancient battlefield.
An elephant charging into a group of soldiers or horses could decimate a formation. That’s assuming the sheer psychological impact of watching a giant war beast with pointy tusks—charging and shrieking like murder incarnate—didn’t first cause the opposing force to flee in terror.
They could smash fortifications, impale people on their tusks, and stomp people to death under their huge feet and enormous weight. They towered over the battlefield.
In addition to their brute strength and the inherent psychological impact on the enemy, elephants were incredibly useful for logistics. They’re also highly intelligent.
As recently as 2004, the U.S. Army even classed elephants as a pack animal, though also warned—in a field manual distributed to Special Operations Forces—that the giant herbivores “should not be used by U.S. military personnel” due to their endangered status and the inherent dangers in riding them.
But for 2,300 years, armies have used elephants to help fight wars. They have used the animals for fighting, hauling heavy equipment or working on construction projects. Elephants have a long and distinguished military career, from ancient conquests to well into the modern era.
On ancient battlegrounds
If there was one ancient general who was the most instrumental in the spread of elephants as a weapon of war, it was probably Alexander the Great.
The ancient king first encountered elephants during his conquest of Persia in the 2nd century BCE (Before the Common Era). Alexander was able to skillfully defeat the Persians and their elephants, but was nonetheless mesmerized by the terrifying beasts. He took the Persian elephants that survived the campaign—and attempted to build an army of his own elephants.
Alexander was always on the march, so he never had time to truly train his elephants into an effective combat force. Instead, he used them mostly for their logistical prowess and for the powerful psychological impact they had on their the enemies.
This began to change as Alexander marched into India and clashed with the elephant-equipped forces of King Porus of Paruava. Here Alexander saw what fully-trained war elephants could do in combat. His spear-armed troops fought them off by organizing into tight ranks—like a porcupine—but they did so at a terrible price.
After Alexander died and his kingdom splintered, an elephant arms race ensued throughout the ancient world. The animals served as a potent symbol of an army’s wealth, status and power. But as future campaigns would reveal, they also had their weaknesses.
More than a century later, Hannibal of Carthage led his daring march across the Alps with an army of elephants. Hannibal, one of antiquity’s most celebrated generals, hoped to meet his Roman enemies head on with his war beasts. Ironically—as Hannibal is famous for it—this feat turned into a major blunder.
Elephants, not historically known for living in cold, high-altitude environments, proved ill-suited to the task of scaling the Alps. Many died crossing the mountains. Even the ones who survived the trek came out famished, exhausted and sick. When Hannibal met the Romans in combat at the Battle of Zama, the elephants proved ineffective.
To make matters worse for Hannibal, the Romans had developed anti-elephant tactics learned after earlier campaigns against the Greek kingdom of Espirus.
Hannibal lined his elephants up in front of his army—a screening force except with six-ton, man-crushing animals. The Roman general Scipio Africanus responded by creating gaps in his lines. When the elephants charged, the Romans funneled them through these open gaps, and dispatched them in Scipio’s rear.
The Romans also outmaneuvered Hannibal’s elephants with javelin-throwing troops, and mounted spikes on their wagons in order to wound the animals. The Romans also set fires to frighten them away.
Hannibal’s campaign also revealed several other weaknesses.
For one, when put under extreme stress, elephants can become unruly and difficult to control. Some of the more aggressive male elephants would sometimes pick fights with each other, causing major disruptions to operations as well as putting friendly troops around them at risk.
After Hannibal, the Romans adopted elephants—poetically so—during their campaign to conquer the late Alexander’s kingdom of Macedonia. Yet the golden age of the war elephants was coming to an end, at least in Europe.
Elephants saw infrequent use during the Middle Ages. The Frankish king Charlemagne owned an Asian elephant named Abdul-Abbas—given to him by Harun Al Rashid, the caliph of Baghdad. This unfortunate pet met his end while marching north with his master during a war against King Godofrid of Denmark. Historians still debate whether Charlemagne actually intended to use Abdul-Abbas in battle or whether he was there as a status symbol.
Elephants were more common in Asia, where the Khmer fielded them to great effect during their 12th century conquest of the Chams. The Mongols encountered many elephants as they marched into southeast Asia—outmaneuvering them with archers in a manner similar to Roman javelins.
The advent of gunpowder made elephants even more of a rarity on the battlefield—as they became vulnerable to deadly musket volleys. But in the late 19th century, the Siamese army used the elephants against French colonial troops, sometimes even mounting musketeers on the elephants’ backs.
But elephants no longer had the same effect they once did. As the world became introduced to industrialized warfare in the form of machine guns, armored vehicles and chemical weapons, elephants suddenly didn’t seem so scary.
But that’s not to say that the armies of the world no longer had any use for their beasts of burden.
Elephants in modern warfare
Though the days of elephant offensive operations were over, elephants still proved useful in logistics and in support functions as pack animals. During World War I, armies pressed a few circus elephants into service to haul heavy equipment and artillery.
However, it was during World War II that a man named James Howard “Elephant Bill” William would show the world what elephants could do.
William was a British World War I veteran and infantry officer who supervised mules and camels while in the service. After the war, he moved to Burma and worked at the Bombay Burmah Trading Company, and became a supervisor of the company’s elephants, working to transport heavy goods and supplies through the jungle.
After the Japanese invasion and Allied retreat from Burma, William volunteered his services to the Allies, and became an adviser to the Royal Indian Engineers. His experience with elephants, and his fluent Burmese made him a valuable asset.
Elephants proved incredibly useful. Both Allied and Japanese forces fielded elephants in large numbers. They were able to move with relative ease through thick jungles—and could cross rivers that would otherwise mire vehicles.
As a result, elephants were instrumental in quickly moving heavy equipment and timber for construction projects. Elephants helped build bridges and roads necessary to move tanks and armored vehicles to the front.
Outside the jungle, the U.S. Army Air Corps used elephants at airfields in India. These animals hauled freight and helped load airplanes before their arduous journey across the Himalayas. In one case, the Americans even made use of elephants to conduct a salvage operation to reach a plane that crashed deep in a thick jungle, with a scout plane in the sky relaying instructions to elephant-mounted troops on the ground.
British Field Marshal William Slim, writing the forward for Elephant Bill’s autobiography, praised the contributions of the elephants.
“They built hundreds of bridges for us, they helped to build and launch more ships for us than Helen ever did for Greece,” Slim wrote. “Without them our retreat from Burma would have been even more arduous and our advance to its liberation slower and more difficult.”
But by far, the most famous individual elephant of the campaign was Lin Wang—an elephant who served on both sides of the war.
Lin Wang started his service as a pack animal for an Imperial Japanese Army unit. In 1943, Nationalist Chinese forces under the legendary Gen. Sun Liren captured Lin Wang, conscripting him and several other elephants into hauling supplies.
Lin Wang served under Sun for years. Chinese forces brought the animal across Burma to China—along with several other elephants—for use in construction projects. In 1947, Sun went to Taiwan, and brought the remaining three elephants with him, including Lin Wang.
The other two died of illness, and in 1952, the Nationalist army gave Lin Wang to the Taipei Zoo where he lived until 2003, dying at age 86.
The 1960s were the last time elephants were widely used in war.
Rebels employed elephants along the Ho Chi Minh trail—first by the Vietminh during the French Indochina War and later by both North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong forces throughout the Vietnam War—to move heavy ammunition and supplies.
During early stages of the war, South Vietnamese units occasionally used elephants in counter-guerrilla patrols, or would hire local elephant handlers to help them cross deep rivers or haul heavy equipment when conventional transport was unavailable.
One of the most bizarre military operations involving elephants was Operation Bahroom, when a group of U.S. commandos facilitated the air drop of two elephants from a CH-53 helicopter in 1968. The elephants were for a local tribe in Vietnam’s Central Highlands that needed the animals for farm tasks. Yes, the Danny Glover and Ray Liotta movie Operation Dumb Drop is based on a true story. I’ll give you a moment to process that.
But today, elephants are rare on the battlefield. Trucks and helicopters are faster and amphibious vehicles have made crossing rivers easier. When the situation does call for troops to use pack animals, mules are typically cheaper to obtain, safer to handle and easier to care for.
Unfortunately, elephants can still become targets in modern war, even though armies are not going into battle on their backs.
Many armed groups have embraced the ivory trade, which wipes out surviving elephant populations and helps fund militias that are trying to wipe out people. It’s a sobering reminder that when elephants and war have mixed, the former have too often become its victims. | <urn:uuid:18deefd8-8aac-4334-b61d-490ef2c5d157> | {
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In the poem the two main voices are opposites , a clod and a pebble. He uses them because they are totally different, as the two opinions of love. He applies personification to the poem, using a clod of clay and a pebble, which symbolizes the two different views about love.
The poem “The Clod and the Pebble” introduce love in different aspects. The Clod, being innocent, young and inexperience thinks love is a wonderful thing and believes it is generous and that is always looking for other people´s satisfaction and pleasure. Using a metaphor, the Clod talks about love as something that helps you when you are feeling sad, and instead makes you feel better and happy.
Songs of Innocence and of Experience “The Clod and …
In his second idea about love, he uses the personification of a Pebble, which represents experience. This pebble had already bad experiences before, so he says that love make you suffer and that love is selfish, for example when it says, “Love seeketh only self to please”, it means love is selfish and it is only for yourself. It is a inflexible, cynical and negative stanza.
Clod and the Pebble - Notes - Classics Network
Our literature teacher Pato, gave us an assignment that involves all the poems that we have read threw the year, which are; The Clod and The Pebble, Love lll, Passion and Lovers’ Infiniteness.
The Poems of William Blake E-Text | THE CLOD AND …
My favorite poem is “The Clod and The Pebble” because I think that is very creative to show the to sides of love, since everything in life has to sides, the good and bad things. It leaves you the message, that being in love is wonderful, but you take risk doing it, because you can get hurt.
Clod and the Pebble, The Analysis William Blake : …
My favorite quotation is “Love seeketh not itself to please” because it describes the goodness of love. Also, because the Pebble, said the same but meaning the contrary.
Consider William Blakes presentation of love in the …
The poem “Love (III)” by George Herbert and the poem “The Clod and the Pebble” by William Blake deal with love. In these two poems love is expressed in two different ways. In the following essay this ideas will be discussed.
a poem about "the clod and the pebble" and ..
In our literature class our teacher Pato teached us how to write an essay, afterwards, we made an essay in groups about the poem we have read ” The clod and the pebble”. My partners were Abril Teran Frias and Juana Zufriategui. Here is the essay and the essay question: | <urn:uuid:5e5890d6-964d-4a57-b8bf-3b3acd43bedc> | {
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This website is dedicated to the Lombard language, with a particular focus on linguistic planning and thus on those procedures that may ensure its future in modern society, such as standardisation of spelling, bilingual signs, and usage in a broad range of comunicative contexts. The goal of this site is to become a lingusitic observatory for Lombard, to record the presence of Lombard and its local variants in modern society, and to be a database of lingustic resources for the Lombard language in its spoken and written forms.
The Lombard language
Lombard is a Romance language belonging to the Cisalpine branch of the Gallo-Romance group. It is spoken in southern Switzerland (Tixin/Ticino and Graubünden) and in northern Italy (in Lombardy and neighbouring regions, particularly eastern Piedmont). Lombard has been catalogued among the endangered languages of Europe by the UNESCO Atlas.lombard language, lingua lombarda | <urn:uuid:98314c0a-ae20-4cca-afbf-e032463482c0> | {
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An opiate is a substance derived from the poppy plant (which contains opium). Opiates are sometimes called "natural" since the active ingredient molecules are made by nature, not manufactured by chemical synthesis. Common opiates include morphine and codeine, both made directly from poppy plants.
An opioid is a substance (molecule) that is synthetic or partly synthetic, meaning the active ingredients (molecules) are manufactured via chemical synthesis. Opioids may act just like opiates in the human body, because of the similar molecules.
opiate - narcotic analgesic derived from a opium poppy (natural)
opioid - narcotic analgesic that is at least part synthetic, not found in nature
The terms are often used interchangeably. On the street, "heroin" may mean synthetic, natural, or semi-synthetic compounds. Manufactured opioids like Oxycontin are sometimes called "synthetic heroin", also adding to the confusion. Genuine "heroin" as originally formulated is technically considered an opioid, since it is chemically manufactured, although molecules from the opium plant are used in the process. Some of heroin's active ingredient molecules are not found in nature.
Currently many references are using opioid to refer to all opium-like substances (including opiates and opioids), and limiting the use of "opiates" to only natural opium poppy derived drugs like morphine. | <urn:uuid:0dc03cdf-de46-4354-9aee-256b8d6f6660> | {
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Biosphere Environment Museum 2012-2013 Educational Program: Free Environmental Education Activities for Official-language Minority Communities
This program for official-language minority communities offers free educational activities adapted to the needs and interests of high school students and teachers across Canada.
These activities link the worlds of science and technology, and explore environmental themes such as water, climate change, responsible consumption, energy and biodiversity.
Environment Canada produces a wide variety of publications in various print and electronic formats. Some formats may not be accessible to screen readers. Alternate accessible formats are available upon request. Please contact [email protected]
- Author: Environment Canada
- Language of Document: Separate English/French
- Document Type: Guide
- Cat. No.: En151-3/2-2012E-PDF
- Size: 21.59x17.78 cm
- Pages: 12
- Year: 2012
- Date modified: | <urn:uuid:56cb1722-0822-4f45-9956-3ca71a61147f> | {
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The modern world provides ESL writing teachers with a great quantity of excellent materials and resources that help them create lesson plans with a variety of motivating activities. Without manuals, workbooks, and Internet resources, the current generation of writing teachers would most likely feel poorly equipped and even helpless. However, along with these valuable “classic” resources, there are other “nonstandard” materials that can enhance students’ learning and make classes more interesting and fun.
Food is a great tool in teaching writing! Many teachers use food in teaching cooking vocabulary or practicing describing a process. Nevertheless, there are other excellent ways to enhance English classes with food and thus make them more enjoyable for learners.
Skillfully integrated into a lesson plan, little snacks can be an effective tool for practicing writing skills and provide opportunities for illustrating a cultural aspect of American life. Additionally, most of us would probably agree that food has the ability to create a more pleasant setting in the classroom.
In my blog entry today, I will share several ideas of how to implement snacks and treats into a writing classroom.
Activity 1: Trip to a Grocery Store (Teaching About Paraphrasing)
The concept of paraphrasing might be challenging for second language writers. This simple activity can help them get a better grasp of the notion of paraphrasing. It can be used both in beginning writing classes and as an introductory paraphrasing activity.
- Bring a variety of snacks to class (e.g., chips, raisins, crackers, nuts, popcorn). Design an imitation of a “grocery store” by displaying these items (in small cups, plates, or bags) on the table.
- Divide your class in teams and give each team their grocery list (prepare in advance). Each grocery list contains several snacks (from the ones you brought to class), whose original names are paraphrased (don’t include the original name of the items):
- Crispy salty buddy, the life of every party and is always up for a dip (chips)
- Grapes with a sunburn (raisins)
- Honey roasted, salted, or plain… you’ll go nuts for these babies (peanuts)
- Small and chewy fruit flavored animals (gummy bears)
- Yummy emergency stress reliever for most women (chocolates)
- Tell the students to find their items in “the store” by trying to understand the paraphrased definitions of each item on their grocery list. After the students have identified the items on their grocery list, you can all enjoy the snacks.
I have to admit that the preparation for this activity – creating paraphrased definitions – is one of my favorite parts! And I am sure you can come up with a whole bunch of other fun paraphrases.
Activity 2: Tasting Lab (Practicing Compare and Contrast Phrases)
This is personally my favorite activity. I tried it several times with different students, and every time the effect was just as I expected.
- Prepare a variety of snacks. The snacks that I have used include popcorn, chips, peanuts, Skittles, banana chips, cheddar cheese crackers, pretzels, gummy bears, cheesecake bites, and small cookies. You can certainly use healthier snacks (such as small fruit or vegetable pieces); however, be prepared for some mess.
- For each round, give a piece of two different snacks to students and ask them to taste them and create two sentences: one describing a similarity and the other one describing a difference between the snacks. Alternatively, you can only ask them for one sentence describing either a similar or a different feature. The characteristics that my students compared in the past included shape, color, flavor, personal like/dislike, and even nutritional value. Leave it up to them.
- The next pair of sentences is done for another combination of snacks, and so on. In fact, you can use a great variety of combinations even with a small number of snacks. You can also try making “tricky” combinations to make it more challenging for the students to come up with either a similarity or a difference.
- It’s important to remember that for each of their sentences, the students have to use compare and contrast words (similarly, likewise, neither… nor, both… and, however, in contrast, on the other hand, whereas, etc.). Example: “Both banana chips and cheddar cheese crackers are crunchy. Whereas banana chips are sweet, cheddar cheese crackers are salty.”
The rest of the snacks can be eaten after the tasting lab time is over.
Activity 3: Judging Candy (Developing Editing Skills)
You can use the next activity to help students develop their editing skills.
- Prepare several kinds of candies (e.g., chocolates of different flavors or taffy of different colors). Alternatively, you can use different types of cookies.
- Assign a category to each candy. For example:
- A problem with word choice
- A problem with punctuation
- A problem with citation
- Each student will take one candy. Do not disclose the categories to which each type of the candies is assigned until after the students receive their candies.
- Display a sample essay on the projector for the review or hand out printed copies.
- Each student has to provide an evaluative comment according to the category he/she received. For example, if a student picked the candy with “A problem with word choice,” he/she needs to find a place in the sample essay with a wrong word usage.
A word of caution:
I realize that the use of food may not be possible in some teaching contexts. You may also have students that may have allergies to certain types of snacks (such as nuts). So it’s a good idea to make sure that the activities you are going to implement in your class will not cause any harm.
Hope you and your students will enjoy these activities and realize how truly delicious writing is! Please share any food-related activities that you’ve had success with in your classroom! | <urn:uuid:b6ff7535-6009-499d-b204-3d19e05a601d> | {
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Since its initial release in February 2012 the Raspberry Pi – a very inexpensive, palm-sized computer meant to help teach computer science in schools – has become a favorite of hobbyists, makers, and tech enthusiasts everywhere. Why wouldn’t it be? The Raspberry Pi offers tinkerers a very low-cost (both to buy and to run) computer in an extremely compact platform. In addition, because of its origins as an educational tool, it’s easy to use and is versatile. Accordingly, it can be used in all sorts of creative ways.
However, its apparent simplicity and low cost comes with a downside. The Raspberry Pi is not a simple “device” with limited capabilities; it is a fully capable computer. The same pitfalls that befall normal desktop computing can hit the Raspberry Pi, if it is not properly secured.
Some uses of the Raspberry Pi actually turn them into servers, and that is something that users may not really know how to secure. For example, some people have made the Raspberry Pi into a server that controls their home automation system, or allows users to watch videos served by the Pi remotely.
For many uses of the Raspberry Pi, security isn’t much of a concern – it will never be online or even exposed to external input that could be used as an infection vector. The trouble comes when it’s used in situations where it is online – particularly as a server – where it’s at potential risk. For example, some automated scanners are already trying to log in with the pi user.
In short, the Raspberry Pi is only as secure as the uses you use it for. Good server security is not always easy; consider that even IT professionals make mistakes. Look into known server best practices if you do use a Raspberry Pi for these uses. Considering its origin as an educational tool, learning how to secure a server would be an appropriate use for a Raspberry Pi. You can also check out the infographic we’ve made about this issue here.
We’re trying to make the Security Intelligence Blog better. Please take this survey to tell us how. | <urn:uuid:cf693fe5-fdb6-4a88-94e3-9a4c1dbf82c4> | {
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The Yamashina Institute of Ornithology in Abiko houses the largest collection of birds in Japan, with over 60,000 specimens, including the newly discovered Okinawan Rail Rallus okinawae, New Zealand Kakapo, and one of the world’s rarest species, the Short-tailed Albatross. The exchange with the Institute in Tokyo is part of a programme of work to develop a major exhibition at Te Papa on Albatross biology and conservation.
The visit was hosted by Kiyoaki Ozaki, Chief Researcher of the Division of Avian Conservation and Deputy Director General of the Institute. In addition to collections of birds, the Institute conducts novel and highly effective bird conservation programmes. An example is the project to restore the Short-Tailed Albatross to non-threatened status, currently listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN. These birds were once one of the most common albatrosses but over the late 19th and early twentieth centuries many millions of birds were harvested to make feather bedding, with most of the feathers exported fromJapan. This industry supported hundreds of workers, with a village of 300 living on the main breeding site Torishima Island, an active volcano, 500km remote from the Japanese mainland. The species was thought to be extinct in 1949 but was rediscovered breeding in 1951 on Torishima, its sole breeding site.
Since that time, efforts by many researchers have been deployed to safeguard the birds, which numbered only 6 birds in 1951. Methods were developed to attract birds to safer breeding sites, away from landslides and the potential of eruptions. Decoys and sound systems have been deployed, and a second breeding site on a more stable piece of land at Torishima has been established, with the numbers of breeding birds using this area steadily rising over the last few years. Almost all the birds in the breeding population are banded. The Short-tailed Albatrosses experienced rapid population growth at 6-8% per year in recent times, and now there are somewhere near 400 breeding pairs in the population.
Further efforts have been made to transfer chicks from Torishima to a new site in the Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands at Mukojima Island, some 850 km from mainland Japan. Specialist equipment was developed to transport the chicks, to ensure they were not overheated, and stress was minimal on the birds.
Birds were hand-raised at their adoptive site for four months. Researchers Tomohiro Deguchi and others at Yamashina Institute studied how to do this most effectively for Short-tailed Albatrosses. New Zealand researcher Lyndon Perriman, who looks after Royal Albatrosses and sometimes hand-raises chicks at Taiaroa Head, Otago Peninsula was part of the team that undertook this study
Previous experiments in the techniques had been trialled on the less-threatened Laysan and Black-footed albatrosses, with chick transfers being successfully conducted by the Yamashina Institute research team. Short-tailed Albatrosses from the transfers are starting to return to their adopted site, with around 50% of the chicks raised by hand, returning to Mukojima Islands. These birds are starting to take part in courtship displays, and it is hoped that they may start to breed in the next year. | <urn:uuid:da5ddb9a-4271-48e7-8fd3-f4d8f833a6fa> | {
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|Subject: Naked eye galaxies.|
Posted May 17, 2001 by Civilian
In the article you claim that the milky way is the only galaxy that can be seen with the naked eye. This is not entirely true. Our milky way is surrounded by a group of small galaxies known as the local group. Although most of these simply resemble bright stars to the naked eye, two stand out.
In the Southren hemisphere we have the pleasure of being able to see both of them. On a clear, dark night you will notice two large bright blobs slightly to the south of the milky way. These are Galaxies, known as the "Clouds of Magellan". They are visible with the naked eye and they are almost impossible to miss unless you find yourself in a bright city. If you happen to be in the southren hemisphere, look south. If the southren cross is to the left of the Celestial pole then the clouds will be on the right of it. If that doesnt help try this:
On a southren Autumn night, quite early (say 8pm) look south (if you see Leo youre looking the wromg way). Find the milky way. Got it? Good. Now find the southren cross. once you have it. scan your eyes right until you find Carina (the keel). once that is done scan your eyes down slowly. Viola..
Yes, and you can catch M30 if it's dark enough and clear enough. It doesn't look like much, as you can't resolve it at all without a telescope, but it can been seen naked-eye.
Sorry, that should be M31.
You are right - this article needs some small tweaking! The galaxy I was referring to was M31, and it is commonly known that it is possible to see it with the naked eye, so long as your eyesight is good of course. I will try to make some much needed corrections to this article in December.
Please note that Not Panicking Ltd is not responsible for the content of any external sites listed. The content on h2g2 is created by h2g2's Researchers, who are members of the public. Unlike Edited Guide Entries, the content on this page has not necessarily been checked by a h2g2 editor. In the event that you consider anything on this page to be in breach of the site's House Rules, please | <urn:uuid:a0a9f613-ca3f-460c-9288-db005450df90> | {
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Rumi(Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi ) was a 13th century poet and mystic, known as Mowlavi in Iran and the Middle East. In the western world he is known as Rumi and his books are admired around the world.
He was born in 1207 in Balkh, Afghanistan or as some people believe, in Wakhsh, Tajikistan; However, since of both these places were parts of the Iranian Khwarazmi Empire, Rumi is considered as a Persian poet. He used Persian language for his work and emphasizes that:
“Say all in Persian even if Arabic is better – Love will find its way through all languages on its own.”
Same as other sufis and mystics, he believed that human’s had fallen away from his ‘beloved’ (the unique God) and were longing and seeking reunion with God. He also believed that humans could only find God inside their hearts. His beliefs were based on the ideals of true love and peace among people of all different races, nations and religions. He believed that through poetry, music and dancing everyone could reach God.
Rumi travelled considerably and met great leaders of Persian literature and mysticism in his time. He was influenced significantly by the great mystic, Shams Tabrizi and he named his masterpiece ‘Divan-e Shams Tabrizi’ after the death of his master, Shams. Other famous works of Rumi are ‘Masnavi-e Mowlavi’ ( Mowlavi’s couplets) and ‘The Essential Rumi’.
His books have been translated into many different languages. The language of his technic has influenced the Persian, Urdu, Bengali, Arabic and Turkish literature. Rumi died in 1273 in Konya (Ghooniyeh) and his tomb is a pilgrimage for his followers and those who admire Persian literature
Iranian Poets – The Eminent Iranian Poets – Poets of Iran – Persian Poets | <urn:uuid:e82d0eaa-3a90-4d4a-9182-e55f480dd597> | {
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Dr Suelette Dreyfus is an expert on whistleblowing and technology, data retention, privacy and national security.
Coroners must usually be notified of a death if it was violent or unexpected, if the identity of the deceased is not known, or if the deceased was in the custody or care of the state when he or she died.
Australian researchers compared characteristics of deaths investigated through inquests with characteristics of the much larger number of investigations that take place behind closed doors. They looked at data on 20 379 deaths in five Australian states over seven and a half years; 1252 (6.1%) proceeded to inquest, and about half of those inquests were held at the discretion of the coroner.
The researchers found that inquests were much more likely for childhood deaths and much less likely for deaths among the elderly. Deaths arising from complications of medical care often prompted inquests, whereas suicides rarely did.
“There are several reasons why coroners have preferences for inquests in certain cases and not others,” said lead author, Mr.Simon Walter from the Melbourne School of Population Health. “Some deaths, like those of children, are shocking to the community and there is often an expectation that a public inquiry be held. On the other hand, for other kinds of deaths, such as suicides, coroners may feel that they have little to say about how to prevent similar events in the future.”
“Inquests, and the publicity surrounding them, shape public knowledge and understanding of death,” said Professor David Studdert, co-author of the study, and leader of the research group at the University of Melbourne. “What this study shows is that the entire picture could be somewhat distorted because of choices made behind the scenes about which types of deaths to highlight.”
“As governments around the world look to coroners to function as proactive agents of public health, not merely as passive investigators of death, there is a growing need to demystify coroners’ functions,” conclude the authors. | <urn:uuid:5396d2d9-a179-4f1b-b9fa-86684b117ef6> | {
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Here's fresh scientific evidence that the family dining room may be the healthiest place in the house: New research shows families that eat meals together — without the television on — and stay seated until everyone is finished are more likely to have lower weights and body mass index (BMI) than those who don't.
The study,published by a Cornell behavioral economist in the October issue of the journal Obesity, suggests that there's more to combating the nation's obesity epidemic than merely encouraging people to eat less and move more.
"By focusing on family dining rituals, this research departs from the more food-centric approaches," said Brian Wansink, M.D., professor in Cornell's Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management and director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab. "Family meals and their rituals might be an underappreciated battleground to fight obesity."
Special: Get Dr. Brownstein's Bestselling Diet Guide For Only $4.95— Save 67%. Click Here.
The study suggests strong, positive socialization skills developed during family dinners may supplant the need to overeat. And children aren't the only ones who benefit: Mothers and fathers who talk meaningfully with children, especially young boys, about their day during dinner also have lower BMIs, the researchers found.
By contrast, families that eat while watching television can turn chubby, the researchers noted.
"In fact, eating anywhere other than the kitchen or dining room was related to higher BMIs in both parents and in children," said Wansink. "The ritual of where one eats and how long one eats seems to be the largest driver."
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SMOS offers new perspective on hurricanes
25 September 2018
With recent stories in the news about the devastation brought by hurricanes and typhoons to the US and Asia, we are reminded of how important it is to predict the paths of these mighty storms and also learn more about how they develop. Many satellites have eyes on storms, but ESA's SMOS mission can offer an entirely new perspective.
Tracking and forecasting hurricanes across the ocean brings obvious benefits to those at sea and to those who live in places where they make landfall. While forecasters have excellent tools to hand to make these predictions, ESA's Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission is now ready to add valuable information to help make these predictions even more accurate.
SMOS was built for scientific research, mainly into Earth's water cycle. The satellite carries a novel microwave sensor to capture images of ‘brightness temperature'. These images correspond to radiation emitted from Earth's surface, which are then used to collect information on soil moisture and ocean salinity. | <urn:uuid:76a3cab0-057a-45f0-9979-6760bcd19ebf> | {
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In May the Mississippi River underwent many drastic changes as high water conditions persisted. Just six months later, Mother Nature reversed course and sent the river to record-breaking low water levels. With the drastic changes to the river levels, the Coast Guard works tirelessly to keep the Mississippi River safe for mariners. One of the many units dedicated to maritime safety is Coast Guard Cutter Chippewa, a river buoy tender homeported in Buchanan, Tenn.
The 75-foot Chippewa, with its aids-to-navigation barge, is 205 feet long and 30 feet wide. The cutter was put into service in 1965 and has since maintained navigational aids on the Mississippi River. The Chippewa’s area of responsibility runs from mile marker 918 on the Ohio River to mile marker 981 in Cairo, Ill. Additionally, the crew maintains aids from Chester, Ill., on the upper Mississippi River to Cairo. Cairo is geographically located where the upper and lower Mississippi rivers and the Ohio River all meet.
With a crew of 14, the Chippewa works from sunrise to sunset on underway trips up to a week at a time. Their work consists of moving and maintaining buoys using manpower, the cutter’s capstan and crane, to cutting down the brush and trees that are in the way of navigational aids using equipment such as chainsaws, brush cutters, machetes and hatches.
“I am very proud of what we do,” said Chief Petty Officer Richard Hasenstab, a boatswain’s mate on the Chippewa. “Setting aids down on the river may seem monotonous, but it is very important in keeping commerce flowing through the United States.”
With the current low water situation, the Chippewa plays a vital role, as they are constantly on call as the water levels drop. According to the National Weather Service, the Mississippi was at nearly two feet below gauge on Dec. 8, and it is expected to reach six feet below around the end of the month. The all-time low for the river recorded at St. Louis was 6.2 feet below gauge recorded in 1940. As the Chippewa arranges buoys in the Mississippi River, the buoys let mariners know where it is safe to sail, prevent groundings and ensures their safe navigation. In the past year, the Chippewa has serviced approximately 1,990 buoys, traveling 7,002 miles across the Mississippi River.
“What we do plays a huge role in the river,” said Fireman Michael Quinones, crewmember on the Chippewa. “Without us going out there and replacing all the buoys, it’s not possible to transit safely up and down the Mississippi River.”
With billions of dollars worth of commerce traveling up and down the Mississippi River each year, Coast Guard units such as the Chippewa ensure vessels transporting goods vital to the nation’s economy make it there safely. According to the National Park Service, the agricultural products and the huge agribusiness industry that has developed in the basin produce 92 percent of the nation’s agricultural exports, 78 percent of the world’s exports in feed grains and soybeans and most of the livestock and hogs produced nationally.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Nathan Kirk, a damage control crewman on the Chippewa, said when his ship pulls up to port, many of the locals wonder what the Coast Guard does in the Midwest. He proudly lets them know about their mission in ensuring navigational safety.
“The job that we do gives us a sense of pride,” said Kirk. “If it wasn’t for us navigating and marking the river, then the industry wouldn’t be able to transport their supplies such as coal. Industries burn the coal and help people receive electricity for their homes.”
Whether high or low water, the Chippewa and its crew ensure aids vital to the maritime community are on station and watching properly. No matter what Mother Nature has in her playbook, the crew will be underway and at the ready. | <urn:uuid:3d5276f1-0287-457a-858a-0d06d211691b> | {
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Helps students master the latest and most powerful versions of servlet and JSP technology and build server-side applications and services that are in exceptionally high demand.
Gives students an extensive library of high-quality sample code for solving even the most complex problems with servlets and JSP.
Gives students practical expertise deploying servlets and JSPs on engines that are widely used in real business environments.
Demonstrates complex Servlet/JSP techniques the most effective way possible: through the use of working code examples.
Teaches students everything they need to access data using several of todays leading commercial and open source database platforms.
Helps students master the crucial architectural and design tasks associated with building effective Web-based applications and services.
Gives students confidence that they are receiving information that is thorough, accurate, clear, and useful—and reflects the challenges they will actually face.
The J2EE(TM) Platform has become the technology of choice for developing professional e-commerce applications, interactive Web sites, and Web-enabled applications and services. Servlet and JSP(TM) technology is the foundation of this platform: it provides the link between Web clients and server-side applications. In this 2nd edition of the worldwide bestseller, the authors show you how to apply the latest servlet and JSP capabilities. Unlike other books that treat servlet or JSP technology in isolation, Core Servlets and JavaServer Pages provides a unified treatment, showing you when servlet technology is best, when the JSP approach is preferred, and when (and how) servlets and JSP should work together.
Part I provides exhaustive coverage of the servlet 2.4 specification. It starts with server configuration, basic syntax, the servlet life cycle, and use of form data. It moves on to applying HTTP 1.1, cookies, and session tracking. Advanced topics include compressing Web content, incrementally updating results, dynamically generating images, and creating shopping carts.
Part II gives an in-depth guide to JSP 2.0. It covers both the "classic" JSP scripting elements and the new JSP 2.0 expression language. It shows how to control the content type, designate error pages, include files, and integrate JavaBeans components. Advanced topics include sharing beans, generating Excel spreadsheets, and dealing with concurrency.
Part III covers two key supporting technologies: HTML forms and database access with JDBC(TM). It explains every standard HTML input element and shows how to use appropriate JDBC drivers, perform database queries, process results, and perform updates. Advanced topics include parameterized queries, stored procedures, and transaction control.
Design strategies include ways to integrate servlet and JSP technology, best practices for invoking Java code from JSP pages, plans for dealing with missing and malformed data, and application of the MVC architecture.
Handy guides walk you through use of three popular servlet and JSP engines (Apache Tomcat, Macromedia JRun, and Caucho Resin) and some of the most widely used database systems (MySQL, Oracle9i, Microsoft Access).
Volume 2 of this book covers advanced topics: filters, custom tag libraries, database connection pooling, Web application security, the JSP Standard Tag Library (JSTL), Apache Struts, JavaServer Faces (JSF), JAXB, and more.
Detailed treatment of Apache Tomcat, Macromedia JRun, and Caucho Resin Online access to all source code, available free for unrestricted use at the author's www.coreservlets.com web site.
Download the Sample Chapter related to this title.
I. Servlet Technology1. An Overview of Servlet and JSP Technology.
II. JSP Technology.10. Overview of JSP Technology.
III. Supporting Technology.17. Accessing Databases with JDBC.
Download the Index
file related to this title. | <urn:uuid:ad21b903-2897-4992-b8ca-033056bab19b> | {
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Linear and Parabolic Functions Activity
- Ashley Jordon
Follow the Geogebra checklist.
Geogebra Checklist 1. Check the box labeled y=mx+b Move the orange slider labeled m What do you notice? What happens when the slider is positive or negative? What is the “m”? 2. Now leave the orange m slider alone and move the red b slider. What do you notice? What can you conclude the b stands for in the equation? 3. Now uncheck the box labeled y=mx+b and check the box labeled y=a(x-h)^2+k 4.First move the pink slider labeled a. What do you notice or what does moving the slider do? What happens when a is negative or positive? When a=0? 5. Leave the pink a slider alone and move the green h slider. What is happening to the graph? 6. Leave the green h slider alone and move the blue k slider. What is happening to the graph? | <urn:uuid:8ee56b60-b026-4a5b-9962-2b09a9b21465> | {
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Distributed wind energy systems are commonly installed on, but are not limited to, residential, agricultural, commercial, industrial, and community sites, and can range in size from a 5-kilowatt turbine at a home to a multi-megawatt (MW) turbine at a manufacturing facility. Distributed wind systems are connected on the customer side of the meter to meet the onsite load or directly to distribution or micro grids to support grid operations or offset large loads nearby. Distributed wind systems are defined by technology application, not technology size, and are typically smaller than 20 MW.
This animation explains the distributed wind system and illustrates how a turbine at a residential home can offset its energy usage. If you can't see the animation, please read our text version. | <urn:uuid:f8e83bbd-6870-41d1-aebd-a57451d2a5a6> | {
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Ken burns' 'vietnam war' brilliantly explores the the vietnam war could have been stopped by five different post-fdr and should not have. What should we learn from the vietnam war if the us and their south vietnamese stooges had won, south vietnam would have been yet another why have we. And eventually assumed the bulk of france’s cost for the first indochina war it should have war” for starters, we would have vietnam war.
Vietnam war: the vietnam war (1954–75) pitted north vietnam against south vietnam and its main ally, the united states. We have in vietnam the to fight and die in a war in which asian boys should be shouldering betts have tagged vietnam as a civil war for. Vietnam: historians at war richard nixon argued that the war could have been won had the united states record, the wrong war: why we lost in vietnam.
The vietnam war: how they saw it we should have never been there is vietnam a better place today for having won the war. The usa should not have entered the vietnam war how the usa could have won the vietnam war essay and we had enough information to know we should. The vietnam war is one of the most disgraceful periods in american history not only did the greatest superpower in the world get bested by an almost third-world.Declaring that the war in vietnam could not be won knew in the second world war we have dropped 12 tons we can and should offer. How the south could have won the civil war by bevin alexander the fatal errors that led to confederate defeat we should remember a broader fact. Truong chinh had noted lenin’s remark that “to wage a real war, we must have a strong and people’s war in vietnam how we won the war. Get an answer for 'what lessons might the vietnam war teach uswhat lessons might the vietnam war i don't think we learned our lesson, but we should have.
In the debate that preceded the 2003 iraq war, we became enamored of the distinction between “wars of choice” and “wars of necessity” opponents of. Check out the online debate the us won the vietnam war we should have parades we left in 1973 after the first vietnam war a second war in vietnam. Vietnam war the war we should have won why an analysis of gnostic writings on jesus did many americans oppose vietnam war the war we should have won the vietnam.
Showing how our military remains haunted by the ghosts of vietnam whether we should have been in the war is couldn’t have won in vietnam. Rape was rampant during the vietnam war no one should have to know the so we know less than we should about the vietnam war and about war.
Vietnam war introduction we should have a purpose that our people understand “vietnam won’t go away ” --historian ernest lefever. We won't go: refusing to fight learn about the experiences of two men who refused to fight during the vietnam war and have the groups read and. The best way to honor a vet is with the truth a “better war” narrative we should see vietnam as “a case study in be said to have “won” in. 15 responses to the “obvious” lessons of the vietnam war that we should have kept the war low-key because the people won’t buy.Download | <urn:uuid:3184fcc4-374f-44d3-bc29-8f6ea3458745> | {
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An isomorphism from a set onto itself. An automorphism group of a group G is the group formed by the automorphisms of G (bijections from G to itself which preserve the multiplication). Similarly, one can consider the automorphism groups of other structures such as rings and graphs, by looking at bijections which preserve their mathematical structure.
Related category• GROUPS AND GROUP THEORY
Home • About • Copyright © The Worlds of David Darling • Encyclopedia of Alternative Energy • Contact | <urn:uuid:f8609b68-30ad-41da-b8e4-a619afc9b219> | {
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Walk for Women 2013
One hundred years ago thousands of women walked from all across Britain, starting from as far away as Lands End and Newcastle, converging in Hyde Park, London on the 26th July. There were 50,000 women assembled in Hyde Park on that day in 1913. They were demonstrating to the government how many women wanted the right to vote. Women all over the country will be walking and celebrating t that we're free and honouring the fact that is was because of the suffrage movement.
A walk will be taking place on Saturday 20th July 2013 at 10am, starting in Wath Upon Dearne. There is no sponsorship involved, just good fun and all are welcome to take part, not just women.
For more details about the event and ways to register please click here | <urn:uuid:565a2ecb-5c09-40e1-92d9-9f60bf3dfa79> | {
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FutureThe advantage of our system is that large quantity of substances can be released at the desired timing and place.
Utilizing our system, we can note the effective treatment for cancer. Controlling the timing and place would prevent the side effects by anti-cancer agent, and releasing large amount of drug by a small quantity of triggers offers the effective treatment for cancer.
Moreover, focusing on the chain reaction, our system can be applied to long-lasting batteries for molecular engines. If some fuel for molecular engines (such as ATP) is packed inside the liposome, and the liposome is combined with some molecular motors (such as motor proteins), the fuel can be constantly supplied to the molecular motor by only one time initiation of the reaction.
The molecular motor would lead to molecular engines, and in the end, sophisticated molecular robots. Our system would make it possible to achieve molecular robots moving without continuous fuel supply from the outside. | <urn:uuid:78b61d43-3e1a-4fd5-bd6f-d0815820c4fa> | {
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For Annah Bachman, a UNC first-year and Kitty Hawk resident, the Outer Banks are nothing without their views.
She’s not alone – at least, not according to a research study co-authored by N.C. State University professor Laura Taylor, which revealed home renters in the Outer Banks would be less likely to return if offshore wind turbines are visible from their homes.
Utility-scale wind farms can have anywhere from 150 to 200 wind turbines, which typically stand 50 stories tall, Taylor said. There are no offshore wind farms in the United States, and there is only one proposal to build one off the coast of Rhode Island.
“I wasn’t so sure that the tourism population would be amenable to that kind of change in the ocean view,” she said. “And if a turbine farm of that size was built off of one particular beach, they might choose to take their vacation somewhere else.”
Taylor said the Outer Banks region – including Bachman’s home, Kitty Hawk – is dominated by rental beach homes, which have a lot of repeat visitation and hold significant history for families.
“The special thing about Kitty Hawk and the Outer Banks is that, because it’s so small, it’s extremely difficult to commercialize and industrialize due to lack of space,” Bachman said in an email.
She said building offshore wind farms could negatively impact people’s enjoyment of the coast.
But the study’s results found if a utility-sized wind farm was further than eight miles from the shore, there would be no impact on rental properties, Taylor said.
“However, at five miles from shore, our results indicate folks would require at least a five percent discount on their rental price to be induced to rent at that location,” Taylor said.
Zachary Keith, lead organizer for the North Carolina chapter of the Sierra Club – a renewable energy advocacy group – said currently the closest any wind farm could be to the North Carolina coast is ten nautical miles, which would not impact property rentals according to Taylor’s study.
The North Carolina coastline has one the greatest potentials for offshore winds along the east coast, he said.
Keith said renewable energies like offshore winds can both benefit the economy and environment – creating new jobs, improving health and moving the state away from coal and natural gas.
“Even though renewable energy, offshore wind, is more expensive, when you actually factor in a lot of external costs for fossil fuel combustion – from health effects to climate change – the costs are leveling out,” he said.
Taylor said while many people support wind energy development in the state, others care deeply about preserving the ocean’s beauty.
“While some might support environmental issues and wind energy is a part of that, they also feel that some places are special and should stay special and that, although wind turbine farms are a good cause in some sense, it’s spoiling a special place,” she said.
|Wind Watch relies entirely
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The Center for the Art of Translation produces translated collections of poetry and prose from all over the world through “Two Lines Press”, with notes and comments from the translators. In its 17th issue, the central theme was Uyghur poetry. The book includes a long foreword from its editors on Uyghur people and their history, then Dolkun Kamberi and Jeffrey Yang take the reigns in introducing, explaining, and translating Uyghur poems from various authors. I included their translation of “Oyghan” in my post about the poem, which seems like a simple poem but the more you read it the more difficult it becomes. The other translations are really fascinating to read, as they introduce old works from the Diwan Lughat al-Turk, medieval Uyghur Buddhist work from the Turpan Basin, as well as contemporary works from writers such as Dilber Keyim Kizi, Abdurehim Ötkür and Abduhalik Uyghur. A look online finds an “Introduction to Uyghur Poetry” by Kamberi and Yang:
The Uyghurs are an ancient people whose forebears are thought to be Turk-Tocharian, and have lived in Central Asia since the first millennium BCE. This area has played an important role since early times because of its favorable geographic location on the ancient trade routes between the East and the West, connecting Greco-Roman civilization with Indian Buddhist culture and Central and East Asian traditions. Burgeoning commerce and cultural exchange brought a cosmopolitan character to the region, marked by linguistic, racial, and religious tolerance.
Over hundreds of years, the Uyghurs have developed a unique culture and have made significant contributions in the history, literature, sciences, architecture, music, song, dance, crafts, and fine arts of Central Eurasian civilization. Most of the ten million Uyghurs today live in the Uyghur Autonomous Region that comprises roughly one-sixth of China’s territory, though diasporic Uyghur communities have settled all around the world. Uyghur religious beliefs are a mix of Shamanism, Buddhism, Manichaeism, Nestorianism, and Islam, which was adopted as the official religion in 960 CE, during the rule of King Sultan Satuq Bughra Khan.
The word Uyghur (also transliterated as Uighur or Uygur) means “unity” with undercurrents of “union,” “coalition,” and “federation.” The name’s earliest known appearance can be traced to the Orkhon Göktürk inscriptions carved on stone monuments in Central Mongolia, and can be found in medieval Uyghur, Manichaean, and Sogdian scripts, as well as Arabic-Persian scripts. Apart from these Inner/Central Asian designations, the name appears in diverse Chinese manuscripts throughout history, where it has been transliterated into more than one hundred forms: Die, Chidie, Hu, Saka/Scythian, Hun, Uysun, Dingling, Qangqil, Sogdian, Tokharian, Hugu, Huihe, Yuanhe, and on.
Click here to keep reading – I really recommend it! | <urn:uuid:855cb57e-5f51-406f-a3f5-d55254677e6b> | {
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- def volume(a,b,c,c1,n):
- '''Returns the volume of a rectangular Parallelepiped height c1 inside the same surface abc, Monte Carlo method'''
- m = 0 # counts points inside height c1
- v = a*b*c # volume of surface abc
- for i in range(0,n): # n determines number of points generated
- z = random.uniform(0,c) # random height
- if z <= c1: # if inside height c1
- m += 1
- v1 = m/n * v # Ratio between points inside and outside
- return v1
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Paul Glennie, University of Bristol
Most places had particularly elaborate ringing of the day bell, a period of continuous ringing for two or three minutes or more. It was an unmistakable marker of the day and it had important cueing information. It was a priming trigger, as it were.
There wasn’t a standard hour at which everything started but work very often started at a set time for a particular task or a particular workshop – and the presence of several people may have been necessary because work needed to be coordinated. If one imagines a Blacksmith’s, one needed to have a number of people working at the same time and in phase with one another so they all needed to be present once the forge was up and running, but those who were responsible for maintaining the fire need to be present earlier to get things started and so forth.
In Shakespeare’s time there would be plenty of sectors of the London economy in which workers were rather familiar with the idea of being driven hard to make sure that they worked a full day. But there was plenty of complaining about the volume and intensity of work and about hard task-masters long before time discipline comes in.
Although it might be very easy to blame the clock and the strong sense of urgency it brings, anyone who supposes that life in the pre-industrial countryside was an idyllic kind of existence doesn’t have a sense of how urgent it was to get the harvest in before it rained, for example. | <urn:uuid:2cf1ca29-4159-458d-a45e-6bd51a7a34f8> | {
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The most effective weapon against influenza is vaccination and the best time to get it is right now.
As previously reported in Health+Medicine, the Health Department advised people this year to delay their annual vaccination until May. It’s now known that the vaccine wanes over four months and this will ensure optimal protection when the season is at its worst.
For those early birds who got their flu shot in March or April, there is no need for a second vaccination. The Australian Medical Association’s Andrew Miller said any vaccination was better than no vaccination and immunity from an early shot would still provide protection.
People at high risk of complications from the flu are urged to get immunised. But fit and healthy people should too if they want to avoid infection.
“Influenza lasts longer and has more severe symptoms than a standard cold and if you are in the high risk groups you may be susceptible to complications such as pneumonia, infection through the body and kidney problems,” warned Dr Miller.
The Health department’s Professor Paul Effler said the impact of the flu was underestimated.
“Cardiac deaths often go up in winter and we now realise influenza can be a trigger for heart attacks and other cardiac events.”
Flu shots are available through GPs, many workplaces and for the past three years, WA pharmacies. It takes up to two weeks for the body to build up immunity after vaccination.
The Pharmacy Guild’s Paul Rees said the administration of the vaccine, counselling and monitoring of any reactions was identical to doctors.
“The difference is we are seeing the walking-well and we engage with them on why they should be vaccinated, it’s also an opportunity to catch those with chronic but well-managed conditions who visit the GP infrequently.”
However, the AMA advises people, especially those with chronic conditions and in other high risk groups, to get vaccinated through their doctor, who is trained to understand their specific health condition and needs.
Q: How are the flu strains named?
A: After the location of the laboratory that isolated the strain. The name reflects good lab work, not severity of the disease. Perth has had strains named in previous vaccines.
Check with your employer too. Many offer free flu vaccination programs, or will reimburse employees for the cost of the flu vaccination.
Every season flu causes:
Source: Immunisation Coalition
WA researchers are looking at how abnormal blood clots form during pregnancy.
The advances we've seen in the 18 years H+M has covered WA wellbeing.
Breakthroughs made by researchers at Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research and Telethon Kids Institute.
Town noises disrupt cardiac rhythms and could lead to heart problems say researchers.
Study shows children who grow up in poor households have a higher risk of heart problems as adults. | <urn:uuid:a948f6cb-ed77-40b3-b4a9-352e795401be> | {
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E. coli 0157 is the third leading cause of food-borne illness in the U.S. E. coli can cause vomiting, bloody diarrhea and, in rare cases, death. Most E. coli linked to illness starts in the digestive tract of cattle. It spreads to humans when manure contaminates food products or water sources. Leafy vegetables and ground beef are the most common food sources of the bug.
About three years ago researchers in Kansas found evidence that feeding cattle distillers grain promotes the growth of E. coli. A team at Kansas State University was studying the types of bacteria living in the feces of cattle. Kansas State microbiology professor T.G. Nagaraja was part of the group.
"And we happened to isolate E. coli 0157 from the feces of these cattle," said Nagaraja.
That in itself was not surprising. It's not uncommon to find these bacteria in cattle digestive tracts. But the results did contain a surprise. Some cows were more likely to have E. coli than others. Half of the test cattle were fed distillers grain, half were not.
"There were a significantly higher number of animals in the distillers grain group that were positive for E. coli 0157 compared to the control," said Nagaraja.
There was no obvious reason for this finding. Distillers grain itself does not contain E. coli. It's just part of the corn kernel. Ethanol production uses only the starch from corn. The rest of the kernel, generically called distillers grain, can be fed to cattle. Nagaraja said the connection between distillers grain and E. coli instantly seemed important to the research team.
"We were intrigued and I thought it was worth following," he said.
It's possible the distillers grain helps produce an environment in the cow's digestive tract that promotes E. coli development. So the Kansas State group did three more studies. Two of them again showed elevated E. coli levels in the distillers grain group. But a third study showed no link at all.
“We were intrigued.”T.G. Nagaraja
Even so, Nagaraja believes there is "some connection" between distillers grain and higher E. coli prevalence. He said the study that showed no link may underscore an important fact about the livestock feed.
"The distillers grain product is not a uniform product," said Nagaraja. "And it could vary from plant to plant, from batch to batch. And so some of the inconsistencies that we have observed may, in fact, be due to the product being not consistent."
Nagaraja said some distillers grain contains more nutrients than others, things like sugars, amino acids and vitamins. The differing components may explain why sometimes it seems to promote E. coli growth and sometimes it doesn't.
A later study at the University of Nebraska may indicate how much distillers grain is too much. The research found that low levels of distillers grain are not a problem. But the researchers found higher E. coli levels when the feed composed 40 percent or more of the animals' diet.
Some experts have raised the possibility that widespread use of distillers grain as feed contributed to a sharp jump in E. coli-related ground beef recalls last year. The recalls came as U.S. distillers grain production increased by more than 25 percent. Kansas State University researcher T.G. Nagaraja said right now there's no evidence that distillers grain played any role in the recalls.
But the issue has caught the attention of U.S. public health officials, who are monitoring research developments. Epidemiologist Anandi Sheth with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last year's E. coli jump reversed a general decline in E. coli meat contamination.
"We need to investigate that area further to see what we can do to have that level of contamination keep decreasing instead of going up," said Sheth.
The federal government can restrict livestock feed, such as in the late 1990s when certain feeds were banned to head off "mad cow" disease.
At least one high-ranking U.S. Agriculture Department official, though, has said there are no plans to restrict distillers grain use, no matter what the department's ongoing research reveals. Undersecretary for Food Safety, Richard Raymond told the Des Moines Register newspaper that if there is a problem, it'll be up to the beef industry to solve it. | <urn:uuid:8073fa32-2dab-4ebf-96e1-7bf5f1794b18> | {
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Students at Altadena’s Jackson Elementary School got to go to Antarctica Wednesday—at least remotely.
Linda Keavy’s fifth grade class of 37 students was chosen to help control a large drill currently in Antarctica that is testing new technologies for a potential future Mars trip to drill for signs of life.
See video of kids helping move the drill and comments from 11-year-old aspiring scientist and Jackson student Evad Morris in the video attached.
“It’s very exciting to be able to be a part of this,” said Keavy, who noted one of the student’s fathers works for JPL. “I’m proud of our school bringing up our scores. I feel we’re getting recognized which is awesome. Most of the kids come from poverty level.”
When the big moment came, Paulsen guided several students one by one on a computer and told them what commands to press in order to move the drill, which could be viewed via live Skype video projected in class.
“I like this because they came here and chose our school to tell us about the drill that’s going to Mars,” said fifth grade student Alyssa Aragon, who was surprised at just how cold it can get in Antarctica.
The class was chosen after NASA employee David Delgado was principal for a day at Jackson Elementary in the fall and was impressed with a lot of the science efforts at the school, Pasadena Unified School District Communications and Community Engagement Director Adam Wolfson told Patch.
Jackson’s scores on the California Standardized Test rose from 9% scoring proficient and above in 2008-2009 to 53% scoring proficient and above in 2011-2012.
The drill was built by NASA and Honeybee Robotics, which has an office in Pasadena, and is being tested in Antarctica since the conditions are similar to those of Mars, Honeybee Robotics systems engineer Gale Paulsen told students Wednesday. It can drill one meter into the ground, which is significantly further than other drills that dig five centimeters.
Paulsen told students more about the drill and answered questions, as did a team of scientists from NASA, Honeybee and Canada’s McGill University currently in Antarctica who communicated audio and video live via Skype.
“What is the warmest it gets in Antarctica?” and “Why do you want to search for signs of life on Mars?” were among the questions students asked.
Students expressed a collective, “Woah” when told the drill took nine months to build.
“This will hopefully inspire the future generation of scientists,” said Wolfson.
Students at Eliot Middle School also got to operate the drill later Wednesday.
See video of kids helping to move the drill and comments from 11-year-old aspiring scientist and Jackson student Evad Morris in the video attached.
What do you think of Jackson students getting to help control the NASA drill? Share your thoughts below. | <urn:uuid:1c85e61c-c43f-42ca-a63a-1bef3abcff59> | {
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Word of the remarkable find has caught the imagination of the world of archaeology, but the police cannot say when the life-sized bronze might re-emerge or where it might be put on display.
A local fisherman says he scooped the 500kg (1,100lb) god from the seabed last August, and carried it home on a donkey cart, unaware of the significance of his catch.
Others soon guessed at its importance, and the statue briefly appeared on eBay with a $500,000 (£300,000) price tag – well below its true value. Police from the Islamist group Hamas, which rules the isolated Palestinian territory, swiftly seized it and say they are investigating the affair.
Archaeologists have not been able to get their hands on the Apollo – to their great frustration- and instead must pore over a few blurred photographs of the intact deity, who is laid out incongruously on a blanket emblazoned with Smurfs.
From what they can tell, it was cast sometime between the 5th and the 1st century BC, making it at least 2,000 years old.
“It’s unique. In some ways I would say it is priceless. It’s like people asking what is the [value] of the painting La Gioconda [the Mona Lisa] in the Louvre museum,” said Jean-Michel de Tarragon, a historian with the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem.
“It’s very, very rare to find a statue which is not in marble or in stone, but in metal,” he told Reuters television.
The apparently pristine condition of the god suggested it was uncovered on land and not in the sea, he said, speculating that the true location of where it was unearthed was not revealed to avoid arguments over ownership.
“This wasn’t found on the seashore or in the sea … it is very clean. No, it was [found] inland and dry,” he said, adding that there were no signs of metal disfigurement or barnacles that one normally sees on items plucked from water.
The discoloured green-brown figure shows the youthful, athletic god standing upright on two, muscular legs; he has one arm outstretched, with the palm of his hand held up.
He has compact, curly hair, and gazes out seriously at the world, one of his eyes apparently inlaid with a blue stone iris, the other just a vacant black slit.
Officials at Gaza’s tourism ministry told Reuters the statue would not be shown to the public until a criminal investigation into who tried to sell it was completed. | <urn:uuid:76ce14c6-0de3-4a45-bd4d-f4c4fe7908be> | {
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Loadstone in its original case, 28 x 18 mm, circa 1750
A rare miniature silver-mounted loadstone, with decorated upper and lower frieze, silver suspension ring, magnet bar, contained in a black silk-lined fishskin-covered case with domed cover and single brass hook and eye.
A lodestone, or loadstone, is a naturally magnetized piece of the mineral magnetite. They are naturally-occurring magnets, which can attract iron. The property of magnetism was first discovered in antiquity through lodestones. Pieces of lodestone, suspended so they could turn, were the first magnetic compasses, and their importance to early navigation is indicated by the name lodestone, which in Middle English means 'course stone' or 'leading stone', from the now-obsolete meaning of lode as 'journey, way'.
Lodestone is one of only two minerals that is found naturally magnetized; the other, pyrrhotite, is only weakly magnetic. Magnetite is black or brownish-black, with a metallic luster, and has a Mohs hardness of 5.5–6.5 and a black streak.
錶殼 非常好, 少有使用過 | <urn:uuid:baad299a-e5e7-4f8b-af10-77b28c2710b0> | {
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If the sum of three vectors in R3 is zero, must they lie in the same plane?
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They could lie all on the same line or the same plane. They all lie on the same point if all vectors are the zero vector.
Let the three vectors be
If the sum of the three vectors is the zero vector, then these vectors are linearly dependent since so must lie on the same plane spanned by and . Hence all three vectors lie on the same plane
Thanks for the help MacstersUndead. Cool Avatar picture.
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Bald Faced Hornets are also known as White Faced Hornets and are generally less aggressive than their cousins the yellow jackets but will defend their nest and sting repeatedly if disturbed. This large hornet is almost an inch in length and it’s white facial markings are what gives it its name. Nests are often unnoticed in the spring but by late fall can be as long as 3 feet and cause great alarm. The queen begins the nest and lays her first few eggs. The paper nest begins to grow as workers emerge and will have 3 to 4 tiers of combs when complete. Multiple layers of paper made from chewed wood and saliva that is high in starch makes their nest extremely sturdy. There is generally one hole at the bottom for entry and exit and the football shape makes for easy identification of this specie. The nest is abandoned in the winter and never reused.
The nest starts from just one fertilized queen each year. Colony growth is slow to begin with but increases as the summer goes on. Even at their peak there may only be 300 to 400 hornets. In the fall, drones and new queens are produced and leave the nest to mate. The fertilized queens seek a place to hibernate and the drones, workers and old queen die with freezing temperatures. In the spring the new fertilized queen constructs a small nest, lays a few eggs and the cycle begins again.
Treatment and Elimination
White Faced Hornet eradication can be dealt in a few different ways. If the nest is in an out of the way area you can choose leave it alone until winter and cut the nest down for a nice decoration for your den. If chemical control is necessary it’s important to have the correct spray or equipment so you can treat the nest from a distance. Wasp freeze aerosols that shoot jet streams of spray will be needed or a pump or power sprayer.
ALWAYS check for more than one entry hole before treating. Most nests have just the one at the bottom but at times there can be more than one. Treating at night is recommended but this can be done during the day. Depending on what you use, stay back as far as you can while still being effective but not closer than 10 feet for safety. Aim your spray at the entry hole and thoroughly douse the hole. This will kill any guards at the entry. Still spraying, coat the paper nest completely while re-spraying the entry hole. When sufficiently soaked the hornets inside will be dead or dying. Leave the nest alone for a few days as not all hornets may have been in the nest at the time of treatment. After you’re sure they are all dead you can cut the nest down and dispose of it.
Another method is often used for nests attached to branches but it’s highly encouraged to leave this up to the pros. Done at night you can approach the nest and quickly place a piece of duct tape over the entry hole. A plastic bag is pulled up over the paper nest, tied off and can be cut away from the branch and taken away.
Since this hornet is capable of repeated stings it is highly suggested that you consider the use of a professional exterminator or bee keeper for its elimination. | <urn:uuid:73f04b41-aab2-4006-8258-f5b89e838a67> | {
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To address the lack of university-level learning resources focusing on the experience of developing countries, the Vi develops teaching material that is accessible, up-to-date and policy-oriented. The material is used in whole or in part for course preparation or as background reading.
Based on recent feedback from the network’s teachers, 90 per cent of the respondents used the Vi teaching materials with an average of 540 students.
To make the material more relevant to their countries’ realities, the Vi supports universities in adapting – or “localizing” – the material to their specific needs, by adding local case studies and data or by translating the material into their own languages. Since 2004, the Vi has produced 13 sets of teaching materials, which have generated 30 adaptations to the contexts of 16 countries, as well as translations into Arabic, Chinese, French, Nepali, Persian, Russian, Spanish and Vietnamese.
Since 2007, the Vi has also been contributing to the enrichment of members’ libraries with semi-annual shipments of UNCTAD publications and Vi teaching materials and resources. So far, the Vi has distributed 21,700 books, research reports and CDs to the membership.
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Two researchers are to demonstrate a “hack” that allows control over automobile systems including brakes and steering in models by Ford and Toyota – overriding the commands sent by the driver.
The “hack” can’t be used to “remote control” a vehicle, but Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek claim that their software can override the Electronic Control Units (ECUs) in a Toyota Prius and Ford Escape, by plugging a MacBook into a diagnostics port used by mechanics.
“‘Imagine you’re driving down a highway at 80 ,’ Mr Valasek said in an interview with Forbes. ‘“You’re going into the car next to you or into oncoming traffic. That’s going to be bad times.”
The researchers stress that they have not created a mechanism for remote attacks, and say that their research aims to raise awareness of vulnerabilities in these systems.
“At the moment there are people who are in the know, there are nay-sayers who don’t believe it’s important, and there are others saying it’s common knowledge but right now there’s not much data out there,” said Mr Miller, in an interview with the BBC. “We would love for everyone to start having a discussion about this, and for manufacturers to listen and improve the security of cars.”
The hack will be shown off at DefCon 21 on Friday, August 2, in a presentation entitled “Adventures in Automotive Networks and Control Units”
“These types of message are usually used by mechanics to diagnose problems within the automotive network, sensors, and actuators. Although meant for maintenance, we’ll show how some of these messages can be used to physically control the automobile under certain conditions.,” says Valasek.
“So there you have it. While we are NOT covering any remote attack vectors/exploits, we will be releasing documentation, code, tools, sample traffic from each vehicle, and more. At the very least you will be able to recreate our results, and with a little work should be able to start hacking your own car!”
Author Rob Waugh, We Live Security | <urn:uuid:2626e298-72ab-47a0-84e1-1276ddafe740> | {
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Luke 21International Children’s Bible (ICB)
21 Jesus saw some rich people putting their gifts into the Temple money box.[a] 2 Then Jesus saw a poor widow. She put two small copper coins into the box. 3 He said, “I tell you the truth. This poor widow gave only two small coins. But she really gave more than all those rich people. 4 The rich have plenty; they gave only what they did not need. This woman is very poor, but she gave all she had. And she needed that money to live on.”
The Temple Will Be Destroyed
5 Some of the followers were talking about the Temple and how it was decorated with beautiful stones and gifts offered to God.
6 But Jesus said, “The time will come when all that you see here will be destroyed. Every stone will be thrown down to the ground. Not one stone will be left on another!”
7 Some followers asked Jesus, “Teacher, when will these things happen? What will show us that it is time for them to take place?”
8 Jesus said, “Be careful! Don’t be fooled. Many people will come using my name. They will say, ‘I am the Christ’ and, ‘The right time has come!’ But don’t follow them. 9 When you hear about wars and riots, don’t be afraid. These things must happen first. Then the end will come later.”
10 Then he said to them, “Nations will fight against other nations. Kingdoms will fight against other kingdoms. 11 There will be great earthquakes, sicknesses, and other terrible things in many places. In some places there will be no food for the people to eat. Fearful events and great signs will come from heaven.
12 “But before all these things happen, people will arrest you and treat you cruelly. They will judge you in their synagogues and put you in jail. You will be forced to stand before kings and governors. They will do all these things to you because you follow me. 13 But this will give you an opportunity to tell about me. 14 Don’t worry about what you will say. 15 I will give you the wisdom to say things so that none of your enemies will be able to show that you are wrong. 16 Even your parents, brothers, relatives and friends will turn against you. They will kill some of you. 17 All people will hate you because you follow me. 18 But none of these things can really harm you. 19 You will save yourselves by continuing strong in your faith through all these things.
Jerusalem Will Be Destroyed
20 “When you see armies all around Jerusalem, then you will know that it will soon be destroyed. 21 At that time, the people in Judea should run away to the mountains. The people in Jerusalem must get out. If you are near the city, don’t go in! 22 These are the days of punishment to make come true all that is written in the Scriptures. 23 At that time, it will be hard for women who are pregnant or have nursing babies! Great trouble will come upon this land, and God will be angry with these people. 24 Some will be killed by the sword and taken as prisoners to all nations. Jerusalem will be crushed by non-Jewish people until their time is over.
25 “Amazing things will happen to the sun, moon, and stars. On earth, nations will be afraid because of the roar and fury of the sea. They will not know what to do. 26 People will be so afraid they will faint. They will wonder what is happening to the whole world. Everything in the sky will be changed. 27 Then people will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 28 When these things begin to happen, don’t fear. Look up and hold your heads high because the time when God will free you is near!”
My Words Will Live Forever
29 Then Jesus told this story: “Look at the fig tree and all the other trees. 30 When their leaves appear, you know that summer is near. 31 In the same way, when you see all these things happening, then you will know that God’s kingdom is coming very soon.
32 “I tell you the truth. All these things will happen while the people of this time are still living! 33 The whole world, earth and sky, will be destroyed; but the words I have said will never be destroyed!
Be Ready All the Time
34 “Be careful! Don’t spend your time feasting and drinking. Or don’t be too busy with worldly things. If you do that, you will not be able to think straight. And then that day might come when you are not ready. 35 It will close like a trap on all people on earth. 36 So be ready all the time. Pray that you will be strong enough to escape all these things that will happen. And pray that you will be able to stand before the Son of Man.”
37 During the day, Jesus taught the people in the Temple. At night he went out of the city and stayed on the Mount of Olives. 38 Every morning all the people got up early to go to the Temple to listen to him.
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Three easy steps to start your free trial subscription to Bible Gateway Plus. | <urn:uuid:9732608e-88d6-4e18-aab2-9bf6cb250b08> | {
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Why look for a new theory of gravity if the big bang cosmology is correct?
Published: 7 February 2017 (GMT+10)
Occasionally we read in the popular press, especially online, that someone has come up with a new theory of gravity. Why is that even necessary if the current theory describing the evolution of the universe is so correct?
The standard ΛCDM big bang cosmology is derived from an application of certain non-biblical boundary conditions to the physics of Einstein’s general relativity theory. But when that was applied to the universe as a whole, two problems developed for the secular model. One is the need to add in dark energy (or the cosmological constant, Λ (Lambda), to Einstein’s field equations) and the other is the need for a significant amount of invisible cold dark matter (CDM).
On the scale of galaxies and even clusters of galaxies Newtonian physics is used as it is the low gravity limit of general relativity. But without the addition of dark matter the resulting theory, using the known density of visible matter in galaxies (see Figure 1) and clusters, does not match observations. But for more than 40 years now dark matter has been sought in various lab experiments with consistently negative results. This has developed into what is called the dark matter crisis.1
Occasionally a claim is made that a theorist has some inkling of what dark matter particles might be; but the crisis remains.2 Dark matter particles have been sought without success in the galaxy using very sensitive detectors deep in underground mines,3 or with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) over 10 years of experiments looking for the lowest mass stable particle in a theorised class of as-yet-undiscovered supersymmetric particles.4
Something is wrong
The observational data from thousands of galaxies together with the negative outcome of all the experiments searching for dark matter particles indicate that either something is wrong with the physics we use or that the expected dark matter is much more elusive than supposed, or, indeed, does not, in fact, exist—which gets us back to something being wrong with the physics.
This same type of problem also applies to the concept of dark energy, which was introduced into the big bang to explain observations that were interpreted to indicate that the expansion rate of the universe was actually increasing over cosmic time, that is, the expansion is accelerating. The question of the identity5 of this ‘anti-gravity’ dark energy has also gone unanswered. It has been suggested that the answer may lie with a particle called a chameleon.6 Only in empty space does the hypothesized chameleon particle take on the characteristics which provide a new anti-gravity force in the universe, hence dark energy. But when you look for it near Earth it takes on a new identity and hides itself so you cannot find it.
To explain dark matter, new physics has been proposed. These include Milgrom’s MOdified Newtonian Dynamics (or MOND)7 and Bekenstein’s Tensor-Vector-Scalar gravity (or TeVeS) a relativistic theory of modified gravity.8 Although not initially intended to address the dark matter crisis, I found that Carmeli’s Cosmological General Relativity (CGR) explained the existing observations with no need for either dark matter or dark energy.
Now some have suggested that, when the large-scale observational data9 for the universe as a whole are all taken into account, dark energy does not need to be included, as the observations applied to the standard cosmology are consistent with no acceleration. The author of one such study said:10
“… it is quite possible that we are being misled and that the apparent manifestation of dark energy is a consequence of analysing the data in an oversimplified theoretical model…”
Moreover, it was noted even earlier that:
“[a]n alternative possibility … can explain the observations as a fluke of cosmological geometry. It avoids invoking dark energy as an ad hoc cause but at the price of throwing out the Copernican principle: roughly speaking, it puts the Earth, or at least our galaxy, back at the centre of the observable universe.”11
The Copernican principle is, of course, an arbitrary condition imposed on the interpretation of cosmological observations in order to avoid the possibility that the Earth has a unique location in the universe, something one might conclude from reading Genesis.
Now a new idea has entered this arena.12
“In 2010, Erik Verlinde surprised the world with a completely new theory of gravity. According to Verlinde, gravity is not a fundamental force of nature, but an emergent phenomenon. In the same way that temperature arises from the movement of microscopic particles, gravity emerges from the changes of fundamental bits of information, stored in the very structure of spacetime.”13
This new theory describes gravity as “emergent”, meaning that it is not fundamental but ‘emerges’ from the universe as it cooled from the initial hot big bang fireball. “At large scales, it seems, gravity just doesn't behave the way Einstein's theory predicts,” Verlinde said.13 His approach is new physics. That may be a much more reasonable approach than looking for all the dark sector entities that are now invoked,14 largely to fill in where the standard physics has failed.
Why are they even looking?
My focus here is not to attempt to decide which theory of gravity is correct. I want to ask a different question. If what we are told is true—i.e. that big bang cosmology is essentially complete and the big bang origin of the universe correct—why do these physicists even look for new physics?
Is it not because as time goes by the research problem of the non-detection of dark matter, dark energy, dark radiation15 (a sterile neutrino), dark photons,16 chameleons6 and many more dark entities17 starts to indicate that the whole paradigm itself is in doubt?
Surely the very concept of a universe that created itself from nothing (without a Creator God) must be thrown into doubt. And does this search for a new physics not validate other proposals of new physics that attempt to explain the observed phenomenon in a way consistent with the biblical creation account in the Bible, such as those proposed by Dr. Russell Humphreys18,19 or myself?20,21 The universe needs a First Cause, a Creator, and that just will not do for the unbelieving world.
I conclude that the secular pursuit of new physics to solve big bang cosmology problems, like their ‘god of the gaps’22 dark matter crisis, is really an attempt to stave off acceptance of what the Creator told us thousands of years ago,
“In the beginning God …”. (Genesis 1:1)
References and notes
- Kroupa, P., The dark matter crisis: problems with the current standard model of cosmology and steps towards an improved model. adsabs.harvard.edu (accessed November 2016). Return to text.
- Hartnett, J.G., Claimed dark matter ‘find’ won’t help end ‘big bang’ crisis, creation.com, January 25, 2014. Return to text.
- Hartnett, J.G., Dark matter search comes up empty, biblescienceforum.com, July 2016. Return to text.
- Hartnett, J.G., SUSY is not the solution to the dark matter crisis, biblescienceforum.com, August 2016. Return to text.
- Identity means what type of agent causes it. Some suggest a particle, the chameleon (see Ref. 6), others a slowly evolving scalar field. The latter then begs question of what that is. Return to text.
- Hartnett, J.G., Dark energy and the elusive chameleon—more darkness from the dark side, creation.com, October 2015. Return to text.
- Milgrom modified gravity to make the strength of its force inversely proportional to distance in weak gravitational fields. This contrary to standard Newtonian gravity which is inversely proportional to distance squared. Milgrom’s theory can account for the observed orbital speeds of stars and gasses as shown in Fig. 1 without the need for dark matter. But Milgrom has no underlying fundamental reason why such a modification should be made except by tuning it to observations. Return to text.
- Bekenstein introduced a relativistic generalisation (hence more fundamental) of Milgrom’s MOND to produce a mechanism why gravity is modified in the limit of weak accelerations. In the weak-field approximation of the spherically symmetric, static solution, TeVeS reproduces the MOND acceleration formula. Return to text.
- From type Ia supernovae, which led to the Nobel prize in physics in 2011, for detection of an accelerating universe. Return to text.
- Hartnett, J.G., Now the expansion of the universe is not accelerating, biblescienceforum.com, November 2016. Return to text.
- Rennie, J., Nothing special, Scientific American 300(4):8, 2009 Return to text.
- Verlinde, E., Emergent Gravity and the Dark universe, Preprint at arxiv.org. Return to text.
- New theory of gravity might explain dark matter, phys.org, November 2016. Return to text.
- Hartnett, J.G., Where materialism logically leads, creation.com, May 2016. Return to text.
- Hartnett, J.G., ‘Dark photons’: another cosmic fudge factor, creation.com, August 2015. Return to text.
- Hartnett, J.G., Dark radiation in big bang cosmology, creation.com, November 2014. Return to text.
- Hartnett, J.G., Why is Dark Matter everywhere in the cosmos?, creation.com, March 2015. Return to text.
- Humphreys, D.R., The ‘Pioneer anomaly’, Creation 31(1):37, December 2008. Return to text.
- Humphreys, D.R., New creation cosmology, creation.com, June 2009. Return to text.
- Hartnett, J.G., Starlight Time and the New Physics, 2nd Ed., Creation Book Publishers, 2010. Return to text.
- Hartnett, J.G., A biblical creationist cosmogony, Answers Research Journal 8:13–20, 2015. Return to text.
- Hartnett, J.G., Is ‘dark matter’ the unknown god?, Creation 37(2):22-24, April 2015. Return to text.
Dr. Hartnett, I agree with you 100 percent when you say:
“I conclude that the secular pursuit of new physics… is really an attempt to stave off acceptance of what the Creator told us thousands of years ago, “In the beginning God …”. (Genesis 1:1)”
I would ask, why do those who do believe God is the Creator, pursue these answers too? Other than curiosity about how our created world works (and why), it may be more about discovering the depth of our Creator’s glory in His creation. As a first pass, I accept the plain reading of the Bible as a historical document. The next level of course is the Lord's message to us; we can go much much deeper and many of us seek to do just that. Perhaps Newton and Coulomb laws could be viewed as the first layer of the physics of Creation. Then we might see relativity, QM and QED as the next level so of course we hunger to know more so we dig deeper, just like we do with scripture.
The confounding fact is that the Lord’s word tells us more than we can digest in a lifetime and there is still no analytical solution to the generalized three-body problem. So what are we to do? Keep praying for wisdom and studying Gods AWSOME Creation. Sometimes the Joy is in the journey.
I believe the Creator has put in us the desire to understand not only the Creator Himself but also the creation. The point we make on this website over and over again is that only through God's words can we really begin to understand that creation. Isaac Newton wrote in his book Principia
This most excellently contrived System of the Sun, and the Planets, and the Comets, could not have its Origin from any other than from the wise Conduct and Dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.
But nowadays naturalism, with its commitment to materialism, seeks only answers from the creation, denying the intelligent and powerful Being.
Why look for a new theory of gravity if the big bang cosmology is correct? And more importantly, why tell the public that big bang cosmology is correct when the experts know it isn't? Because 'big science' gets billions of dollars of public money and must be seen to be making progress to keep the money flowing. However, the imaginary foundation of materialism cannot produce anything but an imaginary description of the universe and its history. A smoke and mirrors description of the universe can only be improved by adding more smoke and mirrors.
This article reminds me of a conversation I recently had in an online community with a man explaining why he was an atheist (agnostic, when pressed). For an online conversation it was civil, but it was still about as productive as one might expect an online conversation to be.... seemingly completely futile.
After some back and forth, and a little prodding, he finally summarized his beliefs that, "We don't know the conditions of the universe prior to [or immediately after] the Big Bang, so it could have been anything. And since it could be anything, the simplest conclusion is that the universe has no reason to need a Creator." The saddest part was that he believed his reasoning was completely sound and fully supported by science. He didn't like me telling him his statement was a statement of faith and not of science.
I've seen so many other similar faith statements made by people and especially scientist. The science community's faith in the unknown is remarkable... and the irony of that faith is completely lost on them.
I find the extent of the faith that some of these scientist have to be extraordinary. I have heard arguments that, "if God exist why can't we see him?" Of course we know from Romans 1 that he made himself manifest through his creation. Then they'll say, "why doesn't he just reveal himself to us?" Of course he did, not only through Jesus Christ but through scripture, John 1 1:5, John 5:39, 2 Timothy 3:16. Yet despite that, they do not see the hypocrisy in dark matter, dark energy, evolutionary stasis, and so many other hypothetical workarounds to their own theories.
The search for theories that fill the gaps will continue. There is an extraordinary amount of faith that science will "find" these answers eventually. Though incomplete and contradictory, this basis of this faith in science is the desire to be able to intellectually explain a universe without God. Yet, even the autonomy of the universe speaks of a creator. Why would an all powerful, all knowing, all present God, design a universe that he would have to constantly maintain?
Ah yes, the continuing quest of naturalism (materialism) to explain it all. Question to the naturalism advocate, "Do you believe that all that is observed in the universe can be explained by 'natural processes'"? If the answer is yes, and it should be to be consistent with their world-view position, then the next simple question is, "What natural processes were responsible for the existence of the very first quanta of energy"? If they can give a rational, scientific (observational) answer they win the debate. On the other hand .....
Jack Sofield, retired medical physicist
The mystery of Gravity. Utterly fascinating. I would not be surprised if man never gets to the bottom (or top) of it. Could it be God is supernaturally sustaining His Creation with this force? I may have stepped too far into a field I know little about - perhaps it is actually explainable. What I am even more confused about is how any scientist can really expect the the universe can come from nothing. At some point we have to attribute it's existence to an almighty being that transcends space and time. It is the ONLY option.
It would be so much more profitable and beneficial if physicists would be as accepting of the veracity of God's Word as archeologists, and be as guided in their quests for knowledge. It is a wondrous marvel how otherwise manifestly intelligent, creative, resourceful and determined people can allow themselves to ignore the overwhelming evidence given to them for free. | <urn:uuid:f6863ba7-6de0-429e-ae5b-1c58caefc2d7> | {
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By: Mary K. Witkowski, Bridgeport City Historian
The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. visited Bridgeport at least five times. In March of 1961, King spoke at the University of Bridgeport at the Klein Memorial Auditorium. More than 2,700 local residents listened to King’s enthralling words.
In the speech, King called on President John F. Kennedy to strongly enforce the civil rights laws.
In June 1961, King returned to the City to receive an honorary doctorate in law from the University of Bridgeport.
On January 15, 1962, about 1,300 people attended the rally in Central High School Auditorium. “We have to live together when the battle is over,” he told students and other residents.
In March 1964, an even larger audience at Klein Auditorium heard King call for the passage of the Civil Rights Act.
On April 8, 1968, four days after King’s assassination in Memphis, Tenn., an overcrowded Klein Auditorium participated in a memorial service for the slain leader. | <urn:uuid:ca4ac8a4-562e-4cae-89e9-39433d9b21d3> | {
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My science fiction novel Nexus is out today. It's a story about the struggle over a technology that can get information in and out of the human brain – senses, thoughts, emotion, all sorts of information. (Read an excerpt here.) That's science fiction, right?
Yes and no. The technology I describe – a ‘drug' that's really a collection of nanodevices that attach to the neurons in your brain – is definitely fictional. But it's also based on real science that's been moving ahead faster than most of us have noticed – science that is already getting sight, sound, and touch in and out of the brain, and that's starting to go beyond that and into the realms of memory and even some types of intelligence.
The Brain is Electro-Chemical
We've known that the brain is electrical since 1870. That was the year that two radical German scientists, Fritsch and Hitzig, proposed an experiment to electrically stimulate part of the brain of an anesthetized dog. The University of Berlin, horrified at this idea, wouldn't allow the use of its facilities. So the pair used the dining room table of Fritsch's home. There they demonstrated that a very low current applied to part of the brain would cause the dog to reliably move one of its limbs. The brain was electrical.
Decades later, in 1930, a brilliant surgeon named Wilder Penfield took this a step farther. Penfield operated on epileptic patients, carefully cutting out small parts of the brain that caused their seizures. To find the responsible areas, and to minimize the damage as much as possible, Penfield took to using a small electrical current to map the different brain regions of patients as he operated on them. What he found was that stimulus to the right areas would cause patients to have vivid memories, or suddenly start speaking, or suddenly experience a sight or smell or sound. It wasn't just motion that was electrically driven. It was sensation. It was speech. It was, to use a loaded word, consciousness.
Those discoveries would lead to medical advances decades later. In the 1970s, Dr. William House introduced the cochlear implant. The cochlear implant looks like a hearing aid, and you'd be forgiven for thinking that it is one. But the way it works is profoundly different, and says something deep about our ability to interface with the brain.
We hear when vibrations in the air stimulate the hair cells of our inner ear. That stimulation, in turn, results in an electrical signal being sent along the 30,000 or so nerves of the auditory nerve bundle and into the auditory cortex of the brain. People with some hearing damage may have lost some of those hair cells. Normal hearing aids work by picking up sounds via a microphone, cleaning up and enhancing that sound, then playing the cleaned up version – potentially at a higher volume – into the ear. The remaining hair cells of the inner ear then pick up the sound and transmit it to the brain.
But what if you have absolutely no hair cells at all? For millions of people, that's the case. No hearing aid can help them, because no hair cells remain to pick up any vibrations in the air. That's where the cochlear implant comes in. Instead of cleaning up and replaying sounds, it uses electrodes to send an electrical signal straight into the auditory nerve bundle and from there into the brain. And while a typical cochlear implant has only 22 electrodes – less than 1/1000th the number of nerves in the auditory nerve bundle – it produces hearing that's good enough to hold conversations. Worldwide, more than 200,000 people already have cochlear implants sending data into their brains. And its impact is absolutely life changing.
Want to see? Here's a video of an 8 month old baby hearing for the very first time.
The first cyborgs are among us.
Progress on sending data into the brain didn't stop there. It's extended into ways to get visual data into a human mind.
In 2002, a man named Jens Naumann, who'd lost both eyes in a pair of unrelated accidents nearly 20 years earlier, had his vision restored. The system that restored it, designed by an eccentric scientist named William Dobelle, used a CCD camera worn on Jens' glasses to capture video. That video was sent to a small computer Jens wore, which translated the imagery into a series of electrical impulses that were sent, through a jack in the back of Jens' skull, Matrix style, to his primary visual cortex. And with those electrical impulses, carefully arranged in a pattern that matches his visual cortex, Jens can see.
Think about that. We can, today, take digital images and send them directly into a human brain.
More recently, physicians have switched to an approach more similar to the cochlear implant. Instead of opening up the skull to put an implant in the visual cortex of the brain, most research now uses a retinal implant – a chip placed at the back of the eye – to send data along the visual nerve and into the brain. And those implants, now tested on dozens of patients, are moving along the path towards full clinical approval. A decade from now we may have tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of formerly blind men and women wearing retinal implants, essentially the ‘bionic eyes' of fiction.
We've also gotten data out of the human brain. In 1997 a Georgia drywall contractor, Vietnam veteran, and occasional blues guitarist named Johnny Ray suffered a massive stroke in his brainstem. One minute he was on the phone, having a perfectly normal conversation. Then nothing. When he awoke, he was in the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Atlanta. He was paralyzed from the neck down. An emergency tracheotomy that had saved his life had also taken away his voice. He could think, but his interaction with the outside world had shrunk dramatically. The only way he could communicate at all was to blink his eyes – once for no, twice for yes.
There are around a quarter million quadriplegics in the United States. Worldwide there are around half a million "locked in" patients like Johnny Ray who are both paralyzed from the neck down and unable to speak. For all of those, there may be hope.
That hope started with a neuroscientist named Phillip Kennedy. Kennedy, working in monkeys, had shown that he could implant electrodes in the motor cortex of a monkey brain – the part that controls motion – and teach them to use that electrode to control a computer cursor or a robot arm.
That's exactly what he did with Johnny Ray. With the help of a surgeon, Kennedy placed a single, wireless electrode in the part of Jonny Ray's motor cortex that controlled his right hand. Then, over painstaking months, they trained Johnny Ray to use that electrode to control a computer cursor, and use that to type out messages to his doctors, family, and friends. He went from being able to communicate only by blinking to being able to type out whole messages.
Today those systems are even better. Using 32 or 64 electrodes and more advanced computer algorithms, they can be implanted, calibrated, and working well in minutes rather than the months it took Johnny Ray. And now those systems, too, are moving through human trials. Recently io9 posted this video of a patient using a more recent version of this technology to control a robot arm.
Making Us Smarter?
We've also gone beyond sensory data – at least in animals.
Two provocative studies have shown that we can improve memory and decision making in other mammals. In 2011, researchers working on ways to repair damage to the hippocampus – part of the human brain that's critical for forming new memories – demonstrated that their artificial ‘hippocampus chip' could actually improve memory in rats.
And this year, in 2012, a team at Wake Forest University went further. They trained rhesus monkeys on a task that was, in a crude sense, a monkey IQ test. As the monkeys learned, a brain implant in their frontal cortex – the part of the brain involved in decision making and attention – watched how the monkey's brains worked and learned those patterns. Then the researchers impaired the monkeys' performance on those tests by giving them doses of cocaine. What the researchers found was that, as they hoped, turning the implant on could undo the temporary damage done by the cocaine. But more than that, it could improve the monkeys' performance on the test, beyond their baseline scores.
Planet of the cyborg apes, here we come.
Data In, Data Out
The frontier I'm most excited about is communication.
I've described two systems that get data into the brain – sound and sight – and one that gets data out – in motor control. But in both of these areas we can go in either direction. In fact, there's a general rule in neuroscience that, for the most part, sensation, imagination, and recollection are the same in the brain. Roughly the same neurons light up when you see a red triangle, when you remember a red triangle you've seen before, or when you imagine a red triangle anew. What that means is that if we can get data in by stimulating a certain set of neurons, we should be able to get data out by observing those same neurons, and vice versa.
And we can see some of this happening already.
Last year a group at Berkeley showed that they could use an fMRI brain scanner to reconstruct what a person was seeing.
Also last year, a group of scientists at Duke University demonstrated that they could send touch data into a monkey brain. They equipped the monkey with a two-way implant that allowed it to control a virtual robot arm (in a video game) and feel something when the robot arm touched objects.
And fascinatingly, a team at Washington University has shown that they can tap into the speech centers of the brain. They used an implant in those centers to allow patients to control a computer cursor, but their real goal is to allow paralyzed patients to directly ‘think' words out of their brains and into computers. Which of course opens up the possibility of thinking those words directly into the brain of another person, equipped with a similar implant. Digital telepathy.
All of this fits with how we use technology. Once upon a time, ‘computers' were things we used to do solitary work. Now they and their offspring – smart phones, tablets, and the like – are primarily about communication. We use our digital gadgets to access information and to interact with each other. It's inevitable that brain-hacking technology will follow the same path. We have a deep innate desire to connect with others. And what could be more intimate than actually sending signals directly between our brains?
All of this said, there are incredibly huge challenges to realizing the full potential of this technology in humans.
First, the systems are extremely crude. Jens Naumann, the man who's vision was restored, achieved 256 pixel vision. He could see in a grid 16 pixels by 16 pixels. It's utterly amazing that he could see at all, given that his biological eyes were both destroyed. But it's not the super-enhanced vision of the bionic man. It's not something we'd voluntarily switch to. The same is true of the cochlear implant. Yes, these deaf people can hear, but not as well as a normal hearing person. Cochlear implants are just now getting to the point where music appreciation may be possible. And they still don't produce word recognition as well as most hearing people have.
Second, brain computer interfaces today generally require brain surgery. Yes, there are some systems like the fMRI brain scanner or EEG based devices that don't need to be implanted inside the brain. But those are the minority, and they're fairly limited in how accurate they can become. If you want a really high fidelity system, it's probably going to have to be placed within your skull. And how many of us are going to be willing to go through with that? To motivate brain surgery, an implant has to bring huge advantages.
Both of those problems will eventually be overcome. We'll develop implants that can tap into more neurons, allowing more data – and higher fidelity – to be sent back and forth. We'll develop algorithms that can decode that data in real-time. And we'll develop safer and easier ways to get these systems into the brain.
Rodolfo Llinas, one of the elder statesmen of neuroscience, has proposed one of the most intriguing ways to get a system into the brain. Instead of cutting open the skull, he proposes, we could insert a bundle of carbon nanotubes in through the blood stream, and allow them to branch throughout the brain. Even a bundle a million carbon nanotubes thick would take up only about 1% of the area of the smallest capillary in the brain, and it would allow us to electrically listen in on and stimulate neurons in the brain through the capillary wall, without the need for surgery or the risk of infection.
Researchers seem to be moving forward on technology that could make Llinas's dream true. In 2012, a team demonstrated a carbon microthread that could listen in on or stimulate a single neuron, and which is 1/100th the width of current electrodes used in brain implants. It's still many times larger than a single carbon nanotube, but it's a huge step in that direction. And even when used in conventional implants that are placed inside the brian, it will enable researchers to tap into many more neurons, with less impact on the brain, allowing them to send more data in and out, and moving brain implants one step closer to reality for the blind, deaf, paralyzed, and one day perhaps for all of us.
Of course, the prospect of implants in our brains leads to all sorts of questions. What happens if they crash? Can they get viruses? Can we hack on our own implants? Can someone else hack on them?
How will society deal with these sorts of technologies? Will their complexity keep them expensive and only available to the rich? Or will the same economics that have governed other electronics come into play, and drive their prices down to the point where all of us can afford them?
And the biggest questions, I think: How will society react to this technology? Will we embrace it or ban it? Will control rest in the hands of individuals? Or will this be a tool for control? Would a future full of people with wired brains look more like the crazy, chaotic, diverse, bottoms-up nature of the internet? Or would it look more like Big Brother from Orwell's 1984?
Those are the questions I try to tackle in Nexus. If you're intrigued, I hope you'll check it out.
And if you want to know more about the science behind all this, you can read my H.G. Wells Award-winning non-fiction book, More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement. In fact, if you buy Nexus before the end of the year, I'll send you a free e-copy of More Than Human. | <urn:uuid:3ded8a52-5ec6-4366-9f4e-1d6dc1cee14c> | {
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Is there another Earth out there? People have been asking this question for over two thousand years, and we finally stand on the verge of answering it. The Kepler mission (which was featured in several of the past SETI talks) will likely find the first ever Earth-sized planet around the habitable zone of another star. This talk is about the next step after Kepler, which might be a mission to directly image Earth-like planets and analyze their spectra for biomarkers such as oxygen, water, and atmosphere. The talk will cover the technology of direct planet imaging, focusing on the work done at NASA Ames, as well as the science we might get out of it and some repercussions. | <urn:uuid:9a0df391-a305-4648-9e38-670ec999c67f> | {
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Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsh, [1857-78], at sacred-texts.com
Ingratitude and Unfaithfulness of Jerusalem. Its Punishment and Shame
The previous word of God represented Israel as a wild and useless vine, which had to be consumed. But as God had planted this vine in His vineyard, as He had adopted Israel as His own people, the rebellious nation, though met by these threatenings of divine judgment, might still plead that God would not reject Israel, on account of its election as the covenant nation. This proof of false confidence in the divine covenant of grace is removed by the word of God in the present chapter, which shows that by nature Israel is no better than other nations; and that, in consequence of its shameful ingratitude towards the Lord, who saved it from destruction in the days of its youth, it has sinned so grievously against Him, and has sunk so low among the heathen through its excessive idolatry, that God is obliged to punish and judge it in the same manner as the others. At the same time, the Lord will continue mindful of His covenant; and on the restoration of Sodom and Samaria, He will also turn the captivity of Jerusalem, - to the deep humiliation and shame of Israel, - and will establish an everlasting covenant with it. - The contents of this word of God divide themselves, therefore, into three parts. In the first, we have the description of the nations's sin, through its falling away from its God into idolatry (vv. 2-34); in the second, the announcement of the punishment (vv. 35-52); and in the third, the restoration of Israel to favour (Eze 16:53-63). The past, present, and future of Israel are all embraced, from its first commencement to its ultimate consummation. - These copious contents are draped in an allegory, which is carried out on a magnificent scale. Starting from the representation of the covenant relation existing between the Lord and His people, under the figure of a marriage covenant, - which runs through the whole of the Scriptures, - Jerusalem, the capital of the kingdom of God, as the representative of Israel, the covenant nation, is addressed as a wife; and the attitude of God to Israel, as well of that of Israel to its God, is depicted under this figure.
Israel, by nature unclean, miserable, and near to destruction (Eze 16:3-5), is adopted by the Lord and clothed in splendour (Eze 16:6-14). Eze 16:1 and Eze 16:2 form the introduction. - Eze 16:1. And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Eze 16:2. Son of man, show Jerusalem her abominations. - The "abominations" of Jerusalem are the sins of the covenant nation, which were worse than the sinful abominations of Canaan and Sodom. The theme of this word of God is the declaration of these abominations. To this end the nation is first of all shown what it was by nature. - Eze 16:3. And say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah to Jerusalem, Thine origin and thy birth are from the land of the Canaanites; thy father was the Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite. Eze 16:4. And as for thy birth, in the day of thy birth thy navel was not cut, and thou wast not bathed in water for cleansing; and not rubbed with salt, and not wrapped in bandages. Eze 16:5. No eye looked upon thee with pity, to do one of these to thee in compassion; but thou wast cast into the field, in disgust at thy life, on the day of thy birth. - According to the allegory, which runs through the whole chapter, the figure adopted to depict the origin of the Israelitish nation is that Jerusalem, the existing representative of the nation, is described as a child, born of Canaanitish parents, mercilessly exposed after its birth, and on the point of perishing. Hitzig and Kliefoth show that they have completely misunderstood the allegory, when they not only explain the statement concerning the descent of Jerusalem, in Eze 16:3, as relating to the city of that name, but restrict it to the city alone, on the ground that "Israel as a whole was not of Canaanitish origin, whereas the city of Jerusalem was radically a Canaanitish, Amoritish, and Hittite city." But were not all the cities of Israel radically Canaanaean? Or was Israel not altogether, but only half, of Aramaean descent? Regarded merely as a city, Jerusalem was neither of Amoritish nor Hittite origin, but simply a Jebusite city. And it is too obvious to need any proof, that the prophetic word does not refer to the city as a city, or to the mass of houses; but that Jerusalem, as the capital of the kingdom of Judah at that time, so far as its inhabitants were concerned, represents the people of Israel, or the covenant nation. It was not the mass of houses, but the population, - which was the foundling, - that excited Jehovah's compassion, and which He multiplied into myriads (Eze 16:7), clothed in splendour, and chose as the bride with whom He concluded a marriage covenant. The descent and birth referred to are not physical, but spiritual descent. Spiritually, Israel sprang from the land of the Canaanites; and its father was the Amorite ad its mother a Hittite, in the same sense in which Jesus said to the Jews, "Ye are of your father the devil" (Joh 8:44). The land of the Canaanites is mentioned as the land of the worst heathen abominations; and from among the Canaanitish tribes, the Amorites and Hittites are mentioned as father and mother, not because the Jebusites are placed between the two, in Num 13:29, as Hitzig supposes, but because they were recognised as the leaders in Canaanitish ungodliness. The iniquity of the Amorites (האמרי) was great even in Abraham's time, though not yet full or ripe for destruction (Gen 15:16); and the daughters of Heth, whom Esau married, caused Rebekah great bitterness of spirit (Gen 27:46). These facts furnish the substratum for our description. And they also help to explain the occurrence of האמרי with the article, and חתּית without it. The plurals מכרתיך and מלדתיך also point to spiritual descent; for physical generation and birth are both acts that take place once for all. מכרה or מכוּרה (Ezekiel 21:35; Eze 29:14) is not the place of begetting, but generation itself, from כּוּר = כּרה, to dig = to beget (cf. Isa 51:1). It is not equivalent to מקוּר, or a plural corresponding to the Latin natales, origines. תולדת: birth.
Eze 16:4 and Eze 16:5 describe the circumstances connected with the birth. וּמלדתיך (Eze 16:4) stands at the head as an absolute noun. At the birth of the child it did not receive the cleansing and care which were necessary for the preservation and strengthening of its life, but was exposed without pity. The construction הוּלדת אותך (the passive, with an accusative of the object) is the same as in Gen 40:20, and many other passages of the earlier writings. כּרּת: for כּרת (Jdg 6:28), Pual of כּרת; and שרּּך: from שׁר, with the reduplication of the r, which is very rare in Hebrew (vid., Ewald, 71). By cutting the navel-string, the child is liberated after birth from the blood of the mother, with which it was nourished in the womb. If the cutting be neglected, as well as the tying of the navel-string, which takes place at the same time, the child must perish when the decomposition of the placenta begins. The new-born child is then bathed, to cleanse it from the impurities attaching to it. משׁעי cannot be derived from שׁעה = שׁעע; because neither the meaning to see, to look (שׁעה), nor the other meaning to smear (שׁעע), yields a suitable sense. Jos. Kimchi is evidently right in deriving it from משׁע, in Arabic m_', 2 and 4, to wipe off, cleanse. The termination י is the Aramaean form of the absolute state, for the Hebrew משׁעית, cleansing (cf. Ewald, 165a). After the washing, the body was rubbed with salt, according to a custom very widely spread in ancient times, and still met with here and there in the East (vid., Hieron. ad h. l. Galen, de Sanit. i. 7; Troilo Reisebeschr. p. 721); and that not merely for the purpose of making the skin drier and firmer, or of cleansing it more thoroughly, but probably from a regard to the virtue of salt as a protection from putrefaction, "to express in a symbolical manner a hope and desire for the vigorous health of the child" (Hitzig and Hvernick). And, finally, it was bound round with swaddling-clothes. Not one of these things, so indispensable to the preservation and strengthening of the child, was performed in the case of Israel at the time of its birth from any feeling of compassionate love (להמלה, infinitive, to show pity or compassion towards it); but it was cast into the field, i.e., exposed, in order that it might perish בּגועל in disgust at thy life (compare גּעל, to thrust away, reject, despise, Lev 26:11; Lev 15:30). The day of the birth of Jerusalem, i.e., of Israel, was the period of its sojourn in Egypt, where Israel as a nation was born, - the sons of Jacob who went down to Egypt having multiplied into a nation. The different traits in this picture are not to be interpreted as referring to historical peculiarities, but have their explanation in the totality of the figure. At the same time, they express much more than "that Israel not only stood upon a level with all other nations, so far as its origin and its nature were concerned, but was more helpless and neglected as to both its nature and its natural advantages, possessing a less gifted nature than other nations, and therefore inferior to the rest" (Kliefoth). The smaller gifts, or humbler natural advantages, are thoughts quite foreign to the words of the figure as well as to the context. Both the Canaanitish descent and the merciless exposure of the child point to a totally different point of view, as indicated by the allegory. The Canaanitish descent points to the moral depravity of the nature of Israel; and the neglected condition of the child is intended to show how little there was in the heathen surroundings of the youthful Israel in Canaan and Egypt that was adapted to foster its life and health, or to educate Israel and fit it for its future destination. To the Egyptians the Israelites were an abomination, as a race of shepherds; and not long after the death of Joseph, the Pharaohs began to oppress the growing nation.
Israel therefore owes its preservation and exaltation to honour and glory to the Lord its God alone. - Eze 16:6. Then I passed by thee, and saw thee stamping in thy blood, and said to thee, In thy blood live! and said to thee, In thy blood live! Eze 16:7. I made thee into myriads as the growth of the field, and thou grewest and becamest tall, and camest to ornament of cheeks. The breasts expanded, and thy hair grew, whereas thou wast naked and bare. Eze 16:8. And I passed by thee, and saw thee, and, behold, it was thy time, the time of love; and I spread my wing over thee, and covered thy nakedness; and I swore to thee, and entered into covenant with thee, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah, and thou becamest mine. Eze 16:9. And I bathed thee in water, and rinsed thy blood from thee, and anointed thee with oil. Eze 16:10. And I clothed thee with embroidered work, and shod thee with morocco, and wrapped thee round with byssus, and covered thee with silk. Eze 16:11. I adorned thee with ornaments, and put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain around thy neck. Eze 16:12. And I gave thee a ring in thy nose, and earrings in thine ears, and a splendid crown upon thy head. Eze 16:13. And thou didst adorn thyself with gold and silver; and thy clothing was byssus, and silk, and embroidery. Wheaten-flour, and honey, and oil thou didst eat; and thou wast very beautiful; and didst thrive to regal dignity. Eze 16:14. Thy name went forth among the nations on account of thy beauty; for it was perfect through my glory, which I put upon thee, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. - The description of what the Lord did for Israel in His compassionate love is divided into two sections by the repetition of the phrase "I passed by thee" (Eze 16:6 and Eze 16:8). The first embraces what God had done for the preservation and increase of the nation; the second, what He had done for the glorification of Israel, by adopting it as the people of His possession. When Israel was lying in the field as a neglected new-born child, the Lord passed by and adopted it, promising it life, and giving it strength to live. To bring out the magnitude of the compassion of God, the fact that the child was lying in its blood is mentioned again and again. The explanation to be given of מתבּוססת (the Hithpolel of בּוּס, to trample upon, tread under foot) is doubtful, arising from the difficulty of deciding whether the Hithpolel is to be taken in a passive or a reflective sense. The passive rendering, "trampled upon" (Umbreit), or ad conculcandum projectus, thrown down, to be trodden under foot (Gesenius, etc.), is open to the objection that the Hophal is used for this. We therefore prefer the reflective meaning, treading oneself, or stamping; as the objection offered to this, namely, that a new-born child thrown into a field would not be found stamping with the feet, has no force in an allegorical description. In the clause Eze 16:6, which is written twice, the question arises whether בּדמיך is to be taken with חיי or with ואמר : I said to thee, "In thy blood live;" or, "I said to thee in thy blood, 'Live.' " We prefer the former, because it gives a more emphatic sense. בּדמיך is a concise expression; for although lying in thy blood, in which thou wouldst inevitably bleed to death, yet thou shalt live. Hitzig's proposal to connect בּדמיך in the first clause with חיי , and in the second with אמר, can hardly be entertained. A double construction of this kind is not required either by the repetition of אמר לך, or by the uniform position of בדמיך before חיי in both clauses, as compared with Kg1 20:18 and Isa 27:5.
In Eze 16:7 the description of the real fact breaks through the allegory. The word of God חיי, live, was visibly fulfilled in the innumerable multiplication of Israel. But the allegory is resumed immediately. The child grew (רבה, as in Gen 21:20; Deu 30:16), and came into ornament of cheeks (בּוא with בּ, to enter into a thing, as in Eze 16:8; not to proceed in, as Hitzig supposes). עדי, not most beautiful ornament, or highest charms, for עדיים is not the plural of עדי; but according to the Chetib and most of the editions, with the tone upon the penultima, is equivalent to עדיים, a dual form; so that עדי cannot mean ornament in this case, but, as in Psa 39:9 and Psa 103:5, "the cheek," which is the traditional meaning (cf. Ges. Thes. p. 993). Ornament of cheeks is youthful freshness and beauty of face. The clauses which follow describe the arrival of puberty. נכון, when applied to the breasts, means to expand, lit., to raise oneself up. שׂער = שׂער רגלים, pubes. The description given in these verses refers to the preservation and marvellous multiplication of Israel in Egypt, where the sons of Israel grew into a nation under the divine blessing. Still it was quite naked and bare (ערם and עריה are substantives in the abstract sense of nakedness and bareness, used in the place of adjective to give greater emphasis). Naked and bare are figurative expressions for still destitute of either clothing or ornaments. This implies something more than "the poverty of the people in the wilderness attached to Egypt" (Hitzig). Nakedness represents deprivation of all the blessings of salvation with which the Lord endowed Israel and made it glorious, after He had adopted it as the people of His possession. In Egypt, Israel was living in a state of nature, destitute of the gracious revelations of God.
The Lord then went past again, and chose for His bride the virgin, who had already grown up to womanhood, and with whom He contracted marriage by the conclusion of the covenant at Sinai. עתּך, thy time, is more precisely defined as עת דּדים, the time of conjugal love. I spread my wing over thee, i.e., the lappet of my garment, which also served as a counterpane; in other words, I married thee (cf. Ruth. Eze 3:9), and thereby covered thy nakedness. "I swore to thee," sc. love and fidelity (cf. Hos 2:21-22), and entered into a covenant with thee, i.e., into that gracious connection formed by the adoption of Israel as the possession of Jehovah, which is represented as a marriage covenant (compare Exo 24:8 and Exo 19:5-6, and Deu 5:2 : - אתך for אתּך). Eze 16:9. describe how Jehovah provided for the purification, clothing, adorning, and maintenance of His wife. As the bride prepares herself for the wedding by washing and anointing, so did the Lord cleanse Israel from the blemishes and impurities which adhered to it from its birth. The rinsing from the blood must not be understood as specially referring either to the laws of purification given to the nation (Hitzig), or as relating solely to the purification effected by the covenant sacrifice (Hvernick). It embraces all that the Lord did for the purifying of the people from the pollution of sin, i.e., for its sanctification. The anointing with oil indicates the powers of the Spirit of God, which flowed to Israel from the divine covenant of grace. The clothing with costly garments, and adorning with all the jewellery of a wealthy lady or princess, points to the equipment of Israel with all the gifts that promote the beauty and glory of life. The clothing is described as made of the costliest materials with which queens were accustomed to clothe themselves. רקמה, embroidered cloth (Psa 45:15). תּחשׁ, probably the sea-cow, Manati (see the comm. on Exo 25:5). The word is used here for a fine description of leather of which ornamental sandals were made; a kind of morocco. "I bound thee round with byssus:" this refers to the headband; for חבשׁ is the technical expression for the binding or winding round of the turban-like headdress (cf. Eze 24:17; Exo 29:9; Lev 8:13), and is applied by the Targum to the headdress of the priests. Consequently covering with משׁי, as distinguished from clothing, can only refer to covering with the veil, one of the principal articles of a woman's toilet. The ἁπ. λεγ. משׁי (Eze 16:10 and Eze 16:13) is explained by the Rabbins as signifying silk. The lxx render it τρίχαπτον. According to Jerome, this is a word formed by the lxx: quod tantae subtilitatis fuerit vestimentum, ut pilorum et capillorum tenuitatem habere credatur. The jewellery included not only armlets, nose-rings, and ear-rings, which the daughters of Israel were generally accustomed to wear, but also necklaces and a crown, as ornaments worn by princesses and queens. For רביד, see comm. on Gen 41:42. Eze 16:13 sums up the contents of Eze 16:9-12. Sheeshiy שׁשׁי is made to conform to משׁי; the food is referred to once more; and the result of the whole is said to have been, that Jerusalem became exceedingly beautiful, and flourished even to royal dignity. The latter cannot be taken as referring simply to the establishment of the monarchy under David, any more than merely to the spiritual sovereignty for which Israel was chosen from the very beginning (Exo 19:5-6). The expression includes both, viz., the call of Israel to be a kingdom of priests, and the historical realization of this call through the Davidic sovereignty. The beauty, i.e., glory, of Israel became so great, that the name of fame of Israel sounded abroad in consequence among the nations. It was perfect, because the Lord had put His glory upon His Church. This, too, we must not restrict (as Hvernick does) to the far-sounding fame of Israel on its departure from Egypt (Exo 15:14.); it refers pre-eminently to the glory of the theocracy under David and Solomon, the fame of which spread into all lands. - Thus had Israel been glorified by its God above all the nations, but it did not continue in fellowship with its God.
The apostasy of Israel. Its origin and nature, Eze 16:15-22; its magnitude and extent, Eze 16:23-34. In close connection with what precedes, this apostasy is described as whoredom and adultery. - Eze 16:15. But thou didst trust in thy beauty, and didst commit fornication upon thy name, and didst pour out thy fornication over every one who passed by: his it became. Eze 16:16. Thou didst take off thy clothes, and didst make to thyself spotted heights, and didst commit fornication upon them: things which should not come, and that which should not take place. Eze 16:17. And thou didst take jewellery of thine ornament of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and didst make thyself male images, and didst commit fornication with them; Eze 16:18. And thou didst take thy embroidered clothes, and didst cover them therewith: and my oil and my incense thou didst set before them. Eze 16:19. And my bread, which I gave to thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee, thou didst set before them for a pleasant odour: this came to pass, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. Eze 16:20. And thou didst take thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou barest to me, and didst sacrifice them to them to devour. Was thy fornication too little? Eze 16:21. Thou didst slay my sons, and didst give them up, devoting them to them. Eze 16:22. And in all thine abominations and thy fornication thou didst not remember the days of thy youth, when thou wast naked and bare, and layest stamping in thy blood. - The beauty, i.e., the glory, of Israel led to its fall, because it made it the ground of its confidence; that is to say, it looked upon the gifts and possessions conferred upon it as its desert; and forgetting the giver, began to traffic with the heathen nations, and allowed itself to be seduced to heathen ways. For the fact, compare Deu 32:15 and Hos 13:6. "We are inflamed with pride and arrogance, and consequently profane the gifts of God, in which His glory ought to be resplendent" (Calvin). תּזני על שׁמך does not mean either "thou didst commit fornication notwithstanding thy name" (Winer and Ges. Thes. p. 422), or "against thy name" (Hvernick); for על connected with זנה has neither of these meanings, even in Jdg 19:2. It means, "thou didst commit fornication upon thy name, i.e., in reliance upon thy name" (Hitzig and Maurer); only we must not understand שׁם as referring to the name of the city of God, but must explain it, in accordance with Eze 16:14, as denoting the name, i.e., the renown, which Israel had acquired among the heathen on account of its beauty. In the closing words, לו יהי, לו refers to כּל־עובר, and יהי stands for ויהי, the copula having been dropped from ויהי because לו ought to stand first, and only יהי remaining (compare יך, Hos 6:1). The subject to יהי is יפי; the beauty became his (cf. Psa 45:12). This fornication is depicted in concrete terms in Eze 16:16-22; and with the marriage relation described in Eze 16:8-13 still in view, Israel is represented as giving up to idolatry all that it had received from its God. - Eze 16:16. With the clothes it made spotted heights for itself. בּמות stands for בּתּי בּמות, temples of heights, small temples erected upon heights by the side of the altars (Kg1 13:32; Kg2 17:29; for the fact, see the comm. on Kg1 3:2), which may probably have consisted simply of tents furnished with carpets. Compare Kg2 23:7, where the women are described as weaving tents for Astarte, also the tent-like temples of the Slavonian tribes in Germany, which consisted of variegated carpets and curtains (see Mohne on Creuzer's Symbolik, V. p. 176). These bamoth Ezekiel calls טלאות, not variegated, but spotted or speckled (cf. Gen 30:32), possibly with the subordinate idea of patched (מטלּא, Jos 9:5), because they used for the carpets not merely whole garments, but pieces of cloth as well; the word being introduced here for the purpose of indicating contemptuously the worthlessness of such conduct. "Thou didst commit whoredom upon them," i.e., upon the carpets in the tent-temples. The words 'לא באות וגו are no doubt relative clauses; but the usual explanation, "which has not occurred, and will not be," after Exo 10:14, cannot be vindicated, as it is impossible to prove either the use of בּוא in the sense of occurring or happening (= היה), or the use of the participle instead of the preterite in connection with the future. The participle באות in this connection can only supply one of the many senses of the imperfect (Ewald, 168c), and, like יהיה, express that which ought to be. The participial form באות is evidently chosen for the sake of obtaining a paronomasia with בּמות: the heights which should not come (i.e., should not be erected); while לא יהיה points back to ותּזני עליהם: "what should not happen."
The jewellery of gold and silver was used by Israel for צלמי זכר, idols of the male sex, to commit fornication with them. Ewald thinks that the allusion is to Penates (teraphim), which were set up in the house, with ornaments suspended upon them, and worshipped with lectisternia. But there is no more allusion to lectisternia here than in Eze 23:41. And there is still less ground for thinking, as Vatke, Movers, and Hvernick do, of Lingam-or Phallus-worship, of which it is impossible to find the slightest trace among the Israelites. The arguments used by Hvernick have been already proved by Hitzig to have no force whatever. The context does not point to idols of any particular kind, but to the many varieties of Baal-worship; whilst the worship of Moloch is specially mentioned in Eze 16:20. as being the greatest abomination of the whole. The fact that נתן לפּניהם, to set before them (the idols), does not refer to lectisternia, but to sacrifices offered as food for the gods, is indisputably evident from the words לריח ניחח, the technical expression for the sacrificial odour ascending to God (cf. Lev 1:9, Lev 1:13, etc.). ויּהי (Eze 16:19), and it came to pass (sc., this abomination), merely serves to give emphatic expression to the disgust which it occasioned (Hitzig). - Eze 16:20, Eze 16:21. And not even content with this, the adulteress sacrificed the children which God had given her to idols. The revulsion of feeling produced by the abominations of the Moloch-worship is shown in the expression לאכול, thou didst sacrifice thy children to idols, that they might devour them; and still more in the reproachful question 'המעט, "was there too little in thy whoredom?" מן before תּזנוּתיך is used in a comparative sense, though not to signify "was this a smaller thing than thy whoredom?" which would mean far too little in this connection. The מן is rather used, as in Eze 8:17 and Isa 49:6, in the sense of too: was thy whoredom, already described in Eze 16:16-19, too little, that thou didst also slaughter thy children to idols? The Chetib תזנותך (Eze 16:20 and Eze 16:25) is a singular, as in Eze 16:25 and Eze 16:29; whereas the Keri has treated it as a plural, as in Eze 16:15, Eze 16:22, and Eze 16:33, but without any satisfactory ground. The indignation comes out still more strongly in the description given of these abominations in Eze 16:21 : "thou didst slay my sons" (whereas in Eze 16:20 we have simply "thy sons, whom thou hast born to me"), "and didst give them up to them, בּהעביר, by making them pass through," sc. the fire. העביר is used here not merely or lustration or februation by fire, but for the actual burning of the children slain as sacrifices, so that it is equivalent to העביר בּאשׁ למּלך (Kg2 23:10). By the process of burning, the sacrifices were given to Moloch to devour. Ezekiel has the Moloch-worship in his eye in the form which it had assumed from the times of Ahaz downwards, when the people began to burn their children to Moloch (cf. Kg2 16:3; Kg2 21:6; Kg2 23:10), whereas all that can be proved to have been practised in earlier times by the Israelites was the passing of children through fire without either slaying or burning; a februation by fire (compare the remarks on this subject in the comm. on Lev 18:21). - Amidst all these abominations Israel did not remember its youth, or how the Lord had adopted it out of the deepest wretchedness to be His people, and had made it glorious through the abundance of His gifts. This base ingratitude shows the depth of its fall, and magnifies its guilt. For Eze 16:22 compare Eze 16:7 and Eze 16:6.
Extent and Magnitude of the Idolatry
Eze 16:23. And it came to pass after all thy wickedness - Woe, woe to thee! is the saying of the Lord Jehovah - Eze 16:24. Thou didst build thyself arches, and didst make thyself high places in all the streets. Eze 16:25. Thou didst build thy high places at every cross road, and didst disgrace thy beauty, and stretch open thy feet for every one that passed by, and didst increase thy whoredom. Eze 16:26. Thou didst commit fornication with the sons of Egypt thy neighbours, great in flesh, and didst increase thy whoredom to provoke me. Eze 16:27. And, behold, I stretched out my hand against thee, and diminished thine allowance, and gave thee up to the desire of those who hate thee, the daughters of the Philistines, who are ashamed of thy lewd way. Eze 16:28. And thou didst commit fornication with the sons of Asshur, because thou art never satisfied; and didst commit fornication with them, and wast also not satisfied. Eze 16:29. And thou didst increase thy whoredom to Canaan's land, Chaldaea, and even thereby wast not satisfied. Eze 16:30. How languishing is thy heart! is the saying of the Lord Jehovah, that thou doest all this, the doings of a dissolute prostitute. Eze 16:31. When thou buildest thy arches at every cross road, and madest thy high places in every road, thou wast not like the harlot, since thou despisedst payment. Eze 16:32. The adulterous wife taketh strangers instead of her husband. Eze 16:33. Men give presents to all prostitutes; but thou gavest thy presents to all thy suitors, and didst reward them for coming to thee from all sides, for fornication with thee. Eze 16:34. And there was in thee the very opposite of the women in thy whoredom, that men did not go whoring after thee. In that thou givest payment, and payment was not given to thee, thou wast the very opposite. - By אחרי כל־רעתך, the picture of the wide spread of idolatry, commenced in Eze 16:22, is placed in the relation of chronological sequence to the description already given of the idolatry itself. For all sin, all evil, must first exist before it can spread. The spreading of idolatry was at the same time an increase of apostasy from God. This is not to be sought, however, in the face that Israel forsook the sanctuary, which God had appointed for it as the scene of His gracious presence, and built itself idol-temples (Kliefoth). It consisted rather in this, that it erected idolatrous altars and little temples at all street-corners and cross-roads (Eze 16:24, Eze 16:25), and committed adultery with all heathen nations (Eze 16:26, Eze 16:28, Eze 16:29), and could not be induced to relinquish idolatry either by the chastisements of God (Eze 16:27), or by the uselessness of such conduct (Eze 16:32-34). כל־רעתך is the whole of the apostasy from the Lord depicted in Eze 16:15-22, which prevailed more and more as idolatry spread. The picture of this extension of idolatry is introduced with woe! woe! to indicate at the outset the fearful judgment which Jerusalem was bringing upon itself thereby. The exclamation of woe is inserted parenthetically; for ותּבני (Eze 16:24) forms the apodosis to ויהי in Eze 16:23. גּב and רמה are to be taken as general terms; but, as the singular גּבּך with the plural רמתיך in Eze 16:39 plainly shows, גּב is a collective word. Hvernick has very properly called attention to the analogy between גּב and קבּה in Num 25:8, which is used there to denote an apartment furnished or used for the service of Baal-peor. As קבּה, from קבב, signifies literally that which is arched, a vault; so גּב, from גּבב, is literally that which is curved or arched, a hump or back, and hence is used here for buildings erected for idolatrous purposes, small temples built on heights, which were probably so called to distinguish them as chapels for fornication. The ancient translations suggest this, viz.: lxx οἴκημα πορνικόν and ἔκθεμα, which Polychron. explains thus: προαγώγιον ἔνθα τὰς πόρνας τρέφειν εἴωθασι; Vulg.: lupanar and prostibulum. רמה signifies artificial heights, i.e., altars built upon eminences, commonly called bâmōth. The word râ̂̂mâh is probably chosen here with an allusion to the primary signification, height, as Jerome has said: quod excelsus sit ut volentibus fornicari procul appareat fornicationis locus et non necesse sit quaeri.
The increase of the whoredom, i.e., of the idolatry and illicit intercourse with heathenish ways, is individualized in Eze 16:26-29 by a specification of historical facts. We cannot agree with Hitzig in restricting the illicit intercourse with Egypt (Eze 16:26), Asshur (Eze 16:28), and Chaldaea (Eze 16:29) to political apostasy, as distinguished from the religious apostasy already depicted. There is nothing to indicate any such distinction. Under the figure of whoredom, both in what precedes and what follows, the inclination of Israel to heathen ways in all its extent, both religious and political, is embraced. Egypt stands first; for the apostasy of Israel from the Lord commenced with the worship of the golden calf, and the longing in the wilderness for the fleshpots of Egypt. From time immemorial Egypt was most deeply sunken in the heathenish worship of nature. The sons of Egypt as therefore described, in accordance with the allegory, as גּדלי , magni carne (bâzâr, a euphemism; cf. Eze 23:20), i.e., according to the correct explanation of Theodoret: μεθ ̓ὑπερβολῆς τῇ τῶν εἰδώλων θεραπείᾳ προστετηκότας ου. The way in which God punished this erring conduct was, that, like a husband who endeavours by means of chastisement to induce his faithless wife to return, He diminished the supply of food, clothing, etc. (chōg, as in Pro 30:8), intended for the wife (for the fact compare Hos 2:9-10); this He did by "not allowing Israel to attain to the glory and power which would otherwise have been conferred upon it; that is to say, by not permitting it to acquire the undisturbed and undivided possession of Canaan, but giving it up to the power and scorn of the princes of the Philistines" (Kliefoth). נתן בּנפשׁ, to give any one up to the desire of another. The daughters of the Philistines are the Philistian states, corresponding to the representation of Israel as an adulterous wife. The Philistines are mentioned as the principal foes, because Israel fell completely into their power at the end of the period of the Judges (cf. Judg 13-16; Sa1 4:1); and they are referred to here, for the deeper humiliation of Israel, as having been ashamed of the licentious conduct of the Israelites, because they adhered to their gods, and did not exchange them for others as Israel had done (compare Jer 2:10-11). זמּה (v. 27) is in apposition to דּרכּך: thy way, which is zimmâh. Zimmâh is applied to the sin of profligacy, as in Lev 18:17. - But Israel was not improved by this chastisement. It committed adultery with Asshur also from the times of Ahaz, who sought help from the Assyrians (Kg2 16:7.); and even with this it was not satisfied; that is to say, the serious consequences brought upon the kingdom of Judah by seeking the friendship of Assyria did not sober it, so as to lead it to give up seeking for help from the heathen and their gods. In Eze 16:28, תּזני אל is distinguished from תּזנים (זנה, with accus.). The former denotes the immoral pursuit of a person for the purpose of procuring his favour; the latter, adulterous intercourse with him, when his favour has been secured. The thought of the verse is this: Israel sought the favour of Assyria, because it was not satisfied with illicit intercourse with Egypt, and continued to cultivate it; yet it did not find satisfaction or sufficiency even in this, but increased its adultery אל־ארץ כּנען כּשׂדּימה, to the Canaan's-land Chaldaea. ארץ כּנען is not the proper name of the land of Canaan here, but an appellative designation applied to Chaldaea (Kasdim) or Babylonia, as in Eze 17:4 (Raschi). The explanation of the words, as signifying the land of Canaan, is precluded by the fact that an allusion to Canaanitish idolatry and intercourse after the mention of Asshur would be out of place, and would not coincide with the historical order of things; since it cannot be shown that "a more general diffusion of the religious customs of Canaan took place after the Assyrian era." And it is still more decidedly precluded by the introduction of the word כּשׂדּימה, which cannot possibly mean as far as, or unto, Chaldaea, and can only be a more precise definition of ארץ כנען. The only thing about which a question can be raised, is the reason why the epithet כנען should have been applied to Chaldaea; whether it merely related to the commercial spirit, in which Babylon was by no means behind the Canaanitish Tyre and Sidon, or whether allusion was also made to the idolatry and immorality of Canaan. The former is by no means to be excluded, as we find that in Eze 17:4 "the land of Canaan" is designated "a city of merchants" (rōkhelim). But we must not exclude the latter either, inasmuch as in the Belus- and Mylitta-worship of Babylon the voluptuous character of the Baal- and Astarte-worship of Canaan had degenerated into shameless unchastity (cf. Herodotus, i. 199).
In Eze 16:30, the contents of Eze 16:16-29 are summed up in the verdict which the Lord pronounces upon the harlot and adulteress: "yet how languishing is thy heart!" אמלה (as a participle Kal απ. λεγ..; since the verb only occurs elsewhere in the Pual, and that in the sense of faded or pining away) can only signify a morbid pining or languishing, or the craving of immodest desire, which has grown into a disease. The form לבּה is also ἁπ. λεγ..; but it is analogous to the plural לבּות.
(Note: Hitzig objects to the two forms, which do not occur elsewhere; and with the help of the Sept. rendering τὶ διαθῶ τὴν θυγατέρα σου, which is a mere guess founded upon the false reading מה אמלה, he adopts the conjectural reading מה אמלה לבתּך, "what hope is there for thy daughter?" by which he enriches the Hebrew language with a new word (אמלה ), and the prophecy contained in this chapter with a thought which is completely foreign to it, and altogether unsuitable.)
שׁלּטת, powerful, commanding; as an epithet applied to zōnâh, one who knows no limit to her actions, unrestrained; hence in Arabic, insolent, shameless. Eze 16:31 contains an independent sentence, which facilitates the transition to the thought expanded in Eze 16:32-34, namely, that Jerusalem had surpassed all other harlots in her whoredoms. If we take Eze 16:31 as dependent upon the protasis in Eze 16:30, we not only get a very dragging style of expression, but the new thought expressed in Eze 16:31 is reduced to a merely secondary idea; whereas the expansion of it in Eze 16:32. shows that it introduces a new feature into the address. And if this is the case, ולא־הייתי cannot be taken as co-ordinate with עשׂיתי htiw etanidro-oc, but must be construed as the apodosis: "in thy building of rooms...thou wast not like the (ordinary) harlot, since thou disdainest payment." For the plural suffix attached to בּבנותיך, see the commentary on Eze 6:8. The infinitive לקלּס answers to the Latin gerund in ndo (vid., Ewald, 237c and 280d), indicating wherein, or in what respect, the harlot Jerusalem differed from an ordinary prostitute; namely, in the fact that she disdained to receive payment for her prostitution. That this is the meaning of the words, is rendered indisputable by Eze 16:32-34. But the majority of expositors have taken לקלּס as indicating the point of comparison between Israel and other harlots, i.e., as defining in what respect Israel resembled other prostitutes; and then, as this thought is at variance with what follows, have attempted to remove the discrepancy by various untenable explanations. Most of them resort to the explanation: thou wast not like the other prostitutes, who disdain to receive their payment offered for their prostitution, in the hope of thereby obtaining still more,
(Note: Jerome adopts this rendering: non facta es quasi meretrix fastidio augens pretium, and gives the following explanation: "thou hast not imitated the cunning prostitutes, who are accustomed to raise the price of lust by increasing the difficulties, and in this way to excite their lovers to greater frenzy." Rosenmller and Maurer have adopted a similar explanation: "thou differest greatly from other harlots, who despise the payment offered them by their lovers, that they may get still more; for thou acceptest any reward, being content with the lowest payment; yea, thou dost even offer a price to thine own lovers.")
an explanation which imports into the words a thought that has no existence in them at all. Hvernick seeks to fix upon קלס, by means of the Aramaean, the meaning to cry out (crying out payment), in opposition to the ordinary meaning of קלס, to disdain, or ridicule, in which sense Ezekiel also uses the noun קלּסה in Eze 22:4. Hitzig falls back upon the handy method of altering the text; and finally, Kliefoth gives to ל the imaginary meaning "so far as," i.e., "to such a degree that," which cannot be defended either through Exo 39:19 or from Deu 24:5.
With the loose way in which the infinitive construct with ל is used, we grant that the words are ambiguous, and might have the meaning which the majority of the commentators have discovered in them; but this view is by no means necessary, inasmuch as the subordinate idea introduced by לקלּס אתנן may refer quite as well to the subject of the sentence, "thou," as to the zōnâh with whom the subject is compared. Only in the latter case the קלּס would apply to other harlots as well as to Israel; whereas in the former it applies to Israel alone, and shows in what it was that Israel did not resemble ordinary prostitutes. But the explanation which followed was a sufficient safeguard against mistake. In this explanation adulteresses are mentioned first (v. 32), and then common prostitutes (vv. 33, 34). V. 32 must not be taken, as it has been by the majority of commentators, as an exclamation, or a reproof addressed to the adulteress Jerusalem: O thou adulterous wife, that taketh strangers instead of her husband! Such an exclamation as this does not suit the connection at all. But the verse is not to be struck out on that account, as Hitzig proposes. It has simply to be construed in another way, and taken as a statement of what adulteresses do (Kliefoth). They take strangers instead of their husband, and seek their recompense in the simple change, and the pleasure of being with other men. תּחת אישׁהּ, lit., under her husband, i.e., as a wife subject to her husband, as in the connection with זנה in Eze 23:5 and Hos 4:12 (see the comm. on Num 5:19). - Eze 16:33, Eze 16:34. Common prostitutes give themselves up for presents; but Israel, on the contrary, gave presents to its lovers, so that it did the very opposite to all other harlots, and the practice of ordinary prostitutes was left far behind by that of Israel. The change of forms נדא and נדן (a present) is probably to be explained simply on the ground that the form נדא was lengthened into נדן with a consonant as the termination, because the suffix could be attached more easily to the other. הפך, the reverse, the opposite, i.e., with the present context, something unheard of, which never occurred in the case of any other harlot. - Ezekiel has thus fulfilled the task appointed him in Eze 16:2, to charge Jerusalem with her abominations. The address now turns to an announcement of the punishment.
As Israel has been worse than all the heathen, Jehovah will punish it notwithstanding its election, so that its shame shall be uncovered before all the nations (Eze 16:36-42), and the justice of the judgment to be inflicted upon it shall be made manifest (Eze 16:43-52). According to these points of view, the threat of punishment divides itself into two parts in the following manner: - In the first (Eze 16:35-42) we have, first of all (in Eze 16:36), a recapitulation of the guilty conduct described in vv. 16-34; and secondly, an announcement of the punishment corresponding to the guilt, as the punishment of adultery and murder (Eze 16:37 and Eze 16:48), and a picture of its infliction, as retribution for the enormities committed (Eze 16:39-42). In the second part (Eze 16:43-52) there follows a proof of the justice of this judgment.
The punishment will correspond to the sin. - Eze 16:35. Therefore, O harlot, hear the word of Jehovah! Eze 16:36. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Because thy brass has been lavished, and thy shame exposed in thy whoredom with thy lovers, and because of all the idols of thine abominations, and according to the blood of thy sons, which thou hast given them; Eze 16:37. Therefore, behold, I will gather together all thy lovers, whom thou hast pleased, and all whom thou hast loved, together with all whom thou hast hated, and will gather them against thee from round about, and will expose thy shame to them, that they may see all thy shame. Eze 16:38. I will judge thee according to the judgment of adulteresses and murderesses, and make thee into blood of wrath and jealousy. Eze 16:39. And I will give thee into their hand, that they may destroy thy arches, and pull down thy heights; that they may strip thy clothes off thee, and take thy splendid jewellery, and leave thee naked and bare. Eze 16:40. And they shall bring up a company against thee, and stone thee, and cut thee in pieces with their swords. Eze 16:41. And they shall burn thy houses with fire, and execute judgment upon thee before the eyes of many women. Thus do I put an end to thy whoredom.; and thou wilt also give payment no more. Eze 16:42. And I quiet my fury toward thee, and will turn away my jealousy from thee, that I may repose and vex myself no more. - In the brief summary of the guilt of the whore, the following objects are singled out, as those for which she is to be punished: (1) the pouring out of her brass and the exposure of her shame; (2) the idols of her abominations (with על before the noun, corresponding to יען before the infinitive); (3) the blood of her sons, with the preposition כּ, according to, to indicate the measure of her punishment. Two things are mentioned as constituting the first ground of punishment. The first is, "because thy brass has been poured out." Most of the commentators have explained this correctly, as referring to the fact that Israel had squandered the possessions received from the Lord, viz., gold, silver, jewellery, clothing, and food (Eze 16:10-13 and Eze 16:16-19), upon idolatry. The only difficulty connected with this is the use of the word nechōsheth, brass or copper, in the general sense of money or metal, as there are no other passages to support this use of the word. At the same time, the objection raised to this, namely, that nechōsheth cannot signify money, because the Hebrews had no copper coin, is an assertion without proof, since all that can be affirmed with certainty is, that the use of copper or brass as money is not mentioned anywhere in the Old Testament, with the exception of the passage before us. But we cannot infer with certainty from this that it was not then in use. As soon as the Hebrews began to stamp coins, bronze or copper coins were stamped as well as the silver shekels, and specimens of these are still in existence from the time of the Maccabees, with the inscription "Simon, prince of Israel" (cf. Cavedoni, Bibl. Numismatik, transl. by Werlhof, p. 20ff.). Judging from their size, these coins were in all probability worth a whole, a half, and a quarter gerah (Caved. pp. 50, 51). If, then, the silver shekel of the value of 21 grains contained twenty gerahs in Moses' time, and they had already silver pieces of the weight of a shekel and half shekel, whilst quarter shekels are also mentioned in the time of Samuel, there would certainly be metal coins in use of the value of a gerah for the purposes of trade and commerce, and these would in all probability be made of brass, copper, or bronze, as silver coins of the value of a penny would have been found too small. Consequently it cannot be positively denied that brass or copper may have been used as coin for the payment of a gerah, and therefore that the word nechōsheth may have been applied to money. We therefore adhere to the explanation that brass stands for money, which has been already adopted by the lxx and Jerome; and we do so all the more, because every attempt that has been made to fasten another meaning upon nechōsheth, whether by allegorical interpretation (Rabb.), or from the Arabic, or by altering the text, is not only arbitrary, but does not even yield a meaning that suits the context.
השׁפך, to be poured out = squandered or lavished. To the squandering of the possessions bestowed by the Lord upon His congregation, there was added the exposure of its shame, i.e., the disgraceful sacrifice of the honour and dignity of the people of God, of which Israel had made itself guilty by its whoredom with idols, i.e., by falling into idolatry, and adopting heathen ways. על־מאהביך, to (towards), i.e., with thy lovers (על standing for אל, according to later usage: vid., Ewald, 217i, p. 561), is to be explained after the analogy of זנה אל, as signifying to commit adultery towards a person, i.e., with him. But it was not enough to sacrifice the gifts of the Lord, i.e., His possessions and His glory, to the heathen and their idols; Israel also made for itself כּל־גּלּוּלי תּועבות, all kinds of logs of abominations, i.e., of idols, upon which it hung its ornaments, and before which it set oil and incense, meal and honey (Eze 16:18 and Eze 16:19). And it was not even satisfied with this, but gave to its idols the blood of its sons, by slaying its children to Moloch (Eze 16:20). Therefore (Eze 16:37.) the Lord will uncover the shame of His people before all the nations. He will gather them together, both friend and foe, against Jerusalem, and let them execute the judgment. The punishment will correspond to the sin. Because Israel has cultivated friendship with the heathen, it shall now be given up altogether into their power. On the uncovering of the nakedness as a punishment, compare Hos 2:12. The explanation of the figure follows in Eze 16:38. The heathen nations shall inflict upon Jerusalem the punishment due to adultery and bloodshed. Jerusalem (i.e., Israel) had committed this twofold crime. It had committed adultery, by falling away from Jehovah into idolatry; and bloodshed, by the sacrifices offered to Moloch. The punishment for adultery was death by stoning (see the comm. on Eze 16:40); and blood demanded blood (Gen 9:6; Exo 21:12). 'וּנתתּיך דּם וגו' does not mean, "I will put blood in thee" (Ros.), or "I will cause thy blood to be shed in anger" (De Wette, Maurer, etc.); but I make thee into blood; which we must not soften down, as Hitzig proposes, into cause thee to bleed. The thought is rather the following: thou shalt be turned into blood, so that nothing but blood may be left of thee, and that the blood of fury and jealousy, as the working of the wrath and jealousy of God (compare Eze 16:42). To this end the heathen will destroy all the objects of idolatry (גּב and רמות, Eze 16:39, as in Eze 16:24, Eze 16:25), then take from the harlot both clothes and jewellery, and leave her naked, i.e., plunder Jerusalem and lay it waste, and, lastly, execute upon her the punishment of death by stoning and by sword; in other words, destroy both city and kingdom. The words 'העלוּ , they bring (up) against thee an assembly, may be explained from the ancient mode of administering justice, according to which the popular assembly (qâhâl, cf. Pro 5:14) sat in judgment on cases of adultery and capital crimes, and executed the sentence, as the law for stoning expressly enjoins (Lev 20:2; Num 15:36; Deu 22:21; compare my Bibl. Archol. II. p. 257). But they are also applicable to the foes, who would march against Jerusalem (for qâhâl in this sense, compare Eze 17:17). The punishment of adultery (according to Lev 20:10) was death by stoning, as we may see from Lev 20:2-27 and Deu 22:24 compared with Joh 8:5. This was the usual mode of capital punishment under the Mosaic law, when judicial sentence of death was pronounced upon individuals (see my Archol. II. p. 264). The other form of punishment, slaying by the sword, was adopted when there were many criminals to be put to death, and was not decapitation, but cutting down or stabbing (bâthaq, to hew in pieces) with the sword (see my Archol. l.c.). The punishment of death was rendered more severe by the burning of the corpse (Lev 20:14; Lev 21:9). Consequently the burning of the houses in Eze 16:41 is also to be regarded as intensifying the punishment; and it is in the same light that the threat is to be regarded, that the judgment would be executed "before the eyes of many women." The many women are the many heathen nations, according to the description of Jerusalem or Israel as an unfaithful wife. "As it is the greatest punishment to an adulterous woman to be exposed in her sin before the eyes of other women; so will the severest portion of Israel's punishment be, that it will stand exposed in its sin before the eyes of all other nations" (Kliefoth). This is the way in which God will put an end to the fornication, and appease His wrath and jealousy upon the harlot (Eze 16:41 and Eze 16:42). השׁבּית, with מן, to cause a person to cease to be or do anything. For Eze 16:42, compare Eze 5:13. By the execution of the judgment the jealousy (קנאה) of the injured husband is appeased.
This judgment is perfectly just; for Israel has not only forgotten the grace of its God manifested towards it in its election, but has even surpassed both Samaria and Sodom in its abominations. - Eze 16:43. Because thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, and hast raged against me in all this; behold, I also give thy way upon thy head, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah, that I may not do that which is wrong above all thine abominations. Eze 16:44. Behold, every one that useth proverbs will use this proverb concerning thee: as the mother, so the daughter. Eze 16:45. Thou art the daughter of thy mother, who casteth off her husband and her children; and thou art the sister of thy sisters, who cast off their husbands and their children. Your mother is a Hittite, and your father an Amorite. Eze 16:46. And thy great sister is Samaria with her daughters, who dwelleth at thy left; and thy sister, who is smaller than thou, who dwelleth at thy right, is Sodom with her daughters. Eze 16:47. But thou hast not walked in their ways and done according to their abominations a little only; thou didst act more corruptly than they in all thy ways. Eze 16:48. As I live, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah, Sodom thy sister, she with her daughters hath not done as thou hast done with thy daughters. Eze 16:49. Behold, this was the sin of Sodom, thy sister: pride, superabundance of food, and rest undisturbed had she with her daughters, and the hand of the poor and needy she did not hold. Eze 16:50. They were haughty, and did abominations before me; and I swept them away when I saw it. Eze 16:51. And Samaria, she hath not sinned to the half of thy sins; thou hast increased thine abominations more than they, and hast made thy sisters righteous by all thine abominations which thou hast done. Eze 16:52. Bear, then, also thy shame, which thou hast adjudged to thy sisters. Through thy sins, which thou hast committed more abominably than they, they become more righteous than thou. Be thou, then, also put to shame, and bear thy disgrace, as thou hast justified thy sisters. - יען אשׁר, which corresponds to יען in Eze 16:36, introduces a new train of thought. Most of the commentators take Eze 16:43 in connection with what precedes, and place the pause at Eze 16:44. But the perfect נתתּי shows that this is wrong. If Eze 16:43 simply contained a recapitulation, or a concluding summary, of the threat of judgment in Eze 16:35-42, the punishment would be announced in the future tense, as it is in Eze 16:37. By the perfect נתתּי, on the contrary, the punishment is exhibited as a completed fact, and further reasons are then assigned in vindication of the justice of the divine procedure, which we find in Eze 16:44. To this end the guilt of Jerusalem is mentioned once more: "thou didst not remember the days of thy youth," i.e., what thou didst experience in thy youth; the misery in which thou didst find thyself, and out of which I rescued thee and exalted thee to glory (Eze 16:4-14). To this there was added rage against Jehovah, which manifested itself in idolatrous acts. רגז , to be excited upon or against any person, to rage; thus in Hithpael with אל in Kg2 19:27-28. For נתן דּרך , compare Eze 9:10. The last clause of Eze 16:43, 'ולא עשׂיתי וגו, has been misinterpreted in many ways. According to the Masoretic pointing, עשׂיתי is the second person; but this does not yield a suitable meaning. For עשׂה זמּה is not used in the sense adopted by the Targum, upon which the Masoretic pointing is undoubtedly based, and which Raschi, Kimchi, and Rosenmller retain, viz., cogitationem facere: "thou hast not take any thought concerning all thy abominations," i.e., has not felt any remorse. The true meaning is to commit a crime, a wrong, and is used for the most part of unnatural offences (cf. Jdg 20:6; Hos 6:9). There is all the more reason for retaining this meaning, that זמּה (apart from the plural זמּוה = מזמּות) only occurs sensu malo, and for the most part in the sense of an immoral action (vid., Job 31:11). Consequently we should have to adopt the rendering: and thou no longer committest this immorality above all thine abominations. But in that case not only would עוד have to be supplied, but a distinction would be drawn between the abominations committed by Israel and the sin of lewdness, i.e., adultery, which is quite foreign to the connection and to the contents of the entire chapter; for, according to these, the abominations of Israel consisted in adultery or the sin of lewdness. We must therefore take עשׂיתי as the first person, as Symm. and Jerome have done, and explain the words from Lev 19:29, where the toleration by a father of the whoredom of a daughter is designated as zimmâh. If we adopt this interpretation, Jehovah says that He has punished the spiritual whoredom of Israel, in order that He may not add another act of wrong to the abominations of Israel by allowing such immorality to go on unpunished. If He did not punish, He would commit a zimmâh Himself, - in other words, would make Himself accessory to the sins of Israel.
The concluding characteristic of the moral degradation of Israel fits in very appropriately here in Eze 16:44., in which Jerusalem is compared to Samaria and Sodom, both of which had been punished long ago with destruction on account of their sins. This characteristic is expressed in the form of proverbial sayings. Every one who speaks in proverbs (mōsheel, as in Num 21:27) will then say over thee: as the mother, so her daughter. Her abominable life is so conspicuous, that it strikes every one, and furnishes occasion for proverbial sayings. אמּה may be a feminine form of אם, as לבּה is of לב (Eze 16:30); or it may also be a Raphe form for אמהּ: as her (the daughter's) mother, so her (the mother's) daughter (cf. Ewald, 174e, note, with 21, 223). The daughter is of course Jerusalem, as the representative of Israel. The mother is the Canaanitish race of Hittites and Amorites, whose immoral nature had been adopted by Israel (cf. Eze 16:3 and Eze 16:45). In Eze 16:45 the sisterly relation is added to the maternal, to carry out the thought still further. Some difficulty arises here from the statement, that the mothers and the sisters despise their husbands and their children, or put them away. For it is unquestionable that the participle גּעלת belongs to אמּך, and not to בּת, from the parallel relative clause אשׁר גּעלוּ, which applies to the sisters. The husband of the wife Jerusalem is Jehovah, as the matrimonial head of the covenant nation or congregation of Israel. The children of the wives, viz., the mother, her daughter, and her sisters, are the children offered in sacrifice to Moloch. The worship of Moloch was found among the early Canaanites, and is here attributed to Samaria and Sodom also, though we have no other proofs of its existence there than the references made to it in the Old Testament. The husband, whom the mother and sisters have put away, cannot therefore be any other than Jehovah; from which it is evident that Ezekiel regarded idolatry generally as apostasy from Jehovah, and Jehovah as the God not only of the Israelites, but of the heathen also.
(Note: Theodoret has explained it correctly in this way: "He shows by this, that He is not the God of Jews only, but of Gentiles also; for God once gave oracles to them, before they chose the abomination of idolatry. Therefore he says that they also put away both the husband and the children by denying God, and slaying the children to demons.")
אחותך (Eze 16:45) is a plural noun, as the relative clause which follows and Eze 16:46 clearly show, and therefore is a contracted form of אחותיך (Eze 16:51) or אחיותך (Eze 16:52; vid., Ewald, 212b, p. 538). Samaria and Sodom are called sisters of Jerusalem, not because both cities belonged to the same mother-land of Canaan, for the origin of the cities does not come into consideration here at all, and the cities represent the kingdoms, as the additional words "her daughters," that is to say, the cities of a land or kingdom dependent upon the capital, clearly prove. Samaria and Sodom, with the daughter cities belonging to them, are sisters of Jerusalem in a spiritual sense, as animated by the same spirit of idolatry. Samaria is called the great (greater) sister of Jerusalem, and Sodom the smaller sister. This is not equivalent to the older and the younger, for Samaria was not more deeply sunk in idolatry than Sodom, nor was her idolatry more ancient than that of Sodom (Theodoret and Grotius); and Hvernick's explanation, that "the finer form of idolatry, the mixture of the worship of Jehovah with that of nature, as represented by Samaria, was the first to find an entrance into Judah, and this was afterwards followed by the coarser abominations of heathenism," is unsatisfactory, for the simple reason that, according to the historical books of the Old Testament, the coarser forms of idolatry forced their way into Judah at quite as early a period as the more refined. The idolatry of the time of Rehoboam and Abijam was not merely a mixture of Jehovah-worship with the worship of nature, but the introduction of heathen idols into Judah, along with which there is no doubt that the syncretistic worship of the high places was also practised. גּדול and קטן do not generally mean old and young, but great and small. The transferred meaning old and young can only apply to men and animals, when greatness and littleness are really signs of a difference in age; but it is altogether inapplicable to kingdoms or cities, the size of which is by no means dependent upon their age. Consequently the expressions great and small simply refer to the extent of the kingdoms or states here named, and correspond to the description given of their situation: "at the left hand," i.e., to the north, and "at the right hand," i.e., to the south of Jerusalem and Judah.
Jerusalem had not only equalled these sisters in sins and abominations, but had acted more corruptly than they (Eze 16:47). The first hemistich of this verse, "thou walkest not in their ways," etc., is more precisely defined by ותּשׁחתי מהן in the second half. The link of connection between the two statements is formed by כּמעט קט yb d. This is generally rendered, "soon was there disgust," i.e., thou didst soon feel disgust at walking in their ways, and didst act still worse. But apart from the fact that while disgust at the way of the sisters might very well constitute a motive for forsaking those ways, i.e., relinquishing their abominations, it could not furnish a motive for surpassing those abominations. This explanation is exposed to the philological difficulty, that קט by itself cannot signify taeduit te, and the impersonal use of קוּט would at all events require לך, which could not be omitted, even if קט were intended for a substantive. These difficulties fall away if we interpret קט from the Arabic qaṭṭ omninô tantum, as Alb. Schultens has done, and connect the definition "a little only" with the preceding clause. We then obtain this very appropriate thought: thou didst walk in the ways of thy sisters; and that not a little only, but thou didst act still more corruptly than they. This is proved in Eze 16:48. by an enumeration of the sins of Sodom. They were pride, satiety, - i.e., superabundance of bread (vid., Pro 30:9), - and careless rest or security, which produce haughtiness and harshness, or uncharitableness, towards the poor and wretched. In this way Sodom and her daughters (Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim) became proud and haughty, and committed abominations לפני, i.e., before Jehovah (alluding to Gen 18:21); and God destroyed them when He saw this. The sins of Samaria (Eze 16:51) are not specially mentioned, because the principal sin of this kingdom, namely, image-worship, was well known. It is simply stated, therefore, that she did not sin half so much as Jerusalem; and in fact, if we except the times of Ahab and his dynasty, pure heathenish idolatry did not exist in the kingdom of the ten tribes, so that Samaria seemed really a righteous city in comparison with the idolatry of Jerusalem and Judah, more especially from the time of Ahaz onward (vid., Jer 3:11). The punishment of Samaria by the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes is also passed over as being well known to every Israelite; and in Eze 16:52 the application is directly made to Jerusalem, i.e., to Judah: "Thou also, bear thy shame, thou who hast adjudged to thy sisters," - sc. by pronouncing an uncharitable judgment upon them, thinking thyself better than they, whereas thou hast sinned more abominably, so that they appear more righteous than thou. צדק, to be righteous, and צדּק, to justify, are used in a comparative sense. In comparison with the abominations of Jerusalem, the sins of Sodom and Samaria appeared perfectly trivial. After וגם אתּ , the announcement of punishment is repeated for the sake of emphasis, and that in the form of a consequence resulting from the sentence with regard to the nature of the sin: therefore be thou also put to shame, and bear thy disgrace.
But this disgrace will not be the conclusion. Because of the covenant which the Lord concluded with Israel, Jerusalem will not continue in misery, but will attain to the glory promised to the people of God; - and that in such a way that all boasting will be excluded, and Judah, with the deepest shame, will attain to a knowledge of the true compassion of God. - Yet, in order that all false confidence in the gracious promises of God may be prevented, and the sinful nation be thoroughly humbled, this last section of our word of God announces the restoration of Sodom and Samaria as well as that of Jerusalem, so that all boasting on the part of Israel is precluded. - Eze 16:53. And I will turn their captivity, the captivity of Sodom and her daughters, and the captivity of Samaria and her daughters, and the captivity of thy captivity in the midst of them: Eze 16:54. That thou mayest bear thy shame, and be ashamed of all that thou hast done, in comforting them. Eze 16:55. And thy sisters, Sodom and her daughters, will return to their first estate; and Samaria and her daughters will return to their first estate; and thou and thy daughters will return to your first estate. Eze 16:56. And Sodom thy sister was not a discourse in thy mouth in the day of thy haughtinesses, Eze 16:57. Before thy wickedness was disclosed, as at the time of the disgrace of the daughters of Aram and all its surroundings, the daughters of the Philistines, who despised thee round about. Eze 16:58. Thy wrong-doing and all thy abominations, thou bearest them, is the saying of Jehovah. Eze 16:59. For thus saith the Lord Jehovah, And I do with thee as thou hast done, who hast despised oath to break covenant. Eze 16:60. And I shall remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and shall establish an everlasting covenant with thee. Eze 16:61. And thou wilt remember thy ways, and be ashamed, when thou receivest thy sisters, those greater than thou to those smaller than thou; and I give them to thee for daughters, although they are not of thy covenant. Eze 16:62. And I will establish my covenant with thee; and thou wilt perceive that I am Jehovah; Eze 16:63. That thou mayest remember, and be ashamed, and there may no longer remain to thee an opening of the mouth because of thy disgrace, when I forgive thee all that thou hast done, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. - The promise commences with an announcement of the restoration, not of Jerusalem, but of Sodom and Samaria. The two kingdoms, or peoples, upon which judgment first fell, shall also be the first to receive mercy; and it will not be till after then that Jerusalem, with the other cities of Judah, will also be restored to favour, in order that she may bear her disgrace, and be ashamed of her sins (Eze 16:54); that is to say, not because Sodom and Samaria have borne their punishment for a longer time, but to the deeper shaming, the more complete humiliation of Jerusalem. שׁוּב שׁבוּת, to turn the captivity, not "to bring back the captives" (see the comm. on Deu 30:3), is here used in a figurative sense for restitutio in statum integritatis, according to the explanation given of the expression in Eze 16:55. No carrying away, or captivity, took place in the case of Sodom. The form שׁבית, which the Chetib has adopted several times here, has just the same meaning as שׁבוּת. שׁבית שׁביתיך does not mean the captives of thy captivity, since the same word cannot be used first as a concrete and then as an abstract noun; nor does the combination serve to give greater emphasis, in the sense of a superlative - viz. "the captivity of thy captivities, equivalent to thy severest or most fearful captivity," - as Stark and Hvernick suppose. The genitive must be taken as explanatory, as already proposed by Hengstenberg and Kliefoth: "captivity, which is thy captivity;" and the pleonastic mode of expression is chosen to give greater prominence to the thought, "thine own captivity," than would have been given to it by a suffix attached to the simple noun. בּתוכהנה, in their midst, does not imply, that just as Judah was situated now in the very midst between Sodom and Samaria, so its captives would return home occupying the centre between those two (Hitzig); the reference is rather to fellowship in captivity, to the fact that Jerusalem would share the same fate, and endure the same punishment, as Samaria and Sodom (Hengst., Klief.). The concluding words of Eze 16:54, "in that thou comfortest them," do not refer to the sins already committed by Israel (as Kliefoth, who adopts the rendering, "didst comfort them," imagines), but to the bearing of such disgrace as makes Jerusalem ashamed of its sins. By bearing disgrace, i.e., by its endurance of well-merited and disgraceful punishment, Jerusalem consoles her sisters Samaria and Sodom; and that not merely by fellowship in misfortune, - solamen miseris etc. , (Calvin, Hitzig, etc.), - but by the fact that from the punishment endured by Jerusalem, both Samaria and Sodom can discern the righteousness of the ways of God, and find therein a foundation for their hope, that the righteous God will bring to an end the merited punishment as soon as its object has been attained (see the comm. on Eze 14:22-23). The turning of the captivity, according to Eze 16:55, will consist in the fact that Sodom, Samaria, and Jerusalem return לקדמתן, to their original state. קדמה does not mean the former or earlier state, but the original state, as in Isa 23:7. Kliefoth is wrong, however, in explaining this as meaning: "as they were, when they came in Adam from the creative hand of God." The original state is the status integritatis, not as a state of sinlessness or original righteousness and holiness, - for neither Jerusalem on the one hand, nor Samaria and Sodom on the other, had ever been in such a state as this, - but as an original state of glory, in which they were before they had fallen and sunk into ungodly ways.
But how could a restoration of Sodom and her daughters (Gomorrah, etc.) be predicted, when the destruction of these cities was accompanied by the sweeping away of all their inhabitants from off the face of the earth? Many of the commentators have attempted to remove the difficulty by assuming that Sodom here stands for the Moabites and Ammonites, who were descendants of Lot, who escaped from Sodom. But the untenableness of such an explanation is obvious, from the simple fact that the Ammonites and Moabites were no more Sodomites than Lot himself. And the view expressed by Origen and Jerome, and lately revived by Hvernick, that Sodom is a typical name denoting heathenism generally, is also unsatisfactory. The way in which Sodom is classed with Samaria and Jerusalem, and the special reference to the judgment that fell upon Sodom (Eze 16:49, Eze 16:50), point undeniably to the real Sodom. The heathen world comes into consideration only so far as this, that the pardon of a heathen city, so deeply degraded as Sodom, carries with it the assurance that mercy will be extended to all heathen nations. We must therefore take the words as referring to the literal Sodom. Yet we certainly cannot for a moment think of any earthly restoration of Sodom. For even if we could conceive of a restoration of the cities that were destroyed by fire, and sunk into the depths of the Dead Sea, it is impossible to form any conception of an earthly and corporeal restoration of the inhabitants of those cities, who ere destroyed at the same time; and in this connection it is chiefly to them that the words refer. This does not by any means prove that the thing itself is impossible, but simply that the realization of the prophecy must be sought for beyond the present order of things, in one that extends into the life everlasting.
As Eze 16:55 elucidates the contents of Eze 16:53, so the thought of Eze 16:54 is explained and still further expanded in Eze 16:56 and Eze 16:57. The meaning of Eze 16:56 is a subject of dispute; but so much is indisputable, that the attempt to Kliefoth to explain Eze 16:56 and Eze 16:57 as referring to the future, and signifying that in the coming day of its glory Israel will no longer carry Sodom as a legend in its mouth as it does now, does violence to the grammar, and is quite a mistake. It is no more allowable to take ולא היתה as a future, in the sense of "and will not be," than to render כּמו עת חרפּת redner ot naht " (Eze 16:57), "it will be like the time of scorn." Moreover, the application of בּיום גּאוניך to the day of future glory is precluded by the fact that in Eze 16:49 the word גּאון is used to denote the pride which was the chief sin of Sodom; and the reference to this verse very naturally suggests itself. The meaning of Eze 16:56 depends upon the rendering to be given to לשׁמוּעה. The explanation given by Rosenmller and Maurer, after Jerome, - viz. non erat in auditione, i.e., non audiebatur, thou didst not think at all of Sodom, didst not take its name into thy mouth, - is by no means satisfactory. שׁמוּעה means proclamation, discourse, and also report. If we adopt the last, we must take the sentence as interrogatory (לוא for הלוא), as Hengstenberg and Hitzig have done. Although this is certainly admissible, there are no clear indexes here to warrant our assumption of an interrogation, which is only hinted at by the tone. We therefore prefer the meaning "discourse:" thy sister Sodom was not a discourse in thy mouth in the day of thy haughtinesses, that thou didst talk of the fate of Sodom and lay it to heart when thou wast in prosperity. The plural גּאוניך is more emphatic than the singular. The day of the haughtinesses is defined in Eze 16:57 as the period before the wickedness of Judah had been disclosed. This was effected by means of the judgment, which burst upon Jerusalem on the part of Babylon. Through this judgment Jerusalem is said to have been covered with disgrace, as at the time when the daughters of Aram, i.e., the cities of Syria, and those of the Philistines (Aram on the east, and the Philistines on the west, Isa 9; 11), scorned and maltreated it round about. This refers primarily to the times of Ahaz, when the Syrians and Philistines pressed hard upon Judah (Kg2 15:37; Kg2 16:6; and Ch2 28:18-19). It must not be restricted to this, however; but was repeated in the reign of Jehoiachin, when Jehovah sent troops of the Chaldaeans, Aramaeans, Ammonites, and Moabites against him, to destroy Judah (Kg2 24:2). It is true, the Philistines are not mentioned here; but from the threat in Eze 25:15, we may infer that they also attempted at the same time to bring disgrace upon Judah. שׁאט = שׁוּט, according to Aramaean usage, to treat contemptuously, or with repudiation (cf. Eze 28:24, Eze 28:26). Jerusalem will have to atone for this pride, and to bear its wrong-doing and its abominations (Eze 16:58). For zimmâh, see the comm. on Eze 16:43. The perfect נשׂאתים indicates that the certainty of the punishment is just as great as if it had already commenced. The reason assigned for this thought in Eze 16:59 forms a transition to the further expansion of the promise in Eze 16:60. ועשׂית (Eze 16:59) has been correctly pointed by the Masoretes as the 1st person. The ו is copulative, and shows that what follows forms the concluding summary of all that precedes. אותך for אתּך, as in Eze 16:60, etc., to deal with any one. The construction of עשׂה, with an accusative of the person, to treat any one, cannot be sustained either from Eze 17:17 and Eze 23:25, or from Jer 33:9; and Gesenius is wrong in assuming that we meet with it in Isa 42:16.
Despising the oath (אלה) points back to Deu 29:11-12, where the renewal of the covenant concluded at Sinai is described as an entrance into the covenant and oath which the Lord then made with His people. - But even if Israel has faithlessly broken the covenant, and must bear the consequence punishment, the unfaithfulness of man can never alter the faithfulness of God. This is the link of connection between the resumption and further expansion of the promise in Eze 16:60 and the closing words of Eze 16:59. The remembrance of His covenant ins mentioned in Lev 26:42 and Lev 26:45 as the only motive that will induce God to restore Israel to favour again, when the humiliation effected by the endurance of punishment has brought it to a confession of its sins. The covenant which God concluded with Israel in the day of its youth, i.e., when He led it out of Egypt, He will establish as an everlasting covenant. Consequently it is not an entirely new covenant, but simply the perfecting of the old one for everlasting duration. For the fact itself, compare Isa 55:3, where the making of the everlasting covenant is described as granting the stedfast mercies of David, i.e., as the fulfilment of the promise given to David (2 Sam 7). This promise is called by David himself an everlasting covenant which God had made with him (Sa2 23:5). And the assurance of its everlasting duration was to be found in the fact that this covenant did not rest upon the fulfilment of the law, but simply upon the forgiving grace of God (compare Eze 16:63 with Jer 31:31-34). - The bestowal of this grace will put Israel in remembrance of its ways, and fill it with shame. In this sense, וזכרתּ (and thou shalt remember), in Eze 16:61, is placed side by side with זכרתּי (I will remember) in Eze 16:60. This shame will seize upon Israel when the establishment of an everlasting covenant is followed by the greater and smaller nations being associated with it in glory, and incorporated into it as children, though they are not of its covenant. The greater and smaller sisters are the greater and smaller nations, as members of the universal family of man, who are to be exalted to the glory of one large family of God. The restoration, which is promised in Eze 16:53 and Eze 16:55 to Sodom and Samaria alone, is expanded here into a prophecy of the reception of all the greater and smaller nations into fellowship in the glory of the people of God. We may see from this that Sodom and Samaria represent the heathen nations generally, as standing outside the Old Testament dispensation: Sodom representing those that were sunk in the deepest moral degradation, and Samaria those that had fallen from the state of grace. The attitude in which these nations stand towards Israel in the everlasting covenant of grace, is defined as the relation of daughters to a mother. If, therefore, Israel, which has been thrust out among the heathen on account of its deep fall, is not to return to its first estate till after the return of Sodom, which has been destroyed, and Samaria, which has been condemned, the election of Israel before all the nations of the earth to be the first-born son of Jehovah will continue unchanged, and Israel will form the stem of the new kingdom of God, into which the heathen nations will be incorporated. The words, "and not of thy covenant," have been taken by most of the commentators in the sense of, "not because thou hast kept the covenant;" but this is certainly incorrect. For even if "thy covenant" really formed an antithesis to "my covenant" (Eze 16:60 and Eze 16:62), "thy covenant" could not possibly signify the fulfilment of thy covenant obligations. The words belong to bânōth (daughters), who are thereby designated as extra-testamental - i.e., as not included in the covenant which God made with Israel, and consequently as having no claim by virtue of that covenant to participate in the glory of the everlasting covenant which is hereafter to be established. - When this covenant has been established, Israel will know that God is Jehovah, the unchangeably true (for the meaning of the name Jehovah, see the commentary on Gen 2:4); that it may call to mind, sc. both its sinful abominations and the compassionate grace of God, and be so filled with shame and penitence that it will no more venture to open its mouth, either for the purpose of finding excuses for its previous fall, or to murmur against God and His judgments, - namely, when the Lord forgives all its sins by establishing the everlasting covenant, the kernel and essence of which consists in the forgiveness of sins (cf. Jer 31:34). Thus will the experience of forgiving grace complete what judgment has already begun, viz., the transformation of proud and haughty sinners into meek and humble children of God, for whom the kingdom has been prepared from the beginning.
This thought brings the entire prophecy to a close, - a prophecy which embraces the whole of the world's history and the New Testament, the parallel to which is contained in the apostle's words, "God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all" (Rom 11:32). - As the punishment threatened to the adulteress, i.e., to the nation of Israel that had despised its God and King, had been fulfilled upon Jerusalem and the Jews, and is in process of fulfilment still, so has the promise also been already fulfilled, so far as its commencement is concerned, though the complete and ultimate fulfilment is only to be expected in time to come. The turning of the captivity, both of Jerusalem and her daughters, and of Samaria and her daughters, commenced with the establishment of the everlasting covenant, i.e., of the covenant made through Christ, and with the reception of the believing portion of Israel in Judaea, Samaria, and Galilee (Act 8:5., Act 8:25, Act 9:31). And the turning of the captivity of Sodom commenced with the spread of the gospel among the heathen, and their entrance into the kingdom of Christ, inasmuch as Sodom with her daughters represents the morally degraded heathen world. Their reception into the kingdom of heaven, founded by Christ on earth, forms the commencement of the return of the forgiven to their first estate on the "restitution of all things," i.e., the restoration of all moral relations to their original normal constitution (compare Act 3:21 and Meyer's comm. thereon with Mat 17:11), which will attain its perfection in the παλιγγενεσία, the general restoration of the world to its original glory (compare Mat 19:28 with Rom 8:18. and Pe2 3:13). The prophecy before us in Eze 16:55 clearly points to this final goal. It is true that one might understand the return of Jerusalem and Samaria to their original state, which is predicted here as simply relating to the pardon of the covenant nation, whose apostasy had led to the rejection of both its parts; and this pardon might be sought in its reception into the kingdom of Christ and its restoration as the people of God. In that case the complete fulfilment of our prophecy would take place during the present aeon in the spread of the gospel among all nations, and the conversion of that portion of Israel which still remained hardened after the entrance of the full number of the Gentiles into the kingdom of God. But this limitation would be out of harmony with the equality of position assigned to Sodom and her daughters on the one hand, and Samaria and Jerusalem on the other. Though Sodom is not merely a type of the heathen world, the restoration of Sodom and her daughters cannot consist in the reception of the descendants of the cities on which the judgment fell into the kingdom of God or the Christian Church, since the peculiar manner in which those cities were destroyed prevented the possibility of any of the inhabitants remaining alive whose descendants could be converted to Christ and blessed in Him during the present period of the world. On the other hand, the opinion expressed by C. a Lapide, that the restoration of Sodom is to be referred and restricted to the conversion of the descendants of the inhabitants of Zoar, which was spared for Lot's sake, when the other cities of the plain were destroyed, is too much at variance with the words of the passage to allow of our accepting such a solution as this. The turning of the captivity of Sodom and her daughters, i.e., the forgiveness of the inhabitants of Sodom and the other cities of the plain, points beyond the present aeon, and the realization can only take place on the great day of the resurrection of the dead in the persons of the former inhabitants of Sodom and the neighbouring cities. And in the same way the restoration of Samaria and Jerusalem will not be completely fulfilled till after the perfecting of the kingdom of Christ in glory at the last day.
Consequently the prophecy before us goes beyond Rom 11:25., inasmuch as it presents, not to the covenant nation only, but, in Samaria and Sodom, to all the larger and smaller heathen nations also, the prospect of being eventually received into the everlasting kingdom of God; although, in accordance with the main purpose of this prophetic word, namely, to bring the pride of Israel completely down, this is simply hinted at, and no precise intimation is given of the manner in which the predicted apokatastasis will occur. But notwithstanding this indefiniteness, we must not explain away the fact itself by arbitrary expositions, since it is placed beyond all possible doubt by other passages of Scriptures. The words of our Lord in Mat 10:15 and Mat 11:24, to the effect that it will be more tolerable in the day of judgment for Sodom than for Capernaum and every other city that shall have rejected the preaching of the gospel, teach most indisputably that the way of mercy stands open still even for Sodom itself, and that the judgment which has fallen upon it does not carry with it the final decision with regard to its inhabitants. For Sodom did not put away the perfect revelation of mercy and salvation. If the mighty works which were done in Capernaum had been done in Sodom, it would have stood to the present day (Mat 11:23). And from this it clearly follows that all the judgments which fell before the time of Christ, instead of carrying with them the final decision, and involving eternal damnation, leave the possibility of eventual pardon open still. The last judgment, which is decisive for eternity, does not take place till after the full revelation of grace and truth in Christ. Not only will the gospel be preached to all nations before the end comes (Mat 24:14), but even to the dead; to the spirits in prison, who did not believe at the time of Noah, it has been already preached, at the time when Christ went to them in spirit, in order that, although judged according to man's way in the flesh, they might live according to God's way in the spirit (Pe1 3:19; Pe1 4:6). What the apostle teaches in the first of these passages concerning the unbelievers before the flood, and affirms in the second concerning the dead in general, is equally applicable according to our prophecy to the Sodomites who were judged after man's way in the flesh, and indeed generally to all heathen nations who either lived before Christ or departed from this earthly life without having heard the gospel preached. - It is according to these distinct utterances of the New Testament that the prophecy before us respecting the apokatastasis of Sodom, Samaria, and Jerusalem is to be interpreted; and this is not to be confounded with the heretical doctrine of the restoration, i.e., the ultimate salvation of all the ungodly, and even of the devil himself. If the preaching of the gospel precedes the last judgment, the final sentence in the judgment will be regulated by the attitude assumed towards the gospel by both the living and the dead. All souls that obstinately reject it and harden themselves in unbelief, will be given up to everlasting damnation. The reason why the conversion of Sodom and Samaria is not expressly mentioned, is to be found in the general tendency of the promise, in which the simple fact is announced without the intermediate circumstances, for the purpose of humbling Jerusalem. The conversion of Jerusalem also is not definitely stated to be the condition of pardon, but this is assumed as well known from the words of Lev 26, and is simply implied in the repeated assertion that Jerusalem will be seized with the deepest shame on account of the pardon which she receives. | <urn:uuid:896ac954-9cbc-4d6c-a8a0-e44c58b4213e> | {
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Cities exert a specific set of pressures on living things. The bi-products of development—reduced plant cover, pollution, drought, heat—eliminate certain species from cities, but what about those that survive? Do they rapidly adapt to human influence? What happens to complex interactions between herbivores, parasitoids, and symbionts in the wake of these changes?
My research focuses on the ecology and management of urban tree pests. Specifically, I will investigate how urban heat islands affect arthropod behavior and population dynamics. Worldwide, urban temperatures are significantly warmer than surrounding rural and natural areas but the effect of urban warming on the herbivorous arthropods is not well known. I am studying the effects that these elevated temperatures have on red maple trees (Acer rubrum) and their most damaging arthropod pests including maple spider mites (Oligonychus aceri) and gloomy scale (Melanaspis tenebricosa). I will also be exploring the effects of urbanization on natural enemy and predator populations and looking at the various ways in which they are influenced physiologically and behaviorally. Red maples are one of the most widely planted ornamental trees of landscaped areas along the eastern United States. Gaining a better understanding of how these detrimental arthropod pests function among these systems will not only give us an idea of how continuously elevating temperatures may be affecting arthropods worldwide but may also help develop new methods for pest management. Adam has published papers about his work in Ecological Applications and PLoS One. See a photo gallery of Adam’s research featured in the Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America.
Travis joined the lab in September 2012. The focus of his MS degree will be optimizing aphid banker plant systems by understanding how banker plant species and mixtures affect efficacy. He will also conduct experiments in commercial greenhouses around the state to test the efficacy of banker plant systems.
I am studying the impact of urbanization on the western honey bee, Apis mellifera. Certain factors of urbanization such as urban pesticides and heavy metals have been shown to negatively affect the immunocompetency of some insects, while other factors, such urban heat island effect have had varied responses. Oxidative stress may also be influenced by urbanization, particularly associated pollutants. The objective of this research will be to determine how urbanization affects the immune system and ability to withstand oxidative stress for A. mellifera. This research will lead to deeper understanding of the mechanistic impacts of urbanization as they pertain to this highly valued species.
As cities and towns continue to grow, it is very important to understand how other forms of life are influenced by humans. Urbanization is one of the leading factors that cause many species to change their behavior to survive, adapting to different available resources. Insects are the foundation of an ecosystem—serving as food, decomposers, pollinators, and fulfilling various other niches. Pollinators intrigue me, particularly bees, which are known to pollinate 1/3 of the world’s food. With any bee decline, not only would humans have less nutrition, but natural ecosystems and the services they provide would be negatively affected. My research focuses on urban native bees communities. I will investigate many variables, such as temperature and impervious surfaces, as they affect bee diversity and health. The main goal of this research is to increase understanding of the native bee communities in common urban areas such as yards, gardens, and golf courses. This information may be used in a variety of ways from manipulation of urban green areas to conservation efforts for the encouragement of urban native bees.
Post Doctoral Associates
Kevin E. McCluney
Water is essential to life on earth and may drive physiology, behavior, species interactions, and population, food web, and ecosystem dynamics. Previously, McCluney investigated these dynamics in riparian zones in Arizona, finding evidence that water drives species interactions. Thus, these riparian food webs might be better viewed as water webs. For McCluney’s current post-doc, he’s extending these ideas to urban ecosystems, exploring the effects of urbanization on water balance and species interactions of tree and shrub dwelling arthropods.
Follow Kevin on Google + (https://plus.google.com/u/0/105555648206264930599/about) or academia.edu (http://ncsu.academia.edu/KevinMcCluney)
Technicians, undergraduates, and others….
I received a BS in zoology with an entomology focus from Auburn University. My past experience includes scouting for aphids and other economically important insects for research on pumpkin plants, assisting with research of plant volatiles produced in response to feeding by yellow-margined leaf beetles, attempting to determine the standard metabolic rate of ambrosia beetles, and spider identification. I currently work as a technician in the Frank Lab maintaining greenhouse and nursery sites, performing pesticide trials, and assisting with research. My interests include conservation biology
especially in relation to human disturbances of forest ecosystems, maintaining biodiversity of forest habitats, wood boring beetles and their effects on forests and nurseries, and also exploring IPM techniques in order to control various insect pests. My goal is to attain a Master’s degree in zoology or a related field.
Sarah Wong – MS degree 2012
Sara Prado – MS degree 2012 | <urn:uuid:12f24f90-ec01-421f-ab50-0fa3b819c589> | {
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Abdominal pain is pain that you feel anywhere between the chest and groin. This is often called the stomach area or belly.
This article discusses abdominal pain in children under age 12.
Stomach pain in children; Pain - abdomen - children; Abdominal cramps in children; Belly ache in children
Almost all children experience pain in the abdomen at one time or another. Most of the time, it is not caused by a serious medical problem.
Severe abdominal pain can sometimes be from mild conditions, such as gas or the cramping of stomach flu. On the other hand, mild pain or no pain may be present with life-threatening conditions, such as cancer or early appendicitis.
Ways of describing the pain include:
Generalized pain may be present in more than half of the belly. This is more typical for a stomach virus, indigestion, or gas.
Pain may be localized, or found in only one area of the belly. This type of pain is more likely to be a sign of a problem in one organ, such as the appendix, gallbladder, or stomach (ulcers).
Cramp-like pain is usually not serious, and is more likely to be due to gas and bloating. It is often followed by diarrhea. More worrisome signs include pain that occurs more often, lasts longer (more than 24 hours), or has a fever with it.
Colicky pain is pain that comes in waves, usually starts and ends suddenly, and is often severe.
Infants and toddlers cannot describe their pain. Signs of belly pain may be:
An increase in fussiness
Drawing their legs up toward the belly
Many different conditions can cause abdominal pain in a child. The key is to know when you must seek medical care right away. In many cases you can simply wait, use home care remedies, and call your doctor at a later time only if the symptoms don't go away.
In infants, prlonged unexplained crying (often called "colic") may be caused by abdominal pain. It may end with the passage of gas or stool. Colic is often worse in the evening. Cuddling and rocking the child may bring some relief.
Strep throat and mono can cause abdominal pain in children
Other possible causes include:
Appendicitis (inflammation of the appendix)
Bowel blockage or obstruction
Inflammatory bowel disease (Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis)
Intussusception, caused by part of the intestine being pulled inward into itself
Tumors or cancers
Urinary tract infections
Sickle cell disease crisis may cause abdominal pain. It sometimes may be mistaken for the pain of appendicitis or conditions of other abdominal organs.
When milder pain begins, ask your child to lie quietly to see if it goes away. Sometimes sips of water or other clear fluids may help. You may also ask your child to try to pass stool.
Avoid solid foods for the first few hours. Then try small amounts of mild foods such as rice, applesauce, or crackers.
Fried or greasy foods
Do not give aspirin, ibuprofen, acetaminophen (Tylenol), or similar medicines without first asking your child's health care provider.
To prevent many types of abdominal pain:
Avoid fatty or greasy foods.
Drink plenty of water each day.
Eat small meals more often.
Limit foods that produce gas.
Make sure that meals are well-balanced and high in fiber. Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables.
Call your health care provider if
Seek immediate medical help or call your local emergency number (such as 911) if your child:
Is a baby younger than 3 months and has diarrhea or vomiting
Is currently being treated for cancer
Is unable to pass stool, especially if the child is also vomiting
Is vomiting blood or has blood in the stool (especially if the blood is maroon or dark, tarry black)
Has sudden, sharp abdominal pain
Has a rigid, hard belly
Has had a recent injury to the abdomen
Is having trouble breathing
Call your doctor if your child has:
Any abdominal discomfort that lasts 1 week or longer
Abdominal pain that does not improve in 24 hours, or is becoming more severe and frequent
A burning sensation during urination
Diarrhea for more than 2 days or vomiting for more than 12 hours in an infant or child -- call right away
Fever over 100.4 degrees F
Prolonged poor appetite
Unexplained weight loss
What to expect at your health care provider's office
Knowing the location of pain and its time pattern will help. Also let the doctor know if there are other symptoms like fever, fatigue, general ill feeling, nausea, vomiting, or changes in stool.
Your doctor may ask the following questions about the abdominal pain:
What part of the abdomen is affected? All over? Lower or upper? Right, left, or middle? Around the navel?
Is the pain severe, sharp or cramping, constant, coming and going, or changing in intensity over minutes?
Does the pain wake your up child at night?
Have your child had similar pain in the past? How long has each episode lasted? How often has it occurred?
Is the pain getting more severe?
Does the pain get worse after eating or drinking? After eating greasy foods, milk products, or alcohol?
Does the pain get better after eating or having a bowel movement?
Does the pain get worse after stress?
Has there been a recent injury?
What other symptoms are occurring at the same time?
During the physical examination, the doctor will test to see if the pain is in a single area (point tenderness) or whether it is spread out.
Diagnostic tests that may be performed include:
Blood, urine, and stool tests
Ultrasound of the abdomen
X-rays of the abdomen
Ebell MH. Diagnosis of appendicitis: part 1. History and physical examination. Am Fam Physician. 2008;77:828-830.
Bundy DG, Byerley JS, Liles EA, Perrin EM, Katznelson J, Rice HE. Does this child have appendicitis? JAMA. 2007;25:438-451.
Rimon, N, Bengiamin RN, Budhram GR, King KE, Wightman JM. Abdominal pain. In: Marx JA, ed. Rosen's Emergency Medicine: Concepts and Clinical Practice. 7th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Mosby Elsevier;2009:chap 21.
Sreedharan R, Liacouras CA. Major Symptoms and Signs of Digestive Tract Disorders. In: Kliegman RM, Behrman RE, Jenson HB, Stanton BF, eds. Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics. 19th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Saunders Elsevier; 2011:chap 298.
David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical Director, A.D.A.M., Inc., and Neil K. Kaneshiro, MD, MHA, Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, University of Washington School of Medicine. | <urn:uuid:e67200dd-4ec9-4e73-8051-64940136c8ee> | {
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WILLIAM tells the story of a twelve-year-old torn from his family in 1960 and placed in one of 139 Indian residential schools that existed in Canada over a period of a hundred years, from 1883 to 1996. These residential schools had a single purpose: to educate Indigenous youth in Canada in order to assimilate them.
Each episode highlights one typical scene in the children’s journey through the system, from their life on reserve to their abduction by government agents, their arrival at the school, their experience in the classroom and dormitory, and their eventual return home.
Most Canadians today know at least one horrific story about the residential schools. Very few of us haven’t listened to an upsetting testimony or seen a disturbing and heartbreaking image. But in this media-saturated world where a new calamity demands our attention every day, it can be hard to get out of ourselves and feel the empathy that naturally arises when we encounter real suffering other people. WILLIAM wants to meet this challenge by allowing the viewer to experience a historical reality that, until now, could only conveyed in news broadcasts or government reports.
WILLIAM is a virtual reality (VR) web series that sheds light on a part of our history that was long consigned to silence and deliberate ignorance.
For many decades, thousands of Indigenous youth were placed, often by force, in residential schools where they were taught the language, religion, and way of life of their colonizers. According to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report (2015), the residential school system was the key component of a national policy of assimilation in Canada, a policy that can be characterized as “cultural genocide.”
The six episodes of WILLIAM allow the user to live this dark chapter of our history in the first person. Anyone can now embody one victim of this assimilation policy that affected some 150,000 individuals in Canada.
The realities brought to life in the various episodes can be experienced independently, or in sequential order to form a single dramatic experience.
This project renders reality in its most intimate form by means of a fictional work grounded in historical fact. In its development, WILLIAM benefited from the same rigor that goes into making any truthful documentary. Much research went into designing the six episodes that comprise this series.
The scenarios are based on the testimonies of former residents. Scenes were selected to capture the archetypal moments that every child who went through the residential school system had to live out. The experience of William and his peers is the experience of thousands. By living it, we bear witnesses to a tragedy that was repeated each time the government abducted a child from its community.
This project is part of a movement trying to raise awareness and repair the harm done to Canada's Indigenous community. It is doing this by putting the power of cinema and virtual reality in the service of education and awareness.
The power of docudramas lies in their ability to go beyond the transmission of dry facts. By embodying a character and living their story, the viewer can participate in an act that raises empathy and the desire to understand the experience of others.
WILLIAM was firstly conceived for a Canadian francophone and anglophone audience. But since Canada’s colonial legacy is just one instance of a global phenomenon, the series is part of a worldwide effort to recognize the experience of Indigenous peoples around the world. It is therefore intended for the widest possible audience.
Since the content is based on the conclusions of Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report, WILLIAM has an important educational component. It is a powerful pedagogical tool that we invite teachers from every province and territory in Canada to use when they discuss the residential school system in the classroom.
The origins of residential schools go back to the nineteenth century, an era of massive colonial expansion in Canada. During that time, the “Indian Question” was on the lips of every political leader in the fledgling country.
Here, as in the United States, the population originating from Europe was rapidly increasing, and the doctrine according to which Indigenous peoples belonged to a bygone era was simply taken for granted. The colonizers’s inability to integrate Indigenous peoples was a real problem for those seeking to recreate European civilization in the New World. What was do be done with all these Indigenous nations that had no place in the new society? How should the colony deal with this population that refuses to disappear, as their fate would have it?
In 1883, sixteen years after Confederation, the Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, offered a solution in the House of Commons:
When the school is on the reserve the child lives with its parents, who are savages; he is surrounded by savages, and though he may learn to read and write his habits, training and mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write. It has been strongly pressed on myself, as the head of the Department, that Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men. (1)
First Nation people—then unscrupulously called “savages”—were already confined to reserves at this time. By allowing Indigenous children to be raised by their parents, the reserves helped perpetuate their culture, and this posed a problem for the “civilizing progress” that Macdonald and his colleagues envisioned for their young country. In their minds, the philosophy that one must "kill the Indian in the child" was an obvious moral truth. If Indigenous people were going to integrate with the European majority and participate in the colonizing project, it was necessary to separate the children from their parents. It was necessary to destroy the family system that ensured the transmission of Indigenous cultures. That is the conclusion Macdonald had arrived at.
The “industrial schools” that came into being in the 1880s were the first manifestation of the modern residential school system. In 1930, there were 80 establishments in Canada. Although the government administered residential schools, the task of managing them and educating the children was entrusted to religious institutions: the Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, the United Church, and the Presbyterian Church. Like schooling and cultural assimilation, evangelization was seen as a key component of transforming residents into citizens worthy of being part of the majority.
Until the 1950s, residential schools imposed a fixed schedule on their student population. The first half of the day was devoted to lessons in the classroom, and the second half was devoted to work—mainly agricultural work. Given that the Canadian population at the time mainly consisted of farmers, the colonizers felt it important to teach agriculture to these students and thus encourage them to abandon a hunter-gatherer culture in favour of a more sedentary existence.
Finally, use of Indigenous languages was forbidden in residential schools because language was perceived as a vehicle for the transmission of the culture that needed to be eliminated.
Since the stated purpose of residential schools was to turn “savages” into modern citizens, violence and humiliation quickly and inevitably became a preferred means for enforcing the children’s assimilation and education. After all, these children were not perceived as full human beings in their own right. Even in cases where the governing principles of the system were applied with tolerance (and even if one argued that some educators had noble intentions), the goal of the project remained intrinsically violent. That goal was to uproot the child before they could integrate into their community and master their culture. It was to make the child believe that their mother tongue was shameful and useless. In short, it was to convince them that everything they had learned from their parents deserved to be forgotten.
All in all, the residential school system was part of a general policy that sought to eradicate Indigenous culture in Canada. It is in the context of that policy, and the prejudices it embodied, that school staff committed the acts of physical, psychological and sexual violence that thousands of former residents reported to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
As succinctly summarized in the Commission's final report, "the residential school system was based on an assumption that European civilization and Christian religions were superior to Aboriginal culture, which was seen as being savage and brutal.” (2) The specific abuses that residents had to endure can therefore be perceived as effects of a deeper act of aggression that characterized the collective thinking of an entire era towards a whole civilization.
Although the number of residential schools reached its apogee in the 1930s, it wasn’t until 1996 that the last residential school in Canada shut its doors. | <urn:uuid:d5f6b1f4-1f32-4e6e-bec4-79e12881859b> | {
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Researchers at the Weizmann Institute have discovered a genetic explanation for a phenomenon usually considered psychological — obesity — and such side effects as type 2 diabetes and arteriosclerosis, among people subject to stress.
While individuals with depression are known to overeat to relieve their stress, Dr. Alon Chen’s research team at Weizmann’s department of neurobiology have shown that changes in the activity of a single gene of mice brains leads to metabolic changes that cause symptoms associated with diabetes.
“We showed that the actions of a single gene in just one part of the brain can have profound effects on the metabolism of the whole body,” said Chen, whose findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. His research may help scientists treat stress-related diseases in humans.
How Amputations Affect Eyesight
People see objects “at hand” differently if they are missing a hand, according to neuroscientists at Hebrew University. Their study, published in Psychological Science, found that perception of one’s “action space,” within touching distance, changes after amputation of a hand.
Objects slightly outside the right side of someone’s field of vision are perceived as being the same distance as a closer object on the left side, according to the research. “This shows that the possibility for action in near space” — the ability to grasp something — “shapes our perception — the space near our hands is really special, and our ability to move in that space affects how we perceive it,” the study reports.
Family Therapy “Curative Medicine” For Teens
Depressed and suicidal adolescents fare better with family therapy than with private therapy, according to a Ben-Gurion University of the Negev researcher.
Dr. Gary Diamond found “robust and statistically significant” improvement in the recovery of teens who participated in attachment-based family therapy instead of standard private therapy. “Research has shown that family conflict, criticism and detachment can contribute to adolescents’ suicidal thoughts and acts,” Diamond said. “On the other hand, family acceptance, love and support decrease the likelihood for suicide by increasing adolescents’ sense of esteem and connection.
“Parents are not viewed as the problem, but as the curative medicine,” he said. “They are the key to keeping lines of communication open in order to monitor against suicidal behavior.”
New Cancer Treatment At Methodist Hospital
Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn has developed an innovative procedure for treating cancer of the spine, adapting a standard kyphoplasty treatment in which a cement-like material is injected into the spine to reduce pain.
“We mix Samarium, a radioactive material that kills cancer cells, with the cement-like material,” said Dr. Hani Ashamala, acting chairman of the hospital’s radiation oncology department. “This way, there are two benefits: pain control and cancer control.”
The minimally invasive, outpatient procedure, performed under local anesthesia, takes about one hour and has no reported side effects. For information: (718) 780-3677.
Suggested: A (UV) Light Drink
Treatment of water with ultra-violet (UV) light may be a better way to remove impurities or foul smells than the standard chlorine treatment, scientists at Tel Aviv University report.
According to their research, water treatment plants and large-scale desalination facilities can keep water clean of microorganisms by using an “optimal UV wavelength.”
Signup for our weekly email newsletter here. | <urn:uuid:00b98605-9ac8-4a88-af24-b040c5e5be5c> | {
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Posted on August 13, 2013 by Daniel Culver
This week, I collected information that may benefit the remainder of my project.
It would be nearly impossible to conduct any experiment without research to provide background information necessary to create a hypothesis, or educated prediction of the test results. It is often useful to know detailed information about your topic in order to avoid “discovering” facts that are already known.
The most difficult part of gathering information is predicting which information will benefit the project, and which information will not. The second most difficult component of research is organizing the information I have collected in a logical manner. Benefits of logical organization include more accurate conclusions, reduced clutter, and a lower likelihood of misplacing information.
Before beginning an experiment, it is important to have substantial background information in order to conduct an experiment as safely as possible.
Research allows scientists to develop innovations that solve problems more easily or completely than products that already exist, or to understand a problem and invent a new solution where none exists so far.
Get challenge updates in your inbox! Sign up now | <urn:uuid:3ef38d86-7122-4e49-9b04-f7d166b0be44> | {
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You have been familiar with binary operations since the early days of school. A binary operation is simply a rule for combining two objects of a given type, to obtain another object of that type. Through elementary school and most of high school, the objects are numbers, and the rule for combining numbers is addition, subtraction, multiplication or division. In your precalculus and calculus courses, you encountered a situation where the objects were functions, and composition was the rule for combining two functions.
The concept of a binary operation is a very general one, and need not be restricted to sets of numbers. In fact, an operation can be specified on any finite set simply by presenting a table that shows how the operation is performed, when your are given two elements of the set. For example, consider the set and an operation, denoted by *, defined by the following table:
Not All Operations Have the Same Properties
You should be familiar with various properties of the arithmetic operations on numbers. Addition of numbers, for instance, is a commutative operation -- meaning that for all numbers x and y. The operation on the set A defined by the operation table above, however, is not commutative, and there are several instances of this lack of commutativity. For instance, since the table shows that . In general, commutativity is a property of an operation, so it takes only one instance of lack of commutativity to spoil that property for the operation. It is easy to check whether an operation defined by a table is commutative. Sinply draw the diagonal line from upper left to lower right, and then look to see if the table is symmetric about this line. In the illustration below, we see a lack of symmetry: the table entries colored yellow do not match, and the table entries colored blue do not match.
Addition of numbers is an associative operation, meaning that for all numbers x, y and z. To check to see whether the operation * defined above is associative, however, is a somewhat tedious task. We would need to compute all combinations of the form in two ways -- once as shown, and then again in the form -- and then check to see that they are equal. This must be done for each selection of elements to fill the placeholders. In the case of a 4-element set such as A above, there are choices of the elements to be used, and each must be computed in two ways. Thus, to verify that a binary operation on a 4-element set is associative, we would have to do 128 computations! There is no easy shortcut as there is for checking commutativity.
On the other hand, if a given operation fails to be associative, all we need to do to verify this is to find one instance of the lack of associativity. For the operation * defined on the set above, we find that , while . Thus , so the operation * is not associative.
An additional property that a binary operation may or may not have is the existence of an identity element. Given a binary operation on a set S, an element e of S is called an identity element for if for every element x of S. (We are using the symbol to represent a generic binary operation here.) As examples, 0 is an identity element for the operation of addition on the set of real numbers, and 1 is an identity element for the operation of multiplication on the set of real numbers. For the operation * on the set A above, the element a is an identity element.
As another example, let denote the set of all functions from to (where denotes the set of real numbers), and let be the operation of composition of functions in . Then is an associative operation, since for all functions f, g and h in . But is not a commutative operation; there are many examples of functions f and g for which . (Can you find such an example?)
Does the operation on have an identity element? The function defined by f(x) = x for all real numbers x (which happens to be called the identity function) has the property that for all functions g in , and therefore f is an identity element for the operation on .
One easy fact about identity elements is that if an operation has an identity element, then that identity element must be unique -- that is, there is only one such identity element. To see why this is true, we suppose that there are two identity elements for the operation on the set S, say e and . Then consider the element . Since is an identity, we have , and since e is an identity, we have . Thus , so there is only one identity for .
The field of mathematics in which binary operations and their properties are studied is called abstract algebra. In abstract algebra, a semigroup is defined to be a set, along with a binary operation that is associative. Examples of semigroups include the following:
Examples of sets that are not semigroups include | <urn:uuid:980e4662-8124-4f91-af54-254912376e2f> | {
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THURSDAY, March 5, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- A molecule found in certain tree leaves helped female mice avoid weight gain, a new study claims.
The molecule is found in the leaves of several types of trees in Central and South America. It binds to a receptor in muscle cells and speeds up energy metabolism in female mice. This allowed the female mice to eat high-fat foods without gaining weight or accumulating fat, researchers found.
However, it's important to note that findings from animal studies don't always translate to humans.
Male mice didn't get the same benefit from the molecule that females did, but it's not clear why. Sex-specific hormones may be a factor, the researchers suggested.
The different responses between female and male mice highlight the need to include both sexes when developing drugs for obesity and other conditions, the researchers said.
The findings were published online March 5 in the journal Chemistry & Biology.
The current research only included mice, but "an equivalent diet pill in humans would allow people to maintain a healthy weight, despite a high-fat diet," senior study author Keqiang Ye, from the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, suggested in a journal news release.
"The pill would burn calories without affecting appetite," Ye added.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explains how to prevent weight gain.
This article: Copyright © 2015 HealthDay. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:800d5157-35bf-4dad-9d5c-a546822aad05> | {
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|Origin:||espere, from Latin sphaera, from Greek sphaira 'ball, sphere'|
a ball shape
a particular area of activity, work, knowledge etc
in ... sphere
television's increasing role in the political sphere
Women have often been excluded from positions of power in the public sphere.
a person, country's, organization's etc sphere of influence is the area where they have power to change things | <urn:uuid:ccf0df7a-14cc-40a0-b8e6-4647d5202ad6> | {
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International Geographical Union Commission on Geographical Education
The purpose of the Commission is to promote geographical and environmental education globally. In order to accomplish this goal, the activities of the Commission include:
- publication of a journal, International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, newsletters, and conference proceedings;
- organization of international conferences;
- coordination of international and regional research projects; and
- co-sponsorship of the Geography Olympiad.
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Level: Junior, Middle School, High School
Grades: 3 and up | Age: 8yrs and up | Written by: Andrea Mulder-Slater
[Andrea is one of the creators of KinderArt.com]
Students can make penguins using paper mache pulp and recycled drinking bottles.
- Students will learn about penguins - where they live, what they eat. They will also learn about the shape of a penguin.
Did you know that there are 17 species of penguins?
- Students will create a penguin using a juice bottle and paper mache.
- Students will learn to appreciate the art created not only by them, but by others as well.
penguins, South Pole, feathers, fish, ice, black, white, birds, swim, fly, tuxedo, sculpture, 3-dimensional, additive sculpture, paper mache, feathers, fur, antarctica, rookery.
What You Need:
What You Do:
- Pictures and/or books about penguins.
- Paper Mache Pulp. See recipe at the bottom of this page. You could instead use ready made paper mache pulp mix or "Sculptamold" To see what Sculptamold is, click here:
Sculptamold® - Papier Mache
- 1 small juice bottle per student
- A yogurt container for each child for the paper mache pulp
- Water based paint (black, white and red).
- Water and water containers
- A covered work area
- Paint smocks or old shirts
- Give each child a yogurt container with paper mache pulp in it.
- Have the children put small amounts of the mix on the juice bottle until the entire bottle is covered.
- Put a ball of paper mache pulp on the top of the juice bottle to make a head.
- Let the penguin dry for 12 to 24 hours.
- When dry, kinderartists can paint their penguin and put him on display.
- Take the opportunity to talk about penguins and where they live. Do they have feathers or fur? Do they eat fish? Can they fly?
Paper Mache Pulp:
Make papier mache pulp by placing several sheets of newspaper (torn into tiny pieces) into a blender or food processor with some water. Strain the pulp using a colander or sieve. Mix the pulp with one tablespoon or more of white glue.
Take shredded paper or newspaper, 1 quart of hot water, a microwave safe bowl, spoon, colander or wire strainer, 1 cup of wallpaper paste or one cup of white glue or a 1 cup water/1 cup flour mixture.
Put the pieces of torn or shredded paper into the bowl until the bowl is almost full. Slowly pour the hot water over the paper, stirring constantly. When the paper is soaked, it should be just covered with water. Put the bowl into the microwave oven and cook for about 10 minutes. Remove and let stand. Repeat every hour for about 5 hours. Using a wire strainer, squeeze the excess water out of the pulp, making sure to leave just a bit of water. Add the glue or wallpaper paste to the mixture and mix well.
Store in a plastic bag in the refrigerator.
You can also do this using a pot on a stove. In that case, bring the mixture to a boil in a pot and let sit for a few hours until paper starts to disintegrate. Using a wire strainer, squeeze the excess water out of the pulp, making sure to leave just a bit of water. Add the glue or wallpaper paste to the mixture and mix well. Store in a plastic bag in the refrigerator.
Penguin Coloring Page
Color a picture of a funny Christmas penguin.
Penguins at Seaworld
Teacher's Guides have been developed at SeaWorld and Busch Gardens to help you teach your students - in an active, hands-on way - about how people interact with the environment and how we can best care for Earth's resources.
Visit this site and then select Penguins K-3 or Penguins 4-8 from the drop down list at the bottom of the page.
Penguin Fun Facts
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[ca. 13th or 14th century]
|Type of Resource:|
Latin ms. on parchment. Binding: ca. 10th c. Half bound in mottled brown goatskin, gold-tooled, with a red label. Marbled paper sides.
Written in Germany at the end of the 13th or beginning of the 14th century, perhaps at the Cistercian monastery of Kempen near Duesseldorf to which it belonged in the 15th century.
Manuscript on parchment (leaves are very uneven due to irregular trimming) originally composed of roughly executed full-page illustrations and diagrams that constitute the Speculum theologie.
ff. i (paper) + 8 + i (paper)
ill., some col.
approx. 285 x 220 mm.
More about permissions and copyright
We welcome any additional information you might have. If you know more about an image on our website or if you are the copyright owner and believe we have not properly attributed your work, please contact us.
|Curatorial Area:||Beinecke Library|
|Extent of Digitization:|
|Source Digital Format:||
High Resolution (image/tiff)
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Autumn Garden Tips
Make new plants from cuttings.
1. Take 10cm cuttings from hardwood herbs such as rosemary or bay.
2. Remove the lower leaves.
3. Dip cuttings into hormone powder and pot in small containers of premium potting mix.
4. Keep moist and shelter from strong wind and sun
You grass does not need be mowed so frequently in prolonged periods of dry weather.
If the weather is very dry, remove the grass collecting box and let the cuttings stay on the ground to conserve soil moisture.
1. Keep soil in hanging baskets and patio planters moist.
2. Remove fading and dead flower heads from plants to encourage new flowers.
3. Feed hanging baskets and planters weekly, ideally with a liquid fertiliser.
PLEASE NOTE that if you added a slow release fertiliser when initially planted your hanging basket then there is no need for step 3.
In June you will notice that your Apple and Pear Trees will drop some fruit, this is known as the 'June drop'.
The Apple and Pear Trees do this to restrict the amount of fruit that develop | <urn:uuid:f4518a4c-ec40-486b-8fd6-8cd937798a9a> | {
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Just released analyses by USDA Forest Service researchers revealunderlying patterns in wildland arson. Research forester Jeff Prestemonand economist David Butry, both from the FS Southern Research Stationeconomics unit at Research Triangle Park, NC, have developed a modelthat can help law enforcement agencies better predict where and whenfires might be set in wildland areas and adopt strategies to reduce therisk of arson.
Over 1.5 million fires are set by arsonists each year in the UnitedStates, resulting in over $3 billion in damages. Arson is a leadingcause of wildfire in several heavily populated states, includingCalifornia and Florida. Since wildland arsonists often set fires nearhomes and roads, arson wildfires cause a disproportionate amount of thedamage attributed to wildfire in general. Several recent largewildfires were intentionally set, including the Hayman fire near Denverin 2002, which caused damages exceeding $100 million.
Criminals often commit multiple crimes in a short time frame, adocumented phenomenon that researchers call temporal clustering.Temporal clustering of arson events can also be a result of copycatbehavior. Property and violent crimes often have a spatial clusteringcomponent, also, with crime concentrated in neighborhoods. In a pair ofstudies, Prestemon and Butry set out to test whether spatio-temporalclustering also appeared in wildland arson. Their research, whichdescribed the firesetting process in the context of the economics ofcrime, also examined whether socioeconomic factors are related towildland arson in ways identified by criminologists.
"Even though the economic damages created by wildland arsonists areoften staggering, research into the factors that contribute to it hasbeen limited to a few published studies," says Prestemon. "Models ofwildland arson have mostly related firesetting to weather, seasonaltrends, and law enforcement, ignoring the role of the socioeconomicvariables used to predict other types of crime."
"At the same time, no one has been able to identify the spatio-temporaldimensions of wildland arson that we found," declared colleague DavidButry. "Our findings have uncovered a new avenue of fire research,deepened our understanding of arsonists' behaviors, and revealedanother way in which humans and society interact with our environment."
In one study, the researchers evaluated wildland arson as both anannual and a daily process. Their annual model revealed the influenceof law enforcement, fuels, poverty, and labor conditions on the ratesof ignitions observed in all of the counties in Florida during theperiod 1995 to 2001. The researchers uncovered the fine temporalpattern of arson by analyzing arson in nine high-arson countiesscattered across the state over the same time frame, but sliced intodays instead of years. This model identified temporal clustering thatlasted up to 11 days--implying higher risk of repeat arson ignitionsfor 11 days following the initial fire. This kind of pattern had neverbefore been found in any research into human-ignited wildfires.
In the second study, Prestemon and Butry measured the spatial as wellas temporal clustering of arson wildfires using daily information forthe six Census tracts in Florida with the greatest arson activity.Their statistical results showed that an arson event in one Censustract was related to arson in the previous two days in neighboringtracts and the previous ten days in the same tract.
"So not only did we confirm our finding from the previous study, thatarson clusters in time, but we also showed that it clusters in spaceover time," adds Butry. "In other words, arson events in one tract maybe used to predict future ignitions in the same or adjacent tracts forseveral days." When the two studies are taken together, a principalfinding is that wildland arson has spatio-temporal clustering similarto patterns found for other types of crime.
"Combining this principal finding with our data on law enforcement ledto our second finding, that there are strategies that law enforcementcan use to prevent wildland arson," says Prestemon. "They can closelymonitor areas where fires have been set before. They can also increasearson enforcement on days of the year when events are more common, andduring droughts."
A third finding was that locations with difficult economicconditions--low wages and high poverty rates--have higher rates ofwildland arson, which is consistent with an economic model of crime.Fourth, forest management activities are also related to wildlandarson, with fuel reductions from prescribed burning and other wildfirescorrelated with lower arson rates. "This finding is also consistentwith an economic model of wildland arson crime, where lower fuelsincrease the cost of successfully starting fires," says Prestemon.
The next step is to test the model in other locations to see if thestatistical results hold true outside of Florida and to conduct newresearch into arsonists' behavior. "While we have examined and foundsimilar firesetting patterns in California, we think we need to directsome of our effort into understanding who arsonists are and what,precisely, makes them behave as they do," says Butry. "If we could addfeedback from convicted wildland arsonists, we could really enhance ourunderstanding of how they choose where and when to set fires.Incorporating this information into the model would raise itspredictive value to law enforcement."
"Time to Burn: Modeling Wildland Arson as an Autoregressive CrimeFunction," by Jeffrey P. Prestemon and David T. Butry was published inthe August 2005 issue of the American Journal of AgriculturalEconomics, and is available in full text at http://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/20631
"Spatio-temporal wildland arson crime functions," by David T. Butry andJeffrey P. Prestemon, was presented at the Annual Meeting of theAmerican Agricultural Economics Association, July 26-29, 2005,Providence, Rhode Island, is available in full text at http://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/9537
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Bullying and Self-Regulation can be a difficult area for children with special needs to cope with. Those on the Autism Spectrum often find it hard to understand emotions and related to others. They can usually benefit greatly from visual aids and fun ways of learning.; and social stories are often recommended for those on the Spectrum. So I was keen to find out more about a range of books by Jennifer Anzin, who has written inclusive programs for children with special needs on Bullying and Self-Regulation. I was sent the 5 books mentioned below for purposes of review, all opinions are honest and my own.
Devon the Digger’s Difficult Day
The book begins with a story about how Devon is having a bad day and doesn’t care how he affects others. But his friend Frederick makes him think about times when he has been upset and asks him how he would feel. Then Devon finds a strategy that he will use next time he is mad. Devon then goes off to apologise and put things right. The book then uses activities to Build Cooperation and Caring – these are useful tools for all children (and even adults!). In fact we have been using the Say it Forward (when you say something nice about someone else) at dinner time, and I really like the idea of having a bag of phrases in case people find it difficult to think of something. Next are Songs to Build Empathy and Caring, Anti-Bullying Strategies (with more singing) and finally a Game. I think the book is full of great ideas but is really for children in a group setting and not as helpful for a parent at home (especially if the child does not have siblings). I am not sure how much the use of vehicles would help a child on the spectrum relate the story back to people – but does give them the opportunity of making things more concrete in their minds.
The Terrible Tantrums of Timmy the Truck
This story is about Timmy the Truck who is a bully. It explains why Timmy behaves the way he does and that lashing out, especially to Arthur the Engine, does not make him feel better. After talking to Timmy Angela the Airplane and Timmy’s parents promise to help him learn new ways to deal with his anger and to make friends. The book explains what Timmy does to help him cope with his anger and then he went off to apologise to Arthur. Timmy followed the rules of conduct and played with the rest of the class and felt part of the team. The book then goes on to explain different Strategies to Stop Bullying Behaviour – including yoga activities (such as child’s pose, balloon breath, train yoga and lion yoga – which are explained within the book). Next are the games such as The Anger, Self-Regulation Fishing Game and A, B, C…Calm Down with Me. Again I am not sure how concrete the story is by using vehicles and I am not sure it is a fair representation for a child with additional needs. My son would break things without considering how the other person is feeling but I do think the label “bully” is a bit harsh. To me a bully is one who does it deliberately to upset people. In saying that it is refreshing to have something where the problem needing to be addressed is because the child is the bully rather than the bullied – and the techniques are great.
The Incredible Shrinking Bully
This book again is about Timmy being mean to Arthur, but this time it does appear more that he is deliberately being nasty. It is more about Arthur feeling safe and his friends helping him to learn to stop being bullied. Interesting to read the two books together because from Timmy’s side of the story things are really different. Maybe there could be some discussion as to how children with special needs may be upsetting children without meaning to – and we should give them empathy and support to help them change – as opposed to singling them out and not wanting to play! This book has songs again and colouring pages with the story told again. I think the message here is simple (don’t suffer in silence) so the strategies weren’t as in depth. I think I would like to see the two books combined – and as I say, seeing things from both perspectives.
The Anger Train
I loved this story. It uses the imagery of an anger train inside to explain the emotion. This book has pictures of people, and explains how to help the anger (train) calm down. The back of the book has other ideas (again such as Yoga and the Fishing Game).
Goodbye Anger Monster – Jennifer Anzin and Cathy Kerr
This again is like the Anger Train but instead it is a monster. Again I like that the book has visuals of people that children with special needs can relate to. There are a few different techniques to reduce the anger as the anger monster disappears. Again the back of the book has other ideas (again such as Yoga and the Fishing Game).
Generally I think these books are great social stories with many useful ideas and resources for helping children to cope with self-regulation and bullying. In all honesty I do think the illustrations could do with some work, but then their simple nature may make it easier for a child with additional needs relate to. I would recommend these books for the strategies, but think the stories are not to be read alone but discussed.
Jennifer Anzin is an Early Childhood Consultant with over 20 years of experience working with children in child care centres, nursery school programs, J.k./S.k. and school age programs. Jennifer has drawn upon her experiences with children with special needs to write anti-bullying and self-regulation children’s books for parents, teachers and other professionals to use with children from the ages of 3 years-8 years. The books contain practical strategies and activities within the stories, as well as additional help which may be incorporated into their daily routines. These books are available on amazon.uk for approximately £4.60 per book. There are also two free children’s stories, “Frederick the Fire Truck” and “Arthur the Engine” available on the website http://thewhisperersaga.com on request.
Another Post of interest: How to teach Anger through Craft
I received these books free of charge for purposes of review. All opinions are honest and my own. | <urn:uuid:93ee5491-527d-476e-8cd4-d997c1f986a7> | {
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A complete predicate has a transitive verb (a verb that takes an object). A transitive verb is incomplete without an object to act on. The predicate is the part of the sentence that includes the transitive verb as well as the object of the verb, any adverbs that describe the verb and any adjectives that describe the object:
Sally hit the red ball hard.
The predicate is ‘hit the red ball hard’. ‘Hit’ is a transitive verb and it acts on the object of the sentence; the ‘ball’. ‘Red’ is an adjective that describes the object, and ‘hard’ is an adverb that describes the verb ‘hit’. So they all get included in the predicate. | <urn:uuid:bc60300a-3670-481a-93dc-b9bfe2676f64> | {
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Postcard showing the Boer War memorial (THS6.092)
The town's oldest war memorial commemorates the twenty-four 'Townsmen of Tonbridge or Old Boys of Tonbridge School' who died in the Boer War.
It stands between the riverside walk and the wall of Tonbridge Castle.
A service at the original Great War memorial near St Stephen's church (THS22.028)
Three thousand Tonbridge men served in the First World War – one in five of the population at that time. Of these, more than 400 – one in seven – perished. A memorial to these men was erected in 1921 at the junction of Pembury Road with Quarry Hill, near where there is a roundabout today. It consisted of a 16-foot high monument in local sandstone, inset with tablets of Sicilian marble on which the names of local men who fell were inscribed in lead. (More ambitious plans had had to be abandoned when the appeal for funds produced disappointing results.)
Armistice Day Services were held at this memorial until the early 1950s when the memorial was removed following the opening of the new Memorial Garden near the river in Bradford Street. The names of those who died in the first World War were transferred to the wall in the new Garden.
Details of almost all the Tonbridge men who died in World War I are here.
The Memorial Wall in 2011 prior to its renovation
Seven years after the end of World War II, the garden of remembrance situated between the Medway and the Bradford Street car park was dedicated by Canon Russell White 'in grateful memory of the men of this town who died in the service of their King and Country'.
Its focus is the Memorial Wall on which are inscribed the names of those who died. Some 200 relatives of those whose names are inscribed on the Roll of Honour were present at the dedication of the Memorial Garden.
The High Street memorial
A new memorial stands in the High Street on the north side of the river. It was dedicated by the Bishop of Tonbridge on 11th November 2004, and is not intended to replace the existing memorials, but to commemorate, in a more prominent position in the town, all those who have lost their lives in service of the community in peace as well as war.
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This article was originally
published in European Theories of the Drama. Barrett H.
Clark. Cincinnati: Stewart & Kidd Company, 1918.
JOHN DRYDEN was born at Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire, in 1631. He came of a Puritan family, which had been for years very active in the political world. Dryden was sent to school at Westminster. He published some verses at the age of eighteen. In 1650 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, and took a degree of B.A. four years later, but it is probable that he spent also the next three years at Cambridge. He went to London in 1657. His first important literary effort, Heroic Stanzas to the memory of Cromwell, was published in 1659. This was followed the next year by verses on the return of Charles. In order to add to his slender income, he turned to the stage, and after two unsuccessful attempts he produced his first play, The Wild Gallant, in 1663. This comedy was not well received, and Dryden confesses that his forte was not comedy. The same year he produced The Rival Ladies, and married Lady Elizabeth Howard. The Indian Queen (1664), written in collaboration with Sir Robert Howard, his wife's brother, enjoyed considerable success. Dryden followed this with The Indian Emperor (1665). During the Plague Dryden lived with his father-in-law in Wiltshire, where he wrote his Essay of Dramatick Poesie (1668). Howard's preface to his Four New Playes (1665) called forth a reply from Dryden: A Defence of an Essay of Dramatique Poesie (1668). From the re-opening of the theaters in 1666, to 1681, Dryden wrote little except his plays. The production of Buckingham's satirical play The Rehearsal in 1671, in which Dryden was the chief personage, called forth the preface Of Heroic Plays and Defence of the Epilogue (1672). All for Love, in all probability the poet's greatest play, was performed in 1678. He continued to produce plays to the end of his career. In 1681 he turned to satire and wrote Absalom and Achitophel, which achieved instant and widespread popularity. This was followed by other satires. In 1687, after his conversion to the Catholic Church, he wrote The Hind and the Panther, a plea for Catholicism. His Catholic leanings lost for him the laureateship and other offices when the Revolution came. During his last ten years he translated many of the Latin classics: Virgil, Ovid, Lucretius, Horace, Theocritus, and others, and modernized Chaucer. He died in 1700, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Dryden's contribution to English literature, besides his poems and plays, was the invention of a direct and simple style for literary criticism. He improved upon the prose of the Elizabethan writers in the matter of ridding English of its involved forms, even if through that process he lost some of its gorgeous ornament and rugged strength. Jonson's method in criticism was after all not much more than the note-book method of jotting down stray thoughts and opinions and reactions. Dryden elaborated his ideas, sought the weight of authority, argued both sides of the question, and adduced proofs. Dryden performed an inestimable service to his countrymen in applying true standards of criticism to the Elizabethans and in showing them a genuine and sympathetic if occasionally misguided love for Shakespeare. Dryden also enjoyed the advantage of being able to bring his knowledge of the drama of Spain and France to bear on his criticism of English dramatists. | <urn:uuid:7e5873db-40e0-4086-ac6a-1b3e698976fa> | {
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Mind Your "B's" and "M's" - Regardless of gender, age or lifestyle, everyone needs B-complex vitamins and minerals. Male bodies and female bodies use them in the same ways most of the time, but the required amounts differ because of physiological variations. A pregnant woman needs more of the B vitamins and most minerals, for example.
Most of the once-daily type supplements in today's marketplace do not fully take into account the physiologically unique circumstances in a woman's life, such as pregnancy and menstruation. This is particularly true when it comes to minerals, an essential component of nutrition. The typical, once-daily supplement can be very low in mineral content, which could lull consumers into a false sense of "mineral security;" because we all have different individual needs, those who take only a once-daily supplement may not be getting all they need for good health in one tablet.
Teens' Special Needs - Teen girls have as great a need for nutritional support as do their older sisters and mothers-if not greater!- especially those substances involved in the growth of bones and the reproductive system. Growth increases the need for structural materials such as protein and minerals, calories (since energy is needed to build body tissue) and nutrients to help regulate body processes.
The stresses that young women face because of school and social pressures take an additional toll on vitamin status.
Today's teens overall seem more involved than their predecessors with extracurricular activities such as sports, social clubs and volunteer groups. This level of activity coupled with an often less-than-wholesome diet (sometimes despite our best efforts as parents!) means our teenagers may require greater nutritional support than a once-daily type of supplement.
Different Stages Of Life -Different Nutritional Needs - There are occasions in a woman's life when additional support is necessary. In these instances some women, because of their stress levels and particular life style, will require additional amounts of specific nutrients.
PMS - Premenstrual syndrome can be an uncomfortable experience for some women, regardless of age.
When a woman becomes stressed, her body uses up nutrients in an effort to maintain nutritional balance. One key nutrient, calcium, has a major effect on that balance. When calcium is compromised it upsets the relationship between potassium and sodium. The result can be water retention -- bloating.
The electrical messaging that is necessary for proper nerve-muscle function can also be thrown off. Cramping can occur as a result.
Stress also affects the adrenal glands. This is of particular consequence to peri-, pre- and menopausal women because the adrenals manufacture estrogen and progesterone, and any disruption to estrogen and progesterone production can affect many different aspects of female health.
Another role of the adrenals is to ensure adequate fuel for the cells, which they accomplish by communicating with the liver to release glycogen into the blood stream. Low blood-sugar levels can result in moodiness.
Fertility - Good nutrition is absolutely essential to achieving a pregnancy or sustaining one through to a healthy birth.
Experience has shown that even people who believe they are eating well may not be getting the nutrients they need. Some of the fault lies in food choices, but the generally over-processed American diet is also to blame. When the impact of stress is added to an already deficient diet, the body could be thrown sufficiently out of balance to prevent conception or to have an impact on pregnancy.
Estrogen Production -The female hormone estrogen is produced primarily in the ovaries. However, the adrenal glands also produce estrogen and progesterone, and healthy adrenals may account for the ability of some women to experience fewer symptoms associated with the menopausal transition.
Menopause - This is a natural phenomenon, occurring in most women between around 50 years of age. The ovaries become less responsive to the stimulation of gonadotropic hormones. This results in a declining production of estrogen and progesterone, which interrupts the normal development of the ovaries' follicles. Follicles are the structures that surround primary oocytes or eggs.
Throughout a woman's reproductive life, when stimulated hormonally these follicles release their eggs, or "ovulate." The follicles decrease in number with age and the ovaries' ability to produce estrogen also decreases. By age 45, only a few follicles remain. Estrogen production decreases until the follicles become atrophic, and the ovaries cease estrogen production.
There are also changes in both gonadotropin-releasing hormone patterns and the quality or quantity of luteinizing hormones, which stimulate the production of estrogen and progesterone, and aid in ovulation.
During the course of menopause, women may suffer an array of physical concerns including hot flashes, headaches, hair loss, muscular pains, vaginal dryness, weight gain and mood swings. Interestingly, not all women experience the same levels of physical and psychological reactions as their bodies go through this transition -- some women experience virtually no effects at all. Nutrition can make the all-important difference: when the body has all of the required nutrients in adequate amounts, it is able to maintain balance and harmony.
Due to the diminished levels of estrogen, there is also a possibility of osteoporosis, a condition in which bones become thin, fragile, and highly prone to fracture. Estrogen helps bones absorb the calcium they need to stay strong. Beginning at around age 30, bone loss accelerates greatly and continues until as much as 30 percent of the calcium in bones is lost by age 70. | <urn:uuid:e331dce4-26c6-43f8-97ec-a862ff1473af> | {
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- +34 900 670 112
Would you know how to use defibrillators in public spaces?
Emergencies are the order of the day, and is that at the least expected time, we may be suffering from a heart situation.
Keeping ourselves trained for this type of situation is really important, in order to help other people, including friends or relatives. One of the most common artifacts to help in cardiac situations, are the defibrillators, which become a tool of vital importance in situations of cardiac emergency, and of which we will be providing all the information in the following article.
What is the importance of knowing how to handle a defibrillator?
One of the most important data, is knowing that in Spain around 100 people die every day due to cardiac arrest, which sometimes have a defibrillator and know how to use it, could reduce these large numbers. Therefore, being able to handle a defibrillator should not be something that only health personnel should know, but on the contrary, it should be extended to knowledge in companies, schools and elsewhere, since a cardiac arrest can occur in any place and time.
How to use a defibrillator?
For the proper use of a defibrillator, certain steps must be taken into account, which are:
1 Confirm the cardiac brown:
It is really important to know if in fact the emergency is a cardiac arrest, this is the first step, for this we have to if the person responds and check if he breathes normally. To be able to verify this, it is necessary that you lean towards the person stimulate and ask if you are well, to be able to listen to your breathing you have to throw your head back, it is also important that you can check your mouth, given that it may be that object or food is stuck, and is the cause of the condition of the victim.
2 Make them call emergencies:
If the person is unconscious and does not breathe normally and you are near another person, have them call 112 and indicate that the person is unconscious and not breathing normally and if it is possible for someone to look for a defibrillator.
3 Perform CPR:
This is essential, once cardiac arrest has been confirmed, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) must be started, not only will you keep the blood circulating throughout the body, but we also increase the possibility of success with a discharge from the AED, therefore, it is important to start CPR as soon as possible.
4 Make use of the AED:
Before preparing the AED, it is important to make sure that the victim's chest is not wet, since at the time of placing the AED, the AED placement area must be dry (only the area where we will place the electrodes). Remember that there is no need to waste time removing piercing from small nipples or pendants. The defibrillator electrodes should be placed as soon as it arrives.
5 Turn on the AED:
When you turn it on, most defibrillators provide a quick guide to use, which will instruct you to connect the electrode patches.
6 Shave the chest:
Most AEDs have a shaver, since the hairs on the chest can cause interference when placing the patches.
Also, once the area is shaved, you should be careful that the patient has a pacemaker. If you have a pacemaker, the electrodes should be placed at least a distance of 10 cm from the pacemaker.
7 Place the patches:
This is important, usually the DEA they have inside the instructions, the areas in which you must place the patches, one of the patches should be placed on the thorax to the right of the sternum, below the clavicle. The other should be placed at the level of the left mid-axillary line.
8 Perform the analysis:
Once the patches are placed, the AED will begin to perform the diagnostic analysis, once the diagnosis is made (usually about 10 seconds) it will decide whether to download and start CPR, or if the download is not necessary and you just need to continue with the RCP. After 2 minutes of CPR the device will perform another analysis again.
9 If the download is necessary:
Make sure that nobody is touching the patient before pressing the shock button in the AED, sending an electric shock through the electrodes.
Where can I take CPR and defibrillator courses?
If you are interested in receiving CPR training and using the defibrillator, we will travel to your entity with all the necessary material to complete the courses. Alternatively you can sign up for our courses open classroom.
You can ask us for a quote by contacting:
Calling for Free: 900 670 112 - 911 25 05 00 | <urn:uuid:f8562710-1bb0-4187-ae93-8f26339a0100> | {
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Six educated frogs change sides so that
the three black ones are to the
left and the white frogs to the right, with the unoccupied tumbler at
the opposite end—No. 7.
They can jump to the next tumbler (if
unoccupied), or over one, or two, frogs to an unoccupied
jumps can be made in either direction, and a frog may jump over his own
or the opposite colour, or both colours.
specimen jumps will make everything quite plain: 4 to 1, 5 to 4, 3 to
5, 6 to 3.
Can you show how they do it in ten jumps? | <urn:uuid:fdaf0c3a-8341-4de6-bc46-8e030e32890b> | {
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By their very nature, children are more sensitive to pesticides than adults. A child's body continues to grow until 18 but their brain and nervous system are under development until the age of 25. We are all exposed to more chemicals than ever before but can you imagine the body burden our children are experiencing while their systems are growing? Is it any wonder that cancer rates are on the rise in our children?
On October 22, 2012, there was a report released in The Journal of Pediatrics by The American Academy of Pediatrics that spoke to the need for children to eat organic produce and meat. Unfortunately, the report did not go far enough. Organic food is a controversial topic and this review is a positive follow up to the poorly constructed study published by Stanford in the Annals of Internal Medicine in September 2012. This particular study strangely concluded that organically grown food has the same nutrition than conventionally grown food.
It has been proven that organic food does contain more Vitamin C and other antioxidants that protect the plant naturally. When organic plants are exposed to pests they respond by producing their own protection that we then reap the benefits from. Some of these important phytonutrients include Inositol Phosphates (Phytates); Lignans (Phytoestrogens); Isothiocyanates and Indoles; Phenols and Cyclic Compounds; Saponins; Sulfides, Thiols; and Terpenes. Here is a RealNatural.org article
that goes into greater detail on the subject. On average, organic produce contains 25% more antioxidants than conventional produce.
Beyond debating their nutrient value, the most important point that needs to be acknowledged is what organic foods does not contain! Certified organic foods must be grown without the use of GMOs (genetically-modified organisms), pesticides, antibiotics and hormones. Organic fields are managed so that the soil contains more minerals than conventional farms.
In May 2015 the Centre For Food Safety published a ‘Fact Sheet’
that stated a clear link between glyphosate, one of the most commonly used pesticides and an increase in cancer. The chemical company Monsanto produces this pesticide under the name Round-Up. In spite Monstanto’s critical response to this report, the World Health Organization is taking it very seriously. Given this new evidence, how can we go on suggesting that conventionally grown food is safe for our children? A child’s developing body is far more sensitive than an adult and the accumulated ‘body burden’ of chemicals far exceeds what older generations have ever been exposed to. What are we setting our children up for?
Fortunately, there are some are voices of reason. The American Academy of Pediatrics states, “feeding children organic fruits and vegetables cuts down on the amount of potentially harmful chemicals and also may help prevent immunity to antibiotics”. A 2006 study found that an organic diet significantly lowers children’s
dietary exposure to pesticides.
A 2004 The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) report
states that “Most studies of moderate pesticide exposure have found an increased prevalence of neurologic symptoms and changes in neurobehavioral performance, reflecting cognitive and psychomotor dysfunction.” I am passionate about this topic as I was raised beside a large conventional corn farm. As I child I remember standing in the backyard watching 100’s of acres of corn being sprayed with pesticides. No surprise that I was diagnosed with ADHD! The symptoms of my diagnosis disappeared when my parents switched me to a natural diet.
A study in 2010
led by Maryse Bouchard in Montreal in the journal Pediatrics associates exposure to pesticides with increased cases of ADHD in the U.S. and Canada. In the U.S. alone, an estimated 4.5 million children ages 5 to 17 have been diagnosed with ADHD, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and rates of diagnosis have risen 3% a year between 1997 and 2006.
The team from University of Montreal and Harvard University analyzed the levels of pesticide residue in the urine of more than 1,100 children ages 8 to 15 and found that those with the highest levels of organophosphate pesticides, had the highest incidence of ADHD. A 35% increase in ADHD with every tenfold increase in urinary concentration of the pesticide residue to be exact. Switching to organic produce for five days dramatically reduced the levels of pesticide residue in the urine of children who usually consume conventional produce.
Joel Forman MD, the lead physician of the American Academy of Pediatrics study explains, "Kids' nervous systems are developing. Exposure to toxins can have different and much more profound effects on children," It is important to keep in mind that children cannot metabolize these chemicals until the age of 7 when then liver starts to mature.”
Forman’s team also supports the need to buy organic meat to reduce the risk of exposure to antibiotics given to conventionally raised animals. Eating organic meat reduces the risk of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
The only disappointment of the report was they did not see the point of organic milk. I want to remind people that when you buy conventional ice cream or cheese from the United States you are exposing you and your children to excessive genetically modified growth hormone and anti-biotic that is given to conventionally raised cows. Here is a great article
that looks at the topic in depth.
If you struggle with the price of organic, I suggest checking out the Environmental Working Group
yearly report of the most important food to buy organically.
Here is a summary of the 2018 report:
The Dirty Dozen
Fruits and veggies in the "dirty dozen" contain pesticide residue and are heavily sprayed due to high levels pest.
The list includes:
The Clean 15
Fruits and vegetables that are included in the "clean 15" are not generally threatened by as many pests.
Sweet Corn (Non-GMO)
Honey Dew Melon
I feel Dr. Bouchard says it best, “While pesticide-free fruits and greens may be more costly, they are worth the price in terms of future health”.
Ancient Indian Proverb:
“We do not inherit the land from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.”
Let’s be sure to give our children some land worth farming! | <urn:uuid:246a28cc-89de-4470-a177-6f0940995d14> | {
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NJ Students » NJ Students Home
Kindergarten to Grade 8
Students in grades K-8 are expected to meet the states Core Curriculum Content Standards and score at the proficient or advanced proficient levels on the third-, fourth-, and eighth-grade tests. The standards are progressive expectations that are defined for kindergarten through grade 12. This section includes information about the K-8 standards and assessments. | <urn:uuid:b6bf03dd-91f5-453a-9657-85e357ba8ded> | {
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GENUS & SPECIES
African relative of the sparrow, the quelea feeds and breeds in vast colonies over a million strong Descending on cultivated crops to feed, these huge flocks can devastate farmland Although vigorously persecuted as a pest, it has survived everything that people can throw at it
WHERE IN THE WORLD!
There is almost no such thing as a single red-billed quelea. The flock travels, feeds, roosts and breeds together in one of nature’s most remarkable examples of community.
A Birds of a feather… sometimes called the “avian locust,” the quelea flocks over arable land and watering holes.
The quelea ranges in vast flocks over the grasslands and savannahs of sub-Saharan Africa. It’s at home anywhere there are seeds to eat and trees to provide roosts. It can be found over a vast area of the continent. Although these conditions exclude the dense, equatorial forest belt and semidesert, such as found on the Horn of Africa, the quelea is flexible enough to thrive in humid swampland and dry, acacia-dotted savannah.
With large habitat areas being turned over to agriculture, the quelea is being forced to spend more time on arable land.
One tree occupied by breeding queleas had 6,000 nests.
The total population of the red-billed quelea is estimated at one billion.
A feeding quelea’s crop can become so distended, its contents can be identified through the stretched skin.
One quelea flock had more than 80 million birds.
The red-billed quelea breeds in dense colonies. Thousands of pairs rear their young in trees thick with nests. With the onset of the breeding season, the male, in his bright mating plumage, begins building a roughly spherical nest. When half-constructed, he stops work and starts advertising his skills and charms. If a female likes the look of him and his nest, they mate, and he completes the structure.
Both parents feed the brood insects and succulent larvae — a diet that ensures a rich supply of protein and vitamins for the fast-developing young. At 2 weeks old, the young are fledged and ready to leave the nest; two weeks after that they are independent.
Compulsively social, the quelea lives in flocks that can have tens of millions of individuals and darken the sky like a pall of smoke. Wheeling and swirling, the flock-moves together in perfect synchrony like a shoal of fish, billowing across the landscape with a roar of wingbeats. A flock feeding on the ground becomes a sea of tiny, feathered bodies.
Early in the morning, the flock sets out to find food, settling down to feed before it gets too hot. After a midday break in the shade, the birds feed again, and then retreat to roost in trees at dusk. A flock may travel 36 miles or more in a day, moving to new sites several times if food is not plentiful. The quelea does not always live in vast numbers everywhere. Where food is scarce, flocks are much smaller.
One in a million A tightly packed flock is a good defense against hawks and other aerial predators.
A Show house Nest-building is vital to the quelea’s mating display.
Humans have attacked queleas with guns, poisons and even flamethrowers without significant results. However, widespread use of pesticides may be causing real damage.
FOOD & FEEDING
For thousands of years, these seed-eating birds have exploited the wild grasslands in much the same way as herds of grazing mammals. They descend on a verdant area in huge numbers, eat their fill and then move on. Today, much wild grassland has been cultivated for cereal crops, irresistible pickings for a quelea flock.
The quelea’s stout bill is perfect for cracking husks. Worked by strong muscles, its mandible can easily crush tough grass seeds and make light work of softer; cultivated grasses. A visit from a flock of queleas can spell disaster for an African cereal farmer:
A FINE FEAST
Gathering for dinner…
A vast flock of red-billed queleas sweeps across the land. A tasty crop of ripe grain attracts them.
Each of the million or more birds has a hearty appetite. It hops from stem to stem, stripping the seedheads.
Within a few hours, the crop is ravaged and worthless to the farmer. The flock swirls away.
Washing it down
Returning to their roost, the birds stop off for water, some swooping down to collect it on the wing.
One of the quelea’s more colorful relatives is the golden palm weaver (Ploceus bojeri), an elegant, sparrow-sized bird that is common on Kenya’s Indian Ocean coastline. Here it feeds in small parties among the palm trees and shrubs near the shore, flitting through the foliage in search of berries and other fruit. Like the red-billed quelea, and-most other weavers, the male builds an elaborate, suspended nest from woven grasses and attracts a mate, using a spectacular display of plumage.
|4.5-5″ 1 year|
|Breeding Season||Start of tropical rainy season|
|Number of Eggs||2-4|
|Incubation Period||12 days|
|Fledging Period||14 days|
|Breeding Interval||1 year|
|Typical Diet||Seeds and grain|
|Lifespan||About 3 years|
• The red-billed quelea is 1 of 94 species of true weaver bird, and I of 3 in its genus. True weavers, along with other types of weaver, whydahs, snow finches and sparrows, form 143 species in the Ploceidae family, including the village weaver, Ploceus cucullatus (below). | <urn:uuid:9d1b6a6c-e07c-48ec-bf7f-3a32bf24d959> | {
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Scientists have developed a new technology that enables smartwatches to recognise gestures such as taps and flicks as well as identify objects held in the user's hand, making possible new types of interactions with wearable devices.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in the US discovered that a software upgrade that repurposes the smartwatch's existing accelerometer enables the device to detect and distinguish a variety of taps, flicks and scratches by the hands and fingers.
This function makes possible new applications that use common gestures to control the smartwatch and other objects connected through the internet of things, researchers said.
By monitoring vibrations that occur when people hold objects or use tools, the smartwatch also would be capable of recognising objects and activities.
It could even be used to help tune a guitar, with the smartwatch displaying the note transmitted as the guitarist plucks and adjusts each string.
"It's as if you're using your hand as a detection device. The hand is what people use to interact with the world," said Gierad Laput, a PhD student in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII).
The technology, dubbed ViBand, was developed by Laput and Robert Xiao, also PhD student at HCII, along with their adviser Chris Harrison, assistant professor at HCII.
Normally, a smartwatch accelerometer is used to detect when a person lifts an arm so the screen can activate, or sometimes to count footsteps. To do so, the accelerometer only needs to take measurements about 100 times a second.
However, when researchers increased the sampling frequency to 4 kilohertz (kHz), they found it acted like a vibrational microphone.
Rather than detecting sounds transmitted through the air, it couples with the body to detect bio-acoustic signals.
"ViBand is not just a way to control your smartwatch. It enables you to augment your arm. It's a powerful interface that is always available to you," Harrison said.
A ViBand-enabled watch can tell if someone is tapping on the forearm, the palm of the hand or the back of the hand. It can detect finger flicks, scratches and other motions.
It also can sense if a person is holding various mechanical and electrical tools, such as an electric toothbrush, power drill or handsaw. Each body tap, device or activity has distinctive bio-acoustic signals.
To increase the frequency of the accelerometer's sampling rate, the team developed a custom kernel - the core of the smartwatch's operating system. That is the only modification required and can be performed as a software update.
The team developed several demonstration apps for ViBand, including the use of hand gestures in the area around the watch to control apps on the watch.
Similar gestures may be used to control remote devices, such as lights or a TV or other appliances connected via the internet of things.
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Working memory is an important theoretical construct among children, and measures of its capacity predict a range of cognitive skills and abilities. Data from 9- and 11-year-old children illustrate how a chronometric analysis of recall can complement and elaborate recall accuracy in advancing our understanding of working memory. A reading span task was completed by 130 children, 75 of whom were tested on two occasions, with sequence length either increasing or decreasing during test administration. Substantial pauses occur during participants’ recall sequences and they represent consistent performance traits over time, whilst also varying with recall circumstances and task history. Recall pauses help to predict reading and number skills, alongside as well as separate from levels of recall accuracy. The task demands of working memory change as a function of task experience, with a combination of accuracy and response timing in novel task situations being the strongest predictor of cognitive attainment. | <urn:uuid:0a763431-ea45-4a59-8069-cc48c1872b05> | {
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The Angelic Shout
by Henry Morris, Ph.D.
“. . . when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38:7)
The phrase “shouted for joy” in this verse is actually a single word (ruwa) in the Hebrew, and it can carry a number of meanings. It is most frequently translated simply “shout,” as when the army of Joshua surrounding Jericho shouted and the walls fell down (Joshua 6:20). In Psalm 100:1, it is translated “make a joyful noise.” It can refer to a shout of alarm or shout of triumph, as well as a shout of joy, but it always refers to a loud shout. In fact, it comes from a root meaning “to split”—a noise that would split eardrums or shatter glass.
In the context of Job 38, the Lord is reminding Job and his friends of the great primeval event of creation. When the earth—which is destined eventually to house God’s throne in the eternal ages to come—was established on solid foundations (on the third day of creation), a resounding noise like mighty thunder—or, better, a gigantic angelic anthem—echoed throughout the universe. An “innumerable company of angels” (Hebrews 12:22), identified in the poetic structure of the Hebrew parallelism in our text as both “morning stars” and “sons of God,” shouted exultantly and sang in unison when the solid earth appeared.
The angels probably were created on the first day of the creation week, immediately after the creation of the universe itself. Even though Satan and other angels later rebelled against God, most of the angels still obey Him, and one day we ourselves will actually hear them singing His praises and shouting for joy when He returns to Earth (1 Thessalonians 4:16; Revelation 4:9-11; 5:11-14; Psalm 148:1-6).
Therefore, “praise ye him all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts” (Psalm 148:2). Someday, we shall join them in a “joyful noise” at God’s throne. HMM | <urn:uuid:f135d799-7b62-4081-935d-6e556e380265> | {
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Most of these, it will be noticed, have their nearest or their only living representatives in the Atlantic States, and when elsewhere, mainly in Eastern Asia. Several of them, or of species like them, have been detected in our tertiary deposits, west of the Mississippi, by Newberry and Lesquereux. Herbaceous plants, as it happens, are rarely preserved in a fossil state, else they would probably supply additional testimony to the antiquity of our existing vegetation, its wide diffusion over the northern and now frigid zone, and its enforced migration under changes of climate.[V-7] Concluding, then, as we must, that our existing vegetation is a continuation of that of the tertiary period, may we suppose that it absolutely originated then? Evidently not. The preceding Cretaceous period has furnished to Carruthers in Europe a fossil fruit like that of the Sequoia gigantea of the famous groves, associated with pines of the same character as those that accompany the present tree; has furnished to Heer, from Greenland, two more Sequoias, one of them identical with a tertiary species, and one nearly allied to Sequoia Langsdorfii, which in turn is a probable ancestor of the common California redwood; has furnished to Newberry and Lesquereux in North America the remains of another ancient Sequoia, a Glyptostrobus, a Liquidambar which well represents our sweet-gum-tree, oaks analogous to living ones, leaves of a plane-tree, which are also in the Tertiary, and are scarcely distinguishable from our own Platanus occidentalis, of a magnolia and a tulip-tree, and “of a sassafras undistinguishable from our living species.” I need not continue the enumeration. Suffice it to say that the facts justify the conclusion which Lesquereux—a scrupulous investigator—has already announced: that “the essential types of our actual flora are marked in the Cretaceous period, and have come to us after passing, without notable changes, through the Tertiary formations of our continent.”
According to these views, as regards plants at least, the adaptation to successive times and changed conditions has been maintained, not by absolute renewals, but by gradual modifications. I, for one, cannot doubt that the present existing species are the lineal successors of those that garnished the earth in the old time before them, and that they were as well adapted to their surroundings then, as those which flourish and bloom around us are to their conditions now. Order and exquisite adaptation did not wait for man’s coming, nor were they ever stereotyped. Organic Nature—by which I mean the system and totality of living things, and their adaptation to each other and to the world—with all its apparent and indeed real stability, should be likened, not to the ocean, which varies only by tidal oscillations from a fixed level to which it is always returning, but rather to a river, so vast that we can neither discern its shores nor reach its sources, whose onward flow is not less actual because too slow to be observed by the ephemerae which hover over its surface, or are borne upon its bosom. | <urn:uuid:7040ba17-b46c-4439-a0b7-7992b9993c5a> | {
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The sun is a yellow dwarf located at the center of our galaxy-it puts the "solar" in Solar System! It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields. Without the sun, life on Earth would cease to exist. In fact, if the sun didn't exist, our planet itself might never have formed in the first place!
However, the Earth is just one of eight planets that orbits the sun, just one of eight planetary bodies that depend on the sun for their very existence. Each of these planets is incredibly different. For example, Mercury, the closest planet to the sun, only takes 87.969 Earth days to orbit the sun, while Neptune, the furthest planet from the sun, takes 164.79 years! In the articles and activities in this section, you can learn about everything from Jupiter's many moons to Saturn's rings.
Of course, the planets aren't the only things you can find in our solar system! Maybe you've heard of the asteroid belt between the planets Mars and Jupiter, or maybe you want to know why Pluto isn't a planet anymore. Maybe you want to learn about something a little closer to home, like why the moon has phases, or what would happen if Earth had another moon. In this section, you can learn these things and more!
Do you think our solar system is unusual compared to others? Well, this depends on masses of planets, age, location, and more...
Come join Discovery Science Center for their Spooky Science events going all weekends this October until October 31st! Learn ...
Have you seen the cool apps on your Ipad or on your phone? Well, now you can create your own app by going through this tutorial! | <urn:uuid:b14df5ec-28fb-4d28-bcc4-8b5c5fb33a72> | {
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Implementing the envisionment-building process in the classroom
requires teachers to develop "new bones" or ways of planning
for and interacting with students to draw out their understanding,
ways to connect students to each other, and ways to guide students
back to the text, or to question their own readings. By reshaping
their approach to literature instruction, as well as rethinking
how classroom meetings are utilized, teachers can create a true
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students' responses and questions are the focal points for learning,
discussion, and exploration. By fostering the growth of a literary
community, teachers serve as expert readers and facilitators,
moving the process along with layers of questioning, while at
the same time connecting students' ideas, as well as challenging
them. Equally important in the process is the ability for students
to recognize that their input is invaluable and that their unique
perspectives are not only welcome, but also critical in moving
the class thinking and learning along.
Envisionment-building classrooms invite students to share their
multiple perspectives, stressing that diversity is a strength.
Students are engaged in discussions where multiple vantage points
are explored for the sake of building a rich understanding for
each student. This learning environment creates the expectation
that students are to challenge one another, as well as challenge
their own ideas.
While not all envisionment-building classrooms have to look
and feel the same, they are guided by some basic principles
(from Judith Langer's Envisioning Literature):
Principles of Practice:
The teacher's role in an envisionment-building classroom is
- Students are treated as life-long envisionment builders.
- Questions are treated as part of the literary experience.
- Class meetings are a time to develop understandings.
- Multiple perspectives are used to enrich interpretation.
For a complete guide to the workshop session activities, download
and print our support materials.
- Serve as an expert reader, guide, resource and facilitator,
bringing about complex discussion and questioning and lending
the expertise of an experienced reader.
- Provoke students to think, write, and talk about their
ideas, their responses, questions, and their understandings
of the text itself, and to listen to others' ideas and leave
room for exploring other possibilities.
- Validate as well as challenge students' responses and
- Pose complex questions to lead readers towards their own
understanding of the text.
- Introduce texts that are accessible for students and in
a way that speaks to their interests and life experiences.
- Assist students in making real-world connections between
the literature and their own lives.
- Create a classroom community where questions and responses
from all students are valued as part of the learning process.
- Encourage and facilitate participation from all community
- Approach discussion without being married to previous
understandings of the text.
- Provide a variety of multi-text readings, which allows
students to compare and contrast literature experiences
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1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Building
BUILDING The art of building comprises the practice of civil architecture, or the mechanical operations necessary to Relation of building to architecture. carry the designs of the architect into effect. It is not infrequently called "practical architecture," but the adoption of this form would lead only to confusion, by rendering it difficult to make the distinction generally understood between architecture (q.v.) as a fine or liberal art, and architecture as a mechanical art. The execution of works of architecture necessarily includes building, but building is frequently employed when the result is not architectural; a man may be a competent builder without being an architect, but no one can be an accomplished architect unless he be competent to specify and direct all the operations of building. An architect should have a scientific knowledge of the various soils he may meet with, such as clay, earth, silt, rock, gravel, chalk, &c., so that when the trial holes are dug out on the site, he can see the nature of the soil, and at once know what kind of a foundation to put to the building, and the depth to which he must go to get a good bottom. He should also have a good knowledge of chemistry, so that he may understand the effects of the various acids, gases, &c., that are contained in the materials he uses, and the objections to their presence. He must be acquainted with the principles of timbering in trenches, and excavations, shoring, brickwork, fireproof construction, stonework, carpentry and joinery, smiths' work, plumbing, heating, ventilation, bells, electric and gas lighting, water-supply, drainage, plastering, tiling to internal walls or pavings and roofs, slating of roofs, glazing, painting and decoration. He should be able to calculate the various strengths and strains to be placed on any portion of the structure, and have a general knowledge of the building trade, enabling him to deal with any difficulty or defects that may arise.
An important feature in the qualification of the architect is that he should be thoroughly conversant with the by-laws of the different towns or districts, as to the requirements for the various classes of buildings, and the special features of portions of the different buildings. The following are examples of the various buildings which he may have to design, and the erection of which he may have to superintend:—dwelling-houses, domestic buildings, shops, dwellings for the working class, public buildings such as churches, schools, hospitals, libraries and hotels, factories of all kinds for all general trades, studios, electric power stations, cold storage buildings, stables and slaughterhouses. With regard to factories, places for the storage or making of different patent foods, and for slaughter of beasts intended for human consumption, stringent by-laws are in most countries laid down and enforced by the public health authorities. In England, the Public Health Acts and By-laws are carried out by the various borough or district authorities, who appoint inspectors especially to study the health of the public with regard to sanitary arrangements. The inspectors have special powers to deal with all improper or defective food, or with any defects in buildings that may affect its cleanly preparation.
In addition to meeting the requirements of the clients, the various buildings have to be constructed and planned on clearly Reasons for special type of plans. defined lines, according to the rules of the various authorities that control their erection; thus the construction and planning of public schools are governed in England by the board of education, and churches are governed by the various societies that assist in financing the erection of these edifices; of these the Incorporated Church Building Society exercises the strongest control. Factories both in England and France must be planned and erected to meet the separate acts that deal with these buildings. The fire insurance companies lay down certain requirements according to the size of the building, and the special trade for which it is erected, and fix their rate of premium accordingly. Dwelling-houses in London must be erected in accordance with the many building acts which govern the materials to be used, and the methods by which they shall be employed, the thickness of walls, rates of inclination of roofs, means of escape from fire, drainage, space at rear, &c. &c.; these laws especially forbid the use of timber framed buildings. In sundry districts in England where the model by-laws are not in force, notably at Letchworth, Herts, it is possible to erect buildings with sound materials untrammelled by by-laws. With regard to premises used in a combined way, as shop and dwelling-house, if in London, and the building exceeds 10 squares, or 1000 sq. ft. super in area, the stairs and a large portion of the building must be built of fire-resisting materials. In the erection of London flats under certain conditions the stairs and corridors must be of fire-resisting materials, while in parts of New York timber buildings are allowed; for illustrations of these see the article Carpentry. In public buildings and theatres in London, Paris and New York not only the construction, but also the exits and seating accommodation and stage, including the scenery dock and flies, must conform to certain regulations.
The conditions necessary for planning a successful building may be summarized as follows:—(1) Ease of access; (2) Good Conditions necessary for a successful building. light (3) Good service; (4) Pleasing environment and approaches; (5) Minimum cost with true economy; in the case of office buildings, also ease of rearrangement to suit tenants. An architect should also be practically acquainted with all the modes of operation in all the trades or arts employed in building, and be able minutely to estimate beforehand the absolute cost involved in the execution of a proposed structure. The power to do this necessarily involves that of measuring work (usually done by the quantity surveyor at an advanced stage of the work), and of ascertaining the quantities to be done. In ordinary practice the architect usually cubes a building at a price per foot cube, as will be described hereafter, but an architect should know how to measure and prepare quantities, or he cannot be said to be master of his profession.
Building includes what is called construction, which is the branch of the science of architecture relating to the practical Construction. execution of the works required to produce any structure; it will therefore be necessary to explain the subject in a general manner before entering upon building in detail.
Although the styles of architecture have varied at different periods, buildings, wherever similar materials are employed, must be constructed on much the same principles. Scientific knowledge of the natures and properties of materials has, however, given to the modern workman immense advantages over his medieval brother-craftsman, and caused many changes in the details of the trade, or art of building, although stones, bricks, mortar, &c., then as now, formed the element of the more solid parts of all edifices.
The object of constructions is to adapt, combine and fit materials in such a manner that they shall retain in use the General principles. forms and dispositions assigned to them. If an upright wall be properly constructed upon a sufficient foundation, the combined mass will retain its position and bear pressure acting in the direction of gravity to any extent that the ground on which it stands, and the compound materials of the wall, can sustain. But pressure acting laterally has a necessary tendency to overthrow a wall, and therefore it will be the aim of the constructor to compel, as far as possible, all forces that can act upon an upright wall, to act in the direction of gravity, or else to give it permanent means of resistance in the direction opposite to that in which a disturbing force may act. Thus when an arch is built to bear against an upright wall, a buttress or other counterfort is applied in a direction opposed to the pressure of the arch. In like manner the inclined roof of a building spanning from wall to wall tends to thrust out the walls, and hence a tie is applied to hold the opposite sides of the roof together at its base, where alone a tie can be fully efficient, and thus the roof is made to act upon the walls wholly in the direction of gravity; or where an efficient tie is inapplicable, as in the case of a hammer beam roof, buttresses or counterforts are added to the walls, to enable them to resist the pressure outwards. A beam laid horizontally from wall to wall, as a girder to carry a floor and its load, may sag or bend downwards, and tend thereby to force out the walls, or the beam itself may break. Both these contingencies are obviated by trussing, which renders the beam stiff enough to place its load on the walls in the direction of gravity, and strong enough to carry it safely. Or if the beam be rigid in its nature, or uncertain in its structure, or both (as cast-iron is), and will break without bending, the constructor by the smiths' art will supply a check and ensure it against the possible contingency.
Perfect stability, however, is not to be obtained with materials which are subject to influences beyond the control of man, and all matter is subject to certain influences of that nature. The Materials. influences mostly to be contended against are heat and humidity, the former of which produces movement of some kind or to some extent in all bodies, the latter, in many kinds of matter; whilst the two acting together contribute to the disintegration or decay of materials available for the purposes of construction. These pervading influences the constructor seeks to counteract, by proper selection and disposition of his materials.
Stone and brick, the principal materials in general construction, keep their places in combination by means of gravity. They may Stone. be merely packed together, but in general they are compacted by means of mortar or cement, so that although the main constituent materials are wholly incompressible, masses of either, or of both, combined in structures are compressible, until the setting medium has indurated to a like condition of hardness. That kind of stone is best fitted for the purposes of general construction which is least absorbent of moisture, and at the same time free to work. Absorbent stone exposed to the weather rapidly disintegrates, and for the most part non-absorbent stone is so hard that it cannot always be used with a due regard to economy. When, therefore, suitable stone of both qualities can be obtained, the harder stone can be exposed to the weather, or to the action which the softer stone cannot resist, and made to form the main body of the structure of the latter so protected. The hard and the soft should be made to bear alike, and should therefore be coursed and bonded together by the mason's art, whether the work be of stone wrought into blocks and gauged to thickness, or of rough dressed or otherwise unshaped rubble compacted with mortar.
Good bricks are less absorbent of moisture than any stone of the same degree of hardness, and are better non-conductors Bricks. of heat than stone. As the basis of a stable structure, brickwork is more to be relied upon than stone in the form of rubble, when the constituents bear the relation to one another last above referred to, the setting material being the same in both; because the brick by its shaped form seats itself truly, and produces by bonding a more perfectly combined mass, whilst the imperfectly shaped and variously sized stone as dressed rubble can neither bed nor bond truly, the inequalities of the form having to be compensated for with mortar, and the irregularity of size of the main constituent accounted for by the introduction of larger and smaller stones. The most perfect stability is to be obtained, nevertheless, from truly wrought and accurately seated and bonded blocks of stone, mortar being used to no greater extent than may be necessary to exclude wind and water and prevent the disintegrating action of these agents upon even the most durable stone. When water alone is to be dealt with, and especially when it is liable to act with force, mortar is necessary for securing to every block in the structure its own full weight, and the aid of every other collateral and superimposed stone, in order to resist the loosening effect which water in powerful action is bound to produce.
In the application of construction to any particular object, the nature of the object will naturally affect the character of Particular objects of construction. the constructions and the materials of which they are to be formed. Every piece of construction should be complete in itself, and independent as such of everything beyond it. A door or a gate serves its purpose by an application wholly foreign to itself, but it is a good and effective, or a bad and ineffective, piece of construction, independently of the posts to which it may be hung, whilst the wheel of a wheelbarrow, comprising felloes, spokes and axletree, is a piece of construction complete in itself, and independent as such of everything beyond it. An arch of masonry, however large it may be, is not necessarily a piece of construction complete in itself, for it would fall to pieces without abutments. Thus a bridge consisting of a series of arches, however extensive, may be but one piece of construction, no arch being complete in itself without the collateral arches in the series to serve as its abutments, and the whole series being dependent thereby upon the ultimate abutments of the bridge, without which the structure would not stand. This illustration is not intended to apply to the older bridges with widely distended masses, which render each pier sufficient to abut the arches springing from it, but tend, in providing for a way over the river, to choke up the way by the river itself, or to compel the river either to throw down the structure or else to destroy its own banks.
Some soils are liable to change in form, expanding and contracting under meteorological influences; such are clays which Foundations. swell when wetted and shrink when dried. Concrete foundations are commonly interposed upon such soils to protect the building from derangement from this cause; or walls of the cheaper material, concrete, instead of the more expensive brick or stone structure, are brought up from a level sufficiently below the ordinary surface of the ground. When concrete is used to obviate the tendency of the soil to yield to pressure, expanse or extent of base is required, and the concrete being widely spread should therefore be deep or thick as a layer, only with reference to its own power of transmitting to the ground the weight of the wall to be built upon it, without breaking across or being crushed. But when concrete is used as a substitute for a wall, in carrying a wall down to a low level, it is in fact a wall in itself, wide only in proportion to its comparative weakness in the absence of manipulated bond in its construction, and encased by the soil within which it is placed. When a concrete wall is used in place of brick the London Building Act requires an extra thickness of one-third; on the question of reinforced concrete no regulations as to thickness have at present been made.
The foundation of a building of ordinary weight is for the most part sufficiently provided for by applying what are technically Footings to walls. termed "footings" to the walls. The reason for a footing is, that the wall obtains thereby a bearing upon a breadth of ground so much greater than its own width or thickness above the footing as to compensate for the difference between the power of resisting pressure of the wall, and of the ground or ultimate foundation upon which the wall is to rest. It will be clear from this that if a building is to be erected upon rock as hard as the main constituent of the walls theoretically no expanded footings will be necessary; if upon chalk, upon strong or upon weak gravel, upon sand or upon clay, the footing must be expanded with reference to the power of resistance of the structure to be used as a foundation; whilst in or upon made ground or other loose and badly combined or imperfectly resisting soil, a solid platform bearing evenly over the ground, and wide enough not to sink into it, becomes necessary under the constructed footing. For this purpose the easiest, the most familiar, and for most purposes the most effectual and durable is a layer of concrete.
The English government, when it has legislated upon building matters, has generally confined itself to making provision that the enclosing walls of buildings should be formed of incombustible materials. In provisions regarding the least thicknesses of such walls, these were generally determined with reference to the height and length of the building.
In the general and usual practice of developing land at the present day, the owner or freeholder of the land first consults an Procedure for an intended building. architect and states his intentions of building, the size of what he requires, what it is to be used for, if for trade how many hands he intends to employ, and the sub-buildings and departments, &c., that will be wanted. The architect gathers as much information as he can as to his client's requirements, and from this information prepares his sketches. This first step is usually done with rough sketches or outlines only, and when approved by the client as regards the planning and situation of rooms, &c., the architect prepares the plans, elevations, and sections on the lines of the approved rough sketches; at the same time he strictly observes the building acts, and makes every portion of the building comply with these acts as regards the thickness of walls, open spaces, light and air, distances from surrounding property, frontage lines, and a host of other points too numerous to mention, as far as he can interpret the meaning of the enactments. (The London and New York Building Acts are very extensive, with numerous amendments made as occasion requires.) An architect, whilst preparing the working drawings from the rough approved sketches, and endeavouring to conform with the Building Act requirements, often finds after consultation with the district surveyor, or the London County Council, or other local authorities, that the plans have to be altered; and when so altered the client may disapprove of them, and thus delay often occurs in settling them.
Another important point is that after the architect has obtained the consent of the building authorities, and also the approval of the client, then he may have to fight the adjoining owners with regard to ancient lights, or air space, or party walls. In the city of London these last difficulties often mean the suspension of the work for a long time, and a great loss to the client.
If the site is a large one, or the nature of the soil uncertain, trial holes should be sunk directly the sketch plans are approved. (See FOUNDATIONS.)
Where the property is leasehold there are always at this stage negotiations as to obtaining the approval of the senior lessors and the freeholders; these having been obtained, the architect is then free to serve the various notices that may be required re party walls, &c.
The contract plans should be very carefully prepared, and sections, plans and elevations of all parts of the buildings and the levels from a datum line be given. In addition to the general set of drawings, larger scale details of the principal portions of the building should be given.
If there are any existing buildings on the site these should be carefully surveyed and accurate detail plans be made for reference; this is especially necessary with regard to easements and rights of adjoining owners. Also in the preparation of the site plan the various levels of the ground should be shown.
The plans having been approved by all parties concerned, the next operation is the preparation of the specification. This is a document which describes the materials to be used in the building, states how they are to be mixed, and how the various works are to be executed, and specifies every trade, and every portion of work in the building. The specification is necessary to enable the builder to erect the structure according to the architect's requirements, and is written by the architect; usually two copies of this document are made, one for the builder, the other for the architect, and the latter is signed as the contract copy in the same manner as the drawings.
From the specification and drawings usually an approximate estimate of the cost of the proposed building is prepared by the architect, and the most general method adopted is to cube the building by a multiplication of the length, breadth and height of the building, and to multiply the product or cubic contents by a price ranging from fivepence to three shillings per cubic foot. In the case of churches, chapels and schools, the cost may be roughly computed by taking the number of seats at a price per seat. In the case of churches and chapels, taking a minimum area of 8 ft. each, the cost varies from £10 upwards, the difference being due to the amount of architectural embellishment or the addition of a tower. Schools may be estimated as averaging £9 per scholar; we find that, taking schools of various sizes erected by the late London School Board, their cost varied from £7:12:4 to £10:1:10 per scholar. Hospitals vary from £100 per bed upwards, the lowest cost being taken from a cottage hospital type; while in the case of St Thomas's hospital, London, the cost per bed, including the proportion of the administrative block, was £650, and without this portion the wards alone cost £250. The Herbert hospital at Woolwich cost only £320 per bed.
The bills of quantities are prepared by the quantity surveyor, and are generally made to form part of the contract, and so mentioned in "the contract." The work of the quantity surveyor is to measure from the drawings the whole of the materials required for the structure, and state the amounts or quantities of the respective materials in the form of a bill usually made out on foolscap paper specially ruled, so that the builders can price each item, together with the labour required to work and fix it, thus forming the building. The idea is to be able to arrive at a lump sum for which the builders will undertake to erect the building. It is of frequent occurrence, in fact it occurs in four-fifths of building contracts, that when a building is commenced, the client, or other interested person, will alter some portion, thereby causing deviations from the bills of quantities. By having the prices of the different materials before him, it is easy for the quantity surveyor to remeasure the portion altered, adding or deducting as the case may be, and thus to ascertain what difference the alteration makes. This method of bills of quantities and prices is absolutely necessary to any one about to build, and means a considerable saving to the client in the end. For example:—Suppose that bills of quantities are not prepared for a certain job by a quantity surveyor, and, as is often done, the drawings and specification are sent to several builders asking them for a quotation to build the house or factory or whatever it may be, according to the drawings and specification. The prices are duly sent in to the architect, and probably the lowest price is accepted and the successful builder starts the job. During the progress of the works certain alterations take place by the owner's instructions, and when the day of settlement comes, the builder puts in his claim for "extras," then owing to the alterations and to the architect having no prices to work upon, litigation often ensues.
Before the work of erecting a structure is entrusted to a builder he has to sign a contract in the same manner as the drawings and specification. This contract is an important document wherein the builder agrees to carry out the work for a stated sum of money, in accordance with the drawings and specification, and bills of quantities, and instructions of the architect, and to his entire satisfaction; and it also states the description of the materials and workmanship, and the manner of carrying out the work, responsibilities of the builder, particularly clauses indemnifying the employer against accidents to employees, and against numerous other risks, the time of completion of works under a penalty for non-completion (the usual allowance being made for bad weather, fire or strikes), and also how payments will be made to the builder as he proceeds with the building. This form of contract is generally prepared by the architect, and varies in part as may be necessary to meet the requirements of the case.
When the drawings have been approved by the owner or client, also by the district surveyor or local authorities, and by adjoining owners, one copy of them, made on linen, is usually deposited (in London) either with the district surveyor, or with the London County Council, another is prepared for the freeholder if a lease of the land is granted, and a third is given to the builder. In addition, in complicated cases such as occur in the city of London, when a building is erected on land which has four or five distinct owners, an architect may have to prepare a large number of complete copies to be deposited with the various parties interested.
The duties of the builder are very similar to those of the architect, except that he is not expected to be able to plan The builder's sphere. and design, but to carry out the plans and designs of the architect in the actual work of building. The builder should also know the various acts, and in particular the acts specially relating to the erection of scaffoldings, hoardings, gantries, shoring and pulling down of old buildings. He should have a thorough knowledge of all materials, their qualifying marks or brands, and the special features of good and bad in each class, their uses and method of use. He should be able to control and manage both the men and materials; and briefly, in a builder, as opposed to an architect, the constructive knowledge should predominate.
On large or important works it is usual to have a clerk of works or delegate from the architect; his duties are to be on the works while they are in progress and endeavour by constant attention to secure the use of the best materials and construction, and to report to the architect for his instruction any difficulties that may arise. He should be a thoroughly practical man as opposed to the architectural draughtsman. His salary is paid by the client, and is not included in the architect's remuneration.
American building acts agree in a general manner with those enforced in London. But whereas New York allows the erection American practice. of frame or wood structures, while defining a certain portion of the city inside which no new frame or wood structures shall be erected, in London and the large cities of Great Britain the erection of wood frame buildings as dwellings is prohibited. In New York City provision is made for a space at the rear of domestic buildings at least 10 ft. deep, but such depth is increased when the building is over 60 ft. high, and is varied under special circumstances. In London this depth is the same, but the height of the building in relation to the space required in the rear thereof shall be constructed to keep within an angle of 63½ degrees, inclining from the rear boundary towards the building from the level of pavement in front of building; the position from which the angle is taken is varied under special circumstances. In the smaller English towns the building regulations are framed on the model by-laws, and these increase the depth of the yard or garden according to the height of the building.
With regard to the strength and proportion of materials, these are not dealt with in the London Building Act to the same extent as in the New York; for example, in the New York acts (parts 4 and 5) it is prescribed that the bricks used shall be good, hard, well-burned bricks. The sand used for mortar shall be clean, sharp, grit sand, free from loam or dirt, and shall not be finer than the standard samples kept in the office of the department of buildings; also the quality of lime and mortar is fully described, and the strengths of steel and cast-iron, and tests of new materials. Also it is required that all excavations for buildings shall be properly guarded and protected so as to prevent them from becoming dangerous to life or limb, and shall be sheath-piled where necessary by the person or persons causing the excavations to be made, to prevent the adjoining earth from caving in. Plans filed in the department of buildings shall be accompanied by a statement of the character of the soil at the level of the footings. There are also requirements as to protecting adjoining property. The bearing capacity of soils, pressure under footings of foundations, and in part 6 the materials of walls and the methods to be observed in building them are defined. Part 23 deals with floor loads, and the strength of floors constructed of various materials, and requires that the temporary support shall be strong enough to carry the load placed upon them during the progress of any works to buildings. Part 24 deals with the calculations and strength of materials, and wind pressure. Parts 4 and 5 of the New York Building Code are not dealt with by the London Building Act, but the local by-laws of the various districts deal with these. Part 6 of the New York code is dealt with partly by the London Building Act, and partly by the local by-laws. Parts 23 and 24 of the New York code are not dealt with in the English acts at all. In America the standard quality for all materials is set out, but in no English acts do we find the definition of the quality of timber, new materials, steel, &c. Iron and steel construction is in its infancy in England as compared with America, and probably this accounts for no special regulations being in force; but part 22 of the New York Building Code, section 110 to 129 inclusive, deals very fully with iron and steel construction, and this is further supplemented by sections 137 to 140 inclusive.
Sanitary work is dealt with in London by section 39 of the Public Health (London) Act, and the drainage by-laws of the London County Council, in which every detail is very fully gone into with regard to the laying of drains, and fitting up of soil pipes, w.c.'s, &c., all of which is to be carried out and tested to the satisfaction of the local borough's sanitary inspector. The general requirements of New York with regard to sanitary work are very similar with a few more restrictions, and are carried out under "the rules and regulations for plumbing, drainage, water-supply, and ventilation of buildings." The noticeable feature of the New York regulations is that all master plumbers have to be registered, which is not so in England. The New York regulations have 183 sections relating to sanitary work, and the English regulations have 96 sections. Also by part 16 of the Amendments to Plumbing Rules 1903, the New York laws require that, before any construction of, or alterations to, any gas piping or fittings are commenced, permits must be obtained from the superintendent of buildings; these are only issued to a registered plumber. The application must be accompanied by plans of the different floors showing each outlet, and the number of burners to each outlet; a statement must also be made of the quality of the pipes and fittings, all of which are to be tested by the inspector. In London there are no such laws; the gas companies control a small portion of the work as regards the connexion to meters, while the insurance companies require gas jets to be covered with a wire guard where liable to come in contact with inflammable goods. As to water, the various water companies in England have each their own set of regulations as to the kind of fittings and thickness and quality of pipe to be used, whether for service, wastes or main.
The importance of fire-resisting construction is being more fully recognized now by all countries. In France the regulations Fire-resisting construction. for factories, shops and workshops relating to "exits" require that all doors should open outwardly when they open on to courts, vestibules, staircases or interior passages. When they give access to the open air, outward opening is not obligatory unless it has been judged necessary in the interests of safety. If the doors open on to a passage or staircase they must be fixed in such a manner as not to project into the passage or staircase when open. The exits must be numerous, and signs indicating the quickest way out are to be placed in conspicuous positions. The windows are to open outwardly. Staircases in offices or other buildings serving as places for work shall be constructed in incombustible materials, or shall be walled in fully in plaster. The number of staircases shall be in proportion to the number of employees, &c. It is prohibited to use any liquid emitting vapours inflammable under 35° C. for the purpose of lighting or heating, unless the apparatus containing the liquid is solidly closed during work, that part of the apparatus containing the liquid being so closed as to avoid any oozing out of the liquid, &c. &c. Instructions are added as to precautions to be taken in case of fire.
In London fire-resisting construction is dealt with in the London Building Act, and its second schedule, and in London County Council Theatre and Factory Acts, &c. In New York the building code (parts 19, 20 and 21) deals with fire appliances, escapes, and fire-proof shutters and doors, fire-proof buildings and fire-proof floors, and requires that all tenement houses shall have an iron ladder for escape. A section somewhat similar to the last came into force in London in 1907 under the London Building Act, being framed with a view to require all existing projecting one-storey shops to have a fire-resisting roof, and all existing buildings over 50 ft. in height to have means of escape to and from the roof in case of fire.
There are several patents now in use with which it would be possible to erect a fire-proof dwelling at small cost with walls 3 to 5 in. in thickness. One of these has been used where the building act does not apply, as in the case of the Newgate prison cells, London, where the outside walls were from 3 to 4 in. thick only, and were absolutely fire and burglar proof. This method consists in using steel dovetailed sheets fixed between small steel stanchions and plastered in cement on both sides. This form of construction was also used at the British pavilion, Paris Exhibition 1900, and has been employed in numerous other buildings in England, and also in South Africa, Venezuela, and India (Delhi durbar). The use of many of these convenient and sound forms of building construction for ordinary buildings in London, and in districts of England where the model by-laws are in force, is prohibited because they do not comply with some one or other of the various clauses relating to materials, or to the thickness of a wall.
The various details of construction are described and illustrated under separate headings. See Brickwork, Carpentry, Foundations, Glazing, Joinery, Masonry, Painter-work, Plastering, Roofs, Scaffold, Shoring, Staircase, Steel Construction, Stone, Timber, Wall-coverings, &c.
The principal publications for reference in connexion with this subject are: The Building and Health Laws of the City of New York, Brooklyn Eagle Library, No. 85; Rules and Regulations affecting Building Operations in the administrative County of London, compiled by Ellis Marsland; Annotated By-Laws as to House Drainage, &c., by Jensen; Metropolitan Sanitation, by Herbert Daw.
- The verb "to build" (O.E. byldan) is apparently connected with O.E. bold, a dwelling, of Scandinavian origin; cf. Danish bol, a farm, Icelandic ból, farm, abode. Skeat traces it eventually to Sanskrit bhu, to be, build meaning "to construct a place in which to be or dwell."
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Threats to Water Availability in Canada
- Publishing Information
- Environment Canada Steering Committee, Production Team, Editors, Authors, External Reviewers
- Threats to Water Availability in Canada - A Perspective
- Short Chapter Summaries
- 1. Water Allocations, Diversion and Export
- 2. Dams, Reservoirs and Flow Regulation
- 3. Droughts
- 4. Floods
- 5. Municipal Water Supply and Urban Development
- 6. Manufacturing and Thermal Energy Demands
- 7. Land Use Practices and Changes - Agriculture
- 8. Land-Use Practices and Changes - Forestry
- 9. Land-Use Practices and Changes - Mining and Petroleum Production
- 10. Climate Variability and Change - Groundwater Resources
- 11. Climate Variability and Change - Rivers and Streams
- 12. Climate Variability and Change - Lakes and Reservoirs
- 13. Climate Variability and Change - Wetlands
- 14. Climate Variability and Change - Crysophere
- 15. Integrated and Cumulative Threats to Water Availability
Threats to Water Availability in Canada - A Perspective
DONMEC Consulting Inc., Lower Sackville, NS
Freshwater is a Limited Resource
With 7% of the earth's land surface, Canada possesses just about 7% of the world's renewable freshwater.
Freshwater is a natural resource, vital to the survival of all living things. In modern societies, it is essential to the functioning of a broad range of economic activities and sectors. Freshwater is a limited resource, however. Although Canada is commonly perceived as particularly fortunate in its plentiful freshwater resources, and Canadian people and industries are among the world’s highest per capita users of water, our apparent abundance of freshwater is relative rather than absolute. Our nation’s modest population in relation to its immense land area and correspondingly large water resource has much to do with the common perception of unlimited freshwater availability.
A Southern Population - A Northern Supply
Second only to Americans in their demands, Canadians use about 1650 cubic metres of freshwater per capita each year.more than double the average European rate.
In fact, many of country’s major river systems flow northwards, away from the regions of highest population density, and the increasing concentration of population in urban areas in the south has resulted in a growing mismatch between sources of freshwater and areas of highest demand. The present assessment of threats to freshwater availability in Canada should be seen, therefore, against the backdrop of a limited national resource, not always located in the right place and increasingly under stress from human and other influences.
Water - More Valuable than Gold?
Caledon, Ontario (pop. 40,000) relies on groundwater as its source of drinking water. The replacement cost of Caledon's drinking water service has been calculated at $33 million annually.
There can be no question that Canada’s freshwater supply is an immensely valuable national resource. Recent estimates of water’s measurable contribution to the Canadian economy range from $7.5 to $23 billion annually, values comparable to the gross figures for agricultural production and other major economic components. At municipal and sectoral levels, economic valuation is a more readily understandable and meaningful indicator, as illustrated in the case of the Town of Caledon, Ontario.
The accessible natural sources of freshwater include rivers, lakes, ponds and reservoirs, groundwater aquifers, snowpacks, glaciers, ice fields and, at the most fundamental level, the liquid and solid precipitation that feeds and replenishes all other sources. In Canada, as in other countries, all freshwater sources are now under noticeable pressure in the face of growing domestic requirements, and other, sometimes conflicting, demands. The needs of municipalities, agriculture and industry, for example, must increasingly be balanced against the necessity of maintaining adequate streamflows in rivers to support important aquatic ecosystems and fish populations. Climatic variability, extreme climatic events, and the spectre of climate change also threaten Canada’s sources of freshwater. At the same time, Canadians implicitly assume that governments will protect and sustain their sources of freshwater supply in the face of both population-related demands and natural and human-induced changes in important components of the supply system.
The present report examines individual and collective threats posed to freshwater availability. Based on contributions of participants at a workshop held in Victoria, British Columbia, in September 2002, it synthesizes the collective knowledge, expertise and input of about 100 academic, private sector and government experts in water science and water management. It presents a science-based assessment of the individual and cumulative implications of these stresses, and offers suggestions regarding the role science and policy might play in mitigating their impacts. It draws attention to the need for a more systematic and continuing implementation of established policies and strategies aimed at protection and conservation of water resources. Equally, it emphasizes the need for reinforced and expanded monitoring programs to observe and assess patterns and trends in water demand and use, and relevant environmental and ecosystem parameters. Finally, it examines the cumulative implications of the various pressures and stresses on Canadian freshwater resources and proposes an approach to addressing these threats in a more systematic and integrated manner.
Our current state of scientific knowledge on the hydrologic cycle receives considerable attention in the document, with particular emphasis paid to impacts of human activities, climate variability, and climate change. The worrisome implications of climate change for future access to freshwater in many regions are highlighted, as are the significant changes in important components of the hydrologic cycle that may result from a changing climate. These include changes in precipitation amount, type, geographic and seasonal distribution; in evaporation and evapotranspiration patterns; and in timing and rate of snowmelt. Assessment of the current and foreseeable capacity of climate science to produce useful predictions of future climatic conditions and of the related components of the hydrologic cycle is an important element of the present analysis. A companion publication1 released earlier addressed threats to sources of drinking water and to the health of aquatic ecosystems in Canada. The threats discussed there are inextricably linked to the threats facing freshwater availability, and, in reviewing this document, it is important to keep in mind that these have direct implications for drinking water supplies and ecosystem health.
Commencing with a brief overview of the history of water management and use in Canada, Chapter 1 of the report discusses a broad range of related topics under the heading "Water Allocation, Diversion and Export." These include international and interprovincial apportionment (i.e., the quantitative division of streamflows among jurisdictions), magnitude, impacts and implications of interbasin diversions, the relatively new emphasis on protection of “instream” values, the controversial debate on water exports, and the potential influence of evolving aboriginal rights.
Chapter 2 proceeds to examine dams, reservoirs and flow regulation from the perspective of the threats they may pose to the overall availability of freshwater. The impacts of dams and other impoundments on water quality, chemistry and thermal structure, river ice regimes, sediment load and deposition, and the integrity of aquatic systems are described. Among emerging issues, concerns are identified surrounding dam safety and decommissioning, as is the need to reassess these aspects in light of climate change and its future impacts on hydrologic regimes. Attention is also drawn to the contrasting perceptions of dams as sources of “clean” hydropower and as possibly significant sources of greenhouse gases.
A Changing Climate May Imply More Water Shortages
Historically most frequent in the southern Prairies, droughts are now a focus of scientific concern that climate change may increase their frequency, duration and severity in all regions of the country. Their causes and impacts, and their present and future implications for freshwater availability are addressed in Chapter 3. The current status of and future requirements for drought monitoring, modelling, and prediction are also discussed, as is the potential of drought adaptation strategies.
A Changing Climate Will Change Flood Patterns
At the other end of the hydrologic spectrum, floods and flooding cause major human disruption and exert both positive and negative influences on natural systems. Floods impose direct and indirect pressures on the availability of freshwater by damaging infrastructure, contaminating water supplies, and changing patterns of groundwater recharge. Spring floods, fed by melting snow, are a notable feature of most Canadian rivers and streams. A warming climate may significantly change their timing and magnitude, particularly in southern regions of the country, directly affecting the seasonal and annual cycles of streamflow and freshwater availability. Chapter 4 of the report examines these and related issues, highlighting needs to reassess estimates of Probable Maximum Flood, to update flood risk zoning maps and other planning approaches, and to apply such tools more consistently in land-use planning.
Urban Supplies Are Already Under Stress
Urban and residential requirements exert a primary demand on freshwater resources, and urbanization is proceeding at an accelerating pace in Canada. Urban expansion directly affects water availability for other sectors through its impacts on storage and runoff patterns and on water quality. Municipal uses now represent 11% of Canada's total freshwater consumption, with residential requirements contributing about half of that figure. During the 1994 to 1999 period, roughly 26% of Canadian municipalities reported water shortages as a result of increased consumption, drought or infrastructure problems. Notably, municipalities reliant on groundwater reported the most frequent supply difficulties.Chapter 5 examines the growing stresses placed on water supplies by urban and rural development. It also draws attention to various strategies used to mitigate these pressures, including demand management and increasing emphasis on reuse and utilization of lower quality water sources.
The thermal power generation and manufacturing sectors are Canada's largest and second largest users of water, and the very large demands these activities place on the nation’s available supply are reviewed in Chapter 6. Factors affecting their future requirements for water are also addressed, emerging issues identified, and related policy, program and research needs highlighted. Among the emerging issues identified are the growing requirements of high-technology “new economy” industries for substantial amounts of high-quality water, possibly from already stressed municipal sources.
Agricultural Water Consumption Tops the Scale
Agriculture is Canada’s largest net consumer of water, using about 70% of the water it withdraws from rivers, streams, reservoirs, and wells. Consequently, this vital sector exerts major pressures on the available water supply, particularly in the Prairie Provinces where 75% of all agricultural withdrawals occur. Chapter 7 examines trends in agricultural water usage and issues arising from agricultural water demands. It draws attention to the fact that about 85% of agricultural water use is for irrigation2 and that climate change is projected to increase this demand. It also points out that improved techniques such as irrigation scheduling and drip irrigation can yield substantial savings in water usage, and urban wastewater also has potential for irrigation of some crops.
Disappearing Glaciers - Reduced Streamflows?
Rocky Mountain glaciers that supply up to 10% of the base flow used for irrigation in western Canada may shrink dramatically during the next century!
Meltwater from Rocky Mountain glaciers is identified as an important contributor to baseflow in many western rivers and streams; consequently, predictions that these glaciers will disappear during the next century raise serious concern from the perspective of agricultural and other demands for water.
Forests are important...
Canada possesses about 418 million hectares of forestland, about 10% of the world’s total, and the forest sector is a major contributor to the national economy. Forests play a vital role in the hydrologic cycle, influencing patterns of evapotranspiration, runoff and soil moisture. Disturbances caused by forestry operations and fires, however, exert significant impacts on streamflow, water quality, sediment discharge, and groundwater recharge. Chapter 8 examines forests and forest practices in relation to the contributions they make and the threats they pose to the nation’s water resources. The impacts on the hydrologic cycle of forest fires, insect infestations, and practices such as clear-cutting are reviewed. In addition, the important role played by forests in the global carbon cycle is discussed.
Is Oil More Valuable than Water?
The oil and gas industry in Alberta has the rights to 25% of the province's groundwater supply for use in the recovery of oil from wells.
The Canadian mining and petroleum industries are among the world leaders in resource extraction. While mining places limited and location-specific demands on water supplies, the sector becomes a high-demand user of freshwater when associated refining, smelting and manufacturing operations are considered. Furthermore, the release of substandard water from abandoned mines is a significant threat to freshwater availability in some areas of the country. The petroleum sector, for its part, has large and growing requirements for freshwater. High-demand applications include extraction of oil from tar sands and injection of water into deep formations to enhance hydrocarbon production. The large amounts of wastewater from oilsands production are of poor quality and must be held in containment for long periods, while the injection technique results in permanent loss of water to other uses. Chapter 9 discusses uses of water by the mining and petroleum sectors, impacts of droughts, floods and climate change on their operations, and challenges faced by the industry in responding to increasing demands for resources in the face of more stringent environmental regulations and climatic variations and extremes.
Groundwater is a Hidden and Uncertain Resource
About 30% of Canadians rely on groundwater.municipal water shortages are most frequently reported by communities supplied from groundwater sources.
Groundwater is, as noted earlier, a vital component of Canada’s freshwater resource, supplying a substantial fraction of municipal, agricultural and other requirements for water. As outlined in Chapter 10, our knowledge of the groundwater regime is considerably more limited than is the case for surface water3 ; moreover, management of groundwater is often the responsibility of different agencies than those accountable for other water resource components. Consequently, there are both deficiencies in knowledge and institutional issues to be addressed in developing policies and strategies for management of groundwater.
Chapter 11 examines potential impacts of climate variability and climate change on water availability in rivers and streams. It reinforces the fundamental importance of systematic, long-term monitoring of hydrometeorological parameters in representative large and small watersheds in all regions of the country. Concluding sections stress the need for enhanced priority, sharpened focus, clearer leadership, and increased resources in addressing the potentially dramatic impacts of climate change on water availability in streams and rivers.
Canada - a Land of Lakes
Roughly 14% of the world's lakes larger than 500 km2 are located in Canada.
Canada’s more than a million lakes cover about 7.6% of its land area and there are, in addition, over 900 major reservoirs. Lakes and reservoirs are vitally important sources of freshwater for municipalities, agriculture, industry, recreation and other activities, as well as being important ecosystems in their own right. Chapter 12 discusses impacts of climate change and increased consumptive use by humans on lakes and reservoirs. The authors identify and comment on the probable responses of these water bodies to climate variability and climate change, pointing out that there are variations in the sensitivity of individual lakes. They stress that climate scenarios derived from the present generation of climate models give grounds for concern that reductions in lake and reservoir levels may occur in the foreseeable future. Such reductions could result from changes in timing and rate of melt of snowpacks and glaciers, changes in precipitation patterns, and increases in evaporation associated with a warmer climate.
Canada's Peatlands May Be a Climate Time Bomb!
Canada's peatlands contain about 150 billion tonnes of carbon, about 25 times the amount of fossil fuel carbon released to the atmosphere worldwide each year.
Poorly understood by the public at large, wetlands are vital components of the hydrologic regime, modulating discharge regimes in rivers, re-charging groundwater aquifers, and acting as reservoirs in the cycle of production, release, and storage of important greenhouse gases. In addition to being important ecosystems in their own right, they absorb, store and assimilate contaminants and provide many recreational opportunities. Canada’s wetlands occupy about 1,300,000 km2, an area slightly larger than the province of Ontario. Occurring primarily in the boreal and sub-arctic regions, peatlands are by far the most common type of wetland, representing about 85% of the total. As outlined in Chapter 13, the future stability of wetlands in general, and peatlands in particular, is uncertain in the face of a warming climate4 . This raises the spectre of dramatically increased releases of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
Quelques (Disappearing?) arpents de neige!
All of Canada is affected by seasonally frozen ground and half of Canada has permanently frozen ground (permafrost).
Described by Voltaire as “quelques arpents de neige,” Canada’s global image is one of snow and ice through much of the year. In fact, the cryosphere--snow, ice, glaciers, permafrost and frozen ground--is one of the most important components of our physical and biological environment. Chapter 14 points out that phase changes and seasonal storage involving the cryosphere and cryospheric processes dominate the hydrology of most Canadian river basins. Melt from glaciers in the Western Cordillera, as noted earlier, makes a significant contribution to summer streamflow in rivers and streams. Ice cover exerts important influences on river and lake discharges, as well as on ecosystems, and affects timing and intensity of discharge, evaporation patterns, and local climate. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has projected that global climate warming will be greatest in arctic and sub-arctic regions. The cryospheric response to a warmer climate may be expected to include a decrease in solid precipitation, a reduction in the duration of snow and ice cover, gradual disappearance of mountain glaciers, increases in permafrost active layer depth, and melting of ground ice. Such changes will clearly have dramatic consequences for Canada and other high-latitude countries. Quantifying this response and its consequences, however, presents a significant challenge since current climate models are limited in their ability to simulate key characteristics of cold region climates.
Integrated and Cumulative Threats to Freshwater Availability are a Present Reality!
Chapter 15 examines the challenging, but real-world issue presented by integrated and cumulative threats5 to freshwater availability, and the need to manage these growing and somewhat intractable pressures. The case of the Columbia basin is used to illustrate how independent decisions made in the past by narrowly mandated government agencies contributed to creation of a so-called "meta-problem" extending well beyond the scope of a single agency or level of government. In the face of the complex interrelationships presented by integrated and cumulative threats, the need for more broadly focussed, integrated and consultative water management strategies is stressed. The authors discuss mechanisms established as part of current attempts to address such meta-problems in the Prairie Provinces and the Great Lakes basin (e.g., the Prairie Provinces Water Board and Alberta's South Saskatchewan River Basin Water Management Plan, the Great Lakes Charter).
WHAT TO DO - WHAT IS RECOMMENDED
The individual chapters in this publication draw attention to many sectoral and crosscutting stresses or threats affecting the nation's freshwater resources, and identify where related gaps exist in our current scientific knowledge and understanding. They constitute substantive science assessments by experts in the subject areas addressed in these chapters. In the present writer's view, these science assessments point to needs for urgent and sustained action on a number of fronts to ensure Canadians have future access to adequate supplies of freshwater. The following sections, therefore, represent one individual's synthesis of major conclusions and recommendations from the report along with some thoughts regarding their implications for future policy development and decision making. In overview, these topics can be discussed under four headings:
- Observational and Data Needs
- Critical Research Priorities
- Requirements for Informed Policies and Effective Management
- The Leadership Challenge
To know what to do...you must first know what is happening...
The systematic acquisition of observational data on Canada's freshwater resources represents an expensive and long-term commitment. Well-designed and solidly resourced monitoring programs are, however, absolutely essential to document trends in freshwater supply and use, to support research, and to measure and assess impacts of water policies and management and operational practices.
At the most basic level, the report identifies substantial shortcomings in our knowledge of Canada's freshwater resources, water usage patterns, and water-related infrastructure, pointing out, inter alia, that:
- Our surface water, groundwater, precipitation, cryospheric and other relevant monitoring networks are inadequately resourced and poorly coordinated. Near-real-time streamflow observations are insufficient to support hydrological modelling applications; observational coverage6 has key thematic and regional gaps; there are no national groundwater or wetlands monitoring networks; and access to historic data, including paleoclimate and paleoflood records, needs improvement.
- Reliable inventories of lakes and reservoirs, aquifer resources, glaciers, the condition and capacity of water distribution and treatment systems, and other important elements such as the number, size and location of mine workings and waste deposits are needed.
- Water demand and usage patterns should be more systematically monitored in sufficient temporal and spatial detail to document sectoral uses, trends and variations, losses, and effects of weather and season. More comprehensive data are also needed on groundwater withdrawals, effluent quality, and ecosystem behaviour in receiving waters.
In summary, authors highlight significant deficiencies in the design, operation and coordination of Canada's surface water, groundwater and climate monitoring networks; in documentation of water demands, usage patterns, effluent quality, and ecosystem impacts; and in basic water resources inventories. Not surprisingly, therefore, they recommend intelligently targeted expansion of baseline monitoring for key components of the hydrologic cycle, representative water demand and usage parameters, and effluent quality and aquatic impacts. In view of this recommendation, it would seem urgent to undertake a coordinated national review of freshwater monitoring programs to identify specific deficiencies and develop prioritized proposals for corrective actions. While considerable rationalization of climate and hydrometric networks7 has recently been completed, it seems clear that integration and complementarity among various sectoral monitoring programs must be further stressed. Moreover, innovations in monitoring techniques such as satellite remote sensing should be more aggressively and systematically implemented. A valuable supporting initiative might be to develop and regularly disseminate easily understood indicators of the status of freshwater resources8 and their socio-economic importance, in order to enhance and sustain public awareness of water issues.
Scientific investigation enhances our collective capacity for critical insight, informed assessment and rational judgement.
It is widely understood that research is required to generate new knowledge, advance technologies, predict future resource availability and demand patterns, evaluate uncertainties, and assess risks and benefits of policies and strategies. An improved knowledge base is clearly essential for prediction of future threats to the available freshwater resource, and for development of more effective water management policies and practices. In the present context, the implications of climate variability and climate change for water resources and water demand and usage patterns represent over-arching concerns. Clarifying these implications should be a top-priority research challenge. Responding to this challenge requires improved simulations of future climate and more useful seasonal climate forecasts. In particular, authors recommend that:
- the resolution of Global Climate Models (GCMs) be increased, representation of the cryosphere improved, and other appropriate steps taken to enhance their ability to model fields of hydrological importance. In short, Canada's world-class climate modelling capability should receive continuing support;
- the physical causes of past droughts be clarified, and monitoring and modelling of drought conditions improved. Greater advantage should be taken of environmental prediction capabilities to provide early warning of incipient drought conditions, and improved drought adaptation strategies must be sought; and
- the implications of climate variability and climate change for freshwater ecosystems, forest hydrology, permafrost distribution and melting of ground ice, peatlands/wetlands and glaciers be further clarified. A particularly important challenge will also be to factor climate change into flood frequency analysis and flood risk mapping.
On a more general level, authors recommend that research efforts focus on improved understanding and modelling of hydrological processes and systems, including aspects such as effects of land use changes on floods; relationships among land management, soil water balance and partitioning of precipitation; and flow of mine wastes through frozen soils. Greater emphasis should be given to synthesis and integration of research results using models that integrate hydrological and biogeochemical cycles; hydrological process knowledge must be progressively incorporated into watershed models; and up-to-date models applied to flood prediction, building on improving skill in forecasting excessive rainfall events. As supporting activities, improved remote sensing algorithms and statistical testing and diagnostic approaches should continue to be pursued.
Issues related to water quality also need to be addressed: for example, new chemicals of concern and their human and ecosystem health implications; drainage chemistry from mine wastes; and enhanced processes for water treatment, reclamation and recycling. Correspondingly, understanding must be improved of the social and economic factors underlying demands for water or posing impediments to innovation, conservation and recycling, and socio-economic models developed for various water uses and the forces driving demand patterns and recirculation decisions.
Scientific understanding provides a foundation for the development of farsighted policies and practices.
Implementation of farsighted policies and effective science-based management practices, reinforced by the support of a well-informed public, will be essential to a successful response to the many issues and challenges identified in this report. During the coming decades, the apportionment of water rights on cross-boundary rivers will require much greater attention in view of the growing potential for interjurisdictional conflicts. Optimal institutional frameworks must be sought that facilitate integrated land and water management, while striking a rational balance between competing uses, minimizing long-term threats to freshwater, and ensuring equitable allocation of water within basins and between jurisdictions. Financial approaches should be refined to ensure timely replacement of ageing water infrastructure. Coordination and cooperation among federal, provincial, territorial, municipal and private sector organizations in planning, installing and operating monitoring programs could be enhanced, and linkages between water scientists and water managers further solidified to facilitate application of new knowledge and techniques.
Science assessments provide a useful bridge between science and the needs of policy and decision makers.
Moreover, the concept of sustainable development requires us to consider intergenerational needs for freshwater. In consequence, public understanding and support must be developed through information campaigns that stress the fundamental socio-economic importance of freshwater, the limits to the freshwater resource and the need to conserve and protect it, outlining practical measures individuals and communities can take to that end.
Scientific leadership and teamwork are needed to address the many threats to Canadians' future access to freshwater.
At the most fundamental level, this report reinforces the need for strong leadership and an enhanced spirit of interjurisdictional and cross-disciplinary teamwork to address the urgent issues relating to Canada's future access to freshwater. Scientific leadership is clearly required to refine and prioritize requirements and obtain funding to implement needed upgrades to monitoring programs so that Canadians know, with confidence, the extent and condition of their freshwater resources, their socio-economic importance, the dimensions of the threats to them, and the effects of policies, management practices and external influences. Scientific leadership and vision are needed, equally, to target research efforts at issues truly critical to ensuring the nation's future freshwater supply. Furthermore, committed leadership and teamwork over the long term are needed at the highest levels of government to achieve improved coherence in policies and practices within and across jurisdictional boundaries.
In conclusion, this report lays out a challenge to develop and implement policies and actions to ensure the sustainability of Canada's freshwater supply in the face of the various threats and pressures outlined in succeeding chapters. Long-term political and institutional commitments will be essential if we are to respond effectively to that challenge. In consequence, the report's fundamental value will be largely measured by the degree to which it captures attention and motivates action by decision makers and institutions. Ultimately, success will have been achieved if the authors' efforts help to ensure Canadians have long-term access, at reasonable cost, to the freshwater needed for human consumption, sustainable social and economic development, and protection and conservation of aesthetic, environmental and other important values.
1 Environment Canada. 2001. Threats to Sources of Drinking Water and Aquatic Ecosystem Health in Canada. National Water Research Institute, Burlington, Ontario. NWRI Scientific Assessment Report Series No. 1. 72 p. RETURN
8 The importance of readily understandable, high impact, snapshots of observed conditions cannot be over stated since requirements for continuing investments in long-term monitoring programs are not well understood by the public at large or by decision makers.RETURN
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I am having difficulty with tensions and pulleys. Can someone give a good explanation of how they work and what are some rules to solve the problems I have for homework. As far as I can see, the book and the instructor is not that good in describing this topic Here is one example of a problem: A picture hangs on the wall suspended by two strings as seen in the figure 6-20(see below for a written explanation). The tension in string one is 1.7N. (a) is the tension in string 2 greater than, less than or equal to 1.7N (explain) (b)verify your answer by calculating the tension on in string 2 (c) what is the weight of the picture? In the example there is a pictrue hanging in the middle of two strings, one string string one in 65degrees above the -X axis and string 2 is 32degrees above the X axis. Here is what I have done: T1x = 1.7(-cos115degrees) T1y = 1.7(sin115 degrees) and that is it...HELP!! | <urn:uuid:848ec465-2a71-4286-be90-b8d21c33be88> | {
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It was not a foregone conclusion that the Turks would fight in World War I at all. Many leading political figures in Istanbul favored neutrality as the surest road to bringing about long-overdue administrative and economic modernization with the aid of investments from all the European powers. In the end, however, the triumvirate of pashas who ruled the Empire came to believe an alliance with an ascendant Germany, in which Berlin would pay for much of the war effort and military training, would be the surest path to re-conquest of lost provinces, the shoring up its faltering influence in the Middle East, and internal modernization. It was the Ottoman entrance into the war on the side of the Central Powers that transformed a European war into a truly global conflict.
For their part, the Germans gained the use of a large Ottoman army that could take the pressure off their inevitable battle against Russia in the East by launching a campaign in the Caucasus. More important, Germany hoped to exploit the Ottoman sultan’s role as caliph over the entire world community of Muslims. Of course, the British, Russian, and French empires contained millions of Muslims. The Germans wanted the Caliph to declare a jihad against their adversaries, hoping to bring about mass uprisings that would cripple the war efforts of the Triple Entente, and the Caliph was happy to oblige.
The initial Ottoman campaigns did not go well. Enver Pasha, the Ottoman minister of war, hoped to duplicate the Germans’ masterful envelopment at Tannenberg against the Russians, prompting the destruction of an entire Russian army. Geography, poor weather, and inadequate logistics, however, led to a crushing Ottoman defeat and the loss of 80,000 troops. Several divisions of Armenian Christians fought on the Russian side in the campaign, and in the wake of the loss, the large Armenian population within the Ottoman Empire found themselves victims of the 20th century’s first genocide. Rogan unpacks the complicated tragedy of the Armenian persecution deftly and sensitively, concluding that “the bitter irony is that the annihilation of the Armenians and other Christian communities in no way improved the security of the Ottoman Empire,” though that was its primary object.
Rogan unpacks the complicated tragedy of the Armenian persecution deftly and sensitively, concluding that “the bitter irony is that the annihilation of the Armenians and other Christian communities in no way improved the security of the Ottoman Empire,” though that was its primary object.
Next, the Ottoman 4th Army attacked the British defending the Suez Canal across the Sinai Desert, but the thrust was detected by aerial scouts and repulsed handily. The first two Ottoman campaigns, observes Rogan, “revealed Ottoman commanders to be unrealistic in their expectations and the average Ottoman soldier to be incredibly tenacious and disciplined even under the most extreme conditions.”
These early Allied victories lulled the Allies into a “false complacency about the limits of Ottoman effectiveness.” Prompted by a Russian plea to mount a diversionary campaign, Britain and France decided in spring 1915 to go for a knockout punch. They launched an ambitious amphibious attack through the heavily mined Dardanelles straits on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Such an attack would threaten Istanbul itself—if successful. Now it was the ordinary Allied soldiers’ turn, particularly the Australians and New Zealanders, to suffer at the hands of their commanders’ incompetence.
For eight months, the agony in the trenches at Gallipoli continued, with little substantial Allied progress. Here Colonel Mustafa Kemal—later called Ataturk, leader of Turkey in its successful war of independence of 1919-1923—first distinguished himself, as did the entire Ottoman army in their heroic defense of the Peninsula. Suffice it to say that in the years between the two world wars, the Gallipoli campaign was held up as proof by leading military strategists that the amphibious assault against a well-defended beach would never again succeed. The U.S. Marines, however, weren’t buying the message. They conducted an extensive study of Gallipoli, determining that the British and French had made a complete hash of the operation, and that, with proper training, specialized doctrine and equipment, heavily fortified beaches could indeed be taken. (In this they were correct, as World War II proved.)
Impending defeat at Gallipoli prompted London to order a British-Indian army to march on Baghdad to rekindle support for the war at home, and assuage suspected Muslim restiveness within their Empire. Once again, the tough Turks managed to repulse the British drive, capturing 13,000 Indians and Britons at the Siege of Kut.
After Kut, the war generally went quite badly for the Ottomans. A crucial factor in their misfortunes was Istanbul’s failure to win over the Arab tribes, loosely united under Sharif Husayn of Mecca, the great-great grandfather of Jordan’s current head of state, King Abdullah II, to fight for the Empire rather than against it. The Turks were badly outmaneuvered on the diplomatic front by the British, who concluded an alliance with Husayn in March 1916 in which false promises of postwar independence for the Arabs played no small role. The Arab Revolt was born. For the rest of the war, Husayn and his trusted adviser, T.E. Lawrence, effectively tied down Ottoman forces with guerrilla operations against (already thin) supply lines in Palestine, Syria, and the Arabian Peninsula.
Meanwhile, the Ottoman Sultan’s call to jihad utterly failed to strike a chord among the Muslims within the Allied empires, mainly because their clerics saw cynical German aspirations behind the call. In addition, as scholar Bernard Lewis has written, “The moral significance of an Arab army fighting the Turks, and still more, of the ruler of the holy places [Sharif Husayn] denouncing the Ottoman Sultan and his so-called jihad, was immense, and was of particular value to the British and incidentally to the French empires in maintaining their authority over their Muslim subjects.”
In fall 1917, a bold and very smart British general, Edmund Allenby, assumed command in the Middle East. He broke the main Ottoman defensive line in Palestine, centered on Gaza. The Turks retreated, surrendering Jerusalem without a shot. By this point, as Rogan points out, the Ottomans’ ambitions “had been narrowed from victory to survival.”
Setbacks on the Western front forestalled Allied operations in the Middle East until fall 1918. The Turks, badly in need of reinforcements and resupply that would never come, grimly held on. In a three-day operation in September around Megiddo in Palestine, Allenby used his cavalry to sweep around Ottoman forces, capturing tens of thousands before going on to completing his conquest of demoralized Ottoman forces in Syria.
With the final defeat of the Ottomans and Germany in 1918, European imperialism replaced Turkish rule throughout the Middle East. After four centuries united in a multinational empire under Ottoman Muslim rule, the Arabs found themselves divided into new states under the control of Britain and France. The 200-year retreat of Islamic power before the West had run its course. New boundaries were established to suit the expansionist designs of the conquerors, and, as Rogan points out in his excellent Conclusion:
The borders of the post-war settlement have proven remarkably resilient—as have the conflicts the post-war boundaries have engendered. The Kurdish people, divided between Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, have been embroiled in conflict with each of their host governments over the past century in pursuit of their cultural and political rights. Lebanon, created by France in 1920 as a Christian state, succumbed to a string of civil wars as its political institutions failed to keep pace with its demographic shifts and Muslims came to outnumber Christians. Syria, unreconciled to the creation of Lebanon from what many Syrian nationalists believed to be an integral part of their country, sent in its military to occupy Lebanon in 1976—and remained in occupation of that country for nearly thirty years. Despite its natural and human resources, Iraq has never known enduring peace and stability within its post-war boundaries, experiencing a coup and conflict with Britain in World War II, revolution in 1958, war with Iran between 1980 and 1988, and a seemingly unending cycle of war since Saddam Hussein’s 1991 invasion of Kuwait and the 2003 American invasion… to topple Hussein.
The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East is a remarkably lucid and accessible work of history, involving a large cast of contradictory and complex characters. Rogan, who teaches the history of the modern Middle East at Oxford, seems equally at home explaining the parameters of Ottoman grand strategy and the tensions of the British-Arab alliance as he is at conjuring up the unique challenges of maneuver warfare in the Sinai and Palestine, or the brutal stalemate in the Gallipoli trenches. Telling quotations from diplomats, field commanders, and ordinary soldiers of all the combatants lend the narrative a powerful sense of immediacy.
Rogan wrote the book in part to challenge the conventional view that the Turkish campaigns against Britain and France in the Middle East and against the Russians in the Caucuses were strictly sideshows to the main events on the Western and Eastern fronts, and to convey to English speakers a flavor of the Muslim experiences of an event that did more than any other to give birth to the modern Middle East. Rogan certainly succeeds in demonstrating that “the sick man of Europe” proved to be a far more important player in the Great War than its opponents believed possible, in ways they never imagined.
Former Yemeni Prime Minister Khaled Bahah’s appointment as vice president on Sunday indicates that Saudi Arabia may have realised President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi is actually part of the problem, rather than the solution.
By pressuring Hadi to name a vice president at this critical time, the kingdom may be indicating its political plans for Yemen after the end of its military operation. It is also possible that Bahah will become the de facto president of Yemen, especially since he is popular among broader segments of the Yemeni population than Hadi.
Bahah was the only politician accepted by both the Houthis and former President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s party to become Yemen’s prime minister after the infamous January 2015 agreement of peace and partnership between Hadi, the Houthis, and other key Yemeni political actors.
Up to this point, the atrocities of the so-called Islamic State (or ISIS) have been restricted to the territories they control in Iraq and Syria. But, a terrifying new video released this weekend by the terror group calls for supporters to carry out a 9/11 style attack on American soil — warning of “lone wolf” terrorists who may be hiding out in Western countries.
This most recent call to action is entitled “We Will Burn America.” It’s 11 minutes long and features imagery of ISIS agents sawing off the head of a prisoner, detonating bombs, and the World Trade Towers tumbling down. Watch at your own risk (we’re not embedding it here since the video is exceptionally graphic).
أكثر من خمسمائة جندي في معسكر تدريب للحوثيين بعصب
يتدرب أكثر من خمسمائة جندي من الحوثيين في معسكر يبعد 7 كيلو عن الميناء الأرتري عصب أقصى جنوب شرق أرتريا و أوضح المصدر المطلع الذي تحدث لوكالة زاجل الأرترية للأنباء ” ” ZENA أوضح أن المعسكر يدرب الحوثيين على المدفعية والتفخيخ بتركيز كبير إلى جانب مناشط تدريبية أخرى.مما يذكر أن النظام الأرتري يعد الظهير الأقوى للشيعة اليمنية والإيرانية ضد حلف عاصفة الحزم التي تواجه الانقلاب في اليمن مناصرة للشرعية
اعتقالات ومصادرات جديدة بصفوف م…
Over 200,000 African refugees still remain stranded in Yemen, they are predominantly Somalis, Eritreans and Ethiopians.
Chinese, Pakistani and Indian ships have evacuated their citizens, and so were the Westerners evacuated immediately after the war broke. So far, the regional governments have not made an attempt to evacuate their citizens. Somalia is the only country that can claim that instability at home prevents it from evacuating its citizens.
Ethiopia could evacuate its citizens via Djibouti, but so far it hasn’t done so. While the second major supplier of refugees to Yemen after Somalia, Eritrea, is thirty nautical miles away. Its territorial waters and its Islands are half the distance from Yemen. None of the Eritrean government owned media outlets has covered the plight of the refugees.
Our sources estimate there are around fifty thousand Eritrean refugees stranded in Yemen. The refugees escaped Yemeni refugee detention centers and UNHCR camps after the war broke. A considerable number of the refugees are new arrivals while others have lived in Yemen for more than ten years. The majority of the refugees are originally from the coastal regions of Eritrea while others are new arrivals who escaped the forced military conscription in Eritrea.
Refugees reached Yemen hoping to sneak into Saudi Arabia or to continue their journey further north to reach Europe.
Reached by telephone in Sana’a, Hamoud, a refugee from Senafe said, “At this moment I am not worried about anything; I am just thinking about going back to my country to save my wife and children.” Hamoud and his family has stayed in a camp in the outskirts of Sana’a for the last two years. He has two children aged five and seven years.
A sizable number of fishing boats have transported dozens of Eritreans back to the coastal region of Eritrea. Those who made the return journey to Eritrea are people of the sea who traditionally do not recognize official entry points. They are skilled sailors who consider the sea their backyard.
Since the war reached Aden, human trafficking boats started to sneak out towards the African coast . Notwithstanding the Saudi imposed a blockade on Yemeni ports, many boats have left the coast carrying passengers who left on the perilous journey back to where they originally came from.
The traffickers are asking around US $2000 per person for a trip to Djibouti; those who can afford the price have embarked on the journey, but no one knows how many might have perished at sea. However, Ethiopians and Eritreans, who number over 100,000 combined, are still stranded in many parts of the war torn country.
On March 29, huge explosions shook Aden as the arms in a major arms depot in Jebel Hadeed went off for unknown reasons. People rushed to the area to collect weapons. Over sixty people were killed in the process, three of them “unidentified African refugees.”
Yemen is believed to be one the most heavily armed countries in the region. Every household keeps at least one weapon. Similarly, Yemeni tribes also have their own well armed militia forces that challenged government forces until the Houthi’s took control of many of their impenetrable mountainous regions.
ስርዓት ኢሳያስ ቃሕ ዝበሎ ስጉምቲ ክወስድ ዝገትኦ ሓይሊ ወይ ዝኽልክሎ ሕጊ ስለዘየለን ዛጊት ነዚ ዘሎ ኣረሜናዊ መንግስቲ ዝብድህ ዝተወደበ ህዝባዊ ተቃውም ስለዘይተመስረተን፡ ስርዓት ኢሳያስ ዘይፈርስ እምባ ኣምሲልዎ ኣሎ።ብርግጽ ስለያዊ፡ ፖለቲካውን ዲፕሎማስያውን ኣወዳድባ ስርዓት ህግደፍ ኣነኣኢስካ ምርኣይ፡ ንኽውንነት ምኽሓድ’ዩ። ስርዓት ኢሳያስ ዕድመ ስልጣኑ ንምንዋሕን ተጻባእቱ ንምድቋስን ቢልዮናት ገንዘብ’ዩ ዝስልዕ። ኣብ ርእሲኡ፡ ስርዓት ኢሳያስ ሓቅታት ኣብ ምጥምዛዝን ካብ ከውንነት ምህዳምን ልዑል ብልጫ ኣለዎ። ንኣብነት፡ ወድባት ተጣበቅቲ ሰብኣዊ መሰላትን ገለ መንግስታትን ንስርዓት ኢሳያስ ንኣጥፊእካ ጥፋእን ዘይሓላፍነትውን ተግባራቱን ፖሊሲታቱን ኣብ ዝነቅፍሉ እዋን፡ “ካብ ሓቂ ዝራሓቀን ምስሊ ኤርትራ ንምኽፋእን ካብ ዓለም ንምንጻልን ዝተፈብረኸ ሓሶት’ዩ፡ ኣብ ኤርትራ ንዝካየድ ዘሎ ኩለንተናዊ መደባት ልምዓት ንምትዕንቃፍን ብጸላእትናን ሓሳዳትን ዝተጠጅአ ተንኮል’ዩ፡ ኤርትራ ብሰላም ዞባናን ዓለምን ዝያዳ ኩሉ ትግደስ’’ ዝብላ ንገርሂ ሰብ ኣታለልቲ ንዝፈልጥ ግን ኣሰልቸውቲ ሓረጋት’ዩ ብተደጋጋሚ ዘኮማስዕ። እቲ ሓቅን ኣብ ኤርትራ ብህግደፍ ዝፍጸም ዘሎ ኣደራዕን ግን ብኣንጻር’ቲ ስርዓት ኢሳያስ ዝዝርግሖ ሓሶታትን ብድዐታትን ምዃን ሓሊፉ፡ ህዝቢ ኤርትራ ጥራይ’ዩ መስካርን መዛንን ክኸውን ዝግብኦ።
ሓደ ካብቲ ኣብዚ ኣዋን’ዚ ኣብ ታሪኽ ኤርትራ ቅድሚ ሎሚ ኣጋጢሙ ዘይፈልጥ ንኽትሰምዖ ዘዘግንን ተርእዮ፡ ዘይወለንታዊ ፍልሰት ኤርትራውያን ናብ ወጻኢ ሃገራትን ዘጋጥሞም ዘሎ ስቃይን’ዩ። ምስሉይ መግለጺታት ስርዓት ኢሳያስ ብዘየገድስ፡ ቀንዲ ምኽንያት ስደትን ሕሰምን ኤርትራውያን፡ ኣብ ሃገሮም ብሰላም ክሰርሑን ከመሃሩን ስለዘይክኣሉን ቁራስ እንጌራ ስለዝሓረሞምን’ዮም። ውሕስነት ህይወት ዘይብሉ ጠንቂ ስደት ኤርትራውያንን ኣብ ዝኣተውዎ ሃገራትን መዓስከር ሰደተኛታትን፡ መባእታዊ ሰብኣዊ መሰሎም ተጋሂሱ ግዳይ ሞት፡ ማእሰርቲ፡ ጥሜትን ሕማምን ምዃኖምን ድማ ቀዳማይ ተሓታቲ ስርዓት ኢሳያስ እምበር ተቀበልቲ ወይ ኣእንገድቲ ኤርትራውያን ስደተኛታት ኣይኮናን። ንምንታይ’ሲ እንተዘይትንውንወኒ መን መጽደፈኒ’ዩ እቲ ሓቂ። መንእሰያትና፡ ኣብ ኤርትራ ኣብ ክንዲ መኣዲ ትምህርቲ ግዱድ ዕስክርና፡ ኣብ ክንዲ ገንዘብ ዝኽፈሎ ስራሕ፡ ገደብ ግዜ ዘይብሉ ናጻ ጉልበቶም ምሻጥ፡ ወጽዓዖም ኣብ ዝሓትሉ ድማ ኣብ ኣብያተ ማእሰርቲ ምድጓን ምስበዝሐን ብሩህ መጻኢ ስለዝጸልመቶም’ዮም ሃጽ ኢሎም እግሮም ናብ ዝመርሖም ዝጠፍኡ ዘለዉ። ስለዚ ተማሃሮ ካብ ኣብያተ ትምህርቶም ኣጓናዲብካ፡ ሓረስቶትን ሸቃሎን ካብ ስርሖም መንጢልካ ኣብ በረኻ ምስፋርን ስድራቤታት ምብትታንን ኣይፋል ንዝበሉ ድማ እናገረፍካን እናሓየርካን፡ በየናይ መዐቀኒን መዝገበ ቃላትን’ዩ ከም ልምዓታዊ መደባት ዝቁጸር? እቶም ብካድራት ህግደፍ ተመልሚሎም ግንዖታት ተገይርሎም ካብ ወጻኢ ናብ ኤርትራ ብምእታው፡ “ኤርትራ ማእከል ሰላምን ልምዓትን” ኢሎም ንኤርትራ ቅጽል ስም ዝህብዋ የዋሃትን ምስ ኣእዛኖም ዝጸመሙን በጻሕቲ ኤርትራ’ኸ፡ ብዘይካ’ቲ ኣብ ዝበለጸ ሆቴላትን መዘናግዒ ቦታታትን ዑደት ምፍጻሞምን ብሕርያ ዝተቀረቡ መማቅርቲ ቃለ- መጠይቅ ምክያዶምን፡ ንጹሃት ዜጋታት ተኣሲሮሙሉ ኣብ ዘለዉ ቦታታት፡ ጠዋሪ ስኢኖም ዝዘኽትሙ ወለድን ህጻናትን ብጥሜት፡ ስእነትን ኣገልግሎት ሕክምና፡መብራህቲ፡ መጓዓዝያን ማይን ዝሳቀዩ ስድራቤታት ከምዘለዉ ተዘዋዊሮም ተራ ሰባት ሓቲቶን ተዓዚቦምንዶ? ዶስ ኤርትራዊ ብኽብሪ ሃለኽቲ ኣቁሑን ሕጽረት ማሕበራዊ ኣገልግሎትን እናተሳቀየ እንከሎ ንሕሱር ፖለቲካዊ ዕላማትትን ሃወርያታትካ ንምምልማልን፡ ጮማን ዊስክን ስለዝተቀረበልካ ኣብ ከብዲ ጽጉብ ጥሙይ የለን’ዩ ነገሩ?
ህግደፍ፡ “ብኢትዮጵያ ዝተታሕዘ መሬትና ስለዘይተመልሰን ዶብና ስለዘይተሓንጸጸን” ዝብል ዝኣረገ ምስምስ ዕድመ ስልጣኑ ንምንዋሕን ንውሽጣዊ ድኻማቱ ኣበሳታቱን ንምጉልባብ ካብ ዝጥቀመሉ ካልእ ዕባራ ምኽንያት’ዩ። እቲ ሓቂ ብሰበብ ዶብ ስለዘይተሓንጸጸን ዝተጎብጠ መሬት ስለዘይተመልሰን፡ መሰል ኤርትራዊ ምርጋጽን ምልካዊ ስርዓት ምቅጻልን’ዩ። ፍትሒ ይንገስ ንዝበሉ ዜጋታት ብዘይፍርዲ ምምቛሕን ትሕቲ መሬት ምስፋርን፡ ቅዋም ዘይምንዳፍን ህዝባዊ ምርጫ ዘይምክያድን ክሳብ መኣስ? ኩሉ ከምዘይስሕቶ ዘለናዮ ዓለም ምስጥቅማ እምበር ብስለ ዲሞክራሲ ፍጹም ሓቅታት ዝብሃል የለን። ንልኡላውነትካን ክብርኻን ኣብ ዋጋ ዕዳጋ ከየእተኻ፡ ብኣህጉራዊ ሕግታት ክትምእዘዝ ምስ ካልኦት ሓቢርካ ክትሰርሕ፡ ረብሓ ህዝብኻ ከተኻዕብትን ዓቅምኻ ክትፈልጥን ግን ናይ ለባማት ኣሰራርሓ ኢዩ። እቶም “ስርዓት ኢሳያስ ጉድለት የብሉን ዓለም ዘርያትና” ኢልኩም ነዚ ክውንነት’ዚ ትኽሕዱን ህዝቢ ኤርትራ ካብ ዓለም ንኽንጸል ብተዘዋዋሪ ትሰርሑን ዘለኹም ዜጋታት፡ ህግደፍ ህዝቢ ኤርትራ ንኽረግጽ ኣጆኻ ትብልዎ ከምዘለኹም ትግንዘብዎዶ? ኣብ’ዚ እዋን’ዚ ስርዓት ኢሳያስ ምስ ጎረባብቲ ሃገራትን ዓለምን ከም ጭርናዕ ካብ ምትዃብ ሓሊፉ፡ ዘይሕጋዊ ኣሰራርሓ ካብ ምዝውታርን (ንኣብነት፡ ምስ ዝተፈንፈኑ ስርዓታት ምምሕዛውን፡ ናይ ጸላኢአይ ጸላኢ ፈታዊየን ዝዓይነቱ ኣጠማምታ ንጹር ዕላማ ዘይብሎም ናይ ጎረባብትና ሃገራት ተቃወምቲ ወድባት ምሕጋዝን)፡ መትከላውን ኣብ ሓባራዊ ረብሓ ዝተሞርኮሰ ቁጠባውን ፖለቲካውን ዝምድና የብሉን።
ብዝተፈላለየ ጉዳያት ምፍልላይ ገበን ኣይኮነን። እቲ ካብ ኩሉ ዝኸፍአ ስንፍና ግን፡ ነዚ ብግሁድን ብስውርን ንህዝቢ ኤርትራ ኣብ ጸልማት ኣእትዩ ዘሳቂ ዘሎ ስርዓት ኢሳያስ ምድጋፍ ወይ ድማ ቀንዲ ተዋሳኢ ምዃን፡ ሓቂ ምጥምዛዝን ድርብ ገበን ከም ምፍጻም’ዩ ዝቑጸር። ኣብዚ ከም ጸሓይ ቀትሪ ብሩህ ዝኾነ እኩይ ተግባራትን ኣዕናዊ ሜላታትን ስርዓት ህግደፍ ሓቢርና ዘይምስራሕና ድማ ንስርዓት ኢሳያስ ዕድመ ይሃብካ ኢልካ ምምራቕ’ዩ።
ጽላል – ካብ ሕቡራት መንግስታት ኣመሪካ | <urn:uuid:9dd912ce-3501-438b-b51d-89713e99e6ba> | {
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Dream of giving birth to a bouncing Neanderthal baby?
One of the world's leading geneticists believes he can make it happen.
George Church, a professor at Harvard Medical School, told Der Spiegel we have the technology to not only reconstruct the DNA of our long-extinct relative, but actually resurrect the species.
"We can clone all kinds of mammals, so it's very likely that we could clone a human," he says in an interview with the German magazine. "Why shouldn't we be able to do so?"
Now, it's all in the, err... wombs, of a few good ladies.
"Now, I need an adventurous female human," he writes in his book Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves.
Now, before you dust off your CV, a couple of things to keep in mind: Human cloning is probably illegal in your country.
And, perhaps even more importantly...
As one of the minds behind the Human Genome Project, Church certainly has a little more credibility on the subject.
The idea, as reported in The Telegraph, involves creating fresh DNA from 33,000-year-old fossils and then slipping it into some lucky lady's cell lines.
While it may seem like the kind of project only a geneticist could love, Church sees Neanderthals as having a very positive role in modern society.
"Neanderthals might think differently than we do," he tells Der Spiegel. "They could even be more intelligent than us. When the time comes to deal with an epidemic or getting off the planet, it’s conceivable that their way of thinking could be beneficial."
The UK's Daily Mail isn't entirely convinced, suggesting neo-Neanderthals would be ravaged by modern diseases — which they have no pre-built immunities to.
Christianity appears even less enthused with the Mail giving Philippa Taylor of the Christian Medical Fellowship the final word:
"It is hard to know where to begin with the ethical and safety concerns." | <urn:uuid:0f9be6d3-0fdc-49d3-99e8-cd0f005541c9> | {
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a VBA function doing the derivative and integral of a function
This project was awarded to Schura for $75 USD.Get free quotes for a project like this
Project Budget$30 - $100 USD
Derivative or Integral Of A Function
(a) The derivative of the function f(x) at x = c is defined as f′(x)=lim f(c+h)− f(c)/h
One way to attempt an estimate of f ′(c) is to choose a positive value of h that is as close to zero as Visual
Basic allows, and then to evaluate the quotient. Unfortunately, round-off errors can be very large. A better method is to evaluate the formula f (c + h)− f (c)/h
for smaller and smaller values of h, until the difference between successive approximations falls below a predetermined level.
Write a program to calculate the derivative of a polynomial of degree n expressed as
anxn +an−1xn−1 +...a1x+a0
where the coefficients an, a n-1,...,a1 , and, a0 are real numbers, n is a nonnegative integer, and an is not equal to zero. The program should accept as input the degree and coefficients of the polynomial along with a real number, c, and calculate the slope of the function at c.
use the same polynomial function and simpson rule to approximate the integral.
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- The New York Times
- Wall Street Journal
- Times Online | <urn:uuid:215ee7c7-195a-41fb-b093-1a1ca09379db> | {
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(webinar recording from April 5, 2017)
Minutes are among the most important documents used to conduct business in a transparent and accountable manner. However, taking minutes can be daunting. Minute-takers are often expected to produce minutes out of chaotic and disorganized meetings. Understanding how much is too much, and what format is best in a school council setting will reduce stress and minimize conflict. Explanation of the various types of minutes, the ideal format for school councils, and how to create and use templates efficiently.
(webinar recording from March 22, 2017)
Meaningful school council meetings require strong leadership and clear, easy to follow processes for all participants. Having a solid Agenda, some simple Rules of Order and learning how to Direct Discussion will help to ensure the school council meetings are not a waste of anyone’s valuable time. Exploration of some common challenges for school council meetings and introduction of three important solution-oriented tools.
Fundraising Association Partnership Purpose
(webinar recording from March 15, 2017)
Fundraising Associations (FRAs) are separate, legal entities with distinct rules to follow, responsibilities to comply with and liabilities to consider. Positive, collaborative, mutually respectful relationships with the principal and school council are integral to the success of each and in the best interests of students. Clarity of who has authority for what, is essential. Review of relevant legislation (Societies Act and School Act), “Which Group” identification activities, and case studies.
(webinar recording from March 8, 2017)
Chairing a school council meeting can be exciting, confusing or down-right scary! Having confidence with a clear understanding of chair responsibilities and processes will help to keep meetings focused, productive and fun! Overview of the roles of the Chair, agenda preparation, duties of other members, communication, meeting management tools and skills.
School Council Purpose
(webinar recording from March 1, 2017)
Understanding the legislated role of school councils including which topics/areas are open for discussion and which require caution helps to prevent tension and dysfunction within a school council and the school community. Learning how to identify each, how to frame a “personal issue” from a school council perspective and how to broach sensitive topics will assist all school council members. Review of relevant legislation, exploring rights, responsibilities and choices, and advising examples.
Tools for Effective School Councils
(webinar recording from November 23, 2016)
Previous Webinar Topics:
CAREERS: Supporting Youth Exploring
CAREERS: Helping Youth Choose
CAREERS: Choosing a Direction
Benefits of Inquiry/Project Based Learning
Supporting Families Coping with FASD
Engaging FNMI Families
Welcoming Refugees and Newcomers
Focus on Inclusion
Competencies: Supporting Your Child’s Development
Competencies: Who, What, When, Where & Why | <urn:uuid:cfec3ebe-2e45-429d-a9c6-a95fc7ba26ec> | {
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Eeva, T. and Ruuskanen, S and Salminen, J.P. and Belskii, E. and Jarvinen, A. and Kerimov, A. and Korpimäki, E. and Krams, I. and Moreno, J. and Morosinotto, C. and Mänd, R. and Orell, M. and Qvarnström, A. and Siitari, H. and Slater, F.M. and Tilgar, V. and Visser, M.E. and Winkel, W. and Zang, H. and Laaksonen, T. (2011) Geographical trends in the yolk carotenoid composition of the pied flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca). Oecologia, 165, 277-287. ISSN 0029-8549.
|PDF - Published Version|
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00442-010-1772-4
Carotenoids in the egg yolks of birds are considered to be important antioxidants and immune stimulants during the rapid growth of embryos. Yolk carotenoid composition is strongly affected by the carotenoid composition of the female’s diet at the time of egg formation. Spatial and temporal differences in carotenoid availability may thus be reflected in yolk concentrations. To assess whether yolk carotenoid concentrations or carotenoid profiles show any large-scale geographical trends or differences among habitats, we collected yolk samples from 16 European populations of the pied flycatcher, Ficedula hypoleuca.Wefound that the concentrations and proportions of lutein and some other xanthophylls in the egg yolks decreased from Central Europe northwards. The most southern population (which is also the one found at the highest altitude) also showed relatively low carotenoid levels. Concentrations of b-carotene and zeaxanthin did not show any obvious geographical gradients. Egg yolks also contained proportionally more lutein and other xanthophylls in deciduous than in mixed or coniferous habitats. We suggest that latitudinal gradients in lutein and xanthophylls reflect the lower availability of lutein-rich food items in the northern F. hypoleuca populations and in montane southern populations, which start egg-laying earlier relative to tree phenology than the Central European populations. Similarly, among-habitat variation is likely to reflect the better availability of lutein-rich food in deciduous forests. Our study is the first to indicate that the concentration and profile of yolk carotenoids may show large-scale spatial variation among populations in different parts of the species’ geographical range. Further studies are needed to test the fitness effects of this geographical variation.
|Institutes:||Nederlands Instituut voor Ecologie (NIOO)|
|Deposited On:||23 Jan 2011 01:00|
|Last Modified:||15 Nov 2011 11:05|
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Time-lapse project still collecting images
LINCOLN—From waterfowl and wildlife to its floods and droughts, the “flat water” that played a significant role in the westward expansion of the United States has a story to tell.
The Platte River Basin Time-lapse project (plattebasintimelapse.com) seeks to shed some light on what really happens on this system that provides water for people and for crops that feed the world.
A team led by photographer Michael Forsberg and NET Television’s Michael Farrell will finish installing the remainder of 45 customized digital SLR remote cameras at fixed locations along the basin this spring. Jeff Dale of TRLcam.com has provided technical assistance in setting up the cameras.
Protected by the elements in specialized cases, the remote-control cameras capture a single photo an hour in every daylight hour of every day. The team’s goal is to capture the ebb and flow of the river, showcasing how natural and manmade events change it over time.
“We want to be able to show people how the complex story of the Platte River unfolds over days, months and even years,” Forsberg said.
It was when Forsberg and Farrell were shooting a documentary for NET/PBS based on Forsberg’s book, “Great Plains: America’s Lingering Wild,” that they started talking about creating the time-lapse of the entire ecosystem—from its Rocky Mountain starting points to its run across Nebraska and into the Missouri River.
The team already has thousands of images collected and would like the project to continue for at least a wet to dry cycle but hopes maybe it could last for a couple of decades, depending on if it continues to receive funding.
Both Farrell and Forsberg have personal connections to the Platte, both having photographed it for years.
“We think this project can be extremely educational for people who don’t know much about where water comes from,” Farrell said. “Whether ag, recreation, municipalities or wildlife, the processes that go into where our water comes from are not very well understood, so we think this has great value for education and the general public.”
Forsberg and Farrell are also assistant professors of practice at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
This project received financial support from the university’s Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program, the Cooper Foundation and Nikon Camera.
Learn more about the Platte Basin Time-lapse project in IANR’s new “Growing a Healthy Future” magazine at http://ianrhome.unl.edu/growing.
- ‘The Big, Bad Musical’ comes to Brady stage
- Swedes edge Ogallala by one
- Backyard BBQ new event at contest
- Term limits, health issues bring about Sen. Wightman’s last legislative session
- Ehmen Park awarded state designation
- Hefty city purchase will pay off over time
- Two new employees join GSB
- Swede boys place fourth at Dutch Zorn Invite. | <urn:uuid:f4caf46c-1e21-4fc8-a5f9-615f549bd576> | {
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Mental retardation, X-linked 19
A non-syndromic form of mild to moderate mental retardation. Mental retardation is characterized by significantly below average general intellectual functioning associated with impairments in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental period. In contrast to syndromic or specific X-linked mental retardation which also present with associated physical, neurological and/or psychiatric manifestations, intellectual deficiency is the only primary symptom of non-syndromic X-linked mental retardation.
|Name||Development Level||Target Family| | <urn:uuid:b1df0d2d-9668-4ec0-8649-7454c6fc4813> | {
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美 [ˈvaɪə, ˈviə]
CET4 TEM4 IELTS 考 研 CET6
- via: see voyage
- via (adv.)
- 1779, from Latin via "by way of," ablative form of via "way, road, path, highway, channel, course," from PIE *wegh- "to go, convey" (see weigh).
- 1. The drug can be transferred to the baby via the placenta.
- 2. Mr Baker will return home via Britain and France.
- 3. The patient's brain activity is monitored via electrodes taped to the skull.
- 4. We drove via Lovech to the old Danube town of Ruse.
- 5. They were spied on via a two-way mirror.
[ via 造句 ] | <urn:uuid:996efd52-3129-4f1e-8b39-890dbf45a32e> | {
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The deepest diving submarines are also called Deep Submergence Vehicles (DSV). Most of them are designed to go deep for scientific research purposes. The deepest dive was made by the bathyscaphe Trieste, reaching a depth of 10,900 meters (35,761 ft).
Submarine Depth Capability: the Trieste
The Trieste made that record setting dive on January 1960 in the Mariana Trench. The Trieste is 59 ft 6 in (18.14 m) long with a beam measuring 11 ft 6 in (3.51 m). The draft is 18 ft 6 in (5.64 m) and the displacement is 50 long tons (51 t).
The vehicle was first launched on August 26, 1953 and bought by the US Navy on 1958. It was decommissioned in 1966 and is now kept in the U.S. Navy Museum. The dive on January 1960 was done with a crew of two, Jacques Piccard and Lt Don Walsh.
Submarine Depth Capability: Trieste II
The Trieste II was tested to a depth of up to 20,000 ft (6,100 m). It has a displacement of 46 long tons (47 t) and a beam measuring 15 ft (4.6 m). The overall length is 67 ft (20 m) and the draft is 12 ft 5 in (3.78 m).
The DSV was built by the Mare Island Naval Shipyard and finished in 1964. The Trieste II began service on September 1, 1969 up to 1980.The Trieste II was headed by Lt Comdr. John B. Mooney, Jr and Capt. Frank Andrews. It is currently kept in the Naval Undersea Museum.
Submarine Depth Capability: Alvin (DSV-2)
The Alvin can go to a depth of 4500 meters (15,000 ft). It weighs 16 tons and has a hatch measuring 0.6 meters (about 2 ft). The DSV was constructed by General Mills’ Electronics Group and commissioned on June 5, 1964.
Today the submarine is owned by the US Navy. It is used by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for scientific research. To date the submarine has taken over 11,000 people on more than 4,000 deep sea dives.
Most of the research has been on organisms that flourish in the deep seas. More than 2,000 scientific papers have been written as a result.
Submarine Depth Capability: DSV-4 Sea Cliff
The DSV-4 was designed to reach a depth of 6500 feet (2000 m), but it was redesigned so that it could go as deep as 20,000 feet. The Sea Cliff weighs 25 tons and is currently owned by the US Navy. It is part of the Alvin class DSV and was decommissioned in 1998. However it was reactivated on September 30, 2002.
The submarine has a hatch measuring 24” in diameter. The Sea Cliff can go 5,000 ft deeper than the Alvin but the super class Alvin can go down to 22,000 ft. Other vehicles in the Alvin class DSV are the Alvin DSV-3, Turtle (DSV-3) and the Nemo (DSV-5).
With so much of the Earth’s oceans still unexplored, expect submarine depth capability to improve even more. They are also of course, used by the military for various operations. | <urn:uuid:00309700-2b06-4843-8c02-39b159abb4b4> | {
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Reason for credit bureaus
The credit bureaus originated as a collector and clearinghouse of consumer information. In the beginning, this consisted of a list of people who were considered credit risks. Prior to that, most merchants only extended credit to people they knew personally. As the population became more mobile and the economy expanded during the roaring twenties, the need for updated credit data grew significantly.
In those early days, data collection and transmission was completely manual and time-consuming. The number of credit reporting agencies grew rapidly to fill the information void that developed as new financial products such as credit cards and home equity loans began to emerge. They quickly moved to automate their processes as computers became available and the internet came of age.
The three major credit bureaus
Equifax was originally founded as the Retail Credit Company in 1899. It grew quickly and expanded throughout the United States and Canada. As its database expanded into the multimillions, the government recognized a need to protect consumers and passed the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) in 1970. The name of the company was changed in 1975 to help dress up its image with the general population.
TransUnion was formed in 1968 by Union Tank Car, and a year later it diversified its holdings into the credit reporting industry. It expanded by buying several smaller agencies that already had contracts with local merchants, and bringing them under their umbrella. This allowed them to secure retail contracts that would not have otherwise been available until they came up for renewal.
While Experian was founded in 1980 as CCN Systems in England, its significant U. S. presence was achieved through the acquisition of TRW Information Systems (commonly known as TRW Credit). When viewed in aggregate, the three major bureaus each manage about 200 million credit files, and process several billion bits of information every month.
Heading: Who regulates the credit bureaus?
President Wilson signed the law that created the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 1914, with the stated purpose of preventing unfair competition in commerce. Its authority has been expanded over the years to include consumer protection in credit and lending practices. The enforcement of the Federal Credit Reporting Act resides with the FTC. This act contains specific provisions that specify how credit information may be used and disseminated. In order to access your records, a business entity must demonstrate that it has a “permissible purpose” to determine your creditworthiness. Otherwise, anyone seeking credit information about you must obtain your advance written consent.
The FCRA guarantees consumers certain rights such as copies of your own report, the right to request corrections, deletions of outdated information, restricting your file only to those with a permissible purpose, and the initiation of a freeze on your file if it has been compromised. The enforcement powers of the FTC include the criminal prosecution of any person or organization that attempts to access your report through false pretenses.
What companies report to credit bureaus?
Larger companies that extend credit normally report to the big-three bureaus. These include savings & loans, mortgage companies, banks, major retailers, finance companies, and issuers of credit cards. Both secured and unsecured loans will be reported, to include mortgages, refinances, home equity, student, installment, automobile, and revolving lines of credit. Debts that you pay off with smaller companies will not always be reported, but they will usually report any negative information. While the agencies are supposed to report both the good with the bad, the reality is that coverage tilts toward the negative, especially with landlords, utility companies, and small retailers.
For younger people, this presents a challenge since they are typically the ones that obtain smaller loans, rent apartments, and have cards with low credit limits. The FTC is evaluating ways to increase the positive coverage for loans and credit that have fallen below the radar in the past. This would help the young to start to build their credit before they are faced with the need for a large sum of money, only to find they are unable to qualify.
Why don’t all three credit bureaus agree?
The three major bureaus are completely separate companies, and are managed and operated independently from one another. The methods they use to collect and assimilate data are proprietary and do not always agree. In addition, the quantity of credit transactions numbers in the billions on a monthly basis, so the possibility of some of these either falling through the crack or being reported inaccurately is fairly substantial. Mistakes are bound to happen, so you must be vigilant in ensuring that you do not fall victim to them.
Beyond that, each company interprets and presents the information they gather in different ways. The algorithms and formulas they use to calculate your credit score are not exactly the same, so most potential lenders will obtain at least two of your scores. You may not know which ones they will use, so it’s critical that you verify and correct your reports on a regular basis.
- Who Are the Three Major Credit Bureaus?
- Who Can Access My Credit Report?
- The Way to Good Credit
- What is an Experian credit report?
- What is a credit lock? | <urn:uuid:67c43f35-108b-4994-b0c5-b580cbb17bdc> | {
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Hyundai is set to implement an ambitious wheel-to-well-and-back-to-wheel program that will see it capturing spent cars and recycling more than 80 per cent of their components to be used to build more cars.
The Korean manufacturing giant has established a recycling centre at its Namyang research and development centre in South Korea that can strip a car down to a shell in just 30 minutes. The processes it has established, using up to 16 crashed cars every day from the company's own safety testing facilities, are expected to eventually be adopted in larger scale.
Recycling centre research engineer Irene Kim says the company has developed the processes to meet new regulations coming into force in 2015 demanding that 85 per cent of cars be recycled.
Hyundai is believed to be the only mass-production car company in the world with its own steel mill, Hyundai Steel, where iron ore is smelted to produce high-grade steel. Around 35 per cent of the mill's rolled steel is trucked to Hyundai's three domestic car and truck production plants where it can be stamped into various body panels.
Eventually, stripped out Hyundai cars that have been crushed and returned to the steel mill will be recycled as new steel product, some of which will return to Hyundai to again be stamped into new body parts.
The small recycling centre is surrounded by crashed cars and is staffed by a small team that has developed an efficient system to extract as much recyclable material as possible from cars.
The process begins with using a wireless actuator to spectacularly fire all of the unused airbags in a car, which are made of nylon and can themselves be recycled.
The car rolls down a de-production line that strips bumper and dashboard plastics, tyres and wheels, batteries, fluids, windscreen glass, seats, wiring looms, radiators and engine and sub-assembly components. The engine is pulled apart and materials split into homogenous groups, while the stripped body shell is crushed and sent to Hyundai Steel.
The circular relationship Hyundai is trying to establish by recycling and re-using its own cars isn't the company's only one, with another having a strong Australian connection.
A trip to the Hyundai Steel plant revealed that around 50 to 60 per cent of the iron ore used to make steel, plus around half of the brown coal needed to fire the company's massive blast furnaces, is sourced from Australia.
That means that raw materials imported from Australia are directly involved in the manufacture of the steel that makes up Hyundai cars, some of which are then exported back to Australia.
So, in one respect at least, Hyundai cars sold in Australia almost certainly contain a significant amount of local content. | <urn:uuid:c4882d46-0b0e-4976-a8b1-000d7669389e> | {
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Study suggests that when parents report being distracted by digital technology, this causes interruptions in interactions with their children. | story via The Guardian
A recent study investigated the impact of “technoference” – when people switch their attention away from others to check their phone or tablet.
The study, carried out in the US, involved more than 300 parents who reported on their use of digital technology, to see if they felt it affected interactions with their children and actual child behaviours. A range of technology devices were studied, including smartphones, computers, television and tablets.
It found half of parents reported that their use of technology disrupted interactions with their child three or more times a day. Behavioural problems in children were linked to these disruptions.
- On average, mothers and fathers reported about two devices as interfering in their interactions with their child at least once or more on a typical day.
- Parents reporting problematic use of digital technology (40% of mothers and 32% of fathers) was correlated with technoference with their child.
- Perceived technoference in mother-child interactions was linked to child behavioural problems – both externalising and internalising behaviour – as rated by mothers and fathers.
- However, perceived technoference in father-child interactions was not linked to behavioural issues.
- Only 11% of parents reported that technoference did not occur and 48% reported three or more times on a typical day.
Read more via The Guardian
Full reference: McDaniel BT, Radesky JS. Technoference: Parent Distraction With Technology and Associations With Child Behavior Problems. Child Development. Published online May 10 2017 | <urn:uuid:6654ca03-00e8-4336-8621-a6f4b17a5e3e> | {
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Right now, the Islamic world is in the midst of a grand experiment. After decades facing an unappetizing choice among secular dictatorship, monarchy, and Iranian-style theocracy, nations across the region are grappling with how to build genuinely modern governments and societies that take into account the Islamist principles shared by a majority of voters.
As they do, a shadow hangs over their prospects. Islamic nations in the Middle East on the whole have underperformed their counterparts in the West. Asian nations that were poorer than the Arab world at the beginning of the Cold War have overtaken the Middle East. And promising experiments with democracy have been few and far between.
The question of why is a contentious one. Has the Islamic world been held back by its treatment at the hands of history? Or could the roots of the problem lie in its shared religion—in the Koran, and Islamic belief itself?
A provocative new answer is emerging from the work of Timur Kuran, a Turkish-American economist at Duke University and one of the most influential thinkers about how, exactly, Islam shapes societies. In a growing body of work, Kuran argues that the blame for the Islamic world’s economic stagnation and democracy deficit lies with a distinct set of institutions that Islamic law created over centuries. The way traditional Islamic law handled finance, inheritance, and incorporation, he argues, held back both economic and political development. These practices aren’t inherent in the religion—they emerged long after the establishment of Islam, and have partly receded from use in the modern era. But they left a profound legacy in many societies where Islam held sway.
Islamic partnerships and inheritance law limited the ability of merchants to pool capital and build competitive enterprises with long life spans. Islam’s emphasis on fairness and a division of assets among children had the unfortunate effect of preventing large-scale businesses from taking root. Meanwhile, the primary vehicle for organizing institutions—the Islamic trust—placed severe limits on the development of civic institutions such as universities, guilds, and charities. Over time, the result was a stagnant economy and an enfeebled civil society with no way to challenge the established political order.
Kuran’s work is part of a current in modern economics that explores the precise ways institutions shape societies. His 2010 book, “The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East,” pulled together nearly a decade of research on economic development of the Islamic world over the past thousand years. Since then he has been focusing more specifically on its political implications. His work has also catalyzed a flurry of research by economists, political scientists, and other scholars.
Kuran’s critics think he unfairly impugns religious law. Pakistani scholar Arshad Zaman argues that Kuran misunderstands the very nature of Islamic law and business practice, which elevate worthwhile economic goals such as income equality and social justice above growth. Others argue that the harm suffered at the hands of legacy Western colonial powers is far more important in explaining why the Muslim world is struggling today.
Kuran himself sees his work as coming from a sympathetic perspective: He wants to combat the argument that Islam is incompatible with modernity and liberty, a notion he decries as “one of the most virulent ideas of our time.” He worries about anti-Islamic sentiment from outside the religion, as well as the rigid and defensive posture of some orthodox Islamists. (He pointedly avoids discussing his own faith. “I write as a scholar,” he says.)
Thanks in part to this careful navigation, Kuran’s scholarship gives economists, and perhaps political leaders in the Middle East, a way to talk about the Islamic world’s problems without resorting to crude stereotypes or heightened “clash of civilizations” rhetoric. In Kuran’s analysis, Islam itself is neither the problem nor the solution; indeed, most of the rigid practices have long been supplemented by or in some cases abandoned for more Western models.
However, his work does carry stark implications for countries such as Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia, whose emerging political futures are likely to be shaped by Islamist majorities or pluralities. A democratic renaissance could paradoxically lead to more stagnation if it imposes calcified institutions of Islamic yesteryear on modern society. If Kuran is right, the nations of the Arab Spring face a conundrum: The institutions most in keeping with societies’ religious principles could be the ones most likely to hold it back.
While Europe suffered centuries of decline and intellectual darkness, the early Islamic world bubbled with vitality. Competing schools of Islamic jurisprudence produced texts still consulted as references today, while merchants and caliphs left copious written records for future scholars to study. In the course of his work, Kuran was able to comb through business records and commercial ledgers spanning more than a millennium.
What he found, he says, was that two legal traditions pervasive in the Islamic world became especially limiting: the laws governing the accumulation of capital, and those governing how institutions were organized. The growth of capital was limited by laws of inheritance and Islamic partnership, which required that large fortunes and enterprises be split up with each passing generation. The waqf, or Islamic trust, had even greater ramifications, because it determined the structure of most social relationships and had wide-ranging consequences for civil society.
Under Islamic law, the trust—rather than the corporation—is the most common legal unit of organization for entities outside the government. Until modern times, cities, hospitals, schools, parks, and charities were all set up and governed by the immutable deed of an Islamic trust. Under its terms, the founder of the trust donates the land or other capital that funds it in perpetuity, and sets its rules in the deed. They can never be altered or amended. The waqf was developed by Islamic scholars in the centuries after the religion was established, drawing on Koranic principles barring usury and demanding justice in business. (It is not an institution stipulated by the Koran itself.) Much like a trust in the West, a waqf is not “governed” so much as executed. It is also limited in what it can do. A waqf is prohibited from engaging in politics, which means it cannot form coalitions, pool its resources with other organizations, or oppose the state.
Drawing on voluminous study of the mechanisms of money, power, and law going back to the 7th century founding of Islam, Kuran draws a picture of nations whose rulers wielded central and often highly authoritarian power, and faced little challenge from either business owners or a waqf-bound civil society.
Over time, he argues, this structure led to a radically different social system than the one that arose in the West. There, the rise of the corporation created a vehicle for prosperity and a civilian counterweight to state power—an institution that could adapt and grow, survive from one generation to the next, and pay benefits to its shareholding owners, who are thus motivated to steer it toward expansion and influence. Nonprofit corporations enjoy similar flexibility and freedom of action, though they don’t have shareholders.
“In the West, you had universities, unions, churches, organized as corporations that were free to make coalitions, engage in politics, advocate for more freedoms, and they became a civil society,” Kuran said in an interview. “Democracy is a system of checks and balances. It can’t develop if a population is passive.”
In modern times, Islamic nations have adopted Western institutions like corporations and banks to manage their affairs. Municipalities and private enterprise are now more commonly incorporated rather than set up as trusts. But the trust remains pervasive, especially in the realm of social services: Hospitals, schools, and aid societies are still almost always trusts rather than corporations—a factor that correlates with their quiescence in balancing state power.
In focusing on the specific legal institutions of Islamic civic life, Kuran’s thesis directly targets those “apologists” who blame the economic and political problems of the Middle East solely on colonialism and other outside forces. He also takes aim at essentialists who hold Islam as a religion responsible for the problems of Islamic countries. In fact, he argues, Islamic states that have embraced modernization programs and gone through the sometimes painful process of adopting new institutions, as Turkey and Indonesia have, have had great success in developing both democracy and economic prosperity widely shared among citizens.
While some critics attack Kuran from an Islamic perspective, like Arshad Zaman, others share his approach but dispute his findings. Maya Shatzmiller, a historian at Western University in Canada, believes that the real specific causes of economic growth are particular to the circumstances of each individual region, and that by focusing on some notional qualities common to the entire Islamic world, his work generically indicts Islam without offering real insight into the economic problems of individual Middle Eastern states.
Kuran believes the evidence of a gap between the Islamic world and the West is undeniable and merits serious examination of what those countries have in common. And it’s patronizing, he writes, to suggest that the Islamic world will be offended by a vigorous debate on the subject.
Kuran’s approach has influenced other social scientists to use similar tools in the hope of offering more precise and useful answers. Eric Chaney, a Harvard economist, uses the mathematical modeling of econometrics to pinpoint the historical factors that correlate with lagging democratization and development in the Islamic world. Jared Rubin, an economist at Chapman University in California, studies the effect of technologies like the printing press on economic disparities. Jan Luiten van Zanden, a renowned Dutch historian, has begun a deep comparative study of the organization of cities in the Islamic world and the West.
For the new architects of Islamic politics, Kuran’s work offers a clear blueprint, though perhaps a difficult one to follow. It suggests that states heavily reliant on Islamic law may need to reformulate their approach, extending Western-style rules to organize their nonstate entities: banks, companies, nonprofits, political parties, religious societies. Over time, this will seed a more empowered civic society and ultimately pull greater numbers of citizens into the fabric of political life.
It’s a challenge, however. Authoritarian states are unlikely to promote reforms that will weaken their control. And the resurgence of Islamist politics has created a new wave of support for a more doctrinaire application of Islamic law and traditions.
Another barrier to reform is the slow pace of cultural change. Once modern institutions are in place, Kuran warns, it takes a long time for their use to become widespread and for people to trust them. Simply put, for an institution to grow powerful and influential, whether it’s a bank or a political party, it needs to build support from a large, trusting public of strangers. Much of the Middle East still operates on smaller units, in which customers or citizens expect to know who’s running the company or institution that serves them. For example, Kuran points out that despite the prevalence of banks, only one in five families in the Arab world actually has a bank account. (By comparison, three in five Turkish families have bank accounts, and nearly every US family does.)
Most broadly, change requires a shift in the constraints on civil society. In recent decades, Middle Eastern regimes have systematically destroyed any opposition and kept rigid control over the media, official religious groups, and any body that might develop a political identity, from university faculty to labor unions. The most effective dissent survived deep within mosques, where even the most repressive police states hesitated to go.
In the long run, to end the cycle of autocracy and violence, the Islamic world will need space for civil society to grow outside the constraints of the state and the mosque. Only then will citizens grow accustomed to making decisions that have traditionally been made on their behalf. And breaking the old habits, on the street and in election booths, will likely take time.
“The state itself,” Kuran says, “cannot change the way people relate to each other.”Thanassis Cambanis, a fellow at The Century Foundation, is the author of “A Privilege to Die: Inside Hezbollah’s Legions and Their Endless War Against Israel” and blogs at thanassiscambanis.com. He is an Ideas columnist. | <urn:uuid:8fac58a2-b39e-4ed1-9354-11b66a83140f> | {
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do bhikkhunis follow more precepts (sikkhapada) than monks?
In Theravada, monks follow 227 precepts and bhikkhunis follow
311 precepts. This difference often leads to misunderstanding
that the Buddha in fact did not want women to join the Order,
and so he set up rules as barrier to fence off women right at
From a comparative
study between the monks and nuns patimokkha (presented at an
International Conference on Thai Studies, Chiengmai, Oct. 1417,
1996) it is shown that counting by section, bhikkhus observe
eight sections as compared to seven sections by nuns. One section
exclusively for monks is called "Aniyata." In this
section, there are two rules introduced by Visakha, the leading
female lay supporter in early Buddhism. One of them forbids
the monks from staying alone with a female in a covered place
and another one forbids monks from staying alone with a female
in an open place beyond hearing of others.
the first section of the patimokkha which is concerned with
the most severe offences, any monk or nun who has transgressed
any one of these rules is "defeated" at the moment
of committing that act. There are four rules for monks and eight
rules for nuns. The extra rules that nuns have to observe in
this section may be found for monks also but are classified
under Sanghadisesa, the second section which is less
severe. Having transgressed it a monk will have to go through
'manatta' period, a temporary self-expulsion from the Sangha.
It is worth noting that classification of the rules can easily
be the work of a later period at the hands of the monks.
section, there are eight rules for bhikkhunis. Bhikkhus have
the same content of the rules but they are counted as one and
classified under Sekhiya, another section. This is one
of the reasons responsible for the bloated number of rules for
In the Pacittiya
section, bhikkhunis follow 166 rules as compared to 92 for bhikkhus.
There are 70 common rules shared by both Sanghas. Then bhikkhus
have another set of 22 exclusively for bhikkhus and bhikkhunis
have another set of 76 rules exclusively for bhikkhunis. Within
76 rules exclusively for bhikkhunis, it is notable that there
are many rules regarding ordination requirements which the bhikkhus
also have to follow, but for bhikkhus they are not counted in
the Patimokkha. This also results in a seemingly larger number
of Patimokkha rules for bhikkhunis.
Due to the
above reasons, the bhikkhunis carry a higher number of rules
in the Patimokkha than the monks, but in reality they follow
a similar set of rules. | <urn:uuid:d13fb54b-c8e0-421c-9ad8-ab1eba6e73a3> | {
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Keeping cool in summer months is vital for everyone, but for those who suffer from hyperhidrosis (or excessive sweating), it's especially important. People who suffer from hyperhidrosis sweat about five times more than the average person, says Dee Anna Glaser, MD, President and Founding Member of the International Hyperhidrosis Society.
Need a quick refresher on sweat? Perspiration is the body's default method for cooling itself. Pores emit sweat and through the process of evaporation, the body's core temperature lowers. So, hyperhidrosis means you have a hyperactive cooling system.
The amount you sweat can be increased for a number of reasons like heightened nerves or wearing heavy clothing, but that doesn't necessarily mean you have hyperhidrosis. A few key signs that your sweating is serious: You typically sweat equally on both sides of your body, you have a family member with hyperhidrosis and/or you suffer at least one episode of intense sweating per week. If any of these characteristics apply to you, talk to your doc about treatment. And in the meantime, try using anti-perspirants on all areas of the body where you excessively sweat. "There is no reason that anti-perspirants should only be applied to the underarms," says Dr. Glaser, who also suggests applying anti-perspirants at night, when skin is dry and more absorbent.
Visit www.sweathelp.org for more information.
- Leanna Lynch, WD Intern | <urn:uuid:8a6b6449-fd74-4f75-862c-d823f61dfb36> | {
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We see the education of the children as a partnership between the school and parents. It is important that we are informed about any home matters that may affect your child in school.
We believe that it is vital that parents are kept informed of their child’s achievement and progress. Communication between school and home are vital in developing trust and raising standards across the curriculum and beyond.
On this page are links to a variety of material that will help the partnership between the school and parents. | <urn:uuid:f08eb6aa-ad9b-44d5-abd4-e64d75d47a00> | {
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Earth Day is upon us (April 22, 2009), and, once again, we can all use a reminder to look at our lives to find ways to protect our planet. And that includes hearing aid wearers, potential hearing aid wearers and persons considered about protecting their hearing. What can you do to Go Green this year?
Well, you might not think much about it but you know what, there’s a lot you can do. Read on. It isn’t hard, it won’t change your lifestyle and you’ll make the world a better place.
|Love our Earth with green hearing health|
Consider the following tips on Going Green all year round.
1. Buy mercury-free hearing aid batteries.
Mercury is a heavy metal and is present in trace amounts in some batteries. And although hearing aid batteries contain a very small amount of mercury, each time you toss your hearing aid batteries into the trash, eventually – maybe years from now – that small amount of mercury is going to work its way into our water supply.
The trend in hearing aid batteries is moving toward greener pastures. Within the last few years, leading hearing aid battery manufactures such as Energizer and Rayovac, have began manufacturing and distributing mercury-free hearing aid batteries in the United States.
So when it is time to replace your hearing aid battery supply, consider going green.
2. Buy hearing aid batteries in simple packaging.
You buy a package of some hearing aid batteries and there’s a cardboard backing or box, shrink wrap, then a plastic shield, then safety, tamper-proof seals and on and on. By the time you actually get to the batteries you have a pile of trash littering the kitchen table.
When you buy hearing aid batteries – or any consumer product – look for the least amount of waste in packaging. Does that bottle of aspirin really need a separate cardboard box to protect it? It may be a little thing but little things mean a lot to our landfills when everyone does them.
3. DON’T buy cheap disposable hearing aids.
A recent study on cheap hearing aids by Michigan State University (MSU) researchers found cheap hearing aids, those less than $100, are not worth your pennies when it comes down to consumer satisfaction.
And with the color green on our mind, these disposable cheap hearing aids are wasteful. Due to the poor sound quality and low consumer satisfaction, these cheap hearing aids end up in the land-fill (not even worth putting in the drawer).
Need more convincing? MSU researchers also found hearing aids priced under $100 are actually a safety hazard for your hearing.
Bottom line? Purchase hearing aids that you wear for years. Better hearing and a better life are a worthy investment for you and the Earth.
Your hearing will thank you and know you are doing your part for a better, greener future for our kids and grandkids.
4. Donate your old behind-the-ear hearing aids.
You may have outgrown yours or are ready for an upgrade, but to someone else your hearing aids are valuable pieces of equipment you’re about to toss.
Did you know behind-the-ear hearing aids can be refurbished, cleaned up and reprogrammed for someone else? All it takes is that person visiting a hearing care professional to ensure the behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing aids will work for their hearing loss and if so, then purchasing new custom earmolds to attach to the hearing aids.
So if it is time for you to purchase new hearing aids and your current ones are still working (and aren’t from the Stone Age) consider donating them so someone less fortunate with hearing loss may benefit from them. You know the saying “one person’s junk is another’s treasure”.
|Rechargable Siemens' Motion BTEs|
Contact the Lions Club in your community for more information on donating used BTE hearing aids.
5. Consider a rechargeable hearing aid.
They may cost a few extra bucks but (1) you never have to watch that last battery slide under the fridge just out of reach and (2) you aren’t dumping toxins into our landfills every other week.
There are a number of hearing aid manufactures that have developed rechargeable hearing aids. Not only are they convenient, they’re green, too. Discuss this with your hearing care professional to see if one of them is right for you.
6. Buy quality, custom hearing protection.
You can go to the local pharmacy and pick up a pack of foam ear plugs that can be rolled up and used once (or twice if you don’t mind a little ear wax the next time). However after one or two uses, they are done for and end up in the garbage. Wasteful and not to mention, they are not the most comfortable thing to put inside your ear canal.
For persons who frequently wear protection (which should be everyone) might we suggest custom hearing protection – something that will last, is more comfortable and provides a higher degree of protection and a better listening experience?
Custom ear protection is made after a hearing care professional makes impressions of your ears with a silicone material. The impressions are then sent to an earmold manufacturer to have the custom ear protection made.
The custom molds may be made with special filters depending upon the type of noise you are protecting yourself from (i.e. music, machinery, etc). For shooting sports enthusiasts you may want to consider investing in hear-through ear muffs that engage protection only when a shot occurs – allowing safety and protection.
Custom ear protection is available through your hearing care professional – discuss your protection needs with them so they may choose the right product for you.
7. Take care of your hearing aids.
If you take care of those expensive little ear aids you won’t have to replace them as often. Now, that’s not only good for the green in your wallet, it’s good for a greener planet.
Wipe your hearing aids clean each day using a soft cloth. And keep them away from dogs (especially large dogs who like to eat things), kids, the tropical fish tank and swimming pool. For more information on taking care of your hearing aids consider reading: Hearing Aid Care Made Simple: Top 10 Tips to Care for Your Ear Gear.
Last but not least...
Take your ears and hearing aids in for a regular tune up.
Visit your hearing care professional at least once a year so adjustments can be made to improve your listening experience if your hearing changes and for your hearing aids to have a thorough cleaning by a pro.
You may not think about your hearing aids, batteries, packaging and all of that other stuff as important to a greener, healthier planet. But if you’re like most of us, you think about a healthier you and a healthier Earth will lead to a healthier you.
So, this Earth Day, take a moment to look through your life to find ways to use less and recycle more.
The future of our home depends on it so do your part – even if it’s a little part.
Cheers to Green Healthy Hearing! | <urn:uuid:007a63d5-9637-40f6-9c0a-c58b2ebafe33> | {
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8 Things You May Not Know About Nutella
1. Napoleon and Hitler are responsible for the world's Nutella addiction.
Back in 1806, Napoleon tried to freeze out British commerce as a means to win the Napoleonic wars (and take over the world). The result was a disastrous continental blockade that caused the cost of chocolate to skyrocket and left Piedmontese chocolatiers in the lurch. Ever resourceful, chocolatiers in Turin started adding chopped hazelnuts to chocolate to stretch the supply as much as possible. The ensuing deliciousness was a fateful paste dubbed “gianduia.”
Over a century later, chocolate again became expensive and scarce due to rationing in Europe during World War II. An Italian pastry maker named Pietro Ferrero once again turned to the mighty hazelnut for salvation in 1946 and created Pasta Gianduja, renamed “Nutella” in 1964.
2. It actually is the breakfast of champions.
According to the Guinness World Records, Nutella's 40th Anniversary breakfast celebration in Germany in 2005 earned the title of “Largest Continental Breakfast.” A total of 27,854 people gathered in Gelsenkirchen to enjoy a meal that consisted of little more than Nutella itself.
3. It sells like hotcakes.
One jar of Nutella is sold every 2.5 seconds throughout the world. According to the United States Census Bureau, one person is born every eight seconds. You do the math.
4. It spreads far and wide.
Not only is it available for purchase and feverish consumption in 75 countries, all of the Nutella sold in a year could be spread over more than 1000 soccer fields.
5. Nutella-related crimes are on the rise.
In 2013 the chocolate-hazelnut spread made headlines in Germany, where thieves pulled off a $20,000 heist, stealing 5.5 metric tons of the sweet stuff from a parked truck. Several weeks earlier, Columbia University found itself at the center of “Nutella-gate,” an expose smearing the school for spending $6000 per week on the spread for one of its dining facilities, where students were allegedly snarfing 100 pounds of it per day.
6. World Nutella Day Has Been a Bit of a Roller-Coaster.
Two bloggers in Italy decided to take their love of Nutella to the next level in 2007, and created a worldwide day of celebration dedicated to the addictive substance. Thus, every year February 5th is a day for eating Nutella, sharing Nutella recipes and memories, and looking at photos of Nutella food-porn. In 2013, Nutella manufacturer Ferrero tried to shut down World Nutella Day before reconsidering. But as of 2015, at the request of Nutella Day founder Sara Rosso, Ferrero took over the holiday.
7. There's no masking the flavor.
The chocolate and hazelnut substance gianduia is named after a character from Italian commedia dell'arte named Gianduja. He is depicted as a smiling Piedmontese peasant with a three-point hat who rides around town on a donkey clutching a duja—which in the Piedmontese dialect means “container.” The duja was said to hold wine ... but could have just as easily held a few pounds of that chocolatey hazelnut goodness, no? Gianduja masks are sold all over the Piedmont region of Italy, and his face was plastered all over early Nutella advertisements.
8. Nutella has a smeared reputation.
Nutella became so popular in Italy that Italian markets began to offer free “smears” of Nutella to any kid who showed up with a piece of bread. The phenomenon was referred to as “The Smearing,” and while it could potentially double as the name of a horror flick, was a highly successful marketing strategy. No wonder we're all addicted. | <urn:uuid:dcc23f1e-48f3-4a0a-8a74-437081818d2d> | {
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Long-term coffee consumption may be associated with a reduced risk for endometrial cancer, according to a recent study in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
Edward Giovannucci, M.D., Sc.D., professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, said coffee is emerging as a protective agent in cancers that are linked to obesity, estrogen and insulin.
"Coffee has already been shown to be protective against diabetes due to its effect on insulin," said Giovannucci, a senior researcher on the study. "So we hypothesized that we'd see a reduction in some cancers as well."
Giovannucci, along with Youjin Je, a doctoral candidate in his lab, and colleagues observed cumulative coffee intake in relation to endometrial cancer in 67,470 women who enrolled in the Nurses' Health Study.
During the course of 26 years of follow-up, researchers documented 672 cases of endometrial cancer.
Drinking more than four cups of coffee per day was linked with a 25 percent reduced risk for endometrial cancer. Drinking between two and three cups per day was linked with a 7 percent reduced risk.
A similar link was seen in decaffeinated coffee, where drinking more than two cups per day was linked with a 22 percent reduced risk for endometrial cancer.
Giovannucci said he hopes this study will lead to further inquiries about the effect of coffee on cancer because in this and similar studies, coffee intake is self-selected and not randomized.
"Coffee has long been linked with smoking, and if you drink coffee and smoke, the positive effects of coffee are going to be more than outweighed by the negative effects of smoking," said Giovannucci. "However, laboratory testing has found that coffee has much more antioxidants than most vegetables and fruits." | <urn:uuid:0393d80c-b0be-456f-99a3-b3eda67988af> | {
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First there was the drafting table and the pencil. Then there was 2-D CAD; next came 3-D drafting utilities like SolidWorks and ProEngineer. Now, San Francisco-based Linden Lab has evolved computer-aided design to its next plateau, offering free access to a computer-generated alternative universe called Second Life (SL) where users can build anything. Ironically, the SL developers did not intend to design a solid modeling tool. SL was just another massive multiplayer online experience until users spontaneously began utilizing it for engineering design.
“Some people call Second Life a game while others think of it as serious development tool,” says Assistant Professor Chang Liu (a.k.a. Chang Tuxing in SL) of the Virtual Immersive Technologies and Arts for Learning (VITAL) Lab. at Ohio University (http://rbi.ims.ca/5407-591). “The fun is still there, but Second Life can also be applied for useful ends.”
This unrestricted metaverse started as a bare abyss, existing only as lines of code on the Linden Lab servers. However, since its debut in 2003, SL has been populated and landscaped by its users who have created a virtual world that is as rich as it is expansive.
Virtual People Building Virtually Anything
“Second Life is just emerging into the mainstream and a lot of engineers are not there yet,” says Pam Broviak, PE, (a.k.a. Pam Renoir in SL) public works director and city engineer for La Salle, IL. “When I show engineers Second Life, their initial reaction is ‘it is just a game’ because it looks like a game. They have to get beyond that.”
In SL, virtual objects are created from scratch in-world using a library of primitives, basic shapes such as cubes and spheres. By manipulating these elemental objects, adding uploaded image textures and combining components, anything that can be imagined can be constructed: anvils, automobiles, airplanes and more. Completed objects are bequeathed additional layers of sophistication by adding software scripts, making them intelligent, responsive and interactive.
“Scripting is one of the many features that sets Second Life apart from objects built with 3-D CAD software,” Broviak says. “In Second Life, you can make a static 3-D object move and react as you make changes to it in real time. Scripting allows you to link cause and effect, which you cannot do with 2-D drawings or even CAD.”
Using her SL identity, “Pam Renoir,” Broviak manages the Second Life Public Works Resource Center, one of the first destinations in the metaverse focused on applying SL to real-world engineering. The Center serves as a clearing house for information related to engineering and public works in SL. It also functions as a meeting area for users affiliated with in-world engineering organizations and it hosts a museum where engineering information is exhibited for visitors. Broviak built the Center in her spare time using the suite of SL building tools.
A Virtual Plunger for Real Stopped Drains
Broviak has also been using SL in her engineering practice to design plumbing systems. She realized the utility of the metaverse for engineering design while reconfiguring the piping in a residential building to prevent sewage backup.
“I was working with the homeowner and I was trying to convey the layout of the new system with 2-D drawings,” Broviak says. “It occurred to me that it would be easier to use Second Life to make virtual copies of the plumbing system before and after the proposed upgrade so (the client) could actually walk through the piping with me and understand the differences.”
Unlike real world piping, Broviak’s plumbing system now exists in cyber space, where it can be used as a kind of 3-D wiki. Engineers, plumbers and homeowners can use Broviak’s design as a template, modifying it for their own applications. Broviak imagines that eventually an entire 3-D library of plumbing solutions could be accessible to engineers visiting Second Life.
“What takes it further than conventional 3-D drafting tools is the level of interaction,” Broviak says. “Once you build something, you can pick it up or walk through it; its immersive, like the object is really there. You can’t do that with CAD.”
A Computer-Generated Computer Science Dept.
Ohio University has used SL to create a complete virtual engineering college, including a building slated for future construction. At this SL campus, engineering and computer science courses are taught in parallel with real-world counterparts.
“One of our buildings won’t exist for another year, but my students already had a class in it,” Liu says. “First we tried to replicate buildings exactly, but then we learned it was better to modify them from the original to make them more functional in Second Life.”
According to Liu, fruitful SL modifications to the virtual campus included exposing portions of steel structures so students could get a sense of the building’s internal framework and creating a huge transparent opening in the back of the virtual student center to showcase the building’s internal architecture. Conventional building construction rules do not apply when creating structures in SL.
“We built the new building from the roof down because builders don’t need to follow classical rules of physics — without walls to support it, the roof just floated on its own,” Liu says. “In fact, since it never rains, we really don’t even need a roof.”
Perhaps the best part about Ohio University’s virtual engineering campus is that Liu can hold office hours in SL simultaneously with his office hours in the real world.
Second Life’s Disruptive Potential for Real Engineering
For now, Broviak and Liu are engineering pioneers within SL; among the first to embrace this immersive alternate reality as a serious tool for real-world engineering design. Nonetheless, they share a vision for how SL may soon be used once its capabilities and scope are discovered and exploited by engineers.
“I see Second Life being used as the first step in the planning process for many future engineering design projects,” Broviak says. “Building something in there does not take a lot of time. Companies will soon discover that much of their initial design work can be accomplished in-world where everyone has a chance to use it and comment on it before anything is actually built.”
Broviak also foresees manufacturers and suppliers setting up virtual storefronts in SL where engineers can browse and specify parts for their projects. Potential buyers will interact with 3-D computer-generated components instead of thumbing through a 2-D catalogue or Web browser. Companies could even build large versions of their products embedded with interactive scripts to enable customers to walk through and see how the internal components function.
Liu sees SL as a pathway to reduce production cycle time and increase user input earlier in the development process.
“Normally what designers are doing is not accessible to users,” he says. “But, Second Life is different in the sense that products are built in-world, which totally changes the dynamic. Creation is no longer the work of a developer.”
It remains to be seen exactly how engineers will embrace and utilize SL to improve design. However, if Broviak and Liu are correct, this game-like, computer-generated virtual reality will soon become as integral to engineering design as CAD is today.
Find a supplier on oemsuppliersearch.com | <urn:uuid:373baa52-c4db-4aed-aa8f-6062e89d81bf> | {
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perfect competition - the economics of competitive markets
The degree to which a market or industry can be described as competitive depends in part on how many suppliers are seeking the demand of consumers and the ease with which new businesses can enter and exit a particular market in the long run.
The spectrum of competition ranges from highly competitive markets where there are many sellers, each of whom has little or no control over the market price - to a situation of pure monopoly where a market or an industry is dominated by one single supplier who enjoys considerable discretion in setting prices, unless subject to some form of direct regulation by the government.
In many sectors of the economy markets are best described by the term oligopoly - where a few producers dominate the majority of the market and the industry is highly concentrated. In a duopoly two firms dominate the market although there may be many smaller players in the industry.
Competitive markets operate on the basis of a number of assumptions. When these assumptions are dropped - we move into the world of imperfect competition. These assumptions are discussed below
Assumptions behind a Perfectly Competitive Market
1. Many suppliers each with an insignificant share of the market – this means that each firm is too small relative to the overall market to affect price via a change in its own supply – each individual firm is assumed to be a price taker
2. An identical output produced by each firm – in other words, the market supplies homogeneous or standardised products that are perfect substitutes for each other. Consumers perceive the products to be identical
3. Consumers have perfect information about the prices all sellers in the market charge – so if some firms decide to charge a price higher than the ruling market price, there will be a large substitution effect away from this firm
4. All firms (industry participants and new entrants) are assumed to have equal access to resources (technology, other factor inputs) and improvements in production technologies achieved by one firm can spill-over to all the other suppliers in the market
5. There are assumed to be no barriers to entry & exit of firms in long run – which means that the market is open to competition from new suppliers – this affects the long run profits made by each firm in the industry. The long run equilibrium for a perfectly competitive market occurs when the marginal firm makes normal profit only in the long term
6. No externalities in production and consumption so that there is no divergence between private and social costs and benefits
Short Run Price and Output for the Competitive Industry and Firm
In the short run the equilibrium market price is determined by the interaction between market demand and market supply. In the diagram shown above, price P1 is the market-clearing price and this price is then taken by each of the firms. Because the market price is constant for each unit sold, the AR curve also becomes the Marginal Revenue curve (MR). A firm maximises profits when marginal revenue = marginal cost. In the diagram above, the profit-maximising output is Q1. The firm sells Q1 at price P1. The area shaded is the economic (supernormal profit) made in the short run because the ruling market price P1 is greater than average total cost.
Not all firms make supernormal profits in the short run. Their profits depend on the position of their short run cost curves. Some firms may be experiencing sub-normal profits because their average total costs exceed the current market price. Other firms may be making normal profits where total revenue equals total cost (i.e. they are at the break-even output). In the diagram below, the firm shown has high short run costs such that the ruling market price is below the average total cost curve. At the profit maximising level of output, the firm is making an economic loss (or sub-normal profits)
The Effects of a change in Market Demand
In the diagram below there has been an increase in market demand (ceteris paribus). This causes an increase in market price and quantity traded. The firm's average revenue curve shifts up to AR2 (=MR2) and the profit maximising output expands to Q2. Notice that the MC curve is the firm's supply curve. Higher prices cause an expansion along the supply curve. Following the increase in demand, total profits have increased. An inward shift in market demand would have the opposite effect. Think also about the effect of a change in market supply - perhaps arising from a cost-reducing technological innovation available to all firms in a competitive market.
Working with Our Partners
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tutor2u is proud to sponsor TABS Cricket Club and Collingham JFC as part of its programme of investment in local junior sport | <urn:uuid:091e702e-f8cd-45cf-be9c-6a54970f9dce> | {
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Encouraging Prosocial Behavior in Children
Children that are new to a preschool or daycare environment are just learning which behaviors are socially acceptable and how to manage their natural impulse to react physically to events that frustrate or anger them.
Preschool teachers can help children learn which behaviors are socially acceptable by:
- Modeling positive conflict resolution and non-physical problem solving
- Encouraging and praising children's attempts to use good conflict resolution and problem solving
- Helping children develop vocabulary necessary to describe feelings, needs and frustrations
- Redirecting children away from inappropriate choices and toward appropriate choices
- Offering opportunities in the program to practice social skills such as problem solving, cooperation, turn taking, and sharing
Providing a program that is rich in interesting and engaging activities helps avoid issues with behavior and accidents. As you tour potential preschools spend some time in each child care center looking for the following signs that promote prosocial behaviors:
- Does the staff engage the children in positive and supportive conversations?
- Are gentle interactions used to redirect children to good choices?
- Are teachers at child eye level and use children's names when addressing them?
- Is there a variety of things for the children to do throughout the day?
- Is there a balance of active and quiet activities?
- Are there large group, small group and individual activities?
- Are transitions well managed and is enough time allowed for transitions between activities so that children do not feel either rushed or bored?
- Is there a variety in the equipment in the classroom?
- Are there enough things in the classroom for children to make choices?
- Are there duplicates of popular toys?
- Does the room arrangement allow for large and small group play? For quiet and active areas?
- Are materials within the children's reach and easy for them to put away?
- Are the planned activities implemented? Are activities presented in a way that engages the children?
- Do the teachers appear to enjoy the activities alongside the children?
- Are the activities challenging but not frustrating?
- Do the activities allow for a variety of developmental levels?
There is a lot to consider when choosing the right care partner for your family. To learn more about how we encourage prosocial behavior at KinderCare, talk to your local center director. | <urn:uuid:6212b85c-6800-4e8d-aac8-5d4c78230c42> | {
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Topic for Education
Joyful Teaching & Learning
Brain research shows that the deepest and most effective learning doesn’t begin in the rational center of the brain, it begins in the emotions. Positive emotion enhances alertness. Learn ways to make compassionate humor a useful tool in the learning experience and join your students in enjoying increased learning and lowered stress.
What brain imaging reveals about the role of emotions in learning
Creating emotional safety for optimal learning
How joyful learning is consistent with the Growth model of intelligence
How positive emotional experience can aid student engagement
"Dave was energetic, dynamic, interactive and humorous. He was a hit!"
– Dennis Noonan
VP Sales/Marketing Nemacolin Resort | <urn:uuid:17e4d82b-60bc-4bc9-9315-c5c9ea054782> | {
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The Bahá’í community of Saint Paul, Minnesota began in 1909 when Dr. Clement Woolson, who became a Bahá’í in New York City in 1899, moved to Saint Paul to establish a Bahá’í community here. Both Clement and his wife Leona were osteopathic doctors and active Bahá’ís. The Woolsons held weekly Bahá’í gatherings in their home in Saint Paul.
They were early contributors to the Bahá’í Temple Unity, a fundraising committee destined to build the first Bahá’í temple on the North American continent. The committee had been established in Chicago in March of 1909 on the very same day the remains of the Bab, prophet-founder of the Babí religion and forerunner ofBahá’u’llah, were laid to rest by Abdu’l-Bahá in the specially erected mausoleum on Mt. Carmel in Haifa, Israel.
In 1912 Clement was a delegate to the 4th Bahá’í National Convention in Chicago and Leona was the alternate delegate representing the Bahá’ís of Saint Paul. At the end of the convention, on May 1st, 1912, they were able to attend the large gathering in Wilmette, Illinois when Abdu’l-Bahá, son of the prophet-founder Bahá’íu’llah, laid the cornerstone for the House of Worship.
Come September 20th, 1912, Abdu’l-Bahá spoke in the Woolson home on spiritual education. A Saint Paul newspaper announcing this talk said the Woolsons were expecting a diverse group of guests including members of the Saint Paul Theosophical Society. Abdu’l-Bahá spoke to other Theosophical groups in other cities during his 239 day tour of America and Canada. He had commented that Theosophists were more open to new spiritual ideas, and that Americans in general were more open than Europeans. One of the principles of the Bahá’í Faith is independent search after truth as opposed to blind acceptance of what others might say.
Resulting from the captivating talk by Abdu’l-Bahá in the Woolson home and Dr. Clement Woolson’s beautiful, inspired and explanatory talks with his gift of eloquence and excellent diction there were soon others declaring their faith in Bahá’íu’llah. By 1922 there were nine Bahá’ís in Saint Paul, the number required to form a Local Spiritual Assembly(LSA). However, it was not until 1923 that Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith and great-grandson of the prophet-founder Bahá’íu’llah, called for the election of the first Local Spiritual Assemblies. The National Spiritual Assemblyof the United States did not establish official LSA election forms or publish an LSA directory until 1925. Thus there are no official lists of assemblies before 1925. In 1925 the Saint Paul Bahá’í community did not elect an assembly suggesting that some members had moved away reducing the community to less than nine. It took until 1931 to reestablish the Saint Paul Local Spiritual Assembly.
A Saint Paul Bahá’í Community History: The Early Years
Among those attending the gatherings at the Woolsons were the Abas, Kadrie and Hider families. These three families from Syria moved to New York in 1902 and on to Saint Paul in 1922. First Hassen Abas attended the gatherings and soon after Alex Kadrie and Kamel Hider were attending talks at the Woolson home. By 1930 or soon after all three had become Baha'is on fire with the Cause of Baha’u’llah. These were large families; Hassen Abas and his wife Madie had nine children of their own.
Their daughter Gayle Abas accepted the Baha'i Faith in 1932 at the age of 19. Three years later, after Dr. Woolson’s his first wife Leona died, Gayle Abas married Clement. Dr. Woolson passed away a few months later.
In 1941 the Local Assembly filed incorporation papers with the State of Minnesota and it has been an active and vibrant community ever since. A number of members from the Saint Paul Baha'i community have moved on to travel teach, open new territories or volunteer to work at the National and World centers or at various permanent Baha'i schools.
Gayle Woolson went on to open the Galapagos Islands to the Baha'i Faith in 1954 where she earned the distinction of Knight of Baha’u’llah. In 1971 she authored the book, Divine Symphony, about world religions and their oneness. Then in 1976 she wrote a biography about the Abas, Kadrie and Hider families.
The Clement Woolson home in Saint Paul was placed on the International Registry of Baha'i Holy Places and Historic Sites in 1974 because of Abdu’l-Baha’s visit and talk there on September 20th, 1912.
The first Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of St. Paul, Minnesota | <urn:uuid:3da8ccd2-6ce1-40f2-a28e-e8d8404952bb> | {
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Readers may remember the footprints found in Mexico that have been dated to about 40,000 years BP. Geotimes has an interesting story on the subject:
In summer 2003, researchers Matthew Bennett of Bournemouth University and Silvia Gonzalez and David Huddart of Liverpool John Moores University in the United Kingdom were dating and mapping the geology of the Valsequillo Basin in Mexico, about 130 kilometers south of Mexico City, when they came across what appeared to be footprints on the floor of an abandoned quarry. Examining the site further, they found the site littered with footprints, Bennett says — 269 individual prints of humans and animals intermingled.
Sixty percent of the footprints appear to be human, with telltale arches and impressions of the heels, balls and toes, and 36 percent of those appear to be child-sized, according to the researchers, whose work is in press in Quaternary Science Reviews. The remaining 40 percent of the prints were from a variety of animals, Bennett says, including dogs, big cats and animals with cloven hooves, such as deer and camels. The researchers also found mastodon and mammoth teeth.
Previously, in the 1960s and 1970s, archaeologists found megafaunal remains, including bones that had been “worked” with tools, scattered throughout the basin. Those remains had been unreliably dated to be between 20,000 and 40,000 years old, Bennett says, so the sites have been somewhat ignored since then.
The footprints are preserved in a layer of volcanic ash from the eruption of Cerro Toluquilla beneath a shallow lake in the Valsequillo Basin just over 40,000 years ago. “Volcanic ash lithifies quickly, like cement,” Bennett says, so when the inhabitants of the lake shores wandered across the mucky ash, their footprints were captured. When lake levels later rose, water washed over the footprints, burying them in lake sediments, he says. “So we have this great stratigraphic sequence” of lake sediments, topped by ash, which is then topped again by lake sediments, Bennett says, that can be dated.
The dissenting opinion:
But Michael Waters, a geoarchaeologist at Texas A&M University in College Station, is not convinced. He says that the ash layer is likely much older than 40,000 years, and should be retested using different methods. Furthermore, says Waters, who has visited the site, “I have serious reservations as to whether or not these are even footprints, human or animal.” The site has been so extensively quarried over the years, being chopped with axes and picks, that these imprints could just be tool marks that have weathered.
The team, Waters says, needs to find tracks in outcrops or areas that have not been quarried — “look for them like you would look for dinosaur or other trackways.” Bennett says that he and his colleagues are planning to begin just such excavations soon.
Even more interesting, there is a link to the Mexican Footprints Website Which contains a wide variety of information on the geology, dating methods, etc. Based on what I saw at the site I am a little less skeptical – although I still have some reservations. | <urn:uuid:5d98dd78-6845-44ff-a165-8f378f8504f6> | {
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Consumption of foods that contain a high level of carbohydrates increases the risk of dementia and Alzheimer disease. According to a recent study whose results were published in the Neurology journal, a high blood sugar level compromises cognition. To promote mental health, it is important to ensure that the blood sugar levels does not fall or exceed the recommended levels.
Tortillas are prepared using wheat flour, and so they contain copious amounts of carbohydrates. Hence, if you want to avoid the mentioned health conditions, it is recommended to look for alternative recipes. One of the best alternatives to tortillas is low-carb coconut wraps. The rich inner white lining is also referred to as coconut meat and contains only 7 grams of carbohydrates per 2-by-2 inch wrap. This makes coconut wraps an ideal choice for someone who is on a low-carb diet.
It is also important to note that coconut wrap are rich in dietary fibers. By using them instead of the plain tortillas, they will promote digestion and bowel movement. In the recent past, coconut was considered unfriendly due to its high concentration of saturated fat. New studies have shown that saturated fats are actually harmless. The artery-clogging effect is a myth. Once ingested, the fatty acids are converted into Ketones, which reduce the risk of seizures.
Clearly, low-carb coconut wraps are more beneficial and safer to eat than tortillas. When preparing them, it is important that you stick to the instructions provided. Finally, you do not need to possess exceptional cooking skills to prepare coconut wraps. There are many online resources that you can access on the internet to learn the different ways of making them in your own kitchen. | <urn:uuid:8e25940b-2f7a-4b63-8bfd-0ab3caf87eb3> | {
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The flagging course of the European Union (EU) showed signs of renewal in 1994. When he delivered a keynote speech in Brussels in January, U.S. Pres. Bill Clinton clearly spelled out that he thought Europe’s future lay in closer unity. It was a theme that was to dominate the year, especially the autumn, when member-state governments began setting out their views for the forthcoming review of the Maastricht Treaty, scheduled for 1996. The promise of the talks was for a renewed advance toward monetary union, closer cooperation on defense and foreign policy, and sweeping reforms of the European institutions aimed at realigning their relationships and introducing greater levels of democratic control.
On the foreign policy front, the overriding crisis during the year continued to be the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. As international forces struggled to keep aid convoys flowing, the EU became directly involved for the first time, setting up an administration of Mostar, the divided capital of Herzegovina.
At their summit on the Greek island of Corfu in June, the heads of state and government of the EU signed cooperation agreements with Russia and Ukraine and gave their backing to NATO’s Partnership for Peace agreements with former Soviet bloc countries. It was acknowledged that the agreements were no more than an interim step to full membership of NATO and the Western European Union (WEU), recognized as the defense arm of the EU. With Russia playing a full military role in the former Yugoslavia, European leaders also approved Moscow’s admission to the Group of Seven.
NATO and the WEU also reached an agreement under which NATO forces might in future be earmarked for WEU operations not necessarily involving the U.S. The decisions reflected the debate toward the end of the year on what role defense might play in the EU’s process of integration. The prime ministers of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania attended the EU summit in Essen, Germany, symbolizing the EU’s commitment to enlarging its membership to countries in Eastern Europe.
The increasing confidence behind the EU’s developing foreign and security policy began to be reflected on the economic front during 1994. Recession had been blamed for the weakening of some member governments’ resolution to pursue closer integration in the face of public opposition. In fact, 1994 proved to be the year that Europe began to move out of economic recession while inflation continued at low levels. There was also evidence of remarkable currency stability despite the abandoning of the narrow band limits of the European exchange-rate mechanism in 1993.
Much hope for reinforcing economic recovery in Europe was pinned on the signing of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in Marrakech, Morocco, in April. The achievement of an agreement after eight years of difficult negotiations came despite some reservations, particularly in France. The only remaining question was whether the agreement would be ratified by national parliaments on both sides of the Atlantic.
Politically the year was dominated by the European Parliament elections in June, the first since the institution was given wider powers under the Maastricht Treaty. The members of the new European Parliament (MEPs) were elected in four days of voting across the EU. The results showed a low turnout, with the average voting figure down to 56.5% from 58.5% in 1989. This apparently reflected dissatisfaction among voters--but as much about their own national governments as about the status of the EU. Against a background of recession and political disagreement, opposition to integration appeared to be growing in Italy and France, and it continued unabated among sectors of political opinion in the U.K. In Germany polls showed that increasing numbers of citizens questioned the desirability of abandoning their strong Deutsche Mark in favour of a single European currency.
Two large groups, the Party of European Socialists and the centre-right Christian Democratic European People’s Party, dominated the newly elected Parliament. Together with Liberals and Greens, the parties formed large new transnational political alliances. Huge gains by the Labour Party in the U.K. brought their numbers to almost one-third of the 198-strong Socialist grouping and gave the British their first opportunity to lead the Socialists in the Parliament.
Right-wing parties also made gains in Italy, France, and Belgium--most significantly the Forza Italia of Silvio Berlusconi. (See BIOGRAPHIES.) Although the extreme right failed to return any members in Germany, the French right-wing extremist Jean-Marie Le Pen was returned at the head of an 11-member European Parliament group that included three extreme-right MEPs from Belgium. The Italian neo-fascists, the National Alliance (formerly the Italian Social Movement), managed to win 11 seats.
Reflecting a growing disenchantment with European integration in France, the Other Europe party of Philippe de Villiers, which campaigned against GATT and the single market, joined with four Danish and two Dutch MEPs to form the "Europe of the Nations Group."
Although the signing of the Maastricht Treaty on political, economic, and monetary union had introduced the principle of subsidiarity, allowing member states greater control over their own affairs, an underlying suspicion of centralized government remained. Concerned that the public appeared not to have understood the increased powers of the European Parliament, the Commission launched a campaign to show that the Parliament would be closer to European citizens by having new instruments at its disposal, such as an ombudsman and the right of petition. Elected members would have to deal with the questions of integrating new member states into the EU beginning Jan. 1, 1995, and with establishing strong economic ties with the new democracies of Eastern and Central Europe.
The newly elected MEPs signaled at their first meeting in Strasbourg, France, that they should be actively involved in the preparation of the 1996 Intergovernmental Conference to reform the EU institutions and to review the Maastricht Treaty. In making their stand they clashed with the views of most member states that national governments should decide on any institutional changes.
On the eve of the European Council meeting in Corfu, the outgoing president of the European Commission, Jacques Delors, outlined the priorities facing Europe. He declared that governments would have to step up the fight against unemployment, promote economic growth, and prepare the EU for the next century. The European economy was at a crossroad between survival and decline. Government leaders would be focusing on four main areas: the Commission’s White Paper on growth, competitiveness, and employment released earlier in the year; economic guidelines for the second stage of European economic and monetary union; Ukraine’s nuclear power plants; and the establishment of the World Trade Organization as the successor to GATT.
Delors singled out six main elements of the White Paper for Council action: support for small firms, coordination of national research policies, a commitment to developing trans-European networks, a commitment to information technology, employment measures, and sustainable development.
The EU leaders took the White Paper as their main point under discussion in Corfu and pledged to pursue its recommendations vigorously. The Council stressed that improvements in Europe’s economic situation should not be used as an excuse to slacken efforts to promote structural change but rather should serve as an incentive to introduce essential reforms, particularly in employment. Each member state was called upon to appoint a minister responsible for coordination of the Information Society, and the Council agreed on 11 major transport projects and 8 energy projects. In a deregulating mood, the Council gave its full backing to plans for a group of independent experts to look at the impact of both EU and national legislation on employment and competitiveness. This approach was confirmed by the Essen EU summit during December.
Britain’s Prime Minister John Major, with support from German Chancellor Helmut Kohl (see BIOGRAPHIES) and others, welcomed references to labour-market deregulation and praised mention of private-sector funds to cofinance the construction of trans-European networks. The midyear summit meeting of the European Council reflected on the efforts of finance ministers to mobilize an additional ECU 8 billion ($9,660,000,000) a year in loans to help set up the trans-European networks, but they stressed that the funding should not run counter to efforts being made by member states to reduce public debt.
The talks on Europe’s economic future were, however, overshadowed by the difficulty in agreeing on Delors’s successor as president of the European Commission. Following a meeting in Mulhouse, France, between Kohl and Pres. Franƈois Mitterrand of France, both announced that they preferred Belgian Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene. Driven by vociferous and rebellious Euro-skeptic elements in his own Conservative Party, Major blamed what he called the arrogance of the Bonn/Paris axis and vetoed Dehaene’s appointment. Britain stood alone among the 12 member states, but despite bitter European resentment, Major insisted on getting his way.
At a special summit in Brussels in July, it took only 20 minutes for the European leaders to agree on a new candidate. They chose the prime minister of Luxembourg, Jacques Santer (see BIOGRAPHIES), who would take office in 1995. After a long and bitter debate, the MEPs approved his nomination--but by only a 22-vote majority.
The ensuing battle over the appointments to Santer’s team of commissioners demonstrated that the European Parliament was increasingly in the political driving seat of the EU. The democratically elected MEPs said they were determined to press on with essential democratic reforms and to ensure that the EU was representative of the will of the people of Europe.
The second half of the year saw the rekindling of the controversial debate about "a two-speed Europe." A policy paper published by the parliamentary faction of the German Christian Democratic Party advocated the creation of a possible "hard core" of EU countries committed to comprehensive economic political and defense integration. This provoked charges that the German and French governments were seeking to create a privileged inner core of EU states, leaving others outside. | <urn:uuid:2779e8f7-2b48-4ccd-8eee-36d821c4a09f> | {
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Subsets and Splits