text
stringlengths 198
630k
| id
stringlengths 47
47
| metadata
dict |
|---|---|---|
ADHD : What is "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder" ?
ADHD is a neuro-biological disorder that impacts nearly 9% of children and teens today. ADHD is not the result of bad parenting, or too much T.V., or a lack of either discipline or love by parents. While any or all of these may be problems, "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder" is a genetically based condition.. "ADHD" has neurological and biological roots. There are very strong genetic factors that influence both brain function and development. There are also other potential contributing factors that might cause one to acquire ADHD problems, such as brain injuries received either in utero, or after birth, or high fevers from infections, and so on.
ADHD impacts individuals in four main areas of their life:
- Inattention - ADHD causes people to have problems paying attention to routine or boring tasks, or to stay focused on a task long enough to finish the task, especially if the task is not very interesting. The person might be able to focus on interesting projects or entertainment such as video games for long periods of time, but it is the boring tasks of life that are very difficult.
- Impulsivity - Often ADHD causes a lack of self-control. Impulsive behaviors or choices can cause havoc in relationships, work, school, or life. Saying things, or doing things without thinking first is a pretty classic symptom of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in both children and adults.
- Hyperactivity - About half of those with ADHD are "bouncy" like Tigger, hyperactive, always "on the go," and restless. The standard line is that they act as if they are "driven by a motor." Another good description is "excessive, non-goal directed, motor activity."
- Easily Bored - Unless the task is very stimulating, like a video game or TV program or outside playing, those with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder are often easily bored by a task - especially bored by homework, math tests, balancing checkbooks, or doing taxes, and many of these tasks just never get done. | <urn:uuid:06c95c56-875b-4edf-987b-9096a91386a4> | {
"date": "2016-02-07T00:57:02",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2016-07",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-07/segments/1454701148428.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160205193908-00217-ip-10-236-182-209.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9563456177711487,
"score": 3.5625,
"token_count": 438,
"url": "http://newideas.net/"
} |
My earliest memories of graphs take me back to ‘grade whatever’, when I was first introduced to the Cartesian-X/Y torture device. I remember looking up, having finished my first, beautiful X/Y axes, only to realize I had completely missed the explanation of what to do next. My relationship with graphs went downhill from there.
Today though, thanks to machine vision and image processing, graphs are my friend. One of the cool things about graphs is you can make the X/Y axes represent whatever you want. For instance, let’s make the Y-axis a pixel’s value (i.e. a monochrome image will have a range of 0 to 255) and we’ll make the X-axis represent the pixel’s horizontal position in the image. Now, if we take a look at line 43 in our picture Doraimon, and we plot the value of each pixel on our graph, we end up with a nifty profile of each pixel’s value along line 43:
Essentially, this graph shows us the nature and magnitude of the changes in pixel values along the red line (line 43). Line (and/or column) profile information can sometimes be useful when trying to find clues to help solve a machine vision problem. For instance, looking at line 43’s profile around the 150 position, shows us that there is a huge jump from dark to light pixel values, when we go from Doraimon’s nose to the bottom of his eye. Is this information useful? Maybe, maybe not, it all depends on the approach you decide to take in solving your particular machine vision problem.
Next time, we’re going to try to make a graph jump through a hoop! Back Simba! Back! | <urn:uuid:4e49c104-eb00-4270-be4c-e46b0110225b> | {
"date": "2018-06-19T12:33:49",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2018-26",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-26/segments/1529267862929.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20180619115101-20180619135101-00256.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9180040955543518,
"score": 2.90625,
"token_count": 369,
"url": "http://possibility.teledynedalsa.com/bobs-imaging-fundamentals-12-graphs-part-1/"
} |
Women of the mid-nineteenth century had essentially two choices when it came to fashionable footwear: ballet-like slippers or ankle boots. Both types of shoe were made of soft, pliable textiles such as velvet or satin and had a flat, extremely thin leather sole. No matter which shoes a woman wore, they were hidden by the full, floor-length skirts then in fashion. Because they were seldom seen, both types of shoe were usually made of a plain black or white textile. Evening boots were an exception, as they were sometimes made to match a specific gown. These pink and green evening boots from the FIDM Museum collection are made of a slightly iridescent brocade and damask silk with green leather foxing at the heel and toe. Due to the high-quality of both the construction and textile, we believe these boots were probably made in France and imported to the United States. The side lacing is typical of boots from this period.
Though it's difficult to see in this image, these boots have what are called "straight soles." Straight soles lack left or right definition and are usually very narrow. Common from about 1600 and disappearing only in the late nineteenth century, straight soles eliminated the cost of producing a left and right last, lowering the overall cost of shoe manufacturing. Looking at the boot in the front of the image, you can see a light patch on the green leather foxing, near the sole. This wear is probably due to a difference between the natural shape of the wearer's foot and the straight soles. The foot was slightly wider than the shoe, causing the foxing to rub against the floor. When placed at the toe and heel, leather foxing resembled the look of men's footwear covered with gaiters. Because of this resemblance, woman's day and evening boots with foxing were often called "gaiter boots."
Given the insubstantial materials used, these evening boots were clearly intended for indoor wear. At most, they would have been worn walking to and from a carriage. Though somewhat sturdier leather boots were available for the fashionable hobby of "pedestrianism," otherwise known as walking, most women wore insubstantial shoes on a daily basis. A movement to reform women's dress emerged in the 1850s, propelled largely by Amelia Bloomer's attempts to promote bifurcated garments for women. All garments perceived to oppress women through their fit or general impracticality were targeted for scorn, including shoes. Delicate shoes were specifically targeted in an 1853 article in the Philadelphia-based Home Magazine, which railed against "satin or paper thin soles when the condition of the streets requires a warmer, stouter, and more impervious covering for the feet." Though it's highly unlikely that delicate evening boots were worn for actual outdoor walking, harsh criticism of fashion over practicality was a cornerstone of the dress reform movement. The same article speculates as to "how many severe colds are brought on in this way, and how many fall victim to consumption from this same cause." 1
1 "A Seasonable Hint." Home Magazine December 1853: 477. | <urn:uuid:82c9db4e-320d-47c3-accf-04ac667e242f> | {
"date": "2016-12-06T15:58:14",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2016-50",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-50/segments/1480698541910.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20161202170901-00016-ip-10-31-129-80.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9804726243019104,
"score": 3.703125,
"token_count": 644,
"url": "http://blog.fidmmuseum.org/museum/2010/04/evening-boots-185055.html"
} |
posted by Jesse on .
two cards are drawn from a deck of cards. Once a card is drawn, it is not replaced. Find the probability of drawing a queen followed by a king.
If the events are independent, the probability of both/all events occurring is determined by multiplying the probabilities of the individual events.
Q = 4/52
K = 4/51 | <urn:uuid:0ca93fc6-a2b4-4722-bb49-13279f639783> | {
"date": "2017-04-29T14:00:41",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2017-17",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917123491.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031203-00590-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9671706557273865,
"score": 3.28125,
"token_count": 77,
"url": "http://www.jiskha.com/display.cgi?id=1359338617"
} |
Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Medical, Legal, Encyclopedia.
1. To fell; to cut down. Usually refers to cutting down a tree. A noun or pronoun can be used between "chop" and "down." We had to chop down that old tree to keep it from falling onto our house. It would be a shame to have to chop that old oak down just to make room for a parking lot.
2. To destroy or reject something. A noun or pronoun can be used between "chop" and "down." Now that the CEO has chopped down our idea, we need to come up with something better.
chop something down
1. Lit. to cut down something, such as a tree, with an ax. Please don't chop my favorite tree down. Don't chop down this tree!
2. Fig. to destroy something, such as a plan or an idea. The committee chopped the idea down in its early stages. They chopped down a great idea! | <urn:uuid:64ed19fa-1989-4b6f-93b1-0cc85c634f1c> | {
"date": "2017-09-23T19:47:43",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2017-39",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-39/segments/1505818689775.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20170923194310-20170923214310-00296.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9628348350524902,
"score": 3.171875,
"token_count": 208,
"url": "http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/chop+down"
} |
It might be very difficult to imagine, but manatees (also known as ‘sea cows’) share a common ancestor with elephants which might come as a surprise if you thought manatees shared a common ancestor with other marine mammals such as dolphins, whales, or sea lions. Here are 10 facts that link manatees and elephants as long-lost relatives.
1. Scientifically, manatees and elephants are classified as subungulates. Other mammals in the Subungulata superorder are hyraxes and aardvarks.
2.Manatees and elephants have an uncommon-shaped heart that is spherical. To compare, most mammals have a single-pointed tip at the base (i.e., “heart”—shaped).
3. The West Indian and West African manatee have three or four fingernail-like structures on the tip of their flippers, just like that of the toenails on the feet of elephants.
4. Manatees and elephants both have a thick, gray skin with very sparse hair.
5. Manatees and elephants have molars which move toward the front of the mouth, eventually break off, and are restored by those at the rear. Elephants have a limited number while manatees are never-ending.
6. Manatees have two incisors that bear a resemblance to elephant tusks.
7. Manatees use their large, flexible muscular lips to break apart vegetation in the water and skillfully steer food to their mouths. This is very similar to the action of the elephant eating with his trunk.
8. Manatees and elephants are herbivores. Manatees tend to feast on sea grass and freshwater plants and consume up to 100-150 pounds a day. Elephants tend to feast on small plants, bushes, fruit, twigs, tree bark, and roots and consume up to 330-375 pounds a day.
9. Male manatees and elephants are known as bulls. Female manatee and elephants are known as cows. Young manatee and elephants are known as calves.
10. Manatees and elephants are both endangered. Their numbers have dropped due in a large part to human activities.
Manatee image (c) cruisenaplesflorida.com, elephant image (c) gallery.hd.org
Here is a fantastic teaching resource from the University of Florida Sea Grant extension I uncovered while pulling this post together. | <urn:uuid:20b373f3-b193-40d3-b9bd-28c077d59d1a> | {
"date": "2017-01-24T23:16:33",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2017-04",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285315.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00412-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9566079378128052,
"score": 3.40625,
"token_count": 519,
"url": "http://beachchairscientist.com/2012/10/29/are-manatees-and-elephants-related/"
} |
How to talk to teens about alcohol
Need some help to talk to your teen about alcohol? April 21 is the annual day that Mothers Against Drunk Driving urges parents and teens to start the conversation. MADD even has a free Power of Parents website available with resources and a free handbook you can have e-mailed to you that provides guidance on how to start the potentially lifesaving conversation.
Today St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster is kicking off the week before with a proclamation declaring the city’s commitment to stop underage drinking in preparation for PowerTalk 21 day — the annual day for parents and teens to start the conversation about alcohol on April 21. MADD volunteers will be on hand at today's announcement at St. Petersburg City Hall, 175 Fifth St N today (April 12) at 2:45 p.m. to talk about workshops and resources.
If you can't make it, we have 9 tips here on what to say and do on a day intentionally positioned in advance of prom, graduation and other events where teens may encounter alcohol.
More than 6,000 people die each year as a result of underage drinking — more than all other illegal drugs combined. But the good news is three out of four teens say their parents are the number one influence on their decision to drink.
So here's some tips on talking to your teens:
Do it with a caring attitude. The easiest way to start the conversation is to say, ”There's been a lot of talk about alcohol at teen parties and it's been weighing on my mind, I would like to talk with you about it. I know you are smart and have been told a lot about this at school, but I need to talk about this with you because I care about your health and I care about your safety. Can you give me a few minutes?"
Even if you stumble through it, think about it this way: The fact that you've even had a conversation is likely to have an impact. Admit to your kid, "I may not do this right, but if I don't do this I'll feel like a bad parent."
Talk about why it's important: Teens who drink alcohol are more likely to:
Die in a car crash
Be sexually assaulted
Become an alcoholic later in life
Take their own life through suicide
It's the law. This is actually a reason kids respect. Most teens know it is illegal to drink under the age of 21. Still, they may assume they won’t get caught or they are unfamiliar with Zero Tolerance laws, which prohibit driving after drinking any amount of alcohol. Remind your son or daughter that police do receive complaints about parties. When police arrive, they may arrest all who have been drinking underage. Discuss the potential consequences for breaking the law, such as the teen could have his or her license revoked or face expensive legal fees. The teen, you, and your family could be publicly embarrassed, since these arrests are routinely reported in newspapers. If a court date is scheduled, you may have to take time off from work and could lose pay. Teens rarely consider all the possible legal consequences. Discussing the implications can have an impact.
One way to get them talking would be with questions like:
--Do you know kids who drink? How has it affected them?
--Have you ever been offered alcohol by someone you knew? What did you say? If you havent, but this does happen sometime, what would you say?
--What if someone really pushed you? What would you say? (This might be a good time to come up with some face-saving maneuvers like "I have an early practice tomorrow" or "I don't like the taste so I'm sticking with soda")
--Do you see any risks? Do you have any concerns?
Don't be discouraged by a teen who responds with "I dunno" and "Okay Mom" or "Whatever." They could be tired or trying to avoid a lecture or simply not in the mood, the handbook advises, "Parents need to respect how a teen may feel and not force communication at a bad time. Let the matter drop and bring it up later. Try to pick a time when your teen will be open to talking."
You are likely to be asked about your past and your own behavior as a teen. Some parents set the ground rule that their own past is off limits and not relevant, but be forewarned this can lead to suspicion and resentment from a teen. Or you could go with "I did have a drink when I was younger. However, we did not know as much as we know now about the risks of alcohol. How early binge drinking is more likely to cause lifelong alcohol problems. If I had known then, I would have done things differently. This is why I am talking to you about it."
Discuss your family’s rules about alcohol and agree ahead of time on the consequences for breaking the rules, such as loss of the car (and/or phone, computer, video games) for a month and a much earlier curfew for a month. Emphasize that you hope at the end of the month they will think about making better choices.
Keep it constructive. Do your best his to help them, not attack, to keep communication channels open. Most of all, be constructive
in your responses to your teen, not defensive or angry. Emphasize that you care about them, want to understand them, want to help them and respect their desire to be independent. Studies show that when teens feel they can trust their parents and are trusted by them, they are less likely to drink, MADD says.
--Sharon Kennedy Wynne
Follow us on Twitter @WhoaMomma | <urn:uuid:e9b6451a-dc7f-48f5-bf48-17237e778e83> | {
"date": "2015-06-03T21:52:50",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2015-22",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-22/segments/1433195036984.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20150601214356-00090-ip-10-180-206-219.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9755065441131592,
"score": 2.546875,
"token_count": 1175,
"url": "http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/moms/content/how-talk-teens-about-alcohol"
} |
Archimed 2 is an implementation of a raytracing-based simulation program. It consists in tracing the path of light through a scene (e.g. a forest) in order to simulate a satellital lidar waveform, or to compute the radiative balance of a group of plants. In january 2013 these two applications are integrated in simeo: A scene can be built, then exported via the Archimed 2 plugin.
The software can compute the radiative balance of the exported scene. The solar contribution is modelisated with a 46-directions turtle (truncated icosahedron). Light is emitted in each direction with an intensity which is function of the wanted simulated time period. The radiative balance of the vegetation can be performed on the entire scene, or on a used-specified plot.
How to use the Radiative Balance simulation plugin in simeo? The sun parametrization is the same as Archimed-1. But there is some settings specific to the ART raytracing engine:
The threshold coefficient sets the ray intensity level below which its propagation stops. The intensity threshold for one ray is computed from the mean energy of the 46 directions, the total number of rays, and the given threshold coefficient. In fact, the threshold coefficient represents, in proportion of the mean energy of the 46-directions, the value below wich the retrodiffusion is processed.
The maximum ray path length is simply the maximum distance that a ray can travel in the scene.
The space splitting sets the size of the 3D regular grid which is used to partition the scene. This leads to a faster process, but the scene initialization is slow. A little space partition means that computing would be slow by the number of scene objects. A too big space partition could slow the process, allocating too much memory compared to the scene objects number. This parameter depends of your hardware configuration.
The software can simulate the lidar signal impulse response of the exported scene. The lidar instrument can be modeled as a conical/cylindrical beam: Emitted rays can be parallel (cylindrical emitter) or not (conical emitter) and received light shots are detected when they are is a given field of view (conical). Different parameters of the emitter and the sensor can be set.
How to use the lidar plugin with simeo?
The user must specify the Lidar instrument parameters, via this panel:
The input parameters are:
The output parameters are:
Results of the simulation The lidar impulse response can be viewed as a 2D plot (energy vs distances) and the signal is exported in a .csv file.
The .csv file contains each return, associating an energy value (float) and a distance in meters (float). The user must be attentive to this explaination: With a real lidar instrument, the obtained data is the total amount of energy received during the time (or along the distance). This data is obtained in summing of all simulated intensities at each return order (for line i, sum of columns 1 to N, N being the maximum return order). Indeed, a true lidar instrument does not deliver one intensity for return 0, one other for return 1, one other for return 2, etc. Here, returning intensities are returned for each order because it is an accessible data wich is part of the simulation process.
Two images can also be displayed (optional):
See also the animation “lidar.gif” in screenshots | <urn:uuid:626d05a0-0c94-4509-8588-a68d36c0da6d> | {
"date": "2018-12-15T13:53:08",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2018-51",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-51/segments/1544376826856.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20181215131038-20181215153038-00176.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.8827478289604187,
"score": 2.734375,
"token_count": 730,
"url": "http://amapstudio.cirad.fr/soft/archimed/archimed2"
} |
Hubble Telescope's top 10 greatest space photographs.
Shared with Native Village by William Howe
The Sombrero Galaxy - 28,000,000 light years from Earth - was voted best picture taken by the Hubble telescope. The galaxy's dimensions, officially called M104, are as spectacular as its appearance. It has 800,000,000,000 suns and is 50,000 light years across.
The Ant Nebula is a cloud of dust and gas whose technical name is Mz3. It resembles an ant when observed using ground-based telescopes. The nebula lies within our galaxy between 3,000 - 6,000 light years from Earth.
Nebula NGC 2392 is called "Eskimo" because it looks like a face surrounded by a furry hood. The hood is, in fact, a ring of comet-shaped objects flying away from a dying star. Eskimo is 5,000 light years from Earth.
The Cat's Eye Nebula.
The Hourglass Nebula, 8,000 light years away, has a "pinched-in-the-middle" look because the winds that shape it are weaker at the centre.
The Cone Nebula. The part pictured here is 25 light years in length (this equals 23,000,000 return trips to the Moon).
The Perfect Storm, a small region in the Swan Nebula, is 5,500 light years away. It is described as "a bubbly ocean of hydrogen and small amounts of oxygen, sulphur and other elements".
Starry Night earned it's name because it reminded astronomers of the Van Gogh painting. It is a halo of light around a star in the Milky Way.
The glowering eyes from 114,000,000 light years away are the swirling cores of two merging galaxies called NGC 2207 and IC 2163 located in the Canis Major constellation.
The Trifid Nebula is a "stellar nursery" 9,000 light years from here. It's a place where new stars are born. | <urn:uuid:821d483a-4d31-4dd0-ae19-a3e709796e77> | {
"date": "2017-04-27T05:18:13",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2017-17",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917121869.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031201-00353-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9249228835105896,
"score": 3.375,
"token_count": 416,
"url": "http://nativevillage.org/Inspiration-/Top%2010%20photos%20from%20Hubble%20Telescope.htm"
} |
Soon, the blind will be able to see - not with their eyes, but their tongues! That's what scientists hope their new innovative electronic device will accomplish.
The extraordinary technology works by taking pictures filmed by a tiny camera, and turns the information into electrical pulses, which can be felt on the tongue.
Tests have shown that the nerves send messages to the brain, which turn these tingles back into pictures.
The tool, called the BrainPort vision device, resembles a pair of sunglasses attached by cable to a plastic lollipop.
Its users have revealed that they can make out shapes, and even read signs with fewer than 20 hours training only.
The scientists behind this innovation say that learning to picture images felt on the tongue is similar to learning to ride a bike.
The device, which collects visual data through a small digital video camera about 2.5cm in diameter, which sits in the middle of a pair of sunglasses worn by the user, could be available for sale later this year.
The information is then transmitted to a hand-held control unit, which is about the size of a mobile phone.
The unit converts the digital signal into electrical pulses and sends this to the tongue via the lollipop that sits on the tongue.
The lollipop contains a grid of 600 electrodes, which pulsate according to how much light is in that area of the picture.
The control unit allows users to zoom in and out and control light settings and electric shock intensity.
"At first, I was amazed at what the device could do. One guy started to cry when he saw his first letter," News.com.au quoted William Seiple, research director at Lighthouse International, which has been testing it, as saying.
Robert Beckman, president of US-based Wicab which is developing the BrainPort, said: "It enables blind people to gain perception of their surroundings, displayed on their tongue. They cannot necessarily read a book but they can read a sign."
Beckman is hoping that the device would be used to improve people's mobility and safety. | <urn:uuid:c19d9b4c-cf6d-446c-841c-ab643ee7115c> | {
"date": "2017-04-24T00:24:38",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2017-17",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917118851.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031158-00233-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9619165658950806,
"score": 2.796875,
"token_count": 430,
"url": "http://www.medindia.net/news/Scientists-Hope-To-Make-The-Blind-See-With-All-New-Technology-57501-1.htm"
} |
Cellulitis is a skin infection that not only involves the upper layers of skin, but also includes the dermis and subcutaneous layers. This type of infection is rather common, but if left untreated can turn into something more serious, even potentially becoming a life-threatening condition, according to WebMD.Continue Reading
The infection is normally treated through oral antibiotics, states Mayo Clinic. These are normally given in a course that lasts between 5 and 10 days, although they can last as long as 14 days depending on the drug given. If the cellulitis doesn't respond to the drugs within the first couple days, the patient should let his doctor know so that he can take different steps to try to treat the condition and keep it from spreading. If it is allowed to move to other parts of the body, the patient could develop sepsis or septic shock.
The bacteria that causes cellulitis is the same ones that cause impetigo. The bacteria are streptococcus and staphylococcus, more commonly called just "staph." Patients who suffer from diabetes, edema or have a weakened immune system due to other causes, are very susceptible to this infection and can be harder to treat. For high-risk patients, or patients who do not see results in a few days from the oral antibiotics may need to be put in the hospital and given antibiotics through an IV.Learn more about Skin Conditions | <urn:uuid:0a5b93ec-b509-45b6-8337-3ef282bf3fe5> | {
"date": "2016-12-08T16:11:44",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2016-50",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-50/segments/1480698541864.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20161202170901-00112-ip-10-31-129-80.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9533742070198059,
"score": 3.265625,
"token_count": 287,
"url": "https://www.reference.com/health/cellulitis-leg-43c4c7e05f2cfd86"
} |
Getting music from a CD to the preferred media player is a must for music lovers. After all, obtaining a home audio experience on the go is possible with digital music files – and the future is looking bright with the emergence of lossless digital audio. The sky is the limit for this more “pure” area of digital audio. Audiophiles should continue the hunt for the perfect format, at any “rate.”
A Look at Digital Music Formats
Once the MP3 made its initial release in 1993, it established the constant in the field of digital music formats. Able to take the Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) format –which is how a CD holds music – to a space-saving file, MP3 files were a quick hit. MP3s use lossy compression that compresses data; as a result, a 128 kbps MP3 file is approximately 1/11 the size of the original file.
Of course, MP3s are not the only option. There are several other digital music formats that are seen prominently, as well. Most digital music formats involve lossy compression, though that is not always the case:
- .mp3: The current standard that has stood the test of time. It uses lossy data compression to achieve an ideal balance of audio quality and space.
- .wav: This uncompressed audio format preceded MP3 files and is compatible with Windows, Macintosh, and Linux OS. Due to large file sizes, the WAV file has diminished in popularity
- .aac: Popular thanks to Apple, AAC is noted as being more advanced and efficient than MP3. Compatibility is a weak point for the file type, despite its success with the iPod.
- Others: WMA, OGG, ATRAC, and others span the wide market of alternative digital music formats.
Lossless-Format Music Files
As opposed to lossy formats, lossless formats boast certain advantages that appeal to audiophiles and practical music-lovers alike. By retaining all information in the original file, nothing is lost (hence the name). It boasts superior audio fidelity, despite larger file sizes.
Some of the more popular lossless music formats include the following:
- .flac: The open format FLAC is a popular codec that can losslessly compress music files to 50 to 60 percent of the original size. Like many current lossless formats, playback support in portable devices is limited.
- Dolyby TrueHD: A multi-channel audio codec from Dolby, which is a competitor with Dolby TrueHD in regard to DVDs. It boasts the ability to carry up to 14 discrete sound channels.
- HD-AAC: Uses Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) and Scalable Lossless Coding (SLS) to create lossless files.
- Others: APE, WV, m4a, and SHN are some of the many other lossless music file formats.
The battle for superb sound quality continues. Recently Neil Young has expressed the desire to improve upon lacking audio quality on MP3s. With his Pono system, high-end portable music players will use a download service that “will sell albums at far greater sound quality than iTunes,” according to Eamonn Forde.
Young isn’t alone in cultivating the state of future lossless digital audio formats and offerings. His competition, Apple, has been rumored to be looking into offering lossless music files for purchase through iTunes. And then there have been the flops, like Super-Audio CD and DVD Audio, as well as Pressplay and MusicNet services, Forde mentions.
The future of lossless audio will certainly depend on practicality. Will buyers need to purchase music yet again? How will storage concerns play out for mobile and home audio lovers? Until these items are met, lossless media formats will continue to be a niche market. From WAV and MP3 files to lossless codecs and services like Pono, the digital music world has seen a great deal – and it’s certainly not over. | <urn:uuid:5192939c-2bb4-4632-acf9-cea3017e9a08> | {
"date": "2019-02-20T09:01:56",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2019-09",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-09/segments/1550247494694.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20190220085318-20190220111318-00496.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9185252785682678,
"score": 3.046875,
"token_count": 845,
"url": "https://www.technected.com/the-future-of-lossless-digital-audio"
} |
Civil War in the United States
Like their gentile neighbors, North and South, Jewish women figured in the history of the Civil War (1861–1865) in two ways. As the wives, mothers, and daughters of men in military service, they shouldered a range of responsibilities brought on by wartime exigencies. As community activists, they involved themselves in home-front activities to minister to the soldiers directly and to raise money for the troops. Both of these classic forms of women’s participation in war tended to generate little in the way of documentation, and thus historians studying the involvement of Jewish women in the Civil War and the impact of the war on Jewish women have a sparse body of primary sources upon which to draw.
Approximately ten thousand Jewish men served in the armies of the United States and the Confederacy. With seven thousand soldiers enlisted in the Union forces and three thousand on the side of the Confederacy, Jews served in the military far out of proportion to their number in the population. As in any war, the engagement of men in the military put a tremendous strain on loved ones left behind, and the over five hundred Jewish men who lost their lives in the war created widows, orphans, and bereaved parents whose later lives were shaped by their losses. More immediately during the war, just about each one of the ten thousand men in uniform represented a breadwinner absent from the family economy. Jewish women no doubt had to fill in, both emotionally and financially, for the absent male.
That the war placed a burden on Jewish women can be ascertained from the fact that in a number of communities, like Baltimore, Cincinnati, New Orleans, and Philadelphia, the local Jewish female benevolent associations turned almost all of their attention during the war years to the specific needs of Jewish women whose sons and husbands had gone off to the military. The Jews of Washington, D.C., placed an appeal in the Jewish Messenger to the Jews of New York in which they noted, “Unlike you in New York, we have no fund to support the families of poor soldiers, and the unhappy consequence is, the wives and the children of these poor men are in abject want.”
However compelling the anecdotes about Jewish women’s suffering during the war, the history of the impact of the Civil War on Jewish women and their families and communities remains to be written. The one full-length book that treats the Jews and the Civil War, the 1951 study by Bertram W. Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, paid scant attention to the home front. It dealt with women and the impact of the war upon them only anecdotally in passing. Later studies, like Harry Simonhoff’s Jewish Participants in the Civil War (1963), Irving Katz’s The Jewish Soldier from Michigan in the Civil War (1962), Robert Shostek’s The Jewish Community of Washington, D.C., During the Civil War (1967), and Mel Young’s Where They Lie: The Story of the Jewish Soldiers of the North and South (1991), offered no fundamental improvement and did not reflect any of the changes in the writing of history that increasingly focused on the analysis of community, family, and gender.
Details about the ways in which the Civil War affected Jewish community life have surfaced occasionally in a plethora of single-city studies. Historians of the Jewish people of diverse communities like Atlanta, Baltimore, Buffalo, Chicago, Syracuse, Rochester, Utica, and elsewhere considered the Civil War a significant moment in local Jewish affairs. Usually, however, the authors of these studies have limited themselves to naming the Jewish men of these communities who participated in the war, or they have discussed the impact of the war on the local Jewish economy. For example, for Jewish communities in cities like Buffalo and Rochester, where most Jews made a living in tailoring and other aspects of garment making, the war represented a tremendous economic boon. Jewish tailors and merchants in these cities received government contracts to make uniforms, and their marginal enterprises prospered. No doubt, Jewish women participated in this economic transformation, since the earlier, more marginal tailoring establishments functioned as family-based enterprises, with wives and daughters sewing and selling alongside the men. These community histories also have not examined this change in Jewish business in the context of women’s experiences, and so provide little specific information and no analysis of the impact of the war on women.
The Civil War memoir of Marcus Spiegel, born in 1829 in Abeheim, Germany, constitutes one of the few documents that hint at the impact on a wife and family of a Jewish husband’s military service and his death in battle. Spiegel served as second lieutenant in the 67th Ohio Volunteer Infantry and then as colonel in the 120th Ohio Infantry. He sent a steady stream of letters to his wife, Caroline, a convert to Judaism, up to the time of his receiving a mortal wound on April 30, 1864. These letters, published in 1981 as Your True Marcus: The Civil War Letters of a Jewish Colonel, provide an occasional glimpse into the impact of the war on Caroline Spiegel. In a letter marked “Strictly private,” Marcus addressed his “good, lovely and abused Wife!” He explained, “I speak truly when I say ‘abused Wife’; a Woman as good and lovely, as saving and industrious, as kind a wife and good mother as you are should [not] be left alone hundreds of miles from her husband who loves her more and with more fervor, zeal, and devotion ... with 3 small children and one coming, or that he should leave her at all.” More prosaically, on February 17, 1862, he begged her to send him a pair of boots as well as “something nice to eat in the Box. … A bottle of something to drink won’t hurt anybody.” As Spiegel lay dying from his wound, he reportedly wept to the surgeon, “This is the last of the husband and father, what will become of my poor family?” The scattered details offered by Your True Marcus, however sparse, represent one of the few personal insights into the life of a Jewish soldier in the Civil War and the involvement of his wife back home in his military service.
Organized Jewish women’s activities on the community level in a number of cities, in both the North and the South, to sustain the war effort have received more, although still inadequate, attention. In Philadelphia, the women of Congregation Mikveh Israel turned the synagogue into a hospital, and the various Jewish women’s sewing societies began to produce uniforms for men in the Union Army. At the annual exercises of the Hebrew Sunday School Society in 1863, the hazan, Sabato Morais, called upon the women of the congregation to make an even greater contribution to the Union cause. Morais publicly read a letter he had received from Mary Rose Smith, head of the Visiting Committee of the Women’s Branch of the United States Sanitary Commission, requesting that a woman from the congregation be appointed to represent Mikveh Israel to the Sanitary Commission. The women of the congregation met and elected Matilda Cohen to take on this responsibility, and under her auspices the women of the congregation formed themselves into the Ladies Hebrew Relief Association for the Sick and Wounded Soldiers. Celia Meyers became the president of this group, and within a month 250 women had joined. By the war’s end, this organization had sent ten crates of supplies to the Sanitary Commission. Additionally, in Philadelphia, as in many other cities on both sides of the conflict, Jewish women participated in communitywide, interdenominational fund-raising fairs. A group of nine young Jewish women who had formed themselves into a club called Alert provided the embroidery and needlework to be sold at the fair.
While less information is currently available about Jewish women’s activities in other cities, Philadelphia Jewish women did not differ from their sisters elsewhere. Bits of information from numerous other cities confirmed that Jewish women participated, as Jewish women, in a wide range of charitable functions to support war efforts across America. Three Jewish women in Detroit helped found the interdenominational Ladies’ Soldiers’ Aid Society. The wives of members of New York’s Temple Emanu-El sewed uniforms for the Union soldiers, of a quality “far better,” according to the New York Times, “than some specimens turned off from the contractors’ shelves.” A young Jewish woman in Columbus, Georgia, belonged to the Soldiers Aid Society and spent time in the Columbus Hospital tending the ill and dying. She actually taught one of these dying soldiers to read and write in order to divert him from thinking about his pain. A Jewish woman in Washington, D.C., wrote of the activities of the women of the Washington Hebrew Congregation and noted, “As in all wars the ladies of Washington aided the overtaxed hospital personnel. …The daughters of my late grandparents, the Reverend [Abraham] Simon and Hannah Mundheim, were among these good Samaritans.” Simon Wolf reported in the Jewish Messenger of May 6, 1864, about a Sanitary Fair in the capital city that “the Hebrew Society’s Table is credited for $756.95; and ... the entire receipts were only $10,661.47. … All honor to our fair Jewesses!”
Indeed, given the tremendous involvement of Jewish women with charitable work, it is reasonable to assume that most of the Jewish home-front contributions in terms of organizing fairs, preparing bandages and lint, sewing uniforms, visiting the sick and wounded, looking after the needs of orphans and widows, and providing hospitalities for Jewish soldiers represented the activities primarily of women.
The labors of Jewish women for the Civil War cause aroused little conflict, and their activities unified one community after another, as Jews expressed their solidarity with their adopted homes, specifically as Jews. The only controversy that flared occurred in Rochester, New York, where the president of Congregation B’rith Kodesh, obviously a man, since women neither belonged to nor held office in synagogues, protested the participation of Jewish women in the local bazaar as Jews. The Jewish Record picked up on this theme and asked its readers why “pretty Jewesses” were distinguished in their charitable and patriotic endeavors from other women.
This incident conflicted with the widespread praise that non-Jews, women and men, and Jewish men, during the war and in subsequent generations, offered to Jewish women for their communal leadership. Herbert Ezekiel’s 1915 comments to the Rimon Lodge of the B’nai B’rith of Richmond, Virginia, may have typified the overwhelmingly positive reactions toward the efforts of Jewish women, when he acclaimed the Jewish women of Richmond, who “fed the hungry, clothed the poor, nursed the sick and wounded and buried the dead. The wives and mothers and sisters did valiant work in the hospitals.”
These two exceptional cases do not, however, challenge the basic assertion that the Civil War represented a notable moment in the history of Jewish women because of the economic and emotional burden it placed on them, on the one hand, and the central role that women played in mobilizing Jewish home-front activities, on the other. These two phenomena represent an unstudied aspect of American Jewish history and one of tremendous consequence.
Bodek, Evelyn. “‘Making Do’: Jewish Women and Philanthropy.” In Jewish Life in Philadelphia, 1830–1940, edited by Murray Friedman (1983): 143–162; Ezekiel, Herbert. The Jews of Richmond During the Civil War (1915); Katz, Irving I. The Jewish Soldier from Michigan in the Civil War (1962); Korn, Bertram W. American Jewry and the Civil War (1951); Massey, Mary E. Bonnet Brigades (1966); Shosteck, Robert. The Jewish Community of Washington, D.C., During the Civil War (1967); Simonhoff, Harry. Jewish Participants in the Civil War (1963); Young, Mel. Where They Lie: The Story of the Jewish Soldiers of the North and South Whose Deaths—[Killed, Mortally Wounded or Died of Disease or Other Causes] Occurred During the Civil War, 1861–1865 (1991).
How to cite this page
Diner, Hasia R.. "Civil War in the United States." Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. 1 March 2009. Jewish Women's Archive. (Viewed on March 1, 2015) <http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/civil-war-in-united-states>. | <urn:uuid:afd78093-580a-42a4-ab1d-3e46fb1159d4> | {
"date": "2015-03-01T20:04:14",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2015-11",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-11/segments/1424936462548.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20150226074102-00257-ip-10-28-5-156.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9541321396827698,
"score": 3.765625,
"token_count": 2638,
"url": "http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/civil-war-in-united-states"
} |
Todays article is written by Mike the gardener from the Seed of the Month Club.
Blossom end rot is one of the easier vegetable plant diseases to spot and the most asked about as well. A few times each week someone will post a picture on our vegetable gardening Facebook page asking “Why are my tomatoes doing this?”
When your tomatoes have blossom end rot, they look great at the top, but on the bottom of the fruit, is a dark, mushy spot, that makes the tomato look inedible. Blossom end rot typically looks like the picture below. Along with tomatoes, blossom end rot also affects peppers, squash, cucumbers, and melons.
THE CAUSE OF BLOSSOM END ROT
In short, blossom end rot occurs when your plant is not getting enough calcium. However, it could be because your plants are not getting enough water either. While your soil may have ample amounts of calcium in it for your plants, there still needs to be sufficient water in order for the plant to carry the calcium to where it needs to go.
Before you start heavy watering your plants though, it would be best to check the type of soil that you have and take a reading of your soil to see if it has the nutrients, in this case calcium and pH level that your plants need to avoid this disease.
Typically, soils that are acidic, sandy, or coarse often contain less calcium. Also, overusing fertilizers can cause calcium deficiency as well. Overusing fertilizers can increase your phosphorous levels which creates an environment where the calcium that is present is unusable by your plants.
FIXING BLOSSOM END ROT
Now that you know what blossom end rot looks like, what it is and what can cause it, the next logical step would be to understand how to fix this issue. Your first step with blossom end rot, and just about any plant disease, is to mix in plenty of organic material, i.e., compost. By mixing in plenty of compost, you are keeping your soil healthy and that creates a well suited environment for your plants.
The next step would be to check your soil’s pH level. If your soil is too acidic you can add some lime to it to bring the pH level up. The pH level of your soil will depend upon what you are growing, but you are shooting for 6.0 to 6.5 which is an ideal range for most plants in the home vegetable garden that are susceptible to blossom end rot.
Unfortunately, once your fruit has blossom end rot, that particular fruit cannot be reversed back to a healthy fruit. Therefore you have to take steps to ensure that future fruit on that plant do not meet the same fate. An immediate solution, so as to not lose your harvest for the season, is to use a liquid fertilizer that is enhanced with calcium. There are plenty of organic options on the market. Also, be sure to water daily so that your plants can actually move that calcium throughout the plant.
Again, blossom end rot cannot be reversed on particular fruits. Once the fruit has it, it has it. That does not make the fruit inedible though. Just cut off the end that is dark and mushy. To me, the fruit tastes the same.
About the Author
Mike Podlesny is the author of the bookVegetable Gardening for the Average Person as well as the creator of theSeeds of the Month Club where members receive non gmo, heirloom variety seeds every month. You can listen to Mike each week on theVegetable Gardening Podcast where he interviews gardening industry experts. | <urn:uuid:4fe1791c-2b5d-41b1-a67f-1facad7cf9b1> | {
"date": "2017-02-20T17:54:27",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2017-09",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-09/segments/1487501170600.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20170219104610-00580-ip-10-171-10-108.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9565047025680542,
"score": 2.859375,
"token_count": 752,
"url": "http://preparedchristian.net/3-tips-to-fix-blossom-end-rot/"
} |
March 22, 2013
William Laurance and Andrew Balmford highlight the severe environmental impacts of roads in wilderness areas, including fostering illegal logging, poaching, colonization, and land speculation.
"More than 95% of deforestation, fires and atmospheric carbon emissions in the Brazilian Amazon occur within 50 kilometers of a road," they write, noting that 100,000 kilometers of roads now crisscross the Amazon. "The Belém-Brasília Highway, completed in the early 1970s, now cuts a 400-kilometer-wide swathe of cleared forest and secondary roads through the Amazon."
“Loggers, miners and other road builders are putting roads almost everywhere, including places they simply shouldn’t go, such as wilderness areas," added Balmford in a statement. "Some of these roads are causing environmental disasters.”
Deforestation for agriculture and cattle ranching follows a fishbone pattern along roads in the Brazilian Amazon. Landsat image courtesy of Google Earth
Laurance and Balmford say that roads in agricultural areas can boost farm yields and access to markets, improving farms efficiency and profitability. However increased profitability often drives agricultural expansion into wilderness areas, especially tropical forests, wetlands, and grasslands.
Therefore Laurance and Balmford propose a "global ‘road-zoning’ project" to map what areas should be off-limits to roads and what areas should be prioritized for road improvement.
"We are convinced that increasing agricultural yields will lessen the impact of farming on natural ecosystems only if coupled with effective land-use planning," they write.
"We believe that a collaborative, global zoning exercise is needed to identify where road building or improvement should be a priority, where it should be restricted and where existing roads should be closed. A multidisciplinary team could integrate and standardize satellite data on intact habitats with information on transport infrastructure, agricultural yields and losses, biodiversity indicators, carbon storage and other relevant factors. Much of this information has been recorded or can be extrapolated from current data sources."
Once the analysis is complete, the results could be made available in the form of high-resolution maps for policymakers and others involved in planning roads.
"It is much easier for policy-makers to influence patterns of road development than to affect more socially complex problems such as population growth and overconsumption," they write. "Roads can be re-routed, cancelled or delayed. Large road projects are often funded by taxpayers, investors or international donors who can be surprisingly responsive to environmental concerns."
Logging road in Borneo
Properly planned roads could benefit the environment by attracting people away from sensitive areas while at the same time boosting rural livelihoods from activities not linked to habitat conversion or degradation. In some areas, alternative forms of transport — like railways or boats — might ultimately make more sense, according to Laurance and Balmford.
"Trains and boats move people and products but limit the human footprint by stopping only at specific places."
They conclude that "keeping roads out of natural areas is one of the most tractable and cost-effective ways to protect crucial ecosystems."
William F. Laurance and Andrew Balmford. A global map for road building. 308 | NATURE | VOL 495 | 21 MARCH 2013
Amazon has nearly 100,000 km of roads
(12/08/2012) The Amazon Basin has 96,500 kilometers of roads, nearly two-thirds of which are unpaved, reports a comprehensive new atlas of the region, which contains the world's largest rainforest.
Proliferation of mountain roads a hazard to the environment in SE Asia
(07/12/2012) Mountain roads in rural Southeast Asia are providing market access for remote communities but causing significant environmental harm, including deforestation, landslides, and soil erosion, sometimes undermining the benefits they offer, warns a commentary published in Nature Geoscience.
Value of timber stocks could predict future logging roads, deforestation in the Amazon
(05/20/2012) A new model aims to forecast future logging road development by estimating the value of timber stocks across the Brazilian Amazon. The research, published in PLoS One, could help prioritize areas for conservation to protect the maximum area of forest.
Innovative program seeks to safeguard Peruvian Amazon from impacts of Inter-Oceanic Highway
(03/06/2012) Arbio was begun by Michel Saini and Tatiana Espinosa Q. in the Peruvian Amazon region of Madre de Dios. The project focuses on a protective response to the increased encroachment and destructive land use driven by development. The recent construction of the Inter-Oceanic Highway in the Madre de Dios area presents an enormous threat to forest biodiversity. Arbio provides opportunities to help establish a buffer zone near the road to limit intrusive agricultural and deforestation activities.
Bolivian road project through Amazon reserve canceled
(10/23/2011) Following a violent crackdown on protestors which deeply embarrassed the Bolivian government, president Evo Morales has thrown-out plans to build a road through an indigenous reserve, reports the BBC. Protestors marched 310 miles (498 kilometers) from the Amazon to La Paz to show their opposition to the road, saying that the project would destroy vast areas of biodiverse rainforest and open up their land to illegal settlers.
Peru's rainforest highway triggers surge in deforestation, according to new 3D forest mapping
(09/06/2010) Scientists using a combination of satellite imagery, airborne-laser technology, and ground-based plot surveys to create three-dimensional high resolution carbon maps of the Amazon rainforest have documented a surge in emissions from deforestation and selective logging following the paving of the Trans-Oceanic Highway in Peru. The study, published this week in the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveals that selective logging and other forms of forest degradation in Peru account for nearly a third of emissions compared to deforestation alone.
Roads are enablers of rainforest destruction
(09/24/2009) Chainsaws, bulldozers, and fires are tools of rainforest destruction, but roads are enablers. Roads link resources to markets, enabling loggers, farmers, ranchers, miners, and land speculators to convert remote forests into economic opportunities. But the ecological cost is high: 95 percent of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon occurs within 50-kilometers of a road; in Africa, where logging roads are rapidly expanding across the Congo basin, the bulk of bushmeat hunting occurs near roads. In Laos and Sumatra, roads are opening last remnants of intact forests to logging, poaching, and plantation development. But roads also cause subtler impacts, fragmenting habitats, altering microclimates, creating highways for invasive species, blocking movement of wildlife, and claiming animals as roadkill. A new paper, published in Trends in Evolution and Ecology, reviews these and other impacts of roads on rainforests. Its conclusions don't bode well for the future of forests.
Brazil suspends Amazon road project until protected areas established
(09/26/2008) Brazil has temporarily suspended the paving of a major Amazon road pending demarcation of 13 neighboring protected areas, reports the Associated Press.
Railroad could reduce Amazon deforestation relative to proposed highway
(03/24/2008) Building a railroad instead of improving a major highway could reduce deforestation and biodiversity loss in the heart of the Amazon rainforest says an Brazilian environmental group.
Industry-driven road-building to fuel Amazon deforestation
(03/12/2008) Unofficial road-building will be a major driver of deforestation and land-use change in the Amazon rainforest, according to an analysis published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. Improved governance, as exemplified by the innovative MAP Initiative in the southwestern Amazon, could help reduce the future impact of roads, without diminishing economic prospects in the region.
Toll road could raise money for Amazon conservation
(07/15/2007) Southeastern Peru is arguably the most biodiverse place on the planet. A new highway project, already under construction, poses a great threat to this biological richness as well as indigenous groups that live in the region. While its too late to stop the road, called the Carretera Transoceanica or Interoceanic Highway, there are ways to reduce its impact on the forest ecosystem and its inhabitants.
Chinese economy drives road-building and deforestation in the Amazon
(04/17/2005) Chinese economy drives road-building and deforestation in the Amazon | <urn:uuid:dffbc928-2b29-4c12-89a4-2067e60cfb6f> | {
"date": "2014-04-25T03:36:22",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2014-15",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-15/segments/1398223207985.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20140423032007-00523-ip-10-147-4-33.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9282416701316833,
"score": 3.609375,
"token_count": 1753,
"url": "http://news.mongabay.com/2013/0322-nature-roads.html"
} |
This image shows the symbiotic system known as CH Cyg, located only about 800 light years from Earth. The large image shows an optical view of CH Cyg, using the Digitized Sky Survey, and the inset shows a composite image containing Chandra X-ray data in red, optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in green, and radio data from the Very Large Array (VLA) in blue.
CH Cyg is a binary star system containing a white dwarf that feeds from the wind of a red giant star. The material from the wind forms a hot accretion disk around the white dwarf before crashing onto the star. CH Cyg is one of only a few hundred symbiotic systems known, and one of the closest to the Earth. Symbiotic systems are fascinating objects, where the components are codependent and influence each other's structure, daily life, and evolution. They are likely progenitors of bipolar planetary nebulas and they could make up some of the systems that later explode as Type Ia supernovas, spectacular explosions visible across cosmological distances.
The image in the inset shows a recent powerful jet in CH Cyg, caught in action by Chandra, HST and VLA. The material in the jet is moving with a speed of over three million miles per hour and is powered by material spinning in the accretion disk around the white dwarf. The detailed structure of the X-ray jet is seen for the first time in this system, showcasing the superb high-resolution capabilities of Chandra. The curved appearance of the jet, shown in the optical by the green arc in the lower right part of the inset, reveals evidence that the direction of the jet rotates. This precession may be caused by wobbling of the accretion disk, in a manner similar to a spinning top. Clumps in the outer jet, seen in X-rays, optical and radio data, provide evidence for powerful mass ejections by the jet in the past, and for interactions with shells of gas formed by the red giant. The jet can be seen as close as 20 astronomical units (AU) from the binary system, where one AU corresponds to the average distance from the Earth to the Sun. The jet extends out to distances as large as 750 AU from the binary, which is about 20 times the distance between the Sun and Pluto. | <urn:uuid:20d09976-0944-4245-9f75-02aae00ea96f> | {
"date": "2014-09-02T09:17:35",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2014-35",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-35/segments/1409535921872.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20140909030952-00040-ip-10-180-136-8.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9395332336425781,
"score": 3.609375,
"token_count": 481,
"url": "http://chandra.harvard.edu/blog/node/205"
} |
The basic biological unit of inheritance. A gene consists of the segment of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) which usually makes a specific protein or component of a protein. Humans have about 20,000 genes. The genes are arranged in linear order on the chromosomes.
We are always looking for new stories to add to this site, and are particularly keen to hear from more practitioners. Your colleagues can learn so much from how you’ve dealt with situations which involved genetics. | <urn:uuid:bc8114c5-6696-402b-8bfc-f1c5796d14ff> | {
"date": "2017-05-23T18:50:44",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2017-22",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-22/segments/1495463607649.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20170523183134-20170523203134-00110.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9435092210769653,
"score": 3.8125,
"token_count": 98,
"url": "http://tellingstories.nhs.uk/index.php/component/seoglossary/1-general-glossary/1-gene?Itemid=101"
} |
Contrary to convention, vegetation, when well-maintained, can lower the rates of certain types of crime, such as aggravated assault, robbery and burglary, in cities, according to a Temple University study, "Does vegetation encourage or suppress urban crime? Evidence from Philadelphia, PA," published in the journal, Landscape and Urban Planning.
"There is a longstanding principle, particularly in urban planning, that you don't want a high level of vegetation, because it abets crime by either shielding the criminal activity or allowing the criminal to escape," said Jeremy Mennis, associate professor of geography and urban studies at Temple. "Well-maintained greenery, however, can have a suppressive effect on crime."
After establishing controls for other key socioeconomic factors related to crime, such as poverty, educational attainment and population density, Mennis, along with environmental studies major Mary Wolfe, examined socioeconomic, crime and vegetation data, the latter from satellite imagery.
They found that the presence of grass, trees and shrubs is associated with lower crime rates in Philadelphia, particularly for robberies and assaults.
The authors surmise this deterrent effect is rooted in the fact that maintained greenery encourages social interaction and community supervision of public spaces, as well the calming effect that vegetated landscapes may impart, thus reducing psychological precursors to violent acts. They offer their findings and related work as evidence for urban planners to use when designing crime prevention strategies, especially important in an age when sustainability is valued.
Mennis said rather than decreasing vegetation as a crime deterrent, their study provides evidence that cities should be exploring increasing maintained green spaces.
"Increasing vegetation, supporting sustainability—they are a nice complement to so many city initiatives beyond increasing aesthetics and improving the environment," he said.
"Reducing stormwater runoff, improving quality of life, reducing crime—all of these objectives are furthered by increasing well-managed vegetation within the city."
Explore further: Some city trees may discourage 'shady' behavior | <urn:uuid:57eeb512-2b7f-44e3-b0cf-de62caa167b4> | {
"date": "2015-08-28T14:16:57",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2015-35",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-35/segments/1440644062782.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20150827025422-00232-ip-10-171-96-226.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9430221319198608,
"score": 3.015625,
"token_count": 406,
"url": "http://phys.org/news/2013-03-urban-vegetation-deters-crime-philadelphia.html"
} |
by Staff Writers
Madison WI (SPX) Jun 17, 2011
Tropical maize proves to be a valuable genetic resource, containing genetics not found in USA Corn Belt maize. Most tropical maize varieties respond to the long summer day lengths that occur in U.S. growing regions by flowering late.
This delayed flowering response results in poor yields, effectively trapping the useful genes and hindering their incorporation into maize hybrids adapted to the most productive corn growing regions.
Scientists from the United States Department of Agriculture - Agricultural Research Service and North Carolina State University identified four regions of the maize genome that control much of the photoperiod response in maize. A diverse sample of maize lines bred in Mexico and Thailand were crossed into a standard Corn Belt maize line.
Results of this study were reported in the May - June issue of Crop Science, the scientific journal published by the Crop Science Society of America.
For each key day length response region, the researchers compared the effects of moving the genes from a tropical variety into a Corn Belt variety. Even at a single genome region, the effects of tropical genes differed, depending on which tropical variety they were bred from.
In the most extreme case, the scientists discovered that genes from tropical varieties did not have uniform effects on delayed flowering at the genome region. One of the tropical varieties carried genes that made plants flower earlier than the standard Corn Belt variety.
James Holland, who conducted the study, stated: "We were pleased to validate the effects of these four day length response gene regions that we had identified in previous independent studies.
"However, we were surprised to discover that some tropical lines carry early flowering genes at our most important day length genome region. Our results highlight the amazing genetic variation that exists in both tropical and temperate maize."
This research supports findings of other scientists about the genomic position of key day length response genes and reveals unexpected diversity in their effects on flowering. Ongoing research is focused on identifying the specific genes controlling day length response that exist in these regions.
The full article is available for no charge for 30 days following the date of this summary.
Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.
Dawn of agriculture took toll on health
Atlanta GA (SPX) Jun 17, 2011
When populations around the globe started turning to agriculture around 10,000 years ago, regardless of their locations and type of crops, a similar trend occurred: The height and health of the people declined. "This broad and consistent pattern holds up when you look at standardized studies of whole skeletons in populations," says Amanda Mummert, an Emory graduate student in anthropology. ... read more
|The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2011 - Space Media Network. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement| | <urn:uuid:81717695-93da-43ff-a097-f300d54b3d12> | {
"date": "2017-08-19T03:42:18",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2017-34",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-34/segments/1502886105297.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20170819031734-20170819051734-00016.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9226204752922058,
"score": 3.453125,
"token_count": 653,
"url": "http://www.seeddaily.com/reports/Unique_Gene_Combinations_Control_Tropical_Maize_Response_to_Day_Lengths_999.html"
} |
Lua 5.1 beta reviewDownload
Lua is a powerful light-weight programming language designed for extending applications
Lua is a powerful light-weight programming language designed for extending applications. Lua is also frequently used as a general-purpose, stand-alone language. Lua is free software.
Lua language combines simple procedural syntax with powerful data description constructs based on associative arrays and extensible semantics. Lua is dynamically typed, interpreted from bytecodes, and has automatic memory management with garbage collection, making it ideal for configuration, scripting, and rapid prototyping.
A fundamental concept in the design of Lua is to provide meta-mechanisms for implementing features, instead of providing a host of features directly in the language. For example, although Lua is not a pure object-oriented language, it does provide meta-mechanisms for implementing classes and inheritance.
Lua's meta-mechanisms bring an economy of concepts and keep the language small, while allowing the semantics to be extended in unconventional ways. Extensible semantics is a distinguishing feature of Lua.
Lua is a language engine that you can embed into your application. This means that, besides syntax and semantics, Lua has an API that allows the application to exchange data with Lua programs and also to extend Lua with C functions. In this sense, Lua can be regarded as a language framework for building domain-specific languages.
Lua is implemented as a small library of C functions, written in ANSI C, and compiles unmodified in all known platforms. The implementation goals are simplicity, efficiency, portability, and low embedding cost. The result is a fast language engine with small footprint, making it ideal in embedded systems too.
Lua is designed and implemented by a team at Tecgraf, the Computer Graphics Technology Group of PUC-Rio (the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil). Tecgraf is a laboratory of the Department of Computer Science.
What's New in This Release:
This is a feature-freeze version to enable developers to concentrate on 5.1-final.
The plan is to release 5.1-final by the end of the year.
Lua 5.1 beta search tags | <urn:uuid:008fec26-9d70-4a9c-9035-f0dca7685923> | {
"date": "2018-05-26T11:56:57",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2018-22",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-22/segments/1526794867417.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20180526112331-20180526132331-00416.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9032803177833557,
"score": 2.828125,
"token_count": 448,
"url": "http://nixbit.com/software/lua-5.1-review/"
} |
Plastic Foam Package Production Line Series
The Main Purpose of Expanded Polystyrene
Expanded polystyrene (EPS), which has a relatively low density (1.05g/cm3), low thermal conductivity, low water absorption, impact vibration resistance, heat insulation, and sound insulation. It has the advantages of moisture proof, vibration reduction and excellent dielectric properties. It is widely used in mechanical equipment, instrumentation, household electrical, handicrafts and other shockproof packaging materials that damage valuable products and packaging of fast food. With the rapid development of the global economy, the amount of polystyrene foam is increasing. These waste polystyrene foams are light in weight and large in volume and are inherently resistant to aging and corrosion, which has become a major problem in waste disposal. In recent years, the recycling of expanded polystyrene has become the most concerned issue in the industry.
Expanded polystyrene has the advantages of low relative density (1.05g/cm3), low thermal conductivity, low water absorption, impact vibration resistance, heat insulation, sound insulation, moisture resistance, vibration damping, and excellent dielectric properties. Mechanical equipment, instrumentation, household electrical, handicrafts and other shock-proof packaging materials that damage valuable products and packaging of fast food. The foamed tableware, that is, the disposable foamed plastic tableware, is obtained by using a polystyrene resin as a raw material, heating and melting at a high temperature in an extruder, and then adding a foaming agent (butane) to perform an extrusion drawing to form a sheet. After the roll is placed in a humid and humid environment, it is then subjected to secondary heating and plastic forming, and various food and beverage utensils such as a snack box, a soup bowl, an instant noodle bowl, and a fresh tray are prepared.
Polyethylene Foamed Cotton
Polyethylene foamed cotton is a non-crosslinked closed cell structure, also known as EPE pearl cotton, which is a new environmentally friendly packaging material. It consists of low-density polyethylene glycol by physical foaming to produce a myriad of independent bubbles. It overcomes the shortcomings of common styrofoam, such as fragility, deformation, and poor recovery. It has many advantages such as water-proof, moisture-proof, shock-proof, sound-proof, heat preservation, good plasticity, toughness, recycling, environmental protection, strong impact resistance, etc. It also has good chemical resistance. It is an ideal substitute for traditional packaging materials.
Process Flow of Plastic Foam Package Production Line
Plastic Particles→Formulation Mixing→Heating Extrusion→Blowing Agent Injection→Hybrid Plasticization→Extrusion→Cooling Forming→Sizing Cutting→Cooling Traction→Plating→Winding→Finished Product
First, the raw materials such as polyethylene are uniformly mixed, put into the extruder hopper, melt-kneaded through a large aspect ratio extruder, and simultaneously injected with a high-pressure injection of a foaming gas and a molten monoglyceride in the middle of the extruder, and already melted. The mixed plastic is uniformly mixed, extruded by a machine head and a die, and cooled, drawn, flattened, and wound to form a foamed sheet (film) product. | <urn:uuid:3a872df1-8382-4b42-b044-ac5e93ab2e5d> | {
"date": "2019-05-19T09:10:59",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2019-22",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-22/segments/1558232254731.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20190519081519-20190519103519-00496.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9169845581054688,
"score": 2.578125,
"token_count": 708,
"url": "http://www.lkhrpack.com/products/plastic-foam-package-production-line/"
} |
Article ID: 283658 - View products that this article applies to.
This article was previously published under Q283658
This article describes how to use Device Manager to manage devices in Microsoft Windows XP.
Managing devices with Device ManagerDevice Manager provides a graphical view of the hardware that is installed on the computer, as well as the device drivers and resources associated with that hardware. Using Device Manager provides a central point to change the way the hardware is configured and interacts with the computer's microprocessor.
Using Device Manager to manage devices and their drivers require the following permissions, all of which are granted to Administrators:
To access Device Manager, use any of the following methods:
Viewing information about a device driverTo get information about the driver for a device, perform the following steps:
To view information about the device driverThis information helps determine the file version of the device driver. An icon appears next to device drivers that are digitally signed.
Windows device drivers and operating system files have been digitally signed by Microsoft to ensure their quality. A Microsoft digital signature is an assurance that a particular file is from that manufacturer, and that the file has not been altered or overwritten by another program's installation process.
Depending on how your computer is configured, Windows either ignores device drivers that are not digitally signed, displays a warning when it detects device drivers that are not digitally signed (the default behavior), or prevents you from installing device drivers without digital signatures.
Views and characteristicsThe views and their characteristics are available in the following options with descriptions:
Updating or changing a device driverEnsure the latest device driver for each of the devices is loaded in Windows XP. Manufacturers frequently update their drivers to fix problems and take advantage of operating system features. These drivers are usually available from the manufacturer's Web site, and Microsoft also maintains driver files for many devices on its Web sites.
Upon downloading drivers, read the manufacturer's instructions before attempting to use the files to update the device. Often, downloaded driver files are compressed into a self-executing file that needs to be extracted in order to use the driver. In the Hardware Update Wizard, click to select the Have Disk option, then click the Browse button to locate the driver files.
How to install a new driver from Device Manager
Rolling back to a previous version of a driverUse this feature if you encounter problems after you install a driver, such as error messages when you access the device, faulty behavior of the device, or even the inability to start Windows.
Windows XP provides this roll back to a previous, working, device driver:
TroubleshootingIf the status is Disabled, that is usually the result of user action, and does not necessarily mean that the device has a problem. However, sometimes users disable a device because it was causing a problem, and you should try enabling it to see if it impacts another device negatively.
If the device is experiencing a problem, the Device Status box displays the type of problem. You may see a problem code, or number (or both) and a suggested solution. If you call a support line, this number can be useful for determining and diagnosing the problem.
Troubleshooting a device requires steps specific to that device. If the Device Status box displays a problem, click Troubleshoot to launch the Windows XP troubleshooter for this device type. Supply information and answer questions as prompted.
If you cannot resolve the problem with the troubleshooter, contact the manufacturer.
For help with device problems in Windows Vista, visit the following Microsoft web page:
Fix problems in which devices do not work or are not detected in Windows
For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/244601/ )How to troubleshoot unknown devices that are listed in Device Manager in Windows 2000
(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/125174/ )Explanation of error codes generated by Device Manager
(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/133240/ )Troubleshooting device conflicts with Device Manager
(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/304514/ )How to configure Device Manager to display detailed information
(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310126/ )Troubleshooting device conflicts with Device Manager | <urn:uuid:b509fedc-987e-422a-b960-c8a289605dc7> | {
"date": "2014-08-28T11:28:04",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2014-35",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-35/segments/1408500830746.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20140820021350-00054-ip-10-180-136-8.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.8964740633964539,
"score": 2.53125,
"token_count": 902,
"url": "http://support.microsoft.com/kb/283658?lc=1033&id=0"
} |
With the exception of the Space Shuttle, the high altitude flights of the X-15 and SpaceshipOne, all other human spaceflights have used capsules for reentry followed by descent under parachute. The capsule approach was originally adopted as the quickest way to get humans into space, but even during the 1950s other approaches were being considered – designs that would allow returning spacecraft a greater deal of control during reentry and more accurate landings than the first generation capsules could offer.
One line of thought centred around a vehicle that could generate lift via the shape of its body alone, a ‘lifting body’, and one of the most effective of the configurations that followed was the Martin SV-5/X-24.
Initial steps toward lifting reentry
The lifting body story really begins with investigations to find the optimum survivable configuration for IRBM/ICBM warheads carried out by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). It quickly became clear that the slender bullet-like shapes being considered for supersonic or even hypersonic atmospheric flight would not survive the intense heat of reentry into the atmosphere. In 1951 H. Julian Allen, an aerodynamicist at NACA’s Ames Aeronautical Laboratory, discovered that by using blunt nosed shapes a shock wave would be created ahead of the vehicle allowing much of the heat to dissipate and bringing the temperatures on the vehicle’s skin down to levels that could be handled by ablative heat shields.
Allen began working with Alfred J. Eggars to refine his ‘blunt body’ theory with regards to missile warheads and soon their work was adopted for the first generation of US ICBMs, but Eggars’ work led him to realise that by modifying the shape of the blunt body it would produce lift during reentry – a concept that became known as a lifting body. His designs began to focus on a half-cone shape which, with the addition of some small control surfaces would allow for controlled reentry and large lateral deviations from the original path, known as cross range. His initial design became known as the M1, but later this was refined into the M2 shape.
During the 1950’s the USAF had also been open to alternatives to ballistic capsules, realising that in the longer term a vehicle that could have controlled reentry and sufficient cross-range to land at one of their facilities they would suit their needs better. The majority of their efforts went in the direction of winged boost/glide vehicles from Bell Aircraft’s BOMI through to what eventually became Dyna Soar, but the addition of wings brought many problems in terms of additional weight and heating during reentry. Even as the USAF Air Research and Development Command (ARDC) were pushing for their winged spaceplane, others were already looking towards Eggars’ lifting body work as a superior alternative.
By 1960 the Air Force’s Space Systems Division (SSD) had issued research contracts for lifting body configurations based around Eggars’ M1 to the Martin Company. By 1961 SSD felt confident enough in the lifting body concept to include one as the crew vehicle of their ambitious LUNEX direct ascent lunar landing plan. SSD also proposed a direct competitor to Dyna Soar, SAINT II (a follow on from their earlier uncrewed SAtellite INTerceptor proposal). Carrying a crew of 2, SAINT II was to be a lifting body launched atop Martin’s Titan II missile and would carry out many of the proposed missions considered for Dyna Soar, most notably the interception and destruction of enemy satellites. Given the considerable investment already made into Dyna Soar, the Air Force cancelled SAINT II in 1961, but interest in lifting bodies continued.
Lifting bodies mature
By 1962 NASA engineer Dale Reed began to examine Eggars’ M2 lifting body design at the Flight Research Centre (FRC) at Edwards AFB. He initially built and flew small radio controlled models to establish the basic airworthiness of the shape. With this achieved he set about convincing his managers that a piloted prototype was the next logical step. What Reed and a small team including research pilot Milt Thompson came up with was a low cost, unpowered wooden vehicle named the M2-F1. Completed in 1963, the M2-F1 was initially tow tested behind a high powered Pontiac on the dry lakebed, but soon more ambitious flights were undertaken behind the FRCs C-47 with the vehicle proving challenging, but flyable.
While NASA pursued the M2 design, Martin continued to refine their ideas about lifting bodies during the early 1960s. Rather than staying rooted in Eggars’ original work, they began to look at original concepts. Martin Aerodynamicist Hans Multhopp developed a new design named Space Vehicle no.5, more commonly referred to as the SV-5. Multhopp had been a designer for Focke-Wulf in wartime Germany and following the conclusion of the war, had worked in the UK at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough. He moved to the US in 1949 to work for Martin, initially contributing to the swept wing, T-tailed XB-51 jet powered bomber. With his SV-5 design Multhopp saw many advantages over the NASA lifting body concepts including greater internal volume, better pilot visibility and far higher cross range. The Air Force bought into Multhopp’s SV-5 design issuing a contract in March 1962 for
”…an aerodynamic configuration capable of achieving at least 600 nautical miles cross range manoeuvring and capable of performing a tangential landing, and to develop an ablative heat shield material…capable of providing the configuration protection from the environment experienced in low earth orbits and in the return and reentry to tangential landings from these orbits”
The Air Force had already initiated the Spacecraft Technology and Advanced Reentry Test (START) programme for spaceplane relevant technologies, initially in support of Dyna Soar. Phase one of the programme was the small Aerothermodynamic Elastic Structural Systems Environmental Tests (ASSET) vehicle, a winged biconic device launched on a suborbital trajectory atop a Thor missile. ASSET’s main purpose was to better understand the thermal environment during a lifting reentry and to test out various heat shield materials. Six ASSET missions were flown between September 1963 and February 1965 and, with the exception of the second flight where the Thor malfunctioned, the tests were regarded as successful. By the end of 1963 Dyna Soar had been cancelled, but it was hoped that ASSET and future elements of the START programme could yield useful data for other space plane projects yet to come.
In March 1965 USAF General Bernard A. Schriever announced the second element of START, the development of a manoeuvrable reentry vehicle under the Precision Recovery Including Manoeuvring Entry (PRIME) programme. The shape chosen for PRIME was the Martin Marietta (as the Martin company became in 1961 following a merger with the American Marietta Corporation) SV-5D lifting body. The programme called for up to four suborbital flight tests from Vandenberg AFB with the sub scale SV-5D model being launched within a fairing atop an Atlas missile. The SV-5D was 6.75ft in length with a ‘wingspan’ of 4ft (although it had no wings in the conventional sense). The vehicle had a nearly flat bottom but curved upper surface with two outward canted fins to the rear of the vehicle. Two extendable flaps on the underside of the vehicle’s rear end provided directional control during reentry. The structure was manufactured from a combination of titanium, beryllium, stainless steel and aluminium. The whole body was protected with an ablative compound developed by Martin Marietta and applied at different thicknesses across the vehicle depending on the predicted heat loads.
The flight plan called for the SV-5D to be launched to an altitude of approximately 90 miles on a suborbital trajectory. Following separation from the Atlas booster the lifting body would perform a controlled reentry including pitch and cross range manoeuvres. Following reentry the SV-5D would make a final descent under parachute whereupon it would be snared by a recovery aircraft in the same manner as the CIA’s Corona spy satellite capsules. Should the aircraft fail to catch the vehicle, flotation devices would then deploy allowing an ocean recovery. The first flight of the PRIME programme took place on December 21st 1966, demonstrating pitch manoeuvres. Unfortunately the first vehicle was lost after unsuccessful recovery attempts. A second flight on March 5th 1967 tested the ability of the SV-5D to perform cross range manoeuvres, which it successfully did moving up to 500 miles from the original path before returning again. Sadly the second vehicle was also lost when recovery equipment failed, but again the flight was regarded as a success. The third flight took place took place on April 18th 1967 and after meeting all of it’s objectives the vehicle was successfully recovered. The Air Force considered the three flights to have been so successful that it was decided to scrub the planned forth flight. The SV-5D had proved itself capable of not only surviving hypersonic lifting reentry but of performing significant pitch and cross range manoeuvres. The START programme now moved on to its final phase aimed at demonstrating the low-speed characteristics of the shape and its ability to perform precision landings.
By the mid 1960s NASA engineers and pilots at the Flight Research Center had gained enough confidence in the lifting body through flights of the lightweight M2-F1 that the decision was made to construct a heavyweight metal version, the M2-F2, to conduct more extensive tests at higher speeds and altitudes. Improved control surfaces were incorporated with a single underbody flap, split upper-body flaps and outboard rudders on the vertical surfaces. The original plan had called for two M2-F2s to be built, but FRC managers decided to take the opportunity to test out a second design developed at NASA’s Langley Center, the HL-10. Where the M2 shape had a rounded half cone underside and flat top, the HL-10 featured a flat underside and curved upper surface featuring 3 fins. Both of the NASA ‘heavyweight’ lifting bodies would be rocket powered (using the venerable XR-11 engine first used on the X-1 two decades earlier) and air-launched from the FRC B-52s that were also used for the X-15 programme. Northrop won the contract to manufacture both vehicles and initial glide tests began during 1966.
During March 1966, even as the PRIME tests continued, the Air Force also decided to move to a heavyweight piloted version of the SV-D shape under the Piloted Low-speed Tests (PILOT) program to complete START. Originally designated the SV-5P, the vehicle was again constructed by Martin Marietta and rolled out in August 1967 by which time the Air Force had assigned it the new designation X-24A. Static testing soon began at Edwards AFB followed by wind-tunnel testing at NASA Ames. As with the other heavyweight lifting bodies, the X-24A was powered by the XLR-11 rocket engine and was to be air-launched by the B-52 motherships. Unlike its PRIME predecessor the SV-5D, the X-24A featured a central fin for additional directional stability at low speeds, and moveable upper body flaps to complement the underbody ones. Rudders were included on the two outboard vertical surfaces.
Having flown the earlier M2-F1 Chuck Yeager, in his role as Commandant of the USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards, was a keen supporter of the lifting body concept and was instrumental in suggesting that the X-24A should be accompanied by jet powered training versions to give his students more experience in the unusual vehicle. Martin Marietta used their own funds to construct two of the training vehicles, designated SV-5Js, powered by a single Pratt & Whitney J60-PW-1 engine with a ventral intake. Once completed, Martin Marietta approached the FRC and research pilot Milt Thompson to see if they would undertake test flights of the SV-5J. When FRC engineers calculated that the vehicle was woefully underpowered and recognised it would be dangerous to fly, NASA and Thompson declined. Undeterred, Martin Marietta then offered Thompson $20,000 to undertake a test flight on a private basis. As Dale Reed describes in his book Wingless Flight:
“Thompson offered to accept Martin’s $20,000 if he could get it airborne by simply bouncing the SV-5J a few inches into the air by running it across a two-by-four on the runway. Martin didn’t accept Thompson’s ‘Flight Plan’.”
With the SV-5J concept now abandoned, NASA and the Air Force worked to get the X-24A into the air, but problems during final checkouts delayed the first glide flight until April 1969. The glide flights continued into 1970 giving pilots Jerauld Gentry and John Manke good insights into the X-24A’s low speed handling characteristics. It was now time to move on to the powered test programme. Jerauld Gentry dropped away from the B-52 and lit the X-24A’s XLR-11 for the first time on March 19th 1970. The vehicle proved stable during powered flight, reaching just under Mach 0.9. Following the powered portion of the flight, the X-24A glided back to a safe landing on the dry lake. Further powered flights followed during 1970 with Gentry and Manke both gaining flight time without major incident until August 26th when Gentry experienced a fire in the engine compartment caused when jettisoned fuel was inadvertently ignited. The resulting damage led to a short hiatus for repairs and modifications but by mid October Manke was able to take the X-24A through Mach 1.0 for the first time, then to a maximum programme altitude of 71,407ft on the very next flight.
The final X-24A flight occurred on June 4th 1971, drawing the PILOT and START programmes to a close. The X-24A, while challenging to fly especially without the stability augmentation system engaged, had proved that the SV-5 shape could be piloted from supersonic speeds down to a controlled landing. When combined with the earlier PRIME results, the START programme had proven that an SV-5 derived lifting body could perform well across the entire flight envelope from near orbital speeds all the way down to a runway landing. But while the X-24A programme was now at an end, the vehicle itself was about to get a new lease of life.
A new breed of Lifting Body
Even as the X-24A was beginning its flight test programme, engineers at the FRC and Air Force were starting to think about a new breed of lifting bodies. The initial generation of heavyweights, the M2-F2/F3, HL-10 and X-24A, all had lift-to-drag ratios in the 1.2 – 1.4 range. In an effort to create better lift-to-drag characteristics, thus increasing range and cross-range during re-entry or hypersonic flight, new configurations were being considered. At NASA’s FRC, Dale Reed was experimenting with a design named Hyper III, a longer more slender shape than the previous lifting bodies, with a triangular planform and flat base that featured small horizontal ‘winglets’ at the rear. Testing showed that the Hyper III shape would have a lift-to-drag of nearer 3.0 during hypersonic flight. the disadvantage of the shape was that it would need small deployable wings to generate enough lift for landings at subsonic speeds. As he had with the M2, Reed set about building a scale model of the Hyper III to test various wing types during the final descent phase. With promising results in hand, the FRC moved forwards with a small programme to create a piloted prototype as they had with the M2-F1. Unfortunately Hyper III failed to gain traction with a NASA HQ currently managing Apollo and other large programmes.
Fortunately, at Wright Patterson AFB, a team at the Air Force’s Flight Dynamics Laboratory (FDL) led by engineer Alfred Draper had been thinking along broadly similar lines to Reed for some time. They had generated a number of configurations for hypersonic or space capable vehicles using the lifting body concept. One of their concepts, the FDL-8, had already formed the basis for the Lockheed STARClipper spaceplane design, later used as the starting point for Lockheed’s Space Shuttle proposals. Now Draper and the FDL saw the opportunity to modify the X-24A by adding additional airframe elements to create a new FDL-8 inspired lifting body. The configuration they came up with would require no deployable wings for approach and landing and had the huge advantage of being relatively inexpensive as it was using the existing X-24A airframe and many of its systems. Discussions between NASA FRC and the Air Force Flight Test Center led to an agreement to jointly fund and operate the new programme, designated the X-24B.
By early 1972, with agreements signed and the contract for the modifications going again to Martin Marietta, the X-24B programme was underway. By October of the same year, the revised airframe was delivered to Edwards AFB and system fit-out followed by static testing began. Following captive flights to ensure the B-52/X-24B combination was stable the first glide flight of the new lifting body took place on August 1st 1973 with John Manke at the controls. During the glide flights that followed the X-24B displayed good all-round handling across a range of lower speed manoeuvres and was found to be much more stable during flare and landing. With the vehicle’s basic handling characteristics verified, testing moved to the powered phase with Manke again at the controls during the first rocket powered flight on November 15th 1973.
Over the next two years Manke and project pilot Michael Love took the X-24B to a maximum speed of Mach 1.75 and a maximum altitude of over 74,000 ft. Enthused by the vehicle’s superior handling (which Manke compared to that of contemporary fighter aircraft) and the X-24B’s proven ability to make accurate landings, a series of flights were planned to demonstrate its ability to make accurate landings on the main concrete runway at Edwards. Proving this was possible would go a long way towards settling arguments within NASA regarding the need to include extendable jet engines on the forthcoming Space Shuttle for approach and landing. On August 5th 1975 Manke brought the X-24B to a pinpoint runway landing from an altitude of 60,000 ft. When this ability was demonstrated again some weeks later by Love, the argument was settled. The jet engines could be deleted from the Shuttle Orbiter’s design saving valuable weight and freeing up more space for payload. Towards the end of the programme Manke and Love were joined by NASA research pilot Bill Dana and on September 3rd 1975 Dana made the final powered flight of the programme which was also the final flight by a piloted rocket plane at Edwards AFB bringing to a close an era of experimental flight research stretching back to the 1940s. Six more unpowered flights were made to familiarise three more pilots with the vehicle with the final lifting body flight taking place during November 1975 with NASA pilot Thomas McMurtry at the controls.
For a while it seemed that the X-24B would have a direct descendant as the Air Force and NASA examined the feasibility of producing an air-breathing hypersonic vehicle based on the FDL-8 configuration and the flight experience gained during the X-24B. Acting as a testbed for interchangeable scramjet prototypes the X-24C would be capable of speeds in the range of Mach 6-8, effectively picking up where the X-15A-2 had left off. The programme became known as the National Hypersonic Flight Research Facility (NHFRF) and design studies were undertaken by both Martin Marietta and the famed Lockheed Skunk Works. Unfortunately by 1977 rising costs associated with the programme led NASA to withdraw effectively killing the NHFRF. Rumours have persisted for many years that the X-24C programme was continued by the Air Force on a classified basis at Groom Lake, but as with so many supposed ‘black’ aircraft no definitive proof of this has surfaced.
Lifting Body lifeboats
One of the key advantages of the lifting body over a capsule is that it can perform ‘gentler’ lower G reentries to a large range of landing sites from each orbit. While the Air Force may have been thinking more in terms of lifting body derived weapons systems, designers at Martin Marietta were eager to find other uses for their SV-5 design and were quick to recognise that the lifting body’s advantages made it ideal as a quick response rescue vehicle capable of returning stranded or injured astronauts to terra firms quickly and safely. The resulting proposal became known as the National Orbital Rescue Service (NORS). Martin’s proposal met a cool reception from both NASA and the DoD, essentially the only two parties with a potential use for such a system. While NORS never reached a test or hardware stage, a very similar SV-5 derived vehicle did make it onto the silver screen in the 1969 film Marooned, an adaptation of an earlier novel by Martin Caidin.
The idea of a dedicated space rescue vehicle or lifeboat remained unrealised as the first generation of space stations always had a return capsule attached to them, or the means to allow another capsule to rescue the crew if required, but the idea did crop up again with the advent of the far larger International Space Station (ISS). Anticipating permanent occupation of the station by larger crews NASA began to look for a vehicle that could remain permanently attached and ready to carry crew members home automatically in the case of serious injury, illness or crew evacuation due to damage to the ISS or other craft attached to it. Following conversations with managers at NASA Johnson, Dale Reed again became involved on behalf of NASA Dryden (as the FRC was now known). The Johnson team were looking for a vehicle that could perform a controlled low G reentry and low speed landing under a parafoil. The team at Dryden initially argued in favour of a horizontal runway landing, citing their experience on the earlier lifting bodies, but the parafoil approach ensured that the vehicle could land in a huge variety of locations as long as flat ground was available.
Given the amount of data available from the PRIME and PILOT programmes, the SV-5D shape was chosen for what was initially called the Assured Crew Return Vehicle (ACRV). During May 1995 Reed was able to test out radio controlled sub scale models of the vehicle as an initial proof of concept for the landing phase. With the basic concept approved NASA issued a contract to Scaled Composites in 1996 for the construction of three 80% scale atmospheric test vehicles, under the designation X-38. During 1997, the first two test vehicles were delivered to Dryden and began captive carry tests using the B-52 carrier aircraft. The first drop test was conducted in March 1998 but was only partially successful due to parafoil problems and issues with the landing skids. After further parafoil development and testing, the X-38 drop tests continued at Dryden with more promising results proving the autonomous landing system would work as designed. Flight testing continued for a number of years with one of the models being modified to represent the finalised orbital Crew Return Vehicle (CRV as the program was now known) configuration. At NASA Johnson, construction began on an orbital test vehicle, but as promising as the X-38 may have seemed, events elsewhere were about to lead to its demise.
By the late 1990s and early 2000s NASA recognised it was becoming imperative to reign in massive cost overruns on the construction of the ISS. An International Space Station Management and Cost Evaluation (ICME) Task Force was convened to make recommendations on how to save money while completing the station. Their answer came in the form of the Core Complete concept which would produce a functional station but would remove certain elements of the original design, including the CRV. Core Complete was adopted in late 2001 and the official cancellation of the X-38 CRV programme followed in April 2002. Whilst the deletion of the X-38 undoubtedly saved some money for NASA it has been repeatedly criticised since. Since the withdrawal from service of the Space Shuttle and delays in the Commercial Crew programmes, the sole means of reaching and returning from the ISS has been via the Russian Soyuz. This has proved an increasingly expensive commitment for NASA and, as only 2 of the 3-seat Soyuz vehicles can remain docked at the ISS at any given time, this limits the ISS crew to a maximum of 6. The presence of a vehicle such as the X-38 would allow for a larger crew and therefore more work and research to be carried out during the ISS’s lifetime.
In describing the Air Force’s PRIME programme, I have referred to the test vehicle as the SV-5D, rather than the commonly used X-23A designation as this appears to have been retrospectively applied to the vehicle and was not in use during the operational phase of the programme.
I have also included the ASSET programme as part of the START. Some programme histories take this approach, others only include the PRIME and PILOT programmes, but for this article I chose the former approach as I felt the inclusion of ASSET had relevance to the wider Air Force initiatives around lifting reentry.
Finally, the sole X-24B now resides at the National Museum of the US Air Force at Wright Patterson AFB. It is accompanied by one of the unflown Martin Marietta SV-5J prototypes which has been modified to represent the original X-24A configuration. The museum also has the sole recovered SV-5D from the PRIME programme and a recovered ASSET test vehicle.
Wingless Flight: the Lifting Body Story – R. Dale Reed with Darlene Lister
The X-Planes X-1 to X-45 – Jay Miller
Space Shuttle: The History of the National Space Transportation System (The First 100 Missions) – Dennis R. Jenkins
Space Shuttle: An Illustrated History of US Winged Spacecraft – Melvyn Smith
Secret Projects: Military Space Technology – Bill Rose
Flight Testing at Edwards: Flight Test Engineers Stories 1946-1975 – Edited by Fred Stoliker, Bob Hoey & Johnny Armstrong
National Museum of the US Air Force website – Accessed 15th May 2017
NASA X-38 online factsheet – Accessed 16th May 2017
The Space Review: A Tale of two Martins – Accessed 16th May 2017
Encyclopedia Astronautica: ASSET – Accessed 15th May 2017
Encyclopedia Astronautica: LUNEX – Accessed 14th May 2017 | <urn:uuid:d8c26092-fbe3-48fd-82c9-7ce342755323> | {
"date": "2019-06-26T23:12:04",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2019-26",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-26/segments/1560628000575.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20190626214837-20190627000837-00536.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9703733325004578,
"score": 3.734375,
"token_count": 5638,
"url": "https://thehighfrontier.blog/2017/05/16/flying-without-wings-the-martin-sv-5x-24-lifting-bodies/"
} |
One in five working-age American men does not have a job, according to the latest federal employment numbers, an all-time high that illustrates the extraordinary toll this recession has taken on male-dominated professions in particular.
Men are more likely to work in sectors like manufacturing and construction that are more sensitive to economic downturns. But this downturn has been particularly brutal on those industries, leading some observers to call it a "mancession."
Only 80.3 percent of men age 25-54 had jobs in December -- the lowest since the Bureau of Labor Statistics started collecting that data in 1948 -- at which point the figure was 94.4 percent. When the recession began in December 2007, less than 13 percent of men in this age bracket were out of work.
The numbers are derived from what the BLS calls its employment-to-population ratio. While the non-working number in this case includes men who have voluntarily chosen to stay out of the workforce, such as students and stay-at-home dads, in many ways it provides a clearer picture of the depth of the nation's unemployment situation.
The percentage of women age 25-54 who have work is also down, but not as dramatically. Some 69.1 percent of those women are employed, about the same as in 1998. Women dominate the fields such as education, health services and government. The health industry and government payrolls are booming, and are expected to continue growing, thanks to an aging population and recently-enacted stimulus programs to boost the economy, respectively.
Overall, the percentage of Americans over age 16 that holds a job continues to slide, reaching 58.2 percent. That's a 25-year-low.
"It is striking that we have managed to reverse more than 26 years of increasing labor force participation in this downturn," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Economic and Policy Research. "It will take a long time for workers to get over the effects of this recession."
The official unemployment rate, which doesn't include people who are underemployed or who have given up looking for work, remained at 10 percent.
According to the BLS, employers nationwide shed an additional 85,000 jobs in December. Analysts had predicted a decline of just 10,000 jobs.
The extent of the job losses indicates that the optimism generated by last month's slight dip in the unemployment rate (from 10.2 to 10 percent) may have been unfounded. Revised figures released today show an actual increase of 4,000 jobs in November - but that's now been offset 20 times over in December.
More than 6.3 million people are looking for jobs, according to the new figures, a 14 percent increase from December 2008.
Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, points out that 1.9 million workers have left the labor force since May. These are people who are either seeking work or working. More than 660,000 workers left the labor force between November and December alone.
"Absent this flight from the labor market the unemployment rate would have risen substantially in December, up 0.4 percent, rather than hold steady," he said in an e-mail.
Mishel also notes that the population has grown, which should have led to a rise in the labor force. Instead, just the opposite has happened. He writes:
Over the last year, the working age population grew by 0.8 percent, so we would have expected a growth in the labor force, those working or seeking work, by 1.2 million people. Instead, the labor force fell 1.5 million, indicating that the labor force is missing 2.7 million people, more than half of whom abandoned the labor force. The erosion of the labor force started occurring after May, with 271,000 withdrawing each month for the last seven months. Two-thirds of those fleeing the labor market since May have been adult men.
Visit this link for a deeper dive into the numbers.
The Morning Email helps you start your workday with everything you need to know: breaking news, entertainment and a dash of fun. Learn more | <urn:uuid:b36c0364-8008-4dd3-beef-afda915ee765> | {
"date": "2016-12-10T13:19:42",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2016-50",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-50/segments/1480698543170.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20161202170903-00024-ip-10-31-129-80.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9727298021316528,
"score": 2.578125,
"token_count": 851,
"url": "http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/08/1-in-5-working-age-americ_n_415984.html"
} |
In two years' time, the annual growth of the web will be equivalent to all the documents ever written in human history. A few years later, that same amount of information is likely to be added in just a matter of days. As Ian Goldin and his colleagues from the James Martin 21st Century School in Oxford rattled through the vertiginous statistics at the World in 2050 event staged in London by Intelligence Squared, a couple of things became clear.
First, forget 2050: the future is here, which is to say that the pace of the technological development that we imagine lies in the future is with us now and changes our lives from year to year, sometimes from month to month. But perhaps more important is that we contemplate the problems of the future as never before: severe climate change, population explosion, the pressures on land, food, water and energy preoccupy us like no other generation in history.
Futurologists like to shock. During the World in 2050 evening, we were shown slides of a genetically "enhanced" rabbit that glows in the dark and film of a superior mouse that can run six kilometres without pausing for breath or sustenance; the average mouse manages just 200 metres before dropping exhausted. We heard of engineered body parts, brain implants, nanobots and drugs that will improve memory and mental powers – already academics and students are using the attention-deficit drug Ritalin to upgrade their concentration. There were graphs that demonstrated computing power and ageing population, the global threat of rapidly moving infections and what current levels of the C02 emissions will do to our world
Impressive yes, but in last week's newspapers you will have found developments that are every bit as compelling – a partially successful Aids vaccine; an intelligent CCTV system that claims to interpret behaviour and help stamp out crime; robots that mark English examination papers; a scanner used by police to detect stolen mobile phones; elderly patients to be fitted with microchip implants that will text a carer if they forget to take their pills; and the launch of digital advertising billboards equipped with cameras that read a car's number plate as it passes, consult with the DVLA computer to establish the make of car and recommend the appropriate engine oil in the display.
We assumed most of these things were safely locked up in the future, but they're very much part of the here and now. We live the future every day. It impinges on the present as only history once did and has a profound impact on the way people think of their own time and their own lives. We are enthralled by the experience but also unmoored by it, because the present – our time – is in some sense demoted to a period of mere overture before the enormous calamity of a few years' time.
Ask 100 people how they feel about the future and I guarantee that 90% will reply they fear for the world and themselves. This was probably also true for past generations because we are superstitious beings and let fear rule our reason. But the sweep of modern history seems to tell a different story. Take the 200 years since 1809. Despite the particular worries of each generation – the wars, economic collapse famine and natural disaster – there has been a vast improvement in the quality of life over the two centuries. In terms of life expectancy, education and health, the experience and fulfilment available to millions of individuals, the period shows unremitting advance and yet the narrow focus of each generation dictates a much more pessimistic assessment.
The same improving trends can be found in the 20 years since I stood on the Berlin Wall and looked down with complete wonderment at the sight of the world changing on 9 November 1989. The world wide web did not exist, mobile phone technology was in its infancy and laptops were a rarity. The pleasure and benefits these inventions have given us are incalculable. Interestingly, much else has improved in those two decades. In the New Scientist's feature "Is the world getting better or worse?", the magazine shows that life expectancy at birth has improved, along with statistics on maternal and infant mortality, extreme poverty, malnutrition, food supply, drinking water, education, GDP per capita and infectious diseases.
This all goes counter to what we think we know. Where we have done badly is predictably in the categories of conflict, military spending (up by 20% since 1992), displaced persons, CO2 emissions, deforestation, the ecological footprint and population. In my lifetime, the world's population has risen from 2.5 billion to last Friday's estimate of 6.787 billion, and during my children's lifetimes it will probably rise to between 9.5 and 10 billion. The figures contain a complex story of falling fertility rates and an ageing population in Asia and Europe, which will bring their own problems, but the overall message is not at all good.
My particular nightmare is of millions of old people scratching in the soil of an over-heated planet that is robbed of bird song, fish, insects, rain forest and most large fauna; if I have a sharp criticism of the 2050 event it was its unwavering focus on the fortunes of one species – Homo sapiens. As Martin Rees writes in his excellent book, Our Final Century, mankind is presiding over a great extinction. "Species are dying out at one hundred or even one thousand times the normal rate," he writes.
Quite apart from the damage we may well do ourselves by nuclear warfare or, as Rees and before him Bill Joy of Sun Microsystems have pointed out, by "the combination of genetics, nanotechnology and robotics, which may develop uncontrollably and take us over", this wholesale destruction of creation seems to be one of the most melancholy certainties of our time and of the future.
Listening to the speakers from the 21st Century School, one becomes aware not just that the future is with us but that our institutions seem mostly inadequate to the challenge. The gap between our technical ingenuity and our political and moral capacities to deal with these problems is so large that most succumb to a fatal pessimism. This is wrong because reason, moral fortitude, leadership and science can save us and the world yet.
Watching President Obama, moving simultaneously on Iran, Palestine, missile defence, climate change, the global recession and his own health care programme, we see the galvanising effect of one man's leadership. In the last few weeks, China and India have substantially altered their positions in the run-up to December's climate change summit in Copenhagen, and that will, in turn, affect America's stance.
There needs to be action nationally too. Britain must update its institutions so that there is formal, publicised, long-term advice, which will educate politicians and the public. Education is vital, not just about the menace of an overheated, overpopulated world, but about greed and the selfishness that is integral to current ideas of economic success.
Reform of our democracy and its creaking mechanisms is long overdue. People doubt whether democracy is capable of producing decisive action. They are wrong: democracy is not the problem; it is that we are working with a model of democracy founded before industrialisation when the world's population was less than one billion. | <urn:uuid:3cc34f9b-69b4-405f-89a0-a7587404bf7a> | {
"date": "2015-05-25T04:11:21",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2015-22",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-22/segments/1432207928350.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20150521113208-00324-ip-10-180-206-219.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9624974727630615,
"score": 2.84375,
"token_count": 1471,
"url": "http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/sep/27/henry-porter-saving-planet/print"
} |
Smoking is estimated to cause the death of over 120,000 people every year in the UK. It is the cause of 1 in 5 of all male deaths and 1 in 10 of all female deaths.
It has been linked to countless conditions, including numerous terminal illnesses such as lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease and many other serious health problems such as depression, infertility, impotence and insomnia. The World Health Organisation estimates that 5.4 million deaths worldwide are caused by tobacco and this will rise to 8.3 million by 2030. Every 6.5 seconds a current or former smoker dies.
The ill-effects of smoking are not surprising when you consider that cigarette smoke contains over four thousand chemical constituents.
Over sixty of these have now been demonstrated to be carcinogenic (cancer causing).
Some examples of these chemicals include cadmium (a highly toxic metal), acetone (used as a nail-polish remover), lead and hydrogen cyanide. Nicotine is the key addictive ingredient in cigarettes but is not itself carcinogenic.
The majority of smokers when asked will say that they do want to quit and that they are aware that smoking is extremely damaging to their health.
The good news for smokers is that there is now more support than ever before for people looking to kick the habit, both in the form of information and products designed to reduce cravings and stave off withdrawal symptoms. One key development has been the introduction of nicotine-replacement therapies.
Nicotine-replacement therapies (NRT) are available in the form of nicotine patches, gum, lozenges, inhalators, microtabs, nasal sprays and oral sprays.
The general principal of all of these therapies is to supply a quitting smoker with a level of nicotine in their blood while they are quitting, helping reduce nicotine withdrawal symptoms and cravings whilst a smoker breaks the psychological habit of smoking.
NRT begins with a smoker calculating their dependence upon nicotine. This is calculated by answering simple questions about the number of cigarettes you smoke per day and of your smoking habits such as whether you smoke first thing upon waking for example. Once you have identified your ‘level of nicotine addiction’, you can choose whether or not to use gum, patches, an inhalator etc. Some quitters try a variety of products before settling upon their preferred option. In certain circumstances more than one type of NRT product can be used together, ask your pharmacist for advice.
In smokers who are determined to quit, NRT has been shown to double the quitting success rate versus will power alone. You can talk to your pharmacist about NRT.
There are now also a number of help-lines and support groups for people looking to quit, many of them running ‘quitting communities’ functioning either in person or online.
The NHS offers both a helpline on 0800 169 0169 as well as smoking cessation facilities where you can get face-to-face support.
Many pharmacists also run comprehensive smoking cessation programs and will be able to help people looking to quit.
If you have decided to quit consider these helpful tips:
- On the day you pick to quit, start that morning without a cigarette.
- Avoid activities you used to engage in that were linked to smoking.
- Take a walk or read a book instead of taking a cigarette break.
- Throw away your lighter(s), matches and cigarettes.
- When the urge to smoke strikes eat a healthy snack.
- Drink a lot of fluids and reduce your intake of alcohol or caffeine. These can increase your
desire to smoke.
- Exercising will help you relax.
- Spend time with non smokers.
- Seek support for quitting.
- Tell others about your milestones with pride.
- Don’t be too hard on yourself if you relapse. Most people try quitting several times before
successfully kicking the habit.
The information provided on this website does not replace medical advice.
If you want to find out more, or are worried about any medical issue or symptoms that you may be experiencing, please contact our pharmacist or see your doctor. | <urn:uuid:6b7523fb-1f38-4df9-9db1-9ba2aeebecd9> | {
"date": "2018-12-17T01:01:22",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2018-51",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-51/segments/1544376828018.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20181216234902-20181217020902-00576.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9396075010299683,
"score": 3.03125,
"token_count": 865,
"url": "http://www.shivaspharmacy.com/healthadvice/stop-smoking/"
} |
Assessing the Habitability of Proxima Centauri b
The recent discovery of a potentially Earth-like planet orbiting the nearest star to the Sun has caused waves in the exoplanet and astrobiology community. Proxima Centauri b is a terrestrial planet with a minimum mass of 1.3 Earth masses orbiting in the 'habitable zone' of the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri. It was discovered by an international team of astronomers led by Guillem Anglada-Escude from Queen Mary, University of London using ESO, LCOGT, SPACEOBS and BOOTES observatories. A flurry of scientific papers on Proxima Centauri b have since appeared on the arXiv, including comprehensive reviews of the planet's potential habitability by the Virtual Planetary Laboratory (VPL) team, one of NExSS's largest groups.
VPL's Rory Barnes discusses 'Opportunities and Obstacles to Life on Proxima b' in his blog post on the Pale Red Dot webpage. | <urn:uuid:e30bd4b7-aa28-4b70-bf2c-30c3f18e4994> | {
"date": "2017-08-19T03:37:01",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2017-34",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-34/segments/1502886105297.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20170819031734-20170819051734-00016.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9053187370300293,
"score": 3,
"token_count": 209,
"url": "https://nexss.info/blog/2016/09/assessing-the-habitability-of-proxima-centauri-b"
} |
SHOFTIM PARSHA FRAMED 12 X 16
BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY
Devarim (Deuteronomy) In this final book of Torah, Moses reviews much of the history and the laws given to the Jewish people: hence the Greek name, (taken from phrase 'Mishneh Torah', Deut. 17:18) meaning second telling. In Deuteronomy, the belief that following God's rules will bring blessing; while spurning God will result in calamity is stressed. Idolatry and other false practices are continually denounced. Many scholars identify Deuteronomy with the book of Teaching found by Hilkiah the High Priest (during the reign of King Josiah- II Kings 22:8) during the reforms the king was instituting to strengthen Israel and its religion. There are thirty-four chapters, divided into eleven parashiyot. The parashiyot of Devarim are: Devarim, Va'Etchanan, Ekev, Re'eh, Shoftim, Ki Tetze, Ki Tavo, Nitzavim, VaYelech, Ha'azinu, and Zot HaBrachah
Shoftim: Whether we live in Israel or not, we must consider our relationship to Zion in our lives as Jews.
The Hebrew word shoftim - meaning 'judges' or 'magistrates' - defines the theme of this important portion. Issues of jurisprudence and social ethics predominate, including guidelines for judges and courts of law, elders, kings, prophets, and priests, all of who have a role in maintaining a just society. Right up front, the text identifies the most important characteristic of a judge: the ability to remain impartial and objective. The shofet must not play favourites and must always resist bribes and other forms of influence.The Torah again prohibits any forms of idolatrous practices, which are seen as the greatest perversion of God's justice. The notion of a Monarch is discussed as a possibility when entering into the Promised Land. The Israelites can only appoint a King who has been selected by God, and the King must have an unyielding commitment to God, Torah, and the people of Israel. He too must not be distracted by material wealth or foreign influence, which might cloud his judgement.Moses next addresses the Levites and emphasizes their special place among the people. The have both privilege and responsibility. Moses then turns from the priests to the notion of prophecy, and discusses how to distinguish between a true prophet and a false prophet. No other forms of divination or sorcery can be used to determine God's will, and all false prophets and methods of divination must be wiped out. Cities of refuge and the importance of proper witnesses are discussed. The parasha ends with a discussion of proper approaches to warfare. Justice is to be maintained at all times, even times of war.
Copyright: Kolel, The Adult Centre for Liberal Jewish Learning.
These summaries and introductions are used with permission of Kolel: The Adult Centre for Liberal Jewish Learning in Toronto, Canada. Kolel is a dynamic, pluralistic, egalitarian institution where men and women engage in Jewish learning which values both traditional and liberal interpretations. Kolel is a gateway into a richer expression of Judaism for each individual, wherever their journey of Jewish discovery may take them.
exact frame size is approximate because we frame to order. | <urn:uuid:118b4cad-b0ca-4c2d-96a4-289a811bb00a> | {
"date": "2017-08-20T03:54:10",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2017-34",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-34/segments/1502886105970.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20170820034343-20170820054343-00656.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9250767827033997,
"score": 2.84375,
"token_count": 714,
"url": "http://www.shukisjudaica.com/store/SHOFS%21SHUK/SHOFTIM+PARSHA+FRAMED+12+X+16"
} |
Adequate protein intake is vital for your body to function properly. Protein is involved in effective immune system functioning; enzyme and hormone production; maintenance of healthy skin, hair and nails; muscle and organ development and transportation of oxygen throughout the body. It is also an important energy source. Food sources of protein traditionally are termed complete or incomplete proteins. Complete proteins include all essential amino acids, while those that are incomplete provide some but not all of them.
Protein food sources are listed in categories of excellent, very good and good on World's Healthiest Foods' website. This site uses government standards of food labeling based on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's reference values. These ratings use the percentage of daily protein value provided by the food and its nutrient density to determine the rating. Nutrient density is the amount of nutrients in a food compared to the number of calories it contains.
Animal Sources of Protein
Most of the top protein sources, those rated excellent, are obtained from the flesh of animals. Meat, poultry and seafood are all represented in the excellent category. Some of the top proteins in this category include venison, turkey, tuna, cod and shrimp. Eggs, a by-product of animals, are rated as a good protein source.
Two Major Plant-Based Sources
Non-vegetarians may be surprised that certain vegetables make good protein sources. Examples include mustard greens, spinach and asparagus. Another plant-based category, legumes, is a third major supplier of protein foods. Soybeans, for example, are labeled as a good protein food, and Web MD reports that a half-cup of beans contains as much protein as an ounce of broiled steak.
Another protein category is dairy. Cheese is considered a very good protein source. Yogurt and milk are good sources. If you struggle with lactose-sensitivity, goat milk might be an option, as it contains comparable amounts of protein to that found in cow milk. Dairy products also provide calcium and vitamin D. In order to enjoy the protein benefit without substantially increasing the amount of fat you eat, choose skim or low-fat dairy products.
It is important to maintain a regular, adequate protein intake to prevent symptoms of protein deficiency. These include muscle wasting, fatigue, weakness, frequent infections, unexplained weight loss and slow growth or development in children. Since these symptoms are similar to those of other medical conditions, consult a physician before attempting to address them through dietary or lifestyle changes. | <urn:uuid:948de10a-0fd9-4df5-99c2-1f78a64ecbb8> | {
"date": "2019-03-18T14:21:00",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2019-13",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-13/segments/1552912201329.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20190318132220-20190318153639-00007.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9522851705551147,
"score": 3.296875,
"token_count": 503,
"url": "https://healthyeating.sfgate.com/four-major-sources-protein-4971.html"
} |
In the Philosophy of Right, Hegel explores the role of family and marriage in the stability of the state. For Hegel, the critical element of a marriage is opposite sexes which complement each other; for example, it is fitting that men rule women because they are physiologically adapted for different kinds of engagement with the world. He writes:
“The difference between men and women is like that between animals and plants. Men correspond to animals, while women correspond to plants because their development is more placid and the principle that underlines it is the rather vague unity of feeling…. Women are educated – who knows how? – as it were by breathing in ideas, by living rather than acquiring knowledge.”
This translation is by T. M. Knox, and is the version cited in both Carol Adams’ The Sexual Politics of Meat and Susan Bordo’s Unbearable Weight. There’s a less dramatically punctuated translation by H.B. Nisbet, which paints a slightly more active picture of women learning through experience (i.e. interacting with her immediate surroundings) rather than literal osmosis like a sea sponge. But in both cases the binary opposition of men and women is clear: men act, women receive; men can think abstractly and objectively, while women can only know immediate particulars.
I take a particular pleasure in reading this quote aloud to my study partners when I need to blow off steam: it seems so egregiously misogynist that it’s always good for a laugh. Hegel’s mysticization of the female mind (“who knows how?”) is also strangely appealing: I wish that I did indeed learn like a plant, effortlessly, drawing in knowledge through my pores, breathing out ideas like oxygen, flowering. But on the other hand, Hegel is not positing something radical or groundbreaking here; to prop up his philosophy of the role of marriage, he’s repackaging a few of his era’s commonly held beliefs about sexual difference–ones that still have impact in certain quarters.
You may be wondering what this has to do with food, or perhaps why the quote showed up in two feminist studies which engaged food issues from very different angles. The connection is linked to some of those binary pairs discussed in the last search term sampler. Carole Adams includes this Hegel quote in a series of historical texts that see male and female as binary opposites, and compare them with the binary pair of animal and plant. In Hegel’s imagination, women are fundamentally plantlike: less active and less mobile than men, consequently less evolved and sophisticated than their male counterparts. In Adams’ analysis, this categorization of plants as the marked (or inferior) half of that binary is a clue to the contemporary culinary narratives that associate meat-eating with men. Susan Bordo also sees Hegel’s man:animal::woman:plant analogy as a part of an enduring set of overlapping binary pairs, but she is more interested in the oppositions of active to passive and mind to body. Unbearable Weight is a collection of essays that applies feminist theory to contemporary cultural body issues–anorexia, motherhood, appetite–and in each, she traces the structural logic of seemingly extreme or anomalous behavior. For example, if we assume (as Hegel does) that women are more passive and more placid than man, it’s easier to erase a woman’s ambition and agency in matters such as negotiating pay, desiring sex, or gestating a child. If we assume (as Hegel does) than men are objective thinkers and women are more susceptible to the influence of personal experience and anecdata, then we might–just as an example!–celebrate a man’s new book on sexual assault, a topic that women have written eloquently about for years with far less acclaim and no little danger. In the introduction to these essays, Bordo examines the paradox of these binaries: like Hegel, numerous philosophers have associated male with activity and female with passivity; at the same time, philosophical tradition associates the mind with control, abstract thought, and maleness while the body is associated with lack of control, feelings and urges, and femaleness. You’d think those conceptual pairs would contradict, but they are both present in Hegel’s figuration of female knowledge as passive yet hands-on, defined in opposition to both activity and abstraction.
That’s the way of binary thinking: it’s slippery (like a sea sponge). The connotations carried by the marked half of a pair depend entirely on how the default half is defined by the default definition makers. If men are active, women are passive. If men are authority, women need to be controlled. If men think, women feel; if men have needs unmet, women are hard and have no feelings. If men are animals, women are plants; if men are men, women are animals. It’s maddeningly simplistic, but then, so are stereotypes. | <urn:uuid:356d3978-be7e-4b12-8cf1-bc73a592611b> | {
"date": "2019-10-22T03:35:48",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2019-43",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-43/segments/1570987798619.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20191022030805-20191022054305-00256.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9604096412658691,
"score": 2.671875,
"token_count": 1034,
"url": "https://scenesofeating.com/2015/04/24/hegel-on-the-difference-between-men-and-women/"
} |
This course focuses on the history of Psychology in different ages from ancient concept to the most modern structure. It encompasses the lives as well as the concepts of all those philosophers/psychologists who worked for the subject directly or indirectly including Greek thinkers, Muslim philosophers, Renaissance, Associationists, French Revolution, German contributions, Industrial Revolution, Russian contributions, and different schools of thought. It includes effects of physical science and scientific look to mental disorders. Modern trends in psychological treatment and anti psychiatry movement are also topics of discussion in the subject. It also touches upon Psychology in third world, in Pakistan and in 21st century which of course is a very important topic. | <urn:uuid:2bba9c03-a7e3-49b6-a56c-d0893f260c91> | {
"date": "2019-11-12T20:49:35",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2019-47",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-47/segments/1573496665767.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20191112202920-20191112230920-00456.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9550696611404419,
"score": 2.828125,
"token_count": 130,
"url": "https://cosmolearning.org/video-lectures/gestalt-school-dynamic-psychology/"
} |
About this book
Atopic dermatitis has been called “the itch that rashes”, and this book reveals what causes the “itch”. It presents completely new and unique findings in eczema: sweat ducts that become occluded with staphylococcal biofilms trigger the innate immune system with TLR2 receptor activity and this leads to production of the “itching” and inflammation in this disease.
The Etiology ofAtopic Dermatitis details new concepts that bacterial biofilms occlude sweat ducts, trigger the innate immune system, and produce the lesions in atopic dermatitis. The author discusses the findings in terms of microbiology, pathology, immunology, genetics, physiology, treatment, diseases where eczema is considered a secondary component, and diseases not previously thought to be eczema, and followed by an epilogue where eczema and psoriasis are compared. Both these diseases are caused by bacteria, but neither one can be considered an infection. As such, this book is for all who take care of patients with atopic dermatitis, including dermatologists, pediatricians, family practice doctors, allergists and pathologists. It will also be interesting for those involved in research in microbiology, physiology, immunology, and genetics.
- DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-6545-3
- Copyright Information Springer-Verlag London 2015
- Publisher Name Springer, London
- eBook Packages Medicine
- Print ISBN 978-1-4471-6544-6
- Online ISBN 978-1-4471-6545-3
- About this book | <urn:uuid:5760a2b8-a57d-4e71-b51e-0c76ae8ca460> | {
"date": "2018-04-20T11:48:29",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2018-17",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-17/segments/1524125937440.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20180420100911-20180420120911-00416.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.8827373385429382,
"score": 2.671875,
"token_count": 351,
"url": "https://rd.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4471-6545-3"
} |
The quest to build bigger ocean-going vessels didn’t stop with the Titanic; it’s still going.
Although it’s the ocean going cruise ships that steal the headlines, the biggest and longest vessels plying the world’s ocean routes are still cargo ships: the current record holder is the Maersk Triple E Class container ship that comes in at just under 400m in length at 399m. In fact, it’s not just one vessel, it’s actually twenty identical ships in service around the world, the first of which launched in 2013.
There have been longer ships, for example the Seawise Giant, an oil tanker which was in service from 1979 to 2009 and measured a whopping 458m from stern to bows, as well as at least another six ships, now also broken up, that measured more than 400m from front to back.
The Maersk Triple E class ships cost a cool US$950M each (Aussie Boat Loans wasn’t involved in this boat finance project) and use a new technology called ‘slow steaming’ which lowers emissions by 50% and decreases fuel consumption by 37%. The trade off is a slightly lower cruising speed of 19 knots (35 kmh). The ships will be used primarily on the Europe/Asia routes via the Suez Canal, but they’re too deep to use the Panama Canal.
In 2017 the Triple E Class ships will lose their longest vessel crown to the Prelude FLNG (which stands for Floating Liquefied Natural Gas) which will be 488m long. It won’t be a container ship, but as the name implies, a tanker designed to transport LNG – stored at a temperature of -162°C – from gas fields off the coast of Australia to destinations around the world. The Prelude is designed to withstand Category 5 cyclones.
In comparison to these brutes, the longest cruise liner in the world, the Queen Mary II, comes in at a mere 345m. Built at a cost of US$900M, the QMII plies its regular transatlantic route between Southampton in the UK and New York, a trip that takes about a week.
But if a US based consortium can get the project off the ground (no pun intended), the Freedom Ship will put all of these other big ships in the shade. Designed to be a floating city with 40,000 inhabitants, the Freedom Ship will be a colossal 4,500 feet (i.e. 1,372m or 1.3km) in length, making it four times longer than the Queen Mary II. Circumnavigating the globe (see the map here) every two years, the ship will be able to accommodate up to 100,000 people, including the 40,000 residents, 20,000 crew and another 40,000 daily visitors and hotel guests.
The floating city would rise 25 stories above the main deck to a height of 106m and would house all the facilities you’d expect in a small town or city: schools, a hospital and a library, even small scale manufacturing plants, alongside retail shops, hotels, restaurants and the inevitable casino.
The top deck will be a runway suitable for commercial aircraft capable of carrying up to 40 passengers and the vessel will also have its own ‘port’ with a fleet of hydrofoils to carry passengers and residents to and from the port the Freedom Ship is moored off.
Blofeld eat your heart out.
Image credit: Freedom Ship | <urn:uuid:bcb44cdc-2e21-4097-a382-27566aef8f52> | {
"date": "2017-04-29T11:21:06",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2017-17",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917123491.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031203-00237-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9440455436706543,
"score": 2.515625,
"token_count": 728,
"url": "http://aussieboatloans.com.au/blog/bigger-longer-heavier/"
} |
The Song of Songs - Introduction
The Song of Songs, meaning the greatest of songs ( 1, 1 ), contains in exquisite poetic form the sublime portrayal and praise of the mutual love of the Lord and his people. The Lord is the Lover and his people are the beloved. Describing this relationship in terms of human love, the author simply follows Israel's tradition. Isaiah (5, 1–7; 54, 4–8), Jeremiah (2, 2f. 32), and Ezekiel (16; 23) all characterize the covenant between the Lord and Israel as a marriage. Hosea the prophet sees the idolatry of Israel in the adultery of Gomer ( 1–3 ). He also represents the Lord speaking to Israel's heart ( 2, 16 ) and changing her into a new spiritual people, purified by the Babylonian captivity and betrothed anew to her divine Lover “in justice and uprightness, in love and mercy” ( 2, 21 ).
The author of the Song, using the same literary figure, paints a beautiful picture of the ideal Israel, the chosen people of the Old and New Testaments, whom the Lord led by degrees to an exalted spiritual union with himself in the bond of perfect love. When the Song is thus interpreted there is no reason for surprise at the tone of the poem, which employs in its descriptions the courtship and marriage customs of the author's time. Moreover, the poem is not an allegory in which each remark, e. g., in the dialogue of the lovers, has a higher meaning. It is a parable in which the true meaning of mutual love comes from the poem as a whole.
While the Song is thus commonly understood by most Catholic scholars, it is also possible to see in it an inspired portrayal of ideal human love. Here we would have from God a description of the sacredness and the depth of married union.
Although the poem is attributed to Solomon in the traditional title ( 1, 1 ), the language and style of the work, among other considerations, point to a time after the end of the Babylonian Exile (538 B.C.) as that in which an unknown poet composed this masterpiece. The structure of the Song is difficult to analyze; here it is regarded as a lyric dialogue, with dramatic movement and interest.
The use of marriage as a symbol, characteristic of the Song, is found extensively also in the New Testament (Mt 9, 15; 25, 1–13; Jn 3, 29; 2 Cor 11, 2; Eph 5, 23–32; Rv 19, 7ff; 21, 9ff ). In Christian tradition, the Song has been interpreted in terms of the union between Christ and the Church and, particularly by St. Bernard, of the union between Christ and the individual soul. Throughout the liturgy, especially in the Little Office, there is a consistent application of the Song of Songs to the Blessed Virgin Mary. | <urn:uuid:713d691f-067f-42f6-adde-69433601066d> | {
"date": "2016-02-12T05:45:45",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2016-07",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-07/segments/1454701163438.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20160205193923-00324-ip-10-236-182-209.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.959205687046051,
"score": 3.375,
"token_count": 599,
"url": "http://www.oxfordbiblicalstudies.com/article/book/obso-9780195282801/obso-9780195282801-chapterFrontMatter-24?_hi=12&_pos=17"
} |
Baby this Week
- Once the organs are formed the baby is called a fetus.
- Baby's tiny heart is beating about 120-160 beats a minute.
How Big is Baby?Baby is 1.22 inches long (3.1 cm)
(Measured from crown to rump)
Baby weighs 0.14oz (4 grams)
- Constipation is possible as a result of the increase of progesterone in your system.
- This hormone softens muscles in your womb and intestines to accommodate the embryo becoming a fetus.
- The placenta now covers about one-third of the uterus lining.
Pregnancy To Do's
- Increase the amount of fiber in your diet. | <urn:uuid:bc5f05bd-aff9-44b3-9ae8-ecd207b904f7> | {
"date": "2020-01-26T20:21:33",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2020-05",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-05/segments/1579251690379.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20200126195918-20200126225918-00496.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.8835940361022949,
"score": 2.5625,
"token_count": 148,
"url": "https://www.duringpregnancy.com/guide/10weeks.php"
} |
|Greek and Roman Mythology > Castor and Pollux
Castor and Pollux
which disguise Jupiter had concealed himself. Leda gave birth to
an egg, from which sprang the twins. Helen, so famous afterwards
as the cause of the Trojan war, was their sister.
When Theseus and his friend Pirithous had carried off Helen from
Sparta, the youthful heroes Castor and Pollux, with their
followers, hasted to her rescue. Theseus was absent from Attica,
and the brothers were successful in recovering their sister.
Castor was famous for taming and managing horses, and Pollux for
skill in boxing. They were united by the warmest affection, and
inseparable in all their enterprises. They accompanied the
Argonautic expedition. During the voyage a storm arose, and
Orpheus prayed to the Samothracian gods, and played on his harp,
whereupon the storm ceased and stars appeared on the heads of the
brothers. From this incident, Castor and Pollux came afterwards
to be considered the patron deities of seamen and voyagers (One
of the ships in which St. Paul sailed was named the Castor and
Pollux. See Acts xxviii.II.), and the lambent flames, which in
certain sates of the atmosphere play round the sails and masts of
vessels, were called by their names.
After the Argonautic expedition, we find Castor and Pollux
engaged in a war with Idas and Lynceus. Castor was slain, and
Pollux, inconsolable for the loss of his brother, besought
Jupiter to be permitted to give his own life as a ransom for him.
Jupiter so far consented as to allow the two brothers to enjoy
the boon of life alternately, passing one day under the earth and
the next in the heavenly abodes. According to another form of
the story, Jupiter rewarded the attachment of the brothers by
placing them among the stars as Gemini, the Twins.
They received divine honors under the name of Dioscuri (sons of
Jove). They were believed to have appeared occasionally in later
times, taking part with one side or the other, in hard-fought
fields, and were said on such occasions to be mounted on
magnificent white steeds. Thus, in the early history of Rome,
they are said to have assisted the Romans at the battle of Lake
Regillus, and after the victory a temple was erected in their
honor on the spot where they appeared.
Macaulay, in his Lays of Ancient Rome, thus alludes to the
"So like they were, no mortal
Might one from other know;
White as snow their armor was,
Their steeds were white as snow.
Never on earthly anvil
Did such rare armor gleam,
And never did such gallant steeds
Drink of an earthly stream.
. . . . . . . . .
"Back comes the chief in triumph
Who in the hour of fight
Hath seen the great Twin Brethren
In harness on his right.
Safe comes the ship to haven
Through billows and through gales,
If once the great Twin Brethren
Sit shining on the sails."
In the poem of Atalanta in Calydon Mr. Swinburne thus describes
the little Helen and Clytemnestra, the sisters of Castor and
"Even such I saw their sisters, one swan white,
The little Helen, and less fair than she,
Fair Clytemnestra, grave as pasturing fawns,
Who feed and fear the arrow; but at whiles,
As one smitten with love or wrung with joy,
She laughs and lightens with her eyes, and then
Weeps; whereat Helen, having laughed, weeps too,
And the other chides her, and she being chid speaks naught,
But cheeks and lips and eyelids kisses her,
Laughing; so fare they, as in their blameless bud,
And full of unblown life, the blood of gods."
"Sweet days before them, and good loves and lords,
And tender and temperate honors of the hearth;
Peace, and a perfect life and blameless bed" | <urn:uuid:52672a35-9d81-426a-8e20-df84429d169e> | {
"date": "2014-03-07T19:14:01",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2014-10",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999650424/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060730-00006-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9649527072906494,
"score": 3.328125,
"token_count": 933,
"url": "http://www.online-mythology.com/castor_pollux/"
} |
Hannelore Schmatz summited Everest with her husband in 1979. Unfortunately, she'd never make it down to celebrate with him.
Hannelore Schmatz loved climbing mountains as did her husband, Gerhard, and the pair embarked on an expedition to scale Mount Everest in the fall of 1979.
Upon reaching the top, Gerhard became the oldest person to summit Mount Everest. His achievement was glorious and was made even sweeter with his wife was by his side. During their trek, a total of eight climbers and five sherpas reached Everest’s legendary peak.
Then, tragedy struck. Two people died on the return trip down the mountain, including Hannelore Schmatz, who was a mere 330 feet from the group’s base camp beneath the final push to the summit.
Schmatz and her Swiss-American climbing companion, Ray Genet, were too exhausted to continue. They set up a bivouac camp, or a sheltered outcropping, to sleep in a sleeping bag before heading down to base camp. The sherpa who accompanied the Europeans warned that they should try to make it to base camp or Camp IV, further down the mountain.
Despite the warning, Schmatz and Genet stayed at 27,200 feet in the so-called Death Zone. A brutal snowstorm occurred overnight, causing Genet to die of hypothermia.
Experts believe that Schmatz sat down to rest against her backpack and fell asleep, only to never wake up again. It’s believed that she died of exhaustion and exposure to the cold. According to the sherpa who was with her, her last words were “Water, water.” After her death, the sherpa stayed with the body despite losing a finger and some toes to frostbite.
She was the first woman and the first German to die on Everest’s slopes. A sherpa and Nepalese police inspector tried to recover her body in 1984, but both men fell to their deaths. It’s as if Schmatz didn’t want to be rescued and since that attempt, no one has tried to recover her body.
Schmatz’s story doesn’t end there. Her death gained notoriety among climbers because of the condition of her body, frozen in place for climbers to see along the mountain’s southern route. Still wearing her climbing gear and clothing, her eyes remained open and her hair fluttered in the wind. Other climbers began referring to her seemingly peacefully posed body as the “German Woman.”
Eventually, the mountain took Hannelore Schmatz. A gust of wind took her body and it tumbled over the side of the Kangshung Face where no one would see it again, lost forever to the elements. It’s as if Everest gave her a proper burial.
Schmatz’s corpse, until it disappeared, was part of the Death Zone on Mount Everest. Some 150 bodies inhabit Mount Everest, many of them in the so-called Death Zone of ultra-thin oxygen levels above 24,000 feet.
Despite the snow and ice, Everest remains mostly dry in terms of relative humidity. The bodies are remarkably preserved and serve as warnings to anyone who attempts something foolish. The most famous of these bodies is George Mallory, who tried unsuccessfully to reach the summit in 1924. Climbers found his body in 1999, 75 years later.
An estimated 280 people have died on Everest over the years. Until 2007, one out of every ten people who dared to climb the world’s highest peak never lived to tell the tale. The death rate actually increased and worsened since 2007 because of more frequent trips to the top.
One common cause of death on Everest is fatigue. Climbers are simply too exhausted, either from the strain, lack of oxygen, or expending too much energy to continue back down the mountain once reaching the top. The tiredness leads to lack of coordination, confusion and incoherence. The brain may bleed from the inside, which makes the situation worse.
Exhaustion and perhaps confusion led to Hannelore Schmatz’s death. It made more sense to head to base camp, yet somehow the experienced climber felt as if taking a break was the wiser course of action. In the end, in the Death Zone above 24,000 feet, the mountain always wins if you’re too weak to continue.
After reading about Hannelore Schmatz, learn about Beck Weathers and his incredible Mount Everest survival story. Then learn about Rob Hall, who proved that it doesn’t matter how experienced you are — Everest is always a deadly climb. | <urn:uuid:94ecefbb-43bf-4b2b-919a-17a47d75917f> | {
"date": "2019-02-17T01:11:30",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2019-09",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-09/segments/1550247481428.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20190217010854-20190217032854-00456.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9742697477340698,
"score": 2.546875,
"token_count": 968,
"url": "https://allthatsinteresting.com/hannelore-schmatz"
} |
Gerontology is the study of the social, social, mental, psychological, and natural parts of maturing. The field is recognized from geriatrics, which is the branch of medication that spends significant time in the treatment of existing infection in more established grown-ups. Gerontologists incorporate specialists and experts in the fields of science, nursing, medication, criminology, dentistry, social work, physical and word related treatment, brain research, psychiatry, humanism, financial matters, political science, design, geology, drug store, general wellbeing, lodging, and human sciences.
The multidisciplinary idea of gerontology implies that there are various sub-fields which cover with gerontology. There are approach issues, for instance, associated with government arranging and the task of nursing homes, researching the impacts of a maturing populace on society, and the outline of private spaces for more established individuals that encourage the improvement of a feeling of place or home. Dr. Lawton, a conduct clinician at the Philadelphia Geriatric Center, was among the first to perceive the requirement for living spaces intended to oblige the elderly, particularly those with Alzheimer's ailment. As a scholarly train the field is generally new. The USC Leonard Davis School made the main PhD, ace's and four-year certification programs in gerontology in 1975.
The world is estimate to experience quick populace maturing in the following a very long while. In 1900, there were 3.1 million individuals matured 65 years and more seasoned living in the United States. Be that as it may, this populace kept on developing all through the twentieth century and achieved 31.2, 35, and 40.3 million individuals in 1990, 2000, and 2010, separately. Remarkably, in the United States and over the world, the "person born after WW2" age started to turn 65 of every 2011. As of late, the populace matured 65 years and more established has developed at a speedier rate than the aggregate populace in the United States. The aggregate populace expanded by 9.7%, from 281.4 million to 308.7 million, somewhere in the range of 2000 and 2010. Notwithstanding, the populace matured 65 years and more established expanded by 15.1% amid a similar period. It has been evaluated that 25% of the populace in the United States and Canada will be matured 65 years and more seasoned by 2025. In addition, by 2050, it is anticipated that, without precedent for United States history, the quantity of people matured 60 years and more seasoned will be more prominent than the quantity of youngsters matured 0 to 14 years. Those matured 85 years and more established are anticipated to increment from 5.3 million to 21 million by 2050. Grown-ups matured 85– 89 years constituted the best section of the most seasoned old in 1990, 2000, and 2010. Nonetheless, the biggest rate point increment among the most seasoned old happened in the 90-to 94-year-maturity gathering, which expanded from 25.0% out of 1990 to 26.4% of every 2010.
With the quick development of the maturing populace, social work instruction and preparing had practical experience in more established grown-ups and specialists inspired by working with more seasoned grown-ups are progressively sought after.
Gender contrasts with age
There has been an impressive uniqueness between the quantity of people in the more seasoned populace in the United States. In both 2000 and 2010, ladies dwarfed men in the more seasoned populace at each and every time of age (e.g., 65 to 100 years and over). The sex proportion, which is a measure used to show the adjust of guys to females in a populace, is computed by taking the quantity of guys separated by the quantity of females, and duplicating by 100. In this way, the sex proportion is the quantity of guys per 100 females. In 2010, there were 90.5 guys per 100 females in the 65-year-old populace. Notwithstanding, this spoke to an expansion from 1990 when there were 82.7 guys per 100 females, and from 2000 when the sex proportion was 88.1. In spite of the fact that the gender hole amongst people has limited, ladies keep on having a more prominent future and lower death rates at more established ages with respect to men. For instance, the Census 2010 announced that there were roughly twice the same number of ladies as men living in the United States at 89 years old (361,309 versus 176,689, individually)
Geographic appropriation of more seasoned grown-ups
The number and level of more established grown-ups living in the United States change over the four unique districts (Northeast, Midwest, West, and South) characterized by the United States evaluation. In 2010, the South contained the best number of individuals matured 65 years and more seasoned and 85 years and more established. In any case, proportionately, the Northeast contains the biggest level of grown-ups matured 65 years and more established (14.1%), trailed by the Midwest (13.5%), the South (13.0%), and the West (11.9%). In respect to the Census 2000, every geographic locale exhibited positive development in the number of inhabitants in grown-ups matured 65 years and more seasoned and 85 years and more established. The fastest development in the number of inhabitants in grown-ups matured 65 years and more seasoned was apparent in the West (23.5%), which demonstrated an expansion from 6.9 million of every 2000 to 8.5 million of every 2010. In like manner, in the populace matured 85 years and more seasoned, the West (42.8%) likewise demonstrated the speediest development and expanded from 806,000 of every 2000 to 1.2 million out of 2010. It merits featuring that Rhode Island was the main express that accomplished a diminishment in the quantity of individuals matured 65 years and more established, and declined from 152,402 out of 2000 to 151,881 of every 2010. On the other hand, all states showed an expansion in the number of inhabitants in grown-ups matured 85 years and more seasoned from 2000 to 2010.
Biogerontology is the sub-field of gerontology worried about the natural maturing process, its developmental starting points, and potential intends to mediate all the while. It includes interdisciplinary research on natural maturing's causes, impacts, and components. Moderate biogerontologists, for example, Leonard Hayflick have anticipated that the human future will top at around 92 years of age, while others, for example, James Vaupel have anticipated that in industrialized nations, futures will achieve 100 for youngsters conceived after the year 2000. furthermore, some studied biogerontologists have anticipated futures of at least two centuries. with Aubrey de Gray offering the "speculative time span" that with sufficient subsidizing of research to create intercessions in maturing, for example, Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence, "we have a 50/50 shot of creating innovation inside around 25 to quite a while from now that will, under sensible suppositions about the rate of ensuing changes in that innovation, enable us to prevent individuals from passing on of maturing at any age", prompting futures of 1,000 years.
Interestingly with biogerontology, which intends to avoid age-related ailment by mediating in maturing forms, geriatrics is a field of drug that reviews the treatment of existing illness in maturing individuals.
Natural speculations of maturing
There are various hypotheses of maturing, and nobody hypothesis has been acknowledged. There is a wide range of the sorts of hypotheses for the reasons for maturing with customized speculations on one extraordinary and blunder hypotheses on the other. Notwithstanding the hypothesis, a shared trait is that as people age, elements of the body decrease.
Gathering hypotheses of maturing propose that maturing is in essence decay that outcomes from a collection of components, regardless of whether acquainted with the body from the earth or coming about because of cell digestion. A case of a collection hypothesis is the Free Radical Theory of Aging.
The free radical hypothesis of maturing
Free radicals are responsive particles created by cell and ecological procedures, and can harm the components of the cell, for example, the cell film and DNA and cause irreversible harm. The free-radical hypothesis of maturing recommends that this harm in total corrupts the natural capacity of cells and effects the way toward maturing. The possibility that free radicals are poisonous specialists was first proposed by Rebeca Gerschman and associates in 1945, yet came to noticeable quality in 1956, when Denham Harman proposed the free-radical hypothesis of maturing and even exhibited that free radical responses add to the corruption of natural frameworks. Oxidative harm of numerous kinds gathers with age, for example, oxidative pressure that without oxygen radicals, in light of the fact that the free radical hypothesis of maturing contends that maturing comes about because of the harm produced by receptive oxygen species (ROS). ROS are little, exceptionally responsive, oxygen-containing atoms that can harm a complex of cell segments, for example, fat, proteins, or from DNA, they are normally produced in little sums amid the body's metabolic responses. These conditions turn out to be more typical as people become more established and incorporate maladies identified with maturing, for example, dementia, tumor and coronary illness.
The DNA damage hypothesis of maturing
DNA damage has been one of the numerous causes in ailments identified with maturing. The dependability of the genome is characterized by the cells hardware of repair, damage resilience, and checkpoint pathways that neutralizes DNA damage. One speculation proposed by Gioacchino Failla in 1958 is that damage gathering to the DNA causes maturing. The theory was created soon by physicist Leó Szilárd. This hypothesis has changed throughout the years as new research has found new kinds of DNA damage and transformations, and a few speculations of maturing contend that DNA damage with or without changes causes maturing.
The cross-connecting hypothesis of maturing
The cross-connecting hypothesis suggests that best in class glycation final results and other abnormal cross-joins collecting in maturing tissues is the reason for maturing. The crosslinking of proteins incapacitates their organic capacities. The solidifying of the connective tissue, kidney illnesses, and amplification of the heart are associated with the cross-connecting of proteins. Crosslinking of DNA can actuate replication blunders, and this prompts distorted cells and builds the danger of growth.
Hereditary hypotheses of maturing suggest that maturing is customized inside every individual's qualities. As indicated by this hypothesis, qualities manage cell life span. Customized cell passing, or apoptosis, is controlled by an "organic clock" by means of hereditary data in the core of the cell. Qualities in charge of apoptosis give a clarification to cell demise, yet are less material to death of a whole living being. An expansion in cell apoptosis may associate to maturing, yet isn't a 'reason for death'. Natural elements and hereditary changes can impact quality articulation and quicken maturing. All the more as of late epigenetics has been investigated as a contributing element. The epigenetic clock, which impartially measures the natural time of cells and tissues, may end up valuable for testing diverse organic maturing hypotheses.
General irregularity hypotheses of maturing recommend that body frameworks, for example, the endocrine, anxious, and resistant frameworks, bit by bit decay and at last neglect to work. The rate of disappointment shifts framework by framework.
Immunological hypothesis of maturing
The immunological hypothesis of maturing proposes that the safe framework debilitates as a life form ages. This makes the living being not able battle contaminations and less ready to annihilate old and neoplastic cells. This prompts maturing and will in the end prompt passing. This hypothesis of maturing was created by Ray Walford, an American gerontologist. As indicated by Walford, wrong immunological methodology is the reason for the way toward maturing.
Social gerontology is a multi-disciplinary sub-field that represents considerable authority in examining or working with more seasoned grown-ups. Social gerontologists may have degrees or preparing in social work, nursing, brain research, human science, demography, general wellbeing, or other sociology disciplines. Social gerontologists are in charge of instructing, exploring, and propelling the more extensive reasons for more seasoned individuals.
Since issues of life expectancy and life augmentation require numbers to evaluate them, there is a cover with demography. The individuals who examine the demography of the human life expectancy contrast from the individuals who think about the social socioeconomics of maturing.
Social speculations of maturing
A few speculations of maturing are produced to watch the maturing procedure of more seasoned grown-ups in the public arena and in addition how these procedures are deciphered by people as they age.
Action hypothesis was produced and explained by Cavan, Havighurst, and Albrecht. As per this hypothesis, more established grown-ups' self-idea relies upon social collaborations. All together for more seasoned grown-ups to keep up assurance in seniority, substitutions must be made for lost parts. Cases of lost parts incorporate retirement from an occupation or loss of a companion.
Movement is desirable over inertia since it encourages prosperity on different levels. As a result of enhanced general wellbeing and flourishing in the more established populace, staying dynamic is more achievable now than when this hypothesis was first proposed by Havighurst about six decades back. The action hypothesis is appropriate for a steady, post-mechanical society, which offers its more established individuals numerous open doors for significant interest. Shortcoming: Some maturing people can't keep up a moderately aged way of life, because of practical confinements, absence of salary, or absence of a longing to do as such. Numerous more seasoned grown-ups do not have the assets to keep up dynamic parts in the public eye. On the other side, a few senior citizens may demand proceeding with exercises in late life that represent a risk to themselves as well as other people, for example, driving during the evening with low visual keenness or doing upkeep work to the house while moving with seriously ligament knees. In doing as such, they are denying their constraints and taking part in perilous practices.
Congruity hypothesis is a tricky idea. On one hand, to show congruity can intend to continue as before, to be uniform, homogeneous, constant, even unexceptional. This static perspective of coherence isn't extremely pertinent to human maturing. Then again, a dynamic perspective of coherence begins with the possibility of an essential structure which continues after some time, however it takes into account an assortment of changes to happen inside the setting given by the fundamental structure. The fundamental structure is intelligent: It has a methodical or legitimate connection of parts that is unmistakably novel and that enables us to separate that structure from others. With the presentation of the idea of time, thoughts, for example, heading, arrangement, character advancement, and story line go into the idea of coherence as it is connected to the development of an individual. In this hypothesis, a dynamic idea of coherence is produced and connected to the issue of adjustment to ordinary maturing.
A focal start of coherence hypothesis is that, in settling on versatile decisions, moderately aged and more seasoned grown-ups endeavor to safeguard and keep up existing inward and outside structures and that they like to achieve this target by utilizing progression i.e., applying recognizable techniques in well-known fields of life. In center and later life, grown-ups are drawn by the heaviness of past experience to utilize congruity as an essential versatile methodology for managing changes related with typical maturing. To the degree that change expands upon, and has connections to, the individual's past, change is a piece of coherence. Because of both their own recognitions and weights from the social condition, people who are adjusting to typical maturing are both inclined and roused toward internal mental congruity and in addition outward progression of social conduct and conditions.
Age stratification hypothesis
As indicated by this hypothesis, more established grown-ups conceived amid various eras shape accomplices that characterize "age strata". There are two contrasts among strata: sequential age and authentic experience. This hypothesis makes two contentions. 1. Age is a component for managing conduct and subsequently decides access to places of intensity. 2. Birth associates assume a compelling part during the time spent social change.
Life course hypothesis
As indicated by this hypothesis, which comes from the Life Course Perspective, maturing happens from birth to death. Maturing includes social, mental, and natural procedures. Moreover, maturing encounters are molded by partner and period impacts.
Additionally, mirroring the existence course center, consider the suggestions for how social orders may work when age-based standards vanish—a result of the deinstitutionalization of the existence course—and propose that these suggestions posture new difficulties for guessing maturing and the existence course in postindustrial social orders. Sensational diminishments in mortality, grimness, and richness in the course of recent decades have so shaken up the association of the existence course and the idea of instructive, work, family, and relaxation encounters that it is presently feasible for people to end up old in new ways. The arrangements and substance of other life stages are being modified too, particularly for ladies. In outcome, speculations of age and maturing should be conceptualized.
Combined favorable position/impediment hypothesis
As per this hypothesis, which was produced starting in the 1960s by Derek Price and Robert Merton and explained on by a few analysts, for example, Dale Dannefer, imbalances tend to wind up more articulated all through the maturing procedure. A worldview of this hypothesis can be communicated in the aphorism "the rich get more extravagant and the poor get poorer". Focal points and burdens in early life stages have a significant impact for the duration of the life expectancy. Be that as it may, points of interest and burdens in center adulthood affect financial and wellbeing status in later life. | <urn:uuid:ede9a4e3-a770-4773-8045-2e496e0a0281> | {
"date": "2018-11-15T13:10:30",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2018-47",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-47/segments/1542039742685.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20181115120507-20181115142507-00376.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9456700086593628,
"score": 2.65625,
"token_count": 3739,
"url": "https://www.myassignmenthelp.net/gerontology-assignment-help"
} |
This is a song of transition as Fauré’s early romance style begins to merge with the greater depths of the mélodie. The music seems influenced by Soirée en mer
(1862), a Victor Hugo setting by Fauré’s teacher, Camille Saint-Saëns. Les matelots
is more vigorous, but both songs are powered by undulating triplets which reflect the fathomless motion of the sea. The subtle, and sometimes unexpected, harmonic shadings in these restless quavers enliven the potential monotony of the accompaniment; in this roving harmony we can savour the sailors’ love of adventurous exploration. As each strophe progresses towards its vocal climax the bass line falls in steps, widening the distance between the piano’s left hand and the vocal line. This depicts the breadth of vast nautical horizons with a musical grandeur that effectively outfaces the sentimentality of the text. The poem is from Théophile Gautier’s Poésies nouvelles
(1845). The composer, already merciless in terms of adapting poetry to his musical needs, cuts the second and fourth of Gautier’s strophes.
from notes by Graham Johnson © 2005 | <urn:uuid:8a4e5287-9bae-4e51-8015-4d3ca4789dd1> | {
"date": "2014-04-19T11:34:14",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2014-15",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-15/segments/1397609537097.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20140416005217-00419-ip-10-147-4-33.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.8909240365028381,
"score": 2.625,
"token_count": 266,
"url": "http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/tw.asp?w=W4595&vw=dc"
} |
What is a Reference Source? Reference sources are used to obtain a specific answer to a question or to indicate other sources to use during the research process. Although there are several types of reference sources, they all are categorized as either general or specific in scope. This page contains both general and subject specific reference sources. General reference sources will contain a broad range of subject areas whereas subject specific sources have content that is focused in one particular area of study.If you are looking for more extensive information on a subject, go to one of our Research Guides.
An acronym is a word formed from the initial letters or syllables of other words to create a short form for a longer name, for example NATO is a short form for North Atlantic Treaty Organization . An abbreviation is a similar concept the full name of a journal is shortened to save space, for example,Am J Sports Med is short for The American journal of sports medicine.
If you need information about the life of a particular individual, his/her accomplishments and achievements a biographical source is a good choice.
- American National Biography (restricted to York users)
- Dictionary of Canadian Biography (online)
- Biography and Genealogy Master Index (restricted to York users)
- Current Biography (restricted to York users)
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (restricted to York users)
Career / Employment
The careers and employment section brings together several resources that will assist in job search strategies and applications.
- All Canadian Jobs
- Canadian Jobs (eluta.ca)
- Charity Village
- Job Bank Canada
- Occupational Outlook Handbook
The Colleges / Universities section provides information about programs of study and entrance requirements.Canada
If you need a quick overview of a country and its development yearbooks or country reports are a good choice.
- CIA World Factbook
- Europa World Plus (restricted to York users)
- Library of Congress Country Studies
- Political Risk Yearbook (online) (restricted to York users)
- Statistical Abstract of the United States
A dictionary contains a lot of words in alphabetical order with their meanings explained or written in another language. Dictionaries also contain information about the form and proper pronunciation of the word. Subject specific dictionaries define terminology and concepts specific to the subject in question.English Language
- Cambridge Dictionaries Online
- Merriam-Webster-Collegiate Dictionary
- OneLook Dictionaries
- Oxford English Dictionary (restricted to York users)
- Oxford Reference Online (restricted to York users)
- Grand Dictionaire Terminologique
- Project for American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language (ARTFL)(restricted to York users)
- Le Petit Robert
- Termium (restricted to York users)
- Trésor de la Langue Française informatisé
- Your Dictionary.com (200+ online dictionaries, multilingual)
See our research guides page.
Directories contain an organized list of names and addresses.
- Associations Canada
- Canadian ISBN Publisher’s Directory
- Directory of OCUL Libraries
- Embassies & Consulates of the World
- Telephone Directories on the Web
- Postal Codes
- Zip Codes
- Area Code Locator for North America
Encyclopedias give background information and overviews of a particular subject person or event. They can be subject specific (e.g. The Columbia Encylopedia of Modern Drama) or general in scope. The subject specific encyclopedias provide background information to a particular subject. They are usually edited by a respected scholar in the field of study and the articles are often written by experts, who give an in-depth overview to a topic. The articles are usually signed and often identify key resources for further reading.General
- See our research guides page.
The entrance exams / tests section provides registration and general information about a selection of tests. Additionally, these sources provide practice questions and strategies for test taking.
- GRE: Graduate Record Examinations
- MCAT – Medical College Admission Tests
- The Educational Testing Service Network
If you need a map of historical events or want to know when a particular event took place these resources are a good place to start.
- History World
- Facts on File (restricted to York users)
- Keesing’s World News Archive (restricted to York users)
If you are looking for financial aid that doesn’t have to be repaid the following links may be helpful.
- Canada Student Loans Program
- Canadian Merit Scholarship Foundation
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)
- York OSFS – search scholarships, bursaries, awards and prizes
Indexes for information about books and journals
Indexes are arranged lists, usually alphabetically or subject related, of information sources (e.g. books, periodicals, etc.). Indexes are created to help users find information that is useful and specific to their topic.
- Ulrich’s International Periodical Index (restricted to York users) The source used to indicate if a journal is scholarly/peer reviewed
- Serials Directory (restricted to York users)
- Books in Print (restricted to York users)
- Worldcat (restricted to York users) The source used to indicate if a book is available (somewhere in the world) and in print
- Advanced Book Exchange (AbeBooks)
Quotations / aphorisms / lyrics
The quotations / aphorisms / lyrics section contains sources that allow you to either search for quotes by person /artists or by reverse look-up.
- Aphorisms Galore!
- Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations
- The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (restricted to York users)
- The Quotations Page
The reviews section lists several sources for finding both critical and popular review articles for books, performing arts, and movies. Although only a few sources are listed here, there are several other sources to choose from. For additional sources and information on finding book reviews go to: Guide to Book Reviews
- Book Review Digest (restricted to York users)
- Book Review Index (restricted to York users)
- London Review of Books
- New York Times(free registration for individuals)
- New York Times: Movie Review Archive(free registration for individuals)
- New York Times: Theatre Review Archive (free registration for individuals)
- New York Review of Books
- Movie Review Query Engine (MRQE)
- Internet Movie Database
These guides will show you how to format your paper and references according to the specific style indicated in the link. Although these sources are excellent tools for reference, the websites may not contain the most recent changes to APA style. For the most recent changes see Changes in the 5th edition.
A thesaurus is a reference tool used to look up words with similar meanings. | <urn:uuid:bbcc9fef-56b6-4d47-8863-fadc2461440a> | {
"date": "2019-12-06T15:56:19",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2019-51",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-51/segments/1575540488870.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20191206145958-20191206173958-00456.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.8410525918006897,
"score": 3.28125,
"token_count": 1434,
"url": "https://www.library.yorku.ca/web/research-learn/reference-materials/"
} |
He may not be from the Pliocene Era, but his views sure are.
During the miocene and Pliocene ages, sessile cirripedes abounded.
Eocene, miocene, Pliocene Tuff, Lias and Trias and that is enough.
M. Dubois discovered these remains in the island of Java in andesite tufa of Pliocene or at least early Pleistocene age.
With the termination of the Pliocene Age we find ourselves on firmer ground.
The first thing which impresses us is the extremely fragmentary distribution of the Miocene and Pliocene beds.
The age of these gravels is, therefore, pronounced to be Pliocene.
We can see how well this agrees with the changes of climate at the close of the Pliocene Age.
The last two are Pliocene and American; the teeth are much reduced.
Crocodiles and alligators swarmed in the rivers of Europe until the chilly Pliocene bade them depart to Africa.
The fifth and last epoch of the Tertiary Period, from about 5 to 2 million years ago. During this time the global climate became cooler and the number and expanse of grasslands and savannas increased greatly. This change in vegetation was accompanied by an increase in long-legged grazers. The land bridge between North America and South America also formed at this time, and massive ice sheets accumulated at the poles. In the later part of the epoch many of the species living in polar regions became extinct. See Chart at geologic time. | <urn:uuid:9d213fe1-db27-45af-969c-1aac62f1d725> | {
"date": "2016-10-25T18:08:56",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2016-44",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720238.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00170-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9460015296936035,
"score": 3.546875,
"token_count": 332,
"url": "http://www.dictionary.com/browse/pliocene"
} |
I have cut and paste the information relevant to this assessment from the DP Language A: language and literature guide. The full guide is available in the class share folder on Google docs.
Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes
Paper 1 contains two previously unseen passages from non-literary texts for analysis, of which you select one. You are to write an analysis of one of the texts, including comments on the significance of any possible contexts, audience, purpose and the use of linguistic and literary devices.
In addition, two guiding questions are provided, encouraging you to focus your response on aspects of the passage. A passage for analysis may either be a complete piece of writing or visual text, or an extract from a longer piece. The texts for analysis are not necessarily related to specific parts of the syllabus. Different non-literary text types are included, for example:
– opinion column
– extract from an essay
– electronic text (such as social network sites, blogs)
– brochure (such as a public information leaflet)
– extract from a memoir, diary or other autobiographical text
You will be required to analyse and comment on the text in the light of their understanding of its possible audience and purpose. In order to achieve this, you need to analyse structure, language and style in addition to aspects such as text type, context, bias and/or ideological position.
There are many acceptable ways of approaching the analysis of a text. Regardless of the approach taken the analysis should be continuous and structured, and should include relevant examples from the text. Rather than simply listing formal aspects, students should focus on how such aspects are used to create particular effects, the recognition of which may contribute to a reading of the passage.
The paper is assessed according to the assessment criteria published in this guide. The maximum mark for paper 1 is 20.
This information is taken from the Language A: language and literature guide (for first examinations in 2013), available at: http://occ.ibo.org/ | <urn:uuid:035621f3-9f3b-4f77-aef3-e064fc043e66> | {
"date": "2018-08-18T12:35:46",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2018-34",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-34/segments/1534221213666.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20180818114957-20180818134957-00096.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9030925035476685,
"score": 3.28125,
"token_count": 408,
"url": "http://blogs.yis.ac.jp/hougha/tag/dp-external-assessment/"
} |
November 28, 2016 – The sun is gradually marching toward its solar minimum, and from November 14-18, hit its lowest level of solar activity since 2011. Solar activity is generally measured by sunspot count and for several days, the sun was nearly spotless.
Sunspots are islands of magnetism — sometimes as large as the planet Jupiter — on the surface of the sun. Sunspots are the sources of solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and intense UV radiation.
Sunspots come and go with an 11-year rhythm called the sunspot cycle. At the cycle’s peak, known as solar maximum, the sun is continually peppered with spots. But for every peak there is a valley, and during solar minimum, months can go by without a single sunspot.
Quiet suns are a natural part of the cycle discovered by German astronomer Heinrich Schwabe in the mid-1800s. Plotting sunspot counts, Schwabe saw that peaks of solar activity were always followed by valleys of relative calm -— a clockwork pattern that has held true for more than 200 years.
The last peak of activity was in early 2014 and currently, the sunspot numbers seem to be decreasing faster than expected, since the solar minimum level should not occur until 2021.
Predicting the peaks and valleys has proven troublesome because solar cycles are not always regular and can vary in length from 9 to 14 years. Some peaks are high, others low. The valleys are usually brief, lasting only a couple of years, but sometimes they stretch much longer.
In the 17th century, the sun plunged into a 70-year period of spotless quiet known as the Maunder Minimum that still baffles scientists.
Low solar activity has a profound effect on Earth’s atmosphere, allowing it to cool and contract. Space junk accumulates in Earth’s orbit because there is less aerodynamic drag. The calm solar wind whips up fewer magnetic storms around Earth’s poles. Cosmic rays that are normally pushed back by solar wind instead intrude on the near-Earth environment, where they pose a hazard to astronauts and satellites. | <urn:uuid:63461890-a44c-4bcd-82d7-120c12c2ab56> | {
"date": "2018-03-19T01:25:00",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2018-13",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-13/segments/1521257646189.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20180319003616-20180319023616-00456.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9665910005569458,
"score": 4.3125,
"token_count": 441,
"url": "https://www.coloradospacenews.com/almost-spotless/"
} |
Mary Brave Bird, Author of Lakota Woman, Walks On
American Indian activist, author and educator Mary Ellen Brave Bird-Richard walked on at age 58 on February 14, of natural causes.
But for many of her comrades—stretching back to the 1970s Trail of Broken Treaties and the standoff at Wounded Knee—Brave Bird's struggle for her people will never be forgotten. Her story was immortalized in her American Book Award-winning 1977 memoir, Lakota Woman, which became a made-for-TV film.
“She was one of the strongest women I’ve ever known,” her 34-year-old son, Henry, told Indian Country Today Media Network. “She never went after anyone. She was a really kind, and a really private, person. She’d always teach us to have self-respect and honor. Both of my parents were raised by their traditional grandparents, and that’s how they raised us, too.”
Brave Bird was born in 1954 on Rosebud Reservation, and grew up in poverty, often called a “half-breed” because her father was white. She attended St. Francis Boarding School, where she was forbidden to speak Sioux and forced into Christianity. But as a teenager, her life as an advocate began when she published a newspaper exposing her abuse in the mission school.
She married Leonard Crow Dog, a Sundance Chief and spiritual leader in the American Indian Movement, and had four sons and two daughters. Last year, she remarried, but her husband was killed in an automobile accident only weeks after the wedding, according to her son.
“The first time I saw her, we were at Wounded Knee,” New York-based photographer Owen Luck told ICTMN. “Leonard [Crow Dog] was talking to a bunch of us. Mary just came up and asked who I was and what I was doing there, out of blue. She was just like that—very direct, but very kind. She was very protective of AIM… What I remember most about Mary was she was very kind. She was incredibly loyal to Crow Dog. The word that comes to mind is steadfast.”
Reached at his South Dakota home—the site of annual Sundances known as “Crow Dog’s Paradise”—Crow Dog said Mary’s passion was always freedom for her people.
“From when Lakota Woman was born, she lived a traditional way of life,” he explained. “She respected the waters of life—of the generations. Mary protected the Indian generations of our national tribes. She read a lot of history. What brought her to that was that there is no freedom here in America for Native Americans.”
Brave Bird was buried in Clear Water Cemetery on February 24, on Rosebud Reservation’s Grass Mountain. And though she is remembered for her doting attention for visitors to Crow Dog’s Paradise, she carried inside her a story of suffering which she kept mostly to herself.
“One time she told me, when we were sitting around, what it was like to be raped in the mission school—the nuns had participated in this,” Luck recalled. “She had to trust you to do that. I remember having conversations… when people would come into the room she didn’t know, she’d become immediately silent. She didn’t talk a great deal until she got to know people.”
Luck, a non-Native supporter who kept in touch with Brave Bird in the decades since Wounded Knee, said her biggest lesson for him was how to balance anger at injustice with forgiveness.
“If anything, I learned from her—after Wounded Knee—that you have to have forgiveness,” Luck said. “Of course, there’s still an enormous amount of anger. But I noticed Mary was very, very quick to forgive. I’m not that forgiving.”
For her son Henry, Brave Bird’s legacy is one that affected many. She published her second memoir, Ohitika Woman, in 1993, as well as a book on educational abuses, Civilize Them with a Stick.
“My Mom really opened a lot of doors for Indian country,” Henry said. “When they were going to close our Indian schools, she stood up to the U.S. government and told them, ‘We need Indian education, for Indians.’ She’s pretty well known in Indian country. She did a lot of good things for the tribes. Now it’s official: Her work will go into the future.”
You need to be logged in in order to post comments
Please use the log in option at the bottom of this page | <urn:uuid:9aff3835-5cb6-4013-80b9-2c20e6a06705> | {
"date": "2016-08-25T20:29:14",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2016-36",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-36/segments/1471982294097.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20160823195814-00010-ip-10-153-172-175.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9886658787727356,
"score": 2.578125,
"token_count": 1018,
"url": "http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/03/14/mary-brave-bird-author-lakota-woman-walks-148164"
} |
A computer screen you can fold
U of T researchers have discovered a better way to make flat-panel displays that could one day lead to computer screens you roll up like a newspaper and wallpaper that lights your living room.
Michael Helander and Zhibin Wang, PhD candidates in the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, are members of a research team that has developed the world’s most efficient organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) on flexible plastic. Good news for manufacturers and consumers alike, the discovery means a less costly, more efficient and environmentally friendly way to build brighter flat-panel displays on a thinner, more durable and flexible surface.
“It was a happy accident after years of work,” said Helander. He and Wang have collaborated for four years in U of T’s department of materials science and engineering under the supervision of Professor Zheng-Hong Lu.
The students had been cleaning sheets of indium tin oxide – a material used in all flat-panel displays – when they noticed that devices built using their cleaned sheets had become much more efficient than expected, using less energy to achieve much higher brightness. After some investigation, they determined that this greater efficiency was the result of molecules of chlorine picked up from their cleaning solvent. With this surprising discovery, the two students engineered a prototype for a new kind of OLED device, which is both simpler in construction and more efficient.
Invented about 25 years ago, OLED technology uses organic compounds – molecules made of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen – to create colours. The organic dyes are then electrically stimulated to emit light of different colours. OLED displays are simpler and less toxic to make and require less energy than other kinds of displays. Over time, though, OLED devices became more complex – the original two layers of molecules became many layers, which raised manufacturing costs and failure rates.
“Basically, we went back to the original idea – and started again,” said Wang. The team’s findings were published, and in December, Helander and Wang, together with Lu and another U of T grad student, launched OTI Lumionics, a startup that will take the next steps toward commercializing the technology.
“The industry recognizes that devices are much too complicated now,” said Helander, who added the only way to make the manufacturing process cost-effective on a mass scale is to keep the design “simple, simple, simple.”
While the roll-up screen and light-emitting wallpaper are still distant applications, Helander and Wang expect the discovery could soon lead to a sturdier smartphone that doesn’t need to be recharged so often. Now there’s something to light up your day.
Watch the Video: http://vimeo.com/32678094 | <urn:uuid:9c940466-badf-46e3-b2dd-90eb0e252c34> | {
"date": "2015-10-08T16:17:26",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2015-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-40/segments/1443737896527.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20151001221816-00132-ip-10-137-6-227.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9506495594978333,
"score": 3.015625,
"token_count": 581,
"url": "http://news.utoronto.ca/computer-screen-you-can-fold"
} |
Ida B. Wells-Barnett: An Afro-American Prophet
by Emilie M. Townes
Emilie Townes is an instructor in the Department of Religious Studies at De Paul University in Chicago. This article appeared in the Christian Century, March 15, 1989 p. 285. Copyright by the Christian Century Foundation and used by permission. Current articles and subscription information can be found www.christiancentury.org. This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted & Winnie Brock.
The 1892 lynching of a dear friend, Thomas Moss, launched Wells into international prominence as leader in the anti-lynching crusade. Her contribution was crucial: she spoke out at a time when few voices challenged the horror and injustice of the lynch law, and her research, writing and public speaking informed people of the facts. She was convinced that the public’s awareness of the atrocity of lynching would lead to its demise.
Wells organized Illinois’s first black woman’s club at the end of the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. One of the club’s early projects was to raise money to prosecute a police officer for killing an innocent black man on Chicago’s west side. The club helped establish the first black orchestra in Chicago, opened the first kindergarten for black children, and was a charter member of the Cook County Women’s Clubs -- thereby crossing the color line in clubs.
Following the 1908 riot in Springfield, Illinois, Wells organized the young men of her Bible class at Grace Presbyterian Church in Chicago into what would eventually become the Negro Fellowship League, which existed until 1920. The league established a Reading Room and Social Center for men and boys. In 1919, Wells led the fight against the reinstatement of Frank Davis as sheriff in Alexander County, Illinois, because he did not prevent the lynching of a black man in Cairo, Illinois. Wells investigated the facts of the case and presented them to Governor Charles Deneen, who ultimately refused to reinstate Davis despite political pressure to do so.
Wells attacked vice, housing conditions and discrimination wherever she found them. Expressing herself with strength and willfulness, she used the lecture podium and newspaper articles to reveal in an uncompromising manner the injustices and outrage of racial bigotry.
Jacquelyn Grant, in her essay "Tasks of a Prophetic Church" (Detroit II Conference Papers, Orbis, 1982) , delineates five key threads in the prophetic voice of the church. I would appropriate her categories to describe, individual black leaders. The first element if the prophetic voice is the ability to discern the will of God, to see how God is on the side of oppressed peoples. Wells certainly evidenced this capacity and commitment.
Second, in discerning the will of God, the prophetic voice also exposes the oppressive nature of society. The committed Christian must stand for justice and transformation. Again, Wells is an excellent example of this concern. She believed the only recourse for the black folk of Memphis after the lynching of Thomas Moss was a boycott and an exodus. Moss’s crime was opening a successful grocery story that took business away from a white grocer across the street. No attempt was made to punish the murderers, whose identities were known. Wells urged the blacks of Memphis to leave.
Memphis has demonstrated that neither character nor standing avails the Negro if he dares to protect himself against the white man or become his rival. We are outnumbered and without arms. There is only one thing left that we can do -- leave a town which will neither protect our lives and property. nor give us a fair trial, but takes us out and murders us in cold blood [quoted by Dorothy Sterling in Black Foremothers: Three Lives (Feminist Press. 1979) p. 791.
Entire churches left the city. Over 2,000 blacks left in two months’ time. Businesses that depended on black patronage began to fail. The superintendent of the railway company called on Wells at her newspaper, the Free Speech, to ask her to urge readers to ride the streetcars again. White homemakers complained about the shortage of domestic workers. When a white real-estate agent remarked, "You got off light. We first intended to kill every one of those 31 niggers in jail, but concluded to let all go but the leaders," he revealed the true intention behind lynching. It was not an isolated event, but part of a broad-based movement to intimidate blacks.
Wells saw lynching as whites’ tool for repressing emancipated blacks. Whites resented Afro-Americans who could compete with them economically and move ahead in the social structure. She knew blacks could be enormously influential in electoral politics. This fact did not elude white southerners who knew Afro-Americans had the potential to upset their longstanding political and economic power base.
Black men were charged with rape so frequently that most people (including, at first, Wells and other blacks such as Frederick Douglass) were inclined to believe the charges. In 1904, Harper’s Weekly carried an article on "The New Negro Crime", which claimed that middle-class blacks were a greater threat than lower-class blacks because they were more likely to pursue social equality and to have lost their awe for the women of the superior race. The predominant southern white belief was that any liaison between an Afro-American man and a white woman was involuntary on the woman’s part. Wells clearly suggested that black men were weak if not stupid to contract such alliances, but she also insisted that white women were willing participants.
Miscegenation laws, she observed, protected white women: they left. black women the victims of rape by white men while granting these men the power to terrorize black men. Wells was incensed that the same mob that lynched a Nashville black man accused of visiting a white woman had left unharmed a white man convicted of raping an eight-year-old black girl.
Wells related political terrorism, economic oppression and conventional codes of sexuality and morality in an analysis that rocked the foundations of the southern (and northern) patriarchal manipulation of race and gender. In Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All its Phases (1892) , she examined the connection between charges of rape against blacks and lynching and argued there was no historical foundation for that association: "The crime of rape was unknown during four years of civil war, when the white women of the South were at the mercy of the race which is all at once charged with being a bestial one.
Wells studied the lynching of 728 black men, women and children in the ten-year period preceding the Moss lynching. In only a third of those cases were blacks accused of rape, and in fewer of them were blacks actually guilty of the crime. Most died for crimes like incendiarism, race prejudice, quarreling with whites and making threats. Thirteen-year-old Mildrey Brown was hanged on the circumstantial evidence that she poisoned a white infant. Wells’s investigations also uncovered a large number of interracial liaisons, and she asserted that white women had taken the initiative in some of these liaisons.
Grant’s fourth point is that the prophetic voice must confront evil, and clearly Wells did not shrink from confrontation. Two months after the Moss lynching, Wells wrote in the Free Speech an article that led to her being banished from Memphis:
Eight Negroes lynched since last issue of the Free Speech, three for killing a white man, and five on the same old racket -- the alarm about raping white women. The same program of hanging, then shooting bullets into the lifeless bodies. Nobody in this section of the country believes the old threadbare lie that negro men rape white women. If Southern white men are not careful they will overreach themselves, and public sentiment will have a reaction. A conclusion will then be reached which will be very damaging to the moral reputation of their women ["Lynch Law in All Its Phases," in Our Day (May 1893) , p. 338].
Finally, according to Grant the prophetic voice seeks to create a community of faith, partnership, justice and unity. This was Wells’s goal and dream. She devoted her life to attaining that dream for her people.
To her credit, she held fast to her view of the power of economics in shaping and changing social opinion in the United States. She gave new vision and provided new possibilities for black interactions with a racist culture. She also decried the stereotype of black women as mammy or slut. But she risked falling into the trap of believing that she was the only one able to discern God’s will for the liberation of the oppressed.
She often took unilateral actions which destroyed opportunities for coalition and dialogue. In her description of these events in her autobiography, her inability to grasp how her actions could hurt or anger others is evident. She reacted to other activists’ resistance to her ideas with puzzlement and even indignation. As she tried to work in the various women’s groups in Chicago, she was sometimes cut off from decision-making, to which she responded with bitterness rather than self-examination. She did not understand why her experience with groups followed this pattern.
In her autobiography, Wells details the disappointment she experienced from the ascendancy of Booker T. Washington. It seems she was not fully aware of the long shadow cast by Washington and his representatives and the effect on her organizing and agitation for social change on the behalf of Afro-Americans. Wells asked various organizations for their endorsement of her already-formulated proposals. When she did receive endorsement, her proposals were often sidetracked or derailed by the representatives Washington had among various women’s clubs and church associations, who favored a more gradualist approach.
While Wells was excellent at addressing unjust structures, she did not always remember that people are the ones who create, maintain and even tear down those structures. In being confrontational, the prophet must always keep in mind that a root meaning of confrontation is "to face together."
In short, Wells lacked the ability to combine the prophetic with the pastoral. Her passion for social change was deep and abiding, but her impatience with those who might cooperate with her prevented her from using her passion most effectively. Wells did not understand that the personal side of transformation, in which individuals are changed and renewed, requires its own set of critical and analytical skills. Yet she was a powerful agitator, who motivated others with prophetic and pastoral skills to mobilize black folk for social change. When she died of uremia poisoning on March 25, 1931, the obituary in the Chicago Defender captured her essence: "elegant, striking, and always well groomed . . . regal though somewhat intolerant and impulsive." | <urn:uuid:5718cf17-a4e1-4c0c-93cd-68eb727a3e45> | {
"date": "2017-05-29T19:11:15",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2017-22",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-22/segments/1495463612537.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20170529184559-20170529204559-00388.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9710769653320312,
"score": 3.453125,
"token_count": 2225,
"url": "http://religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=846"
} |
Ruminate. Excogitate. Contemplate. Chew the cud. Each of these words means to think about or to mull over. However, some of these words are more sophisticated and erudite than the others. Their use would result in an increased reading level of the text in which they were included.
There are many different ways to calculate reading level. You may be familiar with the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Levels in Word. When I ran the previous paragraph through spell/grammar check, it came out as a 4.7 grade level. I fiddled around a bit with that intro paragraph and changed it to the following.
Ruminate, excogitate, contemplate, and chew the cud: each of these words means to think about or to mull over. However, some of these words are more sophisticated and erudite than the others, and their use would result in an increased reading level of the text in which they were included.
When I ran this paragraph through Word’s spell/grammar check, it came out as 11.6. If you look at the two paragraphs, you will notice that I used the exact same words. The only thing that changed was the sentence structure. Amazingly, the reading level jumped seven grades. There are many different ways to calculate reading levels, but most of them center on length and complexity of words and sentences, not actual content or theme.
That’s why I wasn’t surprised when I ran across this article, American High School Students Are Reading Books at 5th Grade Appropriate Levels, which features a slide show revealing that The Hunger Games is written at a 5.3 grade level, Of Mice and Men weighs in at 4.5, and To Kill a Mockingbird registers at a level of 5.6. The latter two books are classics, and some believe Hunger Games will become a classic. Most would agree that the content of these books is not appropriate for fourth and fifth graders, but that the themes are important for older students to explore and discuss as they approach adulthood. Focusing on the reading level instead of the content is misleading. The headline insinuates that high school students are reading drivel, even though time honored classics are included on the list.
Curious, I used the Book Wizard tool on the Scholastic site to double check the statistics. While The Hunger Games still came up as 5.3, both Of Mice and Men and To Kill A Mockingbird were listed at a 8.1 reading level. I began typing in random titles of well known middle grade novels my sons and I have enjoyed. The Lightning Thief showed up as 4.7, Al Capone Does My Shirts 4.7, Redwall 7.8, Phantom Toll Booth 5.4, A Wrinkle in Time 5.8, A Single Shard 6.8, Rules 4.5, Hatchet 6.3, The White Giraffe 5.7, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid 5.3.
So what does all this mean, and why does it matter? It matters when kids are kept to a reading list that is based on grade levels, which as you can see don’t always line up with content level. It matters when parents or teachers judge a book to be less worthy because the reading level seems low, even though the message is rich and timeless. Reading levels can measure length of words; they cannot measure beauty of language. They can count words in sentences, but they cannot count the number of children a story may touch.
Another thing to consider with children’s fiction is that it is usually told in a child’s voice. In order to be authentic, the main character probably isn’t going to sound like Thoreau or Hemingway. Sentences may be short, especially if there is a lot of dialogue and action. In the case of free verse novels such as Out of the Dust, reading level 5.1, the sentences will be fragmented. Contemporary fiction reflects contemporary times. When is the last time you mailed a letter written with the complexity and flair of an Austen novel?
I am not saying that children shouldn’t be challenged, and I fully understand the need to increase reading comprehension and vocabulary. However, I’m not sure if choosing books based on a number calculated by a computer is the way to do it. I also know, all too sadly, that school systems need a way to sort and measure what is learned. My point in bringing all this up is that when it comes to choosing books for young students, we need to look beyond reading levels.
There is great value in stories. Children gain insight into other cultures, eras, and lives. These things help form them into more well-rounded and empathetic people. Books are windows to places they might otherwise never get to go and people they might never meet.
Although adhering to reading levels may be necessary in some situations, it should not be the only gauge by which we measure the worth of the book. I am no reading specialist or expert; however, I have watched my son grow from reading a steady diet of Geronimo Stilton, Warriors, and Wimpy Kid books to asking for a volume of Phillis Wheatley poetry.
After you’ve had a chance to ruminate and chew the cud on this topic, please leave a comment and tell us what you think.
*Image courtesy of http://www.freestockphotos.biz | <urn:uuid:3dbefd85-f7dc-4307-9784-870b515a8f5b> | {
"date": "2015-10-04T16:59:44",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2015-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-40/segments/1443736675795.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20151001215755-00086-ip-10-137-6-227.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9630577564239502,
"score": 3.234375,
"token_count": 1138,
"url": "http://www.fromthemixedupfiles.com/2012/04/ruminations-reading-levels/"
} |
Howl appears to be a sprawling, disorganized poem. But it's not. It consists of three sections. Each of these sections is a prolonged "riff" on a single subject. You could even think of the poem as three enormous run-on sentences. The first section is by far the longest.
In the first line of the first section, the speaker tells us that he has been a witness to the destruction of "the best minds" of his generation. The rest of the section is a detailed description of these people – specifically, who they were and what they did. He doesn't tell us what destroyed them quite yet, though we get plenty of hints. Most lines begin with the word "who" followed by a verb. These are people "who did this, who did that," etc. We quickly learn that these "best minds" were not doctors, lawyers, and scientists. They were not people whom most middle-class folks in the 1950s would have identified with the best America had to offer. And that's exactly Ginsberg's point. According to the speaker, they are drug users, drop outs, world travelers, bums, musicians, political dissidents, and, yes, poets.
If the key word of the first section was "who," the second section asks "What?" As in, what destroyed the best minds of his generation? Ginsberg provides the answer immediately: Moloch. In the Hebrew Bible, Moloch was an idolatrous god to whom children were sacrificed by placing them in fire. In other words, not a friendly god. The religious context and history of Moloch is extremely complicated, so it's better to stick to the poem's own definition. For Ginsberg, Moloch is associated with war, government, capitalism, and mainstream culture, all of which might be summed up by one of the poem's most important concepts: the "machine" or "machinery." Moloch is an inhuman monster that kills youth and love.
The third section is addressed to Carl Solomon, Ginsberg's close friend from the Columbia Presbyterian Psychiatric Institute. The speaker refers to this psychiatric hospital by the shorter and more evocative fictional name of "Rockland." He reaffirms his solidarity with Solomon over and over again by repeating the phrase "I'm with you in Rockland." The central question of this section is "Where?" The speaker uses this question to explore Solomon's existence within the walls of the institute. The poem ends with the image from the speaker's dreams, in which Solomon is walking from New York to the speaker's "cottage" (in Berkeley, California), where they will reunite. | <urn:uuid:4b4b0b39-58f1-4586-b79e-c5b1d8a58c8b> | {
"date": "2014-03-11T08:05:40",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2014-10",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011155657/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091915-00006-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9797995686531067,
"score": 2.609375,
"token_count": 539,
"url": "http://www.shmoop.com/howl/summary.html"
} |
what time is it?
did you ever go to one of those websites where they have a little digital clock that tells you what time it was when you got to the site? pretty amazing, until you realize that all they're doing is sending a message to your computer that asks your computer's internal clock what time it is and then prints the answer out in the form of a clock when it draws the page in your browser window. the other thing about those little digital clocks is that they're always wrong. it's true. by the time you look at them (in fact, by the time the page is drawn in your browser window), they're showing you what time it used to be, not what time it actually is.
well, i can do much better than that; i can tell you what time it actually is. and it doesn't matter what time zone you're in. doesn't matter what country, or even what hemisphere. doesn't matter if it's day or night. doesn't matter if you're on daylight savings time, or if you've never even heard of daylight savings time. and it doesn't matter if you just got here, or if you've read all the way through to the end of this post and then come back up here. it's always right. it always shows you the exact time when you're looking at it, no matter what it says on your computer's clock, on your kitchen clock, or on the atomic clock in boulder. are you ready? are you ready for me to tell you exactly what time it is wherever you are? ok - here we go - the exact time, wherever you are, is:
think about it: whenever you look at that word up there, it will always be reflecting the exact time that you're looking at it. we've come up with an elaborate set of conventions to synchronize our activities ("i'll meet you at 6 o'clock on tuesday") or to make sense out of recurring patterns in nature ("boy, i can't wait til spring!" or "tomorrow's another day"), but we seem to forget that that's all they are: conventions. if you doubt this, maybe you can describe to me what february 17th looks like (not a particular february 17th, just february 17th). or what 6 o'clock on tuesday feels like. but you can't, can you? of course not; those are just conventions, they don't tell us anything about reality.
we've probably all heard the old saying, "there's no time like the present". the reality is that there is no time but the present. the past is gone; anything that happened before now is set in stone. done. finished. you can't change it. why? because you can't act in the past. you can't "do" anything there.
and the future is just a fantasy. what if you die right in the middle of reading this sentence? then this sentence never existed for you, except as something you might have read in some unknown "future" (which has now ceased to exist for you) - and forget about doing anything you were planning to do "tomorrow"; there is no tomorrow. you were dead two sentences ago.
very few of us try to kid ourselves about the past; we all pretty much agree that what's done is done, and it can't be changed. but we still try to kid ourselves about the future: "i'll talk to her tomorrow." "i'll quit smoking after the holidays." "i'll start that program next week." "i'll see them the next time they're in town." these all sound like perectly reasonable statements, don't they? but they're all based on doing the impossible. they're all based on the idea that you can "do" something, anything, in "the future". but you can't.
why not? because the time of action, the time of doing is now. have you ever told someone, "i'll have to take care of that later; i'm busy right now"? sure you have. probably hundreds of times. and if you don't die before then, and nothing more urgent comes up, you probably will take care of that "later". but what time will it be when you're actually "taking care of it"? when you're actually "doing" it? the same time it always is whenever you're doing anything: now. whenever you're reading, it's "now". whenever you're working, it's "now". whenever you're sleeping, eating, breathing, talking; whenever you're "doing", it's "now". it can't be any other time. it's always now.
so, if you want to quit smoking forever, it's easy; whenever you get an urge, just tell yourself, "i'll smoke later." or, "i'll smoke tomorrow." or even, "i'll have that cigarette next week."
just don't smoke now. | <urn:uuid:73cd719d-44e7-4b87-920b-d38d214e0fb8> | {
"date": "2014-09-02T13:58:08",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2014-35",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-35/segments/1409535922087.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20140909042200-00053-ip-10-180-136-8.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9836887717247009,
"score": 2.546875,
"token_count": 1028,
"url": "http://talesfromthequit.com/what-time-is-it"
} |
Writing is an important form of communication. Good writers use different writing techniques to fit their purpose for writing. To be a good writer, you must master each of the following writing techniques.
Through description, a writer helps the reader use the senses of feeling, seeing, hearing, smelling, and tasting to experience what the writer experiences. Description helps the reader more clearly understand the people, places, and things about which the writer is writing. It is the most common form of writing.
Through exposition, a writer informs, explains, and clarifies his/her ideas and thoughts. Exposition goes beyond description to help the reader understand with greater clarity and depth the ideas and thoughts of the writer. Expository writing, like descriptive writing, is commonly found in newspapers, magazines, books, and most other forms of written communication.
Through narration, a writer tells a story. A story has characters, a setting, a time, a problem, attempts at solving the problem, and a solution to the problem. Bedtime stories are examples of short stories while novels are examples of long stories. The scripts written for movies and plays are further examples of narrative writing.
Through persuasion, a writer tries to change a reader's point of view on a topic, subject, or position. The writer presents facts and opinions to get the reader to understand why something is right, wrong, or in between. Editorials, letters to the editor in newspapers and magazines, and the text for a political speech are examples of persuasive writing.
5. Comparison and Contrast
Through comparison and contrast, a writer points out the similarities and differences about a topic. Comparison is used to show what is alike or in common. Contrast is used to show what is not alike or not in common. Describing living conditions in 1900 and living conditions today would allow for much comparison and contrast. By using the writing technique that fits your purpose, you will be able to communicate your ideas effectively. | <urn:uuid:16b3f9a2-f763-45d3-ba90-6493158e4233> | {
"date": "2020-01-18T09:36:45",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2020-05",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-05/segments/1579250592394.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20200118081234-20200118105234-00136.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9434884190559387,
"score": 3.96875,
"token_count": 394,
"url": "https://www.bosinformasi.web.id/2014/04/the-technique-of-teaching-writing.html"
} |
Deep Space Mission
Ten students at Pleasant View Elementary were given a critical task last Friday: find a NASA spaceship lost somewhere in the outer planets, rescue its crew and bring them safely back to base. They did it all without leaving the classroom.
The simulation was facilitated by the Challenger Learning Center of Colorado, a nonprofit. A "mission commander" in Colorado Springs, Heather, communicated with the students over Skype and gave out clues to get them started.
The third, fourth and fifth graders watched the film Apollo 13 as background and came to class dressed in astronaut attire: shirt and tie, pocket protectors, brainy glasses. They were headquartered on "Mars" in the year 2080 - teacher Jim Stoeckl said they covered with windows with red and black construction paper to create a backdrop - and divided into three teams.
Each team used math concepts learned in class to help solve the puzzle. Navigation plotted coordinates with ordered pairs. Transmission decoded encrypted symbols into messages. And, once the missing ship was found, the cargo team calculated how much food, water and oxygen was needed to retrieve the stranded astronauts, given the distance. The entire mission - which was successful - took two hours.
Astronomy has been a prominent subject studied this year. Stoeckl's class has learned about the size, order and atmospheric conditions of planets, what a light year is, and built a scale model of the solar system, suspended from the ceiling. The interactive mission was the perfect conclusion, he said. | <urn:uuid:c2acd465-8cde-4a13-826d-3333ebfcc919> | {
"date": "2014-08-20T13:54:02",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2014-35",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-35/segments/1408500808153.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20140820021328-00124-ip-10-180-136-8.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9694031476974487,
"score": 3.453125,
"token_count": 307,
"url": "http://www.cortezjournal.com/article/20130227/News03/130229832"
} |
Here are today’s five thing to know about Noodles:
- Dry noodles are considered a form of unleavened bread
- In China archaeologists discovered the world’s oldest bowl of noodles, thought to be over 4000 years old. They were made of millet flour.
- “Instant” noodles were invented in 1958. They are flash fried then quickly dried. This made for a long shelf life.(If they are kept dry, some say they will remain edible for decades)
- Over 40% of the flour in Asia is used to make noodles. Feeding over half of the world’s population.
- Thomas Jefferson brought the first “macaroni” noodles to America in 1789 after returning from a trip to France.
Today’s Pinterest Board : Foodimentary
Today’s Food History
- 1791 Samuel Mulliken of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania received a patent for a machine to thresh corn and grain.
- 1853 Self rising flour was supposedly invented by Henry Jones of Bristol.
- 1903 Lawrence Welk, champagne music-maker, was born.
Check out my book! | <urn:uuid:e30d2719-00da-401f-ad06-5e19cab588fc> | {
"date": "2019-07-19T01:55:24",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2019-30",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-30/segments/1563195525973.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20190719012046-20190719034046-00216.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9441331028938293,
"score": 3.03125,
"token_count": 238,
"url": "https://foodimentary.com/?s=National%20Macaroni%20Day"
} |
(CNN) -- The number of unexplained dolphin deaths on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, rose Friday, with rescuers tallying the toll at 103.
About 160 common dolphins have been found since the animals began stranding themselves in early January, said Michael Booth, a spokesman for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the organization leading the rescue the effort.
The beachings have puzzled investigators, as rescue team members struggle to treat, tag and transport the living dolphins to the outer Cape Cod coast to be released.
While dolphin strandings are not uncommon on the cape, Katie Moore, a marine manager for the group, said earlier this week the event is extraordinary in its "protracted" nature as well as the number of dolphins involved.
"There is a large variability year to year," she said, but this event represents "more than half my annual average in a month," said Moore.
Once beached, a dolphin is vulnerable to predators and susceptible to organ damage and sunburn. If a dolphin is still alive, the responders get it onto its stomach, if it is not already, for easier breathing. They keep away seagulls that would otherwise peck at it and warm it with blankets or cool it with water as necessary, Moore said.
Necropsies had been performed on at least nine of the dolphins, and blood and microbial swab samples have been taken from some that were found alive, Moore said.
So far, no pattern of disease or trauma has been found that would point to a cause.
Although the winter and early spring are the normal time of year for dolphin strandings to occur, the weather this season has been unusually warm, leading to speculation about climate change and subsequently low "distribution of prey" as possible causes.
Wellfleet harbormaster Michael Flanagan had earlier explained that usually, in the winter, "the harbor ices over and inhibits the animals from coming close to the shore. But now that the water is warmer, we're seeing lots more dolphins washing up than ever before."
Moore cautioned that, while climate or other external factors such as acoustic disorientation can't be ruled out, "we don't have a single answer." | <urn:uuid:3cffb299-d69c-40d8-ac44-dfc6390f76c2> | {
"date": "2013-12-11T18:01:19",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-48",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-48/segments/1386164040899/warc/CC-MAIN-20131204133400-00002-ip-10-33-133-15.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9736846685409546,
"score": 2.890625,
"token_count": 448,
"url": "http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/10/us/massachusetts-dead-dolphins/index.html?hpt=us_c2"
} |
The Individual and Society
Society Exists to Serve Individuals—Not the Other Way Around
SEPTEMBER 01, 2003 by ARTHUR FOULKES
Over lunch recently a philosophical friend of mine reflected, “U.S. history is the story of a struggle between the individual and society as a whole.” A few days later another friend, equally philosophical, said something similar: “It always comes down to a conflict between the individual and the community.”
I have often heard this. The individual and the community have conflicting needs and wants. This is simply the truth.
Or is it?
“Society” is essentially the regularities, customs, and ground rules of interhuman behavior. These practices (and their acceptance among people) are tremendously important to how humans act and interact with each other. But is there really such a thing as a “society” whose goals conflict with those of individuals? I don’t think so.
Society does not exist independently of individual human beings. As Ludwig von Mises noted, “The individual lives and acts within society. But society is nothing but the combination of individuals for cooperative effort.”1 Indeed, he continues, “The fundamental facts that brought about . . . society. . . are the facts that work performed under the division of labor is more productive than isolated work and man’s reason is capable of recognizing this truth.” In other words, society exists to serve individuals—not the other way around.
This reasoning casts an entirely different light on the relationship between individuals and society. But this reasoning is not new. Individuals have long understood that they can satisfy their expanding wants only through exchange and association with others. The tremendous bounty of such cooperation, famously explained by David Ricardo nearly 200 years ago, makes social interaction the individual’s greatest tool for achieving his goals.
Of course, individuals are expected to obey certain rules when dealing with others. Murder, theft, fraud, and intimidation are contrary to cooperation. But, as Frédéric Bastiat noted 150 years ago, individuals would resist and punish these behaviors “even if specific laws against them were lacking,” meaning, therefore, that such resistance does not owe its origin to a “social contract,” but rather flows from “a general law of humanity.”2 It is wrong to interpret these “general laws” as being somehow in conflict with the wants of individuals. On the contrary, these laws assist in attaining those wants.
Why then all the talk of an eternal conflict between the individual and society? I believe it is because the “common good” is such an effective political card to play. A multitude of government schemes are justified in the name of the common good—even if they benefit only a small minority. Schemes ranging from “livable” neighborhoods, sustainable (“smart”) growth, Food and Drug Administration regulations, government schools, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have all been justified in the name of the “common good,” society, or the “general welfare.”3 Resistance therefore is effectively attributed to “selfishness” or “stubborn individualism.”
What such government schemes have in common is mistrust of individuals’ choices in a free-exchange environment. They seek to impose “a new vision” designed to save us from the chaos of the unregulated marketplace.4
I do not have to look far to see the fruits of such collectivist genius. A few years ago our town’s local department of redevelopment decided to spend 6.1 million tax dollars to build a mixed business/residential building downtown. The building’s commercial and residential units would be rented at approximately “market rates,” but nevertheless, the redevelopment bureaucrats never expected the project to make money. “We know for sure [the project] has to be subsidized for about the first 12 years,” the director of the redevelopment commission told me in an interview. The 12-year price tag was expected to be several million dollars on top of the construction costs.
Not a Rousing Success
That was four years ago. The five-story building now stands in the heart of our downtown just a couple of blocks from my office. It houses a small pizza parlor, an independent bookshop, and some residential renters. And to make things even better, the building is a sort of sickly yellow color. “Livability,” indeed.
The beauty of voluntary exchange and the free market is that it allows consumers to peacefully allocate resources according to their own preferences. That’s what Mises called the “sovereignty of the consumers.” The millions of dollars wasted on our town’s “revitalization project” would have otherwise gone to consumers’ needs. But autonomous individuals, not government planners, would have determined those other needs. For the planners, that is always the problem.
Bastiat nicely summed up the attitude of the planners when he wrote,
While mankind tends toward evil, the legislators yearn for good; while mankind advances toward darkness, the legislators aspire for enlightenment; while mankind is drawn toward vice, the legislators are attracted toward virtue. Since they have decided that this is the true state of affairs, they then demand the use of force in order to substitute their own inclinations for those of the human race.5
Arthur Foulkes is a freelance writer in Indiana.
- Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, 4th rev. ed. (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education 1996 ), p. 143.
- Frédéric Bastiat, Economic Harmonies, trans. W. Hayden Boyers (Irvington-on-Hudson, New York: Foundation for Economic Education, 1996 ), p. 2.
- The Clinton administration proposed spending $1.7 billion on schemes aimed at promoting “livability”—meaning planned communities with “mixed-use downtowns,” “green spaces,” and more, all for the “common good.” See “Livable Communities for The 21st Century: Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by Vice President Al Gore, Livability Announcement,” January 11, 1999, at www.smartgrowth.org/library/gore_speech11199.html. For more on “sustainability” see Environmental Protection Agency—Region 10, “Smart Growth,” www.epa.gov/r10earth/sustainability/smartprin.htm.
- Frédéric Bastiat, The Law (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education 1998 ), pp. 32–33. | <urn:uuid:50604484-febc-43b3-a253-a1569c237138> | {
"date": "2013-12-12T23:03:39",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-48",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-48/segments/1386164746201/warc/CC-MAIN-20131204134546-00002-ip-10-33-133-15.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9456667304039001,
"score": 2.890625,
"token_count": 1439,
"url": "http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/the-individual-and-society"
} |
Avoiding the Back-to-School Stress Mess
Most parents and students focus on time management as one of the keys to academic success. But managing stress is just as important. In fact, managing one’s stress and workload go hand in hand according to Michelle Harcrow, assistant director of health promotion and wellness at The University of Alabama.
Harcrow recommends developing a plan based on your needs before tackling the extra-curricular activities and coursework in a school year.
“A student would need to have a general plan for each semester that includes their schedule of classes, mealtime/exercise, study time per class, extracurricular involvement, work plans and any major travel. Then, best case scenario, use a semester-based planner to layout the major responsibilities each week.”
While it is usually a less overwhelming approach to create a day-to-day or weekly plan, looking at the big picture first allows the student to whittle the list down to the more immediate issues.
“For a beginner, start with Day One and then add a day at a time until you feel more comfortable branching out to a whole week, followed by a week and a half, then two weeks, etc.”
This allows the student to learn the all-important life skill of time management and to use that skill as a stress-management technique.
“‘Life is going to happen’ as I tell my students. Life is not an emergency and should not be viewed as such. We need to be prepared for what we know is going to happen and build in some flexibility for what we do not expect,” says Harcrow. “Another important life lesson is that 'failure to plan on the part of an individual should not constitute an emergency for someone else'; therefore, take responsibility for your own life and time, and help those around you to do the same.”
Once a plan is in place, Harcrow recommends the followings steps to achieving goals set for the year:
- Prioritize your school assignments, work, and social life - key word is BALANCE them based on importance/deadlines.
- Set realistic goals that you can accomplish in a timely manner
- Celebrate your accomplishments with healthy rewards (a movie, dinner, a new game)
- Rest - put it into your schedule and stick to it! The body needs rest and fuel to recover from stress and life. It is important to incorporate a healthy diet with fresh fruits and vegetables into your life. Limit fast foods and excessive sweets. Additionally, a solid sleep schedule with at least 7 hours/night will help the mind stay focused and the body resist illnesses. | <urn:uuid:95611bc5-77e8-4b0a-b30e-c95b706a4f47> | {
"date": "2015-04-18T15:09:56",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2015-18",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-18/segments/1429246635547.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20150417045715-00172-ip-10-235-10-82.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9552476406097412,
"score": 2.6875,
"token_count": 555,
"url": "http://www.ua.edu/features/backtoschool10/stress.html"
} |
The Johnson County Health Department is advising residents to make sure their pets are vaccinated for rabies, after a rabid bat was found in the county.
The health department said the rabies case was confirmed through lab testing and reminded residents not to touch living or dead bats with bare hands to avoid exposure to the deadly virus.
“The bat population in JoCo is increasing as young bats begin to leave their nests and seek shelter in trees and homes,” department spokeswoman Barbara Mitchell said via email. “This is normal for this time of year.”
If pets or people do come into contact with a bat, residents are advised to call the nearest county animal control office or a professional pest control company to corral it, remove it and test it for rabies.
We have lab confirmation of a rabid bat in JoCo. Vaccinate your pets for #rabies. Do NOT touch bats – living or dead – with bare hands. If you/your pet come into contact with a #bat (living or dead), call animal control or a pest company to have bat removed & tested for rabies. pic.twitter.com/x06r8WwC7L
— JCDHE (@JOCOHealth) July 6, 2018
Rabies testing on an animal specimen can be scheduled by calling the health department’s environmental division at 913-715-6900.
Rabies is carried by mammals — usually wild animals like raccoons, bats, skunks and foxes — and spreads to humans when a carrier bites them. Non-bite exposures are rare, but not unheard of.
Initial symptoms are flu-like and without early treatment, the illness is almost always fatal. With immediate post-exposure vaccination shots, though, rabies can be prevented even after the bite. The usual course of vaccination is to give a shot on the day of exposure, and then again on days 3, 7 and 14.
About 100 animals test positive for rabies each year in Kansas, and Johnson County confirmed 28 animal cases between 1998 and 2014. But there hasn’t been a rabies death in the state since 1968, when a young boy was bitten by an infected dog in Cowley County.
When a Missouri man died of rabies after he was bitten by a bat in 2008, it was the first rabies-related death that state had seen since 1959. Missouri recorded another rabies-related death in 2014, from a variation of the virus that genetic testing also traced to bats. | <urn:uuid:706262c3-9e1f-4f23-b62e-b3abb0ebb0da> | {
"date": "2018-09-20T21:09:00",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2018-39",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-39/segments/1537267156613.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20180920195131-20180920215531-00056.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9522386789321899,
"score": 2.84375,
"token_count": 519,
"url": "http://qualitynewsupdate.com/after-joco-bat-tests-positive-for-rabies-health-department-warns-residents-of-danger/"
} |
On this page:
Definition of the noun Aguillula
What does Aguillula mean as a name of something?
Aguillula is a genus of Tripylidae, described by Zittel in 1879.
- synonym: genus Aguillula
- kingdom: Animalia
- phylum: Nematoda
- class: Adenophorea
- order: Enoplida
- family: Tripylidae
- genus: Anguillula
Online dictionaries and encyclopedias with entries for Aguillula
Click on a label to prioritize search results according to that topic:
Scrabble value of A1G2U1I1L1L1U1L1A1
The value of this 9-letter word is 10 points, but it's not an accepted word in the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary.
Share this page
Go to the thesaurus of Aguillula to find many related words and phrases! | <urn:uuid:ee180bf0-552b-45ff-a12b-0448fdeadbde> | {
"date": "2018-04-24T21:19:45",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2018-17",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-17/segments/1524125947328.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20180424202213-20180424222213-00216.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.8385103940963745,
"score": 2.859375,
"token_count": 204,
"url": "http://www.omnilexica.com/?q=Aguillula"
} |
We have always talked about the importance of soil quality. Improving soil quality is the number one thing you can do to improve yields on your farm.
What is it that we are talking about when we say "Soil Quality"?
At soilquality.org they have a couple of definitions.
"Fitness for use" (Larson and Pierce, 1991) and "the capacity of a soil to function” (Karlen et al., 1997). Taken together, these two definitions means that soil quality is the ability of the soil to perform the functions necessary for its intended use.
Probably the most comprehensive definition of soil quality to date was published by the Soil Science Society of America's Ad Hoc Committee on Soil Quality (S-581) as "the capacity of a specific kind of soil to function, within natural or managed ecosystem boundaries, to sustain plant and animal productivity, maintain or enhance water and air quality, and support human health and habitation" (Karlen et al., 1997).
In our own words - Soil quality is the ability of a soil to function properly.
The soil needs to perform 5 essential functions properly to be considered a quality soil.
Nutrient Cycling - Soil stores, moderates the release of, and cycles nutrients and other elements. During these biogeochemical processes, analogous to the water cycle, nutrients can be transformed into plant available forms, held in the soil, or even lost to air or water.
Water Relations - Soil can regulate the drainage, flow and storage of water and solutes, which includes nitrogen, phosphorus, pesticides, and other nutrients and compounds dissolved in the water. With proper functioning, soil partitions water for groundwater recharge and for use by plants and soil animals.
Biodiversity and Habitat - Soil supports the growth of a variety of plants, animals, and soil microorganisms, usually by providing a diverse physical, chemical, and biological habitat.
Filtering and Buffering - Soil acts as a filter to protect the quality of water, air, and other resources. Toxic compounds or excess nutrients can be degraded or otherwise made unavailable to plants and animals.
Physical Stability and Support - Soil has the ability to maintain its porous structure to allow passage of air and water, withstand erosive forces, and provide a medium for plant roots. Soils also provide anchoring support for human structures and protect archeological treasures.
We will walk you through these functions in future articles!
You can learn more at www.soilquality.org. The website is a collaboration between the NRCS East National Technology Support Center, NRCS National Soil Survey Center, ARS National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment, NCERA-59 Scientists, and Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The Blogronomist is maintained by Craig Dick, head blogronomist and VP of Sales and Marketing. Here you will find a wide array of blog articles from Craig and expert guests on topics related to soil and crop health, farming, and so much more. If it’s not here, ask us! | <urn:uuid:d7f48bfd-b698-45dd-943e-773af5ba2a5b> | {
"date": "2017-04-23T17:53:34",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2017-17",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917118740.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031158-00174-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9191585779190063,
"score": 3.640625,
"token_count": 644,
"url": "http://calciumproducts.com/about-us/newsroom/itemlist/user/736-calciumproducts"
} |
The study does not pretend to identify the 'perfect' model for an ombuds for children, but rather focuses on the elements and conditions that ensure that the institution functions effectively, bearing in mind that country situations and contexts vary greatly and there is no one-size-fits-all model or solution.
The main purpose of the research project is to:
- Support informed decision-making for countries that are seeking to establish independent institutions for children and others that aim at strengthening existing ones;
- Advocate for the creation of Independent Human Rights Institutions for Children through partnerships with a wide range of actors in the research process;
- Enhance the capacity of UNICEF to support the further development of this process;
- Contribute to strengthening the Global Network of Independent Human Rights Institutions for Children and regional networks, by highlighting commonalities, in terms of approaches, strengths and challenges, among institutions, among and within all regions;
- Support the Committee on the Rights of the Child in its guidance to States Parties on general measures of implementation;
- Contribute to international debates on national systems for the promotion and protection of children's rights.
The research methodology involves a combination of four elements:
- Data collection on individual institutions. Head of institutions were asked to complete a web survey that was elaborated and tested with experts and practitioners and builds on international standards. The survey is available in English, French, Spanish and Russian. As a result, the process of completing the questionnaire contributes to raising awareness and educating partners on applicable standards and key characteristics of these institutions.
- Case studies. To complement data collected with the surveys, case studies take into account the views of a wide range of actors, including children, involved in the promotion and protection of children's rights in the country. These studies are also meant to be used at national level as advocacy tools for the creation and/or reform of these institutions. The first case-study was conducted in Turkey, because that country is currently at the very initial stages of the establishment process and requests for advice received by UNICEF IRC often relate to this phase.
- Experts' contribution. The research benefits from the contribution of experts who, at various phases of the project, have refined the framework and approach through discussion papers, participation in seminars and advice.
- Literature review. The study is also based on a review of selected publications with a view to reflecting and acquiring the multidisciplinary approach identified as essential in the daily work of Ombuds for Children. | <urn:uuid:c7155503-bef3-4e79-82a1-b5ea3455bac6> | {
"date": "2016-02-09T05:41:41",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2016-07",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-07/segments/1454701156520.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20160205193916-00190-ip-10-236-182-209.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9458762407302856,
"score": 2.65625,
"token_count": 503,
"url": "http://www.unicef-irc.org/knowledge-pages/Independent-Human-Rights-Institutions-for-Children/626"
} |
A catalogue of positions and proper motions of stars, generally brighter than about magnitude 9, derived mostly from meridian observations made over many decades, which defines an accurate stellar reference frame. Apart from the German series (see fk), other fundamental catalogues, produced in the USA, are the Preliminary General Catalogue (PGC; 6188 stars; L. Boss, 1910), the General Catalogue (GC; 33 342 stars; B. Boss, 1937), and the N30 (5268 stars; H. R. Morgan, 1952). See also Boss General Catalogue.
Subjects: Astronomy and Astrophysics. | <urn:uuid:66684dd8-88f4-4dc5-acf8-3548923fa343> | {
"date": "2018-08-22T08:08:22",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2018-34",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-34/segments/1534221219692.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20180822065454-20180822085454-00256.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.8245287537574768,
"score": 3.09375,
"token_count": 129,
"url": "http://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095838480"
} |
When adenomas appear in the colon, the same cells of the tissue produce a molecule that neutralizes its progression.
Adenomas, which are highly prevalent in the population, provide the substrate on which carcinomas develop.
Colon cancer development starts with the formation of benign tumours called adenomas. It is estimated that between 30% and 50% of people over 50 will develop one of these tumours. These adenomas or polyps are the pre-cancerous lesions that, once they accumulate further genetic mutations over many years, can progress to colon cancer. A team headed by scientists at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and headed by the ICREA researcher Eduard Batlle has discovered that the colon has a safety mechanism to restrict the formation and growth of adenomas. The study was published on Sunday in the advanced online edition of the journal Nature Cell Biology and will be the cover of the July issue.
The scientists have observed that the formation of an adenoma in the colon is accompanied by an increase in the production of a molecule called BMP (bone morphogenetic protein). The study explains that BMP limits the self-renewal capacity of adenoma stem cells, thus impeding the rapid development of the lesion.
“Colon epithelial cells respond to the presence of these tumours and attempt to suppress them or at least control them through the BMP pathway. Without this safety circuit, we would have many more polyps showing rapid growth. Colon cancer is a disease that develops slowly and this slowness may be caused by this safety mechanism,” says Eduard Batlle, head of the Colorectal Cancer Laboratory at IRB Barcelona whose research interests include the study of how colon cancers arise and how they become malignant.
Do we all have the same capacity to deal with polyps?
One hypothesis that has arisen from the study is that we are not equally protected and that there are genetic variations in the population that determine that some people have more robust safety mechanisms to respond to polyp formation than others.
This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the scientists have identified a genomic region through which BMP protein production is controlled, that is to say, the specific site that regulates the safety circuit triggered when adenomas are detected. It is the same site that holds certain genomic variations in the population that are associated with susceptibility to colon cancer. These genomic variations have been revealed by studies in the population and by analysis of the genomes of colon cancer patients that are available in data bases such as that of the 1000 Genomes Project Data.
“We provide a plausible explanation of why certain genomic variations (called snip – SNP-) are associated with a greater risk of colon cancer and we believe it is because these variations affect this safety system that protects us from adenomas,” explain the scientists.
“This basic study will allow more defined research into the genomic variations associated with colon cancer that are in the region where BMP is regulated.” A better understanding of the mechanism that accelerates or restricts the development of cancer may allow, for example, the discovery of new biomarkers to better identify the population at greatest risk of colon cancer and even the current degree of risk.
Colon cancer is one of the four most prevalent cancers, together with breast, prostate and lung cancer, and it has a global incidence of 1,600,000 cases per year with a mortality rate of 50%. The researchers highlight that if those over 50 underwent preventive tests such as colonoscopies then 80% of the deaths from this disease would be averted.
The study has involved the participation of groups from the “Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncológicas”, the “Hospital Clínico de Barcelona-IDIBAPS-UB”, and the Centre for Genomic Regulation. Funding was provided by an ERC Grant from the European Research Council awarded to Eduard Batlle, from the Josep Steiner Foundation of Switzerland, and from the Spanish Ministry of the Economy and Competitiveness.
The transcription factor GATA6 enables self-renewal of colon adenoma stem cells by repressing BMP gene expression
Gavin Whissell, Elisa Montagni, Paola Martinelli, Xavier Hernando-Momblona, Marta Sevillano, Peter Jung, Carme Cortina, Alexandre Calon, Anna Abuli, Antoni Castells, Sergi Castellvi-Bel, Ana Silvina Nacht, Elena Sancho, Camille Stephan-Otto Attolini, Guillermo P. Vicent, Francisco X. Real and Eduard Batlle
Nature Cell Biology (2014) Doi: 10.1038/ncb2992 | <urn:uuid:e651ef92-4f2b-4463-9cbd-78f582332aa9> | {
"date": "2017-08-17T07:52:04",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2017-34",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-34/segments/1502886102993.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20170817073135-20170817093135-00576.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9206127524375916,
"score": 3.359375,
"token_count": 995,
"url": "https://www.irbbarcelona.org/en/news/the-colon-has-a-safety-mechanism-that-restricts-tumour-formation"
} |
1. Scientists have turned to artificial insemination to help save the honeybee population.
Bee populations have been disappearing for several years now. They provide an important service to the world’s plant ecosystem — less bees means less food. Scientists are trying to prevent their disappearance.
2. Painkiller addiction is the worst drug epidemic our country has ever seen.
Prescriptions for painkillers in the U.S. have tripled in the past few decades, and fatal ODs have surpassed heroin and cocaine combined, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
3. Elephants might be extinct in 25 years.
The ivory trade is threatening to wipe out the existence of elephants if China refuses to regulate.
8. Diabetes, injury, sexual abuse, tuberculosis, and suicide are all major health issues for Native Americans.
The statistics are staggering. Suicide is an epidemic. Before the age of 44 more Native Americans die of injury than any other cause. And 1 in 3 Native American women are victims of sexual assault in their lifetime, more than twice the national average.
9. The government is spending a lot of money cracking down on welfare fraud.
In some cases, it’s ruining lives. And to make matters worse, the USDA spent $126 million in order for investigators to recover only $115 million in wrongful payments. Read this story about a family torn apart by the government’s lengthy legislation against them. | <urn:uuid:30e2e239-c7a7-40e9-bb43-335db32eda44> | {
"date": "2016-12-06T04:16:06",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2016-50",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-50/segments/1480698541876.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20161202170901-00088-ip-10-31-129-80.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9392443299293518,
"score": 2.703125,
"token_count": 294,
"url": "https://www.buzzfeed.com/aljazeeraamerica/10-underreported-stories-you-need-to-follow-right-now"
} |
University of Missouri Extension is research based information that is relevant, reliable, and responsive to the needs of our clientele. From home finance to nutrition and fitness, to agronomy, farm and business planning, to family dynamics, ...
University of Missouri Extension is research based information that is relevant, reliable, and responsive to the needs of our clientele. From home finance to nutrition and fitness, to agronomy, farm and business planning, to family dynamics, extension has information for you. The purpose of this blog is to inform and educate the community on programs and information that impacts your daily life. Sharing of this information should steer you in the path of increased knowledge and awareness of where to find answers to your questions.
Berries are a tasty treat and they are a healthy one too.
The June, 2013, issue of Tufts Health and Nutrition Letter reports results published in the journal Circulation, that, “women who ate the most strawberries and blueberries – three or more servings per week – were 34% less likely to suffer such an early heart attack.” The findings come from the Nurses Health Study II. This research followed about 93,600 25- to 42-year old women for 18 years, checking in with them periodically to see what they were eating and how it was affecting their health. The heart health benefits were likely attributed partly to the presence of anthocyanin, an antioxidant compound found naturally in bright red fruits like strawberries.
Berries offer other health benefits as well. One cup of strawberries provides 140% of the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin C, more than a whole medium orange. It also has 16% of the recommended dietary fiber. This fiber content makes strawberries low on the glycemic index, meaning it helps slow the body’s process of turning the berries into blood sugar, despite their sweetness. Strawberries also contain potassium, folate and more than 25% of the recommended manganese which helps process cholesterol.
Likewise, a cup of red raspberries has nearly 50% of the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin C and 30% of the recommended fiber, as well as some potassium, magnesium, calcium and Vitamin A.
Berries are good fresh as a snack or dessert, in yogurt or a smoothie, or as a salad topper. They are in season now, but can be canned, jammed, frozen or dried for a tasty and healthful part of one’s eating plan later. If you have questions about berries or preserving them, you are welcome to contact me at 660-425-6434 or [email protected]. My regular office hours are 8-4:30 Monday-Friday. I will also be available at off-hours throughout the summer. Contact me by phone, email, text to email, or other electronic communications on second Saturdays (July 13, Aug 10, Sept 14) 9-11 in the morning, and second Tuesdays (July 9, Aug 13, Sept 10) 8-10 at night. Again, my number is 660-425-6434, or email me at [email protected].
For more information on berries and their health benefits or any other topic, contact me or your local University of Missouri Extension office | <urn:uuid:060606ec-8fc8-44f0-8831-d60481ec27f5> | {
"date": "2014-04-19T07:14:00",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2014-15",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-15/segments/1397609536300.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20140416005216-00083-ip-10-147-4-33.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9604161977767944,
"score": 2.796875,
"token_count": 666,
"url": "http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130710/blogs/130719886"
} |
Hot tags Spacecraft Climate Change Animals Health Astronomy (Space)
Articles, documents and multimedia from ABC Science
Monday, 17 December 2007
Tricks They cost next to nothing and look great, and they're perfect for learning how to juggle.
Thursday, 10 May 2007
Tricks "Aaaargh! What is it? Get it away from me!!!". Use a marble and your Easter egg wrappers to make Mexican Jumping Beans that'll scare your mates.
Thursday, 10 May 2007 199K
Demonstration Amaze your family and friends with this tricky card trick that will leave observers astounded!
Thursday, 12 April 2007 172K
Demonstration This very reliable and dramatic demonstration of atmospheric pressure will shock and amaze your students.
Thursday, 29 March 2007 412K
Demonstration Create the illusion that a wasabi sachet is responding to your mood or voice with this demonstration.
Thursday, 1 March 2007 353K
Demonstration The spinning bike wheel appears to be defying gravity, but it's not. Amuse your students with this demonstration.
Thursday, 1 March 2007 237K
Lesson Plan Will it float is a surprisingly contagious and fun educational game you can play every day. Students attempt to stump the class with mystery items from home. From the bizarre to the mundane, each item will captivate students' interest. In the process, they use critical thinking and learn the difference between a prediction and a guess.
Thursday, 15 February 2007 327K
Demonstration This demonstration relies on the strong surface tension of water, the fine weave of the handkerchief and atmospheric pressure. | <urn:uuid:bc236fdc-6046-4707-9a32-a0c5c3ae108c> | {
"date": "2014-03-07T03:52:50",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2014-10",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999635677/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060715-00006-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9236228466033936,
"score": 3.03125,
"token_count": 333,
"url": "http://www.abc.net.au/science/tag/browse.htm?site=science/tricks&topic=latest&tag=kids-games-and-links"
} |
Few of us understand the subtle device of currency restrictions used by all governments to deprive their citizens of both freedom and property
The value of currencies, like the value of many other commodities, depends upon a thousand factors which cannot be measured. These depend upon the opinions of the thousands of businessmen who want to buy currencies and upon those who wish to buy and sell the goods those currencies can purchase.
No government has a yardstick that can measure the value of the goods currencies can buy, and this means that no government has a standard for measuring the value of currencies and the rate at which they should exchange for one another. The only possible way to ascertain the value of a currency is to place it on the free market and see what people will pay for it.
To fix by law an exchange rate between two currencies which will represent the true value of both currencies is impossible. When values depend upon so many factors which cannot be measured, then it is almost inevitable that a fixed rate must cheat one of the parties to every exchange transaction.
Businessmen, if left free to buy and sell currencies, are not powerful enough to overcharge each other. There are always too many sellers in the market. If currencies are to be sold at false values, a power of monopoly, which only a government can wield, is necessary. It is almost certain that there is no history of rings or monopolies in exchange transaction except where governments have interfered to create them.
Until the advent of socialism upset old-established moral laws, the earnings of a British exporter of goods or services were his to do with whatever he liked. He invariably sold his earnings of foreign currency in the free market.
This had very important consequences on the community as a whole. It meant, to begin with, that there was an automatic guide to decide whether it was more profitable for people to be employed in export industries or directly employed in supplying the home market. It enabled the economy, in fact, to be planned by the price mechanism which has so far proved itself to be the most efficient form of economic planning known to man.
When governments began to expropriate the overseas exchange of their citizens, they lost this one efficient means of planning an economy; and this has been the chief cause for the economic crises we have suffered since the war ended.
It is an unfortunate fact that money, of even the richest of us, is limited. If we spend too much of it on one commodity, we have less to spend on another. In a free country the people decide for themselves how they shall distribute their money among the goods and services offered them, and consequently what they shall have in abundance and what they shall do without. This choice is part of the individual citizen’s essential freedom.
In a free country a citizen has the right to buy overseas exchange freely. This means that if he wishes, he can send money to New Zealand for a leg of lamb or a box of butter, or to Australia or the Argentine for a shoulder of beef; or he can buy wheat from Canada or tobacco from Virginia.
Of course, in practice, he will probably not bother to exercise this right directly; for merchants anticipate his import requirements and order such goods beforehand and place them in shops so that he can buy exactly what he wants. Thus, when exchange transactions are free, a British citizen can enter a shop and choose which goods he shall buy from any part of the world. It is this choice of the citizen that decides for the merchant just how he will spend the overseas exchange he purchases from his bank.
This means that those who decide how overseas exchange shall be spent are not bankers or businessmen but housewives and the ordinary British citizen. We are inclined to think that the buying and selling of exchange has nothing to do with the ordinary man in the street, but in actual fact there is not one of us who does not use his right to buy overseas exchange almost everyday. We are the real buyers of overseas exchange—not the banks and the merchant; they are merely our agents who buy according to the directions we give when we spend our money in shops.
Thus when overseas exchange is controlled, it is not banks and businessmen only who are controlled but we ourselves. Exchange control deprives everyone of us of part of our freedom of choice.
People have a right to earn overseas exchange and hold it as their own property and to sell it freely to the highest bidder. To deprive them of this right is to rob them of both their freedom and property. It is also to rob all men of their power of choice, and to reduce them to something less than men.
The foregoing passages are selections from a 63-page book, The Free Convertibility of Sterling by George Winder, published by the Institute of Economic Affairs in London. It is a textbook which explains to the student exactly what foreign exchange is, how exchange rates are determined, and how foreign payments are made. This book is available through the Foundation for Economic Education, Irvington-on-Hudson, N. Y.—fifty cents per copy, postpaid.
We Won’t Share The Pulpit With The Devil
The publishers of Ideas On Liberty, the Foundation for Economic Education, make no pretense of “presenting both sides” of the socialist question. The staff members are opposed to socialism—call it government intervention, fascism, communism, the welfare state, common ownership for the good of all the people, or whatever. Since they are convinced that socialism is evil, they themselves would necessarily become evil by their own standards if they repeated the fallacies and cliches offered by the socialists in defense of their position.
The Foundation would no more think of deliberately sponsoring socialist thought than would a minister think of sharing his pulpit with the devil in order that “the people may have the advantage of hearing both sides of the issue.” There is no moral obligation—and there should be no legal obligation—upon any person to advance, present, or sponsor ideas which he considers false or evil. This, of course, doesn’t mean that FEE is always right and hasn’t made mistakes. Since we’re only human, we’ve naturally made our full share of mistakes in both policy and ideas! But when our readers point them out to us—as they frequently do—we admit them and continue our search for more understanding and better explanations. | <urn:uuid:4d27b778-2270-4bd4-82dc-9b164e837dd6> | {
"date": "2015-07-03T22:06:08",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2015-27",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-27/segments/1435375096287.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20150627031816-00106-ip-10-179-60-89.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9690070748329163,
"score": 2.59375,
"token_count": 1304,
"url": "http://fee.org/freeman/detail/currency-convertibility"
} |
Years of Service: 1801-1809
Date of Birth: April 13, 1743
Date of Death: July 4, 1826 (50th Independence Day) (Same day as John Adams)
Thomas Jefferson was responsible for the biggest land purchase in the country’s history, the Louisiana Purchase. He bought land from France, ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte.
The cost was 2¢ per acre (With 870,000 sq. ft., the cost added up to $15,000,000). He sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore the newly bought area. Jefferson was also known for writing the Declaration of Independence and also designed a home called the Monticello.
Fun Fact: Jefferson collected prehistoric bones. | <urn:uuid:f16f505e-e5db-452d-943c-99d14f976058> | {
"date": "2019-12-14T22:22:47",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2019-51",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-51/segments/1575541294513.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20191214202754-20191214230754-00456.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9561780691146851,
"score": 2.78125,
"token_count": 153,
"url": "https://internationaladam.com/list-of-presidents/thomas-jefferson/"
} |
Do you have Rhododendrons at home? If so, you have a remarkably reliable thermometer right there in your back yard that you may not have ever noticed. The ubiquitous Rhody is not just a pretty face- in the winter, its leaves can tell you a lot about the temperature outside.
At the first sign of freezing temperatures, the leaves will start to droop. On an ordinary, above-freezing day, the leaves will be almost horizontal to the ground, but as temperatures drop below freezing, they will start to point downwards, resembling shuttlecocks. As temperatures continue to fall, they will start to curl, until they are eventually rolled up tight, just as we all would like to be on a bitterly cold day.
The horticultural reason for this “thermotropic” movement is that when broad-leaved evergreens, like the Rhodendron, are exposed to cold, they protect themselves by rolling up. In this way, the underside of the leaf, where most moisture loss occurs, is out of the drying wind. Imagine that you are outside on a cold windy day – what do you do? You wrap your arms around yourself and huddle up to keep sensitive parts from being exposed to the cold. It’s not exactly the same thing as the Rhody, but the goal of self preservation is the same.
Regardless of the reason, looking at the leaves of a Rhododendron an excellent tool for us to gauge the temperature before we go out (or don’t.) So delete your thermometer app and plant a Rhododendron! Not only will it tell you when to bundle up, but it will bring you flowers in the spring. Is there an app that can say the same? (Don’t answer that.) | <urn:uuid:58f09ad3-ec8b-4157-af2a-cd98f95308aa> | {
"date": "2019-04-19T05:03:51",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2019-18",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-18/segments/1555578527135.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20190419041415-20190419062557-00015.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9522284269332886,
"score": 3.25,
"token_count": 371,
"url": "https://the-sunny-side.net/tag/cold/"
} |
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) protects and promotes the health and safety of all Americans through enhancing the availability of safe medical products and foods and promoting innovation that addresses unmet medical and public health needs. FDA also protects and promotes the health and safety of animals through assuring the availability of safe animal drug products and food. FDA is a science-based regulatory agency and a critical component to the success of the nation’s public health, health care systems, and economy. FDA was created in 1906 as one of our nation’s principal consumer product protection agencies, and is now responsible for assuring the safety of biologics, such as blood products and vaccines, drugs, medical devices, foods, cosmetics, and many other consumer goods. Since 2009, it has also been responsible for regulating the manufacture, marketing, and distribution of tobacco products. In the U.S., FDA-regulated products account for about 25 cents of every dollar spent by American consumers each year — products that touch the lives of every American every day. FDA is responsible for advancing the public health by helping to speed innovations that make foods safer and make medicines and devices safer and more effective. At the same time, FDA helps consumers and health care providers get the accurate and science-based information they need to make the best possible decisions about their use of medical products and foods for human and non-human animal use. FDA must make decisions based on the best available scientific data and using the best tools and methods available in order to ensure products meet the highest quality standards for consumers, while at the same time fostering and advancing innovation in the products it regulates.
The core responsibility of FDA is to protect consumers by applying the best possible science to its regulatory activities — from pre-market review of efficacy and safety to post-market product surveillance to review of product quality. In the last few years, rapid advances in innovative science have provided new technologies to discover, manufacture and assess novel medical products, and to improve food safety and quality; FDA must both keep pace with and utilize these new scientific advances in order to accomplish its mission to protect and promote the health of our nation.
FDA’s Strategic Plan for Regulatory Science
To meet this need, FDA has developed a strategic plan for regulatory science, the science of developing new tools, standards, and approaches to assess the safety, efficacy, quality, and performance of FDA-regulated products. This plan identifies eight priority areas of regulatory science where new or enhanced engagement is essential to the continued success of FDA’s public health and regulatory mission. The priority areas are:
- Modernize Toxicology to Enhance Product Safety
- Stimulate Innovation in Clinical Evaluations and Personalized Medicine to Improve Product Development and Patient Outcomes
- Support New Approaches to Improve Product Manufacturing and Quality
- Ensure FDA Readiness to Evaluate Innovative Emerging Technologies
- Harness Diverse Data through Information Sciences to Improve Health Outcomes
- Implement a New Prevention-Focused Food Safety System to Protect Public Health
- Facilitate Development of Medical Countermeasures to Protect Against Threats to U.S. and Global Health and Security
- Strengthen Social and Behavioral Science to Help Consumers and Professionals Make Informed Decisions about Regulated Products
FDA will apply available resources to implement the Strategic Plan for Regulatory Science through management of scientific programs within FDA and engagement of collaborators and partners in industry, academia and government. FDA’s Strategic Plan for Regulatory Science is designed to allow the Agency both to meet today’s public and animal health needs and to be fully prepared for the challenges and opportunities of tomorrow to help harness revolutions in science that can be translated into products that help make and keep our nation both safe and healthy. | <urn:uuid:4ededf1a-67cb-4569-bf38-d52a64317555> | {
"date": "2019-10-14T19:00:36",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2019-43",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-43/segments/1570986654086.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20191014173924-20191014201424-00016.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9376221895217896,
"score": 3.296875,
"token_count": 756,
"url": "https://www.fda.gov/science-research/advancing-regulatory-science/executive-summary-strategic-plan-regulatory-science"
} |
After probing the cosmic skies for a while, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has unearthed that Proxima Centauri has two dust belts around it. One is much closer to this star, while the other is a significant distance away. Both dust belts are clear indications of planetary formation that could have occurred within the gravitational bounds of Proxima Centauri. A clear hint to this is that within the cosmic space between Proxima Centauri and the inner dust belt lies a planet known as Proxima Centauri b. This is the nearest known exoplanet to Earth. For all we know, there could be more exoplanets that might form an even more distinct planetary system, especially between the dust belts themselves.
In terms of gas, dust, and rock remnant compositions, these belts have an arrangement much similar to that of the Asteroid-Kuiper dust belt system found in our Solar system.
Detailed descriptions of this discovery can be found at this published paper. | <urn:uuid:f89cf4bf-da20-4380-adec-efc95b02c222> | {
"date": "2018-10-20T06:44:44",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2018-43",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-43/segments/1539583512592.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20181020055317-20181020080817-00256.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9538625478744507,
"score": 3.515625,
"token_count": 204,
"url": "http://www.nexss.io/posts/alma-discovers-dust-belts-around-proxima-centauri/"
} |
Revista Panamericana de Salud Pública
Print version ISSN 1020-4989
ABREU, Mery Natali Silva and CAIAFFA, Waleska Teixeira. Influence of family environment and social group on smoking among Brazilian youth aged 15 to 24 years. Rev Panam Salud Publica [online]. 2011, vol.30, n.1, pp. 22-30. ISSN 1020-4989. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1020-49892011000700004.
OBJECTIVE: To estimate the prevalence of smoking among Brazilian youth, examining individual, family, and social group factors associated with this habit. METHODS: Data from youth aged 15 to 24 years living in 17 Brazilian state capitals and the Federal District, obtained from the Household Survey on Risk Factors for Chronic Diseases and Reported Morbidity carried out in 2002 and 2003 by the National Cancer Institute was analyzed. Individual variables (sex, age, schooling, alcohol consumption, self-rated health, physical activity, current school attendance), family variables (age and education of head of household and father, mother, or sibling smoking), and social group variables (best friend smoking, most friends smoking, boyfriend/girlfriend smoking) were analyzed. Generalized estimating equations (GEE) approach to evaluate the factors associated with smoking were used. RESULTS: Considering the effect of the sampling design, smoking prevalence was 12.8%, ranging from 6.8% in Aracaju to 24.1% in Porto Alegre. The following factors were predictors of smoking: male sex, older age, less schooling, not attending school at the time of the survey, poorer health perception, and alcohol consumption. Peer smoking (friends or boyfriend/girlfriend) and smoking among family members (father/mother or sibling) were associated with smoking. There was an effect of parental birth cohort on smoking, with a higher prevalence of smoking among youth whose parents were born in the 1930s. CONCLUSIONS: Individual characteristics and the influence of peers and family were relevant for smoking by the youth. Increasing the dialogue among teenagers, school, schoolmates, friends, and parents could lead to a reduction of substance use among youth.
Keywords : Smoking; adolescent; young adult; family characteristics; social behavior; Brazil. | <urn:uuid:5af51aef-0703-42fc-8eb3-52ecf0487a8e> | {
"date": "2014-11-24T18:21:50",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2014-49",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-49/segments/1416400380948.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20141119123300-00064-ip-10-235-23-156.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9505011439323425,
"score": 3.03125,
"token_count": 486,
"url": "http://www.scielosp.org/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S1020-49892011000700004&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en"
} |
Biourbanism introduces new conceptual and planning models for a new kind of city, valuing social and economical regeneration of the built environment through developing and healthy communities. Thus, it combines technical aspects, such as zero-emission, energy efficiency, information technology, etc. and the promotion of social sustainability and human well being. In effect, this new paradigm endorses principles of geometrical coherence, Biophilic design, Bioarchitecture, Biomimesis, etc. in practices of design and also new urban policies and, especially Biopolitics to promote urban revitalization by ensuring that man-made changes do not have harmful effects to humans. Green city standards start inside the designs of each building and continue either in unbuilt spaces surrounding buildings or inside complex infrastructural networks, connecting buildings and people.
The proposed presentation should illustrate how new exciting developments, such as fractals, complexity theory, evolutionary biology and artificial intelligence are interrelated and constantly stimulate interaction between human beings and the surrounding environment. New Biophilic solutions in designs of buildings have been proved as attractive opportunities for new markets of housing. Thus, some new infrastructural projects start embracing Biophilic advanced solutions which finally aim at energy efficiency and optimal performance. As parallel activity we can now see emerging new innovative monitoring systems of building health not only in small scale, but also in large scale buildings, such as rail stations, for example, and commercial centres or even sometimes entire educational complexes integrated to new infrastructural projects. Some important case studies are going to be presented; they have been analyzed and evaluated by Biourbanism and Biophilia principles and applied methods of design. | <urn:uuid:40e330d2-cc0c-4e1e-9edf-2a62c3355dd5> | {
"date": "2018-12-18T21:11:02",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2018-51",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-51/segments/1544376829812.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20181218204638-20181218230638-00616.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9440630078315735,
"score": 2.671875,
"token_count": 339,
"url": "http://www.biourbanism.org/new-paradigm-deep-sustainability-biourbanism/"
} |
An ambitious clean energy bill was recently signed into law in California that calls for 33% of the state’s energy to come from renewable resources. While this goal is indeed ambitious and admirable, recent news about Scotland’s clean energy commitment sets the bar for renewable energy goals at a whole new level.
According to The Climate Group, Scotland has already exceeded its 2001 goal of getting 31% of its energy from renewable sources such as offshore wind and ocean wave power. Now the country states that it is raising its 2020 renewable energy goal from 80% to 100%.
While Scotland will not run solely off renewable energy, the country does intend to generate twice as much electricity as it needs, at least half of which will come from renewable sources. That means that it will be generating the equivalent of 100% of its energy needs from renewables. The Climate Group says that Scotland lays claim to 25% of Europe’s offshore wind and tidal energy resources and 10% of its potential wave capacity. We’ve recently seen that Scotland has a proposed plan for offshore wind developments in Scottish waters, which reportedly have the potential to generate 5 gigawatts of electricity by 2020. Other lease agreements have been signed for six wave energy and five tidal energy projects, with a potential capacity to generate 1.6 gigawatts.
In its last term, the Scottish Government issued permits for a total of 42 renewable energy projects. In 2009, more than 25% of electricity demand came from renewables and there are around 7 gigawatts of renewables capacity installed, under construction or permitted in Scotland which has allowed the country to exceed its short-term target of 31% of electricity demand from renewables in 2011. Nuclear power is officially off the table in Scotland as the country has stated it has ruled out any possibility of new nuclear power development. | <urn:uuid:61e7df34-28a1-4e25-8f7f-d281b11e8994> | {
"date": "2017-07-25T00:37:30",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2017-30",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-30/segments/1500549424945.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20170725002242-20170725022242-00176.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9647044539451599,
"score": 3.078125,
"token_count": 363,
"url": "http://earthtechling.com/2011/05/clean-energy-a-100-percent-goal-in-scotland/"
} |
Gut microbes’ metabolite dampens proliferation of intestinal stem cells
Intestinal stem cells are among the most rapidly dividing cells in the body, busily creating new cells to replace the ones that are constantly being sloughed off. But unlike stem cells elsewhere in the body, those in the intestine are hidden away, and for good reason, it turns out.
New research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis indicates stem cells are located in “pockets” in the intestine to avoid contact with a prominent metabolite produced by beneficial microbes living in the gut. That metabolite – butyrate – restricts the proliferation of stem cells, potentially hampering the intestine from repairing itself after an injury or damage resulting from inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), such as Crohn’s and colitis.
The study is published June 2 in the journal Cell.
The researchers showed that stem cells are normally protected from butyrate by tiny pockets built into the lining of the intestine, called the crypts of Leiberkuhn. But when the intestine is damaged, butyrate can gain access to the stem cells and inhibit their proliferation.
“Scientists have known about these crypts for more than 250 years but never really understood why they existed,” said the study’s senior author Thaddeus Stappenbeck, MD, PhD, a professor of pathology and immunology, and of developmental biology. “Based on our findings, we suspect that crypts evolved to protect stem cells so that the intestine could have a way of constantly regenerating its inner lining.”
Butyrate also has been evaluated in clinical trials since the 1990s as a treatment for inflammatory bowel disease but has not been conclusively proven to work, even though it is known to have anti-inflammatory properties. And the study’s findings suggest why: As a potent inhibitor of stem cell proliferation, butyrate prevents the intestine from replenishing its cells.
“When there’s damage to the lining of the intestine – whether from acute injury or disease – stem cells have to divide to repair that damage,” Stappenbeck said. “Inhibiting stem cell proliferation could be an unfortunate side effect of butyrate treatment.”
Microbes that live in the gut process nutrients in our diets and synthesize vitamins. As part of carrying out those jobs, the microbes produce metabolites that influence human health and diseases, including inflammatory bowel diseases as well as obesity, asthma and heart disease.
As part of the study, Stappenbeck and postdoctoral researchers Gerard Kaiko, PhD, and Stacy Ryu, PhD, grew intestinal stem cells in the lab and screened 100 of the most abundant metabolites produced by mouse gut microbes for their ability to increase stem cell proliferation. They found nothing that enhanced stem cell expansion, but they did find one metabolite – butyrate – that slowed it down.
When they gave mice additional butyrate, though, there was no change in the proliferation of the intestinal stem cells, no matter how much butyrate the animals received.
“In the mice, stem cells congregate at the very bottom of crypts, whereas in the lab, the stem cells are directly exposed to butyrate,” said Ryu, a co-first author on the study. “We began to wonder whether the crypt structure was protecting the stem cells from butyrate.”
The researchers measured the levels of butyrate on the inner surface of the intestine, where the butyrate-producing bacteria are located, and down at the bottom of the crypts, where the stem cells live, and found much lower levels in the crypts. Furthermore, the mature cells on the surface of the intestine, far from being harmed by butyrate, consumed it as food, further preventing the stem cells from encountering the metabolite.
The intestines of most vertebrates contain crypts but some do not. Young zebrafish, for example, do not have crypts, yet their intestinal stem cells behave just like those in higher organisms, rapidly dividing to replace damaged cells.
In contrast to the mice, when the researchers exposed young zebrafish to butyrate, they saw a slowdown in the rate at which the fish’s gut stem cells proliferated. Since zebrafish don’t have gut microbes that produce butyrate, the fish don’t need a mechanism to protect their intestinal stem cells from the metabolite, the researchers reasoned.
“We think these butyrate-producing bacteria are one of the driving forces in the evolution of crypts, but we need to do a systematic survey to find out whether there is a correlation between the animals that have intestinal crypts and the animals that carry butyrate-producing bacteria,” Stappenbeck said. “A lot more work needs to be done before we can draw any definitive conclusions.” | <urn:uuid:4f5b2c42-2b10-4708-897c-8da21598bcd5> | {
"date": "2018-02-22T14:58:06",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2018-09",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-09/segments/1518891814124.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20180222140814-20180222160814-00256.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.932453989982605,
"score": 3.09375,
"token_count": 1020,
"url": "https://scienmag.com/gut-microbes-metabolite-dampens-proliferation-of-intestinal-stem-cells/"
} |
Synonyms for pueblo
WordNet 3.0 Copyright © 2006 by Princeton University.
All rights reserved.
- 1. Pueblo, Indian, American Indian, Red Indian
- usage: a member of any of about two dozen Native American peoples called `Pueblos' by the Spanish because they live in pueblos (villages built of adobe and rock)
- 2. Pueblo
- usage: a city in Colorado to the south of Colorado Springs
- 3. pueblo, village, hamlet
- usage: a communal village built by Indians in the southwestern United States | <urn:uuid:f9a17230-0178-411b-a67c-88d9f20c60d0> | {
"date": "2015-04-25T23:14:10",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2015-18",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-18/segments/1429246651873.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20150417045731-00148-ip-10-235-10-82.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9300713539123535,
"score": 2.765625,
"token_count": 128,
"url": "http://thesaurus.factmonster.com/pueblo"
} |
It's the Tubulidentata, which is solely represented by the Aardvark (Orycteropus afer), an animal that occupies grassland and savanna habitats in sub-Saharan Africa. They're the size of small pigs, with very thick skin and without a fat layer, but are more easily recognized by their long nose. Adults have an unique dental formula (0/0, 0/0, 2/2, 3/3), which is why they are categorized in a separated order.
The aardvarks are nocturnal, solitary and territorial animals, coming toghether only to breed. It is believed that they breed earlier in the year the closer they are to the Equator. | <urn:uuid:5fc48823-d136-402c-8276-996108b8a3c1> | {
"date": "2017-08-21T23:36:48",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2017-34",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-34/segments/1502886109682.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20170821232346-20170822012346-00096.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9485166072845459,
"score": 2.703125,
"token_count": 149,
"url": "http://365daysoflearning.weebly.com/on-the-go/day-46-gt-tubulidentata"
} |
|Download this article as a .PDF file.
This file type includes high-resolution graphics and schematics when applicable.
A hydraulic pump doesn’t fail only when it doesn’t put out the required flow. A pump actually fails once its efficiency falls below its manufacturer’s operating specifications, including overall efficiency.
Inefficiency can be caused by reasons too numerous to mention here. Therefore, this discussion will be limited to axial-piston pumps that were properly installed but, for one reason or another, begin to lose efficiency over time. The most common causes for loss in efficiency are fluid contamination, poor maintenance, and using the wrong hydraulic fluid for the operating conditions.
Anatomy of Pump Failure
Axial-piston pumps contain multiple small passageways and sliding surfaces separated by tight tolerances. These can be the source of failures if the pump operates under less than optimal conditions. For example, each piston has an orifice drilled from front to back and through its piston shoe, which is attached to the rear of each piston through a ball joint. Each piston shoe contains grooves to provide hydrostatic balance to offset the load from fluid pressure. The barrel, which contains the pistons, is spring-loaded against the swashplate to keep the piston shoes in contact with the swashplate.
Designed-in leakage provides lubrication between and through all of these parts. The amount of leakage depends on the pump’s displacement, speed, fluid flow and pressure, and temperature. Internal leakage (volumetric inefficiency) specifications are readily available from the pump’s manufacturer. Manufacturers also publish maximum recommended case pressure and fluid temperature.
After placing the pump into service, the piston shoes will wear over time. Wear occurs in proportion to the cleanliness of the oil being pumped—the dirtier the oil, the more rapid the wear. This wear increases oil flow to the pump case, pump-case temperatures, and case pressure from the backpressure that develops behind the case drain port. The increased pump-case pressure can affect the hydrostatic balance of the pistons, causing leakage through the pump-shaft seal.
When one or more internal components of a pump fails, metallic debris becomes scattered throughout the pump cavity and eventually works its way out into the rest of the hydraulic system, putting all other components at risk of premature failure. The result is usually much more than the expense of repairing the pump.
Because the debris will likely circulate through the entire hydraulic system, extensive assessments should be performed to ensure other areas have not become vulnerable. As wear degrades a pump’s critical tolerances, excess fluid leaks past internal seals and moving parts into the case, robbing the pump of efficiency. Moreover, the associated downtime often results in thousands of dollars in lost production.
Pump Diagnosis Through the Case Drain
When taking all of this into account, it becomes evident that the case drain can be a key indicator of a pump’s health by monitoring flow, temperature, and pressure. Furthermore, this all can be done while the pump is running. Case-drain flow exceeding a percentage of total pump output signals the need for maintenance or complete pump rebuild.
Many manufacturers offer axial-piston hydraulic pumps with similar power, pressure, and flow ratings. But rarely do any two pumps share the same dimensional and performance characteristics. This makes it difficult to establish baseline performance criteria for any given pump model.
This simplified illustration shows major rotating and sliding components of an axial-piston hydraulic pump. Close tolerances make surfaces between multiple moving parts vulnerable to damage from contamination and inadequate lubrication.
However, a new diagnostic device, PumpMD, lets users configure the device to the specific model and size of hydraulic axial-piston pump. A web-based configurator matches the PumpMD to a specific pump. Users enter information such as case-drain port size, maximum case-drain pressure, continuous input shaft speed, and maximum displacement.
The Wi-Fi-enabled PumpMD collects this information and continuously monitors the three critical operating parameters, which can be analyzed through a mobile app. Users are able to view current and historical data of one or more hydraulic pumps to assess efficiency and operating trends. Threshold levels can also be established at setup to send an alarm to the user’s smartphone when any parameter reaches established level.
The PumpMD also provides local monitoring of case drain flow, pressure, and temperature. LEDs glow green when parameters fall within prescribed levels for a specific pump. If any parameter exceeds its preset threshold, any one of the LEDs will glow red. | <urn:uuid:3a0278c3-da56-4704-947a-09a5003d51ef> | {
"date": "2017-09-20T20:11:14",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2017-39",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-39/segments/1505818687447.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20170920194628-20170920214628-00096.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9137194752693176,
"score": 2.921875,
"token_count": 950,
"url": "http://www.hydraulicspneumatics.com/maintenance/smart-new-tool-predictive-maintenance"
} |
In North America, several migratory bird species inhabiting boreal and eastern forests are declining (Sauer et al. 2013). Habitat loss, impairment, and fragmentation on breeding or wintering grounds or at stopover sites may play a significant role in these declines. The endangered status of several species has been directly linked to forest management issues. Those species include Olive-sided Flycatcher (Contopus cooperi; Robertson and Hutto 2007), Rusty Blackbird (Euphagus carolinus; Powel et al. 2010), Cerulean Warbler (Setophaga cerulea; Buehler et al. 2008), Kirtland’s Warbler (Setophaga kirtlandii; Long 2009), and Barrow̻s Goldeneye (Bucephala islandica; Vaillancourt et al. 2009, Gouvernement du Québec 2013). Forest management impacts, proven or hypothesized, have triggered calls for action by the scientific, philanthropic, and environmental advocacy communities, as exemplified by the “Boreal Birds Need Half” campaign (Wells et al. 2014), which aims to prevent habitat limitation from becoming a pervasive issue affecting boreal birds. Accordingly, forestry operators on breeding grounds are being asked to adopt more sustainable and bird-friendly practices (Booth et al. 1993, Franklin et al. 2002, Cyr et al. 2009, Bélanger 2010, Marzluff et al. 2000, Drapeau et al. 2016).
An essential requirement for effective and efficient recovery planning for a species at risk is the identification of the key limiting factors through its annual cycle (Faaborg et al. 2010, Rushing et al. 2016). Habitat availability is one of the most frequently cited limiting factors for a wide range of taxa (Hoekstra et al. 2005, Maxwell et al. 2016). This may be especially true for migratory species that depend on different habitats, each potentially under different threats, at different times through their annual cycle. Habitat may be limiting for a species at risk because it is rare, of low quality, inaccessible, or for more subtle reasons as in the case of species with spatially aggregated social systems (Macedo and Bianchi 1997, Bourque and Desrochers 2006) or a highly biased sex-ratio (Donald 2007).
To determine whether habitat availability limits a population, a logical first step is to determine how much suitable habitat is available yet unoccupied (Nelson and Buech 1996, Rappole et al. 2003, Gibson et al. 2007, Engler et al. 2014). High vacancy rates, i.e., low occupancy, would generally negate the hypothesis that habitat availability is limiting, at least in the geographic area considered (Hoekstra et al. 2005, Nielsen et al. 2006). However, apparently unoccupied areas could also reflect inadequacies of the survey method, i.e., low detection probability of the focal species (Gu and Swihart 2004) or of the habitat sampling design, i.e., failure to include important habitat variables for the species under consideration.
Bicknell’s Thrush (Catharus bicknelli) has one of the most restricted breeding ranges of all North American forest-breeding migratory birds (COSEWIC 2009, McFarland et al. 2013, Townsend et al. 2015, Hill and Lloyd 2017). At the continental scale, the species ranks as one of the highest conservation priorities (Rich et al. 2004, Rosenberg et al. 2014), while it is legally considered as threatened in Canada (Government of Canada 2012) and vulnerable in Québec (Gouvernement du Québec 2009). Most of Bicknell’s Thrush breeding habitat in Canada occurs in southern Québec in the Appalachian Range and on the Laurentian Highlands north of the St. Lawrence River (COSEWIC 2009). In the latter region, breeding habitat occurs primarily at high elevation in dense balsam fir dominated stands within industrial forestland where clear-cuts and forest management practices aimed at reducing stem density (hereafter called precommercial thinning) may affect habitat quality (Higdon et al. 2006, Chisholm and Leonard 2008, COSEWIC 2009, Aubry et al. 2011, 2016). Habitat loss and impairment on breeding grounds have been suggested as the major threats to the species (COSEWIC 2009, Lloyd and McFarland 2017). Consequently, there have recently been pressures and efforts to limit the extent and intensity of precommercial thinning throughout the species’ breeding range (Chisholm and Leonard 2008, BSC 2009, Gouvernement du Québec 2014, Lambert et al. 2017). Such changes can be costly to the industry, directly and indirectly affecting regional economies and, if misguided, impinge the credibility of science conservation advisors.
To better guide Bicknell’s Thrush conservation efforts, we studied habitat occupancy in Québec’s Laurentian Highlands. Our primary objective was to test whether maximum breeding habitat occupancy approached saturation (100%). We also tested the hypothesis that precommercial thinning is associated with lower occupancy of Bicknell’s Thrush breeding habitat, as found in other regions (Aubry et al. 2011). The species needs dense stands as a concealment for its nest and to avoid potential predation. Therefore, we predict that thinned stands are less occupied than unthinned stands. To test those two hypotheses, we performed site occupancy modeling as per Mackenzie et al. (2002). However, Bicknell’s Thrushes have large home ranges on their breeding grounds and a spatially aggregated social system (Aubry et al. 2011, Townsend et al. 2015), likely due to their polygynandric mating system (Goetz et al. 2003, Townsend et al. 2015), which may undermine the assumption of closure of the occupancy state required by occupancy models (MacKenzie et al. 2003). Thus, we also assessed occupancy using a graphical approach that represents Bicknell’s Thrush niche space based on a two-dimensional reduced projection of topographic and vegetation variables.
The 17,350-km² study area is located north of the St. Lawrence River, centered approximately 75 km north of Quebec City, Québec, at the southeast edge of the Laurentian Highlands. It is part of the balsam fir-white birch bioclimatic domain (Grondin et al. 1998; Fig. 1) lying between 47° and 48.35°N and 70° and 72.30°W. The elevation varies from 130 to 1100 m and the mean annual temperature is 0° C. Abundant precipitations (1.2–1.6 m/year) are associated with a long fire cycle (> 500 years; Boucher et al. 2014). The vegetation is dominated by balsam fir (Abies balsamea) and paper birch (Betula papyrifera); black spruce (Picea mariana) occurs increasingly toward the north of the study area, and deciduous trees are often abundant in regenerating clear-cuts and recently burned areas (Grondin et al. 1998). Disturbances are mostly from anthropic origin, with forestry activities having occurred at all elevations since 1900 but more intensively at low elevation (Boucher and Grondin 2012, Boucher et al. 2014).
We determined stand age, the proportion of deciduous, and the extent of precommercial thinning over the study area from forest inventory data (Gouvernement du Québec 2015). We converted the original forestry and topographic map layers to rasters with a 10-m resolution, with the Spatial Analyst extension of ArcGIS (ESRI 2010). We calculated stand ages based on documented years of clear-cutting and other stand-renewing events, i.e., fire and major spruce budworm outbreaks. In places where only age classes were known, we determined stand age as the midpoint of the age class for even-aged stands, or as the lowest age class for heterogeneous stands. We extracted elevation at point counts and its variation within 1000 m from the Canadian Digital Elevation Data 2000 (available from https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset?organization=nrcan-rncan). We considered a habitat as suitable when it was at elevations greater than 550 m, composed of balsam fir-dominated stands, and had not been thinned (Lambert et al. 2005, Chisholm and Leonard 2008, Aubry et al. 2011, 2016).
We compiled data from 7830 fixed radius point counts conducted for different projects in the study area between 1995 and 2016 (Fig. 1). Those projects focused on all bird species (> 98% of sites randomly selected) and covered a broader range of altitudes, while surveys targeting Bicknell’s Thrush covered sites with elevation > 800 m. The projects were the second Québec Breeding Atlas, Forêt Montmorency bird monitoring program, regional environmental impact assessments, Mountain BirdWatch monitoring scheme, Huron-Wendat Bicknell’s Thrush monitoring project, and provincial and federal governments’ Bicknell’s Thrush surveys. We retained 4818 point counts for analysis based on three criteria: a duration of 15 to 30 min (mean = 18 min), conducted before 9:00 (n = 4700) or after 19:00 (n = 118), and between 22 May and 25 July. Those periods correspond to high Bicknell’s Thrush vocal activity (Ball 2000). Nine percent of the point counts used playbacks of Bicknell’s Thrush calls and songs. Retained point counts were distributed among 2500 stations separated by at least 150 m, often (54%) along forestry roads. We surveyed 31% of the point count stations more than once in a year (Appendix 1), and surveyed 38 and 114 stations on two and three different years, respectively. Forty observers, all with experience with Bicknell’s Thrush vocalizations, participated in the point counts. We recorded all Bicknell’s Thrushes within 75 or 100 m-radii, depending on the data source. We assumed that the radius difference was sufficiently small across surveys, and that the distance between point counts was sufficient across the study areas, to prevent major biases (Yip et al. 2017).
We fit nine competing single-season site occupancy models (Mackenzie et al. 2006) to measure site occupancy by Bicknell’s Thrush, given imperfect detection during point counts. Models were fit by maximum likelihood with the unmarked package 0.11-0 in R Version 3.3.1 (Fiske et al. 2011, R Development Core Team 2016). The models considered various combinations of 11 site-related occupancy and four point count-related detection variables, identified from our experience with the species, the published literature, and the habitat data generally available. (Table 1; Aubry et al. 2011, 2016, Lambert et al. 2005, Townsend et al. 2015). We introduced the variable Year in the models to account for a possible population trend. Further annual variation could result from nest predation by red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus; Townsend et al. 2015), which may affect recruitment and demographic parameters, and hence occupancy. However, we have no quantitative information on cone crops or squirrel population densities throughout the duration and spatial extent of the study. Elevation was selected because the species is known to be associated with montane habitat (Townsend et al. 2015, Aubry et al. 2016) and we used the standard deviation of elevation within 1 km of point count as an index of terrain ruggedness. Proportion of deciduous within 1000 m along with proportion of precommercial thinning were selected as proxies for recent forestry activities and habitat structure. Bicknell’s Thrushes often establish their home range in regenerating or young forest stands (Townsend et al. 2015) ≥= 1.5–2 m high (personal observation). To account for a possible nonlinear response to forest age (Ter Braak and Looman 1986), we included a quadratic stand age term in the models. We used the standard deviation of stand age as an index of habitat heterogeneity. Some variables were estimated at local and/or at the landscape scale (within 100 and 1000 m of point count center, respectively) to explore the sensitivity of the species at those two scales. In the full model we included distance of point count from nearest road in view of concerns of a possible edge effect expressed earlier (Hanowski and Niemi 1995, but see Hutto et al. 1995, Lituma and Buehler 2016). Moreover, Bicknell’s Thrush may respond to edges, as shown in a recent study where the species was not avoiding stand edges in an industrial forest (Aubry et al. 2011), or as in a ski trail study where a higher nest density was observed in forest edges where vegetation was dense (Rimmer et al. 2004). In another study, in the White Mountains (New Hampshire, USA), the presence of hiking trails did not affect Bicknell’s Thrush abundance and detection probabilities (Deluca and King 2014). Models (Table 2) were selected to estimate site occupancy according to predation by squirrels (model 6), to habitat structure along with elevation (model 3) and year (model 1), to elevation (model 4) and topography (model 5) and to spatial variation in habitat structure (model 7) and habitat composition (model 8).
We computed Goodness-of-Fit for the best occupancy model using a parametric bootstrap approach (MacKenzie and Bailey 2004) with 100 replicates. The best, single-season model fit the data well with no apparent over dispersion (function parboot of package unmarked, p = 0.21). To facilitate convergence and parameter estimation, all numerical variables were standardized before analysis. We evaluated the degree of support for each model using Akaike’s Information Criteria (AICc) and standardized Akaike weights. The models with ΔAICc ≤ 2 were considered as supported models (Table 2).
We conducted a Principal Component Analysis (function prcomp in R) using the three vegetation and topography variables that were identified as significantly related to Bicknell’s Thrush occupancy in the best performing occupancy model (Table 3), along with mean stand age (within 100 m of point count) that also appeared to be associated with occupancy (Fig. 2). We used the first two principal components to represent Bicknell’s Thrush niche space, and calculated two-dimensional kernel densities of Bicknell’s Thrush occurrences (R package MASS, function kde2d; Venables and Ripley 2002). The proportions of occupied point count stations falling in each kernel density category provided estimates of Bicknell’s Thrush occupancy.
Bicknell’s Thrush were reported at 121 (2.5%) of the 4818 point counts, and at 115 (4.6%) of the 2500 point count stations (Fig.1). The best-performing occupancy model included Year (+), Elevation (+), Elevation interactions with stand age (linear and quadratic), as well as the percentage of deciduous forest (+) and precommercial thinning (-) at the landscape scale (Table 2, Table 3). Given that estimate for forest stand age was positive and the age x elevation interaction estimate negative (Table 3), we interpret the significant interaction as a lower effect of stand age on occupancy at higher elevations. The best performing occupancy model as well as the other models, identified three point count-related detection variables that were significantly associated with the probability of detecting Bicknell’s Thrush (Table 3): date (increasing from May to July), duration (+), and use of playback (+). Detection probabilities in the morning were 0.16 ± 0.04 without playback and rose significantly to 0.63 ± 0.15 with playbacks. Detection probabilities were higher, but not significantly so (Table 3), in the evening, both without or with playbacks (0.36 ± 0.24, 0.83 ± 0.15, respectively). Occupancy increased significantly between 1995 and 2016 in the study area (Table 3, Fig. 3). An analysis where all variables except Year were set to their mean value over the entire study area, thereby removing confounding factors revealed that the temporal trend was consistent through time. Bicknell’s Thrushes were seldom reported below 800 m elevation (n = 6/121), and site occupancy was greater than 0.7 at only a handful of stations (n = 10) at the highest elevations (Fig. 4).
To better understand the relationship between stand age and occupancy, we contrasted the kernel density distributions of stand age at stations where Bicknell’s Thrushes were observed and not observed (Fig. 2). The distributions were substantially different, revealing higher occupancy of the youngest (20–30 years old) and oldest (> 70 years old) stands, and lower occupancy of mid-age stands.
In the niche space occupancy analysis, the first two axes of the principal component analysis accounted for 71% of the total variance (PC1: 0.44; PC2 0.27; Table 4). High values for the first factor reflected low elevation, but high deciduous and precommercial thinning cover. High values for the second factor reflected high elevation and young stands, independent of deciduous dominance or precommercial thinning. Of the 2500 point count stations surveyed, 1969 fell within the two-dimensional niche space defined by kernel density > 0.05 (Fig. 5). Unoccupied sites were dispersed throughout the biplot (Fig. 5) while occupied sites were mostly concentrated on the two left quadrants. Bicknell’s Thrush was largely unreported at stations in the lower right quadrant of the biplot, corresponding to lower elevation, high thinning, and more deciduous stands (Table 4). Bicknell’s Thrush reporting rate was consistently low, reaching less than 8% at point count stations in the most suitable habitat (i.e., kernel density estimates > 0.10; Fig. 6).
Our study of Bicknell’s Thrush site occupancy in the Laurentian Highlands of Québec, using two contrasted approaches, revealed that a large extent of potential habitat was unoccupied. Similar conclusions were reached from studies of several other avian species at risk, such as the Golden-cheeked Warbler (Setophaga chrysoparia; Rappole et al. 2003), Kirtland’s Warbler (Nelson and Buech 1996), Lesser Kestrel (Falco naumanni; Serano and Tella 2003), and White-browed Treecreeper (Climacteris affinis; Radford and Bennett 2004).
There is an apparent discrepancy between the positive regression estimate of % deciduous in Table 3, and the low reporting rates in the right quadrants of Fig 5, corresponding to high % deciduous values. We attribute this apparent discrepancy to the fact that occupancy estimates accounted for other covariables such as elevation, which was not the case in the principal component analysis. The significant negative interaction between forest age and elevation effects in the best occupancy model indicates that the occupancy of young forests, where deciduous stems are prevalent, is not as pronounced at high elevations as it is at lower elevations. Furthermore, the amount of deciduous forest was estimated within 1000 m around point count. At that scale and in an environment where forestry activity is ubiquitous, young deciduous dominated stands are common in the early stages of regenerating balsam fir forest. In our study area, below 800 m elevation, deciduous stands represented 40% (± 24) of the area within 1000 m of point count, and 28% (± 10) over 800 m. Despite that Bicknell’s Thrush is known as a balsam fir specialist, notable presence in deciduous stands has also been documented in New Brunswick (Nixon et al. 2001), in young regenerating stands where fir has not surpassed deciduous in height yet.
Our site occupancy models likely overestimated occupancy rates because the large home ranges of Bicknell’s Thrush (≥ 10 ha; Aubry et al. 2011) likely resulted in violations of the closure assumption (MacKenzie et al. 2006, Rota et al. 2009). On the other hand, imperfect detection may have led us to underestimate occupancy rates in the niche space occupancy analysis. This is unlikely since in a companion study (Aubry and Mazerolle, unpublished data), we estimated detection probabilities at ≥ 0.74 and ≥ 0.88 using point count techniques similar to those used here, i.e., 3 x 5 min. survey periods without and with an additional playback period, respectively. Biased occupancy rate estimates can also result from uneven accessibility of habitat patches across a study area, e.g., less access to high elevation sites. This was not at play in our research because the study area was covered by forestry roads, with almost no site beyond 300 m from a road, i.e., beyond the audible range of Bicknell’s Thrush calls. It is thus unlikely that imperfect detection has introduced a bias of sufficient importance to alter our conclusion.
Bicknell’s Thrush nesting habitat quality seems to be mostly driven by elevation and associated vegetation dynamics (e.g., wind throw, fir waves sensu Sprugel 1976) in both the northeastern United States (Lambert et al. 2005, Hale 2006) and in Québec (Aubry et al. 2016). In Vermont, in mostly protected areas, occupancy of high-elevation habitat approaches 100% (Frey et al. 2012). Extrapolating from Lambert et al.’s (2005) elevational habitat model, we should have recorded Bicknell’s Thrush as low as 550 to 600 m in our study area. A similar model adapted for Québec latitudes predicted occurrences at even slightly lower elevations (Rimmer, unpublished report). However, we recorded the species below 800 m (641–777 m) in only six occasions, corresponding to an estimated occupancy rate of < 8%. The discrepancy between model predictions and our observations may be due to habitat quality impairment at low elevation resulting from major fires and intensive logging through the 20th century (Boucher and Grondin 2012), the prevalence of precommercial thinning, and possibly nest predation by red squirrel. A similar effect was observed by Whitaker et al. (2015; D. Whitaker, personal communication), who noted that on Newfoundland the closely related Gray-cheeked Thrush (Catharus minimus) became confined to high elevation forests following the introduction of squirrels (Payne 1976), which are restricted to lower elevations.
Even at higher elevations, site occupancy by Bicknell’s Thrush was generally well below saturation (Fig. 4). The most parsimonious explanation for this is an insufficient number of birds due to limiting factors acting outside of the breeding grounds. However, alternative phenomena may lead to a lack of breeders in optimal habitat. First, as for lower elevation, territory abandonment may occur over a large scale because of nest predation by red squirrels (McFarland et al. 2008). Second, polygynandry in Bicknell’s Thrush may lead to clustering through conspecific attraction (Nocera and Forbes 2010) and, in turn, reduce the suitability of small habitat patches, as is the case with several other forest songbirds (Bourque and Desrochers 2006, Desrochers et al. 2010). Third, incomplete occupancy of suitable habitat at higher elevation may be a constraint of dispersal because of insufficient numbers of females. Considering the highly male-biased sex-ratio of the species, unoccupied habitat can remain unoccupied for a long time because of the lack of conspecifics to attract dispersers (Schlossberg and Ward 2004). Last, we cannot rule out that some habitat attributes may have been overlooked because of our selection of variables, which was based on what was available at the time of the study.
During the study period, in New Hampshire (1993–2003; Lambert et al. 2008), an annual decline (-7%) was reported while recent analyses from data across its United States range (2011–2016) produced a nonsignificant decline (Hill and Lloyd 2017). Bicknell’s Thrush numbers were declining in the Canadian Maritimes and southeastern Québec where the species became extirpated from several locations (Whittam 2015, Québec Breeding Bird Atlas 2018). Contrastingly, we documented a significant increase in occupancy in the spatiotemporal bounds of the current study. We can only speculate on the causes of this local increase, but it may result from a nonlinear functional response to the strong increase in early-successional dense balsam fir forest stands following a major spruce budworm outbreak that began in the early 1970s (Hardy et al. 1983) and lasted for over two decades in our study area (Gray et al. 2000).
Although large areas of apparently suitable Bicknell’s Thrush habitat appear to be unoccupied in the Laurentian Highlands of Québec, habitat conservation efforts and thrush-friendly forestry practices should not be abandoned. Habitat availability can rapidly become a concern if management of successional dynamics and forest structure pushes large areas of forest outside the suitable stand age and density for the species. This appears to be the case in northwestern New Brunswick where, if current forest management plans are maintained, Bicknell’s Thrush potential habitat will have entirely disappeared by 2027 (Higdon et al. 2006). Similarly, a proposal to vastly expand old-growth areas in support of the conservation of woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) in the Laurentian Highlands of Québec (Équipe de rétablissement du caribou forestier du Québec 2013) may conflict with the maintenance of suitable habitat for Bicknell’s Thrush. Considering the ephemeral habitat suitability status, it is therefore prudent to preserve more habitat than what a target population may occupy at a specific time (Rompré et al. 2010, Frey et al. 2012). This rationale underlies the recent publication by the Government of Québec of guidelines aimed at reducing precommercial thinning in Bicknell’s Thrush occupied and potential habitat, as well as avoiding incidental destruction of nests, eggs, and young (Gouvernement du Québec 2014).
In the Laurentian Highlands of Québec, there appears to be a shortage of Bicknell’s Thrushes rather than its breeding habitat. But considering that the population seems to have increased over the period of the study, there are good conservation-based reasons to maintain more habitat at higher elevation (> 800 m) than is required to allow the population to grow to the recovery target as prescribed by the Species at Risk Act. Without discontinuing efforts to conserve breeding habitat, greater attention should be paid to other potential limiting factors. Current challenges for the species outside the breeding range are habitat loss and degradation due to anthropogenic and natural causes on its wintering grounds in the Greater Antilles (Hill and Lloyd 2017, Lloyd et al. 2017).
Thanks to the dozens of dedicated field ornithologists and project coordinators without whom this regional-scale analysis would have been impossible. We thank the Regroupement QuébecOiseaux, Environment Canada's Canadian Wildlife Service, and Bird Studies Canada for supplying data from the Québec Breeding Bird Atlas. We also thank the thousands of participants who helped gather these data. We also thank Sébastien Paradis, Canadian Wildlife Service, and Veronique Connolly for their support in this Bicknell’s Thrush study. Our gratitude goes to the Forêt Montmorency, the Société des établissements de Plein-Air du Québec (SEPAQ), and the Canadian Wildlife Service-Quebec Region for their logistic support. Funding was provided by an ENSERC-Discovery Grant to A. D. and by Canadian Wildlife Service-Quebec Region. Thanks to Darroch Whitaker and Kent McFarland for their contribution to the improvement of this manuscript.
Aubry, Y., A. Desrochers, and G. Seutin. 2011. Response of Bicknell’s Thrush (Catharus bicknelli) to boreal silviculture and forest stand edges: a radio-tracking study. Canadian Journal of Zoology 89(6):474-482. http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/z11-011
Aubry, Y., A. Desrochers, and G. Seutin. 2016. Regional patterns of habitat use by a threatened forest bird, the Bicknell’sThrush, in Quebec. Canadian Journal of Zoology 94(4):301-309. http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/cjz-2015-0209
Ball, M. 2000. Vocal behaviour of Bicknell’s Thrush (Catharus bicknelli). Thesis. Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Bélanger, L. 2010. À l’aube d’une nouvelle foresterie pour le Québec - the dawn of “new forestry” in Quebec. Forestry Chronicle 86(2):155-156.
Bird Studies Canada (BSC). 2009. Conserving the Bicknell’s Thrush: stewardship and management practices for high elevation forest. BSC, Atlantic Region, Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada. [online] URL: http://www.bsc-eoc.org/library/ACHELPforestflyer-en.pdf
Booth, D. L., D. W. K.Boulter, D. J. Neave, A. A. Rotherham, and D. A. Welsh. 1993. Natural forest landscape management: a strategy for Canada. Forestry Chronicle 69(2):141-145. http://dx.doi.org/10.5558/tfc69141-2
Boucher, Y., and P. Grondin. 2012. Impact of logging and natural stand-replacing disturbances on high-elevation boreal landscape dynamics (1950–2005) in eastern Canada. Forest Ecology and Management 263:229-239. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2011.09.012
Boucher, Y., P. Grondin, and I. Auger. 2014. Land use history (1840–2005) and physiography as determinants of southern boreal forests. Landscape Ecology 29:437-450. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10980-013-9974-x
Bourque, J., and A. Desrochers. 2006. Spatial aggregation of forest songbird territories and possible implications for area sensitivity. Avian Conservation and Ecology - Écologie et conservation des oiseaux 1(2):3. http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ACE-00043-010203
Buehler, D. A., J. J. Giocomo, J. Jones, P. B. Hamel, C. M. Rogers, T. A. Beachy, D. W. Varble, C. P. Nicholson, K. L. Roth, J. Barg, R. J. Robertson, J. R. Robb, and K. Islam. 2008. Cerulean Warbler reproduction, survival, and models of population decline. Journal of Wildlife Management 72(3):646-653. http://dx.doi.org/10.2193/2006-339
Chisholm, S. E., and M. L. Leonard. 2008. Effect of forest management on a rare habitat specialist, the Bicknell’s Thrush (Catharus bicknelli). Canadian Journal of Zoology 86(3):217-223. http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/Z07-131
Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). 2009. COSEWIC assessment and status report on the Bicknell’s Thrush Catharus bicknelli in Canada. COSEWIC, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. [online] URL: http://www.sararegistry.gc.ca/virtual_sara/files/cosewic/sr_Bicknell%27s%20Thrush_0810_e.pdf
Cyr, D., S. Gauthier, Y. Bergeron, and C. Carcaillet. 2009. Forest management is driving the eastern North American boreal forest outside its natural range of variability. Frontier in Ecology and Environment 7(10):519-524. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/080088
Deluca, W. V., and D. I. King. 2014. Influence of hiking trails on montane birds. Journal of Wildlife Management 78(3):494-502. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jwmg.675
Desrochers, A., C. Renaud, W. M. Hochachka, and M. Cadman. 2010. Area-sensitivity by forest songbirds: theoretical and practical implications of scale-dependency. Ecography 33(5):921-931. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0587.2009.06061.x
Donald, P. F. 2007. Adult sex ratios in wild bird populations. Ibis 149:671-692. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1474-919X.2007.00724.x
Drapeau, P., M.-A. Villard, A. Leduc, and S. J. Hannon. 2016. Natural disturbance regimes as templates for the response of bird species assemblages to contemporary forest management. Diversity and Distributions 22:385-399. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ddi.12407
Engler, J. O., D. Rödder, D. Stiels, and M. I. Förschler. 2014. Suitable, reachable but not colonised: seasonal niche duality in an endemic mountainous songbird. Journal of Ornithology 155:657-669. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10336-014-1049-5
Équipe de rétablissement du caribou forestier du Québec. 2013. Lignes directrices pour l’aménagement de l’habitat du caribou forestier (Rangifer tarandus caribou). Équipe de rétablissement du caribou forestier, Québec, Canada. [online] URL: http://www.bape.gouv.qc.ca/sections/mandats/uranium-enjeux/documents/NAT13.1.pdf
ESRI. 2010. ArcGIS® 10. Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc., Redlands, California, USA.
Faaborg, J., R. T. Holmes, A. D. Anders, K. L. Bildstein, K. M. Dugger, S. A. Gauthreaux Jr, P. Heglund, K. A. Hobson, A. E. Jahn, D. H. Johnson, S. C. Latta, D. J. Levey, P. P. Marra, C. L. Merkord, E. Nol, S. I. Rothstein, T. W. Sherry, T. S. Sillett, F. R. Thompson III, and N. Warnock. 2010. Conserving migratory land birds in the New World: Do we know enough? Ecological Applications 20(2):398-418. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/09-0397.1
Fiske, I., R. B. Chandler, and A. Royle. 2011. Unmarked: models for data from unmarked animals. R package version 0.11-0. [online] URL: http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=unmarked.
Franklin, J. F., T. A. Spies, R. Van Pelt, A. B. Carey, D. A. Thornburgh, D. R. Berg, D. B. Lindenmayer, M. E. Harmon, W. S. Keeton, D. C. Shaw, K. Bible, and J. Chen. 2002. Disturbances and structural development of natural forest ecosystems with silvicultural implications, using Douglas-fir forests as an example. Forest Ecology and Management 155:399-423. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0378-1127(01)00575-8
Frey, S. J. K., A. M. Strong, and K. P. McFarland. 2012. The relative contribution of local habitat and landscape context to metapopulation processes: a dynamic occupancy modeling approach. Ecography 35(7):581-589. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0587.2011.06936.x
Gibson, L., B. Barrett, and A. Burbridge. 2007. Dealing with uncertain absences in habitat modelling: a case study of a rare ground-dwelling parrot. Diversity and Distributions 13:704-713. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1472-4642.2007.00365.x
Goetz, J. E., K. P. McFarland, and C. C. Rimmer. 2003. Multiple paternity and multiple male feeders in Bicknell’s Thrush (Catharus bicknelli). Auk 120(4):1044-1053. http://dx.doi.org/10.1642/0004-8038(2003)120[1044:MPAMMF]2.0.CO;2
Gouvernement du Québec. 2009. Décret 1006-2009, 16 septembre 2009. Loi sur les espèces fauniques menacées ou vulnérables (L.R.Q., c. E-12.01). Gazette officielle du Québec, 30 septembre 2009, vol. 141 no 39. Québec, Canada.
Gouvernement du Québec. 2013. Mesure de protection du garrot d’Islande à l’égard des activités d’aménagement forestier. Ministère des Forêts, de la Faune et des Parcs et Sous-comité faune de l'entente administrative, Québec, Canada. [online] URL: http://mffp.gouv.qc.ca/publications/forets/amenagement/Mesure-protection-garrot-Islande.pdf
Gouvernement du Québec. 2014. Protection measure for the Bicknell’s Thrush in relation to forest management activities. Sous-comité faune de l'Entente administrative, Québec, Canada. [online] URL: http://mffp.gouv.qc.ca/english/publications/forest/Protection-measure-Bicknell-Thrush.pdf
Gouvernement du Québec. 2015. Normes de stratification écoforestière. Quatrième inventaire écoforestier du Québec méridional. Ministère de la Faune, des Forêts et des Parcs, Québec, Québec, Canada. [online] URL: https://www.mffp.gouv.qc.ca/forets/inventaire/pdf/norme-stratification.pdf
Government of Canada. 2012. Canada Gazette, part II, SOR/2012-133, June 20, 2012. Species at Risk Act, vol.146, no. 14. Government of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. [online] URL: http://www.sararegistry.gc.ca/virtual_sara/files/orders/g2-14614i_e.pdf
Gray, D. R., J. Régnière, and B. Boulet. 2000. Analysis and use of historical patterns of spruce budworm defoliation to forecast outbreak patterns in Quebec. Forest Ecology and Management 127:217-231. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0378-1127(99)00134-6
Grondin, P., J. Blouin, P. Racine, H. D'Avignon, and S. Tremblay. 1998. Rapport de classification écologique du sous-domaine bioclimatique de la sapinière à bouleau blanc de l'est. Forêt Québec, Direction des inventaires forestiers, Ministère des ressources naturelles du Québec (révision 2000), Québec, Canada.
Gu, W., and R. K. Swihart. 2004. Absent or undetected? Effects of non-detection of species occurrence on wildlife-habitat models. Biological Conservation 116:195-203. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0006-3207(03)00190-3
Hale, S. R. 2006. Using satellite imagery to model distribution and abundance of Bicknell’s Thrush (Catharus bicknelli) in New Hampshire White Mountains. Auk 123(4):1038-1051. http://dx.doi.org/10.1642/0004-8038(2006)123[1038:USITMD]2.0.CO;2
Hanowski, J. M., and G. J. Niemi. 1995. A comparison of on-and off-road bird counts: do you need to go off road to count birds accurately? Journal of Field Ornithology 66(4):469-483.
Hardy, Y. J., A. Lafond, and L. Hamel. 1983. The epidemiology of the current spruce budworm outbreak in Quebec. Forest Science 29(4):715-725.
Higdon, J. W., D. A. MacLean, J. M. Hagan, and M. Reed. 2006. Risk of extirpation for vertebrate species on an industrial forest in New Brunswick, Canada: 1945, 2002, and 2027. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 36:467-481. http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/x05-260
Hill, J. M., and J. D. Lloyd. 2017. A fine-scale U.S. population estimate of a montane spruce-fir bird species of conservation concern. Ecosphere 8(8):e01921. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.1921
Hoekstra, J. M., T. M. Boucher, T. H. Ricketts, and C. Roberts. 2005. Confronting a biome crisis: global disparities of habitat loss and protection. Ecology Letters 8:23-29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2004.00686.x
Hutto, R. L., S. J. Hejl, J. F. Kelley, and S. M. Pletschet. 1995. A comparison of bird detection rates derived from on-road versus off-road point counts in northern Montana. Pages 103-110 in C. J. Ralph, J. R. Sauer, and S. Droege, editors. Monitoring bird populations by point counts. General Technical Report PSW-GTR-149. U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station, Albany, California, USA.
Lambert, J. D., D. I. King, J. P. Buonaccorsi, and L. S. Prout. 2008. Decline of a New Hampshire Bicknell’s Thrush population, 1993-2003. Northeastern Naturalist 15(4):607-618. http://dx.doi.org/10.1656/1092-6194-15.4.607
Lambert, J. D., K. P. McFarland, and C. C. Rimmer. 2017. Guidelines for managing Bicknell’s thrush habitat in the United States. High Branch Conservation Services, Hartland, Vermont, USA. [online] URL: http://highbranchconservation.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Guidelines-for-Managing-Bicknells-Thrush-Habitat-in-the-United-States-2017.pdf
Lambert, J. D., K. P. McFarland, C. C. Rimmer, S. D. Faccio, and J. L. Atwood. 2005. A practical model of Bicknell’s Thrush distribution in the northeastern United States. Wilson Bulletin 117:1-11. http://dx.doi.org/10.1676/04-013
Lituma, C. M., and D. A. Buehler. 2016. Minimal bias in surveys of grassland birds from roadsides. Condor 118:715-727. http://dx.doi.org/10.1650/CONDOR-16-73.1
Lloyd, J. D., and K. P. McFarland, editors. 2017. A conservation action plan for Bicknell’s Thrush (Catharus bicknelli). International Bicknell’s Thrush Conservation Group. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.4962608
Lloyd, J. D., J. Scarl, J. C. Martínez-Sánchez, C. Rimmer, L. Prout, and S. Mathison. 2017. Bicknell’s Thrush mitigation across borders: a strategy for full life-cycle conservation. Vermont Center for Ecostudies, White River Junction, Vermont, USA. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.4775680.v1
Long, J. N. 2009. Emulating natural disturbance regimes as a basis for forest management: a North American view. Forest Ecology and Management 257:1868-1873. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2008.12.019
Macedo, R. H., and C. A. Bianchi. 1997. Communal breeding in tropical Guira Cuckoos Guira guira sociality in the absence of a saturated habitat. Journal of Avian Biology 28:207-215. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3676971
MacKenzie, D. I., and L. L. Bailey. 2004. Assessing the fit of site-occupancy models. Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Statistics 9:300-318. http://dx.doi.org/10.1198/108571104X3361
MacKenzie, D. I., J. D. Nichols, J. E. Hines, M. G. Knutson, and A. B. Franklin. 2003. Estimating site occupancy, colonization, and local extinction when a species is detected imperfectly. Ecology 84:2200-2207. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/02-3090
MacKenzie, D. I., J. D. Nichols, G. B. Lachman, S. Droege, J. A. Royle, and C. A. Langtimm. 2002. Estimating site occupancy rates when detection probabilities are less than one. Ecology 83:2248-2255. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/0012-9658(2002)083[2248:ESORWD]2.0.CO;2
MacKenzie, D. I., J. D. Nichols, J. A. Royle, K. H. Pollock, L. L. Baile, and J. E. Hines. 2006. Occupancy estimation and modeling: inferring patterns and dynamics of species occurrence. Academic Press, New York, New York, USA.
Marzluff, J. M., M. G. Raphael, and R. Sallabanks. 2000. Understanding the effects of forest management on avian species. Wildlife Society Bulletin 28(4):1132-1143.
Maxwell. S. L., R. A. Fuller, T. M. Brooks, and J. E. M. Watson. 2016. Biodiversity: the ravages of guns, nets and bulldozers. Nature 536:143-145. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/536143a
McFarland, K. P., C. C. Rimmer, S. J. K. Frey, S. D. Faccio, and B. B. Collins. 2008. Demography, ecology and conservation of Bicknell’s Thrush in Vermont, with a special focus on the Northeast Highlands. Technical Report 08-03, Vermont Center for Ecostudies, Norwich, Vermont, USA. [online] URL: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228412299_Demography_ecology_and_conservation_of_Bicknell%27s_Thrush_in_Vermont_with_a_special_focus_on_the_Northeastern_Highlands
McFarland, K. P., C. C. Rimmer, J. E. Goetz, Y. Aubry, J. M. Wunderle Jr, A. Sutton, J. M. Townsend, A. Llanes Sosa, and A. Kirkconnell. 2013. A winter distribution model for Bicknell’s Thrush (Catharus bicknelli), a conservation tool for a threatened migratory songbird. PLoS ONE 8(1):e53986. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0053986
Nelson, M. D., and R. R. Buech. 1996. Test of 3 models of Kirtland’s Warbler habitat suitability. Wildlife Society Bulletin 24(1):89-97.
Nielsen, S. E., G. B. Stenhouse, and M. S. Boyce. 2006. A habitat-based framework for grizzly bear conservation in Alberta. Biological Conservation 130:217-229. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2005.12.016
Nixon, E. A., S. B. Holmes, and A. W. Diamond. 2001. Bicknell’s Thrushes (Catharus bicknelli) in New Brunswick clear cuts: their habitat associations and co-occurrence with Swainson’s Thrushes (Catharus ustulatus). Wilson Bulletin 13(1):33-40. http://dx.doi.org/10.1676/0043-5643(2001)113[0033:BTCBIN]2.0.CO;2
Nocera, J. J., and G. J. Forbes. 2010. Incorporating social information to improve the precision of models of habitat use. Condor 112(2):235-244. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/cond.2010.090237
Payne, N. 1976. Red squirrel introduction to Newfoundland. Canadian Field Naturalist 90:60-64.
Powell, L. L., T. P. Hodgman, and W. E. Glanz. 2010. Home ranges of Rusty Blackbirds breeding in wetlands: how much would buffers from timber harvest protect habitat? Condor 112(4):834-840. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/cond.2010.100151
Québec Breeding Bird Atlas. 2018. Bicknell’s Thrush map. Regroupement QuébecOiseaux, Environment Canada’s Canadian Wildlife Service, and Bird Studies Canada. Québec, Québec, Canada. [online] URL: http://www.atlas-oiseaux.qc.ca/donneesqc/cartes.jsp?lang=en
R Development Core Team. 2016. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria.
Radford, J. Q., and A. F. Bennett. 2004. Thresholds in landscape parameters: occurrence of the White-browed Treecreeper Climacteris affinis in Victoria, Australia. Biological Conservation 117:375-391. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2003.08.002
Rappole, J. H., D. I. King, and J. Diez. 2003. Winter- vs. breeding-habitat limitation for an endangered avian migrant. Ecological Applications 13:735-742. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/1051-0761(2003)013[0735:WVBLFA]2.0.CO;2
Rich, T. D., C. J. Beardmore, H. Berlanga, P. J. Blancher, M. S. W. Bradstreet, G. S. Butcher, D. W. Demarest, E. H. Dunn, W. C. Hunter, E. E. Iñigo-Elias, J. A. Kennedy, A. M. Martell, A. O. Panjabi, D. N. Pashley, K. V. Rosenberg, C. M. Rustay, J. S. Wendt, and T. C. Will. 2004. Partners in Flight North American Landbird Conservation Plan. Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York, USA.
Rimmer, C. C., K. P. McFarland, and R. B. Renfrew. 2004. Evaluating the use of Vermont ski areas by Bicknell’s Thrush: applications for Whiteface Mountain. Vermont Institute of Natural Science, Woodstock, Vermont, USA. [online] URL: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Christopher_Rimmer/publication/254424226_Evaluating_the_Use_of_Vermont_Ski_Areas_by_Bicknell’s_Thrush_Applications_for_Whiteface_Mountain/links/54bd01600cf218da939004fc.pdf
Robertson, B. A., and R. L. Hutto. 2007. Is selectively harvested forest an ecological trap for Olive-sided Flycatchers? Condor 109:109-121. http://dx.doi.org/10.1650/0010-5422(2007)109[109:ISHFAE]2.0.CO;2
Rompré, G., Y. Boucher, L. Bélanger, S. Côté, and W. D. Robinson. 2010. Conservation de la biodiversité dans les paysages forestiers aménagés: utilisation des seuils critiques d’habitat. Forestry Chronicle 86(5):572-579. http://dx.doi.org/10.5558/tfc86572-5
Rosenberg, K. V., D. Pashley, B. Andres, P. J. Blancher, G. S. Butcher, W. C. Hunter, G. Mehlman, A. O. Panjabi, M. Parr, G. Wallace, and D. Wiedenfeld. 2014. The state of the birds 2014 watch list. North American Bird Conservation Initiative, U.S. Committee, Washington, D.C., USA. [online] URL: http://www.stateofthebirds.org/2014/extinctions/watchlist.pdf
Rota, C.T., R. J. Fletcher Jr, R. M. Dorazio, and M. G. Betts. 2009. Occupancy estimation and the closure assumption. Journal of Applied Ecology 46:1173-1181. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2664.2009.01734.x
Rushing, C. S., T. B. Ryder, and P. P. Marra. 2016. Quantifying drivers of population dynamics for a migratory bird throughout the annual cycle. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 283(1823). http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2015.2846
Sauer, J. R., W. A. Link, J. E. Fallon, K. L. Pardieck, and D. J. Ziolkowski Jr. 2013. The North American breeding bird survey 1966-2011: summary analysis and species accounts. North American Fauna 79:1-32. http://dx.doi.org/10.3996/nafa.79.0001
Schlossberg, S. R., and M. P. Ward. 2004. Using conspecific attraction to conserve endangered birds. Endangered Species Update 21:132-138.
Serano, D., and J. E. Tella. 2003. Dispersal within a spatially structured population of Lesser Kestrels: the role of spatial isolation and conspecific attraction. Journal of Animal Ecology 72:400-410. http://dx.doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2656.2003.00707.x
Sprugel, D. G. 1976. Dynamic structure of wave-generated Abies balsamea forests in the northeastern United States. Journal of Ecology 64(3):889-911. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2258815
Ter Braak, C. J. F., and C. W. N. Looman. 1986. Weighted averaging, logistic regression and the Gaussian response model. Vegetatio 65:3-11. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00032121
Townsend, J. M., K. P. McFarland, C. C. Rimmer, W. G. Ellison, and J. E. Goetz. 2015. Bicknell’s Thrush (Catharus bicknelli). In P. G. Rodewald, editor. The birds of North America. Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York, USA.
Vaillancourt, M., P. Drapeau, M. Robert, and S. Gauthier. 2009. Origin and availability of large cavities for Barrow’s Goldeneye (Bucephala islandica), a species at risk inhabiting the eastern Canadian boreal forest. Avian Conservation and Ecology - Écologie et conservation des oiseaux 4(1):6. [online] URL: http://www.ace-eco.org/vol4/iss1/art6/
Venables, W. N., and B. D. Ripley. 2002. Modern applied statistics with S. Fourth Edition. Springer, New York, New York, USA. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-21706-2
Wells, J., D. Childs, F. Reid, K. Smith, M. Darveau, and V. Courtois. 2014. Boreal birds need half: maintaining North America’s bird nursery and why it matters. Boreal Songbird Initiative, Seattle, Washington, USA, Ducks Unlimited Inc., Memphis, Tennessee, USA, and Ducks Unlimited Canada, Stonewall, Manitoba, Canada.
Whitaker, D. M., P. D. Taylor, and I. G. Warkentin. 2015. Gray-cheeked Thrush (Catharus minimus minimus) distribution and habitat use in a montane forest landscape of western Newfoundland, Canada. Avian Conservation and Ecology 10(2):4. [online] URL: http://www.ace-eco.org/vol10/iss2/art4/
Whittam, B. 2015. Bicknell’s Thrush. Pages 390-391 in R. L. M. Stewart, K. A. Bredin, A. R. Couturier, A. G. Horn, D. Lepage, S. Makepeace, P. D. Taylor, M.-A. Villard, and R. M. Whittam, editors. Second atlas of breeding birds of the Maritime Provinces. Bird Studies Canada, Environment Canada, Natural History Society of Prince Edward Island, Nature New Brunswick, New Brunswick Department of Natural Resources, Nova Scotia Bird Society, Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources, and Prince Edward Island Department of Agriculture and Forestry, Canada. [online] URL: http://www.mba-aom.ca/pdfs/atlas_en_390-419.pdf
Yip, D. A., L. Leston, E. M. Bayne, P. Sólymos, and A. Grover. 2017. Experimentally derived detection distances from audio recordings and human observers enable integrated analysis of point count data. Avian Conservation and Ecology 12(1):11. [online] URL: http://www.ace-eco.org/vol12/iss1/art11/ http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ACE-00997-120111 | <urn:uuid:5c4f150e-638d-49a6-83ef-1879e5a7e76c> | {
"date": "2019-02-23T23:50:04",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2019-09",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-09/segments/1550249556231.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20190223223440-20190224005440-00616.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.8029847145080566,
"score": 3.546875,
"token_count": 13284,
"url": "http://www.ace-eco.org/vol13/iss2/art8/"
} |
This guide would be a low level intro to the tools offered by the FEL, targeted for an audience that frequent a high school, a professional school, or Technical schools in Electrics (e.g. Istituti professionali in Italy). As there are already many good manuals online that explain the various tools, the goal is to explain in a compendium what do the various tools, how to use them using the GUI or the terminal command, when it can offer more configuration/setting options, with simple examples. It is organized in two parts: a first section dedicated to analog/digital electronic with discrete components, the other to integrated electronic (VLSI and Nano). I'll focuse principally on the first part.
FEL: what is and why use it (to do)
FEL is a suite of powerful tools primary desigend to offer to micro-electronic engineers the necessary software to design, simulate and test integrated circuits. View About FEL. They are constantly developed and improved by reserchears at University centers an volunteers around the world.
Get the Electronics Applications
The Electronics Applications of FEL are available as a Spin (Live DVD/USB) or from Fedora repositories.
A Fedora Spin is an alternate version of Fedora, tailored for various types of users via hand-picked application sets and other customizations. You can get a FEL-Spin from the downloads page, where you find also informations on how to use the Spin. If necessary, view also the short How to use the Fedora live image, doc.
Alternatively, you can install the applications on your system, as usual using
yum in a terminal, or PackageKit.
To install the entire suite of applications run
yum groupinstall 'Electronic Lab'
as root user, or select the Electronic Lab group package in the PackageKit GUI. To install a sub-set of applications run
yum install <app1> <app2> ...
as root, where <app1> <app2> ... are the electronic application packages you want install.
The Electronic Lab has the following applications, placed under Applications --> Electronics:
- Analog/Mixed Signal Design
- Electric VLSI
- LVS netlist comparator
- Magic VLSI Layout
- XCircuit Schematic
- Circuit and PCB Design
- gEDA Attribute Editor
- gEDA Schematic Editor
- Gerbv Gerber File Viewer
- PCB Designer
- Circuit Simulation
- Analog Waveform viewer
- Spice Simulation Frontend
- Digital IC Design
- Alliance: FSM Viewer
- Alliance: Graphic Graph Viewer
- Alliance: Layout Editor
- Alliance: Layout Viewer
- Alliance: Patterns Viewer
- Alliance: Petri Nets Viewer
- Alliance: Schematic Viewer
- Digital circuit simulator
- Waveform viewer
- Embedded Design
- MCU 8051IDE
- Coverage Analyze
Analog circuits are electric circuits whose signals (current and tension) are continous in time and amplitude domains, in contrapposition to digital signals, where they are discontinous in both domains. More generally analog signals are continous functions of time. An analog signal could be, for example the music that comes from a loudspeaker or the voice that you ear from a person. The signal describes the evolution in time of a certain physical quantity, that in electrical case, colud be the amplitude or intensity of a current/tension in a branch of a circuit, the power delivered to a load, ecc.
The theory of analog circuits helps us to eleborate analog signals, such as filtering a signal from unwanted noise or some its frequencies; amplfying it, etc.
The tools available here otherwise help us to verify our expected results, and improve our global understanding. With the appropriate plot we can have a visual representation of our analysis.
The primary elements used in analog circuits are passive elements: Resistor, Capacitor, Inductance and active elements: Diode, Transistor (BJT, FETs), Operational Amplifier. | <urn:uuid:556b9173-abe0-4093-bd82-7b078644397e> | {
"date": "2018-07-18T08:54:14",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2018-30",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-30/segments/1531676590074.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20180718080513-20180718100513-00576.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.8635308742523193,
"score": 2.5625,
"token_count": 855,
"url": "https://fedoraproject.org/w/index.php?title=User:Lewis41/FEL/Fedora-Electronic-Lab&oldid=188482"
} |
The first four-stroke internal combustion engine was built by Nikolaus August Otto in May 1876. Otto's design was based partly on an earlier gas engine invented by Etienne Lenoir. The four-stroke cycle had, however, been patented earlier by Aphonse Beau de Rochas in 1862. Though Otto was the first to actually build a working model, in 1886 his patent was revoked.
Since then, the four-stroke internal combustion engine (and its two-stroke relative) has been used in automobiles, motorbikes, motorboats and many other vehicles. It has, in many ways, changed the face of the world. (Other internal combustion engine types are diesel, gas turbine and jet engines.)
This Entry focuses on the local effects of chemical pollution from exhaust fumes. While internal combustion engines have many roles and appear in many guises, the application which has the most effect on the urban environment is almost certainly that of transport, particularly private transport. This Entry, therefore, will be on the subject of car exhaust.
A car's exhaust is by no means a simple thing to study. Motor fuel is obtained from crude oil produced predominantly by the decay of marine organisms1. It therefore contains the elements carbon (C), hydrogen (H), oxygen (O) and nitrogen (N), along with some amounts of sulphur (S), all of which are found in protein. Hence, motor fuel contains hydrocarbons and organic compounds containing nitrogen and sulphur. When these are burned in air the products are water, carbon di- and monoxide and oxides of nitrogen. Nitrogen gas in the atmosphere can also react with oxygen at the high temperatures in the combustion chamber to form oxides.
Also, while the internal combustion engine is more efficient than the external, it is by no means as efficient as we could wish. Much of the hydrocarbon fuel passes through the process unconsumed and is expelled into the atmosphere along with other exhaust fumes.
According to the Ohio EPA, 'The average American automobile emits its own weight in pollutants into the atmosphere each year'.
Pollutants from Car Exhaust
CO2 — carbon dioxide. This gas is naturally present in the atmosphere at low concentration (approximately 0.035%). It absorbs infrared energy and is thus a greenhouse gas (a contributor to global warming). Concentrations of CO2 in the earth's atmosphere appear to be increasing. This could have a substantial effect on the climate. The internal combustion engine contributes to the increased concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere. The effect of carbon dioxide, however, is felt worldwide. It does not have a great impact on the immediate urban environment2. Nor are car engines the greatest producers of this pollutant.
CO — carbon monoxide. The main source of CO in cities is the internal combustion engine, where it is produced by incomplete combustion. Anthropogenic sources account for approximately 6% of the 0.1 ppm concentration of CO in the earth's atmosphere globally. In an urban area, the concentration (and the percentage anthropogenic contribution) can be much higher. During a city rush hour, for example, concentrations of CO can reach 50 or even 100 ppm, which greatly exceeds the safe level. CO is highly toxic: it binds to haemoglobin more strongly than oxygen does, thus reducing the capacity of the haemoglobin to carry oxygen to the cells of the body. CO also has the nasty habit of sticking to haemoglobin and not coming off. This means that a fairly small amount of it can do a lot of damage.
CO can be oxidised to the far less harmful CO2 if there is enough O2 available. At higher air-fuel ratios the level of CO emission goes down. The fuel has undergone complete, or more nearly complete, combustion. CO can also be oxidised to CO2 in a catalytic convertor.
NOx — oxides of nitrogen. While some nitrogen may be present in the fuel (as mentioned earlier), most oxides of nitrogen are produced when elemental nitrogen (N2) in the air3 is broken down and oxidised at high temperatures (approximately 1000 K or greater) and pressures within the internal combustion engine. Nitrogen monoxide (NO) is produced in higher concentration than nitrogen dioxide (NO2) but the two species are in any case interconvertible by means of photochemical interactions. Other oxides of nitrogen, such as N2O4, may occur; but are more rare. Because hydrocarbons compete with nitrogen for oxygen, NO is formed to a greater extent in cars with a 'lean mixture', that is, a low fuel-air ratio.
NO and NO2 are toxic species. Oxides of nitrogen also play a major role in the formation of photochemical smog, which is discussed below.
HC — hydrocarbons. 'Much of the hydrocarbon fuel passes through the process unconsumed and is expelled into the atmosphere along with other exhaust fumes'. This remark was made earlier in passing. Fuel close to the wall of the combustion chamber may be quenched by the relative coolness of that area and not be burned. If the engine is poorly designed or is not in proper working order the proportion of unburned fuel rises. Hydrocarbons are also released to the atmosphere by evaporation from fuel tanks. Hydrocarbons can be dangerous to human health and are also part of the makeup and cause of photochemical smog, which is discussed below.
C6H6 — Benzene and its derivatives. Benzene is, of course, a hydrocarbon, but is sufficiently different from straight-chain hydrocarbons to merit a separate discussion. The six carbons in benzene form a regular hexagon, with one hydrogen attached to each carbon and sticking out (away from the centre of the hexagon). All 12 atoms lie on one plane. This structure is extremely stable — stable enough for a large proportion of the benzene in fuel to pass unchanged through the combustion process. There is quite a lot of benzene in fuel. It acts as an anti-knock agent, making cars run more smoothly. Since the abolition of lead additives as anti-knock agents, the levels of benzene and benzene-related compounds in car fuel have increased.
Benzene may be present in fuel as itself or in a modified form, where one or more hydrogens have been removed to form a phenyl ring and other things have been attached in their places. A phenyl ring (Ph) has the formula C6H5—; it may be found attached to a long straight-chained hydrocarbon. During combustion, a molecule with this structure may be broken down entirely or release benzene or a derivative.
Benzene (C6H6), and also many of its derivatives such as toluene (PhCH3) and phenol (PhOH), is carcinogenic (the level of toxicity varies). Benzene vapours are therefore a danger. It has been suggested that benzene is more dangerous to filling station attendants than to the general public in the streets as the concentration of benzene will be higher in the raw fuel than in the combustion products. (Some fuel evaporates from fuel tanks; some is spilled while tanks are being filled and thereafter evaporates from the ground. The atmosphere of filling stations will always contain a high concentration of hydrocarbons, including phenyl rings.)
Benzene rings may also be fused to form polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. These are particularly prevalent in diesel exhaust.
SO2 — sulphur dioxide. Fossil fuels are derived from once-living organisms. Some sulphur occurs in protein and will still be present in the fuel. Under combustion this sulphur reacts with oxygen to form sulphur di- and trioxide. Sulphur is more prevalent in solid fuel (such as coal) than in liquid, but some sulphur dioxide emission does occur from cars. SO2 and SO3 are acidic pollutants which dissolve in moisture in the atmosphere to form sulphurous and sulphuric acids (H2SO3 and H2SO4), which are components of 'acid rain'. These corrode metal surfaces and weather limestone buildings.
Acid rain also mobilises toxic aluminium ions (Al3+) in the soil, washing them out into streams and ponds. This causes a sticky mucus to accumulate in the gills of fish and eventually kills them. Trees and other plants which absorb Al3+ ions will be damaged.
In humans, sulphur dioxide irritates the eyes, the mucous membranes and the respiratory tract, along with the skin in general. SO2 also has the effect of slowing down the movements of the cilia (the hairs in the trachea which act to prevent dust entering the lungs), thus exacerbating the irritation caused by allowing more pollutant to access the respiratory system. SO2 is a component of 'classical' smog (as exemplified by London in the 1950s4).
PM10s - particles micro-particulate, 10 microns. These are ultra-fine particles which are less than one-hundredth of a millimetre across. Thus they are too small to settle or be dispersed by rain. These particles absorb acidic gases which are also present in exhaust fumes and, when inhaled, penetrate into the microscopic air sacs of the lungs (alveoli). Scavenging white blood cells (macrophages) are overwhelmed by these particles, and release a stream of chemicals that trigger an inflammatory reaction in the lungs, and increase the stickiness of red blood cells, thus increasing the likelihood of blood clots. The main victims of this type of pollution are the elderly, smokers, and those suffering from chest complaints, heart conditions and, to a lesser extent, asthma.
It is considered that PM10s may be the most important and dangerous component of vehicle pollution. These particles can drift for miles, and accumulate inside buildings. The major source of PM10s in urban air is motor vehicles, particularly diesel engines. Even unpolluted air can contain up to 30 micrograms per cubic metre of PM10s, but during smoggy conditions in British cities, concentrations can rise above 100 micrograms per cubic metre. Epidemiological studies suggest that for each 10 microgram/cubic metre rise, the number of daily deaths, hospital admissions and asthma attacks increase by at least 1%.
Reactive pollutant hydrocarbons in the presence of NOx and under certain atmospheric conditions can produce a brown haze known as photochemical smog. It is given this name because it is formed by photochemical reactions (that is, reactions catalysed by light) between NOx and hydrocarbons. Normally, any combustion process hot enough to produce oxides of nitrogen (that is, with enough energy to break the triple bond in N2) will also fully oxidise hydrocarbons, breaking them down to water and carbon dioxide. Conversely, any combustion process which does not fully consume hydrocarbons, allowing some to pass to the atmosphere, should not possess sufficient energy to oxidise nitrogen. In the internal combustion engine, however, there is a combination of extremely high temperatures and a shortage of oxygen. The two essential ingredients for the formation of photochemical smog are produced together.
When high levels of NO2 are present in the atmosphere it can undergo the reactions NO2 --> NO. + O.
O. + O2 --> O3
O3 + NO. --> O2 + NO2 in a cycle5. The relative concentrations of NO and NO2 are important. NO2 drives the formation of ozone; NO destroys ozone. When the ratio of NO2 to NO is greater than three, ozone concentrations will rise, possibly to dangerous levels. (While ozone plays an essential protective role in the stratosphere, it is viewed as a dangerous pollutant in the troposphere6. It is highly oxidising and causes irritation to the eyes.)
Methane, CH4, is less reactive than are other hydrocarbons, but as it is a simple compound some of its reactions are shown here. Reactions of other hydrocarbons would be similar. CH4 + O. --> H3C. + HO.
H3C. + O2 --> H3COO.
CH4 + HO. --> H3C. + H2O
H3COO. + NO --> H3CO. + NO2
H3COO. + NO2 --> CH3OONO2 The initial oxygen radical may be produced by photodissociation of nitrogen dioxide, which is regenerated further on in the series. The product of the last reaction mentioned is peroxyacetylnitrate, a very strong oxidant. The chemistry of photochemical smog is highly complex. There will be many free radicals and highly reactive organic species (including aldehydes and ketones) present. There will also be many polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and many other pollutants in the atmosphere. The five reactions shown above are by no means a full summary of what is going on in this cocktail.
These reactions are photochemical. This means that they require energy from light of a certain wavelength. Photochemical smog is most common on windless sunny days when the ingredients are not dispersed and there is plenty of light energy available to power the reaction.
Again, according to the Ohio EPA, emissions from car exhaust account for about 60% of ozone smog in cities.
Photochemical smog is characterised by the presence of particulate matter (which creates a sort of haze), oxidants such as ozone, and noxious organic species such as aldehydes.
Catalytic Converters. Most modern cars contain catalytic converters. In these, exhaust fumes and added air pass over a catalyst where they are broken down to less harmful products.
Drive less. It may be fairly obvious, but people are very reluctant to do it. Pedestrian zones should be increased; cycling should be encouraged. Many techniques have been discussed, including 'Park & Ride' schemes. The use of public transport and of carpools can be of help. According to Alpha Nutrition, 'Driving a car is the most polluting act an average citizen commits'.
Use cleaner engines. Many modern cars are designed to be more fuel-efficient and less pollutant. (These vehicles are usually at their best in cities. Pick the car that's best for the way you use it.) Less pollutant cars may cost a little more, but they'll pay for themselves in the feeling of smugness they give you! On a more serious note, some governments are considering giving grants to make this type of car cheaper to purchase. Also, of course, if they use less fuel they are cheaper to run. There is less environmental damage caused by fuel production and delivery.
Drive hybrid vehicles. Whether a hybrid engine is more environmentally sound than a normal engine depends on how the car is used. For city stop-start driving, they're usually better. Consider how you use your motor, do some research, and purchase accordingly.
Keep your car in good working order. An engine will be more environmentally friendly when it runs more efficiently. According to the Ohio EPA, more than 80% of emissions come from less than 30% of cars. This is related to the point above.
Use smaller cars. There are some good reasons for driving massive vehicles. They have their place, certainly. But do any of these reasons apply to you? A heavier vehicle will naturally consume more fuel, producing a large proportion of pollutants.
Drive intellegently. The way a car is driven can have a huge effect on its fuel-consumption and hence on its effect on the environment. See 'Driving Petrol Cars in an Environmentally-friendly Way' for more information. | <urn:uuid:9e474ddb-2df4-4789-8a17-a5db04f553bd> | {
"date": "2017-03-01T19:59:49",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2017-09",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-09/segments/1487501174276.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20170219104614-00508-ip-10-171-10-108.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9449470043182373,
"score": 3.375,
"token_count": 3231,
"url": "https://h2g2.com/edited_entry/A16407173"
} |
White snakeroot (Ageratina altissima) is a perennial wildflower native to eastern North America that belongs to the aster/daisy family (Asteraceae). Formerly categorized in the Eupatorium genus, the plant is sometimes listed as Eupatorium rugosum. Snakeroot gains its common name from early American settlers, who incorrectly believed that the plant's rhizomes could treat snakebites. The plant is now known to be poisonous.
White snakeroot grows to be between 1 to 3 feet tall, producing 6-inch long, deeply serrated green leaves and fluffy rounded flowerheads that are up to 6-inches across and composed of tiny white florets. The fragrant flowers last for about two months in late summer and early fall. White snakeroot is very similar in appearance to boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum), though white snakeroot has broader leaves. The garden cultivar "Chocolate" is notable for its shiny purple stems and brown colored leaves.
White snakeroot commonly occurs in disrupted areas such as degraded woodlands and overgrown vacant lots, though it may also occur in meadows near rivers. The plant attracts bees, moths and butterflies with its nectar. In the home garden, white snakeroot may be grown in U.S. Department of Agriculture zones 4 to 8. The plant prefers full sunlight, though it will also grow in partial or light woodland shade. In optimal conditions, white snakeroot self-sows freely.
Low maintenance and tough, white snakeroot will easily adapt to a range of soil and moisture conditions. Best growth is in a moist, humus rich soil that is slightly gravelly or rocky. Spent flowers from the "Chocolate" cultivar should be deadheaded to prevent self-seeding, as they will not come true from seed. Deadheading will also help keep the plant looking neat and tidy. White snakeroot may be propagated by division, done in the spring.
Snakeroot contains toxins such as tremetol and glycosides that cause a fatal disease in cows, sheep, horses and goats called "staggers." The disease causes symptoms in livestock such as difficulty breathing, inactivity and weight loss. Humans who ingest milk from poisoned cows can develop a disease known as "milk sickness," which according to Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses is believed to have killed Abraham Lincoln's mother. Symptoms of milk sickness include vomiting, nauseas, difficulty breathing and weakness.
- Jupiterimages/Goodshoot/Getty Images | <urn:uuid:9ded9b60-4e3c-4e16-b643-079c1e750daa> | {
"date": "2017-04-28T04:15:52",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2017-17",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917122739.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031202-00589-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9505463242530823,
"score": 3.0625,
"token_count": 529,
"url": "http://homeguides.sfgate.com/type-plant-snakeroot-67073.html"
} |
Fundamentals of Hearing - Part 1
(Source: Boystown Research Registry)
Hearing is one of the five major senses. To help you understand hearing and hearing impairment, this article will describe how the ear works, how hearing is tested, and how to read an audiogram.
How the Ear Works
The ear has three major parts: the outer ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear. The outer ear is the part that can be seen and includes the ear canal. The middle ear includes the ear drum (also known as the tympanic membrane), the three bones (ossicles) of the middle ear, and the eustachian tube. The eustachian tube leads to the throat and helps equalize pressure in the middle ear. The inner ear includes the cochlea and the semi -circular canals. The cochlea looks like a snail shell. Inside the cochlea are sensory cells (hair cells) that respond to sound and send nerve signals to the brain. The semi-circular canals are the balance organ.
Types of Hearing Loss
There are three types of hearing loss: conductive, sensorineural, and mixed. Conductive hearing loss can occur if the structures of the outer or middle ear do not work correctly. Conductive loss is more likely to respond to medical or surgical treatment . Sensorineural hearing loss (this is sometimes called nerve deafness by non-professionals) can occur if inner ear structures do not work correctly. Sensorineural hearing loss is more likely to be permanent. Mixed hearing loss involves both conductive as well as sensorineural components.
How is Hearing Tested?
Hearing is tested using earphones or loudspeakers which send sounds to the ear. Because hearing loss can occur in either or both ears, it is important that both ears are tested. If testing reveals a hearing loss, another device, called a bone vibrator, is used to determine the type of hearing loss. The bone vibrator sends sounds to the inner ear and bypasses the ear canal and middle ear. With conductive hearing loss, sounds can be heard at softer levels when listening through the bone vibrator than through the earphone. With sensorineural hearing loss, sounds will be heard at similar levels using both devices.
What is an Audiogram and What Does it Tell Me?
An audiogram is a graph describing hearing sensitivity. The degree (or amount) of hearing loss is determined by measuring the hearing threshold. The hearing threshold is measured in decibels (dB). The hearing threshold is the amount of sound that is just barely heard. The louder that sound must be made to be barely heard represents the degree of hearing loss.
Degrees of Hearing Loss
A person can have up to 25 dB hearing level (HL) and still have "normal" hearing.
Those with a mild hearing loss (26-45 dB HL) may have difficulty hearing and understanding someone who is speaking from a distance or who has a soft voice.
They will generally hear one-on-one conversations if they can see the speaker's face and are close to the speaker. Understanding conversations in noisy backgrounds may be difficult.
Those with moderate hearing loss (46-65 dB HL) have difficulty understanding conversational levels of speech, even in quiet backgrounds. Trying to hear in noisy backgrounds is extremely difficult.
Those with severe hearing loss (66-85 dB HL) have difficulty hearing in all situations. Speech may be heard only if the speaker is talking loudly or at close range.
Those with profound hearing loss (greater than 85 dB HL) may not hear even loud speech or environmental sounds. They may not use hearing as a primary method of communicating.
How does Hearing Loss Affect Listening to Speech?
In addition to the degree of loss, the frequency (or pitch) is also important for understanding speech. Frequencies are measured in Hertz (Hz).
For example, the sounds made by a bullfrog are "low" frequency tones, between 125 and 250 Hz, whereas the sounds made by a cricket are "high" frequency tones, between 4,000 and 8,000 Hz.
An audiogram documents hearing thresholds at frequencies important for hearing speech and other environmental sounds. The degree of loss is measured by how far up-or-down the threshold lies on the graph and the frequencies are measured from lower frequencies on the left to higher frequencies on the right. The shape or pattern of the hearing loss threshold on the audiogram is called the configuration. "X´s" are used to represent the left ear and "O´s" to represent the right ear´s configuration.
An example of an audiogram from an individual with normal low frequency hearing, sloping to a severe mid- and high- frequency hearing loss is shown. This person would be able to hear the speech sounds below 1,000 Hz (l, b, m, ... , a), but would not be able to hear those above 1,000 Hz (p, k, ... , sh).
Professionals Who Evaluate and Treat Hearing
A medical doctor (physician) who specializes in treating ear and hearing problems is an otologist or otolaryngologist. These doctors can determine whether the hearing loss could be improved with medical or surgical treatment, if additional tests are nece ssary, and if other health problems are related to the hearing loss. Audiologists are professionals who specialize in evaluating hearing loss and conducting hearing tests.
By: Leisha Eiten, CCC-A Leisha Eiten is a Clinical Audiologist at the Boys Town National Research Hospital. She has a Master of Arts (M.A.) and a Certificate of Clinical Competence in Audiology (CCC-A).
Date Originally Created: Spring, 1995.
The information presented here first appeared in publications of the Boys Town National Research Register for Hereditary Hearing Loss, the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), Hereditary Hearing Impairment Resource Registry (HHIRR), or the Boys Town Research Registry for Hereditary Hearing Loss.
The Boys Town Research Registry for Hereditary Hearing Loss
The Boys Town Research Registry for Hereditary Hearing Loss (Registry) is designed to foster a partnership between families, clinicians and researchers in the area of hereditary hearing loss/deafness through three primary functions. First, the Registry disseminates information to professionals and families about clinical and research issues related to hereditary deafness/hearing loss. Second, the Registry collects information from individuals interested in supporting and participating in research projects. This information is used to support the third function of the Registry - matching families with collaborating research projects.
For more information, contact:
Research Registry for Hereditary Hearing Loss
555 N. 30th Street
Omaha, NE 68131
800 320-1171 (V/TDD)
402 498-6331 (FAX) | <urn:uuid:a5d129b5-f01e-49a2-8738-87ef9ca99cb1> | {
"date": "2014-10-23T04:33:38",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2014-42",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-42/segments/1413507450097.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20141017005730-00026-ip-10-16-133-185.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9372668266296387,
"score": 4.03125,
"token_count": 1428,
"url": "http://www.oregon.gov/dhs/odhhs/pages/tadoc/hloss9.aspx"
} |
Places in the USA With Lowest Precipitation
The list here ranks places in the USA with the lowest precipitation where rainfall and snowfall amount to less than four inches (102 mm) a year.
The rankings show that just a few states have truly parched deserts: California, Arizona, Nevada and Alaska. The least rainy portion of the nation takes in a broad swath of southeast California, extending from Death Valley, south to the Mexican border. The most arid area also crosses the state border into Nevada and straddles the Colorado River in the southwest corner of Arizona.
Two deserts occupy this region. The Mojave Desert covers the northern portion, including Death Valley and Las Vegas. To the south, the Sonoran Desert surrounds the Salton Sea and Yuma, Arizona.
Many people live in cities, towns and rural communities scattered across the deserts. Arid cities that make it onto the list of driest places in America include Calexico, El Centro and Yuma. Also among the driest sites are the town of Niland and rural centers of Mecca and Thermal.
Another exceptionally dry part of America stretches across the other end of the country, in the Arctic. At several places along the north coast of Alaska, the snow falls just a few flakes at a time.
|17||Death Valley, California||2.36||60|
|13||El Centro, California||2.85||72|
|18||Yuma Airport, Arizona||3.30||84|
|62||Ugnu-Kuparuk Airport, Alaska||3.80||97|
|18||Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona||3.82||97|
|18||Lake Havasu City, Arizona||3.84||98|
|–||Stovepipe Wells, California||3.88||99|
|–||Desert Center, California||3.92||100|
Deserts receive less than 10 inches (250 millimetres) of rain or snow a year, on average. Places that dry occur throughout the western United States in California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, Montana and Washington.
About the Numbers
The precipitation data given here are long-term historical averages based on the weather from 1981 to 2010. The rankings involve 9,179 weather stations in the United States that collect information for the NOAA's National Climatic Data Center.
The number of days with wet weather only includes the days when precipitation amounts to 0.01 inches (0.25 millimetres) or more.
The lowest amount of precipitation that a US weather station has measured for an entire year is none. It's a rare event. Drought lasting from January to December occurred at:
- Death Valley, California in 1929, 1953 and 1989
- Brawley, California in 1953
- Yuma Quartermaster Depot State Park, Arizona in 2002
National Climatic Data Center. NOAA's 1981-2010 Climate Normals. | <urn:uuid:00f7d283-8d6c-4b5b-b1bc-0140e0f06428> | {
"date": "2014-10-30T12:11:25",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2014-42",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-42/segments/1414637897717.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20141030025817-00121-ip-10-16-133-185.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.8229796886444092,
"score": 3.109375,
"token_count": 628,
"url": "http://www.currentresults.com/Weather-Extremes/US/places-with-lowest-precipitation.php"
} |
History, tourist information, and nearby accommodation
There is no indication that the caves were ever used as human habitat, but two separate human burials have been discovered within the caves.
HISTORY OF THE FINDS
The first attempt at an excavation of the Bone Caves took place in 1889 under the direction of geologists Ben Peach and John Horne, who found bits of animal bone at one of the cave mouths.
In 1928 the first proper investigation took place under the direction of another geologist, JE Cree. Cree found two pieces of reindeer antler and a bear tooth. The finds encouraged him to return the folllowing year and excavate the two caves we know as Badger and Reindeer Caves. This excavation discovered remains of land snails, frogs, and the jaw bone of a wildcat.
How did they get here? As far as we can tell, the caves were never inhabited by humans. The most likely explanation for the large number of bones inside the caves is that they were washed down into the caves after the glaciers retreated from this area. Some may also have been dragged here by hunting animals.
Then the investigators made an exciting discovery in Reindeer Cave; a human skull, missing its jaw bones, was found in a small stone enclosure. A second set of human bones was discovered in a niche in the rear of the cave wall.
These remains both suggest intentional burials. Radio-carbon dating of the bones, along with a later find of two further human remains, suggests that they were buried here between 2515 and 2720 BC. A small object made from reindeer antler was also found, dating to about 850 years ago, and a small pin made from a walrus tusk dating to about 2,000 years ago.
In total, over 1000 pieces of reindeer antler have been found in the Bone Caves, with dates ranging from 47,000 to 8,300 years ago. The large number of reindeer bone suggests that the area at the head of the glen was used as a calving ground.
One rare find was the skull of a Northern lynx, dated to 1,770 years ago. This is the only Northern lynx ever found in Scotland. Other intriguing remains include a possible polar bear, arctic fox, wolf, and brown bear.
Finds from the caves are kept at the Royal Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
There is a small, signed parking area on the east side of the A837 about 2 1/2 miles south of Inchnadamph. The nearest post code is IV27 4HN, but that just gets you to the Inchnadamph Hotel.
Keep travelling south until you come to the second parking area south of Inchnadamph. If you are travelling north, the parking area is on the right-hand side, just over 2 miles past the Ledmore junction.
There is an information board at the parking area, and a trail leads through a gate, along the north side of the small burn of Allt nan Uamh. You pass a small waterfall near the start of the trail. After about 1 mile a series of stepping stones crosses the burn (or you could keep on the north side if you want to get a good view of the caves from across the glen).
If you choose to continue on, you can then loop back across the burn higher up the glen for a nice circular walk.
You can clearly see the cliffs ahead, and the cave openings are visible from far away. The trail rises after you cross the burn, and can be slippery in wet weather. It should take no more than 30 minutes to reach the caves, and an equal time to return.
It's a magical place; the location is superb, in a secluded glen seemingly a million miles from anywhere. It does not take terribly long to explore the caves themselves, which are actually quite shallow despite the considerable size of the cave mouth openings but I would rate the Bone Caves as a 'must see' in Assynt.
The Bone Caves have been named a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and are part of the North West Highlands Geo Park.
About Bone Caves
Address: Inchnadamph, Sutherland, Scotland
Attraction Type: Prehistoric Site
Location: Parking area on the east side of the A837, at grid reference NC253178, nearest post code is IV27 4HN.
Photo Credit: David Ross and Britain Express
Opening Details: Open access site, usually accessible at any reasonable time
NEARBY HISTORIC ATTRACTIONS
Heritage Rated from 1- 5 (low-exceptional) on historic interest
Ardvreck Castle - 4.5 miles (Castle)
Eas a Chual Aluinn Waterfall - 6.7 miles (Countryside)
North West Highlands Geo Park - 9.5 miles (Countryside)
Falls of Kirkaig - 9.7 miles (Countryside)
Clachtoll Broch - 15.8 miles (Prehistoric Site)
Stoer Head Lighthouse - 19.1 miles (Historic Building)
Old Man of Stoer - 19.2 miles (Countryside)
Dun Dornaigil Broch - 20.9 miles (Prehistoric Site)
Nearest Accommodation to Bone Caves:
Nearby accommodation is calculated 'as the crow flies' from Bone Caves. 'Nearest' may involve a long drive up and down glens or, if you are near the coast, may include a ferry ride! Please check the property map to make sure the location is right for you.
Nearest Self Catering Cottages
Nearest Bed and Breakfasts
Nearest Tourist Information Centre ('as the crow flies')
Tourist Information Centre
20 Argyle Street
Highlands and Islands
Tel: 01854 612 486 | <urn:uuid:e12fa4ab-8836-47fc-85fc-f5945addd07c> | {
"date": "2018-08-16T15:48:50",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2018-34",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-34/segments/1534221211126.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20180816152341-20180816172341-00656.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9419410824775696,
"score": 3.59375,
"token_count": 1233,
"url": "https://www.britainexpress.com/attractions.htm?attraction=5098"
} |
Since this science course was first examined in 2006 graph questions have become quite common.
There are different types of graph questions, and we will look at each of these different types in turn.
There is nothing scary here, and you have probably covered them all in maths anyway. It’s just that the science textbooks don’t seem to do a very good job of telling us why we have them in the first place, or why there are different types.
Why do we have graphs?
You won’t get asked this so you don’t have to learn it off by heart – I just thought you deserved to know.
There are many different reasons, but we’ll just look at two here.
To see what the relationship is between two variables, e.g. between the extension of a string and the force which caused it.
Now assuming that a bigger force causes a bigger extension, the question is; are the two quantities directly proportional? i.e. if the size of the force doubles then the extension should be twice as much, if the force triples the extension will be three times as much etc.
Another way of saying this is that the two quantities increase at the same rate (as force is increased the extension increases at the same rate).
Or finally the scientific way of saying this is to say that the two quantities are directly proportional to each other (you must learn the phrase in italics off by heart because it gets asked a lot as you will see below).
To investigate this you would plot the results on a graph, and if the two quantities are directly proportional then you will find that if you draw a line through the points you will end up with a straight line through the origin (the origin is the (0,0) mark).
In some graphs the slope of the line gives us some extra information (and you must know what this is).
There are only three graphs which fall into this category so make sure that you know each of them.
1. The slope of a distance-time graph corresponds to the speed (or velocity) of the moving object
2. The slope of a velocity-time graph corresponds to the acceleration of the moving object
3. The slope of a voltage-current graph corresponds to the resistance of the resistor under investigation.
Note that for each of these graphs you will also get a straight line going through the origin, which verifies that the two quantities are directly proportional to each other.
Which brings us to our next problem – how do we calculate the slope of a line?
To calculate the slope of a line
Pick any two points (from the graph) and label one point (x1y1) and the second point (x2y2).
Make life easy for yourself by picking (0,0) as one of the points (assuming the line goes through the origin).
You must then use the formula:
slope = (y2 – y1)/(x2 – x1)
Note that you can also find this formula on page 18 of the new log tables
Yo – Which axis is the y-axis?
Remember the yo-yo? It goes up and down right? Well so does the y axis (and it begins at zero) so y-zero = yo
Now that’s just freaky. | <urn:uuid:21f225a8-7aa8-4fe1-a230-689a3462fff0> | {
"date": "2019-04-23T13:50:36",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2019-18",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-18/segments/1555578605510.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20190423134850-20190423160850-00336.warc.gz",
"int_score": 5,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9522196650505066,
"score": 4.8125,
"token_count": 691,
"url": "https://thinkforyourself.ie/tag/junior-cert-science/"
} |
January 12, 2004
From: Bill Rudman
To accompany my posting of a Fact Sheet on Smaragdinella calyculata, here are some photos of the reduced shell of this species from the Australian Museum collections. As you will see the shell is very reduced consisting of little more than the flattened body whorl of the shell. The spoon-shaped projection on the inner lip is all the remains of the shell's inner whorls. Compare this with the shell of a related haminoeioid such as Haminoea zelandiae.
Upper Photo: Manana Islet, Oahu Is, Hawaii, 1924. AM C61285 [largest shell 12mm long]
Lower Photo: Honiara, Solomon Ids 1965. AM C159949 [shell 9mm long. see Rudman 1972]
As I discuss in the Fact Sheet the shell is quite variable in shape, as illustrated here [see Rudman, 1972].
• Rudman, W.B. (1972) The herbivorous opisthobranch genera Phanerophthalmus A. Adams and Smaragdinella A. Adams. Proceedings of the malacological Society of London, 40(3): 189-210, 11 figs.
Bill RudmanRudman, W.B., 2004 (Jan 12) Shell of Smaragdinella calyculata. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/11863
Haminoeidae from South Vietnam
From: Alexei Chernyshev, April 11, 2006
Re: Smaragdinella calyculata or S. sieboldii? from Japan.
From: Jun Imamoto, January 26, 2004
Smaragdinella calyculata or S. sieboldii? from Japan.
From: Jun Imamoto, January 12, 2004
Smaragdinella calyculata from Lifou
From: Bill Rudman, January 12, 2004 | <urn:uuid:45f6b48b-621b-4818-b61c-9711134ef3e3> | {
"date": "2019-05-20T01:40:22",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2019-22",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-22/segments/1558232255251.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20190520001706-20190520023706-00016.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.7814956903457642,
"score": 2.71875,
"token_count": 439,
"url": "http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/11863"
} |
Bioengineered scaffold combines two materials to retain flexibility, resilience, in cell culture
Complete joint replacement, while highly successful, is major surgery with rigorous and often painful therapy regimens and lengthy recovery time. Driven by the need to develop more effective therapies requiring less recovery time for common joint conditions such as osteoarthritis, an international team including NIBIB-funded researchers has developed an integrated two-part scaffold for implantation into damaged joints -- with cartilage scaffold made from silk, and bone scaffold made from ceramics. This combination of materials mimics the cartilage and bone of natural joints in both mechanical strength and pore structure. It also allows stem cells to successfully populate the graft and differentiate into cartilage and bone cells. The cells fill the damaged areas to reconstitute the original structure of the joint, after which the scaffold biodegrades, leaving the smooth surface required for a pain-free, functioning interface. The scaffold is a significant step towards improved and lasting treatment of common and often debilitating joint injuries.
“It’s a challenging problem to tackle,” says Rosemarie Hunziker, Ph.D., NIBIB Director for the Program for Tissue Engineering. “One of the big problems in cartilage tissue engineering is that the cartilage does not integrate well with host tissue after implantation, so the graft doesn’t ‘take.’ In this new approach there is a greater chance of success because the materials have architectures and physical properties that more closely resemble the native tissue.”
The natural structure at the joint where two bones meet is a two-part material composed of cartilage and bone, called osteochondral tissue: osteo meaning bone and chondral meaning cartilage. This “biphasic” material combines flexible cartilage and more rigid bone, which enables joints to flex and function properly, while maintaining weight-bearing strength.
Existing clinical treatments generally fall into two categories. Non-surgical treatment involves immobilization and restricted weight-bearing, with gradual progression of weight-bearing and physical therapy. Current surgical treatments include debriding (removing injured cartilage and bone), or grafting of new bone and cartilage. Both surgical techniques are aimed at restoring the natural shape and gliding surface of the cartilage. The existing approaches are typically successful at alleviating pain and restoring some function in the short-term, but rarely achieve full restoration of functional osteochondral tissue in the long-term. In particular, poor healing of bones that were cut in surgery is a common problem.
Identifying materials that meet the challenge
The biphasic scaffold meets the basic requirements of flexibility and resilience. In addition, the bioactive properties of the two parts of the scaffold are critical because the implanted scaffold must be populated by human mesenchymal stem cells that then differentiate into cartilage and bone cells to integrate the graft securely into the joint.
The researchers developed relatively simple and reproducible processes to form the two materials into the desired scaffold with the different pore sizes needed. Finally, a mechanically strong interface between the two materials was engineeried, which was critical for the successful creation of a biphasic graft.
Testing the properties of the scaffold design
In tests that measure how the materials hold up under stretch and compression forces, the biphasic scaffold maintained its structural integrity under forces that were much higher than would be encountered in the body under physiological conditions. Also, the bonding between the two phases remained intact under very high stretch and compression tests.
Tested in cell culture, the researchers found that each phase of the scaffold promoted population by human mesenchymal stem cells and their differentiation into the proper cell type. The smaller pore size of the silk cartilage-like segment caused the mesenchymal cells to differentiate into cartilage cells. The larger pore size of the ceramic bone-like segment caused the mesenchymal cells to differentiate into bone cells. The attraction of the mesenchymal cells to the pores was accomplished without the need to integrate any other bioactive molecules into the structure, which greatly simplifies the design and fabrication of the scaffold. The interface between the two phases also allowed cell migration and interaction between phases. Tests of gene expression in tissue culture revealed that the genes expressed from the cells populating the silk and ceramic phases were indeed those expected from cartilage and bone, respectively.
“We are extremely encouraged,” says David L. Kaplan, Ph.D., Professor and Chair, Department of Biomedical Engineering at Tufts University, “by the outstanding mechanical and bioactive properties present in these materials that also feature relatively simple and reproducible fabrication methods.”
The team continues to optimize the properties of the scaffold design for eventual in vivo testing in a pig model as they move toward the use of this strategy for dramatically improved and lasting reconstruction of osteochondral defects.
The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health through grant P41EB002520 from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering and grant R01DE106525 from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. Additional funding was provided by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, the Rebecca Cooper Award, the Australian Postgraduate Award, and the Vice-Chancellor's Research Scholarship.
1. A biphasic scaffold based on silk and bioactive ceramic with stratified properties for osteochondral tissue regeneration. Li JJ, Kim K, Roohani-Esfahani SI, Guo J, Kaplan DL, Zreiqat H. J Mater Chem B Mater Biol Med. 2015 Jul 14;3(26):5361-5376 | <urn:uuid:c496d463-a817-433b-b2d6-0581bcd0669d> | {
"date": "2017-08-17T15:34:16",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2017-34",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-34/segments/1502886103579.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20170817151157-20170817171157-00696.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.936421275138855,
"score": 2.875,
"token_count": 1184,
"url": "https://www.nibib.nih.gov/news-events/newsroom/silk-and-ceramics-offer-hope-long-term-repair-joint-injuries"
} |
A research team of students at Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI) in Israel developed an innovative technology that than helps prevent the development of foot ulcers associated with diabetic neuropathy — a type of nerve damage caused by the disease. These ulcers result from anatomical deformation, poor blood supply in the lower extremities and excessive pressure, affecting more than 130 million individuals worldwide, and being the leading cause of amputation, costing the United States economy more than $10 billion every year, according to HUJI.
A 2002 study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, published in the journal Diabetes Care, reported that 15 percent of persons with diabetes will develop a foot ulcer at some point in their lives, and diabetic patients admitted to the hospital with lower-extremity ulcers have longer stays on average than those hospitalized who did not have ulcers.
The Canadian Diabetes Association notes that people with diabetes who have diabetic peripheral neuropathy often fail to notice minor cuts, sores, or blisters on their lower extremities, and these small wounds, if left untreated, can easily become infected, lead to gangrene, and may eventually require amputation of the affected area.
The 2002 study also reported that only about 4 percent of the U.S. population has diabetes, that 46 percent of persons admitted to the hospital with a foot ulcer are diabetics, and that half of all lower-extremity amputations in hospitalized patients occurred in diabetic patients, with amputees experiencing diminished quality of life and incurring increased health costs. These patients were also found to be more likely to die within the next five years than those without amputations.
Diabetic patients are urged to have regular checkups to monitor for increased pressure and ulceration that can eventually require amputation; however, ulcers can only be diagnosed after they happen, requiring healing time and dramatically increasing associated healthcare costs.
The BioDesign: Medical Innovation program is a multi-disciplinary, team-based approach to medical innovation created by The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and its affiliated Hadassah Medical Center in partnership with Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. Also sponsored by Boston Scientific and the Terumo Medical Corporation, the program selects outstanding medical fellows and bioengineering and business graduate students, and tutors them in the science and practice of bringing medical innovations to market.
“[Diabetic neuropathy] is a significant medical problem that affects the lives of millions. We thought there must be a way to avoid these wounds altogether,” commented Danny Bavli, the research project’s lead engineer, in a Hebrew University of Jerusalem release.
To address this challenge, Bavli formed a team with Sagi Frishman and Dr. David Morgenstern, a leading orthopedic surgeon at Hadassah Medical Center, and together with other members of the Hebrew University BioDesign group created SenseGO, a machine-washable sock with dozens of micro-fabricated pressure sensors.
SenseGO can detect changes in pressure as the result of incorrect posture, anatomical deformation or ill-fitting shoes,which are then recorded as electrical signals and relayed to a smartphone app, which in turn warns the patient of ulcer risk development.
“This is a classic mobile health approach. By giving patients and their families the tools they need to prevent the development of ulcers, we can dramatically reduce health care costs related to diabetes,” BioDesign program director Prof. Yaakov Nahmias observed in the release.
Other members of the BioDesign SenseGO team included Hebrew University of Jerusalem MBA students Inbal Boxerman and Yael Hadar.
A video about SenseGO can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/drc7NpiiB74
Innovations produced by the Biodesign program participants are commercialized by Yissum, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s technology transfer company and Hadasit, the technology transfer company of the Hadassah Medical Center. | <urn:uuid:05855ab2-3029-4499-858e-9963ebba3b79> | {
"date": "2018-10-22T16:43:36",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2018-43",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-43/segments/1539583515352.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20181022155502-20181022181002-00136.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9403400421142578,
"score": 3.390625,
"token_count": 819,
"url": "https://diabetesnewsjournal.com/2016/02/03/intelligent-socks-paired-smartphone-app-helps-reduce-diabetic-foot-ulcers-amputations/"
} |
The Tombs of the Nobles
Almost of what we see today of Ancient Egypt is exclusively dedicated to the pharaonic royalty. The monumental building projects that the kings of Egypt commissioned throughout the history of the civilization have stood the test of time much better than other ancient artifacts due to their massive size and the fact that they are literally carved out of stone.
The Tombs of the Nobles make for an interesting visit among the rest of the West Bank sites precisely because they break this trend. Located between the Ramesseum and Hatshepsut’s Temple, these clusters of tombs carved into a rocky hillside are all dedicated to administrators, governors, and other figures of minor nobility.
In these tombs you will find more humble depictions of everyday life and the jobs that these functionaries fulfilled. The real-life depictions of nature and everyday concerns are refreshing and provide a bit more insight into what ancient Egypt might actually have been like.
A separate ticket must be purchased at the West Bank ticket office for each tomb that you would like to visit. | <urn:uuid:7797b1a0-eeaf-481a-9e7d-f812c107ad0a> | {
"date": "2014-10-24T18:03:04",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2014-42",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-42/segments/1414119646352.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20141024030046-00302-ip-10-16-133-185.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9460703730583191,
"score": 2.5625,
"token_count": 217,
"url": "http://www.memphistours.com/Egypt/Egypt-Wikis/Luxor-Attractions/wiki/The-Tombs-of-the-Nobles"
} |
Producing environmentally-conscious clothing is a complicated and often vexing challenge for “green” clothing manufacturers. Certainly, conventionally-grown cotton has been clearly identified as one of the world’s “dirtiest” crops, consuming 10% of the world’s pesticides and 25% of the world’s insecticides, according to the Pesticide Action Network North America. Synthetic fabrics are, well, just that – synthetics, made from petro-chemicals, releasing large quantities of nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide, and producing toxic waste water, in their manufacturing processes, and are not biodegradable.
Despite “cleaner” fabric choices, clothing manufacturers face additional unavoidable carbon emissions in the growing, harvesting and refining of raw materials, the clothing manufacturing process, and the ultimate shipping and delivery of their products. Carbonfund.org’s emission neutralization strategies help environmentally-responsible producers to mitigate these operational emissions by supporting renewable energy development and carbon reduction projects around the world.
One of Carbonfund.org’s long-time CarbonFree® Business Partners, ONNO Textiles, produces its socially-responsible t-shirts using sustainable fibers from bamboo, hemp and organic cotton. Their website provides great information about the fabrics used to make their more sustainably produced shirts.
But ONNO Textiles recognized the harmful environmental impact of their overall production and delivery processes. They manufacture their apparel overseas, and move raw materials and finished product all over the globe. To balance the resulting environmental harm, ONNO Textiles has partnered with Carbonfund.org for the past five years to neutralize their operational emissions by supporting our renewable energy technology and carbon reduction initiatives around the world. This long-term commitment to carbon emissions mitigation through investment in clean air projects makes the CarbonFree® partnership between ONNO Textiles and Carbonfund.org a great example of true operational sustainability. | <urn:uuid:2926c86f-e663-4ee4-9da8-ed0fca4c2daf> | {
"date": "2013-12-11T22:10:54",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2013-48",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-48/segments/1386164050279/warc/CC-MAIN-20131204133410-00002-ip-10-33-133-15.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9144036173820496,
"score": 2.6875,
"token_count": 397,
"url": "http://carbonfund.org/cabonfree-certified-products/item/4717-carbonfundorg-helps-onno-textiles-weave-its-way-to-sustainable-tees"
} |
When people think of financial planning, they often put it on the back burner. This is especially so for younger people who often think that they have all the time in the world. The trouble with that idea is that putting things off can go on indefinitely. If you want to assure your financial security well into your twilight years, it is best to start proper financial planning.
Have a Proper Budget
Financial planning starts with the simplest of things. Having a monthly budget is the beginning of how you can plan your finances. There are several reasons why creating a budget is an effective way of managing your money.
For one, it assigns a purpose to the money you make. You know where it is going and what it should do. This allows you to properly control your money. For example, you might think that it is better to spend the money on something else rather than its current use.
Plus, it stops impulse spending. A proper budget accounts for all of your money, assigning the divisions properly. There is no “free” money floating around for you to spend.
When you are making your budget, one part that it should focus on is the elimination of debt. Most people have debt or loans floating above their heads. This is a big chain in your financial future. If you do not fully pay off a debt, the interest on it will keep on growing. One of the primary goals of your budget is to focus on paying all of your debts off.
Besides getting out of debt, your budget should also accommodate your need to stay out of debt. This means having an appropriate budget for all your expenses and encouraging the habit of only spending within your means. One major move you can do to eliminate debt completely is to stop using your credit cards.
Start an Emergency Fund
When you have no more debt, it is time to start saving. But there should be two levels of savings. One of your savings should be for long-term storage and for a definite purpose. But life is not secure, so you will need separate funds for emergencies. Whether it is payment for medical treatment or repairs to your home, allocating part of your budget to an emergency fund is a great idea.
Think of Investments
Your savings need to be able to beat inflation if you are planning for the long-term. This is where investments come in. If you have the money for it, safe long-term investments like real estate and bonds are a wise choice for someone wanting to build wealth.
Prepare for Retirement
There will come a day when your earning potential becomes zero. This is why you need to prepare for that day. Work with retirement planning advisers so that you can have an idea of what to do. Not all retirement plans are the same. For example, a retirement plan for a Lockheed Martin employee would be completely different for one in a different industry. This is why having expert advice is important.
We don’t know what the future holds. What we can do is to prepare for many eventualities. This is why the planning advice above can be important. With the proper planning, you should be able to handle whatever life throws at you. | <urn:uuid:8cc6474a-9c76-44be-8d16-a5d660b64c3d> | {
"date": "2019-10-17T20:07:43",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2019-43",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-43/segments/1570986676227.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20191017200101-20191017223601-00216.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9617196917533875,
"score": 2.6875,
"token_count": 643,
"url": "https://www.tullamorelife.net/long-term-financial-planning-what-you-need-to-do/"
} |
Efforts to maintain racial balance at West Charlotte
Abramson recalls that students at West Charlotte were aware of the strategies—or rumors thereof—that school administrators and others used to maintain racial balance at West Charlotte, including ensuring that the homecoming queen's race alternated between white and black from year to year.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Carrie Abramson, February 21, 1999. Interview K-0275. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
PG: ( ). Well, your father, when I was talking to him, described some measures that were taken at the school, particularly, I think, student elections, to ensure that there was some kind of balance of black and white representation.
PG: I gather, perhaps, in a variety of aspects of the school. How aware were you of those kinds of things?
CA: Absolutely aware. People definitely knew. It was just accepted. And I don’t think, I don’t recall there being animosity about it. Like, I don’t recall people feeling angry or, “That’s not fair.” I think it was more that it is fair, because we are fifty-fifty in terms of the population, more or less. And it is fair for everybody to be represented. I don’t think it was perceived as negative. I mean—I think—the one I remember the best, I think it was homecoming queen alternated every year, I think. And I don’t know that that was actually a rule, but I think everybody thought it was a rule. So, I don’t actually know if that was true, but, and then we had Carousel Princess, or Carousel Queen, or something. And those alternated too, I think. One year the Carousel Queen was white, then the homecoming queen would be black, or visa-versa. And I have no idea if that was ever actually true, because I never tested it. But I think that there was always a perception that that was somehow controlled.
PG: Were there other aspects of school life that you remember that being—?
CA: I remember noticing that. Only in poli—only in like the representa—the councils. The student councils, and things like. Student activities. But those would be the only ones. And, I guess, the elected positions. I don’t know if in other clubs that was true. I never had any perception that it was. A lot of the more social clubs were less integrated. And I don’t actually know if there was, I mean they were somewhat integrated. Like I was in Ambassadors, and there were African-American women in Ambassadors. But I don’t know if there was pressure on the club to do that. I don’t know that there were—I was never involved in really thinking about that. I was involved in a lot of the clubs, but I don’t remember there being pressure in a specific way. | <urn:uuid:b19a1e5a-7c8d-44e2-bd5b-68ec377d9c05> | {
"date": "2016-10-01T03:19:32",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2016-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-40/segments/1474738662507.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20160924173742-00282-ip-10-143-35-109.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9840707778930664,
"score": 2.65625,
"token_count": 667,
"url": "http://www.docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/K-0275/excerpts/excerpt_662.html"
} |
List of Figures
List of Tables
What is this Book About?
Are We Intrinsically Self-Centered and Greedy?
Organization of the Book
PART I: WHAT IS SPIRITUALITY?
1. Contemporary Views on Spirituality
Spirituality and Religion
Spiritual but Not Religious
Spirituality: Scientific Perspectives
2. Spirituality Re-examined
Searching Common Grounds in Different Views
Transforming Mind, Changing Values
3. Spirituality: Development Perspectives
Spirituality in Conventional Development
Spirituality as Establishing Right Relationships
Spirituality as Transformation of the Human Mind
PART II: GLOBAL ECONOMIC SYSTEM FROM SPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVE
4. Identifying Global Socio-Spiritual Classes
Worldly Happiness and Spiritual Happiness
Basic Needs and Neurotic Needs
Needs and Happiness
Human Values, Human Virtues and Human Vices
Happiness, Needs, Values and Power
Towards a Socio-Spiritual Classification of People
5. Global Economic System as a Product of Greedy Mind
Characteristics of Global Socio-Spiritual Classes
The Giant Fruit Tree in an Isolated Island: An Analogy
Self-Centeredness, Greed and Class Relations
6. Global Economic System and Conventional Development
Origin and characteristics of conventional development
Self-centeredness and greed in conventional development: theory and practice
Spirituality and Conventional Development: Contradictions
PART III: DEVELOPMENT WITHOUT SPIRITUALITY
7. Poverty and Inequality
Two forms of development
Poverty and Inequality in Intentional Development
Poverty and Inequality in Immanent Development
8. Environmental Unsustainability
Self-Centeredness and Unsustainability
Self-Centredness, Private Consumption and Unsustainability
Spirituality as a Guide to Sustainable Consumption
Self-Centeredness, Happiness, and Unhappiness
Development and Unhappiness
If Not Material Wealth, What Makes Us Happy?
Two Kinds of Happiness
PART IV: TOWARDS A SPIRITUALITY-BASED DEVELOPMENT
10. Spiritual Growth and Economic Growth: Conflict or Synergy?
Are Spiritual Growth and Economic Growth Mutually Beneficial?
Spiritual Growth and Optimum Economic Growth
11. Spiritualizing the Global Economic System
Towards a Form of Development Motivated by Love
Is it Already Underway?
Happiness Orientation in Spirituality-Based Development
12. Towards a World of Abundance, Equity, Sustainability and Happiness
First the Problem of Affluence, then the Problem of Poverty
Immusizing the Non-Affluent Against Affluenza
Promoting Selfless Service as Development
Integrating Spirituality into Formal Education
Scientific Research on Spirituality
Spiritually Oriented Personal Services
Integrating Spirituality into Development Studies
Is Spirituality-Based Development Possible?
Epilogue: Changing Ourselves to Change the World | <urn:uuid:0659f975-710f-40e1-b8d3-5018cf3a19e9> | {
"date": "2017-08-17T21:12:37",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2017-34",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-34/segments/1502886104160.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20170817210535-20170817230535-00536.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.7532576322555542,
"score": 2.765625,
"token_count": 633,
"url": "http://rohanaulluwishewa.com/books/spirituality-and-sustainable-development/34-contents.html"
} |
delayedgratificationmusic.com -Dorset Sheep Dorset. Dorsets Horned and Polled. The exact history of the Dorset sheep is found wanting for some positive record of origin. History does tell us that centuries ago, Spain wished to conquer England, and possibly during this time, the Merino sheep were brought into Southwest England and were crossed with the Horned Sheep of Wales, which produced a desirable all-purpose sheep which met the
Dorset Sheep rn. The Dorset Horn is an endangered British breed of domestic sheep.It is documented from the seventeenth century, and is highly prolific, sometimes producing two lambing seasons per year.Among British sheep, it is the only breed capable of breeding throughout the winter.
The dorset horn sheep breeders' association. The Dorset Horn Sheep Breeders' Association was established in 1891 for "the encouragement of the breeding of Dorset Horn Sheep at home and abroad and the maintenance of the purity of the breed".
Dorset horn and poll dorset sheep. Dorset Horn and Poll Sheep: the only sheep breed that can breed all year round - ideal for controlling your lambing times. | <urn:uuid:54cdeb6e-21da-4e86-a9ad-095f17901bb4> | {
"date": "2019-12-16T03:10:31",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2019-51",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-51/segments/1575541315293.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20191216013805-20191216041805-00296.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9482795000076294,
"score": 2.71875,
"token_count": 239,
"url": "http://delayedgratificationmusic.com/wall/dorset-sheep"
} |
Hot metal detectors (also called infrared switches) detect the infrared radiation as well as pyrometers, but they do not provide a temperature but a switching signal when the temperature is exceeded or undershoot. They measure in the short-wave spectral range and are thus mainly used for measuring of metals.
- 2 models with different spetral ranges for temperature ranges from 250 or 550°C.
- 2 transistor switching contacts with adjustable switching temperatures as well as switching hystereses.
- Fast measured value capturing with a response time of only 4 ms.
- 3 optics for different focus distances selectable.
- Laser target marker for precise alignment to the measuring object.
- 3 status LEDs to indicate readiness for operation and active switching outputs.
- Simple switching point parameterization via interface and supplied software. | <urn:uuid:b9fdc96e-a6e0-4cdd-9924-bb916e6a03f0> | {
"date": "2019-06-26T16:06:21",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2019-26",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-26/segments/1560628000367.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20190626154459-20190626180459-00216.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.8857327699661255,
"score": 2.84375,
"token_count": 166,
"url": "https://www.sensortherm.de/en/hot-metal-detector-series-polaris"
} |
Horseshoes protect a horse's hooves from wear on hard or rough surfaces. They are also designed to improve a horse's gait, to help its conformation (how the horse stands), and to control interference problems (when hooves or legs collide with each other). For instance, for a condition called winging in—where hoof flight is to the inside of the stride—can be corrected by a square-toe shoe.
A horseshoe is a U-shaped metal plate, usually made of steel though aluminum is also used. Aluminum shoes are more expensive than steel. There are also plastic-coated metal shoes, and even all-plastic horseshoes. Two-piece shoes are made of steel with a removable plastic insert. The all-purpose steel shoe used for pleasure riding is known as a keg shoe, since they used to come in a wooden keg. The shoes can be attached with nails since the hoof is very dense and contains no nerves. The cost to shoe a horse ranges from $80-$280, depending on the type of shoe and material.
There are about 15 other types of horseshoes, depending on the breed of the horse and its function. Some breeds use different shoes on the front hooves than on the back. Some shoes come with a traction device so the horse can grip the ground better. Thoroughbred racehorses use what is known as a racing plate made from aluminum on the front. For the hind feet, an aluminum shoe known as a caulk or cauk is used that is embedded with steel to help improve abrasion and wear resistance. Some aluminum shoes are more squared off to resemble a hoof from a healthy wild horse.
Standardbred racehorses use a lightweight steel shoe in front that is designed with a half round section or a grooved section called a swage. Sometimes a combination of these two is used. Steel is used in the back. Different shoes are used whether the horse is a trotter or pacer. Horses used for hunting or jumping use a shoe similar to the keg but a bit wider. Sometimes a traction device called a stud (like cleats) is used that is screwed into the shoe before the show. Draft horses use a thicker shoe since they are much heavier and larger than most other breeds. Saddlebreds, which have special gaits, use a toe weight shoe, which is 1 in (2.54 cm) wide in the front and 0.5 in (1.3 cm) wide elsewhere.
The horse was a major means of transportation in the United States until the automobile was invented. The horse population declined from 1910-1960, as they were replaced with cars. However, in the early 1960s, the population increased as horse racing and riding became popular as a means of recreation. Over the last decade or so, the horse population has remained relatively stable. The decline in horse racing due to the replacement of other forms of gambling has been offset by the increased popularity of pleasure riding and horse shows.
The process of forging and attaching horse-shoes became an important craft in medieval times, and played a major role in the development of metallurgy. Blacksmiths (iron was called black metal) made most of the iron objects used in everyday life though farriery, (farrier, which comes from the Latin word for iron, ferrum) or horseshoeing, was the most frequent occupation. A farrier's equipment consists of a furnace or forge, an anvil (a heavy block of steel or iron), tongs, and hammers. First, the sole and rim of the horse's hoof is cleaned and shaped with rasps and knives. The horseshoe is heated in a forge until it is soft enough to shape with the hammer to fit the hoof, cooled by quenching it in water, and attached to the hoof with nails.
As machines took over the blacksmith's job, and horses disappeared from use in agriculture and transport, the need for farriery declined. Improvements in horseshoe design also have reduced the amount of forging work required by farriers.
A low carbon mild steel designated A-36 is used for the most popular type of horseshoe. The steel comes in the form of round bars ranging from 0.5-0.7 in (1.27-1.8 cm) in diameter, depending on the type of shoe to be made. These bars are then cut to various lengths, again depending on the shoe type.
Horseshoes are designed according to the breed of the horse, and will vary in size, shape and thickness. Since most are mass-produced, these designs are standard and are made using a two-part die that matches the dimensions and shape desired. A new die is only required if it wears out. In a few instances, custom-designed shoes are still made by hand at several companies. Some farriers also custom make horseshoes for lame or ill horses, which are typically shaped like a heart instead of a U.
The Manufacturing Process
Forging, one of the oldest metal forming methods, is the primary process used for horseshoes. This process shapes metals by deforming them with a hammer, a press, or rollers. Smith forging consists of making a part by banging on the heated metal with a hammer. This is the familiar forging process performed by blacksmiths (farriers) on horseshoes. Hammer forging is simply a larger and more machine-produced version of the same thing.
Cutting & bending
- 1 The bar is cut to length according to the type of shoe using shear blades. The cutting equipment is operated either mechanically or manually by a foot pedal. After cutting, the bar is heated in an induction furnace or gas-fired forge to a temperature of around 2,300°F (1,260°C). The softened metal is then wrapped around a block of steel in the shape of the shoe using custom designed equipment. Another type of bending equipment uses a plunger in the shape of the shoe, which forces the bar into the desired shape.
- 2 Drop forging, the most common of the forging processes, is used for most horseshoes. After the bar is bent, it is then forced into a die with the required dimensions by a powered hammer. One half of the die is attached to the hammer and the other half to the anvil. A cam mechanism determines the length of the stroke of the ram or how close the dies come together.
- 3 Once the shoe is bent, it is transferred to a punch press for making the nail holes. Usually eight holes are made per shoe. The punch tooling is custom designed for each type of shoe. Then a trim press is used to remove excess material, or flash. At this point, the shoe is still hot, around 1,900-2,000°F (1038-1093°C). After trimming, it is air cooled for 45-60 minutes.
- 4 After cooling, horseshoes are packaged by hand in 25 or 50 pound boxes. A 50-lb (23-kg) box typically holds 80 shoes. Some manufacturers package 15 or 30 pairs per box.
The raw material must meet the chemical specifications as designated, which is verified by testing by the raw material supplier before shipping. To prevent rust, the round bars are stored under tarps. During forging, the operators constantly check the die visually for wear and other defects. Dimensional tolerances of the shoe (width and thickness) must be within 1/16 inch. The nail holes must be checked for correct position. The hole is monitored for any cracks, which
The flash, or excess material, that is trimmed from the shoe is collected and sent back to a scrap yard for remelting and rerolling. Defective horseshoes are also reprocessed and reused.
The steel shoe is expected to remain the most popular shoe over the long term. The basic manufacturing process therefore will not change much, though forging presses are becoming more automated, with programmable control of how much force is used and when. Horseshoe designs will continue to be modified to meet specific markets.
The horse population is expected to remain relatively stable over the next few years, though certain parts of the United States will see declines. For instance, in states like New Jersey the price of real estate is becoming so high that one can no longer afford to buy enough land to keep horses. In Michigan, the horse population has declined by almost 20% from 1984 to 1997, as farm land is developed and casinos replace race tracks as the gambler's preference.
Where to Learn More
Cain, Charlie. "Urban Sprawl and Demise of Racetracks Cuts Horse Population." Detroit News (September 30, 1997).
"A Cobbler's Touch: Custom Horseshoes Help Lame, III Horses." The Dallas Morning News (February 11, 1999).
Van Wyk, Anika. "Making the Shoe Fit/Modern Touches to an Old Trade." The Calgary Sun (2000).
Equestrian Records and Curiosity. http://www.mrhorse.com/Recordsen.htm (21 February 2000).
International Equine Resource Center. http://www.horseshoes.com (January 2001).
— Laurel M. Sheppard | <urn:uuid:a8aa5f79-3870-493d-b368-6f46c13d72cc> | {
"date": "2014-11-26T17:10:42",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2014-49",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-49/segments/1416931007301.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20141125155647-00220-ip-10-235-23-156.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9553064703941345,
"score": 2.734375,
"token_count": 1930,
"url": "http://www.madehow.com/Volume-6/Horseshoe.html"
} |
Awareness of indigenous rights has grown in recent years, and the Mexican government acknowledges that efforts to improve the living situation of indigenous people must be intensified. But severe poverty and social exclusion continue to affect thousands of families in Chiapas.
In Chiapas, the fight for more social justice is by no means over
Friends at the SOS Social Centre (Photo: SOS archives)
Comitán is located in southern Mexico in the state of Chiapas and has a population of over 140,000. The state of Chiapas, whose population consists to a large part of rural indigenous minorities, has historically been one of the poorest in Mexico, with much of the land in the hands of a few large estate owners. The economy here is based on tourism, agriculture and increasingly also mining activities. However, these have failed to bring improvements to the standard of living of the majority of the population.
The high rates of poverty and social exclusion in Chiapas led to an armed popular uprising by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation which began in 1994. Their – now generally non-violent – struggle aims to improve living conditions for the indigenous population of the country, especially as regards land rights and control of resources. They demand that natural resources should benefit the people of Chiapas more directly.
Children born to indigenous mothers are the most vulnerable members of society
The inequality of wealth distribution in Mexico is stunning: while in the northern state of Baja California, for example, food poverty is around 1.3 per cent, in Chiapas it is a high as 47 per cent. The rate of malnutrition is accordingly high in Chiapas. Poverty in terms of earnings capacity, i.e. the skills people have that allow them to make a living, is also highest in Chiapas, at 55.9 per cent. One of the reasons for this economic and social situation is the fact that public investment in rural, predominantly indigenous areas is still far below the national average.
Illiteracy amongst the indigenous population, at 25.5 per cent, is also higher than the national average of 9.2 per cent. Many indigenous communities are located in relative isolation, without so much as paved roads that might allow them access to educational facilities.
Indigenous women and girls are particularly vulnerable: historically, they have faced great social and economic marginalisation, and much awareness-raising of their rights remains to be done. Today, many indigenous women are still monolingual, speaking only an indigenous language. This makes access to education even more difficult, as schooling takes place in Spanish. Many have their first child at a very young age and go on to have large families and, more often than not, they do not have access to health care. The risk of dying during childbirth or due to related complications is therefore very high.
What we do in Comitán
Siblings who are now safe at the social centre while their mother is at work (photo: A. Dominguez)
SOS Children’s Villages began its work in Comitán in 1994 when an SOS Emergency Relief Programme was organized here because of the violent struggle between indigenous insurgents and the Mexican army, which was at its height at the time.
Some years later, we started providing more permanent support. Today, our social centres here offer a family strengthening programme, which aims to alleviate hardship in the community in a holistic and sustainable manner.
We provide childminding and day-care programmes, which enable working parents or single mothers to leave their children in safe hands while they are out making a living. Over 600 children benefit from this service every day.
In addition, the social centres host information events and workshops for adults and young people from the community and the children’s village. Counselling and psychological support are also available, especially for children who have had traumatic experiences.
For children from the region who are no longer able to live with their parents, 16 SOS families can provide a loving home for up to 144 children. In each family, they live with their brothers and sisters and are affectionately cared for by their SOS mother. The children attend local nurseries and schools and are therefore very much integrated into the community. | <urn:uuid:b36ea4ca-6686-48d8-b791-f13a075187ad> | {
"date": "2017-08-22T13:00:26",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2017-34",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-34/segments/1502886110774.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20170822123737-20170822143737-00056.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9698524475097656,
"score": 3.640625,
"token_count": 858,
"url": "http://www.sos-childrensvillages.org/where-we-help/americas/mexico/comitan"
} |
Vote with confidence. Get informed with our in depth election coverage.
How could young voters affect this election?
Political seeds planted by local activism
The election’s on: Now Canadians should watch out for dumbfakes and ...
The Rise of the Independents in Cape Breton
Diversity in political representation
When Dr. Roberta Bondar looked out the shuttle window, Earth didn’t quite look like a big blue marble, but it certainly looked vulnerable.
“Looking at the Earth from space for me was cementing the reality that we’re on a planet,” she said. “There’s nobody out there that’s going to help us but ourselves.”
Bondar’s talk at the University of Saskatchewan on Tuesday evening was part of the Whelen Lecture and Women in Science Speaker Series. As a payload specialist on the Space Shuttle Discovery, she orbited the Earth 129 times over about eight days in January 1992. She was Canada’s first female astronaut and the first neurologist in space.
While her research in Spacelab focused primarily on the effects of space travel on the human body, being in space greatly changed her mind as well, giving her a new understanding of the future of the planet, she said.
Beyond her work as a medical scientist, she formed the Roberta Bondar Foundation with the intention of educating people about the health of the environment.
“I think the physician thing is what ties it all together. It’s about the health of the planet. So if you take care of Earth, you take care of us,” she said.
The foundation’s Avian Migration Aerial Surface Space (AMASS) project, also known as Protecting Space for Birds, is the culmination of a decades-long interest in the natural word and her work as an astronaut.
Partnering with NASA, the project documents the migratory paths of birds declared threatened or endangered. Bondar shoots photos of the birds on Earth, while up in the International Space Station, photos of their paths are taken based on coordinates her foundation provides.
“Astronauts fly like birds do. We go across international boundaries because we don’t see them from space and as birds they don’t either,” she said. “And yet they are really very vulnerable to policies and directives made by these different countries over which migratory birds fly.”
Astronauts and birds can cross Earth’s boundaries, but it’s the smaller-scale sociopolitical ones that are difficult to escape.
Referring to recent news of the cancellation of NASA’s all-female spacewalk, Bondar said she’s also experience that kind of scenario, where women are “out-engineered” from a program.
“Certainly the Space Shuttle, when it was built it didn’t have women in mind. When the Challenger accident happened and they retrofitted a whole bunch of survival equipment and ejection stuff, a lot of it is very difficult for women to do,” she said. “But it doesn’t mean we can’t do it. It’s just that, come on, let’s just engineer it so that we’re not trying to exclude people.”
Bondar compared seeing Earth for the first time to meeting a celebrity — someone who existed out of perception suddenly becoming a fully-formed, living being.
“You know it’s a planet, but man, you should get off and see what a planet looks like. It’s the Earth, it’s the largest thing we’ve ever seen. It’s a life form.”
By Amanda Short
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2019 | <urn:uuid:3770f1e5-f81c-4c5b-9aa2-999273b80161> | {
"date": "2019-10-21T04:41:27",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2019-43",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-43/segments/1570987756350.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20191021043233-20191021070733-00296.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9439670443534851,
"score": 3.1875,
"token_count": 804,
"url": "https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/news/canada/canadas-first-female-astronaut-gives-talk-about-work-and-experiences-295361/"
} |
From a Creighton Student's Perspective
April 11, 2012
Junior, Theology and Classical & Near Eastern Civilizations Majors
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus appears to two disciples walking along on the road to Emmaus. Upon joining them, he prevents them from recognizing him, but engages them in discussion, a discussion that quickly turns into a teaching opportunity for Christ Jesus, “explaining to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself.” It is only when he breaks bread in their home that they recognize him, and then “he disappeared from their sight.”
Jesus certainly appears to us in mysterious ways, and he does so both outside and inside of ourselves. When he appears outside of ourselves, one of the places we find him is in other people. Jesus appears subtly, sometimes in the form of a smile or a kind word or action, but other times he appears more clearly, maybe in a deep conversation with our closest friends, a hug from the ones we love most, or getting to know a complete stranger at a deeper level by a miraculous chance. Sometimes we find him in other people just in the simple majesty of a crowd – hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people with the imprint of God upon them, going about their own days. Millions of individuals, and a prayer that the light of Jesus is an inferno in each of their hearts. And other times, we see him outside of us in all creation, in the silence of a forest or the majestic beauty of the sky, when dawn breaks and the sky is bathed in the hues of love. When Jesus appears inside of us, there is an immediate comfort, a sensation of love, a feeling of exuberant joy, from which we can finally become one of those through whom others recognize Jesus.
But then, there are the moments when we feel like we can’t recognize Jesus, when he “disappears from our sight.” Just because we cannot see him does not mean that he isn’t there, just like on the road to Emmaus. In fact, it just means that our eyes are closed, for some mysterious reason. And sometimes, that in itself can be Jesus’ teaching point to us. When we can’t see, that is when we turn to hearing. When we can’t hear, we turn to feeling. When none of our senses work, we turn to loving. And he is always there, waiting for the right moment to open our eyes and reveal himself to us. He always helps us, coaxing and encouraging, until finally we wake up and see him, and know that everything is okay. For there are many ways to recognize the ones we love most; let our selves be opened, and recognize Jesus!
Collaborative Ministry Office Guestbook | <urn:uuid:0a7c82cf-c719-4088-a73c-ef8d31e6e21d> | {
"date": "2016-09-26T10:34:45",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2016-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-40/segments/1474738660746.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20160924173740-00214-ip-10-143-35-109.ec2.internal.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9665347933769226,
"score": 2.515625,
"token_count": 583,
"url": "http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/Students/2011-2012%20Reflections/s041112.html"
} |
“A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye.”1
Words spoken by Horartio to describe Hamlet’s father’s ghost. In this Shakespearian play the ghost is seen but not believed and one is left to wonder if it is just the seeing of it that makes it real – its existence totally dependent on the desire of the viewer to see it. The ‘mote’ or speck of dust in the eye of the mind of the beholder both creates the illusion and convinces us that what we see is real. Something just out of the corner of our minds eye, those little flecks magnified by our desire to see more clearly. Yet the harder we look the more blurred our vision becomes. | <urn:uuid:5326f24c-0987-44ff-817b-294a8a269f29> | {
"date": "2018-07-23T15:12:11",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2018-30",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-30/segments/1531676596542.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20180723145409-20180723165409-00336.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9386639595031738,
"score": 3.1875,
"token_count": 159,
"url": "http://www.mike-phillips.net/blog/tag/mote/"
} |
Known for its bountiful nature, Shimabara peninsula is a popular destination for domestic travel, yet still not well known among international visitors. To introduce this stunning region to travelers, we travel out of the modern city of Nagasaki and through forested regions, passing the famous Mount Unzen, an active volcano which serves as the geothermal power source for the many hot springs in the surrounding area.
Once a thriving region in feudal Japan, Shimabara is now a small castle town that served as the setting for the Shimabara rebellion. Owing to the many well-preserved buildings here, visiting makes you feel as if you were transported back in time. Additionally, the mountain aquifer that lies beneath the nearby Mount Unzen provides the town with an abundant source of fresh water.
The water here is so clean that even the drainage canals are home to many koi fish (Japanese carp). The fact that these large fish can only survive in pristine fresh water environments is a true testament to the purity of the area’s water. Visitors can admire the flashes of color as these graceful fish swim up and down the narrow canals. Shimabara is also home to a local specialty confectionery dish made of rice dumplings soaked in sweet syrup – known as kanzarashi. The locals attribute the dish’s refreshing taste to the high quality of the spring water of the region that is used in making the dumplings. | <urn:uuid:ee880c08-a6bd-4dc5-9475-e0cd7f9a5765> | {
"date": "2018-11-18T02:56:11",
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2018-47",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-47/segments/1542039743960.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20181118011216-20181118033216-00136.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9544703960418701,
"score": 2.671875,
"token_count": 296,
"url": "http://news.destination-asia.com/shimabara-peninsulas-city-of-koi-carp/"
} |
Subsets and Splits
No saved queries yet
Save your SQL queries to embed, download, and access them later. Queries will appear here once saved.