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The United States Mint released the Hawaii quarter on November 10, 2008. Hawaii is the fiftieth state to be honored as a part of the 50 State Quarters® Program.
The design on Hawaii's quarter features King Kamehameha I stretching his hand toward the eight major Hawaiian Islands. The state motto is also inscribed: "UA MAU KE EA O KA '‾AINA I KA PONO," which means "The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness."
Teachers, below you will find several activities and links that will bring the features of this coin and the excitement of the Hawaii "State Quarter Day" into your classroom!
Learn more about the latest quarter.
50 State Quarters Program
Find out more about this program that honors every state in America!
50 State Quarters Program Lesson Plans
The 50 State Quarters Program lesson plans are ready for you to use in your classroom! Take a look at the lessons created specifically to celebrate the Hawaii quarter: How Will We Get There (K–1), Aloha from the King (2–3), and An Island Introduction (4–6)! After that, be sure to check out the rest of the state-specific plans, FREE to download in sets designed specifically for grades K and 1, 2 and 3, and 4 through 6.
Are you a secondary school teacher interested in introducing the 50 State Quarters Program into your curriculum? Well, now you can! Our 50 State Quarters Program lesson plans for grades 7 through 12 are also written by educators. To download these FREE plans, visit the 50 State Quarters Program Lesson Plans today!
State Quarter Day Classroom Activities
Here are some fun ways to infuse your curriculum with activities that celebrate the arrival of the newest quarter in circulation!
Also, take a trip to Coin Collector's Workshop! Here, you can enroll in Inspector Collector's Coin Course, or solve coin mysteries in Get a Clue About Collecting. You can even learn How To Share Your Hobby!
"Seeing the States" WebQuest
What's so great about the United States? Let your students find out for themselves as they explore the coins in the 50 State Quarters Program to complete this fun Internet research project, the "Seeing the States" WebQuest.
Connected Coins and Medals
Hawaii's quarter shows its eight main islands, but there are actually more than 100 islands in the chain. Although you have to travel some 1500 miles to get from one end of Hawaii to the other, it's one of the smallest states in actual land area. Only Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island are smaller. Learn more about each of these mainland states below.
2001 Rhode Island Quarter: Rhode Island may be the smallest state in the union, but it has more than 400 miles of coastline. The Rhode Island quarter honors the "Ocean State" and its most popular sport with a sailboat gliding through Narragansett Bay, past the Pell Bridge, which links the towns of Newport and Jamestown.
1999 Connecticut Quarter: The Connecticut quarter shows the famous Charter Oak tree that hid the charter won from Britain's King Charles II in 1662. This charter established Connecticut's boundaries and self-rule. In 1687, Captain Joseph Wadsworth saved the charter from the hands of the British, hiding it safely in this tree.
1999 Delaware Quarter: The Delaware quarter shows Patriot Caesar Rodney on his 1776 historic ride. Rodney made the 80-mile ride through terrible heat and thunderstorms to cast his vote in favor of Delaware signing the Declaration of Independence. Rodney's vote turned out to be the tie-breaker.
Our Foreign Friends
|The coins produced for the 50 State Quarters Program share much in common with the European currency, the euro. With your students, visit the interactive cartoon, Coins of the World, to see how these two programs are similar (here's a hint: look at the backs of euros from different countries, and then look at their fronts).|
A Coinage Cartoon
Teachers, if we've piqued your interest with the activities above, please sign up for the Teachers' Network. As a member, you can receive information about all of the new educational resources that become available from the United States Mint! | <urn:uuid:1766292e-a313-4221-8b76-aae5145c96e4> | {
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Infectious outbreaks caused by health care providers are increasing in the mountain state.
Last year, there were 111 outbreaks, affecting more than 29 hundred people.
The outbreaks can be attributed to problems with catheters, ventilators, and central lines.
In the valley, the health department is working with providers to make sure patients don't get sick on their account.
"Across the nation as a whole it is a problem. As far as our region in particular, health care associated infections have not been a huge issue. This past year we did see some health care associated influenza outbreaks. As far as the more serious infections, none have been reported to our health department this year," says Jessica Woods, Epidemiologist with the Mid-Ohio Valley Health Department.
To prevent health care related infections, Woods says, it's all about educating both patients and health care providers.
"We provide education and we try to educate infection control personnel at the hospitals. We also reach out to health care providers by giving them information we receive from the state. As we also generate yearly reports so people can know the trends of what's going on."
Patients are encouraged to ask their providers to wash their hands. They can also ask if needles and other equipment are new or sterilized.
Viewers with disabilities can get assistance accessing this station's FCC Public Inspection File by contacting the station with the information listed below. Questions or concerns relating to the accessibility of the FCC's online public file system should be directed to the FCC at 888-225-5322, 888-835-5322 (TTY), or [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:3a065dd3-98cb-458b-bb89-41a86e75c7ad> | {
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As the holidays approach those U.S. families that can afford to are studying how they will spend a large chunk of their annual charitable donations. It seems that most giving happens during the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas each year. We want to help those in need when we have so much to be thankful for.
This year, take it a step further, and involve your kids. By establishing an annual holiday tradition, you can teach your children that wonderful feeling of giving to others. Children learn best by doing, and by empowering them to research, choose and donate money to a charity, they will understand what you already know: Giving feels great.
You are likely among the 90 percent of American households that donate to charities every year. But, have you ever asked your children how they want the money spent? And do they understand who in your community needs help? Now is your chance to teach them what you value most. Here’s what you do:
1) Agree. First, you’ll want to decide on an amount with your partner or spouse. Do the children have to choose a single charity? Do you want them to present the money themselves? Do you only want the money to help people, or can they “adopt” an animal with such groups as the World Wildlife Fund? Make sure you are in agreement about the parameters. As in all things to do with child rearing, you’ll want to have a united front and clear instructions.
2) New tradition. Build this new habit into your existing holiday traditions. You could present the money to the children at your Thanksgiving dinner, for example. Or it can be as simple as the first fire of the season, to add a little anticipation to the mix.
3) When? Try to start when they’re young, but older children can also enjoy these lessons. You’ll want to keep it age-appropriate. A 5 year old won’t be able to independently research his charity of choice, but a 12 year old might want minimal guidance.
4) How much? Present each child with an envelope with a meaningful amount of money inside. You don’t want the amount of money to overwhelm them, but you do want them to feel they are participating in changing the world for the better. A good rule of thumb is their monthly allowance times three.
5) Good choices. Take this opportunity to talk out what you consider important and the needs of the community. Tell them how you choose to spend your donation dollars and why. Then, ask them if they agree. Work hard not to judge. If they would prefer to give the local spouse-abuse center iTune gift cards for the kids instead of shampoo or toilet paper (the less “sexy,” but more needed items), think hard before you say no. Remember, you want this to be a joyful — not stressful — experience. You’ll find your 6-year-old will probably want to rescue the cute arctic fox (complete with a stuffed animal for the donor), while the 13-year-old may be inspired to donate to the local children’s shelter. Their choices may be a little self-absorbed the first go-around. Let them be. We all donate to the causes that mean something to us.
6) Research. Giving the children a timeline for conducting their research, and check in with them periodically to see if they have any questions, what they’ve discovered and whether their opinions have changed. You are telling them their opinion matters. Show them how to ensure that the charity spends the money effectively and is classified as a 501c3. This will teach them how to be conscientious consumers. Also, they might want to participate in their school’s “Coats for Kids” campaign or donate to the school’s library, so encourage them to check in with their school’s administration. Also, some principals have a “principal’s fund” for children who need school supplies or even a new pair of shoes.
By teaching these lessons to your kids, you give our society the gift of children who understand the power of money as a source of change. Added bonus: You are teaching them to think about someone other than themselves without having to say they should be grateful. They’ll be grateful all on their own.
Ivan Illan is director of financial planning and investments at Michel Financial Group in Los Angeles. You can e-mail him at [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:7703fd16-e63a-4d6c-b94f-ef0979e981b9> | {
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Family Fact of the Week: The Best Early Education Begins at Home
Posted By Rachel Sheffield On March 7, 2013 @ 11:52 am In Education | Comments Disabled
President Obama recently unveiled his plan for expanding early education, which includes expanding federal funding for public preschool and boosting Head Start funding. According to the President, government-funded preschool is the way for students to achieve academic success.
Sadly, Obama’s claims are founded on weak evidence. Government-funded preschool programs show little to no academic gains for students. On top of that, expanding such programs could ultimately result in fewer choices for families.
Time and again, research confirms that family plays a more significant role in helping a child succeed academically.
For example, children raised in intact families are not only more likely to graduate from high school, but they are also more likely to attend and complete college compared to their peers raised in single-parent or blended families. Children from intact homes also score higher in reading, math, and science, as well as display fewer behavioral problems in school. Beyond academics, a stable family also prevents a variety of other risk factors that would hinder a child’s success.
Sadly, a large portion of children—over 40 percent—are born outside marriage every year. The statistics are even more troubling among minorities: 72 percent among African Americans and 53 percent among Hispanics. Researchers continue to report that children raised outside stable, married-parent homes are at greater risk for dropping out of school, being involved in delinquent behavior, and having a child outside marriage themselves. These outcomes persist even after controlling for income.
Beyond family structure, parental involvement plays a big role in helping children do well in school.
When parents are highly involved in their child’s education during elementary school, for example, it boosts children’s likelihood of graduating from high school . And parents also help boost children’s cognitive development by providing cognitive stimulation . Likewise, children generally have higher IQs and do better in school when parents provide cognitive stimulation.
A strong academic background begins at home. Policymakers should not underestimate the role of family in helping children succeed. Policies that promote and strengthen healthy marriages and families increase the likelihood that children will have the brightest academic futures possible.
URL to article: http://blog.heritage.org/2013/03/07/family-fact-of-the-week-the-best-early-education-begins-at-home/
URLs in this post:
Image: http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/family.gif
unveiled his plan: http://blog.heritage.org/2013/02/14/obamas-ill-advised-federal-preschool-push/
likely to attend and complete college: http://www.familyfacts.org/briefs/23/strong-beginnings-how-families-bolster-early-educational-outcomes
a variety of other risk factors: http://www.familyfacts.org/briefs/26/marriage-and-family-as-deterrents-from-delinquency-violence-and-crime
greater risk: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/09/marriage-americas-greatest-weapon-against-child-poverty
graduating from high school: http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/familyfacts/briefs/FF_Brief_28.pdf
have higher IQs and do better in school: http://blog.heritage.org/2012/08/24/family-fact-of-the-week-back-to-school-prep-is-a-lifelong-project/
Image: http://www.familyfacts.org
Copyright © 2011 The Heritage Foundation. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:7e85057e-168c-444d-91b2-615a4f23781a> | {
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Specific Recognition: Freshwater Fish Can Distinguish Individual Identities
Table of Contents
Some of the most remarkable discoveries about fish in recent years have centered on their clear ability to recognize particular individual fish. Incredible as this may seem, this capacity to distinguish specific individual identities has now been demonstrated in a huge variety of fish.
Can fish recognize their relatives?
The ability to recognize kin is extremely important in many species. In one basic example, guppies have been shown to avoid eating their own offspring while happily munching everyone else's. Parental firemouth cichlids can also recognize their own fry; remarkably, they will kidnap the fry of others and put these on the edge of their own school of offspring so that they, and not their own young, are in harm's way -- a kind of "cichlid shield." Almost all fish are thought to be able to recognize their own siblings, which is important because it prevents the possibility of inbreeding. Female rainbowfish are particularly good at this, avoiding their own brothers for this reason, but forming kin schools with their sisters and half-sisters, which allows the possibility for mutual benefits through co-operation.
What about recognizing unrelated fish?
A large number of fish species choose their "friends," learning to recognize particular individuals and sticking with them over considerable periods of time in a phenomenon known as "familiarity". This can have many benefits for all concerned: familiar fish are less likely to fight over food and are better able to survive predator attacks because they form more cohesive schools. Some fish choose their "friends" extremely carefully; guppies prefer to associate with individuals that co-operate with them in risky circumstances, while sunfish choose to be with individuals with whom they have successfully hunted in the past. Male guppies, ever footloose and fancy free, avoid females that they have met before and with whom they are familiar, preferring to mate with the new girls in town. In doing so, they are able to spread their genes further than would otherwise be possible.
Can fish have "friends" in other species?
The ability of fish to recognize particular individuals is not limited to fish of the same species. Fish that have been tankmates for any length of time repeatedly interact with one another and become familiar. This can occur even when the fish would not be naturally found together in the same habitat. Stories abound of fish that become attached to one another and that even pine if separated.
One such anecdote refers to an African grey knifefish (Xenomystus nign) and climbing perch (Ctenopoma kingsleyae), which not only tolerated one another but seemed to co-operate at feeding time to keep the other tank inhabitants at bay. Another episode concerns an oscar cichlid (Astmnotus ocellatus) and a triangle cichlid (Uaru amphiacanthoides) that were raised together and cohabited peacefully for months. When the oscar was removed to a new tank in an attempt to pair it with another, the triangle cichlid pined and refused to eat for several days until the owner guessing the problem, finally relented and returned the oscar to the tank. The triangle cichlid immediately recovered its former perkiness and its appetite, and the two remained inseparable ever after. | <urn:uuid:2ad1104a-e2d9-4669-8079-5b6d994aedcd> | {
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United States – Inducted 1986
Born outside of Boston, Harry Pillsbury moved to New York and then to Philadelphia as a young man. He knew no chess at all until he was 16, but a photographic memory and a voracious appetite for chess literature helped him burst unexpectedly onto the international chess scene with a victory at Hastings in 1895. An unknown American, he won one of the strongest tournaments held to that time. Later that year at St. Petersburg, illness hampered a strong start, and Pillsbury finished third of four competitors. Though ailing, he managed to defeat Jackson Showalter in 1897 to become U.S. Champion, a title he would hold until his death in 1906.
From 1898 to 1904, he operated the chess “robot” Ajeeb, which played at Coney Island and the Eden Musée in New York. Pillsbury’s feats of memory and blindfold play are legendary, performing 22 blindfold games simultaneously at Moscow 1902 and 21 games at the Hannover Hauptturnier the same year. His dynamic style popularized the Queen’s Gambit. Pillsbury’s chapter in chess history is brief but brilliant, and many fans of the game have speculated on his potential to become World Champion if not for his untimely death. | <urn:uuid:9ee3bd14-257b-45c5-af7b-ed7743c57acc> | {
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This day in Jewish history / All Jews of England arrested in 'coin-clipping' scandal
Some 680 Jews detained in the Tower of London, with more than 300 subsequently executed, on suspicion of coin clipping. All Jews were eventually expelled from Britain in 1290.
On November 17, 1278, all the Jews of England were subjected to arrest and search of their homes on suspicion of coin clipping and counterfeiting. Eventually, some 680 were imprisoned in the Tower of London, where it is believed that more than 300 were actually executed in 1279. At the time, the Jewish population of England is believed to have been some 3,000.
Like us on Facebook and get articles directly in your news feed | <urn:uuid:15dab7b5-22bb-4f55-9903-adfa1b6179c9> | {
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Published on January 7th, 20135
When Black Meant Republican
In the fall of 1895 Atlanta put on one in a series of “International Expositions” designed to highlight its progress in recovering from the war. Racial tensions had been growing since southerners, at the end of Reconstruction, began instituting Jim Crow laws to curtail black civil rights. Those laws were still under challenge at the time. African-Americans were divided over the merits of direct, legal resistance.
The organizers of the Exposition invited prominent black leader Booker T. Washington to give a keynote address. The position he took in that speech was a calculated gamble. He aimed to improve blacks’ social position by aggressively pursuing economic progress while de-emphasizing the battle for civil equality. The approach he outlined, The Atlanta Compromise, became the dominant black political ethos for generations. It was a dizzying failure with consequences we are still working to unwind.
Washington had a rival. W.E.B. DuBois was raised in the north and graduated from Harvard. He pressed to make the fight for political equality the community’s highest priority and dismissed Washington’s emphasis on economic development and Capitalism. DuBois founded the NAACP and became a leading figure in the northern cities. He was enamored with Marxism and even penned a defense of Josef Stalin on Stalin’s death. His influence would increase as Washington’s version of compromise began to unravel.
Washington’s approach suffered from two crucial flaws. First he thought that institutional southern racism would weaken as the black community began to realize its economic potential. Secondly, he failed to appreciate that capitalism cannot work its magic without government protection of basic property rights. In the face of these tragic misunderstandings, blacks labored away for decades building remarkably successful businesses, professions, and civic institutions, only to watch them crushed over and over again by discriminatory laws and outright violence. There was no hope for economic progress without the most basic civil rights.
A wave of race riots in the teens and ’20s were particularly devastating. Only a fraction of the incidents were documented at the time, usually in the form of a brief, euphemistic reference in a local paper to “troubles.” But postcards (that’s right, postcards), stories, and victim accounts painted a clearer picture. Two of the most notorious riots occurred in Rosewood, Florida and Tulsa, Oklahoma. Prosperous black communities were in many cases wiped off the map, destroying generations of hard-won gains. When the Depression came, the brief flowering of the separate black communities was effectively dead.
By the ’50s, as America was bracing finally to confront its racist legacy, the gritty capitalism Washington had promoted was seen by blacks as a discredited failure at best, an “Uncle Tom” sell-out at worst. As Dr. King’s effort’s bore fruit and African-Americans began at last to have genuine economic freedom finally open to them, there was little enthusiasm to exploit it. Blacks who had led the successful fight for equal protection focused their continuing efforts less on free enterprise than on government social programs and poverty relief. At the moment when Booker T. Washington’s dream of individualism and enterprise held the most potential promise it was eclipsed by a very different vision.
This emphasis created an opening for Democrats which they successfully exploited. The drift of blacks away from the Republican Party was capped by a cynical effort to recruit disgruntled racist Democrats in the south.
What does this mean for Republicans? In spite of the failures of the Great Society era and with little help from Republicans, there is a vibrant, secure black middle class emerging for the first time in America. The growth of black prosperity will be a key to the country’s future, but it depends heavily on leaving behind a vision of government dependence with deep, well-justified roots.
We need to recognize this history to understand its impact on our future. Until a generation ago, accumulating capital across generations, so critical to climbing the ladder in America, was a complete fantasy for African-Americans in the south. They could reasonably expect that whatever wasn’t spent or hidden would be taken from them. This reality has left the black community with a starting point in terms of wealth, capital, and connections far behind whites or even other minorities.
In addition it would serve Republicans well to understand the difference between traditional black and white understandings of government power. For whites who look to European history as their guide, government is a necessary evil to be treated with great care. Its growth should be managed in order to prevent it becoming an interest to itself; capable of crushing personal liberty and economic freedom.
Blacks’ experience with government power is almost a polar opposite of whites’. When central government has been weak, they have suffered. This suffering is not merely relative, but has left them vulnerable to random acts of violence, humiliation, and looting. They have good reason to see government power as protection and to be suspicious of white efforts to weaken it.
A healthy Republican Party, with its crazy-dial turned down from the redline, could have a lot to offer African-Americans. But realizing the potential for black involvement in the Party will require us to better understand and honestly confront our own history. The GOP cannot hope to remain relevant if it devolves into a white religious club. Expanding our appeal is a moral and political imperative that can succeed if we have the will.
Chris Ladd is a Texan who is now living in the Chicago area. He is the founder of Building a Better GOP and has served for several years as a Republican Precinct Committeeman in DuPage County, IL, and was active in state and local Republican campaigns in Texas for many years. (Email: chrladd AT gmail DOT com) | <urn:uuid:87a66472-1310-443e-861b-16ba80a107c6> | {
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Mexico is going through a violent and repressive period not only because of the well-known assassination of six people and the disappearance of forty-three students at the rural school of Ayotzinapa in the state of Guerrero in September 2014, but also due to regular attacks on activists, journalists, women and citizens.
A report by the Mexican Environmental Rights Centre (CEMDA) shows that 109 environmental activists suffered violence between May 2014 to June 2015 and 4 were killed in 2015. Moreover, from June 2014 to the end of May 2015, the following incidents have been recorded: 459 arbitrary arrests; 330 cases of attacks, threats, harassment; 224 people denied freedom for political reasons; 459 documented cases of torture; 47 extrajudicial executions (ACUDDEH, Comité Cerezo México and Campaña Nacional Contra la Desaparición Forzada, 2015).
Despite this repressive context where activism has become a high-risk activity, many experiences of resistance and struggles have flourished in Mexico. Among them, more than 420 environmental conflicts involve indigenous communities, rural villages and urban collectives that confront the state and companies to defend their territory and their right to live where they do.
When those who live in the threatened territories have to move to other places because of dams, airports, highways or wind farms, thousands are obliged to move and the environment can be degraded to a point which threatens the health and quality of life of the inhabitants of whole regions, such as in the El Salto and Juanacatlán municipalities in Jalisco. In this case, contamination of the Santiago River is killing inhabitants in the area, as exposed and denounced by the Un Salto de Vida collective (USV).
In this repressive context, environmental activism is growing. It is sustained by self-organised groups, which in many cases receive death threats, intimidation and other kinds of physical or psychological threats. What is it like to resist and defend the territory in such a repressive context? How can those involved avoid burnout? These questions can only be answered by analysing the all-important emotional dimension of protest.
Environmental Resistance in the Guadalajara Metropolitan Area
Three collectives in the Guadalajara Metropolitan Area (ZMG) provide some answers to these questions: the Un Salto de Vida (“A Leap of Life”) group (USV), the Salvabosque (“Save the Forest”) committee (CS) and the El Roble(“The Oak”) environmental group (GER).
Un Salto de Vida (“A Leap of Life”) was formed in 2005 to denounce pollution in the Santiago River, which has become one of the most polluted rivers in Mexico. Residents on the bank of the river live in fear because of the many cases of illness, particularly cancer and kidney diseases, which they attribute to water contamination. Although the river has been polluted since the 1970s when fish started dying and foam and smells emanated from the water, the inhabitants were not aware of the danger until ten years ago.
Un Salto de Vida (USV) was created in 2005 “because of a yearning for the river (…) because of the dream of seeing the river clean again”, but in 2008, after the death of a child who was poisoned because he fell into the river, people started sharing experiences of illness for the first time. This sharing of fear and pain caused by illness allowed the inhabitants to reframe the situation and become aware of the threat. In this case, together with the attachment to the river that people feel, the fear of getting sick moved the inhabitants to organise themselves and denounce the pollution of the river.
The Comité Salvabosque started in 2005 as well, this time to denounce the destruction of the Nixticuil forest, which is threatened by new urban developments. The collective was created to resist the chopping down of trees by occupying areas of the forest. At the beginning, what moved people to join the resistance was fear of losing the forest and the anger of the women who resisted the first time the municipality chopped down 400 trees. Anger and powerlessness, together with the attachment to the forest, were the first mobilizing emotions in this case.
The third experience, El Roble (“The Oak”) environmental group (GER) was set up earlier, in 1988. It aims at defending the forest in the Juanacatlán municipality from illegal hunting, improper use of the ground, and fires. Like the Comité Salvabosque, El Roble puts out fires in a self-managed way. It also aims to supervise the land by making regular visits to the forest to report on or work against any illegal activities that might threaten the life of the forest.
Looking at these three experiences where people’s lives are threatened, both by repression and by the exploitation and destruction of territory endangering the inhabitants’ health and lifestyles, all we might see were people who are facing fear, pain, frustration and powerlessness in attempting to defend their territories. However, they do not lose hope and this is because they create local alternatives.
As an example, we analysed self-organised projects, such as anti-fire patrols (CS and GER); building self-managed community nurseries where trees are grown and later planted (USV and CS); creating activities in which neighbours are invited to travel around the territory on foot or by bicycle to spread knowledge about the environment and attachment to the place (CS, USV and GER); workshops organised for adults and children on recycling rubbish (USV), music (CS) and reading (CS and USV), media and journalism (CS and USV), and diagnosing illnesses (GER and USV), among other topics.
All these activities are self-financed and self-managed. Just as they have to live with the fear of repression, they also have to live with economic restrictions. This is very important, because burnout can be caused by the “fear of starvation” that some young people feel, as a consequence to their inability to sustain a job of work simply because there have dedicated all their time to defending their territory as well as the stigmatisation they suffer for their political activity, which prevents them from finding work.
The Emotional Dimension of Mexican Self-Organized Resistance
Despite repression and powerlessness, these people keep resisting and creating alternatives. For those whom we interviewed, resisting and defending the territory nowadays in Mexico means that you are at war with the state and with financial capital (Poma and Gravante, 2015). In this war, those who are politically engaged and economically interested in the use and exploitation of the land work together with their allies (which includes some NGOs) to make themselves powerful enemies that can use fear as a strategy to break resistance. They also routinely stigmatise and criminalise the political activities of the groups and their members. On the exploited side, it is a minority of inhabitants do not allow the destruction of their territories, like the members of USV, CS and GER and their allies.
In addition to the activities geared at denouncing and preventing the destruction of their territories, these groups also have to manage their fear and other powerful emotions such as powerlessness, frustration, and strain. They need to suppress anger and hate, which if expressed can only provoke repression and violence from their enemies, and finally, as if this were not enough, they cannot lose hope and must keep resisting and creating alternatives.
Emotional work is as important as political and organisational activities, since it allows groups to counteract the fear of repression, channel anger towards their enemies, transform exhausting emotions into joy, and attempt not to be overcome by despair. But how does it work?
Living With Fear
Regarding managing the fear of repression, people learn how to live and fight with it, because fear “never goes away”, as one interviewee told us. Living with fear means that you know that your companions and relatives are constantly worried for your life. The members of the collectives are therefore always in touch, remaining alert to and looking after the others and taking safety measures in their daily life.
Moreover, it sometimes also helps not to think about the consequences of their actions and focus on the problem, instead. All those interviewed are in agreement that letting themselves be stopped by fear would be a victory for their enemies, and that is why they have to face their fears individually and collectively to be able to continue their struggle.
Fear is not the only problem for these people. Powerlessness, frustration, strain and despair, among others, can also lead to burnout. How can people learn to cope with such emotions? First, by not being alone and by strengthening relationships and bonds between people in the group.
Reciprocal emotions are the glue for these collectives because they overcome helplessness and loneliness. Face-to-face relationships play an important role in maintaining commitment in informal organisations. Moreover, making the meetings more enjoyable, using funny episodes and celebrations, are central to overcoming the burden of the struggle. As one interviewee said, “making ourselves laugh” is a key activity in order to avoid burnout.
As we have also analysed (Poma and Gravante, 2016), the inhabitants of the threatened territories have overcome helplessness and powerlessness, fear and a sense of inevitability thanks to their intense attachment to the territories. For instance, when they are overwhelmed, they go for a walk into the forest or along the river because they feel happy there. Going alone to have a cry out of sadness or powerlessness in the forest or at the riverbank, or to vent your emotions by shouting out angrily, are strategies that people practice in order not to weigh down other members. If they retreat to the forest or the river they are defending it is because there they feel safe, happy, or free to express what they are feeling and be themselves.
The same people sometimes also vent their anger or frustration by working on vegetable gardens, forests or nurseries. Physical work is not only an activity for these collectives, but also an activity for channelling emotions into something else that could harm people and political activity. In addition to physical work, the members of the groups analysed also organise activities and workshops that help overcome exhausting emotions. For instance, the CS music group helps people feel better, less alone, more energetic and hopeful.
In the same way, activities with children in the neighbourhood at weekends and in summer give people hope, because they are spreading their values and sharing them with children, who are the future. Moreover, solidarity among groups is also central to avoid burnout. Recently, CS members have come under a spate of attacks and have been denounced for their resistance by the company that threatens the Nixticuil forest. The local, national and international solidarity that CS received played an important role in dealing with the situation, because they know they are not alone in this fight.
Solidarity and support, as well as making them feel not alone has also strengthened the sense of “us” among the groups that express solidarity. That stresses the centrality of emotions to understanding not only how to avoid burnout but also the process of identity-building and the commitment to self-organise.
The war against state and capital that people who defend their territories in Mexico are fighting involves people reframing their relationship with the state and authorities.
In fact, groups in high-risk contexts differ from groups that operate in democratic contexts, which are the most studied groups in social movement studies, because, in addition to managing fear and anger, these groups also experience a change in their emotions toward the state and authorities — considered threatening and dangerous — which influences their strategy and organisation. The emotions felt toward their enemies, such as contempt, hatred, anger, etc. are those that Flam (2005) defines as “subversive counter-emotions”, which carry specific implications for collective action repertoires and for the process of identifying with the group.
For instance, at the start, some collectives such as USV and GER took the form of civil organisations (AC) with the hope of gaining visibility and power to defend the territories through dialogue with local institutions. Later, however, USV and GER members told us that the choice to become such a civil society organisation not only did not give them any advantages, but also limited their action and meant that they were used by people who had other interests. CS members felt the same disappointment and frustration when they tried to take the legal route. Once they managed to have the Nixticuil forest recognised as a Protected Natural Area (Área Natural Protegida), which took them a year of work to achieve, they finally realised that it is a mechanism for legalising dispossession.
Repression also influences the emotions felt toward the authorities: although it is often private police forces and criminal groups who carry out the violence, the interviewees identify their targets as the businesspeople and politicians who have economic interests in the territories defended by these groups. This produces feelings of hatred toward the political establishment and all those who work with “the powerful.”
These feelings have led groups to associate themselves with the experiences of the Zapatistas, who through communications entitled “Them and Us” (EZLN, 2013) and reflecting solidarity with Ayotzinapa (2015), encourage these activists to identify with them based on emotions such as anger and pain, and the mistrust or contempt they share toward “the powerful.”
Despite the War, There Is Still Hope
To conclude, self-organisation is the result of the experiences and emotions of the people involved, and it is a process because, as they themselves claim: “the actions we carry out, in themselves, are not as important as the process, even though the process involves carrying them out (…). Anticapitalism and autonomy do not lie in what is done but rather in the way we do what we do.”
The experiences of these three Mexican collectives show that emotions play an important role in avoiding burnout and providing the energy to fight, to keep developing environmental and social projects, and to participate in other struggles or continue demanding justice. Emotions can mobilise people but they need to be managed in order for them not to lead to burnout. For instance, facing up to the fear of repression, powerlessness, loneliness, and hopelessness is the only way for people not to give up, and to keep fighting and building new projects despite the repression.
Environmental grassroots resistances are important not only because they can prevent the environment from being destroyed, but also because they are autonomous empowering experiences in a context where defending the territory is part of a war against the neoliberal system that threatens life on the planet.
In this context, autonomy means that people have to find their own way to resist destruction and keep living in the territory. Self-organisation is one way to do that. As we have seen in this article, autonomy is a process that results from people’s experiences and the emotions they have felt. Collective identity and strategies are not only the result of cognitive processes, but also depend on the emotional dimension of the struggle experience. The desire for autonomy is driven by emotions toward their enemies — businesspeople, politicians and their agents — such as lack of trust, contempt and even hatred, together with emotions shared among members and with other compas, such as fear, anger and pain. Taken together, this is what has led the members of these collectives to start a process that they hope will “invent and create strategies that allow them not only to resist but also to start breaking away and opening up small spaces of freedom in the midst of an utterly asymmetrical war that has broken out against the state and against capital.”
The Guadalajara Metropolitan Area (ZMG) in northwestern Mexico is the main economic center of this region. The industrialisation of the ZMG has considerably increased in the last three decades. It causes major environmental damage and has led to various mobilisations of the local population to defend their territory. They focus notably on the contamination and destruction of green spaces and forests to build new urban developments and road infrastructure.
The disappearance of 43 students and the assassination of 6 people on September 26, 2014, in the state of Guerrero (Mexico). | <urn:uuid:7d9e4fb0-3361-47c6-aaa3-f2b9d89aa5ec> | {
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HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- Middle earth exists. It might not be the figment of J.R.R. Tolkien's imagination with frolicking hobbits, magical elves and an ongoing struggle over a demented ring, but it's still alien-like, foreign and bizarre.
Cave crickets the size of mice roam the humid, dark passageways. Formations like the John Wayne, a behemoth, stand tall with little or no human contact to admire their immaculate beauty. And compact, pristine streams of unknown origin cascade into a more elaborate display of a waterfall, continuing the journey to remain incognito.
The Tennessee Valley is literally enriched with caves. From downtown Huntsville to the outskirts of the county and beyond, caves of all sizes, shapes and features can be found in this region. Alabama, in fact, is home to more than 4,000 surveyed caves. Combined with neighboring Tennessee and Georgia, it collectively forms TAG - the southeastern region in the U.S. with close to 15,000 caves serving as a prime destination for cavers worldwide.
Organizations like the National Speleological Society - based right here in Huntsville - the Southeastern Cave Conservancy, the Nature Conservancy, conservation groups and even state and federal government - think state and national parks - strive to protect, preserve and manage caves.
On a local level, caving clubs - commonly called grottos - sponsor trips for both horizontal and vertical caving and training and promote cave conservation.
The bond between cavers is strong. They are secretive and protective for good reasons.
Whereabouts of mapped caves remain concealed, mainly due to the fear of vandalism. Some caves bear the scars of graffiti, broken thousand-year-old formations and trash.
And this certain breed of people that we call cavers explore the depths of Earth for one reason: "To go where no one else has gone before," said 67-year-old Bill Torode, a Huntsville cave surveyor who hasn't stopped the sport since 1959. "There's a thrill to not knowing what you will find. "I can explore a cave here in North Alabama where no one has walked before. For some people it doesn't make a difference, for some it does.
"It is the final frontier." | <urn:uuid:e749b51d-d6fb-4f83-a0e1-8ade1c8a7bb6> | {
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The Menopause and Gut Health
They say all health and illness starts from the gut. Having a healthy digestive system goes a long way towards making you feel good. A healthy gut means that your food is being processed correctly and efficiently and you are gaining as much energy as possible from what you consume. However, during the peri-menopause and the menopause, many of us begin to experience problems with our digestive system.
As you go through the menopause, your body undergoes hormonal changes, and these can have unexpected effects on the rest of your body, including your digestive system. Among its many other tasks, oestrogen also helps regulate cortisol – the “fight or flight” hormone triggered by stress. So when oestrogen starts declining around menopause, suddenly stress becomes a lot harder to manage.
Not only do our reactions to stress become a bit more extreme, our increased cortisol has the add-on effect of slowing down digestion of food. That can lead to a host of digestive disorders like wind, constipation, and bloating.
Adrenalin can easily be triggered in the body when the calming influence of oestrogen is missing. This switches the digestive function off, and when the digestive system is not working at its optimum level, a range of digestive problems can arise. Wind can build up, causing bloating; food can pass through without being fully broken down, causing constipation; acid can break down the mucous lining of the stomach wall, causing abdominal pain or indigestion.
But like so much of menopause, you don’t have to simply endure the symptoms. Follow these easy tips to help optimise your gut health.
Easy tips for gut health
- Monitor how different foods affect your gut. Understanding how your body reacts to certain foods tells you a lot about your gut health.
- Eat more fibre. Most people eat less than they should. Fruit, vegetables, pulses, nuts and wholegrains feed healthy bacteria.
- Eat a wide range of plant-based foods. A healthy gut has a diverse community of microbes, each of which prefer different foods.
- Avoid highly processed foods. They often contain ingredients that either suppress ‘good’ bacteria or increase ‘bad’ bacteria.
- Antibiotics kill ‘good’ bacteria as well as ‘bad’. If you need antibiotics, make sure you eat lots of foods that boost your microbes afterwards.
- Choose extra-virgin olive oil over other fats when you can. It contains the highest number of microbe-friendly polyphenols.
- Probiotic foods, such as live yoghurt, might encourage more microbes to grow. Eat them if you enjoy them
- If your diet is low in fibre, a sudden increase can cause wind and bloating. This is less likely if you make gradual changes and drink extra water. | <urn:uuid:6e0782ac-6ba2-4f6d-9e5c-eb882228968f> | {
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It's sneaky, it's silent, and it can permanently harm your liver. It's called hepatitis (say: heh-puh-tye-tus). Some people have hepatitis for many years without knowing it and then discover they have liver damage because of it.
So let's find out more about hepatitis and how to prevent it.
Life of a Liver
Nonstop, 24 hours a day, your liver (an internal organ on the upper right side of your abdomen) performs many tasks to keep your body running smoothly:
- It's like a vacuum! It cleans out toxins (poisons) from your blood.
- It's like a warehouse! It stores vitamins and minerals and makes sure your body gets the right amounts.
- It's like a bodybuilder! It produces the right amount of amino acids to build strong, healthy muscles.
- It's like a gas station! It keeps your body fueled up with just the right amount of glucose (sugar).
- It's like a meter! It helps regulate the levels of medicine you are taking. (Before some medicines can work, the liver has to start them up.) It also regulates hormones in your body.
- It's like a factory! It produces an important digestive liquid called bile.
What Is Hepatitis?
Hepatitis is an inflammation (say: in-fluh-may-shun) — a kind of irritation — or infection of the liver. If the liver is affected by or gets scarred from inflammation or infection, it can't effectively do all of its jobs.
There are different ways you can get hepatitis. The two most common forms are:
- Toxic hepatitis: This form can occur if someone drinks a lot of alcohol, takes certain illegal drugs or medications, or is exposed to poisons.
- Viral hepatitis: There are lots of hepatitis viruses — from hepatitis A virus (hep A for short) to hepatitis G. Though the viruses differ, they have one thing in common: They cause infection and inflammation that is harmful to liver cells.
We're going to talk about hep A, B, and C because they're the most common types of viral hepatitis.
For kids, hep A is the most common type of hepatitis to get. The virus lives in poop (feces) from people who have the infection. That's why it's so important to wash your hands before eating and after going to the bathroom. If you don't, and then go make yourself a sandwich, hep A virus might end up on your food, and then in you!
Vegetables, fruits, and shellfish (such as shrimp and lobster) also can carry hepatitis if they were harvested in contaminated water or in unsanitary conditions. Hepatitis A affects people for a short time and when they recover, it does not come back.
How to Prevent Hepatitis A
The following will help keep people safe from hepatitis A:
- regular hand washing, especially after going to the bathroom, diapering a baby, and before eating
- washing fruits and vegetables before eating them
- not eating raw shellfish, such as raw oysters
- getting a vaccine for hep A
Getting vaccinated helps a person's body make antibodies that protect against hepatitis infection. The hepatitis A vaccine is now given to all kids between the ages of 1 and 2 years, and to people who are traveling to countries where the virus easily gets into the food and water supply.
Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C
Although hep A is a short-term illness that goes away completely, hep B and C can turn into serious long-term or chronic illnesses for some people. Teens and young adults are most at risk for getting these two viruses. Today all babies routinely get vaccines against the hep B virus, but there isn't yet a vaccine for hep C.
Hep B and C get passed from person to person the same ways that HIV does — through direct contact with infected body fluids. Hepatitis B and C are even more easily passed in fluids and needles than HIV. This can happen through sexual contact and by sharing needles (used to inject illegal drugs) that have been contaminated with infected blood. Even when infected people don't have any symptoms, they can still pass the disease on to others.
Sometimes mothers with hep B or C pass the virus along to their babies when they're born. Hep B and C also can get passed in ways you might not expect — such as getting a manicure or pedicure with unsterilized nail clippers or other dirty instruments. Getting a tattoo, if dirty needles are used, is another way someone can get hep B or C.
Signs and Symptoms of Hepatitis
Some people with hepatitis show no signs of having the disease, but others may have these symptoms:
- tiredness without another reason
- flu-like symptoms — throwing up, feeling hot, etc.
- yellowing of skin and whites of eyes
- belly pain (especially on the upper right side)
- dark brown pee
- light-colored stools (poop)
- itchiness with no rash
- poor appetite for days in a row or weight loss
A doctor who suspects someone may have hepatitis may ask questions like these:
- Has the person been around anyone who works in health care or child care?
- Did the person stick himself or herself with a dirty needle or get a tattoo with a dirty needle?
- Did the person have contact with the bodily fluids of someone who has hepatitis?
- Did the person have a blood transfusion as a baby?
- Have any of the person's family members had hepatitis?
- Could the person have eaten food that was contaminated with hepatitis A?
The doctor can order a blood test to see if someone has hepatitis and which type, then help the person get the right care.
Living With Hepatitis
Someone who has hepatitis will need to drink enough fluids, eat healthy foods, and get rest. The person's family members may need to get hepatitis vaccines, if they haven't already.
Later on, the person will get follow-up blood tests. Often the blood tests will show that the person no longer has hepatitis. Sometimes, the blood tests may show that someone is now a carrier of hepatitis — he or she won't have hepatitis symptoms, but could pass the infection to other people.
Sometimes, blood tests will continue to show that some people still have hep B or C, which means they may have chronic or long-term hepatitis. If so, they will need to eat healthy foods and take very good care of themselves by getting rest and visiting the doctor regularly. In some cases, someone with chronic hepatitis may get special medicine for the condition.
We hope that this heads-up on hepatitis will help you stay safe. It may sound funny, but you can love your liver by washing your hands and making smart choices!
Reviewed by: Yamini Durani, MD
Date reviewed: July 2012
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Dysthymia disorder is a depressive mood disorder. Dysthymia is characterized by longstanding depression symptoms where the patient is depressed more days than not for a period of two years or longer. People who suffer from chronic depression often experience life-long depression. About 6% of people will experience dysthymia disorder at some point in their lifetime.1
Dysthymia is defined as having depression most of the day, for most days, for two years or longer. Dysthymia is often called chronic depression due to its duration. For a diagnosis of dysthymia, a person must suffer from at least two of the following dysthymia symptoms:
- Lesser or greater appetite than normal
- Sleep too much (hypersomnia) or too little (insomnia)
- Low energy or fatigue
- Low self-esteem
- Trouble concentrating
- Decision-making difficulties
- Feelings of hopelessness
Dysthymia disorder is only diagnosed when no major depressive episodes have happened during the first two years of the illness and no manic periods are present. Periods of normal mood for up to two months may be present in dysthymia depression.
Signs and Symptoms of Dysthymia
Dysthymia was once considered less severe than major depression, and due to its elongated nature, its diagnosis was often missed. More and more though, clinicians are realizing dysthymia can have major consequences on a person's life and functioning.
Similar to major depression, dysthymia impairs everyday functioning, increases the risk of death from physical disease and increases the risks of suicide. As dysthymia is a depressive disorder, depressed and negative moods are common as well as restlessness, anxiety and irritability. Other dysthymia, or chronic depression, symptoms are:
- Unexplained periods of unhappiness in childhood
- Being overweight / underweight
- Loss of pleasure from activities previously found enjoyable
- Little time spent on hobbies and activities
- A family history of dysthymia
- Effort spent primarily on work and little left for social and personal relationships
- Substance abuse issues
- Increased negative reaction to criticism
- Slowed speech and minimal visible emotion
Risk Factors and Causes of Dysthymia
The causes of dysthymia have not been clearly established but dysthymia appears to share the some biological markers of major depression. In electroencephalogram (EEG) and polysomnogram testing, 25% of people with dysthymia disorder have sleep changes similar to those seen in major depression. Chronic stress and illness are associated with chronic depression (dysthymia) and it seems to run in families, occurring more often in women than in men. Many people with dysthymia have a long-term medical problem or another mental health disorder, such as anxiety, alcohol abuse, or drug addiction.
The treatment of dysthymia is similar to the treatment of major depression: both antidepressant medication and psychotherapy are recommended (read more about: Depression Therapy). Therapy combined with medication has been found superior to either medication or therapy alone in dysthymia treatment. Types of dysthymia treatment recommended include:
- Short and long-term psychodynamic (talk) therapy
- Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) – individual or group settings
- Interpersonal therapy (IPT) – individual or group settings
Each of these therapies focus on the handling of current problems. Long-term psychodynamic therapy can also help someone with dysthymia get to any issues underlying their chronic depression or other problems, such as substance abuse. | <urn:uuid:d72357a0-1948-4197-95a8-a3612f0e19dc> | {
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Meta Circular Evaluators
This page is completely based on the 4th chapter of the famous "Abelsson and
Sussman" course (book: Abelson & Sussman: Structure and Interpretation
of Computer Programs - SICP).
The evaluator, which determines the meaning of expressions in a programming
language, is just another program.
A meta circular evaluator for Pico is an interpreter for Pico that is written
in Pico itself. How is this possible? In order to explain this, we just realize
that in fact there are 2 Pico's: the first Pico is the 'real' Pico (whose interpreter
was written in C, but that's not essential at all) and the 'meta circular Pico'
(whose interpreter was written in 'real' Pico). The 'real' Pico is called the
meta level and the 'false' Pico is called the base level Pico. Notice that 'false'
is not really a well chosen word here as that evaluator is a real as the first
one: it runs Pico programs. We will sometimes also talk about the implementing
Pico (i.e. the 'real' Pico) and the implemented Pico (i.e. the 'other' Pico).
According to SICP, an evaluator that is written in the same language that
it evaluates is said to be meta circular.
Studying meta circular evaluators for any language L is a very useful activity
- By studying this volume of L code, you get to know L much better than by
merely studying small code excerpts and standard algorithms.
- By studying the code, we get a a precise definition of the semantics of
L. In fact, the code for the evaluator is the only precise definition of the
semantics. The only drawback of a metacircular definition is that it cannot
be used in practice because the resulting evaluator is too slow.
- Although the evaluator studied is written specifically for L, it contains
the essential structure of an evaluator for any computer language. By studying
and experimenting with one metacircular evaluator, students are acquainted
to the entire discipline of interpreter building is a very accessible way.
- The essence of meta circularity is that one has to understand precisely
one program written in L in order to understand all programs
written in L!
Structure of the Meta Circular Evaluator
The structure of a meta circular evaluator is no different from the structure
of any other evaluator. The only thing special about it is that it is written
in the same language it evaluates. The evaluator consists of a so called 'Read-Eval-Print'-Loop
(or REPL). This is a loop that is started and terminated by the programming environment.
As you might expect, the REPL consists of three parts:
- Read When the user types in a program, this program is just a text,
a meaningless sequence of characters. Before the core of the evaluator can
do something reasonable with it, it has to check whether that sequence of
characters indeed constitutes a valid program. This because many texts can
be rejected as being wrong programs (e.g. because parentheses don't match).
Instead of detecting this during the execution of the wrong program, it is
better to detect it before beginning any execution. This checking phase is
called the reading phase of the REPL. The reader takes a piece of text
that is expected to meet the rules of the syntax of the language. If the text
does not meet the definition of the syntax, an error is generated. Otherwise,
the reader transforms the text meeting the concrete syntax into a tree data
structure, the so-called parse tree. This tree represents the structure of
the program and no longer contains surface syntax like parentheses. The reader
for pico consists of two files representing the scanner (or lexical analyzer)
and the parser (or structural analyzer). The scanner transformes the program
text into a stream of 'tokens' such that all irrelevant information such as
whitespaces and carriage returns have been removed. The parser consumes these
tokens and tries to find the structure linking the tokens in order to build
up the parse tree.
- Eval After reading a string, we obtain a parse tree which is of course
much easier to process than the original string (after all, that's the reason
why we parse in the first place). Therefore, evaluating the program boils
down to performing a tree recursive process on the parse tree. Hence, the
evaluator is a tree recursive process that consumes a parse tree and returns
a Pico value. Each step in this recursive process takes one node in the parse
tree, dispatches over the kind of node (is it a definition, an assignment,...)
and undertakes the appropriate steps to process that particular kind of node.
In many cases, this will require recursive calls to the evaluator. The result
of the recursive evaluation procedure is called a Pico value.
- Print After calling the evaluator, the printer is called. The printer
can be considered the inverse of the reader. It takes a Pico value (a tree)
and prints the value on the screen in a form that makes sense to the Pico
Back to the beginning !
This page was made (with lots of hard work!) by Wolfgang De Meuter | <urn:uuid:778434b4-4df2-456b-a792-d68a9e0903d5> | {
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Kindergarten Common Core
Units of Study
San Diego Unified School District (here's the District's CCSS website--lots of resources!
Georgia Units: (even though the state has actually pulled out of CCSS, the resources they created are AMAZING! Here's their math website.)
North Carolina Unit: (they have a great website for the Public Schools of North Carolina with lots of support resources.)
University of Texas Scope: (they have a great website called Mathematics Common Core Toolbox--check it out!)
EngageNY Kindergarten math resources. This seems to be everyone's gold standard for CCSS materials.
Kindergarten Curriculum Map from West Contra Costa Unified School District. Their applets seem cool, too.
Bridges in Mathematics: (the Bridges in Mathematics website)
This is cool: math standards written in kid-friendly language: (From the Ontario-Montclair School District)
Resources from Kansas Association of Teachers of Mathematics:
Kindergarten Flip Book (FlipBooks are meant to help teachers understand what each standard means in terms of what students must know and be able to do. They provide only a sample of instructional strategies and examples.)
Math Vocabulary from Granite School District in Utah
Compare the CCSS to the current state standards: (from Tulare County Office of Ed. A great website for resources, too!)
Howard County Public School System Common Core Assessments. VERY well designed assessments for each standard. Check them out!
"I Can Statements" for each standard from Dr. Bobb Darnell on his website called Achievement Strategies, Inc. Check them out!
Got any lessons, resources, websites that you want to share?? Add them to our Kindergarten Math Dropbox! Let's help each other out!!
Want to continue the dialogue? Check out and add yourself as a member of this website's Facebook page here!!
Activities and Lessons by Strand
(activities listed are from: Illustrative Mathematics, Inside Mathematics, LearnZillion, Howard County Common Core Assessments)
Domain: Counting and Cardinality K.CC
Standard A (know number names and the count sequence):
A1 (Count to 100 by ones and by 10s):
A2 (Count forward beginning from a given number within the known sequence instead of beginning at 1):
A3 (Write numbers from 0-20. Represent a number of objects with a written numeral 0-20 with 0 representing a count of no objects):
Standard B (Count to tell the number of objects):
B4 (Understand the relationship between numbers and quantities; connect counting to cardinality. a) When counting objects, say the number names in the standard order, pairing each object with one and only one number name and each number name with one and only one object; b) Understand that the last number name said tells the number of objects counted. The number of objects is the same regardless of their arrangement or the order inwhich they were counted; c) Undertand that each successive number name refers to a quantity that is one larger.):
Standard C (Compare numbers):
C5 (Count to answer "how many?" questions about as many as 20 things arranged in a line, a rectangular array, or a circle, or as many as 10 things in a scattered configuration; given a number from 1-20, count out that many objects.
C6 (Identify whether the number of objects in one group is greater than, less than, or equal to the number of objets in another group):
C7 (Compare two numbers between 1 and 10 presented as written numerals.):
Domain: Operations and Algebraic Thinking K.OA
Standard A (Understand addition as putting together and adding to, and understand subtraction as taking apart and taking from):
A1 (Represent addition and subtraction with objects, fingers mental images, drawings, sounds (e.g. claps), acting out situations, verbal explanations, expressions, or equations):
A2 (Solve addition and subtraction word problems, and add and subtract within 10, e.g. by using objects or drawings to represent the problem):
A3 (Decompose numbers less than or equal to 10 into pairs in more than one way, e.g. by using objects or drawings , and record each decomposition by a drawing or equation, e.g. 5=2 + 3 and 5= 4 + 1):
A4 (For any number from 1 to 9, find the number that makes 10 when added to the given number, e.g., by using objects or drawings, and record the answer with a drawing or equation):
A5 (Fluently add and subtract within 5):
Domain: Number and Operations in Base Ten K.NBTStandard A (Work with numbers 11-19 to gain foundations for place value):
A1 (Compose and decompose numbers from 11 to 19 into ten ones and some further ones, e.g. by using objects or drawings, and record each composition or decomposition by a drawing or equation, e.g. 18 = 10 + 8; understand that these numbers are composed of then ones and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, or nine ones):
Domain: Measurement and Data K.MD
Standard A (Describe and compare measurable attributes):
A1 (Describe measurable attributes of objects, such as length or weight. Describe several measurable attributes of a single object):
A2 (Directly compare two objects with a measurable attribute in common, to see which object has "more of"/"less of" the attribute, and describe the difference):
Standard B (Classify objects and count the number of objects in each category):
B3 (Classify objects into given categories; count the numbers of objects in each category and sort the categories by count):
Domain: Geometry K.G
Standard A (Identify and describe shapes (squares, circles, triangles, rectangles, hexagons, cubes, cones, cylinders, and spheres):
A1 (Describe objects in the environment using names of shapes, and describe the relative positions of these objects using terms such as above, below, beside, in front of, behind, and next to):
A2 (Correctly name shapes regardless of their orientations of overall size):
A3 (Identify shapes as two-dimentional--lying in a plane, flat--or three-dimensional, solid):
Standard B (Analyze, compare, create, and compose shapes):
B4 (Analyze and compare two- and three-dimensional shapes, in different sizes and orientations, using informal language to describe their similarities, differences, parts e.g. number of sides and vertices/corners, and other attributes, e.g. having sides of equal length):
B5 (Model shapes in the world by building shapes from components, e.g. sticks and clay balls, and drawing shapes):
B6 (Compose simple shapes to form larger shapes. For example, "Can you join these two triangles with full sides touching to make a rectangle?"):
Thank you to 4th Grade Loma Portal teacher, Amy Kinseth, for creating this page of Teacher Common Core Materials. Please email her with questions or comments at [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:abeb94aa-40f7-4c15-875c-6e08c816a5f2> | {
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Joan was born at Greux-Domremy, Lorraine, a little village in France. Jacques d'Arc, her father, was a hard working farmer. Her mother Isabelle Romee was gentle and loving. She taught Joan many practical things. "I can sew and spin as well as any woman," she once said.
Joan was a shepherdess who loved to pray, especially at the shrines of Our Blessed Mother. This honest little peasant girl was to become a heroine. One day while she was watching her sheep, St. Michael the Archangel, appeared to her and said, "Daughter of God, go save France!"
For three years she heard the voices of saints calling her to action. When she was sixteen, she began her mission.
At that time, there was a war going on between France and England. It was called the Hundred Years' War. England had won so much French land that the king of England called himself the king of France, too. The real French king was weak and fun-loving. He thought the French armies would never be able to save the country.
With his permission, St. Joan led an army into the city of Orleans, which the English had almost captured. In her white, shining armor, this young heroine rode with her banner flying above her. On it were the names of JESUS and MARY.
She was hit by an arrow in the great battle of Orleans, but she kept on urging her men to victory. At last they won! St. Joan and her army won more and more battles. The English armies had to retreat.
After the victories, Joan's time of suffering began. She was captured by the Burgundians. Then she was sold to the English for ten thousand Francs. The ungrateful French king did not even try to save her. She was put in prison and after an unfair trial at Rouen in France, she was tied to a stake and burned to death.
Joan was not even twenty. She had a great horror of fire. Yet she went bravely to her death on May 29, 1431. Her last word was "Jesus." Four hundred and eighty-nine years later, on May 16, 1920, Pope Benedict XV proclaimed Joan a saint.
The life of this saint was marked by heroic courage for the sake of the mission that God had entrusted to her. We can call on St. Joan of Arc to help us especially when we need to carry out a very difficult, nearly impossible task. | <urn:uuid:6065222a-b267-420f-8e8d-41aa587b3e46> | {
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Feral hogs (feral pigs, wild pigs, wild boar, etc.) in Virginia are defined as “any swine that are wild or for which no proof of ownership can be made” (see 4VAC15-20-160). Color coat and origin are not important; a loose group of domestic hogs can quickly take on feral characteristics and transition to a thriving, wild population in only a few generations. Any loose hog in the wild is bad news to wildlife and habitat resources.
Virginia is on the front lines of the northward spread of feral hogs in the eastern United States. Feral hogs are detrimental to natural habitats and endangered native plant and animal species. Once established, they are nearly impossible to eradicate. Adult feral hogs have no natural predators aside from humans and exhibit very high reproductive potential. A population can triple in size in 14—16 months. Seventy percent of a population must be removed each year to stabilize growth.
Feral hogs are not only a risk to Virginia’s native wildlife resources, but also to the health of our commercial pork industry. They can harbor many diseases and parasites including swine brucellosis, pseudorabies, Trichinella, and toxoplasmosis, some of which are transmissible to livestock, pets, wildlife, or humans. Feral hogs can cause extensive crop damage and pose threats to health of livestock and farm equipment from rooting damage to fields, fences, and pastures.
The VDGIF has teamed with partner state and federal natural resource agencies and created a feral hog committee comprised of wildlife biologists and conservation police officers to address the growing feral hog problem in Virginia. Hogs are not migratory animals; new populations that mysteriously appear are most likely the result of loose domestic hogs or people intentionally moving and releasing hogs for sporting purposes. We must identify solutions to address how to stop new populations of hogs from appearing in the wild as well as continue to work with partner agencies to develop effective control and eradication strategies. Please report any loose domestic (livestock) hogs or potential feral hogs to the Virginia Wildlife Conflict Helpline at 1-855-571-9003. Below you can find the most up-to-date information regarding feral hogs and our efforts to combat this growing problem.
- USDA – Feral Swine: An Overview of a Growing Problem (PDF)
- USDA – Identifying and Reporting Feral Swine (PDF)
- Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies’ Wild Hog Working Group – 2012 Annual State Summary Report (PDF)
- A Landowner’s Guide for Wild Pig Management(PDF)
- Read More About Feral Hogs in the November-December 2012 Issue of Virginia Wildlife (PDF)
- Also, an article in Volume 28, Issue 3 of Whitetail Times (PDF), a publication of the Virginia Deer Hunters Association
FERAL HOG DAMAGE
- USDA – Feral Swine Damages (PDF)
- Feral Hogs Negatively Affect Native Plant Communities (PDF)
- Feral Hogs Impact Ground Nesting Birds (PDF)
- Feral Hogs and Water Quality in Plum Creek, Texas (PDF)
- YouTube Segment for Virginia Farm Bureau’s Real Virginia Television Show, June 2014 | <urn:uuid:3129564b-ba25-4674-8df4-c72f5e0533ab> | {
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The International English Language Testing System or IELTS is an international standardised test of English language proficiency for non-native English language speakers. It is jointly managed by the British Council, IDP. IELTS Australia and Cambridge English Language Assessment and was established in 1989. IELTS is one of the major English-language tests in the world.
The Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) is a standardized test that is an admissions requirement for most Graduate Schools in the United States. The GRE is owned and administered by Educational Testing Service (ETS) who created it in 1949. According to ETS, the GRE aims to measure verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, analytical writing, and critical thinking skills that have been acquired over a long period of learning. The content of the GRE consists of certain specific algebra, geometry, arithmetic, and vocabulary. The GRE General Test is offered as a computer-based exam administered at parametric testing centres.
Test of English as a Foreign Language is a standardized test to measure the English language ability of non-native speakers wishing to enrol in English-speaking universities. The test is accepted by many English-speaking academic and professional institutions. TOEFL is one of the two major English-language tests in the world, the other being the IELTS.
TOEFL is a trademark of the Educational Testing Service (ETS), a private non-profit organization, which designs and administers the tests. ETS issues official score reports, sent independently to institutions, for two years following the test.
|Reading||3–5 passages, each containing 12–14 questions||60–80 minutes|
|Listening||6–9 passages, each containing 5–6 questions||60–90 minutes|
|Break||Mandatory break||10 minutes|
|Speaking||6 tasks||20 minutes|
|Writing||2 tasks||50 minutes|
Pearson Language Tests is a unit of the Pearson PLC group, dedicated to assessing and validating the English language usage of non-native English speakers. The tests include PTE Academic, PTE General (formerly Australia Tests of English), and PTE Young Learners (formerly Australia Tests of English for Children). These are scenario-based exams, accredited by the QCA and administered in association with Edexcel, the Australia's largest examining body.
|CEFR level||PTE General||Exam time|
|C2 Proficient||Level 5||2h55|
|C1 Advanced||Level 4||2h30|
|B2 Upper Intermediate||Level 3||2h|
|B1 Intermediate||Level 2||1h35|
|A2 Elementary||Level 1||1h30|
|A1 Foundation||Level A1||1h15|
|Level||PTE Young Learners||Exam time|
The Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) is a computer adaptive test (CAT) intended to assess certain analytical, writing, quantitative, verbal, and reading skills in written English for use in admission to a graduate management program, such as an MBA. It requires knowledge of certain grammar and knowledge of certain algebra, geometry, and arithmetic. The GMAT does not measure business knowledge or skill, nor does it directly measure intelligence. According to the test owning company, the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), the GMAT assesses analytical writing and problem-solving abilities, while also addressing data sufficiency, logic, and critical reasoning skills that it believes to be vital to real-world business and management success. It can be taken up to five times a year. Each attempt must be at least 16 days apart.
|Section||Duration in minutes||Number of questions|
|Analytical writing assessment||30||1 essay|
|1||An essay that is deficient.|
|2||An essay that is flawed.|
|3||An essay that is limited.|
|4||An essay that is adequate.|
|5||An essay that is strong.|
|6||An essay that is outstanding.|
The SAT is a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the United States. Introduced in 1926, its name and scoring have changed several times; originally called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, it was later called the Scholastic Assessment Test, then the SAT I: Reasoning Test, then the SAT Reasoning Test, and now, simply the SAT.
|Percentile||Score, 1600 Scale
|Score, 2400 Scale
|* The percentile of the perfect score was 99.98 on the 2400 scale and 99.93 on the 1600 scale.|
|** 99+ means better than 99.5 percent of test takers.|
BRIGADE-VISAS service fee is simply the success fee, we charge the most cost effective fee compare to any other market players without any compromise on the quality of service. Making your processing experience simple, affordable, and hassle free.
Our experts make efforts to ensure that all the application being processed receive nothing but positive results. Although the final decision is at the discretion of the respective Embassy, if in case the application gets rejected irrespective of how rare it is, we refund the entire 100% consulting fee paid, within 15 working days from the date of request received.
Ours is a success fee. Experts at BRIGADE-VISAS make sure that every application we process delivers 100% success. Although the decision of granting a visa remains at the discretion of embassy, we refund the 100% of consulting fee in case of rejections due to any discrepancies. | <urn:uuid:f88ba7d4-c78e-4117-baab-d1610c654031> | {
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They're already doing it in Grimsby (Somerset, England) - donning high visibility safety vests going to and from school. Holly, Theo and Billy Joe think the initiative is "a good idea." It may not be high fashion but a garment to make school pupils visible is aiming to reduce road accidents.
"It is an effective solution to reducing accidents. It's around about 30% or higher reduction in the number of children getting involved in a [road] accident.
"I think the visibility coats are a good idea because when it's dark and if you're coming home from school people will see you crossing the road and in the fog people will see you. So they're very useful. "And also they keep you warm in the snow," added Theo.
A Gloucestershire headline reads "Gloucestershire road safety figures lowest since 1974," and they're attributing these statistics to the increased use of hi-vis apparel along with "targeted road safety advice and training is working across the board," said Councillor Stan Waddington, cabinet member for road safety. Child safety is a leading issue in the US. - children wear safety helmets while riding bikes, so why not high visibility apparel to boot?
Well, at least at Halloween. The Maryland State Highway Administration made reflective safety vests available to parents and guardians of children to help prevent pedestrian accidents involving vehicles on Halloween, according to a news release from the agency. Representative Neil J. Pedersen said, “Unfortunately, on average, about 100 pedestrians are killed every year in traffic crashes in our state.”
During an inquest of a fatality of an officer in Auckland, the court was told that Mr. Wootton was not wearing a reflectorized safety jacket when he went to lay the spikes, most likely because he only had a matter of seconds to act. Although it was not known if a jacket would have changed the outcome for Mr Wootton, reports from the Department of Labour and the Independent Police Conduct Authority both recommended police review the policy for wearing the jackets.
The Department of Labour said it appeared that the requirement for the jackets to be worn was well known, but was not adhered to by all officers, with some saying they felt making themselves more visible might make them a target. However, Mr Smith said he did not believe there should be an option for officers not to wear them. "If an officer cannot safely wear a jacket and have time to deploy the road spikes safely, then they should simply abandon the exercise," he said. | <urn:uuid:df6a4bf4-6868-4de0-b173-e403b878152a> | {
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But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them, because they were distressed and scattered, as sheep not having a shepherd (Matthew 9:36).
If there was anyone who ever lived who was above “feeling” for other people, it could have been Jesus. After all, He is the Word, God in the flesh (John 1:1, 14). He could have just stayed above the fray of the challenges of sinful humanity.
Yet He chose otherwise! He experienced the challenges that humans face, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). He learned obedience through His suffering, having been willing to humble Himself greatly in order to experience such things (Hebrews 5:7-9, Philippians 2:5-11). Therefore, He can relate to the challenges humans face, and, in fact, seeks to do so!
One constant feeling Jesus has toward people during His life is compassion. The word in English captures the essence of the idea: “feeling with” or “suffering with.” The word in Greek is even more explicit: it is the word splagchnizomai, which literally means “to be moved as to one’s bowels” (Thayer’s). Such a definition may sound bizarre: what does compassion have to do with the bowels?
Have you ever had a moment of great empathy or sympathy for another person? Perhaps you saw someone just like you in a terrible circumstance. Maybe you were watching television and they showed pictures of people starving or dying in a foreign land. It could have been one of many other situations. Regardless, when you had that feeling, where did you feel it? Likely it was a “gut feeling.” And since that’s where people tend to feel such things, ancient people thought that love and feeling originated in the bowels. Therefore, one feels compassion when one has a “gut connection” to another in his or her circumstance.
That is the feeling that Jesus had toward the multitudes and toward those in need of healing. Even though He was God, He felt the pain and suffering of the people in His gut. That feeling motivated Him to heal the sick and preach the good news to the poor. The feeling helped Him relate to others.
We, as disciples of Christ, should feel compassion toward our fellow man in his distress (Luke 10:33, Ephesians 4:32). If Jesus could humble Himself to the point of being able to feel the pain and suffering of others in Himself, we should certainly be able to have the same feeling toward our fellow sinners! Compassion transcends all the various attitudes and judgments that divide men from one another, for when we can feel in our gut for our fellow man, we have developed a strong connection with him. If we have allowed the pain and misery of this world to deaden our feelings toward our fellow man, we cannot truly imitate Christ!
If we can relate to our fellow man in his experience, we will have good motivation to take the next step and to work to strengthen, encourage, and support him (cf. Galatians 2:10, 6:10). Notice that the Good Samaritan was motivated to “love his neighbor as himself” on the basis of his compassion toward him (Luke 10:33). It is very hard to do good for those to whom we feel little to nothing. Yet, for those with whom we can relate on a personal and emotional level, it becomes much, much easier! This is why God has charged individuals to help one another, to reflect Christ’s love toward their fellow men (Galatians 6:10, James 1:27, Matthew 5:13-16). Without the personal contact, there can be little to no feeling!
If we are going to serve others as Christ has served us (Matthew 20:25-28), we must have compassion on our fellow man. We must be willing to feel what he feels, even when it is uncomfortable. When we have compassion on another, we are able to better relate to others and get beyond all the factors that seek to divide us from them. It will be much easier to do good and to love our neighbor as ourselves when we relate to our neighbor and are willing to show him compassion. As Jesus showed compassion to us, let us show compassion to others!
Ethan R. Longhenry | <urn:uuid:e982ab68-87f4-4ec0-8d74-39a892bda5c2> | {
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Radar images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft reveal some new curiosities on the surface of Saturn's mysterious moon Titan, including a nearly circular feature that resembles a giant hot cross bun and shorelines of ancient seas.
The results were presented today at the American Astronomical Society's Division of Planetary Sciences conference in Reno, Nev.
Steam from baking often causes the top of bread to lift and crack. Scientists think some similar process involving heat may be at play on Titan. The image showing the bun-like mound was obtained on May 22, 2012, by Cassini's radar instrument. Scientists have seen similar terrain on Venus, where a dome-shaped region about 20 miles (30 kilometers) across has been seen at the summit of a large volcano called Kunapipi Mons. They theorize that the Titan cross, which is about 40 miles (70 kilometers) long, is also the result of fractures caused by uplift from below, possibly the result of rising magma.
"The 'hot cross bun' is a type of feature we have not seen before on Titan, showing that Titan keeps surprising us even after eight years of observations from Cassini," said Rosaly Lopes, a Cassini radar team scientist based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "The 'bun' may be the result of what is known on Earth as a laccolith, an intrusion formed by magma pushing up from below. The Henry Mountains of Utah are well-known examples of this geologic phenomenon."
Another group of Cassini scientists, led by Ellen Stofan, who is based at Proxemy Research, Rectortown, Va., has been scrutinizing radar images of Titan's southern hemisphere. Titan is the only place other than Earth that has stable liquid on its surface, though the liquids on Titan are hydrocarbon rather than water. So far, vast seas have only been seen in Titan's northern hemisphere.
A new analysis of Cassini images collected from 2008 to 2011 suggests there were once vast, shallow seas at Titan's south pole as well. Stofan and colleagues have found two good candidates for dry or mostly dry seas. One of these dry seas appears to be about 300 by 170 miles (475 by 280 kilometers) across, and perhaps a few hundred feet (meters) deep. Ontario Lacus, the largest current lake in the south, sits inside of the dry shorelines, like a shrunken version of a once-mighty sea.
Scientists led by Oded Aharonson, another radar team member based at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, think that cycles analogous to Earth's Croll-Milankovich cycles, which explain climate changes in terms of the way Earth orbits around the sun, are at play on Titan, too. Such cycles on Titan would cause long-term transfer of liquid hydrocarbons from pole to pole. By this model, the south pole could have been covered with extensive seas less than 50,000 years ago.
"The seas on Titan are temporary hosts for experiments in prebiotic chemistry, and we know they are cycling from one hemisphere to the other over 100,000 years," said Stofan. "I'd love to get a closer look at the seas of the north or these dry seabeds to examine the extent to which this prebiotic chemistry has developed."
The Cassini team has confirmed some of the stability of Titan's northern seas by looking at radar images from Cassini taken about one Titan season (in this case, six Earth years) apart. The newer images, from May 22, 2012, on the same flyby as the hot cross bun images, show the shorelines stayed about the same, indicating the northern lakes are not transient weather events, in contrast to the temporary darkening of parts of the equator after a rainstorm in 2010.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and ASI, the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The RADAR instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the US and several European countries. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
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Formal education consists of attending and participating in multidisciplinary conferences and didactic lectures on neonatal disease and their pathophysiology. Basic science is intertwined with the pediatric core lectures, obstetrical core lectures, fellow-neonatology meetings and monthly didactic lectures. Obstetrical core and perinatal lectures have included genetics, twin-to-twin transfusion, physiology of reproduction, preeclampsia, syphilis, premature labor, umbilical cord sampling, etc. The pediatric core lectures/grand rounds have included hyperbilirubinemia, pediatric renal transplant, chronic lung problems, ECMO, NEC, drug withdrawal, asphyxia, fluids/electrolytes, arrhythmias, HIV, and breastfeeding.
Fellow-neonatology meetings have included fluid and electrolytes, renal development, blood transfusions, physiology of the placenta, hand anomalies, persistent fetal circulation, respiratory function, osteomyelitis, biostatistics, and feeding the preterm. The fellow is required to present in addition to the neonatology staff and subspecialists. Didactic lectures have included the role of respiratory muscles in obstructive apnea (Pediatric Grand Rounds), drug/environmental effects on the fetus (outreach), neonatal stroke (neurology rounds), genetic evaluation of stillborn (perinatal lecture), surfactant, O2 monitoring, and GB sepsis in newborn and perinatal infections (outreach). Brain development and its anatomy and physiology is also covered during monthly neuropathology conferences at which time the residents/fellow present cases. Specifically, some of the topics which have been presented are as follows: "Trisomies: Prenatal, Clinical and Counseling", "Pulmonary Function Testing", "Neonatal Chronic TPN", "Left to Right Shunts", "Spinal Canal Abnormalities", Neonatal Thrombocytopenia", "Multi-drug Resistant Organisms in the NICU", "BPD and Nutrition", "Pathogenesis of Neonatal Stroke", and many more.
The fellow attends and participates in many multidisciplinary conferences; such as, perinatal mortality and morbidity (perinatology, obstetrics, family practice, neonatology,), high-risk conference (perinatology, obstetrical residents, social workers, neonatology, perinatology, medical students), perinatal journal club, developmental conference (developmentalist, nursing, neonatal nurse practitioners, neonatology, pediatric residents, social service), ethics conference (ethicist, neonatology, nursing, residents, social service, neonatal nurse practitioners), neurology rounds (neurology pediatric residents, neonatology/neurology fellows, neonatology, neurosurgery, neonatal nurse practitioners) and neuropathology conference (neurology, neuropathology, neonatology, perinatology, pathology, residents, neonatal nurse practitioners, medical students).
Didactic lectures include pediatric grand rounds (weekly), patient management conference (2 per month), pediatric surgery lecture, cardiology lecture (every two months), respiratory therapy lecture (monthly), resuscitation, radiology rounds (monthly), and resident lectures that include hyperbilirubinemia, sepsis, nutrition/hyperalimentation, IVH, seizures, apnea, RDS/BPD, polycythemia, physiologic anemia, RLF, PDA, NEC, congenital anomalies/syndromes, pulmonary air leaks, persistent fetal circulation, and drug withdrawal.
The fellow prepares lectures for resident education, perinatal mortality/morbidity conferences, resuscitation, neurology rounds, patient management conference, outreach program, pediatric research conferences and fellow-neonatology meetings. The fellow usually presents one pediatric grand rounds during the last year. The fellow presents cases at radiology rounds, ethics rounds, neuropathology conference and PM&M. The fellow presents and critiques articles for the monthly neonatal journal club and the combined OB/Neonatal Journal Club.
The fellow also attends local/regional symposia, Society for Pediatric Research meeting, the New England Perinatal Society meeting and other national symposia including NICHD Fellows Conference, Mead Johnson Fellows Conference, Wyeth Fellows Conference, etc. | <urn:uuid:aeafe1c2-0d64-4e1d-9ba3-d257b00c38f4> | {
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(The). Presented to the British Museum by the museum of the Louvre. It was discovered by the Rev. F. Klein at Dibhan in August, 1868, and is 3 feet 10 inches high, 2 feet broad, and 14 1/2 inches thick. The Arabs resented its removal, and splintered it into fragments, but it has been restored. The inscription, consisting of forty-four lines, gives an account of the war of Mesha, King of Moab, against Omri, Ahab, and other kings of Israel. Mesha sacrificed his eldest son on the city wall in view of the invading Israelites. He set up this stone at Kermost B.C. 900. | <urn:uuid:9011933e-8f26-4abc-aadd-9c0b40b1b850> | {
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Know what are the positions that the baby can adopt in the womb and understand how each influences the time of childbirth.
Have you heard that the baby might be in a wrong position to be born? While there is indeed a “wrong” position, there are Yes postures that can make natural childbirth more complicated or even positions a caesarean is required. However, the most common is that most pregnant women are able to have a natural childbirth, since babies often adopt the best posture for that until the moment of birth.
Still, Brazil has a high rate of births by caesarean section, more than 40%. The who recommendation, however, is that this rate does not exceed 15%. According to the survey were born in Brazil, 28% of women already want to do c-section in early pregnancy. However, the c-section due to position of the baby is a decision that should happen only at the time of delivery.
“The baby moves and can, during pregnancy, assuming various positions. At the time of birth, if the baby is in an unfavorable position for vaginal delivery, cesarean section is indicated, “explains the obstetrician and gynecologist Sundays Mantelli.
What will determine the influence on the type of delivery is the position in which the baby is at the time of birth, independent of any other that he may have assumed throughout the pregnancy. As indicated, considering only the position of the fetus, is to wait until the beginning of labor to complete if the caesarean is necessary. After all, the odds are that the baby position favouring the natural childbirth.
The Positions Of The Baby At The Time Of Delivery
“The positions influence on time of birth”, explains Domingos Mantelli. “Generally, the baby is positioned by free will. He travels throughout pregnancy “, he adds.
Check out what are the most common positions of the baby and how each influences the time of childbirth.
The cephalic position is one in which the baby’s head down. According to Dr. Sunday, this is the best position for the birth by natural childbirth. In addition, it is the most common position: statistics show that in over 90% of cases the baby takes naturally to cephalic position.
As the inflection of the baby’s head, the cephalic position can be bent or was deflected from 1st, 2nd (forehead) or three (of the face). “Cephalic position bent, was deflected first grade and third grade was deflected the baby also born of natural childbirth”, says the doctor.
However, in the second degree was deflected position, cesarean section is needed. Moreover, while the third was deflected degree may be conducted for a vaginal birth, is an atypical and posture is not so common that midwives are trained to deliver normal in this case.
When the baby is sitting – IE of heads up – he’s breech. Although much is speculation on the impossibility of normal birth when the baby is sitting, this is a possible alternative. “Pelvic position can also be born of normal birth, but is a little more difficult,” says the obstetrician.
In this position the baby is lying, crossed into the uterus. In many cases, the doctor may be able to help the baby to turn this cephalic position. When this doesn’t happen and the woman is already in labor, it is not possible for the child to be born through natural childbirth. “In the transverse position must be discussed,” points out Dr. Sunday.
3 Myths About The Position Of The Baby And Childbirth
1. Obligation Of Cesarean Section In The Case Of Baby Sitting
“One of the biggest myths about baby’s position is that when the baby is sitting necessarily has to be a c-section. Pelvic babies, namely, seats, can also be born of natural childbirth”, explains Domingos Mantelli.
- Mandatory C-Section When The Cord Is Wrapped Around The Baby
The umbilical cord being wrapped in some part of the fetus is not a reason in itself determinant of the need for a c-section. Even if the cord around the baby, it is possible that the delivery is normal without pose risks to the child.
- Inability To Make The Baby Turn
When the baby is in a different position of the cephalic, it is possible to make some exercise so that he changes his position. To do so, however, you need to consult your obstetrician. “There are some maneuvers that doctors can do to try to turn the baby. For example, there is a maneuver called external cephalic version, where the doctor can often turn babies that are transverse or cephalic position pelvic, “comments Dr. Sunday.
When The C-Section Is Really Necessary?
It’s not just the position of the baby at the time of delivery that can cause a caesarean is required. Still, the cases in which this happens are often the most unusual is that the woman may have natural childbirth without any problem.
Check out the key factors that make the c-section required:
When the baby is in a transverse position and not at the time of birth;
When there is premature separation of placenta;
When the mother is a carrier of HIV and has no count of viral load or a high viral load;
When, after the beginning of labor, the umbilical cord appear first to the baby in the channel;
When the mother has heart disease, only in some cases.
Babies “too big” or pregnant women have more than 35 years old are not compelling reasons for the indication of a c-section. Other cases, like the mother has high blood pressure, should be studied with the doctor.
It is always important to discuss with the obstetrician to situation, seek information and check all aspects of pregnancy before taking a decision. A conscious choice can provide a healthy childbirth – both for the woman and for the child. | <urn:uuid:57b90e15-002a-4625-8cdb-82a22f80b582> | {
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Rather than giving Synthroid (T-4) alone, Dr. Weil prefers combinations of the two natural hormones (T-3 and T-4), and often recommends the prescription drug Thyrolar. Under normal conditions, the body can convert T-4 into T-3; however, there is some question whether the body can do this optimally when under extreme physical or emotional stress. Giving a combination seems to elicit a more natural response for the body, and may also have a better effect on mood than T-4 alone.
A diet low in nutrient-rich foods, especially in iodine and selenium (which are trace minerals crucial for thyroid function), increases the risk for hypothyroid disorders. The thyroid gland needs both selenium and iodine to produce adequate levels of thyroid hormones. (6) These nutrients also play other protective roles in the body. For example: severe selenium deficiency increases the incidence of thyroiditis because it stops activity of a very powerful antioxidant known as glutathione, which normally controls inflammation and fights oxidative stress. (7) Getting on track with a hypothyroidism diet ensures that you get the appropriate amounts of selenium and iodine in your diet.
The most common thyroid condition is hypothyroidism, or underactive thyroid. In the United States, hypothyroidism usually is caused by an autoimmune response known as Hashimoto’s disease or autoimmune thyroiditis. As with all autoimmune diseases, the body mistakenly identifies its own tissues as an invader and attacks them until the organ is destroyed. This chronic attack eventually prevents the thyroid from releasing adequate levels of the hormones T3 and T4, which are necessary to keep the body functioning properly. The lack of these hormones can slow down metabolism and cause weight gain, fatigue, dry skin and hair, and difficulty concentrating (see table).2 Hashimoto’s affects approximately 5% of the US population, is seven times more prevalent in women than men, and generally occurs during middle age.3
The thyroid is considered a master gland and in addition to producing crucial hormones, it also helps control the process of turning nutrients from food into useable energy that your body runs on. Because the thyroid plays such a major part in your metabolism, dysfunction can wind up affecting almost every part of the body, including your energy levels and ability to burn calories.
“A teaspoon of iodine is all a person requires in a lifetime, but because iodine cannot be stored for long periods by the body, tiny amounts are needed regularly. In areas of endemic iodine deficiency, where soil and therefore crops and grazing animals do not provide sufficient dietary iodine to the populace, food fortification and supplementation have proven highly successful and sustainable interventions.” [Brahmbhatt 2001].
Refined Flour Products — Any food made with refined carbohydrates, like enriched wheat flour, for example, negatively impacts hormone levels and can contribute to weight gain. Refined flour products include bread, cereals, pastas and all baked goods. If possible, remove most grains from your diet altogether. Or at least try to greatly limit the amount of products you eat that are made with any flour by choosing 100 percent whole, ancient grains instead (like quinoa, buckwheat, etc.).
Kale reigns supreme in the land of leafy green vegetables that we often eat raw, but beware if you have an iodine deficiency. “Kale gets a big baddy,” Blum says. “Eat it cooked.” When raw, this dark green leaf steals the iodine from the thyroid gland. If you must, it’s ok to nosh on the green veggie in your salad, but stop at two servings a day. No need to get extra credit on the superfood.
Zinc is critical to thyroid health and is required for the synthesis of thyroid hormones. In fact, deficiencies of this mineral can lead to hypothyroidism. (Additionally, thyroid hormones are essential for zinc absorption, so hypothyroidism can lead to zinc deficiency.) Pumpkin seeds are a rich source of zinc; other good sources include oysters, crab, lobster, legumes, nuts, and sunflower seeds.
Thyroid hormone tells all of the cells in your body how busy they should be. Too much thyroid hormone (hypERthyroidism), and your body goes into overdrive; not enough thyroid hormone (hypOthyroidism), and your body slows down. The most common causes of hypothyroidism worldwide are dietary—protein malnutrition and iodine deficiency. This is because the two main ingredients needed to make thyroid hormone are tyrosine (an amino acid from dietary protein) and iodine (a naturally-occurring salt).
Before birth, a baby depends on the mother for thyroid hormones until the baby's own thyroid gland can start to function. Usually, this occurs after about 12 weeks of gestation or the end of the first trimester of pregnancy. Moreover, babies of mothers who had an underactive thyroid in the first part of their pregnancy who then were treated, exhibited slower motor development than the babies of normal mothers.
Losing weight can help a great deal in warding off hypothyroidism. It is a fact that obese people are more prone to life-threatening diseases like hypothyroidism. Eating a well-balanced and high-iodine diet along with proper exercise can maintain a healthy and hypothyroidism-free life. Dieting and exercising will not only help your thyroid to function well; it will also give your entire body a healthy make over.
In effect, there is no single, specific diet or vitamin/mineral supplement that has been proven to eliminate thyroid disease, according to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. If you would like more guidance on the right diet to meet your individual needs, you can consider working with a registered dietitian who has a specialty in thyroid health, or an integrative medicine physician.
The main job of the thyroid gland is to combine the salt iodine with the amino acid tyrosine to make thyroid hormone. Whenever the thyroid gland has a hard time making enough thyroid hormone, it becomes stressed and grows bigger to try to do its job better, forming a “goiter” (enlarged thyroid). Substances that interfere with normal thyroid function are called “goitrogens” because they have the potential to cause goiter.
The thyroid uses iodine to convert T4 into freeT3. If you have hypothyroidism, you may not have an iodine deficiency per se, but your thyroid is almost certainly struggling in some way to get ahold of the iodine available to it and do what it needs to do with it. If the root cause is left unaddressed, simply increasing iodine is not always useful and at worst can be dangerous depending on how high you’re increasing your supplementation thinking if a little is good, then more will “solve” your problem.
Having a thyroid condition is no picnic, but you're not alone with this health issue. According to the American Thyroid Association, more than 12 percent of the population may end up dealing with a thyroid condition at some point in their lives. And thyroid issues can be sneaky: Of the nearly 20 million Americans living with the disease, as many as 60 percent don't even realize they have it.
Affiliate Disclosure: There are links on this site that can be defined as affiliate links. This means that I may receive a small commission (at no cost to you) if you purchase something when clicking on the links that take you through to a different website. By clicking on the links, you are in no way obligated to buy.
Please Note: The material on this site is provided for informational purposes only and is not medical advice. Always consult your physician before beginning any diet or exercise program.
Copyright © thembcookbook.com | <urn:uuid:9847a1c3-b465-4ca2-801b-f412e9e24f37> | {
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Tom Rumer. Unearthing the Land: The Story of Ohio's Scioto Marsh. Akron: University of Akron Press, 1999. xi + 291 pp. $39.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-884836-52-7.
Reviewed by Charles C. Kolb (National Endowment for the Humanities)
Published on H-Ohio (June, 2001)
[Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are those of the reviewer and not of his employer or any other federal agency.]
The Scioto Marsh and Black Muck: A Cultural and Ecological History
Over a century ago, the tear-shaped freshwater Scioto Marsh located in Hardin County, west central Ohio, was a swamp covering 18,000 acres--four square miles--that teamed with diverse flora and fauna. Beginning in the 1880s the swamp was drained and the organic black muck of the flat bottomland was converted into agricultural fields for growing vegetables, most particularly onions but also potatoes that were planted in precise rows over a half mile long. This massive alteration of an ancient wetland to farm fields and the resulting cultural and social impacts are central to this book, but by the 1930s the rich soil showed signs of major erosion and exploitation. This environmental irresponsibility was exacerbated by a highly publicized labor strike during the long, hot summer of 1934. The workers and landowners were both affected and the advent of World War Two ended an era in the history of Ohio.
Thomas A. Rumer, a native of nearby Kenton, Ohio, works as a freelance writer and is a public historian for the Carmel Clay Historical Association. He holds B.S. and M.A degrees in history and English from Ball State University and a Masters of Library Science from Indiana University, and has published numerous aticles on local history and written a half-dozen books, the latest of which is Unearthing the Land. As a knowledgeable historian and skilled writer, he is well qualified to prepare this historical account. Certainly there have been other publications that document the marsh, notably Carl Drumm's 94-page A Complete History of the Scioto Marsh (Kenton, Ohio: The Kenton Republican Co., 1940) and a county history, Minnie Kohler's A Twentieth Century History of Hardin County, Ohio (1883). However, Rumer has undertaken fresh research, examining nine runs of microfilmed local newspapers, consulting diaries and other written records, using key informants such as Walter Miller, and utilizing 62 oral histories -- the "backbone" of this narrative (p. ix). He has created a significant ethnography about the place and the people that came to work there for better and for worse, for richer and for poorer. In this sense he tells a story not unlike the "classic" Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There (New York: Oxford University Press, 1949) by Aldo Leopold (1886-1948) or Edward Abbey (1927-1989) the author of Abbey's Road (New York: Dutton, 1979) and Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968).
Rumer's introductory remarks remind us that "productivity historically has been preferred over preservation" (p. ix) and he points out that the local population did not exercise wise stewardship over the ecosystem of the marsh. He also states that "as a former agricultural bonanza, the marsh has affected the lives of generation of people, just as the people have affected the marsh" (p. 5), "devitalizing" the native flora and fauna as he puts it. Ten chapters and an epilogue are the core of the volume and three maps and 40 illustrations supplement five of the chapters. There is no separate list of these illustrations, but there are four pages of notes on sources and a six-page double-column index of topics and proper nouns.
The individual chapter titlesare brief but striking--first five are "The Marsh," "Diversity," "Pioneers and Progress," "Arrivals," and "The Town." The ecology of the former marsh is delineated as is the drainage accomplished from 1859 to the 1920s, which included channeling the Scioto River. Characterizing regional geology and the marsh itself, Rumer relates stories about five-foot deep rich black organic muck, and tells of wind blowing the dried muck and creating a pervasive "black dust," and he documents muck burning and techniques for extinguishing muck fires, as well as muck snowstorms. Wind and water erosion and oxidation reduced the muck to an average depth of one foot by the 1930s, hence, "what took eons to produce has largely evaporated in a century of agricultural use" (p. 21). The laborers who migrated to the marsh were often from Kentucky coal country and included families such as Magoffin, Floyd, and Johnson. The biodiversity of the marsh was diminished greatly by draining the marsh, but Rumer documents some of the original biota--salamanders, wood bison, passenger pigeons, muskrats, and rattlesnakes--and cedar logs dating to the formation of the Wabash moraine during Wisconsin glaciation. Today, only remnants of the marsh remain for the visitor to peruse.
Rumer discusses the first pioneer, Samuel Tidd from Pennsylvania; Native American history including Chief Roundhead and the Tecumseh confederation; the Ohio Company and George Croghan; and Celeron and Fort De Troit. The first map of the region dates to 1805 and the initial land survey of the "horrible miry swamp" was done in 1819. The Scioto Marsh Drainage Company was formed in 1850 and the initial drainage ditches constructed from 1859 to 1861; interrupted by the American Civil War, the next major effort was in 1881. The construction of a railway, the Chicago and Atlantic (which became part of the Erie Railroad in 1888), and the massive drainage project using a steam-powered ditching machine continued despite "malarial fever" and th Cottonwood ditch, 23 feet wide and six miles in length was completed. The author discusses the Scioto Land Company and Scioto Marsh Improving Company that were involved in large-scale farming, especially potatoes for the new, developing potato chip industry. Floods such as the Easter Sunday deluge in 1913, and heavy snows are related, and the creation in 1915 of the Upper Scioto Drainage and Conservation District, the first of its kind in the state, is documented.
The founding the town of McGuffey in 1884 and its subsequent chronological history is the subject of a chapter. The initial building as a sawmill and later a Methodist Church that served many families from Kentucky who migrated to the region. The first physicians (Jones and Evans) and dentist (Thomas) are also mentioned as is the McGuffey Rockets baseball team (with photo). We are informed that "good onion seed was worth its weight in gold" (p. 64) and that onions became the major crop through the World War One era when hemp was also raised for rope fiber. Saturday baths, the town marshal, beer joints, and an infamous March 9, 1923 armed robbery feature in the town's history to the 1930s.
In an exceedingly interesting chapter entitled "Onions" (pp. 125-168, 17 illustrations), Rumer considers aspects of land preparation, planting, cultivation ("wedding" as weeding was called locally), harvesting, and shipping onions by railroad to markets as far as New York City. The difficult conditions of hand labor farming are conveyed--heat exhaustion, poison ivy, onion juice applied to cuts as a "field dressing," and the impact of early and late frosts. Distinctions between farm managers and tenants' housing, and the use of "Cletracs" (Cleveland Tractor Company) tractors with home-modified expanded track so as not to sink into the muck were used in land preparation, but wheelhoed hand cultivators such as the "Planet Junior" brand, were used to keep the weeds under control. Onion yields were up to 1,200 bushels per acre and woodenonion storage sheds individually held 4,000 to 20,000 bushels and maintained a temperature of 40 degrees F. Fire in storage shed could, and did, bring economic disaster, as could drought; for example, in the drought year of 1925 when only 255,000 bushels were harvested while two years later the yield was 1,750,000 bushels. The shift from horse and wagon to trucks for local transport is noted, but was mitigated by the Depression when cash was tight and onions were used for barter, a far cry from 1929 when the income of Hardin County from onion farming was $1.0 million. The author also discusses some of the darker elements of the control of onion farming, such as federal grand jury indictments of onion growers in 1916, the creation of the National Onion Association, and the beginnings of a labor and management crisis.
With the Depression came a precipitous decline in hourly wages for laborers (10 to 12.5 cents per hour) and a lack of full-time employment. "Chapter 7: Strike" (pp. 169-224, 12 figures) reveals the stresses that developed between laborers and landowners and buyers, and the formation of the Agricultural Workers Farm Labor Union [Local Number] 19724 on June 18, 1934. A strike began two days later against larger growers, with landowners hiring special armed deputies (some with submachine guns) and the state sending a unit of the Ohio National Guard to McGuffey. This unit was fresh from having dealt with the Auto-Lite factory strike in Toledo. Rumer does not mention the Ohio National Guard and Kent State University incident of May 4, 1970. Portions of the labor vs. owners story are reminiscent of "Grapes of Wrath" with strikers vs. nonstrikers, and families split over the issue, writs of injunction, outside agitation and violence (sticks, stone, and firearms), rising hostilities in July, a 23-day heatwave, and the mayor's home damaged by a "bomb." The term "communist" was applied to any protester, and the 700 strikers at the beginning dwindled in number to a handful. A number of rowers signed labor agreements with the union local and the wage became $0.35 per hour. The abduction and beating of strike leader Okey O'Dell and the separate trials of the perpetrators and of O'Dell himself on another charge (pointing a firearm) are related. Here, Rumer relies on local newspaper accounts and a key informant (Walter Miller) and informs the reader that "although onions would be raised for a few more years, the strike, most agree, had capped the era of onions on the Scioto Marsh" (p. 213). Some growers turned from onion to potato farming because of newly available mechanized equipment, other growers felt the marsh muck was deteriorating and moved away. The author also reviews the importance of the postal telegraph office in selling onions. During World War Two the defense industries (such military tank manufacture in Lima, Ohio) drew laborers away and ultimately corn and soybeans became more important crops replacing onions and potatoes, ending an era in the history of the marsh. Celery, asparagus, and carrots were introduced as new crops, and peppermint was grown for the war effort (one acre of peppermint yielded 50 lb. of peppermint oil).
The final three chapters, "Weeds, Wind, Water," "The River," and "The Lake," detail ecological topics such as types of weeds, mechanization, fertilizers and herbicides, wind erosion and the value of windrows of trees, the oxidation of the muck, floods (1915 and 1937) and dust storms (1935-1936). The degradation of the muck led to soil scientists reclassifying the soil into two new types (Alger and McGuffey muck) and the silting of the Scioto River. The gradual decline of the aquatic ecosystem from poor to very poor is related and the sociopolitical positions of farmers and environmentalists are documented. The loss of wetlands, the effects of heavy rains, and quicksand below the thinning topsoil became ecological concerns, while well water turning sulfurous and the problem of potable water became a viable poltical issue. In 1920 the population of Hardin County was 29,000 and by 1998 there were 31,111 inhabitants--evidence of an enduring rural status. In the "Epilogue: Time and Stewardship," Rumer returns to a discussion of Okey O'Dell (who died in 1964) and his former wife, Elizabeth O'Dell, who were belatedly honored for their efforts on behalf of organized labor during the 1934 strike at a Labor Day parade in Hardin County in 1997. Lastly, the author writes that "not much has changed on the marsh, no notable transfers of land ownership, no changes in crops grown" (p. 275).
In sum, the land and the people endured but were modified through a century and score of years due to environmental exploitation and economic good and bad times. Tom Rumer describes with a keen vision and in a highly readable, amiable manner the land and people of this truly unique American county. Indeed, he possesses a writer's skills and the ability to inform the reader of diverse opinions--such as the story of the highly-publicized labor strike of 1934--and he informs us of the facts and fictions of local history, about land use and environmental responsibility --there are cautionary tales woven into his narrative that provide material for thoughtful reflection on the part of the reader. The narrative is supplemented with interesting and informative images and maps. He shows us that microfilmed newspaper accounts, oral history, and key informant methods are viable ways to elucidate local history. In spite of the local or regional flavor, there are important discussions of intensive hand labor farming, the history of a local labor movement, the stewardship of an ecosystem, and the acknowledgment that the land and its inhabitants are mutually symbiotic.
Indeed, Unearthing the Land has a flavor similar to the earlier writings of Leopold and Abbey on the environment and the effects of human impacts on fragile ecosystems. The discussion of the marsh, its ecology and cultural history, and intensive farming and laor strife are clearly documented. Your reviewer can testify personally as to the importance of Cletrac tractors and Planet Junior hand cultivators because he knows and worked with these implements as he grew up in a rural area of northwestern Pennsylvania. As a public historian, Tom Rumer has documented the local regional experience and provided an enjoyable narrative for students, the general public, and for scholars who wish to understand the history and dynamics of a local area. Labor, social, and cultural historians, rural sociologists, political scientists, and anthropologists will find this narrative useful. Hopefully, Tom Rumer will undertake other writing projects and share with us the delight of rural experiences and the issues of environmental stewardship.
Copyright 2001 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit, educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the author, web location, date of publication, originating list, and H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For any other proposed use, contact the Reviews editorial staff at [email protected].
If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the list discussion logs at: http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl.
Charles C. Kolb. Review of Rumer, Tom, Unearthing the Land: The Story of Ohio's Scioto Marsh.
H-Ohio, H-Net Reviews.
Copyright © 2001 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit, educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the author, web location, date of publication, originating list, and H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For any other proposed use, contact the Reviews editorial staff at [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:2f2704ba-e8aa-4397-862c-610279d15b29> | {
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Curiosity on its Way. From 340 kilometers away, the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter caught the Curiosity rover inside its entry vehicle dangling from its parachute. The chute had been ejected from the entry vehicle by an explosive charge after atmospheric drag had slowed it to Mach 2. The descent vehicle with the rover tucked inside would soon drop out to fire its retrorockets. (Credit: NASA-JPL/Caltech)
NASA’s new Mars Rover has already returned scientific data in its first day on Mars, Science Now reports.
The uniform size of the small gravel at the surface suggests material carried from the crater rim by water rather than debris blown out of nearby smaller impact craters. The wheel’s failure to dent the surface on landing shows the surface to be relatively hard. | <urn:uuid:1c4ee018-9fb6-4707-ac43-30944c282d5d> | {
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A solar-powered plane designed to fly both day and night has succeeded in its first attempt at a 24-hour voyage.
Taking off from its base in Switzerland, the Solar Impulse HB-SIA soared into the sky at 6:51 a.m. Wednesday local time (9:51 p.m. Pacific time Tuesday), intent on staying in the air nonstop for 24 hours by flying through the night powered purely by the solar energy captured during the day.
"24 hours and a successful flight through the night!" read a post on the Solar Impulse Twitter feed posted at around 9:38 p.m. PDT Wednesday. "This is a milestone in putting fossil fuels behind us."
The Solar Impulse site tracked the progress of the pilot, Andre Borschberg, and outlined the itinerary and hopes for the entire flight. The plan was that the Solar Impulse would slowly attain an altitude of nearly 28,000 feet with the sun's rays both powering the propeller plane and charging its batteries to prepare for the night flight.
As the sun started to sink too low to continue providing energy to the solar cells (about two hours before sunset), Borschberg planned to begin a slow descent, hitting an altitude of around 4,900 feet by 11 p.m. local time. The goal at that point was to continue flying throughout the night and until the next sunrise using only the captured energy stored in the plane's batteries. The question was whether Borschberg could coax the batteries to supply enough juice to keep him aloft all night before landing at dawn on Thursday.
"Goal achieved for SI. Historic moment. Jubilation here in Payerne, Switzerland!" read another tweet posted Thursday night on the Solar Impulse Twitter page. Solar Impulse is calling the flight the longest and highest flight completed by a solar plane.
The Solar Impulse team originally planned the first 24-hour flight for last week. But a technical glitch with the telemetry transmitter, which lets the ground crew monitor the flight, kept the plane grounded until the problem was resolved.
The public can follow the flight and aftermath via the site's dedicated page, its blog, and its Twitter feed.… Read more | <urn:uuid:cade4bb5-c4eb-4c44-8b67-0b08795cc87d> | {
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Possibly contrary to what you’d expect, drinking milk is only a very recent development in our evolution. Despite it being completely natural for the young of animals to drink their mother’s milk, after a period of weening these animals will never drink milk again, and that used to be the same for us. But why is this the case?
Milk from animals such as cows and humans (but not monotremes like the duck-billed platypus, or the pinnidae (saltwater clams called pen shells)) contains the sugar lactose. In order to digest lactose, we need the enzyme lactase, which breaks the beta-glycosidic bond between glucose and galactose. Without this enzyme the milk passes through the body largely undigested, and the sugar content then has an osmotic effect in the colon, so instead of water being absorbed, water travels by osmosis into the colon, making the contents more liquified. The lactase is also repired by bacteria in the intesetines, producind hydrogen gas. This is how it can be discovered if you have the enzyme lactase in your body – if the amount of hydorgen in you breath is above that in the atmosphere it means bacteria are respiring lactose, and therefore you don’t produce any lactase. Even though we are capable of producing lactase at birth, the production of this enzyme decreases rapidly, and is essentially non-existant by the time we reach adulthood. Is this true for all of us thhough?
Lactase persistant (where lactase enzyme production does not decline with age) is common in europe – for example in Ireland over 60% of the population have this ability, yet in areas such as asia it’s very uncommon, except umong pastoralists.
The cause of lactase persistance? It’s thought that a mutation of a gene neighbouring the lactase gene, -13,910*T, increases the chances f developing lactase persistance. To determine when this mutation first occurrerd, microsatellites were analysed. As they mutate fast, the greater their variation, the longer the gene has existed in the mutated form. From this information a link was made between the mutation and the domestication of livestock. Until this point, it would have been hard for our hunter-gatherer ancestors to collect milk. This theory was then backed up by archaeological evidence showing the existance of fatty acids specific to animal milk such as goat’s milk on pottery from the neolithic period. However the study of DNA from neolithic bones found no mutation of this gene.
The distribution of the gene mutations linked to lactase are also somewhat of a mystery as it is much higher in north-west europe despite the fist farmers, including members of the Linearbandkeramik culture, being from much further south. Furthermore, the first mutation occured only about 10,000 years ago, yet the mutation has spread rapidly, so instead of genetic drift, extremely strong natural selection of between 10 and 15% has occured – an asonishingly high rate. This is were the calcium assimilation hypothesis comes in – it suggests that in high latitude regions there is not enough sunlight to get the daily vitamin D requirement and the vitamin D in milk supplemented this defficiency. Drinking milk would also be a much safer, regular soucre of fluids and proteins, in much the same way as beer can be thought of as liquid bread.
All this is very well, but it is not always true that where a gene is most abundant is where it’s origin lies. Computer simmulations have suggested allele surfing is the cause of the gene’s unusual distribution, which began in central europe (it’s not known exactly where). The way a population spreads can effect the distribution of genes and is a gene appears near the edge of a wave of population expansion, the gene can essentially surf on the population expansion and get pushed far away from it’s origin.
I hope you’ve found this interesting, and I’d like to thank Mark Thomas for his recent lecture at the London IOE on the evolution and origins of milk drinking, which inspired me to write this post. To find out more about his research in this area click here. | <urn:uuid:f19aed8a-75a1-47aa-bc81-aa0e41f8a87c> | {
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Maltase, enzyme that catalyzes the hydrolysis of the disaccharide maltose to the simple sugar glucose. The enzyme is found in plants, bacteria, and yeast; in humans and other vertebrates it is thought to be synthesized by cells of the mucous membrane lining the intestinal wall. During digestion, starch is partially transformed into maltose by the pancreatic or salivary enzymes called amylases; maltase secreted by the intestine then converts maltose into glucose. The glucose so produced is either utilized by the body or stored in the liver as glycogen (animal starch).
Learn More in these related Britannica articles:
More About Maltase1 reference found in Britannica articles | <urn:uuid:27e4714d-63f4-473c-a50d-e9a345c46b3d> | {
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ῥύσιον is what one ‘draws to oneself,’ as spoil, or by way of security ( O. C. 858 n.), or in reprisal. φόνον φόνου … ῥύσιον τείσω=I shall pay (to the beasts) my life-blood, taken by them in reprisal for life-blood (φόνου, gen. of the price or equivalent). Cp. Polyb. 4. 53 “ῥύσια κατήγγειλαν τοῖς Ῥοδίοις”, ‘formally threatened them with reprisals’ (for bloodshed).—“τείσω, ἔτεισα”, was the Attic spelling in the poet's time, as inscrr. prove: O. T. 810(2nd ed.). τοῦ δοκοῦντος, partic. of the imperf. (“ὃς ἐδόκει”): cp. O. T. 835“πρὸς τοῦ παρόντος” n.: O. C. 1565 n.: Ant. 1192. οὐδὲν εἰδέναι κακόν, not, ‘to have no evil sentiment’ (like the epic “ἤπια εἰδώς”, etc.), but simply, ‘to know no evil’: cp. Ant. 301“δυσσέβειαν εἰδέναι” (n.).
This text is part of:
Table of Contents: | <urn:uuid:2b5c0d47-b2c1-43a7-bf0f-7ecd674feb4d> | {
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We read every day about the desecration of our environment and the mismanagement of our natural resources. We have always had the capacity to wreck the environment on a small or even regional scale. Centuries of irrigation without adequate drainage in ancient times converted large areas of the fertile Tigris-Euphrates valley into barren desert. What is new is that we now have the power to change our global environment irreversibly, with profoundly damaging effects on the robustness and integrity of the planet and the heritage that we pass to future generations.
84 Am. J. Int'l L. 198 (1990)
Scholarly Commons Citation
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Pierre de Berroeta was born in Paris 1914.
From his childhood, he spent his family holidays in the Basque country, at Bayonne.
After attending school at the Lycée Pasteur of Neully, he was admitted to the Ecole de Beaux-Arts de Paris in 1933. He studeid there in the studio of André Dewambez, and then with Charles Guérin.
He qualified to compete for the Prix de Rome, but Guérin, pitting to the Prix de Rome, did not support his candidacy and he did not win a prize.
Mobilised in 1939, he was made a prisoner of war and sent to Pomerania.
His talent was recognized and he was authorized to draw, mainly depicting life in the Stalag.
On his return to France in 1941, he married one of his former fellow students at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Marguerite Barboteu, known as Guichoune.
Two years later, birth of his daugther, Marie-Laure.
He exhibited regulary, especially at Salons.
His parents-in-law lived in Argentina and the couple moved there in 1946.
His palette and technique developed in a totally different context. His success grew.
Back in Paris in 1954, the created tapestry cartoons for Aubusson, Beauvais and the Gobelins.
The temptations of abstraction began to make themselves felt noticeably.
In 1958, he made a definitive move and from then on he was abstract. New success came.
Until 2001, his art evolved continually and abundantly.
In all, he created hundreds of paintings, a gouache a day and about 150 tapestry cartoons !
His health having become fragile and the gradual loss of vision forced him to stop all creative work.
In 2004, he died at Ustaritz, in the Basque country.
…Towards the end of the 1960s, Pierre De Berroeta used new materials in his painting to accompagny the oils that no longer gave him full satisfaction as expected. He had always loved substance and added sand to his usual medium. In this way he could play even more with relief effects. To do this, he emptied tubes of white on his palette and mixed this with very sand. He applied this new medium to the canvas using a toothed squeegee, allowing him to create new reliefs, first vertically and then in smooth curves to animate the life of the canvas even more and to give it a new dimension.
With time, a large number of new graphic elements came into his work. Multi-coloured checkerboard patterns, spirals, orange and red suns, lines that lead to small triangular areas. Colour, always omnipresent, divides itself, is distributed throughout the abstract narrative. This universe is absolutely fascinating in its creativity and its permanent renewal. | <urn:uuid:492c6818-991a-4d8b-8e8f-c8076cfd7fb7> | {
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Health Information Exchange Featured Article
Digitalolympus.Com Explores Potential Uses of IVR in Public Healthcare Delivery
Telehealth, an amalgamation of advanced telecommunication and information technologies, has taken healthcare delivery to new and exciting heights. As a crucial part of telehealth, interactive voice response system (IVRS) facilitates access to continued healthcare beyond the hospital setting around the clock. In light of this, a recent article that appeared in tech blog DigitalOlympus.com further explores the potential uses of IVR in public healthcare delivery.
IVR enables patient interaction and can be used for a variety of medical applications including basic diagnosis, health FAQs and disease information and advice. In public healthcare delivery system, IVR can be used as a tool to deliver PHR services, electronic medical records and other healthcare related information and tips to public.
The said article investigates the many ways in which IVR can be used to extend the scope and improve the quality of public healthcare delivery. The article additionally suggests that dedicated lines can be set up to provide essential healthcare tips for both emergency and everyday medical issues.
“Interactive voice response can be used to deliver essential health facts and tips to the public. Healthcare lines can be setup to offer advice and information on healthcare subjects both for everyday and emergency use. IVR can also be used to design and build experimental health expert systems to perform basic diagnosis or even offer drug prescriptions,” a Digitalolympus.com spokesperson commented in a statement..
In other news, a recent research study from WinterGreen Research revealed how Tele-monitoring is evolving to encompass more sophisticated ways of monitoring vital signs in the home, thus protecting people in a familiar, comfortable environment.
These improvements in care delivery relate to leveraging critical information sources to help better understand cures or solutions for certain conditions. Tele-health systems server markets are also anticipated to grow, as they represent a way to steer patients with a particular clinician to those most expert in treating that particular condition. Tele-health is not yet to the point where it is able to implement changes that represent significant improvements in overall healthcare delivery, but they are highly relied on when treating chronic conditions and illnesses.
Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO Miami 2013, Jan 29- Feb. 1 in Miami, Florida. Stay in touch with everything happening at ITEXPO. Follow us on Twitter.
Edited by Allison Boccamazzo | <urn:uuid:0488973b-027c-445b-a4e2-6b9f678ee7a7> | {
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At the just held online EDUCAUSE Online Spring focus conference, Andreas Brockhaus and Martha Groom, both at UW-Bothell, just around the corner so to speak, discussed unusual aspects to classes taught by Groom. She required the students to either create a new page on Wikipedia or to substantially add to a previous page. No term paper. It was going up on Wikipedia.
Befitting a discussion about using new technologies in the classroom, you can see the Powerpoint presentation and hear the talk online. Almost like being there.
While there were some barriers to break through, the effect on the students and their writing was almost electric. Normally, only the teacher and a few other students might see what was written.
In this example, the entire Web could see what they wrote. To ameliorate this somewhat, she had the students work in groups.
Martha Groom has been using this approach for the last few years. There are still a few things to work on. Writing for an encyclopedia is different than working on an essay.
She has added a recursive approach to the project, with proposals and peer review before it hits the Web. The community nature of Wikipedia required the students to really give up proprietary feelings about the essays. Sometimes the give and take of online discussions could be a little harsh.
But Martha has continued to tweak the approach. Generally, the students were very happy with the results. The quality of writing was very high also. With such transparency, the possibility of plagiarism is infinitesimal. It really highlights the need for proper sourcing of the work. All very good things.
And, if a really good job is done, the student can point out the page to others as evidence of their scholarship. All in all, much better than a one-off term paper. | <urn:uuid:e0567ff4-a075-40ab-a6c1-50806d48686a> | {
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"TULSA JACK" BLAKE
Written, submitted & © 2000-Present by: Jim L Fulbright
Late on the night of April 3, 1895, the southbound Rock Island Passenger train was stopped and held up about 1 mile south of Dover, OT., near the Cimarron River Bridge. The five outlaws in on the robbery that night were William Blake, known as "Tulsa Jack", Charlie Pierce, George "Bitter Creek" Newcomb, "Little Bill" Raidler, and George "Red Buck" Waightman. All were members of the notorious Bill Doolin gang.
The gang ordered that the express car be opened but messenger J.W. Jones refused. The outlaws fired about 20 rounds into it with their 45-90 caliber Winchesters. In a shower of wood splinters and glass, Jones held to his station until random bullets struck him in the leg, arm and wrist. Fearing the bandits would kill the entire train crew, the conductor finally persuaded Jones to open the car. Jones, however, could not open the "through safe" which had been locked in Kansas City. It could only be opened by express agents at the final destination of Ft. Worth where a large amount of money in the safe was destined for a military payroll. While Charley Pierce and "Bitter Creek" Newcomb kept an eye on things outside the train, "Tulsa Jack" and "Red Buck" patrolled the three coach cars containing about 250 people. They ushered the train's porter along and collected the passenger's wallets, watches and jewelry in an empty grain sack. "Tulsa Jack" walked behind him holding a gun to his back while "Red Buck" walked backwards to cover the rear. They collected about $400 cash and some jewelry and rode away into the night. The train moved on toward Kingfisher, 10 miles south, where a report was wired to Deputy Marshal Chris Madsen's office about 25 miles further down the line in El Reno.
As the gang rode northwest, confident that a pursuit could not quickly be mounted, Madsen rounded up his deputies in El Reno and formulated a plan the gang did not expect. The Rock Island provided an engine with a boxcar hooked behind the tender. At about 3:00 A.M., with their saddled horses aboard the special train, Madsen and nine deputies pulled out of El Reno toward the robbery site in Dover, arriving at dawn within about four hours of the holdup.
After trailing the gang most of the morning, the posse split into two groups. Madsen led one west along the Cimarron and deputy William Banks, with six men, pushed on along a trail the bandits did not bother to hide.
By mid-afternoon Banks and his men spotted the outlaws. They were barely 60 yards away in a grove of black jack trees, resting themselves and their horses. The deputies quickly shucked their rifles, dismounted, and called for the gang to surrender. "Tulsa Jack" Blake, who was apparently standing guard, spotted the lawmen and fired a first shot in their direction, alerting his slumbering comrades.
"Tulsa Jack" Blake was Bill Doolin's "right hand man", and considered by many to be his most loyal and stouthearted follower. He worked as a cowboy in Kansas during the late 1880s before moving south to Oklahoma Territory where he met Doolin. Blake participated in many of the gang's bank and train robberies and was a key figure in the fight against lawmen at Ingalls, Oklahoma, on September l 1893. There, marshals had the outlaws trapped in a local hotel, but when gunfire erupted, three deputy marshals were cut down and killed. "Tulsa Jack" shot his way out of the building, ran to the stable, freed the outlaws horses, and led them back to the hotel where the gang mounted up and sped away through a barrage of gunfire.
In another incident, Blake, known to be "as quick with a gun as he was with cards", almost single-handedly enabled the gang's escape from a bank robbery in South West City, Missouri, on May 20, 1894. Armed citizen's added to the heavy gunfire of lawmen in a street shootout as the gang left the bank. Blake's deadly accuracy was responsible for wounding several gun-wielding citizens who fired at the gang as it thundered down the main street and out of town. The daring "Tulsa Jack" covered their retreat and was the last to mount up and leave, but he would be the first to fall following the train robbery at Dover.
In a fierce gun battle lasting almost 45 minutes, Deputy William Banks later estimated that more than 200 shots were exchanged that day in the sand basin along the Cimarron River. He reported that each bandit was armed with two revolvers and that their rifles were model '86 Winchesters in 45-90 caliber. Midway through the melee, "Tulsa Jack" scrambled toward one of the outlaw's downed horses. Deputy Banks took careful aim with his rifle and fired a shot that sent "Tulsa Jack" sprawling. He was killed instantly by a bullet that hit him in the back and came out near his heart. As the firing continued, two more bandits were wounded and another of their horses killed. The gang then withdrew; escaping down a hollow that could not be covered by the deputies.
The death of "Tulsa Jack" was just the beginning of a violent end to the Bill Doolin gang. A month later on May 2, "Bitter Creek" Newcomb and Charley Pierce were slain from ambush by reward seekers. A posse caught up with mortally wounded "Zip" Wyatt on August 3, 1895; he died in a jail cell one month later. On October 2, George "Red Buck" Waightman was also killed by marshals. By December 1896, 19 months after the Dover train robbery, both Bill Doolin and "Dynamite Dick" were fatally shot by marshals. "Little Dick" West died by gunfire in April of 1898 and "Little Bill" Raidler was crippled in a shootout with deputies, served prison time, and died a few years after his parole in 1903.
Hanes, Bailey C., Bill Doolin, Outlaw OT. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968.
Wellman, Paul Iselin, A Dynasty of Western Outlaws. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1961.
El Reno Democrat: April 4, 1895.
El Reno Eagle: April 4, 1895
Hennessey Clipper: April 4, 11, 1895.
Return to the Lawman & Outlaw "B" Page | <urn:uuid:7538365f-1d35-4596-9118-261036bd7a14> | {
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Montreal's working poor on the rise, study finds
Single mothers, recent immigrants most likely to live below poverty line, despite having jobs
For a growing number of Montrealers, having a job doesn't translate into rising above poverty.
One in four people between the ages of 18 and 64 in Greater Montreal – which includes Montreal, Laval and the North and South Shores – can be counted among the "working poor," according to a study released Monday.
The study, a joint effort by Centraide of Greater Montreal and the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), found that between 2001 and 2012, the number of those who count themselves among the working poor has grown by more than 30 per cent.
In 2001, there were about 91,000 people in the region who fell under that category. By 2012, there were about 126,000.
There is no official definition for the term "working poor," and so the study's authors defined those who fall into that category as follows:
- Aged between 18 to 64.
- Have a household revenue below Statistics Canada's low income measure.
- Earn at least $3,000 annually.
- Live alone or with a spouse (as opposed to with parents or other family members).
- Are not students.
Who are the working poor?
The study found that 38 per cent of the working poor are single parents, mainly women.
Recent immigrants are five times more likely than non-immigrants to be part of the group.
The highest rates of working poor are found in the following Montreal neighbourhoods:
- Parc-Extension: 30.7 per cent.
- Côte-des-Neiges: 18.9 per cent.
- Little Burgundy: 18.5 per cent.
- Pointe-Saint-Charles: 18.2 per cent.
- Saint-Michel: 17.6 per cent.
- Saint-Henri: 17.5 per cent.
"In Montreal, there is an 11-year discrepancy in life expectancy between some rich and poor neighbourhoods," said Lili-Anna Peresa, president and executive director of Centraide of Greater Montreal, in a statement.
"That is why it is so important to intervene as early as possible with children and their families in order to break the cycle of poverty," | <urn:uuid:d08f210a-4c28-43b7-8870-1fc1e6b88c5c> | {
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This section is from the book "Modern Buildings, Their Planning, Construction And Equipment Vol3", by G. A. T. Middleton. Also available from Amazon: Modern Buildings.
In affording warmth to buildings by means of hot water all the methods and systems adopted rely, for efficacy, on the action of Convection, or "obtaining a circulation," as it is termed. Without devoting some study, or at least consideration, to this detail of the subject the engineer must often fail for want of knowing the principle that his work is based on. A full explanation of the action of Convection has already been given, and it is recommended that the student master this information ; for although the explanation is associated with hot-water works for domestic supply, the principle involved is just the same, while the suggested models and the experiments that may be conducted are equally useful and instructive. Taking, therefore, this information as an introduction to the subject now being dealt with, the erection of practical works may be described.
There are three distinct systems of low-pressure hot-water heating works, and two of high-pressure. Low Pressure is a term applied to an apparatus which has an open expansion pipe - a free blow-off as the London Building Act describes it; while the High-Pressure apparatus consists of one or more circuits of pipe, which are sealed and have no open outlet whatever. The three low-pressure systems are the Two-pipe, One-pipe, and the Overhead. All may have radiators as the heat distributing surface (in good interiors), or large cast pipes may be used (in warehouses, etc.). Many works are erected which combine two or all three systems, more or less. It will be seen directly that one or the other may be best to adopt according to conditions. The two-pipe system is the oldest, but there are numbers of two-pipe jobs being done at this moment by quite up-to-date engineers. The one-pipe system is favoured most, perhaps, but this is largely due to its meeting general requirements more often than the others. In the writer's own house the apparatus is partly one-pipe and partly overhead work, and the arrangement was not a matter of choice but of absolute necessity. A two-pipe installation was practically impossible. | <urn:uuid:01b5ecbb-2028-4d59-8e13-bfbb1db16559> | {
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Shocking news about CTRL+C
CTRL + C, CTRL +V
Do you use CTRL+C to copy & paste your user name and password to login to your online banking account?
Do you use CTRL+C to copy your confidential data and paste in another place?
Oops!!! Stop, READ this......
Keystrokes Ctrl+C is the most important keys that we do use everyday. But, do you know it is not a very safe thing to do when you are connected to internet. Read on to know why it is so.
Not believing still....Let's experiment.....
Follow these steps:
Step 1: Copy any text using Ctrl + C
Step 2: Click the link http://www.sourcecodesworld.com/special/clipboard.asp
Step 3: You will see the text you copied was accessed by this web page.
DO NOT keep any type of sensitive data (like passwords, credit card numbers, CCV, PIN etc.) in the clipboard while surfing the web. It is extremely easy to extract the text stored in the clipboard to steal your sensitive information.
How Clipboard Hack is done?
The Clipboard hack can be done by the following Source Code:
Good news on this!!! You can safeguard yourself from this problem.
How to safeguard yourself from Clipboard Hack Problem?
To avoid clipboard hack problem, do the following:Step 1: Go to internet options->security.Step 2: Press custom level.Step 3: In the security settings, select "Disable" under Allow paste operations via script. Now the contents of your clipboard are safe.
Interestingly, this hack works only on internet explorer, and not on Mozilla Firefox browser.
You can forward this to your friends so that you can make them aware of this security issue. | <urn:uuid:1fe3d89c-1a87-4f38-aff5-5db10186fad0> | {
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More than one-third of Americans are battling with obesity in their daily lives. Overeating, physical inactivity, medications, psychological factors and perhaps some unlucky genes are some of the main causes of obesity.
An obese person is more exposed to developing serious health condition like heart problems, type 2 diabetes, bones and joints problems. According to Standford Health Care, approximately 35 % of women and 31 % of men in the USA are considered seriously obese.
It is not impossible to fight 0besity unless there is some medical condition getting in the way, it is within any individual’s power to control their own weight. All you need is an active change in your lifestyle, making it healthier. ‘Walk more, eat healthy and stay happy’ is our prescription against the obesity epidemic.
Most of us are foodies. It’s quite hard to stay away when you have such flavourful and yummy food before your eyes, but every good change needs some sacrifice!
These 5 foods listed below are full of unwanted calories and zero nutrition. Avoiding them can really help your body lose some fat:
1. Artificial Sweeteners/Diet Cokes
It is not recommended to use artificial sweeteners as a substitute for sugar. They end up disturbing your body’s ability to count calories which in turn encourages weight gain rather than weight loss.
Brooke Alpert, RD, who is the author of The Sugary Detox says that artificial sweeteners found in food items trigger insulin, which sends your body into fat storage mode and causes weight gain.
Diet soda seems like a zero calorie drink that can help you lose weight but the truth is that they don’t! Studies show that people who drink diet sodas have more chance of gaining weight than non-drinkers. Maybe this video can help you understand how diet sodas aid in weight gain.
These diet sodas are full of additional calories that you don’t need. Just stick to plain water if you are seriously thinking of losing weight.
2. Processed Fast Foods
Processed fast foods like hamburgers and pizzas are often high in calories with no or very little nutritional value. Large amounts of carbohydrates, sodium, unnecessary fats and added sugars make these foods very unhealthy and a big reason for weight gain.
The majority of the chicken sold is processed meat which is high in salts and preservatives. If you are on the look to lose some weight, go for the meat which is more close to its natural state.
Instead of going for fries, sugary cereals, canned fruit in heavy syrup, white bread and pasta, opt for more healthier, fresh and natural options.
Wondering how keeping away from alcohol can help you lose weight? Well, alcohol is actually a drink full of pure concentrated sugar with an excessive amount of calories and no nutritional value. It is known that drinking alcohol increases their appetite and may lead to overeating and weight gain.
There are also studies showing that when alcohol is in your system, it becomes difficult for your body to burn fat that’s already in there. Cutting back some drinks or beating the habit altogether can help you get rid of obesity.
4. Chocolates and Candies
Chocolates and candies are full of added sugar, added oils and refined flour. An average sized candy bar can contain around 100-300 calories.
Unfortunately, there is no room for such cravings, all it will do is undo your efforts to lose weight. You may have a sweet tooth but you have to control your temptations and desires. Eating a handful of fruits or nuts can help ease down some of the cravings. An unprocessed dark chocolate can also help in fueling weight loss and calming down your cravings but stick to one a day or even two and not one of those big ones, a small bite size is enough.
5. High-Calorie Coffee Drinks
Plain black coffee is very healthy and can help in burning fat but if topped with cream and added sugar, it’s no better than a soda. Extra toppings add extra calories so try to avoid them.
No more vanilla frappuccinos or chocolate mocha at least during the weight loss period!
Some Points to Remember:
- Home cooked food is better and healthy. Avoid eating outside as much as you can.
- Before buying anything, read the label. Watch out for any unhealthy ingredients and misleading health claims.
- Eat small portions and stop when you are half full.
- Exercise daily and try to adopt an active lifestyle.
- Avoid taking stress and socialise with friends going through the same thing, support them and they’ll support you.
Having a secure financial future is the biggest worry we all have. If your worry is about your next of kin, or your family, we can help you out by providing the best rates and the perfect insurance policy for you. We will help you build a secure trouble-free future for your family while you get started on a healthy, stress-free life. | <urn:uuid:88c79e5d-f30d-4699-8b29-bcfd7679703f> | {
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Scientists would have to expand the seismic network, which could involve adding hundreds of new sensors and upgrading others. Engineers also would have to come up with software that more reliably interprets and relays quake data. That involves correctly identifying primary waves — the first waves that are generated by earthquakes. “P waves” are followed by secondary waves, or “S waves.” Computers can calculate the size and location of a quake by monitoring such energy.
Scientists are heavily focused on the distant San Andreas fault, which has a long history of producing quakes measuring 7.0 or larger. There’s particular interest in the southern San Andreas, which extends from the Salton Sea in Imperial and Riverside counties to the Parkfield area in central California. Research suggests that the segment could generate an 8.1 quake. If the quake began in the Salton Sea, most of the energy would probably travel to the Inland Empire and greater Los Angeles. But some of it would shoot 90 to 100 miles west to San Diego. Seismologists say an alert system could provide 30 seconds or more warning to people at and near the coast that severe shaking was about to happen.
That’s a best-case scenario for San Diego. The county is located much closer to other sizable, potentially dangerous systems, such as the San Jacinto and Elsinore faults. The closer a person is to a fault, the less notice they would receive that shaking is on the way.
But there might be just enough notice to give people time to brace, something that the scientific community and government have been trying to teach people to do. About 9.4 million people participated in last year’s Great California Shakeout earthquake drill, including more than 500,000 in San Diego County. The drill teaches people to duck, cover and hold on when shaking starts.
An early-warning system also might benefit San Diego through improved reporting. Currently, the county is among the most lightly monitored urban areas in the state; there are only 20 or so network seismometers here. That’s because there are fewer large, known faults within the county’s borders. But Heaton says it’s likely that more sensors would be placed along the San Jacinto and Elsinore faults if an early-warning system is created, which would provide more detailed information about regional quakes.
Tom Rockwell, a seismologist at San Diego State University, says California could use every advantage it can get.
“An alert could mean the difference between whether a train jumps the tracks or not,” said Rockwell, one of California’s most noted quake experts. “But there is the issue of training industry and the public how to respond in a short period of time.”
Heaton also sees that as an issue, noting that, “Most California quakes aren’t that big. And earthquakes are not as big a part of the culture as they are in Japan, where big ones happen more often. We’d have to figure out how to train people to respond when something did happen here, and we might need to send different kinds of messages. If someone is on the 11th floor of an office building, you want to tell them to get away from the windows. The message would be different for someone who was driving in their car.
“The good news is that we can create an early-warning system. The bad news is that we really would not have many real times to practice what to do. You don’t get a do-over in an earthquake.” | <urn:uuid:39f6c1c5-9120-4b58-b430-1d109ec33ae9> | {
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Community-Based Learning Resources
21st Century Community Learning Centers
This program supports the creation of community learning centers that provide academic enrichment opportunities during non-school hours for children, particularly students who attend high-poverty and low-performing schools.
Administration for Children and Families (ACYF)
ACYF administers the major Federal programs that support: social services that promote the positive growth and development of children and youth and their families; protective services and shelter for children and youth in at-risk situations; and adoption for children with special needs.
Afterschool Alliance is dedicated to raising awareness of the importance of afterschool programs and advocating for quality, affordable programs for all children.
American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF)
AYPF provides learning opportunities for policy leaders, practitioners, and researchers working on youth and education issues at the national, state, and local levels.
Center for Effective Collaboration and Practice (CECP)
CECP is dedicated to a policy of collaboration at federal, state, and local levels that contributes to and facilitates the production, exchange, and use of knowledge about effective practices.
The Children's Aid Society
The Children's Aid Society supports community and school partnerships by providing resources and technical assistance to educators, policymakers, researchers and funders.
Coalition for Community Schools
The Coalition for Community Schools works toward improving education and helping students learn and grow while supporting and strengthening their families and communities.
Communities in Schools
Communities In Schools supports the connection of needed community resources with schools to help young people successfully learn, stay in school, and prepare for life.
Forum for Youth Investment
The Forum for Youth Investment is dedicated to helping communities and the nation make sure all young people are ready for college, work, and life.
Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP)
HFRP publishes and disseminates research findings and provides technical assistance to a nationwide network of practitioners, policy makers, and educators on policies and programs that empower families and communities to help children reach their potential.
Judith P. Hoyer Early Child Care and Family Centers
Judith P. Hoyer Early Child Care and Family Education Centers, or "Judy Centers", provide a central location for early childhood education and support services for children birth through kindergarten age who reside in specific Title I school districts across the state of Maryland.
The Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation
The Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation identifies, funds, evaluates, and builds the capacities of and replicates community schools in the inner city for children, youth and families. The foundation communicates what works (and what does not work) to citizens, media, and decision makers through national policy reports.
The Mott Foundation
The Mott foundation supports community and school partnerships by providing resources and funding. The Foundation has also established a new list serve (Mott After School) and links for individuals interested in the 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program.
National Association for Partners in Education (NAPE)
NAPE is an objective voice in developing school volunteer, intergenerational, community service, and business partnership programs throughout the United States.
National Center for Community Education (NCCE)
It is the mission of the NCCE to promote community and educational change by providing state-of-the-art leadership development, training and technical assistance to community schools.
National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education (NCPIE)
NCPIE is a national coalition of organizations that includes over 75 family/community organizations, state and national associations, government agencies, higher education, research organizations, and consultants.
National Community Education Association (NCEA)
NCEA's mission is to provide leadership to those who build learning communities in response to individual and community needs. It does this by providing its members with national and regional training conferences and workshops; specialized periodicals, publications, and products; opportunities for peer support and networking; and information and referral services.
National Dropout Prevention Centers (NDPC)
NDPC provides knowledge and promotes networking for researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and families to increase opportunities for youth in at-risk situations to receive the quality and services necessary to successfully graduate from high school.
Promising Practices in Afterschool System (PPAS)
PPAS is an effort to find and share information that is working in afterschool programs. The PPAS website is for afterschool program directors, program staff, volunteers, parents, community members, policymakers, funders, researchers, and anyone else who cares about children and youth.
Research, Reports, & Articles
Afterschool: The Bridge Connecting Schools and Communities
PDF (50.3KB) This brief discusses the benefits that students reap when schools form partnerships with their surrounding communities.
Building a Community School
PDF (368 KB) Building a Community School offers relevant data on the advantages of the Community Schools model and practical help with many of the challenges educators are likely to face when starting one.
Community Programs to Promote Youth Development
PDF (738 KB) This report by the National Research Council examines national and local experiences with community interventions and programs for youth and assesses their strengths and limitations in promoting adolescent health, development, and well-being. It offers a framework and research agenda for a broad audience of policymakers, researchers, service providers, and community leaders to promote the healthy development of the nation's youth.
Education and Community Building: Connecting Two Worlds
PDF (394 KB) This paper attempts to help educators and community builders understand one another, to describe strategies that work to guide better interactions, and to offer recommendations for future joint efforts.
Evaluation of Community Schools: Findings to Date
Evaluation of Community Schools: Findings to Date summarizes data from available evaluations of community school initiatives.
How Community Schools Make a Difference
This article discusses the benefits, challenges, and commonalities of community schools.
Making the Difference: Research and Practice in Community Schools
PDF (909 KB) Making the Difference: Research and Practice in Community Schools examines the impact of 20 community school initiatives across the country.
Strengthening Partnerships: Community School Assessment Checklist
PDF (164 KB) This assessment tool contains a series of checklists to assist schools and community leaders in creating and/or strengthening community school partnerships. | <urn:uuid:d3010b99-88f5-4115-902e-1149a4ad5042> | {
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- Emergency seed distributions help Haitian farmers grow for winter harvest06/12/2016
- The Inter-agency Humanitarian Evaluations (IAHEs)30/11/2016
- Crop losses in Southern Madagascar due to El Niño-induced drought27/10/2016
- Seeds of hope18/10/2016
- Results of the three-year programme in response to the locust plague in Madagascar (2013-2016)21/09/2016
Connect with us
Combating Cassava Mosaic - 2007
An aggressive plant disease wiped out much of the cassava crop in the Great Lakes region of Africa, where cassava is a major source of food. In Burundi, farmers now have access to a disease-tolerant variety, thanks to regional cooperation and an EC-funded FAO project. | <urn:uuid:ddc50ad0-0a34-4ead-81e6-63b2bbde6002> | {
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Decisions are made several times a day, from what you'll have for breakfast to whether you'll move your family to another state for a job opportunity. We decide what to do, where to go, who to talk to and what about. Everyone makes decisions, including our ancestors. How do you make a decision? Generally speaking, people make decisions by doing a cost-benefit analysis to figure out which decision would be the best choice. Sometimes it takes hours, days or weeks to make a decision while mulling over all the possible pros and cons, while other times, it is almost instantaneous and like a reflex where we aren't even aware we have done it.
People living in the 1800s, 1700s, 1600s & earlier made decisions the same way we do today. We might make different decisions, but that's because the circumstances surrounding your decisions are different than those that would surround the decisions of your ancestors. The more you discover about the circumstances, the better you'll be able to figure out what their likely decisions were. Knowing what decisions they would have made can actually be pretty beneficial in genealogical research...especially if you're attempting to write about your ancestors and need to fill in the blanks in the time line of their lives: those spaces left between all that data you've collected. The better the comprehension of the circumstances, the more complete your ancestor's life story will be.
As I mentioned earlier, people make decisions based on a cost-benefit analysis: if one decision would have been more costly to them (not only financially, but perhaps due to the value their time, due to religious concerns or how others in the community might have reacted), they would have been more likely to go for the least costly choice. There's an aspect of psychology involved as well. It may not be an actual cost or benefit, but a perceived cost or benefit. It's what that person would've believed to have been negative or positive that would've influenced their decisions as well. There's also the influence of whether a decision would yield positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement from parents, spouses, friends, society or their church. There's also the possibility that they will decide to take the course that is the lesser of two evils. The more a genealogist knows about how they might have lived their daily lives the better.
Your ancestors used the same thought processes as we do today, but since the decisions they made were largely impacted by the circumstances that surrounded them, it's good to know what those circumstances were at that time. Some of the circumstances would involve such things as:
- economics & employment opportunities
- laws & crime
- health care, medicine, pandemics & epidemics
- natural disasters
- available resources & education
- time it took to send mail or get news
- rural vs. urban community
- the importance of manners
- perceptions of different classes
- gender roles
- social norms of the period
Below are some examples of situations you might come across in your genealogical research as well as questions you could ask yourself concerning what the likely outcomes or causes of said decisions were.
Example A: Buying & Selling
Let's say you come across a deed where John Smith & Mary his wife were selling two acres of land to Joseph Marcer for $1 in 1835. Basically, they are giving this land to Mr. Marcer, but need a dollar amount for the transfer of property. Now, let's say you have land. Who would you sell a few acres of land to for just a dollar? My guess is that the person you'd likely choose to get that land for only $1 would be related to you or married into your family. Well, they did that back in 1835 too. If you ever find a deed where it was sold for a $1, the grantor(s) and the grantee(s) were probably related. In this example, I would check to see if Joseph Marcer married a Smith. John and Mary Smith could have been selling their land to their daughter's husband (women weren't generally grantees in deeds when they were married). Another possibility is that Joseph Marcer was the son of Mary Smith from a previous marriage to a Marcer.
Example B: Moving
Think about why you might move. Are you going off to school in another town? Are you getting married and want to start a family of your own in a new home? Did you get a job offer or hear there was work in the next city over? Has a family member gotten ill and you went to help care for them? Are you making more money now and can afford a nicer place? Are you running out of room in your home and you have another child on the way? Believe it or not, these are the same reasons they moved 200 years ago.
Did your ancestor leave the family home? Check the deed books...he probably bought land when he left. He probably got married too. Did your ancestor suddenly move back to his hometown? Maybe one of his parents died and he returned to be executor. Try checking the will books or probate records.
So, if you notice your ancestor moved, or left the home of their parents, think about reasons you would move and then look into them in relation to your ancestor to see if you can discern which one it might have been. You'd be amazed at how much you can find out when you take this approach.
Example C: Commute
The majority of people today travel about a half an hour to get to work. According to the Census data, in 2000, 78% of the population had a commute of about 1/2 an hour, while in 1990, it was 82%. The average travel time to work in 1980, 1990 & 2000 was between 21 and 25 mins.
It appears that a half an hour or less is the amount of time the majority of people are willing to spend to travel to work. As the majority of people won't travel more than a half an hour today, I believe the same would've been true in the past. With slower modes of transportation people probably did not to take longer trips, but to worked closer to home to stay within the half-hour commute time. A half hour today was still a half hour 200 years ago. As the horse and buggy turned into the Model T, work got further away, yet the commute time remained relatively the same: about a half an hour. So, if you know where your ancestor lived & if you know the form of transportation they had, you can calculate to find the half hour radius.
Example D: Marriage
Knowing what people's views were on marriage can help you in your research too. Most of us have read "The Scarlet Letter", but did you know that, in the 1800s, some women remarried while still executing the will of their recently deceased husband...and in which case, the new husband would usually be co-executor. Views on marriage have drastically changed through the centuries. Was it frowned upon to marry a person of a different religion? How were women viewed if they didn't marry? What age were most girls when they first married?
You may find a marriage record for your ancestor when she was 25 years old. Was this her first marriage or her second? Was the name on the marriage record her maiden name or the surname of her last husband? Knowing how society viewed marriage and what the social norms were at the time your ancestor lived are good to know.
Example E: Children
The "nuclear family" has been long considered to contain approximately 2.5 children. In my genealogical research, I regularly find families with at least six children and I've even found one with fourteen. It's actually rare to find a family from the 1700s or 1800s with less than 3 children. So, why so many children? One pretty well known answer is that the more children they had, the more help they had for the farm. Were your ancestors farmers? How many children did your ancestors have?
Was your ancestor well educated? Was he a tradesman, perhaps a cordwainer or a blacksmith? Would he have apprenticed his children to learn a trade or would he have sent them to school? Which one was most beneficial to the family unit? Did he want his children to follow in his footsteps? Did your ancestor go to college? If not, would he have likely wanted his children to be the first in the family to get a college degree? These are some questions you might ask yourself as you research your family tree.
Example F: Death
I've found in my research that men had far more wills than women. On occasion, you will find a woman with a will, but they are few and far between in the 1700s and 1800s. If women had money, they were more likely to have a will. Why? Well, back then, it was usually understood that the man owned everything and the woman did not. You may notice this in deeds as well. Knowing the historical gender roles will help you to know where and who to look for when seeking information (e.g. search deed index for the husband's name even when it was the wife's land).
Contrary to what many may believe, if your ancestor died, they didn't necessarily have an obituary. My father (also a genealogist) actually counted all the deaths in a particular year early in the 1900s and than counted the number of obituaries. It turns out that only about 1/3 of all deceased had an obituary. Unless your ancestor wealthy or was a well known figure in the community (e.g. politician), I wouldn't count on him/her having an obituary.
Another example of how society thought about gender roles: Did you know that children were considered orphans when just one parent died, and of those who went to Orphans' Court, most did so due to the death of their father and not their mother.
Example G: When the Men were away from home
Most of us know what happened when the men returned from war following WWII: there was a baby boom about 9 months later. We can also understand why. Would this happen now? Would there be as many children born? Well, we have different circumstances now. As I mentioned earlier, the circumstances are what influence our decisions. One thing that was different back then (and for earlier wars) was that women had very little information available to them concerning reproduction and birth control. If that information was not there for them, they were probably more likely to become pregnant. There were actually laws that forbid the information from being distributed to the public as they considered such things as indecent and obscene rather than think of it as important and necessary medical information (e.g. Comstock Laws of 1873). | <urn:uuid:a1f8e54d-43b4-4bea-b4b3-430d8332e4a1> | {
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Allergies are an annoyance that millions of people deal with. From seasonal allergies to allergic reactions triggered by food or pets, treatments often require the use of medications. However, medications do not always work.
When an underlying issue with your immune system is responsible for the allergic reaction, additional treatment may be needed. Visiting an immunologist may provide an effective solution.
Understanding the Role of an Immunologist
Many patients choose to visit their primary care physicians for any medical issue. However, there are healthcare professionals who specialise in various fields of medicine, including immunology.
An immunology specialist focuses on treatments related to the immune system, including treatments for allergies. Besides allergies, an immunologist may help treat eczema, asthma, anaphylaxis, and autoimmune diseases.
Top Reasons to Visit an Immunologist
Immunologists can offer diagnoses and treatments for a wide range of immunological conditions. However, the most common reason to visit an immunologist is for specialised treatments for allergies.
If you believe that you are suffering from allergies, an immunologist can conduct a series of tests to detect the presence of certain allergens. The tests may include a skin prick test to look for allergies related to food, pollen, pet dander, and mould.
Immunologists have the background to easily diagnose allergies. Once the allergy is detected, they can work with the patient to develop an effective treatment plan.
You may also choose to visit an immunologist if your current allergy treatments are not working. Over time, your body may develop a resistance to the allergy medications that you were previously prescribed. An immunologist may be able to help in these situations.
Common Signs of Allergies to Watch for
The signs of an allergy are not always easy to detect, especially with the wide variety of allergy types and the various symptoms that they cause. There are seasonal respiratory allergies, pet allergies, food allergies, and more.
People who suffer from food allergies may experience digestive issues or develop hives. The airways may also swell. Severe reactions to food allergies may even be life-threatening.
Seasonal allergies often cause irritation, such as itchy eyes and sneezing. You may also get a runny nose and watery eyes. These are the traditional signs that people think of when they imagine an allergic reaction. These same symptoms may also occur during an allergic reaction to a dog or cat.
Existing respiratory issues, such as asthma, can increase the severity of some of these symptoms. Respiratory conditions may also result in difficulty breathing or wheezing.
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Program student learning outcomes should be SMART; however, these outcomes are constructed based on the desired knowledge, skills and abilities students should possess and use action verbs to make them measureable.
More specifically, student learning outcomes describe what a student should know, think, or be able to do as a result of exposure to content in some form (e.g., academic program, workshops or processes, etc.). “Learning outcome statements are anchored in verbs that identify the actions, behaviors, dispositions, and ways of thinking or knowing that students should be able to demonstrate” (Maki, 2004, p. 61).
Keeping in mind the SMART outcome, below are three different methods to constructing learning outcomes.
SLO statements should clearly indicate the level and type of competence that is required. Avoid terms such as show understanding, develop awareness, possess a level of comfort, appreciate, become aware of, become familiar with, know, and learn. Use Bloom’s Taxonomy to find good verbs for writing learning outcomes.
Sample Program Student Learning Outcomes (SLO’s) Statements
1.(Action Verb)(Modifiers)(Object) Example:Analyzethe basic components of fire as a chemical reaction, the major phases of fire, and examine the main factors that influencefire spread and fire behavior. Explanation: The action verbs “analyze” and “examine” indicate the expected level of performance. Students are expected to know about the basic components of a fire and how it behaves. With the action verb and the object, the outcome would read: analyze the basic components of fire. Is the outcome SMART? Modifiers specify the meaning of another word or phrase. Adding the words “chemical reaction”, “the major phases”, and “the main factors that influence” explicitly states what will be learned.
2. SWiBAT (Student Will Be Able To) + Active Verb + Condition (as a result of) + Measurement (as measured by or as demonstrated by …) + When (at what timeline).
3. Condition (As a result…; from participating in…) + Audience (selected population being assessed) +Behavior (active verb) + Degree of Achievement
COMPONENTS OF THE LEARNING OUTCOME:
Identify who is to learn:(e.g., students will; graduates will, etc.)
Know, think or do what? (Verb) (e.g., Level I—Knowledge; Level II—Comprehension; Level III—Comprehension; Level IV—Application; Level V—Analysis; Level VI—Synthesis; Level VII—Evaluation)
IDENTIFYING PERFORMANCE LEVELS FOR OUTCOME STATEMENTS
Student learning outcomes should clearly indicate the level and type of competence that is required. Avoid terms such as show understanding, develop awareness, possess a level of comfort, appreciate, become aware of, become familiar with, know, and learn. Use Bloom’s Taxonomy (p. 26) to identify appropriate verbs when writing SLO’s.
Below are examples of how the expected performance a student learning outcome changes based on the active verb indicated. These examples are based on the continuum in Figure VII on page 23.
Student can list the major theoretical approaches of the discipline.
Explanation: Active verbs in the “KNOWLEDGE” domain represent the lowest level of cognitive performance. Students are required to remember or recall content, resulting from a lecture, reading, or memorization of material. These verbs are useful when students are not required to have a deep understanding, but just to remember the content.
Students can describe the key theories, concepts and issues for each of the major theoretical approaches.
Explanation: Active verbs in the “COMPREHENSION” domain require students to understand something. Students who can describe or explain content understand it, which results from discussions, reflections, etc.
Students can apply theoretical principles to solve real-world problems.
Explanation: Active verbs in the “APPLICATION” domain require students to use what they have learned to solve a problem. This application of knowledge requires a deeper understanding of the concepts, resulting from critical thought, case studies, role plays, observations, etc.
Students can analyze the strengths and limitations of each of the major theoretical approaches for understanding specific phenomena.
Explanation: Active verbs in the “ANALYSIS” domain require students to break knowledge into parts and analyze the relationships between the parts.
Students can select the theoretical approach that is most applicable to a phenomenon andexplainwhy they have selected that perspective.
Explanation: Active verbs in the “EVALUATION” domain require students to judge something using criteria that they have learned and deeply understand and apply that knowledge.
Students can combine theoretical approaches to explain complex phenomena.
Explanation: Active verbs in the “SYNTHESIS” domain require students to put parts or ideas together to make a whole based on their understanding of the information. http://oeas.ucf.edu | <urn:uuid:0fdf1a75-198d-48a3-9b1c-d2f100da6a52> | {
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Sperm, as teeny weeny as they are, can affect us in a HUGE way. There are about 200-500 million of those little guys in the average amount of semen produced each time a man ejaculates.
- Sperm are produced in the (Ladies, we've got to arm ourselves with knowledge so we can overcome the mighty sperm)
man's testes — it takes 10 weeks for a single soldier to reach maturity.
- Mature sperm can wait up to 2 weeks for their big day — they hang out in the epididymis - the coil like structure that runs across the top of each testicle.
- If they are not ejaculated, those poor little sperms are broken down and reabsorbed by the body.
What to learn some more facts, like how long sperm can survive in a woman's body? Then read more
- Semen only contains about 10 percent sperm — the rest consists of enzymes, vitamin C, calcium, protein, sodium, zinc, citric acid and fructose sugar.
- What men eat can affect the taste of their sperm. Red meat, dairy products, onions, garlic, and coffee may not go down as well as foods containing natural sugars, such as fruits.
- Healthy males produce about 70-150 million sperm a day — but when they ejaculate, they lose three times that — that's a tiring proposition.
- When inside a woman's body, a sperm can live up to
- There are male and female sperm - the females are slower, but stronger, while the males are faster, but weaker. | <urn:uuid:f849b36d-77a9-4b34-93f4-75b0c98070a7> | {
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The Truth About Autism: Scientists Reconsider What They Think They Know
The YouTube clip opens with a woman facing away from the camera, rocking back and forth, flapping her hands awkwardly, and emitting an eerie hum. She then performs strange repetitive behaviors: slapping a piece of paper against a window, running a hand lengthwise over a computer keyboard, twisting the knob of a drawer. She bats a necklace with her hand and nuzzles her face against the pages of a book. And you find yourself thinking: Who's shooting this footage of the handicapped lady, and why do I always get sucked into watching the latest viral video?
But then the words "A Translation" appear on a black screen, and for the next five minutes, 27-year-old Amanda Baggs — who is autistic and doesn't speak — describes in vivid and articulate terms what's going on inside her head as she carries out these seemingly bizarre actions. In a synthesized voice generated by a software application, she explains that touching, tasting, and smelling allow her to have a "constant conversation" with her surroundings. These forms of nonverbal stimuli constitute her "native language," Baggs explains, and are no better or worse than spoken language. Yet her failure to speak is seen as a deficit, she says, while other people's failure to learn her language is seen as natural and acceptable.
And you find yourself thinking: She might have a point.
Baggs lives in a public housing project for the elderly and handicapped near downtown Burlington, Vermont. She has short black hair, a pointy nose, and round glasses. She usually wears a T-shirt and baggy pants, and she spends a scary amount of time — day and night — on the Internet: blogging, hanging out in Second Life, and corresponding with her autie and aspie friends. (For the uninitiated, that's autistic and Asperger's.)
On a blustery afternoon, Baggs reclines on a red futon in the apartment of her neighbor (and best friend). She has a gray travel pillow wrapped around her neck, a keyboard resting on her lap, and a DynaVox VMax computer propped against her legs.
Like many people with autism, Baggs doesn't like to look you in the eye and needs help with tasks like preparing a meal and taking a shower. In conversation she'll occasionally grunt or sigh, but she stopped speaking altogether in her early twenties. Instead, she types 120 words a minute, which the DynaVox then translates into a synthesized female voice that sounds like a deadpan British schoolteacher.
The YouTube post, she says, was a political statement, designed to call attention to people's tendency to underestimate autistics. It wasn't her first video post, but this one took off. "When the number of viewers began to climb, I got scared out of my mind," Baggs says. As the hit count neared 100,000, her blog was flooded. At 200,000, scientists were inviting her to visit their labs. By 300,000, the TV people came calling, hearts warmed by the story of a young woman's fiery spirit and the rare glimpse into what has long been regarded as the solitary imprisonment of the autistic mind. "I've said a million times that I'm not trapped in my own world,'" Baggs says. "Yet what do most of these news stories lead with? Saying exactly that."
I tell her that I asked one of the world's leading authorities on autism to check out the video. The expert's opinion: Baggs must have had outside help creating it, perhaps from one of her caregivers. Her inability to talk, coupled with repetitive behaviors, lack of eye contact, and the need for assistance with everyday tasks are telltale signs of severe autism. Among all autistics, 75 percent are expected to score in the mentally retarded range on standard intelligence tests — that's an IQ of 70 or less.
People like Baggs fall at one end of an array of developmental syndromes known as autism spectrum disorders. The spectrum ranges from someone with severe disability and cognitive impairment to the socially awkward eccentric with Asperger's syndrome.
After I explain the scientist's doubts, Baggs grunts, and her mouth forms just a hint of a smirk as she lets loose a salvo on the keyboard. No one helped her shoot the video, edit it, and upload it to YouTube. She used a Sony Cybershot DSC-T1, a digital camera that can record up to 90 seconds of video (she has since upgraded). She then patched the footage together using the editing programs RAD Video Tools, VirtualDub, and DivXLand Media Subtitler. "My care provider wouldn't even know how to work the software," she says.
Baggs is part of an increasingly visible and highly networked community of autistics. Over the past decade, this group has benefited enormously from the Internet as well as innovations like type-to-speech software. Baggs may never have considered herself trapped in her own world, but thanks to technology, she can communicate with the same speed and specificity as someone using spoken language. | <urn:uuid:f1ad6639-4047-4ea7-a9f4-2844b31767d0> | {
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by Staff Writers
Southampton, UK (SPX) Apr 07, 2014
In the first study of its kind, research undertaken at the University of Southampton has cast significant doubt over the use of biochar to alleviate climate change.
Biochar is produced when wood is combusted at high temperatures to make bio-oil and has been proposed as a method of geoengineering. When buried in the soil, this carbon rich substance could potentially lock-up carbon and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. The global potential of biochar is considered to be large, with up to 12 per cent of emissions reduced by biochar soil application.
Many previous reports have shown that biochar can also stimulate crop growth and yield, providing a valuable co-benefit when the soil is treated with biochar, but the mechanism enabling this to happen is unknown.
Professor Gail Taylor, Director of Research at the University's Centre for Biological Sciences and research colleagues, in collaboration with National Research Council (CNR) scientists in Italy and The James Hutton Institute in Scotland, have provided an explanation why biochar has this impact. They have published their findings in the journal Global Change Biology Bioenergy.
They found that when thale cress and lettuce plants were subjected to increasing amounts of biochar mixed with soil, using the equivalent of up to 50 tonnes per hectare per year, if applied in the field, plant growth was stimulated by over 100 per cent.
For the first time, the response of more than 10,000 genes was followed simultaneously, which identified brassinosteroids and auxins and their signalling molecules as key to the growth stimulation observed in biochar. Brassinosteroids and auxins are two growth promoting plant hormones and the study goes further in showing that their signalling molecules were also stimulated by biochar application.
However, the positive impacts of biochar were coupled with negative findings for a suite of genes that are known to determine the ability of a plant to withstand attack from pests and pathogens. These defence genes were consistently reduced following biochar application to the soil, for example jasmonic and salcyclic acid and ethylene, suggesting that crops grown on biochar may be more susceptible to attack by pests and pathogens. This was a surprising finding and suggests that if reproduced in the field at larger scales, could have wide implications for the use of biochar on commercial crops.
Professor Taylor, who co-ordinated the research, says: "Our findings provide the very first insight into how biochar stimulates plant growth - we now know that cell expansion is stimulated in roots and leaves alike and this appears to be the consequence of a complex signalling network that is focussed around two plant growth hormones.
"However, the finding for plant defence genes was entirely unpredicted and could have serious consequences for the commercial development and deployment of biochar in future. Any risk to agriculture is likely to prevent wide scale use of biochar and we now need to see which pest and pathogens are sensitive to the gene expression changes."
University of Southampton
Farming Today - Suppliers and Technology
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New Momentum and Data Supports Push for Nuclear Weapons Abolition
Nuclear weapons continue to pose an existential threat to human civilization. Their elimination must be our highest priority if we hope to bequeath a sustainable world to our children.
During the Cold War it was generally understood that a large scale war between the US and the Soviet Union would be a disaster not just for them, but for the entire planet. With the fall of the Berlin Wall there has been a dramatic decline in our awareness of the danger of nuclear war, but the weapons have not gone away. There remain nearly 20,000 nuclear warheads in the arsenals of the world and there is no indication that the nuclear weapons states intend to eliminate these weapons.
Important data coming from sophisticated climate models in the last few years makes it clear that even a very limited nuclear war, as might take place in a regional war between India and Pakistan, would also be a catastrophe for all humanity. A report issued last year by Physicians for Social Responsibility and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War[i] summarized the recent studies on limited nuclear war. The scenario considered assumed that India and Pakistan each use 50 Hiroshima-sized bombs. The scenario shows that immediate effects include the death of over 20 million people by the explosions, firestorms and prompt radiation effects, and much of South Asia is contaminated with radiation. This is well known.
What is less well known is that 5 million tons of soot are injected into the upper atmosphere, quickly dropping global temperatures an average of 1.3o C and reducing precipitation worldwide for 10 years. This global climate disruption leads to catastrophic declines in food production. Studies reviewed in the report show a 12% decline in US corn production and a 15% decline in Chinese middle season rice production for an entire decade. More recent studies, which have not yet been published, show even more severe declines for other key crops in China: corn decreases by 20%, spring wheat by 40%, and winter wheat, the second largest grain crop in China, by 60% all for a full 10 years.
There are today some 870 million people who are malnourished at baseline; an additional 300 million live in countries that are dependent on food imports. All of these people would be at risk of starvation in the famine that would follow this limited nuclear war. And the, as yet unpublished data on Chinese grains other than rice, raises the specter of previously unanticipated, widespread famine in China as well.
It is not just the arsenals of India and Pakistan that can cause this catastrophe. Each US Trident submarine can carry up to 96 warheads, each 10 to 30 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bombs used in the nuclear famine scenario. Each is capable of causing this catastrophe many times over.
The more widespread use of the US and Russian arsenals, whether by design or accident, would cause an even greater disaster. A 2002 study by PSR[ii] showed that if only 300 warheads in the Russian arsenal reached targets in the US 75 to 100 million people would die in the first half hour and the entire economic infrastructure on which the rest of the population depends would be destroyed. The climate disruption would be even more catastrophic. A war involving only those warheads still allowed to the US and Russia when New START is fully implemented in 2018 would loft 150 million tons of soot into the atmosphere dropping global temperatures an average of 8oC. In the interior of North America and Eurasia, temperatures would drop 25o to 30o C producing conditions not seen on Earth in 18,000 years (since the coldest point in the last ice age). In the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, there would be at least 2 years without a single day free of frost. All agriculture would stop and the vast majority of the human race would starve. This recent data confirms earlier simulations in the 1980’s that prompted the name “nuclear winter”, but this would be a winter that the human race would not survive.
Whatever progress we make sustainable development will be for naught if we do not eliminate nuclear weapons and the immediate threat they pose to our common survival. The current pace of their elimination is not sufficient to guarantee our survival. As described above, even a small number of these weapons pose an unacceptable risk to the planet. We have managed to survive through luck, and there have been instances where a nuclear war nearly was launched, either accidentally or by intent.
In 2005, at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference, little progress was made by the nuclear weapons states to reduce their arsenals and some ground was even lost. The Committee on Disarmament has been stalled for years. Civil society committed itself to an alternate path to ensuring our survival. In 2007, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) launched the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) that is now active in 60 countries. This campaign advocates for the banning and elimination of nuclear weapons through a nuclear weapons convention (like we have for chemical and biological weapons). It focused on the humanitarian consequences of the use of nuclear weapons.
In May 2010, the five-year nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference for the first time expressed “deep concern at the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons.”
In November 2011, the Council of Delegates of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement adopted a resolution whose first two operative provisions state that the Council: (1) emphasizes the incalculable human suffering that can be expected to result from any use of nuclear weapons, the lack of any adequate humanitarian response capacity and the absolute imperative to prevent such use, and (2) finds it difficult to envisage how any use of nuclear weapons could be compatible with the rules of international humanitarian law.
In October 2012, 34 United Nations (UN) member states, plus an observer state, the Holy See, made a “Joint Statement on the Humanitarian Dimension of Nuclear Disarmament” in the UN General Assembly’s First Committee on Disarmament and International Security. The Joint Statement quotes the position on incompatibility of use of nuclear weapons with IHL set forth in the resolution of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
In March 2013, the Government of Norway sponsored a diplomatic conference on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons, which was preceded by an ICAN civil society forum in Oslo.
Representatives of 127 countries attended the diplomatic conference. Of note, the P5 boycotted as a group with a scripted response that they felt that the focus on humanitarian consequences was a distraction. In Oslo, for the first time, UN agencies, from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to the UN Development Programme, confirmed that international help for the survivors of even a single nuclear explosion in an urban area would be far from adequate. Of course nothing could be done for those already killed by the blast, heat, radiation, and firestorm effects, numbering in the tens or hundreds of thousands. The IPPNW report and ICRC positions were shared with the delegates, many of whom had not heard this information before, and they renewed vows to pursue the global elimination of nuclear weapons. At the meeting's close, Mexico announced that it will host a follow-up conference, which is expected to take place early in 2014. This process paralleled similar processes around the banning of landmines (Ottawa) and cluster munitions (Oslo) and has raised hopes that similar progress can finally be made regarding nuclear weapons.
At the NPT PrepCom just held in Geneva, 80 governments signed on to the Joint Statement on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons, read by Amb. Abdul Minty of South Africa. It said regarding the Oslo conference: “The broad participation at the Conference reflects the recognition that the catastrophic effects of a detonation are of concern and relevance to all.” It declared: “It is in the interest of the very survival of humanity that nuclear weapons are never used again, under any circumstances. The catastrophic effects of a nuclear weapon detonation, whether by accident, miscalculation or design, cannot be adequately addressed. All efforts must be exerted to eliminate this threat. The only way to guarantee that nuclear weapons will never be used again is through their total elimination.” [emphasis added]
It is clear that there is new momentum to finally achieve the abolition of nuclear weapons. The recent medical and environmental data shows that these weapons are not only homicidal, but they are ecocidal. Their presence poses an unacceptable risk to all life on this planet and their elimination must be a primary goal if we are to achieve a sustainable, healthy and happy future for all Humankind.
At the ICAN presentation during the governmental conference, Nosizwe Baqwa, ICAN coordinator for Norway, said:
“That nuclear weapons have not already been clearly declared illegal –to sit, outdated, alongside the other weapons of mass destruction – Is a failure of our collective social responsibility. The time has come for committed states to correct that failure.”
For the first time in many years, it appears that we might just be able to do that.[iii]
[ii] Projected US Casualties and Destruction of Medical Services from Attacks by Russian Nuclear Forces, Helfand, et al, Medicine and Global Survival Vol. 7 No. 2, 2002
[iii] Briefing prepared by Drs. Andrew Kanter and Ira Helfand (IPPNW and Physicians for Social Responsibility) and John Burroughs (Lawyers Committee for Nuclear Policy and UN Office of International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms)
Comments Leave a Comment | <urn:uuid:1172d704-3a82-4ee0-8119-f0fac31da2a9> | {
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Alcoholism in the Mexican-American Community
Only recently has alcoholism been diagnosed as a disease. In my opinion, within the Mexican American community this diagnosis holds little merit. Our traditional values hold the person responsible for their drinking and see their choice as the problem, not a genetically inherited disease. We must become educated on the dangers associated with drinking, and the disease known as alcoholism as well.
As our population grows so will our rates of alcoholism. Advertisers such as Anheiser-Busch and other alcohol related companies are beginning to tap into our communities with ads geared not only towards the adult Mexican American community, but the youth as well. Research shows that Hispanic youth are more likely to drink and get drunk at earlier ages than non-Hispanic youth. The fact that our youth will likely see 32 percent more alcohol advertising than non-Hispanic youth makes it seem that the alcohol companies already know this (Hamilton, 2003).
As a community we need to address this problem at a young age. The younger our children begin drinking the more chance for addiction and problems related to alcohol. A study in 1992, found that 23 percent of Latino men, almost one fifth of our population, were frequent, heavy drinkers, as compared to only 15 percent for African Americans and 12 percent for white men (Trauma Foundation, 1998).
To make matters worse, studies have shown that staff members at drug and alcohol treatment programs for Hispanics are unfamiliar with Hispanic culture (The Brown University Digest of Addiction Theory and Application, 1998). Add this to the attitudes held within our communities and the outcome is not very optimistic.
Hopefully the information that I have presented, along with the links I have given will change some attitudes. The table below is just one example of the effect that alcohol is having on our communities. At the present rate, alcoholism will become a major problem in our future communities. Only our communities themselves can alter this future. Our Mexican culture is unique in this country and problems within the Mexican community must be fixed by those within the community itself. | <urn:uuid:ed4261e3-2900-4197-9cf0-dd6d7f56f97c> | {
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PCI Express, or PCIe, is a computer motherboard interconnect that's used to expand the performance, functionality or connectivity of a server. HBAs, NICs, graphics accelerator cards and RAM expansion modules are common examples. Solid-state storage devices in the form of NAND flash are a newer application for the PCIe interconnect. This article will detail PCIe SSD: PCIe cards that contain on-board SSDs and provide internal storage...
to a server as opposed to external SSD arrays that are connected through a PCIe interface card.
Flash-based SSD is seeing increasing use because disk storage can't keep up with CPU performance; hard drive rotational speed hasn't increased in almost a decade. Even though some performance improvement has come from increased data density (more data per rotation), the fact remains that hard disk-based storage can't get data to and from CPUs fast enough to take advantage of continually improving processors. Memory (DRAM) is too expensive to provide the capacity needed, so flash storage has been tapped to fill this gap. With performance that's a lot closer to DRAM than HDDs but a cost per gigabyte that's in between the two, flash offers a viable alternative to spinning disk storage.
PCIe provides an efficient platform for integrating this flash into the compute environment, putting it onto the server motherboard and moving it closer (physically and logically) to the server compute engine. Compared with external devices -- such as traditional disk arrays with SSDs instead of hard drives, dedicated SSD arrays or caching appliances -- flash on the PCIe card storage can bypass the array controllers, interface protocol and cabling that direct-attached external devices have. They also eliminate the switches and networking connections of SAN-attached arrays.
How NAND flash works
As a data recording medium, NAND flash has a number of characteristics that require special processes. These processes represent overhead to be carried out by either a flash controller that's resident on the PCIe card or by the server CPU. Generally, they're associated with flash write operations but also handle reliability processes like error correction and replacement of bad flash blocks.
When data is written to flash, old data must be erased ahead of each write to make room for the new data. Also, this flash erase must occur in blocks, not at the byte level as with HDDs. This means that when a section of data is deleted, the entire block it's located on must be erased and the bytes not marked for deletion must be copied to another location.
NAND flash, unlike magnetic disk substrate, has a finite life span, meaning it can only be written to and erased a certain number of times. In response to this condition, flash controllers spread data writes across all available blocks so that the entire chip ages at a more even rate. Called "wear leveling," this process maximizes the life of the NAND substrate and, consequently, the SSD that contains it.
PCIe-based flash pros and cons
Flash on a PCIe card puts the SSD closest to the CPU memory complex within the server and affords a lower potential latency than external SSD devices. PCIe is bidirectional, meaning reads and writes can occur simultaneously, and it eliminates the protocol translation of SAS, SATA or FC storage. All this adds up to faster I/O than external devices, which use these protocols and often have to share CPU with RAID functions and storage features as well. Obviously, network-attached flash storage systems put the additional network latency into the equation.
Since it's a captive, dedicated storage device, a PCIe SSD card can be the easiest to install and use. External systems, especially those connected to a storage network and shared with other hosts, are typically more complex to implement. These larger-capacity storage devices represent a bigger investment and often involve strategies like storage tiering and caching to improve SSD utilization.
Being an internal, bus-connected card, PCIe SSD devices cause a reboot when installed or replaced, making expansion or servicing more disruptive. Also, since they consume a PCIe slot, they may reduce the number of other PCIe devices, like network adapters (or additional SSD cards) that can be used. As dedicated storage, PCIe SSD can't be shared with other servers, something that could help cost-justify this premium-priced capacity.
PCIe SSD use cases and products
PCIe SSD is ideal for I/O-intensive applications, like Web 2.0, social networking, OLTP, active databases, etc. It can also provide quick performance improvements for localized application problems that require a large, fast buffer area, like video editing, financial modeling, simulations and data acquisition. This direct-attached storage (DAS) implementation may also appeal to first-time SSD users, compared with the potential complexity of an external or network-attached array. This form factor is also ideal for OEMs to include SSD with servers as an upgrade option.
Texas Memory Systems puts the flash controller on the PCIe card, so it doesn't impact the server CPU or memory resources to handle the write overhead mentioned earlier. According to Levi Norman, director of marketing, "NAND flash returns errors; you just have to manage it. Texas Memory Systems designs PCIe cards as a system, with onboard RAM and CPU, giving it the intelligence to conduct more efficient I/O and improve performance, especially for write-heavy applications."
Mitch Crane, senior director of technical marketing at Fusion-io, said, "Everyone else is trying to make flash look like a disk drive; we're making it look like memory." He said Fusion-io's products use physical memory addresses and DMA to treat flash more like system memory than storage. Fusion-io products don't do flash overhead functions on the card, which Crane said increases complexity and chances for failure.
LSI's PCIe SSD solution takes a little different approach. Its card includes six SSD drive modules, as well as a SAS/SATA bridge that acts an interface between PCIe and these modules. The flash controller functions are handled by the SSD modules themselves. JB Baker, the company's principal product manager, said, "The use of SAS controllers in the solution architecture gives LSI the flexibility in future designs to consider including ports to external SAS/SATA devices, which could enable users to expand and scale the system."
Although PCIe-based SSD products are newer and represent a small portion of the total SSD market currently, they're certainly a hot topic. According to Gartner, market share for PCIe-based SSD was 6% of all solid-state shipments in 2009 and is predicted to be four times that by 2013, as all major SSD vendors come out with products. From a performance perspective, PCIe SSD represents a fast and efficient way to apply flash performance to a server IOPS problem. While performance is the key driver for SSDs, actual mileage may vary depending upon the PCIe solution chosen and the environment. But performance is a discussion integrators are used to having with customers. Another one is implementation.
As practitioners are finding out, getting the kinds of utilization they need to see from their SSD investment is easier said than done. Adding SSDs to existing arrays or putting in dedicated SSD appliances can be a complex and expensive solution. As a smaller, localized implementation of SSD, a PCIe card can be easier to get approved, easier to put in and be faster to show the performance improvements expected.
For VARs, this shouldn't be the only SSD product on the line card. Like other technologies, integrators should handle a range of products and represent multiple implementation options. Whether it's localized application acceleration, dedicated high-performance storage or the simplest way to get an IOPS problem resolved, PCIe SSDs provide a strong set of options for VARs.
About the author:
Eric Slack, a senior analyst for Storage Switzerland, has more than 20 years of experience in high-technology industries holding technical management and marketing/sales positions in the computer storage, instrumentation, digital imaging and test equipment fields. He's spent the past 15 years in the data storage field, with storage hardware manufacturers and as a national storage integrator, designing and implementing open systems storage solutions for companies in the Western United States. Find Storage Switzerland's disclosure statement here.
Dig deeper on Data Storage Hardware | <urn:uuid:09cf537e-353b-4a63-88ce-df2c5086c659> | {
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In the war on infections, add sugar
BU scientist discovers a surprising weapon to fight ‘persisters’
James Collins was a junior at the College of the Holy Cross, running 80 to 90 miles a week as he worked to shave seconds off his 4:17 mile, when he was sidelined with strep throat. He went to the infirmary, took a two-week course of antibiotics, and felt better.
Then it happened again — 13 times over the next two years, ending his college track career.
Some 25 years later, Collins is a Boston University bioengineer whose research on the warfare between bacteria and antibiotics has persuaded him that his illnesses in college were more than bad luck. Instead, he blames “persisters,’’ bacteria that evade medications by slipping into a zombielike state, then mysteriously reawaken to cause new infections.
In a study to be published today, Collins, 45, reports that he and colleagues have discovered how to make these bacteria, which are thought to underlie many stubborn infections, susceptible to drugs.
Their solution is deliciously simple: Just add sugar.
“Could we wake these guys up?’’ Collins asked. “Could we . . . get them up off the ground so we can punch them and knock them out?’’
The answer appears to be yes. In tests in a lab dish and in mice, the sugar revved bacteria up just enough so that a particular type of antibiotic could make its way into the cells and destroy them.
The research, published in the journal Nature, is preliminary, and scientists not involved in the work cautioned that further study is needed before this approach could be used in human patients.
Infections that resist treatment or recur have become a major public health problem. Most people are familiar with resistance, when bacteria mutate into strains that are invulnerable to a particular drug. But in any population of bacteria, there are also persisters, which are believed to play a role in such problems as tuberculosis and hard-to-treat biofilm infections that form on implanted medical devices.
“Persisters are very difficult to eradicate; they evolved to survive,’’ said Kim Lewis, director of the Antimicrobial Discovery Center at Northeastern University. “Looking for ways to try to beat them is very important.’’
Collins is a MacArthur “genius’’ grant recipient who is best known for building a vibrating shoe insole that could help elderly people, who often have trouble with balance, stay steady. But nine years ago his laboratory began studying the precise interactions between bacteria and antibiotics, in search of new ammunition for the escalating war against infections.
“We’re currently in an era where we’re having to rethink our antibiotics,’’ said Dr. Deborah Hung, a core faculty member who studies infectious diseases at the Broad Institute, a Cambridge genetics research center. “In the last five years or so, there’s been this important renaissance that’s been quite spearheaded by Jim Collins, to revisit this question: Do we really know how antibiotics work?’’
Lewis’s laboratory recently found that persisters play a key role in the infections that afflict cystic fibrosis patients. In work published last year in PLoS Biology, he also found that administering a particular type of antibiotic can trigger a chain of events with the unintended effect of creating persisters, sending bacteria into a dormant state that allows them to survive a broad spectrum of drugs.
Ultimately, the goal of such research is to identify weak spots that might be targets for new kinds of drugs or combination therapies that boost the power of existing antibiotics.
Because persisters survive antibiotic treatment by shutting down, it seemed natural to try waking them up in order to finish them off. So Collins and a graduate student, Kyle Allison, concocted various cocktails of sugars and different classes of antibiotics to see whether they could jolt the persisters’ metabolism awake and hit them with the drug.
To their surprise, they found that they were not waking up the bacteria completely, but turning them on just enough to make them vulnerable to one class of antibiotics, called aminoglycosides.
It was a bit like flooring the gas pedal in a car and then seeing only one tire turn, said Floyd Romesberg, an associate professor of chemistry at the Scripps Research Institute, who was not involved in the research.
When Collins and Allison injected mice infected with E. coli, with an antibiotic called gentamicin and a sugar called mannitol, they were able to knock down persister bacteria and inhibit the spread of infection.
“This is a neat study,’’ Romesberg said. “There’s been a real dearth of new antibiotic development in the past 40 years, and now basic science is coming in and reenergizing the field and coming up with smarter ways of going after killing bacteria.’’
Collins’s laboratory is now testing whether a similar sugar and antibiotic cocktail might work against the bacteria that cause tuberculosis.
And it is not purely a matter of scientific interest. Two years ago, in the midst of this research, Collins’s mother was hospitalized with a staph infection. She was put on intravenous antibiotics and got better — only to see the same infection return again and again.
“It was frustrating for me to see this occur,’’ Collins said. “But satisfying to think that we may now have a treatment that . . . is very simple, very inexpensive, and is something that could be implemented quite readily.’’
Carolyn Y. Johnson can be reached at [email protected] | <urn:uuid:f7ab3c42-7071-4e62-a90e-d034948b5280> | {
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The Temple of Derlong is also called “Shagou Temple”. And because it is located in a deep valley and it is said the valley is full of precious deposits in legend. So the literal meaning of the Temple ‘s full name in means a valley full of precious deposits. It was said the founder of the Group, Mameilazhong and her loyal followers lived and worked around the area in the third Tibetan year (in AD 1184) or so, whose locality is located in today’s Daxia County and its around. And Mameilazhong and her loyal followers cultivated faithfully themselves according to their own doctrines among Tibetan Buddhism and disseminated their own doctrines to the public. And then they decided to do much more help to the public and to disseminate Tibetan Buddhism in a larger scale in the coming future. In order to realize their sincere wishes Mameilazhong and her loyal followers began to accumulate Tibetan Buddhism classics, ritual implements including musical instruments. In the following days, her oldest apprentice made a holy container used to bury the valuable Tibetan Buddhism classics concerning its particular doctrines among its groups. And another apprentice used a cover to cover holy container. The third apprentice wrote the characters of buried Tibetan Buddhism classics. At last, Mameilazhong sealed the holy container. On the 10th March in the year of the third Tibetan year (in AD 1184) according to Tibetan Calendar, Mameilazhong and her loyal followers took the holy container which contained Tibetan Buddhism classics, ritual implements and other saint things to a cave of today’s D’erlong and buried all the saint things in a rock which is looked like the belly of Bulu Buddha. After the burial rituals, they did many other religious rituals which were connected with so-called holy theurgies(mysterious force and phenomenon ) in which they believed. And Mameilazhong also predicted the day when all the buried saint things would be found again in the future. Later, some other monks from another group came here and cultivated faithfully themselves according to their own doctrines among Tibetan Buddhism and built some simple holy buildings. In the year1222, a small temple which was called D’er temple was built. In the year 1558, the Temple of D’erlong was built well where doctrines of Gelu Group among Tibetan Buddhism were worshipped and believed. A great Buddha hall was established in the Temple , which could hold 500 monks one time. In the year 1718, a great Buddha monk, Jiamuyang, came to the valley of D’erlong and found all the buried saint things buried by Mameilazhong on the 10th March in the year of the third Tibetan year (in AD 1184).Since then, Jiamuyang asked his apprentices to preside the Temple of D’erlong. Before Liberation, there were 60 monks or so in the Temple. During the Cultural Revolution, the Temple of D’erlong was destroyed. In the year 1981 ,the great Buddha hall of the Temple of D’erlong was rebuilt. At present, there are 30 monks or so in the Temple of D’erlong.. | <urn:uuid:16003750-6dda-43f8-b966-98c34ea4f68b> | {
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The Spike Heritage Centre
These workshops are offered primarily for KS1 and KS2 students but many can be easily adapted for use by older age groups.
If weather permits, pupils will be given a map showing the site of the old workhouse and a map showing the current new estate. Pupils will be taken on a tour to try and discover original parts of the workhouse. This activity will enable them to understand the scale of the original workhouse site and encourage discussion around the changing face of the local area.
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
Before their visit -
HOMELESSNESS AND SEPARATION
Pupils will be given source material concerning the treatment of homeless people in the past and the homeless situation today. They will look at how men, women and children were separated from one another and treated within the workhouse system. There will be opportunities to look more closely at the causes of homelessness, then and today.
INMATES TASK OF WORK
In 1906 when The Spike was built, vagrants were expected to perform a task of work to earn their keep. Pupils will take a look at the type of work done at The Spike during their stay. They will then divide into groups to explore the four sleeping cells inhabited by four people who would have different stories to tell. They will discuss and share their discoveries with the rest of the group.
Pupils will be given cards with items such as water, cars and computers. They will be asked to decide which are ‘Wants’ and which are ‘Needs’. They will compare these to the belongings and possessions the Tramps might have had at The Spike. This can lead to a discussion on basic physical, intellectual and emotional human needs and the development of the ‘whole’ person.
THE THREE R’s – Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic
A specially designed workhouse school was built in Guildford in 1856. At first it was felt to be a waste of time educating workhouse children. But by law from 1870 all children had to attend. Children will receive an insight into a girls’ and boys’ education and given materials to join in reciting, copying, dictation, spelling and multiplication tables!
Tramps used signs, graffiti and their own type of ‘slang’ to communicate with one another. Children will attempt to break the tramps code and talk to one another in ‘Tramp Slang’. Discussion will centre around why signs rather than words were used and children can devise some secret messages of their own.
Children will be encouraged to look at recycling today with examples from home and compare this with recycling in Victorian times. There will be an opportunity to participate in sewing, rag-
FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD
During the tour of the building children are shown the amount and type of food a pauper might receive during his stay. Discussion on healthy eating, food values and illnesses associated with undernourishment follow. Children will have the opportunity to weigh and measure using ‘old’ weights measures and tables to calculate the amount of food an adult or child would be given.
CAPTURING THE MOOD
Bring your own sketchpads and pencils to capture the cold and sombre interior of the building. Use the sights of the washerwoman and smells of Jeyes fluid or carbolic soap to influence your sketch. Listen to the sounds of coughing and the stories related by the inmates to add detail to your drawings .
CALCULATING AND MEASURING
Children will be given some ‘old’ currency and tables and asked to work out how much they would have paid for a loaf of bread and a bed for the night. They will compare that to prices today and play a game to test their sterling skills. The distance from one Spike to another was about 12 miles. But chains, rods and furlongs, what are they?
BOYS AND GIRLS COME OUT TO PLAY
Children are encouraged to talk about their recreation and play at school and at home today. They will then compare this to the games and activities children from “the posh ‘ouses” played and the street games, make do and make-
Tasks and Activities at the Spike | <urn:uuid:c3602b9a-0aec-4968-84ee-fd25b6b808b3> | {
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Grape, Concord Vitis labrusca 'Concord'
Concord grape is the traditional grape to make grape jelly and juice. It is also used as a table grape and for wine. The vines produce large clusters of medium-sized, slipskin, blue-black berries. Flesh is green, pulpy and seeded. Concord grape is self pollinating and ripens in mid-September. A strong, hardy, vine that grows to 5-6 feet. Plant vines 6-8 feet apart on a strong trellis, fence or arbor. Shipped as 1-year-old, #1 bareroot vines 6-12 inches tall. (zones 5–9)
Learn more about home fruit production grape culture from the Missouri Extension Agent
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Hardiness Zones 5 - 9The Concord Grape can be expected to grow in the zones shown in color in the arborday.org zone map. View Map
Type of treeFruit Trees
Mature HeightThe Concord Grape grows to be 5' - 6' feet in height.
Mature SpreadThe Concord Grape has a spread of about 8' - 10' at full maturity.
SunThis grape does well in full sun.
ShapeThis grape has prostrate shape.
Prefers a deep, acidic (pH 5.0-6.5), well drained, sandy soil, but they tolerate a wide range of soil types except alkaline and wet. Shipped as 1-year-old, #1 bareroot vines 6- 12 inches tall. (zones 5–9)
Chill hours (CU) requirement: 100. (Chill hours are the average hours of air temperature between 32 and 45 degrees F in a typical winter season). For best fruit production, calculate the chill unit (CU) for your growing zone to be sure it aligns with the CU requirement of this tree.
Concord grape is the quality standard for blue-black grapes used for juice, preserves, table, or wine. The vine produces large clusters of medium-sized, glossy, slipskin, blue-black grapes. The flesh is green, pulpy and seeded. Concord grapes ripen in mid-September. A vigorous, hardy, self-fertile vine. Grows 5 to 6 Feet (zones 5–9). Can't Ship AK, AZ, ID, NY, OR, WA.
Rate of growth refers to the vertical increase in growth unless specified differently. Rate, as is true for size, is influenced by numerous variables such as soil, drainage, water, fertility, light, exposure, ad infinitum. The designation slow means the plant grows 12” or less per year; medium refers to 13 to 24” of growth per year; and fast to 25” or greater.Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, by Michael Dirr. | <urn:uuid:fab4a386-38b2-4fdd-993b-aa3675538f46> | {
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Posner is generally believed to be the most prolific and most-quoted legal academic and jurist of his generation.
It also gives the clearest picture of the type of jurist Kagan may become.
The Asterisk Rule contradicts everything I believe in as a jurist.
It's about time, argues former top U.N. jurist Geoffrey Robertson.
A jurist once cheerfully assured the present writer that the mass of men will never do without alcohol and religion.
Daniel Webster, the celebrated American statesman, jurist, and orator.
John Rowan, an eminent statesman and jurist, of Kentucky, died at Louisville.
For Melius petere fontes, the jurist as well as the poet has it.
In the year 1149 a Lombard jurist, Vacarius, lectured on it at Oxford; but there were no results.
A man must be a jurist and a statesman to understand the Jesuits.
mid-15c., "one who practices law," from Middle French juriste (14c.), from Medieval Latin iurista "jurist," from Latin ius (genitive iuris) "law," from PIE *yewes- "law," originally a term of religious cult, perhaps meaning "sacred formula" (cf. Latin iurare "to pronounce a ritual formula," Vedic yos "health," Avestan yaoz-da- "make ritually pure," Irish huisse "just").
The Germanic root represented by Old English æ "custom, law," Old High German ewa, German Ehe "marriage," though sometimes associated with this group, seems rather to belong to PIE *ei- "to go." Meaning "a legal writer" is from 1620s. | <urn:uuid:a82d190f-4c54-4f0f-b14e-3ac71b3fc1ce> | {
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Seeing Forests for the Trees and the Carbon:
Mapping the World’s Forests in Three Dimensions
Trees cool and moisten our air and fill it with oxygen. They calm the winds and shade the land from sunlight. They shelter countless species, anchor the soil, and slow the movement of water. They provide food, fuel, medicines, and building materials for human activity.
They also help balance Earth’s carbon budget.
Scientists estimate that humans release about nine billion tons of carbon (mostly carbon dioxide) each year by burning fossil fuels and by changing the landscape. About four billion tons end up in the atmosphere and two billion tons dissolve in the ocean. The last three billion go into ecosystems on land, but exactly where these sinks are located remains an open question.
Forests are considered one of the world’s largest banks for all of the carbon emitted into the atmosphere through natural processes and human activities. They cover about 30 percent of Earth’s land surface, while accounting for 50 percent of plant productivity. As much as 45 percent of the carbon stored on land is tied up in forests.
Did forests hold more or less carbon in the past? Could they store more in the future? Scientists really don’t know exactly how much carbon our forests can hold.
What they do know is that human activities have moved a lot of carbon from long-term, stable storage—such as rocks, buried fossil fuels, and old-growth forests—into forms with short-term, direct impacts on the environment. For instance, when we clear forests, we remove tall trees that can store carbon in their trunks, branches, and leaves for hundreds of years. We often replace them with croplands or pastures that store less carbon for a shorter time. Paved developments store little to no carbon.
“The biggest natural sink of terrestrial carbon lies in our forests and trees,” says Steve Running, a forest ecologist at the University of Montana. “And the biggest natural source of carbon on land is also the forest. So one of the most important things we can do for understanding the carbon budget is to get a better inventory of the carbon we have in our trees.”
The key measurement is biomass, or the total mass of organisms living within a given area. A rule of thumb for ecologists is that the amount of carbon stored in a tree equals 50 percent of its dry biomass. So if you can estimate the biomass of all the trees in all the forests, you can estimate how much carbon is being stored on land. Repeating those measurements over years, decades, and centuries would then help us understand how carbon is moving around the planet.
Trees are often held up as a solution to our carbon budget problem. Making something like an economic argument, some people suggest that we can “grow” our way out of trouble by making (or keeping) the landscape greener. But would it help to plant more trees? To cut down fewer? And does it matter where those trees are?
The first step toward answering those questions is to figure out just how much carbon our trees store right now.
3D Visions of the Forest
Scientists have used a variety of methods to survey the world’s forests and their biomass. They have systematically measured forests from the ground, venturing into the woods to count trees, measure trunks, and climb to the top of the canopy. Taking to airplanes, they have made photographic, radar, and lidar surveys of different types of forest.
With satellites, they have collected regional and global measurements of the “greenness” of the land surface and assessed the presence or absence of vegetation, while looking for signals to distinguish trees from shrubs from ground cover.
But to assess biomass, you have to know the area, density and, most importantly, the height of the trees. Researchers have achieved this on small scales, but to use the traditional methods on a global scale is prohibitively expensive and time-consuming.
“We need to see Earth’s vegetation in three dimensions,” says Jon Ranson, a forest ecologist based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “By measuring the height of forests, we can then estimate above-ground biomass and estimate the carbon stored in that forest. The more accurate the measurements, the more certain our estimates of the carbon.”
The first map to estimate forest heights on a global scale came in 2010. Michael Lefsky of Colorado State University combined broad views of the horizontal land surface from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites with vertical height from NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat).
The result was a map showing the world’s tallest forests clustered in the Pacific Northwest of North America and in portions of Southeast Asia, with shorter forests covering broad swaths across Canada and Eurasia. The tallest tree canopies are the temperate conifer forests—full of Douglas fir, western hemlock, redwood, and sequoia—that often grow taller than 40 meters (131 feet). Boreal forests of spruce, fir, pine, and larch usually reach less than 20 meters (66 feet) into the sky. In the middle are the temperate, broadleaf forests of Europe and the United States and the undisturbed tropical rain forests, which both average 25 meters (82 feet) tall.
The backbone of the mapping effort was data from the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) on ICESat, which pulsed laser light at the planet’s surface more than 250 million times in its seven years of flight (2003-2009). Those pulses made direct measurements of 2.4 percent of Earth’s forest surfaces and measurements for 24 percent of the forest patches on surface. That left it to Lefsky to extrapolate and to work out mathematical model estimates for the forests surrounding the ICESat samples.
The global map was the first of its kind, but Lefsky and colleagues knew there was still a lot of uncertainty to be cleared up with better instrumentation and coverage. “This is really a first draft,” said Lefsky, “and it will certainly be refined in the future.”
Mapping the Tropics
Sassan Saatchi, a remote sensing scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is one of several collaborators and friendly competitors working on that next draft of forest maps. He is working with satellites to see the forests for the trees and the carbon. His focus has been the thick stands of trees around the mid-section of Earth.
“I first visited a tropical forest in 1994 for a project on the Bahian Coast of Brazil, and I was mesmerized by the complexity and beauty,” Saatchi says. “I fell in love with the landscape, with the biodiversity of plants and animals, and with the people. Every time you see a tropical forest, you find something new. For a person with a background in physics and mathematics, it is one of the most complex and challenging systems to understand and model.”
Because they grow year-round, tropical forests are believed to be the most productive on Earth. They store vast amounts of carbon in the wood and roots of their trees, though scientists have only been able to make broad, speculative estimates about just how much.
“In the northern forests of the United States, Canada, and Europe, there are usually sophisticated forestry systems to measure structure and biomass by state or region,” Saatchi says. “In the tropics, we often have no clue how forest carbon is distributed on a local level.”
What researchers do know is that tropical deforestation and forest degradation account for between 10 and 20 percent of all manmade emissions of carbon dioxide, a significant greenhouse gas. Images from satellites, the space shuttle, and the International Space Station have been showing the smoke plumes for decades. Deforestation is big business, as large-scale producers of palm oil, soybeans, beef, and leather add to the pressure on tropical forests from small farmers working to raise themselves out of poverty. Rising global demands for these commodities mean that these fires may not stop anytime soon.
“Tropical forests have a high diversity of plants, and are extremely variable over the landscape and in their interaction with the climate, yet they are poorly measured and monitored,” Saatchi notes. “I have worked every measurement and mathematical tool I could muster to try to understand and map this complexity.”
Working with 14 colleagues from 10 institutions around the world (including Michael Lefsky), Saatchi set about compiling and analyzing measurements from four space-based instruments—the GLAS lidar on ICESat, MODIS, the QuikSCAT scatterometer, and the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission—and from 4,079 ground-based forest plots. The team mapped more than three million measurements of tree heights and correlated them to measurements of trees from the ground. They calculated the amount of carbon stored above ground and in the roots. And they extrapolated their results over forest areas where there is less ground sampling but some known characteristics.
The result, released in May 2011, was a benchmark map of biomass carbon stocks covering 2.5 billion hectares (9.65 million square miles) of forest in 75 countries on three continents. Though previous efforts have mapped tropical forests on regional or local scales, the new map is “the first effort to quantify the distribution of forest carbon systematically over the entire tropical region,” Saatchi says.
The researchers found that nearly 247 gigatons (billion tons) of carbon was sequestered in tropical forests, with 193 gigatons stored above ground in trunks, branches, and leaves, and 54 gigatons stored below ground in the roots. Forests in Central and South America accounted for 49 percent of the total, with Southeast Asia sheltering 26 percent and sub-Saharan Africa with 25 percent of the carbon storage.
Saatchi is most proud that his map not only assesses the carbon stock, but also gives a clear picture of the quality and certainty of the assessment. “Our map tells us the carbon at any location in the tropical forests and how certain we are about our estimation,” Saatchi says. The research team created mathematical models to show the margin of error in their carbon assessments. On the national and regional level, Saatchi says, the uncertainty is between 1 and 5 percent. “Given that biomass estimation from ground measurements has about a 10 to 20 percent error over large plots, our uncertainty in global mapping is very reasonable.”
Knowing something about the error bars is important for building confidence with resource managers and economists who are trying to assess the needs and values of forests. It is also important for pointing researchers to the areas where more work is needed.
“We can advance science by studying uncertainty, and the land part of the global carbon cycle is very uncertain,” Saatchi asserts. “Data collection on the ground is extremely limited because of the difficulty of access and the lack of infrastructure in most tropical regions—though that is something we do not necessarily want to change. Still, we really need more systematic and transparent measurements of tropical forest.”
Close-Up on the United States
“Resource managers need to see forests down to the disturbance resolution—the scale at which parking lots or developments or farms are carved out by deforestation,” says Josef Kellndorfer of the Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC). His research team recently took it down to that level when they released the National Biomass and Carbon Dataset (NBCD) for the United States in April 2011.
“We are providing information on a management scale,” Kellndorfer notes. Forests in the U.S., as well as their carbon content, are mapped down to 30 meters, or roughly 10 computer display pixels for every hectare of land (4 pixels per acre). “This data set is a comprehensive view of forest structure and carbon storage, and it provides an important baseline for assessing changes in the future.”
Over six years, Kellndorfer, Wayne Walker, and their Woods Hole team collaborated with the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to assemble a national forest map from space-based radar and optical sensors, computer modeling, and a massive amount of ground-based data. They divided the country into 66 mapping zones and ended up mapping 265 million segments of the American land surface. Kellndorfer estimates that the mapping database includes measurements of about five million trees.
The researchers started with data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, which was flown on the space shuttle Endeavour in 2000. With that space radar, the USGS and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory constructed topographic maps of nearly all of Earth’s land masses from 60 degrees north latitude to 60 degrees south.
By 2005, Kellndorfer deciphered signals (the scattering surfaces) in the electromagnetic waves detected by the radar—data that revealed the height of the vegetation. Subtracting the height of the treetops from the elevation of the land, the scientists could estimate the height and density of the woody plants, trees, and shrubs covering the surface.
But those numbers were only the beginning. Kellndorfer’s team combined their data with the National Land Cover Database, which was built from Landsat satellite images of Earth’s surface. They examined the biology and geology of their picture. How do different land elevations affect the height and thickness of trees? What can and cannot grow at certain elevations?
The last piece of the puzzle was ground truth. Kellndorfer enlisted the aid of Elizabeth LaPoint and colleagues in the Forest Inventory and Analysis program of the U.S. Forest Service. The federal foresters keep a census of the nation’s trees, maintaining a survey plot for every 6,000 acres of woodland, and measuring the trees within that plot at least once every five years.
Those plots, however, are not available for direct survey or study by Kellndorfer or anyone outside the service—a safeguard to protect the integrity of the data set and the rights of private property owners. So the Woods Hole team prepared thousands of data sets with 15 to 20 variables that LaPoint could compare to the forest inventory.
In the end, the research team was able to construct a map with higher resolution and more precise detail than any large-scale map of forest biomass ever made. The map reveals the checkerboard patterns of logging in the old growth of the Pacific Northwest and the highly managed tree farms of the Southeast. In the Midwest, trees outline the rivers and the edges between farms, while forests re-emerge on land that was once cleared for crops. In the Mid-Atlantic and New England, lands that were stripped bare in the early years of the nation are now tree-covered again—though with many urban developments amidst the forest.
“Forests are a key element for human activity,” says Kellndorfer. “So we have to know how much we have, and where, in order to conduct sound management and harvesting. This map gives us another tool to see our precious resource.”
Building a Better Measuring Stick
Lidar, radar, visible-light imagery, ground surveys, and computer models all bring slightly different answers to the same problem. Three different teams produced three different forest and carbon maps in a fifteen-month span. Groups at Stanford, the European Space Agency, Brazil, the U.S. Forest Service, and dozens of other institutions are pursuing similar questions, sometimes as competitors, sometimes as collaborators.
From a distance, the research can sometimes appear redundant. But parallel approaches and competition have always been the recipe for innovation and deeper understanding.
“It’s similar to cancer research, where you have different laboratories and different countries pursuing the same problem,” said Jon Ranson. “Everyone is looking with a slightly different angle and methodology. Groups are collaborating as much as they can, and taking the data that are available and making the best of it. In the end, it’s complementary and it improves the overall science.”
The ultimate prize is a uniform, standardized map of forest heights and carbon stocks on all continents at one time. And that map should be updated and revised as human activities renovate our planet.
“We have a pretty good handle on forest area worldwide, but not as great a sense of the structure or the changes,” says Steve Running, a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “We need a better global, annual measure of our carbon stocks. We need to know how things change each year through fire, new growth and re-growth, desertification, and deforestation.”
“How do we cover the whole world,” Running adds, “and do it every two to three years, which is what the science needs?”
The number of options for space-based mapping has gotten smaller. The ICESat mission ended in 2009. Its follow-on, ICESat II, is slated for launch in 2016, but will not necessarily be able to view forests in the same way as its predecessor. The synthetic aperture radar used for the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission provided a global picture of Earth’s landscape structure in early 2000; but the space shuttle was retired in July 2011. A similar technology could provide forest structure and cover globally every year if launched on the space station or another satellite.
Many forest researchers and ecologists were counting on a mission that was proposed years ago and recommended by the National Research Council in 2007—the Deformation, Ecosystem, Structure, and Dynamics of Ice satellite. DESDynl would combine radar and lidar technologies to get a three-dimensional view of forests and their carbon stock. But that mission was put on indefinite hold in the spring of 2011 as the U.S. government made deep budget cuts. Researchers are now looking for other means to fly those instruments in space.
Ranson and colleagues Doug Morton, Bruce Cook, Ross Nelson, and others at NASA Goddard have picked up the effort to find a way forward. Since August 2011, they have been flying developmental instruments on NASA research airplanes, crisscrossing the eastern United States and taking stock of everything from sub-tropical wetlands to boreal forests. The team has been flying over Forest Inventory and Analysis plots in Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida, while flying under the old satellite tracks of ICESat. The team intends to calibrate their data against measurements from ICESat, Cook says, “and see if we can detect changes as we re-fly over an area.”
In the summer of 2011, Ranson led the Eco-3D mission to measure forests in the eastern U.S. and Canada with three main instruments—radar, lidar, and a radiometer. The Digital Beamforming Synthetic Aperture Radar (DBSAR) provides a broad, horizontal view, distinguishing forest from other land cover and giving a sense of the biomass density. The Slope Imaging Multi-polarization Photon-counting Lidar (SIMPL) measures the forest canopy height and structure, while also providing clues about the types of trees being measured. The Cloud Aerosol Radiometer (CAR) measures the light reflecting properties of the leaves and landscape, which tells researchers about the composition and health of the forest.
Beyond Eco-3D, the Goddard team has been working with partners in Canada and Brazil to improve airborne forest mapping, which may be the best method the world will have until a space-based lidar and radar can be flown again.
What is it All Worth?
“It’s amazing how many people really need our data,” Saatchi notes. “I’ve been getting bombarded by emails from people who want these maps.”
Kellndorfer’s inbox is full, too. Hundreds of ecologists, forest managers, academic scientists, city planners, land conservation groups, timber companies, climate modelers, civil engineers, biologists, and fish and game managers have sought maps on an almost daily basis. More are likely to come as international negotiators move closer to treaties and economic markets for managing carbon emissions and storage.
“The work we’re doing can help put an economic value on forests,” says Goddard’s Doug Morton. “Policymakers and economists want to know forest carbon stocks at very fine spatial scales, and countries naturally need to improve their assessment of stocks to participate in a forest carbon market. This is a high-stakes game in the policy realm.”
Developing countries are taking stock of the carbon in their forests as part of an effort in climate change mitigation called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, or REDD+. Scientific partners from the United States and Europe are often called on for technological assistance.
“Carbon trading markets are going to be partly based on selling credits for forests,” says Running. “If there is going to be billions of dollars in carbon trading, then knowing where the carbon is and how much of it there is takes on huge political and economic importance. We need a coordinated, global monitoring plan in order to make it legitimate.”
- AsiaOne News (2011, August 7) Googling Earth to fight graft. Accessed August 30, 2011.
- Bonan, G.B. (2008, June 13) Forests and Climate Change: Forcings, Feedbacks, and the Climate Benefits of Forests. Science 320, 1444.
- Environmental Protection Agency (2010, June 22) Carbon Sequestration in Agriculture and Forestry: Frequent Questions. Accessed September 18, 2011.
- Lefsky, M.A. (2010) A global forest canopy height map from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer and the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System. Geophysical Research Letters, 37, L15401.
- Pan, Y., Birdsey, R., et al (2011, July 14) A Large and Persistent Carbon Sink in the World’s Forests. Science 333, 988–993.
- Running, S.W., Nemani, R.R., Townshend, J.R.G., and Baldocchi, D.D. (2009) Next-Generation Terrestrial Carbon Monitoring (PDF). AGU Geophysical Monograph Series 183: Carbon Sequestration and Its Role in the Global Carbon Cycle, 49–69.
- Ryan, M.G. (2008, June 4) Forests and Carbon Storage. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Climate Change Resource Center. Accessed September 18, 2011.
- Saatchi, S.S. (2011, June 14) Benchmark map of forest carbon stocks in tropical regions across three continents. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 108, No. 24, 9899–9904.
- Space News (2011, February 25) Two High-priority Climate Missions Dropped from NASA’s Budget Plans. Accessed September 28, 2011.
- Tollefson, J. (2009, December 15) Satellites beam in biomass estimates.Nature 462, 834–835. | <urn:uuid:59ebf395-8c20-467e-9529-3b1882064d31> | {
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Colitis Topic Guide
Colitis: Colitis is an inflammation of the colon. There are many cause of colitis, infectious colitis (bacterial or viral), ischemic colitis, inflammatory bowel disease (Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis), microscopic colitis (lymphocytic and collagenous), and chemical colitis. Symptoms of colitis are generally diarrhea (may be bloody) and abdominal pain and/or cramping. Treatment of colitis depends upon the cause.
Clostridium Difficile (C. difficile, C. diff, Antibiotic Related Colitis) Clostridium difficile (or C. difficile, C. diff) colitis is an infection of the colon. C. diff infection is most commonly associated with antibiotic use. Another common name is pseudomembranous colitis. C diff bacteria is commonly found on items such as floors, bedpans, phones, fingernails, etc. C diff infection causes are use of certain antibiotics. Risk factors for C diff infection include hospitalization, age, and chronic medical conditions. Treatment is generally with another antibiotic.
Expert Views and News | <urn:uuid:3e587f46-a3c5-40d9-a3f5-85975524f166> | {
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March 4, 2013
PORTLAND, Ore. — Oregon Wildlife invites you to learn about Oregon’s state animal, the American beaver, in a presentation by Dr. Jimmy Taylor, Supervisory Research Wildlife Biologist and Field Station Leader for the National Wildlife Research Center, on Wednesday, March 13 at 6:00 p.m. in Portland.
Beavers are nature’s engineers and while they create critical habitat for fish and wildlife and help with water quality and quantity, some of their construction projects can cause flooding of crops and roads and damage trees. Taylor’s presentation will cover the benefits beaver deliver as well as ways to minimize human-beaver conflicts.
The beaver, once the widely distributed in Oregon, was all but trapped to extinction in the early 1800s for its prized pelt. Over the years, a decline in demand for beaver fur combined with proper wildlife management helped the beaver to become reestablished in much of its former range.
Admission is $5 per person. It is free for Oregon Wildlife members. Registration is required. Register online at the Foundation’s website, www.owhf.org/discoveringwildlife.
For more information or questions, contact the Foundation at (503) 255-6059. This and all other talks in the Discovering Wildlife Lecture Series are held in the Billy Frank Jr. Conference Center of the Ecotrust Building in Portland’s Pearl District, 721 NW Ninth Avenue, Portland.
Oregon Wildlife supports projects that protect and restore Oregon’s wildlife and improve access to our outdoor resources. Since its founding, Oregon Wildlife has directed millions of dollars in funding to fish, wildlife and habitat projects throughout Oregon. Oregon Wildlife and ODFW are working together to implement the Oregon Conservation Strategy, a blueprint and action plan for the long-term conservation of Oregon’s native fish, wildlife and their habitats.
Other topics in the 2012-13 Discovering Wildlife Lecture Series include Steller and California Sea Lions with ODFW Biologist Robin Brown on Wednesday, April 17, and Black Bear with ODFW Biologist Doug Cottam on Wednesday, May 15.
For more information, contact Tim Greseth, OWHF executive director, (503) 255-6059. Meg Kenagy, ODFW Conservation Communications coordinator, (503) 947-6021. | <urn:uuid:166ff5eb-82f0-4174-a8db-48dc1d191a90> | {
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The contrabassoon is a larger version of the bassoon sounding an octave lower. Its technique is similar to its smaller cousin, with a few notable differences.
With a range beginning at B0 (extending down a half-step to the lowest note on the piano on instruments with the low A extension), and extending up just over three octaves, the contrabassoon is the deepest available sound in an orchestra of standard instruments. Accordingly, the instrument is notated an octave above sounding pitch in bass clef, with tenor or even (rarely) treble clef called for in high passages. The instrument has a high range extending to middle C, but the top fifth is rarely used. Tonally, it sounds much like the bassoon except for a distinctive organ pedal quality in the lowest octave of its range which provides a solid underpinning to the orchestra. Although the instrument can have a distinct 'buzz', which becomes almost a clatter in the extreme low range, this is nothing more than a variance of tone quality which can be remediated by appropriate reed design changes. While prominent in solo and small ensemble situations, the sound can be completely obscured in the volume of the full orchestra.
Currently, contrabassoons are made by Heckel, Fox, Wolf, Moennig, Moosman, Püchner, Adler, Amati and Mollenhauer (and possibly others). In 2001, Fox introduced a new model of the contrabassoon with a completely revised system of register keys (octave keys), designed by Arlen Fast of the New York Philharmonic, and built by Chip Owen at Fox. It addressed a variety of problems with the standard system, including poor articulation, and weak and uneven tone in the upper registers of the instrument. This design was granted a patent (#6,765,138) in 2004. The changes introduced with this system have greatly improved the playing characteristics of the contrabassoon and have extended its effective range upwards. It was quickly adopted by the contrabassoon players in the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra and the National Symphony, as well as others. The Kalevi Aho Concerto for Contrabassoon (2005) was written for Lewis Lipnick of the National Symphony, playing on a Fast-System Fox contrabassoon. It became the first contrabassoon concerto to be recorded and released by a major record label, BIS Records.
Most orchestras use one contrabassoonist, either as a primary player or a bassoonist who doubles, as do a large number of symphonic bands and wind ensembles. While relatively rare, the instrument is most frequently found in larger symphonies, particularly those of Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, and Dmitri Shostakovich. The first composer to write a separate contrabassoon part in a symphony was Beethoven, in his Fifth Symphony (1808), although Bach, Handel (in his Music for the Royal Fireworks), Haydn, and Mozart occasionally used it in other genres. Composers have often used the contrabassoon to comical or sinister effect by taking advantage of its clumsiness and its sepulchral rattle, respectively. A clear examples of its sound can be heard in Paul Dukas' Sorcerer's Apprentice. Some modern composers such as Gunther Schuller, Kalevi Aho and John Caughman have written concertos for this instrument. Orchestrally, the contrabassoon is featured in Maurice Ravel's Mother Goose Suite and Piano Concerto for the Left Hand. It can also be clearly heard providing the bass line in the brief "Janissary band" section of the fourth movement of Beethoven's Symphony #9, just prior to the tenor solo.
The contrabassoon acts as the lowest voice of the woodwind ensemble, though the orchestral tuba can reach lower pitches. It is also often used to support other mixed orchestrations, such as doubling the bass trombone or tuba at the octave. Frequent exponents of such scoring were Brahms and Gustav Mahler. Joseph Haydn also used this instrument in both of his oratorios, The Creation and The Seasons. In these works the part for the contrabassoon and the bass trombone are mostly, but not always, identical.
Contemporary contrabassoonist Susan Nigro has released six albums featuring herself playing the contrabassoon as a virtuoso instrument. The albums include classical concertos, as well as modern tunes, such as The Pink Panther Theme. She affectionately calls the contrabassoon the "big bassoon" in her album titles.
Prof. Dr. Werner Schulze of Austria owns a contrabassoon with an extension to Ab0, the note a half step below the lowest note on the piano.
Recently, the instrument makers Guntram Wolf and Benedikt Eppelsheim have collaborated in the reworking of the contrabassoon, resulting in a new instrument they call the Contraforte. It has a larger bore, as well as larger tone holes, resulting in a slightly different tone from a normal contrabassoon. The Wolf Contraforte contains a natural extension down to A0, and several other features such as silent key movement and an automatic water drain. | <urn:uuid:45a127eb-cf00-4e6b-9820-b17d7830595d> | {
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FC: The Great Depression
1: The Great Depression wasn't just caused by one thing. There were multiple reasons why the Great Depression happened, A combination of domestic and worldwide conditions that led to it. The most notable reasons would have to be the Stock Market Crash of 1929, bank failures, reduction in purchasing around the board, the American Economic Policy with Europe, and Drought Conditions.
2: The Great Depression lasted from 1930 to 1939. Stock prices fell, many banks and businesses went out of business. Savings accounts were wiped out, wages were decreased, and the unemployment rate skyrocketed.
3: Many families were poor and hungry. And it was a 25% chance that they adults may not even be employed. Many people had to live in terrible conditions and some people even slept along the streets.
4: The Great Depression affected everyone. Not just the United States but worldwide many countries were facing economic turmoil. The United States was probably the earliest to get hit by the Great Depression, starting with the Stock Market collapse.
5: The Great Depression lasted from about 1930 to 1939. Everything started to take a turn for the better when president Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected in 1932. He introduced many big changes in the structure of the American economy using increased government regulation and massive public-works projects to promote a recovery. This helped very much but wasn't enough to really get America back on its feet. But in 1939 the outbreak of World War II gave many people the jobs they needed. | <urn:uuid:21dd33ad-453a-42dd-922b-46ad2c94d9ff> | {
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Problems with walking and balance may be the first sign of Alzheimer's disease, say US researchers.
The first signs of Alzheimer's may be physical
A study of 2,288 elderly people found that such physical symptoms were associated with an increased risk of developing dementia.
Researchers from the University of Washington said they believed that exercise could help to stall the progression of the disease.
Their study appears in Archives of Internal Medicine.
Previous research has suggested that exercise may reduce the risk of Alzheimer's - possibly by boosting blood flow to the brain. Researchers monitored patients every two years for signs of physical and mental decline.
At the start of the study, none of the participants had any sign of dementia but after six years 319 individuals had developed dementia - 221 of them had Alzheimer's disease.
Those with good physical performance scores at the start of the investigation were three times less likely to develop dementia than those with poor scores.
The researchers assessed physical function using a variety of tests.
The first indicators of future dementia appeared to be problems with walking and balance. A weak hand grip was a later sign.
Study leader Dr Eric Larson said: "We were surprised to find that physical changes can precede declines in thinking.
"If confirmed, this study might also help explain the association of physical exercise with a reduced risk of dementia, suggesting that exercise, by improving and maintaining physical function, might benefit cognitive function through a connection between the two."
A previous study by Dr Larson had shown that regular exercise reduced the risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease by up to 40%.
He added: "Physical and mental performance may go hand in hand, and anything you can do to improve one is likely to improve the other."
Harriet Millward, deputy chief executive, Alzheimer's Research Trust said anything that helped to diagnose Alzheimer's at an early age would be useful.
"This is the first study relating dementia to physical function rather than intensity or regularity of exercise.
"It suggests that people who can't do some physical tasks as well may be at higher risk of developing dementia.
"It is too early to say whether some of the tests the researchers used, such as gait or handgrip, might be used to help diagnose Alzheimer's," she added.
Dr Susanne Sorensen, head of research at the Alzheimer's Society said: " "The studies findings are constant with the Alzheimer's Society's message that leading a healthy life may reduce your risk of developing dementia," she added." | <urn:uuid:696bf99a-e045-4790-84e8-35e5bf9ba1bf> | {
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Exercise plays a key role in developing and maintaining a healthy mind and body. In this video, Anne Burnell demonstrates some easy exercises for senior citizens to get stronger and flexible hands.
These exercises include:
- Clasping action (with the hands only)
- Flicking water from the hand
- Scratching in the air
- Playing the piano
- Star Trek Vulcan salute (plus extending it by opening the pinky etc.)
- Resting hands on lap while lifting and curling the fingers
- Spider on a mirror
- Flipping pancakes with alternation
- Belly dancer’s circular wrist movements
These exercises increase the flexibility of the hands by loosening up the joints and increase grip strength. Arthritis, which starts setting in at old age, can be mitigated or avoided if you perform these exercises daily or on a weekly basis. However, for safety reasons, people with arthritis should consult an expert before performing these exercises. | <urn:uuid:4d6c1e09-64c0-4f6f-a1b1-9de3eae8bc22> | {
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Color photographs and movies illustrate and demonstrate mineral identification. What better way to understand "metallic luster" or "pleochroism" than to see color photographs of minerals that exhibit these characteristics. This "Made for iBooks" chapter uses the power of digital media to visualize mineral identification and make it easy to understand.
Who cares about mineral identification? Is this some obscure hobby practiced by enthusiastic retirees? Why is this so important? It all comes down to this: hand sample mineral identification is the first tool used by geologists in any kind of field setting; if you can’t identify minerals, you'll never understand the rocks they constitute.
So before we plunge into the nitty gritty of what makes minerals tick, and the advanced methods that may be required to identify an unknown, it seems appropriate to begin with what almost everyone wants to know right away: what can I learn from a hands-on encounter with a mineral?
Topics covered in Chapter 2 include: Mineral Nomenclature Mineral Properties Color and streak Luster Hardness Fracture and tenacity Crystal form and system Crystal shape and habit Cleavage and parting Twinning Specific gravity (density) Other properties, such as taste, radioactivity, and magnetism. | <urn:uuid:bcd29917-d420-4b5a-ba56-f780d9ff6714> | {
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A simpler busy beaver triplication Starting from a busy beaver, it is triplicated in the same time as the head (or heads) of the busy beaver(s) compute, in the random version of the graph rewriting algorithm.
Busy beavers in the random church One computer, during its activity, is multiplied into 3 computers which work, in the same time. This feat is done without any higher control and there are never conflicts which appear. All computers work asynchronously (here mimicked by randomness) and eventually they arrive to read and write on the same tape.
Molecular computers. It is possible to design molecules which compute by chemical reactions. Attention, each molecule could compute by itself, this is not about solutions and chemical reactions which give the result of a simple computation by means of the number of molecules from a species. EACH molecule computes here.
The shuffle trick. Both the FOE and FO fanout nodes are essential for self-multiplication. The reason of the existence of two fanout nodes is in the shuffle trick.
Fredkin gate. The universal gate for reversible computing called the Fredkin gate is a gate with three boolean inputs and 3 boolean outputs. You see an example of a computation of a Fredkin gate, where the outputs are big circles coloured with green, purple and red and the interesting inputs are boolean terms, as translated from lambda calculus to chemlambda, with the termination nodes coloured with green and red. It is interesting to see how the small green and red circles arrive near the big green and red ones and how generally the Fredkin gate is destroyed after it achieves the goal.
The working factorial. By a modification of this example, now I have a working factorial computation. (I.e. it works every time.) Recall that I took a lambda term for the factorial from the lambda calculus tutorial by Mayer Goldberg from the little-lisper.org, par. 57, page 14. Then I modified it and got a molecule which computes the factorial in about 20% of the cases. Now, in this working factorial example, I made two supplementary modifications. The first consists in starting from a lambda term which uses the mutiplication in the form L mnf.m(nf) instead of the one used in the tutorial. Secondly, the result of the computation (i.e. the "value" of the factorial) is applied to a SUCC (successor) which is then applied to c0, which result in the generation of the correct result.
The factorial and the little lisper. There are several demos which explore the computation of the factorial, with surprising lessons to learn. The first one is a computation of a function with two inputs and two outputs, then there is an example of a successful computation of the factorial of 3, based on a molecule which is a modification of the molecule obtained from the lambda term proposed in the lambda calculus tutorial by Mayer Goldberg from the little-lisper.org, par. 57, page 14. But that molecule computes successfully only in 20% of the cases (recall that I use a random reduction algorithm), as shown in this example. It is nevertheless a bit successful, differently from the molecule which corresponds exactly to the lambda term from the little lisper tutorial (not that is something wrong with that term, but in chemlambda it does not work as expected). The question is why it does not work well, when in the case of the Ackermann function the term proposed in the tutorial works superbly. The answer seems to be the fact that in chemlambda the molecules which are not needed do not disappear, instead, like in nature, they continue to interact with the useful parts. There is no problem with the recurrence based on a function with two inputs and two outputs, even in a random environment where the values are not passed from here to there, instead there is a signal transduction phenomenon which builds graphs here and there. The problem is with the interaction between trashed parts of the molecule and useful ones. In order to prove this I modified the factorial function molecule (which is successful in 20% of the cases) by a relative of it, and this time the computation is always successful (or have I been lucky all the times?). In this new example there is no trashing used.
Pentapod This creature gets the order to grow 5 limbs. Quadpod This one gets the order to grow 4 limbs. They do just that! But when the creature gets the order to grow 3 limbs, it doesn't. Instead it grows a tubular body with only 1 limb: the Unipod. I don't understand exactly why.
Molecules are not flowcharts In this demo I take the molecule for the number 4 and I draw only the edges which correspond to the syntactic tree of the lambda term which represents it in the Church encoding. Then I add a fanout node FO and the molecule duplicates. But it is visible that none of the nodes (atoms) are gates, nor the molecules are flowcharts, like is usual to consider in other approaches.
Meaningless The 28 quine from the example below, this time with the same treatment as in the demo about the flowcharts, namely only edges which connect A (application) and L (lambda abstraction) nodes are highlighted. It is meaningless to look for syntactic trees in the 28 quine, because this is not how chemlambda works, but is funny and again weirdly biological.
Bigger quine This creature is a 28 quine, described first time here. That means it is a molecule with 28 atoms which would remain the same after each chemical reduction step, in a deterministic reduction algorithm. In this demo you see it in a random environment.
Ackermann(3,2) This is a new computation of the Ackermann function. See below for an older example and explanations. Not for the faint at hearts, because there are thousands of nodes coming and going. That is why the edges are darkened and the nodes are smaller. When you look at it without knowing what will give eventually, i.e. Ack(3,2)=29, you can see only the global, overall structure of a cell or organelle busy with a mysterious, complex activity. But there is nothing global happening there, all graph rewrites performed by the algorithm (random reduction) are purely local, that is they are completely indifferent about any global structure. There is no director of this elaborate cast. I guess that this is what it makes life like.
Rings Duplication of a ring molecule. The duplication happens differently than the FO tree one, mainly because the ring molecule does not correspond to a lambda term. The algorithm is the same though in all examples.
Sparks. A 20 nodes creature which I qualified previously as a quine (see definition of chemlambda quine), struggles to survive in a random environment (random reduction method). In the random environment the molecule is no longer a quine (does no longer preserve its shape), but instead it becomes bigger or smaller. I hypothesize that quines are good models of living creatures. In the deterministical reduction method such a creature would live forever, because its inner metabolism is perfectly equilibrated (keeps its shape after a reduction step). In the random reduction method the quine has a life.
The predecessor. This is a molecule constructed from the lambda term of the predecessor function. It reduces to a number (as seen in chemlambda via the Church encoding). More interestingly, if you examine closer the reduction process (here the random reduction method), then you'l discover inside the molecule a smaller one which I called a "walker". It keeps its shape and "walks" on a trail of nodes. That led to the discovery of chemlambda quines. See the series of posts about that, in my open notebook.
Ackermann(2,2) The Ackermann function is a famous computable but not primitive recursive function. We know that chemlambda is Turing universal (proved first time here, so it is nice to see it can compute the Ackermann function. I took as an example Ackermann(2,2) because numbers are represented via their Church encoding, therefore big numbers are really big graphs in any unary representation. it is fascinating to see how the Ackermann(2,2) is computed in chemlambda because it does so many things in parallel. Another interesting try would be Ackermann(3,2), see this post from my open notebook about it. By using the programs I have, the visualization (not the computation) is a bit punishing for the computer, because there are moments when hundreds of nodes and links appear and dissapear, but probably a better programmer could easily tweak the scripts to behave better. The take home message is this: you can compute without any evaluation, without any variable passing and without any overall control. This is in support for the hypothesis that chemlambda computes in the way living organism compute.
YI multiplied. This is a complex reduction in chemlambda. It is a proof of concept that chemlambda can easily treat in the same time self-multiplication and computation (reductions). In this example we start from the fact that one can write the Y combinator as an expression in the S,K,I, combinators: Y = S (K (S I I)) (S (S (K S) K) (K (S I I))). In a previous experiment, with the older scripts, see this video, I transformed that expression into a molecule and then let it reduce by itself. It worked great. Now, in this example I use the said expression of Y and I apply it to the identity combinator, then I add a FO node on top which will effect the self-reproduction of the big expression. What will happen? So, we have a bunch of reductions (from the long expression to YI) in parallel with the self-reproduction of the whole thing. You shall see that everything works well, and that self-reproduction happens in parallel with reduction, even if all this is done in a model of computation which uses a random reduction strategy.
(journal)(arxiv) - M. Buliga, Graphic lambda calculus. Complex Systems 22, 4 (2013), 311-360
(doi)(arxiv) - M. Buliga, Chemical concrete machine (2013). | <urn:uuid:80e326a0-fa44-45cc-811d-718efcdadbe0> | {
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Discussion of everything related to the Theory of Evolution.
When natural selection first came out it was almost universally rejected. There was a period of 40 years or more where scientists were looking for alternatives to replace natural selection they call this perioud the eclipse of Darwinism. So which alternative theories are there? Theres neo-Lamarckism the notion that aquired traits can be inherited, saltation (evolution by jumps via large mutations etc), theistic evolution, vitalism or orthogenesis (internal directed evolution) etc.
Neo-Lamarckism and Saltation there is evidence that these do occur and have occured. I suggest reading the book Evolution in Four Dimensions by Eva Jablonka Marion J. Lamb where some of this evidence is described. The authors however are not saying neo-Lamarckism or salatation are going to completey replace natural selection, as far as I know no scientist denies that selection occurs. However the role of selection in evolution is still being debated. Some give it a secondary or minor role whilst the neo-Darwinians give it a major role.
Thanks, but none of this will tell me what Jumma's proposal is.
Jumma is obviously an alternative account of the user Gamila who started the thread "Natural selection is proven wrong" on this forum. The arguements of these user/s come from Australian philosopher Colin Leslie Dean. This user/s may be Dean or a friend of his (they appear to use a very similar writing style). They are obviously not interested in proposing any alternative mechanism and some of their comments are very similar to creationists.
He talks about the:
The cambrian explosion. (he is correct here becuase the cambrian explosion does not fit into any gradual theory of evolution) but does not disprove evolution instead we have evidence that this "explosion" came about by complex environmental, developmental, and ecological changes (the mechanisms of which are still being debated today). The cambrian explosion was perfectly natural and does not booster any form of creationism.
Natural selection is invalidated by the fact of speciation. (He is wrong about this and actually dropped this arguement it appears).
His last point:
His arguement here follows that "seeing bad genes can become common this thus makes natural selection wrong which says bad genes should be come rare or less common".
Interestingly this last arguement I sent to some other people and they told me it is wrong as natural selection only occurs after repeated generations. As the author himself has said there is a lot of moving goal posts when it comes to natural selection.
Natural selection is not the only evolutionary mechanism, see my other thread for a handful of other mechanisms but sadly it is a bit dogmatically pushed and overhyped by some people. Scientists like Brian Goodwin and Lynn Margulis admitted that selection exists but said it only has a minor role in evolution, there are other important evolutionary mechanisms such as self-organization or symbiosis etc. So I really don't see a problem any longer.
Who is online
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Project WET K-12 is a nationally developed, comprehensive water education program for teachers and non-formal educators. The workshop includes background information and lessons related to atmospheric, surface and ground water, cultural and historical uses of water and contemporary water management issues such as non-point source pollution. Educator’s Guides can only be obtained by attend-ing this six-hour workshop. The workshop is limited to 25 participants. Registration deadline is January 10th or when class fills. For more information email [email protected] or call Helen at 757-686-8684. Sponsored in part by the Chesapeake Bay Restoration Fund. | <urn:uuid:298c9fef-6839-4f2b-97ee-8a247764ca81> | {
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CCC Company 1801, originally a mixed-race company, performed initial development work on Goose Island State Park during two six-month periods in 1934 and1935. The park, bordered by St. Charles and Aransas Bays, and sitting on the Lamar Peninsula along the Texas coastline, was subject to extensive CCC work in clearing undergrowth, planting trees, and caring for "Big Tree," an ancient coastal live oak.
Using local materials, the CCC team, led by principal architects George T. Patrick and Thomas B. Thompson, constructed a concession building made of shell crete—blocks cast from oyster shell to form the walls and arches. They also improved an existing road that became Park Road 13 and access roads on the 307-acre park, paving them with crushed oyster shells. They finished the park's picnic areas in a suitably “tropical" manner, with thatched roofs of palmetto leaves.
Company 1801 endured harsh treatment and tragedy after the U.S. reconfigured its formerly "mixed" enrollment to an all African American camp on April 1, 1935. Nearby communities objected, taking their complaints all the way to Vice President John Nance Garner. In June, following a murder associated with the camp, the U.S. Army quickly transferred Company 1801 to soil conservation work at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. The incident's aftermath and high-level attention resulted in an absolute racial-segregation policy for the CCC nationally. Henceforth, all black enrollees served in their states of residence; white (and Latinos) could serve anywhere in the nation. All state governors were charged with ensuring local community cooperation with future assignments of the African American companies, and if no standard work assignments could be found for these companies, they were sent to U.S. Army posts such as Fort Sam Houston and Fort Bliss (El Paso).
- Park Location
- Aransas County, 10 miles northeast of Rockport, State Highway 35 to Park Road 13
- CCC Company
- 1801, 1801(C) (April-September 1935)
- Activity Dates
- CCC Construction
- Entrance Portal, Concession Building (currently the recreation hall), Picnic Units, Beachside Roads, Bridges, Camp Shelters with Fireplaces, Tables and Benches (fifteen planned but not constructed), and Drainage Systems.
- See all objects related to Goose Island State Park
- Learn More
- Park information from Texas Parks and Wildlife website | <urn:uuid:a8a8b1c1-cd2d-48be-8104-ce98f36dbf4b> | {
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Why it matters
The spread of invasive plant species is a serious threat to biodiversity world-wide, second only to habitat loss. This matters because biodiversity loss and the resulting imbalance in nature have wide ranging environmental, social and economic effects, and if left uncontrolled can have serious local impacts in the City’s parks, public spaces, environmentally sensitive areas, and private lands. Management of invasive plant species is identified as a priority action in the SCR Framework: Campbell River’s Integrated Community Sustainability Plan and contributes to the City's obligations to control noxious weed imposed by the provincial Weed Control Act. For more information on the City's role in managing invasive species, please see the City's Invasive Species Policy, and the Invasive Plant Management Plan.
The City is also in the final stages of amending the Environmental Protection Bylaw to regulate defined noxious weeds, including all four knotweeds, giant hogweed and yellow flag iris and invasive plants including Scotch broom, by restricting planting and required removal.
What's being done
Currently in Campbell River, Greenways Land Trust has been leading the charge to control noxious weeds and invasive plants through education, work parties and events and they play a particularly active role in the Campbell River estuary. Under the umbrella of the City maintenance contract for Baikie Island, Greenways and their conservation partners have been digging out the noxious yellow-flag iris by hand and machine for a number of years allowing diverse and rare plant communities to return. Scotch broom and blackberry control along Myrt Thompson trail have also been a Greenways focus.
Knotweeds are another noxious plant that is being controlled in the community through an annual contract through Greenways Land Trust. Greenways works with landowners, neighbours and a certified pesticide applicator to treat knotweed infestations, primarily on public owned environmentally sensitive lands.
In recent years, Campbell River BroomBusters has been working tirelessly when "Broom is in Broom" to reduce coverage of this invasive shrub in our parks and along road corridors. Volunteers meet weekly during the bloom and they partner with the Rotarians for one very large cutting event each season. Beginning in 2018, the City initiated funding for additional broom removal on City owned lands. Greenways Land Trust is administering this contract and working with BroomBusters and other organizations to maximize removal efforts.
Need more information on invasive plants? Check out the Coastal Invasive Species Committee and the Invasive Species Council of BC to find out more. | <urn:uuid:0b3344f9-ab08-48a9-aa90-b487cbb470a8> | {
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In Scotland, where self-congratulatory navel gazing has filled the post-devolution vacuum, our glaring cultural and historical lacks must be addressed. But there seems to be a reluctance on the part of historians, journalists and theologians, who contribute acres of print raking over the definitions of what it means to be Scottish, to engage with the black holes in the nation's soul.
Rather than wallowing in the status quo, Scots should be looking to both past and future with a view to discovering alternative identities. As a composer, I obviously see music as indispensable to this search. I am painfully aware of how the absence of music has contributed to the darker stains on our identity. As a boy I realised that one of our greatest composers was British - Benjamin Britten. I became intrigued with the idea of "the composer" occupying our time and our space - that there was a place in the modern world for someone who carried on the art and tradition of this complex form, and that he might live a few hundred miles down the road.
From Elgar to Vaughan Williams, Britten to Tippett, Birtwistle to Maxwell Davies, the 20th century saw Britain's dramatic re-engagement with classical music at the highest level. But the absence of Scotland from Europe's great musical narrative drew my attention.
Scotland's place in the history of European music suffered two near-fatal body blows in 1560 and 1603. The ancient universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen were founded in the 15th century, and music played a vital role. Collegiate chapels cultivated, besides Scottish music, English decorative composition, music by the Burgundian Dufay and Flemish-inspired polyphony. Scottish liturgists travelled to Rome, Paris and the Netherlands, absorbing the fashionable musical traits of the day.
In 1560, the Scottish Reformation stopped this all abruptly. The liturgy became a principal battleground, involving a violent repudiation of the past and of foreign influences. The second blow came with the departure of the Scottish court in 1603. At the very time when aristocratic courts all over Europe were becoming central in sponsoring great composers, Scotland lost the main arena where great music could be created and thrive. The result was an absence from our culture which has damaged the national soul and psyche, and the reverberations of this are still apparent today.
Scotland's history is littered with such absences, and facing up to them honestly should be part of our modern identity surgery. Dealing with these ruptures should involve a dispassionate examination of the errors of the past. It would be markedly different from the sentimental, saltire-waving orgy of identity politics in which we are now embroiled. It would involve facing up to the difficult truth that our conscious destruction and abandonment of various heritages, musical and otherwise, was religiously inspired. It might even involve an embrace of things that have hitherto repelled us.
It would also involve a recognition that mankind is bound together by certain universals that are greater than our transient, parochial obsessions. And it would involve bringing music back to the core of our culture, returning it from the exile it has endured on so many tragic occasions. | <urn:uuid:037aa4a0-f73a-45b9-8a02-348f038e6254> | {
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Messaging platforms are coming of the age, and Chatbots are all the new trend now. They are touted as the next version of apps, like a huge change in the communication industry. Since Facebook has expanded access to its Messenger service, giving businesses the ability to reach customers better through different APIs, “Chatbots” has become the buzzword these days. Many questions are arising about Chatbots: What actually the Chatbots are? How do they work? How are they build? Are Chatbots a big opportunity for businesses? All this will be discussed here.
What are Chatbots?
Chatbots are artificial intelligence systems that we interact with via text or voice interface. Those interactions can be straightforward, like asking a bot about weather report, or more complex, like having one troubleshoot a problem with your internet service. You can even ask for the latest news rather than browsing for them. Chatbots are personal assistants that actually assists you. It could live in any major chat applications like Facebook Messenger, Slack, Telegram, Text Messages, etc. The idea is that these chatbots will eventually be a way to easily find anything that we are looking for, without having to do a Web search or open up multiple apps. For example, instead of calling a taxi from the Uber app you get to call it directly from Facebook messenger bot.
With Bots possibilities are endless, you can make bots for any kind of system that will reduce human pain and work.
How does Chatbots work?
Are chatbots really that intelligent? How do they answer questions we ask for? No, they are not intelligent itself, humans make them do so. Chatterbots recognize keywords from the user’s input and access the database for giving a predefined response. For example, the user is sending a text that contains the word “car”. The chatbot will most likely to ask something like: “Which is the model of your car?” Or “Can I know more about your car?”.
From these simple responses, an illusion of understanding the input is created, even though only a keyword has been found and the response from a predefined pattern has been sent to the user. The chatbot basically refers to the predefined set of libraries and APIs appended to it to check for the set of patterns that it can respond with. Every chatbot is build based on pattern-matching, but the intelligence of chatbot depends on how human-like and intelligent these predefined patterns are and on how good the text from the user is understood.
Some Chatbots functions in an advanced manner using Machine Learning. This bot understands language and not just commands. This bot continuously gets smarter as it learns from conversations it does with people.
Are chatbots a huge opportunity?
Messaging apps are now bigger than social networks. With the rise of messaging apps and chatbots, the way we are using social media to interact and share is changing.
Studies consistently show that smartphone users have condensed their time into some of their favorite apps, often a browser, a couple of chat, social apps and may be few games. With shrinking opportunities to make money from mobile apps, developers are looking forward to chatbots as a new path. Chatbots are free to use, and we can chat with them by simply sending them a message as if they were a human user.
Improvements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Programming (NLP) has made it possible to use conversational language as command line making bots understand what we want and automate the execution of the command making bots do what we ask for. As it is extended to messaging platform, it’s possible to text our request and get the reply by an automated and scalable backend.
So yes, Chatbots a big opportunity in messaging apps lies in finding the pain of people and solving their issues in areas where needed services don’t exist. But the challenge here is we need a humongous data about consumer behaviors and preferences. At early stages, there’s a high level of human involvement needed to train the AI bot about what the user is really asking for and how to best solve their needs.
People are using Messaging apps more than social networks. So logically, if we want to build a business online than we want to build something that people want.
How are Chatbots build?
As discussed above, there can be 2 types of bots: one that follows rules and other which is smarter does machine learning. So for building chatbots either take a rule-based approach, the developer will be coding rules for the system. Another approach can be machine learning, which requires a massive amount of steaming data and the system will have to learn on its own. So developers need to properly define machine learning parameters.
Chatbots can be built on different platforms. There are tons of resources to start with. Some of the available platforms are Facebook Messenger, Slack, Telegram, etc. Chatbots can also be customized for your own applications according to the need.
The bottom line here is we will be looking closely at AI and messaging space in coming years. The emergence of new communication platform sparks innovation and opportunities. Overall, chatbots platform has some way to go before it becomes a replacement of websites. However, the platform is still in the budding stage, and eventually, chatbots will get better in understanding natural human languages. And with time we may be assisted in all possible ways we want by an automated system or as we say a “Chatbot”. | <urn:uuid:2e2bcc20-02df-4169-a679-4433d9a8a771> | {
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|Vegetarianism & Animal Welfare|
|© 2008 Dan Piraro - Used with Permission|
Fear of Flying Mammals A recent issue of Orion magazine, usually a pretty responsible publication, has added to the volumes of articles and stories designed to persuade readers to kill bats on sight. In “The Rabies Principle” author Sandra Steingraber, “ecologist” and “biologist,” has added her little bit to bat hysteria. She might have done a little research first. For example, among her other dubious claims, there is no indication that some bat bites are “undetectable.“ Even the vampire bat of South America causes pain to humans when it bites them. Most bat bites are undetectable because they are imaginary; the mouth of the insectivorous bat is ill-suited to clamping onto humans.
The massive effort of local, state and federal governments, which Ms. Steingraber finds so laudable, to combat rabies in humans, is aimed at reducing an epidemic that averages two cases a year in the US, most believed to originate outside the country. Maybe that money could be more practically spent to combat some of the toxic environmental hazards Ms. Steingraber complains of in this article.
Bats are one of the most useful animals in our eco-system destroying tons of harmful insects nightly, including the disease-carrying mosquito. Articlces like Ms. Steingraber’s help to feed the fear and loathing that leads to the persecution of bats and the destruction of their very fragile colonies. Perhaps she should also call for the extermination of raccoons which account for far more cases of rabies in animals in this country, or of foxes which harbor only slightly fewer cases than bats. Of course, the public would never buy into that: foxes and raccoons are cute and loveable; bats are ugly and scary.
BTW, I have had a course of twelve precautionary rabies shots myself many years ago as the result of bites and scratches from a former pet cat gone feral. They weren’t all that bad (the shots, that is; the bites and scratches were terrible). I didn’t get rabies, but I did get sepsis, which I learned recently, in my medical studies, has a 20% mortality rate, a much greater concern, it turns out, than rabies.
For real information on bats, see the Bat Conservation International site; contribute to them, if you can, to help counter fear-mongering like that of Ms. Steingraber’s.
Dolphins Save Humans Since ancient times sailors have regarded it as unforgiveable folly to harm a dolphin; dolphins were known to guide ships through treacherous waters. Dolphins have saved people from drowning. And dolphins have saved people from sharks. In November of 2005, near the town of Whangerei in New Zealand, lifeguard Rob Howes was swimming with his 15 year old daughter and two of her friends when he was suddenlyalarmed to discover they had been encircled by dolphins who would not permit them to swim away. His alarm turned to astonished gratitude when he realized the dolphins were protecting them from a three meter [about 10'] great
white shark which was circling about two meters away from the swimmers, just beyond the dolphins; "They had corralled us up to protect us, " he said. The event was also seen by another lifeguard Matt Fleet who was patroling on lifeboat and confirmed Howes' account. Throughout history there have been frequent reports of dolphins helping and protecting humans who have entered their world and found themselves in danger there. So how do we repay them?
Humans Slaughter Dolphins Dolphins are the only creature on earth with more brain surface (thus more wrinkles [gyri]) than humans. Does that make them smarter than us? Or only more humane. The pictures here from Sea Shepherd show Japanese fishermen taking part in Japan's annual slaugher of thousands of dolphins (the crimson water has not been retouched, giving new meaning to the term "bloodbath"). Many fisherman believe dolphins are responsible for declining fish stocks in the oceans, apparently making no connection to the Japanese driftnet fishing trawlers (and those of other nations) which can tow nets up to 90 miles long. The dolphins' bodies are also sold for meat. Dolphins are highly intelligent beings that are fully aware of their own excruciating deaths and the deaths of their family members.
But there are some humans as noble as the Dolphin. Members of the Sea Shepherd Society, among others, have risked and endured physical attack and imprisonment to interfere with the massacres and to free captive dolphins. They deserve your support as much as any animal welfare group. How about giving someone a membership or something from their gift shop? Perhaps a Sea Shephred pendant instead of roses for Valentien's Day this year for that certain someone special enough to care. Here in the Smokies you're not likely to see any dolphins, but, someday you may visit the ocean, and wouldn't it be good to know there are still dolphins frolicking in the seas beneath your excursion boat? Especially if you lean out too far to point at something and fall overboard…
Knoxvillian First Alleged Man Convicted of Felony Animal Cruelty in Tennessee Timothy Sawyer, 40, of Knoxville, will become the first alleged man to go to jail for animal cruelty under Tennessee's new statute which makes extreme animal cruelty a class E felony; he has been sentenced to two years in jail. Sawyer killed his stepdaughter's eight week old Jack Russel terrier Sophie by crushing her in a door and then, in what was a doubtlessly unwitting imitation of the cosmetics industry, pouring liquid make-up down her throat, choking her to death.
Photo of Sophie by Patricia Sawyer
As is often the case with animal abusers, Sawyer also has a
lengthy history of domestic abuse. The killing of the puppy was part of his
long campaign of tormenting his ex-wife.This fiend in more-or-less human form
was also convicted of threatening his wife in an attempt to make her drop the
animal cruelty charges and sentenced to an additional two years. Unfortunately,
as part of a plea bargain, the two sentences will run concurrently. You can
sign a petition urging
the authorities not to lessen this wretch's sentence by a single day. I don't
know whether parole boards heed such things, but Attorneys General do.
Congratulations to VSET Animal Rights Coordinator Cindy McDaniel and to all who contacted their legislators urging them to support this legislation. Sawyer has expressed consternation that he could face jail time for killing a puppy. The Knoxville Journal quoted Sawyer as saying, "It’s not like I killed a person. I just killed a stupid dog.” “Stupid,” of course, would apply more correctly to this human dung heap, or, perhaps, more accurately still, that old Smoky Mountain epithet, “Stupid mean.”
Let's not forget, though, that more than a thousand animals a month in Knox County's Animal Shelter alone die deaths just as senseless, though far more humane, because citizens of our county are too lazy and cruel to spay and neuter their animals, or greedy enough to breed their animals in hopes of easy money. And animals that are allowed to run loose often die deaths every bit as horrible, mangled by cars, convulsing in agony from drinking anti-freeze, or torn asunder by other animals. Let's let this Sawyer thug represent ALL the forms of animal cruelty we must fight to stop.
Lion man may
prove high intellect of non-humans. The discovery,
as reported in Nature Science,
of the world's oldest figurative sculpture, a depiction of a human-lion
hybrid, may have been the product of Neanderthals, already known
to have created beads and pendants. The fact that this artwork goes
beyond a straightforward depiction of real animals and into the world
of fantasy suggests that its creators had highly developed imaginations
comparable to our own. So what has this to do with animal welfare?
Mitochondrial dna has proven that Neanderthals did not interbreed
with humans; they were an entirely seperate species. Those who exploit
animals justify their cruelty by claiming that non-humans have no
higher sensibilities and no real intellect. Neanderthal art proves
that at least one non-human species did.
Photo © J.Duckeck / Showcaves.com
Wild and Free on the Open
The tragic plight of American horses cruelly slaughtered for foreign tables and domestic dogfood - or dogs and cats slaughtered for supper in Asia, for that matter - is really no sadder than the plight of hundreds of thousands of meat industry animals who live lives of misery before being "harvested," often painfully. But Americans are more fond of horses than of cattle, and horses, at least, have a defender in the Doris Day Animal League. Scroll down our Advocacy page.
Sic the G-Men on Animal Cruelty. VSET Animal Welfare Coordinator Cindy McDaniel urges all Americans to make three phone calls to bring the FBI into the fight against Animal cruelty. Not only is the crime of abuse against animals repugnant in itself, it is often a precursor to crime against human beings (see below). VSET joins with the Doris Day Animal League in this worthwhile effort.
The FBI already collects data on these crimes, however, the data is filed
under a "miscellaneous" heading where it cannot be retrieved
for analysis. If the FBI helps make available animal cruelty crime statistics
to law enforcement and social service agencies, these agencies can track
crime trends and develop more effective prevention and intervention programs.
TAKE ACTION: Please ask the following subcommittee members to support a separate FBI category for animal cruelty offenses: Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-SC) at (202) 224-6121; Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-VA) at (202) 225-5136; and Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY) at (202) 225-4361. Be sure to mention this category can be added at no extra cost, as the FBI is currently revamping its crime reporting system.
Well, Marvelous Beast Five
of the few remaining Northern White Rhinos on earth are, at
last, being moved
to a sanctuary. It is estimated that fewer than ten remain
in the wild with another ten in captivity. This makes the Northern
White Rhino the most endangered large mammal in the world. Recovery
prospects look bleak as, it seems, this animal only breeds in a
herd setting and the ten in captivity are not reproducing. This
preservation effort, though laudable, would appear to be a case
of too little too late. The Rhinos are slain by marauding bands
armed with heavy weapons; the horns are hacked off and the carcass
of this rare creature is left to rot. The horns are sold in the
East to superstitious men with more money than sense who believe
the powdered horn will cure their Erectile Dysfunction. The latest
butchers to seek to exterminate the breed for profit are of the
same ethnic group as the Janjaweed Arab militia, the group that
has raped and murdered millions of blacks in the Sudan, an even
greater tragedy than the Tsunami disaster, but one that doesn’t
seem to merit a telethon. I think it was Frederick II who said, “The
more I know people, the more I love animals.”
Here’s my suggestion: develop a powder chemically indistinguishable from powdered rhino horn and flood the market with it. Since any inert substance will have the same non-effect as powdered rhino horn, who’s to know? You’ll note I’m refraining from urging it be laced with a slow-acting but lethal poison. Meanwhile, begin a campaign to tranquilize as many wild rhinos black and white (the "white" actually derives from the Afrikaaner word “weis,” meaning wide) as possible and replace their horns with chartreuse fiberglass or something.
Many vegetarians - though certainly not all - are also fans of “alternative” medicine. Some herbal remedies and other traditional nostrums have value, others don’t (your correspondent confesses to being homeopathophobic). But to anyone who’s ever asked what harm a folk remedy could do: this is one example.
The LonelyBuffalo The people of the Department of the Interior are the "stewards and guardians of our nation's natural resources and cultural heriatge." Or so they say. Nonetheless, our noble stewards felt obliged to kill a lone female buffalo who was trespassing onto the land of the Church Universal and Triumphant, despite having been warned repeatedly not to do so, reports the Buffalo Field Campaign. Certainly the CUT was Triumphant over this particular creature. It seems cattlemen are annoyed that buffalo are eating grass that could be fattening their cows, and have pressured the DOI to take drastic action. Another good reason, though we already had a sufficiency, not to eat beef. Increasingly, the Interior Department has become the Interior Department Store for Agribusiness and the Meat Industry, placing corporate profits over national heritage. Look closely at the bison on the DOI's seal: is that a spot of blood over its heart?
Urgent Action to Protect Tennessee Animals! VSET Animal Welfare Coordinator Cindy McDaniel urges all Tennesseeans to write, call or email Governor Bredesen to ask him to sign SB 3209 & HB 3458 into law. In the words of the letter she submitted to the Governor: "These bills are designed to strengthen the current cruelty law by defining aggravated cruelty to include 'the failure to provide food and water to a companion animal resulting in death or a substantial risk of death.' A first conviction under the newly passed legislation will be a Class A misdemeanor, subject up to an eleven month, twenty-nine day term of imprisonment, and/or up to a two thousand dollar fine. Subsequent convictions would be Class E felonies, subject to a one to six year term of imprisonment and up to a three thousand dollar fine." We lost the effort to outlaw scattering unrestrained dogs down the highway from open pickup trucks, but we can win this one if you will please take just a moment to let the governor know there are a lot of Tennesseeans who care about animal suffering. Thanks.
Governor Phil Bredesen, Office of the Governor, Tennessee State Capitol, Nashville, TN 37243, (615) 741-2001, [email protected]
The authors broke animal abuse cases down into four categories, violence against strays, violence against pets, violence against wildlife, and violence against farm animals. Of course, farm animals are not accorded the same protections agains cruelty in our society as are companion animals. The suffereing of meat animals is regarded lightly, often even joked about. Reviews of this book do not indicate whether the national indifference to the agonies of factory-farmed animals makes us as a culture more willing to tolerate the cruelty toward human beings...
a Burger, Save a Wolf.
Giving up beef will not only help save major predators, like the wolf; that dietary change can also help save whole ecosystems. At Yellowstone the recovery of the wolf has helped restore willow groves, since browsing elk now tend to eat and run. This, in turn, has led to the comeback of moose, beavers, minks, muskrats and ducks. Ecology, it seems, is a complex business, and chopping whole parts of it away for the benefit of special interests can have unanticipated consequences. Learn more at NPR.
No one will be suprised to find that ranchers are wolves' most implacable enemies. They were primarily responsible for the bounties that exterminated wolves from most of our country to start with. They are the group most resistant to reintroducing them. They are the ones who push hardest, once wolves become re-established, despite all odds, to re-exterminate them or at least to be allowed to shoot them on sight; beef producers are now urging that wolves be removed from Endangered Species protection. And some cattlemen, such as gentleman rancher and newscaster Sam Donaldson, advocate following the Triple-S wolf management program, thus avoiding government red tape. The three S's stand for: Shoot, Shovel and Shutup. Meanwhile the cattle of most major beef producers graze on your public lands, often causing substantial damage. Cattlemen don't much like wild horses roaming those ranges either, by the way.
The war against predators is only one of many ways ranching harms the natural wold. A few of the others: rain forest destruction, second-most source of greenhouse gas methane, the worst cause of non-point source water pollution, soil erosion - you really just can't be an environmentalist and still eat beef.
(I almost headed this "Shoot a Rancher, Save a Wolf" as a satirical take on the bumper sticker popular among cattlemen: "Shoot a Wolf, Save a Rancher." But beef producers and anti-environmentalists would be all over something like that - "Vegetarians Call for Slaughter of Ranchers" - so I resisted the impulse. See below for other examples of "Vegeterrorism.
Thank God for the COK anti-Hardee Commercials We never thought we'd be thanking God for commercials, but those great folks at Compassion Over Killing have reached thousands with their powerful commercials emphasizing the cruelty meat-eaters inflict by not giving a moment's thought to their dietary habits. This sort of outreach is precisely what the vegetarian community should be doing if we want to change the world; otherwise vegetarian groups like VSET only serve as self-adulatory organizations, congratulating one another on our moral superiority. I'm proud to say, however, that the hardworking members of VSET do go to great lengths to explain the merits of vegetarianism at as many public events as possible. But if only we had the funds to run commercials like this one. Your donation of only $25 can run this ad on MTV in a targeted city. Maybe even Knoxville. Your webgrasshopper called the advertising department of Comcast, and found them wary when I carelessly mentioned “compassion.” This is, apparently, a red flag word; I was handed off to the head of the advertising department. ”Mmmm… would this be… an issue ad?” he asked warily. “Oh, no...” I responded, now, belatedly on guard. “More… informational.” He promised to send info. We’ll see; hopefully I’ll be requesting donations for this purpose soon, probably through COK.
What Good is a Crocodile? Lord knows nothing is more worthless than a crocodile; not only can't they collate or juggle, they can't even lay eggs. Oh, they can? Well, I'm sure they wouldn't make good eggnog. The point is, crocodiles are another of those worthless animals really good for nothing. Except curing AIDS, of course, if you care about that sort of thing. It seems crocodile blood may be the magic bullet for destroying all sorts of otherwise untouchable viruses. (Research indicates we might also be able to use crocodile blood for human transfusions, despite its great dissimilarity from ours.) It's always reckless to dismiss the value of big chunks of our planet's ecology.
Road Home Animal Rescue, in response to this neglected problem, has established, in their words, "Tennessee’s first and only shelter designed to specifically aid the animal victims of domestic violence" They have protected thousands of pets, no doubt thereby saving many animal and possibly several human lives. However, this innovative rescue group is desperately short of funds. If you were thinking of donating to PeTA (see article below), here's a better place to put your money.
Will You be Having Just Deserts with your Foie Gras? Activists all over the world have been proclaiming how exceptionally cruel, even in the unspeakably cruel meat industry, the production of pate de foie gras is, requiring, as it does, the force feeding of geese for weeks prior to their cruel slaughter (read Slaughterhouse* by Gail Eisnitz to learn more about that). It’s hard to imagine that those who demand this expensive delicacy are unaware of the misery they cause. Perhaps the knowledge that their little indulgence is the product of pain adds to their enjoyment. Now research performed by Dr. Alan Solomon at Knoxville’s own University of Tennessee indicates that mis-folded proteins called amyloids produced by the forced feeding can be transmitted to those who consume them, resulting in amyloidosis, amyloid deposits that might be related to the development of Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis or other amyloid diseases. (Mad Cow type diseases also propogate by inducing amyloid folds.) There is said to be an especially sadistic culinary practice involving eating the brains of a live monkey trapped in a special table. The brain itself does not feel pain, so the monkey remains alive as its brain and consciousness are eaten away. Perhaps this is a good analogy for the terrible ravages of Alzheimers, whose victims have, in most cases, done nothing to deserve such a fate. *2nd Review
Duck Justice. Or maybe that should be, You Can't Duck Justice. Animal rights groups have opened a campaign against restaurants and their chefs who prepare and serve pate de foie gras, a "delicacy" that requires the forced feeding of geese and ducks. These activists, like so many who value compassion over currency, have been described as "terrorists." We may object to their methods, but, thus far no environmental or animal activist in the US has harmed any human beings. Only the most dedicated materialist would equate the spray-painting of a restaurant with the carnage of true terrorism. | <urn:uuid:9cc900f5-b6f1-44df-b9a1-ece90ac2d9fc> | {
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I want to look up two articles in a database so I can autocite them. How do I do that?
Since the articles are about a piece of literature, the best place to start looking is in our literature databases. Follow the link below to our Databases by Subject libguide and select the Literature tab to view the available databases. From there you can enter each database and search for the articles and, once found, use the auto-citation features of the databases if they are available. EBSCO Academic Search Complete, Gale Literature Resources, Chadwyck-Healy Literature Online, and GVRL eBooks are the most likely to contain the articles you are looking for.
Depending on the title of the article, you may end up with a lot of search results to look through if you only search for the article's title. To narrow the search down to the articles you want, try entering both the title and the author's name in your search. You can do this by using the advanced search options available in the database you are searching. Search for the title specifically in the title field, and the author specifically in the author field. You can also limit by publication date if you know when the articles were published.
If you cannot find the articles in any of our databases, you can try searching for them in Google Scholar. While few of the articles in Google Scholar allow full-text access, you can typically find full citation information for most articles through it. | <urn:uuid:5749c444-7dcf-41cf-b6d1-58e8da80592d> | {
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Van Nuys, CA--Robert Winkler says he limped around on his painful left foot for six months, suffering unnecessarily from a misdiagnosis by a physician who didn't know about the symptoms and treatments for Charcot foot, a form of localized osteoporosis linked to diabetes that causes the bones to soften and break, often resulting in amputation.
When his primary care physician finally agreed to Mr. Winkler's request for an x-ray, they discovered the metatarsal bones in Mr. Winkler's left foot were all broken--a common symptom of this serious and potentially limb-threatening lower-extremity complication.
A new article in the September issue of the journal, Diabetes Care, describes Charcot foot and its treatment with a goal of educating medical professionals about this painful inflammation of the foot. The article is the product of an international task force of experts convened by the American Diabetes Association and the American Podiatric Medical Association in January to summarize available evidence on the pathophysiology, natural history, presentations and treatment recommendations for Charcot foot syndrome.
"Even though it was first described in 1883, the diagnosis and successful treatment of Charcot foot continue to be a challenge because this syndrome is not widely known or understood by the broader medical profession," said Lee C. Rogers, D.P.M., co-director of the Amputation Prevention Center at Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys, CA, and lead author of the Diabetes Care article. "Charcot foot is now considered to be an inflammatory syndrome most often seen in patients with diabetes which can be successfully treated in its early stages."
The article describes Charcot foot as a condition affecting the bones, joints and soft tissues of the foot and ankle, which is characterized by inflammation in the earliest phase and is associated with diabetes and neuropathy. The report finds offloading, or removing weight from the foot, is the most important initial treatment recommendation. Surgery can be helpful in early stages involving acute fractures of the foot or ankle or in later stages when offloading is ineffective, according to the article.
In Mr. Winkler's case, he was first diagnosed with Charcot foot in 2004 and had already undergone one surgery that relieved the problem for several years. By 2010, though, he was facing the potential amputation of the foot because of complications associated with Charcot foot syndrome.
His podiatrist referred him to Dr. Rogers at Valley Presbyterian Hospital's Amputation Prevention Center, an integrated limb salvage center that is one of only a handful in the nation. Since its December 2009 opening, the Amputation Prevention Center's specialized multidisciplinary team of highly skilled professionals has treated patients from all over the country and around the world with leading-edge technology, achieving a limb salvage rate of 96 percent.
George Andros, M.D., the Center's Medical Director, performed vascular surgery to restore circulation to Mr. Winkler's left foot so that it would heal. Then, Dr. Rogers performed surgery to rebuild the bones in Mr. Winkler's foot. Dr. Rogers also implanted a bone stimulator that acts like a pacemaker for bones which encourages Mr. Winkler's body to rebuild and fuse the broken bones in his left foot. As a result, Mr. Winkler is expected to be able to recover the use of his left foot.
"I'm very pleased because I had gone to another doctor and he wanted to amputate my foot," Mr. Winkler said. "When I found Dr. Rogers and Valley Presbyterian Hospital's Amputation Prevention Center, it's like I found a blessing and an angel in disguise. I have tears running down my face as I describe to you how I will be able to get up out of my chair and walk because of the care I received at Valley Presbyterian Hospital. All the people there are superb. They treat me like a king."
Copies of the journal article and interviews with Mr. Winkler and Dr. Rogers are available to the media. Please contact:
About Valley Presbyterian Hospital
Founded in 1958, Valley Presbyterian Hospital, a non-profit and nonsectarian hospital, has remained focused on meeting the medical needs of the community for over 50 years. While VPH has grown to become one of the largest acute care hospitals in the San Fernando Valley, it continues to provide patient-centered care for a healthier community. The 350-bed facility offers leading-edge technology and a full range of medical services. With 500 physicians representing virtually every specialty and most sub-specialties, VPH provides the latest state-of-the-art treatments to improve and save lives. For more information, visit www.valleypres.org | <urn:uuid:4ff2fd79-16b7-49de-859d-67bca95d39f1> | {
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One of the things that make watercolor such a challenging medium is that it is difficult to make corrections. Unlike oils and gouache (opaque watercolors) you can’t change your mind by painting over passages. Watercolor is transparent so you can’t cover up what’s underneath. It is difficult to make changes but not impossible and not as hard as I was led to believe.
Many watercolorists will talk about how you need to be so decisive that whatever you do has to work the first time you set paint to paper or that a watercolor has to be built up slow using pale washes of watercolor. When you look into the methods of past masters of the medium you get the feeling they were not afraid to make corrections and were a lot more aggressive at painting their images. Sargent used opaque paints so did a number of other artists. A description of Turner painting a watercolor shows how he attacked the paper…“he began by pouring wet paint on the paper till it was saturated, he tore, he scratched, he scrabbled at it in a kind of frenzy and the whole thing was chaos - but gradually and as if by magic the lovely ship, with all its exquisite minutia, came into being and by lunch time the drawing was talked about in triumph.” Turner was also said to have dunked the painting in a bucket of water and grew a long finger nail to scratch out paint.
The first thing about making changes is that it works best on heavy paper- the heavier the better, 140 lb. watercolor paper is good 300 lb. is ideal. Using water you can loosen paint and lift out using a stiff brush, like the bristle brushes used for oil paint, and blotter paper or a paper towel. I learned that from Irwin Greenberg. Watercolorist Mary Whyte uses the same method and I also learned from her to use an old toothbrush to scrub water and wipe out with a paper towel. Some colors stain the paper so that you may not be able to get back to the white of the paper but that never bothered me since light and dark is relative to the values around an area or an object. If you need to get back to the white I read that Stephen Scott Young scrapes out areas with a razor and paints over the area using casein white to get back to the white of the paper. He then lets the area dry completely and then using a light sand paper sands it down a little and paints over the white area.
At right and left is a detail of the painting above. I scrubbed out parts of the left arm using a toothbrush.I felt that the arm was to big and to low. Latter I decided to scrub out the hand as well (see bellow left). There were other areas I applied this same method too. I made changes in the guitar more than once.
When scrubbing out areas you still have to be careful about damaging the paper. The paper I used here was Arches 140 lb cold pressed watercolor paper. | <urn:uuid:38fef97a-ceea-476d-922e-648f7cc190ed> | {
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Determine Major Job Duties
The first step in the process is to determine the major duties of the job. Major job duties are those job specific duties that are essential to a specified job. These are the duties that the job was really established to perform, and if they were not performed would severely impact the nature of the job. They are distinct from marginal functions, which are peripheral to the core duties.
Resources to help you identify major job duties:
- The Position Description on file in each unit
- Job Specifications on the University Human Resources or specific campus web site
- A recent job posting for that position
Some things to consider in determining and prioritizing major job duties:
- What are the primary responsibilities of the position?
- What duties are critical to the job?
- What duties are sufficiently important to overall success such that performance below standard would result in unacceptable overall performance?
- What percentage of time is spent on the duty?
A main purpose of a Performance Management Plan is to increase two-way communication between supervisor and employees regarding the job itself. This is best done when the process of determining major job duties is done collaboratively between supervisor and employee. This allows for differing perceptions of responsibilities, priorities, etc. to be addressed and clarified. Of course, it is the role of the supervisor to ultimately define the job. | <urn:uuid:2a1fdaa1-ed10-458f-9866-883420a3db78> | {
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Education: How to Encourage Study Habits in Young Kids
It is never too soon to start encouraging good study habits. Even five- and six-year-old children can benefit from learning how to study. What many people do not understand is that studying is an activity like any other. While some people seem to have an innate knack for it, almost everyone can improve if they practice. There is more than one way to study, and if you are interested in helping your kindergartner excel in this area, there are a few things to do.
How to Encourage Your Child to Study
Kids are creatures of habit, and if they associate a certain time and place with their homework and their studying, they are going to be much more inclined to get it done. Create a study space for your child. Make sure they have a comfortable place to sit in a location that is free of noise and distractions. Ideally, this is a place which is quiet enough for them to work but enough a part of the main house that you can peek in from time to time. Having a space set apart just for them and just for a certain activity delights most children.
Make a Routine
Be diligent about enforcing study time. The sooner you create a routine for your child, the better. If a child can establish a great study routine, you will find they will be much more likely to do it on a regular basis. The younger a child is, the more inclined they are to gravitate towards routines and the more effective this will be.
Short Study Sessions
Even adults learn best when information is presented in 20-minute chunks, so think about what it must be like for children who have significantly shortened attention spans. Allow your child to study in 15 to 20 minute chunks and give them a five minute break in between. During this five minute break, encourage them to get up, to get a drink of water and to stretch their legs. The rule, however, is that if they have work to do, they need to go back. This helps them cement the place that studying needs to have in their minds they will understand that they need to return to it if they are not done.
Too many children think that the point of studying is to study. Especially when they are young, children often resent studying because they do not know why they should sit and read books or take notes. Give your child an edge by explaining to them that studying is the means to an end. Because children who are only five or six think in very concrete terms, give them concrete goals. For example, tell them that they are studying their social studies to learn about how a particular ancient civilization works or that they are studying math to understand basic addition. Giving them firm goals to work with gives them a sense of accomplishment and an understanding of what needs to be done.
Praise Their Hard Work
After your kindergartener finishes their studying, praise them for their hard work. Some parents praise their children for being smart, but the result of this compliment ends up with children who feel that they are smart, but who will give up if they are challenged. They believe that if they were smart, it should all be easy. Instead, praise your child for the hard work that they have put in. If they hear that they are hardworking, they are more inclined to stick with problems until they are solved.
Consider how your kindergartener is studying, and make sure that you encourage them in ways that will help them improve!
What are you doing to help your child with their study habits?
Photo Courtesy of Flickr
Supplied by Joe Shervell for www.yorknotes.com
Latest posts by Jill Greenlaw (see all)
- Seasonal Crafts: Fall Decorating Ideas - September 30, 2015
- Family Vacation: RV Travel Makes Memories on a Budget - September 29, 2015
- Holiday Roundup: Halloween Costume Ideas - September 23, 2015 | <urn:uuid:300aa15d-07d9-45dc-8c4c-adb6b3cb92f1> | {
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describes how closely fine details may be associated and still be recognized as separate details before seeming to blend into each other and appear "as one."
The degree of resolution transferred to the IR is a function of:
the resolving power of each of the system components and can be expressed in line pairs per millimeter (lp/mm), line-spread function (LSP), or modulation transfer function (MTF).
Line pairs per millimeter can be measured using:
a resolution test pattern; a number of resolution test tools are available
The effective focal spot is the foreshortened size of the actual focal spot as it is projected down toward the IR, that is, as it would be seen looking up into the emerging x-ray beam
Small crescent-shaped artifacts on processed x-ray film are usually the result of
acute bending of the film before or after exposure.
A radiograph made with a parallel grid demonstrates decreased density on its lateral edges. This is most likely due to
If there was a centering or tube angle problem
there would more likely be a noticeable density loss on one side or the other.
focused grid had been placed upside down
only the central portion of the image (along the long axis of the image receptor) would have been imaged
an artifact will usually appear as a plus-density (dark) artifact if it is produced:
an artifact will usually appear as a minus-density (light) artifact if it is produced:
blurriness can be produced by
using a large focal spot, or by diffused fluorescent light from intensifying screens
When a slow screen-film system is used with a fast screen-film automatic exposure control system, the resulting images
are too light
When an AEC (phototimer or ionization chamber) is used
the system is programmed for the use of a particular screen-film speed (eg, 400 speed).
If a slower-speed screen image receptor is placed in the bucky tray:
the AEC has no way of recognizing it as different, and will time the exposure for the system that it is programmed for
if the AEC is programmed for a 400 screen-film combination, and if a 200-speed screen image receptor is placed in the bucky tray, the resulting radiograph:
will have half the required radiographic density
to reduce shape distortion
Aligning the x-ray tube, anatomic part, and image recorder so that they are parallel
produced as x-ray photons travel through matter, interact with atoms, and are scattered (change direction).
If these scattered rays are energetic enough to exit the body:
they will strike the IR from all different angles
do not carry useful information and merely produce a flat, gray (low-contrast) fog over the image.
increases contrast and is caused by an improper relationship between the x-ray tube and the grid, resulting in absorption of some of the useful/primary beam
Treelike, branching black marks on a radiograph are usually the result of
static electrical discharge.
Problems with static electricity are especially prevalent during
cold, dry weather and can be produced by simply removing a sweater in the darkroom.
Over- or underexposure under the anode is usually the result of
exceeding the focusing distance limits in addition to being off-center
Foreshortening of an anatomic structure means that
it is projected on the IR smaller than its actual size
If an intensifying screen becomes stained, either partly or wholly, the stained area:
will not react to x-ray photons as completely and will emit less light.
the film emulsion adjacent to the stained area(s) will exhibit:
decreased density on the finished radiograph.
how would changing exposure factors affect film
The original mAs (regulating radiographic density) was 200. The original kVp (regulating radiographic contrast) was 90. The mAs was cut in half, to 100, causing a decrease in density. The kVp was increased (by 15%) to compensate for the density loss and thereby increase the scale of contrast. | <urn:uuid:ae081414-898f-421c-b246-2b4dd423cade> | {
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for National Geographic News
The fizzy gases that cause some volcanoes to blow their tops—like champagne bubbles popping a cork—appear to originate deep beneath the surface, a new study suggests.
Scientists have long known that during an eruption, gases fizz out of magma as the molten rock rises to the surface.
But in some types of magma, small bubbles coalesce into larger, gaseous "slugs" that rise upward, causing fiery bursts when they reach the surface.
The volcano has been continuously active for at least 2,000 years, earning it the nickname "Lighthouse of the Mediterranean."
Every 10 to 20 minutes Stromboli shoots fiery blobs in fountainlike geysers as high as 300 feet (100 meters) above the crater.
These bursts, dubbed strombolian eruptions, are associated with seismic activity not far beneath the crater, so volcanologists had assumed that the slugs formed in that region.
But the new study, to be published in tomorrow's issue of the journal Science, found that the belches actually begin much deeper underground—perhaps as deep as the base of the mountain.
Learning more about Stromboli is important, the scientists said, because the mountain produces much larger explosions several times a year (see a photo of a recent Strombli eruption). These violent blasts pose a major hazard for tourists and scientists observing the peak from a nearby overlook.
"Therefore, improved understanding of the processes controlling the different types of explosions at Stromboli is a high priority," the team wrote.
Gases From the Deep
Mike Burton of Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology led the team that studied the gases emitted from Stromboli's main crater.
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February 19, 2013 > Making African American history come alive
Making African American history come alive
Submitted By Senior Pastor Horacio Jones
Photos By Miriam G. Mazliach
African American history is an extremely important part of American history. To acknowledge and celebrate African American History Month (February), please join us at Family Bible Fellowship in Newark, for a free interactive indoor walking tour of the groundbreaking curriculum, A Bridge Over Troubled Waters -The Journey of African Americans From Slave Ships to the White House.
Displays, in various rooms, will detail African American achievements and contributions in the fields of science, education, commerce, entertainment and sports. In addition, a showcase of inventions will educate and inform attendees regarding the impact and influence African American engineers and inventors have had on the American way of life.
Reflect on African American roots in Africa with a tribute to African kings and queens. Continue on, learning about slave ships to Emancipation, from the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to the historic Inauguration of the first African American President.
As a special treat, enjoy complimentary, down home soul food. The entire community is invited to attend this fascinating historical program.
A Bridge Over Troubled Waters
(Interactive African American history program)
Sunday, Feb 24
Family Bible Fellowship
37620 Filbert Street, Newark
Free event, open to the public | <urn:uuid:91406377-3f28-4b0a-bce3-209c816cd34e> | {
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Chile in Seattle
1) Alstroemeria sp.
- Commonly called Peruvian Lily or Lily of the Incas.
- The genus was named after Swedish baron, Claus von Alstroemer (1736-1794) by his close friend, Carolus Linnaeus.
- Beautiful drifts grace the Chilean Gateway.
2) Gunnera tinctoria
- Sometimes referred to as Chilean rhubarb or dinosaur food.
- The leaves can grow up to 2.5 meters across.
- Several large clumps dot the Chilean Gateway hillside.
3) Lobelia tupa
- Its latex is used as an hallucinogen, which may explain its common name, Tobaco del Diablo.
- The flowers are red, tubular and two-lipped and are produced in a sympodium pattern.
- This wonderful perennial is in full bloom in the abundant Chilean Gateway Garden.
4) Calceolaria integrifolia
- Its puffy flowers give it its common names Slipperwort, Pocketbook Plant, Pouch Flower or Lady’s Slipper.
- Can be transient in the garden because it is somewhat tender.
- One big poofy plant is blooming profusely in the Chilean Gateway.
5) Luma apiculata
- Also known as Chilean myrtle. The Mapuche Native Americans call it “Kelumamull” or Orange Wood.
- It is a slow-growing, evergreen tree with abundant white flowers and beautiful orange-grey bark.
- We are fortunate to have several nice specimens in the Chilean Gateway planting. | <urn:uuid:0e71f828-9d0a-42c5-a351-f23e33b45eb7> | {
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Blindsight occurs when people have a blind spot in their visual field, due to cortical damage, but with some prodding, retain the capacity to guess (better than chance) that a stimulus has been presented to the blind spot. Apparently, at least one blindsight case who appears to have no awareness of visual perception can nevertheless navigate a hallway littered with obstacles.
In recent research led by Krystel Huxlin, it was shown that people who suffer from blindsight can learn to detect a variety of different types of stimuli presented to their blind spot (scotoma). Reuters offers a brief write-up of Huxlin et al's results. I've posted the abstract from Huxlin et al's paper for some additional details.
Krystel Huxlin et al (2009) "Perceptual Relearning of Complex Visual Motion after V1 Damage in Humans" The Journal of Neuroscience 29(13):3981-3991.
Damage to the adult, primary visual cortex (V1) causes severe visual impairment that was previously thought to be permanent, yet several visual pathways survive V1 damage, mediating residual, often unconscious functions known as "blindsight." Because some of these pathways normally mediate complex visual motion perception, we asked whether specific training in the blind field could improve not just simple but also complex visual motion discriminations in humans with long-standing V1 damage. Global direction discrimination training was administered to the blind field of five adults with unilateral cortical blindness. Training returned direction integration thresholds to normal at the trained locations. Although retinotopically localized to trained locations, training effects transferred to multiple stimulus and task conditions, improving the detection of luminance increments, contrast sensitivity for drifting gratings, and the extraction of motion signal from noise. Thus, perceptual relearning of complex visual motion processing is possible without an intact V1 but only when specific training is administered in the blind field. These findings indicate a much greater capacity for adult visual plasticity after V1 damage than previously thought. Most likely, basic mechanisms of visual learning must operate quite effectively in extrastriate visual cortex, providing new hope and direction for the development of principled rehabilitation strategies to treat visual deficits resulting from permanent visual cortical damage. | <urn:uuid:9e9b007c-b04a-40c7-a5c1-f6bca9f48953> | {
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U.S., Russia, Norway Sign Arctic Environmental Pact
By Linda D. Kozaryn
American Forces Press Service
BERGEN, Norway, Oct. 1, 1996 A scuttled Russian submarine rests beneath glacial Arctic waters, its radioactive nuclear fuel a deadly reminder of the Cold War. Such lethal remains and their possible effect on the Arctic environment have raised a red flag among international defense officials.
American, Norwegian and Russian military officials are joining forces to clear away such hazardous remnants of military activities in the region. U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry, Norwegian Defense Minister Jorgen Kosmo and Russian Federation Defense Minister Igor Rodionov signed the Arctic Military Environmental Cooperation declaration Sept. 26.
The defense chiefs signed the pact after attending NATO and bilateral meetings here. The signing highlighted Russia's new defense chief's first meeting with U.S. and NATO officials since taking office about two months ago.
The declaration triggers an effort to share knowhow and technology to clean, protect and preserve the Arctic region, according to international officials. It opens the way for six military environmental projects to begin later this year.
The Arctic region covers the top of the world. It's a vast frozen wilderness, populated mainly by polar bears, whales, seals and other wildlife. It's also home to the U.S. military's Fort Wainwright, Alaska, and Russia's submarine base at Murmansk. International militaries have left their mark on the region's seemingly limitless expanse of snow, ice, sea and sky.
U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry visited Canada's Arctic region earlier this year and Norway's frozen Arctic after the NATO ministerial finished. In Canada, Perry said, he saw "ominous glaciers and a freezedried cypress swamp with the tree stumps still standing in the ground after 40 million years."
"I saw the midnight sun," he said. "I will never forget the pristine landscape, the crystal waters and the sharp, fresh air. Anyone who has ever seen the Arctic knows why we must preserve this raw and fragile environment."
Arctic waters border American, Norwegian and Russian shores. "The three nations that touch the Arctic have a unique duty to lead this stewardship by example and by action," Perry said. "As the three ministers of the military forces that use the Arctic, we have a unique duty to tread lightly on these fragile lands."
The cooperative pact will ensure military activities do not harm the Arctic environment, Perry said. "We will work to handle and store radioactive materials safely, to dispose of toxic materials properly and to exchange information on risk assessments and cleanup technologies and methods."
International officials credit Norway with voicing its environmental concerns and initiating the new military pact. "It is only logical, since the military are part of the problem, they should also be part of the solution," said Kosmo. "Few organizations have the resources to address such issues."
Military officials are going to work together to solve current ecological problems caused by the military activities. They also plan to develop preservation practices that will allow military units to continue operations in the region without causing further pollution or contamination, DoD officials said.
Radioactive contamination in the Arctic comes primarily from former Soviet nuclear submarine bases and sunken submarines, dumped radioactive material, and radioactive waste storage and processing facilities, DoD officials said. Petroleum, oils and lubricants and other hazardous materials also pollute, a DoD spokesman said.
"Unfortunately, military activity causes negative impact on the natural environment," Rodionov said through an interpreter. "We should admit that some aspects related to radiological and chemical contamination may cause serious effects on the Arctic environment."
Former Soviet officials sank two nuclear submarines in Arctic waters, and another 70 submarines are in various stages of dismantlement, a DoD official said. Former Soviet officials also dumped about 16 nuclear reactors in the region, six with fuel on board, he said. At present, the official said, these Cold War relics are relatively benign, causing only local problems. But international officials worry about what will happen in the future.
"A considerable number of nuclearpowered submarines were withdrawn from our navy," Rodionov said. "It is not a simple work to conduct. We need to offload nuclear fuel from reactors, and we also need to keep it at the military installation. Thus there is a considerable risk for the environment."
Russia stopped dumping liquid and radiological waste into northern seas in 1992, Rodionov said. Since then, he said, Russia has ecological problems storing, transporting and processing hazardous waste. "We hope all [parties to the agreement] will sincerely implement their efforts to protect the Arctic environment and also render assistance to Russia to resolve our complicated problems," Rodionov said.
Military officials plan to study containment processes and do impact assessments. They aim to review pollution in the area and cleanup efforts. They will examine methods for setting up emergency response simulations and doing impact and risk assessments. They will also set up a program to prevent and remediate environmental risk.
A steering group, set up after the initiative began in March 1995, selected six military environmental projects with a total cost of about $2 million, DoD officials said. Each has its own timeline, but officials said they hope to have the first project completed within about a year. Other projects will be multiyear efforts, officials said.
Officials plan to develop a prototype container for interim storage of naval nuclear fuel and relevant training. They'll work on a new technique of radioactive waste processing and focus on an interim storage facility for solid naval radioactive waste.
Officials also plan to develop methods for cleaning up nonradioactive toxic substances and vessels to collect and treat ship waste, officials said. | <urn:uuid:7fb49ad4-7a8c-4f3d-aa95-ed4a85b54bfe> | {
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Tree Killers in Our Yards
Would you let someone come in to your yard with a chain saw and cut down all your trees? Would you do it yourself? How about the trees in your city park?
Trees provide many benefits, including increased real estate values, reduced heating and cooling bills, reduced storm water flows, shady places to play and park and noise buffering. They are usually considered assets around homes and cities. Yet, many people are gradually killing their trees with their lawn care equipment.
Recently, an acquaintance of mine stopped me in the grocery store. She knew I was the urban forester for her region, and she wanted me to contact a local city government about some lawn maintenance contractors who were hitting “her” tree—one which had been planted in her honor at a nearby city park.
She knows what many people do not know: that trees can be seriously injured or killed when they are repeatedly hit with lawn mowers and string trimmers. I see this all the time in yards, city parks, commercial developments and other places that have trees and lawn.
Over time, the lawn care equipment gradually rubs or chips away the lower bark of a tree. This disrupts the tree’s vascular system, which is located just beneath the bark.
Trees need to have their leaves and branches attached to their root system so water and nutrients can go up the tree and products of photosynthesis—sugars and starches that are needed for tree growth and survival—can go down to the roots.
The path up for the water is called the xylem and is located in the wood. The path down for the sugars and starches is called the phloem and is located in the bark. The growth layer of the tree, the cambium, is located between the xylem and phloem at the divide between bark and wood.
Cambium cells divide every year, making a new row each of phloem and xylem. As every school child knows, you can count the rings—xylem rows—to tell how old a tree is. Only the new portions of xylem and phloem are used for transporting food and water.
Because these vital pipelines run through the outer part of the tree, they are easily injured by the careless use of equipment.
Young trees are more susceptible to lawn equipment damage because their bark is thinner, but even older, thick-bark trees can be killed. It is the equivalent of cutting the tree down with a chain saw, only slower.
Look for Damage
The most obvious sign of tree injury is missing bark at or near the ground line, where the string flays the tree or the lawn mower deck bumps it. Sometimes you can see one or several spots where the wood is worn bare.
Damaged trees usually show signs of stress, including leaves turning color too early in the year, leaves drying up in the summer and areas barren of foliage. The degree of stress is proportional to the number of xylem, phloem and cambium cells that have been destroyed. In most cases, highly stressed trees will die.
This type of injury is 100 percent preventable by simply keeping lawn mowers and string trimmers away from trees. Also, do not use trees as pivot points for mowers or allow pet chains to rub against them.
If a strip of taller grass and weeds around the tree trunk bothers you, either hand-trim it carefully or keep a weed-free zone around the tree with mulch or herbicide. Keeping the area clear of grass and weeds has the added benefit of removing competition for nutrients and moisture.
Use care when applying herbicides, especially around thin-barked trees. Don’t allow the herbicide to get on the bark. Use a shield if necessary.
Mulching is more effective if you kill grass and weeds below it with herbicide first. Place 2–3 inches depth of mulch around each tree as far out as you want to go. Mulch should not touch the tree trunk. Think doughnuts—with a hole in the middle for the tree trunk. A publication on proper mulching is available from Conservation offices and online at www.missouriconservation.org/317.
You can also use ground cover barriers to keep grass and weeds from growing next to the tree. Covers that let oxygen and water penetrate through to the root system are better than those that do not, such as black plastic. Make a slit in the cover to place it around the tree. Don’t let it touch the tree trunk. Put mulch on top of the cover to make it look nicer and to help hold the cover in place.
You can further protect a small tree with a 6- to 12-inch-long piece of plastic irrigation pipe. Slit it along its length to allow you to fit it around the trunk. Keep it loose enough that it doesn’t affect growth. Remove it or replace it with a larger size as the tree gets bigger.
If Your Tree is Injured
Stop further damage! Protect the tree, and make sure whoever cares for your lawn understands how easy it is to damage bark.
Nothing you can put on the tree’s wounds will fix the damage. However, trees are not defenseless. They grow over wounds, compartmentalizing them. The tree then attempts to restore or replace connections between the roots and the branches.
If the bark is gone from more than 50 percent of the circumference of the tree, it’s usually best to remove the tree. Chances of recovery are slim, and the tree will be susceptible to falling, especially during storms.
If less than 25 percent of the circumference of the tree is affected, it will likely recover. If the bark is missing from 25–50 percent of the tree’s circumference, watch the tree for health issues like rot or branch dieback. A little time may help you to make the decision whether to keep or remove the tree.
Be sure to water damaged trees. Aim for a thorough soaking of the ground below the tree, whether by natural rainfall or supplemental watering, every 7–10 days during the growing season. Hopefully, there will be enough xylem left to transport sufficient water from the roots to the leaves.
Trees are living organisms. They look strong and invincible, but they are more easily killed than many people believe. Don’t be a tree killer. Be careful with your lawn mower and string trimmer. Make it a policy to avoid hitting trees with them. | <urn:uuid:ca08a8ac-3d9a-4e0b-953b-295a3504e8cf> | {
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In fact, precise rules govern when to use this punctuation mark. When followed, they lay the groundwork for clear written communication.
We’ve compiled a list of all of the times when you need the mighty comma.
1. Use a comma before any coordinating conjunction (and, but, for, or, nor, so, yet) that links two independent clauses.
Example: “I went running, and I saw a duck.”
You may need to learn a few grammatical terms to understand this one.
An independent clause is a unit of grammatical organization that includes both a subject and verb and can stand on its own as a sentence. In the previous example, “I went running” and “I saw a duck” are both independent clauses, and “and” is the coordinating conjunction that connects them. Consequently, we insert a comma. See More . . . | <urn:uuid:e73302d1-ae33-41f7-9c97-10b94a2109d0> | {
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Where did they start and how can an advent calendar with a difference be used?
One December a mother cut a cake into 24 pieces and put them onto a piece of cardboard. Her little boy got to eat one piece each day until Christmas.That little boy grew up to be a printer. He always remembered what his mother had done, and in 1903 he produced the first Advent Calendar. It had 24 little windows. Behind each window was a picture of something he had wished for as a child – mostly toys.
Download a Traidcraft Advent Calendar with a difference. For each day of Advent it shows how we can pray for the world and help the people in some of the poorest countries in some practical ways.Bookmark | <urn:uuid:3329db24-a121-43aa-baf4-be1b5cb11552> | {
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This week, Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd graders began to explore art with Station Rotations! Each student had an opportunity to travel through four stations: (1) I SPY, (2) trilingual puzzles with colors and shapes, (3) illustration boards, and (4) my station with small group instruction.
During my stations, students learned about book bindings and the parts of our sketchbooks while adding finishing details of colors and sharpie marker. We are off to a great start and look forward to another exciting week in art!!!
After-school art is in full swing! This Monday kids met with Ms. Neufeld and I decided to hang around to make art, too! We were given directions verbal to draw different objects, letters, lines, and shapes. The objective was to see how everyone interprets words and creates differently!
This is a picture of Miller's and my art for the following directions: 1) draw the letter G; 2) add a zig-zag line; 3) draw a stick figure; 4) draw a straight line with dots above it; 5) draw a tic-tac-toe board; 6) draw a house; 7) draw a caterpillar, and 8) draw a BIG rainbow!
Fun afternoon creating with kids :) If you are still interested in after-school programs, check out Kiddos in the front office of the Hills.
The pre-k kids are learning the basics of lines with cool Crayola construction paper crayons.
Students started with pencil drawings and learned a song about the six different lines: vertical, horizontal, diagonal, curvy, zig-zag, and dash! These awesome drawings will be used for the cover of their mini-sketchbooks!
A quick 10-minute drawing is the perfect assessment of my new students' skills. I encourage them to draw anything! From a cartoon character to their favorite animal, I just want to see their pencil come alive on a brightly colored Post-it note! Can't wait to see these hung all together as a collective picture!
Art Room Blog | <urn:uuid:52853918-343d-4f90-bdb3-f08d1e6a5231> | {
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Myths & Truths About Soy
NOTE: These Myths & Truths as well as our summary of soy dangers are provided on our Soy Alert! trifold brochure (PDF). You may print this at home or at a copy store for mass distribution. If you wish, you can order quantities of professionally printed two-color trifold brochures for 25 cents each by using the Order Form.
Myth: Use of soy as a food dates back many thousands of years.
Truth: Soy was first used as a food during the late Chou dynasty (1134-246 BC), only after the Chinese learned to ferment soy beans to make foods like tempeh, natto and tamari.
Myth: Asians consume large amounts of soy foods.
Truth: Average consumption of soy foods in Japan and China is 10 grams (about 2 teaspoons) per day. Asians consume soy foods in small amounts as a condiment, and not as a replacement for animal foods.
Myth: Modern soy foods confer the same health benefits as traditionally fermented soy foods.
Truth: Most modern soy foods are not fermented to neutralize toxins in soybeans, and are processed in a way that denatures proteins and increases levels of carcinogens.
Read more about Soy here
Sharon developing her Pull Ups with the band assistance. With a few months of hard work and proper diet she should get her first Pull Up.
Push Press (Men use 65#/Women use 38#)
Post loads and times to comments | <urn:uuid:f275564c-d93f-4c44-9b01-d7c6cd35bb2e> | {
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Posted by admin | Posted in Interactive book, Interactive Whiteboard, Knowledge (remember), Math, Primary Elementary, Teacher Resources, Understand (describe, explain), Websites | Posted on 24-07-2013
Tags: 3-5, activities, addition, books, counting, download, ebooks, games, kindergarten, Math, mathematics, maths, numeracy, oxford owl, shapes, subtraction, time
What it is: Oxford Owl is the awesome site I wrote about yesterday. They have a fantastic collection of free ebooks and accompanying activities for kids. The site is making an appearance in today’s post because they ALSO have Oxford Owl Math for ages 3-7. There isn’t quite the breadth of resources here that you will find on the main Oxford Owl site, but they do have some great suggestions for math activities, both online and offline, and there are some online math e-books. The 3-5 section currently has the most e-books, online math games, activity sheets that can be printed out, and offline games to play.
How to integrate Oxford Owl Maths into the classroom: Oxford Owl Maths has some wonderful math themed interactive ebooks that include practice with position words, counting, shapes, time, and adding/subtracting. The ebooks make for a great introduction or review in the kindergarten and first grade classrooms. The telling time ebook and activities are even appropriate for second grade students. In the kids treasure box, students can collect online trophies for the games and puzzles they complete, find recipes to make in the kitchen, and download offline activities.
Oxford Owl would be a nice center activity that even the youngest students could explore independently or with a partner. It could also be used for whole class stories with an interactive whiteboard or projector.
This is a good site to introduce parents to for at home reading, play and math practice. If you have a classroom website, Oxford Owl is a great one to link to!
Tips: If you haven’t already, be sure to check out the Oxford Owl Literacy site.
Tell us how you are using (or plan to use) Oxford Owl Maths in your classroom! | <urn:uuid:731b3575-92ff-447e-b2bb-82faa169aeb8> | {
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Team creates LEDs, photovoltaic cells, and light detectors using novel one-molecule-thick material.
Two research projects involving MIT physicists are among the top ten physics stories of the year, as ranked by the American Institute of Physics.
Among the year's highlights is research led by Nergis Mavalvala, associate professor of physics at MIT and a member of MIT's LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) Laboratory. In April, Mavalvala and others reported that they had cooled a coin-sized object to 0.8 degrees Kelvin (0.8 degrees above absolute zero).
To reach such extreme temperatures, the researchers combined two previously demonstrated techniques — optical trapping and optical damping. Two laser beams strike the object, one to trap it in place, as a spring would (by restoring the object to its equilibrium position when it moves), and one to slow (or damp) the object and take away its thermal energy.
The study marked the coldest temperature ever reached by laser-cooling of an object of that size, and the technique holds promise that it will experimentally confirm, for the first time, that large objects obey the laws of quantum mechanics just as atoms do.
Also on the American Institute of Physics' top-ten list is the MinibooNE experiment, which confirmed a critical aspect of the Standard Model of Particle Physics. MIT postdoctoral associate Jocelyn Monroe, a Pappalardo Fellow, was a member of the MinibooNE research team and presented the results April 11 at MIT.
The MinibooNE experiment, conducted at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory outside Chicago, was designed to investigate the possibility of the existence of a fourth type of neutrino (tiny elementary particles that are components of atoms).
The Standard Model of Particle Physics predicts the existence of three types of neutrinos, but results of experiments conducted in the 1990s offered indirect evidence for the possibility of a fourth type of neutrino. The MinibooNE experiment confirmed that there are only three types of neutrino.
To see the rest of the top-ten list, visit www.aip.org/pnu/2007/split/850-1.html. | <urn:uuid:db59f52d-f50e-4233-9243-3866c3b36caf> | {
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Biofuels & Biodiversity Don't Mix
Very little can be done to make palm oil plantations more hospitable for birds and butterflies. Consequently rising demand for the biofuel will decimate biodiversity unless natural forests are preserved.
Lian Pin Koh of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich counted birds and butterflies in 15 palm oil plantations in Borneo and found that palm oil plantations supported between 1 and 13 butterfly species, and between 7 and 14 bird species. Previous research found at least 85 butterfly and 103 bird species in neighboring undisturbed rain forest.
The paper, Can palm oil plantations be made more hospitable for forest butterflies and birds?, to be published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, comes at time when rising demand for food and biofuels is squeezing biodiversity. Unless oil palm agriculture is regulated, rising global demand is likely to convert more forests into fuel for your car and mine. Frankly, my dear, neither is worth it. | <urn:uuid:bff690e5-4ed7-4e99-b2f0-b84335ffc6d2> | {
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GLASS INSULATOR MANUFACTURERS
General Overview on Insulators
Long before the modern era of computers, cellphones, smartphones, fiber-optic cables and the internet, long distance electric/electronic communication consisted primarily of the telegraph and telephone. The electric telegraph (in the United States) was developed by Samuel Morse in 1837, and the first message was sent by Morse in 1838. The telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876.
As time went on, networks of “open wire” telegraph lines, and later, telephone lines, were developed and built throughout the country, and these lines required the installation of insulators. Insulators were necessary by serving as a medium for attaching the wires to the poles, but much more importantly, they were required to help prevent electric current loss during transmission. The material, glass, is itself an insulator (not a “conductor” or “transformer” as insulators are often incorrectly labeled in antique malls and flea markets).
Both glass and porcelain insulators have been used since the early days of the telegraph, but glass insulators were generally less expensive than porcelain, and were normally used for lower-voltage applications. The oldest glass insulators date from about 1846.
The period from 1875 to 1930 might generally be thought of as the “heyday” of the glass insulator. Hundreds of millions of these glass “bells” were produced during this time by many glasshouses, located primarily in the East and Midwest with a few plants in California and Colorado. Many of the glasshouses that made insulators also produced bottles and other glassware.
Most insulators are found in some shade of blue-green/aqua-colored glass (typical cheap “bottle glass” or “green glass”) but many, many other color shades are found. Clear glass was used (with some exceptions) primarily after about 1935. Hundreds of different styles were developed, and insulators are found with a wide variety of embossed names, patent dates, and other markings. Many earlier insulators have bubbles, streaking, “snow”, surface creases and other marks of crudeness which was common for this type of glass because quality standards were not usually set as high as tableware. As long as the insulator performed it’s duty adequately, the color and minor imperfections in the glass were of little concern. These “marks of crudeness and age” now add to their value and charm, to collectors of antique insulators.
Old photos from around the U.S. show many telephone, telegraph and electric power poles sporting large numbers of insulators arranged on crossarms. Some telephone poles (such as in large cities) carried as many as 20 or more crossarms, each one laden with six, 10 or 12 (or even more) insulators.
Each insulator was attached to the crossarm by being screwed onto wooden (or in some cases) metal pegs or (more properly) “pins”. A steel or copper tie-wire was attached to the insulator, and connected with the communication wire. These “pintype” insulators were an extremely commonplace sight and communication lines with insulators were strung alongside most roads, highways, and railroads.
During the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s many of these lines were dismantled as technology advanced. Today, a few lines using glass insulators are still in service, but are only a tiny percentage compared to the heyday of open wire communication.
Insulators (generally speaking) are still commonly in use, but insulators of the modern era (speaking of the United States in particular) are mostly heavier, high-voltage types used in electric power line transmission and distribution, and are of porcelain (“ceramic”) or polymer (plastic) construction. Most modern telephone lines now make use of insulated sheathed cable, and many are underground.
Today, vintage glass insulators are a collectible item in their own right, often saved, studied and displayed along with antique bottles, tableware and other early glassware. The majority of glass insulators carry embossings (raised lettering), as previously mentioned, including company names, brands, trademarks, or model numbers, patent dates, etc. A small percentage of insulators are entirely unmarked. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, so many insulators are found that were carefully and rather painstakingly lettered with markings that would not even be discernable by the average passersby below……….only visible to linemen (and birds) !
Collectors of insulators often specialize in a particular glass companies’ products, or in certain styles, shapes or colors of insulators. They might delve into the history of a particular company, what styles where made and when, the markings used, etc. Besides the more typical “pintype” communications/electric power line insulators, other sub-categories include lightning rod insulators, radio wire or guy wire “strain” or “egg” style insulators, inside home wiring knob or spool insulators, and battery rests.
Many, many different cast iron molds were used over the years to produce glass insulators, and the collection & study of old insulators can be compared, in some respects, to numismatics (the study and collection of coins). Most earlier insulators were made by forcibly pressing molten glass into a mold. The mold was momentarily closed, and then within a few seconds was opened and the finished insulator was removed to be placed into a lehr (cooling oven). Modern glass insulators are/were made by mass-production machine pressing methods.
On earlier insulators, many minor variations in the engravings cut into the inside surface of the iron molds resulted in slight differences in the exact appearance, size and placement of the raised lettering seen on the surface of the glass. On some companies’ products, more than one style of lettering can be identified. For instance, the so-called “Script”, “Prism” and “Stamp” (“Typewriter”) styles of font which are seen on many Hemingray insulators.
Sometimes an individual mold can be identified by studying and comparing insulators that were produced from it over a considerable stretch of time. Changes in the mold, such as re-cut (re-tooled) engraving, repair, or the addition or erasure (“blotting out”) of the engraving can be discovered upon very close inspection of the insulator. Thus, the comparison I’ve made to the coin collecting hobby, with the many slight differences in coin die design details, as revealed under close scrutiny by serious collectors.
On this webpage I’ve compiled a list of glass factories that manufactured (or are believed to have produced) glass electrical insulators. Although primarily listing factories that were located here in the United States of America, I’m also including a few Canadian and Mexican firms. If you have additional information, corrections, or clarifications, please contact me (at the email address listed at the bottom of the page), as I am continually looking for the most accurate data available on these companies. Sources of some of the information is included after each entry if I have it available.
Some of the information is from research originally compiled by N.R.Woodward, creator of the “CD” (Consolidated Design) numbering system used by collectors for identifying and cataloging insulators. Also, a portion of the info is found in various articles in the 2-volume reference book “INSULATORS: A HISTORY AND GUIDE TO NORTH AMERICAN GLASS PINTYPE INSULATORS ” by John & Carol McDougald (1990). Those books are no longer in print, but I would heartily recommend them as an important part of any serious insulator collector’s library.
As an antique bottle collector, I’m interested in the identification marks used by bottle factories. Click here for a list of marks found embossed on bottles (and other types of glassware), and the companies those marks are believed to represent.
GLASS FACTORIES THAT MANUFACTURED INSULATORS
NOTE: Dates given are (in most cases) the years during which a factory was in operation. In a few cases, the dates only apply to the time period during which insulators were being manufactured. Some information is questionable or incomplete, and I will update this webpage as I learn more. This list does not include “end user” companies (telephone/telegraph companies, railroads, electric power utilities, etc) who had insulators made for them with embossing such as “A.T.& T.”, “C.P.R.”, “G.E.”, etc, but only lists the actual manufacturers of these insulators.
For a listing of some primary embossings found on glass insulators, and the glass factories that may have produced them, click here .
American Insulator Company
Boston area, MA (c.1883-1886?)
Although insulators made by (or for) this company are marked “AM.INSULATOR CO. N.Y.” (on the base), business offices were located in both New York and Boston according to directory listings. Possibly the actual manufacturing facility was located in the Boston area, and may have been the American Iron Glass Pipe & Plate Company (Iron Glass Works) factory at Haverhill, Massachusetts. In addition, recent evidence has surfaced which proves that the Lyndeborough Glass Company, South Lyndeborough, New Hampshire (1866-1888), produced many of the American Insulator Company-embossed insulators.
[McDougald-1990: Joe Maurath, Jr., Bob Fuqua; Mark Newton]
American Iron Glass Pipe & Plate Company (aka Iron Glass Works)
Haverhill, MA (1884-1885?)
There is a possibility this was one of the factory locations where some of the American Insulator Company insulators were produced (besides the Lyndeboro Glass Company, see that entry). At least some of the “National Insulator Co” embossed insulators were almost certainly made here.
[McDougald-1990: Joe Maurath, Jr., Bob Fuqua]
Armstrong Cork Corporation
(See Whitall Tatum Company page for more information.)
Baltimore Glass Manufacturing Company
Baltimore, MD (1895-1897)
Insulators embossed “B.G.M.CO.” were produced by this company.
Bay State Glass Works
East Cambridge, MA (1878-1879)
Samuel Oakman is listed as agent. [McDougald-1990]
Beaver Falls Glass Company
Beaver Falls, PA (1869-1879)
Insulators marked “B.F.G.Co.” were made by this firm, and several other unattributed styles are believed to have been made here as well.
[McDougald-1990: Ora Beary]
Boston & Sandwich Glass Company
Sandwich, MA (1825-1888)
Considered by some glass collectors as the premier glass company of the entire 19th century in America, this factory made some of the finest glassware, both hand-blown and pressed, ever produced in the United States. They are believed to have manufactured some insulators in the 1850s-1860s period, including CD 701.1 threadless types.
[McDougald-1990: Ray Klingensmith]
Boston Bottle Works
Boston, MA (c.1872-1877)
Bushwick Glass Works (aka Brookfield Glass Company)
Brooklyn, NY (c.1864-c.1906)
Old Bridge, NJ (c.1906-1921)
This manufacturer made insulators marked W. BROOKFIELD, BROOKFIELD, B, as well as many others with markings of the end user company, such as A T & T. For more information on this prolific glass company, please click here .
Cadiz Glass Works
Cadiz, OH (1884-1887)
Cadiz Glass Works started making glass in July of 1884, and evidently lasted only about a year or two before being shut down. The works were purchased in March of 1887 and renamed the Lythgoe Glass Works. That operation lasted only about 4 months and the plant was closed again. Rumors of possible re-starts flared up on rare occasions over nearly another decade, with an article appearing as late as 1897 that there was a possibility the plant might soon be making glass, but nothing ever came of it.
Several scarce and unusual styles of insulators were evidently made there, none of them marked. A rare fruit jar is known, marked “CADIZ JAR” on the front.
California Glass Insulator Company/California Glass Works
Long Beach, CA (1912-1916)
Insulators marked “CALIFORNIA” and “C.G.I.CO.” were produced here. Click here for more info on the California Glass Insulator Company.
Canada Glass Company
Hudson, Quebec (1864-1877)
[McDougald-1990: Morgan Davis]
Canada Glass Works (aka Foster Brothers)
St. Johns, Canada East (Quebec) (1854-1860)
Cohansey Glass Manufacturing Company
Bridgeton, NJ (1870-1900)
“Electrical insulators” were displayed at the Franklin Institute 1874 Awards. Type(s) are unknown.
[Adeline Pepper-Glass Gaffers of New Jersey (1971), pg. 215; Alice Creswick-The Fruit Jar Works]
Colorado Glass Works
(See Valverde Glass Works)
Corning Glass Works (now Corning Incorporated)
Corning, NY (1875-to date)
Maker of the “Pyrex” brand insulators. The great majority of glass Pyrex insulators for the U.S. market were made between about 1922 and 1951. A tremendous variety of industrial glass as well as glassware for home use has been produced by this company for well over a century.
[McDougald-1990: Jeff McCurty]
Crystallite Products Corporation
Glendale, CA (1935-1940)
Denver Flint Glass Company
(See Valverde Glass Works)
Diamond Glass Company/Diamond Flint Glass Company
Montreal, Quebec, Canada (1891-1913)
Starting as Foster Brothers Glass Co. (c.1857-1878), then known as Excelsior Glass Company (1878-1883), later as North American Glass Company (1883-1891), the Diamond Glass Company was formed in 1891. In 1902 the name was changed to Diamond Flint Glass Co. and (by this time a conglomerate of several glass plants) it then merged into the Dominion Glass Company in 1913. The small pony style CD 102 insulators with a “Diamond” emblem on the skirt are the most commonly seen units from this concern.
Dominion Glass Company
Montreal, Quebec; Wallaceburg, Ontario, Canada (1913-1967?)
Dominion was a re-organization of the Diamond Flint Glass Company, a large conglomerate with factories at several locations in Canada. Other glass plant locations included Toronto, Ontario; Hamilton, Ontario; and Redcliff, Alberta. Most insulators made by Dominion were produced at the Wallaceburg site. Insulators were also made for short periods of time at Redcliff, Alberta (1942) and at Point St. Charles, Quebec (1943). The last insulators made by Dominion are reported to have been produced in 1967, although production of other glass items (bottles, lamp chimneys, etc) continued afterward. Most insulators made by this company are marked “DOMINION” or with a “D in a diamond”. (Pictured: Dominion-42 in orange-amber).
[McDougald-1990: Morgan Davis, Eric Halpin; Steve Goodell]
Duquesne Glass Company
Carnegie, PA (1905-1907)
There has been alot of uncertainty concerning the true source of the insulators embossed “DUQUESNE GLASS CO.” Three types are known, all small telephone line styles: CD 106.1, CD 106.3, and CD 113.2. According to information uncovered by researcher Bob Stahr, the actual source of these insulators was the above-mentioned firm, located in Carnegie, PA, now a part of metropolitan Pittsburgh. The Duquesne Glass Company was incorporated in January of 1905, and was in operation for approximately two years. The glass was manufactured at a plant owned by the H. L. Dixon Company. In May of 1907 the plant itself was sold by Dixon to Superior Steel Company, and Superior gained occupancy in November of that year.
Another glass factory with the same name (i.e. Duquesne Glass Company) was located in Paden City, West Virginia, and was in business from about 1903 (some sources state 1905) to c. 1919. That operation was principally a bottle house, and did not produce insulators.
On a related note, information that has circulated for many years within the insulator-collecting world had mistakenly attributed the “Duquesne Glass Co.” insulators to a much earlier factory called the Duquesne Glass Works (note “WORKS” in name) of Belle Vernon, PA, which operated under various owners from about 1834 to 1886 or later.
Ellenville Glass Works
Ellenville, NY (1837-1896)
[Insulators reportedly made in 1886-info from a Web article]
H. C. Fry Glass Company
Rochester, PA (1901-1933)
Fry Glass made (at least) 5 different types of glass insulators that are known so far (4 pintypes) and all are unique styles and very rare. Most known examples were recovered from the factory dumpsite. Colors included opaque cobalt blue, milky opalescent, dark purple blackglass, etc. The actual manufacture of these insulators occurred in the 1920s.
[McDougald-1990: Ray Lanpher]
Gayner Glass Company
Salem, NJ (1898-1957)
Although glassman John Gayner was involved in several ventures in the glass manufacturing field in Salem as far back as 1879, the official incorporation of the “Gayner Glass Works”, as such, did not occur until 1898. Insulators were evidently only produced during the period of 1920 to 1923. Most of the insulators they made are embossed “GAYNER” on the skirt area. Their main line of glass products consisted of various kinds of bottles and fruit jars.
R.Good Jr./Robert Good Jr.
(See Valverde Glass Works)
Hamilton Glass Company
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada (c.1864-1898)
[McDougald-1990: Eric Halpin, Morgan Davis] [Colin MacIntosh (Canadian Insulators) states dates as 1864-1895 with a note that Diamond Glass Company absorbed Hamilton Glass in 1894].
Harloe Insulator Company
Hawley, PA (c.1902-1906?)
Elmer, NJ (Mar 1903-Oct 1903)
This company made two unusual “no-tie” style insulators— the CD 109.5 and CD 206.5 styles. Harloe’s embossed marking is a logo consisting of the letters “H I Co” intertwined, above the words “Hawley, PA. U.S.A.”. Because of the embossing, Harloe insulators are often called “Hawleys” by collectors, although the actual company name was never “Hawley”. Ending date of insulator production at Harloe is uncertain but evidently in the 1905-1906 period. Harloe operated the Elmer, NJ “lower works” for a short while after the Sterling Glass Company ended it’s operation there. (Note: This company should not be confused with an earlier glass company called the “Hawley Glass Company” which was located in Hawley, PA and in operation c.1872-1885, which produced fruit jars and bottles). [McDougald-1990: Bob Harding; Ray Klingensmith]
Hemingray Glass Company
Cincinnati, OH (1848-1852)
Covington, KY (1852-c.1890?)
Muncie, IN (1888-1933)
Muncie, IN (1933-1967) [Owens Illinois Glass Co.]
Hemingray is the best known and was the most prolific glass insulator manufacturer in the world. Markings used by Hemingray include “HEMINGRAY”, “H.G.CO.”, “PATENT MAY 2 1893”, “PATENT DEC 19 1871”, “KIMBLE”, “LOWEX” and others. More information here.
Houston Glass Works/ Houston Glass Company
Houston, Texas (1903-1905)
Although no absolute proof has been discovered (yet), the chances are very high that this short-lived, obscure firm produced an enigmatic CD 102 pony insulator marked with an “HGW” monogram on the skirt. Only one example has been found to date, in a shade of light green, and it was purchased at a flea market in the Houston area.
Indiana Glass Company
Dunkirk, IN (1907-2002) & Sapulpa, OK (19??-to date)
Indiana Glass Company (subsidiary of Lancaster Glass Corporation) has produced a tremendous variety of glassware throughout it’s long history. In 1967, the very last insulators carrying the Hemingray name were produced at the Indiana Glass Co. glass plant in Dunkirk, using molds and machinery shipped over from Muncie. For a site with more information on Indiana Glass, click here . Also, for a webpage on a very popular item made by Indiana Glass for many years, click here for my page spotlighting their “Hen on nest” dishes.
Kearns & Company (G. W. Kearns; Kearns, Herdman & Gorsuch)
Zanesville, Ohio (1864-1886)
A check exists circa 1870 that indicates telegraph insulators were then being produced. Nothing is known about what type(s) these might have been.
[McDougald-1990: Ray Klingensmith, Bob Henrickson; Alice Creswick-The Fruit Jar Works]
Kerr Glass Manufacturing Corporation
(See Whitall Tatum Company webpage.)
King City Glass Works
Fairmount, IN (1890-1897)
Insulators marked “K.C.G.W.” were manufactured at this factory. The plant was bought by Marion Fruit Jar & Bottle Company in 1897. It is very likely that some insulators were produced by the M F J & B Co., re-using old molds from the King City operation.
Lancaster Glass Works
Lancaster, NY (1849-1908?)
Year this operation closed is uncertain. McKearin quotes two sources, stating it could be either 1890 OR 1908. Some of the firm names used include Reed, Shim & Co.; James & Gatchell; James Glass Works; and the Lancaster Cooperative Glass Works.
[McKearin & McKearin-American Glass(1941)]
Louisville Glass Works
Louisville, KY (1855-1873)
John Stanger, along with several other glassmen, started this factory in 1850 at the SE corner of Clay and Franklin Streets in Louisville. First known as the Kentucky Glass Works, it was being referred to as the Louisville Glass Works by 1855. Primarily, their products consisted of bottles, flasks, fruit jars, lamp chimneys, window glass and similar items, but personal research in period newspapers confirms that telegraph insulators were being produced at this factory in February of 1866. Type(s) manufactured there are not known at this time. For more detailed information on this operation, please see this article published in 2005: Louisville Glass Factories of the 19th Century .
Leonard Glass Works
Detroit, MI (c.1883-1886)
Evidence has recently surfaced that indicates Leonard made insulators for the Chicago Insulating Company, making it likely that this firm produced many, if not all, of the insulators marked with the “Chicago Insulating Co.”embossing, i.e. CD 135 and CD 109.
Lynchburg Glass Corporation
Lynchburg, VA (1923-1925)
Insulators embossed “LYNCHBURG” were made here. Although, according to production records, over 4 million insulators were made within less than 2 years’ time, as a result of various operational problems this factory ceased glass production in early 1925. Pictured: Lynchburg No. 44 (CD 154) in one of the green shades found in this CD. This style was a direct competitor to the ubiquitous Hemingray-42 style, made by Hemingray Glass Company. See more info on the Lynchburg page.
Lyndeborough Glass Company
South Lyndeborough, New Hampshire (1866-1888)
The celebrated Lyndeboro’ glass factory, long known by Northeast region antique collectors as a maker of many beautiful bottles and whimseys, has recently been confirmed as the source of many (if not all) of the base-embossed American Insulator Company electrical insulators. [Mark Newton]
Marion Fruit Jar & Bottle Company
Fairmount, Indiana (1897-1904)
A possible producer of insulators. (See King City Glass Works). The MFJ&BCo was bought by Ball Bros. Glass Co. in 1904 and the plant was closed in 1910. [Alice Creswick-The Fruit Jar Works]
Massachusetts Glass Company
Somerville, MA (c.1867-1871)
[Predecessor of Boston Bottle Works]
See “Crystallite Products Corporation” entry.
S. McKee and Company
Pittsburgh, PA; Jeannette, PA (1834-1908)
This company produced threadless insulators, although the related “McKee Glass Company” (1854-1951), a separate operation, made large quantities of tableware as well as bottles, window glass and other glassware. Please click here for more info on the McKee companies… more
McLaughlin Glass Company
Vernon, CA (1920-1935)
William McLaughlin worked at Robert Good, Jr.’s glass factory at Valverde…….more .
Mt. Pleasant Glass Works
Mt. Pleasant, NY (1844-1870?)
[McDougald-1990: Ray Klingensmith]
National Insulator Company
(See American Iron Glass Pipe & Plate Company)
Newburgh Glass Company
Newburgh (New Windsor), NY (c.1867- c.1872)
This concern was also known as the “New Windsor Glass Works” (in at least one source, i.e. The Telegrapher, 1867). Although Newburgh Glass Company appears to have made primarily bottles, it has recently been discovered (from brief articles in that same trade newspaper) that they also manufactured telegraph insulators, including at least some, if not many, of the insulators marketed by L.G. Tillotson in the late 1860s.
New England Glass Company
Cambridge, MA (1818-1888)
This factory was principally a producer of fine tableware and upscale glass items. Evidence strongly suggests that threadless insulators were made in the c.1846-1850 period for Ezra Cornell, who was involved in the construction of early telegraph lines in New York and other areas in New England. [McDougald-1990: Ray Klingensmith]
New England Glass Manufacturing Company
Boston, MA (1898-1900)
Insulators marked “N.E.G.M.CO.” were made by this firm. Although the factory was reportedly listed only in the 1899 Boston directory, it is believed that actual glass production started in 1898, and might have lasted into early 1900 before the new directory was printed. Shown: CD 162 style “signal” insulator in aqua.
New Granite Glass Works
Stoddard, NH (1861-1871)
An early trade card from this glassworks advertised insulators, both telegraph and lightning rod styles. Evidence from excavation at the former factory site indicates they made at least some,if not all, of the unmarked dark olive green “blackglass” CD 738 threadless style insulators. [McDougald-1990: Ray Klingensmith, quoting Ken Wilson; description re Heckler auction item]
Novelty Glass Company
Elmer, NJ (1901-1903)
Maker of many, if not most, of the “KNOWLES” embossed insulators. Many of the insulators that were made by Novelty are seen in shades of medium & darker greens. A number of the “STAR” embossed insulators were produced at this factory. Although Novelty Glass was dissolved in 1903, the factory itself may have produced insulators as late as 1907 under a succeeding firm’s ownership.
Oakman Manufacturing Company
Mercer Street, Boston, MA (1890-1897)
[McDougald-1990: Joe Maurath,Jr.]
Ohio Valley Glass Company
Pleasant City, OH (1902-1905)
Maker of the insulators marked “O.V.G.CO.” Please click here to go to my page on this glassworks.
Opalescent Glass Company
Kokomo, IN (1888-to date)
Insulators (types unknown at present) were reportedly made here from 1888 to 1896. [Paul Crist, Bob Stahr]
Owens-Illinois Glass Company
Toledo, OH [head office] (1929- )
Owens-Illinois was the product of a merger in 1929 of two large glass companies, the Illinois Glass Company (of Alton, Illinois), and the Owens Bottle Company which was headquartered in Toledo, Ohio. After the merging, the total number of plants owned by Owens Illinois numbered more than 20 in several states, with each assigned a plant code number. In 1933 Owens Illinois bought the Hemingray Glass Company plant in Muncie, Indiana, and it then became Owens Illinois plant #26. Glass insulators were made by O-I at Muncie (carrying the Hemingray name) until 1967. (More info under Hemingray).
Pacific Glass Works
San Francisco, CA (1862-1876)
Either this factory OR the San Francisco Glass Works was in all probability the manufacturer of the E.C.& M.CO. insulators. Merged with SFGW to form the San Francisco & Pacific Glass Works in 1876.
Richmond Glass Works (Virginia Glass Mnfg. Company)
This factory produced some of the threadless “egg” style insulators, as evidenced by specimens found during excavation at the factory site. They were most likely made during the mid- to late 1850s.[McDougald-1990: Ray Klingensmith]
Sandwich Cooperative Glass Company
Sandwich, MA (May 1890-November 1890)
The Electrical Glass Corporation (director, James Pennycuick) bought the old Boston & Sandwich factory (which had closed in 1888) in December of 1889 and it was later known as the Sandwich Cooperative Glass Co. For several months in 1890, glass insulators were evidently made here, but the exact types are unknown. It is speculated that some of the Pennycuick-style threaded insulators may have been made at this factory, including “Diamond-P” ; “C.E.L.CO.”; and “Pettingell-Andrews” embossed CD 134s, and perhaps other unembossed, and as yet unattributed, examples. It isn’t clear how long, or where, the Electrical Glass Corporation made insulators previous to this period of time, assuming they did produce others. [McDougald-1990: Joe Maurath, Jr.]
San Francisco Glass Works
San Francisco, CA (1865-1876)
This factory was the likely source of most, if not all, of the E.C.& M.CO. insulators. SFGW merged with the Pacific Glass Works (started 1872) in 1876 to form the San Francisco & Pacific Glass Works (1876-c.1901). Insulators might date from after that merger as well.
St. Johns Glass Company
St. Johns, Quebec, Canada (1875-1877)
[McDougald-1990: Morgan Davis]
Standard Glass Insulator Company
Boston, MA (1893-1894)
Star Glass Works
New Albany, IN (1869-1879)
Sterling Glass Company
Elmer, NJ (June 1902-March 1903)
This firm manufactured insulators marked “STERLING” and/or “£”, as well as some of the “star” insulators. [McDougald-1990: Ray Klingensmith]
Thames Glass Works
New London, CT (1863-1865)
Only one intact insulator (a threadless type) is known with the embossed marking “THAMES GLASS WORKS // NEW LONDON CT”, along with 2 partial examples. They are made of a very dark olive green “blackglass”.
Valverde Glass Works (aka Robert Good,Jr.; Colorado Glass Works; Denver Flint Glass Company)
Denver, CO (1896-1899)
[McDougald-1990: Don Reinke, Mike Miller]
Virginia Glass Manufacturing Company
(See Richmond Glass Works)
The markings “W.F.G.CO.” and later, “W.G.M. CO.” are found on insulators from this factory. The WFG’S have been found in many odd shades of color, but the WGM’s are usually found in various shades of purple. [McDougald-1990: Don Reinke, Mike Miller]
Whitall Tatum Company/Armstrong Cork Corporation/Kerr Glass Mnfg. Corporation
Millville, NJ (1922-1938); (1938-1969); (1969-1978)
The first glass factory in Millville, New Jersey was started in 1806 by James Lee… more
E. Wormser & Company / Wormser Glass Company
Pittsburgh, PA (c.1854-1875; 1875-c.1927)
This factory is believed to be the source of certain unembossed insulators, including CD 120s, and 133.4 “bullets”. The great majority of examples are found in shades of SCA (sun colored amethyst), ranging from a light pink to a medium-dark purple (similar to a typical Whitall Tatum No.1 in purple). A few CD 120s in clear glass exist but are very rare. Aqua examples are known but are extremely rare. A receipt dated September 5, 1884 indicates that 1000 insulators (unspecified type) made by Wormser Glass Co. were sold to the Central District & Printing Telegraph Company. The factory address at that time is shown as “Laughlin Station, B. & O. R.R. Pittsburgh, Pa.” I also saw a business letterhead for sale on ebay some time ago which was dated 1906. Toulouse (Bottle Makers and their Marks-1971) indicates this company closed c. 1929. Alice Creswick gives ending date as 1927. [Brent Burger]
Vidriera Monterrey is now known as the Vitro Corporation, known for large quantities of bottles and jars they currently import to the United States.
Cristales Mexicanos S.A.
RESOURCES / GENERAL INFO CONCERNING INSULATORS
Insulators.info. Lots of good general information on Glass & Porcelain insulators, and the hobby of collecting insulators!!
www.Nia.org. (National Insulator Association) Great information and articles.
CollectingInsulators.com. Rick Soller’s informational website—this site covers alot of insulator-related “specialty” topics!
http://www.r-infinity.com/ Elton Gish’s very cool website with extensive information on collectible porcelain insulators of all types.
http://www.insulators.info/porcelain/mark.htm This link points to one of the pages on insulators.info, this page illustrating some of the markings seen on porcelain insulators. Great pics of some more unusual colored porcelain pieces!
Please click here to go to my HOME PAGE.
Click here to go to the GLASS BOTTLE MARKS pages, (page one).
Click here to check out my page on the so-called “Crackle Glass” insulators.
Page discussing recently color-altered glass, including insulators and other types of collectible glassware: Artificially Purpled Glass.
Click here for a basic summary page on WHAT IS GLASS?. | <urn:uuid:1ede23da-8777-4bc5-8d75-4e91a21abfbb> | {
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LAKE OKANAGA, BC – There was a major sighting of Canada’s version of the Loch Ness Monster in British Columbia!
Hundreds of visitors to British Colombia’s Lake Okanagan saw the elusive sea monster, known to locals as Ogopogo. One man took a 30-second video (below) showing two long ripples in the water in a deserted area of the lake.
“It was not going with the waves,” Richard Huls, who captured the scene on camera during a visit to a local winery. “It was not a wave, obviously, just a darker color. The size and the fact that they were not parallel with the waves made me think it had to be something else.”
Ogopogo is the Canadian version of Scotland’s famous Loch Ness monster. The first recorded sighting of the alleged creature in Loch Ness was nearly 1,500 years ago when a giant beast is said to have leaped out of a lake near Inverness, Scotland, to eat a local farmer. Since then, the legend has taken on a life of its own through first-person accounts of those who claim to have seen it and in public imagination.
Here’s the original Loch Ness monster:
As with Loch Ness, the Ogopogo phenomenon dates back hundreds of years and is believed to have its origins in native Canadian Indian folklore with a creature called N’ha-a-itk. The locals would not cross the area of the lake where they thought the monster resided without an offering to feed the monster if attacked.
Ogopogo is most commonly described as a 40- to 50-foot-long sea serpent. There have reportedly been thousands of sightings of the monster through the years, including a marathon swimmer in 2000 who claimed he saw two large creatures in Ogopogo’s likeness swimming with him at times. The lake has been searched and no concrete evidence of the monster has turned up. Still, the legend of the lake monster lives on.
Here’s another shot a tourist took over the weekend:
Here’s the video that was taken: | <urn:uuid:2cc8c25d-63cd-4220-a54e-cdf7d831bc98> | {
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The gold to silver ratio, which is a measure used by many precious metals investors to determine the relative value of the metals, has been used for years. In fact, the relative value of the two metals can be traced all the way back to Roman times, during which time the ratio fluctuated between 12 to 1 and 12.5 to 1. Shortly after the United States gained its independence from Great Britain, a fixed gold to silver ratio of 15 to 1 was passed into law. While the price of gold remained fixed in the U.S. until Nixon severed ties to the gold standard in 1971, the gold to silver ratio continued to fluctuate during this time, as the price of silver was, and still is today, determined in the commodities market. While the gold to silver ratio hasn’t been as low as 17 to 1 since 1980, many investors believe that we will eventually see a return to this ratio, or possibly even lower, and are investing accordingly. In this article, we’ll explore if the gold to silver ratios from 1792 and 1980 are relevant today and if investors should rely on these ratios when investing in precious metals.
When silver investors make reference to historical gold to silver ratios ranging from 15 to 1 to 17 to 1, they oftentimes point to 1980, when for a brief period of time the ratio was 17 to 1. More specifically, gold and silver reached levels of $850 and $50, respectively. However, what many individuals fail to realize is that the silver market at that time was being manipulated by the Hunt Brothers. They sought to corner the silver market and in doing so, caused the price of silver to skyrocket up to $50 an ounce. COMEX responded by changing their margin requirements. Furthermore, the Federal Reserve increased interest rates in an attempt to choke off inflation, which caused the price of silver to subsequently spiral to $4.98 an ounce thirty months later, which was just 10% of the peak reached in 1980. Considering that the price of silver was being manipulated in 1980, we don’t believe that the gold to silver ratio of 17 to 1 briefly reached in 1980 is a good benchmark. Rather, investors should pay more attention to average ratios established over a period of time, such as the 47 to 1 ratio experienced in the 20th century. Another good benchmark to consider is the 31 to 1 ratio we reached in April of 2011 when silver peaked at $50 an ounce. In this author’s opinion, these ratios are more relevant than the ratios established in 1792 or those briefly reached in 1980.
As with any other commodity, the price of gold and silver is determined by supply and demand. According to this piece from Zerohedge.com, gold to silver production is approximately 10.7 to 1. Furthermore, due to the fact that silver is utilized quite extensively for industrial purposes, almost half of all silver ever mined has been used or lost. Considering that most gold mined throughout history is still in existence, the current ratio of available silver to gold is ~ 5 to 1. Based on the available supply of silver, you would expect for the gold to silver ratio to be much closer to the fixed ratio established in 1792 or briefly seen in 1980; however, it’s important to remember that the price of gold and silver is determined by different factors, which we’ll discuss next.
Factors Affecting the Price of Gold & Silver
While a record number of American silver eagles were sold in 2013, at slightly less than 43 million ounces, the fact remains that investment demand for silver is much less than for gold. According to the following article from Goldnews.com, investment demand for silver in 2012 accounted for approximately 15% of the use of silver compared to 44% for industrial uses. On the other end of the spectrum, approximately 40% of gold is used for investment purposes and only 10% for industrial uses. Not surprisingly, jewelry accounts for approximately 50% of the use of gold. Another factor affecting the price of gold is demand by Central Banks, who have been net buyers of gold over the past couple of years. This has helped to establish an artificial floor in the price of gold, as Central Banks tend to buy on the dips. Central Banks, at least at the time of this article, do not purchase and store silver. Because different factors affect the price of gold and silver, they won’t necessarily move in tandem, nor is there a known catalyst that will substantially shrink the ratio. Unless investment demand for silver dramatically increases from its current levels, we experience high levels of inflation, or see a huge increase in the demand of silver for industrial purposes, we would expect for there to be a healthy spread in the price of the two metals, which at the time of this writing is approximately 66 to 1.
While many investors often refer to the “historical” gold to silver ratio of 16 to 1, the fact is that the U.S. has not had a fixed gold to silver ratio for many years. Furthermore, the last time the gold to silver ratio reached these levels was in 1980, which shouldn’t be used as a benchmark, as the silver market was being manipulated by the Hunt Brothers at that time. For two metals to remain at consistent ratios there must be a relatively constant supply and demand. While silver is consistently produced at levels approximately eleven times that of gold, demand and use of the two metals varies quite substantially. Unless investment demand for silver substantially increases from its current levels or if we experience economic conditions that are bullish for silver, we expect for the historical ratios of gold and silver to remain just that; a thing of the past. In other words, don’t necessarily rely on historical ratios when determining when to purchase gold or silver.
About the Author
Tony Davis is the owner of Atlanta Gold & Coin Buyers, a full service Atlanta based coin and bullion dealer. | <urn:uuid:71169784-c338-4cd5-94c8-cfa8831e1dd7> | {
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After two days of travel and a ferry ride across the Susquehanna River, Harry Butler reintroduces True Son, whom he calls Johnny, to his hometown of Paxton. At one point during the journey, the boy spurs his horse into the forest along the shore and hides in the underbrush, but Del and Mr. Butler soon return him to his horse. As they near the Butler mansion, Mr. Butler doubts the success of the mission. Once home, he introduces True Son to his brother, Gordie, and Aunt Kate.
Upstairs in the house, True Son encounters his white mother, Myra Butler, who kisses him, calls him John, and laments that he has grown up in "heathen darkness and ignorance." She compares him to his stubborn Uncle Wilse and threatens to keep him confined in the room until he speaks his "own name." She does not want him to look like a "savage" in front of her family and friends who are coming to see him the following day. True Son rejects his white name but finally attempts to speak English, which Mrs. Butler sees as at least some progress. True Son is horrified by the gray pants and a yellow jacket she gives him to wear, hand-me-downs from his cousin Alec. To True Son, they are symbols of white treachery.
In this chapter, Richter further discusses the concept of ethnocentrism, the belief of a group that their customs and attitudes are normal and natural, as opposed to the lifestyles of outsiders, which the group considers strange or exotic. He indicates True Son's identification with Indian ways by contrasting his reactions to the landscape to Del's. For example, when roofs and chimneys first appear on the horizon, Del rejoices at this evidence of permanent white settlements. The sound of the English language and the promise of the settlers' deeper penetration into the wilds uplift him. After journeying three hundred miles roundtrip on "savage trails and traces," Del prefers a firm roadbed to a forest track, the opposite of True Son's preference for soft moss underfoot. To Del, fences, barns, and sheds "had an air of white man's industry and their houses of peace." He is gladdened at the throngs of people that greet him and his traveling party, whereas True Son feels that the people are a menace. Only the name Susquehanna lifts the boy's eyes to scan the area where an Indian burial plot was defaced and overtaken by white usurpers eager for land.
In the shift of settings from the Lenni Lenape village to Carlisle, True Son has much to learn. His long stay among Indians is obvious in his unfamiliarity with multi-story homes. Gordie, who is delighted to have his brother home at last, demonstrates how to climb the stairs to an upper floor. At another social impasse, Gordie smoothes over a difficult situation by requesting True Son's native clothing. Although previously separated by physical and cultural distance, the two brothers develop an unspoken understanding.
The personal barriers between True Son and the Butler family are more than a young child like Gordie can breach. The resentful older Butlers, particularly the hostile Aunt Kate, draw an invisible line between those whites who grew up with their birth families in colonial Pennsylvania and John Cameron Butler, the white abductee who ceased being ethically, culturally, and spiritually white at age four. Except for the gentle younger brother, no one welcomes True Son on his own terms or offers him unconditional love. Ironically, True Son flashes the same dark eyes as his birth-mother's, a suggestion that the two share a stubbornness for doing things their own way, no matter what anyone else says.
Some readers may not see the older Butlers as resentful, with the exception of Aunt Kate. Both father and mother are prepared to welcome Johnny back and love him. They don't accept him as Indian, which is only natural because he is their biological son. Some might say that Johnny is the one who doesn't even meet them half way. The Butlers have kept his image in their hearts as their own true son for eleven years, but he has not kept their image as his true parents. He has forgotten them and has replaced them with his captors, their tormenters. They aren't prepared for him to be as "Indian" as he is, but they still think of him as their son.
Readers can only speculate on how Johnny would behave with his Indian family had he been kidnapped at fifteen instead of four. The Butlers may be insensitive, but they are not unloving. The fact that Johnny prefers the people who caused his birthparents great fear and sadness compounds the horror that they have been living with since losing their child.
Peshtanks the original pronunciation of Paxton, a township in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The bloody history of the area strikes fear in True Son/Johnny, who connects it with a Peshtank massacre.
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The exhibition resources include six posters that you can use in a classroom, dorm, office, for presentations, or in other ways. The posters are in PDF form. To download a poster PDF, click on the one you want and either print it yourself or take the PDF to a copy shop/printer and have a larger size or color version made. Using regular printer paper works fine.
Each poster relates to a section of the web exhibition: EveryBody (overview page), Disability and History, People, Place, Technology, Citizens. Each poster comes in English or Spanish and color or black& white (with grey scale adjusted so it will print clearly). Every poster includes the exhibition and section titles, web address, acknowledgment of our funder-- the Nathan Cummings Foundation, and a summary caption. The images on the posters are all pulled from the exhibition and the caption presents a main idea related to each topic.
8.5" x 11" Posters
En Espanol, 8.5" x 11"
Although you can print these posters any size you want, we recommend that you not go bigger than 25.5" x 33" (300% enlarged). The image starts to look distorted when it is bigger than that.
The EveryBody overview poster can be printed in two ways. If you have access to a large printer you can print it large as one sheet. Or, if you use an average printer with 8.5" x 11" paper, you can make a large version (17" x 22") from four separate sheets taped together. | <urn:uuid:f9c3997d-9240-43a0-9ea1-6b05b6aec1b8> | {
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Trinity Researchers Contribute to New Findings in the Largest Genomics Studies of Brain Size
Apr 23, 2012
An international research consortium including researchers from Trinity College Dublin and NUI Galway have identified genes that influence the size of a person’s brain. The first genetic variant influences the volume of a part of the brain associated with memory, known as the hippocampus. The second gene influences total intracranial volume, the cavity inside the skull corresponding to a person’s maximal brain size. Brain size has long been known to correlate with intelligence, so it was therefore interesting that this gene was also associated with variation in intelligence. The research has been published this week in Nature Genetics.
Brain imaging studies are costly, and as a result are usually carried out in small numbers of participants, making it very difficult to identify the small effects of common genetic variants. To overcome this, the ENIGMA consortium led by Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry Paul Thompson from UCLA and Professor Nick Martin from the Queensland Institute of Medical Science, was established to encourage scientists to pool imaging and genetic data. Involving more than 200 scientists, the research as described by Thompson as ‘social networking in science’, enabled questions to be addressed which individual groups working by themselves do not have the power to answer. The result was a dataset of over 21,000 participants that could be used to identify and then confirm the novel genetic variants detected.
Commenting on these findings, Trinity College Dublin Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology and Neuropsychology, Gary Donohoe, lead investigator for the Irish research team, said: “These studies are an important step towards understanding the genetic basis for how the brain develops. Understanding how basic structures like the hippocampus are genetically programmed is important not just for figuring out how the brain works, but also for understanding what goes wrong in disorders like schizophrenia. While these studies will not have an immediate impact on treatment, they are crucial to helping us build a map of how the brain works so as to identify new treatment targets in the future.”
Close to 500 of these participants were collected by Trinity and NUIG. At Trinity, participants were scanned at the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience (TCIN), supported by several individual TCIN investigators. To participate, individuals underwent a structural MRI brain scan and gave a saliva sample from which DNA could be drawn. Supported by research funding from Science Foundation Ireland and the Health Research Board, all DNA and MRI scans across the Trinity and NUIG sites were then analysed at the neuropsychiatric genetics research lab at the Trinity Institute of Molecular Medicine. This data was then used to confirm the initial gene findings, resulting in the two main genetic discoveries made. | <urn:uuid:ab640827-922f-4a2a-a8a2-e13ff981b3fe> | {
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Free MoMA Online Class – Great for Art Teachers
UPDATE: THIS CLASS WILL BEGIN MARCH 3, 2014
I just signed up for a free online class presented by the Museum of Modern Art in NYC!
Art and Inquiry: Museum Teaching Strategies For Your Classroom
taught by Lisa Mazzola
Explore how to integrate works of art into your classroom with inquiry-based teaching methods originally developed for in-gallery museum education.
About the CourseIntended for teachers (Grades 4-12) from all disciplines, this course will introduce ways to integrate works of art into your classroom by using inquiry-based teaching methods commonly used in museum settings. This course is designed to give teachers the tools to create meaningful object-based learning activities that can be integrated into a wide variety of curricula. We’ll explore strategies that emphasize literacy, critical thinking skills and that connect across disciplines. The strategies and content that you will learn in this course parallels the proficiencies outlined in the Common Core State Standards as they relate to literacy, speaking and listening, critical thinking, analyzing informational text, and citing evidence to support arguments.
This is my first MOOC (massive open online class). I’m excited to learn! | <urn:uuid:1d9c2c0c-f2c7-49bf-bfad-374b191bdf5e> | {
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The Systems Development LifeCycle (SDLC) is a process used in the development, creation, and maintenance of an information system. This process is often used in the creation or updating of a database system, and can serve as a useful tool for anyone trying to undertake a large database project.
The SDLC has five phases: The Planning phase, the Analysis phase, the Design phase, the Implementation phase, and the Maintenance
of the SDLC. During this phase, the group that is responsible for creating the system must first determine what the system needs to do for the organization (requirements gathering). Often this means asking questions such as...
- What do we need this system for?
- What will the system do for the organization?
- How are we going to make this system?
During this initial phase, resources (both human and technology resources) are put together and a project plan is devised by the project manager.T Z
The Analysis Phase is the second phase of the SDLC and is when the group that has been placed in charge of the project must decide if the project should go ahead with the resources available. This also includes looking at any existing system to see what it is doing for the organization and how well that system is doing it's job. The feasibility of the project is also considered, and the group has to ask questions such as...
- Can this system be created with the resources (and budget) we have available?
- Will this system significantly improve the organization?
- Does the old system even need to be replaced
The Design Phase is the third phase of the SDLC and it involves the actual creation and design of a system. This wolf putting together the different pieces that will create the system. In a database approach, this would include...
Layout is made.
- The server hosting the database
- The software that will form the database (Access, Oracle, mySQL, etc)
- Other needed DBMS (DataBase Management System) software
The Implementation Phase is the final phase of the SDLC and it involves the actual construction and installation of a system. This phase also includes the maintenance of the system and any future updates or expansion of the system. With the database project example, the following activities would be common:
- Physical installation of the server hosting the database
- Installation of the database onto the system
- Installation of the Database Management System
- Initialization and continuous operation of the database and DBMS
- Maintaining the hardware and software hosting the database
- Updating the hardware (physical hard drives, etc) and software (DBMS) as needed
- Any future expansion of the database.
This phase is the longest phase as it has no defined endpoint, with the exception of the end of the system and its users (Amazon shuts down, Google calls it quits, etc). and boo
The database administrator must be prepared to perform routine maintenance activities within the database. Some of the required periodic maintenance activities include:
- Preventive maintenance (backup). Corrective maintenance (recovery).
- Adaptive maintenance (enhancing performance, adding entities and attributes, and so on).
- Assignment of access permissions and their maintenance for new and old users.
- Generation of database access statistics to improve the efficiency and usefulness of system audits and to monitor system performance.
- Periodic security audits based on the system-generated statistics.
- Periodic (monthly, quarterly, or yearly) system-usage summaries for internal billing or budgeting purposes.
Comparison to DBLCEdit
The SDLC can be compared to the DBLC with the combination and splitting of a few phases in both systems:
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