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Cholera threatens Kabul
Eight people have died so far, and more than 2,000 may be infected, a health expert says. An emergency task force has begun chlorinating wells in the city.
Published June 15, 2005
KABUL, Afghanistan - An outbreak of cholera in the Afghan capital has killed at least eight people, is feared to have infected more than 2,000 others and is on the verge of turning into an epidemic, a senior epidemiologist working to stem the spread of the disease warned Tuesday.
Health officials in the war-shattered city of 4-million, where rubbish and sewage fill roadside ditches and water wells are polluted, disputed the figures and said the threat had been contained. Nevertheless, dozens of tents were being pitched in hospital gardens to isolate patients should the number of cases spike.
"An epidemic is about to break out here," said Fred Hartman, an epidemiologist and technical director for a U.S. Agency for International Development-backed program, the Rural Expansion of Afghanistan's Community-based Health Care. "Cholera is an explosive disease. As soon as water sources are contaminated, it spreads."
The disease has been detected in wells, the source of drinking water for most Kabul residents, and irrigation ditches, while more than 2,000 sick people have been reported with symptoms that "meet the case definition of cholera," said Hartman, who has combated outbreaks of the disease around the world for 30 years and has been involved with efforts to contain it in Afghanistan.
He told the Associated Press that eight or nine people had died in the past two weeks, and warned the disease could spread quickly throughout Kabul and to other provinces.
There is no scientific threshold for defining when an outbreak becomes an epidemic; it is largely a judgment call. But when an outbreak affects large numbers of people, experts tend to classify it as an epidemic.
Despite the threat, Hartman said, the government was well-equipped to deal with the crisis and had set up an emergency task force, which has started chlorinating wells, distributing medicine to hospitals and educating the public about the dangers of the disease and how to avoid catching it.
"For an undeveloped, war-torn country, Afghanistan's ministry of health has been able to respond very well," he said.
At Kabul's Infectious Diseases Hospital, about a dozen white tents in a yard were being equipped with beds and metal stands for intravenous drips. Inside one tent for women, a nurse with a mask over her mouth and a visor over her eyes was tending three sick women. Inside the women's ward, 15 beds were being lined up in a corridor.
Tents have also been pitched outside two other hospitals in the city, said Abdullah Fahim, an adviser to the health minister.
He said that about 2,400 people have been diagnosed with acute diarrhea but that only 30 were confirmed to have cholera. He said two children and an adult who died with diarrhea were suspected of having cholera.
"There is no need to declare that there is an epidemic. It would just create panic and we don't want to scare people," Fahim said.
Cholera is a major killer in developing countries, where it is spread mainly through contaminated food or water. The bacterium attacks the intestine and causes severe diarrhea and dehydration.
Hartman, who works closely with the Health Ministry, declined to comment on the government's lower death toll. He said the discrepancy in the official number of cholera cases and the figures he gave was because of the way cholera outbreaks are treated.
The last cholera outbreak in Kabul was in 2003, but it was minor and quickly addressed. In 2001, 114 people died from an outbreak in the country's north, according to the World Health Organization's Web site. It had no information on the latest cases.
[Last modified June 15, 2005, 00:44:10]
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Centipedes are predatory venomous arthropods. They possess segmented bodies consisting of 15 to almost 200 segments with one pair of legs per segment. Their fangs are a pair of modified legs called forcipules which contain venomous glands. Centipedes are ancient insects. The earliest fossil records of centipedes in their current form have been dated to over 400 million years ago, which has allowed them to develop into very effective predators. Most centipedes will subdue and eat other invertebrates, while others can attack and kill small mammals, bats, and amphibians! There are approximately 3500 identified species of centipede, but only 15 (less than 0.5%) is thought to be clinically significant in regards to patient discomfort, morbidity, and mortality. The true incidence of centipede bites is unknown, as many do not require evaluation by a healthcare provider due to many centipedes being too small to cause noteworthy morbidity to humans. However, centipede bites are still remarkable as their venom is a diverse pharmacologic milieu of toxins and can lead to severe pain, as well as other significant side effects. In this article, we will explore the high yield facts about centipede bite evaluation and management.
Centipedes are usually active at night and prefer moist warm climates. Thus, presentations for centipede bites are more often occur during summer nights. Bites are often seen on the hands and feet. Bites to the feet are often due to centipede proclivity for hiding in shoes and due to people accidentally stepping on these arthropods while barefoot. Bites to the hands are more common in children or patients who attempt to handle the centipede.
Centipedes are found on every continent except Antarctica and are present in all 50 states in the United States of America. Overall, centipedes prefer warm climates, and so are more frequently found in the southern states of the USA, particularly in Hawaii. Centipede bites are a fairly rare occurrence, and their bites are typically not considered life-threatening; this is likely due to the shy nature of centipedes and their preference for nocturnal activity. Further, while centipedes are very effective killers of their prey, the majority of centipedes are too small for their bites to cause significant morbidity to humans.
The majority of documented bites are from the Scolopendra family. These are the largest centipedes currently identified, reaching up to 12 inches in length. Their size likely reflects the amount of venom available for injection, which is the probable cause of more severe symptoms leading to presentation for medical care.
Studies have shown that between 1979 and 2001, only 6 deaths in the USA are attributable to centipede bites, compared to 1060 fatalities from bees, wasps, and hornets over the same time frame. Further, in these cases of mortality from centipede bites, the etiology of how the centipede venom caused death was not identified. Historically, three well-documented cases of death directly relating to centipede bites were from 1) a bite to the back of the throat that led to swelling and asphyxiation, 2) a death related to anaphylaxis after a bite, and 3) a child who was bitten on the scalp. Fortunately, while human mortality is rare, centipede bites may still cause severe pain and sometimes significant complications.
Centipede venom is a pharmacologically diverse and potent substance. Venom can include bioactive proteins, peptides, and other small molecules. These can have myotoxic, cardiotoxic, and neurotoxic effects. Currently, there are approximately 50 identified constituents of centipede venom, all with different properties to block or activate ion channels. The biochemistry of centipede venom is an area of recent exploration where much is still under investigation.
Centipede bites can have a wide range of symptoms, but the most commonly reported is localized pain. Victims describe the pain as an immediate, localized burning that ranges in severity, though most often reported as very severe. It also ranges in duration from 30 min to 3 days.
Other localized effects may include erythema, bruising, and swelling. Sometimes these bites can bleed extensively and achieving hemostasis may be a challenge, even with pressure dressings. Local pruritus and paresthesia have also been noted. Some patients develop cellulitis or necrosis at the area of the bite.
Systemic effects are far less common, but when they do occur, they can have significant consequences. The most acutely dangerous systemic effect is anaphylaxis. Neurologic manifestations include headache, lethargy, anxiety, and vagotonia. Cardiovascular effects are rare, but case studies have reported hypotension, tachypnea, palpitations, vasospasm, and acute myocardial ischemia. Other systemic effects include fever, chills, nausea, lymphangitis, and rhabdomyolysis. Centipede bites also carry a risk for tetanus transmission.
When a patient presents with a centipede bite, specific factors merit consideration. The first few questions seek to confirm the nature of the causative creature. The patient should describe the offender in as much detail as possible. Timeline is also significant to determine how long a patient should have monitoring for further symptoms. The size of the patient is a consideration; centipede venom is potent and dangerous, but compared to typical centipede prey, human size serves a protective factor from severe systemic symptoms. However, in infants and small children, the size differential is not as substantial or protective. It is also imperative to consider the patient’s history of allergies and other chronic medical problems, as this can provide a focus for observation of specific systemic effects. Tetanus immunization history is also important. Finally, providers should inquire about systemic or non-dermatologic symptoms.
On physical exam, it is key to view the bite closely. A centipede bite consists of 2 bite marks. There is typically localized erythema or ecchymosis and swelling. Examine the patient closely for non-dermatologic symptoms, such as neurologic deficits or chest pain, as guided by patient symptoms.
Local wound care is the primary management of uncomplicated centipede bites. Monitoring for systemic symptoms is recommended. If the patient complains of specific symptoms such as chest pain, work up for myocardial ischemia including troponins and EKG should be obtained. Imaging is not necessary for acute centipede bite.
Treatment of minor centipede bites is straightforward and includes:
There is no specific antidote for centipede venom. If systemic symptoms occur, treatment is mainly supportive or related to the specific symptom. For example, anaphylaxis treatment will be the same as anaphylaxis related to any other allergen with epinephrine. In the case of myocardial ischemia, therapy will be similar to cardiac ischemia of any etiology (i.e., aspirin and percutaneous coronary intervention). In the case of delayed effects such as cellulitis or localized necrosis, antibiotics and wound debridement will be necessary.
Overall, prognosis after centipede envenomation is excellent. Pain control is usually successful with appropriate analgesic measures. Systemic symptoms and even local complications are rare.
Centipede bites are rare, and healthcare teams may be unfamiliar with caring for these patients. However, expedient and adequate pain control will significantly improve the patient’s symptoms. This approach will allow for appropriate care of wounds and monitoring for systemic complications. Full care can often be provided primarily in the emergency department by the emergency department physician/nurses, but specialist consultation may be necessary if myocardial ischemia or local wound necrosis occurs.
In summary, centipede bite management requires the efforts of an interdisciplinary team that includes physicians, specialists, specialty-trained nurses, and pharmacists, collaborating and communicating as a unit to provide optimal outcomes for each case. [Level V]
|||Ombati R,Luo L,Yang S,Lai R, Centipede envenomation: Clinical importance and the underlying molecular mechanisms. Toxicon : official journal of the International Society on Toxinology. 2018 Nov; [PubMed PMID: 30273703]|
|||Guerrero AP, Centipede bites in Hawai'i: a brief case report and review of the literature. Hawaii medical journal. 2007 May; [PubMed PMID: 17557714]|
|||Fung HT,Lam SK,Wong OF, Centipede bite victims: a review of patients presenting to two emergency departments in Hong Kong. Hong Kong medical journal = Xianggang yi xue za zhi. 2011 Oct; [PubMed PMID: 21979475]|
|||Undheim EA,Fry BG,King GF, Centipede venom: recent discoveries and current state of knowledge. Toxins. 2015 Feb 25; [PubMed PMID: 25723324]|
|||Yildiz A,Bi�eroglu S,Yakut N,Bilir C,Akdemir R,Akilli A, Acute myocardial infarction in a young man caused by centipede sting. Emergency medicine journal : EMJ. 2006 Apr; [PubMed PMID: 16549562]|
|||Senthilkumaran S,Meenakshisundaram R,Michaels AD,Suresh P,Thirumalaikolundusubramanian P, Acute ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction from a centipede bite. Journal of cardiovascular disease research. 2011 Oct; [PubMed PMID: 22135485]|
|||Essler SE,Julakanti M,Juergens AL, Lymphangitis From Scolopendra heros Envenomation: The Texas Redheaded Centipede. Wilderness [PubMed PMID: 28089338]|
|||�reyen �M,Arslan ?,Ba? CY, Cardiovascular collapse after myocardial infarction due to centipede bite. Wiener klinische Wochenschrift. 2015 Jul; [PubMed PMID: 25994876]|
|||Washio K,Masaki T,Fujii S,Hatakeyama M,Oda Y,Fukunaga A,Natsuaki M, Anaphylaxis caused by a centipede bite: A [PubMed PMID: 29519763]|
|||Chaou CH,Chen CK,Chen JC,Chiu TF,Lin CC, Comparisons of ice packs, hot water immersion, and analgesia injection for the treatment of centipede envenomations in Taiwan. Clinical toxicology (Philadelphia, Pa.). 2009 Aug; [PubMed PMID: 19640231]| | <urn:uuid:f4514079-f2d5-4450-baa4-c10e7c2e1c42> | {
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Experts had long thought the mighty stone foundations of the Clifton Suspension Bridge were as solid as the bedrock they stood upon. The experts were wrong.
In fact, they are filled with vast vaults, and until just recently, no one knew they were here. Quite how that was possible is a tale now being told by the bridge which is now occasionally opening up the hidden spaces to the public.
A large suspension bridge spanning the deep Avon gorge seems like a sensible idea, to save people going down to the river and back up again, but there never was a road here, there was never a need to go down a steep path and up the other side. The road is as new as the bridge.
Travelers could easily use the bridge a bit further down river in Bristol itself, but it was old and narrow, so when Bristolian merchant William Vick left a bequest in his will of £1,000 in 1753 for a road and bridge, it seemed likely that something would be built soon.
However, it took another hundred years for anything to happen, and by then the Admiralty had a rule that no bridge could be built unless it offered 100 feet of clearance for shipping.
That ruled out a bridge in Bristol, but permitted one at the top of the nearby Avon gorge. After many designs, delays, a riot, some bankruptcies and numerous other woes, a new road and mighty suspension bridge over the Avon finally opened in 1864 — 111 years after it was planned.
Apart from the very obvious suspension bridge itself, almost as impressive are the massive stone foundations which perch on the steep sides of the gorge and support the two tall towers. It was these which were to hold the secret of the lost vaults.
It seems that while the original and detailed plans of the suspension part of the bridge exist, the plans for the foundations were lost at some point. Possibly due to there being two different companies building them, or the various financial difficulties they got into. Whatever the reason, the plans were lost.
Over the years, people speculated about whether the foundations were hollow, and at times, deep drills were sent probing in, but always ran deep through stone.
It was obvious that the foundations were solid.
But, in 2002, while the paving slabs were being lifted for replacement works, a manhole cover was found on the Bristol side, and it showed a small brick vault containing an old coal stove, probably used by the original builders.
After a diversion to find a fake skeleton to put inside and only then notify the Bridge Master, all eyes turned to the other side of the Avon gorge, where the much larger foundations stood. Was there a manhole cover over there as well?
And yes, a manhole cover was found, but in this case it went down a deep shaft, which upon inspection led off to other shafts, and then, to massive vaults. Twelve in total.
Vast and for 140 years, they had vanished from view, and from memory.
If you’re both a communication between the two sides of the gorge, but also a major tourist attraction, you’re going to want to show off your newly discovered heritage, so for the past decade, works have been under way to open up these hidden spaces.
A sliver of land belonging to the National Trust next to the bridge offers a steep path down to a vertical ladder with perilous views over the gorge, to a narrow landing where engineers have drilled out a new entrance in the side of the bride.
It’s here that you might also appreciate why previous probes might have missed the vaults, as the walls at this thinnest point are still nearly 2 metres thick. A vast plug of stone was removed to create this new entrance, and they’ve kept the massive block in storage, just in case they want to seal the space up once more.
Hard hats firmly secured, passing through this newest addition to the bridge, and into the first of the huge vaults. Do try not to stop and stare in amazement at the space which seems bigger than the bridge should be able to contain.
The arched roof is now decorated by fine calcite straws — or stalactites — that add a Christmas tree effect to the space.
Using the International Standard for Measuring Things, the vaults are about the height of three double-decker buses.
A hole in the roof is now known to lead to another previously lost manhole cover, right in the middle of the road above, and if you stand silent, the rumble of motorists can be heard through the stone.
During construction, the builders didn’t smooth off the original bedrock but built around it, so here in a carefully constructed manmade stone vault, is a massive red outcrop of raw cliff face.
Crouching down to go inside and another smaller, and original tunnel leads into a second vaulted space, which has now been fitted with wooden flooring and metal steps up to the still mysterious round shafts.
It’s an immense space, and although once you have seen all there is to see there’s not much to see, it’s the experience of standing in this long lost space that is enthralling.
Soak up the atmosphere of the chill damp air and admire Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s ingenuity.
And yet you have seen but a small fraction of what’s down here. The vaults are on two levels, and visits are to the upper set, but in the far end is the recently installed metal staircase down to the lower level, which is still off limits.
Twelve vaults in total, you have seen two.
After a while, it’s time to pass back out into green and wooded lands, to climb up that metal staircase, to surrender hard hats and return to a normality which is now enlivened by what you’ve seen.
Walking back across the bridge, noticing how the western tower had corners cut at angles, while the eastern side were nicely squared. One of the great mysteries of the bridge was why — but the discovery of the vaults answered that long unanswered question.
But to find out what the answer is, you will need to go on a tour, and they are planned to resume from next March. Keep a very close eye on this page for details. | <urn:uuid:009bfbba-c639-4310-8d75-ffeea3c5f64c> | {
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Q. Why are the small numbers of surviving tigers a cause of worry from the point of view of genetics?
The small number of surviving tigers is the cause of worry from the point of view of genetics because Genetics is the science of heredity and variations which support the evolutionary survival of a species. The size of its population, plays a dominant role for its evolutionary expansion. For a small population of tigers, diversity of traits will be adversely affected. Small population of tiger may indulge in inbreeding, which will further result in decrease in population due to untimely deaths caused by the genetic deformities. In the event of a disease or natural disaster possibility of survival against numbers will be greatly reduced. Not only this, Tiger forms an integral part of food chain in Eco-system. Its role as predator, in animal kingdom, helps in checking the population growth of animals in down food chain. The pretense of tiger, ensures an healthy and balanced Eco-system with all inherent diversity in other species. Small number of surviving tiger will affect the diversity negatively and will result in an ecological imbalance. | <urn:uuid:a1a6156b-fc5a-4474-b8aa-59f6a22d87d7> | {
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Roadblock in Treating Stroke Symptoms
Patients May Misjudge Severity of Symptoms, Delaying Treatment
Help From Bystanders continued...
Bystanders could be a big help to stroke patients, Mandelzweig notes.
"Stroke is a bit tricky when it comes to patient's perceptions, because the organ that is affected is the brain. Consequently, as a result of the stroke, perception may be altered to some extent in some cases," she says.
"This problem emphasizes the importance of intervention of others, who are often able to assess the patient's condition more accurately and objectively, and advise the patient to seek help immediately. They may also be instrumental in getting the patient to the hospital quickly and providing the emotional support that the patients need to cope with the traumatic event," Mandelzweig says.
Stroke's Warning Signs
The reasons why some patients delay seeking stroke treatment are complex, Mandelzweig says.
Her study notes that people may need to be urged not to try to gauge the severity of stroke symptoms and that bystanders can help people get prompt care.
The American Stroke Association lists these warning signs of a possible stroke:
- Sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm, or leg, especially on one side of the body
- Sudden confusion, trouble speaking, or understanding
- Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes
- Sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance, or coordination
- Sudden, severe headache with no known cause
Call for emergency medical help at the first sign of those symptoms. Don't wait to see if they go away and don't judge for yourself how bad they are. | <urn:uuid:6a9b0a54-b154-477b-9908-3c4d4089d499> | {
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The medical community has long warned against overusing antibiotics in farm animals because of the potential threat to human health. Excessive and unnecessary use of the drugs, which are similar to what doctors prescribe for people's ear infections, strep throats and other illnesses, can lead to super-resistant strains of bacteria that can cause serious human diseases that have no cure.
To keep the drugs working effectively, they should be used judiciously and sparingly.
That's why it's so troubling that the Food and Drug Administration is expected to approve a powerful cattle antibiotic to treat a common pneumonia-like illness, according to a recent report in the Washington Post. Never mind that the agency's own panel of advisers urged that the drug be rejected, citing concerns that it could promote emergence of drug-resistant bacteria and that the drug belongs to an class of drugs needed as a last line of defense against serious human infections. Or that the American Medical Association and several other health groups also warned against its use in cattle.
It's believed that it would be difficult for the FDA to deny approval because of its own animal-drug guidelines, which critics say are too industry-friendly.
In response to the Post story, Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine, said the agency has not reached a decision and is still collecting information.
But the entire debate seems unnecessary. The drug was developed to treat bovine respiratory disease in cattle, yet there already are more than a dozen effective medicines on the market. And if cattle had less-crowded and more hygienic living conditions, disease wouldn't be as much of an issue in the first place.
In addition to evaluating the drug's effect on human health, the FDA should consider whether approval would facilitate factory farming. This is bad for the animals, bad for the soil, bad for the environment and, ultimately, bad for us. The drugs turn up in waterways, threatening fish, plants and drinking water, and they also are in manure, used to fertilize farm fields.
hl2 style="briefs(underscore)subhead">Medicine in your rice
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has given a provisional go-ahead for genetically modified rice containing human genes to be grown in Kansas, despite concerns that the proteins from the pharma rice could find their way into the food chain. The rice would be able to make human proteins that could help reduce bouts of diarrhea in children by about a day. Meanwhile, the company behind the new rice varieties, Ventria Bioscience, has talked to the FDA about putting the proteins into health foods such as yogurt and granola bars.
Given the FDA's track record on ensuring the safety of prescription drugs, the public has good reason to be leery of medicinal food. A scathing report by the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine called the FDA "disorganized and demoralized" and said its system for testing new drugs is deeply flawed.
The USDA, meanwhile, has demonstrated poor oversight of biotechnology. In less than a year, U.S. regulators have confirmed three incidents of genetically modified rice contamination, including one that has disrupted rice exports.
The National Academy of Sciences has warned that it is virtually impossible to keep plant-made pharmaceuticals from entering the food supply when food crops are engineered to produce them. Until this problem is solved, pharmaceutical crops shouldn't be cultivated outside. You have until March 30 to submit comments to the USDA. If approved, Ventria will begin planting rice in the next few months.
hl2 style="briefs(underscore)subhead">A run on glass baby bottles
Concerns about the chemical bisphenol A, used in many plastic goods, including shatterproof polycarbonate baby bottles, have sparked a run on glass baby bottles from Evenflo, according to Natural Baby. In the last three weeks, "we have had had at least 1,000 more orders than normal for glass baby bottles alone," said Jen Thames, general manager of Natural Baby.
The interest in glass was triggered largely by a California Environment Research and Policy Center report that warns about the dangers of BPA, which can leach from certain bottles into breast milk or formula. Animal studies have shown that BPA can have reproductive effects. A federal advisory panel studying the safety of the chemical has delayed releasing its finding. To get in line for glass bottles, you can place an order at naturalbabyhome.com. Babies "R" Us also carries glass bottles, according to Evenflo.
* E-mail Julie Deardorff at jdeardorff@ tribune.com and visit her blog at chicagotribune.com/Julie. Send health and fitness news to [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:55ae5669-3c2e-48b4-b741-fd1d0b42fc85> | {
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WHAT IS FREEDOM?
I did not understand President Bush’s inauguration speech. He used the word “freedom” twenty-seven times, but what freedom means to him was not clear. Words can mean different things to different people and freedom is an example of that. To some people freedom means no responsibility. To others it means having power and ability to assume responsibility. Is it freedom to be taken care of, or does freedom mean to be able to take care of oneself? Is a baby free before it is born when it has no responsibility for its own physical needs, or is it free when it has been released from the confinement of the womb and must begin to do for itself? Does freedom mean we are free to use the Bible as a guide to our behavior? Or does it mean freedom from God?
"Freedom" is a good word, but it cannot stand alone. It needs an implied or stated explanation and that was not evident in President Bush’s speech. When a prisoner is allowed to leave his place of confinement, he gains his freedom from jail. Those who knew that he was imprisoned would understand his new situation if they were told he gained his freedom, because jail is implied. A recently divorced man or woman might say, "I'm free!", but only those who knew the situation would understand that they meant free of the obligations of marriage. On the last day of school in spring the children shout that they are free. They mean they are free from the necessity of going to school. They are free to play and have fun. If a merchant gives you a gift with no strings attached you might say it was free of cost or obligation. If you no longer hurt, you have freedom from pain. When our country was born its first citizens said they were free. They meant their country was free from the political domination of England.
People use the words, "free" and “freedom” to mean many things. “Free” is even heard at funerals, especially when a person has suffered in his lifetime: "At last he is free!" In this case "free" means freedom from pain and suffering, but it also means dead. What about freedom from want and fear? Couldn’t that mean the same thing as freedom from pain and suffering? Couldn’t it also mean dead? What about being free to have an abortion? That certainly does mean freedom to make someone dead.
In the Western world we often speak of personal freedom, but here, too, the meaning is vague. The idea of personal freedom is a subjective concept. A situation of freedom to one person can seem like unbearable bondage to another. I have two relatives from one family whose ideas on personal freedom are totally different. The sister likes to travel, meet new people, participate in group activities, and face new challenges. She is married to a man whose work provides many such opportunities. She is happy and emotionally comfortable with her choice. If she had to live all her life on the farm where she was born, and see mostly the people she had known in her own community she would be miserable.
Her brother, no less intelligent, owns a farm and loves farming. He enjoys being in surroundings familiar to him since childhood. Even a single day's journey away from his beloved land is a chore and a burden to him. His idea of freedom is staying close to home. Both of my relatives live lives of freedom because they were able to choose the type of life they wanted to live. Their concepts of freedom involved choices, and those choices were personal and emotional.
How far does personal freedom go? Does personal freedom mean believing, doing, and saying whatever we wish to believe, do, or say, whenever or wherever we wish--having no obligations to anyone? Some would claim their right to total release from all laws, rules, and obligations. Living with those who have this total concept of freedom could be extremely unpleasant and perhaps dangerous.
President Bush seems to believe that democracy means freedom. He said it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world. Does this leave United States citizens in a state of freedom? Or has the President placed a perpetual burden on citizens of his own country? Does freedom mean we must accept every burden we are told to bear and every restriction that this all-encompassing concept of freedom demands?
In the Bush speech we were also told that there now is a broader definition of liberty. That also troubles me. What it seems to mean is that the government is always at liberty to give away, rather than sell public lands and public goods, as was done following the Homestead Act. It means that the government is at liberty to control citizens’ retirement savings since the passage of the Social Security Act. It means the government was at liberty to give veterans extra compensation for their service only if they used that compensation for education, as was the case with the GI Bill of Rights.
And I do not understand what President Bush meant when he said, “We will widen ownership of homes and businesses, retirement savings and health insurance.” Did he mean more individuals would own homes and businesses? Or did he mean that individual ownership would be widened and eventually give way to communal ownership? I don’t know. Do you?
The concept of self government was discussed in the speech, but not clarified. I know that there are philosophers and writers who sincerely believe there is no such thing as individual self government or human freedom because humans are merely biological automata or robots who have no real control over their own thoughts, feelings, and actions. These materialist thinkers believe that everything we do can be explained by material causes. Heredity and environment account for everything. They deny the directing and controlling power of the will. This materialist concept is used to justify the notion that environmental influences should be set up for the masses and controlled by social, psychological, political, and economic “scientists.”
President Bush used the word freedom twenty seven times and the word liberty more than a dozen. I have heard it said that he made a wonderful speech, but to me it seemed to be full of contradictions. I do not really know what freedom and liberty mean to our President, and it worries me.
© 2005 Erica Carle - All Rights Reserved
E-Mails are used strictly for NWVs alerts, not for sale
Erica Carle is an independent researcher and writer. She has a B.S. degree from the University of Wisconsin. She has been involved in radio and television writing and production, and has also taught math and composition at the private school her children attended in Brookfield, Wisconsin. For ten years she wrote a weekly column, "Truth In Education" for WISCONSIN REPORT, and served as Education Editor for that publication.
Her books are GIVE US THE YOUNG--$5 Plus $2.00 P&H WHY THINGS ARE THE WAY THEY ARE--$16 PLUS $4.00 P&H BOTH BOOKS -- $25 Total. A loose leaf collection of quotes titled, SIX GENERATIONS TO SERFDOM is also available--$15 Plus $2.00 P&H. Mailing address: Erica Carle; PO Box 261; Elm Grove, WI 53122.
President Bush seems to believe that democracy means freedom. He said it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world. | <urn:uuid:6d5b8b11-2477-4191-9a07-e29af940493f> | {
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This is a guest post from Brian Wampler and Mike Touchton. Wampler is professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science At Boise State University. Mike Touchton is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Boise State University.
Over the past 20 years, “participatory institutions” have spread around the world. Participatory institutions delegate decision-making authority directly to citizens, often in local politics, and have attracted widespread support. International organizations, such as the World Bank and USAID, promote citizen participation in hopes that it will generate more accountable governments, strengthen social networks, improve public services, and inform voters. Elected officials often support citizen participation because it provides them the legitimacy necessary to alter spending patterns, develop new programs, mobilize citizens, or open murky policymaking processes to greater public scrutiny. Civil society organizations and citizens support participating institution because they get unprecedented access to policymaking venues, public budgets and government officials.
But do participatory institutions actually achieve any of these beneficial outcomes? In a new study of participatory institutions in Brazil, we find that they do. In particular, we find that municipalities with participatory programs improve the lives of their citizens.
Brazil is a leading innovator in participatory institutions. Brazilian municipal governments can voluntarily adopt a program known as Participatory Budgeting. This program directly incorporates citizens into public meetings where citizens decide how to allocate public funds. The funding amounts can represent up to 100 percent of all new capital spending projects and generally fall between 5 and 15 percent of the total municipal budget. This is not enough to radically change how cities spend limited resources, but it is enough to generate meaningful change. For example, the Brazilian cities of Belo Horizonte and Porto Alegre have each spent hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars over the past two decades on projects that citizens selected. Moreover, many Participatory Budgeting programs have an outsize impact because they focus resources on areas that have lower incomes and fewer public services.
Between 1990 and 2008, over 120 of Brazil’s largest 250 cities adopted Participatory Budgeting. In order to assess whether PB had an impact, we compared the number of cities that adopted Participatory Budgeting during each mayoral period to cities that did not adopt it, and accounted for a range of other factors that might distinguish these two groups of cities.
The results are promising. Municipal governments that adopted Participatory Budgeting spent more on education and sanitation and saw infant mortality decrease as well. We estimate cities without PB to have infant mortality levels similar to Brazil’s mean. However, infant mortality drops by almost 20 percent for municipalities that have used PB for more than eight years — again, after accounting for other political and economic factors that might also influence infant mortality. The evidence strongly suggests that the investment in these programs is paying important dividends. We are not alone in this conclusion: Sónia Gonçalves has reached similar conclusions about Participatory Budgeting in Brazil.
Participatory Budgeting’s influence grows stronger when the mayor is from the Workers’ Party. The Workers’ Party, which has governed Brazil since 2003 (President Lula Da Silva, 2003-2010, and President Dilma Rousseff since 2010), has invested heavily in promoting direct citizen participation in new democratic venues. Our finding is thus significant because it showcases how programs flourish when elected officials are committed to implementing participatory institutions. This finding sheds light on why institutions like the World Bank and USAID are always seeking local “champions” who are willing to commit themselves to reform.
Our results also show that Participatory Budgeting’s influence strengthens over time, which indicates that its benefits do not merely result from governments making easy policy changes. Instead, Participatory Budgeting’s increasing impact indicates that governments, citizens, and civil society organizations are building new institutions that produce better forms of governance. These cities incorporate citizens at multiple moments of the policy process, allowing community leaders and public officials to exchange better information. The cities are also retraining policy experts and civil servants to better work with poor communities. Finally, public deliberation about spending priorities makes these city governments more transparent, which decreases corruption.
Therefore, the shifts in spending patterns for new capital projects, such as health-care clinics in poor areas, produce not just temporary improvements but real lasting change. The efforts of political parties, social movements and international organizations to promote direct citizen participation in policymaking venues are justifiable. Participatory programs will not necessarily produce fundamental change in the short term, but they are a vital part of building better institutions and improving citizens’ quality of life. | <urn:uuid:58611bb6-14ad-434f-83a0-37b0dd25434a> | {
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The precursors of what we’re trying to do with computable data in Wolfram|Alpha in many ways stretch back to the very dawn of human history—and in fact their development has been fascinatingly tied to the whole progress of civilization.
Last year we invited the leaders of today’s great data repositories to our Wolfram Data Summit—and as a conversation piece we assembled a timeline of the historical development of systematic data and computable knowledge.
This year, as we approach the Wolfram Data Summit 2011, we’ve taken the comments and suggestions we got, and we’re making available a five-feet-long (1.5 meters) printed poster of the timeline—as well as having the basic content on the web.
The story the timeline tells is a fascinating one: of how, in a multitude of steps, our civilization has systematized more and more areas of knowledge—collected the data associated with them, and gradually made them amenable to automation.
The usual telling of history makes scant mention of most of these developments—though so many of them are so obvious in our lives today. Weights and measures. The calendar. Alphabetical lists. Plots of data. Dictionaries. Maps. Music notation. Stock charts. Timetables. Public records. ZIP codes. Weather reports. All the things that help us describe and organize our world.
Historically, each one required an idea, and had an origin. Most often, what was happening was that some aspect of the world was effectively getting bigger—and one organization or one person took the lead in introducing a method of systematization.
Sometimes those involved were powerful or famous. But quite often they were in a sense in a back room, just solving a practical problem—usually modestly at first. Yet in time the perhaps arbitrary schemes they invented gradually spread as the need for them increased.
Most people will have heard of Euclid, who defined a way to systematize mathematics, or of Julius Caesar, who standardized the months of the year. Fewer will have heard of Guido d’Arezzo, who in 1030 AD invented stave notation for music. Or Robert Cawdrey, who in 1604 made what was probably the first alphabetical dictionary. Or Munehisa Homma, who in 1755 made what was probably the first market price chart. Or George Bradshaw, who in 1839 made the first train timetable. Or Malcolm Dyson, who in 1946 invented the standard IUPAC notation for naming chemicals.
As one looks at the whole timeline, one can see several definite classes of innovations.
One class are schemes for describing or representing things. Like latitude/longitude (invented by Eratosthenes around 200 BC). Or the notation for algebra (from Franciscus Vieta around 1595). Or binomial species names (invented by Carl Linnaeus around 1750). Or geological periods (introduced around 1830). Or citations for legal cases (from Frank Shepard in 1873). Or CIE color space (from 1931). Or SI units (from 1954). Or ASCII code (from 1963). Or DNS for internet addresses (from 1983).
Another class of innovations are schemes or repositories for collecting knowledge about things. Like Babylonian land records (from 3000 BC). Or the Library at Thebes (from 1250 BC). Or Ptolemy‘s star catalog (from 150 AD). Or the Yongle Encyclopedia (from 1403). Or the US Census (from 1790). Or Who’s Who (from 1849). Or weather charts (from Robert FitzRoy in 1860). Or the Oxford English Dictionary (from the 1880s). Or the “Yellow Pages” (from Reuben H. Donnelly in 1886). Or Chemical Abstracts (from 1907). Or baseball statistics (from Al Elias in 1913). Or Gallup polls (from 1935). Or GenBank (from 1982).
Another class of innovations are more abstract: in effect formalisms for handling knowledge. Like arithmetic (from 20,000 BC). Or formal grammar (from Panini around 400 BC). Or logic (from Aristotle around 350 BC). Or demographic statistics (notably from John Graunt in 1662). Or calculus (from Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz around 1687). Or flow charts (from Frank & Lillian “Cheaper by the Dozen” Gilbreth in 1921). Or computer languages (from around 1957). Or geographic information systems (from Roger Tomlinson in 1962). Or relational databases (from the 1970s).
And then, of course, there is the curious history of attempts to do things like what Wolfram|Alpha does. I suppose Aristotle was already thinking of something similar around 350 BC, as he tried to classify objects in the world, and use logic to formalize reasoning. And then in the 1680s there was Gottfried Leibniz, who very explicitly wanted to convert all human questions to a universal symbolic language, and use a logic-based machine to get answers—with knowledge ultimately coming from libraries he hoped to assemble.
Needless to say, both Aristotle and Leibniz lived far too early to make these things work. But occasionally the ideas reemerged. And for example starting around 1910 Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine actually collected 12 million index cards of information for their Mundaneum, with the idea of operating a telegraph-based world question-answering center.
In 1937 H. G. Wells presented his vision for a “world brain”, and in 1945 Vannevar Bush described his “memex”, that would give computerized access to the world’s knowledge. And by the 1950s and 1960s, it began to be taken almost for granted that knowledge would someday become computable—as portrayed in movies like Desk Set or 2001: A Space Odyssey, or in television shows like Star Trek.
The assumption, however, was that the key innovation would be “artificial intelligence”—an automation of human intelligence. And as the years went by, and artificial intelligence languished, so too did progress in making knowledge broadly computable.
As I’ve talked about elsewhere, my own key realization—that arose from my basic research in A New Kind of Science—is that there can’t ever ultimately be anything special about intelligence: it’s all just computation. But where should the raw material for that computation come from? The point is that it does not have to be learned, as a human would, through some incremental process of education. Rather, we can just start from the whole corpus of systematic knowledge and data—as well as methods and models and algorithms—that our civilization has accumulated, poured wholesale into our computational system.
And this is what we have done with Wolfram|Alpha: in effect making immediate direct use of the whole rich history portrayed in the timeline.
I should say that as a person interested in the history of ideas, the actual process of assembling the timeline was a quite fascinating one. We started by looking at all the different areas of knowledge that we cover in Wolfram|Alpha—or hope to cover. Then in effect we worked backward, trying to find the earliest historical antecedents that defined each area.
Sometimes most of us knew these antecedents. But quite often we were surprised by how long ago—or how recent—those antecedents actually were. And in some cases we had to ask a whole string of experts before we were confident that we had the right story.
Each entry on the timeline was written separately—and I was most curious to see what would emerge when the whole timeline was put together. Of course, there is considerable arbitrariness to what actually appears on the timeline, and inevitably it’s prejudiced toward more recent developments, not least because these do not have to have survived as long to seem important today.
But when I first looked at the completed timeline, the first thing that struck me was how much two entities stood out in their contributions: ancient Babylon, and the United States government. For Babylon—as the first great civilization—brought us such things as the first known census, standardized measures, the calendar, land registration, codes of laws and the first known mathematical tables. In the United States, perhaps it was the spirit of building a country from scratch, or perhaps the notion of “government for the people”, but starting as early as 1785 (with the formation of the US Land Ordinance), the US government began an impressive series of firsts in systematic data collection.
Given the timeline, a very obvious question is: how are all these events distributed in time, and space?
Here’s a plot showing the number of events per decade and per century:
And here’s a cumulative version of the same information:
In the first plot, we see a burst of activity in the golden age of Ancient Greece. And then we see more in the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, and the Computer Revolution. But it is notable that there is still at least some activity even in Europe in the Middle Ages.
Looking at the cumulative plot, we see the center of activity shift from Babylon to Greece around 500 BC, then to continental Europe around 1000 AD (after modest activity in the Roman Empire). Around 1600 Britain begins to take off, firmly rivaling continental Europe by the mid-1800s. The US starts to show activity before 1800, but really takes off in the early 1900s.
Here’s how the share of “events so far” evolves over time (and here’s a CDF interactive bar graph version):
Ancient Greece surpasses Babylon in 250 BC. Europe surpasses Greece in 1595. Britain briefly surpasses continental Europe in 1786. The US surpasses Britain in 1942, and all of Europe in 1984—and today is only 12% short of surpassing everything before it put together.
It’s notable how concentrated everything is in the typical “Western Civilization” countries. Perhaps this reflects our ignorance of other history, but I rather suspect it reflects instead the different interests of different cultures—and their different approaches to knowledge.
One of the most obvious features of the plots above is the rapid acceleration of entries in recent times. As I mentioned before, there’s inevitably a survival bias. But to me what’s somewhat remarkable is that nearly 20% of what’s on the timeline was already done by 1000 AD, 40% by 1800 and 60% by 1900. If one looks at the last 500 years, though, there’s a surprisingly good fit to an exponential increase, doubling every 95 years.
Now remember, the timeline is not about technology or science, it’s about data and knowledge. When you look at the timeline, you might ask: “Where’s Einstein? Where’s Darwin? Where’s the space program?” Well, they’re not there. Because despite their importance in the history of science and technology, they’re not really part of the particular story the timeline is telling: of how systematic data and knowledge came to be the way it is in our world. And as I said above, much of this is “back room history”, not really told in today’s history books.
In Wolfram|Alpha, we also have a growing amount of information about more traditional science/technology inventions and discoveries. And the timeline for these looks a little different. There is much less activity in the Middle Ages, for example, and in the last 500 years, there is growth that rather noisily fits as exponential, with a 75 year doubling time. If anything, there are even more dramatic survival bias effects here than in the data+knowledge timeline. But if there is a significance to the difference between the timelines, perhaps it reflects the fact that the systematization of data and knowledge provides core infrastructure for the world—and grows more slowly and steadily, gradually making possible all those other innovations.
In any case, as we work on Wolfram|Alpha, it is sobering to see how long the road to where we are today has been. But it is exciting to see how much further modern technology has already made it possible for us to go. And I am proud to be a small part of such a distinguished and long history. And if nothing else, laying out the history makes a nice poster… | <urn:uuid:74cb8932-5f60-442e-859f-fafae6ba50a9> | {
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Other American Holidays
The Bohn Collection also contains menus celebrating uniquely American holidays—Lincoln’s Birthday, Washington’s Birthday, and the 4th of July—with their colorful graphics matching the theme of the event. The celebration of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln’s birthdays on February 22 and 12 respectively was incorporated into formal banquets held in grand hotels in a number of American cities in the late nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century. Both men held hero-like status among the American public, with Washington revered as the “father of our country” and Lincoln’s leadership during the war between the states and his tragic death ensuring his immortality. In fact, some Lincoln menus in the collection also featured quotes from the late president as well as patriotic songs of the period honoring his work.
Menus honoring Washington and Lincoln typically featured special desserts that celebrated the honoree. Patrons might dine on “Game Pie à l’Indépendence” before they sampled sweet dishes such as “Washington Cream Cake,” “Washington Roll with cognac sauce,” or “Valley Forge ice cream” when celebrating the birthday of our first president. Those diners perusing a menu in celebration of Lincoln’s birthday might quench their thirst with “Log Cabin Punch” before digging into a dish of “Lincoln Pudding.” Both types of menus featured a dessert specialty called “Washington Pie” but there is no indication as to whether it contained cherries, a fruit indelibly associated with the president who could not tell a lie.
Some July 4th menus featured dishes with a patriotic theme as well. A menu from the Hotel Savoy in Kansas City, Missouri, allowed diners to chose from among dishes such as “Broiled Mackinaw Trout Style 1776 with Potatoes Saratoga,” “Spring Lamb chops à la W.J. Bryan” (showing their political colors in support of the 1900 Democratic candidate for President), and “Martha Washington Pudding” with a lemon cream sauce for dessert. | <urn:uuid:e543de08-4707-410e-9484-35c2fdc0ef3c> | {
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Turn yesterday's U.S. government secrets into today's new research
U.S. Declassified Documents Online's greatest value lies in the wealth of facts and insights that it provides in connection with the political, economic, and social conditions of the United States and other countries. Materials as diverse as State Department political analyses, White House confidential file materials, National Security Council policy statements, CIA intelligence memoranda, and much more offer unique insights into the inner workings of the US government and world events in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
A significant resource for researchers in almost every discipline, this collection makes it possible for researchers to easily and quickly access and review selected previously classified government documents online.
Documents contained in U.S. Declassified Documents Online come from collection editors who actively monitor the release of formerly classified documents from presidential libraries as well as numerous major releases of declassified documents from the Atomic Energy Commission, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Department of Defense, Department of Justice, Department of State, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), National Security Council, White House, and other executive agencies. Because the majority of the documents are presidential records and all of them were formerly classified, these records provide a unique, behind-the-scenes view of the highest level of American policy-making on the most sensitive issues of national security and foreign policy.
From many perspectives, this collection illuminates such events and developments as the recognition of the economic and strategic importance of the Middle East, the development of the Cold War and Soviet expansionism, the problem of refugees and displaced persons, the various faces and responses to the end of colonialism in Africa, the economic and social stratification of Latin America, the "miracle" of Western Europe following the devastation and economic collapse of the immediate postwar period, and the application of the "domino theory" in Asia.
The search-and-discovery interface for the collection allows researchers to locate the full text of documents and quickly filter their search results by document type, issue date, source institution, classification level, and date declassified as well as other document characteristics.
Materials available for review include:
- Cabinet meeting minutes
- CIA intelligence studies and reports
- Diary entries
- FBI surveillance and intelligence correspondence and memoranda
- Full texts of letters, instructions, and cables sent and received by U.S. diplomatic personnel
- Joint Chiefs papers
- National Security Council policy statements
- Presidential conferences
- State Department political analyses
- Technical studies
- Trade treaties, studies and analyses
- U.S. briefing materials for meetings with foreign heads of state and government officials
- White House Confidential File materials
- And much more
"The collection—appropriate for all levels of study—will appeal to scholars in many fields of study, including political science, history, law, regional studies, environmental studies, business, social science, and journalism."
- Asian Studies
- Business & Economics
- European Studies
- Humanities & Social Sciences
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- Middle Eastern Studies
- U.S. History
View and download this PDF
Platform Features & Tools
Researchers can see the frequency of search terms within sets of content to begin identifying central themes and assessing how individuals, events, and ideas interact and develop over time.
By grouping commonly occurring themes, this tool reveals hidden connections within search terms—helping to shape research by integrating diverse content with relevant information.
Search across the content of complementary primary source products in one intuitive environment, enabling innovative new research connections.
Reviews & Testimonials
"U.S. Declassified Documents Online makes accessing formerly classified material fairly simple and will appeal to researchers of those aspects of U.S. policy, security, and history that have kept secret by every administration over the course of the 20th and 21st centuries."
"The declassification of government documents can be slow and unpredictable, but U.S. Declassified Documents provides access to available materials in a quick and organized manner. As the most comprehensive compilation of declassified documents of the U.S. executive branch, it is an important resource for researchers of American security and policy. The numerous search options, quality organization, and enhanced features add to its value." | <urn:uuid:0476b18c-6565-4160-a84f-b5270d765ff2> | {
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A rite of passage is an important, sacred ceremony that highlights a transitional period in a person’s life- often marking the departure from one group in order to enter another. Graduation is one of those rites of passage and is also known as commencement, convocation or invocation.
At Rainbow, it takes on all of these forms but at its core is an invocation- this sacred ceremony serves as an invitation of the spirit, a reverence for deep connection, reflection and transformation. Our RCS graduation is one of many shared celebrations, ceremonies and rites of passage that empower students to turn both inward and outward in order to realize that they are part of an integral community as well as something greater than themselves.
Renee went on to explain another important ritual of this rite of passage- centering. As all things at Rainbow begin with centering- from school days, to meetings, to shared celebrations- so does graduation. Renee noted that the purpose of centering is to help each of us bring a mindful awareness to the present moment. She acknowledged the profound importance of the evening’s events and reminded us that…”there will never be another moment like it ever again.”
Graduation centerings are led by the graduates. Last week at preschool graduation, four eager preschoolers lead the whole community in acts of mindful listening, deep breathing, and a blessing of compassion. Last night, seven confident 8th graders lead centering. It began with the song of the singing bowl to gather everyone’s attention. Jackson, one of our graduates who has been here since first grade, stepped up to the microphone and invited each member of the community to turn to their neighbors to greet one another. Gaby, another graduate, then followed with an invitation to close eyes and reflect on the greeting. The reflection was prompted by these questions-
“Did they look happy?”
“What color were their eyes?”
“How long was their hair?”
“What was their name?”
Lena, then approached the microphone and followed with this quote…”Life is a dance, mindfulness is witnessing that dance.” Jackson furthered explained that, “No one in life will guide you to notice the space you are in, so it is up to you to be mindful of your space and body. Now… reintroduce yourself in a centered space, pay close attention to the entire picture, and ask mindful questions.” Another student reflected, “How did that greeting make you feel this time? What more did you noticed?” Finally Harmony, another student closed the centering by leading the group in a deep, communal breath.
RCS closes this rite of passage each year with a song that has held space in this community- as a gift of appreciation- for decades. Last night, this song was meant as an enduring reminder for all the graduates that they are held, supported and deeply loved by their RCS community. Below are the simple but profound lyrics.
Dear Ones we love you, Dear Ones you helped us to grow,
There’s a circle of light around you, there’s a circle of light in your heart.
There’s a circle of love around you, there’s a circle of love in your heart. | <urn:uuid:c9927756-381b-4a39-92a7-ead41c1e427d> | {
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The village of Stowe can be found in Buckinghamshire and was probably very significant in Anglo-Saxon times. It is known that the village was here long before the William the Conqueror arrived in England and in 1086 the Domesday Book showed that the half-brother of William was the feudal overlord of the manor. Odo was the Bishop of Bayeux and he counted both Robert D’Oyly and Roger D’Ivry among the tenants.
Robert D’Oyly is famous for building the castle at Oxford and together with D’Ivry, he founded a college there for canons. The manor of Stowe then fell under the ownership of the college. A royal charter in 1130 from Henry I confirmed the change of ownership.
The college had merged with Osney Abbey in 1150 and it remained so until Henry VIII chose to dissolve the monasteries in the 16th century. Osney Abbey became the first cathedral of Oxford. In 1590, Elizabeth I took ownership of Stowe but the lands and the manor house of the same name were sold to the Temple family.
The parish church has been in place there since the early part of the 12th century and it is a great place for visitors to explore as it reflects so much of the history of the village as well as the church itself.
Stowe House can be found just outside the village and it was originally home to dukes, but it now serves as a school. Visitors are welcome to the house at certain times of the year and the National Trust runs the gardens and parkland, which are beautiful and open all year round – with free entry to members. | <urn:uuid:6dad901c-3281-4bbf-9864-337cbe42d64f> | {
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Did selfishness — or sharing — drive human evolution? Evolutionary theorists have traditionally focused on competition and the ruthlessness of natural selection, but often they have failed to consider a critical fact: that humans could not have survived in nature without the charity and social reciprocity of a group.
Last week on Slate, evolutionary anthropologist Eric Michael Johnson explored the question against the backdrop of two cultural events in 1957 — the consequences of the rogue, selfish activities of a pygmy hunter in a Congo forest, who used the group’s collective hunting efforts to benefit only himself, and in New York City, the publication of Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged, whose protagonist champions the author’s notion that human nature is fundamentally selfish and that each man “exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose.”
Atlas Shrugged counts many politicians as admirers, perhaps most notably Republican vice presidential candidate, Paul Ryan, who cites the book as one of his main inspirations for entering politics and is known to give Rand’s books frequently to his interns.
So, does Rand’s theory comport with current evolutionary theory? The data is not exactly kind to her position. For example, Johnson describes an anthropologist’s account of the pygmy tribesman, Cephu, in the Congo who lived by the Randian ideal that selfishness is the highest morality. Cephu was part of the Mbuti tribe for whom “hunts were collective efforts in which each hunter’s success belonged to everybody else,” Johnson writes, detailing how the tribe “employed long nets of twined liana bark to catch their prey, sometimes stretching the nets for 300 feet. Once the nets were hung, women and children began shouting, yelling, and beating the ground to frighten animals toward the trap.”
It was a group effort, for most:
But one man, a rugged individualist named Cephu, had other ideas. When no one was looking, Cephu slipped away to set up his own net in front of the others.
Soon caught in this blatant attempt to steal meat, Cephu was brought in front of the whole tribe:
At an impromptu trial, Cephu defended himself with arguments for individual initiative and personal responsibility. “He felt he deserved a better place in the line of nets,” [the anthropologist Colin] Turnbull wrote. “After all, was he not an important man, a chief, in fact, of his own band?” But if that were the case, replied a respected member of the camp, Cephu should leave and never return. The Mbuti have no chiefs, they are a society of equals in which redistribution governs everyone’s livelihood. The rest of the camp sat in silent agreement.
Faced with banishment, a punishment nearly equivalent to a death sentence, Cephu relented.
He apologized, handed over his meat to the tribe and then, essentially, was sent to bed without dinner. As Johnson explains, selfishness is considered far from a virtue in such tribal groups, which still live in ways similar to our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Indeed, every such group ever studied has been found to idealize altruism and punish selfishness, in everything from their mythologies to their mating practices.
Although Rand accepted that early human life was a collective effort, she failed to realize how this shaped our brains. In most societies, for example, a man like Cephu would be seen as the opposite of a good catch for a woman wanting a partner. A good mate — and one whose genes were likely selected for and passed on in our earliest evolutionary history — would have been a cooperative hunter, one who didn’t put his own goals ahead of those of the tribe. He would have been altruistic in battle too, particularly when warring with other groups. A selfish soldier, after all, is known as a coward, not a hero.
The evidence for altruism as a critical part of human nature isn’t limited to anthropology. Studies of 18-month-old toddlers show that they will almost always try to help an adult who is visibly struggling with a task, without being asked to do so: if the adult is reaching for something, the toddler will try to hand it to them, or if they see an adult drop something accidentally, they will pick it up.
However, if the same adult forcefully throws something to the ground, toddlers won’t try to retrieve it: they understand that the action was deliberate and that the object is unwanted. These very young children will even assist (or refrain from helping) with a book-stacking task depending on what they perceive to be the adult’s intention. If the adult clumsily knocks the last book off the top of the stack, the toddler will try to put it back; if the adult deliberately takes the last book off, however, toddlers won’t intervene. Even before kids are taught to chip in — perhaps especially before they are told it’s an obligation — children are less selfish than often presumed.
Another study found that 3- to 5-year-olds tend to give a greater share of a reward (stickers, in this case) to a partner who has done more work on a task — again, without being asked — even if it means they get to keep less for themselves. And those cries of “That’s not fair!” that plague sibling relationships: they’re not only selfish; they reflect children’s apparently innate desire for equity.
Fundamental tendencies toward altruism aren’t only seen in children, either. Worldwide, the aftermath of natural disasters are typically characterized by heroism and a sharing of resources — within the affected community and in others farther way — not selfish panics. During the terrorist attacks of 9/11, for example, there were no accounts of people being trampled rushing out of the World Trade Center towers; rather, those who needed assistance descending were cared for, and calm mainly prevailed. The same occurred after the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown in Japan in 2011. The cases in which people stampede or look out only for themselves tend to be rare and involve very specific circumstances that mitigate against helpfulness.
Moreover, our stress systems themselves seem to be designed to connect us to others. They calm down when we are feeling close to people we care about — whether related to us or not — and spike during isolation and loneliness. Even short periods of solitary confinement can derange the mind and damage the body because of the stress they create. And having no social support can be as destructive to health as cigarette smoking.
Of course, none of this is to say that humans are never selfish or that we don’t have a grasping, greedy part of our nature. But to claim, as Rand does, that “altruistic morality” is a “disease” is to misrepresent reality.
(Share the love and read the rest of Johnson’s fascinating feature here.) | <urn:uuid:994c5a59-0bab-4774-9113-c537176f644d> | {
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PART of the museum's appeal to the masses was due to the broad spectrum of entertainment it provided with live exhibits like Tom Thumb and morality plays. In the 1850's Barnum renovated his Lecture Room to increase its seating capacity to hold 3,000 people. Andrea Dennett contends that Barnum's renovation of the lecture room was "presumably a deliberate attempt on the part of Barnum to entice puritanical visitors who would not willingly attend a performance in a conventional theater."14 With the increased popularity of theatres, they became sites of rambunctiousness and people became more reluctant to attend performances.
Lecture Room, Barnum's American Museum, 1853.
(Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library.)
As an alternative to the degenerative theatre environment Barnum declared, "I abolished all vulgarity and profanity from the stage, and I prided myself upon the fact that parents and children could attend the dramatic performances in the so-called Lecture Room, and not be shocked or offended by anything they might see or hear."15 Neil Harris maintains, "The museum lecture rooms on the other hand, were not theaters, but could do what theaters did, mount dramatic entertainments or present variety acts under the guise of education and public entertainment."16 Barnum wrote in his autobiography, "My plan is to introduce into the lecture room highly moral and instructive domestic dramas, written expressly for my establishment and so constructed as to please and edify while they possess a powerful reformatory tendency."17 Barnum himself was a reformed drinker and a proponent of the temperance movement. William H. Smith's, The Drunkard was a popular temperance play that enjoyed one hundred uninterrupted performances in 1849 in Barnum's lecture room. The educational experience and moral edification was encouraged even after the play; audience members were urged to return to the box office and sign a pledge against drinking.18
Back to previous page | Table of Contents | Next page | <urn:uuid:74619df1-f178-40a8-aca0-27da60f5c4ea> | {
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What are the central ideas in which Sophocles conveys?
6 Answers | Add Yours
Another related theme is blindness, both metaphorical and eventually literal. Oedipus is blind to the reality of his actions, namely that he killed his father and married his mother, and his drive to find out what is causing the plague on Thebes makes him see the truth when Tiresias, the blind prophet, reveals all. Oedipus, as punishment for being blind in knowledge gauges out his own eyes so that he never able to see beauty again.
We are a really powerless in a world that we cannot control. Oedipus, despite having good intentions, stumbles and bumbles his way into a mess of incredible proportions. His work, his family, and his future are obliterated by his own actions, actions for which he could not possibly have foreseen the consequences.
When Oedipus vows to banish Laius' killer, he is unknowingly banishing himself. When he finally realizes this, he accepts his own punishment without complaint, although he does express his unhappiness. He accepts the consequences that he couldn't avoid. How often do we do that sort of thing in real life?
Destiny and fate can not be avoided. This is the message Sophocles is relatiing. He writes about the fact that Oedipus is contolled by his destiny. No matter how hard Odedipus tried, he could not prevent the prophecy from coming to pass. He did kill his father and he married his mother.
It's been pointed out that this play takes up ideas of fate and destiny and or ability to control these forces. We can also read the play as a comment on dealing with this lack of control. In this way, Oedipus reacts rather poorly but later - as his saga continues after Oedipus Rex - he learns to bear his fate more gracefully and is transformed into a prophet.
Excessive pride is another important idea in the play. At the beginning of the play, Oedipus greets the priest asking for his help by noting that of course, he can help solve the problem of the plague. After all, didn't he solve the Sphinx's riddle and save Thebes before? His pride leads him to persist in his efforts to discover Laius' murderer, a venture that ultimately causes him to learn the truth about his own heritage. The prophecy destined Oedipus to kill his father and sleep with his mother, but it did not indicate that he would ever know his fate. His pride in his superior intellect and ability to solve problems makes him believe that, in effect, only he can find out who killed Laius. Despite warnings from Tiresias and Jocasta, he pushes forward until he learns the painful truth. Pride clearly led to his downfall.
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Join a community of thousands of dedicated teachers and students.Join eNotes | <urn:uuid:58edf629-ae4d-4580-8fb3-8b9d28f43ccb> | {
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A beloved cartoon character may be slowing children's mental functions, a new study led a professor at the University of Virginia says.
The new study suggests that watching just nine minutes of the Nickelodeon show "SpongeBob SquarePants" can cause short-term attention and learning problems in 4-year-olds.
University of Virginia psychology professor Angeline Lillard is the lead author in the study. Researchers randomly assigned a group of 60 children to either watch ``SpongeBob,'' or the slower-paced PBS cartoon ``Caillou'' or assigned to draw pictures. Immediately after these nine-minute assignments, the kids took mental function tests; those who had watched ``SpongeBob'' did measurably worse than the others.
UVA's Lillard said Nickelodeon's ``SpongeBob'' shouldn't be singled out. She found similar problems in kids who watched other fast-paced cartoon programming.
``I wouldn't advise watching such shows on the way to school or any time they're expected to pay
attention and learn,'' she said.
Nickelodeon spokesman David Bittler disputed the findings and said "SpongeBob" is aimed at kids aged 6-11, not 4-year-olds. Bittler also questioned the methodology of the study, noting the sample size was small and most of the test subjects were from white, middle-class to wealthy families.
The children in the study were given common mental function tests after watching cartoons or drawing. The SpongeBob kids scored on average 12 points lower than the other two groups, whose scores were nearly identical.
In another test, measuring self-control and impulsiveness, kids were rated on how long they could wait before eating snacks presented when the researcher left the room. ``SpongeBob'' kids waited about 2 1/2 minutes on average, versus at least four minutes for the other two groups.
Lillard did note that the children were not tested before they watched SpongeBob, but said none of the children had been diagnosed with attention problems. | <urn:uuid:05c18522-fdbc-48f8-86ed-da00911e7f07> | {
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Subtribe Goodyerinae Klotzsch in Hayne, Getreue Darstell. Gew. 14: t. 24. 1846.
Perennial, terrestrial, occasionally lithophytic and rarely epiphytic herbs. Roots usually fleshy, sometimes moniliform, hairy, emerging from the nodes of the rhizome, rarely absent and replaced by rhizoids; if present, velamen Calanthe-type.
Rhizome creeping, terete to moniliform, short to elongate, of few too many internodes of equal length, rarely abbreviated. Stem erect, terete, few- to many-Ieaved, rarely leafless.
Leaves sessile or with a petiolate base dilating into a tubular amplexicaul sheath at the base, rarely reduced to sheaths and then lacking chlorophyll; lamina obliquely lanceolate to sub circular, green, purple or almost black, sometimes veined or spotted with white, yellow or red. Inflorescence a terminal, erect raceme, glabrous, glandular, or pubescent; peduncle usually with a few close to scattered sheathing bracts; floral bracts lanceolate to ovate, glandular, pubescent, or glabrous.
Flowers resupinate or rarely non-resupinate, glabrous, the outer surfaces of the sepals glandular or pubescent. Sepals usually free to base, rarely connate far part of their length.
Dorsal sepal concave, often farming a hood with the petals. Lateral sepals free or fused, often oblique at base, lower hale dilated, enclosing sides and base of labellum. Petals free or fused, sessile to short-clawed, often hyaline, entire, usually with upper margin adnate to the dorsal sepal. Labellum usually fleshy, attached to the base and usually to the lower margins of the column, entire, bilobed or tripartite; hypochile concave, saccate or spurred, sometimes with a fleshy external flange, internal appendages (when present) entire to digitate, stalked or sessile, one to few an each side, rarely scattered over inner surface, sometimes with two longitudinal keels within; mesochile (if present) claw-like, fringed or not; epichile sessile or clawed, small to large, linear, ovate, lunate or transversely bilobed; spur (if present) entire or bilobed, tapering, cylindrical or clavate.
Column short to long, sessile or stalked; anther usually erect, biloculate; pollinia two, bipartite or rarely entire, sectile, usually clavate, attenuated into short to elongate caudicles; clinandrium usually deeply concave; rostellum short to elongate, erect to porrect, often deltoid, slightly emarginate to deeply bifid, in some genera carrying a distinct, dorsal, tegular stipe; stigma lobes free or connate under base of rostellum, sometimes subtended by one or two sterile appendages. Ovary cylindric-fusiform, glabrous, glandular or pubescent, twisted or not.
Capsule usually cylindric-fusiform, dehiscent. | <urn:uuid:43815e66-0477-4822-beef-c5d7fda55985> | {
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From termites in Africa and their insect-scale skyscrapers to the innocuous honey bee and their intricate hives, nature has been “3D printing” for longer than we can measure. A former Gizmodo editor imagines a scenario where we turn bees into living concrete producing 3D printing machines. But what are the ethical ramifications of co-opting nature and turning it into an exploitable labour resource?
Science fiction stories are full of tales of humanity’s hubris turning apocalyptic when we mess with mother nature, and the scenario envisioned by former Gizmodo EiC Geoff Manaugh and his friend John Becker is no different. In it, honey bees are engineered to produce a concrete like substance and used to build, repair or enhance existing structures. He imagines them getting loose and becoming rogue concrete 3D printers, and details the havoc that they would play in our cities and environment.
Calling the scenario science fiction suggests that it is a technological advancement far beyond our capabilities, but that simply isn’t true. We’ve already found ways to entice bees to produce honeycombs in specific shapes, and silk worms to weave massive structures for us. DARPA has even genetically engineered a goat that produces spider-silk proteins in its milk. There are many people that believe the ethics of this type of genetic tampering are dubious at best, but it isn’t as if we haven’t been manipulating nature for thousands of years.
The very concept of farming crops and domesticating animals is a form of genetic tampering. Granted, these are genetic changes that happened over the course of thousands of years due to the process of evolution, but the fact that we’ve got better and more efficient at changing nature to suit us doesn’t change the fact that we’ve always done it. Every animal strives to control its environment, even in ways that are destructive to their neighbours, and in this humans are no different. However we are, simply put, much better at it.
But does our very ability to ponder the ethics of it similarly change the equation? An invasive plant species that spreads, overruns and decimates a local habitat cannot ponder the moral implications of their continued expansion. But humans have more choices than that, and our very ability to be so good at manipulating our environments comes from our capability to ponder concepts like the moral implications of our actions.
As 3D printing becomes a larger presence in our lives, its influence is only going to spread, and I have little doubt that we’ll begin to explore the very ideas that Manaugh and Becker put forward. After all, their essay was inspired by an actual bee native to New England that is capable of producing a natural plastic polymer. I have little doubt that someone is thinking very seriously about how to exploit this bee plastic, so I don’t believe that this scenario is especially far fetched.
I would suggest reading the entire essay as it’s quite riveting, and while it poses questions without offering solutions these aren’t the types of problems that have easy answers. But they are the types of problems that we need to be willing to talk about. | <urn:uuid:afa3b53c-8cce-4f35-b9fd-cdcafc067801> | {
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The sacred vessel in which Jesus allegedly drank out of during the Last Supper, theHoly Grail. The most sought after religious element in the world, the Holy Grail has been subject to numerous sagas since it's origin in Biblical and later Medieval times. Though the Bible doesn't directly refer to the Holy Grail, an oral tradition has been passed down generation to generation. Finally, in the Medieval time period, it was first put into written text in the retelling of the King Arthur legend called Le Conte du Graal, written in the 12th century by the French poet/artist Chretien de Troye. The saga of the grail has since inspired many of the greatest authors in history, and was the the theme for many medieval written works. The legend behind the Holy Grail has been altered throughout the years; however, the base of the story is the same in every version of the story. Christ, along with his disciples ate the Paschal lamb at the Last Supper. After this meal, a grail was passed to Joseph of Arimathea. Following Christ's gory death, Joseph gathered the holy, precious blood of his savior off the cross. When Joseph was imprisoned by the Jewish people, Jesus Christ allegedly appeared to him and gave him the vessel to protect, in which he succeeded in doing for forty-two years. This Holy Grail, is said to contain the fountain of youth, something so powerful that it would be able to give immortality to anyone who drank from it. Thus, over the centuries archaeologists, as well as historians have sought out for this vessel, and sometimes have even made false claims as to the whereabouts of it. However, perhaps by God's wishes it has yet to be found. | <urn:uuid:c67a86ac-eb80-4ef6-9208-7a7b112da17e> | {
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Since ancient times, people have put together many “seven wonders” lists. Examples include the Seven Wonders of the Natural World, the Seven Wonders of the Modern World and the Seven Natural Wonders of the U.S. The content of these lists tends to vary, and none is definitive. The original list of seven wonders is the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, which is made up of a selection of ancient architectural and sculptural accomplishments. The seven wonders that are most widely agreed upon as being in the original list are outlined below.
A group of three pyramids, Khufu, Khafra, and Menkaura located at Giza, Egypt, outside modern Cairo, is often called the first wonder of the world. The largest pyramid, built by Khufu (Cheops), a king of the fourth dynasty, had an original estimated height of 482 feet (now approximately 450 feet). The base has sides 755 feet long. It contains 2,300,000 blocks. The average weight of each block is 2.5 tons. Estimated date of construction is 2680 B.C. Of all the Ancient Wonders, the pyramids is the only one still standing.
Often listed as the second wonder, these gardens, which were located south of Baghdad, Iraq, were supposedly built by Nebuchadnezzar around 600 B.C. to please his queen, Amuhia. They are also associated with the mythical Assyrian queen, Semiramis. Archeologists think that the gardens were laid out atop a vaulted building, with provisions for raising water. The terraces were said to rise from 75 to 300 feet.
Phidias (fifth century B.C.) built this 40-foot high statue in gold and ivory. All trace of it is lost, except for reproductions on coins. It was located in Olympia, Greece.
The temple was a beautiful marble structure, begun about 350 B.C., in honor of the goddess Artemis. The temple, with Ionic columns 60 feet high, was destroyed by invading Goths in A.D. 262. It was located in Ephesus, Turkey.
This famous monument was erected in Bodium, Turkey, by Queen Artemisia in memory of her husband, King Mausolus of Caria in Asia Minor, who died in 353 B.C. Some remains of the structure are in the British Museum. This shrine is the source of the modern word “mausoleum,” which is a large above-ground tomb.
This bronze statue of Helios (Apollo), about 105 feet high, was the work of the sculptor Chares. He worked on the statue for 12 years, finishing it in 280 B.C. It was destroyed during an earthquake in 224 B.C. Rhodes is a Greek island in the Aegean Sea.
The seventh wonder was the Pharos (lighthouse) of Alexandria. Sostratus of Cnidus built the Pharos during the third century B.C. on the island of Pharos off the coast of Egypt. It was destroyed by an earthquake in the thirteenth century.
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Human Brain vs Computer
The question is, with all this new inventiones in AI, is human brain still superior to computer?! is it slower than multi-cpus? is speed a right measurement for compareing power?!
- Computer vs The Brain
- Is the Human Brain the Fastest Cpu
- Very interesting article about brain time! : Timewarp: How your brain creates the fourth dimension - life - 21 October 2009 - New Scientist
I believe that our brain has many cores! but i have no idea how many (Expert say human brain has many modules responsible for different things and this modules can work in paralell). The reason for this opinion is the fact that we use these different cores for variety of different things and sometimes very complex things at the same time. for example we can drive , think and at the same listen to music. Driving is not a simple task it require observation , calculation and action. remember that we all had difficulty doing these things even few month after learning driving.
I just realized that our mind is very very fast, for example when we see something our brain does series of very complex processing , but we usually recognize things instantly. | <urn:uuid:35be33d8-257a-4de7-94ee-130d28874b5d> | {
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The thyroid is a small butterfly shaped endocrine organ that sits right at the base of the throat. It controls many of the hormones secreted by the body, specifically, the thyroid gland controls how quickly the body uses energy, makes proteins, and controls how sensitive the body is to other hormones. A healthy thyroid requires many factors, such as a healthy endocrine system, stable hormone levels, good and balanced gut flora, and well functioning organs like the liver, kidneys and adrenals. The primary function of the thyroid is production of the hormone T4, T3 and calcitonin. Up to 80% of the T4 is converted to T3 by organs such as the liver and kidneys. T3 is several times more powerful than T4. In short, thyroid problems are a form of auto immune disease and often typical thyroid replacing hormones do not work efficiently enough to nourish the thyroid
The two main issues with the thyroid are known as hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism. Many factors distinguish the two, but in essence hypothyroidism is far more prevalent and results in the under production of both T3, and T4. Hyperthyroidism is the opposite, it is the over production of T3 and T4. In short;
– Hypothyroid symptoms include cold extremities, dry and rough skin, weight gain, fatigue, hair loss, intolerance to cold, constipation, decreased libido, edema, mood swings.
– Hyperthyroid symptoms include heart palpitations, weight loss, protruding eyes, excessive sweating, diarrhea and unusual sensitivity to heat.
Taking replacement thyroid hormones while not addressing the underlying immune imbalance is essentially useless. The best treatment may not work unless underlying hormonal and periphery organ health are not balanced. Infection at the thyroid and inflammation are two aspects that also need to be incorporated into any thyroid disorder.
A sluggish thyroid, hypothyroid, can be triggered by many unseen elements:
• A deficiency of iodine, as the thyroid will not produce enough hormones to function properly
• Autoimmune issues can cause thyroid issues
• Age, thyroid issues typically worsen with age
• MSG and an overabundance of omega 6 fatty acids
• Popular prescription drugs and medications such as pain killers, sleep aids, antidepressants, allergy medications etc.
• Halogen compounds such as fluoride, chlorine and bromine
• Candida, which toxifies the blood and inhibits all gland activity
• Vaccines, as they contain formaldehyde, heavy metals and other toxic adjuvants
• Radiation therapy and caffeine
• Menopause, pregnancy or hormone replacement therapy and family history
The adrenal glands and other endocrine glands have a direct effect on low thyroid as well. Adrenal fatigue is often the root cause of hypothyroidism. For example, if a person does not get at least 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep each night, the adrenals cannot recharge sufficiently, leading to adrenal exhaustion. The same holds true under stressful conditions or use of stimulants like caffeine. When the adrenals are continually stressed, the body ends up in a state of catabolism, it begins to break down and the result is adrenal fatigue.
Although the thyroid issues can be perplexing and overwhelming, once the endocrine system is re-balanced and all organs receive the proper quality nutrients necessary to create a balanced hormonal system, it can return a person’s health back to homeostasis. As such, the following is a partial list of elements necessary to assure that the body can heal itself.
• iodine, kelp and all sea vegetables
• B complex vitamins
• L-tyrosine, zinc and copper
• Magnesium, manganese and selenium | <urn:uuid:af8d8c66-a054-4e22-a8a2-4df554488aef> | {
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In California and Arizona, pink bollworm (a.k.a. pinkie) control has cost a king's ransom — more than $1.3 billion. In the Southwest, the pinkie has been proclaimed the “No. 1 Cotton Pest” for 40 years.
Cotton's ‘baddest’ bug, has forced the use of 72 million acre equivalents of pesticides in Southern California and Arizona.
The pinkie has ceased to be an economic pest in California's San Joaquin Valley (SJV) since exclusion efforts began in the late 1960s using trapping and sterile pink bollworm moth releases to suppress any small breeding population. Texas and New Mexico and northern Mexico cotton producers are following the lead of the San Joaquin and are nearing eradication after a concentrated effort to reduce pinkie populations using primarily Bt cotton and matting confusion pheromone technology.
Arizona eradication update
Eradication efforts in Arizona and Southern California are the final piece of the puzzle that when put together will show a picture of the pink bollworm eradicated in the U.S. and Mexico. After 80 percent of Arizona's 900-cotton growers approved a referendum authorizing a pink bollworm eradication program in 2004, the Arizona Cotton Research and Protection Council (ACRPC) launched eradication in 2006 in what is called Area 1; Cochise, Graham, Greenlee, Pinal, Pima, and Maricopa counties.
In 2007, the ACRPC's Area 2 — Mohave and La Paz counties — joined the fold. Meanwhile, the grower funded California Department of Food and Agriculture pink bollworm eradication effort directed by the California Cotton Pest Control Board focused on anti-pinkie efforts in Riverside and Imperial counties as well.
In 2008, Arizona's remaining county to enter the pinkie annihilation race will be Yuma County, the ACRPC's Area 3. All three Arizona areas are four-year eradication programs.
With Yuma County soon to board ship, Arizona inches closer to hammering the final silver nail into the pinkie's coffin.
Yuma eradication specifics
Yuma County cotton acreage statistics (pre-eradication) include about 16,724 acres — 8,397 acres of Bt cotton and 8,326 acres of non-Bt.
During an ACRPC-sponsored meeting with about 40 cotton growers and others in Yuma in mid-October, the ACRPC's Chairman and Roll, Ariz. cotton producer Clyde Sharp and Director Larry Antilla outlined the specifics of the Yuma launch.
“In Yuma County in 2008, cotton growers will have the ability to grow 100 percent Bt cotton,” Sharp said. “Do you have to grow 100 Bt cotton? No. This will not affect those who want to grow seed increase in non-Bt.”
Yet Sharp drove home the message, “Growing Bt cotton is the fastest, easiest, and most economical way to run this program to get in, destroy the pinkies, and get out. I urge all growers to grow 100 percent Bt cotton. There's a cost either way whether Bt is grown or not.”
As with Areas 1 and 2, individual Yuma County cotton growers in Area 3 can plant 100 percent Bt cotton under an Environmental Protection Agency mandated 24c special local need registration. Bt and non-Bt cotton must be treated with sterile moths at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)/Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service's recommended rate, and comply with all other cultural requirements of the eradication program.
The ACRPC's 24c strictly applies to the ACRPC's Areas 1, 2, and 3 where sterile PBW moth technology (SIT) is an integral component. Under the ACRPC program, growers can plant any variety during the four-year program.
“Bt varieties are definitely encouraged as much as possible because of the true benefit we've seen in other areas with high levels of Bt,” Antilla said. “If growers choose to plant 100 percent Bt cotton in 2008, you can under the special 24c local need. That's for Delta and Pine Land Co., Monsanto, and Widestrike — anything with Bollgard and Bollgard II,” Antilla said.
The Yuma program, like the other two areas, will be funded by two components:
Monitoring and management: $1.25 per bale from current bale assessment; will cover program management, monitoring, traps, lures, etc., plus supervision of pheromone and insecticide applications.
PBW control: Bt cotton — $32 tech fee represents growers' full contribution; and non-Bt cotton — a $32 per acre fee will cover season long control including pheromone, insecticide, and application costs.
A USDA direct appropriation funds the sterile moth component.
The deadline for registration for non-Bt acres in Yuma County is Jan. 15, 2008. Payments are due to the ACRPC by March 15, 2008. All growers will receive a registration form.
Yuma County joins the eradication fray amid some resistance from growers. Since much of Yuma's cotton is grown short-season for rotation with winter vegetables, some growers believe the short season negates the need for an eradication program. Cotton in Yuma County is planted as early as Feb. 1 with termination around Aug. 1.
“We don't think we need it,” Jerry Cullison said at the meeting. Cullison grew 1,300 acres of conventional cotton on his Wellton, Ariz. farm in 2007 from Delta Pine and AgPro seed he'd grown in the past.
“I have enough seed to plant for another two to three years,” Cullison said. “For years they've said the germ is no good and you need fresh seed every year. I've raised lots of seed for Stoneville and Delta Pine. I planted seed this year that was in my barn for seven years and had a perfect stand. If you keep the facilities proper, the seed will last a long time.”
Yet Cullison concurred that if pinkies from Yuma County cotton fields are moving to other cotton growing areas, eradication is the way to go.
“If we're propagating pinkies, and they think we're infesting everybody else, I don't have a problem with it for four years. If we're infecting everybody else, then I'm all for everybody to do it. Plant it all and get rid of it once and for all.”
During his presentation, ACRPC Chairman Sharp used maps showing native moth finds in traps placed in desert non-cotton areas east and north of Yuma this past summer.
“I have heard many say we don't have a pinkie problem in Yuma. We do have a pinkie problem in Yuma because we're infesting the rest of the state,” said Sharp, a Yuma County producer.
“Many of the pinkies found in the traps had extremely battered wings which means they have been in flight for quite some time,” Sharp said. “How viable are they to re-infest cotton in other areas? We don't know, but pinkies are moving out of the Yuma area to the east and north.”
During the week of Sept. 22, traps southwest of Buckeye, Ariz. (non-cotton area), contained 90 or more pinkies. Traps in Maricopa County (west of the heavy Coolidge and Eloy cotton growing areas in Pinal County) contained 1 to 10 native moths each. North of Yuma 10 to 50 moths were found in traps.
“Basically we're re-infesting what we've done in pink bollworm eradication to the north and east (Areas 1 and 2). This is why we're coming to Yuma in 2008,” Sharp said.
About 100,000 acres of cotton are grown in the areas of Yuma County, San Luis (Sonora, Mexico), and Baja California (Mexico), he noted.
2006-2007 eradication facts
In 2006, Arizona's pink bollworm eradication program (Area 1) included 165,632 acres — 154,168 in Bt and 11,463 in non-Bt. In ACRPC eradication targeted boll sampling in 2006, 53,292 bolls were collected in the late season. Of the bolls sampled containing larvae, total infestation was 2.12 percent. A hot zone in the Arizona City, Ariz. area contained 13.23 percent. Outside the hot zone the figure dropped to .6 percent.
In 2007, cotton acreage in Areas 1 and 2 totaled 162,492 acres — 155,595 Bt and 6,897 non-Bt.
In 2005, 42.39 natives were caught in traps per week (pre-ACRPC program) compared to 6.74 percent in 2006, a whopping 84 percent reduction.
Sterile moths are a crucial impetus for successful pink bollworm reductions in the West and Southwest. Moths reared at the U.S. Department of Agriculture/California Department of Food and Agriculture lab in Phoenix, Ariz. are released by airplane 500 feet above cotton fields.
Of the 3.8 billion moths reared at the lab from May to Oct. 1, 2006, aerial distribution included:
- San Joaquin Valley - 275,231,706 moths
- Arizona - 1,681,725,915
- New Mexico - 323,660,970
- Texas - 1,339,620,221
- Mexico - 213,762,095
“Sterile moths are an incredibly important part of the PBW eradication program,” Antilla said. “Whereas pheromone systems are passive, these moths are active. They are seeking other moths to mate.” Released steriles are an equal mix of males and females, Antilla said. “You have sterile males that are calling native females, and sterile females calling native males. It's an incredible system that has worked in the SJV for almost 40 years.”
In 2006 and 2007 Arizona sterile release efforts, moths were released seven days a week during moth production months without a single skipped day.
Cotton versus wheat
Jim Cuming grew 165 acres of cotton on his Yuma Valley farm in 2007 including Delta Pine's 555 BG/RR, 147 RF, and 167 RF varieties. The former president of the Arizona Cotton Growers Association calls the pink bollworm eradication program valid and sound.
“I support the program because it's one more insect we wouldn't have worry about if it wasn't here.” But cotton production may disappear from Cuming's radar screen in 2008.
“You can't grow cotton when you can grow wheat for $300 a ton. Wheat now is a more profitable crop than cotton. Even if you make four bales of cotton at 70 or 80 cents, your inputs will be so much more than your wheat inputs that it will not be economical to plant cotton,” Cuming said.
“You'll gross more money on cotton but you'll net more money on wheat. It's the net dollar you're looking at so that's where it's going. It's a fast crop — take a vacation in the summer and don't worry about the crop.”
Cotton will still have its place as a rotation crop in Yuma County as a minor crop, Cuming said. | <urn:uuid:d579d676-0e77-41ba-9e3e-27142d9b55c6> | {
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The single best way to prevent seasonal flu is to get vaccinated each year, but good health habits like covering your cough and washing your hands often can help stop the spread of germs and prevent respiratory illnesses like the flu. The tips and resources below will help you learn about steps you can take to protect yourself and others from the flu and help stop the spread of germs.
1. Avoid close contact.
Avoid close contact with people who are sick. When you are sick, keep your distance from others to protect them from getting sick too.
2. Stay home when you are sick.
If possible, stay home from work, school, and errands when you are sick. This will help prevent spreading your illness to others.
3. Cover your mouth and nose.
Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when coughing or sneezing. It may prevent those around you from getting sick. Flu and other serious respiratory illnesses, like Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), whooping cough, and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), are spread by cough, sneezing, or unclean hands.
4. Clean your hands.
Washing your hands often will help protect you from germs. If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer for times when you can’t get to a sink.
5. Bring along disinfectant wipes to clean any surfaces you’re about to touch.
7. Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth.
Germs are often spread when a person touches something that is contaminated with germs and then touches his or her eyes, nose, or mouth.
8. Also, don’t touch your mouth, eyes, or nose without washing your hands first.
9. Take care of yourself
If you want your immune system to be in good shape to fight off the flu and other germs, you need to stay healthy.
10. Eat a balanced diet, exercise at least 2-3 times a week, and get 7-9 hours of sleep a night. | <urn:uuid:a879fd65-11ec-480c-a62b-7bb1838420b9> | {
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Question: "What is the Nazarene Church, and what do Nazarenes believe?"
Answer: The Church of the Nazarene is a denomination in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition. Their roots go back to the teachings of John Wesley, as well as to various elements of the Holiness movement of the 19th century. Today there are about 1.8 million members in the Church of the Nazarene, making it the largest of the Holiness movement denominations.
The full history of the Nazarene Church is woven with threads from many sources, but the primary ones will be identified here. In 1895, Phineas Bresee and others formed a church in Los Angeles, California, which they named the Church of the Nazarene. This church was organized as the “first of a denomination that preached the reality of entire sanctification received through faith in Christ.” Entire sanctification means that the soul of the believer attains such a work of the Spirit that it loses its desire to participate in acts of sin. Most churches within the Methodist movement taught some form of this doctrine, but none had formalized it and made it a distinctive of their organization. In 1907, sensing a need to draw together the various independent groups that were part of the Holiness movement, a general conference was called, which resulted in the merger of the Church of the Nazarene and the Association of Pentecostal Churches of America. The merged body was named the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene. In 1908, the Holiness Association of Texas, the Pennsylvania Conference of Holiness Christian Churches, and the Holiness Church of Christ were merged in. The Pentecostal Church of Scotland and the Pentecostal Mission joined in 1915. In 1919, the church dropped the name “Pentecostal” because of the rise of the modern Pentecostal tongues movement.
From the very beginning, the focus of the Nazarene Church has been personal holiness for believers. According to the church website, their goal is that all believers “experience a deeper level of life in which there is victory over sin, power to witness and serve, and a richer fellowship with God, all through the filling of the Holy Spirit.” In contrast to the modern Pentecostal tongues movement, which teaches that the evidence of Spirit baptism is speaking in tongues, the Nazarene Church teaches that the evidence of Spirit baptism is the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). Following the Arminian doctrine of Wesley, the Nazarene Church believes that a person can renounce or walk away from his/her saving relationship with God, and, therefore, Nazarenes have no assurance of salvation. As a result, there is a real emphasis on working to maintain that right relationship with God. The Church of the Nazarene is an evangelistic, missions-minded body that takes their relationship with God seriously and desires to share that reality with the world around them.
© Copyright 2002-2014 Got Questions Ministries. | <urn:uuid:0a5ffa86-305c-4d9e-a17e-009bab8d16f9> | {
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The structure of the liturgy
"Seven times a day I praise you", says Psalm 118(119), and the Liturgy of the Hours follows this pattern.
For details of each hour, look at the links on the left.
Lauds (Morning Prayer) is intended to sanctify the morning. It prepares us for the day, and its prayers and intercessions reflect this. The General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours says “This Hour, recited as the light of a new day dawns, recalls the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, the true light, enlightening every man” (§38). This does not mean that when it is summer you have to recite Lauds at 4.30am, at sunrise, and thus wreck your sleep and your entire day. Morning Prayer is for when your day begins, so that you are properly prepared for that day.
Conversely, Vespers (Evening Prayer) is “celebrated in the evening, when the day is drawing to a close” (§39). As St Basil the Great says, it is for giving thanks for what has been given us during the day, or the things we have done well during it. Again, the psalms, prayers and intercessions reflect this.
The Office of Readings originated in monastic communities and was celebrated before Lauds, very early in the morning while it was still dark. Modern reforms have humanized it and made it suitable for any time of day when we are undistracted and able to meditate more deeply on the mysteries of salvation (§55). You can read more about its history here. As its name implies, the Office of Readings has two long readings in it: one from Scripture and one from the Fathers of the Church.
Terce (mid-morning), Sext (midday) and None (afternoon) are known collectively as the "Little Hours" (or, more respectably, as the Daytime Hours). They are quite short, and intended for use during breaks at work (§75). Of course, some people don’t have three suitable breaks, and when one picks just ont Little Hour to recite during the course of the day, the Liturgy gives it the neutral name Prayer during the Day. Just pick whichever of the three Little Hours seems to correspond best to the time of day, and recite that (§77).
Compline (Night Prayer) is designed to be said last thing at night, before going to bed, or even in bed (§84). It is short and simple. Indeed, it can be made even shorter and simpler by using Compline for Sunday night on every night of the week - in which case it can be learnt by heart and recited from memory.
Times of day
Some web sites give specific times as which the various Hours must be recited. There are no such times. The General Instruction on the Divine Office takes very great care not to specify any. Of course there is nothing to stop you deciding to recite a particular Hour at the same time each day if you want to, but that is entirely up to you. There is nothing magical about the clock.
The office of Prime
There used to be one more office, Prime, which came between Lauds and Terce. It was abolished in the reforms of 1970.
The manner of its introduction was this: around the year 382, in one of the monasteries near Bethlehem, a problem arose, because after the night offices (which corresponded to the more modern Matins and Lauds), the monks could retire to rest. The lazier ones then stayed in bed until nine in the morning (the hour of Terce) instead of getting up to do their manual work or spiritual reading. The short office of Prime, inserted a couple of hours before Terce, solved the problem, by calling them together to pray before they went out to their tasks.
After the major reforms of 1970, some additional revisions were made to the Liturgy of the Hours in 1985. Many English editions of the Liturgy do not yet include these revisions, because it would be so expensive to reprint the books; but the second Latin edition does. The following are the main changes, as summarised in the decree of the Congregation for Divine Worship dated 7 April 1985:
- The New Vulgate translation of the Bible, formally adopted in 1979, replaces the previous translation of the biblical texts in the long and short readings of the Liturgy.
- Certain texts in the old translation are omitted from the new one, or have a different meaning in the new translation. These have been replaced as necessary.
- The psalm texts have similarly been revised according to the New Vulgate.
- The responsories in the Office of Readings have been revised according to the New Vulgate, except where strong reasons exist for leaving them unchanged (long tradition, established music, liturgical significance).
- Many new antiphons for the Benedictus and Magnificat have been added for Sundays and feast days, taken from the appropriate Gospels.
- The psalms are numbered according to both the Greek (Septuagint) and Hebrew numbering.
We are using this second Latin edition as the basis of everything that we do. | <urn:uuid:ba34d571-cc1d-4d36-8404-fe60fbb4cd43> | {
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The use of garlic as an aid for improving health is older than its use as a food. In ancient times, the garlic bulb was considered a common treatment for deafness, dropsy (abnormal accumulation of fluid in the body), intestinal parasites, leprosy, respiratory illnesses, and loss of appetite. Today, garlic is more commonly used as a food or food seasoning.
It is available in its natural bulb form and as a tablet, capsule, dried powder, and aged extract. However, raw garlic, which has a high concentration of a sulfur-containing compound called allicin, is more medicinally powerful than cooked garlic. Research on garlic's cholesterol-lowering effects has been inconsistent, mostly due to poorly designed studies and differences in the garlic preparations used. In the early 1990s, evidence suggested that garlic reduced cholesterol 9 to 12 percent, but in 2000, a review of the evidence found that garlic reduced cholesterol by only 4 to 6 percent. A study that used dried garlic powder over 8 to 12 weeks showed significant reductions in total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and triglycerides, but the effect didn't last beyond six months of treatment, suggesting that garlic has only a short-term effect on cholesterol. If you choose to include more garlic in your diet, the worst outcome may be strong breath or an upset stomach. But remember that garlic, in whatever form, is just one way to help lower your cholesterol. Your top priority should be a balanced, healthy diet that includes vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, low-fat dairy, lean protein, and unsaturated fats.
One surprisingly healthy source of unsaturated fat is nuts. Read on to explore the benefits of including nuts -- in moderation -- to a healthy diet. | <urn:uuid:e7e6cc15-4f85-4f57-9375-1cd7ce0b87cb> | {
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Bright Star, would I were stedfast as thou art
Time Quotes Page 2
How we cite our quotes:
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen masque
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors— (lines 7-8)
Here we get another contrast between different things based on how long they last in time. When Keats chooses the word "new" to attach to the "soft-fallen masque / Of snow," doesn't it seem like he's emphasizing the cyclical nature of the seasons? Think about it: if there was no time and the seasons didn't move in cycles, the snow would always be there, and you wouldn't need winter to roll around to bring more of it. Now, what about the mountains and the moors themselves; do they change with the seasons, or are they permanently there? We'd say they're permanently there; the layer of snow covers them as briefly as each generation of humans covers "earth's human shores," then, the passage of time puts an end to each one's existence.
No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast (lines 9-10)
Here we see yet another contrast between different things based on how long they last in time. First, the speaker says that he wants to be "stedfast," which we can take to mean "stedfast [like the star]." (The fact that he is repeating the same word from the opening line, when he compared himself to the star seems to point in this direction, don't you think?) So, he's saying he wants to last for all time – but then, he wants his head to be "Pillow'd" on his girlfriend's "ripening breast."
Now, the word "ripening" probably has two main meanings here. First, it suggests that the speaker's girlfriend is still fairly young and so is still in the process of "filling out." The second thing is that the word "ripening" gives us a feeling of sweetness and warmth that contrasts with the cold images of the "moving waters" and the snow falling on barren landscapes from earlier in the poem. But does this image only contrast with them – or does it have some similarities with those images as well?
We think it very well might have some similarities with them; if it does, there would be a third meaning to the word "ripening" in the context of this poem. If the reference to "new soft-fallen masque / Of snow" calls to mind the changing of the seasons, and thus the passage of time, it's hard to see how the image of "ripening," which happens to fruit in the autumn, doesn't do the same thing. So, really, what we have here is yet another image of an eternal thing (what the speaker imagines himself being) and a thing with an expiry date: the "ripening" breast of the girl. Why a thing with an expiration date? Well, doesn't ripe fruit eventually turn all wrinkly and then rot?
"But wait," you're probably saying, "Keats doesn't say anything about the girl's breast turning wrinkly and rotting! And anyhow, how could he keep his head on her breast forever if her breast doesn't last forever?" And you know what? If you do say that, we agree with you completely. The eternity of the girl's breast, and therefore of the girlfriend, really does seem to be part-and-parcel of what the Keats's speaker wishes for at the end of the poem here. So why does he say "ripening"?
Well, we think it's almost like a kind of reverse psychology move – as if Keats is saying, "Yes, ordinarily this breast would ripen and keep ripening until the woman dies, but in the world I want to live in, the world of my imagination and desire, it can keep ripening forever, and I will keep my head there forever." But if this is true, then it looks like we have to change what we said before – that this is "another contrast between different things based on how long they last in time." Actually, it's starting to look like Keats's speaker is talking about two things that both would ordinarily rot (the speaker and his mortal girlfriend), but which, through some miracle – if he could somehow have the "stedfastness" of the Star – will not rot, will not be subject to time. Pretty cool, don't you think?
To feel for ever its soft swell and fall,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death— (lines 11-14)
Here we get the climax of Keats's speaker's thoughts on the theme of time. He wants to be able to live forever, throughout all time, with his head on his girlfriend's chest. This desire for eternity is emphasized in the repeated use of the word "for ever," and also in the repetition of the word "still," which, as we've said elsewhere, means both "always" and "motionless" at this point. And yet, does it really look like Keats's speaker believes this is likely? When he says that he would like to "swoon to death" if he can't live forever that way, it sounds like he understands that his wish is impossible. We think that what the end of Keats's poem really does is emphasize the intensity of the speaker's desire for him and his girlfriend to live forever, but at the same time point out that no human being can last for all time. | <urn:uuid:d4c22c5b-a25d-490c-b8bb-0fe0cc8a7df0> | {
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Definition of force to be reckoned with
- He has become a force to be reckoned with in politics.
: strength or energy exerted or brought to bear : cause of motion or change : active power
used with a number to indicate the strength of the wind according to the Beaufort scale
: moral or mental strength
: to do violence to
: to compel by physical, moral, or intellectual means
: to make or cause especially through natural or logical necessity
: estimate, compute
: to determine by reference to a fixed basis
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Did You Know?
Facts, Figures & Folklore About Mardi Gras
February 22 : 02 days till Mardi Gras
Did you know that the ever-popular beaded necklaces, so ubiquitously associated with Mardi Gras today, didn’t come into play until the 1880s? That’s when one of the Krewes dressed up a member as Santa Claus and had him toss out glass beads. It was such a hit that by 1900, beaded necklaces had become the Mardi Gras throw.
Somewhere along the way, those lovely glass beads got replaced by cheap plastic and aluminum beads, which today earn the thrower a flash (of flesh). That particular “trading” tradition most likely dates back to the 1970s.
While Mardi Gras is celebrated throughout the southern US, it is most often identified with New Orleans, where it is celebrated with masquerade balls, King Cakes, and parades.
We’ll be presenting a new “Did You Know?” fun fact each day as we countdown to February 24th! So stop by again tomorrow or for those with no patience you can visit our Mardi Gras celebration for our list of Did You Know? Mardi Gras facts. | <urn:uuid:85bcd6ea-3e09-4cbd-b871-7a76473aff88> | {
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Gingko biloba - its ancestors and allies
Ginkgo biloba is a long-lived, dioecious and deciduous tree up to more than 30 meters high and 10 meters in girth (Figure 1). It bears flabellate leaves with a long petiole and dichotomously branching veins, which grow either in tuft at the terminal end of dwarf shoots or are attached sparsely to the newly-sprung long shoot (Figures 2-3). It has a long fossil record and is well known as having the preeminent claim to be described as a living fossil (Seward, 1911, 1919). Living Ginkgo is called "Baiguo" (white nut), "Yajiao" (duck foot), "Gongsunshu" (grandfather/grandson tree), "Yinxing" or "Icho" (silver apricot) and "maidenhair tree" in China, Japan and other countries. However, the name Ginkgo originates from 1712 when the traveller Kaempfer proposed for this plant. Linnaeus, the founder of the binomial system of nomenclature, adopted this designation adding the species name 'biloba' to denote the bisection of the wedge-shaped lamina of the leaf into two divergent segments (Seward, 1911). According to Tori and Tori (1997), the name Ginkgo was derived from "Ginkyo" which is a Japanese pronounciation of the Chinese characters "Yinxing".
In the modern day flora Ginkgo biloba is the sole representative of a once greatly flourished plant group in geological history – Ginkgoales. For a long time, our knowledge of the evolutionary history of Ginkgo and its allies was based mainly on leaf fossils (Seward, 1911; Florin, 1936; Tralau, 1967, 1968; Harris et al., 1974). Recent studies on fossil reproductive organs revealed that vegetative leaves previously referred to Ginkgo, or ginkgophytes are rather heterogeneous (Zhou, 1991, 1997). Quite a number of so-called ginkgophyte fossils belong to other extinct plant groups than Ginkgoales, such as Czekanowskiales which bear characteristic bivalve capsules containing rows of seeds are markedly distinguished from Ginkgo (Harris, 1951; Krassilov, 1970).
Different hypotheses have been proposed for the origin and relationships of Ginkgoales by palaeobotanists and botanists based on molecular biological as well as comparative morphological approaches (Zimmermann, 1959; Crane, 1985; Doyle and Donoughue, 1986; Meyen, 1987; Archangelsky and Cueneo, 1990; Zhou, 1991; Stewart and Rothwell, 1993; Chase et al., 1993; Rothwell and Serbet, 1994; Haseba, 1997; Burleigh and Mathews, 2004). There is yet no direct fossil evidence and unanimously accepted theory about the origin of ginkgoales, although most believe that they were originated from progymnosperms, related either to pteridosperms and cycads, or to cordaites and conifers (Kenrick and Crane, 1997). Their precise ancestry is therefore uncertain.
The earliest representative of Ginkgoales that exhibits the essential characters of Ginkgo can be traced back to the early Permian. Trichopitys Saporta (Florin, 1949) from the Autunian (Permian) in Lodéve, southern France bears vegetative shoots with spirally arranged, not flattened dichotomously branching leaves and axillary fertile shoots with up to 20 pedicellate ovules on the distal end of lateral branches (Figure 4). Some authors, however, consider Trichopitys to be related to peltaspermalean pteridosperms Dichophyllum and Bairmopteris (Meyen, 1987), or the enigmateic seed plants Polyspermophyllum and Dicranophyllum (Archangelsky and Cueneo, 1990). In the late Permian, flattened and laminated leaves of the Sphenobaiera type occurred, but no petiolate ginkgoalean leaves existed yet.
Ginkgoaleans drastically diverge and radiate in the early Mesozoic. In the late Triassic, almost all known evolutionary lineages (families) were simultaneously present (Figures 5-6). The diversity of both vegetative and reproductive organs reached the highest peak in the geological history respectively (Figure 7). The emergence of a large number of new taxa, the rapid increase in geographical distribution, and the simultaneous accomplishment of major morphological innovations also supports an early Mesozoic, notably late Triassic radiation of ginkgoaleans (Zhou and Wu, 2006).
The representative members of the five lineages so far known in the Mesozoic ginkgoaleans are as follows: Ginkgo (Ginkgoaceae including Grenana Samylina 1991 and possibly Nehvizdyella Kvacek et al. 2005), Karkenia (Karkeniaceae) (Archangelsky, 1965), Toretzia and Umaltolepis (Umaltolepidiaceae) (Stanislavsky, 1973; Krassilov, 1970, 1972), Yimaia (Yimaiaceae) (Zhou and Zhang, 1992) (Figure 8) and Schmeissneria (Schmeissneriaceae) (Kirchner and Van Konijnenburg-van Cittert, 1994). Authentic pollen organs are hitherto only scarcely known (Van Konijnenburg-van Cittert, 1971). Ginkgoalean vegetative organs, especially leaves are abundant in the Mesozoic strata. The leaves are of considerably varied shape and extent of division even within a single species. On the other hand, similar-looking vegetative organs may belong to different mother plants. For instance, Ginkgoites type leaves are known in different genera belonging respectively to three families (Zhou, 1997).
As compared with the late Palaeozoic Trichopitys, all the Mesozoic members have reduced (shortened) shoots (dwarf shoots). Their leaves tend to be laminated, and petiolate (becoming complete), and the deeply divided laminae tend to be fused and webbed. The ovulate organs are generally markedly reduced. Except for those in Karkeniaceae, ovules decrease in number and increase in size, and pedicels become shortened and eventually lost. The general evolutionary trend of ginkgoaleans is reduction of both reproductive and vegetative organs (Zhou, 1991, 1997).
The oldest Ginkgo ovulate organs may be dated back to about 170 Myr in the middle Jurassic of China (Zhou and Zhang, 1989). G. yimaensis (Figures 9-10) is quite different from G. biloba. It has more than one (two to four) mature pedicellate ovules and is associated with deeply dissected leaves. Ovulate organs that bear only one mature sessile ovule directly on the peduncle as normally in the living species are known in the Palaeocene G. adiantoides (Crane et al., 1990) (Figure 12). Recently, new ovulate organs called G. apodes (Figure 11) were found in the lower Cretaceous (about 121 Myr) Jehol biota, northeastern China (Zhou and Zheng, 2003; Zheng and Zhou, 2004) which are essentially of the modern type bearing sessile ovules as in G. biloba, but has more ovules. The finding testifies a roughly 120 Myr morphological stasis of Gingko ovulate organs and provides further evidence for the reduction hypothesis of Ginkgo evolution through heterochrony (peramorphosis) (Figure 12).
Ginkgoaleans were greatly flourished and had a world-wide distribution during the great part of Mesozoic. From the late Cretaceous onward, ginkgoaleans rapidly decreased. In the late Cretaceous and early Tertiary, Ginkgo had a circum-polar distribution, but retreated from North America in the late Miocene (about 10 Myr ago) and became extinct in Europe in Pliocene (about 17 Myr ago) (Wolf, 1987; Kovar-Eder et al., 1994; Samylina, 1967). In East Asia, the latest Ginkgo fossils have been recoded from the late Pliocene and Pleistocene in Japan (Uemura, 1997). In China, there is no record of Ginkgo in sediments younger than Eocene. Whether Ginkgo is a refugee that has existed during the whole Cenozoic there or just an immigrant from Japan to the Yangtze valley quite recently remains unknown.
Contribution by Professor Zhiyan Zhou
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- Archangelsky SA, Cueneo R. 1990. Polyspermophyllum, a new Permian gymnosperm from Argentina. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 63: 117-135.
- Burleigh JG and S Mathews, 2004. Phylogenetic signal in nucleotide data from seed plants: implications for resolving the seed plant tree of life. American Journal of Botany 91: 1599-1613.
- Chase MW, Soltis DE, Olmstead RG et al., 1993. Phylogenetics of seed plants: an analysis of nucleotide sequences from the plastid gene rbcL. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 80: 528-580.
- Crane PR 1985. Phylogenetic analyses of seed plants and the origin of angiosperms. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 72: 716-793.
- Crane PR, Manchester SR, Dilcher DL. 1990. A preliminary survey of fossil leaves and well-preserved reproductive structures from the Sentinel Butte formation (Paleocene) near Almont, North Dakota. Fieldiana: Geology (New series) 20: 1-63.
- Doyle JA, Donoughue MJ. 1986. Seed plant phylogeney and the origin of angiosperms: an experimental cladistic approach. Botanical Reviews 52: 321-431.
- Florin R. 1936a, b. Die fossilen Ginkgophyten von Franz-Joseph-Land nebst Erörterungen über vermeintliche Cordaitales mesozoischen Alters I, II. Palaeontographica (B) 81: 71-173; 82: 1-72.
- Florin R.1949. The morphology of Trichopitys heteromorpha Saporta, a seed plant of Palaeozoic age, and the evolution of female flowers in the Ginkgoinae. Acta Horti Bergiana 15(5):158-182.
- Harris TM. 1951. The fructification of Czekanowskia and its allies. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society London (B) 235: 483-508
- Harris TM, Millington W, Miller J. 1974. The Yorkshire Jurassic flora IV. British Museum (Natural History): London.
- Hasebe M. 1997. Molecular phylogeney of Ginkgo biloba: close relation between Ginkgo biloba and cycads. In Ginkgo biloba – A Global Treasure from Biology to Medicine (Editors Hori T, Ridge RW, Tulecke W, Del Tredici P, Trémouillaux-Guiller J, and Tobe H). Springer Verlag: Tokyo, 173-181.
- Kenrick P, Crane PR. 1997. The origin and early diversification of land Plants: a cladistic study. Smithsonian Institution Press: Washington and London.
- Kirchner M, Van Konijnenburg-van Cittert JHA. 1994. Schmeissneria microstachys (Presl, 1833) Kirchner et Van Konijnenburg-van Cittert, gen. et sp. nov., plants with ginkgoalean affinities of Germany. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 83: 199-215.
- Kovar-Eder J, Givulescu L, Hably L et al. 1994. Floristic changes in the areas surrounding the Paratethys during Neogene time. In Boulter MC, Fisher HC. Cenozoic plants and climate of the Arctic. Springer Verlag: Berlin, 347-369.
- Krassilov VA. 1970. An approach to the classification of Mesozoic ginkgoalean plants from Siberia. Palaeobotanist 18: 12-19.
- Krassilov VA. 1972. Mesozoic flora from the Bureja river (Ginkgoales and Czekanowskiales). Nauka: Moscow.
- Kvacek J, Falcon-Lang L, Dašková J. 2005. A new late Cretaceous ginkgoalean reproductive structure Nehvizdyella gen, nov. from the Czech Republic and its whole-plant reconstruction. American Journal of Botany 92: 1958-1969.
- Meyen SV. 1987. Fundamentals of Palaeobotany. Chapman & Hall: London & New York.
- Rothwell GW, Serbet R. 1994. Lignophyte phylogeney and the evolution of spermatophytes: a numerical cladistic analysis. Systematic Botany 19: 443-482.
- Samylina VA. 1967. On the final stage of the history of the genus Ginkgo L. in Eurasia. Bot. Zhurn 52: 303-316 (in Russian).
- Seward AC. 1911. Links with the past in the plant world. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
- Seward AC. 1919. Fossil Plants IV. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
- Stanislavsky FA. 1973. The new genus Toretzia from the Upper Triassic of the Donetz basin and its relation to the genera of the order Ginkgoales. Paleont Zhurn (1): 88-96 (in Russian).
- Stewart WN, Rothwell GW. 1993. The Biology and Evolution of Plants. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
- Tralau H. 1967. The phytogeographic evolution of the geneus Ginkgo L. Bot. Notis 120: 409-422.
- Tralau H. 1968. Evolutionary trends in the genus Ginkgo. Lethaia 1: 63-101.
- Uemura K. 1997. Cenozoic history of Ginkgo in East Asia. In Ginkgo biloba – A Global Treasure from Biology to Medicine (Editors Hori T, Ridge RW, Tulecke W, Del Tredici P, Trémouillaux-Guiller J & Tobe H). Springer Verlag: Tokyo; 207-221.
- Van Konijnenburg-van Cittert JHA. 1971. In situ gymnosperm fructifications from the Jurassic flora of Yorkshire. Acta Bot Neerl 20:1-96.
- Wolf JA. 1987. An overview of the origins of modern vegetation and flora of the northern Rocky Mountain. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden, 74;785-803.
- Zheng SL, Zhou ZY. 2004. A new Mesozoic Ginkgo from western Liaoning, China and its evolutionary significance. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 131: 91-103.
- Zhou ZY, Wu XW, 2006. The rise of ginkgoalean plants in the early Mesozoic: a data analysis. Geolical Jpournal 41: 363-375.
- Zhou ZY, Zhang BL. 1989. A Middle Jurassic Ginkgo with ovule-bearing organs from Henan, China. Palaeontographica (B) 211: 113-133.
- Zhou ZY, Zhang BL. 1992. Baiera hallei Sze and associated ovule-bearing organs from the Middle Jurassic of Henan, China. Palaeontographica (B) 224: 151-169.
- Zhou ZY, Zheng SL. 2003. The missing link of Ginkgo evolution. Nature 423: 821-822.
- Zhou ZY. 1991. Phylogeny and evolutionary trends of Mesozoic ginkgoaleans – a preliminary assessment. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 68: 203-216.
- Zhou ZY. 1997. Mesozoic ginkgoalean megafossils: a systematic review. In Ginkgo biloba – A Global Treasure from Biology to Medicine (Editors Hori T, Ridge RW, Tulecke W, Del Tredici P, Trémouillaux-Guiller J & Tobe H). Springer Verlag: Tokyo; 183-206.
- Zimmermann W. 1959. Die Phylogene der Pflanzen. Fisher Verlag: Stuttgart. | <urn:uuid:eccb77a5-bee1-488f-a496-9f6411735828> | {
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Washington, February 18 : Researchers have found a direct correlation between out-of-hospital cardiac arrests and levels of air pollution and ozone.
Rice University statisticians Katherine Ensor and Loren Raun announced their findings at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) conference in Boston.
For the new study, the authors analyzed eight years'' worth of data drawn from Houston''s extensive network of air-quality monitors and more than 11,000 concurrent out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) logged by Houston Emergency Medical Services (EMS). They found a positive correlation between OHCAs and exposure to both fine particulate matter (airborne particles smaller than 2.5 micrograms) and ozone.
The researchers found that a daily average increase in particulate matter of 6 micrograms per day over two days raised the risk of OHCA by 4.6 percent, with particular impact on those with pre-existing (and not necessarily cardiac-related) health conditions.
Increases in ozone level were similar, but on a shorter timescale: Each increase of 20 parts per billion over one to three hours also increased OHCA risk, with a peak of 4.4 percent. Peak-time risks from both pollutants rose as high as 4.6 percent. Relative risks were higher for men, African-Americans and people over 65.
For the study, OHCA events were defined as cases where EMS personnel performed chest compressions. Ensor and Raun noted the patients died in more than 90 percent of the cases, which occurred more during the hot summer months (55 percent of total cases).
The researchers also looked at the effects of nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide levels, none of which were found to impact the occurrence of OHCA.
The work is expected to help Houston EMS fine-tune its deployment of personnel and equipment and provide early warnings to health officials and the public when weather and/or incidents warrant an alert for high ozone levels in specific areas, Ensor said.
Co-author David Persse, Houston Fire Department EMS physician director and a public-health authority for the city, said it''s long been thought by EMS workers that certain types of air pollution, including ozone, have significant negative effects on cardiac and respiratory health. "But this mathematically and scientifically validates what we know," he said.
Their work has prompted more CPR training in at-risk communities.
The findings, based on a massive data set unique to Houston, is due to be published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation. (ANI)
- Toshiba, United Technologies ink agreement for global growth in HVAC solutions
- Google offers artificial personal assistant for users ready to give up personal info
- Apple launches iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus in India
- Google profits plunges 5 percent YOY, in Q3
- HCL Technologies Q1 Net up 32.3% at Rs 1,873 crore | <urn:uuid:0fe9b3ea-c358-40fa-8a84-857fea9f4b1b> | {
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John Anderson, Jacky Baltes
This paper advocates the use of global vision as a tool for increasing the effectiveness of robotics education, and describes the design and functionality of advanced global vision systems used in our own programs. Our experiences with using global vision as a basis for teaching robotics and AI have led us to use this as a standard method for teaching undergraduates. Our recent vision systems (Doraemon and Ergo) have consistently been improved to perform accurately and robustly over a wide range of applications. Doraemon uses a sophisticated camera calibration method and colour model to remove the need for an overhead view of the world. Ergo minimized the use of colour information to provide more robust object recognition under varying lighting scenarios. Most recently, these video servers have been used by undergraduates to develop autonomous robots for a mixed virtual/physical world.
Subjects: 17. Robotics; 19. Vision
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Jennie Trout the quintessential feminist and Christian physician left an indelible mark as the first woman to practice medicine after bagging her MA in medicine on March 11, 1875, and passing her registration exams the same year.
Despite the demeaning treatment given to Jennie and Emily Jennings Stowe after receiving admission to study medicine at the University of Toronto, both women weren’t discouraged. Emily after sitting for her exams in 1880 became the second woman licensed to practice medicine in Canada.
Jennie Trout Biography
Jennie Kidd Gowanlock was born on April 21, 1841, in Wooden Mills, Kelso, Scotland. Seven years later when Jennie was six years old her family relocated to Ellice Township near Stratford, Ontario in Canada in 1847. After high school in the town and acceptance as an adult to be a member of the Free Church in 1860, Jennie became a public school teacher in Stratford and taught for several years from 1861 and 1865 until she met, courted and married Edward Trout.
Edward once sold adverts for Toronto Leader and co-owned a finance newspaper called the Monetary Times in Toronto with his brother named John Malcolm in 1867. Jennie married Edward on August 25, 1865, in Stratford, Upper Canada, took his last name and moved to Toronto with him. The couple had adopted children, a boy, and a girl. Jennie suffered from nervous disorders and other chronic illnesses; but with a positive electrotherapy result, she was motivated to study medicine.
At that time, women studying sciences was one of the least acceptable norms in society. But Jennie and her classmate Emily Jennings Stowe by special agreement gained admission to the University of Toronto to study a one-year course. Emily protested the unfair and hostile treatment of men against women in the school and refused to write her exams. Feeling intimidated and criticized, Jennie left Toronto School of Medicine as she was called to Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania.
Jennie Trout who was at the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, graduated on March 11, 1875, with an M.D., making her the first licensed female physician in Canada. She wrote her exams for the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario a month later with ease, she became the first licensed female medical doctor in Canada. Emily Jennings Stowe later sat for her own exams in July 1880 and broke the record as the second female licensed medical doctor.
After her graduation, Trout became a medical entrepreneur and woman philanthropist. She established a Therapeutic and Electrical Institute in Toronto with her friend Emily Amelia Tefft. The outfit provided treatment services for women using galvanic baths or electricity on Jarvis Street; with 60 patients and 40 of them treated per day.
As a philanthropist, part of Jennie’s way of giving back to the society was by providing free dispensary to the poor in Toronto for six years. Her business became so successful and she opened branches in Brantford, Ontario, and Hamilton.
Life and Death: Everything You Need to Know About Jennie Trout
Jenny as her name was spelled, moved to the north of Stratford in 1847. Her parents, Elizabeth Kidd Gowanlocks (mother) and Andrew Gowanlocks (father), were devoted Knox Presbyterian churchgoers and farmers who owned a ten-acre farm growing potatoes, turnips, and hay.
She made history for being a successful business medical doctor but unfortunately, Jennie’s chronic illnesses made her retire at age 41 (1882) in Palma Sola Florida. But her undying passion to see women become medical doctors which were inspired by her cause as a feminist and her religion as a devoted Christian led her influential and financial contribution to establish a woman’s medical school in Kingston an affiliate of Queen’s University on June 8, 1883.
There, women filled the majority of the trustee seats. As the school’s principal benefactor, Jennie gave $200 to the school for five years. Shuffling between Florida, her retirement home, and Ontario where her businesses were, her family later moved to Hollywood. Jennie Trout died on November 10, 1921, at the age of 80 in Los Angeles, California while her husband died 13 years after.
Jennie Trout was a fervent promoter of women in medicine, especially in Canada. Developing interest in Bible study, foreign mission and medical matters, Jennie wrote in 1881” I hope to live to see the day when each larger town (at least) in Ontario will have one good true lady physician working in His name”. To commemorate her achievements, the Canada Post issued a postage stamp to honor her in 1991. | <urn:uuid:b13f8ef3-11df-4953-8de7-0c4be0b5e09f> | {
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Alexandre Klidonas, Associate Editor, Michigan Journal of International Law
As the Greek parliament continues to approve new austerity measures, two political parties have emerged that advocate the abandonment of the euro currency. Formed in May, the Drachma Five party has called for a return to the drachma, the currency replaced by the euro in 2002. Similarly, the Plan B party, which launched earlier this year, has urged that Greece return to its national currency. The Plan B party’s leader, Alekos Alavanos, has opposed the austerity measures and has advocated that Greece depart from the Eurozone, the term that refers to the seventeen European Union member states that have adopted the euro currency. Mr. Alavanos has stated that leaving the common currency would be a “little shock” but through devaluation of the drachma, the country would benefit from the return of its national currency.
The formation of these two political parties comes amid declining support for the euro currency in recent months. 59 percent of Greeks support the euro, down from 70 percent. Negative views of the euro have increased to 38 percent as the number of Greeks who believe that the country is heading in the wrong direction has grown.
In light of the growing dissatisfaction with the euro and the formation of political parties calling for a return to the drachma, the question of whether Greece will seek to remove itself from the Eurozone becomes more relevant. Without an amendment to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, there is broad agreement among legal scholars that member states “have no unilateral right to withdraw from the Eurozone while staying in the European Union.” A 2009 study by the European Central Bank concluded that a unilateral departure from the Eurozone without a simultaneous withdrawal from the European Union would be “legally impossible.” The European Commission reaffirmed this position in 2011.
Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union grants a member state the right to withdraw from the European Union. Additionally, “any withdrawal from the European Union also includes withdrawal from the Eurozone.” A departure from the European Union would be significant because it is membership with the Union that grants access to European markets and provides free movement of workers and capital from one member state to another.
With the growing unpopularity of the euro and the recent formation of political parties calling for a return to the drachma, a unilateral withdrawal of Greece from the European Union in an effort to exit the Eurozone may not be far-fetched. The benefits of remaining in the European Union, once seen as too numerous to give up, may no longer be sufficient to deter such a withdrawal.
Niki Kitsantonis, Greece Approves New Austerity Measures, N.Y. Times, July 17, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/18/world/europe/greece-approves-new-austerity-measures.html.
Pro-Drachma Party Launches Urging Greece to Leave the Euro, Euronews, (May 19, 2013, 1:35 PM), http://www.euronews.com/2013/05/19/pro-drachma-party-launches-urging-greece-to-leave-the-euro/. .
Political Party Drachma 5 Launched, Greek Reporter, May 9, 2013, http://greece.greekreporter.com/2013/05/09/political-party-drachma-5-launched/.
European Commission Economic and Financial Affairs, http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/euro/countries/greece_en.htm (last visited Sept. 28, 2013).
Pro-Drachma Party Plan B Launches in Greece, BBC News (May 18, 2013, 2:01 PM) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22581114.
Eurozone Portal, http://www.eurozone.europa.eu/ (last visited Sept. 28, 2013).
Pro-Drachma Party Plan B Launches in Greece, supra note 4.
Stelios Bouras, Support for Euro Wanes in Greece, Wall St. J., Apr. 12, 2013, http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20130412-703428.html.
Marcus Bensasson, Greek Euro Support Weakens Amid Austerity, Opinion Poll Shows, Bloomberg (Mar. 15, 2013, 9:12 AM), http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-15/greek-euro-support-weakens-amid-austerity-opinion-poll-shows.html.
Jens C. Dammann, The Right to Leave the Eurozone, 48 Tex. Int’l L.J. 125, 129-30 (2013).
Leigh Phillips, Brussels: ‘No One Can Leave the Euro,’ EUobserver, Aug. 9, 2011, http://euobserver.com/news/113563; Jan Strupczewski, Greece Could Not Exit Euro Without Leaving EU, Reuters, Nov. 3, 2011, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/03/us-greece-eu-eurozone-idUSTRE7A25H820111103.
Strupczewski, supra note 13.
Dammann, supra note 12, at 131. | <urn:uuid:32cdb1c1-8b4c-4bc5-8fe1-d8c376b7a5cd> | {
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Environmental Information Regulations
Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water recognises the impact its operations have on the environment and that many of the decisions we make today will continue to impact our customers and the environment for years to come.
Since 20 February 2015 the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR) apply to water and sewerage companies, including Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water, allowing you to request information about our decision and activities that relate to or affect the environment.
Please note, the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requirements do not apply to Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water.
What is "environmental information"?
The Environmental Information Regulations state that environmental information is any information in written, visual, aural, electronic or any other material form on:
a) The state of the elements of the environment, such as air and atmosphere, water, soil, land, landscape and natural sites including wetland, coastal and marine area, biological diversity and its components, including genetically modified organisms, and the interaction among these elements;
b) Factors, such as substances, energy, noise, radiation or waste, including radioactive waste, emissions, discharges and other releases into the environment, affecting or likely to affect the elements of the environment referred to in (a);
c) Measures (including administrative measures), such as policies, legislation, plans, programmes, environmental agreements, and activities affecting or likely to affect the elements and factors referred to in (a) and (b) as well as measures or activities designed to protect those elements;
d) Reports on the implementation of environmental legislation;
e) Cost-benefit and other economic analyses and assumptions used within the framework of the measures and activities referred to in (c)
f) The state of human health and safety, including the contamination of the food chain, where relevant, conditions of human life, cultural sites and built structures inasmuch as they are or may be affected by the state of the elements of the environment referred to in (a) or, through those elements, by any of the matters referred to in (b) and (c) | <urn:uuid:b73021ee-0cec-4453-80ef-9754793a43f6> | {
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A group of public health experts and scholars met today to discuss possible reforms to overhaul the government's food safety program.
Kirk Smith supervises the state's unit that investigated food borne disease. He says one way to improve the system is to have better food safety regulations.
"But the other thing is, OK, there are always going to be outbreaks, no matter how much we try. So we need, as a robust and efficient public health system as possible, to quickly detect and solve outbreaks when they happen," said Smith.
Smith's team is responsible for tracing the recent salmonella outbreak to peanut butter.
He says Minnesota has become a national model for monitoring food illnesses, because it is quick to conduct lab work on dangerous bacteria strains. The state Health Department is also routinely interviewing patients affected by food borne illnesses.
One proposal that came up during today's roundtable was the creation of regional centers around the country that could investigate food illnesses in the same way as Minnesota does. | <urn:uuid:713e83db-7404-41ce-aaf2-9cbb7b601422> | {
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But by taking the antibiotic, a patient does nothing for his cold and increases the chances that bacteria living inside him will develop resistance to the drug.
Doctors ignore warnings
In spite of the increasing danger from infections, most hospitals are failing to do even simple things, such as enforcing hand-washing, that are recommended by the CDC. And nobody is stepping up to force hospitals to do more.
``Experts in infection control coax, cajole, threaten and plead, but still their colleagues neglect to wash their hands,'' wrote a doctor and nurse in a 1992 editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine.
That editorial accompanied a study reporting that, in one Iowa hospital, hand-washing rates were as low as 30 percent and were never higher than 48 percent in intensive care units.
Other studies have shown how easy it is to reverse the problem. One hospital reduced its nosocomial infection rate 50 percent in 15 months by reminding doctors and nurses to wash their hands between patients and by periodically testing their hands for bacteria.
Dr. Michael F. Parry, director of infectious diseases at Stamford Hospital, acknowledged that doctors and nurses often fall short in sanitary practices.
``The busier they are, the more pressured they are, the less likely they are to either have time or memory to wash their hands,'' he said.
Some doctors think that, to protect themselves, patients should take matters into their own hands.
Dr. Richard P. Wenzel, a national leader in nosocomial infection research and a physician at the University of Iowa Hospitals, has suggested that every hospital patient be given a notice, informing him that he has the right to ask doctors and nurses to wash their hands before any procedure.
In addition to hand-washing, the CDC recommends that hospitals tell surgeons what percentage of their patients get infections.
Studies repeatedly have shown that this works. In one of the earliest, Dr. G.E. Brewer reported in 1915 that he reduced surgical wound infection rates by 95 percent just by telling fellow doctors what their patients' infection rates were.
Eighty years later, most hospitals still do not follow his lead, including Brewer's own, Roosevelt Hospital, which now is part of St. Luke's/Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York. Dr. Michael H. Grieco, chief of the division of infectious diseases, said it would be too expensive to prepare reliable reports.
A report by the General Accounting Office found that only 20 percent of surgeons were receiving information on infection rates among their own patients in 1987.
Many hospitals collect the data, but don't pass it on because it might embarrass doctors. Julia Chiarizio, infection control nurse at Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Meriden, said her hospital compiles rates for surgeons but does not pass them out.
Chiarizio is aware of the CDC recommendations, but she said doctors don't want to have to discuss their individual rates with each other.
Yale-New Haven Hospital has provided surgeon-specific infection rates to its doctors since the 1970s, but neither Hartford Hospital nor St. Francis does. Hospital officials generally say they do not have enough staff to compile accurate statistics.
Medical centers that do share the information with their staff say the results are positive.
``Not only did they bring down their own rates, but it gets them interested in what else we do,'' said Dr. Bryan Simmons, medical director of infection control at the Methodist Hospitals of Memphis.
Simmons, who also is president of the Society of Health Care Epidemiology of America, told surgeons that clipping hair on patients, instead of shaving it before surgery, was less traumatic to the skin and results in lower infection rates. So the doctors made the change.
They also agreed to assume responsibility for giving antibiotics to patients in the operating room. This is more work for them but guarantees that patients get the drugs at the best time to prevent infection.
``It would have been impossible, basically,'' to have made this change if doctors were unable to see the results in lower infection rates, he said.
Yale's Levin goes further, saying that information not only should be given to doctors but also to the public.
Medicine has been ``outside the pale of public accountability for too doggone long,'' he said.
Comparing surgeons' infection rates ``would set up some competition among hospitals to improve quality of care, not just the quality of their meals.''
No one forcing change
Tougher enforcement of infection control not only saves lives but also money. For every $1 invested in infection control, hospitals save $6, the CDC has calculated.
``We're seeing an amazing shakeout in health care with managed care, and we're just hearing one nightmare after another over administrative lack of support for infection control,'' Jarvis said.
The CDC is not an enforcement agency and cannot force hospitals to follow its guidelines.
Simmons said he fears that, in the absence of enforcement, what is likely to force a change is that hospitals will start losing more patients to resistant infections.
``There are going to be horror stories,'' he said, of hospitals losing major contracts with health care plans because of high infection rates and having to close down their lucrative cardiac bypass programs.
``That's the kind of thing that will do it,'' he said. ``Suddenly we're going to start losing young, healthy people.'' | <urn:uuid:23ad0eb8-ee54-44a0-9daf-b9aee8e79d68> | {
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Vast resources are now available on individuals from a multitude of sources. If you have a machine intelligence that can draw this information together, you’ve got a mind that embraces the Internet and can sift through it with great speed and pluck out what information it needs. As a storage device, the Internet dwarfs all others. The human brain contains the equivalent of about 3.5 quadrillion bytes of information; the Internet contains 10 times that amount. But what would a robot whose mind embraces the Internet be able to do with all that information? That becomes clear once you start to look at the narrow bits of artificial intelligence that are now emerging.
The ability to speak has improved by leaps and bounds in the past decade. The mechanical voice you hear when calling the phone company to inquire about a bill seems more annoying than potentially destructive, but only if you fail to imagine the day when the ability to program a ma- chine to understand language and speak it is just a tool that you can buy at RadioShack. The voice speaking to you from your iPhone and fielding your queries started out as advanced technology in elite labs a few decades ago, and now it’s part of a common experience.
Where natural-language ability gets dangerous, potentially, is when it gets a bit more powerful, then seeps down to common usage and becomes a relatively inexpensive tool that just about anyone can use. It’s not just the ability to listen to spoken commands; it’s a matter of interpreting human intent and responding in a way that sounds, well, human. If machines can do that well, then it may get harder to tell them from real humans.
A machine that can understand a human by spoken language and can also move easily in the world of humans could do a lot of other humanlike things. You can imagine using computer technology to impersonate a human—perhaps even someone you know. The idea of a computer that can sense human feelings and come up with an appropriate response is a legitimate subject of research these days, and companies such as Google and Microsoft have a keen interest in it. Crude emotive software has already been used with autistic children to bring out hidden social skills. As scientists understand more about how to simulate human emotions, they may increase the ability of computers to pass themselves off as human.
When you consider this possibility, you can imagine the kind of disruption that could ensue in a terrorist plot to use computers to impersonate people. This type of identify theft goes well beyond what we know now. It’s not hard to go from these kinds of identity-theft scenarios to one in which machines (or software, which is a type of machine) orchestrate vast disruptions to our economy. The confusion that would reign if software began impersonating important people, handing out conflicting commands, causing markets to tumble and people to behave in odd ways, adds a whole new dimension to the kind of damage that a Stuxnet-like bot could do to the economy.
The precursors to a machine version of Jason Bourne are drones. They are now used by the military, but what happens when the technology that makes it possible to build a drone becomes commonplace, when it’s easy enough for states or even individuals to acquire the capabilities now reserved for the U.S. military? You could imagine a group like al-Qaida or Aum Shinrikyo or Hamas getting their hands on drones that could take out political targets in Washington, D.C., or New York City.
At the moment, this is a bit far-fetched, but it won’t be for long. Scientists have implanted computer chips in the brains of beetles. The chip is connected to the beetle’s nervous system and sends tiny pulses of electricity that make the beetle turn left or right or fly up or down. The chips also have little radio receivers that put the beetles at the remote command of their researcher overlords. In the lab, they’ve gotten the beetles to zig and zag and do loop-de-loops. It’s not an ominous technology at the moment, but it does give the future of drones a new twist. You could imagine a swarm of locusts that respond to digital control wreaking havoc on crops. You could imagine a swarm of bugs with surveillance cameras in their mandibles fanning out across the land in search of particular people that some remote military power wants to target. Mix some gene manipulation in there and you could envision some kind of venomous creature under remote command that can inflict a paralyzing or fatal dose of poison. And so on.
If drone technology keeps marching along, you can imagine a day when the cops can send bee-like to your house to see if you’re growing marijuana plants or running a crystal meth lab in your basement. The first worry about a new technology that is publicly expressed is often concern for privacy. We don’t tend to tell real horror stories in advance—nobody wants to scare people off new technologies that could be beneficial. But you could just as easily imagine how such mechanical bees could, if in the wrong hands, cause considerable disruption. Drones could wind up having many productive civilian uses, but having self-reliant machines in our lives is going to be an adjustment.
We already have hard enough time living with insects as pests. Imagine when they’re tiny versions of Jason Bourne with wings.
This article is adapted from Fred Guterl’s The Fate of the Species (Bloomsbury). Future Tense is a collaboration among Arizona State University, the New America Foundation, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, visit the Future Tense blog and the Future Tense home page. You can also follow us on Twitter. | <urn:uuid:bde0baa1-7d47-4007-8e12-4437fe89d2e9> | {
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Reporting Disability is indicated in the pupil’s individualized education program (IEP) or individualized service plan (ISP). Only one primary reportable disability can be submitted to WISEdata. The impairment that is most disabling shall be reported as the primary reportable disability.
USES: Primary Disability codes are used for disaggregated reporting and accountability purposes, including WISEdash, ESSA Report Card, Adequate Yearly Progress, Wisconsin School Performance Report, and the Wisconsin Continuous Improvement and Focused Monitoring System. Primary disability codes are also used in annual data reports required under IDEA, which are, in turn, used in reports to Congress and in state-by-state comparisons.
FAQs, Details, and Points to Note
- Primary Disability: As defined by the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), primary disability is the disability condition that best describes an IDEA-eligible student's impairment; the impairment that is most disabling. Students who are not IDEA-eligible or have no disability should be assigned a primary disability code of N. Primary Disability=No if one of the following applies:
- Student is 21 or older prior to the school term begin date.
- Student is not yet three on the count date.
- Student is not yet three on the exit date or school term end date, whichever occurs first.
- Disability Code Descriptions/Notes:
- A: Autism means a developmental disability significantly affecting a child's social interaction and verbal and nonverbal communication, generally evident before age three, that adversely affects learning and educational performance. Other characteristics often associated with autism are engagement in repetitive activities and stereotyped movements, resistance to environmental change or change in daily routines, and unusual responses to sensory experiences. The term does not apply if a child's educational performance is adversely affected primarily because the child has an emotional disturbance, as defined in sub. (7). [Wis. Admin. Code , s. PI 11.36(8)]
- DB: Deaf-Blind means concomitant hearing and visual impairments, the combination of which causes such severe communication and other developmental and educational needs that they cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for children with deafness or children with blindness. [34 CFR 300.8(c)(2)]
- EBD: Emotional behavioral disability, pursuant to s. 115.76(5)(a)5., Stats., means social, emotional or behavioral functioning that so departs from generally accepted, age-appropriate ethnic or cultural norms that it adversely affects a child's academic progress, social relationships, personal adjustment, classroom adjustment, self-care, or vocational skills. [Wis. Admin. Code PI 11.36(7)]
- H: Hearing Impairment, including deafness, means a significant impairment in hearing, with or without amplification, whether permanent or chronically fluctuating, that significantly adversely affects a child's educational performance including academic performance, speech perception and production, or language and communication skills. [Wis. Admin. Code PI 11.36(4)]
- ID (formerly CD): Intellectual Disability means significant limitations both in intellectual functioning and in adaptive behavior as expressed in conceptual, social, and practical adaptive skills and manifested during the developmental period that adversely affects the child’s educational performance. [Wis. Admin. Code, s. PI 11.36(1)]
- LD: Specific learning disability, pursuant to s. 115.76(5)(a)10., Stats., means a severe learning problem due to a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in acquiring, organizing or expressing information that manifests itself in school as an impaired ability to listen, reason, speak, read, write, spell or do mathematical calculations, despite appropriate instruction in the general education curriculum. Specific learning disability may include conditions such as perceptual disability, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia. [Wis. Admin. Code PI 11.36(6)]
- OHI: Other Health Impairment means having limited strength, vitality, or alertness due to chronic or acute health problems. The term includes, but is not limited to, a heart condition, tuberculosis, rheumatic fever, nephritis, asthma, sickle cell anemia, hemophilia, epilepsy, lead poisoning, leukemia, diabetes, or acquired injuries to the brain caused by internal occurrences or degenerative conditions which adversely affect a child's educational performance. [Wis. Admin. Code PI 11.36(10)]
- OI: Orthopedic Impairment means a severe orthopedic impairment that adversely affects a child's educational performance. The term includes, but is not limited to, impairments caused by congenital anomaly, such as clubfoot, or absence of some member; impairments caused by disease, such as poliomyelitis or bone tuberculosis; and impairments from other causes, such as cerebral palsy, amputations, and fractures or burns that cause contractures. [Wis. Admin. Code PI 11.36(2)]
- SL: Speech or Language Impairment means an impairment of speech or sound production, voice, fluency, or language that significantly affects educational performance or social, emotional, or vocational development. [Wis. Admin. Code PI 11.36(5)]
- TBI: Traumatic Brain Injury means an acquired injury to the brain caused by an external physical force resulting in total or partial functional disability or psychosocial impairment, or both, that adversely affects a child's educational performance. The term applies to open or closed head injuries resulting in impairments in one or more areas, such as cognition; speech and language; memory; attention; reasoning; abstract thinking; communication; judgment; problem-solving; sensory, perceptual, and motor abilities; psychosocial behavior; physical functions; information processing; and executive functions, such as organizing, evaluating, and carrying out goal-directed activities. The term does not apply to brain injuries that are congenital or degenerative or brain injuries induced by birth trauma. [Wis. Admin. Code PI 11.36(9)]
- V: Visual Impairment means even after correction, a child's visual functioning significantly adversely affects his or her educational performance. [Wis. Admin. Code PI 11.36(3)]
- SDD: Significant Developmental Delay means children ages three through nine years of age who are experiencing significant delays in two or more of the areas of physical, cognition, communication, social-emotional, or adaptive development. All other suspected impairments under this section shall be considered before identifying a child's primary impairment as significant developmental delay. [Wis. Admin. Code PI 11.36(11)]
- A student may be identified with a disability of Significant Developmental Delay through age nine. A student with a disability of Significant Developmental Delay must be reevaluated prior to the student’s tenth birthday to determine whether the student has an educational disability under one of the other disability categories and continues to have a need for special education services.
- N: No known disability
- Code Changes: The maximum age for Significant Developmental Delay (SDD) increased to age range six through age nine beginning July 1, 2015, for 2015-16 records and beyond. Beginning July 1, 2015, Cognitive Disability (CD) was replaced with Intellectual Disability (ID).
- IDEA Eligibility: An "IDEA-Eligible" student must meet ALL of the following requirements:
- Be a child age 3-21 years of age who has not graduated with a diploma from high school,
- Be a child with an impairment(s), who because of that impairment(s) needs special education and related services as determined by a current evaluation and a current individualized education program (IEP) or a services plan for parentally-placed private school children,
- The student is attending and receiving all of the services specified in the IEP/service plan, and
- The student is receiving a free appropriate public education (FAPE) or is a parentally-placed private school student receiving special education or related services that meet state standards under a service plan (34 CFR 300.452--300.462).
- Not IDEA-Eligible: A non-IDEA-eligible student would include:
- A student between the ages of birth and three or age 22 and older who is receiving services from the school district
- A student without a current evaluation or IEP
- A student who is not receiving special education and related services, as specified in the IEP
- A student who is not attending school, except for an excused absence or illness, e.g., a student whose whereabouts is unknown but who has not exited
- A student who is in the process of expulsion and is not being served
- A student who has received a high school diploma but is still receiving services
- IDEA Eligibility for Choice Students: Students must have been IDEA eligible prior to attending a choice school to be reported by choice schools. Even if the students have a 504, if they have never had IDEA eligibility, they cannot be reported. If the student was covered, enter the appropriate information regarding the disability. If the student was not, remove the disability submission. No choice school students are IDEA eligible unless previously considered so in a public school, so choice schools cannot take accountability for Oct. 1 counts. If PPP choice students receive special education services in a public school, then the public school claims them for Oct. 1 and receives credit for that child count. If the student is
not actively receiving services from a public school in the current year and no evidence has been submitted in prior years of having been IDEA eligible, these students cannot be reported as having a disability at the Choice school.
- Criteria Dates: The above criteria are applied as of a specific date based on the most current data available. For WISEdata count date records, the count dates are the Third Friday of September and October 1, as well as a Current (present day) value. WISEdata records should reflect the appropriate disability status as of these specific dates. Whichever disability is listed for the student during the period covering the count dates or current date will be documented as the disability value for the appropriate, coordinating dates.
- FAPE: According to Sec. 602 of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004, the term 'free appropriate public education' means special education and related services that (A) have been provided at public expense, under public supervision and direction, and without charge; (B) meet the standards of the State educational agency; (C) include an appropriate preschool, elementary school, or secondary school education in the State involved; and (D) are provided in conformity with the individualized education program required under section 614(d).
- Disability Codes: Primary and Other Disability cannot be the same.
- Code Combinations: Neither ID/LD nor LD/ID can be used as a Primary/Other Disability combination.
- Code N: Students identified as eligible for protection under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (34 CFR 104) but who are not IDEA-eligible should be assigned a primary disability code of N.
- Special Education Graduates: When a student with disabilities graduates, the student's special education record must show that special education services continued until at least the exit date. Even if the student graduates prior to the last school year day, as seniors often do, the student will be documented properly as graduating with a disability so long as services continue through the exit date and the exit type is marked as High School Completion.
- Homeschooled Special Education Students: There is no legal obligation for a district to provide special education services to a child who is homeschooled if the parent has withdrawn the child from the public school. There are, however, homebound students with disabilities who are receiving special education services or in the case of a preschooler, receiving services in the home. These children would still be considered enrolled and should be reported in WISEid/WISEdata. If a child is homeschooled, the child may still receive services, depending on whether or not the child has an IEP.
- Roster Reporting: If a student is receiving only Speech and Language services or has significant disabilities and receives only therapy and/or social interaction and no appropriate course code for course work can be identified, then these students should not be submitted in 2016-17 and 2017-18 Roster data.
- Last Evaluation Date: If your SIS has multiple evaluation fields, use the Evaluation Completion date, NOT the Evaluation Start Date.
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“From Cradle to Coordination: Reflexes and the Developing Mind” is the full title of this chapter, and it is an interesting look at how reflexes help the body do things and therefore free up other areas of the brain for thought and action on a more complex level.
This chapter goes through eight different reflexes, what they are, and perhaps more importantly to those whose children have challenges, what these reflexes look like when they are retained and not integrated well: how this affects motor and emotional development. This post will cover the first part of this chapter, and tomorrow’s post will cover the second part.
This is a brief listing of some things I thought were really pertinent or thought-provoking about this chapter; for more you will really need to get the book and read it as this chapter was fairly lengthy!
The first four reflexes:
1. The Moro Reflex – the first primitive reflex to emerge; described as when an infant faces “any sudden unexpected event, particularly the loss of head support. If the baby’s head is lowered rapidly below the level of the spine, the arms and legs will open out from the characteristic flexed posture of the new-born, there will be a rapid intake of breath, and the baby will “freeze” in that position for a fraction of a second, before the arms and legs return across the body, usually accompanied by a cry of protest.”
Yes, any therapist worth their salt knows this is the LAST reflex to test as many babies fall apart after this…at the same time, it can be a useful reflex to stimulate the first breath as a “second fail-safe mechanism.” That is a way to test this reflex, but one can also see this reflex with other types of stimulation such as a sudden loud noise, sudden change of temperature or pain, etc.
If someone walks up behind you and slams a heavy book on the table, it will undoubtedly startle you, but you will seek out the sound after you are startled. By four months of age, we hope that the infant will also startle and seek out the noise and stimuli and respond to it, but not lose postural control. A very strong retained Moro reflex is often seen in children with cerebral palsy, but different degrees of this reflex can persist even with no “listed diagnosis”. The author gives a long list of symptoms associated with a residual Moro Reflex on pages 32-33; hypersensitivity, poor balance and coordination, visual difficulties, insecurity, anxiety, fearfulness, poor adaptability, good verbal ability but poor social skills and peer relationships and dislike of change are some noted.
2. The Tonic Labyrinthine Reflex – this helps move the position of the head forward or backward. If the body extends, the head extends, and if the body flexes, the head flexes. In the first few weeks of life this is the only way the baby has in order to respond to gravity due to a lack of developed head control. By six weeks of age, a baby has the ability to hold its head up in line with the spine in a prone (tummy down) position and as development continues with muscular control from the head to the feet, this reflex is slowly integrated over the next three to three and a half years. All beginnings of upright balance start when an infant lies on its stomach and gains muscular control; this also develops the mechanism of the inner ear for balance. Symptoms of a retained Tonic Labyrinthine Reflex are listed on page 40; some of these include poor balance, walking on toes after age three and a half, visual-perceptual problems, vertigo.
3. The Asymmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex – when the infant turns the head to one side, the arm and leg extend in the same direction of the head turning and the opposite limbs flex. This reflex may help in the birth process itself, and may also assist in early reaching. Once this reflex is inhibited, an infant can start to bring hands together to the midline and eye movements can move independently of the head movement.
We often see this reflex chosen as a very specific movement in sports ( track athletes, ballet dancers), but as the author points out a specific and voluntary choosing is much different than having no voluntary control over this reflex. If this reflex is not inhibited, it can interfere with the development of cross-pattern movements, crawling on the stomach, and choosing a dominant lateral side by eight years of age, along with impeding development of visual tracking.
4. The Symmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex – the causes the upper and lower sections of the body to have opposite movements: when the infant’s head goes down, the arms bend and the legs straighten, and if the infant puts its head up, the arms straighten, the legs bend and the infant’s bottom sinks. The infant overcomes this by rocking on hands and knees and then developing into a creeping on hands and knees pattern. Remnants of this reflex are often seen in children who have learning disabilities…From page 50, “Marie Bender then developed a series of physical exercises that involved creeping against an opposing force. She found that the exercises had an inhibitory effect on the STNR, and that as the STNR was controlled, many of the children’s learning difficulties also started to disappear.” The effects of having this reflex retained include poor upper and lower body integration, poor posture when sitting or standing, poor vertical tracking, poor hand-eye coordination when movements toward and away from the body are needed.
Whew! Lots to digest here! | <urn:uuid:9ca0e2b8-a195-40af-a84c-7570ec6cb713> | {
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|"Our Lady of Korea", drawing by Sarah "Sallie" Thayer, 2013|
It is my opinion that our Korean Catholic brothers and sisters have a deep love of Our Lady. During almost 200 years (1590-1790) while Korea was truly a country closed off to the outside world, the prayers which comprise Our Lady's rosary kept thousands of Korean believers faithful to the teachings of the Church. Is it not just like Our Lady to care for her adopted children in this way?
Feeling as I do about this matter, when I came across a drawing of Our Lady of Korea this past fall, I strongly felt a desire to make my own version of this image. This also meant that I needed to do a bit of research on the history of the Church in Korea. I already knew something of the tortured beginnings of Catholicism in that country as I had read some of the history when I presented to you my drawings of two of the Korean saints back in 2012, but now I wanted to know the whole story -- and what a story it is. I came across a truly graphic explanation of what occurred during the great persecution of Catholics that started in 1801 culminating in the Catholic Persecution of 1866. Thousands were killed, but the Church survived. Religious freedom finally came to the Church of Korea in 1883.
From about 1590 until 1790, Catholicism in Korea begin to develop as an underground church. The first Korean contacts with Catholicism came through Korean diplomatic envoys who were regularly sent to China where they met Jesuit priests. The priests gave them some Catholic books which the envoys took home with them. A group of Korean scholars became interested in the books and began to study the new religion, comparing it with the Neo-Confucianism which was the traditional philosophy in Korea. The study of these writings and the secret baptisms of a few of the Korean nobility in 1592 combined with the power of the Holy Spirit gave rise to a hidden church run entirely by lay people. The teachings were those of the Catholic Faith, but for almost 200 years, the Church grew without its members ever having seen a priest or receiving the Holy Eucharist.
There is a story, perhaps a legend based on some real experiences, that tells what happened when those first Catholic priests arrived in the "Hidden Kingdom" around 1790. It is said that as the priests began to explain some of the basic beliefs of the Faith, they were amazed to discover that these "interested and excited" people already knew of these teachings. They were especially aware of such prayers as the Hail Mary and the Our Father. They already had a love for Our Lady and her Divine Son! True, they had much to learn and some things to re-learn correctly; however, the Faith had truly already been established in Korea -- a faith which would enable many of these first Korean Catholic Christians to face martyrdom by some of the most sadistic means of killing ever devised by man.
|"St. Paul Chong" drawing by|
Sarah "Sallie" Thayer, 2012
From the beginning there was hostility towards believers in strongly Confucian Korea. As I told you in my posting of September 23, 2012, during the persecutions of the mid-19th century, over 10,000 Christians were killed. Included was Korea's first native-born priest, St. Andrew Kim and St. Paul Chong, a catechist and seminarian. In 1984, Blessed Pope John Paul II canonized these two men along with 101 other Korean martyrs including clergy and lay, young and old. Their memorial feast day is September 20th.
BRADEN, THE MASTER CHEF!As many of you are aware, Braden is only about 19 months old. Thus, I was quite surprised to learn recently that he has already been in training to become a Master Chef!
Now, you might think that this is just a made up story written by a family friend (me) who thinks Braden is just the most clever, most handsome and charming young man she has ever known. However, knowing that you might be skeptical, I procured photographic evidence!
|Here we see Chef Braden is stirring |
up his famous Sweet Potato Delight
|Cutting each cookie with precision,|
Chef Braden prepares his world famous
Shortbread-Rum Cookies -- Yum!
SUKI AND SALLIE
Friends, I am asking you to excuse me today from writing about Suki or about myself.
Neither of us have anything of import to relate. We are both doing as well as usual but I have reached the point where I just cannot write anything more today. I have run out of steam you might say!
Anyway, there are a couple of photos that I hope will suffice. I promise that I will give a full report on both of us next time.
Happy Feast of the Epiphany (transferred here in the Archdiocese) and Merry Christmas to all our Orthodox brothers and sisters on Tuesday, January 7th.
May the peace of God be with us all. My prayers are with you. Please pray for me.
|Here is Suki making a nuisance of herself by sitting on the|
room divider counter top while meowing. She must believe
that being up higher will somehow influence me to feed her!
|This fuzzy photo was not meant to be soft focus.|
Rather the result is caused by the fact that the
"smart" phone my godson was using has been
dropped one time too many! | <urn:uuid:41ab1d43-8dc2-4617-93a5-09b7e2f6b2f0> | {
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Old Cordilleran Culture
The Old Cordilleran Culture, also known as the Cascade phase, is an ancient culture of Native Americans that settled in the Pacific Northwestern region of North America that existed from 9000 or 10000 BC until about 5500 BC.
The Cascade phase may be even older, depending on when human beings first arrived in America. They originated in Alaska, and migrated to occupy a wide area as far as Idaho and the plateaus of California, but they are generally not considered to be a maritime society. However, their spear points, or points resembling theirs, have been found as far south as Mexico and South America. This was the typical artifact of these people — a simple, bi-facial, leaf-shaped projectile point which average about 6 cm (2.4 in) in length. These tools were used as spears or darts, or also knives, indicating the importance of hunting, although they also fished and gathered for subsistence. However, the main dependence was on land hunting, mostly of deer, bison, and other large mammals.
The culture possibly spoke a Macro-Penutian language (a hypothetical macrofamily which may include Penutian, Uto-Aztecan, and some other language families). This culture also created the oldest attested examples of art in the Pacific Northwest.
- Josephy, Alvin M (August 26, 1991). The Indian Heritage of America. Houghton Mifflin Books. ISBN 0-395-57320-3. p. 132
- "Old Cordilleran culture." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2006.
- Minnesota State University, EMuseum. Old Cordilleran. (URL accessed July 19, 2006).
- Keyser, James D. (July 1, 1992). Indian Rock Art of the Columbia Plateau. University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-97160-6. pps. 24-5.
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Difference between revisions of "Jelgava"
Revision as of 15:16, 10 July 2012
It is useful to understand that although from 1940 to 1991 Latvia was a constituent republic of the USSR, the official language is Latvian. However, a significant minority (up to 40% nationwide and possibly just over 50% in the capital Riga) is Russian speaking. The majority of ethnic Latvians living in the city, not only those old enough to have attended school during Soviet times, can also speak and understand Russian. However, many prefer to converse in Latvian. English and also German are widely understood at places regularly visited by tourists and foreigners but you may be out of luck when leaving the city centre or visiting places off the beaten track.
A bus line from Riga, 45-50min for approx. 1,5Ls
Electric train line from Riga in 50min for approx. 1,3Ls
Jelgava is in coast of river Lielupe. River Lielupe is connect to Baltic sea.
You can rent taxi (if arrive from Riga or Riga airport).
Palace on the island of river Lielupe. Similar palace to Rundales and Winter Palace in St.Peterburg, created by Bartolomeo Rastrelli. Academia Petrina — currently museum. Several interesting churchies.
It's possible to do tandem or solo skydives at Jelgava airfield. More information at Latvian FreeFly Peppers website
"Brainstorm", probably the most popular rock-band from Eastern Europe, has emerged from a craddle called Jelgavas 1. vidusskola (Secondary School No 1), where also such National talents as A. Skrastins, A. Vaznis, E. Radzina, A. Skele, E. Repse have made their first steps in the world of fame.
Latvijas Lauksaimniecibas Universitāte — University of Agriculture of Latvia is a well recognized university.
There is few clubs/pubs.
Most popular are Tonuss — club, with several halls. Place with a lot of young people. Jelgavas Četri Balti Krekli — club where play only Latvian music | <urn:uuid:3335ff64-5f74-49be-ab38-6d29cee56f52> | {
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by clicking here. Another 20 papers were published elsewhere; read them on the Avian Phylogenomics Project website by clicking here.
Some of the high points revealed by the study are that bird genomes are near a third of the size of mammal genomes, and lack gene clusters present in many other vertebrates. There are analogies between vocal learning genes in birds and humans. Coolest, and possibly explaining the house sparrows' attitude issues, the ancestor of all land birds, including giant monster sized "terror" birds now extinct, was probably a big predatory bird. An even older ancestor lost the genetic code for growing teeth. This study produced data that will be mined for years to come.
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On this day, Buddhists celebrate the commemoration of the birth of Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, thought to have lived in India from 563 B.C. to 483 B.C. Actually, the Buddhist tradition that celebrates his birthday on April 8 originally placed his birth in the 11th century B.C., and it was not until the modern era that scholars determined that he was more likely born in the sixth century B.C., and possibly in May rather than April.
According to the Tripitaka, which is recognized by scholars as the earliest existing record of the Buddha’s life and discourses, Gautama Buddha was born as Prince Siddhartha, the son of the king of the Sakya people. The kingdom of the Sakyas was situated on the borders of present-day Nepal and India. Siddhartha’s family was of the Gautama clan. His mother, Queen Mahamaya, gave birth to him in the park of Lumbini, in what is now southern Nepal. A pillar placed there in commemoration of the event by an Indian emperor in the third century B.C. still stands.
At his birth, it was predicted that the prince would either become a great world monarch or a Buddha–a supremely enlightened teacher. The Brahmans told his father, King Suddhodana, that Siddhartha would become a ruler if he were kept isolated from the outside world. The king took pains to shelter his son from misery and anything else that might influence him toward the religious life. Siddhartha was brought up in great luxury, and he married and fathered a son. At age 29, he decided to see more of the world and began excursions off the palace grounds in his chariot. In successive trips, he saw an old man, a sick man, and a corpse, and since he had been protected from the miseries of aging, sickness, and death, his charioteer had to explain what they were. Finally, Siddhartha saw a monk, and, impressed with the man’s peaceful demeanor, he decided to go into the world to discover how the man could be so serene in the midst of such suffering.
Siddhartha secretly left the palace and became a wandering ascetic. He traveled south, where the centers of learning were, and studied meditation under the teachers Alara Kalama and Udraka Ramaputra. He soon mastered their systems, reaching high states of mystical realization, but was unsatisfied and went out again in search of nirvana, the highest level of enlightenment. For nearly six years, he undertook fasting and other austerities, but these techniques proved ineffectual and he abandoned them. After regaining his strength, he seated himself under a pipal tree at what is now Bodh Gaya in west-central India and promised not to rise until he had attained the supreme enlightenment. After fighting off Mara, an evil spirit who tempted him with worldly comforts and desires, Siddhartha reached enlightenment, becoming a Buddha at the age of 35.
The Gautama Buddha then traveled to the deer park near Benares, India, where he gave his first sermon and outlined the basic doctrines of Buddhism. According to Buddhism, there are “four noble truths”: (1) existence is suffering; (2) this suffering is caused by human craving; (3) there is a cessation of the suffering, which is nirvana; and (4) nirvana can be achieved, in this or future lives, though the “eightfold path” of right views, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.
For the rest of his life, the Buddha taught and gathered disciples to his sangha, or community of monks. He died at age 80, telling his monks to continue working for their spiritual liberation by following his teachings. Buddhism eventually spread from India to Central and Southeast Asia, China, Korea, Japan, and, in the 20th century, to the West. Today, there are an estimated 350 million people in 100 nations who adhere to Buddhist beliefs and practices. | <urn:uuid:a3e18dee-8bd9-4d4d-b4af-fab300ac2075> | {
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How to Clean a Fish Tank
Do you have muddy waters? If you have a fish tank, add a catfish to the tank and see if your water gets cleaner.
Do catfish help keep your fish tank clean?
- Fish tank
- Gravel vacuum
- White bucket
- Plastic ruler
- Notebook and pencil
Whew! That aquarium looks dirty. If you’ve got a messy aquarium, will it help to add a bottom-feeding catfish? Create a hypothesis, your best guess about what is going to happen. Will the water look cleaner if there’s a catfish in the tank?
- Work with an existing fish tank or set up your own tank. If you’re setting up your own, it’s best to wait a month or so before you start the experiment.
- Clean out your fish tank. Get an adult to help you with this part. With your gravel vacuum, clean the gravel on the bottom of your tank. This removes some of the old fish food from the bottom of the aquarium. Make sure that the water you remove lands in the white bucket.
- Now, take a look in the bucket. Take a photo of the water. Place the plastic ruler into the bucket. How far down can you see? Note this in your notebook.
- Add a catfish to your tank. The catfish will swim around the bottom of the tank to eat. Feed your fish normally for two more weeks, adding a little extra food for the catfish.
- Clean your tank again. Take a photo of the water, and place the ruler into the bucket.
- Compare the two photos. Does one bucket of water look murkier than the other? How about the ruler measurements? Can you see deeper into the water in one bucket?
An aquarium with a catfish will be cleaner than an aquarium without a catfish.
Catfish are amazing animals. They can live in very dirty conditions, and they swim around the bottom of ponds, rivers, and even fish tanks, doing the business of cleaning up. Catfish are bottom-feeders, which means that instead of swimming to the top of the water to hunt and feed, they tend to eat food that falls to the bottom of a pond, river, or aquarium.
If you feed your fish a bit too much, that extra food drifts down to the bottom of the aquarium, making your tank messy. After a while, this can change the water quality in your fish tank, making the water cloudy. This is especially obvious when it comes time to change the water in your fish tank. When you clean out the gravel, you’ll get a lot of muddy water.
When you looked into each bucket and measured how far down you could see, you were taking a measurement of turbidity, or cloudiness in the water. The turbidity of the water tells you how much soil and sand is in the water.
When you add bottom-feeding animals to a fish tank, this helps make the water clear. If your water is still cloudy and you have room for more fish, think about getting another catfish—they’re the vacuum cleaners of the water!
Warning is hereby given that not all Project Ideas are appropriate for all individuals or in all circumstances. Implementation of any Science Project Idea should be undertaken only in appropriate settings and with appropriate parental or other supervision. Reading and following the safety precautions of all materials used in a project is the sole responsibility of each individual. For further information, consult your state’s handbook of Science Safety. | <urn:uuid:56af7f76-d242-45ca-880e-a48e38e2b0e4> | {
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Venus Express objectives
Thanks to a set of state-of-the-art instruments for planetary investigations, Venus Express will dig into the secrets of the Venusian atmosphere.
It will study its complex dynamics and chemistry, and the interactions between the atmosphere and the surface, which will give clues about surface’s characteristics.
It will also study the interactions between the atmosphere and the interplanetary environment (solar wind) to better understand the evolution of the planet.
In the most comprehensive study of the Venusian atmosphere ever, Venus Express will address many open questions:
How do the complex global dynamics of the planet work?
- What causes the super-fast atmospheric rotation and the hurricane-force winds?
- What maintains the double atmospheric vortex at the poles?
How does the cloud system work?
- How do clouds and haze form and evolve at different altitudes?
- What is at the origin of mysterious ultraviolet marks at the clouds tops?
What processes govern the chemical state of the atmosphere?
What role does the ‘green-house effect’ play in the global evolution of the Venusian climate?
What governs the escape processes of the atmosphere?
Are there water, carbon dioxide or sulphuric acid cycles on Venus?
What caused the global volcanic resurfacing of Venus 500 million years ago?
Why are some areas on the surface so reflective to radar?
- Is there present volcanic or seismic activity on the planet? | <urn:uuid:798e01f9-a1fb-453a-a3f0-8cbabed3c04e> | {
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This beautiful island boasts two castles that played an integral part in its history. If you’re an avid archaeology fan, exploring these two sites will also offer you a glimpse into Kalymnos’ Ancient and Medieval past.
If you want to experience these castles chronologically, begin at the Great Castle of the Nine Chapels, also called Megalo Kastro or Paleochora, near Chora. Built in the Middle Byzantium and rebuilt by the Knights Templar, the ruins of this archaeological site offer you a glimpse all the way back to the 4thC BC through to the 15thC AD. The Great Castle played an important role in offering the Kalymniotes refuge and shelter during pirate raids, while the nine chapels gave the terrified locals the religious sanctuary to pray until the pirates retreated. Take the time to admire the wood-carved altar in the Church of Panagia Keharitomeni within the castle grounds and then climb the 200 steps to admire the stunning view of Pothia from here.
The Castle of Chrysoheria, also called Pera Kastro near Chora, was built by the Knights Templar in the 15thC. This not-to-be-missed site features the remains of Kalymnos’ medieval past. Seek out the coats-of-arms belonging to the Knights Templar, then explore the Church of Panagia Chrysoheria and try to guess where a rumored hoard of gold coins was found under its floors. In fact, this entire castle and the church itself were both named after this unearthed gold treasure – Panagia Chrysoheria means “Virgin of the Golden Hands.” If you enjoy religious architecture, explore the other chapels embraced by the castle walls. | <urn:uuid:cf07b73e-0c1c-44e7-be15-181949b9e05e> | {
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Bonn, 27 April 2016 - A photo exhibition featuring great apes will open today at the Zoological Museum Alexander Koenig in Bonn. Just a century ago more than 1 million great apes used to live in Africa and Asia. However, through habitat loss, illegal hunting, disease and logging they have been reduced to a few thousands today.
Dr. Johannes Refisch is Project Manager at the Great Apes Survival Partnership (GRASP), a partnership of 100 organizations, hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which works for the conservation of gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans. An ecologist by training, Mr. Refisch has spent more than 20 years protecting and conserving primates throughout Africa.
He has documented many of his research activities in photographs, which are on display in the photo exhibition "Their fate is ours" at the Museum Koenig.
On Friday, 29 April, Mr. Refisch will give a lecture entitled “Great Apes - human and endangered”. CMS is supporting the event. The CMS Gorilla Agreement, a legally binding instrument concluded under the Convention, serves as an intergovernmental platform to strengthen the conservation of the remaining gorillas in Africa.
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Cyrus and James Clark
Clarks Shoes started in 1825 as a business making sheepskin rugs and slippers. Their sheepskin slipper, named the ‘Brown Petersburg’, was a huge success. Within years of its unveiling, its unique design graced feet the length and breadth of the country and by 1842 sales were averaging 1000 pairs a month.
The ‘Brown Petersburg’ was made by hand in the town of Street. There were no factories, so the brothers – trading as C&J Clark Limited – relied on outworkers to meet the growing demand. The workers collected the leather from the tannery, along with a pattern, took the whole lot home and turned it into slippers. Production was often a family affair – everyone did their bit of cutting, sticking and sewing. Then, every Friday, all the finished footwear would be taken to Cyrus and James and swapped for wages.
The system worked well for many years. The good people of Street were happy in their work and the company prospered. In fact business was so brisk that in 1851 the Clark brothers won two awards at the Great Exhibition, an event organised by Prince Albert to showcase the achievements of British industry.
Then, in 1863, disaster. A recession hit business badly and, almost overnight, the Clarks needed help. Lifelong Quakers themselves, they turned to contacts in the Quaker community for financial support and managed to secure a loan. But it came with conditions: James and Cyrus were to step down and William – James’ youngest son – was to take the reins.
It was another turning point in the company’s fortunes. Something of a visionary, William modernised the manufacturing process by bringing in the factory system and investing in the Singer sewing machine – a groundbreaking piece of technology at the time. Under his watchful eye, C&J Clark was revitalised, the loan was paid back in full and the company continued to move forward with developments like the Hygienic range. Launched in 1883, it was the first ever shoe designed to fit the shape of the foot; an innovation that is still the bedrock of Clarks’ reputation.
Whilst developing the commercial side of the business, William remained true to the ideals of his Quaker roots. He invested in the community, looked after his workers and built them homes – many of which can still be seen in Street today.
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How To Learn Languages And Concepts
In this guide we are using the word concept to mean simply a group of things resembling each other in a describable way. We understand conceptualization to be a process by which the mind infers a thing to be of a certain kind, to belong properly to some given class of things. Hence, if I describe someone as clever, I have placed the person into a generalized group of people (those who are quick-witted).
Our minds understand things in terms of how they relate to what we believe to be true. We interpret the world by putting objects into categories or concepts, each of which highlights some set of similarities or differences. We then link the thing with other concepts, in the process validating a certain set of inferences.
For example, if I see a creature before me and take it to be a dog, I can reasonably infer that it will bark rather than meow or purr. Furthermore, by placing it into the concept of dog, I create a family of meanings by means of other concepts interrelated with that of dog, such as animal, furry, muzzle, paw, tail, and so forth.
In learning to speak our native language, we necessarily learn thousands of concepts that, when properly used, enable us to make countless legitimate inferences about the objects of our experience. Unfortunately, nothing in the way we ordinarily learn to speak a language forces us to use concepts carefully, or prevents us from making unjustifiable inferences while engaged in their use. The mind that creates meanings can create them well or poorly. Indeed, a fundamental need for critical thinking is given by the fact that as long as the mind remains undisciplined in its use of concepts, it is susceptible to
any number of illegitimate inferences created by egocentric or undisciplined mental acts.
The process of learning the concepts implicit in a natural language such as English is a process of creating facsimiles (in our minds) of the concepts implicit in the language usage to which we are exposed. But we cannot “give” anyone the meaning of a word or phrase; that meaning must be created individually by every person who learns it. We can give a person a dictionary definition of a word, but that definition must be interpreted and, in effect, paraphrased in the mind to gain initial ownership of it. When we misinterpret a definition, we mis learn the meaning of the word in question. Thus, we create in our minds a meaning that conflicts with the established meaning of the word.
To take command of our thinking, critically and creatively, requires that we take command of the language we use. Many of our ideas or concepts come from the languages we have learned to speak, and in which we do our thinking. Embedded in the educated use of words are criteria or standards we must respect before we can think clearly and precisely by means of those words. We are free, of course, to use a given word in a special way in special circumstances, but only if we have good reason for modifying its established meaning.
Such special stipulations should proceed from a clear understanding of established educated use. We are not free, for example, to use the word “education” as if it were synonymous with the words “indoctrination,” “socialization,” or “training.” We are not free to equate pride with cunning, truth with belief, knowledge with information, arrogance with self-confidence, desire with love, and so on. Each word has its own established logic, a logic that cannot, without confusion or error, be ignored.
Each word has a home in at least one established system of meanings. To learn the meaning of any one word in a system of words, we have to learn something of the other (interwoven) meanings. We have to re-create that system in our thinking, and we must base that creation on meanings we have created previously. Learning the meaning of a word is not a simple task, because in each case we must create a new concept in our minds out of modified old understandings. This requires that our creation be ordered, restrained, regulated, and controlled. Words do not mean anything we want them to mean. We must construct meanings in our minds that are accurate — given established educated usage. As always, thinking that calls for assessment (criticality) works hand-in-glove with thinking requiring creative production. | <urn:uuid:18579cfb-79df-4ed1-88e6-afc9308680ca> | {
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Establishing the first indigenous electoral communication network in Latin America and Caribbean
Video on the workshop-seminar "Challenges on Electoral Communications for Indigenous Peoples" that took place in October 2011 in Quito, Ecuador and was organized by the UNDP and UN Women.
GPECS has facilitated the first network for electoral communication for indigenous people in Latin America and the Caribbean. Dina Chuquimia Alvarado of Bolivia’s Tribunal Supremo Electoral said the support enhances impact. “ UNDP support through the GPECS programme will have an important and long-term impact on capacity building and on the electoral communication within the indigenous communities. Through this type of support more and more citizens, especially in the provinces, can better understand the meaning of democracy in its various aspects, particularly in relation to participation throughout the electoral cycle,” she said.
Dina was one of more than 80 prominent media experts in Latin America and the Caribbean taking part in the seminar held in Quito. The event was co-organized by UNDP, GPECS and UN Women Andean Region. The seminar was an initial step to sensitize and train indigenous communicators and journalists in electoral cycle dynamics and on new information technologies so that participants could also share their knowledge within their own indigenous communities.
A specific session was held to talk about the modern technologies and the use of social media. Discussion touched upon direct access to information, unfiltered news, multipliers effects of re-tweeting or sharing posts, and examples about how to maximize communication activities adjusted to indigenous contexts. Indigenous people are increasingly using social media as an effective way to share experiences, knowledge and traditions.
At the end of the seminar a programmatic declaration was signed where participants and the UN entities present agreed to create an indigenous network of communicators and to implement a media monitoring system on the electoral cycle. They also approved initiatives for building capacities in the communications domain with an intercultural dimension, and to facilitate the use and knowledge of information technology. The aim is to enable indigenous people to have better access to and knowledge of institutional norms and processes related to electoral cycles. | <urn:uuid:a05e579d-10c7-416f-9989-538dd88d6164> | {
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This information is for reference purposes only. It was current when produced and may now be outdated. Archive material is no longer maintained, and some links may not work. Persons with disabilities having difficulty accessing this information should contact us at: https://info.ahrq.gov. Let us know the nature of the problem, the Web address of what you want, and your contact information.
Please go to www.ahrq.gov for current information.
Simple resuscitation method is best for children in out-of-hospital emergency settings
Researchers urged paramedics to stop using intubation to resuscitate children after finding that a simple artificial respiration method saves the lives of children who have stopped breathing as well as the more risky intubation procedure. The 3-year study of 830 patients, funded jointly by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (HS09065) and the Health Resources and Services Administration's Maternal and Child Health Bureau, is published in the February 9 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Researchers at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles in cooperation with the emergency medical services agencies of Los Angeles and Orange Counties conducted the study. They compared how two types of emergency breathing or respiration—bag-valve-mask ventilation (BVM) and BVM followed by endotracheal intubation (ETI)—affected the survival and neurological outcomes, such as coma or mild to severe disability, of children who stopped breathing due to injury, choking, or critical illness. BVM involves placing a mask on the face and squeezing a bag to push oxygen into the lungs. ETI involves inserting a plastic tube into the windpipe (trachea) to provide oxygen. Specially trained emergency medical providers often administer these procedures in paramedic ambulances or at emergency sites. Intubation is taught in 97 percent of paramedic training schools.
The children—ranging from infants to 12 years old or weighing less than 80 pounds—were assigned to receive either BVM or BVM followed by ETI. The study found no significant difference in survival or in achieving a good neurological outcome among children receiving either procedure.
Researchers questioned the widespread use of intubation for children because of its potentially deadly complications, such as misplacement or dislodgement of the tube, which can result in no oxygen getting to the child's lungs. They determined that the less risky BVM should be the only paramedic procedure used to keep children needing artificial respiration alive on their way to the hospital. If pediatric intubation is necessary, researchers recommended that it be performed in the more controlled hospital setting.
This was the first controlled study comparing these treatments in either adults or children, even though BVM and ETI are widely used by paramedics. It also is the longest and largest controlled trial to date of treatments for children in a prehospital setting. More than 2,500 licensed paramedics in Los Angeles and Orange Counties received pediatric airway management training prior to the study.
For more details, see "Effect of out-of-hospital pediatric endotracheal intubation on survival and neurological outcome: A controlled clinical trial," by Marianne Gausche, M.D., Roger J. Lewis, M.D., Ph.D., Samuel J. Stratton, M.D., M.P.H., and others, in the January 9, 2000 JAMA 283(6), pp. 783-790.
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Why use government information in your research?
The United States government is one of the largest publishers in the world. It produces a vast amount of information on a multitude of subjects from astronomy to zoology in formats as diverse as print materials, online materials, microform, video cassettes and more. Whatever your topic, the chances are good the government has produced something on it. Government information is considered authoritative and accurate, unlike some material found on the Internet. Census data, congressional hearings, Department of Education journals, tax information and court decisions are just some examples of items that might prove useful in your research. For example, if you are doing research on a health related topic MedlinePlus might be a great place to start, as their database contains thousands of research related articles from both the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health. Also, the government collects statistics on just about everything and is a wonderful resource for getting statistical information to support your research. In addition, you have already paid for government information through your tax dollars so make use of it! Generally speaking, most government information is copyright free and can make a great addition to supplement other classroom materials.
How do I get access to this information?
Government information sources can be accessed in different ways depending on format and location. Many materials, such as ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) documents, can be found in the UMUC databases and on federal government Web sites such as GPO Access. Others are found only in print or other formats such as microform in Federal Depository Libraries. The McKeldin library at the University of Maryland College Park is the Regional Federal Depository library for Maryland, Delaware and the District of Columbia and as such receives all materials published by the Government Printing Office. Increasingly, the trend is to produce more and more materials electronically; however, some materials, such as maps, will still be available in print formats.
Take the Tutorial:
Take the tutorial (click next, below, or pick a module from the left sidebar) to sharpen your skills in finding government information and when you are finished take the quiz to see how much you have learned. A subject guide of government Web sites is also provided to help you locate information on specific topics. | <urn:uuid:61e6305f-fbdb-4e22-adfd-c29027f63668> | {
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Resiliency in Green Infrastructure Renovation
By David Smith, ICPI Technical Director
Mark Twain said, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”
Global climate change might be altering the implications of Mr. Twain’s saying because we are likely doing something to the climate and maybe something about it. While the causes and effects of climate change receive endless debate in scientific and political spheres, regional-scale rainfall patterns are changing for certain. The result has been wetter weather in some parts of North America, drier in others.
The weather changes have been so dramatic that rainfall statistics defining storm recurrences are seeing realignment. A hypothetical example explains this shift. Say there are 80 years of storm data and some indicates that very occasionally, a city receives five inches rainfall in 24 hours. Some statistics are run and they conclude that the city has 4% probability of that rainfall depth occurring in any given year. So it’s called a 25-year storm. But data gathered over the past two decades now indicate a 10% probability. So that rain event has shifted to a 10-year storm recurrence. The old 10-year storm with maybe three inches of rain is now five inches.
This shift directly affects cities because storm sewers back up and can’t immediately drain the additional water. When that happens, it can end up in someone’s basement. Besides property damage, the city can be liable for damages. Storm sewers originally designed to manage a 10-year storm are now obsolete as confirmed by revised rainfall statistics.
Hurricanes plague the East, tornadoes the Midwest and South, and earthquakes the West. Because of natural disasters like the earthquakes in Northridge and Loma Prieta, and Hurricanes Katrina, Irene and Sandy, governments at all levels are seeking resilient designs and technologies to resist excessive wind, rain and tectonic plate movements. Resilient infrastructure resists these onslaughts from nature by designs that minimize damage to private property and society’s productivity. As urban infrastructure is rebuilt, resilient technologies and designs are increasingly included.
One city implementing resilient infrastructure is Atlanta, GA. It recently completed the Southeast Atlanta Green Infrastructure Project. Infrastructure renovation involved replacing century-old water lines, storm and sanitary sewers in two neighborhoods. The ‘green’ portion reduced stormwater runoff, a fundamental goal in most GI projects, with permeable interlocking concrete pavement. Atlanta went beyond reducing runoff. It installed around 700,000 sf (65,000 m²) of permeable interlocking concrete pavement with enormous water storage capacity to reduce increasing flood events.
According to Todd Hill, P.E., Atlanta’s Director of Watershed Management, the pavement stores about 7 million gallons. That approaches one million cubic feet of water in over 10 Olympic-sized swimming pools. As an extra bonus, maybe a fourth of that water is infiltrated back into Atlanta’s clay soils. A portion of the $66 million invested will be returned in spared litigation costs, not to mention increased property values and resulting taxes.
In their present state, many urban drainage systems simply can’t stand the weather. In response, resilient urban infrastructure is an intentional public investment goal. As they rebuild, cities and neighborhoods can resist bad weather by providing permeable pavements that control flooding while remaining un-flooded and useable during the worst storms. Atlanta certainly magnifies and affirms the role of permeable interlocking concrete pavement in resilient infrastructure.
Be on the lookout for the release of the ICPI Case Study, Atlanta's Resilient Green Infrastructure with Permeable Interlocking Concrete Pavement.
To read more blog posts, visit the ICPI Tumblr page. | <urn:uuid:1e7fe3d9-d1cb-4266-a4c2-7c282e11b019> | {
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There is a practice that has been around for a few years. The term, “Crowdsourcing” is attributed to Jeff Howe (contribution editor at Wired magazine) in 2006, yet the practice goes back further. Quite simply, it’s a practice of using the “crowd” to drive competition to lower prices, sometimes, as creators lament, to a point where they can’t compete or survive in more developed nations with higher costs of living. The question is: “Does low prices assure the same quality and service and is it worth it?”
According to Wikipedia, the definition of crowdsourcing is:
The practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community, rather than from traditional employees or suppliers. Often used to subdivide tedious work or to fund-raise startup companies and charities, this process can occur both online and offline. The general concept is to combine the efforts of crowds of volunteers or part-time workers, where each one could contribute a small portion, which adds into a relatively large or significant result. Crowdsourcing is different from an ordinary outsourcing since it is a task or problem that is outsourced to an undefined public rather than to a specific, named group.
Although the word “crowdsourcing” was coined in 2006, it can apply to a wide range of older activities. Crowdsourcing can involve division of labor for tedious tasks split to use crowd-based outsourcing, but it can also apply to specific requests, such ascrowdvoting, crowdfunding, a broad-based competition, and a general search for answers, solutions, or a missing person.
While some people believe Wikipedia is a crowdsourced form of information and therefore not accurate, Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as:
The practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people and especially from the online community rather than from traditional employees or suppliers.
Not that much different but the similarity that interests and offends people on both sides of crowdsourcing is “rather than traditional employees or suppliers.”
How People Use Crowdsourcing
There are several uses that are prevalent these days. One is to use freelance suppliers to work on a project, often for either an hourly rate that is bid upon with the lowest bidder winning the project, or a call for a certain project in which vendors do the work on speculation, with the winner of the finished project being paid a pre-set amount and the other people who have done the speculative work, getting nothing. “Losing out,” as opponents label it.
Crowdsourcing uses the internet to draw a global bidding base for projects, rather than searching among local workers who will all have the same cost of living to consider. For companies and businesses that use this practice, they believe they will receive the same quality for the lowest possible cost. For vendors who participate, there are those to whom $50 is a good months salary, whereas there are those for whom $50 is a weeks worth of coffee.
There are different web sites for crowdsourcing (DISCLAIMER: Listings are, in no way a sponsorship or recommendation. Sites are listed solely as examples). First, there are bidding sites such as eLance and oDesk. These sites present a project and registered members, designers, writers, illustrators, photographers, etc. bid on how much they can charge to complete the project using their talents. It is up to the person who posted the project, wrote the creative brief of the scope of the project, to decide among the bidders, who will receive the project. Sometimes it’s not the lowest bidder.
With web sites that run the projects more like a contest, the person or company will also write a creative brief for a project, such as a logo, web site, book cover designs, etc., set the price and wait for individual creatives to submit finished designs for judging upon the deadline for entries. A winner is chosen and paid. The other entrants don’t.
The Positives for All Parties
- Those who want the finished product use globalized competition to get their project at a price they feel is within their budget or for the lowest price. Talent is not a commodity restricted by country or location and the output can be very professional. While some vendors are against this form of outsourcing, thanks to the web, competition is borderless and while displeasing to those who can’t match or beat lower prices, it’s just a fact in a globalized world.
- Building the economy of nations with lower costs of living support stability in those nations and eventually, the standards and costs will rise to meet the costs of living elsewhere in the world.
- Small businesses and under-funded startups can afford the design work they need to grow and evolve and hire more local employees, which helps their local economy.
- It weeds out the weaker vendors who can’t compete on a global scale, leaving those who can in a stronger position among less local competition.
The Negatives for All Parties
Yes, there are always two sides to every action. Crowdsourcing, naturally, has its problems.
- While web sites such as the ones described offer quick, easy and often cheap solutions, they remove interaction that some say is important to any project, whether design-based or intellectual. For example, brainstorming is a process that is better done in groups with interpersonal interactions.
- A logo, is not just a logo for some businesses — it’s part of their brand and that branding needs to be done with consideration of all parts of the business and not piece by piece. A logo ties in with stationery, a web site and all other signage, printed and digital material.
- There is also the relationship a client and vendor build that is necessary for an evolving business where the vendor is familiar with the client’s needs, as well as their desires. The process is often an evolution and that cannot be done blindly, through a short creative brief, delivered quickly, as if it is a product to be placed on a shelf for a consumer to pick among other items on a shelf.
- Cheap solutions do not incorporate the search and consideration of copyright laws, which may force businesses, down the road, to reprint all of their materials as they throw out a logo with legal problems under the international copyright law and possibly pay hefty fines for such a problem. Shortcuts often lead to cliffs from which we can fall.
- All creative organizations are firmly against crowdsourcing and aren’t rushing to change their minds.
A Sound Comment on Crowdsourcing
In a recent article on crowdsourcing, Jace Nickell, the Founder and CEO at Threadless (a crowdsourcing company, with contests and sales for popular T-shirt designs), wrote:
This version of crowdsourcing is not only cheap, but it’s so very innovative! Take advantage of the networked world with crowdsourcing, and you can save a bunch of time and money. Why isn’t every company across the globe operating like this?
Because it’s exploitive. Because it doesn’t work. Because this isn’t how crowdsourcing really works. It’s short-term thinking.
The best crowdsourcing businesses work the opposite way. They find a common interest that a group of people invest their lives in. The members of this “crowd” would pursue this interest whether a crowdsourcing platform existed or not. The platform doesn’t abuse their talent. Instead, it adds value to what people would already be doing, usually as a hobby. The platform provides new opportunities and helps the individuals in the crowd grow — both independently and as a group.
One might question how Mr. Nickell runs a crowdsourcing company but has this opinion. He continues to explain Threadless’ business model:
Threadless started 12 years ago. A friend and I thought art would be way better on t-shirts than logos. We started a thread on a forum asking people to post designs for tees they would actually want to wear. We printed the ones that were the most popular. We just kept doing that until we realized Threadless had become a business. What’s funny is that we were crowdsourcing long before such a term even existed.
We’re not the only company that uses crowdsourcing in this way. Take a look at Kickstarter. Last year, 18,109 projects were funded on Kickstarter. The business is built on a crowd of individuals pursuing their passions, whether it’s music, art, film, or publishing. The crowdsourcing platform helps them grow, succeed, and bring their projects to life.
Etsy is another example of crowdsourcing done right. The platform gives independent artists a marketplace for their work. More than 850,000 people have shops on Etsy. And as Etsy grows in popularity, it brings more eyes to these individual’s shops. The ones who have the products people most want to buy become successful enough to quit their 9-to-5 jobs and can make their passion their full-time gigs.
I think you see what I’m getting at. The most important pillar of crowdsourcing is its individuals. The crowd isn’t just one big, anonymous, single entity. It’s made up of a bunch of people, each with a vision of their own. The crowd comes in when the car or phone goes to market, and people start reacting to it. They vote with their dollars when the product enters the marketplace.
A unique look at the crowdsourcing business model. There will, of course, be supporters and detractors from this practice. As one commenter on a similar article wrote:
You have the freedom of choice to participate or not. It won’t destroy the design industry as those who have little to no budget for design work aren’t, nor will they be my clients. Let them take a chance on a design contest site.
Still, there are those that do feel crowdsourcing is slave labor and taking advantage of those with lower standards of living. They feel the low prices destroy the markets in other countries. It seems there are several strong feelings about the practice.
One commenter on Mr. Nickell’s articles summed it up, with respect to any initiative that uses people of all financial and work levels:
This is an informative article that highlights and complements Value-Centered Leadership — respecting the value that participatory employees bring to the table and allowing them to make significant contributions toward a specific cause/goal in exchange for the things that they value most, i.e., impact, recognition, security, etc.
In all of the complaints aired about crowdsourcing and all of the compliments, you will rarely, if ever, find the words, “respect,” “contributions” or “value.” At least you don’t hear them used towards the participants in crowdsourcing — both the client nor the vendor. Perhaps the crowdsourcing business model needs a little more evolving before it’s seen as a viable solution, acceptable to all needed to make it succeed?
Images ©GL Stock Image | <urn:uuid:2ed37785-0612-4391-873d-d3e3d4c43e6b> | {
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Change in metabolism, brain to body ratio, environment, and many other unknown factors determine the lifespan of animals. Some animals live for 150+ years and some others only live for few hours. Check out the list of 10 shortest living animals in the world.
10 Domestic Rabbits, 8-12 Years
Rabbits are small mammal live in various parts of the world. The domestic rabbits only have an average lifespan of 8-12 years. They found in different size and colors. But this lovely species only have a lifespan of few years. Fat deposition and uterine cancer are the main diseases that affect domestic rabbits. Female rabbits are more prone to these diseases than males. They may die soon without proper medicare and feeding
The feeding of a high amount of root vegetables and fruits also lead to many health problems in rabbits. They also need a high volume of water every day. Rabbits are prolific breeders because of their shorter lifespan.
9 Guinea Pigs, 4 Years
Guinea pigs are cute, lovable, social animals native to South Africa. Sadly, their lifespan is limited to a short period of 4 years. Guinea pigs easily affected by series of diseases. You need to feed this cute pet at a right interval of time.
The veterinary check-up at the right time is also a must for guinea pigs. With proper care, you could extend the lifespan of guinea pigs up to 4 years. But it is quite hard to keep guinea pigs from the illness like scurvy, bronchitis, and bumblefoot.
SEE ALSO : 10 Shortest Living Dog Breeds In The World
8 Mosquitofish, 2 years
Mosquitofish is one of freshwater fishes native to the United States. They only live up to two years. But mosquitofishws live in captivity show longer life than those live in saline water. The female fishes also have slightly larger lifespan than males.
Even though the lifespan in saline water is short, mosquitofishes have some advantage in living there. Because not all predator fishes can live in saline water.
7 Chameleon, 1 Year
Panther chameleons only have a lifespan of 1 year. In fact, Pather chameleon has the shortest lifespan among reptiles and chameleon family. Panther chameleons are native to Northern and Eastern parts of Madagascar. They show rapid mating behavior because of their shorter life span.
Interestingly, the entire adult chameleons disappear before the next generation emerges out from the eggs. The rapid color changing is the most noticeable characteristic of chameleons. So that they can easily blend into the natural environment. The diet of chameleons mainly includes crickets and worms.
6 House Mouse, 1 years
The average lifespan of house mouse is 1 year. But predators like cats and poisoning also could end their life at anytime. House mouses are also prone to many health problems during their growing stage. They are also prolific breeders because of shorter life span.
5 Dragon Fly, 4 months
There are 5000 different species of dragonflies in the world. The maximum lifespan of dragonflies is about 4 months. But most of the dragonflies won’t live that much time because they can be easily eaten by spiders, birds, lizards and frogs. The strong wind and other harsh climate conditions also stop them from emerge out as a dragonfly from larvae form.
Dragonflies also can’t fly easily after the completion of larvae stage. This condition makes them to easily eat by reptiles and birds. They also can’t live longer in cold conditions.
4 Houseflies, 4 Weeks
Houseflies are the most common and one of the irritating insects that found across your house. The lifetime of houseflies is limited to the only a short period of 4 weeks. The houseflies live in households generally have more lifespan than one live in wild environments. Within their shorter life cycle, every female housefly lay up to 1000 eggs.
3 Drone Ants, 3 Weeks
Drone ants are the male members within an ant colony. They have the only life cycle of 3 weeks. Drone ants follow a lazy behavior, never work much. The ant colonies are always establish by females. Interestingly, drone ants died fast once they mated with females. Thus, drone ants play an important role in the existence of ant colonies within their shorter life cycle.
2 Gastrotrichs, 3 Days
Gastrotrichs are one of marine microorganisms that live in the marine environments. They grow up to a maximum size of 3 millimeters. The life circle of Gastrotrich is limited to just 3 days.
Gastrotrichs have transparent body structure and swim along with currents. Gastrotrichs also attach to other water bodies using hundreds of adhesive tubes on the lower part of the bodies. Gastrotrichs have both male and female organs for reproduction.
1 Mayflies, 24 hours
Mayflies have the shortest lifespan on Earth. Their life last only for 24 hours. Mayflies also called as ‘one-day insects’ because of their shortest life span. There are 2500 different species of mayflies in the world. In fact, some members of mayfly family die within few hours.
Mayflies spend most of their lifetime as nymphs. The one and only purpose of mayflies are a reproduction. Within this short period of life, they form groups and dance together on all available surfaces. | <urn:uuid:e86c4826-f4ec-4391-ad82-3d13b3d9ac34> | {
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PLEASED project working on "plant-borgs" to act as environmental biosensors
By Darren Quick
January 20, 2014
Many claim that talking to plants helps them grow faster. But what if the plants could talk back? That’s what the EU-funded PLants Employed As SEnsing Devices (PLEASED) project is hoping to achieve by creating plant cyborgs, or "plant-borgs." While this technology won't allow green thumbs to carry on a conversation with their plants, it will provide feedback on their environment by enabling the plants to act as biosensors.
Like most living organisms, plants produce electrical signals in response to external stimuli. By classifying which electrical signals are produced in response to which stimulus, the PLEASED team says will be possible to use plants as biosensors to measure a variety of chemical and physical parameters, such as pollution, temperature, humidity, sunlight, acid rain, and the presence of chemicals in organic agriculture.
In an interview with youris.com, project coordinator Andrea Vitaletti admits that there are already artificial devices capable of measuring such parameters, but plants are everywhere, cheap, robust and don't require calibration. They are also able to measure multiple parameters simultaneously. This is both a plus and a minus because it will make it more difficult to differentiate between different electrical signals that occur simultaneously.
If the electrical signals can be deciphered, the team plans to develop small electronic devices, the size of paperclips or smaller, that will be embedded in the plant to collect signals generated in its natural environment. By collecting the signals of a network of plants in the same area, Vitaletti says it will be possible to produce a clear analysis of the environment. He cites pollution monitoring and certification devices for organic farming as just two of the practical applications envisaged for the technology.
Vitaletti says an open source data set of the specific stimuli and corresponding electrical signals for a number plant species will have been started by the time the PLEASED project winds up in May 2014. He hopes that other scientific teams will continue to add to and improve the quality of the data set in the future, so as to enhance the effectiveness of the technology.
The following video gives and overview of the PLEASED project's goals.
- Around The Home
- Digital Cameras
- Good Thinking
- Health and Wellbeing
- Holiday Destinations
- Home Entertainment
- Inventors and Remarkable People
- Mobile Technology
- Urban Transport
- Wearable Electronics | <urn:uuid:7a875447-3c54-4e0c-97ac-7700dd10a664> | {
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On the morning of July 7, 2019, the release of water from Glendo Reservoir will be decreased from approximately 4,500 cubic feet per second (cfs) to a flow of approximately 1,500 cfs. The decreased flow will cause a rapid decline of the Guernsey Reservoir level of approximately 25 feet starting the morning of July 8th and continuing through July 11th. By Thursday, July 11th, the boat ramps at Guernsey Reservoir will no longer be useable due to the low reservoir level.
Water being released from Glendo Reservoir will flow through Guernsey Reservoir flushing silt from Guernsey Reservoir into the canals of downstream irrigators. The silt run will begin on July 12th and is anticipated to continue through July 25th. Beginning on the evening of July 25th, the release of water from Glendo Reservoir will be rapidly increased to refill Guernsey Reservoir. The level of Guernsey Reservoir is expected to be suitable for boating again by the morning of July 27th. However, the reservoir will continue to rise by approximately 6 feet per day and is expected to reach the normal reservoir operation level by the evening of Tuesday, July 30th.
Boaters, recreationists, and irrigators should take proper precautions regarding changing river flows between Glendo and Guernsey Reservoirs and the rapid lowering and refilling of Guernsey Reservoir. | <urn:uuid:38be1a19-4892-4c1e-82c9-063c1a420c6e> | {
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Hubble peers deeply into the Eagle Nebula
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has once more turned its attention towards the magnificent Eagle Nebula (Messier 16). This picture shows the northwestern part of the region, well away from the centre, and features some very bright young stars that formed from the same cloud of material. These energetic toddlers are part of an open cluster and emit ultraviolet radiation that causes the surrounding nebula to glow.
The star cluster is very bright and was discovered in the mid-eighteenth century. The nebula, however, is much more elusive and it took almost a further two decades for it to be first noted by Charles Messier in 1764. Although it is commonly known as the Eagle Nebula, its official designation is Messier 16 and the cluster is also named NGC 6611. One spectacular area of the nebula (outside the field of view) has been nicknamed “The Pillars of Creation” ever since the Hubble Space Telescope captured an iconic image of dramatic pillars of star-forming gas and dust.
The cluster and nebula are fascinating targets for small and medium-sized telescopes, particularly from a dark site free from light pollution. Messier 16 can be found within the constellation of Serpens Cauda (the Tail of the Serpent), which is sandwiched between Aquila, Sagittarius, and Ophiuchus in the heart of one of the brightest parts of the Milky Way. Small telescopes with low power are useful for observing large, but faint, swathes of the nebula, whereas 30 cm telescopes and larger may reveal the dark pillars under good conditions. But a space telescope in orbit around the Earth, like Hubble — which boasts a 2.4-metre diameter mirror and state-of-the-art instruments — is required for an image as spectacular as this one.
This picture was created from images taken with the Wide Field Channel of Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. Images through a near-infrared filter (F775W) are coloured red and images through a blue filter (F475W) are blue. The exposures times were one hour and 54 minutes respectively and the field of view is about 3.3 arcminutes across.
ESA/Hubble & NASA
About the Image
|Release date:||6 December 2010, 10:00|
|Size:||3883 x 4041 px|
About the Object
|Name:||Messier 16, NGC 6611|
|Type:||• Milky Way : Nebula : Type : Star Formation|
• X - Nebulae Images/Videos
|Position (RA):||18 18 27.00|
|Position (Dec):||-13° 42' 59.34"|
|Field of view:||3.23 x 3.36 arcminutes|
|Orientation:||North is 99.0° right of vertical|
Colours & filters
|475 nm||Hubble Space Telescope|
|Hubble Space Telescope|
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Step 3. Review the Design
Plan review is one of the most important activities a code official undertakes.
A building design that passes plan review has a good chance of meeting the requirements of the energy code when it is actually constructed, as long as the builders and contractors working on the building follow the plans. Getting the design right is a key first step.
Code officials enforcing the energy codes will review a number of construction documents. The following information, with sufficient clarity to indicate location, nature, and extent of work proposed should be included in residential construction documents:
- Insulation materials and their R-values
- Air sealing details
- Fenestration U-factors and solar heat gain coefficients.
Commercial documents should include the items above as well as:
- Mechanical system design criteria
- Mechanical and service water heating system and equipment types, sizes, and efficiencies
- For HVAC, economizer description, equipment and system controls, fan motor horsepower, and controls
- For ductwork and piping, sealing, insulation, and location
- For lighting, fixture schedule with wattage and information on controls.
Plan review is a relatively straightforward activity IF all the necessary information is available on the plans and specifications. If the required information is not available, it can be a long, drawn-out activity. Code officials should not hesitate to ask for more information if they do not find what they need. Construction plans and specifications can be complex and the information may or may not be readily identifiable. DOE is currently upgrading a lot of its code support materials and software to put more of the burden on the designers and less on the code officials.
For example, rather than asking the designer to check a box that states that the building has an air barrier as required by Section C402.4.1 of the 2012 IECC, the new approach asks the designer to provide the location of information in the plans and specifications that can be used to confirm if the building has a proper air barrier.
This simple change in approach is expected to eventually make plan review much less burdensome to code officials.
In the future (possibly in the not-so-distant future in some jurisdictions), designers will be able to use computer aided design systems with building information modeling (BIM) capabilities to design their buildings and those systems will also have the ability to review for code compliance as the building is designed.
A topic brief has been prepared on this view of the future (Resource 3). | <urn:uuid:71380b41-668d-4ab9-9d19-f29b6f323d93> | {
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Wondrous Facts About WalrusesThe Rainforest Site
With their small flippers, large bodies, massive tusks, and obvious whiskers, walruses are often considered nature’s buffoons. However, these unusual creatures harbor a host of amazing abilities and adaptations that may surprise you.
Adult walruses can weigh up to 3,000 pounds, much of which is blubber. That fat plays an important role, however, as it protects them from the frigid water they spend much of their lives in.
No Need for Ice Skates
Walruses spend most of their lives on Arctic ice and shallow waters. They use their powerful tusks to climb onto slippery ice so they can rest or sleep.
Those Big Teeth Aren’t Just for Show
Both male and female walruses have tusks that can grow up to 3 feet in length, and they use them. In addition to gripping slippery ice, walruses use their elongated canine teeth to defend themselves and scare off rivals.
From Threatened to Recovering
Walruses, particularly those in the Pacific, were seriously threatened due to commercial hunting. They were threatened with extinction as recently as the 1950s, but conservation efforts have caused them to rebound. As of 2016, the IUCN considers them a vulnerable species.
That’s a Big Baby
Walruses are big animals, and their babies reflect that. Healthy calves typically weigh 99 to 165 pounds when they’re born, and their mothers gestate them for 15 or 16 months. Fortunately for the mother walrus, single births are the norm. There have been a few recorded instances of twins, though. Calves can swim almost immediately after birth, but they stay with their mothers for up to 3 years.
Walruses are social animals and typically live in large groups. A typical herd can reach hundreds of animals, and during mating season thousands of walruses can group together. They tend to be non-aggressive unless provoked.
That’s a Mouthful
The scientific name for a walrus, Odobenus rosmarus, translates to “tooth-walking sea horse.” The “sea horse” portion seems self-explanatory due to the walrus’s massive size and semi-aquatic lifestyle, but “tooth walking” probably comes from the animal’s tendency to drag itself onto ice using its tusks.
Walruses can live up to 40 years in the wild, and they mature slowly. While they leave their mothers at age 3, they typically don’t start mating until about age 5 for females or 15 for males. Watch this video to see one of these amazing creatures in action. | <urn:uuid:61794217-f5e2-4fee-8161-1eeb37a1ca7b> | {
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Yeast - Life Cycle
Yeasts secrete enzymes that break down carbohydrates (through fermentation) to yield carbon dioxide and alcohol. The source of carbohydrates are either living hosts or non-living hosts such as rotting vegetation, or the moist body cavities of animals. Yeasts are considered by some scientists to be closely related to the algae, lacking only in photosynthetic capability—perhaps as a result of an evolutionary trend toward a lifestyle dependent upon host nutrition. Ecologically yeasts are decomposers that secrete enzymes which dismantle the complex carbon compounds of plant cell walls and animal tissues, which they convert to sugars for their own growth and sustenance. Yeast reproduction may involve sexual spore production or asexual budding, dependent upon surrounding conditions. Though yeasts are highly tolerant of environmental variations in temperature and acidity, they thrive in warm and moist places high in oxygen and low in carbon dioxide. Whether or not they reproduce through asexual budding depends on the favorability of surrounding conditions: when times are good, yeast clones are produced by budding. In times of environmental stress, yeasts produce spores which are capable of withstanding periods of environmental hardship—perhaps even to lie dormant, until conditions improve and the mingling of genes can take place with the spore of another yeast. This rare version of yeast reproduction provides for genetic
variation when conditions demand it, though budding is the predominant mode of yeast reproduction. | <urn:uuid:fe7da25e-9a92-4621-ab4b-a8aebb558846> | {
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Breakthroughs & Accomplishments
“Bachmann-Strauss is continuing the momentum into discovery, enabling major advances and insights that are now helping to identify new therapies.”
- Ted Dawson, MD, PhD
Research funded by The Bachmann-Strauss Dystonia & Parkinson Foundation has led to the following key scientific accomplishments:
Our early funding of the first genetically altered (“transgenic”) mouse model resulted in the groundbreaking discovery of DYT1 dystonia that showed behavioral features similar to patients with early onset dystonia.
Since that time, Bachmann-Strauss Foundation supported the development of several additional animal models that are bringing greater insight into the causes, progression and treatment of dystonia and Parkinson’s disease:
- - Two mouse models, one of L-DOPA responsive dystonia and the other of rapid onset dystonia-Parkinsonism, provided new information to characterize the link between dystonia and Parkinsonism. This research also will be useful for further study to develop new therapies.
- - Five new genes that protect dopamine neurons from dying – a hallmark trait of Parkinson’s disease – were identified in transgenic roundworm models. This is a possible step toward identifying new targets for drug development and genetic factors that make some people more susceptible to the disease.
- - A mouse model of a novel mutation in the DYTI gene, TOR1A developed by Dr. Nicole Calakos and her lab at Duke University, enables research on the role of abnormal synaptic plasticity in patients with late-onset, sporadic focal dystonia. Using cell-based protein expression assays to compare the mutant protein to normal TorsinA and the DYT1-causing form of TorsinA, Dr. Calakos’ group found that this novel mutation caused abnormalities more akin to the DYT1 mutant protein, but also with some distinctive features.
- - In 2014, a team of researchers led by neurologist William Dauer, MD, at the University of Michigan developed a new strain of mice that closely mimics the symptoms of dystonia, which include uncontrollable twisting, stiffening and spasms of muscles in the neck and limbs. A paper published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation details important new discoveries about dystonia using his mice. http://www.uofmhealth.org/news/archive/201406/dystonia
Historically, dystonia has always been considered a disorder of the basal ganglia. But recent evidence has pointed towards cerebellar circuits as well. Many researchers now believe that dystonia is caused by a disruption of a motor network that involves both the basal ganglia and cerebellum, rather than an isolated dysfunction of only one motor system. But how the motor network relates to the genes and proteins that are thought to be involved in the development of dystonia is a fertile area of research.
The Bachmann-Strauss Foundation’s annual Think Tank has provided a valuable forum for researchers to exchange ideas about where future research should be directed. Promising areas of inquiry have included:
- Understanding the cascade of chemical and electrophysiologic changes that occur as a consequence of loss of striatal dopamine in parkinsonism that can then be translated into new and more effective therapies for both Parkinson's disease and dystonia.
- Demonstrating that fast-spiking interneurons (FSIs) can exert powerful control over striatal output and may be a novel therapeutic target for the treatment of hyperkinetic movement disorders.
- Explaining how plasticity may be a driver of long-term therapeutic effects of deep brain stimulation in dystonia.
- Investigating why dysfunctional interactions between the cerebellum and the basal ganglia are a key factor in the underlying pathophysiology of rapid-onset dystonia-parkinsonism.
TorsinA is a protein that, when mutant, can cause dystonia. Major findings in this area have included:
- - Development of the antibody to torsinA, and work that helped to define the normal function of torsinA
- - Demonstrating that torsinA protects against cell death and that mutant torsinA does not, and demonstration that torsinA is present in Lewy bodies in Parkinson's disease. Lewy bodies are massive clumps of protein within cells.Determining that torsinA is a chaperone-like enzyme that normally operates on proteins within the nuclear envelope where it is located. The nuclear envelope is a two-layered membrane surrounding the nucleus of a living cell.Identifying where torsinA is located in the brain in normal rodents, in normal human controls, and in DYT1 dystonia patients.
In 2008, the Foundation launched an Anti-Dystonia Drug Discovery Program led by Ellen Hess, PhD. Her team uses behavioral and cellular pharmacology to understand the cellular mechanisms that give rise to hyperactivity. The objective of Dr. Hess’s research is to identify drugs that can either move directly into clinical trial or be put forward for product development by a biotechnological or pharmaceutical company.
In 2012, Dr. Hess reported preclinical data for the mGlu5 negative allosteric modulator (NAM) oral small molecule, dipraglurant, a compound in development by Addex Therapuetics. She plans to make drug screening more widely available to facilitate preclinical testing of other novel anti-dystonia compounds.
The Bachmann-Strauss Foundation has funded numerous studies identifying genes associated with dystonia-Parkinsonism syndrome, as well as follow up research to understand the molecular pathways that underlie the diseases. Major genetic discoveries supported by the Foundation include:
- In 1997, a research team led by Xandra O. Breakefield, PhD and Laurie Ozelius, PhD, identified and cloned the DYT1 gene responsible for early-onset dystonia. The discovery reported in Nature Genetics, set the stage for major advances in our understanding of the causes, development and treatment of a severely debilitating form of dystonia that begins in childhood.
- Researchers from London’s University College, Institute of Neurology, led by Professors Nick Wood and Kailash Bhatia, identified mutations in a gene called ANO3 as the possible cause of the most common form of dystonia affecting the neck and face (cranio-cervical dystonia). The researchers found six changes throughout the new gene, ANO3, which might be linked to dystonia. This is the first work implicating an ion channel as the cause of dystonia, and it raises the question of whether medications could be targeted at the channel to compensate for improper functioning, as well as to shed light on the cellular pathways involved in the disease as a whole.
- Discovery of a novel gene, GNAL, for primary torsion dystonia, also known as dystonia musculorum deformans, was made through the collaboration of the molecular genetic laboratory of Dr. Laurie Ozelius, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and a clinical research team led by Dr. Susan Bressman, MD, Director, Bachmann-Strauss Dystonia Center of Excellence and Chair, Department of Neurology, Beth Israel Medical Center, New York. These findings describe the GNAL gene as pointing to pathways in the brain’s dopamine system as the origin of pathophysiology. The research unveils a new potential therapeutic target and an opportunity for developing new treatments, as well as helping in the development of genetic tests to confirm diagnoses, identify unaffected adult carriers, and provide greater reproductive health options for affected families.
- Breaking new genetic barriers, Christine Klein, MD, University of Lubeck, Germany, is characterizing the gene TUBB4 that causes Whispering Dysphonia. This is a rare inherited disorder where an individual is able to talk normally when they’re asleep, drunk or emotional, but for the most part they are only able to whisper. The condition may be progressive and leaves the person unable to make a single sound.
- In 2014, researchers at Mount Sinai Beth Israel, including lead author Rachel Saunders-Pullman, MD, MPH, reported results of genetic screening of dystonia in the Amish-Mennonite population in the journal Movement Disorders. This population is of special interest since the THAP1 gene (also known as DYT6) was originally identified in four Amish-Mennonite families sharing the same “founder” mutation through a common ancestor. The study demonstrated that in addition to this THAP1 founder mutation, different mutations in THAP1 also cause primary dystonia in Amish-Mennonites. Also identified were mutations in the recently described GNAL gene (also known as DYT25), and in the DYT1 (TOR1A) gene. These findings emphasize the range of genetic causes of primary dystonia even within a certain ethnic group.
In Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) therapy, a small pacemaker-like device sends electronic signals to an area in the brain that controls movement. These signals block some of the brain messages that cause disabling motor symptoms. In 1997, the Food and Drug Administration approved the use of DBS to treat essential tremor. Approval for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease (2002) and dystonia (2003) soon followed.
Although DBS does not cure either Parkinson's disease or dystonia, it can help manage some of its symptoms and subsequently improve the patient’s quality of life. While DBS is most effective in DYT1 patients, there is increased interest in the role of DBS in patients with secondary dystonia. A new collaborative research study to be undertaken in 2015 among the four Bachmann-Strauss Foundation’s Centers of Excellence will be the largest of its kind to assess responsiveness of dystonia patients to DBS.
Funds provided by The Bachmann-Strauss Foundation have supported efforts to derive iPSCs by different methods. In 2012, a special “Impact Grant” Request For Proposal (RFP) focusing on dystonia research was released by the Foundation. Following intense review, the Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Board awarded two interrelated grants. The first grant was awarded to H.A. Jinnah, MD, PhD, Professor, neurology, human genetics and pediatrics, Emory University, and the second to Cristopher Bragg, PhD, Assistant Professor of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital. Using newly developed technology to study neurons of different motor pathways, by taking a small skin sample from patients with dystonia, growing living fibroblasts from the skin, and then converting the fibroblasts into stem cells for making neurons. These stem cells are then used to generate a variety of different types of neurons for many different types of studies.
The goal of Dr. Jinnah’s project – the Dystonia Coalition iPS Resource - is to develop a resource for the collection of skin samples for making fibroblast cultures for dystonia, to create stem cells from these fibroblasts to share with dystonia investigators, and to examine the defects in these cells after they are converted into dopamine neurons.
Dr. Bragg’s project - Generating Isogenic Dystonia iPS Cell lines with Custom TALE Nucleases - has generated iPSCs for different genetic causes of dystonia by turning normal cells into cells with dystonia mutations with TALE nucleases. His lab is now able to create iPSCs for any genetic form of dystonia using TALE technology. Dr. Bragg is also collaborating with the Jinnah laboratory in developing and comparing the different dystonia iPSC models.
- Recognizing that collaboration is key to merging clinical and research expertise, in 2009 the Foundation established its first Center of Excellence at Mount Sinai Beth Israel in New York City. To learn more about our Centers of Excellence click here.
- Building on the success of this model, the Foundation launched three new Centers of Excellence in 2013 at: the University of Alabama at Birmingham; the University of California, San Francisco; and the University of Florida. These new centers were established with grants of $400,000 each from the Foundation and have secured matching funds to ensure that they will be self-sustaining. The centers bring together multidisciplinary teams to provide dystonia and Parkinson’s patients with complete, coordinated care in a single location.
- In 2014, the Centers each received an additional award of $75,000 to undertake a collaborative study on the responsiveness of dystonia patients to DBS. The study will characterize patients with isolated forms of dystonia and collect DNA and clinical data that will enable researchers to better predict patient outcomes for treatment with DBS. | <urn:uuid:2350f0b5-e757-494b-9129-0ae2849c6150> | {
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Right now I have a rc robot with a Sabertooth dual 25A motor driver, and I just bought a parallax discovery kit with the basic stamp 2 micro controller. I am trying to write a program that looks something like this for a differential drive
if bumper switch is open
drive straight until switch closes
if switch closes
The saber tooth looks like there is 2 ways to do it
#1) Mode 1: Analog Input
Analog input mode takes one or two analog inputs and uses those to set the speed and direction
of the motor. The valid input range is 0v to 5v. This makes the Sabertooth easy control using a
potentiometer, the PWM output of a microcontroller (with an RC filter) or an analog circuit.
Major uses include joystick or foot-pedal controlled vehicles, speed and direction control for
pumps and machines, and analog feedback loops.
#2) Simplified Serial Mode
Simplified serial uses TTL level single-byte serial commands to set the motor speed and
direction. This makes it easy to interface to microcontrollers and PCs, without having to
implement a packet-based communications protocol. Simplified serial is a one-direction only
interface. The transmit line from the host is connected to S1. The hostís receive line is not
connected to the Sabertooth. Because of this, multiple drivers can be connected to the same serial
transmitter. If using a true RS-232 device like a PCís serial port, it is necessary to use a level
converter to shift the Ė10V to 10V rs-232 levels to the 0v-5v TTL levels the Sabertooth is
expecting. This is usually done with a Max232 type chip. If using a TTL serial device like a
microcontroller, the TX line of the microcontroller may be connected directly to S1.
Because Sabertooth controls two motors with one 8 byte character, when operating in Simplified
Serial mode, each motor has 7 bits of resolution. Sending a character between 1 and 127 will
control motor 1. 1 is full reverse, 64 is stop and 127 is full forward. Sending a character between
128 and 255 will control motor 2. 128 is full reverse, 192 is stop and 255 is full forward.
Character 0 (hex 0x00) is a special case. Sending this character will shut down both motors.
Which is easier? I would like to use choice #2 but I am not sure how to get the basic stamp to output numbers to control the motors?
As for the first way I dont even know where to start | <urn:uuid:2e220553-b81d-4bb1-9bad-de2f559dbdad> | {
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Both Donald McBane and Archibald MacGregor discuss the quarterstaff briefly in their works on swordsmanship. Based on MacGregor’s description the staff in Scotland was often used as a weapon of urban self defense, allowing the user to fight his way to safety in one of 18th century Edinburgh’s frequent riots. McBane also mentions its use by “rustic fellows” such as gamekeepers. As you can see, the staff has a huge advantage over the sword in single combat, although we had to keep it light and slow for safety reasons.
We’ve attempted a preliminary interpretation of McBane’s quarterstaff advice here:Donald McBane’s Quarterstaff Exercise
And of MacGregor’s advice on the staff here:
If these look a little slow and awkward, it’s because we were working from written notes and don’t have these sequences memorized. However, they should be enough for you to get an idea of the Scottish approach to quarterstaff. | <urn:uuid:921c251f-ff7e-489f-b190-793db7af49bf> | {
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The works of García Lorca, internationally recognized as Spain's most prominent lyric poet and dramatist of the twentieth century, are filled with thinly veiled homosexual motifs and themes.
There has always been homosexual involvement in American musical theatre and a homosexual sensibility even in straight musicals, and recently the Broadway musical has welcomed openly homosexual themes and situations.
Best known for his genius in art and architecture, Michelangelo was also an accomplished author of homoerotic poetry.
The African-American gay male literary tradition consists of a substantial body of texts and includes some of the most gifted writers of the twentieth century.
Combining elements of incongruity, theatricality, and exaggeration, camp is a form of humor that helps homosexuals cope with a hostile environment.
Langston Hughes, whose literary legacy is enormous and varied, was closeted, but homosexuality was an important influence on his literary imagination, and many of his poems may be read as gay texts.
James Baldwin, a pioneering figure in twentieth-century literature, wrote sustained and articulate challenges to American racism and mandatory heterosexuality.
Oscar Wilde is important both as an accomplished writer and as a symbolic figure who exemplified a way of being homosexual at a pivotal moment in the emergence of gay consciousness.
Congratulations to Stacy Dawson, a Missouri teenager who challenged his high school's discriminatory policy prohibiting same-sex couples from attending school-sponsored dances, including the senior prom. A day after the Southern Poverty Law Center threatened the Scott County Central School District with a lawsuit on Dawson's behalf, the school district announced that the policy will be rescinded.
As Brody Levesque reported at LGBTQNation, the controversy began last fall when Dawson noticed that the school handbook specifically prohibited same-sex couples from attending school dances. The policy stated, "high school students will be permitted to invite one guest, girls invite boys and boys invite girls."
Dawson asked a staff member for help in getting the policy changed so that he could attend the prom with his boyfriend on April 20. When the staff member reported that the school board would not alter the policy, Dawson decided to ask the Southern Poverty Law Center for help.
In response, Alesdair Ittelson, a staff attorney for the SPLC, sent a "demand letter" to the school district, calling for an end to the "unconstitutional policy and to recognize Stacy's rights without further delay."
The SPLC's letter explained that under the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, the school cannot censor Dawson's protected right to free expression and declared that that it is impermissible for him to be conferred fewer constitutional rights simply because he is gay.
The letter also cited the recent case from Mississippi involving Constance McMillen, McMillen v. Itawamba County School District, where a federal court held that a student's effort to "communicate a message by wearing a tuxedo and to express her identity through attending prom with a same-sex date" was "the type of speech that falls squarely within the purview of the First Amendment and such expression is protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution."
The demand letter gave the school district until February 25 to redress the inequity or the SPLC would file a lawsuit that would ask for damages and attorneys fees as well as a permanent injunction against enforcement of the unconstitutional policy.
As Ittelson told Levesque, "Denying Stacy's right to bring his boyfriend to prom is blatantly discriminatory and in violation of his constitutional rights. This unlawful policy reminds us that anti-gay sentiment still serves as a platform for schools to deny the rights of same-sex couples."
A day after receiving the letter, the school district announced that it would rescind the offensive policy.
Scott County Central School District superintendent Alvin McFerren told the Associated Press on February 15, 2013 that the school board had agreed to revise the policy that had been interpreted to prohibit same-sex dates. McFerren said the policy was adopted 10 to 15 years ago for an innocent reason and was never meant to discriminate.
McFerren said the policy was aimed at trying to stop students from cheating on the entry cost of prom and other dances, since the couples' rate was less expensive than two individual fees.
"When I found out the real, true, innocent reason, we wanted to get that kind of thing corrected," McFerren said. He added that Dawson could attend the prom with whomever he wished.
While somewhat skeptical of the superintendent's explanation, I am nevertheless grateful that the policy will be revised and that Dawson will be able to attend the prom with his boyfriend.
Dawson's courage in challenging the discriminatory policy is commendable.
"Prom is an important milestone in high school, and I'll be devastated if I'm not allowed to attend prom with my boyfriend," he told Levesque. "It isn't fair that a school can randomly disregard students' rights because it doesn't agree with who you want to take to prom."
Ittelson praised Dawson as "a brave and lovely young man" who "encountered this problem, did his research, came to us and said, 'I really want to do something about this,' and we're so proud and honored to be able to fight for his rights in this matter. He has a supportive family and he believes that the other kids at his school want him to be able to attend the prom with his boyfriend."
The school board's quick capitulation on the issue may mean little more than that recent federal court rulings have made it clear that denying equal rights to glbtq students will be costly. But a recent incident in Sullivan County, Indiana may indicate that there has also been a change of heart regarding the rights of gay and lesbian students in the heartland.
When a group of parents were unable to ban gay and lesbian teens from participating with same-sex dates in Sullivan County High School's official prom, they attempted to create an alternate prom that would be "gay-free."
Interestingly, however, the move sparked national outrage. The high school rushed to make clear that it was not in any way involved in the proposals for an alternate prom and to emphasize that all students will be welcome at the official prom.
The church that hosted the anti-gay prom organizers also quickly distanced itself from the controversy. "Our church has no involvement in this whatsoever. It's a community thing where people have met here," Pastor Dale Wise at Sullivan First Christian Church said.
Although a few extreme evangelical sects continue to support the heterosexual-only prom, they are clearly a small minority of the community and they have marginalized themselves with their bigotry.
St. Louis television station KDSK reported on the Sikeston, Missouri controversy as follows. | <urn:uuid:09168a27-ad6b-4860-8565-cae442159206> | {
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|Darling drew through the terms of eight different presidents. Although he tailored his cartoons to the personality, character, and legislative goals of each individual president, he took a common approach to all. First, he gave each man a fair start. Second, he attempted to draw cartoons showing both sides of any significant debate. Lastly, when any president died, whether in office or afterward, Darling attempted to pay tribute to the man's best qualities.
Presidency (Pulitzer Prize), | <urn:uuid:bf150b32-32c9-45e5-8a38-4804d688f09f> | {
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Speaking About Cultural Difference and School Disadvantage. An Interview Study of ‘Samoan’ Paraprofessionals in Designated Disadvantaged Secondary Schools in Australia
Singh, Parlo (2001) Speaking About Cultural Difference and School Disadvantage. An Interview Study of ‘Samoan’ Paraprofessionals in Designated Disadvantaged Secondary Schools in Australia. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 22(3), pp. 317-337.
This paper uses Bernstein’s theory of pedagogic discourse to examine interview accounts of educational disadvantage provided by Samoan community members engaged as paraprofessionals in secondary schools in the Australian state of Queensland. While the interview participants were asked a range of questions for an Australian Research Council funded project on the construction of Australian identities through language and literacy practices, the data extracted in this paper focuses only on those accounts that referred explicitly to pedagogic discourses and practices. In these accounts the Samoan paraprofessionals attributed educational disadvantage to: (a) the arbitrary organisation of students, knowledge and spaces in schooling institutions, and (b) differences between school and Samoan institutions. The principles of power and control generating the unequal selection, organisation and distribution of school knowledge are discussed in the light of empirical research utilising Bernstein’s theoretical work on the social re/production of disadvantage in and through schooling discourses and practices.
Impact and interest:
Citation counts are sourced monthly from and citation databases.
These databases contain citations from different subsets of available publications and different time periods and thus the citation count from each is usually different. Some works are not in either database and no count is displayed. Scopus includes citations from articles published in 1996 onwards, and Web of Science® generally from 1980 onwards.
Citations counts from theindexing service can be viewed at the linked Google Scholar™ search.
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|Item Type:||Journal Article|
|Keywords:||cultural identity, cultural difference, educational disadvantage, Samoan, paraprofessionals|
|Subjects:||Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification > EDUCATION (130000)
Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification > STUDIES IN HUMAN SOCIETY (160000) > SOCIOLOGY (160800) > Sociology of Education (160809)
|Divisions:||Current > QUT Faculties and Divisions > Faculty of Education|
|Copyright Owner:||Copyright 2001 Taylor & Francis|
|Copyright Statement:||First published in British Journal of Sociology of Education 22(3):pp. 317-337.|
|Deposited On:||21 Oct 2005|
|Last Modified:||09 Jun 2010 12:27|
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The feelings that surround pregnancy--excitement, anxiety, and hope--often give way to many questions. Will my child's eyes be blue or brown? When will I have my baby? How big will my baby be? What does the future hold for my family?
Finding out that you have a "condition," even a manageable one, can raise a different set of questions. Will my baby be healthy? Will the condition affect my ability to have other children? What can I do to ensure my own health and the health of my baby?
For the last 40 years, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) has been working to answer these types of questions through research and clinical practice to improve the health of mothers, children, and families.
Managing Gestational Diabetes: A Patient's Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy provides some general guidelines for keeping yourself healthy and for promoting the best outcomes for your baby, if you have gestational diabetes. The booklet describes gestational diabetes, its causes, and its features and includes a general treatment plan to help control the condition.
Using this information, you and your family can make informed decisions about your care. You will also be better able to work with your health care provider to develop a treatment plan that addresses your specific needs and situation, to ensure that you and your baby are healthy.
I hope this booklet helps you meet the challenges of gestational diabetes that you will face over the next few months, and that you will enjoy the new addition to your family when he or she arrives.
Alan E. Guttmacher, M.D.
Table of Contents | <urn:uuid:ac835e0a-c448-45ee-a7bf-f722c790f8d4> | {
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equal protection: an overview
The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits states from denying any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. See U.S. Const. amend. XIV. In other words, the laws of a state must treat an individual in the same manner as others in similar conditions and circumstances. A violation would occur, for example, if a state prohibited an individual from entering into an employment contract because he or she was a member of a particular race. The equal protection clause is not intended to provide "equality" among individuals or classes but only "equal application" of the laws. The result, therefore, of a law is not relevant so long as there is no discrimination in its application. By denying states the ability to discriminate, the equal protection clause of the Constitution is crucial to the protection of civil rights. See Civil Rights.
Generally, the question of whether the equal protection clause has been violated arises when a state grants a particular class of individuals the right to engage in an activity yet denies other individuals the same right. There is no clear rule for deciding when a classification is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has dictated the application of different tests depending on the type of classification and its effect on fundamental rights. Traditionally, the Court finds a state classification constitutional if it has "a rational basis" to a "legitimate state purpose." The Supreme Court, however, has applied more stringent analysis in certain cases. It will "strictly scrutinize" a distinction when it embodies a "suspect classification." In order for a classification to be subject to strict scrutiny, it must be shown that the state law or its administration is meant to discriminate. Usually, if a purpose to discriminate is found the classification will be strictly scrutinized if it is based on race, national origin, or, in some situations, non U.S. citizenship (the suspect classes). In order for a classification to be found permissible under this test it must be proven, by the state, that there is a compelling interest to the law and that the classification is necessary to further that interest. The Court will also apply a strict scrutiny test if the classification interferes with fundamental rights such as first amendment rights, the right to privacy, or the right to travel. The Supreme Court also requires states to show more than a rational basis (though it does not apply the strictly scrutiny test) for classifications based on gender or a child's status as illegitimate.
The 14th amendment is not by its terms applicable to the federal government. Actions by the federal government, however, that classify individuals in a discriminatory manner will, under similar circumstances, violate the due process of the fifth amendment. See U.S. Const. amend. V.
menu of sources
Federal Judicial Decisions
- U.S. Supreme Court:
- U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals: Recent Equal Protection Decisions
State Judicial Decisions
- N.Y. Court of Appeals:
- Appellate Decisions from Other States
Useful Offnet (or Subscription - $) Sources
- Good Starting Point in Print: John E. Nowak, Ronald Rotunda, Constitutional Law, West Group, 7th ed. (2004) | <urn:uuid:a9b27b80-a6f7-49a6-abfb-49d84a5c642f> | {
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Diseases and ailments are constant companions of the elderly. Exercise will help restore health without medication. Regular exercises will improve well-being, restore the joy of life and stop the aging process.
The benefits of doing sports
Moderate physical activity reduces the risk of developing diseases such as:
- diseases of the cardiovascular system;
Elderly, leading an active lifestyle, there is a minimal risk of cancer. Increased stamina and agility help prevent accidental falls and injuries.
Exercise for the elderly
In order not to provoke serious health problems, classes are carried out with a minimum load, gradually increasing it. It is important to consider health status and age.
Slow walking, swimming, cycling activate and strengthen the organs of the heart system.
To strengthen the muscles, it is useful to perform tilting the body, swinging arms, exercises with an expander and kettle bells.
Includes a contrast shower and light charging.
- Warm up. Stretching exercises. Swing arms and legs. Tilts forward and sideways.
- General developmental exercises. Running on the spot, jumping. Work with dumbbells and expanders.
Classes activate blood circulation, improve muscle function, increase efficiency.
Held in the middle or in the afternoon.
- Strengthening the back – circular movements of the hands, leaning forward with hands behind the head.
- The development of the shoulders – rises on socks with swings, bends to the sides.
- Strengthening the feet and legs – squats on toes.
Active activities include walking, jogging, cleaning the house, working on a summer cottage.
Perform 2-3 hours before going to bed. Classes help get rid of stress and tension, improve blood circulation, have a positive effect on the nervous system and relieve memory problems.
- Stretching exercises strengthen joints, increase flexibility, and reduce the risk of injuries.
- Improved coordination – stand on one leg with eyes closed, balancing on tiptoe with eyes closed.
- Strengthening the muscles of the trunk and legs – walking in one line, walking in place with eyes closed.
During classes, it is important to monitor the pulse and pressure. For any ailments or discomfort, you should stop the exercises and give the body a rest. | <urn:uuid:fb3e8661-5411-4972-b23c-4804e6edf9e4> | {
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Myasthenia Gravis is a rare autoimmune disease which leads to a fatigability of various muscles. Scientists know about the progress and symptoms, but not the actual cause of this disease. Now fourteen pairs of identical twins joined the EU funded medical project “Fight-MG”, to help find the cause and for a better treatment of the patients.
Support from a network of leading researchers across Europe specialised in a rare auto-immune disease with unmet medical needs could help test several novel treatments
Scientists within the European research project AIPgene have developed a new gene therapy for Acute Intermittent Porphyria (AIP).
New virus serotypes are safely used as ‘DNA transporters’ to successfully deliver genes to deficient cells.
An early stage clinical trial on patients with the rare metabolic disorder, Pophyria, has shown no side effects—further trials, if successful, could lead to the first gene therapy of its kind.
Metabolites found in our blood are linked to ageing and can signpost the risk of developing age-related diseases. This may help avoid such risks and reduce the rate at which we age biologically.
Combining research on twins with new technology shows both nature and nurture play a role in biological ageing.
A promising new approach to gene therapy for neurodegenerative diseases makes use of an unexpected virus as the agent of delivery.
First tests of new approach based on gene therapy could improve treatments of diseases affecting the brain
Intervertebral disc degeneration can result in back pain. Now a team of scientists is debunking the myth that excessive physical work is the main culprit, and is looking at other causes.
Lower back pain is poorly understood. But genetic factors rather than spinal disc degeneration may provide a more robust understanding of its causes.
The human DNA has been decoded already in the Human Genome Project. Now scientists from Martinsried near Munich are taking the next step to decode all proteins of a human being.
How many types of proteins are there in a cell? How many of each type are there and where are they at any given time? New methods may shed light on these fundamental biological questions.
New insights into how large protein complexes function differently in healthy and sick cells has now been granted thanks to new technologies.
Protein-DNA binding is fundamental to gene regulation. Now, new methods based on laser pulses allow fast interactions between proteins and DNA to be followed.
The pattern of brain alterations may be similar in several different neurodegenerative diseases, which opens the door to alternative therapeutic strategies to tackle these diseases
Parkinson’s disease modifies a crucial circuit of the central nervous system in a specific way. This could open up an alternative therapeutic approach that avoids side effects of current therapies.
On 15th April is the 1st International Pompe Disease Day, a campaign to raise awareness of this rare but severe gene defect. Pompe Disease is only one of more than 40 metabolic disorders that mainly affect children under the age of 10, often with devastating consequences. Now scientists of the European research project EUCLYD setting up new therapeutic methods to tackle these gene defects.
Enzyme therapy proves effective in treating LSDs, whilst gene therapy is an upcoming contender.
Connect Read Watch Broadcast Contact | <urn:uuid:4d6cea94-e120-40cb-9645-9c73d8bcae73> | {
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The following was posted on the BHIC Blog.
The United States has one of the safest food supplies in the world. Nevertheless, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), foodborne disease causes approximately 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths in the U.S. each year — and that’s just an estimate… The updated FDA web page Recalls, Market Withdrawals & Safety Alerts makes it easier for consumers to use with search results providing data from news releases and other recall announcements in a tabular format. Covering recalls of food, drugs, products affecting animal health, biologics and medical devices, the table organizes information from news releases on recalls since 2009 by date, product brand name, product description, reason for the recall and the recalling company. It also provides a link to the news release on each recall for more detailed information. [The Highlight HEALTH Network]
- FDA New Food Safety Regulation (catalystbiomedical.wordpress.com)
- FDA Puts Into Effect Laws That Directly Protect Nation’s Food Supply (medicalnewstoday.com)
- FDA introduces new consumer-friendly website (charlotte.news14.com) | <urn:uuid:06e1abc9-8332-48d0-80de-7d3d8cc8ad2f> | {
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An astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) focused a camera lens on a brilliant spot in Iran: the sun reflecting off Darodzan Lake. This waterbody in the desert, surrounded by the Zagros Mountains, is impounded behind a dam wall just upstream of the town of Darodzan.
Winds ruffle the water surface so that the reflection pattern is quite varied; it changes by the minute when viewed from the ISS. At the moment this image was taken, the sunglint effect was strongest near the dam wall. (The science of sunglint is explained here.) Other bright streaks in the middle of the lake show the counter-clockwise circulation of water. Yet more streaks show the direction of the wind (from the west).
Agricultural fields in deserts are closely tied to sources of water. In this region, fields are clustered along the river that feeds the lake. The river enters Darodzan Lake at a small delta (image left). Other fields are clustered downstream of the dam wall, next to the town. The dam wall itself was built at a narrow gap in steep ridges.
Astronaut photograph ISS052-E-45251 was acquired on August 12, 2017, with a Nikon D4 digital camera using a 1150 millimeter lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by a member of the Expedition 52 crew. The image has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Caption by Justin Wilkinson, Texas State University, JETS Contract at NASA-JSC. | <urn:uuid:ef72759e-da0a-4d09-a0a6-b23979e595fd> | {
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The Internet is where most people find information on learning possibilities.
The Internet is by far the most popular source among European adults looking for information on learning possibilities. Access to Internet and e-skills are therefore essential across all education levels for participation in lifelong learning and improved employability. Although the average percentage of Internet users has improved, there are still disparities across education levels and countries.
This indicator shows where 25-64 year olds found information on learning possibilities in the last 12 months. This complements our previous Statistics of the Month, showing that one in four people in the EU were looking for information on learning possibilities. The later can also be broken down by gender, age group, highest level of education attained and type of participation in education and training.
- On average, the Internet was the most popular source, providing information on learning possibilities for more than 70% of adults in Austria, Slovenia, Poland, Sweden, Greece, Belgium, Finland and Slovakia.
- Career guidance providers rank lowest among the specified sources in all European countries for which data is available. But career guidance practitioners also support adults career management as well as learning processes on an individual basis; this is not captured in the statistics.
- There are significant differences between countries for all information sources mentioned: for instance, while 63.4% of adults in Slovakia found information on learning possibilities in mass media (TV, radio or newspapers), only 7.7% of people in the Netherlands mentioned this source. Nevertheless, country ranking of information sources is similar, highlighting a pattern to be found across European countries. | <urn:uuid:11c7620b-1df7-45ff-86ab-d952611810fd> | {
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Prologue, Part 1, Chapters 1,2,3
1. When the book begins, what is described in the trenches of Belgium?
(a) 16th Bavarian Infantry Regiment.
(b) American soldiers.
(c) German landscape.
(d) Hitler's relatives.
2. What caused Hitler's blindness in the beginning of the book?
(a) An Allied attack by poison gas shells.
(b) He was born that way.
3. How long did it take Russia to be defeated, as described in the beginning of the book?
(a) Ten years.
(b) Four years.
(c) Three years.
(d) They never are defeated.
4. What was Germany like under Kaiser?
(b) Demoralized by revolution.
5. When did Hitler decide to become a politician?
(a) When he was a young boy.
(b) When he left the Army.
(c) When he learned Kaiser is no longer is power.
(d) After he got married.
6. Where was Hitler when he decided to become a politician?
(a) At a government meeting.
(b) In the hospital.
(c) In the city square.
(d) At the bank.
7. Who was Alois Hitler?
(a) Adolf's brother.
(b) Adolf's father.
(c) Adolf's sister.
(d) Adolf's mother.
This section contains 3,417 words
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Definition: Specific Learning Disability means a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, that may manifest itself in the imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell or do mathematical calculations, including conditions such as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia. Specific learning disability does not include learning problems that are primarily the result of: visual, hearing, or motor disabilities; intellectual disability; serious emotional disability; cultural factors; environmental or economic disadvantage; or limited English proficiency.
8 Academic Domains of SLD:
- Oral Expression
- Listening Comprehension
- Written Expression
- Basic Reading Skill
- Reading Fluency Skills
- Reading Comprehension
- Mathematical Calculation
- Mathematical Problem Solving
Assessing, Preventing and Overcoming Reading Difficulties
Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties is an on demand eLearning series that was developed by David Kilpatrick, Ph.D., in collaboration with the Specific Learning Disability Specialist in the Exceptional Student Services Unit of the Colorado Department of Education.
Content of the webinar series was originally included in the book Essentials of Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties (Wiley, 2015).
- Cultural/Linguistic Diversity
- Eligibility and Guidance
- Language and Literacy
- MTSS, UDL, AT, RtI
- Parents and Families
- Social / Emotional
- Transition, School, Career
Specific Learning Disability Listserv
The Colorado Specific Learning Disability (SLD) listserv shares professional development and training opportunities and provides information including current trends, research, and ongoing topics of interest related to SLD. The purpose of this network is to facilitate connections, awareness, and access to information, learning opportunities, and resources that will better the lives of students with Specific Learning Disability and benefit the families, communities, and professionals who support them. Sharing of information is encouraged; however, it is at the discretion of the CDE what information will be posted. This service is chat-free and does not include advertisements from vendors or contract-based companies. To subscribe to the CO-SLD Listserv or contribute information to share with this community, please Email Veronica Fiedler.
Join the CO-SLD Listserv
To subscribe to the CO-SLD listserv:
- Open a new email.
- In the “To” field, type the email [email protected] and send the message.
- You will receive a confirmation email. You will not be added until you respond to this email.
- If you have a problem, try using “plain” text or check with the technology people in your district.
To unsubscribe from the CO-SLD listserv:
- Open a new email.
- In the “To” field, type the email [email protected] and send the message.
- In the body of the message write, “unsubscribe CO-SLD.”
- You will automatically be unsubscribed.
A variety of learning opportunities, information, and resources are provided on this listserv. These materials do not represent an exhaustive list, nor are they required or endorsed by the Colorado Department of Education (CDE). The identification or description is for the purpose of providing information and resources and does not constitute CDE's endorsement. Every effort has been made to identify the citation for the resource; please maintain the citation and/or authorship when adapting or modifying these materials.
For more information, please contact:
Email Veronica Fiedler | <urn:uuid:65155299-9c43-46d5-8a22-0b9c8a76ed30> | {
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Downy mildew generally occurs in the soybean producing areas in China, and occurs in areas with cold and heavy rain during childbirth. The disease is harmful to soybean seedlings, leaves, pods and beans, resulting in plant dwarfing, leaves withered early fall off, and even dead. The 100-seed weight of the damaged soybean was reduced by 4% to 16%, the oil content was reduced by 7.5%, and the protein content was reduced by 1.8%. The increase in imperfect grains, moldy grains, and heterogeneous grains seriously affects the edible and economic value of soybeans. Soybean downy mildew is a fungal disease. Irregular grayish white cream on the surface of the diseased granules is the oospores and hyphae of the bacteria. The cotyledon does not show symptoms. The adult plants have round or irregular pale green and yellow patches. , scattered or connected together, the leaves back with gray mold, soybean meal surface generally no obvious symptoms, peeling open the pods visible pods within the irregular block gray mold-like material. The pathogenic bacteria used oospore to overwinter on the seed and diseased leaf tissue, and mainly used the oospores on the seeds as the source of the first infection. The northern part of the country began to occur in the middle and late June, and July to August was the epidemic period. Rainy and humid years were favorable for the onset of disease. Control methods: 1 Breeding and planting disease-resistant varieties, controlling the occurrence of diseases and the spread of the physiological race of a certain pathogen. 2 Seed treatment, fungal diseases caused by seed bacteria. Before sowing, 3.5% metalaxyl or 50% thiram can be used for seed dressing. 3Cultivation measures: Non-legume crops should be selected for deep turning and rotation, and should not be rotated with the host crop of pathogens; weeds and weeds should be removed to remove the diseased plant residues from the field to reduce the bacteria source, remove water, and increase phosphorus and potassium fertilizers to increase plant growth. Disease resistance. 4 Chemical control, timely use 58% metalaxyl MnZn WP, 72% Kelu wettable powder or 64% antivirus WP in accordance with instructions, spray once every 7-10 days, even spray 2 to 3 times; 75% chlorothalonil WP can also be used 700 ~ 800 times, 50% carbendazim WP and 65% zein zinc WP 500 times spray to control the spread of the disease has a certain effect.
The advantaged design made it can interlock by rabbet, which realizes the combination work with cast iron floor.
Its convenient to install and easy to clean. Many styles of interlocking plastic floors for nursery pigs according to customers' designs and requirements.
Features of Plastic Floor:
1. Provide a superior farrowing platform.
2. Help pigs have good environment cleaned.
3. Leak dung effectively, easy to clean and install.
4. Keep health for pigs
5. Thickening floor, strong compression resistance make it impossible to break by pigling.
6. Some different colors can be produced according to customers` requirements.
Plastic Slat Floor
Plastic Pig Floor,Animal Plastic Slat Floor,Plastic Slat Floor,Poultry Chicken Floor
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James Charnley House
James Charnley House
The original symmetrical facade as it appeared in 1892 - the adjacent building was later demolished
|Location||1365 N. Astor Street, Chicago, Illinois|
|Architect||Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright|
|NRHP reference #||70000232|
|Added to NRHP||April 17, 1970|
|Designated NHL||August 6, 1998|
|Designated CL||August 20, 1972|
The James Charnley Residence, also known as the Charnley-Persky House, is a historic house museum at 1365 North Astor Street in the Gold Coast neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Built in 1892, it is one of the few surviving residential works of Louis Sullivan, and features major contributions by Frank Lloyd Wright, who was then working as a draftsman in Sullivan's office. The house is operated as a museum and organization headquarters by The Society of Architectural Historians (SAH). The house was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1998, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Charnley Residence is located in Chicago's Gold Coast north of the commercial downtown, at the southeast corner of North Astor Street and East Schiller Street. It is three stories in height, with a raised basement of stone and 2-1/2 stories of largely austere brickwork. The facade is divided into three parts, the center portion housing the main entrance in a stone surround flanked by paired sash windows. Above it is a projecting ornate wooden balcony that obscures the fact that the wall behind it is recessed. The flanking sections each have single sash windows set on large expanses of brick, in deep rectangular openings with splayed soldier brick lintels. The third level is separated from the lower levels by a stone stringcourse, and has two deeply recessed square windows in each section.
The interior of the house is a marked contrast to its relatively plain exterior. It has high-quality woodwork throughout, with builtin bookcases featuring doors with glass of varying shapes and sizes. The main library features a fireplace of African rose marble, and the dining room has extensive use of mahogany, a favorite wood of Louis Sullivan's.
The house was completed in 1892 for Charnley, a Chicago lumberman who lived in the house with his family for about a decade. It is a distinctive and original design of Sullivan's, in which a modern aesthetic was brought to an essentially Classical symmetrical form. It is unclear exactly how much influence Wright had on the design, but it is clear that it is found in both interior and exterior features.
The building was later owned by members of the Waller family, who invested in real estate. The house was purchased by the architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill in 1986 and subsequently restored. Seymour Persky purchased the house in 1995 and donated it to the SAH who renamed the building to the Charnley–Persky House to honor their benefactor.
- List of National Historic Landmarks in Illinois
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Central Chicago
- National Park Service (2006-03-15). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
- Wolfe, Gerard R. (1996). Chicago: In and Around the Loop. New York, New York: McGraw=Hill. pp. 404–406. ISBN 0-07-071390-1.
- "Charnley House". City of Chicago Dept. of Pl. and Devpmt., Landmarks Div. 2003. Retrieved 2007-08-04.
- "James Charnley House". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Retrieved 2007-10-13.
- "Charnley–Persky House History". Charnley–Persky House Museum Website. Charnley–Persky House Museum Foundation. 2004-06-14. Retrieved 2012-06-03.
- "NHL nomination for James Charnley House" (PDF). National Park Service. Retrieved 2017-04-18.
- Historic American Buildings Survey HABS ILL,16-CHIG,12-
- Richard Longstreth (ed.) 2004. The Charnley House: Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and the Making of Chicago's Gold Coast, University of Chicago Press, 249 pages
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The First Fatal Plane Crash…
At Fort Myer, Virginia
Selling the Idea of Flight...
Four years after their ground-breaking flights at Kitty
Hawk, the Wright Brothers submitted a bid to the U.S. War Department to design a
plane for $25,000 in January of 1907. This bid was in response to a previous War
Department request issued a month earlier for a "Heavier-than-air Flying
Machine." While Wilbur Wright went off to Paris to promote the Wright Flyer, his
brother Orville Wright stayed in Dayton, Ohio, to design a plane for the Army
Signal Corps, spending over a year on the design and construction.
By August of 1908, the plane was ready, and he headed
to Fort Myer, Virginia, where the air trials were to take place. To get this contract, the brothers had to prove that the
airplane could successfully carry passengers (the Wright Brothers had been
allowing passengers to fly with them since May 14rh, 1908), and meet other mission
requirements. One of the passengers during the trials would be twenty-six year-old U.S.
Army 1st Lieutenant Thomas E. Selfridge.
Young, Brash, and Brilliant...
A native of San Francisco, California, being born there on
February 8th, 1882, and graduated from West Point in 1903, where he was 31st in
a class of 96 (Douglas MacArthur was first), after he received his commission in
the Field Artillery, and been stationed at the Presidio in San Francisco at the
time of the 1906 earthquake and fire, he was assigned to the Aeronautical
Division, U.S. Signal Corps at Fort Myer, Virginia.
At Fort Myer, he was one of three pilots trained to fly
the Army Dirigible Number One, purchased in July of 1908 from Thomas Scott
Baldwin, who was the first American to descend from a balloon in a parachute.
Selfridge was also the United States government representative to the Aerial
Experiment Association, which was chaired by Alexander Graham Bell, and became
its first secretary.
Selfridge took his first flight on December 6th, 1907, on Alexander Graham
Bell's tetrahedral kite, the Cygnet, made of over 3,000 winged cells. It
took him 168 feet in the air, for seven minutes, above Bras d'Or Lake in Nova
Scotia, Canada. This flight was the first recorded to be carrying a passenger of
any heavier-than-air-craft in Canada. Selfridge also supervised the
construction of two airplanes, the "June Bug" and "Red Wing", at Hammondsport,
New York, piloting the "Red Wing" of March 12th, 1908, and the "June Bug" in
July of 1908.
In August of 1908, he was assigned to an official Board
responsible for tests of the Army Signal Corps' first dirigible at Fort Myer,
Virginia. He made numerous flights in this dirigible before it was officially
Being a member of the Aerial Experiment Association, He
was next assigned to a board conducting the first trials of the Wright airplane
to see if it could fly 40 miles an hour, carry two persons aloft, and be
portable enough to be transported by a mule-drawn wagon. The tests would
start on from August 20, 1908, and last over a month
A Prior Commitment...
flight in the Wright Flyer was slated for September 18th, 1908. But the
Wrights had their concerns about flying with Selfridge, as the Lieutenant was a
close friend of the Wright's competition, Alexander Graham Bell.
"I don't trust him an inch," Orville wrote to
Wilbur. "He plans to meet me often at dinner where he can pump me."
But Selfridge was to leave on September 19th to join Lt. Benjamin D. Foulois in
St. Joseph, Missouri, to stage dirigible exhibition flights at a state fair
there. So Selfridge asked to go up before his scheduled turn. When one of
the two Navy observers, Lt. George Sweet, gave up his place, Wright agreed.
Selfridge sitting on the plane, waiting as Wright
does the preflight check
The Wright Flyer - in the air over Fort Myer
Right after the crash, as the
crowds rush towards to wreck
The wreckage, covered by
tarps, being moved. On the extreme right of the photo, men are
attending to an injured Orville Wright
Unconscious, Selfridge lying
on the ground near the Flyer
Wright and Selfridge being
rushed to the post hospital
Flyer, with a wingspan of 36 feet, 4 inches,
and a length of 28 feet, had flown with Orville Wright
and his first official passenger, Lt. Frank P. Lahm, U.S. Army, on September 10th, at Fort
Myer, Virginia. Two days later, Orville took another passenger, Major George Owen Squier,
who had written the specifications for the first military aircraft, up in the Flyer for nine minutes.
On the 17th, a crowd of around 2,000
people were on hand to witness the flight, some of which were seeing an airplane
take flight for the first time in their lives. It was just after 5 PM when
Wright said to Selfridge "You might as well get in. We'll start in a couple of
minutes." Lt. Selfridge, who was the Wright Flyer's heaviest
passenger to date, weighing 175 pounds, complied. Once the propellers were turned, Lt.
Selfridge waved to the crowd.
At 5:14PM, the weights holding the airplane to the ground (in cause of a gust of wind)
were dropped and the airplane was off, slowly lumbering into the air. Orville was keeping
his control inputs very basic, and had flown three laps over the parade ground
successfully, at an altitude of
about 150 feet, when he heard light tapping.
He turned to look over his shoulders, but did not spot any problems
despite using a new set of propellers for this flight. Ever
cautious, Wright begin to shut down the plane's engine, a
39 horsepower Wright pusher, to glide to the ground.
But before Orville could shut off the engine, he heard "two big thumps, which
gave the machine a terrible shaking.
Something flew off the airplane, and then the airplane suddenly veered to
the right. Wright was unable to get the machine to
respond. He shut off the engine as he continued to try and regain control of the
airplane. "I continued to push the levers, when the machine suddenly turned to
the left. I reversed the levers to stop the turning and to bring the wings
on a level. Quick as a flash, the machine turned down in front and started
straight for the ground," Wright said in the accident report.
Throughout the flight, Lt. Selfridge sat - silent.
The lieutenant had glanced at Orville to see his reaction to the situation.
But when the airplane was about 75 feet in the air, it started a nose-dive to the
ground. Selfridge began to realize what was about to happen, and cried "Oh! Oh!"
The plane, and the two aboard, were
doomed. The controls were useless, and the plane smacked hard into the parade
A cloud of dust rising from the crash
site, near the west gate of Arlington National Cemetery, a awed hush fell over the crowd of speculators, and then - everyone
ran over to the wreckage. Both Wright and Selfridge had survived the impact, but
were both heavily injured, and pinned inside the Flyer.
Seemingly easier to free, as well as
conscious, Wright was the first to be extricated from the wreck.
Orville yelled to rescuers, "Oh, hurry and lift the motor!"
raised the crumpled plane and found the unfortunate Selfridge,
bloodied and unconscious,
pinned beneath the engine. After some time,
however, he too was pulled from the Flyer's remains.
Dr. Watters, a New York physician, was one of the first to
reach the crash site, and rendered first aid to the injured men, who were then taken by stretcher to the nearby post hospital.
operated on Lt. Selfridge, but at 8:10 p.m., Selfridge died from a fractured
skull, having been thrown against one of the wooden uprights of the framework,
and without ever regaining consciousness. Wright was only slightly luckier,
having suffered a broken left leg,
several broken ribs, laceration to his head, and many bruises.
Lt. Thomas Selfridge was buried with military honors at Arlington National
Cemetery (Section 3, Lot 2158, Grid QR-13/14).
Despite his many achievements he is mostly
remembered for one thing - being the first person to die in the crash of an airplane.
Orville Wright was released from the Army
hospital on October 31st, and was using clutches by November 14th. Though he
would walk and fly again, Orville continued to suffer from fractures in his hip
that had gone unnoticed at the time,
Afterwards, Wright brought pieces
of the Flyer's wreckage to two of his associates, Charlie Taylor and Charlie
Furnas. The pair quickly found the cause of the accident — one propeller
had broken due to Excessive vibration, having been
clipped by a bracing wire that held the tail
in place. With 2 feet breaking off the propeller, and wire being torn from its
fastening in the rudder, the
tail collapsed, and sent the Flyer into a deadly dive
Orville explained the
conclusions to the Army, and the Army was quick to assure him they would extend
his contract. The Wrights soon redesigned the Flyer, shortened it
by two feet, and adding a more powerful engine,
to eliminate the flaws that led to this accident.
The aircraft was demonstrated successfully
at Fort Myer on June 28, 1909, and the Signal Corps accepted the Wright Military Flyer on August 2nd, 1909. The
airplane sold for $25,000 plus a bonus of $5,000 because it exceeded 40 miles
On November 3rd, 1909, naval
Lieutenant George Sweet got his airplane ride, when he was taken up as a
passenger in the first Army Wright aircraft flown by Lt. Frank P. Lahm,
at College Park, Maryland. Sweet is credited with being the first Navy officer
to have flown in an airplane.
Over the next few years, the Wrights
brothers filed a number of lawsuits based on patent infringements. But in
1912, Wilbur contracted typhoid fever and died on May 30. In 1915, Orville sold
the patent and the Wright airplane company for $1,000,000. Orville Wright
lived until January 30, 1948, when he died at the age of 76
In July of 1917, after the government
leased an aviation field near Mount Clemens, Michigan, from
Henry B. Joy, the field was named in
honor of Lieutenant Selfridge. It is now Selfridge Air National Guard Base, located
about 30 miles north of Detroit.
The West Gate of Arlington Cemetery, near
the Flyer's crash site, was renamed the "Selfridge Gate". The gate is only
used for funerals held at the Fort Myer Memorial Chapel, with burials at
A wooden fragment from one of the propellers
is on display in "The Wright Brothers & The Invention of the Aerial Age"
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Within this paper, an overview of the historical and political patterns of Latin America will be presented. Specifically, patterns associated with centralization, militarism, corruption, religion, and economics as they have existed within Latin America will be addressed. It is the thesis of this paper that the combined impact of these patterns have contributed significantly to the ongoing struggles experienced within this region of the world.
As a region, Latin America consists of South America, Mexico, Central America, and the West Indies. According to information provided by the Latin American Alliance (1997),within this region, there are nearly three dozen independent nations, some colonies and other political units that have ties with the U.S., Great Britain, France, or the Netherlands. There has been an ongoing decline of colonization within Latin America since the first half of the 19th century which has helped to contribute to regional instability as independent countries struggled in their own efforts to establish themselves and become self-governing.
Central to the ongoing struggles experienced within Latin America has been what was described by an author as the rupture of the principle of centralism within the region. Regional, provincial and municipal decentralization has been a factor in creating regional inequalities and an increased dualism between the poor and the rich. Local governments within Latin America have been poorly prepared to take on the technical and operating complexities necessary for managing programs and services that were once managed by the more centralized government entities. According to an author , decentralization in Latin America has been characterized by a lack of strong direction and goals which has lead to frequent fragmentation of objectives and a lack of strategic guiding principles. Often what has emerged within decentralization efforts has been the establishment of alliances between the local and central powers with a system of characterized by the exchange of favors among those in political power. Consequently, the development of rational social polices which would help to improve the social and economic situation of citizens of the region fail to be created. | <urn:uuid:3d18b443-4fdf-4135-9e4b-6177cb41542a> | {
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August, 2012 -Olympic athletes are impressive, no doubt. But when it comes to athletic prowess, few creatures compare to migratory birds like the eastern willet. Scientists from The Nature Conservancy use geolocators to elucidate the migratory connectivity of willets.
April, 2012 –For centuries, the migration of birds has been riddled with mystery: Where do birds go in winter? How fast, and how far, do they fly? New technology is giving scientists the answers, from whimbrels that navigate hurricanes as they cross oceans, to redstarts, where carry-over effects from wintering territories help determine nest success.
February, 2012 –Birds in eastern North America are picking up the pace along their yearly migratory paths. The reason, according to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers, is rising temperatures due to climate change.
November, 2011 –Efforts to conserve migratory species have been strengthened following a major UN conference on conservation. Newly-added species to Appendix I and Appendix II include the Argali, the Giant Manta Ray, the Red-Footed Falcon, the Saker Falcon, the Far Eastern Curlew, the Bristle-Thighed Curlew, and the Bobolink. | <urn:uuid:6dc0c4b8-7be8-4413-90c1-16986d9b4978> | {
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By Bianca Vucetich, Junior
FIU’s Wolfsonian Museum, located in South Beach on Washington Avenue and 10th Street, is filled with a variety of great murals, artifacts, and paintings. Every year, Ms. Keller and Ms. Gelber take the Junior class in order to experience the museum and complete a zine project. Zines are a variation of magazines that is a small production, usually locally produced, which focuses on a issue rather than certain fads or trends.
The Wolfsonian instituted the “Zines for Progress” program through a grant from Wells Fargo where students in both middle and high school throughout Miami-Dade interact with social activism using their critical thinking, creative art and writing skills.” When visiting the Wolfsonian, the juniors’ focus was to learn more about the production of a zine from the museum experts and artists, and we were assigned to find certain paintings, murals, or artifacts that can be used in their zines about their specific issue.
The Wolfsonian Museum has been open since 1995, and it became a part of Florida International University (FIU) in 1997. Today it continues to be an iconic landmark of South Miami Beach’s Architectural District. A museum of the arts, the Wolfsonian: “The Wolfsonian's collection—among the largest university art collections in the country—focuses on North American and European decorative arts, propaganda, architecture, and industrial and graphic design dating from 1850 to 1950.” The sixth floor which features a special exhibit is now running from October 2017 to April 2018 about the graphic artist, Julian Klinger, in an exhibit: Posters for a Modern Age.
Because our bus arrives in South Beach earlier than the 10 AM museum opening, our teachers took us to Lummus Park on Ocean Drive by the Museum; the juniors had some fun playing in a playground and taking a class picture.
Split into 2 groups, some went to the Wolfsonian library while others explored the permanent collection on the fifth floor. In the Wolfsonian’s library, Chief Librarian Frank Luca chose magazines, books, and zines from the past decade to explain how each zine may connect with each student’s topic. He also spent time explaining different types of materials and information used to create the books/zines and gave much information about the craftsmanship of bookbinding. Luca’s detailed explanations gave the students ideas for multiple different ways that old books and zines were bound based on the time and material they used.
The juniors were all on a mission, their objective: find an artifact that has to do with the topic of their Zine. With this objective in mind, the juniors were all keen to learn about the artifacts presented and open to see what they could use for their projects.
As some might speculate based on my usual attire I am a major Doctor Who fan and absolutely adore the show among many others. I also love using my time to hang out with friends or volunteering at a pet adoption center since the animals there are just wonderful. Well that's just a couple things about me, I hope you find my work helpful and entertaining! | <urn:uuid:f2363e83-d609-4e52-b969-f2233a51070a> | {
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A brief history of the office of the Cabinet Secretary
The position of Cabinet Secretary has its origins in the War Cabinet of the Commonwealth government-in-exile, when Col. Manuel Nieto was appointed Secretary to the Cabinet by President Manuel L. Quezon in Asheville, NC, “with right to discuss and vote on matters taken up and decided by the Cabinet” on May 19, 1944. On May 20, 1944, President Quezon also delegated the power to sign official papers on his behalf to Col. Nieto. As shown by a telegram from Vice President Osmeña to President Quezon dated June 10, 1944, the position of the Secretary to the Cabinet primarily focused on policy matters. Sec. Nieto was entrusted with communicating the chief executive’s instructions to the Cabinet and handling communications from the Cabinet to the President for his consideration and approval. Administrative matters affecting the bureaucracy, such as it was during wartime, remained in the hands of Dr. Arturo B. Rotor, the Secretary to the President (the position now known as Executive Secretary) who prepared and authenticated legal documents and performed administrative functions.
In the announcement of his new War Cabinet on August 1, 1944, when he assumed office, President Osmeña did not designate anyone Secretary to the Cabinet: instead, he appointed Nieto as Secretary of Agriculture and Commerce. President Osmeña’s Executive Order 15-W, dated August 8, 1944, which further reorganized and consolidated the departments of the Commonwealth government-in-exile, did not include the position of Secretary to the Cabinet. The further reorganization of the government after it was reestablished on Philippine soil (Executive Order No. 27, dated February 27, 1945), made no mention of the position of Secretary to the Cabinet, either. The return of the government to the Philippines once more put the larger bureaucracy at the disposal of the chief executive.
It would not be until the administration of President Carlos P. Garcia that an office specifically tasked with coordinating with the cabinet was once more established. Instead of a cabinet position, however, what was established was a Cabinet Secretariat. This was accomplished by means of President Garcia issuing Memorandum Order No. 1 on January 7, 1958, which aimed to describe and streamline the functions of agencies attached to the Executive Office. In the MO (itself a form of executive issuance first used by President Garcia), the Cabinet Secretariat was made an attached agency of the Executive Office, headed by the Executive Secretary. Its duties were:
- Prepare the Cabinet Agenda;
- Prepare and gather papers for Cabinet action;
- Prepare and keep up-to-date minutes of Cabinet Action
- Keep records of decisions and actions made by the cabinet
- Certify Cabinet action to proper parties
- Provide Secretariat services for the Council of State and other advisory bodies to the President
- Provide a catalog of Cabinet actions and decisions for immediate access of the Cabinet
While the head of the Cabinet Secretariat was the Secretary to the Cabinet, the position was not one bearing cabinet rank: it was akin to the older personal staff of Presidents—the Appointments Secretary, the Social Secretary, etc.—who undertook secretarial functions but who did not have cabinet rank. This practice continued throughout martial law (announced on September 23, 1972 and accompanied by a reorganization of the executive department), and beyond the abolition of the position of Executive Secretary in 1975, until the establishment of the Fourth Republic and the change of the form of government from Presidential to a Pseudo-Parliamentary system.
It was at this time, when President Ferdinand E. Marcos relinquished being concurrent President and Prime Minister (he fused the two positions under himself in 1978), that some functions of the Office of the President were transferred to the newly created separate Office of the Prime Minister. On July 29, 1981, with the issuance of Executive Order No. 708, s. 1981, the Cabinet Secretariat was transferred to the Office of the Prime Minister. The EO reorganized the Office of the President and created the Office of the Prime Minister, effectively enabling Article IX of the 1973 Constitution as amended that year. Despite the physical transfer of the Cabinet Secretariat, its duties and mandate remained the same.
After the EDSA People Power Revolution in 1986, President Corazon C. Aquino, by virtue of her revolutionary powers, which gave her executive issuances the force of law, reverted the form of government back to the presidential system. Among the provisions of Proclamation No. 3, dated March 25, 1986 (the Freedom Constitution) was the dissolving of the Office of the Prime Minister. Most of its functions were returned to the Office of the President. The Cabinet Secretariat, however, continued to function as such, even without an official issuance pertaining to its mandate.
It was not until December 22, 1986, that the Cabinet Secretariat was formally recreated. Administrative Order no. 25, s. 1987 was the first issuance specifically stipulating the mandate of the Cabinet Secretariat. Here the Cabinet Secretary was in charge of coordinating with the members of the Presidential Committee on Public Ethics and Accountability. President Corazon C. Aquino subsequently issued Memorandum Order no. 96, s. 1987, which aimed to streamline the functions of her cabinet and designated the Secretary to the Cabinet to preside over the meetings of the Cabinet Assistance System (CAS). The CAS was devised by then Deputy Executive Secretary Fulgencio Factoran Jr. to iron out interdepartmental problems.
The Office of the Cabinet Secretary was officially created anew by Executive Order No. 237, s. 1987. In the EO, the head of the Cabinet Secretariat was given the title Cabinet Secretary and cabinet rank. The office was streamlined and its staffing pattern and mandate spelled out. Its main mandate was to provide technical support to the Cabinet, primary advisory counsel to the President, as well as the following:
- Assist in providing timely and organized information to the Cabinet on issues and problems submitted for decision and action;
- Provide conference and administrative support services to the Cabinet, the Cabinet Clusters, the Cabinet Assistance System and other committees created by the Cabinet;
- Conduct technical research and special studies on specific policy issues;
- Maintain an efficient records-management system, including a Cabinet Archives and a library;
- Certify Cabinet resolutions that indicate agreements and actions reached during Cabinet meetings;
- Exercise such other functions and powers as may be provided by law or as directed by the President
The Aquino Management of the Presidency, an end-of-term report published by the Presidential Management Staff in 1992, goes into detail describing the functions and operations of the Cabinet Secretariat. It is useful to review this description at length to understand the functions of the office as it was created, because it provides an insight into the role expected of the office 20 years later, as mandated by E.O. 99 s. 2012. The report states,
“ … headed by a Cabinet Secretary, was the support body concerned with all Cabinet needs—from agenda setting to materials preparation and/or collation, records keeping, information dissemination of Cabinet decisions and actions to concerned departments/agencies/entities, interdepartmental coordination on the implementation of executive actions and decisions, and all other functions and powers as directed by the President. The Cabinet Secretariat also served about 16 permanent committees in addition to a number of ad hoc committees and interagency working groups. In order to adequately respond to the demands of these functions, three major units were created: the Technical Affairs Staff, the Conference Affairs Staff, and the Administrative Support Staff. In view of all its duties and responsibilities, the Cabinet Secretariat, therefore, was the support body most closely involved in the Cabinet Consultation Process.
“The Cabinet Consultation Process as well as the various systems instituted in support of it by the then Cabinet Secretariat could well be said to be the main factor why there was stability in executive department operations despite the numerous Cabinet changes in the Aquino administration. The dynamic impetus for governmental reforms was sustained because systems and procedures had been well laid out.
“The Cabinet Secretariat under the Aquino administration developed beyond the supra-clerical body it used to be into a strategic office central to the policy-making functions of the OP. To begin with, the Cabinet Secretary was given the rank and emolument of a member of the Cabinet.
“Most of the management systems employed by the executive office had their origins in the Cabinet Secretariat. This evolution of the Cabinet Secretariat is understandable when viewed in the context of the Aquino style of leadership. She was consultative, a consensus-builder, and very determined to pursue the reforms her policies had set. Such qualities needed an efficient staff support and system directly linked to her closest advisory body, the Cabinet.
“The Cabinet Secretariat developed a system for planning and preparing the agenda of the Cabinet Clusters, the CORD, the CAS, and the CAS Committees. This was the agenda forecast which was essentially a schedule of issues and concerns that needed to be taken up at the Cabinet Consultation Process within a specified period of time.
“The agenda forecast included day-to-day issues such as those referred by various departments, urgent and pressing issues, and instructions from the President. It also included issues, problems, and events identified by the Cabinet Secretariat in anticipation of forthcoming events. For instance, in preparation for the opening of schools in June, an action plan to address concerns that were most likely to occur during this period should be in the February calendar of the Cabinet Process. Around this time, too, the Cabinet should have been discussing the preparations for the Labor Day celebration.
“Included likewise were updates on the status of major programs and projects. This included the monitoring of the status of landmark programs, such as the CARP, the Program to Refocus Orientation for the Poor (PRO-POOR), the Local Government Code, Agency Performance Review, and Improvement in the Delivery of Frontline Services.
“To ensure that the agenda of the Cabinet and its support mechanisms were relevant and timely, the Cabinet Secretariat adopted an issue monitoring system which involved the tracking of issues raised by media and the various sectors; instructions and pronouncements of the President; and current critical events. These were also fed into the agenda forecast.
“To make sure that agreements reached at the various fora of the Cabinet consultation process were implemented, these were entered into the agreements monitoring databank devised by the Cabinet Secretariat. These included status of each agreement, particulary the ones which required regular monitoring and updating.
“A Cabinet fax network was set up in 1989 to expedite the transmission and exchange of documents between and among the various departments.
“Moreover, communication facilities, such as the use of a two-way radio was initiated so that Cabinet members could exchange faster and quicker.
“Relatedly, the Cabinet Communication Network (CNN) was established to promote cooperation and interdepartmental liaisoning among the staff of Cabinet members who were directly involved in Cabinet matters.”
However, in the latter part of President Corazon C. Aquino’s term, the functions of the Cabinet Secretariat were absorbed by the Presidential Management Staff by virtue of Executive Order No. 441, s. 1991. This also created a policy and public affairs group headed by a Deputy Executive Secretary. It was composed of the Presidential Management Staff, the Presidential Complaints and Action Office, and the Sectoral Liaison Offices. The Presidential Management Staff was in charge of providing common staff support to the President, the Executive Secretary and the Presidential Assistants/Advisers System in such areas as management of the development process, administrative reforms sectoral liaison, public assistance, strategic research, and public formulation.
However, even if absorbed by the Presidential Management Staff, the position of Cabinet Secretary remained. The Cabinet Secretariat was administratively under the Presidential Management Staff, but its functions were in support of the Office of the Cabinet Secretary, to whom they reported directly.
Secretaries to the Cabinet were appointed by the successors of President C. Aquino, although the functions of the Cabinet Secretariat were still being undertaken by the Presidential Management Staff. In some cases, the Secretary of the Cabinet was also concurrent head of the Presidential Management Staff.
During the term of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the Secretary to the Cabinet was included in different clusters of the Cabinet: examples are Administrative Order no. 104, s. 2004 and Executive Order no. 771, s. 2008.
On October 31, 2012, President Benigno S. Aquino III, by virtue of Executive Order no. 99, renamed the Office of the Cabinet Secretariat to Office of the Cabinet Secretary. He reinstated the Office of the Cabinet Secretary as independent of the Presidential Management Staff, along lines that closely adhere to its original mandate in 1987. The Cabinet Secretary has also been given cabinet rank and staffing support. | <urn:uuid:ec80fffb-5f86-4840-b056-f746b75310ec> | {
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10 Discussion Questions for Young Readers
Chains (Seeds of America)
By Laurie Halse Anderson
Source: One-Minute Book Reviews
On the eve of the American Revolution, thousands of slaves lived in New York City. In Chains, Laurie Halse Anderson tells the story a fictional 13-year-old girl owned by a cruel Loyalist couple with a regal townhouse on Wall Street in 1776. Young Isabel Finch learns of a plot to kill George Washington as she serves wine and cheese on a silver platter to the Locktons’ Tory friends, and she later sneaks away to warn Continental Army soldiers of the danger to their commander. She hopes her spying will persuade the Patriots to free her and her 5-year-old sister, Ruth, also owned by the Locktons. The soldiers have more urgent concerns after the British invade New York, and without reliable allies on either side, Isabel forms a dangerous plan to win her freedom on her own.
Discussion Questions for Young Readers
1. Isabel and Ruth Finch are slaves. How are their lives similar to those of other slaves you’ve read about? How are they different from them?
2. Did you know that slavery existed in places like New York City before you read Chains? Did Laurie Halse Anderson convince you that some New Yorkers really did have slaves? How did she do it?
3. Isabel and Ruth are sold to a married couple after their former owner refuses to honor a promise to free them. Elihu and Anne Lockton are “Loyalists.” [Page 38] Who or what are they loyal to? Who or what is Isabel loyal to? What role do clashing or divided loyalties play in the novel?
4. After moving in with the Locktons, Isabel tries to run away. A judge orders that she be branded with the letter I for Insolence. [Page 145] Branding is both physically and emotionally painful. Why might slaves like Isabel have felt humiliated by it?
5. Elihu Lockton hits his wife, Anne, during an argument. [Page 108] Why do you think the author put this scene in the book?
6. Isabel answers to several names. When the Locktons buy her, she is Isabel Finch. Anne Lockton changes her name to “Sal Lockton” (and calls her “Girl”). [Page 128] Isabel’s friend Curzon calls her “Country” (and has two names of his own). Why do the different names matter? Do you think Anne Lockton just liked the sound of “Sal Lockton” better than “Isabel Finch”? If not, why might she have wanted to change the name?
7. The title of this novel refers to more than one kind of chains. What are some of different types of “chains” it involves? What does Isabel mean when she says, “I was chained between two nations”? [Page 182]
8. The mayor of New York tells Isabel’s owner: “The beast has grown too large. If it breaks free of its chains, we are all in danger. We need to cut off its head.” Who or what was the “beast”? [Page 89]
9. There’s a lot of action in this book, some of it going on in the foreground (what happens to Isabel) and some in the background (what happens in places like Trenton and Princeton). Why do you think the author told you what was taking place in, for example, Philadelphia when this book is mainly about Isabel’s life in New York?
10. Isabel notices that the Patriots are fighting for freedom, but their idea of freedom doesn’t seem to include people like her. A male slave defends the Patriots by saying: “Some Patriots own slaves, yes, but you must listen to their words: ‘all men, created equal.’ The words come first. They’ll pull the deeds and the justice behind them.” [Page 164] What did he mean?
11. “‘Freedom and liberty’ has different meanings,” Isabel’s master, Elihu Lockton says. What are some of the different meanings it has for people in this book?
12. Chains includes colorful facts about everyday life in 1776. What are some of the most interesting?
Chains (Seeds of America Series). By Laurie Halse Anderson, 316 pp., Simon & Schuster. $16.99. Ages 10 and up. Published: Oct. 2008
Chains was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature www.nationalbook.org/nba2008.html.
A review of Chains appeared on One-Minute Book Reviews on Dec. 5, 2008, in the post that directly followed this one http://www.oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2008/12/05/.
Laurie Halse Anderson also wrote Thank You, Sarah: The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving and other books www.writerlady.com.
If you like historical novels about independent girls, you might also like: Laura Amy Schlitz’s A Drowned Maiden’s Hair www.oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2007/03/10/.
For more on the Revolutionary War era: Jean Fritz has written an excellent series of illustrated books about the American Revolution for 9-to-12-year-olds that includes Can’t You Make Them Behave, King George (Putnam,1996) and Will You Sign Here, John Hancock? (Putnam, 1997). Books by Fritz www.cbcbooks.org/cbcmagazine/meet/jeanfritz.html are available in many libraries and in stock at online bookstores and many others.
This reading group was not authorized or approved by the author, publisher or agent for the book. It is copyrighted by Janice Harayda, and its sale or reproduction in any form is illegal except by public libraries, which may reproduce it for use in their in-house reading groups. Other groups that wish to use this guide should link to this site or use “Contact” page on One-Minute Book Reviews to learn how to request permission to reproduce the guide.
If you found this guide helpful, please consider adding One-Minute Book Reviews www.oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com to your blogroll so you won’t miss others. Reader’s guides appear on the site frequently but not on a regular schedule. One-Minute Book Reviews accepts no advertising and has been approved by and appears on Open Directory lists. It is one of the top 10 book review site in the world on the Google Directory of “Top Arts/ Literature” blogs: www.google.com/Top/Arts/Literature/Reviews_and_Criticism/.
Janice Harayda www.janiceharayda.com is a novelist and award-winning journalist who has been the book columnist for Glamour, the book editor of the Plain Dealer in Cleveland, and the vice-president for awards of the National Book Critics Circle www.bookcritics.org.
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There's something about the whiteboard, new dry erase markers, and a challenge that makes students excited about math. Does having the space of a whole white board make them feel like a teacher? Is it something tactile about the smooth sensation one gets while using the marker? Or is it visually appealing to do math in pink or purple with big numbers? Either way, the students at HRC love to be given math problems that they can solve on the whiteboard.
A few days ago, one of the students asked about a type of multiplication that we learned a while back called lattice multiplication. He wanted to remember how to do it, so I had the students in this group see if they could recall the method while working in teams. Lattice multiplication was a part of a series of "cultural multiplication" we studied, and has roots in Arab, Chinese, and Indian schools, dating as far back as the late 13th century.
All of the students eventually were able to figure out lattice multiplication-- some even challenged themselves to solve a 10-digit multiplication problem!
Below is a video by Khan Academy that explains the process:
Lattice Multiplication: Introduction to lattice multiplication | <urn:uuid:35aa2c11-43b0-47c2-a82d-1d35936fb723> | {
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4:6 four beasts. These four “beasts” (Greek zoon, meaning simply “living creatures”) are apparently identical with the cherubim of Ezekiel’s vision (Ezekiel 1:5-25; 10:1-22), and probably also with the seraphim of Isaiah’s vision (Isaiah 6:1-7). They are the highest in God’s hierarchy of angelic beings, always being associated with God’s immediate presence. Satan himself, before his fall, was “the anointed cherub that covereth” (Ezekiel 28:14,16), perhaps suggesting that he was assigned a position covering God’s throne, whereas the others were “round about the throne.” The cherubim are first mentioned as guarding the entrance to Eden (Genesis 3:24), then figures of the cherubim were constructed as overshadowing the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25:17-22). The number of seraphim is not given, but there are sufficient similarities to indicate that they are at least of the same order as the cherubim, if not identical with them (compare Revelation 4:8 and Isaiah 6:2-3). | <urn:uuid:26e8e339-b536-4440-8c32-0dfdc089fcd9> | {
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International Day of Persons with Disabilities
© Flickr-Bellamy Budiman
Under the 2013 theme, “Break barriers, open doors: for an inclusive society for all”, the commemoration of this year’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities provides an opportunity to further raise awareness of disability and accessibility as a cross cutting development issue and further the global efforts to promote accessibility, remove all types of barriers, and to realize the equal participation of persons with disabilities in society and shape the future of development for all!
Over one billion people, or approximately 15 per cent of the world’s population, live with some form of disability! Around the world, women and men with disabilities face physical, social, economic and attitudinal barriers that exclude them from participating fully and effectively as equal members of society. They are disproportionately represented among the world’s poorest, and lack equal access to basic resources, such as education, employment, healthcare and social and legal support systems, as well as have a higher rate of mortality. In spite of this situation, disability has remained largely invisible in the mainstream development agenda and its processes.
The international disability movement achieved an extraordinary advance in 2006, with the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Convention follows decades of work by the United Nations to change attitudes and approaches to disability that would ensure the full equality and participation of persons with disabilities in society. The Convention is intended as a human rights instrument with an explicit, development dimension. However, to realize equality and participation for persons with disabilities, they must be included in all development processes and, now more importantly, in the new emerging post-2015 development framework.
The UN General Assembly has repeatedly emphasized that the genuine achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and other internationally agreed development goals, requires the inclusion and integration of the rights, and well-being, as well as the perspective of persons with disabilities in development efforts at national, regional and international levels.
In 2011, the General Assembly convened the High Level Meeting on development and disability (HLMDD) at the level of Heads of State and Government, on 23 September 2013, under the theme: “The way forward: a disability inclusive development agenda towards 2015 and beyond”. The HLMDD Outcome that was adopted is an action-oriented document that provides policy guidance that helps to translate the international commitment for a disability-inclusive society into concrete actions and to strengthen global efforts to ensure accessibility for and inclusion of persons with disabilities in all aspects of society and development.
|Type of Event||Special Event|
|Start||03.12.2013 09:00 local time|
|End||03.12.2013 18:00 local time|
|Date to be fixed||0|
|Focal point||Majlöf, Anna Maria|
|Permanent Delegation Contact|
|Language of Event||English, French|
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Mathematical Models of Vertical Transmission of Infection
Many diseases that are important from the standpoint of public health, animal husbandry, and agriculture are passed from one individual to another by two distinct mechanisms that may be called horizontal transmission and vertical transmission. In horizontal transmission, susceptible individuals become infected by direct or indirect contact with other individuals who are infectious and who are living at the same time. Vertical transmission refers to direct transmission from infected parents to offspring before or during birth.
KeywordsEncephalitis Trop Rubella Keystone
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- Mims, C.A. (1981). Vertical transmission of viruses, Microbiological Reviews 45: 267–86.Google Scholar | <urn:uuid:1363e104-be5a-4603-bd49-eb74f8478455> | {
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The Russian human rights group Memorial has called for a ban on publicly glorifying Soviet leader Josef Stalin, a news report said Tuesday, just days Russia before commemorates the 70th anniversary of the allied victory over Nazi Germany.
“Stalin's crimes are unparalleled in the country's history. Their scale was such that the appearance of his image in the public space in any positive context is unacceptable and should be banned by law," the group was cited as saying by news agency Interfax.
Memorial added that every year in the Russian regions attempts are made to establish monuments or hang posters of Stalin ahead of Victory Day. Portraits of the Soviet leader are also a common sight at Victory Day rallies on May 9 in Moscow.
While the human rights group acknowledged the role that Stalin played in Russia's 20th-century history, it added that this did not justify his public glorification.
"We are in no way talking about deleting Stalin from history … But the place of a dictator belongs in museum halls, books, and in historical monographs in the context of their actions — not in city squares,” the statement said.
Stalin, who ruled from 1929 his death in 1953, took the position of supreme commander of the Soviet army in 1941. The Nazi army was defeated four years later, but the Soviet Union lost millions of soldiers and civilians in the process.
Stalin also had millions of his own people murdered in political purges throughout his time in power. His regime additionally oversaw a famine in Ukraine that lead to the deaths of millions of people, according to historical accounts. | <urn:uuid:1cf9a808-f2be-473c-8298-6b2241620e6e> | {
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In the past, the idea of human workers being replaced by technology may have brought to mind images of robotic appendages polishing sheets of metal or moving car parts into position. However, drastic advancements in computer science and machine learning have allowed technology to take on roles in industries that span far beyond manufacture and construction. With the aid of deep learning engines, computer algorithms have become capable of navigating busy roads, translating complex thoughts, and diagnosing disease, among many other tasks once presumed exclusive to humans. Amidst these rapid developments, it’s understandable that many people worry their own jobs may be taken over by technology. Fortunately, it is possible to estimate the risk of your own job being automated by analyzing a few key factors. If your job does not involve the following three elements, it may be relatively easy for technology to fill your role.
One critical factor in determining whether a job can be automated is the degree to which it involves repetitive tasks. In 2013, Oxford University published a report that predicted the likelihood of various jobs being computerized in the coming years. The most striking difference between the jobs at the top and bottom of the list is the degree of repetition involved. A small selection of the jobs assessed as having a 99% likelihood of forthcoming automation are hand sewing, data entry keying, telemarketing, and processing machine operation. Whether it’s drawing thread through fabric or reciting a sales pitch into a telephone, employees in these jobs spend the majority of their time completing a single task over and over. With no element of unpredictability or need to make complex decisions, automating these jobs is a relatively straightforward process.
2. Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is the process of evaluating a set of facts in order to reach a conclusion that is rational, unbiased, and constructive. Jobs which involve a high degree of variability often demand effective critical thinking skills. For example, consider some of the jobs which Oxford ranks towards the bottom of their list in terms of automatability: social workers, psychologists, and engineers. In these jobs, workers must assess complicated situations in order to determine the best course of action, adjusting their plans as they proceed. There is no prescribed way to counsel a person struggling with mental illness or to design a new piece of equipment that meets the needs of a client; following the same set of steps in every scenario would lead to disaster. Instead, employees must apply critical thinking skills to conceive and execute solutions that are tailored to the specifics of the situation. This element of complexity makes any role with a major critical thinking component complicated to automate.
When people discuss the tasks that computers couldn’t possibly take over, those mentioned first often involve personal interaction, where human qualities such as warmth and comfort are central to the role. In many of these cases, the concrete tasks involved in the role are of secondary importance to the sense of personal connection the employee imparts. For example, the Oxford study referenced above concluded that concierges have only a 21% chance of being replaced by technological equivalents in the future. While tasks such as making dinner reservations or providing information about local attractions seem like they could be automated with relative ease, the true value is in the sense of hospitality that comes from having a courteous human worker available to conduct these tasks.
Another reason why human interaction makes a role difficult to automate is connected to the elements of variability and critical thinking discussed above. Humans are inherently unpredictable, and the kind of problems they may present often require critical thinking to resolve. Another human is often better-equipped to handle these challenging factors than a computer would be.
However, it is worth noting that elements of human interaction do not guarantee that a job will not be automated. For example, workers who take orders at fast food establishments can be replaced by computer kiosks, and retail cashiers can be replaced by self-checkout machines. Both of these substitutions are occurring with increasing frequency in businesses across the country, indicating that human connection is not considered an indispensable aspect of the roles and the unpredictability of human behavior does not pose a significant problem in these contexts.
Of course, assessing the likelihood of human workers in your industry being replaced by technology is only the first step. Stay tuned for future installments in our automation series in which we’ll discuss how to avoid losing a job to automation and highlight jobs that are well-suited to being augmented, then analyze the ways that collaboration between humans and technology will continue to reshape jobs across industries in the future. | <urn:uuid:47bdfd24-cf6f-4303-94a1-dacc21ca0e93> | {
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I have a riddle for you. What can go from minor to major in a blink of an eye? The answer is… eye injuries. It is why you should take a good look at a dog’s eyes during the check-in process. Check for excessive blinking, squinting, discharge, blood, cloudiness, bulging eyes, rubbing, or redness, all of which could indicate a pre-existing condition that may be aggravated during grooming. Bring any concerns to the owner’s attention beforehand.
Let’s begin with a quick anatomy lesson. The eye is composed of three layers: the sclera, uvea, and retina.
The sclera is the outer layer. It protects and maintains the shape of the eye. The sclera is often referred to as “the whites of the eye.”
The cornea or uvea is the pigmented area of the eye. It has three components: the iris, ciliary body, and chorid. The cornea contains the blood vessels, which feed the eye and are responsible for light absorption.
The retina contains the rods and cones, and it triggers nerve impulses to the brain. The rods “see” in black and white and in lowlight. The cones “see” in color and need bright light. It is hypothesized that dogs and cats see mainly in black and white, because their retina is mainly made up of rods. The nerve impulses sent to the brain are what create the image. In addition, both dogs and cats have a tapetum. It is a membrane that reflects light at night. It’s why we can see them when a light is flashed at them at night.
In addition, the eyes have eyelids, eyelashes, and the third eyelid. The eyelids contain the lacrimal gland, which produces tears. These tears keep the cornea moist. There is a drainage system that leads the tears to the nasal cavity. Eyelashes are found on the upper lids only. The third eye is also known as the haw or nictating membrane. The third eyelid is located under the lower eyelid near the nose. Its function is to keep debris out of the eye.
What are the issues affecting the eyes in a grooming environment?
Product in the Eye
This can lead to ulceration, burns, and abrasions. The irritation may cause the pet to scratch at their eyes, leading to infections, both fungal and bacterial. Pets with bulging eyes, such as Pug, Shih Tzu, and Pekingese, have more eye surface available for environmental debris. The best defense is to exercise caution with any products around faces. There are eye ointments available, but it produces a greasy discharge and you must be careful to avoid touching the eye with the applicator tip. If you get product in the eye, rinse with eyewash for ten minutes and notify the owner.
The tip of ointment tubes, clipper blades and clip-ons, scissors, combs, brushes, and pets scratching at their eyes can cause it. If an object is embedded, do not remove. Cataracts can result from head trauma from a fall or a thrashing pet hitting their head against a grooming arm.
Otherwise known as a popped out eyeball. Dogs with shallow eye sockets and large eye openings, such as Pugs and Shih Tzus, are prone. In addition, it is not difficult for this to occur in these breeds. In such cases, I use no restraint, have the owners sign a waiver, and will stop the groom if they struggle. Should the eye pop out, cover it with a cool damp cloth and call the veterinarian to inform them you are on the way. There is a very short window to save this eye.
What pre-existing eye conditions impact grooming?
The eyelashes fold in rather than out, causing the lashes to rub against the cornea. In itself, entropion can cause scar tissue, infections, and blindness. This pet eyes are more sensitive if there is product contact.
The third eyelid slips out of place and swells. The risk is a contact injury by grooming equipment used around the face. Breeds pre-disposed are Beagles, Bloodhounds, Boston Terriers, Bulldogs, Bull Terriers, Lhasa Apsos, Saint Bernards, and Shar Peis.
Increased pressure within the eye caused it to swell. It will appear swollen and bloodshot. This is painful, and this pet may pose a bite risk.
This pet does not have normal eye lubrication. Any product in the eye will cause more damage. There is usually a gooey, yellowish discharge associated with this. Some of the causes include head injury, antibiotics, and immunological disorders.
Many times we are uncertain as to the degree of injury underneath. I have seen everything from minor irritation to open wounds.
Conjunctivitis or Pink Eye
It is an inflammation or infection in the outer part of the eye. The eye will appear puffy and red along with discharge. Allergies, systemic diseases, or foreign bodies cause pink eye. Certain strains are zoonotic. It can pass between other pets as well as yourself.
As groomers, we are limited in our ability to treat eye injuries, as we can often cause more damage. To minimize our liability, ensure that the owners are present during the intake. Take note of any eye concerns that need to be addressed by a veterinarian before grooming, and note any necessary precautions for chronic conditions. As minutes matter, our time is better spent in contact with a veterinarian for specific instructions and to give them time to prepare for our arrival. Since the potential exists for the loss of both vision and eye, leaving for the veterinarian in a timely manner can make that difference. | <urn:uuid:ae06feb0-d725-407d-80d0-680e9b725e8e> | {
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Trachemys scripta elegans
English name: Red-eared Slider (aka “Pond Slider”, “Red-eared Terrapin”)
Scientific name: Trachemys scripta elegans
Description: Shell is up to 37 cm long. An average-to-large turtle with a relatively flat shell. Head is black with yellow lines and a distinct red mark behind the eye that fades with old age. Shell is dark green to brown or black with yellow lines that fade with age. Underside of shell is yellow with a black marks.
Similar Species: Malayan Snail-eating Turtle has a shell with three distinct keels and lacks a red mark behind the eye.
Southeast Asian Box Turtle has a higher shell and lacks the red mark behind the eye.
Black Marsh Turtle has no yellow or red markings on head and has upturned edges on the mouth.
On occasion other North American turtles can show up in Bangkok, such as this Mississippi Map Turtle, but that is uncommon. None of them have the characteristic red mark of the Red-eared Slider.
Habitat: In Bangkok this turtle can be found in any calm body of water, especially those frequented by people. They are often seen basking on logs and rocks in the water or on the banks of canals during the day.
Place in the ecosystem: Will eat both plant and animal material, including insects, worms, small fish, tadpoles, carrion, snails, crabs, and water plants. Their young and eggs are eaten by water monitors and some wading birds.
Danger to humans: This turtle can bite, but is not significantly dangerous to humans. Like many reptiles it can carry salmonella bacteria in its feces, and young children should not handle the turtles.
Conservation status and threats: The Red-eared Slider is not native to Asia, despite being common in many cities. The Global Invasive Species Database lists it as one of the World’s 100 Worst Invasive Species. It is common and widespread in North America and does not face any conservation threats. It is also now has been introduced to Europe, the Middle East, Brazil, South Africa, Australia, East Asia, and most of Southeast Asia. The import of Red-eared Sliders is banned in the European Union and several Asian countries and is restricted in much of the United States.
Interesting facts: Red-eared Sliders have come to Asia via the pet trade, where they are popular due to their colorful appearance and small size as hatchlings. Between 3 million and 8 million Red-eared Sliders are distributed through the pet trade every year. However, they get significantly larger and duller as they grow and are often released by owners who no longer wish to take care of them. They are also released at times as a “merit release”. It is possible that some sliders are released through food markets as well.
Despite its status as a non-native species, the Red-eared Slider is the most common species in many Bangkok ponds. Red-eared Sliders are able to breed in in the wild in Thailand and ecologists worry that they will soon spread out from the cities to many more wild habitats. In the western United States the Red-eared Slider is seen to be a threat to native Western Pond Turtle populations, in Europe they are seen to negative impact European Pond Turtles, and in China populations of native Reeve’s Turtles have dropped in places where Red-eared Sliders were introduced. It is classified as a Class 1 Pest Species in Australia. There are serious concerns that Red-eared Sliders could have a negative competitive impact on Bangkok’s already-vulnerable native turtle species. Also, turtle farms often operate under disease-filled conditions, and thus released pet turtles could spread diseases both to the native turtle population and to humans.
Global Invasive Species Database: Trachemys scripta elegans
Ecology Asia: Red-eared Terrapin
California Herps: Red-eared Slider
IUCN Red List: Trachemys scripta
USGS: Trachemys scripta elegans
Wikipedia: Red-eared Slider
A Photographic Guide to Snakes and Other Reptiles of Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand
Biological Invaders in Inland Waters: Profiles, Distribution, and Threats | <urn:uuid:ce3d8f7b-e642-408a-9e5e-e901ee0b40a6> | {
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Students design and build toys, pitch to Melissa and Doug representatives
Engineering students at the University of Delaware recently pitched their own inventions to representatives from a major toy company.
A trio of professionals from Melissa and Doug, a toymaker with revenue of more than $350 million per year, visited UD in May to evaluate toy prototypes made by mechanical engineering students with help from early childhood education students. Companies like Melissa and Doug employ mechanical engineers because they have foundations in product design, mechanics, dynamics and other skills that are useful when making tiny consumer products.
The students made toys that were functional, fun and educational, like the Carpet Circuit, which was designed to teach the basics of circuitry.
“The challenge was: How do we take a concept that is usually taught to 8-to-12-year-olds and teach it to 4-year-olds?” said team member Chase Neuberth, a sophomore mechanical engineering student.
The team created a mat that can be laid on a classroom floor or hung from a chalkboard. The mat is covered with detachable pieces — held on with Velcro — that illustrate the basics of electronics. For example, you can connect a battery-shaped piece to a lightbulb-shaped piece using a rope that represents a wire.
Another toy, the Farmyard Friends Puzzle, a 12-piece 3D pig-shaped puzzle, was designed to increase literacy by helping children recognize letters while also developing fine motor skills. Each piece of the wooden puzzle features uppercase and lowercase letters. The team is also interested in making a prototype out of 3D printed polymer.
The representatives from Melissa and Doug asked the Farmyard Friends Puzzle team a lot of questions — and asked for more information after the showcase.
“Before today, I didn’t know our toy was at a level that Melissa and Doug would express interest,” said team member Allison Procak, a sophomore mechanical engineering student. “This is more than a class project — it can be used in the real world.”
Learning the basics
Before they could build their prototypes, students in UD’s Computer-Aided Engineering Design course learned the foundations of modeling, drafting and more.
For example, Jenni Buckley, associate professor of mechanical engineering, asked students to brainstorm attributes, such as safety and durability, that engineers at Melissa and Doug might consider when imagining new toys.
“Kids are rough with stuff,” Buckley said. “Stuff needs to hold up.”
Under federal law, all toys sold in the United States must meet American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) F9963 safety standards. Among other requirements, toys must be sized so that kids can’t choke on them. Corners and edges must be rounded so that no one sustains a cut.
Buckley demonstrated tests that can help engineers meet these standards. For example, during a “choke test,” engineers place each toy part inside a cylinder that simulates a child’s esophagus to ensure that parts can’t become lodged entirely inside the child’s throat.
Once all the safety concerns are figured out, there is another important matter to attend to — fun.
“We could make things that are awesome, safe and durable for that age range, but that doesn’t mean they will use them,” Buckley said. “What attributes might we want to include so that kids actually use it?”
Buckley encouraged engineering students to think about the number of parts, size of parts, and the appearance of their toys. It’s important to consider the shape and thickness of the parts and size of the features.
Then there are production considerations.
“What manufacturing process am I going to use? What process am I using? Can I make these things in bulk?” Buckley said.
To solve these problems, students rely on engineering theory, some basic physics, computer-aided design, quick experiments and benchmarking. Then they select materials and think about how the toy would be mass produced. Will it require computer-automated cutting, which is more expensive than the traditional press?
Students, split into teams of four to five, used computer-aided modeling software to sketch out their toys. Then they built and tested their prototypes in the Design Studio, a nearly 6,000-square-foot space in UD’s Spencer Laboratory.
To make sure their designs were developmentally appropriate with an educational twist, engineering student teams were paired with consultants — students taking Early Childhood Inclusive Science Curriculum and Assessment, a course in the College of Education and Human Development. Toys were also tested by real kids in UD’s Lab Preschool and College School.
At the May showcase, Jennifer Gallo-Fox, assistant professor of human development and family sciences, praised the designs for their educational content.
“We are really impressed by the way you took feedback and thought about the developmental aspects of things that children can learn from working with toys and also the educational components in terms of content areas,” she said.
Jill Fenniman, a junior studying early childhood education, was recognized for providing outstanding help and insight throughout the semester.
Impressing the experts
The representatives from Melissa and Doug got a glimpse of the ingenuity of UD students.
Rich Rivellese, national accounts sales analyst at Melissa and Doug, works with retailers, tracking sales and inventory to assess how toys should be stocked. He said the students’ efforts to do consumer research and understand their customers stood out.
“They spoke to moms, they spoke to kids, they tested in preschools, so they were really thinking about the end user,” he said.
Carrie Aitkenhead, education outreach coordinator at Melissa and Doug, connects with teachers and schools to encourage play in the classroom. She praised the interdisciplinary nature of this project, which paired UD engineering students with education students so that they could all learn from each other and optimize their end product.
“It really comes back to what we do, where there’s not just one set of people making something,” she said. “It’s really a different set of people consulting each other and collaborating, and I think those collaborations were really evident in how great the products were.”
Drew Humphrey, talent acquisition manager at Melissa and Doug, is involved in hiring new employees. He said he was impressed with the level of detail of the students’ creations.
“These guys have a really bright future in front of them,” he said. “The ability to present and do what they did today is something that will serve them throughout their careers and wherever they go.”
A bounty of prototypes
First-year mechanical engineering students at UD created wooden pull toys that were also displayed on May 15. Aitkenhead praised the simple but beautiful design of one blue toy that evoked images of water exploration.
“Whatever a child does when they pick up this toy, they pick up this toy and they bring their experience,” she said. “They might say, ‘this is a mom, this is a baby.’ They might say: ‘this is an uncle and me when we go fishing.’ They bring their experience to the toy.”
Students from the Discover Engineering class at Padua Academy, a private high school in Wilmington, also created prototypes for the showcase.
“I like that they were able to present their hard work and see what they would do as engineers,” said teacher Cheri Szurkowski.
The students at Padua spent part of their spring vacation building their toys in UD’s Design Studio, which is equipped with 3D printers, woodworking equipment, metalworking equipment and more.
“That experience is just invaluable,” she said. “Most high schools don’t have that type of equipment.” | <urn:uuid:dab96c84-7382-4717-ac06-e31130713004> | {
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In an autologous transplant, a patient’s own blood-forming stem cells are collected. He or she is then treated with high doses of chemotherapy, or a combination of chemotherapy and radiation. The high-dose treatment kills cancer cells, but also eliminates the blood-producing cells that are left in the bone marrow. Afterward, the collected stem cells are transplanted back into the patient, allowing the bone marrow to produce new blood cells.
Stem Cell Harvesting
In autologous transplantation, physicians usually collect, or “harvest,” stem cells that circulate in the bloodstream, called peripheral blood stem cells (PBSCs).Peripheral blood stem cell harvesting is similar to giving blood and easier than taking cells from a person’s bone marrow, which is sometimes done for allogeneic transplants. It can take place outside of an operating room and does not require general anesthesia.
A few days before the blood collection, you will receive a medication called G-CSF (filgrastim), which forces the stem cells to leave the bone marrow and move into the circulating blood. This may cause flu-like symptoms in the days preceding and following stem cell harvest. You may also experience aches and pain from the medication.
At Memorial Sloan Kettering, stem cells are collected in the blood donor room using an apheresis or leukopheresis machine. Over the course of one to five days, blood is withdrawn from a vein and circulated through the machine, which collects the stem cells; the other components of the blood are then returned to the patient.
Most patients experience no side effects from harvesting and can go back to their regular activities. The stem cells are cryopreserved (frozen) until they are given back to the patient.
Preparing for the Transplant
Once your stem cells have been harvested, you will go through a process called a preparative regimen (also sometimes called conditioning or cytotoxic treatment). In this step, physicians use chemotherapy with or without radiation therapy to kill cancerous cells. Our physicians customize the particular therapies based on your disease and which treatment it is most likely to respond to.
For patients who receive radiation treatment in addition to chemotherapy, Memorial Sloan Kettering researchers have developed a less intensive radiation treatment called hyperfractionated radiation. This approach involves giving small doses of radiation to the whole body, or to the parts of the body containing lymph nodes, two to three times a day over several days. This reduces many of the side effects of more-intensive radiation therapy
The preparative regimen may be given during several days, a week, or more. Patients usually receive the transplant a day or two after their last chemotherapy or radiation dose.
Transplantation and Recovery
Physicians usually transplant the harvested stem cells into the patient’s bloodstream in the same way that they would administer a blood transfusion. Over the following days and weeks, the transplanted stem cells migrate to the marrow space in the bones, where they gradually begin to produce new blood cells.
Between two and three weeks after the transplant, physicians usually begin to detect newly formed blood cells in the patient’s bloodstream. As time passes, a successful transplant graft will produce red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets.
During the days immediately after transplantation, patients need a great deal of medical support. You may receive transfusions of irradiated blood products, such as platelets and red blood cells, as well as antibiotics to prevent and treat bacterial, viral, and fungal infections, which are most likely to occur in the first three months after transplantation. Patients are also vulnerable to complications of the chemotherapy with or without radiation therapy, which may require additional treatments.
Most patients remain in the hospital for several weeks after the transplant. During this time, precautionary measures are taken to protect against infection. All people who enter the room are required to wear protective gloves and masks, and to wash their hands with antiseptic soap. Sometimes people entering the room need to cover their clothing with clean, disposable gowns. Fresh fruit, flowers, plants, or cut flowers are prohibited from the patient’s room, as these can carry disease-causing molds and bacteria.
Management of Complications
Our researchers are devoting significant efforts to improving the supportive care of patients undergoing autologous stem cell transplantation. Patients who have received high doses of chemotherapy or radiation therapy may develop acute or chronic complications — including infections, bleeding, and anemia — until blood cell production returns to normal. Liver and lung problems can also develop after a transplant.
One possible complication is mucositis, a condition in which the cells that line the mouth and intestinal tract are destroyed by the high-dose chemotherapy with or without radiation therapy. Symptoms include mouth pain and ulcers, abdominal pain, diarrhea, and infection.
Our researchers have also pioneered the use of the serum markers IL-6 and IL-12, which can be measured in patients who develop fever after stem cell transplantation to determine whether the fever is caused by the transplant process or is due to an infection. | <urn:uuid:931bf4f6-e719-4f77-a173-7d0b7347f742> | {
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Note to readers – Sauk Valley Media reprints editorials from the past as a regular Monday feature. The following editorial appeared in the Telegraph on Jan. 16, 1963.
The other day, a forum of nine panelists, assembled in Washington, managed to discuss the nation’s “transportation crisis” for two hours with hardly a mention of the private automobile.
Yet everyone agrees that the motor car has had immense impact on the country’s changing transportation patterns. And government studies suggest that effect will be even greater in the next 12 to 15 years.
At the last official check, there were 63 million private passenger vehicles on streets and highways. The figure including trucks and buses was nearly 76 million. At the end of World War II, the overall total was 31 million, with some 22 million private cars.
Passenger automobiles in 1960 traveled close to 600 million vehicle-miles. In 1945, the figure was 200 million.
Henry Shryock of the Census Bureau points out that two-thirds of all U.S. workers use a car in getting between home and work. In the metropolitan areas of 100,000 or more people, 82 percent of those who commute to central cities rely on cars.
The official population projections for the years up to 1975 indicate, of course, still further concentrations of our population in urban regions. By 1975, it is estimated, 150 million Americans may live in the 212 largest metropolitan areas. That is just 38 million less than the total U.S. population today.
Bureau of Public Roads officials suggest, furthermore, that passenger car registrations – and motor travel – may in the same span rise considerably faster than population itself.
The great push to the suburbs is, naturally, a key factor in all this growth. Only the motor car has proved quickly adaptable to the transportation needs of sprawled-out urban centers.
Not everybody thinks the suburban revolution will continue apace. One A.F. Parrott of the American Statistical Association suggested in 1960 that the movement is slackening. But Census officials argue that there is scant evidence of this so far.
Meantime, the crush in transportation seems merely to get worse, as does the cost of trying to ease it. Fancy million-dollar-a-mile urban beltways open one day, and two months later chalk up bumper-to-bumper rush-hour loads.
If there is a “transportation crisis,” it is fair to suggest that this is it. And even those gatherings of experts which do mention the motor car appear to have no ready solutions.
It is with great pride that we congratulate Sherwood Dees for his appointment to a top post under our newly-elected Ray Page, superintendent of Public Instruction of the state of Illinois. This community’s loss will be the state’s gain.
We will miss Sherwood Dees, but we are happy that he has been singled out for this great honor. The many friends that he has made in Dixon know him to be an exceptionally fine educator, a dedicated man with honor, a hard worker, a man of strong convictions, and with all this he is also a most kind and friendly person.
We think in writing these few words we are expressing the sentiments of most of the people of our community. | <urn:uuid:b262887c-c4c5-47f2-bf20-299689661e06> | {
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Honduras recently defined a new legal entity: la Región Especial de Desarrollo. A RED is an independent reform zone intended to offer jobs and safety to families who lack a good alternative; officials in the RED will be able to partner with foreign governments in critical areas such as policing, jurisprudence and transparency. By participating, Canada can lead an innovative approach to development assistance, an approach that tackles the primary roadblock to prosperity in the developing world: weak governance.
According to Gallup, the number of adults worldwide who would move permanently to Canada if given the chance is about 42 million. Although Canada can’t accommodate everyone who’d like to move here, it can help to bring stronger governance to many new places that could accept millions of new residents. The RED in Honduras is the place to start.
Honduran congressional support for the RED reflects a clear understanding of the challenges the country faces. Inefficient rules are the major obstacle to peace, growth and development. These rules are difficult to change, especially in a society that suffers from fear and mistrust. Building a new city on an undeveloped site, free of vested interests, with trusted third parties, is one way to fast-track reforms that might otherwise take decades to achieve.
Canadians are increasingly aware of the limits of traditional aid but remain committed to the principle that supporting international development is not only in Canada’s national interest but is the right thing to do. Recent trade agreements with Peru, Colombia, Panama and Honduras demonstrate that Latin America remains high on Canada’s development agenda.
The RED offers a new way to think about development assistance, one that, like trade, relies on mutually beneficial exchange rather than charity. It’s an effort to build on the success of existing special zones based around the export-processing maquila industry. These zones have expanded employment in areas such as garments and textiles, with substantial investment from Canadian firms such as Gildan, but they haven’t brought the improved legal protections needed to attract higher-skilled jobs. By setting up the rule of law, the RED can open up new opportunities for Canadian firms to expand manufacturing operations and invest in urban infrastructure.
By participating in RED governance, Canada can make the new city a more attractive place for would-be residents and investors. It can help immediately by appointing a representative to a commission that has the power to ensure that RED leadership remains transparent and accountable. It also can assist by training police officers.
Related- Iceland is looking to adopt Canada's Currency
National Post- Iceland appears to be increasingly open to adopting the Canadian dollar as its official currency
If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on ycombinator or StumbleUpon. Thanks | <urn:uuid:7cf9495b-5ea4-4f07-bc2c-9495694ac804> | {
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