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According to the National Institute of Mental Health, over 18 percent of American adults suffer from anxiety disorders, characterized as excessive worry or tension that often leads to other physical symptoms. Previous studies of anxiety in the brain have focused on the amygdala, an area known to play a role in fear. But a team of researchers led by biologists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) had a hunch that understanding a different brain area, the lateral septum (LS), could provide more clues into how the brain processes anxiety. Their instincts paid off -- using mouse models, the team has found a neural circuit that connects the LS with other brain structures in a manner that directly influences anxiety.
"Our study has identified a new neural circuit that plays a causal role in promoting anxiety states," says David Anderson, the Seymour Benzer Professor of Biology at Caltech, and corresponding author of the study. "Part of the reason we lack more effective and specific drugs for anxiety is that we don't know enough about how the brain processes anxiety. This study opens up a new line of investigation into the brain circuitry that controls anxiety."
The team's findings are described in the January 30 version of the journal Cell.
Led by Todd Anthony, a senior research fellow at Caltech, the researchers decided to investigate the so-called septohippocampal axis because previous studies had implicated this circuit in anxiety, and had also shown that neurons in a structure located within this axis -- the LS -- lit up, or were activated, when anxious behavior was induced by stress in mouse models. But does the fact that the LS is active in response to stressors mean that this structure promotes anxiety, or does it mean that this structure acts to limit anxiety responses following stress? The prevailing view in the field was that the nerve pathways that connect the LS with different brain regions function as a brake on anxiety, to dampen a response to stressors. But the team's experiments showed that the exact opposite was true in their system.
In the new study, the team used optogenetics -- a technique that uses light to control neural activity -- to artificially activate a set of specific, genetically identified neurons in the LS of mice. During this activation, the mice became more anxious. Moreover, the researchers found that even a brief, transient activation of those neurons could produce a state of anxiety lasting for at least half an hour. This indicates that not only are these cells involved in the initial activation of an anxious state, but also that an anxious state persists even after the neurons are no longer being activated.
"The counterintuitive feature of these neurons is that even though activating them causes more anxiety, the neurons are actually inhibitory neurons, meaning that we would expect them to shut off other neurons in the brain," says Anderson, who is also an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).
So, if these neurons are shutting off other neurons in the brain, then how can they increase anxiety? The team hypothesized that the process might involve a double-inhibitory mechanism: two negatives make a positive. When they took a closer look at exactly where the LS neurons were making connections in the brain, they saw that they were inhibiting other neurons in a nearby area called the hypothalamus. Importantly, most of those hypothalamic neurons were, themselves, inhibitory neurons. Moreover, those hypothalamic inhibitory neurons, in turn, connected with a third brain structure called the paraventricular nucleus, or PVN. The PVN is well known to control the release of hormones like cortisol in response to stress and has been implicated in anxiety.
This anatomical circuit seemed to provide a potential double-inhibitory pathway through which activation of the inhibitory LS neurons could lead to an increase in stress and anxiety. The team reasoned that if this hypothesis were true, then artificial activation of LS neurons would be expected to cause an increase in stress hormone levels, as if the animal were stressed. Indeed, optogenetic activation of the LS neurons increased the level of circulating stress hormones, consistent with the idea that the PVN was being activated. Moreover, inhibition of LS projections to the hypothalamus actually reduced the rise in cortisol when the animals were exposed to stress. Together these results strongly supported the double-negative hypothesis.
"The most surprising part of these findings is that the outputs from the LS, which were believed primarily to act as a brake on anxiety, actually increase anxiety," says Anderson.
Knowing the sign -- positive or negative -- of the effect of these cells on anxiety, he says, is a critical first step to understanding what kind of drug one might want to develop to manipulate these cells or their molecular constituents. If the cells had been found to inhibit anxiety, as originally thought, then one would want to find drugs that activate these LS neurons, to reduce anxiety. However, since the group found that these neurons instead promote anxiety, then to reduce anxiety a drug would have to inhibit these neurons.
"We are still probably a decade away from translating this very basic research into any kind of therapy for humans, but we hope that the information that this type of study yields about the brain will put the field and medicine in a much better position to develop new, rational therapies for psychiatric disorders," says Anderson. "There have been very few new psychiatric drugs developed in the last 40 to 50 years, and that's because we know so little about the brain circuitry that controls the emotions that go wrong in a psychiatric disorder like depression or anxiety."
The team will continue to map out this area of the brain in greater detail to understand more about its role in controlling stress-induced anxiety.
"There is no shortage of new questions that have been raised by these findings," Anderson says. "It may seem like all that we've done here is dissect a tiny little piece of brain circuitry, but it's a foothold onto a very big mountain. You have to start climbing someplace."
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Dragons are very popular storybook characters, especially with the release of "How to Train your Dragon" in movie theatres. Check out this tutorial and learn how to draw your very own fire-breathing buddy!
You Will Need:
* A graphite pencil
* An eraser
Step 1: Draw body and head
Draw a sideways S to establish a side view of the dragon's body. Add an oval onto the left tip of the S for the head. Connect the right end of the S to the center point of the S to form the body.
Step 2: Add neck and tail
Widen the dragon's neck by adding a line following the upper curve of the left portion of the sideways S, connecting it to the body. Draw a long triangle-shaped tail, making sure it flows from the top of the dragon's spine. Add a small triangle to the tail's tip.
Step 3: Add hindquarters, feet, and claws
Lay in a vertical oval shape at the lower right edge of the body to represent hindquarters. Draw an elongated oval at the end of the hindquarters and another near the front edge of the body for feet. Add triangle shapes to the feet for claws.
Step 4: Add wing
Draw a pointed umbrella shape originating from the dragon's mid-neck for the single wing visible from this view. Be sure that the umbrella points downward.
Step 5: Add ears and facial features
Draw pointed ears on each side of the dragon's head. Add eyes, nostrils, a mouth, and teeth.
Step 6: Erase guidelines
Erase your guidelines and round out your form.
Step 7: Add scales, points, and fire
Add scales to the dragon's chest by overlaying scallop shapes from the neck to the feet. Add a series of small triangular points along the spine.
Step 8: Add flames
Draw fiery flames shooting from the dragon's mouth for the final fearsome touch. Now, stretch your imagination even further and create a friend for your dragon. | <urn:uuid:d4e36b51-e62d-44f3-a645-40f23e32c7b9> | {
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These are excerpts from the conclusions of a new published paper by Brunt, Lerner, & Nicholas (Journal of Industrial Economics, December 2012):
We have examined one of the longest available datasets of awards for innovation to determine whether prizes spurred technological development. We find that prizes induced competitive entry and that the largest effects are for prestigious medals. . .
The abstract:Our historical evidence on RASE prizes offers guidance for the design of current inducement prize contests. Mega prizes, such as those offered by the X-Prize Foundation, presuppose that inventors are incentivized by large pecuniary inducements, but R&D costs typically exceed the value of the prize. For example, 26 teams competed for the X-Prize for suborbital spaceflight and collectively spent in excess of $100 million for a ten million dollar prize. Our evidence suggests that non-pecuniary prizes can be particularly effective. They avoid the complex process of linking the magnitude of the prize to the value of a particular technology and inventors are still able to appropriate by winning. The RASE contests offered free publicity and public approbation. Inventors could benefit from the seal of quality ascribed to the invention when selling or licensing their technologies. The RASE lowered administrative costs by using medals rather than financial awards. . .Our evidence suggests that in agricultural technologies, the prizes encouraged innovation beyond the patent system alone. . .Insofar as policy changes require supporting empirical evidence, our findings suggest that inducement prizes for innovation can work.
We examine the effect of prizes on innovation using data on awards for technological development offered by the Royal Agricultural Society of England at annual competitions between 1839 and 1939. We find large effects of the prizes on competitive entry and we also detect an impact on patents, especially when prize categories were set by a strict rotation scheme, thereby mitigating the potentially confounding effect that they targeted only ‘hot’ technology sectors. Prizes encouraged competition and medals were more important than monetary awards. The boost to innovation we observe cannot be explained by the re-direction of existing inventive activity.A draft of the paper (December 2011) is here. | <urn:uuid:4ec8b125-e325-4d19-b947-631e5c5be33b> | {
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When youthful and frisky, Albert Einstein would refer to himself as “the valiant Swabian,” quoting the poem by Ludwig Uhland: “But the valiant Swabian is not afraid.” Albert—the name Abraham had been considered by his unreligious parents but was rejected as “too Jewish”—was born in Ulm, in March of 1879, not long after Swabia joined the new German Reich; he was the first child and only son of a mathematics-minded but financially inept father and a strong-willed, musically gifted woman of some inherited means. A daughter, Maria, was born to the couple two and a half years later; when shown his infant sister, Albert took a look and said, “Yes, but where are the wheels?” Though this showed an investigative turn of mind, the boy was slow to talk, and the family maid dubbed him der Depperte—“the dopey one.”
As the boy progressed through the schools of Munich, where his father had found employment in his brother Jakob’s gas-and-electrical-supply company, Albert’s teachers, though giving him generally high marks, noted his resistance to authority and Germanic discipline, even in its milder Bavarian form. As early as the age of four or five, while sick in bed, he had had a revelatory encounter with the invisible forces of nature: his father brought him a compass, and, as he later remembered it, he was so excited as he examined it that he trembled and grew cold. The child drew the momentous conclusion that “something deeply hidden had to be behind things.” That intimation was to carry him to some of the greatest scientific discoveries of the twentieth century, and to a subsequent persistent but unsuccessful search for a theory that would unite all the known laws of nature, and to a global fame impossible to imagine befalling any mere intellectual now.
Walter Isaacson’s thorough, comprehensive, affectionate new biography, “Einstein: His Life and Universe” (Simon & Schuster; $32), relates how, in 1931, during the fifty-one-year-old scientist’s second visit to America, he and his second wife, Elsa, attended, in California, a séance at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Upton Sinclair. He must have allowed a little skepticism to creep into his polite conversation, for “Mrs. Sinclair challenged his views on science and spirituality.” His own wife overheard and indignantly intervened, telling their hostess, “You know, my husband has the greatest mind in the world.” Mrs. Sinclair didn’t dispute the assertion, replying, “Yes, I know, but surely he doesn’t know everything.” On the same excursion, Einstein, at his own request, met Charlie Chaplin, who, as they arrived at the première of “City Lights,” said, of the applauding public, “They cheer me because they all understand me, and they cheer you because no one understands you.”
In 1905, Einstein, a twenty-six-year-old patent clerk in Bern, Switzerland, had produced in rapid succession five scientific papers that (a) proposed that light came not just in waves but in indivisible, discrete packets of energy or particles called, after Max Planck’s discovery, quanta; (b) calculated how many water molecules existed in 22.4 litres (a number so vast that, Isaacson tells us, “that many unpopped popcorn kernels when spread across the United States would cover the country nine miles deep”); (c) explained Brownian motion as the jostling of motes of matter by invisible molecules; (d) expounded the special theory of relativity, holding that all measurable motion is relative to some other object and that no universal coördinates, and no hypothetical ubiquitous ether, exist; and (e) asserted that mass and energy were different manifestations of the same thing and that their relation could be tidily expressed in the equation E=mc², where c is the speed of light, a constant. Only a few friends and theoretical physicists took notice.
In 1903, Einstein had married a woman three years older than he, Mileva Marić, a lame, homely Serbian he had met when both were students at the Zurich Polytechnic. It emerged only in 1986 that before their marriage the couple became parents of a girl, Lieserl, whom Einstein probably never saw and whose fate is unknown. A legitimate son, Hans Albert, was born in 1904. Einstein had not been able to secure any teaching job; his cavalier and even defiant attitude toward academic authority worked against his early signs of promise. He had left Germany and renounced his citizenship at the age of sixteen, and for four years was too poor to buy Swiss citizenship, depending for sustenance on a monthly stipend from his mother’s family and some fees from private tutorials. In the pinch, Marcel Grossmann, a brilliant math student whose meticulous lecture notes helped Einstein get high grades at the Zurich Polytechnic, managed to secure him a job at the Swiss Patent Office, in Bern. His long stint there figures, in the conventional Einstein mythology, as the absurd ordeal of a neglected genius, but Isaacson thinks it might have been a good thing:
So it was that Albert Einstein would end up spending the most creative seven years of his life—even after he had written the papers that reoriented physics—arriving at work at 8 A.M., six days a week, and examining patent applications.…Yet it would be wrong to think that poring over applications for patents was drudgery.…Every day, he would do thought experiments based on theoretical premises, sniffing out the underlying realities. Focusing on real-life questions, he later said, “stimulated me to see the physical ramifications of theoretical concepts.”
“Had he been consigned instead to the job of an assistant to a professor,” Isaacson points out, “he might have felt compelled to churn out safe publications and be overly cautious in challenging accepted notions.” Special relativity has a flavor of the patent office; one of the theory’s charms for the fascinated public was the practical apparatus of its exposition, involving down-to-earth images like passing trains equipped with reflecting mirrors on their ceilings, and measuring rods that magically shrink with speed from the standpoint of a stationary observer, and clocks that slow as they accelerate—counterintuitive effects graspable with little more math than plane geometry.
The general theory of relativity took longer, from 1907 to 1915, and came harder. Generalizing from the special theory’s assumption of uniform velocity to cases of accelerated motion, and incorporating Newton’s laws of gravity into a field theory that corrected his assumption of instant gravitational effect across any distance, led Einstein into advanced areas of mathematics where he felt at sea. He turned to his invaluable friend Marcel Grossmann, now chairman of the math department at the Zurich Polytechnic; Isaacson quotes him as saying, “Grossmann, you’ve got to help me or I will go crazy.” After consulting the literature, Grossmann “recommended the non-Euclidean geometry that had been devised by Bernhard Riemann.” Einstein, beginning with the insight that acceleration and gravity exert an equivalent force, worked for years to find the equations that would describe
1. How a gravitational field acts on matter, telling it how to move.
2. And in turn, how matter generates gravitational fields in spacetime, telling it how to curve.
“I have gained enormous respect for mathematics,” he wrote a friend, “whose more subtle parts I considered until now, in my ignorance, as pure luxury!” For a time, he discarded Riemannian tensors, but eventually returned to them, and, to quote Isaacson, “in the throes of one of the most concentrated frenzies of scientific creativity in history,” he felt close enough to the solution to schedule four Thursday lectures at the Prussian Academy, in Berlin, which would unveil his “triumphant revision of Newton’s universe.” Then, heightening the suspense, another player entered the game. Einstein, still a little short of the full solution and beset with nervous stomach pains, showed one of his lectures to David Hilbert, “who was not only a better pure mathematician than Einstein, he also had the advantage of not being as good a physicist.” Hilbert told Einstein that he was ready to lay out his own “axiomatic solution to your great problem,” and the physicist battled to establish the priority of his theory even as he was putting the last, perfecting touches into his fourth and final lecture. It all came down to:
The other giants of physics in the first half of the twentieth century applauded. Paul Dirac called general relativity “probably the greatest scientific discovery ever made,” and Max Born termed it “the greatest feat of human thinking about nature, the most amazing combination of philosophical penetration, physical intuition and mathematical skill.” In 1919, the discovery was given empirical proof when Arthur Eddington, the director of the Cambridge Observatory, led an expedition to equatorial realms to observe a solar eclipse and see if, as Einstein’s field equations predicted, stars near the sun’s rim would be apparently displaced 1.7 arc seconds. With a little massaging from Eddington, they were. Einstein, asked what his reaction would have been if the experiment had showed his theory to be wrong, serenely replied, “Then I would have been sorry for the dear Lord; the theory is correct.”
Though Einstein was to reap many honors (including the 1921 Nobel, belatedly, for his early work on the photoelectrical effect) and was to serve humanity as a genial icon and fount of humanist wisdom for three more decades, he never again made a significant contribution to the ongoing life of the physical sciences. Beginning around 1918, he devoted himself to a quest even more solitary and visionary than his relativity triumphs. “We seek,” he said in his Nobel Prize lecture, “a mathematically unified field theory in which the gravitational field and the electromagnetic field are interpreted only as different components or manifestations of the same uniform field.” Quantum theory, with its built-in uncertainties and paradoxes, struck him as a spooky violation of physical realism. “The more successes the quantum theory enjoys,” he lamented to a friend in 1912, “the sillier it looks.” In an autobiographical sketch published in 1949, he described his frustrated attempts “to adapt the theoretical foundation of physics” to quantum science: “It was as if the ground had been pulled out from under one, with no firm foundation to be seen anywhere upon which one could have built,” leaving “an intermediate state of physics without a uniform basis for the whole, a state that—although unsatisfactory—is far from having been overcome.”
His faith that a unified theory of all the fields exists went back to his childhood sense that “something deeply hidden had to be behind things,” a something that would evince itself in an encompassing theory of elegant simplicity. Isaacson tells us: “On one of the many occasions when Einstein declared that God would not play dice, it was Bohr”—the physicist Niels Bohr—“who countered with the famous rejoinder: Einstein, stop telling God what to do!” God, sometimes identified as “the Almighty” or “the Old One” (der Alte) frequently cropped up in Einstein’s utterances, although, after a brief period of “deep religiousness” at the age of twelve, he firmly distanced himself from organized religion. In a collection of statements published in English as “The World As I See It,” there is this on “The Religiousness of Science”:
The scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation.…His religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection. This feeling is the guiding principle of his life and work, in so far as he succeeds in keeping himself from the shackles of selfish desire.
The apparition of a superior intelligence behind the impassive arrangements of nature was more than a playful metaphor for Einstein, and the escape from selfishness through scientific thought was a principle he lived. In composing, at the request of an editor, his “Autobiographical Notes,” he concentrated almost exclusively on his thought processes, complete with equations.
Yet things happened to him; he had a life. In 1909, the University of Zurich upped an initial offer, and Einstein, “four years after he had revolutionized physics,” resigned from the patent office and accepted his first professorship. “So, now I too am an official member of the guild of whores,” he told a colleague. In 1910, Mileva gave birth to a second son, Eduard, who as he grew older developed mental illness and was to end up in a Swiss asylum. In 1911, the Einsteins moved to Prague, where Einstein accepted a full professorship at the German part of the University of Prague. Offers kept coming; in 1912 he returned to the Zurich Polytechnic, which had become a full university, the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule. Mileva should have been happy back in Zurich, among old friends, but her health was uncertain, carrying with it depression, and continued to decline. In 1913, an invitation was personally delivered by two pillars of Berlin’s academic establishment, Max Planck and Walther Hermann Nernst, to come to Berlin as a university professor and the director of a new physics institute, and to become, at the age of thirty-four, the youngest member of the Prussian Academy. Einstein stayed in Berlin until 1932, when the combination of rising Nazism and tempting offers from America impelled him to leave Germany, never to return.
In America, Robert A. Millikan, a physicist whose experiments had verified Einstein’s photoelectrical equation, was now the president of Caltech, and he aggressively courted Einstein to come to Pasadena. However, the educator Abraham Flexner, a former officer of the Rockefeller Foundation, was in the process of establishing, with funds from the Bamberger department-store fortune, a haven for scholars named the Institute for Advanced Study, to be situated in New Jersey, next to but not affiliated with Princeton University. Einstein, intending to split his time between Europe and America, accepted the Princeton proposal. He and Elsa moved there, and in 1935, after renting for a few years, they bought a modest frame house at 112 Mercer Street, where Einstein lived until his death, in 1955.
He and Mileva had divorced, after many difficulties, in March, 1919. One of the attractions of Berlin in 1913 had been the presence of his divorced cousin Elsa Einstein. During the First World War, while Mileva stayed in Zurich with the two boys, Elsa and Einstein shared a life in Berlin—in his divorce deposition he gave the period of “intimate relations” as “about four and a half years.” After some friction (Einstein wasn’t sure that he wanted to be married at all, after the mental exertions of general relativity, but Elsa’s respectable family wanted her reputation salvaged), he and Elsa married, in June, 1919. In their “spacious and somberly furnished apartment near the center of Berlin,” with her two daughters, he seemed, a colleague remarked, “a Bohemian as a guest in a bourgeois home.” Elsa was shrewd but, unlike Mileva Marić, not scientific, which at his stage of life and eminence may have been a blessing. Einstein and women are a complicated story, and Isaacson doesn’t attempt to tell it all. There were a number of extramarital relationships; how many of them tipped from companionship into sex is, like the electron, difficult to measure. (One startling fact, according to Isaacson: beginning in 1941, Einstein was sleeping with an alleged Soviet spy, the multilingual Margarita Konenkova, though the F.B.I., which was keeping close tabs on him, never twigged.) Isaacson, a former managing editor of Time, whose previous biographies dealt with Benjamin Franklin and Henry Kissinger, writes in short paragraphs; taking up in rotation science and politics and personal developments, he has much material to compress. He notes that at Elsa’s untimely death, in 1936, “Einstein was hit harder than he might have expected,” and pronounces on their marriage:
Beneath the surface of many romances that evolve into partnerships, there is a depth not visible to outside observers. Elsa and Albert Einstein liked each other, understood each other, and perhaps most important (for she, too, was actually quite clever in her own way) were amused by each other. So even if it was not the stuff of poetry, the bond between them was a solid one.
Yet when Michele Besso, an old friend from his youth in Zurich, died, not long before Einstein’s own death, he wrote to Besso’s family that the deceased’s most admirable trait had been to live harmoniously with a woman, “an undertaking in which I twice failed rather miserably.” He was married to the universe, and gave back to people less love than he attracted. Max Born said, “For all his kindness, sociability and love of humanity, he was nevertheless totally detached from his environment and the human beings in it.”
But he loved America, and America reciprocated. Its informality, optimism, and emphasis on free speech delighted him: “From what I have seen of Americans, I think that life would not be worth living to them without this freedom of self expression.” Except for a brief trip to Bermuda as part of his application for citizenship, he never left; he never returned to Europe, let alone to Germany, whose crimes, he wrote the chemist Otto Hahn, “are really the most abominable ever to be recorded in the history of the so-called civilized nations.” To America, Isaacson says, he projected a “rumpled-genius image as famous as Chaplin[’s] little tramp.” As famous as Chaplin, he appeared, to Americans of my age, as saintly as Gandhi. Einstein’s public political life—his initially reluctant but eventually committed Zionism, his initially militant but eventually modified pacifism, his wartime patriotism (including a sponsoring role in the creation of the atomic bomb), his scorn of McCarthyism, and his good humor and amiable wit in shouldering all the causes and interviews he was asked to shoulder—contributed to American morale in the challenging years between 1933 and 1955. Having the greatest mind in the world on the premises lifted American spirits. In his own freedom of thought, the valiant Swabian demonstrated how to be free. ♦ | <urn:uuid:fb9c12d8-a3a8-4966-957b-58029c7c1f1a> | {
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A team of investigators at several institutions, including the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, the Howard Hughes Institute, MIT, and the University of Massachusetts Medical School, have developed novel mouse models for two fatal human prion protein (PrP) diseases, fatal familial insomnia (FFI) and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). The results of their study were published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
To date, these fatal neurodegenerative diseases have been extremely difficult to study because of the lack of animal models that recapitulate the pathology and features of the diseases.
The study's first author is Walker S. Jackson, Ph.D., of the Whitehead Institute. “Walker’s work provides two extraordinary models of neurodegeneration,” said Susan Lindquist, Ph.D., who is a professor of biology at MIT and in whose lab part of the work was performed. “Most mouse models produce pathology that only distantly resembles human diseases. These nail it, for two of the most enigmatic human diseases in the world.”
The prion hypothesis, which originated in 1982 with Stanley B. Prusiner, M.D., of the University of California School of Medicine at San Francisco, holds that prion diseases, including “mad cow” disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) and scrapie in sheep, are caused by a protein that has adopted an abnormal form. According to the prion hypothesis, PrPs infect by passing along their misfolded shape in templated fashion, unlike viruses or bacteria, which depend on DNA or RNA to transmit their information. Certain changes to the prion create a misshapen structure, which is replicated by contact. The misfolded proteins accumulate, creating clumps that are toxic to surrounding tissue.
Characterized by long incubation periods, these diseases cause spongiform changes in the brain and are associated with neuronal loss and a failure to induce inflammatory response.
In humans, the investigators explained, mutations in different regions of the PrP are associated with infectious neurodegenerative diseases with “remarkably” different clinical signs and neuropathological lesions. To explore the basis of this phenomenon, the investigators said, they made a CJD mouse that was exactly analogous to a previous knock-in model of a different prion disease, that is, FFI. Including the wild-type (WT) parent, they then had an allelic series of three lines, each expressing the same protein with a single amino acid difference, and with all native genetic regulatory elements intact.
To generate the models, Dr. Jackson and his colleagues created two mutated versions of the PrP-coding gene by changing a single codon. One mutation is known to cause FFI, while the other induces CJD. Unlike previous models that randomly inserted the mutations into the genome, occasionally increasing PrP expression, Jackson’s models faithfully mimic the human disease—from disease onset, to PrP production, to infectiousness. In the brain, his FFI mice develop neuronal loss in the thalamus, and his CJD mice experience spongiosis in the hippocampus and the cerebellum, reflecting the damage seen in the brains of human patients.
The FFI mice, the investigators said, developed neuronal loss and intense reactive gliosis in the thalamus, as seen in humans with the disease. In contrast, CJD mice had the hallmark features of CJD, including spongiosis and proteinase K-resistant PrP aggregates, initially developing in the hippocampus and cerebellum but absent from the thalamus.
The investigators concluded conclude that the diseases occurred spontaneously. Importantly, they said, both models created agents that caused a transmissible neurodegenerative disease in WT mice. Based on their observations, they concluded that single codon differences in a single gene in an otherwise normal genome can cause remarkably different neurodegenerative diseases and are sufficient to create distinct protein-based infectious elements.
Their work, they say, establishes that spontaneous mutations in the endogenous PrP gene can readily produce not only disease, but also infectious agents. | <urn:uuid:b4a7309a-cb50-438d-a6c3-f723a8d87fef> | {
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August Bebel. Woman and Socialism
Woman at the Present Day
Although the change in the position of women is obvious to all who go through life with open eyes, we still continue to hear the idle talk that the home and the family are woman’s natural sphere. This cry is most loudly raised wherever women attempt to enter the learned professions to become teachers at higher institutions of learning, physicians, lawyers, scientists, etc. The most ridiculous objections are resorted to and defended in the guise of scientific arguments. In this respect, as in many others, supposedly learned men base their arguments on science to defend what is most ridiculous, and absurd. Their main objection is, that women are intellectually inferior to men; that in the realm of intellectual activity they cannot attain any noteworthy achievements. Most men are so prejudiced in regard to the professional abilities of women, that whoever resorts to arguments of this sort is sure to meet with approval. As long as the general status of culture and knowledge is as low as at present, new ideas will always be met with rigorous opposition, especially when it is in the interest of the ruling classes to limit culture and knowledge to their own strata. Therefore new ideas are at first upheld only by a small minority, and this small group is subjected to ridicule, slander and persecution. But if the new ideas are good and rational, if they have sprung tip as a natural consequence of existing conditions, they will be disseminated, and the minority will eventually become the majority. It was thus with every new idea in the course of human history, and the idea of obtaining woman’s true and complete emancipation will meet with the same success. Were not the believers in Christian faith at one time a small minority? Was the reformation not ushered in by a small and persecuted group? Did not the modern bourgeoisie contend with overwhelmingly powerful opponents? Nevertheless they were victorious. Or was Socialism destroyed in Germany by twelve years of persecution by exceptional laws"? The victory of Socialism was never more certain than when it was thought to be destroyed.
The assertion that housekeeping and child-rearing is woman’s natural sphere is as intelligent as the assertion that there must always be kings, because there have been kings as long as there has been a history. We do not know how the first king originated, just as we do not know where the first capitalist appeared. But we do know that monarchy has been greatly transformed in the course of thousands of years, that it is the tendency of evolution to diminish the power of kings more and more and that the time will come — and that time is not far distant — when kings will be quite superfluous. just as monarchy, so every institution of state and society is subjected to changes and transformations and ultimate destruction. In the historical expositions of this book we have seen, that th e present form of marriage and the position of woman have by no means always been what they are today. We have seen that both are the product of an historical line of development that is still in progress. About 2,350 years ago Demosthenes could assert that woman had no other vocation but to give birth to legitimate children and to faithfully guard the house. To-day this conception has been overcome. No one could dare to defend this standpoint to-day without being accused of contempt of women. Indeed there are some even to-day who secretly share the view of the ancient Athenian, but no one would dare to express publicly what one of the foremost men of ancient Greece asserted freely and openly as a matter of course. Herein lies the progress.
Now, although modern development has undermined millions of marriages, it has on the other hand influenced the evolution of marriage favorably. Only a few decades ago it was a matter of fact in every citizen’s and peasant’s home, that women not only sewed, knitted, washed, cooked, etc., but that they also baked the bread, spun and weaved, and bleached, brewed beer and manufactured tallow candles and soap. Running water, lighting and heating by gas — not to speak of electricity — besides numerous other modern housefurnishings were unknown in those days. Antiquated conditions persist even today, but they are exceptions. The majority of women are relieved from many occupations that were inevitable formerly, because many things can be made better and cheaper industrially than by the individual housewife. Thus, within a few decades a great revolution has taken place in our domestic life to which we pay so little heed, only because we take it for granted. People do not notice transformations even when they take place under their very eyes as long as they are not sudden and disturb the accustomed order, but they resent new ideas that threaten to interfere with their treading of the beaten path. This revolution in our domestic life that is still going on, has considerably changed the position of woman in the family in still another respect. Our grandmother could not and would not think of visiting theatres, concerts and places of amusement even on week days. Nor would any woman in the good old days have dared to bother about public affairs as so many do today. At present women organize and join clubs pursuing the most varied aims, they found newspapers, subscribe to them and edit them and hold conventions. As working women they organize industrially and attend the men’s meetings. In some localities of Germany they even possessed the right to elect members to courts of trade, but of this right the reactionary majority in the diet deprived them again in the year of the Lord, 1890. Although these altered conditions have their dark sides too, the bright sides predominate, and not even any reactionary would wish to abolish them again. The women themselves, regardless of the conservative character of most of them, have no inclination either to return to the old, patriarchal conditions.
In the United States, society is organized along bourgeois lines also, but it is not burdened with old European prejudices and antiquated institutions, and is therefore much more inclined to adopt new institutions and ideas if they hold promise of advantage. There, since quite some time, the position of woman is regarded differently than in Europe. Among wealthy circles women have been relieved not only of baking and brewing, but of cooking as well, and the one kitchen of an apartment hotel replaces many individual kitchens. Our army officers, who are no Socialists or Communists, have a similar method. In their casinos they form a sort of housekeeping community, appoint a manager, whose business it is to purchase the food wholesale, and to draw up the menus, and the food is cooked by steam in the kitchen of the barracks. They live far more cheaply than they could in a hotel, and their food is at least as good. Thousands of wealthy families live in boarding houses or hotels all year or part of the year without missing their domestic cooking. They, on the contrary, regard it as a great comfort to be relieved of the private kitchen. The general aversion of rich and wealthy women against kitchen work does not seem to signify that this occupation is a part of woman’s “natural sphere.” Indeed, the fact that rich families and large hotels employ male cooks makes it appear as if cooking were man’s work. Let these facts be noted by men who cannot conceive woman except surrounded by pots and pans.
Nothing could be simpler than to combine a central laundry with a central kitchen — as has already been done in all large cities by wealthy private residents or speculators — and to make the institution general. With the central kitchen, central heating, hot water supply, etc., might be connected, and much troublesome work entailing a great waste of time and effort would be abolished. Large hotels, many private houses, hospitals, schools, barracks and other public buildings have these and other modern improvements, as electric light, bathing establishments, etc. The mistake is that only public institutions and wealthy persons profit by these improvements. If made accessible to all, they would save a tremendous amount of time, effort, labor and expense, and would considerably heighten the general well being. In the summer of 1890 German newspapers published reports of progress being made in the United States in regard to central heating and ventilation. In these reports, among other things, the following was stated: “Experiments that have recently been made, especially in North America, to heat entire blocks or portions of a city from one centrally located place, have been successful in no small degree. The construction has been so carefully planned and so practically applied, that the favorable results and financial advantages will undoubtedly lead to an extension of this system. Recently further experiments have been made to provide not only the heating but also the ventilation of entire districts from centrally located places.”
Many of these contemplated improvements have since been realized and further improved. Narrow-minded philistines shrug their shoulders when such and similar plans are discussed; and yet in Germany, too, we are in the midst of a new industrial revolution, whereby the individual kitchen and other housework will become as superfluous as labor by manual tools became superfluous by the introduction of modern machinery. As late as the beginning of the nineteenth century, even a Napoleon could deride as a crazy idea the project of moving a vessel by steam. People who were considered intelligent, regarded the plan of building a railroad as an absurdity; they claimed that no one could live in a vehicle travelling at such high speed. In the same manner many new ideas are dealt with to-day. If some one had told our women a century ago that they should get their water from a faucet in the kitchen instead of drawing it from the well, he would have been accused of seeking to encourage laziness in housewives and servants.
But the great technical revolution along all lines is in full swing. Nothing can stay its progress. It is the historical mission of bourgeois society that has ushered in this revolution, to lead it to As climax, and everywhere to bring to light the germs of transformation, which a society organized on a new basis will merely need to generalize and to make the common property of all.
The development of our social life does not tend to lead woman back to the home and hearth, a state that fanatics on domesticity desire, and for which they clamor as the Jews in the desert clamored for the lost flesh-pots of Egypt. It demands the release of woman from her narrow sphere of domestic life, and her full participation in public life and the missions of civilization. Laveleye is right when he says: “With the growth of what we call civilization, the feelings of piety toward family life decrease and its bonds become looser and have less influence on the actions of men. This fact is so general that it may be regarded as a law of social development.” Not only has the position of woman in the family changed, but also the position of son and daughter in their relation to the family. They have gradually obtained a degree of independence that was unheard of formerly. This is especially so in the United States, where young persons are educated to become self-reliant and independent to a far greater extent than in Europe. The dark sides that are incidental to this form of development also are not necessarily connected with it, but are rooted in the social conditions of our time. Bourgeois society does not produce any new and pleasing phenomena that do not have a dark side as well. As Fourier already pointed out with much perspicacity, all its progress is double-edged. Like Laveleye, Dr. Schaeffle also recognizes the changed nature of the modern family as a result of social development. He says: “Throughout history we find the tendency of the family to return to its specific functions. The family abandons one provisionally and temporarily maintained function after another and, inasmuch as it only filled out the gaps in social functions, it yields to the ... dependent institutions of law, order, power, divine service, teaching, industry, etc., as soon as such institutions are developed.”
Women are advancing, tho at present only a small minority strives to advance, and of these again only a few are fully conscious of their aims. They not only wish to measure their strength with that of men industrially and commercially, they not only wish to hold a more independent position in the family, they also wish to employ their intellectual abilities in higher positions and in public life. They are met time and again with the argument that they are unfit by nature for intellectual occupations. The question of the practice of learned professions only concerns a small number of women in present-day society, but it is important as a matter of principle. The majority of men seriously believe that women must remain subjected to them intellectually also and that they have no right to seek equality; therefore they are vehemently opposed to the intellectual ambitions of women. The same men who do not object to women being employed in difficult and dangerous occupations that threaten their womanliness and injure their maternity, would bar them from professions that are far less difficult and dangerous and far better suited to their physical abilities. In Germany, the lively agitation for the admission of women to universities, has called forth a great number of opponents who especially oppose the admission of women to the study of medicine. Among these are Pochhammer, Fehling, Binder, Hegar, and others. J. Beerenbach seeks to prove that women are not qualified for scientific study, by pointing out that no genius had as yet sprung up among women. This argument is neither valid nor convincing. Geniuses do not drop from the sky; they must have an opportunity for development, and such opportunity women have been lacking, for since thousands of years they have been oppressed and deprived of opportunity for intellectual development, and thereby their mental abilities have become atrophied. A considerable number of distinguished women exist even to-day, and if one denies the existence of potential geniuses among them, that is as far from being true as the belief that there were no more geniuses among men than those that were recognized as such. Every country schoolteacher knows how many able minds among his pupils are never developed because they lack opportunity for development. Indeed we all have in our day met persons in whom we recognized rare ability and who, we felt, would have become a credit to the community, if circumstances had been more favorable to them. The number of talents and geniuses among men is far greater than could be revealed until now. The same is true of the abilities of women that have for thousands of years been far more hampered, repressed and cramped than those of men. We have no standard whereby we can measure the amount of intellectual strength and ability among men and women, that would unfold if they could develop under natural conditions.
To-day it is in human life as in plant life. Millions of precious seeds never achieve development because the ground on which they are cast is unfertile or is already occupied, and the young plant is thus deprived of air, light and nourishment. The same laws that apply to nature apply to human life. If a gardener or farmer would claim that a plant could not be perfected without having made an attempt to perfect it, his more enlightened neighbors would consider him a fool. They would hold the same opinion of him if he would refuse to interbreed one of his female domestic animals with a male of more perfect breed to obtain more perfect stock.
There is no peasant to-day who is so ignorant not to recognize the advantage of a rational treatment of his vegetables, fruit, and cattle; whether his means allow the application of advanced methods is another question. Only in regard to humanity even educated people will not admit what they regard as an irrefutable law with the rest of the organic world. Yet one need not be a scientist to derive instructive observations from life. How is it that peasant children differ from city children? How is it that children of the wealthier classes are, as a rule, distinguishable from the children of the poor by facial and bodily traits and by mental qualities? It is due to the difference in their conditions of living and education.
The one-sidedness of training for a certain profession leaves its particular imprint upon a person. As a rule a minister or a school teacher can easily be recognized by his bearing and the expression of his face, as also a military mail. even in plain clothes. A cobbler is easily distinguished from a tailor, a carpenter from a locksmith. Twin brothers who greatly resembled each other in their youth, will show marked differences in a more advanced age if their occupations have been very different from one another; if, for instance, one is a manual laborer, say a blacksmith, and the other has studied philosophy. Heredity on the one hand and adaptation on the other, are decisive factors in human development as well as in the animal kingdom, and man, moreover, is the most adaptive of all creatures. Sometimes a few years of a different mode of life and a different occupation suffice to alter a person completely. External changes are never more clearly seen than when a person is transplanted from poor and narrow circumstances to greatly improved ones. His past can perhaps be disavowed least in his mental culture. When people have attained a certain age, they frequently have no ambition for intellectual improvement. and often they do not need it either. A parvenu rarely suffers from this shortcoming. In our day money is the chief asset, and people bow far more readily before the man with a great fortune than before the man of knowledge and great intellectual abilities, especially if it is his ill fortune to be poor. The worship of Mammon was never greater than in our day. Yet we are living in the “best of worlds.”
Our industrial districts furnish a striking example of the influence of decidedly different conditions of life and education. Even externally, workers and capitalists differ to such an extent as if they were members of two different races. These differences were brought home to us in an almost startling manner at the occasion of a campaign meeting during the winter of 1877 in an industrial town of Saxony. The meeting, in which a discussion with a liberal professor was to take place, had been so arranged that an equal number of both parties were present. The front of the hall was occupied by our opponents, almost without exception healthy, strong, and some stately figures. In the rear of the hall and on the galleries were the workingmen and small traders, nine-tenths of them weavers, mostly small, narrow-chested, hollow-cheeked figures whose faces bore the imprints of care and need. The one group represented the well-fed virtue and morality of the bourgeois world, the other represented the worker-bees and beasts of burden on whose labor the gentlemen waxed strong. If one generation were reared under equally favorable conditions of life the differences would be greatly decreased and would quite disappear among their progeny.
It is usually more difficult to determine the social position among women than among men. They easily accustom themselves to altered conditions and readily adopt more refined habits of life. Their adaptability is greater than that of the more clumsy man.
What good soil, air and light are to the plant, that to man are healthful social conditions, which enable him to develop his physical and mental qualities. The saying that “man is what he eats” expresses a similar thought somewhat too narrowly. Not only what a man eats, but his entire standard of life and his social environment advance or hamper his physical and mental development. and influence his feelings, his thoughts and his actions favorably or unfavorably, as the case may be. We see every day that persons living in good financial circumstances go to ruin mentally and morally, because outside of the narrow sphere of their domestic and personal relations, unfavorable influences, social in character. were brought to bear upon them and gained such control over them that they were driven into evil ways. The social conditions under which we live are even more important than the conditions of family life. But when the social conditions of development will be the same for both sexes, when there will be no restriction for either, and when the general state of society will be a healthful one, woman will rise to a height of perfection that we can hardly conceive to-day, because until now no such conditions have existed in human evolution. The achievements of individual women justify our highest expectations, for these tower above the mass of their sex just as male geniuses tower above the mass of men. If we apply the standard of rulership, for instance, we find that women have shown even greater talent for ruling than men. To mention just a few examples: There were Isabella and Blanche of Castilia, Elizabeth of Hungary, Katherine Sforza, Countess of Milan and Imola, Elizabeth of England, Katherine of Russia, Maria Theresa, and others. Basing his assertion on the fact that women have ruled well among all nations and in all parts of the globe, even over the wildest and most turbulent hordes, Burbach is led to remark that according to all probability women would be better qualified for politics than men. When in 1901 Queen Victoria of England died, a large English newspaper made the suggestion to introduce female succession exclusively in England, because the history of England showed that its queens ruled better than its kings.
Many a great man of history would shrivel considerably if we always knew how much was due to his own efforts and how much he owed to others. As one of the greatest geniuses of the French Revolution, German historians regard Count Mirabeau. Yet research has revealed the fact, that he owed the preparation of almost ail his speeches to the willing assistance of a few learned men who worked for him secretly and whose labor he skillfully made use of. On the other hand, women like Sappho, Diotima, at the time of Socrates, Hypatia of Alexandria, Madame Roland, Mary Wollstonecraft, Olympe de Gouges, Madame de StaŽl, George Sand, and others, merit our highest admiration. Many a male star pales beside them. The influence of women as mothers of great men is also well known.. Women have accomplished as much as they could accomplish under exceedingly unfavorable circumstances, and that entitles us to great expectations for the future. As a matter of fact, women were admitted to competition with men in various realms of activity only during the second half of the nineteenth century. The results obtained are very satisfactory.
But even should we take for granted that women, as a rule, are not as capable of development as men, that there are no geniuses and philosophers among them, we arc nevertheless led to ask whether this factor was considered among men when they, according to the wording of the laws, were given complete equality with the geniuses and philosophers. The learned men who deny the intellectual ability of women, are inclined to do the same in the case of workingmen. When persons of nobility pride themselves on their “blue” blood and their pedigree. they smile and contemptuously shrug their shoulders; but in the presence of the man of lowly birth they consider themselves an aristocracy that have achieved their favored position, not through their more advantageous circumstances, but only by their own peculiar talents. The same men, who are unprejudiced in one respect and have a poor opinion of persons who are not as liberal-minded as they, become incredibly narrow-minded and fanatical when their class interests or personal conceit are involved. Men of the upper classes judge men of the lower classes unfavorably, and in the same way almost all men judge women unfavorably. The majority of men regard women only as a means to their comfort and enjoyment. To regard them as beings endowed with equal rights is repugnant to their prejudiced minds. Woman should be modest and submissive; she should confine her interests to the home, and leave all other domains to the “lords of creation.” Woman should check every thought and inclination, and wait patiently for what her earthly providence, father or husband, may decide. If she lives up to this standard she is praised for her good sense, modesty and virtue, even tho she may break down under the burden of physical and moral suffering. But if we speak of the equality of all human beings, it is preposterous to wish to exclude half of humanity.
Woman has the same right as man to develop her abilities and to employ them freely. She is a human being as well as man and should have the freedom of disposing of her own body and mind and he her own master. The chance of having been born a woman, must not affect her human rights. To exclude woman from equal rights because she has been born a woman and not a man — a fact of which both man and woman are innocent — is as unfair, as to make rights and privileges depend upon religious or political opinion; and it is as irrational as the belief that two persons are innate enemies because, by the chance of birth, they belong to different races or nationalities. Such views are unworthy of a free human being. Progress of humanity consists in removing whatever keeps one human being, one class or one sex in slavery and dependence upon another. No difference is justified except those differences established by nature to fulfill its purpose. But no sex will overstep the natural limits, because it would thereby destroy its own purpose in nature.
One of the chief arguments of the opponents of equal rights is, that woman has a smaller brain than man and is less developed in other respects, and that therefore her lasting inferiority is proven. It is certain that man and woman are two human beings of different sex, that each has different organs adapted to the sexual purpose, and that, owing to the fulfillment of the sexual function, a number of differences in their physiological and psychological conditions exist. These are facts that no one can nor will deny; but they do not furnish any cause for social or political inequality between man and woman. Humanity and society consist of both sexes; both are indispensable to their maintenance and development. Even the greatest man was born by a mother to whom he may owe — his best qualities and abilities. By what right, then, can woman be denied equality with man?
According to the opinion of eminent authorities, the most marked differences in physical and mental qualities between man and woman are the following: In regard to stature, Havelock Ellis considers 170 centimeters the average height for men and 160 centimeters for women. According to Vierordt, it is 172 and 160, and in northern Germany, according to Krause, 173 and 163 centimeters.
The proportion of man’s stature to woman’s is as 100 to 93. The average weight of adult persons is 65 kilograms for men and 54 for women. The greater length of the trunk in a woman’s body is a well-known difference; yet this difference is not as great as has been generally assumed, as careful measurements have shown. The legs (if a woman of medium size are only by 15 millimeters shorter than those of a man of medium size, and Pfitzner doubts that this difference is noticeable. “The differences in the lengths of body and legs are influenced by the stature, and are independent of sex.” But the female arm is decidedly shorter than the male arm (as 100 to 91.5). The male hand is broader and larger than the female hand, and with men the ring-finger is usually longer than the index, while the opposite is the case with women. By this the male hand becomes more ape-like, as the long arm also is a pithecoid (ape-like) characteristic.
In regard to the size of the head, the proportion of the absolute height of male and female heads may be set down as 100 to 94. But the relative sizes (in proportion to the size of the body) are 100 to 100.8. So actually woman’s head is somewhat smaller, but in proportion to the size of her body, it is somewhat larger than man’s. The bones of woman are smaller, finer, and more delicate in form and have a smoother surface, for the weaker muscles require less rough surface to fasten upon. The weaker muscular development is one of the most striking characteristics of woman. Each separate muscle of a woman’s body is finer, softer, and contains more water. (According to v. Bibra the quantity of water contained in the muscles is 72.5 per cent. with man, and 74.4 per cent. with woman.) In regard to the adipose membrane the opposite proportion exists; it is much more amply developed with woman than with man. The chest is relatively shorter and narrower. Other differences are directly connected with the sexual purpose. The statements of various authors in regard to relative and absolute weight of the intestines, are very contradictory. According to Vierordt the proportion of the weight of the heart to the weight of the body is as I to 215 with men, and as 1 to 206 with women. According to Clendinning it is as I to 158 and as I to 149. Taken all in all, we may assume that the female intestines are absolutely smaller but relatively, in proportion to the weight of the body, heavier than the male.
The blood of women shows a larger percentage of water, a smaller quantity of blood-globules, and a smaller quantity of hemachrome. With woman the smaller size of the heart, the narrower vascular system, and probably also the larger percentage of water in the blood, cause a less intense assimilation of matter and an inferior nutrition. This may also account for the weaker jaws. “It may thus be explained that even civilized man in many respects is more closely connected with the animal world, especially the ape, than woman, that he possesses pithecoid traits which may be seen in the shape of the skull and the length of the limbs.”
In regard to the differences of the skull of both sexes, let it be stated that, according to Bartels, there is no absolute indication whereby we could determine whether a skull belonged to a male or female person. Absolute comparison shows that the skulls of men are larger in all dimensions. Accordingly the weight is greater, too, and the interior space is larger.
As a medium weight of normally developed brains of adult persons, Grosser states 1388 grammes for the man and 1252 grammes for the woman. The great majority of male brains (34 per cent.) weigh between 1250 and 1550 grammes, and the great majority of female brains (91 per cent.) weigh between 1100 and 1450 grammes. But these weights are not subject to direct comparison since woman is smaller than man. It is, accordingly, necessary to determine the weight of the brain in proportion to the body. When we compare the weight of the brain with the weight of the body we find that with the man there are 21.6 grammes of the brain for every kilogram of the weight of the body, and with the woman there are 23.6 grammes. This outweighing is explained by the fact that woman’s stature is smaller.
Different results are obtained by a comparison of equally large individuals of both sexes. According to Marchand the weight of the female brain is, without exception, lighter than that of men of the same size. But this method is as incorrect as a comparison with the size of the body. It takes for granted what remains to be proven: a direct relation between the size of the body and the weight of the brain. Blakeman, Alice Lee and Karl Pearson have determined on the basis of English data and measurements, that there is no noticeable relative difference in the weight of the brain between man and woman; that is, a man of the same age, stature and skull measurements as the average woman, would not differ from her in regard to the weight of his brain.
Even Marchand points out that the smaller size of woman’s brain may be due to the greater fineness of her nerves. Grosser says: “Indeed, this has not yet been determined by means of the microscope, and would be difficult to determine. But we must point to the analogy that the eye-ball and the cavity of the ear are also somewhat smaller with woman than with man, yet these organs are no less fine and serviceable. Another, perhaps the chief reason, for the lighter weight of the woman’s brain may be found in her weaker muscular development.
Inasmuch as the differences are rooted in the nature of sex, they can, of course, not be altered. But to what extent these differences in blood and brain can be changed by a different mode of life (nourishment, physical and mental culture, occupation, etc.) cannot be definitely determined for the time being. That modern woman differs from man to a greater extent than primitive woman or the woman of inferior races, seems to be established, and when we consider the social development of woman’s position among civilized nations during the past 1000 or 1500 years, it seems only too obvious.
The following shows the capacity of the female skull according to Havelock Ellis (assuming the capacity of the male skull to be 1000) :
|Hottentot||951||German||838 to 897|
|Eskimo||931||English||860 to 862|
|Dutch||913||Parisian, 19 yrs.,||858|
The conflicting statements among the Germans show that the measurements have been taken among greatly differing material, both in regard to quality and quantity, and that therefore they are not absolutely reliable. But the figures clearly show One thing: that Negroes, Hottentots and Hindu women have a considerably larger capacity of the skull than the German, English and Parisian women; and yet the latter are far more intelligent.
A comparison of the brain-weights of well-known deceased men shows similar contradictions and peculiarities. According to Professor Reclam, the brain of the scientist Cuvier weighed 1830 grammes; that of Byron, 1807; that of the famous mathematician Gauss, 1492; Of the philologist Hermann, 1358; Of the Parisian prefect Hausmann, 1226. It is said that the weight of Dante’s brain also was below the average weight of the male brains. Havelock Ellis gives us similar information. He reports that the brain of an unknown person, weighed by Bischoff, had a weight of 2222 grammes, while the brain of the poet Turgeniew weighed only 2012 grammes; the third largest brain was that of an imbecile; the brain of a plain workingman that was also examined by Bischoff, weighed 1325 grammes. The heaviest female brains weighed between 1742 and 1580 grammes; two of these were taken from women who had suffered from mental derangement. On the congress of German anthropologists, which was held in Dortmund in August, 1902, Professor Waldeyer stated that an examination of the skull of the philosopher Leibnitz, who died in 1716, had shown that its contents only measured 1450 cubic centimeters, which corresponds to a brainweight of 1300 grammes. According to Hausemann, who examined the brains of Mommsen, Bunsen and Adolph v., Menzel, Mommsen’s brain weighed 1429.4 grammes; it accordingly did not exceed the average brainweight of an adult man. Menzel’s brain weighed only 1298 grammes and Bunsen’s less still — 1295 grammes, below the average male brainweight and not much above the brainweight of a woman Those are striking facts that completely overthrow the old assumption that intellectual abilities could be measured by the capacity of the skull. After an examination of the English data, Raymond Pearl comes to the following conclusion: “There are no proofs of a close relation between intellectual abilities and brainweight.” The English anthropologist, W. Duckworth, says: “There is no proof that a heavy brainweight is accompanied by great intellectual ability. Neither the brainweight, nor the capacity of the skull, nor the circumference of the head, where they could be determined, have been of any use as a measure of intellectual abilities."Kohlbruegge, who has during recent years published the results of the examinations of human brains of many races, says: “Intelligence and brainweight are entirely dependent of one another. Even the greater brainweight of famous men is not sufficient proof, since it exceeds the general medium weight, but not that of the upper classes to which these men belonged. But by these statements I do not seek to deny that brainweight can be increased, especially by excessive study during youth, which may account for the heavier brainweights and the greater skull capacity of the upper classes and of scholarly persons, especially when — as is, usually the case among the well-to-do — excessive nourishment is added. This increase in weight by mental over-exertion has its dark sides also, as is well known. Lunatics often have very heavy brains. The main point is that it cannot be proven that intelligence (something entirely different from productiveness) has any relation to weight. It is true of the external formation also, that until now, no connection could be shown between certain forms and higher mental development, intelligence, or genius.”
It is established, then, that we cannot draw conclusions from the brainweight as to mental qualities, as little as we can draw conclusions from the size of the body as to physical strength. The large mammals, such as elephant, whale, etc,, have larger and heavier brains; yet in regard to proportional brainweight they are excelled by most birds and small mammals. We have some very small animals (ant, bee) that are far more intelligent than much larger ones (for instance, sheep, cow), just as people of large stature often are mentally inferior to persons )f small and insignificant appearance. According to all probability the mass of the brain is not the determining factor, but its organization and the practice and use of its powers.
“In my opinion,” says Professor L. Stieda, “the difference in psychic functions can doubtlessly be accounted for by the finer construction of the gray matter, the nerve cells, the white matter, the arrangement of the blood-vessels, the construction, form, size and number of nervecells, and last but not least, their nutrition, their metabolic assimilation.”
If the brain is to attain the full development of its faculties, it must be exercised regularly, and the brain must be properly nourished, Just as every other organ; if this is left undone, or if the training is a faulty one, the normal development will be hampered, even crippled. One faculty is developed at the expense of another.
There are some anthropologists, as Manouvrier and others, who even seek to prove that woman is morphologically more highly developed than man. That is an exaggeration. Duckworth says: “When we compare the two sexes, we find that there is no constant difference that lets one sex appear morphologically superior to the other.” Havelock Ellis only admits of one limitation. He believes that female characteristics show fewer variations than the male. But, in an anticritique, Karl Pearson has explicitly shown that this is only a pseudoscientific superstition.
No one who is acquainted with the history of the development of woman can deny, that woman has been sinned against. If Professor Bischoff asserts that woman was enabled to develop her brain and her intelligence as well as man, this assertion merely shows an incredible degree of ignorance upon the subject. The description we have given in this book of the position of woman during the course of civilization, makes it appear quite natural, that thousands of years of male rule have brought about the difference in the physical and mental development of the sexes.
Our scientists ought to recognize that the laws of their sciences apply fully to man also. Heredity and adaptation prevail with man as with every other living creature. But if man constitutes no exception in nature, the law of evolution must apply to him also, whereby that becomes clear what otherwise remains wrapped in darkness, and then becomes an object of scientific mysticism or mystic science.
The brain formation of the sexes has developed in accordance with their different educations. Indeed during a great portion of the past, the word education could not be applied to woman at all. Physiologists are agreed that those parts of the brain which influence the intellect are situated in the fore-part of the head, while those that specially influence feeling and sentiment, are situated in the middle part. The conception of beauty for man and woman has developed accordingly. According to the Greek conception, which still prevails, woman is supposed to have a low forehead, while man is supposed to have a high and broad forehead. This conception of beauty, which is a symptom of her degradation, has been so impressed upon our women, that they consider a high forehead unbeautiful and seek to improve upon nature by combing their hair over their forehead to make it appear lower.
It has accordingly not been proven, that women are inferior to men as a result of the quantity of their brain; yet the present intellectual status of women is not surprising. Darwin is surely right in saying, that if a list of the ablest men on the subjects of poetry, painting, sculpture, music, science and philosophy were placed beside a list of the ablest women on the same subjects, the two could not compare with one another. But could it be otherwise? It would be surprising if it were not so. Very correctly Dr. Dodel (Zurich) says, that it would be different if for a number of generations men and women would be similarly educated. As a rule, woman is physically weaker than man also, which is by no means the case among many uncivilized peoples. How much can be attained by practice and training from childhood on, may, for instance, be seen with ladies of the circus and female acrobats, who achieve most astounding things in regard to courage, daring, skill and strength.
As all these things are conditioned by the mode of life and education, as they are — to use a scientific term — due to “breeding,” it may be assumed as certain that the physical and intellectual life of man will lead to the best results, as soon as man will consciously and expediently influence his development.
As plants and animals depend upon conditions of existence, as they are fostered by favorable and hampered by unfavorable ones, and as compulsory conditions force them to change their nature and character — provided that their influence does not destroy them — thus it is also with man. The manner in which a human being obtains his means of subsistence not only affects his external appearance, but also his feelings, his thoughts and his actions. If unfavorable conditions of existence — that is, unfavorable social conditions — are the cause of insufficient individual development, then it follows that by a change of his conditions of existence — that is, his social condition — man himself will be changed. The point in question, then, is, so to organize social conditions that every human being will be given an opportunity for the untrammelled development of his nature; that the laws of development and adaptation — called Darwinism after Darwin — may be consciously and expediently applied to all human beings. But that will only be possible under Socialism. As a rational being, capable of judgment, man must so alter his social conditions and everything in connection with them, that equally favorable conditions of existence prevail for all. Every individual shall be enabled to develop his talents and abilities to his own advantage as well as to the advantage of society, but he must not have the power to harm other individuals or society at large. His own advantage and the advantage of all shall coincide. Harmony of interests must supercede the conflict of interests that dominate present-day society.
Darwinism, like every true science, is an eminently democratic science. If some of its representatives claim that the opposite is true, they fail to recognize the range of their own science. Its opponents, especially the clergy, who are always quick to perceive any advantage or disadvantage to themselves, have recognized this, and therefore denounce Darwinism as being Socialistic or atheistic. In this respect Professor Virchow agrees with his most vehement opponents, for at the congress of Scientists, held in Munich in 1877, he asserted in opposition to Professor Haeckel: “The Darwinian theory leads to Socialism. Virchow tried to discredit Darwinism because Haeckel demanded, that the theory of evolution should be introduced into the school curriculum. The suggestion to teach science in the schools according to Darwin, and the results of modern scientific investigations, is vehemently opposed by all those who wish to maintain the present order. The revolutionary effect of these doctrines is well known; therefore it is deemed wiser to propagate them only among the chosen few. But we contend that if the Darwinian theories lead to Socialism, as Virchow claims, that is no argument against these theories, but an argument in favor of Socialism. Men of science should not question whether the consequences of a science lead to one form of the state or another, whether one social condition or another is justified by them; it is their sole duty to investigate whether the theories are in accordance with truth, and if they are, to accept them with all their consequences. Whoever acts otherwise, be it for personal gain or favor or to serve class or party interest, commits a despicable action and is no credit to science. The representatives of corporate science, especially at our universities, can indeed only rarely lay claim to independence of character. The fear of financial loss, or the fear of being discredited with the powers that be and of being thereby deprived of title and rank and the opportunity of advancement, causes most of these representatives to bow down and either to conceal their conviction, or to say publicly the opposite of what they believe and know. At a ceremony of homage to the ruler held at the University of Berlin in 1870, Dubois-Reymond exclaimed: “The universities are institutions where the intellectual body-guards of the Hohenzollern are trained.” If a Dubois-Reymond could express himself in this manner, we can imagine what conceptions in regard to the object of science are held by the majority of the others, who are very inferior to this eminent scientist. Science is degraded to serve the purposes of the ruling powers.
It is only natural that Professor Haeckel and his adherents, Professor 0. Schmidt, v. Hellwald and others, remonstrate energetically against the terrible accusation that Darwinism leads to Socialism. They claim that the opposite is true, that Darwinism is aristocratic, since it teaches that everywhere in nature the more highly organized and stronger living beings suppress the inferior ones; and since, according to their conception, the propertied and educated classes constitute these more highly organized and stronger living beings in human society, they consider the rule of these classes a matter of course, since it is justified by the laws of nature.
These, among our evolutionists, are ignorant of the economic laws which dominate bourgeois society. Otherwise they would know that the blind rule of these laws does not raise to social preeminence either the best or the ablest or the most competent, but frequently the worst and the most cunning, who thereby are placed in a position of making the conditions of life and development most favorable to their progeny, without the least effort on their part. Under no economic system did persons, possessing good and noble human qualities, have so little opportunity of attaining and maintaining an elevated position, as under the capitalistic system. Without fear of exaggeration it may be said, that this state of affairs increases with the development of this system. Lack of consideration for others and unscrupulousness in the choice and application of means to attain one’s end, prove far more effective than all human virtues combined. Only one who is ignorant of the nature of this society or who is so dominated by bourgeois prejudices that he cannot reason properly or draw correct conclusions, could regard a social system based upon such conditions as a society of the “fittest and best.” The struggle for existence is always present with all organisms. It goes on without any knowledge on their part of the laws and conditions that shape it. This struggle for existence prevails among men also and among the members of each social group from which solidarity has disappeared, or where it has not yet been developed. This struggle for existence changes its form according to the various relations of men to one another in the course of human development. It assumes the character of class struggles on an ever higher scale. But these struggles — and thereby man is distinguished from all other human beings — lead to a growing understanding of the nature of society, and finally to a recognition of the laws which determine its development. Eventually man will but need to apply these laws to his social and political institutions and to transform them accordingly. The difference is that man may be called a reasoning animal, but the animal is not a reasoning human being. This many Darwinists fail to see, owing to their biased conceptions, and therefore arrive at false conclusions.
Professor Haeckel and his adherents also deny that Darwinism leads to atheism. Thus, after they have done away with the “creator” by all their scientific arguments and proofs, they mask desperate efforts to re-introduce him. To attain this purpose a new sort of individual “religion” is formed, that has been termed “higher morality,” “moral principles,” etc. In 1882 at the congress of scientists in Eisenach, in the presence of the Grand-duke of Weimar and his family, Professor Haeckel endeavored not only to save religion but also to represent his master, Darwin, as being a religious man. The attempt failed, as anyone can affirm who read the lecture and the letter from Darwin that was quoted in it. Darwin’s letter expresses, though in careful terms, the opposite of what Professor Haeckel claimed it to express. Darwin was obliged to consider the piety of his fellow-countrymen, the English, therefore he never dared to express publicly his true views in regard to religion. But he did so privately, as became known shortly after the congress in Weimar, for he told Dr. L. Buechner that he had not believed since his fortieth year — since 1849 — because he had not been able to obtain proofs to justify belief. During the last years of his life Darwin also supported an atheistic newspaper, which was published in New York.
Women are justified in entering into intellectual competition with men, instead of waiting until it pleases the men to develop their intellectual faculties and to clear the path for them. The woman’s movement is providing for this. Already women have removed many barriers and have entered the intellectual arena — in some countries with marked success. The movement to obtain admission to the higher institutions of learning and to the practice of learned professions is, in accordance with the nature of our conditions limited to the circles of bourgeois women. The proletarian women are not directly concerned since, for the time being, these studies and the resulting positions are closed to them. Nevertheless, this movement and its success is an object of general interest. In the first place, it is a matter of principle, since it affects the general position of woman; in the second place, it is destined to show what women can accomplish even at present, under conditions that are highly unfavorable to their development. Moreover, all women are interested, for instance, in being able, in case of sickness, to be treated by physicians of their own sex, if they so choose, since many feel that they can confide with less reserve in a woman than in a man. To a great many of our women female physicians are a blessing, for the fact that they must turn to male physicians in the case of diseases or ailments connected with their sex functions, frequently prevents them from seeking medical aid in time. This leads to many troubles and serious results, not only to the women themselves, but to their husbands also. There is hardly a physician who has not had some experience with this reticence of women, that may sometimes be called almost criminal, and their aversion against confessing to their ailments. That is readily understood. But it is inconceivable that the men, and especially many physicians also, will not recognize how justifiable it is, therefore — indeed how necessary — for women to study medicine.
Female physicians are no novel factor. Among most of the ancients, especially among the ancient Germans, women practiced the art of healing. There were female physicians and surgeons of note during the ninth and tenth centuries in the kingdom of the Arabs, especially in Spain, under the rule of the Arabs (Moors), where they studied at the University of Cordova. The study of women at various Italian universities, as Bologna and Palermo, was also due to Moorish influence. When the “heathen” influence ceased in Italy, these studies were prohibited. In 1377 the faculty of the University of Bologna issued the following decree: “As woman is the source of sin, the devil’s tool, the cause of the expulsion from paradise, and the cause of corruption of the old law, and as therefore every conversation with her should be carefully avoided, we distinctly forbid and interdict any one to venture to introduce any woman, no matter how respectable she may be, into this college. Should sonic one do so nevertheless, the rector shall punish him severely.”
One good result of the study of women is, that female competition has a very stimulating influence on the studiousness of the male students, which has left much to be wished for, as has been affirmed by various sources. That alone would be a great gain. It would furthermore considerably improve their habits. The drunkenness, pugnacity, and beer-saloon habit of our students would become greatly checked. Those places from which our statesmen, judges, public attorneys, police officials, ministers, representatives of the people, etc., are chiefly recruited, would become more worthy of the objects for which they were founded and are being maintained. According to the impartial opinions of those competent to judge, such an improvement is exceedingly needful.
The number of states that admit women to their high-schools and universities are rapidly increasing since a few decades. None that lays claim to being a civilized state can offer continued resistance to this demand. The United States took the lead and Russia followed, two states that are diametrically opposed to one another in every respect. In the North American Union women have been admitted to high-schools and universities in all the states; in Utah since 1850; in Iowa since 1860; in Kansas since 1866; in Wisconsin since 1868; in Minnesota since 1869; in California and Missouri since 187o, and in Ohio, Illinois and Nebraska since 1871. Since then all the other states followed. Quite in accordance with their opportunity for study, the women in the United States have achieved their positions. According to the census of 1900 there were: 7399 female physicians and surgeons, 5989 writers, 1041 architects, 3405 ministers, 1010 lawyers, and 327,905 teachers. in Europe, Switzerland took the lead in opening its universities to women. The following shows the number of male and female students at Swiss universities:
Total Enrolled female students Total number of women attending courses
During the term 1906 to 1907 the female students were distributed as follows among the various faculties: law , 75; medicine, 1181; philosophy, 648. According to nationality there were 172 Swiss women, and 1732 foreigners. The number of German women students in Switzerland has decreased, since they are admitted to German universities now , although not without restrictions. During the term 1906 to 1907 the number of regularly enrolled female students constituted about 30 per cent. of all the students. In England women are admitted to lecture at the universities, but at Oxford and Cambridge they are still barred from taking degrees. In France in 1905 there were 33,168 students, among these 1922 women (774 foreigners). They were distributed as follows: Law, 57; medicine, 386; sciences, 259; literature, 838; miscellaneous, 382. The following are the countries in which women have been admitted to universities: United States, England, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Russia, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, France, Turkey and Australia. Female physicians are admitted to the practice of their profession in India, Abysinnia, Persia, Morocco, China, etc. Especially in the Oriental countries female physicians are constantly gaining ground. The restrictions that custom and religion place upon women in these countries make female physicians an especially great boon.
After long struggles and great exertions, Germany, too, has at last taken a new course, though timidly at first. By a decision passed by the Federal Council on April 24, 1899, women have been admitted to examinations for the practice of medicine and dentristry, as well as pharmacy, upon the same terms as men. By another decision of the Federal Council of July 28, 1900, German women physicians who studied abroad are admitted to practice in Germany, and studies commenced abroad were accredited to them. Even since 1898 some German universities, as Heidelberg and Goettingen, had opened their doors to women. During the term 1901 to 1902, 1270 women attending courses were already ennumerated in the registers of the universities. In a number of German cities girls’ high-schools and colleges were founded; thus in Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, Hannover, Koenigsberg, Hamburg, Frankfort on the Main, Breslau, Berlin, Schoeneberg, Mannheim, etc. But in the spring of 1902, the senate of the University of Berlin again declined a request by female students, to be matriculated upon presentation of a certificate of admission from a German, college. The opposition by very influential circles in Germany against the study of women had not yet been overcome. During March of 1902, the Prussian minister of public instruction delivered a speech in the Prussian diet, in which he said among other things, that they girls’ colleges are an experiment that must be declined by the ministry of public instruction. He feared, so he said, that the differences between man and woman established by nature and developed by civilization, would be impaired by the study of girls at colleges and universities, and that the characteristics of the German woman ought to be maintained for the welfare of the German family. That is quite in keeping with the old conception. Many German professors also continue to oppose study for women, though others admit that many of the female students are well, some even excellently qualified, to meet the demands made upon them. What some of the students, perhaps a majority of them, thought in regard to the study of women, may be seen from the following protest of the clinical students at Halle, addressed to the medical students of Germany generally during March of 1902. After it states that the protest has been caused by the agitation, carried on by the “Society for Furthering the Education of Women in Berlin,” to admit women to the study of medicine, it goes on to say: “Since this question has been called to public attention, the clinical students of Halle turn to those circles to whom the decision is of prime importance, the clinical students and physicians at German universities. They either know the resulting unpleasantness from personal experience, or can picture to what unwholesome situations, devoid of all modesty, this common clinical instruction must lead, situations that are too revolting to be described. The medical faculty of the university of Halle was one of the first to admit women to the study of medicine, and the innovation may be regarded as a complete failure. Into these halls of earnest endeavor cynicism has entered with the women, and scenes frequently occur that are equally obnoxious to instructors, students and patients. Here the emancipation of woman becomes a calamity, conflicting with morality, and should be checked. Colleagues, who would dare, in the face of these facts, to oppose our just demands? We demand the exclusion of women from clinical instruction, because experience has taught us that a common clinical instruction of male and female students is incompatible with a thoroughgoing study of medicine, as well as with the principles of decency and morality. This question taken up by us is no longer a local one. Already it has been stated in government circles, that women are to be definitely admitted to the study of medicine. You all now are equally interested in our cause, and therefore we appeal to you: Express your opinion on this question and join with us in a common protest!”
This protest is a striking proof of the narrow-mindedness of the clinical students and also of their envy, for petty envy is at the bottom )f most of their moral considerations. How can an institution that has existed for years in other civilized countries, without injuring the morals and the sense of decency of male and female students, be considered a peril to Germany? The German students are not famed for their morality and ought to refrain from a moral outburst that seems like a jest. If it is not incompatible with decency and morality for female nurses to be present and to render assistance to the physicians during all kinds of operations upon male and female patients, if it is decent and proper for dozens of young men to surround, for the purpose of study, the bed of a woman in the throes of child-birth, and to witness operations upon female patients, then it is ridiculous to seek to exclude the female students.
Very different from the reasons given by the clinical students of Halle, was an argument advanced against the admission of women to the study of medicine by the late Professor Bischoff. The reason he gave was the brutality of the male students, which he was well qualified to judge. But, regardless of the narrow-mindedness or envy of men, the question has been decided in favor of the women. On August 18, 1908, an edict was published, decreeing the regular enrollment of female students at the universities of Prussia, where until then they had been admitted to the lectures. The only restriction is, that for the purpose of immatriculation German women require the consent of the minister in one case, and foreigners require it in all cases. The entire number of women students enrolled at German universities was, during the term of 1908-1909, 1077, as against 377 during the summer of 1908, and 254 in 1906. They were distributed among the various universities as follows: Berlin, 400; Bonn, 69; Breslau, 50; Erlangen, 11 ; Freiburg, 67; Giessen, 23; Goettingen, 71; Greifswald, 5; Halle, 22; Heidelberg, 109; Jena, 13; Kiel, 2; Koenigsberg, 17; Leipsic, 44; Marburg, 27; Munich, 134; Tuebingen, 6, Wuerzburg, 7. Only the universities of Strassburg, Rostock and Muenster had no female students. The entire number of women attending courses was 1787 during the summer of 1908, and 1767 during the term 1908 to 1909. They were distributed as follows: Berlin, 313; Strassburg, 249; Breslau, 168; Munich, 131 ; Bonn, 120 Koenigsberg, 116; Leipsic, 95; Giessen, 93; Goettingen: 73; Tuebingen, 67; Halle, 54; Freiburg, 50, and in all others less than 50. Of the regularly enrolled women students 3 studied theology; 31, law; 334, medicine, and 709, philosophy.
The admission of women to the universities necessitated a thoroughgoing reform of girls’ high-schools. According to the provisions of May 31, 1899, a nine years’ course had been set down as the rule for girls’ high-schools, while a ten years’ course was the exception. But development necessitated the regular introduction of a tenth class. According to statistics there were in 1901, 213 public high-schools for girls; among these go had a nine years’ course and 54 a ten years’ course. In October, 1907, the number of schools having a nine years’ course had decreased from go to 69, and the number of schools having a ten years’ course had increased from 54 to 132. Among the private schools for girls, too, there were, besides 110 with a nine years’ course, 138 with a ten years’ course. It only remained to add the bureaucratic seal to this actual development, and to preserve as much as possible of the “characteristics of German women.” According to the reform of August 18, 1908, girls’ high schools shall consist of ten grades. To “complete her education in regard to the future life’s work of a German woman,” it is planned to found a lyceum with a course from one to two years. In order to prepare young girls of the upper classes for academic training, colleges are being planned, which are to be under the same management as the girls’ high-schools.
Thereby an experiment, which the board of education still refused to consider in March 1902, is now, six years later, under the pressure of economic development, being introduced by that same board on a, national scale. Let us consider the official argumentation! It reads as follows:
“The rapid development of our civilization and the resulting changes in social, economic and educational conditions, have brought about that, especially in the middle and upper classes, many girls remain unprovided for, and much ability reposing in woman, that may be valuable to the community, remains unapplied. The numerical superiority of the female population and the increasing bachelorhood of men of the tipper classes, compel a large percentage of educated girls to renounce their natural profession of wifehood and motherhood. It becomes necessary to open professions to them that are suited to their education, and to give them an opportunity to earn their living, not only by teaching, but also by other professions attainable by a university education.” This almost reads like an extract from my book!
Be this as it may, the higher education of women can no longer be halted. There are female physicians in all civilized countries of the world, and even in some that are not yet regarded as civilized. The late Li Hung Chang had appointed as his family physician a Chinese woman doctor who practiced at the woman’s hospital of her native town, Futchang. The late Sonia Kowalewska, the noted mathematician, was professor of mathematics at the University of Stockholm from 1889 until her death in 1891. There are many women professors in the United States, and some also in Italy, Switzerland, England and France. In France the famous Marie Curie, who together with her husband discovered radium, and polonium, was, after the death of her husband in 1906, appointed his successor at the university. We see women acting as physicians, dentists, lawyers, chemists, physicists, geologists, botanists, teachers at higher institutions of learning, etc., and it is tip to the women themselves to prove by their achievements, that they are as competent to fill the positions entrusted to them as men. In Switzerland, during the summer of 1899, a majority of voters in the Canton of Zurich, favored the admission of women to the practice of law. The decision was passed by 21,717 against 20,046 votes. In the United States women are admitted to the bar in 34 states. They are also admitted in France, Holland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Russia, Canada and Australia.
Many men, especially learned men, are opposed to the higher education of women, because they believe that the sciences will become degraded if even women can practice them. They regard scientific study as a privilege reserved for the chosen few of the male sex.
Unfortunately our universities, as our entire educational system, still leave much to be wished for. As the children in the public schools are frequently robbed of the most valuable time to cram their brains with a lot of things that are not in conformity with reason and scientific knowledge, as they are burdened with a lot of learning that will prove useless in life and will rather hamper than help their development, thus it is also with our higher institutions of learning. In the preparatory schools the pupils are crammed with a lot of useless stuff, mostly learned by rote, that absorbs most of their time and strength, and in the universities the same method is generally pursued. Besides good and useful things, many that are antiquated and superfluous continue to be taught. Most professors repeat the same lectures term after term even down to the interspersed jokes. To many the noble profession of teaching becomes a mere trade, and it does not require much intelligence on the part of the students to perceive this. The prevailing conceptions concerning college life also prevent the young people from taking their studies too seriously, and some who would like to take them seriously are repulsed by the pedantic and uninteresting methods of many professors. It is generally admitted that students at high-schools and universities are becoming less studious, a fact that has caused some alarm among the authorities. Alongside of this we find toadyism and patronage playing an important part at our institutions of learning in this age, which is marked by a lack of character. To be of good family and to have “sound principles,” is regarded as being of greater importance than knowledge and ability. A patriot — that is, one who has no convictions of his own, but takes his cue from his superiors and fawns upon them — is considered more than a man of character, wisdom and ability. When examinations come around, men of this type cram for a few months what is needful to attain the passing mark, and when the examinations have been passed successfully, and they have attained an official or professional position, many of these “scholars” merely continue to work in a mechanical way. Yet they are very insulted if a man, who is not a “scholar,” does not treat them with utmost respect and fails to regard them as a superior species of human being. The majority of our professional men, lawyers, judges, physicians, professors, public officials, artists, etc., are merely mechanics in their line, and their sole object is personal gain. Only the industrious man discovers later on how much superfluous knowledge he assimilated and how often he failed to learn that which he requires most, and then begins to learn anew. During the best part of his life he has been bothered with much that was useless or harmful; he requires a second part of his life to cast what is useless or harmful aside and to attain the heights of the views of his time, and then only can he become a useful member of society. Many do not surpass the first stage, others come to a standstill in the second, and only few have the energy to struggle on to the third.
But decorum demands that the mediaeval trash and superfluous learning should be maintained, and as women have been until now, and in many cases still are, excluded from the preparatory institutions, this fact furnishes a convenient excuse for excluding them from the lecture halls of the universities. In Leipsic, during the seventies, one of the most noted professors of medicine made the following frank confession to a lady: “A classical education is not essential to an understanding of medicine, but it must be made a condition of entrance to maintain the, dignity of science.”
Opposition against an obligatory, classical education as being essential to the study of medicine, is gradually manifesting itself in Germany also. The tremendous advance of the sciences and their great importance to life in general, necessitates a scientific training. But the classical education, with its special preference of Greek and Latin, considers science unimportant and neglects it. It therefore frequently happens that young students are wanting in the most elementary scientific knowledge, that is of decisive importance for a study like medicine. Even teachers themselves are beginning to oppose this one-sided method of education. In other countries, for instance, in Switzerland, the study of science has long since been held as being of prime importance, and all who possess sufficient preliminary knowledge in the natural sciences and mathematics are admitted to the study of medicine, even without having had a so-called classical education. The same is true of Russia, the United States, and other countries.
In Russia, where suppression and persecution of the Jews is considered one of the maxims of government, an imperial ukase, in 1907, prescribed that in the newly established school of medicine for women, only 5 per cent. of the students might be of other than Christian faith. Of these Only 3 per cent. might be Jewesses, and the remaining 2 per cent. were to be reserved for students of Moslem origin. This is one of the retrogressive measures which are daily occurrences in Russia. The Russian government certainly had no cause for such provisions, because there is quite a dearth of physicians in that tremendous realm, and because the Russian women practitioners, regardless of their faith or origin, have been noted for the most unselfish devotion in the practice of their profession. Dr. Erismann, who practiced in Russia for many years, delivered a lecture at the 54th annual convention of the Medical Society in Olten, in which he said: Very favorable were the experiences gathered during the first years in regard to the activity of the female physicians. From the very beginning they were enabled to win the confidence of the people. In the noble competition with their male colleagues they even carried off the laurels. It was soon observed that the female physicians, on an average, treated more patients annually than the male physicians, although the latter proved very efficient and unselfish, likewise. Female patients especially, in great numbers, sought aid with the women doctors.”
On the other band, female competition, so much feared by men, especially in regard to the practice of medicine, has not been in evidence. It seems that female physicians obtain a circle of patients from their own sex who apply to male physicians rarely, or only in cases of extreme necessity. It has, moreover, been observed that a great many women physicians abandon their profession as soon as they enter into marriage. It seems that in present-day society the domestic duties of married women are so numerous, especially where there are children, that many women find it impossible to have two professions simultaneously. A physician must be constantly prepared, by day and by night, to practice her profession, and to many that becomes impossible.
After England, the United States and France took lead in employing women as factory inspectors — an innovation that has become all the more necessary because, as has been shown, the number of women in industry is rapidly increasing, and the industries employing women, chiefly or exclusively, are increasing likewise — a number of German states have also followed their example. Baden, Bavaria, Hessia, the Kingdom of Saxony, Weimar, Wurtemberg, and others have added women assistants to their factory inspectors, and some of these have already achieved much recognition by their activity. In Prussia there are three women factory inspectors in Berlin, and one each in Duesseldorf, Breslau and Wiesbaden. This proves again how the progress of Prussia has been retarded compared with other German states. There is not a single woman assistant in districts like Potsdam (with 32,299 working women), Frankfort on the Oder (with 31,371), Liegnitz (with 31,798), and others, where their presence is extremely needful. Here, too, it has been seen that working women confide more readily in members of their own sex, and that female factory inspectors have been able to obtain much information that was denied to their male colleagues. One shortcoming of this institution is that the assistants frequently are not given the autonomy that is needful in their position, and their pay is not what it ought to be, either. The new institution is being tried out carefully and hesitatingly.
In Germany the prejudice and aversion against employing women in public offices is particularly strong, because so many retired military men annually seek appointments to all kinds of offices in the state and municipal administrations, that there is hardly any room left for applicants from other circles. When women are employed, nevertheless, their salary is considerably lower, whereby they immediately appear as being worth less than men, and whereby they also become a means to keep down wages and salaries.
The great variety of female ability could be observed especially well at the World’s Fair in Chicago, in 1893. The splendid woman’s building had been entirely planned by female architects, and the articles displayed that had been designed and made by women exclusively, were much admired for their tasty and artistic execution. In the realm of invention, too, women have achieved much and will achieve still more. An American trade-journal published a list of inventions by women; among them were: An improved spinning machine; a rotary loom, which produces three times as much as the usual kind; a chain elevator; a connecting-rod for a propeller; a fire-escape; an apparatus for weighing wool, one of the most delicate machines that have ever been invented, of immeasurable value to the wool industry; a fire extinguisher; a process of employing petroleum as a fuel for steam-engines instead of wood or coal; an improved spark-catcher for locomotives; a signal for grade-crossings; a system of heating cars without fire; a lubricating felt to diminish friction (on railroads) ; a typewriter; a signal-rocket for the navy; a deep-sea telescope; a system for subduing the noise of the elevated trains; a smoke-consumer; a machine for folding paper bags, etc. Many improvements on sewing machines have been made by women; for instance, an appliance for sewing canvas and coarse cloth; an apparatus for threading the needle while the machine is running; an improvement of machines for sewing leather, etc. The last-named invention was made by a woman who was a harness-maker in New York. The deep-sea telescope, invented by Mrs. Mather and improved by her daughter, is an invention of great importance, since it makes it possible to examine the keel of the largest vessel without bringing same into a dry-dock. With the aid of this telescope sunken wrecks may be examined from ship-board, obstacles to navigation and torpedoes may be located, and so forth.
A machine famed in America and Europe for its complicated and ingenious construction, is one for the manufacture of paper bags. Many men, among them noted mechanicians, had tried in vain to construct a machine of this sort. It was invented by a woman, Miss Maggie Knight. The same lady has since invented a machine for the folding of paper bags, which performs the labor of thirty persons. She personally conducted the construction of this machine in Amherst, Massachusetts.
1. Original Property. Chap. XX, Household Community. Leipsic, 1879.
2. Structure and Life of the Body Social. Vol. I. Tuebingen, 1878
3. Dr. Havelock Ellis. — Man and Woman.
4. The following average weights of male and female brains have been determined by the following scientists:
Male brain. Female brain.
Bischoff (Bavaria) 1219
Boyd (England) 1325 1183
Marchand (Hessia) 1399 1248
Retzius (Sweden) 1388 1252
5. Men of genius as a rule are small of stature with a massy brain. These are also the chief characteristics of the child, and their general facial expression as also their temperament resemble the child’s. Havelock Ellis, Man and Woman.
6. J. Blakeman, Alice Lee & K. Pearson — A Study of the biometric constants of English Brainweights. Biometrica, 1905.
7. Dr. Otto Grosser — The structure of the female body in “Man and Woman.” Stuttgart, 1907.
8. According to five different authors: 838, 864, 878, 883, 897. For Prussia (Kupfer), 918; for Bavaria (Rause), 893.
9. Raymond Pearl — Variation or Correlation in Brainweight. Biometrika, vol. IV. June, 1905,
10. W. Duckworth — Morphology and Anthropology. Cambridge, 1904.
11. Kohlbruegge — Investigations of the furrows of the brain of human races. Journal of Morphology and Anthropology. Stuttgart, 1908.
12. L. Stieda — The Brain of the Philologist. journal of Morphology and Anthropology, 1907.
13. Duckworth (as above).
14. K. Pearson — Variation in Man and Woman in Chances of Death. London, 1897.
15. The Newer History of the Creation.
16. Proofs of this may be found in the previously quoted book by Dr. Havelock Ellis. He relates that among many savage and semi-savage tribes woman is not only man’s equal in regard to size and strength, but even his superior. Ellis is agreed with others that the differences of brain between the sexes have increased with the development of civilization.
17. “The hall of science is the temple of democracy.,” Buckle — History of Civilization in England. Vol. II.
18. Ziegler denies that this was the sense of Virchow’s remarks, but his own report of Virchow’s speech only confirms it. Virchow said: “Now. just picture how the theory of evolution is conceived even today by the brain of a Socialist! (Laughter) Yes, gentlemen, that may seem amusing to some of you, but it is a very serious matter, and I only hope the theory of evolution may not bring us such horrors as similar theories have brought about in our neighboring country. If this theory is consistently followed out it is very hazardous, and you cannot have failed to observe that Socialism is in sympathy with it. We should make this perfectly clear.” — Well, we have done what Virchow feared, we have drawn the conclusions of the Darwinian theories that Darwin himself and many of his followers either failed to draw or drew incorrectly, and Virchow warned against the dangers of these doctrines because he perceived that Socialism would draw and would have to draw the conclusions that ere involved in them.
19. In reference to former attacks upon him, Dubois Reymond repeated the sentence quoted above in February, 1883, during the commemoration of the birthday of Frederick the Great.
20. Enrico Ferri published a book on “Socialism and Modern Science, Darwin — Spencer — Marx,” in which he proves, especially in answer to Haeckel, that Darwinism and Socialism are in complete harmony and that it is a grave error on Haeckel’s part to characterize Darwinism as being aristocratic. We do not agree with Ferri’s book in every respect. We especially do not share his point of view in judging the qualities of women, which is, in the main, the point of Lombroso and Ferrero. Ellis has shown in “Man and Woman” that an existing difference in the qualities of man and woman does not imply the inferiority of one — a confirmation of Kant’s utterance, that only man and woman together constitute the complete human being. Nevertheless Ferri’s book is a welcome one.
21. A statistic compiled by Blaschko gives the following information in regard to the extension of sexual diseases among the various occupations. First come the secret prostitutes with 30 per cent; then the students with 25 per cent; merchants with 16, and workingmen with 9 per cent,
22. In special cases women may be excluded from certain lectures with the consent of the minister of education.
23. The organization of free clinical treatment of patients in the large cities of Russia. — German Quarterly of Public Hygiene.
24. What difficulties are entailed for women who have a family and at the same time wish to, or have to, practice a trade or profession, has been ably shown in the book by Adele Gerhard and Helen Simon: “Maternity and Intellectual Occupations” (Berlin, 1901, George Reimer). It contains the personal experiences and opinions of writers, artists, singers, actresses, etc., and these opinions prove that society must be completely reorganized to give full play to the great amount of female intelligence that exists and strives for expression, since it is in the interest of society itself that it should be given full play.
25. According to the last report for 1908, England has 16 female factory inspectors, Miss A. M. Anderson and 15 assistants.
26. The first woman factory inspector was appointed in Bavaria in 1897. From then until 1909 the number of woman factory inspectors rose to 26. Fourteen states had until then not appointed any. | <urn:uuid:ff1a2d4f-062f-49ed-991b-2d3a7434017d> | {
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Martin Luther King - An Integrated Lesson Unit for Primary Classrooms
This unit offers three lessons for primary classrooms:
"Listening to a Vision" exposes students to the words and writings of Dr. King, and offers them an opportunity to reflect on his work at an appropriate level.
"Listening to a Vision" - K-2 version
"Listening to a Vision" - 3rd grade version
"Listening to a Vision" - 4th grade version
"Breaking Color Barriers" is a science lesson that asks students to use the scientific method to illustrate that, while things may appear different on the outside, they're the same on the inside.
Breaking Color Barriers - K-2 version
Breaking Color Barriers - 3rd & 4th grade version
"The Mathematical Montgomery Bus" offers students a chance to count passengers and fill a Montgomery bus.
They Had a Dream Too - This related research project may be used as a culminating activity for this unit, or as an independent unit. | <urn:uuid:30f5e2b5-b74d-405a-904f-af280d0463ba> | {
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James Watt and the Bubbling Kettle
by Gail Skroback Hennessey
Take a look around the room. What do you see? Did you ever think that something you see might lead to an invention that would change the world? That's what happened to young James Watt.
In the mid 1700s, 12-year-old James sat in the kitchen with his aunt, staring at a teakettle. The water was boiling so hard that the lid of the teakettle began to jump up and down. For over an hour, James stared at the teakettle. His aunt told him he was wasting time, but James was too fascinated with the teakettle to stop. When he held the lid down tightly, the powerful steam escaped from the kettle's spout. Removing his hand from the lid made it bounce again.
As he watched the kettle, James learned about the power of steam. Later, James put that experience to good use. He invented a way to get even more power from the steam engine, without burning any more fuel. James Watt's improvements on the steam engine made it a more powerful tool.
The next time you see something interesting, remember young James and the bubbling kettle.
- By what process is thermal energy transferred inside of a teakettle?
[anno: Thermal energy is transferred by convection.]
- What are the particles of matter in steam?
[anno:The particles of matter in steam are air and water.]
- Where would you find radiant energy produced by a boiling teakettle?
[anno: You would find radiant energy in the air next to the surface of a boiling teakettle.]
- James Watts noticed that the lid of the teakettle was bouncing around on the top of the teakettle. Was the boiling water or the steam moving the lid?
[anno: The steam caused the teakettle's lid to bounce up and down.]
- Why do you think steam has been used to power engines? Write a sentence or two for your answer.
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When it comes to global warming, the public at large doesn't know what to believe anymore. Global warming alarmists have been hammering at us for years; the media is made up mostly of true believers; and politicians, who, in the absence of understanding and knowledge about climate science, have put themselves out on a limb from which it is difficult to retreat. Given the economic interests and the political powers involved, this dilemma will not go away quietly.
Alarmists are appealing to so-called "consensus science" and trying to scare the world into throwing away hundreds of billions of dollars in a fruitless effort to control the temperature of the Earth. In the absence of supporting facts, they have moved the issue into the court of public opinion where politics, media and money play important roles.
The question of human-caused global warming should not be resolved on the publicized opinions of influential journalists, but in the court of scientific inquiry based on the scientific data. The interested public can find legitimate and easily understood empirical data online. None of it supports the alarmists' belief in human-caused global warming.
It makes good sense to look at the history of climate science.
Empirical data, collected over several centuries, led to a provisional theory of climate change. Scientists have long known that the sun, oceans and variations in the Earth's orbit are the principal drivers of climate change. Although we don't fully understand all of the mechanisms or interactions involved, this theory has stood the test of time. In the process, it became the de facto theory of climate change. | <urn:uuid:c76698bf-b173-47f7-8189-665785c4fc6b> | {
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Bet your knowledge and answer
Pizza is an Italian dish consisting of a dough base of flour, water and yeast. On top, you put a variety of toppings, which may be cheese, tomato, and pepperoni. Pizza has become a popular food in many parts of the world. You can buy them at a pizzeria. The word pizza came into the Italian language around the year 1000 AD, and meant a piece of bread with a little bit of topping. The original Italian pizza originated from Naples in southern Italy and is a dough base with mozzarella, tomato sauce and fresh basil, known as Pizza Margherita. | <urn:uuid:d459094c-51ed-4ee4-940e-d3310c920a3c> | {
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Talk about disruptive technology!
CMU researchers took their floating robots, which are designed to look like river crocodiles, to Kenya’s Mara River Basin recently in an effort to study the effects of feces — yes feces –and its effects on the water table crocodiles and hippos call home.
Researchers said an estimated 4,000 hippos, which statistically kill more people every year in Africa than their croc friends do, use the Mara River as their personal toilet. Carnegie Mellon University’s well regarded Robotics Institute designed its floating robotic boats at the suggestion of a local African guide.
Team members said the robot boats were “generally tolerated” by their hippo and crocodile hosts, save one of the latter.
According to CMU associate research professor Paul Scerri, who dodged an enraged two-ton hippo that took umbrage at the presence of robot boats dressed like crocs and briefly gave chase to the research team, “Those were 30 seconds that none of us will forget.”
The research teams included members from Yale University and the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. According to a CMU release, the team has been studying water quality on the river for the last six years.
Data from the study is still being compiled.
Project researchers put it this way:
“Floating Robots Venture Over Brown Pools Where Humans Dare Not Go.” | <urn:uuid:bd394f27-28fe-4f2c-83c2-9501279d54f9> | {
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Use your creativity to bring all kinds of ideas to life, from animation to production simulations, and from gaming to building designs. In Purdue’s computer graphics program, you will turn your ideas (and ideas of others) into models, digital animations, interactive games and more.
Wherever people need to visualize a final product or another world, the skills of a computer graphics graduate can help.
In addition to a general computer graphics degree, you can develop more in-depth knowledge and skills in other areas:
- Web Programming & Design
- Technical animation
- Manufacturing graphics
- Construction graphics
- Virtual product integration
- Take advantage of the flexible curriculum to specialize in an area based on your interests and talents
- Benefit from faculty experience in graphic or communication careers
- Gain industry-standard experience in labs and facilities with the latest technologies
- Improve your career prospects with real-world research projects that allow you to work alongside faculty and for actual clients | <urn:uuid:cf4353e7-1ef4-4d46-be92-7c295e49be1d> | {
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Special Education Law
Special education law is a vast area and is constantly changing. Numerous books and websites have been created around this topic, informing the public of the laws and changes to the laws. In addition, each state can have regulations that add to the federal statutes.
An in depth summation of the laws is beyond the scope of this project. This section will give the educator an overview of the major regulations related to special education with resources to further information provided. Our funder, and our project, are both based in Texas, hence those will be the state regulations discussed in this section.
After reviewing the module, the learner will be able to:
- Examine the history of federal special education legislation.
- Explore the impact of this legislation on public schools.
- Become familiar with key terms and acronyms related to special education.
- Understand the special education referral process.
- Recognize the usefulness of mediation in an educational setting.
Special Education Public Policy
The Education for All Handicapped Children Act (Public Law 94-142) was signed into law on November 29, 1975 by President Gerald Ford. This legislation is considered the “Bill of Rights” for children with disabilities and their families. The legislation incorporated six major components or guarantees that have forever changed the landscape of education across the United States.
Other Major Federal Legislation for Individuals with Disabilities
States are allowed to have statutes that add to the protections for students with disabilities but not to take away from what is provided by IDEA. In Texas, they are found in the Texas Administrative Code (TAC), Title 19, Part II, Chapter 89. Adaptations for Special Populations.
The Special Education Referral Process
Because of the federal laws and regulations that govern the education of students with disabilities, a process has evolved over time that governs the special education referral process. The purpose of this module is to provide an overview to the “Special Education Process” so that the learner may understand the global procedures for providing a student with disabilities a free and appropriate education (FAPE).
Mediation for Educators
Mediation is a problem-solving intervention that is used in creating solutions in a variety of disputes and conflicts. Mediation can be used anywhere there is a dispute. Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) is a continuum of problem solving methods with mediation as one of the options. | <urn:uuid:3e43823c-89ac-4ee4-9ea3-35a23fe9791a> | {
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Definition of saliva in English:
Watery liquid secreted into the mouth by glands, providing lubrication for chewing and swallowing, and aiding digestion.
- The total daily flow of saliva from all the salivary glands is around 600 ml.
- When the food doesn't go down, the mouth produces more saliva to try and lubricate everything into submission.
- The flu virus is usually spread in the small droplets of saliva coughed or sneezed into the atmosphere by an infected person.
- Example sentences
- Tolterodine is a recently introduced antimuscarinic agent, which has a lower affinity for muscarinic receptors in the salivary glands.
- Reflex secretion of saliva from the salivary glands under the tongue and in the cheeks is stimulated by chewing, taste and smell, to varying degrees.
- Scientists are working on gene therapy, improved artificial saliva and artificial salivary glands.
Late Middle English: from Latin.
Words that rhyme with salivaconniver, contriver, diver, driver, fiver, Godiva, Ivor, jiver, Liver, reviver, skiver, striver, survivor, viva
What do you find interesting about this word or phrase?
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Spooner vs. Liberty
by Carl Watner
(This article first appeared in THE LIBERTARIAN FORUM, Volume 7, No. 3, March 1975)
our Editor has published an essay entitled "Justice and Property
Rights." The main theme of his article is first, to demonstrate
that libertarians must have a means, independent of the State, to determine
the rightness or wrongness of property holdings, and secondly, to furnish
us with such a theory of proprietary justice. His program is based
on two fundamental premises: "(a) the absolute property right of
each individual in his own person, his own body; this may be called
the right of self-ownership; and (b) the absolute right in material
property of the person who first finds an unused material resource and
then in some way occupies or transforms that resource by the use of
his personal energy. This might be called the homestead principle. .
." These same premises, in one form or another, were bandied
about by the 19th Century native American individualist anarchists.
Since today's libertarians are more or less their direct descendants,
it will be enlightening to examine their disputes about the homesteading
and self-ownership axioms.
the two most famous of the American anarchists of the last half of the
19th Century were Benjamin Tucker and Lysander Spooner. Fortunately
for US, Spooner's writings have been preserved and reprinted. Although
Tucker was not a book writer, his thought has been carried down to us
through his writings in his periodical LIBERTY (1881- 1908). As we
will see, some of their ideas are yet in accord with our contemporary
libertarian thought. Although Murray Rothbard has seen fit to criticize
Spooner and Tucker in his essay, "The Spooner-Tucker Doctrine from
the Point of View of an Economist," in fact, much of Spooner's
thinking on land titles was actually in accord with the program Dr.
defended unlimited private land ownership and grounded his support of
this theory on the homesteading axiom: "The right of property in
material wealth is acquired, . . .in one of these two ways, viz.: first,
by simply taking possession of natural wealth, or the productions of
nature; and, secondly by the artificial production of other wealth.
. . The natural wealth of the world belongs to those who first take
possession of it. . . There is no limit, fixed by the law of nature,
to the amount of property one may acquire simply by taking possession
of natural wealth, not already possessed, except the limit fixed by
(a person's) power or ability to take such possession, without doing
violence to the person or property of others." Spooner would
have definitely agreed with Rothbard, that ". .once a piece of
land passes justly into Mr. A's ownership, he cannot be said to truly
own that land unless he can conveyor sell the title to Mr . B, and to
prevent B from exercising his title simply because he doesn't choose
to use it himself but rather rents it out vo1untarily to Mr. C, is an
invasion of B's freedom of contract and of his right to his justly-acquired
had expressed his ideas on land ownership in his LAW OF INTELLECTUAL
PROPERTY (1855) and in his pamphlet, REVOLUTION: A REPLY TO 'DUNRAVEN'
(1880). Tucker took him to task in LIBERTY: "I call Spooner's work
on 'Intellectual Property' positively foolish because it is fundamentally
foolish, --because, that is to say, its discussion of the acquisition
of property starts with a basic proposition that must be looked upon
by all consistent Anarchists as obvious nonsense. I quote this basic
proposition. 'The natural wealth of the world belongs to those who first
take possession of it. . . So much natural wealth, remaining unpossessed,
as anyone can take possession of first, becomes absolutely his property.'
" Tucker charged Spooner with being a defender of unlimited
land ownership since Spooner's proposition would allow that ".
. .a man may go to a piece of vacant land and fence it off; that he
may then go to a second piece and fence that off; then to a third, and
fence that off; then to a fourth, a fifth, a hundredth, a thousandth,
fencing them all off; that, unable to fence off himself as many as he
wishes, he may hire other men to do fencing for him; and that then he
may stand back and bar all other men from using these lands, or admit
them as tenants at such rental as he may choose to exact."
In these circumstances, Tucker asked: "What becomes of the Anarchistic
doctrine of occupancy and use as the basis and limit of land ownership'?
was a great critic of the land ownership system existing in the 19th
Century. Absentee land ownership presented a serious problem in Ireland.
Due to the agitation of the "No-Rent Movement" and the Irish
Land League and the publicity of the ideas of Henry George, the subject
of land ownership was very much a topic of public concern. Tucker believed
that the occupancy and use theory of land holding solved the
problem of justice in land ownership. The essence of the theory was
that only actual users or possessors of the land (i.e., the Irish tenants)
could be considered its owners. Occupancy and use as the basis for
land ownership would free for use all land not actually being occupied
by its owners. Thus landlords would cease to exist, as would all renting
or leasing of real property, since the absentee landlord could claim
no title or control over his unoccupied property. Spooner was quite
critical of this doctrine: in fact he labeled it communism. The premise
of any argument denying property rights in any form is communism. ".
. .There is, therefore, no middle ground between absolute communism,
on the one hand, which holds that a man has a right to lay his hands
on any thing, which has no other man's hands upon it, no matter who
may have been the producer; and the principle of individual property,
on the other hand, which says that each man has an absolute dominion,
as against all other men, over the products and acquisitions of his
own labor, whether he retains them in his actual possession or not.
believed that "a man cannot be allowed, merely by putting labor,
to the limit of his capacity and beyond the limit of his personal use,
into material of which there is a limited supply and the use of which
is essential to the existence of other men, to withhold that material
from other men's uses; and any contract based upon or involving such
withholding is as lacking in sanctity or legitimacy as a contract to
deliver stolen goods." Under Tucker's theory, if "a man
exerts himself by erecting a building on land which afterward, by the
principle of occupancy and use, rightfully becomes another's, he must,
upon demand of the subsequent occupant, remove from this land, the results
of his self-exertion, or, failing to do so, sacrifice his property rights
therein. The man who persists in storing his property on another's
premises is an invader and it is his crime that alienates control of
this property. He is 'fined one house,' not for 'building a house and
then letting another man live in it,' but for invading the premises
of another." Thus Tucker admitted that homesteading, in the
form of original possession or self-exertion furnished no basis for
a continuing claim to land ownership, after the homesteader left the
land. To further illustrate his differences with Spooner, Tucker related
a conversation that he had with Spooner concerning the rightfulness
of the Irish rebellion against absentee landlords: "Mr. Spooner
bases his opposition to Irish and English landlords on the sole ground
that they or their ancestors took their lands by the sword from the
original holders. This he plainly stated, -- so plainly that I took
issue with Mr.. Spooner on this point when he asked me to read the manuscript
(REVOLUTION) before its publication, I then asked him whether if Dunraven
(the absentee landlord) or his ancestors had found unoccupied the very
lands that he now holds, and had fenced them off, he would have any
objection to raise against Dunraven's title and to leasing of these
lands. He declared emphatically that he would not. Whereupon I protested
that his pamphlet, powerful as it was within its scope, did not go to
the bottom of the land question."
of Tucker's concern with the land problem was based on his apprehension
of the monopoly problem. He is well known for his four-pronged attack
on monopolies: land, banking, tariff, and copyright and patent. Tucker
feared that the right of contract would be carried to an illogical extreme:
". . . It would be possible (under a regime of unfettered freedom
of contract in land) for an individual to acquire, and hold simultaneously,
virtual titles to innumerable parcels of land, by the merest show of
labor performed thereon; . . . (and) . . . we should be forced to consider
. . . the virtual ownership of nearly the entire earth by a small fraction
of its inhabitants
" Analogous to his position on land
ownership, Tucker also attacked the literary monopolization of ideas
based on copyright Spooner was a consistent defender of property in
all forms and claimed for inventors and authors a perpetual copyright
in their work. It is plain that neither could agree until their theories
of ownership were harmonized, and both either adopted or rejected the
question over land ownership and the homesteading principle was not
the only controversy carried on in the pages of LIBERTY. Equally interesting
is the letter and editorial writing concerning the self-ownership axiom
which took place under the guise of discussing the rights of parents
and children. Originally the question began as whether parents should
he legally responsible for abuse and neglect of their children. Tuckers
initial conclusion was that we must not interfere to prevent neglect
of the child, but only to repress positive invasion.
Tucker, having reconsidered his opinion, resolved that ". . . the
change then which my opinion has undergone consists simply in the substitution
of certainty for doubt as to the non-invasive character of parental
cruelty -- a substitution which involves the conclusion that parental
cruelty is not to be prohibited. . ." Tucker's opinion is
grounded on the fact that he views the child as the property of the
mother . Children, in Tucker's estimation, belong in the category of
things to be owned, rather than as being owners of themselves. However
he does note that the "child differs from all other parts of that
category (of things to be owned) in the fact that there is steadily
developing within him the power of self-emancipation, which at a certain
point enables him to become an owner instead of remaining part of the
owned." Tucker saw ". . . no clearer property title
in the world than that of the mother to the fruit of her womb, unless
she has otherwise disposed of it by contract. Certainly the mother's
title to the child while it remains in her womb will not be denied by
any Anarchist. To deny this would be to deny the right of the mother
to commit suicide during pregnancy, and I never knew an Anarchist to
deny the right of suicide. If, then, the child is the mother's while
in the womb, by what consideration does title to it become vested in
another than the mother on its emergence from the womb pending the day
of its emancipation?"
clearly refused to invoke the self-ownership axiom towards children,
at least until they had reached the age of being able to contract and
provide for themselves. In the meantime, he recognized the right of
the mother to throw her property into the fire. "I answer that
it is highly probable that I would interfere in such a case (as a mother
throwing her infant into the flames). My interference no more invalidates
the mother's property right in the child than if I prevent the owner
of a Titian painting from destroying it. If I interfere in either case,
it is only as an invader and I would have to be prepared to suffer the
consequences." According to his logic "the outsider who
uses force upon the child invades, not the child, but its mother, and
may be rightfully punished for doing so. The mother who uses force
upon her child invades nobody. . . To be consistent, I must convict
a man of murder in the first degree who kills a father in the act of
killing his child."
of Tucker's critics realized that Tucker could not be attacked until
the concept of contract as the ethical basis of anarchism was overthrown.
Said this critic, "I do not accept contract as the ethical basis
of Anarchism in the first place, and, in the second, do not regard children
as the property of anybody. . . I base my anarchism on Natural Right.
. . Perhaps no Anarchist will deny the right of the mother to commit
suicide during pregnancy, but I do deny it after the embryo becomes
a human being. The mother has a right to kill herself, but no one else."
"In my category of the owners and the owned I state it thus: Each
being owns himself = No human being owns another ." Of course,
we recognize this as a reformulation of the self-ownership axiom.
Tucker, rights only begin as a social convention. Rights are liberties
created by mutual agreement and contract. He defended his concept of
self-emancipation by stating that any child capable of declaring
to the association's (an anarchistic enforcement agency) officers its
desire for release from its owner that it may thereafter either care
for itself or entrust itself to the care of persons more agreeable to
it thereby proves the presence in its mind of the idea of contract.
. . From the moment that a child makes a deliberate declaration of this
character it should cease to be property and should pass into the category
of owners." Tucker refused to see any alternative to his own
position. "If we take the other course and admitting, that the
child has the possibilities of the man, declare that therefore it cannot
be property, then we must also for the same reason, say that the ovum
in the woman's body is not her property, . . ." and thus being
made to conceive when she is raped, she thereby loses her right to commit
suicide. Tucker failed to realize that no human "being has
a right to live, unbidden, as a parasite within or upon some person's
body He refused to view the fetus as a possible invader of
the mother's body, since it was already her property to do with as she
pleased. Consequently any invasive treatment of the child was not wrong
since it was the mother's property.
foregoing narrative of these two disputes, between Spooner and Tucker
over land ownership, and between Tucker and his critics concerning property
rights in children, should hold our strong interest. Here is one reason
why a theory of justice in all forms of property is necessary. If libertarians
cannot settle on such a theory of justice, a libertarian society will
be disrupted by such disputes. Similarly if no such theory of
justice is arrived at, it will be impossible for libertarians to consistently
attack our present governmental system.
1- Murray N. Rothbard, EGALITARIANISM
AS A REVOLT AGAINST NATURE AND OTHER ESSAYS, p. 58.
2 - Ibid., p. 128.
3 - Lysander Spooner, THE LAW
OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, pp. 21-22.
4 - Rothbard, op. cit., p.
5 - LIBERTY (March 21, 1891)
Whole No. 180, p. 4.
6 - Ibid.
7 - Ibid.
8 - Spooner, op. cit., p. 88.
9 - LIBERTY (January 25. 1896)
Whole No.331, p. 4.
10 - Ibid.
11 - LIBERTY (April 18, 1891)
Whole No. 182, p. 6.
12 - LIBERTY (February 1897)
Whole No. 350, p. 4.
13 - LIBERTY (August 24, 1895)
Whole No. 320, p. 4.
14 - LIBERTY (June 29, 1895)
Whole No.316, p. 3.
15 - LIBERTY (August 24, 1895)
Whole No.320, p. 4.
16 - LIBERTY (September 7,
1895) Whole No.321, p. 1.
17 - LIBERTY (September 21,
1895) Whole No.322, pp. 5, 8.
18 - J. Wm. Lloyd, LIBERTY
(September 21, 1895) Whole No.322, p. 6.
19 - LIBERTY (November 2, 1895)
Whole No.325, p. 7.
20 - LIBERTY (November 2, 1895)
Whole No.325, p. 5.
21 - LIBERTY (December 14.,
1895) Whole No.328, p. 5.
22 - Murray N. Rothbard, FOR
A NEW LIBERTY, p. 121. | <urn:uuid:543597db-cc0b-46ba-9e72-f54a76fb7933> | {
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Introduction to Statistical Inquiry
STAT 205 Midterm 1 Complete Study Guide 1. Describe the scenario which makes an experiment a random experiment. a. A random experiment is a process by which we observe something that is uncertain. After the experiment, th...
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The museum welcomes
you to its aviation wing. Look around to find the men and machines
behind the story of flight. Were these pioneers heroic or foolhardy?
Flight of the Norge (Part1),
(Part 2) - It was a feat that
was astounding at the time, but now lost in the dusty pages of
history. In May of 1926 a group of sixteen fearless adventurers
boarded a small dirigible to fly over the North Pole. The audacious
journey would be the first ever flight from the European continent
to the American continent over the Arctic ice cap.
and Foolhardy Flyers (Part 1)- Flight from Icarus
- Flight From Wilber to War.
- The Warbirds of World War One.
of the Hindenburg Disaster - It was the biggest thing that
ever flew. Was its fiery end the result of an accident or sabotage?
Aircraft From the Early Years of Flight - Many early builders
took a trial and error approach to their designs. Check out some
of the results.
Whitehead - Did
he Beat the Wright Brothers into the Sky?
Saucers - Disc shaped aircraft through the ages.
Crossing the Atlantic
By Air - On July 25th, 1909, Louis Bleriot stunned the
world by using an airplane to cross the English Channel. Only
ten years later the first men to fly the Atlantic would tackle
a distance of over one-hundred times greater than that of the
Channel flight and incalculably more dangerous.
Earhart's Last Flight - The record breaking
American aviator disappears in the Pacific without a trace.
Mystery Airship of 1896 - What was the strange
light seen crusing through the 19th Century American skies?
The Mysterious Airship
of 1896 - Flash Film - An eight minute video documentary
about the airship of 1896.
Happened to the Rocket Belt?- It's been around
for more than forty years. Why can't I fly one?
- Will this new, dangerous sport catch on?
Nazi Flying Saucers
- Hitler and the Third Reich led Europe into a decade of terror
that culminated in World War II. The Germans developed an amazing
array of secret weapons in a short time. Were flying discs part
of the Luftwaffe arsenal? And if so, was this secret looted and
used by the Allied victors after the war?
Area 51 - Did the
home of super secret military aircraft also hide flying saucers?
Krystek 2005. All Rights Reserved. | <urn:uuid:6bb4f78a-1458-4ebb-b346-431ee15bdb28> | {
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After plants acquire resistance to pests and pathogens, their offspring shoot up through the soil with better defenses. The findings, published in a recent series of papers in Plant Physiology, are the first to identify small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) as a possible mechanism of this inherited memory response, and suggest a new strategy for managing crop pests.
“It’s sort of like giving a vaccine to the parent and seeing immunity in the child,” said Andrei Alyokhin, who studies insect-plant interactions at the University of Maine and was not involved in the research. “It could help with the pest problem—induced resistance in plants is an extremely underutilized approach.”
Plants eventually come to know their enemies. When a caterpillar first bites into a juicy leaf, plant cells release toxic chemicals that make the pest grow more slowly. This initial encounter with a hungry herbivore primes the plant—when caterpillars come back for a second invasion, the defense reaction is more aggressive.
This is why George Jander of the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research in Ithaca, New York, and his colleagues intentionally expose their tomato plants to caterpillars. “The priming increases resistance, and we are now seeing inheritance in the next generation,” he said.
Jander and his colleagues placed a corn earworm on each of nearly one hundred tomato seedlings. The researchers similarly exposed Arabidopsis weeds to white cabbage butterfly larvae. They then planted a second generation of plants in a pest-free environment, and introduced the insects after several weeks. Sure enough, offspring of plants exposed to the pests sustained less leaf damaged, and the caterpillars grew to only 30 to 50 percent the size of the insects that plagued parent plants. In Arabidopsis, this priming was even passed on to a third generation: the grandchildren of infested plants showed heightened resistance, even when their parents had not been exposed.
And the approach may be applicable to a wide range of pest species. For example, after infesting parent plants with the diamond back moth, Jander found the white cabbage butterfly and beet armyworm were smaller and less abundant on progeny plants. Strangely, however, the diamond back moth devoured leaves as usual, raising the question of just how specific these defense responses are.
“I suspect there is specificity—it may be that plants distinguish between herbivores—but we don’t really know how these interactions work,” said Sergio Rasmann, a biologist at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland who collaborates with Jander. It could also be that the plants “turn on the same defense irrespective of what’s feeding on them,” said Jander.
Taking a closer look at the mechanisms of inheritance, Rasmann first turned to small interfering RNAs (siRNAs)—a class of molecules so small they can potentially diffuse through the plant from the leaves to a developing seed. When he grew mutants that lacked siRNAs, the second generation plants showed no sign of an inherited defense response. “It seems you can’t prime the seeds without the siRNAs,” said Rasmann.
The findings are the first to demonstrate a role for siRNAs in next generation priming, wrote Ian Baldwin, of the Max Planck Institute in Jena, Germany, who was not involved in the research, in an email to The Scientist. But exactly how they work is unclear. “The actual siRNAs that are transmitted to the seeds, and their targets, still need to be identified.”
Jander questions whether the siRNAs serve as the vehicle of inheritance. “[They could] also move to the seed and catalyze DNA methylation,” he said. Indeed, after infesting Arabidopsis plants with virulent Pseudomonas syringae bacteria, researchers at the University of Sheffield found evidence for the combined regulation of methylation and histone modification.
The findings suggest a new way that farmers might protect future generations of crops—collect seeds from infested plants to grow stronger plants the following year. “Farmers probably won’t want to rely on this alone, but when [next-generation priming] is incorporated into organic farming as one of many methods, it can help,” said Jander.
Seed farms might even employ benign bacteria, according to results published by Brigitte Mauch-Mani at the University of Neushâtel in Switzerland. When the team exposed plants to a transformed strain of Pseudomonas syringae that triggered defenses but not disease, offspring were still more resistant to the virulent bacteria.
Although for industrial-scale applications, it might be easiest to use low-toxic chemicals to trigger the molecular defenses instigated by bacteria and herbivores, Jander said. He recently sprayed plants never exposed to caterpillars with the hormone methyl jasmonate, and found offspring were more resistant to disease than control groups. If chemical technology can be perfected, it might help researchers amplify the inherited defense response.
“The idea is very new, and there is a lot of work to be done,” Rasmann said. “But if we can harness the next generation response, it might reduce the overwhelming loads of pesticides applied crop fields now days.”
E. Luna et al., “Next-generation systemic acquired resistance,” Plant Physiology, 158: 844-53, 2012.
S. Rasmann et al., “Herbivory in the previous generation primes plants for enhanced insect resistance,” Plant Physiology, 158: 854-63, 2012.
A. Slaughter et al., “Descendants of primed Arabidopsis plants exhibit resistance to biotic stress,” Plant Physiology, 158: 835-43, 2012. | <urn:uuid:37b4df8c-0f48-4909-8ba8-6898d893b8ab> | {
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Maple syrup and maple sugar, usually associated with Vermont and other parts of New England, began to be produced by Moravian settlers in Piedmont North Carolina soon after they arrived in the region. A daily journal for 3 Jan. 1754 recorded that the settlers boiled sap from maple trees (Acer saccharum) growing around them to make syrup. Ten years later, they noted that the sap was "so sweet that some sugar can be boiled from it, and so plentiful that some use it for a drink at the time it is rising. It flows best on clear, cool nights in spring." Early settlers discovered the Indians using maple sap in this manner.
Adelaide L. Fries, ed., Records of the Moravians in North Carolina, vols. 1 and 2 (1922).
Maple Syrup. Image courtesy of Flickr user Susy Morris. Available from http://www.flickr.com/photos/chiotsrun/4425645764/ (accessed August 20, 2012).
1 January 2006 | Powell, William S. | <urn:uuid:c4685fb9-6779-42c4-90a5-0d83751d49e1> | {
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Daniel Antoine, Curator of Physical Anthropology,
He was buried in about 3500 BC (if not earlier) at the site of Gebelein in Upper Egypt. Direct contact with the hot, dry sand naturally mummified his body, making him one of the best-preserved individuals from ancient Egypt. He has been in the British Museum collection for over 100 years and in 2012 he was taken out of the Museum for the first time to be CT scanned.
On the morning of 1 September this year, Gebelein Man was carefully packed and taken to the Bupa Cromwell Hospital in London. The detailed images and 3D models created from the high resolution X-rays taken there have allowed us to look inside his body and learn more about his life and his death in ways never before possible. As far as I’m aware, this is the first time that a well-preserved Predynastic mummy has ever been CT scanned.
Not only have we been able to discover that Gebelein Man was young when he died (18-21 years) but, unexpectedly, we have also learned that he died because he was stabbed in the back. The analysis of ancient human remains rarely reveals the cause of death but the cut on his back, as well as the damage to the underlying shoulder blade and rib, are characteristic of a single, fatal, penetrating wound.
With the help of the Interactive Institute, a virtual autopsy table (a new state-of-the-art interactive exhibit based on medical visualisation technology) is on show in Room 64 for a limited time (16 November to 16 December 2012) and will let visitors explore this natural mummy for themselves, using the interactive touchscreen and the gesture-based interface. Information points at relevant locations guide visitors to the more significant discoveries we have made.
Come and explore Gebelein Man for yourself using the autopsy table and perhaps you will spot something we’ve missed. | <urn:uuid:8cf5a098-0c2e-41a7-a22e-22db9bb648e0> | {
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At this point we need to consider how we build on these in order to develop good taste. There are several elements to this: (1) the union and improvement of our reflex senses; (2) sensibility or delicacy of passion; (3) precise and balanced judgment; (4) actual practices of cultivation.
(1) We form or cultivate our taste, thus giving ourselves good taste, by improving each of these senses individually and learning how to exercise them all in unity. In reality, both of these go together: by improving our reflex senses we make them better able to combine in gestalt, and by uniting them we make it possible to exercise each to the fullest extent: "Our sentiments and emotions receive an immense addition of strength from their reciprocal influence on one another" (ET 74). Although Gerard doesn't use the example, we can compare this to the way the external senses of taste and smell work together: to get the full taste of a meal, we need to be able to smell as well as taste it. Likewise, the experience of sublimity is intensified and enriched if this experience is also an experience of novelty, or of virtue, or of harmony. One area in which we all see this operating is that of music (ET 76):
Poetry is a complication of beauties, reflecting by their union additional lustre on one another. The sublime, the new, the elegant, the natural, the virtuous, are often blended in the imitation; brightened by the power of fiction, and the richest variety of imagery; and rendered more delightful by the harmony of numbers. When poetry is set to well-adapted music, both gain new power by their alliance. The music, by exciting the requisite affections, puts the mind in a disposition to conceive ideas suited to them, with peculiar facility, vivacity, and pleasure.
(2) This union of the internal senses in aesthetic experience is affected by something that is not itself a reflex sense at all, namely, what Gerard calls "sensibility of heart" or "delicacy of passion", which is the tendency to be easily moved by any kind of sentiment. It is what we might call sensitivity. Human beings are extraordinarily diverse in how sensitive they are, and it is to this that Gerard attributes much of the diversity in judgments of taste. Some people are largely insensible to aesthetic experience; this will necessarily create defects in their taste. It is possible to have excessive sensibility, but Gerard thinks it is rare, and I think he would also want to make a distinction. Intense sensibility may hamper one's ability to make a good critical judgment at a given time, but even then it could prepare the way for good critical judgment later. Being overwhelmed by a symphony or sunset may make it impossible to give a just analysis of its beauty and grandeur while you are actually experiencing, but it provides you with a richer experience that can assist you in such an analysis later.
(3) I suspect that Gerard is not worried about the excessive sensibility due to the third ingredient in good taste. Neither union of reflex senses, nor delicacy of passion, nor both combined are enough to give one good taste. A key element of good taste is good judgment (ET 83-84):
Good sense is an indispensable ingredient in true taste, which always implies a quick and accurate perception of things as they really are.
That judgment may completely exhibit to the internal senses, the beauties and excellencies of nature, it measures the amplitude of things, determines their proportions, and traces out their wise construction and beneficial tendency. It uses all the methods which art and science indicate, for discovering those qualities that lie too deep spontaneously to strike the eye. It investigates the laws and causes of the works of nature: it compares and contrasts them with the more imperfect works of art; and thus supplies materials from which fancy may produce ideas, and form combinations, that will strongly affect the mental taste.
Gerard gives several examples of this, which I will not go over. Suffice it to say that judgment has a considerable effect on our aesthetic experience. Nonetheless, in different experiences and to different people it may have a larger or lesser role, and this is another reason why there is a diversity in judgments of taste. Some people have more acute internal senses; others have more accurate judgment. Both may have a good critical judgment, but the one will have a better feeling for the aesthetic features of the experience, while the other will have a better sense of how the experience conforms to reasonable standards of unity and variation. Accurate judgment may make up for some weakness of imagination, while strong imagination may make up for some weakness of judgment. But the two will also have somewhat different experiences in the first place as well, since the first will have more feeling for the immediate features of the work, while the latter will have more feeling for its abstract or intellectual features. Gerard gives as his examples Longinus and Aristotle, who wrote two of the major aesthetic works of antiquity. Longinus exhibits a delicate sentiment and imagination; he has a good judgment, but his imagination far outstrips it. Thus to read Longinus you have to enter into his sentiments; otherwise you are going to miss his point, because he is not as good at explaining his conclusons as he is at conveying the imaginative experience underlying them. Aristotle, on the other hand, is the reverse case: livelilness of imagination is far outstripped by his brilliance of judgment. He is extremely good at analysis and weighing of argument, so his conclusions are backed by powerful explanations. But you rarely get a sense of the aesthetic experience underlying them.
(4) All aspects of human nature admit of some kind of improvement, including even the external senses, but the internal senses admit of more improvement than most. Part of the reason for this is precisely the fact that they are reflex senses: they respond and react to all the other senses (including other reflex senses). Not just everything will cultivate this improvement. "It is only in the few who improve the rudiments of taste which nature has implanted, by culture well chosen, and judiciously applied, that taste at length appears in elegant form, and just proportions" (ET 95).
There are four lines along which this cultivation might take place: sensibility, refinement, correctness, and proportion.
Sensibility "disposes us to be strongly affected with whatever beauties or faults we perceive" (ET 121). It is relatively ingrained; it is largely based on the native features of the mind, and thus not easily susceptible of development. In fact, extended use may well dull, rather than heighten, the mind's ability to perceive and feel. This does not, however, mean that it does not admit of any improvement. Indeed, there is a sort of paradox of sensibility: overexposure dulls sensibility, which might lead you to think that extensive experience of beauty would dull our taste for it, but extensive experience of beauties in reality heightens our taste for them. This is because extensive experience with beauty is not repetitive; the objects of taste are endlessly variable. Further, although familiarity may make our experience less striking, it will nonetheless give us a more complete sense of everything involved in the experience, thus enriching the things that may be taken into account by the reflex senses. Other reasons could be added. Thus, while sensibility is relatively stable, we can improve it by extending our acquaintance with the objects of taste.
Refinement or elegance "makes us capable of discovering both [faults and beauties], even when they are not obvious (ET 121). The objects of the reflex senses admit of degrees, and we can come to recognize when (for example) a harmony is imperfect. This happens partly by familiarity, but the primary contributor to refinement is simply study -- we acquire knowledge and improve our judgment. To have a refined taste for wine, you have to set your mind to distinguishing the features of wine, find and fill gaps in your experience, compare each experience with every other experience. In addition, we need to practice and exercise our judgment. In our early experiences of something, we have difficulty taking everything into account in our judgments, but over time we are able to cover more and more of our experience with our judgments, no longer bewildered or overwhelmed by all the elements of our experience. As Gerard says (ET 114):
Refinement of taste exists only where to an original delicacy of imagination, and natural acuteness of judgment, is superadded a long and intimate acquaintance with the best performances of every kind. None should be studied but such as have real excellence; and those are chiefly to be dwelt upon which display new beauties on every review.
Correctness "preserves us from approving or disapproving any objects but such as possess the qualities which render them really laudable or blameable; and enables us to distinguish these qualities with accuracy from others, however similar, and to see through the most artful disguise that can be thrown upon them" (ET 121). Every aesthetic excellence can be seen as a mean between two extremes; but as with virtue, the extremes are almost never equidistant from the mean: there is usually one extreme that is much more similar to the virtue than the other, and thus apt to be confused with it under certain circumstances. As with refinement, correctness is developed in great measure by deliberate study (ET 125):
Custom enables us to form ideas with exactness and precision. By studying works of taste, we acquire clear and distinct perceptions of those qualities which render them beautiful or deformed: we take in at one glance all the essential properties; and thus establish in the mind a criterion, a touchstone of excellence and depravity. Judgment also becomes skilful by exercise, in determining, whether the object under consideration perfectly agrees with this mental standard.
Proportion involves finding the best balance of all the principles involved in good taste. Sometimes one reflex sense may exercise much too much influence; excessive pursuit of the humorous or the novel may, for instance, ruin one's taste for the sublime. This imbalance is perhaps the most common cause of bad taste. Proportion presupposes correctness, and requires the exercise of all of our reflex senses, not just in general, but with regard to any kind of object that involves a diversity of aesthetic features.
Having considered what is required in the formation of taste, Gerard turns to a discussion of how taste relates to other areas of life, which we will consider in the next post in this series. | <urn:uuid:6bdadfec-0323-4a61-b8c7-3cad4eb452dd> | {
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So you want to know how to an equation is expressed in words?
i.e. the sample mean is equal to the sum of all scores divided by the total number of scores.
Our Professor advised us to examine verbiage that would help us to determine which equation to use for our final exam questions. I have had a six week intensive Intro to Statistics. She is allowing us to write out equations without labeling. Any suggestions? Thank you.
I'd like to know how to know which equation to use in a story problem. The Professor said that certain verbiage is used with certain equations. That verbiage should alert us to which equation to use.
Hi: Thanks for writing. Yes, you are on the right track. Using the standard deviation example you have, the Professor said that we should look for verbiage that offers clues as to what type of story problem would fit this equation. I know from looking at the equation that it a standard deviation. The problem that arises for the students is what type of story problem would go with this equation and others. | <urn:uuid:67df9a80-bbd1-48c5-9719-12a26a0433aa> | {
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Last December, Scientific American published its annual list of the biggest science stories of 2012. As usual with lists like these, the editors included events that capture the public’s fascination – such as Felix Baumgartner’s record-breaking skydive and NASA’s Curiosity expedition to Mars – as well as more obscure but no less important achievements, like the publication of ENCODE, the encyclopedia of DNA elements, which marks a breakthrough in genetics research. The list also included political topics, such as the Supreme Court’s decision on the Affordable Care Act, as well as natural disasters, such as Hurricane Sandy and its devastation to the East Coast.
All of these stories were big news. But they weren’t all necessarily science news.
From Baumgartner’s sound-barrier-breaking descent to Curiosity’s Mars landing to many other breakthroughs in 2012, engineering played a crucial role. And factors often attributed to “science” are, more accurately, feats of engineering.
Henry Petroski, a civil engineer and historian at Duke University, rightly points out the difference between science and engineering. “Science is about understanding the origins, nature and behavior of the universe and all it contains,” he wrote in a December 2010 IEEE Spectrum article. Engineering, however, “is about solving problems by rearranging the stuff of the world to make new things.”
Consider Baumgartner’s breathtaking feat. Last October, the Austrian daredevil set the record for highest skydive ever by leaping from a balloon more than 24 miles above the Earth. In freefall, Baumgartner also became the first skydiver to break the sound barrier, hitting a top speed of Mach 1.4.
None of that would have happened without engineering – the rearranging of stuff, as Petroski might say.
Mechanical, structural and aeronautical engineers had a hand in designing the craft from which Baumgartner jumped. The full-pressure suit that protected him from head to toe is the result of materials engineers working hand-in-gloves with the laws of physics. The integrated circuitry of Baumgartner’s suit, which allowed his team to constantly monitor his well-being during the dive, involved an impressive array of electrical engineering know-how. Even the way the world followed the event online is the result of the work of engineers and scientists who joined together half a century ago on a federal research project that give rise to the Internet.
Science and engineering are partners in discovery.
Without an understanding of the world around us, engineers would be unable to solve such complex problems like those connected to Baumgartner’s descent to Earth. But too often, science has been hailed a hero, when engineering should get some, if not much, of the credit.
Page 2 of 2 - National Engineers Week is Feb. 17-23 this year.
“Celebrate Awesome” is the theme. The many engineering achievements of the past year, as described in Scientific American’s top 10 list, give us all reason to marvel at the awesome and heroic feats our nation’s engineers – working in partnership with science – bring to our everyday lives. | <urn:uuid:3b33b6c7-4a65-4e82-bbd8-39cb44c7edf8> | {
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The Smart Grid and Electric Car Charging
Widespread adoption of electric vehicles will reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly. Some are worried that the electric grid will be stressed leading to a decrease in its reliability. In related news today, Battelle and AeroVironment have a technology that will address this concern, and help EV's charge when the grid is most able to support charging.
This technology is the subject of a commercial license agreement between Battelle and AeroVironment, Inc., of Monrovia, Calif. The technology may also ultimately result in lower costs for plug-in electric vehicle owners.
Battelle operates the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash.
AeroVironment will use a portion of the licensed technology in a new prototype version of its Level II charging systems.
While electric vehicles will ultimately reduce the nation's dependency on oil, some are concerned that millions of electric cars on the road will threaten the stability of the electrical grid. Developed at PNNL, the Grid Friendly EV Charger Controller technology tells the car's battery charger when to start and stop charging based upon existing conditions on the electrical grid. Since electric vehicles can now be charged when electricity is most readily available, the technology could translate into lower bills for vehicle owners and a more stable grid.
AeroVironment's new prototype EV charging station, incorporating the PNNL technology, will help stabilize the electrical grid by continuously monitoring the grid's alternating current, or AC, frequency and varying the vehicle charging rate in response. If an unexpected event on the grid causes a rapid drop in the AC frequency, the charging system will stop charging, providing a grid "shock absorber." Under normal conditions, this stabilizing technology will be particularly important as the power grid is expected to rely more and more on variable renewable resources such as wind and solar technologies.
Tesla Model S photo courtesy Tesla Motors.
Read more at US DOE. | <urn:uuid:a6416bd0-1eee-4623-a526-e8aced2bd89c> | {
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You might have noticed some unusual changes and started to wonder: Could I be… pregnant!?
Or you might not observe any early signs of pregnancy except that your period is late. Either way, you can take a home pregnancy test that will confirm your pregnancy, and then visit your doctor for a medical checkup and to schedule the rest of your prenatal appointments.
Common Pregnancy Symptoms at One Month Pregnant
Early signs of pregnancy at 1 month pregnant aren’t necessarily the most noticeable; however, they can include:
Keep in mind that at 1 month pregnant, you may not experience most or any of these changes or conditions. Instead, you might first suspect you could be pregnant when you notice your period is late, and then that you’ve missed your period altogether.
One Month Pregnant: Changes Inside and Out
Embryonic Development: After conception, the fertilized egg will travel from the fallopian tube to the womb and will implant in the uterus lining. The egg divides into a bunch of cells, becoming an embryo. At about week eight, the embryo has developed a tiny spine and limbs, and has started to grow the brain, eyes, and ears.
Changes to Your Body: When you find out you're pregnant, you might react in different ways than you expected. Your feelings might even change from one moment to the next. These emotional shifts, caused in part by pregnancy hormones, are totally normal. Allow yourself the time to rest and process your feelings. Aside from the early pregnancy symptoms described above, you might not notice too many other physical changes.
What Are the Pregnancy Months?
Pregnancies last nine months, right? Well, kind of. Pregnancies are typically about 40 weeks (almost 10 months) long, starting from the first day of your last menstrual period. But it’s not unusual for babies to arrive a few weeks early or late, and the ‘months’ are a bit longer than four weeks. Also, sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint the exact date of conception. So, with all these variables, ‘nine months’ is just a rough guide.
That’s why pregnancies are usually measured in weeks rather than months, and why you’ll hear references to ‘week 12’ or ‘week 32’, for example. You’ll also notice references to the ‘pregnancy trimesters’. The three pregnancy trimesters are:
So, how do you determine how many months pregnant you are? There are different ways of calculating this, but often you are considered 1 month pregnant in about weeks five to eight of pregnancy — these are the weeks that follow your first missed period. Remember, though, you will have conceived some weeks before what’s referred to as this first month.
Due date calculator: In 1st month of pregnancy, you’ll be eager to know when to expect your newborn, and the Pampers Due Date Calculator is a handy tool to give you an estimate. If you have irregular periods or you can’t remember the date of the first day of your last menstrual period, your healthcare provider can make an assessment of how far along you are in your pregnancy.
First Month of Pregnancy Quick List
Articlesnow4u.com cannot show any publisher Adsense adverts at the moment, we have decided to create a clone site to give our publishers the opportunity to use Adsense with their articles to create further revenue.
The clone site is Articlesnow4u-Adsense.com your user details and articles have been copied from articlesnow4u.com as of Mon 28th May 16:00 GMT, please can all users check their login details and make slight changes to their articles please. | <urn:uuid:cca59ec1-6a61-433f-971e-a6eff059e0ba> | {
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NASA may be ramping up for the launch of its next Mars rover mission later this month, but the Agency's Opportunity rover — which has been chugging around the Martian landscape for close to eight years, now — refuses to recede into obsolescence. You're looking at a close-up of the Martian surface, recently shot by Opportunity's onboard cam, that reveals a line of light-colored rocks known to NASA astronomers as "Homestake" or "The Vein." And they say it's like nothing they've ever seen.
It may not look like much, but scientists speculate that the strange geological feature could actually wind up providing NASA with hard evidence that there are phyllosilicates on the red planet's surface. Why is this a big deal? For one thing, phyllosilicates belong to a class of minerals that form in the presence of a watery environment. But they form in water that is less acidic than the water that is thought to have given rise to the silica-rich clay minerals discovered by NASA's Spirit rover five years ago. Martian soil with lower acidity would, in theory, be more hospitable to life.
Until now, however, we've only identified the presence of phyllosilicates on the Martian surface using images captured from space. To actually discover, identify, and analyze phyllosilicates from the red planet's surface would be an unprecedented achievement.
"This is a real triumph of geology," said Steve Squyres, Mars Exploration Rover principal investigator at Cornell University. Squyres continues:
We saw these veins as we crossed from the Meridiani plains into the Noachian terrain back in August. We've kept those in mind as a very important thing we wanted to look at, but we were so focused on getting into the Noachian and new terrain that we made that the highest priority, figuring that we would get the veins later.
And now that they've gotten around to having a closer look, Squyres and his team are blown away.
"These are different from anything we've ever seen with either rover, a completely new thing on Mars, never seen anywhere," Squyres said. "And we're pretty charged up about it."
Opportunity and its team will continue to investigate the Homestake rock formation and its surroundings in the coming weeks as NASA prepares for the Curiosity rover's upcoming mission to Mars, which is slated to launch on the 25th of this month. Curiosity is set to make landfall in Mars' Gale Crater, a location chosen largely on the fact that satellite imagery suggests the crater is rich with phyllosilicates.
Will the ongoing analyses of the Homestake rock formation by NASA's eight-year-old rover steal Curiosity's phyllosilicate-thunder? Maybe. But personally, I think little Opportunity has earned it. | <urn:uuid:0d76e980-7aad-446d-b776-7c84da52db77> | {
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Fortis Memorial Research Institute (FMRI) piloted a first of its kind study on the oropharyngeal cancer patients
Transoral robotic surgery (TORS) was conducted on 57 patients, under the leadership of Dr Surender Dabas, director, head, neck and thorax surgical oncology, FMRI. This surgical technique is instrumental in healing patients suffering from HPV negative cancers, which are caused mostly due to tobacco consumption.
A study, published in 'Oral Oncology' journal, was conducted between March 2013 to October 2015 on 57 patients suffering from early stage (I&II) oropharyngeal carcinoma, who underwent TORS robotic surgery.
Out of these 57 patients, 48 were males and nine were females, who underwent TORS. When presented, the mean age of the 57 patients was 59.4 years. The most common site of involvement was the base of tongue (BOT) in 31 (54.8 percent) patients. Twenty-four (42.1 percent) patients were stage I and 33 (57.9 percent) were Stage II at presentation. Forty-three (89.6 percent) patients were disease free with an overall survival of 93.8 percent at a mean follow-up of 29 months.
In TORS, the arms of the robot are strategically placed inside the mouth of the patient. The main advantage of TORS is, it allows the surgeon access, via the mouth, those areas that his/her hands probably couldn't reach.
TORS is a relatively new approach to remove cancers from areas in the throat that are difficult to access, including the base of tongue and low down in the bottom of the tonsil. These two areas, along with other parts of the oropharynx (soft palate, posterior oropharynx wall), remain the main tumour sites for which TORS is used.
Speaking at the conference, a cancer survivor, 76-year-old Amalkanti Bhowmik explained how opting for Robotic surgery proved a boon for him.
"I developed difficulty in swallowing food and soon even water in March this year. When my family took me to a doctor, an endoscopy revealed a lesion inside my throat. Subsequently, samples were sent for biopsy which confirmed stage I cancer of the Larynx (voice box). We went to several doctors thereafter to and most gave us the option of radiation followed by surgery, due to my age. However, we knew that the outcome of radiation would have led to further deterioration in my health. It was then that a nephew practicing medicine in UK recommended robotic surgery for my cancer. I have been disease free since my surgery and have been recovering well for my age," he said
Dr Dabas said, "In comparison to HPV negative cancers HPV positive cancers are more responsive to chemotherapy and radiation treatment. In India majority (nearly 70 percent) of all oropharyngeal cancers are HPV negative. This is the reason that TORS is a viable treatment option of HPV negative cancers. In order to avoid the side effects of undergoing a traditional open surgery, if the cancer has been caught at an early stage, TORS is adopted. Posing significant benefits to the patients, it prevents functional impairments to speech and swallowing. It is a fast surgery and precise, intricate and intensive in its execution. The amount of blood loss and the recovery time required post the operation is remarkably minimal. As this method can be implemented without prior chemo therapy, it allows the patient to be free of any toxicity associated with the same."
Dr Simardeep Singh Gill, zonal director, FMRI said, "This is a first-of-its-kind single institutional prospective study which evaluated the functional outcome and oncological outcome in early stage HPV negative carcinoma. This has been made possible by Dr Surender Dabas, who is one of the few surgeons who has conducted close to 500 robot-aided surgeries for head and neck cancer in India. This kind of surgery has a definite success rate in comparison to other forms of treatment for cancers of neck, throat and head" | <urn:uuid:6592aa7c-48a7-4e68-9d73-363bd6cf2c51> | {
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Definition of alkaline battery
: a long-lived dry cell with an alkaline electrolyte that decreases corrosion of the cell —called also alkaline cell
First Known Use of alkaline battery
Seen and Heard
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The ROCSAT-2 is designated to the second satellite of the Republic of China. It is expected to be launched in 2003, and is designed primarily to image the region of Taiwan Island. The satellite will be operated in a circular sun-synchronous orbit with exactly 14 revolutions per day. By virtue of the nearly global coverage of the orbit, the images taken by ROCSAT-2 can also be acquired through international cooperation if the foreign ground stations are capable of receiving the downlink data. The satellite will provide high tasking agility for along-track or cross-track imaging with 45° field of regard. The remote sensing instrument (RSI) has four Landsat-like multi-spectral visible bands. It will provide images for 2 m ground sampling distance (GSD) in panchromatic band and 8 m GSD in multi-spectral bands over 24 km swath in the nadir direction. The secondary payload of ROCSAT-2 is a scientific instrument called the imager of sprite, the upper atmospheric lightning (ISUAL). It will be the first payload to observe the upper atmospheric lightning from space. The objective of this experiment is to study the nature of the electrodynamic coupling between thundercloud and upper atmosphere. The system engineering analysis for ROCSAT-2 is presented in this paper. © 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Mendeley saves you time finding and organizing research
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The official groundbreaking ceremony for the TAPI pipeline was held in Turkmenistan on December 13, a milestone for a project that has been on the drawing board for over two decades. The pipeline would carry natural gas across four countries that make up the TAPI acronym: originating at the gas fields in Turkmenistan, TAPI will carry natural gas through Afghanistan, Pakistan, and terminate in India.
The groundbreaking for the USD$7.6 billion pipeline was attended by leaders from the four countries involved, including India’s Vice President, Pakistan’s Prime Minister, and the presidents from Afghanistan and Turkmenistan.
Fittingly, the ceremony was held not far from the original Silk Road route, an ancient trade network that connected East and Central Asia to the Middle East and the Mediterranean. And since the 1,800-kilometer gas pipeline could once again increase resource trade in Central and South Asia, it has often been likened to a “New Silk Road.”
A pipeline connecting natural gas in the Caspian Sea to India has been in the works since the early 1990s. In an earlier incarnation of the project, American-based Unocal was a key stakeholder pushing the pipeline, with the backing of the U.S. government. But Al Qaeda attacks on U.S. interests in the late 1990s, which had the backing of the Taliban regime, killed off the project as Afghanistan quickly became a no-go zone. Related: $10 Trillion Investment Needed To Avoid Massive Oil Price Spike Says OPEC
Years later, the project is being headed up by Turkmengaz, and it once again has strong U.S. support because the American government sees it as an economic development tool for Central and South Asia, while having the added benefit of working around Russian pipeline control. Despite U.S. support, TAPI has spent quite a long time in limbo, as the security situation, particularly in Afghanistan, has prevented progress. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave the project new momentum last summer when he visited Turkmenistan.
Turkmengaz and its partners expect TAPI to come online in 2019 with an annual capacity to move 33 billion cubic meters of natural gas. India’s state-backed utility, GAIL, has signed up to purchase 38 million cubic meter per day for 30 years, a figure that could rise if lower volumes are sold to Afghanistan. India and Pakistan together will purchase more than 80 percent of the gas volumes.
There are reasons that all four countries are enthusiastic. Obviously, Turkmenistan is looking to sell more gas, and hopes to diversify beyond its two main customers, Russia and China. That has become especially important since gas exports to Russia have faltered. Afghanistan expects the project to attract additional investment, which President Ashraf Ghani hopes will add some spark to the country’s war-torn and war-dependent economy. Related: OPEC: $95 Oil, But Not Until 2040
Similar benefits could extend to Pakistan, but Islamabad is also keen to gain access to much needed gas supplies to erase its energy deficit. India is anxious to find an additional source of energy for its resource-hungry economy. Some speculate India’s motivations also include countering China’s ambitious plans for the region as part of its “One Road, One Belt” policy. Additionally, everyone hopes that the pipeline could be a peace catalyst, helping to stabilize Afghanistan while bringing the bitter rivals of India and Pakistan together.
But there are formidable obstacles that stand in the way of the pipeline coming to fruition, despite the groundbreaking ceremony. At the top of the list are security concerns.
"I simply don't see how the security situation in Afghanistan will allow the pipeline to be built. Many parts of Afghanistan where the pipeline is expected to pass through are essentially no-go areas,” Michael Kugelman, South Asia associate at The Wilson Center, told Al Jazeera in December. "They are not secure for Afghan troops, much less for construction workers building the pipeline." Related: Competition Within OPEC Set To Intensify Amid Low Oil Prices
The pipeline would also have to travel through Baluchistan in Pakistan, where a separatist movement against the Pakistan government could complicate TAPI security. Anti-Indian groups in Pakistan could also see the upside of disrupting energy supplies to their southeastern enemy.
There is also the question of cost. Some news outlets have cited a figure of USD$7.6 billion, while others say it is more like $10 billion. Delays and overruns could add several billion more. A handful of international oil companies including Chevron, Total and ExxonMobil have declined to invest in the project because the government in Turkmenistan does not allow ownership stakes in the upstream gas fields. While Turkmengaz is the lead on TAPI, and it has partners from its downstream neighbors, most analysts believe the principles do not have the financing to pay for the massive pipeline. Aside from the giant price tag, the small matter of who will pay for the pipeline to stretch through dicey areas in Afghanistan is enough to raise serious questions about the viability of the TAPI pipeline.
Finally, there are a few pipeline alternatives. One pipeline from Iran would flow through Pakistan to India, dubbed the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline. China is already moving on an Iran to Pakistan pipeline, which will fit into its larger plans for the region. For India, another route, which is merely an idea at this point, is a subsea Iran-Oman-India pipeline. India is keeping its options open by not shutting the book on the IPI or the subsea route, both of which have gone nowhere because of diplomatic pressure relating to Iran. The Iranian sanctions are set to come off soon though.
In short, the four countries backing TAPI have at the very least made significant political progress, enough for them to come together and support a mutually beneficial infrastructure project. Even still, the groundbreaking ceremony was symbolic. The real proof of progress will come over the next few years as we wait and see if construction gets underway in earnest.
By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com
More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
- The New Cartel Running The Oil Sector
- Warren Buffett Beats Elon Musk In Nevada
- Oil Crash Shrinks Russian GDP; Energy Minister Blames Saudis | <urn:uuid:25d9797d-ba80-4503-8f42-a59010e3be4e> | {
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Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy has, despite its enormous popularity and importance, often stymied readers with its multitudinous characters, references, and themes. But until the publication in 2007 of Guy Raffa’s guide to the Inferno, students lacked a suitable resource to help them navigate Dante’s underworld. With this new guide to the entire Divine Comedy, Raffa provides readers—experts in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Dante neophytes, and everyone in between—with a map of the entire poem, from the lowest circle of Hell to the highest sphere of Paradise.
Based on Raffa’s original research and his many years of teaching the poem to undergraduates, The Complete Danteworlds charts a simultaneously geographical and textual journey, canto by canto, region by region, adhering closely to the path taken by Dante himself through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. This invaluable reference also features study questions, illustrations of the realms, and regional summaries. Interpreting Dante’s poem and his sources, Raffa fashions detailed entries on each character encountered as well as on many significant historical, religious, and cultural allusions. | <urn:uuid:83c52d5c-f7f1-454a-85d4-1c6a74cc04d8> | {
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Dentists Are Fluoride-Science Ignorant, Dental Journal says
“Dentists’ lack of self-efficacy with respect to critically evaluating scientific literature may help to explain their reluctance to promote water fluoridation in their clinical practices.”
Dental journal article admits that dentists know little about the science of fluoridation but urges them to promote the practice anyway
New York – January 8, 2013 – In an article in the January issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA) authors Armfield and Melbye indicate that “Studies of dentists’ attitudes about water fluoridation suggest that a lack of knowledge and preparedness are barriers to discussing the topic …more than one-half of the respondents believed they needed more information and training on the issue,” reports the Fluoride Action Network (FAN).
Fluoridation, touted as a decay-preventive, is the addition of fluoride compounds (mainly hydrofluosilicic acid derived from the phosphate fertilizer industry) to public water supplies.
Despite dentists’ lack of knowledge, these authors urge them to promote fluoridation, anyway.
According to Paul Connett, PhD, FAN director and lead author of the book The Case Against Fluoride (Chelsea Green, 2010), “It is reckless to urge dentists to tell the public that fluoridation is safe when they are not on top of the literature. Their qualifications pertain to teeth. They are not qualified to assess what damage ingesting fluoride may cause to the rest of the body.”
Armfield and Melbye encourage dentists to promote the safety of fluoridation based upon this misleading assurance:
“There are no known harmful effects from ingestion of water that has had fluoride added to it at or about 0.7-1.2 milligrams/liter. No systematic reviews of the literature have shown any negative health effects from ingestion of water fluoridated in or near this therapeutic range.”
Connett says, This assertion is dangerously misleading because it:
a) Confuses the difference between concentration and dose. Harm has been found at doses that are commonly experienced in populations drinking artificially fluoridated water. For example, a child drinking 2 liters of water at 1 ppm (the average level used in fluoridation) will get a higher dose than a child drinking one liter of water at 1.9 ppm, the threshold for lowering of IQ in one published study.
b) Ignores that most basic health studies have not been conducted in countries practicing fluoridation. The absence of study is not the same as absence of harm.
c) Overlooks the serious findings reported by the US National Research Council in 2006 that subsets of the population – including bottle-fed infants - are exceeding the EPA’s safe reference dose (0.06 mg/kg bodyweight/day) drinking fluoridated water.
To compensate for dentists’ inadequate understanding of fluoride science, the JADA article encourages dentists to use “political campaigns” and their “reputation with the public” to promote fluoridation. They write: “Advocacy through dental societies, such as participation in lobbying efforts, also may be an effective way for dentists to promote water fluoridation.”
Little seems to have changed since the ADA’s Council on Dental Health and Health Planning issued this unprofessional advice in a 1979 white paper:
“Individual dentists must be convinced that they need not be familiar with scientific reports and field investigations on fluoridation to be effective participants and that non- participation is overt neglect of professional responsibility.”
Being unfamiliar with the scientific literature is far more serious today than it was in 1979.
Connett says, “Many dentists may be shocked to find that there have been 36 studies published since 1991 that found an association between fairly modest exposure to fluoride and lowered IQ. In one of the studies (Ding et al., 2011), the researchers found IQ lowered in children drinking water ranging from 0.3 to 3 ppm and that the higher the level of fluoride in the urine (a measure of fluoride exposure) the lower the IQ. In addition, Harvard researchers in a systematic review of 27 of these IQ studies concluded that effect on children’s developing brains should be a ‘high research priority’ especially in the US which has never investigated brain/fluoride effects.”
Armfield and Melbye postulate that: “Dentists’ lack of self-efficacy with respect to critically evaluating scientific literature may help to explain their reluctance to promote water fluoridation in their clinical practices.”
Connett says, “this reluctance in the face of lack of knowledge is to the credit of dentists. However, the efforts by Armfield and Melbye to override this reluctance on the basis of what amounts to little more than PR spin is reprehensible. It is a shabby attempt to get dentists to unwittingly betray the public’s trust. The same applies to the ADA that sanctioned the publication of this article.” | <urn:uuid:f7284593-1b12-4506-a7f0-1fc8fb1d95d9> | {
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Leptospirosis (canine fever, infectious jaundice, Fiedler's disease, water fever, Japanese seven-day fever, etc.) - An acute infectious disease that is caused by different serotypes of Leptospira and characterized by symptoms common intoxication, fever, damage to the nervous system, liver and kidneys.In severe cases meningitis, jaundice and hemorrhagic syndrome.The agents of leptospirosis are Leptospira, which are adapted to life in water spiral microorganisms.Since Leptospira are aerobic, they die quickly under the influence of direct sunlight during boiling and drying.In addition, these microorganisms are very sensitive to tetracycline, penicillin, streptomycin and acids, and on the contrary, can sufficiently long period of time to maintain its viability during freezing and in moist soil or water.On food viability can range from a few hours to several days
Ways of infection leptospirosis
source of leptospirosis are different animals, both wild and domestic (mice, rats, vo
animals Transmission occurs through food and water.The man most often infected by contact of skin and mucous membranes with water that has been contaminated by animal secretions.Also, infection is possible when in contact with moist soil, at slaughter and butchering meat of infected animals due to consumption of contaminated secretions of infected rodents, certain foods (milk, etc.).Often, leptospirosis is professional in nature, as they often get sick shepherds, milkmaids, livestock specialists, veterinarians, employees of livestock farms, slaughterhouses and so forth. To leptospirosis characterized by a pronounced seasonality, with a peak incidence in August.
Most often, the infection is the gateway to the human skin, and leptospira able to penetrate with minimal damage.Therefore, the infection occurs even at very short contact with water, which contains Leptospira, at the same time, the site of infection no inflammatory symptoms arise.In addition, the agent can enter the human body through the conjunctiva of the eyes or mucous membranes of the digestive system.Subsequently, Leptospira promoted by lymphatic vessels, also without causing any inflammatory changes in the regional lymph nodes and lymph vessels.Leptospires easily overcome the barrier role of the lymph nodes and spread to different tissues and organs (most often in the kidneys, lungs, spleen, liver and central nervous system), in which the accumulation and further reproduction of Leptospira
Symptoms of leptospirosis
IncubationLeptospirosis is a period from four days to two weeks.The disease almost always begins acutely, with fever up to 39 - 41 C. At the same time there is a severe headache, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting.For this disease are quite typical muscle pain, often in the abdominal muscles, back, neck, neck and calf muscles.The face becomes puffy and bloodshot, and sclera vessels injected.Often there is a polymorphic rash (hemorrhagic, morbilliform, scarlatiniform and urticaria), with localization on the extremities and trunk.Lymph nodes are dense, enlarged and painful, muffled heart sounds, blood pressure is lowered.From the second day of the disease the liver increases in size, becomes painful and dense.Tongue dry, with clear brown patina, usually swollen abdomen.Against the backdrop of severe intoxication at high temperature, the probability of infectious - toxic shock syndrome, which can cause death.
In the acute phase of leptospirosis is often a kidney disease: the amount of urine is markedly reduced (it contains red blood cells, granular and hyaline cylinders, in a lot of protein), a symptom Pasternatskogo positive, there is a pain in the lumbar region.Perhaps the development of acute renal failure, against which can develop severe liver, leading subsequently to acute liver failure, hepatic encephalopathy and coma.In severe cases of leptospirosis, from the third - the fifth day of the disease, there ikterichnost sclera, and in consequence, and icteric staining of the skin.There tachycardia, hypotension, voiceless heart tones.Above the lungs - non-permanent dry wheezing and breathing hard.People suffering from chronic alcoholism often develop pneumonia.
For most patients with leptospirosis outlook is quite favorable.After a prolonged fever (from five to twelve days), the temperature is gradually reduced to normal (rare in a long low-grade fever).People who were not receiving antibiotic treatment, three - nine days apyrexia comes the second wave of fever, with a minor clinical manifestations and less in duration.The course of leptospirosis in some cases may include two - three similar recurrence.
In most cases, the end of the second week, the general condition of the patient improves, regress the symptoms of intoxication, recovered diuresis goes jaundice.Duration of the disease is usually from three to four weeks.
There are also erased form of the disease, which flow easily without liver and kidney failure, having in their clinical manifestations similar to the flu.These forms of leptospirosis can be found only in the case of specific laboratory examination and seems to occur more often than recorded.
Possible complications of leptospirosis: inflammation of the meninges (meningitis), inflammation of the heart muscle (myocarditis), inflammation of the brain (encephalitis), polyneuritis, inflammation of the iris (iritis).In the case of additional bacterial infection occur: mumps, pielity, otitis, inflammation of the lungs (pneumonia)
diagnosis of leptospirosis
diagnosis of leptospirosis is set based on the results of serological and bacteriological research.With correct diagnosis in patients with leptospirosis often is suspected hepatitis, toxic shock syndrome, meningitis, fever of unknown origin, jade, Kawasaki syndrome, influenza and legionnaires' disease.For recognition it must be considered leptospirosis epidemiological conditions (contact with rodents, seasonality, profession and so on.), And the characteristic symptoms.When the flow of the milder forms of the disease, diagnosis is quite difficult, resulting in erroneous diagnosis can be established "SARS" or "flu".It should be laboratory confirmation, when the cerebrospinal fluid, urine and blood detected pathogen
Treatment of leptospirosis
The first patient to be hospitalized in the infectious hospital, and if necessary in the ICU ward.Particular attention in the care of patients should be given to identify early signs of infectious - toxic shock and renal failure.
Early administration of antibiotics is the main method of treatment of this disease.In addition, the introduction of specific immunoglobulin used.For the treatment of people with severe forms of leptospirosis, which in addition complicated by renal failure, apply pathogenetic therapy.The most well-established drugs are antibiotics penicillin, but when they are hypersensitive used antibiotics tetracycline group.Treatment is most effective if it was started not later than three - four days after onset.In contrast, the later the specific treatment started, the worse the prognosis for the patient.
More articles on the topic:
1. alveolitis 2. Hepatitis A - Treatment | <urn:uuid:7ea333a2-99c2-4318-ab43-931e306550d0> | {
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I was recently explaining to someone that cell phones do not cause cancer. Of course, then this study comes out last week saying otherwise. There’s a number of flaws with this study, starting with the fact it is not a study. Ars Technica has a great discussion of its problems here:
Late last week, headlines blared that a new $25 million years-long US government study had finally found a clear connection between cellphone radiation and tumors in rats-striking fear in the hearts of gadget lovers worldwide. The finding-if true-would suggest we’re headed for an upsetting uptick in cancer incidence and death.
One of the more interesting lines in the Ars response is,
One of the reasons people have been reluctant to believe that cellphone radiation can cause cancer is that it hasn’t been adequately demonstrated in animal studies
That simply is not true. The reason nobody believes cell phones cause cancer is because in 1905, Albert Einstein wrote a paper called “Über einen die Erzeugung und Verwandlung des Lichtes betreffenden heuristischen Gesichtspunkt.” In English, Wikisource has a translation, “On a Heuristic Point of View about the Creation and Conversion of Light.” This paper explains how, below a certain energy level, electromagnetic radiation does not ionize matter it strikes. If the radiation is nonionizing, it does not cause cancer. It turns out the threshold level is about the boundary between violet on the rainbow and ultraviolet light. This is why we wear sunscreen outside.
This 1905 paper was a big deal in a year of big deals. Einstein also published three other papers on Brownian motion, special relativity, and mass-energy equivalence. Each of these four papers was a really big deal. Mass-energy equivalence is the source of the famous equation, …that’s how big a deal it was. And each of these four papers would have made a physicist’s career. But Einstein wrote them all in one year and the four papers are collectively known as the Annus Mirabilis papers.
But despite the importance of each of these papers, it was the photoelectric effect that got Einstein the Nobel Prize in 1921. Now, there’s a bit of politics that went into this, but the citation on the award read,
If you want to show cell phones cause cancer, that’s your hurdle to overcome. Not only do you have show the effect, you need a coherent theory of light that continues to describe reality.
Image by Jenbird14 / Pixabay. | <urn:uuid:d0e9e6ce-0439-48b8-9cda-8dabb2b14d48> | {
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Hydroponics is a system that allows you to grow plants without soil. It can be done indoors or outdoors, and requires very little space. If you find gardening enjoyable, you will surely fall in love with hydroponics as well. However, before starting your hydroponics system, there are a lot of things you need to consider. Though it is not difficult once you learn the proper way to do it, it is important to master the basics, so you do not waste time, effort, and money.
Paul Lavakis, an expert in this gardening method, released his report, Growing Without Soil: A Guide to Hydroponics. This report isn’t just about what hydroponics is, it also teaches you step-by-step how you can build your own hydroponics system with little resources. Paul guarantees that his guide includes everything you need to know to grow healthy, delicious, and fresh plants for food. Through this, you will be able to cut your food budget for your family. Best of all, you will be sure to feed your children safe and clean food.
If the only thing that is stopping you from setting up a garden is your limited city space, Growing Without Soil: A Guide to Hydroponics will definitely be a big help for you. This report isn’t just about what hydroponics is, it also teaches you step-by-step how you can build your own system. Since it does not require a green thumb to setup a hydroponics system, you can try it even if you’ve never grown a single plant before. Also, you won’t need a large amount to start your system, and with the food money you will save, it will more than pay for itself in a few months. Surely, there are a lot of good reasons why people all over the world are rushing to get their hydroponics system setup. | <urn:uuid:fa54c833-b989-4f12-a9db-d17a2ea126ff> | {
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Microbial fuel cells may well be the next black (or at least brown) gold. But to tap those anaerobic reserves, we'll need a power station that can run on carbon-rich gas. Something like the DFC-3000 fuel cell—it turns biogas into power 2200 for homes and their hydrogen cars.
Welsh Physicist William Grove patented the first fuel cells back in 1839. A fuel cell is composed of an electrolyte sandwiched between a fuel source (something to produce hydrogen) and an oxidant. The cell oxidizes the fuel at the anode and draws electrons to the cathode via an external circuit. When the electrons reach the cathode, they recombine with the hydrogen and push ions across the electrolyte and complete the circuit while producing carbon dioxide, water, and a few other trace chemicals.
Since these cells are self-contained generators with few moving parts capable of operating without combustion, they are ideally suited for remote areas that are otherwise inaccessible to main power grids or for on-site power for large institutions like hospitals, universities, and utilities. NASA has even employed fuel cells in numerous probes and satellites.
Molten Carbonate Fuel Cells (MCFC) are a hardy variation of the technology. MCFCs were patented by William W. Jacques in 1897 and were developed further by Lawrence Livermore Labs. The heat a lithium potassium carbonate salt until it melts. In the molten state, the carbonate salt conducts electrons so it is suspended in a porous, ceramic matrix and employed as the cell's electrolyte.
The MCFC needs to achieve temperatures in excess of 650 degrees C (1000 degrees F) in order to melt the carbonate salt. This makes MCFCs less than ideal for mobile power generation—it takes too long for the cells to heat up—but does impart a few benefits.
First, the extremely high operating temperature means that the machines can use electrodes made of non-precious metals, making them cheaper to produce. Second, these cells are able to extract hydrogen directly from the fuel source, a process known as internal reforming. This is something lower temperature cells cannot accomplish, which also reduces cost.
Third, they're not prone to electrode poisoning, aka "carbon choking," wherein carbon and other impurities build up on the electrodes like plaque, reducing their efficiency. This increases the variety of fuels MCFCs can use, including natural gas, bio-gas, even coal gas and other carbon-heavy sources.
Finally, the MCFCs are more efficient than other fuel cell technologies and many fossil fuels. MCFCs achieve an electrical efficiency of up to 60 percent—compared to 37-42 percent efficiency of conventional phosphoric acid fuel cell plants. And when combined with cogeneration technology, capturing and reusing the MCFC's waste heat, electrical efficiency can approach 90 percent.
The MCFC's main disadvantage is its durability. Due to the high operating temperature and corrosive materials employed, MCFCs tend to break down faster than other fuel cell technologies. Their other fault is that the process of internal reforming also produces greenhouse gas CO2 as a by-product, though it often isn't much.
FuelCell Energy's DFC-3000 is a type of MCFC, known as a Direct Fuel Cell (DFC). This 126 ton device is 71 feet long, 41 feet wide and produces 2.8MW at 47 percent efficiency—enough power to illuminate more than 2200 homes. The DFC-3000 can also be daisy-chained to scale its power production to up to 50MW. The interior of an single fuel cell stack may be filled with as many as 400 individual cells.
It consumes 360scf of natural gas every minute and expels 980 lb of CO2 per MWh. Compared to other forms of power generation, that's fantastic—coal plants generate 2249 lbs/MWh on average, oil produces 1672 lbs/MWh, and natural gas produces about 1135 lbs/MWh. And with cogeneration, it only expels about 600 lbs/MWh, half of the next cleanest fuel source.
As its technology continues to mature, the roles for MCFC are expanding. FuelCell Energy, for example, operates a power plant at a Orange County Sanitation District wastewater treatment facility to not only provide power to treatment plant but also as a source of fuel for a fleet of Air Products hydrogen cars.
The DFC taps into anaerobic processing tanks at the waste water treatment facility for its fuel—the gas would be flared off otherwise. Using the biogas, the DFC generates electricity that runs the rest of the treatment facility but, because the process doesn't fully reintegrate the hydrogen, there's always a bit left over. This excess gas is then used to a a renewable fuel source for the hydrogen-powered cars. Thank you, bacterial waste. [FuelCell Energy 1, 2, 3 - MCFC Wiki - DFC Wiki - Cogeneration Wiki - Global Newswire] | <urn:uuid:ef479a1b-ebaa-471f-8df2-301ea766ae1e> | {
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(CNN) -- Scoop up some soil on Mars, heat it up, cool down the steam and ... slurp, slurp! You've got water!
Mars might appear dry as a desert, but astronauts may someday be able to tap its soil to quench their thirst. Research recently published suggests that the soil from the Martian surface contains about 2% water by weight.
This is one of several insights emerging from data that the Mars rover Curiosity has been collecting. Five studies in the journal Science were published last week based on data from the rover's first 100 days on the Red Planet.
"The community was surprised that there was a large amount of water trapped in the ... Martian soil," said Chris Webster, manager of NASA's Planetary Sciences Instruments Office.
Curiosity, representing a $2.5 billion NASA mission, has been on Mars since it made a dramatic landing there August 6, 2012. Earthlings celebrated as the two-ton rover arrived, carrying with it the most sophisticated suite of instruments and cameras to explore the surface of another planet.
Thanks to Curiosity, scientists now know more than ever about the composition of the Martian soil.
"It's the first time that the soil has been analyzed at this level of accuracy," Webster said.
Turning on the faucet
The rover's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument helped scientists probe the soil by heating a sample up to 835 degrees Celsius.
The gases that came off included oxygen and chlorine as well as water vapor. Based on the ratio of isotopes within, scientists believe this water is coming from the recent Martian atmosphere.
"If you take about a cubic foot of dirt with the amount of water that we found and heated it up, you could get a couple of pints of water out of that," said Laurie Leshin, dean of science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, who led this study. "It was kind of exciting to me to see that, wow, it would be a significant amount."
More broadly, the analysis gives us new information about the hydrological cycle on Mars, said John Grotzinger, lead scientist on the Curiosity mission.
"Somehow, there's a process on Mars where, even though there are just trace quantities of water in Mars's atmosphere, this noncrystalline material is able to absorb it like a sponge and bind it into its framework," Grotzinger said.
The technical details about how future astronauts would use the soil as a resource for water haven't been worked out, Webster said. A condenser would be required to cool the water steam into a liquid form after heating up the soil. But from what we know so far, he said, it would be drinkable.
"This is a reservoir for water on Mars that we had not really appreciated before," Grotzinger said.
Scientists are also learning about the diversity of the soil on Mars.
Pierre-Yves Meslin, a scientist at Universite de Toulouse in Toulouse, France, and colleagues used data from an instrument that fires a laser to analyze the soil and rock on Mars. It's called the ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager.
One main soil type on Mars, they said, is made of fine-grained particles and carries a significant amount of hydrogen. Scientists say this reflects the dust that covers the whole Martian surface. The dust that covers Mars is more akin to a fine sand than the fluffy film on the floors of neglected attics on Earth, Webster said.
The other main soil type was coarse and is local to Gale Crater, the area where the rover is exploring. These particles, up to 1 millimeter in size, reflects what rocks in this area are made of.
Previous rovers -- Pathfinder, Spirit and Opportunity -- had less sophisticated technology to analyze soil but their insights about the mineral composition of the Martian soil are similar to what Curiosity found, Meslin said.
With ChemCam and Curiosity's other instruments, the latest rover can give scientists a deeper understanding of the composition, as well as how this soil was formed.
Complications with organics
New scientific insights also present the issue of chemical compounds that may complicate the search for life on Mars.
Curiosity is not capable of detecting life directly; it wouldn't confirm either modern life or ancient fossil organisms. It can, however, determine if the ancient environment was habitable -- which the rover told us it was -- and look for organic compounds.
Finding those compounds wouldn't prove the existence of life, either, because they can come from other sources. But the appearance of organic molecules would suggest that the environment is good at preserving them.
The release of chlorine and oxygen when the rover heated up soil suggests the presence of a chemical called perchlorate, at a 0.5% level in the soil, Leshin said. This substance can destroy organic carbon in a chemical reaction when the rover heats up soil. And so far, Curiosity has not directly detected organics in the soil.
Potentially the rover could avoid this problem using alternative techniques, which wouldn't heat the soil so much that perchlorates break down.
"Perchlorate is reacting with some organic compound to produce these simple molecules," Grotzinger said. "It leaves us asking the question: Is this from Mars, or is it something we brought with us? And right now we don't know."
Perchlorate in the planet's abundant dust could present a toxicity problem to humans on Mars; on Earth, it's known to cause thyroid problems, Leshin said.
The dust could generally pose a health problem as well -- both physically interfering with respiration and being a chemical hazard. Mars is known to have massive dust storms.
"It's one of the significant concerns to human exploration," Webster said.
Still no methane
Scientists are interested in whether Mars has methane gas, which could be an indicator of the planet's habitability. About 90% to 95% of the methane in Earth's atmosphere is biologically derived, said Sushil Atreya, a University of Michigan researcher and co-investigator for SAM, said in November 2012.
But the rover still has not detected methane gas, as scientists noted in Science earlier in September.
Even if there were methane, nonbiological sources such as volcanic activity can produce it.
It's still possible that methane will turn up in future measurements, however, Webster said.
Where it's going now
Curiosity is about one-fifth of the way to Mount Sharp, its final destination, where it will climb while testing the peak's sedimentary layers that have formed over time. Mount Sharp is 3.4 miles high, and its rock layers represent a series of chapters of the planet's history and the environmental conditions present in various eras.
Along the way, the rover stopped at a location called Waypoint 1, where scientists found a conglomerate rock that would have been found in an ancient stream bed. The rock with the pebbles has strange veins, filled with material that scientists don't quite understand.
"The implication of that is that again we're seeing the involvement of water, and it looks like this water was very widespread across the landing area," Grotzinger said.
It appears that the river would have extended from the rover's landing site all the way to Waypoint 1. The entire area that Curiosity has been driving across would have been covered by a stream bed, at one point or another, in the ancient history of Mars.
Curiosity isn't the only moving human-made object on Mars. The Opportunity rover, which launched in 2004, is still chugging along.
In 2020, NASA plans to send an even more advanced rover to "explore and assess Mars as a potential habitat for life, search for signs of past life, collect carefully selected samples for possible future return to Earth, and demonstrate technology for future human exploration of the Red Planet."
NASA recently announced a competition for proposals of what instruments the 2020 rover could carry.
It, too, may get humans closer to drinking water, and possibly even showering, on Mars. | <urn:uuid:4e0fc1af-6c35-4667-95ab-ec42a9c455f5> | {
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In recent years, pets are becoming more like children to many pet owners. Some pet owners will do almost anything for their pets. According to the American Pet Products Association, Americans spent an astounding $51 billion on their pets in 2011. This is up from $17 billion just 10 years ago. Even with this increase in spending, it may be surprising that a couple named Edgar and Nina Otto decided to spend $155,000 to clone their yellow Labrador retriever.
To Clone or not to Clone
Friday, August 3, 2012
The Otto’s loved their dog Sir Lancelot so much that they decided to collect his DNA before he died of cancer four years ago. Sir Lancelot was cloned, creating a replica named Lancelot Encore. Several months ago, the Ottos decided to breed their clone with a female American Kennel Club-registered Labrador retriever and on the Fourth of July, eight puppies were born. The Ottos will get their pick of the litter and the rest will be sold for $2,000 each. The cloned puppy will join the Otto’s eight dogs, five cats, and four birds.
The Ottos have become a media sensation this year. In May, they appeared on a TLC documentary, “I Cloned My Pet,” in which they discussed the benefits of pet cloning. Last month they were also featured in the HBO documentary film “One Nation Under Dog: Stories of Fear, Loss, and Betrayal.”
Some critics accuse pet cloning proponents of encouraging prospective pet cloning clients to falsely expect that their new pets will be indistinguishable from their old pets. What are the odds that one of the cloned puppies will have the same behavior and personality as Lancelot? After all, isn’t that why most people clone? An animal clone has the same genes as its genetic donor, but behavior is influenced by environment and experience in addition to the genes. Therefore, the behavior of an animal clone and its genetic donor will be no more similar than the behavior of identical twins.
The Humane Society of the United States and other animal welfare groups have denounced cloning because they feel it is unethical for people to clone when so many homeless pets are in shelters. They go so far as to say that the cloning of pets has no social value and in fact may lead to increased animal suffering. Other critics argue that cloning attempts have high rates of failure; that clones may have serious health problems in later life and that pet cloning is a slippery slope to human cloning.
Proponents argue that cloning does not contribute to pet homelessness and the animals involved are treated humanely. Many feel cloning contributes to scientific, veterinary, and medical knowledge and it will help efforts to preserve endangered cousins of the cat and dog.
Having just recently lost a beloved pet of my own, I can certainly understand the desire to keep your pet’s spirit alive by cloning. But it is my personal belief that the money spent on pet cloning would be better spent on spaying or neutering and vaccinating the 6-8 million homeless animals that enter animal shelters each year. In addition, adopting from a shelter rather than cloning your pet will help save one of the 3 million animals that are euthanized in animal shelters every year.
People clone in order to replace the void they feel after losing their beloved pet. But cloning will not create an animal identical to the one who has passed on; cloning cannot replicate an animal’s individuality. A pet’s personality, the trait that most owners want to replicate, is the trait least likely to be replicated by cloning. An animal’s looks may be the only thing replicated by cloning. So before you clone, you might want to ask yourself what it is you really want. Is it your pet’s personality you love or just his looks?
Adoptable Pet of the Week | <urn:uuid:6a3709f5-ab05-40f3-91a2-2bc8e1e72215> | {
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In biology, evolution is the change in the inherited traits of a population from generation to generation.
These traits are the expression of genes that are copied and passed on to offspring during reproduction.
Mutations in these genes can produce new or altered traits, resulting in heritable differences (genetic variation) between organisms.
New traits can also come from transfer of genes between populations, as in migration, or between species, in horizontal gene transfer.
Evolution occurs when these heritable differences become more common or rare in a population, either non-randomly through natural selection or randomly through genetic drift.
Natural selection is a process that causes heritable traits that are helpful for survival and reproduction to become more common, and harmful traits to become more rare.
This occurs because organisms with advantageous traits pass on more copies of these heritable traits to the next generation.
Over many generations, adaptations occur through a combination of successive, small, random changes in traits, and natural selection of those variants best-suited for their environment.
In contrast, genetic drift produces random changes in the frequency of traits in a population.
Genetic drift arises from the role chance plays in whether a given individual will survive and reproduce.
One definition of a species is a group of organisms that can reproduce with one another and produce fertile offspring.
However, when a species is separated into populations that are prevented from interbreeding, mutations, genetic drift, and the selection of novel traits cause the accumulation of differences over generations and the emergence of new species.
The similarities between organisms suggest that all known species are descended from a common ancestor (or ancestral gene pool) through this process of gradual divergence.
The theory of evolution by natural selection was proposed roughly simultaneously by both Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, and set out in detail in Darwin's 1859 book On the Origin of Species.
In the 1930s, Darwinian natural selection was combined with Mendelian inheritance to form the modern evolutionary synthesis, in which the connection between the units of evolution (genes) and the mechanism of evolution (natural selection) was made.
This powerful explanatory and predictive theory has become the central organizing principle of modern biology, providing a unifying explanation for the diversity of life on Earth.
See the following related content on ScienceDaily: | <urn:uuid:7dcaadd1-9bd7-4f6e-9009-930575cd175d> | {
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Rockfall at Upper Island Cove.
On February 14 1999, a rock fall took place at
Upper Island Cove
the Avalon Peninsula. An eight tonne block toppled from the top of a 100
m slope, ran roughly 150 m, struck a house, and landed on top of a
car parked beside the house. A resident within the house was knocked
across the room by the impact but was unhurt. Examination of the site
by government geologists and consultants with Newfoundland
Geosciences Ltd. allowed this incident to be well documented
(Newfoundland Geosciences, 1999). The rock came from a wedge type
failure, and travelled down a direct path, bouncing and splitting into
two fragments at the base of the slope. A follow-up study identified
several other loose blocks that required stabilization and suggested
that risk of future rock fall was high. In response to this hazard,
protective measures were installed in the summer of 1999.
Reproduced by permission of the Government of Newfoundland and
Labrador © 1999. | <urn:uuid:843289cd-fddf-465b-ab97-0d6584c716ce> | {
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Group: New Hampshire Historical Society
When: Saturday, October 21, 2–4 pm
Where: New Hampshire Historical Society, Concord, NH
On May 3, 2003, the Old Man of the Mountain disintegrated and fell into Franconia Notch, resulting in the loss of an important national landmark, long the basis for the State of New Hampshire’s official emblem. For nearly 200 years people pondered how the rock profile formed and remained in place, strove to secure and preserve it, and attempted to explain its natural and unmistakably “human” profile. In this lecture, geologist Brian Fowler, former president of the Mount Washington Observatory, traces the Old Man’s geologic and human history between the discovery of the phenomenon in 1805 and its disappearance in 2003. | <urn:uuid:faea8600-1ad6-444a-aa54-5362dab5c1cb> | {
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- Current Issue
- Buyer's guide
CIPP Industry Defends Styrene Use
Fed Dept. Seeks To Label Styrene As ‘Reasonably Anticipated Carcinogen’
Styrene is naturally occurring in the environment, dissipates quickly in the atmosphere and is highly biodegradable in the presence of water. In fact, styrene can be found in common foods such as strawberries and cinnamon. One reason that styrene may be such a target is its pungent odor (if it smells bad, it must be bad), and its low detection level. Most people can smell styrene in the air at the low concentration of less than one part per million.
It is estimated that about 10 percent of the styrene used in North America is for manufacturing composites, which includes cured-in-place-pipe (CIPP). The other 90 percent is used in the manufacturing of many other products such as polystyrene plastic (Styrofoam) and thermoplastics.
Styrene is a principal ingredient of the thermoset resins used in cured-in-place-pipe which is composed of a composite material. Without styrene, this type of cost-effective sewer rehabilitation would not be possible, leaving CIPP contractors, and ultimately sewer system operators, looking for other CIPP resins to use for pipeline rehabilitation. Although styrene substitutes exist, none can match styrene in performance, cost and availability of supply.
CIPP consumes about 5 percent of the styrene used for composite manufacturing, or about 0.5 percent of the total styrene used in North America. Although CIPP consumes millions of pounds of styrene per year, it is a relatively small consumer compared to the entire styrene industry. This means that if all styrene consumers begin searching for styrene substitutes, the CIPP industry may have difficulty finding a reliable supply because larger consumers would have priority purchasing power. (This brief summary of styrene’s uses is based on information provided by NASSCO.)
WSSC and CIPP
Andrew Fitzsimons, project manager for the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC), offers this comment about styrene and cured-in-place-pipe (CIPP) rehabilitation.
“CIPP lining provides system owners with a valuable, low-cost alternative to traditional open-cut construction. Listing styrene as a ‘reasonably anticipated carcinogen’ will likely result in a drastic increase in the cost of CIPP rehabilitation. As CIPP costs approach that of open-cut, system owners like WSSC will increasingly choose open-cut pipe over CIPP. Losing this lower-cost alternative will increase the capital costs associated with failing pipeline infrastructure replacement, particularly those mandated by EPA consent decrees. These costs will be passed on to the rate payers.” | <urn:uuid:f59dde3c-12b6-402a-922a-5e6c14105601> | {
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The Victoria Cross is the pre-eminent award for acts of bravery in wartime and Australia's highest military honour.
It is awarded to persons who, in the presence of the enemy, display the most conspicuous gallantry; a daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-sacrifice; or extreme devotion to duty.
The Victoria Cross was created by Queen Victoria in 1856 and made retrospective to 1854 to cover the period of the Crimean War.
Australians were eligible for the Victoria Cross and other awards under the Imperial system of honours, until the Victoria Cross was instituted in the Australian honours system by Letters Patent on 15 January 1991.
The Victoria Cross has been awarded to 100 Australians, including five Australians serving with South African and British units.
Australians have been awarded the Victoria Cross in the following conflicts:
- 6 in the Boer War 1899-1902
- 64 in World War I 1914-1918 (9 at Gallipoli)
- 2 in North Russia 1919
- 20 in World War II 1939-1945
- 4 in Vietnam 1962-1972
- 4 in Afghanistan 2001-2013
The first Australian to be awarded the Victoria Cross was Captain Sir Neville Howse VC KCMG CB KStJ during the Boer War (1900). He also served in World War I and later as Commonwealth Minister for Health, Defence and Repatriation.
Warrant Officer Keith Payne VC OAM was awarded the Victoria Cross for gallantry during the Vietnam War (24 May 1969). Under heavy enemy fire Payne instigated a daring rescue of more than forty men, many of them wounded, and led the party back to the battalion base.
The Victoria Cross was awarded to Trooper Mark Donaldson VC, to Corporal Benjamin Roberts-Smith VC MG, to Corporal Daniel Keighran VC and Corporal Cameron Stewart Baird VC MG for action in Afghanistan.
Search the Australian Honours List for recipients of the Victoria Cross.
The Governor-General awards the Victoria Cross, with the approval of the Sovereign, on the recommendation of the Minister for Defence.
The Victoria Cross may be awarded posthumously.
The post-nominal entitlement for the Victoria Cross is VC.
A subsequent award of the Victoria Cross to the same person is made as a bar to the Cross. They are also entitled to the post-nominal VC and Bar.
The Victoria Cross is a Maltese Cross, cast in bronze from cannons captured during the Crimean War (1854-1856). There is sufficient metal for a number of new medals to be cast from these cannons. They are each handmade by Hancocks and Company (Jewellers) of London.
The obverse of the Victoria Cross bears a crowned lion standing on a royal crown. The words 'FOR VALOUR' are inscribed on a semi-circular scroll beneath the crown.
The reverse of the cross is engraved with the date of the act of bravery and the name, rank and unit of the recipient.
The suspension bar is decorated with laurel leaves and bears a 'V' from which the cross hangs.
The medal ribbon of the Victoria Cross is crimson.
The information on this page is available as a printable fact sheet.
- Victoria Cross - Fact Sheet - PDF 56KB | RTF 1MB
Note: For more information on PDF files and their use see the PDF Help page on this site. | <urn:uuid:421934c3-de55-4f36-bc23-48986d243831> | {
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An international team of experts has arrived on one of Scotland's smallest inhabited islands to exterminate thousands of rats.
Rats were brought to the islands by sailors 100 years ago
About 10,000 rodents on Canna, which lies south of Skye, pose a serious threat to colonies of rare seabirds.
Over the past three decades their numbers have dropped dramatically, with Manx Shearwaters hit hardest.
However, before the rats can be destroyed scientists must catch and remove several hundred rare wood mice.
A team from Edinburgh Zoo will catch the mice and take them to the mainland for safekeeping.
They will be re-introduced when the rats have been eradicated.
The common brown rat was accidentally introduced to Canna by sailors more than 100 years ago.
Over the next nine months experts from New Zealand will lay bait every 50 metres, even abseiling over cliffs to ensure that every rat is dead. | <urn:uuid:85834a6d-0c50-4a16-af4f-c7e7409b16f1> | {
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Rhodes researchers form part of first-ever Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition (ACE) ProjectDate Released: Wed, 14 December 2016 11:45 +0200
Two Rhodes University microbiologists will join a team of 50 researchers from 30 countries to participate in the first circumnavigation of Antarctica. The purpose of this project is to lay the groundwork for understanding how marine ecosystems in the ‘Southern Ocean, which surrounds Antarctica, function on a large scale. The Southern Ocean and Antarctica are part of the polar regions which are critically affected by climate change.
“This is a once in a lifetime research cruise, the first time it is ever being done. We want to use this opportunity to shine a light on the hidden life in the marine systems, and also increase awareness of the global importance of the Southern Ocean,” shared Professor Rosemary Dorrington, DST/NRF SARChI Professor in Marine Natural Products Research.
The Southern Ocean refers to the region where Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Ocean waters come together to encircle Antarctica. The importance of the Southern Ocean is that it absorbs heat and is a major sink for carbon dioxide, CO², playing a critical role in mitigating the effects of global warming. Microscopic organisms including algae and bacteria remove this CO²from the water and convert it to biomass that sinks to the bottom, allowing the ocean to absorb more greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere. This process is known as carbon sequestration. However, as the water warms, the ability to absorb and sequester CO² decreases, accelerating the rate of global warming.
These microorganisms that are doing all this work in the Southern Ocean, drive CO² capture and cycling of nutrients are the bedrock of marine ecosystems, are invisible to the naked eye. “And we know almost nothing about who they are, what they do, how they will respond to climate change and what the consequences will be for the food chain that supports the visible marine world that we rely on for food,” said Dorrington.
PhD candidate Samantha Waterworth and Prof Rosemary Dorrington, of the Biochemistry and Microbiology Department, will participate in Leg 1 and Leg 3 of the cruise, respectively. The Russian Polar Research Vessel, R/N Akademik Treshnikov,will set sail from Cape Town Harbour on 20 December. The expedition consists of three legs: the first leg is from Cape Town, South Africa to Hobart, Australia, the second leg continues to Punta Arenas, South America and the third leg returns to South Africa on 18 March 2017.
“We will be collecting more than 800 samples. We will use molecular tools to study the microbial communities to see who is there, what are they doing and try to figure out why?” explained Prof Dorrington. “We are also interested in the potential for these microbes to produce novel chemicals (marine natural products) that can have pharmaceutical potential.”
“While the terrestrial systems are relatively well characterised, we know almost nothing about microbial dynamics in the Southern Ocean, despite the biological importance of the microbial food webs. This expedition will lay the foundation for understanding the open ocean ecosystem and we really need to understand how it works if we want to be able to mitigate the effects of climate change in the region and in Southern Africa,” stated Prof Dorrington.
South African researchers have been working on the Subantarctic Prince Edward Islands, which are critically important as breeding grounds for marine top predators (seals, penguins, albatross) for more than 50 years. These islands, are regarded as “Sentinels for climate change” because their environment is changing rapidly. Average sea water temperatures have risen by approximately 1.5oC and further warming will have catastrophic effect on the ability of the islands to support their unique marine wild-life. And the marine microbial communities are the first to respond to these changes.
“South African researchers are already active in the Southern Indian Ocean but through the ACE project, we are looking forward to develop South-South partnerships with South American countries like Brazil, Chile and Argentina, to look at the physical and biological dynamics of the South Atlantic. So the next step will be to develop the linkages with our South American partners,” added Prof Dorrington.
The third leg will coincide with Scifest Africa, which begins on 8 March 2017 to 14 March 2017. The researchers hope to be able to interact by Skype and Satellite phone every day so that learners can interact with them about the cruise, life on the Treshnikov and the work that they are doing.
The ship docks in Cape Town on 16 December and the Swiss Embassy is hosting an exhibition at the V&A Waterfront with displays and talks about the expedition. The Treshnikov will be visible at its mooring on East Pier. The researchers will be posting videos and photographs and sharing these on Instagram and an ACE Project Blog. Follow them on Instagram at “sa_ace_project” | <urn:uuid:2236e0b3-4e5a-41b6-96f4-05207c6f4af2> | {
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A proposed law that would require new houses and buildings to have water harvesting systems could be the next tier in the conservation program of Santa Fe, N.M.
The city already has a water budget law that requires builders to retrofit existing buildings with low-flow toilets to offset water demand from new construction.
The city's Water Conservation Committee discussed the water harvesting measure at its meeting earlier this month. City Councilor Patti Bushee, a sponsor of the measure along with Councilor David Coss, said the move would be the next step in outdoor water conservation.
Essentially, the bill would require systems for harvesting rain water or runoff, including cisterns and storage tanks, for new residential, commercial, industrial and institutional development. But Bushee said the ordinance, in draft form, has some holes.
She raised questions about: Who would enforce the measure? Does the city have the staff to implement the program?
"That's one thing that really frustrates me," Bushee explained. "We don't really have a staff to work on this. And I don't think we even have a staff in the end to enforce this."
Still, Coss expressed his support for the measure, which will go through additional debate at the Water Conservation Committee level before it moves to the City Council.
"I think we've looked as much as we can at water conservation inside of the home," Coss said. "We need to look outside now."
City leaders have been working hard on measures aimed at reducing water use in town. Last summer, the city implemented the water budget law requiring low-flow toilet retrofits.
Further, city officials, including Water Conservation Committee members, have proposed spending $385,000 to subsidize residents' purchase of rain barrels for water harvesting.
But new laws and regulations are only part of the city's program.
The city is also digging new emergency wells to bring in several million more gallons a day. And a state measure approved in the recent legislative session allows residents to use gray water -- wastewater that doesn't come into contact with toilet water in the home -- for irrigation. Gray water is typically from the shower or bath, kitchen sink or washing machine.
Water Conservation Committee member Catherine Clemens said using gray water is integral to new water conservation efforts. The committee discussed creating a program for cisterns. But Clemens said cisterns can only do so much.
"Once you use up your cisterns, you don't have water," she explained, whereas recyling gray water is "what gets (users) the water." | <urn:uuid:c7e0ad5c-1dd4-44ba-ae76-00c1e764429f> | {
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This bear can barely paint a straight line! Can your child help complete the lines? This worksheet has four pages of line drawing fun. To complete these worksheets your child will need to trace the zig-zag and rounded lines on the pages. This is great practice for improving your child's hand-eye coordination and fine-motor skills, and will prepare your child for writing later on. | <urn:uuid:79346714-0f2c-4a40-b888-9ed7ec0b50e7> | {
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Finally a complete Arabic method for English speakers !
- Translated word to word
- Fully vocalized
- Cheerful, colorful and airy
In order to be able to read, write and express oneself in literary Arabic, here is a complete method on seven levels.
The first level is divided into two volumes:
Learn to read and write.
Master the rules of reading and writing, acquire the basics of Arabic vocabulary and be able to formulate your first common expressions.
This second volume consists of six progressive sections whose objectives are as follows:
Section 1: Rules of reading and writing
The rules of reading and writing, with practical exercises and training in reading. With corrections.
Rules: The Alif in all its forms, the Hamza, reading a letter followed by a stop, the letters which do not attach, attachment of the letters, the Alif which bears the sign of wasl, the Lam followed by Alif , the double-vowels, the lengthening with the small sign of Alif, the open t (mabsouta) and the closed t (marbouta), the h and its transformations, the names of the letters, the names of the vowels, and finally, the lunar and solar letters.
Section 2: Reading Progressive Phrases
60 sentences under a large and airy handwriting. They allow progressive training in reading. These sentences follow a progression ranging from 2 words to 4 words, and short vowels to all vowels. The sentences are accompanied by a word-for-word translation and an adapted translation, in order to learn the structures of the Arabic language.
Section 3: Thematic Vocabulary (210 words):
Themes: Colors. Numbers from 0 to 20. Office supplies. The House. The furniture. The utensils to eat. Food. The drinks. etc.
Section 4 : Expressions of daily life
Action – Reactions and Affirmations – Answers: Greetings at different times of the day. Welcome. To present oneself. etc.
Section 5: Poetry
A simple poem, with useful vocabulary.
Accompanied by an adapted translation and a word-by-word translation. | <urn:uuid:b1700505-ddad-4590-a06e-7cc0da0da887> | {
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Diseases and Pests
Wheat is susceptible to many pests and diseases, the more destructive including rust, bunt (see smut), and the Hessian fly and chinch bug. All wheat-producing countries carry on breeding experiments to improve existing varieties or to obtain new ones with such dominant characteristics as disease resistance, increased hardiness under specific environments, and greater yield.
Sections in this article:
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Plants | <urn:uuid:6ffadbd6-87c0-45e5-8bb0-f71154833595> | {
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What is internet’s point of origin? There can be many possible answers to this question. Did it begin in 1965 when two computers at MIT communicated with each other using packet-switching technology? Or in 1973 when it was realized for the first time that global networking is possible when University College London, England and Royal Radar Establishment, Norway connected to ARPANET? Or in 1974, with the coming up of first internet service provider? Or in 1990 when Tim Berners Lee developed HTML? Or in 1991 when world wide web (www) was introduced to the public? The fact is whichever answer one wants to go with, the choice is always followed by large number of concepts coming from computer science and other related subjects. And it is our experts’ knowledge of these that has made our history of the internet and www assignment help service in Australia a favourite of university students.
There is no one answer which is agreed upon by everyone to the above question. This is the reason we mention some of the possible answers one gets on asking the question. No doubt, the present form of internet that we use became possible with www and HTML. However, it didn’t look how it does today when HTML was first used to create websites; there have been countless development since then, most prominent being the introduction of images. Your assignment can also ask you to excavate the history to varying degrees on the internet’s timeline. Our history of the internet and www assignment experts in Australia stand out in that they are aware of the entire research and development scene at these important moments which led to today’s internet.
One of the advantages of studying the history of internet is that students get to learn that technologies of today are part of an evolving process that has been going on for decades and centuries. Of course, the assignment we do focuses on the aspect and era under question. However, as our history of the internet and www assignment writing service experts tell students, there are no beginnings from zero when it comes to the history of the internet. It is this setting the development of a particular era in the larger context that makes our assignments a valuable learning exercise for students beside timely submissions.
Broadly, we make three divisions: pre- 1965 developments that made ARPANET possible, advances made from 1965 to 1990, and, finally, how internet and www has evolved from 1991 till today. Of course, the length and depth of points made in the assignment is always according to the topic of you have given us.
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To get history of the internet and www assignment help write to us at [email protected] or call us on +61 282 942 025. | <urn:uuid:1d74c49f-b06b-4199-b594-448b6f1155e7> | {
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Meaning of transmission
Pronunciation: (trans-mish'un, tranz-), [key]
- the act or process of transmitting.
- the fact of being transmitted.
- something that is transmitted.
- transference of force between machines or mechanisms, often with changes of torque and speed.
- a compact, enclosed unit of gears or the like for this purpose, as in an automobile.
- the broadcasting of electromagnetic waves from one location to another, as from a transmitter to a receiver.
- transmission (Thesaurus) | <urn:uuid:410372f5-736a-4e38-aabc-a92083967b68> | {
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John Henry Newman once compared Scripture to an inexhaustibly rich wilderness—never failing to reward the faithful explorer with thrilling new discoveries yet always beyond his ability to master it completely:
It cannot, as it were, be mapped, or its contents cataloged; but after all our diligence, to the end of our lives and to the end of the Church, it must be an unexplored and unsubdued land, with heights and valleys, forests and streams, on the right and left of our path and close about us, full of concealed wonders and choice treasures. (An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, 71).
The Eucharist is among those ‘concealed wonders and choice treasures’ in the Old Testament. At first, with the obvious exception of the manna heaven that rained down on the Israelites, it seems that there is little in the Old Testament that foreshadows the extraordinary new reality that is the Eucharist. But Newman invites us to venture deep into the hidden valleys and the secret gardens of the Old Testament. When we do, it turns out the Eucharist is everywhere—from the Pentateuch to the prophets.
1. The forbidden fruit. The forbidden fruit of the Garden of Eden seems like the last place one would see a foreshadowing of the Eucharist. But medieval commentators saw the Eucharist as the “antidote to the poisonous effects of the apple,” according to Ann Astell, in Eating Beauty. Just as eating of the forbidden fruit was a sin of pride, avarice, gluttony, or disobedience, so the Eucharist was seen as inculcating the corresponding opposite virtues: humility, poverty, abstinence, and obedience, according to Astell. The parallel goes even deeper: in eating the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve brought death into the world while those who partake in the Eucharist are promised eternal life.
2. Fruit of the Tree of Life. The connections between Eden and the Eucharist are reinforced in the last book of the Bible. First a reminder: there were actually two types of trees in Eden. The one that gets most of the attention is the tree of knowledge of good and evil—it is the fruit of this tree that Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat. But, when the pair are banished, a second tree is mentioned: “See! The man has become like one of us, knowing what is good and what is bad! Therefore, he must not be allowed to put out his hand to take fruit from the tree of life also, and thus eat of it and live forever” (Genesis 3:22). In Revelation, John indicates that, through Christ, we will be able to eat of the fruit of this second tree. In Revelation 2:7, John writes, “To the victor I will give the right to eat from the tree of life that is in the garden of God.” Ten verses later we read: “To the victor I shall give some of the hidden manna”—a clear reference to the Eucharist. (I’m particularly indebted to Deacon Sabatino Carnazzo for this reading. For more about the Eucharist and the Garden of Eden, read his article at the Institute of Catholic Culture.)
3. The blood of Abel. This is another one that seems an odd type for the Eucharist. But Scripture links the blood of Christ with Abel. In Genesis 4:8, after Cain has slain his brother, God speak to him, “What have you done? Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground!” In Hebrews 12:24, St. Paul draws a connection with Christ, calling Jesus “the mediator of a new covenant, and the sprinkled blood that speaks more eloquently than that of Abel.” St. Gregory the Great elaborates on this, “The blood of Jesus calls out more eloquently than Abel’s, for the blood of Abel asked for the death of Cain, the fratricide, while the blood of the Lord has asked for, and obtained, life for his persecutors.” When we receive the Eucharist, St. Gregory adds, we too must cry out and proclaim our faith in Jesus. “The cry of the Lord finds a hiding place in us if our lips fail to speak of this, though our hearts believe in it,” he concludes.
4. Sacrifice of Melchizedek. In Genesis 14, after Abraham rescues Lot and his relatives who had been seized in an invasion of Sodom, a most strange figure bursts into the scene: Melchizedek, the king of Salem comes out to greet him. We are told in Genesis that he was a priest of “God Most High”—long before the institutional priesthood of Israel was established. And, ages before the gospel was brought to the Gentiles, Melchizedek had somehow come to know God. Later in Scripture we read that he was “without father, mother, or ancestry, without beginning of days or end of life, thus made to resemble the Son of God” (Hebrews 7:3). Melchizedek is thus portrayed in Scripture as one who foreshadowed Christ, Himself true king and perfect priest. The parallels go even further: in Genesis 14:18 Melchizedek offers a sacrifice of “bread and wine,”—a foreshadowing of the Eucharist, according to the Haydock Bible Commentary.
5. The todah. As Catholics we know that the Passover was the primary Old Testament sacrifice that is the backdrop for the Eucharist. But another important one was the todah, a sacrifice offered in ancient Israel after a person had been saved from a life-threatening situation. Here’s how one writer describes the sacrifice: “The lamb would be sacrificed in the Temple and the bread for the meal would be consecrated the moment the lamb was sacrificed. The bread and meat, along with wine, would constitute the elements of the sacred todah meal, which would be accompanied by prayers and songs of thanksgiving. …” Does this not immediately call to mind the Eucharist? In Hebrew, todah means thanksgiving, which is exactly the literal translation of the Greek word eucharista. Indeed, both are sacrifices of thanksgiving for salvation.
6. Elijah in the desert. In 1 Kings 19, Elijah flees from Jezebel into the wilderness. After wandering for a day, he sinks down by a lone tree and begs God to let him die. Instead, he is sent an angel who brings a “hearth cake and a jug of water.” But this was not normal food—it was enough to sustain him on a 40-day journey to Mt. Horeb where he had a profound encounter with God in the “whistling of a gentle air.” Catholic interpreters have long seen this super food given to Elijah as a type of the Eucharist. (Sources include: Dr. Marcellino D’Ambrosio and the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate.)
7. Bread of the Presence. In ancient Israel, the Bread of the Presence was set out on a golden table in the tabernacle as “a memorial of the oblation of the Lord” (Leviticus 24:7). The bread was to be before the presence of God continually, was perfumed with frankincense, and accompanied by constantly burning lampstands. New bread was put out every Sabbath and only those who had recently abstained from sexual relations—normally priests—could eat it. When the table that held the bread was carried out of the tabernacle, it was veiled. In fact, when the tabernacle was moved, all the vessels in it were carefully wrapped. Those transporting the vessels were to not directly touch these vessels, lest they die (Exodus 25, Leviticus 24, Numbers 4, and 1 Samuel 21). Does not this all sound quite familiar? Indeed, it’s harder to imagine a more obvious precedent for the devotion and reverence with which Catholics of today treat the Eucharist.
8. Isaiah’s coal. Once we arrive in the prophetic books, we encounter some truly extraordinary and provocative types of the Eucharist. First, in Isaiah 7, the prophet envisions God sitting on a throne, flanked by the seraphim angels. “And one of the seraphims flew to me, and in his hand was a live coal, which he had taken with the tongs off the altar. And he touched my mouth, and said: Behold this hath touched thy lips, and thy iniquities shall be taken away, and thy sin shall be cleansed” (Isaiah 7:6-7). In Church liturgies, particularly in the Orthodox tradition, the fiery coal prefigures the Eucharist. The Liturgy of St. James describes Communion as “receiving the fiery coal” and, in the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, the priest says, “Lo, this has touched your lips and has taken away your iniquity,” according to one Orthodox writer. The parallels couldn’t be clearer: like the fiery coal, the Eucharist comes to us from the altar and cleanses us of sins (specifically venial sins, but it also fortifies us against mortal ones).
9. Ezekiel’s scroll. Another extraordinary foreshadowing of the Eucharist is in Ezekiel 2. Like Isaiah, the prophet has a vision of God and the Spirit of the Lord enters him. Then, in verse 8, he hears these words, “open thy mouth, and eat what I give thee.” “And I looked, and behold, a hand was sent to me, wherein was a book rolled up: and he spread it before me, and it was written within and without: and there were written in it lamentations, and canticles, and woe.” In the next chapter he describes his eating of this book: “And I did eat it: and it was sweet as honey in my mouth” (verse 3). Catholic interpreters over the centuries have seen this sweet scroll that was eaten as another sign of the Eucharist (the most recent example is Scott Hahn’s new book, Consuming the Word). The episode illustrates well what we experience in the two liturgies of the Mass. In the first, we consume the Word, in the readings of Scripture and the homily that is preached on them. Then, in the second liturgy, we consume the Eucharist, which, as the Body of Christ, is the Word made flesh. | <urn:uuid:8f141b68-d27d-4270-8b1a-bb8fb105bd89> | {
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Transition metals, post-transition metals and their compounds
A képekre kattintva megtekinthetjük az adott képhez tartozó részletes leírást.
The largest block of elements in the periodic table is a group known as the transition metals. These metals are found in groups three through twelve of the periodic table (the so-called d-block elements), although there are ongoing differences of opinion about exactly which elements should be classed as transition metals and which should not. Some of the most commonly used metals on Earth are transition metals, including zinc, titanium, copper and iron. Precious metals like silver and gold are also transition metals. The transition metals typically have the following properties: a tendency to form coloured compounds, good conductors of heat and electricity, high melting and boiling points, high density, malleable (can be bent or hammered into shape), ductile (can be drawn into wires), relatively hard, less reactive than alkali and alkaline earth metals. Most transition metals have several possible oxidation states. The maximum oxidation state possible will in many cases be equal to the number of unpaired electrons in the (n-1)d orbitals, plus two (the number of electrons usually found in the ns orbital) (Wells, 2017). In our database the following metals are classified as transition metals: Scandium (Sc)*, Titanium (Ti) Vanadium (V)*, Chromium (Cr), Manganese (Mn), Iron (Fe), Cobalt (Co*), Nickel (Ni) , Copper (Cu), Zinc (Zn), Yttrium (Y)*, Zirconium (Zr), Niobium (Nb)*, Molybdenum (Mo), Technetium (Tc), Ruthenium (Ru)*, Rhodium (Rh)*, Palladium (Pa)*, Silver (Ag), Cadmium (Cd), Hafnium (Hf)*, Tantalum (Ta)*, Tungsten (W)*, Rhenium (Re), Osmium (Os)*, Iridium (Ir)*, Platinum (Pt)*, Gold (Au), Mercury (Hg), Rutherfordium (Rf), Seaborgium (Sg), Bohrium (Bh), Hassium (Hs), Meitnerium (Mt), Ununnilium, Unununium, Ununbium
“Post-transition metals are a set of metallic elements in the periodic table located between the transition metals to their left, and the metalloids to their right. Depending on where these adjacent groups are judged to begin and end, there are at least five competing proposals for which elements to include: the three most common contain six, ten and thirteen elements, respectively. All proposals include gallium, indium, tin, thallium, lead, and bismuth. Physically, post-transition metals are soft (or brittle), have poor mechanical strength,and have melting points lower than those of the transition metals. Being close to the metal-non-metal border, their crystalline structures tend to show covalent or directional bonding effects, having generally greater complexity or fewer nearest neighbours than other metallic elements. Chemically, they are characterised—to varying degrees—by covalent bonding tendencies, acid-base amphoterism and the formation of anionic species such as aluminates, stannates, and bismuthates (in the case of aluminium, tin, and bismuth, respectively). They can also form Zintl phases (half-metallic compounds formed between highly electropositive metals and moderately electronegative metals or metalloids). Alternate names for this group are B-subgroup metals, other metals, and p-block metals; and at least eleven other labels.“ (Wikipedia) In our database the following metals are classified as post-transition metals: aluminum (Al), gallium (Ga)*, indium (In)*, thallium (Tl), Tin (Sn), lead (Pb) and bismuth (Bi)*.
* on the 2017 CRMs (27) list
Wikipedia, Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-transition_metal, Accessed: 21st of June 2018
Wells, Christopher J. (2017) TechnologyUKnet, Alkali and Alkaline Earth Metals, Available from: https://www.technologyuk.net/physics/matter/transition-metals.shtml, Accessed: 21st of June 2018
CRMs (27) (2017) COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS on the 2017 list of Critical Raw Materials for the EU | <urn:uuid:6f6a440f-c8a2-4378-bc71-84cfe2a7e3d9> | {
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The Canine Diversity Project
Population Genetics and Breeding
by John Armstrong
Early geneticsWhen Mendel's work was rediscovered at the beginning of the twentieth century, the new field of Genetics went in several directions. The T. H. Morgan (1) school quickly got tired of crossing green to yellow peas and moved on to discovering white-eyed fruit flies, linkage and genetic maps. The Garrod (2) school started trying to figure out how genes controlled metabolism... and eventually everything else. The mathematically inclined, fearing to get their hands dirty, started thinking about how genes get shuffled around in a population. That led, around 1910, to the famous Hardy-Weinberg formula that relates the frequency of alleles to that of genotypes. For those unfamiliar with it, the basic formula assumes two alleles for a gene and sets the frequency of the first allele as p and that of the second one as q where p + q = 1. In a population that meets certain conditions, the relative frequencies of the three genotypes AA, Aa and aa will be p-squared, 2pq and q-squared. The main conditions are random mating, a large population, and no forces acting to change the allele frequencies.
This does not imply an endorsement of random mating, but was simply a starting point for the eventual development of equations to describe other situations. Most natural populations do not follow these rules. In nature, selection is often harsh, and most animals do not practice random mating. In many species that live in packs or herds, only the dominant male may breed and competition for that spot may be intense. Otherwise, the most common practice is probably assortative mating, where mates are chosen that have similar qualities (size, temperament, etc.) or are not closely related (negative assortative mating). How they decide on the latter is still being determined, but recognition of relatives probably depends on pheromones to a large extent.
Genetics without colorIn the beginning, all geneticists held to much the same beliefs, or "model"ö that there was one, and only one, good (or "wild-type") version of each gene. There were also a few nasty recessive mutants that would occasionally surface. They didn't really expect to find a large amount of diversity for most genes. They lived in a black-and-white world where genes were like light switches ö either on or off, no in-between. As most of the bad mutations appeared to be recessive, good breeding was reduced to finding ways of efficiently identifying those carrying "degeneracies". Faith in inbreeding as a method for breeding the perfect individual was reinforced by various authors:"Inbreeding... is a method of holding fast to that which is good and of casting out that which is bad. It establishes homozygous purity..." Onstott (1946)The morgan and garrod geneticists wanted nice "clean" mutations that were easily distinguished from the wild-type, and a population geneticist would never stoop to thinking about what a gene actually does! Their main concern was to figure out equations that would describe more complex situations involving selection, migration, and mutation, and explain what would happen to a new mutation give certain assumptions. Morphological variants, such as green and yellow peas, were not even really thought of in the same way. I mean, can you really think of a green pea as a "mutant"? (Or is yellow the mutant? How can that be if it is dominant?)
However, by the early Î60s, if not before, those on the front lines were certainly aware of mutations that retained partial function ("leaky mutants"), even if they didn't want to work with them. By the Î70s, the population geneticists actually started going out into the field and measuring the diversity in populations. They went in with the expectation of finding little difference between most individuals in a population and discovered far more than they had anticipated. The dust still hasn't settled completely. Logic suggested that if there was a considerable amount of genetic diversity, then there should be some reason for it. In a large population, the rare recessive mutation has little chance of gaining a toe-hold, and if it gets to the level where there are a noticeable number of homozygous mutants, selection will do its best to push it down again.
Explaining diversitySeveral theories were proposed, but somewhere along the line, the realization dawned that many populations are actually a loose collection of small populations that are semi-isolated. In a small population, random events take over and the frequencies of particular alleles may change dramatically just by chance ("genetic drift"). Given enough time, these random fluctuations generally eliminate all but one allele, which is said to be "fixed". How quickly this happens depends on how small the population is. Unequal use of individuals in the population increases the rate of allele loss because it decreases the effective population size.
Alleles with dramatic effects on viability are still generally selected against, but if the population includes several alleles of a particular gene, the "best" choice will not always be the winner. Sometimes an allele that reduces fitness by a small amount will take over. Over time, a small population may accumulate enough of these sub-optimal mutations for the impact to be noticeable.
Small populations also tend to become unintentionally inbred simply because there are not enough ancestors for each member of the current population to have a unique set (3). Neither intentional nor unintentional inbreeding lead to changes in allele frequencies, unless combined with selection, but they do lead to loss of heterozygosity. The decrease in fitness that results from accumulation of suboptimal recessives in the homozygous state is what we generally call "inbreeding depression".
If there is an exchange of genes by individuals crossing over into another population's territory, the reduction in fitness due to gene loss will be reduced. The populations that we see in difficulty have often been cut off from other populations preventing this essential migration of genes. Canine examples include the Ethiopian and Mexican wolves, and the grey wolves on Isle Royale.
The importance of breed originsSome breeds of domestic dog have evolved gradually over hundreds or perhaps even thousands of years. As most were bred for a purpose, some selection must have been involved. If you want a dog to guard your sheep, and it fails to do so, you are not likely to breed it. However, if you have two good herding dogs, you might breed them to each other, irrespective of their relationship. All the herding dogs in one valley may have been fairly similar and closely related, but exchanges would have occurred between neighboring valleys. If the population over a more extended region was bred for a common purpose, they might constitute a recognizable group, or breed, and it might acquire a descriptive name -- the Bavarian Sheepdog for instance. Such naturally-evolved breeds would be unlikely to have suffered major drift losses, even if they became locally inbred, because sufficient diversity would exist in the whole population, and there was no reason not to breed to a good sheepdog from another country. Whether one regards stud books and closed registries as good ideas or not, providing that sufficient numbers were admitted, such a breed should have at least started with sufficient diversity.
In contrast, when a breed is deliberately created from a small number of founders, the creator(s) generally concentrate first on inbreeding and selection to define the qualities they are after, rather than increasing the initial population and subsequently selecting for those that come closest to meeting their goals. Such a beginning generally removes most of the genetic diversity in the first few generations. If you have been unlucky or chosen badly, there may be little you can do.
The same fate may befall a naturally-evolved breed ( "landrace") if there is no recognized registry in the country of origin and too few founders are admitted into the registry somewhere else. At least in these cases, the potential exists of petitioning for reopening the stud book and admitting additional "founders". In those cases where there is no such reserve, the solution might be a merger with a closely related breed, or at least provision for some interbreed crosses. There are a few documented cases where this has been attempted in the last 20-30 years, but they have met considerable resistance.
Don't shoot the messengerPopulation genetics is not really a new discipline, it just seems that way because it's generally the last chapter in a genetics text. Population geneticists are neither white knights come to save us all, nor agents of the devil intent on destroying pure breeds. Population genetics is a tool for looking at an entire population or breed. It can tell you what has happened to the genetic diversity, and whether there is any possibility of improving the situation by making appropriate crosses. How this information is used is up to the breed club and individual breeders. Though lessons may be learned from conservation biology, I do not expect breed clubs are going to be in a position to manage the entire breed. However, they may choose to limit certain practices for the overall good of the breed. The prime target, in my opinion, should be overuse of popular stud dogs.
In a managed population of an endangered species, zoo biologists might choose one of several strategies that are generally aimed at conserving the diversity from the wild population from which the captive population is drawn. This makes the assumption that all founders were equally meritorious and that their genes are all equally worthy of preservation. This is essentially a holding action and, in the absence of selection, runs the risk of creating a population that is less well adapted to returning to the wild.
In my view, the best strategy for dog breeders is carefully planned assortative mating combined with an attempt to minimize or at least reduce the inbreeding coefficient. In practice, if I am asked for an opinion on a suitable mate for a Standard Poodle, I suggest that the breeder assemble a list of dogs he/she would consider breeding to, based on conformation, temperament and whatever other criteria are deemed relevant, and I will tell them the inbreeding coefficient for each potential litter and also about the prominent ancestors in the pedigree. My personal criterion is a 10-generation COI under 10%, but I might pick one close to that, or even a bit over, if I liked the other qualities.
The COI has predictive value. I can tell you that an SP inbred to only 5% will, on average, live about 3 years longer than one bred to 35%, and I can tell you that a 10% increase will likely reduce litter size by about 7%. Both these effects are, in my opinion, most likely to result from accumulation of suboptimal alleles with small individual effects. However, inbreeding also increases the probability of doubling up on any obviously deleterious traits carried by a shared ancestor. I understand why breeders inbreed (or linebreed), but I don't agree that it is necessary to produce good dogs (see Inbreeding and Diversity). As to the claim that it can be used to uncover problems in the line, I agree, but I can also give you case histories where the breeder has proceeded to ignore a hereditary problem uncovered this way, and as a result spread it through the breed.
Neither population genetics nor modern DNA technology is going to provide magical solutions to all our problems. However, used together, they may take us through the 21st Century. Continued reliance on the models put forward in the early days of genetics almost certainly will not.
- Thomas Hunt Morgan (Nobel Prize, 1933) and his group provided the first evidence that genes were located on chromosomes, and showed how they could be mapped.
- The first clearly-described relationship between genotype and metabolic deficiencies is credited to Sir Archibald Garrod, an English physician. (see The Nature of Genetic Disease)
- The theoretical number of ancestors increases exponentially: 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 greatgrandparents, and so on. By time you have reached the 10th generation, you need 1024 in that generation, or 2046 counting all the previous generations. The highest number I have encountered in a purebred predigree is just under 1000 for all 10 generations. 300-400 is more common and many fall below that in a rare breed.
© John B. Armstrong, July 2000 | <urn:uuid:00ed0454-650f-47ff-a3ea-cb43b9c3b84b> | {
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Constitution Day: Celebrating the foundation of our government
Madison, Wisconsin - September 14, 2012
A Guest Column By Shirley S. Abrahamson, Chief Justice Wisconsin Supreme Court
How many words does it take to establish a nation?
The preamble to the Constitution of the United States laid out the mission in 52 words.
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Although a bit lengthy by today's sound-bite standards, few words have ever done so much work. This was powerful language in 1787, when the Constitution was signed, and it expressed extraordinarily bold and innovative ideas.
At the time the Constitution was written, no other country was "governed with separated and divided powers providing checks and balances on the exercise of authority by those who governed," the late U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote in celebration of the bicentennial of the Constitution 25 years ago.
"In place of the absolutism of monarchy, the freedoms flowing from this document created a land of opportunities. Ever since then discouraged and oppressed people from every part of the world have made a beaten path to our shores…" Burger wrote.
Two hundred twenty-five years after its creation, we continue to celebrate our Constitution – Sept. 17 each year is recognized by federal law as Constitution Day.
In the articles that follow the preamble, the Constitution establishes our three branches of government – the legislative, executive and judicial. Each branch is empowered to serve the people, as well as to serve as a check and balance on the other branches. It is the Judicial Branch's job to interpret and apply the Constitution and other laws in cases brought to the courts.
In addition to serving as the foundation of our government, the Constitution protects each of us, placing limits on the government's power.
The first ten amendments to the Constitution, collectively known as the Bill of Rights, establish many of the rights and freedoms that we now take for granted. The First Amendment alone packs a powerful punch in a single sentence – establishing religious freedom, free speech, freedom of the press, the right to assemble "and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." The Bill of Rights also establishes our right to keep and bear arms, protects our property from illegal search and seizure and requires due process of law. Of particular interest to the courts, the Sixth Amendment ensures "the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury...."
Subsequent amendments abolish slavery, expand voting rights, refine the electoral process, and address qualifications for public office and citizenship, among other provisions.
Historically, the U.S. Constitution has served as a model for constitutions developed around the world, particularly after World War II. The document remains influential and endures as the foundation of our government and our rights.
Let's celebrate the work the Constitution does for us all. | <urn:uuid:3e0a3bd5-1514-4550-8730-f240274bf5df> | {
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Unique picture poetry book by CL Farrell. Designed to help children and adults learn new vocabulary. A fun pocket-sized fully illustrated A to Z of alliterative poems with dictionary definitions on each page.
15 by 20 cm
During my teacher training at the University of Cumbria we were always inspired to find creative ways to help children learn. Whenever i had tie on my hands I would put pen to paper and think of imaginative ways to help children learn using the medium of poetry. I used poetry because i felt that coming from a folk music background using words and language in a poetical form is always an enriching learning experience.
Shipping & delivery
This item will be posted to you by Freja & Farrell within 3 days of receiving payment.
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85th Annual Meeting of the Society for Military History
Landscapes of War and Peace
April 5 - 8, 2018, Louisville, Kentucky
David Johnson explores the role of refugees from northern Vietnam, sometimes seen as a "claque" or group of zealous supporters, was far from guaranteed. Shared bonds of religious (Catholic) faith, and anti-communism did not directly translate to support for the government of South Vietnam. Qingfei Yin examines the region along the North Vietnam-People Republic of China border, which marked a division between two newly emerged Communist states that both sought to control the lives of their populations through social and political mobilization. Robert Thompson focuses on the area of Cung Son, a vital town in the province of Phu Yen. Contested by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese, South Vietnamese forces prevailed at the Battle of Cung Son in 1971, yet the victory proved hollow, and the government was unable to fully integrate the area into the national economy and society.
Through this panel, we hope to reveal how the civilian population and state structures interacted during a time of conflict. All sides in the conflict; U.S., Chinese, South and North Vietnamese struggled to provide comprehensive security or ideological appeals to population, leading to complications on the battlefield and impacting the long-term development of these new states.
American and southern Vietnamese officials recognized that such loyalty was conditional. Although southern Vietnam had abundant uncultivated land, much of which had been abandoned during the French Indochina War, on which to settle the northern refugees, security concerns delayed resettlement. Viet Minh cadre remained in former Viet Minh strongholds in the south and three so-called politico-religious sects, each with their own private armies, maintained control over key territories in southern Vietnam. To defeat the insurgency, the Diem administration not only had to provide land and security for the refugees, but also to demonstrate the southern government could improve their standard of living by providing access to water, medical care, schools, and other amenities. The allegiance of this "claque" was not guaranteed. The proposed paper will examine the extent to which these early pacification efforts succeeded in winning and maintaining support for Diem amongst northern refugees and how the pacification of northern refugees presaged, paralleled, and influenced later endeavors to pacify other elements in southern Vietnam.
This paper makes two historiographical interventions. First, it complicates existing scholarship on Sino-Vietnamese relations during the Vietnam War by revealing that the increasing border skirmishes since the 1970s were not just unavoidable byproducts of the grand strategies of Beijing and Hanoi but the consequence of the obstructed state-building since the mid-1960s. Second, contrary to the conventional wisdom that the Communist regimes were especially effective in wartime mobilization, this paper demonstrates that due to the strained state-society relations caused by political movements since the 1950s, the local states had significant difficulty in putting the border society onto a war machine.
South Vietnamese forces prevailed at the Battle of Cung Son, yet the victory proved hollow. House to house fighting, with aerial bombardment in support, both ejected the PLAF from Cung Son and rendered much of the village uninhabitable. Although province officials quickly dispatched supplies to Cung Son, such devastation meant rebuilding, not advancing, pacification. Worse, within days of the battle, the PLAF demolished a bridge near the province capital of Tuy Hoa City, one recently re-opened by South Vietnam's President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu himself. In sinking bridge spans, the PLAF struck a visceral and symbolic blow to the very soul of the province, negating any sense of progress towards victory claimed by the GVN. By late 1972, instead of capturing Cung Son, the PLAF simply cut the highway linking the village with the rest of the province. Consequently, the Battle of Cung Son is emblematic of the Vietnam War itself-temporary short-term victories that failed to advance Saigon's control over contested space. | <urn:uuid:cd230178-571d-4b65-a6d0-faf4654259e6> | {
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Improving the safety of apple juice and cider
Date:2007 to 2011
Prior to the findings of this research, there were no research-based guidelines for juice manufacturers to target for percentage of rotted fruit for juice production or intervention methods to reduce patulin levels below regulatory limits. The findings suggest that the targeted culling rates for apples to be less than 0.1 percent of Penicillium expansum-infected fruit to ensure less than 50 ppb of patulin in the finished juice.
Apple varieties tested were common domestic apples used for juice and cider production. There appeared to be a propensity for specific varieties of apples that are more susceptible to P. expansum infection and subsequent patulin production. The most susceptible varieties were Golden Supreme and McIntosh of the six varieties tested. It was also found that storage temperature had an effect on patulin levels in apples, and it was found that lower refrigerated holding temperatures delayed the development of patulin levels in the apples.
Based on this research, a target culling rate for rotted fruit was determined to be 0.1 percent. Two intervention methods to reduce patulin levels in apple juice and concentrates were identified. Ultraviolet light that is used to enhance the biological safety of juice was also found to inactivate patulin in apple juice and cider. Yeast cells were also found to decrease patulin levels in juice and concentrate when added as a processing aide.
These findings can be used as guidelines and intervention methods for juice manufacturers, processors, and regulatory agencies to reduce the levels of patulin in finished apple juice, cider, and concentrate.
No research-based guidelines existed for apple growers and juice manufacturers to target as the minimum amount of rotted fruit to be allowed in juice production to reduce the levels of patulin to less than 50 ppb, the regulatory action level in the United States. Juice manufacturers now know that if one rotted apple with a mycotoxin-producing mold exists in a total of one bin, approximately 1,000 apples will exceed the allowed limit for patulin in the finished juice.
The culling rates set by this research will reduce the amount of affected juice that will result in an economic savings for apple growers and juice processors while improving the safety of apple juice for consumers.
In addition, once excessive patulin levels were identified in juice or concentrate, there was no means to reduce the patulin levels except by designating the juice for alcoholic cider and vinegar but at a significantly lower price.
Typical apple varieties used in juice production were inoculated with patulin-producing mold and held to determine the incidence and production of patulin in the different apple varieties. The levels of patulin in the mold-infected apples was determined and used to develop the target culling rates for rotted apples prior to juice production.
Ultraviolet light treatment and yeast cell addition were identified as methods to reduce patulin levels. The methods are inexpensive and easily implemented for small and large juice manufacturers.
The culling rate limit and patulin reduction intervention methods set by this research will reduce the amount of affected juice, which will result in an economic savings for apple growers and juice processors while improving the safety of apple juice for consumers.
- United Kingdom
- Czech Republic
- United States of America
- New Zealand
United States focus:
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Posted on 05/15/2012 by JuanCollege students and graduates in the United States have a debt crisis on their hands, owing a trillion dollars.Some 80% of university students attend public colleges and universities, which were set up to provide inexpensive education.These public institutions are increasingly expensive, however, in large part because [pdf] state legislatures have systematically cut their contributions to their state universities since 1990, by 26%.At the same time, states have vastly increased their prison populationsand prison costs, primarily because of the so-called ‘war on drugs,’ whicheveryone throughout the Americas recognizes as a complete failure except Barack Obama, Eric Holder and most other US politicians of both parties. Many of us suspect that the liquor corporations or private prison owners are bribing them through campaign contributions to keep marijuana illegal.So here is a fix for the student debt crisis and the crisis in public education funding.1. Legalize marijuana (Belgium, the Netherlands and Peru have not suffered from doing so, and it has been decriminalized in places like Portugal and Argentina with no ill effects; Portugal’s drug addiction rate has actually fallen).2. Tax marijuana farms and dedicate the tax receipts solely to public higher education and student debt forgiveness3. Pardon the hundreds of thousands of prisoners in state penitentiaries whose sole crime was using or selling marijuana. Save $40,000 per year per prisoner. Dedicate savings solely to public higher education and student debt relief.4. Allow multiple sclerosis sufferers to use medical marijuana as a treatment, and let those with cancer, glaucoma and other conditions proven treatable via marijuana by science to use it for that purpose (as even conservative Arizona is now doing).5. Tax medical marijuana clinics and dedicate their receipts solely to public higher education and student debt relief. (In California alone, pot is a $12 billion a year industry, and a ten percent tax would yield $1.2 billion a year to state coffers, helping save the University of California system).6. Employ fewer narcotics police, achieve savings, apply those to, you guessed it.7. Finance the education of new poor but outstanding students with the tax receipts on the marijuana industry, helping restore some of America’s former upward mobility.These steps would not only solve the student debt crisis and allow universities to lower tuition, but would strengthen higher education in the US and allow us to remain competitive with Europe and rising nations in Asia (we are not keeping up). Our current declining investment in higher education will otherwise cause us to start falling behind in scientific and technological innovation and in cultural contributions, so vital for a dynamic democracy.
May 16, 2012
Some financial sanity from Juan Cole:
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What is the Profession of School Psychology?
Historically, School Psychologists have been associated with children's schooling for most of this century, though the past 25 years has seen phenomenal growth in their numbers. Today, there is barely a school district in the country that does not have access to a School Psychologist.
Wisconsin boasts one of the most progressive school psychology service delivery systems in the country, with seven high quality university training programs and hundreds of licensed School Psychologists serving our schools and families. Graduates of the UW-Whitewater School Psychology Program are eligible for the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction License as a School Psychologist as well as the prestigious Nationally Certified School Psychologist (NCSP) designation.
The day-to-day role of a School Psychologist differs dramatically from district to district and person to person, but some commonalities exist:
One of the most important (and growing) roles of the School Psychologist is that of consultant to teachers, professional staff, and parents. In this role, the School Psychologist works individually or in collaborative teams to help address the learning and behavioral needs of all students in the school. Using consultation strategies and techniques, the School Psychologist helps other staff members gain insight and skill so as to work more effectively with the children. As an example, a fourth grade teacher may be having difficulty with the behavior of one of her students and, after all of her own efforts do not seem to help, she may turn to the School Psychologist. The School Psychologist brings a new set of eyes to the problem as well as training in behavior theory and management, child development, and instructional design. Together, the teacher and the School Psychologist map out an intervention for the teacher to implement with the child. The School Psychologist stays involved the whole time, monitoring the intervention and providing support for the teacher. Students in the UW-Whitewater School Psychology Program take course work in consultation methods and have opportunities to work on their skills with practicing teachers.
School Psychologists are responsible for providing data-based, non-biased psychological assessment for children referred for this service. Assessment for School Psychologists takes many forms, including: Individual, standardized assessment of intellectual functioning, personality and behavior, academic achievement, sensory-motor development, and adaptive functioning. In addition, School Psychologists are also skilled at assessing how the child is achieving relative to his or her own curriculum (called "curriculum-based assessment") and at observing and interpreting behavior in the natural setting. One of the most important skills School Psychologists need to have is the ability to communicate the results of their assessment efforts so that the data are useful to the adults who will work with the child. Consequently, written and interpersonal communication skills are very important. Students in the UW-Whitewater School Psychology Program take course work in all of these skill areas and have abundant one-on-one instruction and guidance from program faculty.
School Psychologists are skilled in providing therapy/counseling services to all ages of children and youth, in both individual and small group formats. Teachers and parents will often refer students for concerns such as attention problems, aggression, mild depression, anxiety, social skills difficulties, and numerous other concerns, particularly as they are exhibited in the school setting. After assessing the particular needs of the child, the School Psychologist may elect to provide services following any number of established therapy models. At UW-Whitewater, we train our students in the "cognitive-behavioral" model, a system of therapy that helps the child use his or her own thinking patterns to address the difficulty. Students first practice on one another and then later with actual students in the school setting.
An important and growing role for School Psychologists is that of program evaluation. Using skills learned in such classes as UW-Whitewater's Research Methods and Program Assessment, School Psychologists help administrators and teachers assess the effectiveness and usefulness of in-school efforts such as drug and alcohol prevention programs, school violence prevention programs, protective behaviors programs, academic improvement programs, and many others.
This is one of the most favored roles for many School Psychologists. Teachers, parents, administrators, and community members have ongoing needs to be informed about the latest research, insights, and skills for working with children. School Psychologists are skilled at providing inservice education and skill development workshops in areas of their own expertise.
As you can see, the role of the School Psychologist is quite varied, and the above only scratches the surface! At UW-Whitewater, our goal is to prepare students to embark upon the "career that you want." This means providing students with a broad array of skills and competencies that can be further refined as the student moves ahead in the profession, defining and creating his or her own service delivery model over time. | <urn:uuid:e1b6affa-4099-43a6-866e-ff9e3ffe16f5> | {
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I have been thinking a lot about planning first grade as I am finishing up first grade for the second time, this time with my middle child. Going through this grade again made me think especially about the differences in doing this grade with a first (or only) child, and doing it again within a larger family dynamic. So, if you are planning for first grade for your oldest or only child, I want to encourage you that you have quite a bit of leeway, to keep it simple, to not overplan and to make sure you are including some very fundamental things that may not have much to do with those letter stories or the math gnomes!
Oh yes, please be sure to include form drawing, knitting, crafts for the season, harvesting.
Yes, you want to go through the math blocks. Yes, you want to introduce the letters – but many parents I speak with have oldest or only LITTLE GIRLS who are already reading. So I say, concentrate on the artistic end of drawing the letters. Let them write a sentence for each letter and practice really good handwriting, if your little girl is bent that way. You can start word families in the last block or so of first grade; sight words generally are better left until second and third grade unless your child has a prodigious memory and is already doing it. Let your child read for pleasure, but you continue to read aloud to this child too. Make music and sing! Do chores and work around your home.
But please schedule time for the most fundamental skills of first grade: movement and getting the child in his or her body, time out in nature, and social interaction with other children. Does your child do well with only one other child? What does your child do in a small group? Are they good with children older or younger or not? Do you have a community you do things with?
Do plan lots of time to be outside in nature. It would be well-worth your “school time” to drive to the woods or to the lake one morning AND one afternoon a week and just be. Even if you do ‘formal school’ three mornings a week for an older or only first grader, especially one that is already reading, you will be fine.
It is tempting to go ahead and plan a crazy, very structured year. I would go the other way. Take days off to play in the snow or out in the rain. Take time off for festivals! Festivals don’t go away in first grade! Again, especially in children like these little girls I often see, they often need the balancing of time in nature and often need help socially and emotionally to learn how to be a friend, how to relate to people, how to be a bit more steady. And nearly almost ALL of the children I observe these days still need to help to “get into their bodies” in the first grade.
There are many beautiful things out there on people’s blogs for first grade, but please, please take time to just live. Many veteran Waldorf teachers and veteran homeschooling parents would say you do not need a curriculum for first grade at all, but I had a friend remind last week that when one is walking this first journey for the first and possibly only time, curriculums give one a jumping off place. In the schools, Waldorf teachers have the benefit of teacher training, and of other faculty to talk to about how this journey goes. We don’t always have that at home, and I do feel in general comparing Waldorf school in a school environment and Waldorf homeschooling is like comparing apples and oranges. So maybe that curriculum would be helpful to you, but just please don’t forget life.
Many blessings and much love, | <urn:uuid:4a9bfd0a-72ef-4fe6-b377-c9319edf4bd4> | {
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By Shelley Neese
Visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and you are bound to notice a short ladder resting on a second story window ledge. You can also see it in century old photographs and art in the exact same position it is today. On the surface the ladder bears testimony to the disunity of Israel’s Christian community, but scratch the surface and the ladder becomes a symbol of something altogether different—a story of endurance.
There are many legends concerning the origins of this immovable ladder but the general agreement is that the ladder was placed there by the Armenians in the early 19th century. In 1852 the Ottoman Sultan enforced the Status Quo, a rigid division of rights and property between the Church’s six competing denominations. With the Status Quo—which is still enforced today—every stair, icon, and corner and every menial chore has a designated custodian that possessively guards their turf and privileges. Under the Status Quo no part of the designated “common ground” can be changed even slightly without the consent of all the denominations. Windows and ledges fell under “common ground,” leaving the ladder untouched until the religious orders agree—for the sake of the Church façade—on moving the eyesore.
Another example of denominational rivalry at this Holy Shrine is the 12-inch iron key that controls the Church’s single entrance. For the past 816 years the owners of this key have been two neighboring Muslim families. These families meet at an exact time twice a day with the key in hand to lock and unlock the massive wooden doors. The Church can only be locked from the outside. This arrangement was originally assigned by Saladin in 1192. By allowing a neutral party to assume control of the key, the Sultan hoped to bring peace between the jealous factions whose disputes commonly turned violent.
As the Church of the Holy Sepulchre vividly demonstrates, talking about the “Indigenous Christians of Israel” is hardly referring to a monolithic group. They neither speak with one voice nor act as one movement. Israel’s Christians maintain a strong degree of heterogeneity along ethnic, cultural, and denominational lines. The Christians of Israel—consisting of at least 20 ancient churches and 30 Protestant denominational groups—are a microcosm of Christianity at large.
Survey of Christians in Israel
Christians constitute 2.1 percent of Israel’s total population, putting their numbers around 148,000. This statistic does not include Christians under the rule of the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria. The great majority (around 80 percent) of Israel’s Christians are Arabic-speaking and indigenous to the region. They are Christian Arabs who after Israel’s War of Independence in 1948 stayed inside Israel’s new borders and became citizens of the new Jewish state.
Many of these indigenous Christians have lineages that go back to the early periods of Christianity. The Greek Orthodox have historical roots in the region from the days of the Byzantines. The Armenians have had a heavy presence in Jerusalem since the 5th century. The Syrian Orthodox claim an unbroken presence in Jerusalem since the 6th century. The Egyptian Copts built churches near the Holy Places in the ninth century. Roman Catholics came over with the Crusaders in 1099. The Protestant churches did not come to Israel until the 19th century when the Western powers revived their interest in the Holy Land.
Most Christian Arabs in Israel are affiliated with one of the traditional Christian confessions. 42 percent are Greek Catholic; 32 percent are Greek Orthodox; and 16 percent are Roman Catholic. Other confessions in Israel include the Armenian Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, Armenian Catholic, Syrian Catholic, Maronites, Melkites, and Egyptian Copts. Of Israel’s 7,000 resident Protestants, the largest group by far is the Anglicans (4500). There are a host of other Protestant denominational groups including Lutherans (700), Baptist (900), and Evangelicals (400).
State of Affairs
In 1949 there were 34,000 Christian Arabs living inside Israel. Over the last 60 years the population has more than tripled. This stands in stark contrast to the Christian communities in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza where Christians have been emigrating at alarming rates, particularly after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. There Christians have dropped from 15 percent of the population to just 1.3 percent today. Bethlehem, the place of Christ’s birth, has gone from 80% Christian to 80% Muslim. From 1997 to 2002, the Christian population in the West Bank declined 29 percent and in the Gaza Strip it went down 20 percent. In roughly the same period from 19952003, the Christian Arab population in Israel grew 14.1 percent (CAMERA, Dec. 24, 2004).
Almost everywhere else in the Middle East the Christian community is in decline. In the Middle East as a whole 2 million Christians have fled in the last 20 years. Given current trends, many Church leaders are concerned that in a matter of decades Christians in the Middle East will be on the verge of extinction. Israel—the only place in the region where the Christian community has grown in the last half century—is the exception.
Rights and Freedoms
Christians in Israel enjoy the inherent advantages of living in a democratic pluralistic society where they are guaranteed many rights and freedoms. The different religious communities are free to observe their own holy days and days of rest. They have freedom of worship and access to the Christian Holy Places.
Christians in Israel vote and are active in the political arena. They receive compulsory education and attend Israel’s public universities. Israel’s Christians are characterized by low levels of unemployment (even lower than the Jewish population) and high levels of education. They are generally middle class and live in urban areas. 70% of Israel’s Christian Arabs are concentrated in the Galilee, chiefly Nazareth where they make up over a quarter of the population.
On statistical analysis, the Christian Arabs of Israel more closely resemble the Jewish population than the Muslim population. This is true economically and educationally and it is also the case in their birth rates and housing patterns. According to Daphne Tsimhoni, an expert on Christians in Israel:
“The average number of births for a Christian woman is 2.6, a little lower than that of a Jewish woman (2.7) and far lower than that of a Muslim Arab (4.8 per woman). In 1998 the average Christian household had 3.6 members per unit, a little higher than the Jewish 3.2 and by far lower than the Muslim household (5.4 per family). The average Christian finished twelve years of schooling, compared with the average Muslim who finished nine.”(1)
Concerns and Dilemmas
After acknowledging the ways Christians are flourishing in Israel, it would be amiss to overlook their unique dilemmas as well. For the Christian Arabs in Israel, they are a minority within a minority in a majority Jewish state. Many Christians in Israel say their community struggles to maintain their identity. Being Christian, they will always be viewed suspiciously by Muslim Arabs as potential collaborators with Israel. Being Arab, they will never fully integrate into the Jewish state. Being Christian Arab, they often feel rejected by the wider, particularly Western, Christian world.
Christian Arabs generally find common ground with their Muslim counterparts in their support for Palestinian nationalism and resentment of Israel’s identification as a Jewish state. The most critical Christian spokespeople are the Arab church notables, like Rev. Naim Ateek and the Latin Patriarch Michael Sabbah. The public utterances of these church leaders and their persistent condemnations of the “occupation” are intended to embarrass the Israeli government. Israel has on more than one occasion asked the Vatican to restrain Sabbah’s rhetoric but to no avail. The lay Christian Arabs choose to express their discontent through political and legislative channels. From 1950 until the mid 1970s, Christians accounted for about 50 percent of the Arab members of Knesset, far exceeding their proportion in the population (2).
As for Christian Arabs relations with their co-citizens in Israel, tensions between Christians and Muslim have mounted since the 1980s but particularly over the last eight years. The second intifada and its emphasis on violent resistance alienated Christians operationally. Though many Christian Arabs speak critically of Israel they do not engage in political violence. There has never been a Christian suicide bomber in Israel (3) nor are there any Christians in Israeli jails suspected of terrorism (4). With the electoral victory of Hamas and its takeover of Gaza, Christians are also put on the defensive ideologically. The Palestinian national movement has become an Islamic movement where at best Christians are merely tolerated and at worst they suffer the same fate of Rami Khader Ayyad, owner of Gaza’s only Christian bookstore who was murdered in October. The intentions of the Islamic movement are uncomfortably clarified in the common Palestinian grafitti: “First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.”
In regards to Christian-Jewish relations, despite Christian Arabs’ often pro-Palestinian stance, they tend to have a low level of social conflict with Jews. They coexist well in mixed Jewish-Arab towns like Haifa where Christians often prefer to live because of the stronger Western influence. While there is no formal segregation, there are obvious patterns of self-segregation. Christian Arabs speak Hebrew as a second language and have adapted to Israeli culture.
Most importantly, Christians may sympathize with Palestinians under the Palestinian Authority but they believe their own future is tied to Israel. This was best demonstrated in 2004 when the Sharon government was flirting with the idea of ceding the Galilee Triangle, which is mostly Arab, to the Palestinian Authority; 90% of the Arab residents (Christian and Muslim) said they wanted to stay in Israel.
Christians have been a permanent fixture of the religious landscape in the region for 2,000 years. From the preaching of Peter at Pentecost through the successive foreign occupations to present day in the Jewish state, Christians have shown enormous staying power in the Holy Land. Though the outlook for Christians in the rest of the Middle East seems bleak, Christians in Israel are slowly growing and thriving. Christians in Israel who do not admit as much and publicly criticize the state at least acknowledge that they are only able to do so because they enjoy so many rights. One can only hope that one day Christian Arabs overcome the pressure exerted on them by their Muslim counterparts and come to appreciate their status as the Middle East’s freest Christians.
When tour guides bring Christians to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, they inevitably point out the ladder on the second story window and the one-way lock on the Church doors. As they speak of these legends, the Christian groups blush from embarrassment at such petty examples of denominational dissension. But what they often do not appreciate is that the ladder and key have had such permanence because Christians are still there, still fighting, and creating workarounds. When that wooden ladder rots it is actually replaced with a new one. Once a year, the largest denominations at the Church submit an official request to win back the iron key. The ladder and key are actually symbols of stability that characterize the unbroken tradition of Christians living in the Holy Land.
(1) “Israel and the Territories Disappearance Disappearing Christians of the Middle East” by Daphne Tsimhoni. Middle East Quarterly (Winter 2001).
(3) There were three Lebanese Christian Suicide Bombers during Lebanon’s Civil War in the 1980s. George Habash, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, is often cited as an example of a Christian terrorist but Habash was more Communist than Christian.
(4) Archbishop Hilarion Capucci of the Greek Catholic church is the exception. He was caught smuggling arms for terrorists into Israel from Lebanon in the early 1970s and was imprisoned in Israel for three years. | <urn:uuid:e475b485-b521-4ca8-803d-cb75ff04700b> | {
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Sachem (American Indians Ready Reference)
Article abstract: The general term “sachem” was used to designate band leaders and tribal chiefs among the Algonquian-speaking peoples of southern New England
Along the coastal region of southern New England in the early contact period, the word sachem was used for political leaders. In northern New England, the corresponding term was sagamore. The sachem was most commonly the head or leader of a single village (or band). Some sachems, however, had a more extensive but ill-defined influence over an entire tribe or alliance of villages. Examples of sachems with this wider influence were Massasoit and his son Metacomet (King Philip) of the Wampanoag, and Miantonomo of the Narragansett. Whether a sachem’s authority was confined to a single village or was much wider, his power was limited by tribal traditions and exercised through persuasion. Important decisions were made in consultation with a council of important men (called pneises among the Massachusett and Wampanoag). Sachems were chosen from among men born into a chiefly lineage or family, the office descending most commonly from father to son. Occasionally women served as sachems (called “squaw sachems” by the English). Weetamoo of the Pocasset was an example. The sachem assigned agricultural fields, sentenced criminals, and was responsible for diplomacy and external trade. A sachem dwelt in an unusually large wigwam and was supported by the work of...
(The entire section is 270 words.)
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Bacteria are ubiquitous and play a critical role in many contexts. Their environment is nearly always dynamic due to the prevalence of fluid flow: creeping flow in soil, highly sheared flow in bodily conduits, and turbulent flow in rivers, streams, lakes, and oceans, as well as anthropogenic habitats such as bioreactors, heat exchangers and water supply systems. The presence of flow not only affects how bacteria are transported and dispersed at the macroscale, but also their ability to interact with their local habitat through motility and chemotaxis (the ability to sense and follow chemical gradients), in particular their foraging. Despite the ubiquitous interaction between motility, foraging and flow, almost all studies of bacterial motility have been confined to still fluids.
At the small scales of a bacterium, any natural flow field (e.g. turbulence) is experienced as a linear velocity profile, or 'simple shear'. Therefore, understanding the interaction between a simple shear flow and motility is a critical step towards gaining insight on how the ambient flow favors or hinders microorganisms in their quest for food. In this thesis, I address this important gap by studying the effect of shear on bacteria, using a combination of microfluidic experiments and mathematical modeling.
In chapter 2, a method is presented to create microscale vortices using a microfluidic setup specifically designed to investigate the response of swimming microorganisms. Stable, small-scale vortices were generated in the side-cavity of a microchannel by the shear stress in the main flow. The generation of a vortex was found to depend on the cavity's geometry, in particular its depth, aspect ratio, and opening width. Using video-microscopy, the position and orientation of individual microorganisms swimming in vortices of various intensities were tracked. We applied this setup to the marine bacterium Pseudoalteromonas haloplanktis. Under weak flows (shear rates < 0.1 s 1), P. haloplanktis exhibited a random swimming pattern. As the shear rate increased, P. haloplanktis became more aligned with the flow.
In order to study the detailed hydrodynamic interaction between shear and bacteria, we developed a mathematical model employing resistive force theory. In general, the modeling of a bacterium requires consideration of two factors: the rotating flagellar bundle and the cell body to which the flagella are attached. To make the problem analytically tractable, we study the hydrodynamics around the head and the flagellum separately. In chapter 3, we present a combined theoretical and experimental investigation of the fluid mechanics of a helix exposed to a shear flow. In addition to classic Jeffery orbits, resistive force theory predicts a drift of the helix across streamlines, perpendicular to the shear plane. The direction of the drift is determined by the direction of the shear and the chirality of the helix. We verify this prediction experimentally using microfluidics, by exposing Leptospira biflexa flaB mutant, a non-motile strain of helix-shaped bacteria, to a plane parabolic flow. As the shear in the top and bottom halves of the microchannel has opposite sign, we predict and observe the bacteria in these two regions to drift in opposite directions. The magnitude of the drift is in good quantitative agreement with theory. We show that this setup can be used to separate microscale chiral objects.
In chapter 4, a theoretical and experimental investigation of a swimming bacterium in a shear flow is presented. The presence of the cell body results in a novel phenomenon: chiral forces induce not only a lateral drift, but also a reorienting torque on swimming bacteria. For typical flagellated bacteria, the magnitude of this drift velocity is much smaller (-0.7 gm s-1) than typical swimming speeds of bacteria (-50 [mu]m s-1). However, with the addition of a head, the chirality-dependent forces that lead to a lateral drift also lead to a reorienting torque. The model based on resistive force theory predicts that the drift velocity of swimming bacteria is in the same order of magnitude as the swimming speed. Experimental observations of the motile bacteria Bacillus subtilis exposed to shear flows show good agreement with the theoretical prediction. This process is a purely passive hydrodynamic effect, as demonstrated by further experiments showing that bacteria do not behaviorally (i.e. actively) respond to shear.
This newly discovered hydrodynamic reorientation can significantly affect any process that involves changes of swimming direction, so that bacterial 'steering' in a flow cannot be understood unless the effects of chiral reorientation are quantified. Because swimming and reorientation are central to the chemotaxis used by many bacteria for foraging, we expect this coupling of motility and flow to play an important role in the ecology of many bacterial species.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology | <urn:uuid:10c5d64a-347a-4b44-bbe5-ada6757ec986> | {
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Navigating the High Seas of Editing
Lesson 6 of 7
Objective: SWBAT develop and strengthen writing through editing, revising, and rewriting.
For today’s lesson, I start with a story (these always snag my kids right away!): “Boys and girls, I have to tell you something funny! Guess what happened last night? I was writing an e-mail to my grandma and I got up and walked away from the computer for a moment. When I came back, Mr. Hesemann said to me, “Hey, did you know there was a word misspelled in your e-mail?” I said, “Really?”, and he showed me right where it was! I had to laugh, because you know how important I think spelling is, don’t you?” All the kids comment and shake their heads in agreement! “So, I thought about this all night, and guess what I learned from this situation?” I let the kid share some of their answers. One of the kids says, “That Mr. Hesemann is a good speller?” I laugh and say, “Well, yes, of course, he is a good speller! But guess what else I learned?” Another student says, “That Mr. Hesemann can be a good helper!” I say, “YES! That’s right! That is what I thought! And not just Mr. Hesemann, but all of us! I think we can ALL help each other, just like Mr. Hesemann helped me! And that’s just what we’re going to do today-help each other with our writing!”
I pull up on my SMARTBoard a “sample” e-mail that I had been trying to send to my Grandma yesterday and share it with the class. I explain that thanks to Mr. Hesemann, he found misspellings for me. If he had been helping me with my work today, he could have crossed out the incorrect word and wrote the correct word for me above, like this (and I show how to make that editing mark). If he wasn’t sure, he could use a dictionary to check my spelling, too! Then I show how Mr. Hesemann could have made other changes to my writing, like those we’ve learned about already this year: fixing capital letters, fixing punctuation, changing “blah” words into more exciting words with a thesaurus, inserting more to explain better, etc.
Label New Learning
I say, “So, today, when you’re reading each others’ stories, use these marks! This is what editing looks like-and it REALLY helps our writing get better!”
At this point, I pair up students to get going on each others’ writing. There are many ways I could pair students, but for today, I’m just using a randomizer (through a SMART Notebook file) that helps me choose two students at random to get together. This way students can see that EACH student, no matter who it is, has a valuable opinion that could help you improve your writing! You could also pull sticks, or whatever else you use, to pair students.
Once students have had one round of editing, as pairs finish, I re-pair them with a new partner. We keep going and re-pairing until we’ve had a few different sets of eyes on our work!
At the end of the lesson, I say, “If you can hear my voice, say, “Mrs. Hesemannn…” (The kids say, “Mrs. Hesemann…”) “If you can hear my voice, say, “my classmates are SO helpful!” (The kids say, “my classmates are SO helpful!”) I say, “You’re right! All of our classmates are SO helpful! As I was walking around and listening, I loved the feedback and help you were giving each other! It’s so nice to know we can count on each other to help each other get better at our important work of writing! Before we pack up today, I’ll take your papers so I can take a quick peak at your writing, too!” Then I collect papers so I can provide some “final” edits of my own! | <urn:uuid:98fd86d9-2fa9-4830-a59b-c19d3511465d> | {
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GLUTATHIONE IS ONE OF THE MOST UNIVERSAL AND IMPORTANT ANTIOXIDANT, PARTICULARLY RENOWNED FOR ITS DETOXIFICATION PROPERTIES. AS A PROTEIN MADE UP OF THREE AMINO ACIDS, CYSTEINE, GLYCINE AND GLUTAMIC ACID, GLUTATHIONE IS CALLED A TRIPEPTIDE. IT IS FOUND IN THE CELLS OF ALMOST ALL LIVING ORGANISMS AND REPRESENTS THE FRONT LINE OF YOUR BODY'S ANTIOXIDANT DEFENSES. IN FACT, YOU COULD NOT SURVIVE WITH OUT IT.
GLUTATHIONE CATCHES FREE RADICALS BEFORE THEY START CHAIN REACTIONS. THEN IT NEUTRALIZES THEM AND HANDS THEM ON TO COMPOUNDS SUCH AS VITAMIN E BEFORE STARTING THE CYCLE AGAIN. GLUTATHIONE ALSO BINDS TO TOXIC SUBSTANCES IN THE LIVER , AIDING IN THEIR EXCRETION, AND NEUTRALIZES FREE RADICALS THREATENING RED BLOOD CELLS. AS A PARTNER WITH SELENIUM , GLUTATHIONE PROTECTS THE BLOOD, THE HEART AND OTHER ORGANS AS A COENZYME, CHANGING TOXIC OXIDANTS INTO MORE MANAGEABLE FORMS.
HIGHER CHOLESTEROL, HIGHER BODY WEIGHT, AND A 24 PERCENT HIGHER RATE OF ILLNESS AND DEATH WERE ALL LINKED TO LOW LEVELS OF GLUTATHIONE IN ONE STUDY OF ELDERLY PEOPLE IN ENGLAND.
WHEN YOU HAVE A GOOD SUPPLY OF GLUTATHIONE'S THREE AMINO ACID COMPONENTS, GLUTATHIONE IS CONSTANTLY RENEWABLE, EXTREMELY ABUNDANT, AND HIGHLY ACTIVE IN YOUR BODY. IF YOU HAVE HIGH LDL CHOLESTEROL LEVELS OR OTHERWISE AT RISK OF HEART DISEASE, IT IS WORTH TRYING TO RAISE YOUR GLUTATHIONE LEVELS.
OVEREXPOSURE TO DRUGS THAT ARE HARD ON THE LIVER, SUCH AS ASPIRIN AND TYLENOL, AND THE OVERLOAD OF RANCID OILS CAN DEPLETE GLUTATHIONE LEVELS. AGING ALSO CAUSES GLUTATHIONE LEVELS TO FALL. KEEP UP YOUR LEVELS OF SELENIUM AND VITAMINS C AND E TO ENSURE THAT GLUTATHIONE WORKS EFFICIENTLY IN THE BODY WITH THESE NUTRIENT PARTNERS.
New Medical Breakthrough
New research data that came out in the early 1990's on body detoxification. Doctor Bounous is an advanced bio-tech researcher specializing in the development of new research technologies as a compliment to traditional medicine. He discovered the exact technology on how the body expels toxins. Briefly each cell has its own protection from toxins a self-made removal system. There is a protein in the cell that the cell manufactures that is called Glutathione or referred to as the MASTER antioxidant. The cells can only manufacture Glutathione by producing the precursor. When you take the precursor (all natural) the body triggers detoxification. Most individuals do not produce an adequate amount of Glutathione being depleted in the body will allow toxins to store in the cells. Therefore by raising Glutathione levels in every cell of the body it will purge the cell of all toxins. Immunocal is pharmaceutically proven to raise Glutathione levels at a cellular level.
The liver is the largest organ in the body and carries the greatest workload of all the organs. When the liver gets congested and toxic, it will remain that way until it gets detoxified and rejuvenated. Due to the existing environmental assaults, just 1 person in a 100,000 has a healthy liver. Glutathione plays a major role in keeping the liver healthy.
"Glutathione is the Body's Major Antioxidant"
To order Immunocal, call toll-free (MasterCard or Visa) 1-888-462-3397 (M - F 8:30 am to 6:00 pm EST) Use ID# 73999 to receive discount. Distributor's name you are ordering under is Ricardo Serrano.
For tech support, contact webmaster | <urn:uuid:29b1ffcc-e1de-497f-9285-09f386a464f2> | {
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Since the earliest days of Google Earth, many have viewed it as an amazing tool to use in the classroom – and they’re right! We first showed some educational uses for Google Earth more than five years ago, and since then we’ve seen great uses from Duke University and StrataLogica, among others.
Today we’re looking at GEteach, a site developed by 9th-grade Geography teacher Josh Williams. The site uses the Google Earth Plug-in to give you quick access to a wide variety of information such as the CIA Factbook, population densities, and various other human and physical geographic overlays.
The site also includes a “Two Earth” mode to allow you to view different layers side-by-side, similar to AnotherEarth. This is a great way to show students how natural aspects of the earth can affect human behavior, such as comparing the “vegetation” index to the “population density”, as seen here:
I asked Josh for more info about how the site got started, and he came through with the full story of the site, shared below:
My major is Geography and like most people I’ve always been intrigued with Google Earth. For the past 6 years I’ve been trying to find ways to incorporate Google Earth in my 9th grade geography classroom. At first I scoured the internet for kml files that worked with my curriculum, but very little seemed to fit. Three years ago I started creating Earth’s with simple placemarks of images and maybe some text within the balloons. I later found an interesting script allowing me to export ESRI shapefiles into kml. This was the turning point that led to what you see today. My first useful Google Earth file was an Earth where I incorporated CIA Factbook data into balloons. I later created dozens of thematic Earths using the same process. My students currently use improved versions of these thematic maps to observe, understand, and predict levels of development for regions and countries.
Two years ago I stumbled across NASA’s Earth Observatory website and discovered how they wrapped their images around an Earth. I then used that process and NASA’s content to show mostly physical geographic patterns and processes. The images from NASA like blue marble, average land temperature, plant growth, sea temperatures, and topography are great at showing the students Earth/Sun relationships, climate controls, and physical processes impacted on population distributions (NASA Earth Observatory has a nice population density map).
This is the first school year where my students and I have extensively used the website. The first lesson we used geteach.com for was Earth/Sun relations. This is mostly me using Google Earth’s grid layer and sun feature to show the solstice and equinox. I then click to the multi-earth and demonstrate how temperature and vegetation is impacted by this relationship. The students’ next big lesson is identifying climate regions and the climate controls. Here the students use the climate regions Earth on the left side and change the right Earth to help develop an understanding of what climate controls like elevations, wind currents, ocean currents, latitude, position on the continent, etc. are responsible for the temperature and precipitation patterns. Next the students use level of development indicators like life expectancy, GDP per capita, infant mortality rate, etc. to predict standard of living for regions and countries. Our district curriculum blends regional with conceptual geography. Therefore, with every unit/region (every 3 to 4 weeks) either my students, time permitting, or I will use geteach.com to observe physical and human patterns of the new region and start making spatial observations and peaking curiosity for the unit. It is really a lot of fun and truly why I created this site in the first place. My goal is for students to expend some of their bandwidth on spatial observations, understandings, and predicting. When they ask, “Mr. Williams…why is..?” I know I have them where I want them.
It’s a phenomenal way to use Google Earth in a classroom setting, and he has done an awesome job with this site. Great work, Josh! | <urn:uuid:6f2a6082-27e9-432c-976f-0812a5f5166a> | {
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Earth Day is celebrated every year on April 22. People from all over the world dedicate time and energy to increase an awareness that our planet Earth is in trouble. Problems are caused by overpopulation and the consumption of natural resources. But there are things we can do. We all need to conserve energy and resources daily; otherwise, future generations will suffer the consequences of the decisions we are making now.
The first Earth Day was launched on April 22, 1970 because organizers believed we needed to restore the health of our ecosystem. At that time, many cities in the United States were affected by land, water, and air pollution. There were also concerns regarding nuclear power and toxic chemicals.
Thanks to the leadership of concerned citizens, politicians, and some leaders in business, people have been made more aware of the problems that are caused by various forms of pollution. Now there are serious efforts to prevent individuals and large corporations from putting dangerous pollutants into the ecosystem. Laws have been passed by many countries around the world to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses which contribute to global warming.
People who attend Earth Day events plant trees, clean up parks, and participate in rallies where speakers and musical guests promote lifestyles that are friendly to the environment. Organizers of these events want to educate the general public about the things that should and shouldn't be done to keep the planet clean.
It's important to consider that the small decisions made every day by millions of people around the world have a large impact on our planet. If we all try to drive less, recycle more, reuse things when possible, and reduce waste, our children and our grandchildren will thank us for it.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Now you try it. Read the paragraphs above. If you have a microphone, you can record your voice and compare it to my voice.
Check your comprehension. Choose one answer for each question. Answers are below.
1. In which year was Earth Day first celebrated?
A. 1950 B. 1960 C. 1970 D. 2000
2. What's one way of celebrating Earth Day?
A. go to a party B. eat plants C. plant a tree D. dance
3. Greenhouse gasses ________ to global warming.
A. contribute B. reduce C. decrease D. improve
4. What can you do to help keep the environment cleaner?
A. recycle B. reuse things C. reduce waste D. A, B, and C
(Answers: 1. C 2. C 3. A 4. D )
Return to the Green Level | <urn:uuid:d2aae111-b695-47b3-ba77-b6044cb1c0dd> | {
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Aerobic exercise, also known as cardio-vascular exercise, has many known benefits, and I’ll mention a few later. For now, let’s start with a definition: Cardio-vascular exercise means exercise that will make your heart rate go up so that your vessels will contract and relax periodically. Cardio stands for heart and vascular stands for blood vessels. We should all do this kind of exercise for one hour 5 times per week, according to American Medical Association.
Benefits of cardio-vascular exercise:
Blood glucose regulation: During exercise muscles use glucose that is in the blood stream as a primary source of energy. When that glucose is depleted, more glucose is released from storage in the liver. This is the simplest way to lower glucose level for patients with diabetes type2. Do not drink soft drinks or sweet Gatorade during exercise, as it will cancel its blood glucose lowering effect. Read here about importance of exercise in Diabetes type2. Read here
Vaso-dilation and lowering of blood pressure: During exercise the lining cells of vessels produce nitrous oxide, a substance very similar to nitroglycerin (a vasodilator). It causes natural vasodilatation / relaxation and drop in blood pressure. Daily exercise will insure constant production of nitrous oxide and steady low blood pressure. Read here
Cancer prevention: Increased daily physical activity has been associated with a significantly decreased risk of cancer in both men and women. Read more about that here: http://blog.bodykind.com. The blog summarizes many current research articles.
Weight reduction. When cardio-vascular exercise has been paired with the Mediterranean diet, the weight reduction is significant and long lasting. Read here
Here are a few simple rules to remember:
1. Bring your heart rate up slowly during exercise. I recommend to my patients that they spend 15 minutes to warm up, 30 minutes of exercise with maximum heart rate for your age and 15 minutes to cool down to your resting heart rate.
2. The intensity of cardio-vascular exercise is measured by the heart rate. During aerobic exercise you have to bring your heart rate to a maximum point or its highest rate for your age. The formula for calculating your maximum heart rate point is: (220-age) x 0.6. For example, if you are 60 years old, your maximum heart rate, during cardio-vascular exercise, will be 96 beats per minute: (220-60) x 0.6 = 96beats/min. | <urn:uuid:4177d9c6-773a-4fcc-919e-c3cb123ca86d> | {
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Using Microwaves and Laser Ranging for Precise Orbit Determination
By Erik Schönemann, Tim A. Springer, Michiel Otten, and Matthias Becker
Though Galileo’s GIOVE-A is a test satellite not necessarily ready for scientific use, orbit analyses with a reduced accuracy can help to identify weaknesses and suggest improvements. This month, the authors share work being carried out to precisely determine the orbit of GIOVE-A using SLR and microwave observations. This preliminary investigation will benefit the procedures to be implemented for the future Galileo constellation.
WE USE THEM FOR LISTENING TO MUSIC, for routine surgeries, for making a point in a presentation, and even for hanging pictures straight. Of course, I’m talking about lasers. Invented in 1960, the laser (an acronym for light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation) has become ubiquitous in modern society. Every CD and DVD player has one. Many printers use them. But lasers are also used in a wide range of industrial and scientific applications including determining the orbits of satellites through satellite laser ranging (SLR).
In the SLR technique, pulses of laser light from a ground reference station are directed at satellites equipped with an array of corner-cube retroreflectors, which direct the pulses back towards a collocated receiving telescope. By accurately measuring the two-way travel times of the pulses and knowing the location of the station and other operating parameters, the positions of the satellites can be determined. A network of SLR reference stations around the globe is used to monitor the orbits of satellites over time and their variations have been used by scientists to improve our knowledge of the Earth’s gravity field; to study the long term dynamics of the solid Earth, oceans, and atmosphere; and even to verify predictions of the General Theory of Relativity.
The first SLR measurements were obtained from the Beacon Explorer-B satellite, which was launched in October 1964. Since then, dozens of satellites equipped with corner-cube retroreflectors have been launched including a number of radio-navigation satellites. Every GLONASS satellite is equipped with retroreflectors and two GPS satellites have been equipped—SVN35/PRN05 and SVN36/PRN06. The COMPASS-M1 satellite in medium Earth orbit carries retroreflectors, as do both GIOVE-A and –B, the Galileo test satellites.
Precise orbit determination of radio-navigation satellites using SLR has the advantage of being unaffected by any onboard satellite electronics and associated signal biases. Radiometric observations of a satellite’s microwave signals, on the other hand, are influenced by the satellite’s clock, for example, and its effect must be estimated to obtain precise (and accurate) satellite orbits for navigation and positioning. Therefore, a comparison of SLR- and microwave-derived orbits can be very useful for studying the performance of the data measurement and orbit-determination processes of both techniques.
In this month’s column, we take a look at some work being carried out to precisely determine the orbit of the GIOVE-A test satellite using SLR and microwave observations. This preliminary investigation will benefit the procedures to be implemented for the future Galileo constellation.
“Innovation” is a regular column that features discussions about recent advances in GPS technology and its applications as well as the fundamentals of GPS positioning. The column is coordinated by Richard Langley of the Department of Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering at the University of New Brunswick, who welcomes your comments and topic i deas. To contact him, see the “Contributing Editors” section on page 6.
The navigation office of the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) is engaged in various activities using observations of the Galileo test satellite, GIOVE-A (Galileo In-Orbit Validation Element-A), recorded at the Galileo Experimental Sensor Stations (GESS). The work includes the assessment of the quality and performance of GIOVE satellite observables and the testing and improvement of orbit-determination software. These activities support the long-term goal of advancing the scientific applications of the future Galileo constellation.
Since the launch of GIOVE-A on December 28, 2005, various tests have been carried out to analyze the quality of the new code (pseudorange) and carrier-phase observables derived from tracking the satellite’s microwave signals. All of these tests demonstrate the advantages of the new signal structure compared to that of legacy GPS signals. In general, the reduction of the noise by factor of 4-5 as well as a reduction of the code multipath by approximately a factor of 1.2 (GPS C1C versus GIOVE-A C1B/C1C) could be seen.
As the comparison of observations is done indirectly (GPS and GIOVE-A have different orbits) and the databases used for most analyses published up to now is sparse, a deeper analysis of the signal quality parameters seems appropriate, especially as data quality has a direct impact on the precision of orbit determination. Our analyses, presented in the first half of this article, are based on a broad base of data from most of the stations in the GESS network. Because of the difficulty in accessing the phase multipath directly, we first evaluated the signal strength and the code multipath, which gave the first hint of the multipath behavior. In order to compare GPS and GIOVE-A data directly, only data received from the same elevation angles and azimuths were used. Subsequently, we present an analysis of the phase residuals derived by precise point positioning.
The second part of this article focuses on the precise orbit determination or POD of the GIOVE-A spacecraft. The Navigation Package for Earth Observation Satellites (NAPEOS) software used at the ESOC Navigation Support Office allows microwave (radiometric) and satellite laser ranging (SLR) observations to be used either separately or together. The two methods are different due to different tracking networks and the different sensitivity of the observables to atmospheric effects and in their noise levels. We will present the orbit results focusing on internal orbit consistency checks and SLR validation of the microwave-based orbits.
We first describe the procedures used for analyzing the microwave data followed by those used for the SLR data.
Microwave Analysis. For the GIOVE-A signal analysis and precise orbit determination we used the RINEX data from all of the GESS stations available from the GIOVE archiving facility (see TABLE 1). All stations are equipped with GPS/Galileo antennas, built by Space Engineering S.p.A. and Galileo Experimental Test Receivers (GETRs), built by Septentrio. The data, containing tracking data of all GPS satellites and the GIOVE-A satellite, is given in the RINEX 3.00 data format with a sampling interval of 1 second. To save on storage space for the long-term analyses, such as orbit determination, the RINEX data is decimated to 30-second samples and Hatanaka-compressed, using a test version of the Hatanaka software for the RINEX 3.00 format.
The signal analyses shown here were carried out using GNU Octave, an open-source program for performing numerical computations similar to Matlab, and different scripts developed by the Institut für Physikalische Geodäsie at the Technische Universität Darmstadt. These analyses cover a selection of the designated Galileo signals recorded by the GESS within the time span from December 16 to 27, 2006. Within this time period, the current GPS signals, as well as the GIOVE-A signals E1 and E5, shown in TABLE 2, were recorded. The table also shows the signal components as well as the RINEX observation-type identifiers, which we use in this article.
The stations used for the analyses show a quite similar level of performance in general. There are stations with different behaviors for single signals, as for example GIEN with a stronger code multipath behavior on C1B and C1A, but no station with a considerably different performance level could be identified. The averaging over the data from all sites reduces the station-dependent effects such as multipath and the atmosphere to a large extent, and gives a good indication of the mean signal performance.
The analyzed phase residuals were taken from the processing carried out for the second part of this article. Hence, they include observation data over an extended period of 149 days and were limited to the GIOVE-A C1C/L1C and C7Q/L7Q signals.
This extended data period is from December 12, 2006 (day of year 346), until May 26, 2007 (day of year 146). During this interval, there is a period where no GIOVE-A data was available due to maintenance of the spacecraft. This gap occurred from February 12 to 28, 2007. So in total we have analyzed 149 days of microwave data. Because there are some differences between the results before and after this gap in February, many of the statistics are given for the first and second part separately. The first part covers December 12, 2006, until February 11, 2007; the second part covers March 1, 2007, until May 26, 2007.
We performed the precise orbit determination using the NAPEOS software, a general-purpose software package for orbit determination, prediction, and control, supporting all phases of an Earth-observation mission in terms of mission preparation and operations.
For the GIOVE-A analysis, the three main NAPEOS programs we used are GnssObs, Bahn, and Multiarc. GnssObs reads, cleans, and decimates the RINEX data and converts the data into the NAPEOS internal tracking-data format. The NAPEOS tracking-data format contains the ionosphere-free linear combination, for both code and phase, of the RINEX observations. For GPS, the ionosphere-free linear combination is based on the combination of C1P and C2P code and L1P and L2P phase measurements. GIOVE-A offers several different observables allowing for many different ionosphere-free observations. For most of the work presented in this article, we have used the ionosphere-free linear combination of the C1C and C7Q and L1C and L7Q observations for code and phase respectively.
The next module, Bahn, performs the parameter estimation. In this step, we use the ionosphere-free code and phase observations at a sampling interval of 5 minutes, and we have applied an elevation angle cut-off of 5 degrees. The data is processed in batches of 24 hours, thus resulting in 1-day-arc solutions. The estimated parameters in these daily solutions are the GIOVE-A state vector (position and velocity), five dynamical orbit parameters from the extended Center for Orbit Determination in Europe (CODE) orbit model, a GIOVE-A clock offset for each epoch, all receiver clock offsets for each epoch, one GPS-GIOVE-A “intersystem bias” parameter per day for each station except for a selected reference station, and the carrier-phase ambiguities (integers not resolved). The station coordinates are estimated but tightly constrained (1 millimeter) to their a priori value. We obtained the a priori station coordinates by combining the full set of daily solutions.
Despite the fact that the 13 GESS stations provide very good global coverage, it is expected that 24-hour solutions will not give the most precise GIOVE-A orbit estimates. To generate longer arc solutions, we have used the Multiarc program. This is a tool that has recently been added to the NAPEOS software package. It allows for a rigorous combination of normal equations, also referred to as normal equation stacking, which are generated by Bahn. During the normal equation combination, the satellite orbit parameters may also be rigorously combined, thus effectively leading to multi-day orbital arcs. For the work presented in this article, we have used Multiarc to generate solutions with arc lengths of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 days. We also used Multiarc to compute accurate a priori station coordinates by stacking all available 1-day normal equations.
Satellite Laser Ranging
Besides the 13 GESS stations, GIOVE-A is also tracked by more than 17 different SLR stations around the world. For most periods of the mission, the tracking has been consistent enough to allow for GIOVE-A POD using only the SLR data. As the SLR data is completely independent of the microwave data, the resulting orbit solutions will be to a large extent independent as well and thus can be used to give an indication of the achieved precision of the different microwave solutions.
The orbit determination strategy used for the SLR solutions is very similar to the one used for the microwave orbits with the main difference being the increased arc-length of 7 days. The same satellite parameters are estimated as with the microwave solutions: the GIOVE-A state vector and five dynamical orbit parameters from the extended CODE orbit model. No further parameters need to be estimated and all corrections applied to the SLR data are according to the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service 2003 standards and, for station coordinates, we used those from the rescaled International Terrestrial Reference Frame 2005 solution. As the noise level of the SLR data is very low, the measurements can also be directly used to give an indication of the precision of the radial position components of the different microwave solutions by computing the SLR residuals without using them in the estimation process itself.
Combined Microwave and SLR Analysis. In this step, the SLR data was added to the microwave data in the 24-hour solutions. For the data weighting, we used 100 millimeters for SLR and 1000 millimeters and 10 millimeters for GIOVE-A and GPS code and phase observables respectively. The only change in the analysis strategy in this case was that we now processed the SLR data in 24-hour solutions and not in 7-day batches. All the processing options remained as described in the two previous sections. The resulting 1-day solutions, or rather the associated normal equations, were used in Multiarc to generate combined solutions of different arc lengths.
Microwave Data Quality
We now take a detailed look at the quality of the microwave data in terms of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), code-tracking noise and multipath, carrier-phase-tracking noise, and carrier-phase residuals.
Signal-to-Noise Ratio. The SNR (or equivalently carrier-to-noise-density ratio, C/N0) is strongly dependent on the satellite transmitter, the signal path through the atmosphere, and the receiver configuration (ground station, antenna, receiver, cable, etc.). Hence the SNR cannot be seen as an absolute value. The SNR is specific to the position, the equipment, and the time. Furthermore, the determination of the SNR values depends on the receiver and the firmware used. As a result, SNR values from different receivers cannot be readily compared. Nevertheless, using only one type of receiver, assuming similar effects on all the different signals at the same epoch, and taking averages over a long time span, we expect the relationships among the signals to be constant. Based on this assumption, we can use the SNR values given in the GESS RINEX files without adjustment.
To compare the GPS with the GIOVE-A SNR values, we ordered the corresponding SNR values of all stations on all days by satellite position into a grid with widths of 5 degrees in azimuth and 5 degrees in elevation angle. For the evaluation, we took the grid cells occupied by both GPS and GIOVE-A values and computed the median over all the cells of equal elevation angle. The median per elevation-angle bin for each signal is shown in FIGURE 1.
As can be seen from the figure, the signal strength of the GIOVE-A C8Q observable ranks best, followed by the GPS C1C, GIOVE-A C7Q, C5I/C5Q, C1A, and C1B/C1C. The weakest signal is found for the GPS C1P/C2P observable, with a maximum signal strength of 40 (receiver-dependent unit, approximately dB-Hz) at the zenith. Comparing the GPS open signals versus GIOVE-A, GPS C1C is considerably stronger than the GIOVE C1B/C1C. According to the GPS and Galileo interface control documents, GIOVE-A C1B/C1A should show up with a stronger signal strength than GPS C1C. The power levels guaranteed on the Earth’s surface are -160 dBW for GPS and -158 dBW for the future Galileo satellite signals except for the BOC(10,5) and BOC(n,m) modeled signals, for which a power level of even -155dBW is guaranteed. But looking at the SNR values shown in Figure 1, we see that the GIOVE-A C1B/C1C is worse by approximately 4 dB than the GPS C1C. But keeping in mind that GIOVE-A is an experimental satellite, an increase of the signal power for the future operational Galileo satellites should improve the signal performance above that shown in this article.
Code-Tracking Noise. For signals containing data and pilot components, as in the case of those from GIOVE-A, the code-tracking noise can easily be computed as the difference between the data and the pilot signal. The advantage of this computation scheme is that both signals are influenced by identical error sources (atmospheric errors, multipath errors, receiver errors, etc.). Based on the assumption of equal uncertainties in the two components, we divided the resulting noise values by the square root of two to specify the noise level of each part according to the laws of error propagation. TABLE 3 shows the code-tracking noise for the two analyzed GIOVE-A codes sorted by elevation angle. The median code-tracking noise is 0.62 meters for C1B/C1C and 0.35 meters for C5I/C5Q, for observations below an elevation angle of 5 degrees. For the C1B and C1C code measurements, the noise median stays below 0.2 meters for an elevation angle above 25 degrees, whereas the median for the C5I and C5Q code measurements for elevation angles above 35 degrees even comes down below 0.1 meters. The results discussed above are consistent with the code-tracking noise values published previously.
Code Multipath. We computed the relative code multipath effects as code minus phase differences assuming the amplitude of phase multipath to be insignificant compared to the amplitude of the code multipath. Ionospheric effects were taken into account by using the phase measurements on two frequencies in the usual way:
In this equation, CMPx is the estimate of the multipath error on the code, Px and Lx are the code and phase measurements of the same frequency, while Ly is the phase measurement used to correct the frequency-dependent ionospheric effect. The constant, , describes the relationship of the ionospheric behavior for the two frequencies.
In order to compare the code multipath level of GPS versus GIOVE-A, we sorted the multipath values using a grid covering the sky with widths of 5 degrees for both elevation angle and azimuth as before. FIGURE 2 shows the median standard deviation of the code multipath values, derived in each grid cell per day and station, versus the elevation angle. No significant difference between GPS C1C and GIOVE-A C1B and C1C, the open code signals on G1/E1, could be found. The code multipath behavior of the GPS precise codes are comparable with the GIOVE-A C5I, C5Q, and C7Q, whereas the C8Q shows the least code multipath effects closely followed by the GIOVE-A C1A, the public regulated service signal.
Carrier-Phase-Tracking Noise Analyses. In the same manner as that carried out with the code, we computed the GIOVE-A carrier-phase-tracking noise as the difference of the two components (pilot minus data). To accommodate the effect of error propagation, the resulting errors were divided by the square root of two. The resulting phase-tracking noise values were sorted by elevation angle and can be found in TABLE 4.
In conformity with the theory that the phase-tracking noise is independent of the modulation scheme, both signals (L1B/L1C and L5I/L5Q) show the same results in units of cycles. Looking at the results in units of distance, GIOVE-A L1B/L1C shows up with a mean phase noise of 0.7 millimeters and L5I/L5Q with 0.9 millimeters. These values confirm those of previous studies.
Carrier-Phase Residuals. Phase residuals contain the phase tracking noise, multipath, as well as all unmodeled remaining errors such as antenna calibration inaccuracy and tropospheric effects. The magnitude of the residuals can be seen as an indicator for the observation and model accuracy as well as for measurement quality.
The following analyses are based on the ionosphere-free linear combination (GPS L1C/L2P, GIOVE-A L1C/L7Q), computed with NAPEOS. The analyses include data of the 13 GESS over a period of 149 days.
To compare the GPS and GIOVE-A residuals, we sorted them into a grid with a width of one degree in both satellite azimuth and elevation angle. Only data in overlapping grid locations were compared to make sure the data was affected in a similar way by multipath or other disturbances.
To properly interpret the results, we should mention that for GIOVE-A, 0.06 percent of the ambiguities (2501) were not fixed correctly whereas for GPS all ambiguities were fixed correctly. Looking at the GIOVE-A observations that were correctly fixed, we find a significantly larger number of rejected observations. The number of rejected observations is less by one third for GPS (6 percent) as for the GIOVE-A (9 percent) data.
Due to the small number of GIOVE-A observations for elevation angles above 86 degrees, the outlier-cleaned mean as well as the standard deviation at this elevation-angle range are not meaningful. For all elevation angles, GIOVE-A residuals show a lower standard deviation than GPS, indicating a superior performance of GIOVE-A signals.
Phase and Code Validation in Processing. Looking at the quality of the code and phase measurements on the different signals, it is conspicuous that GIOVE-A C1A/L1A and C8Q/L8Q rank best, whereas for the current processing of GIOVE-A data, usually the C1C and C7Q signals are used. This leads to the question of which is the best signal combination for GIOVE-A. Hence, we processed 10 days of GIOVE-A data, using different signal combinations. Presently the processing of the C8Q/L8Q signals is not yet implemented in NAPEOS. However, we were able to process the GIOVE-A C1A/L1A – C7Q/L7Q combination. The root-mean-square (RMS) of the code results were reduced by a factor of approximately 1.4 using L1A/C1A compared to L1C/C1C, whereas the RMS of the phase observations showed only a minor improvement. Furthermore, there is a higher number of rejected observations with L1A/C1A. Further analyses have to be carried out to evaluate the potential benefits of the different signal combinations.
In this section, we assess the quality of our precise orbit determination solutions. We have three sets of different orbit solutions. Set 1 is made up of the 7-day solutions based solely on SLR observations. Set 2 consists of the solutions based on the microwave observations using 1- to 5-day arcs. Set 3 consists of the solutions based on a joint analysis of the microwave and SLR observations also using 1- to 5-day arcs.
First, we assess the orbit quality by looking at the internal consistency of the solutions. For the two sets using microwave observations, the internal orbit consistency is done using an orbit fit. This will not tell us much about the absolute quality of the solutions but it will indicate the optimal arc length and whether adding the SLR observations to the microwave data improves the orbit estimates.
Secondly, we validate the orbits by determining the SLR residuals. Of course, the solutions that used SLR observations should perform better than the microwave-only solutions. However, the validation of the microwave orbits against the SLR observations will give us a good impression of the absolute accuracy of our orbits.
As a third test, we compare the best orbit (best arc length) of each of the three sets (set 1 only has one arc length) against each other. This should give us another indication of the quality of the orbits.
Internal Orbit Consistency. To determine the internal orbit consistency of the different solutions we make an orbit fit. For this orbit fit test, we used the middle 24 hours of two consecutive solutions and fit one 48-hour arc through these two parts. The satellite orbit was modeled by estimating the satellite state vector and all nine parameters of the extended CODE orbit model. The RMS of this fit gives us an indication of the internal consistency of the orbit estimates. For longer arcs, the RMS of fit should go down because the solutions are not fully independent of each other. So a lower RMS for the longer arc solutions is expected. On the other hand, this means that if the RMS does not go down with increasing arc length that we have reached the limit of our modeling capabilities. Furthermore, comparing the internal orbit consistencies of equal length solutions will tell us which solution has a better internal consistency. The results of this internal orbit consistency check are given in TABLE 5. The table gives the mean of the 2-day RMS over all processed days. The mean is given separately for the first and second part of the observation interval (see above) and also for the total observation interval.
Table 5 shows several interesting results. First of all, it shows that the results of part 2 of the observation interval are significantly better than the results from part 1. The reason for this is unclear since the statistics from the 1-day solutions, such as the residual RMS and number of observations, did not change significantly after the observation gap. The improvement, however, is very significant. The second observation is that the results including the SLR data are significantly better compared to those using only the microwave data. This is true for all arc lengths! As expected, we see a significant improvement of the internal consistency when going from 1-day arcs to 3-day arcs. The 4-day arcs show only a slight improvement compared to the 3-day arcs. The 5-day arcs do not show a significant improvement. This indicates that with the current observations and modeling techniques, the optimal arc length for precise orbit determination seems to be around 3 to 4 days.
SLR Validation. In this section, we look at the SLR residuals obtained from the different orbit solutions. We generated a clean SLR dataset by using the SLR-only orbit to remove any outliers in the SLR observations. The total number of valid SLR normal points for the entire period is 3520 observations from 17 different SLR stations. (A normal point is an average of a number of individual laser returns.) The number of observations for the first part of the observation period is 796 points from 12 stations and for the second part, there were 2724 normal points from 17 stations. For two of the three solutions, the SLR data has been used in the orbit determination process so the residuals will give a too-optimistic indication of the orbit quality.
As can be seen from TABLE 6, the 3-day solution based on the microwave-only data has the lowest SLR residuals and indicates a radial precision of around 100 millimeters. A similar behavior can be seen in the microwave plus SLR solution with the exception of the 1-day solution (and to a smaller extent also the 2-day solution) where the orbit solution is mainly driven by the SLR data, but the quality as can be seen from the internal consistency of the orbit is poor. Interestingly, there is a large improvement in SLR residuals for the microwave plus SLR solution, although the number of SLR data points is only 2 percent of the total tracking data in the combined solution. The values for the SLR-only solution are included in the table to give an indication of the lowest possible SLR residuals one could expect by combining the microwave and SLR data.
Orbit Comparison. To get an indication of the overall orbit quality, the best solutions were compared against each other for the second period of observation. TABLE 7 gives the RMS differences between the SLR only (SLR), 3-day microwave only (micro), and the 3-day microwave and SLR solution (micro+SLR) for the radial, along-track, and cross-track position components as well as the norm (3D).
As expected, the largest difference is between the SLR-only and microwave-only solutions giving a total (norm) orbit difference of 652 millimeters. As a major part of the SLR tracking from GIOVE-A comes from European stations, the quality of the SLR solutions is directly correlated with the ability of the European stations to track GIOVE-A. Bad weather over Europe can lead to data gaps for more than 24 hours, affecting the orbit quality. It is interesting to see the large impact the SLR data has on the combined solution. As mentioned before, the SLR data is only around 2 percent of the total tracking data but has a significant impact on the orbit solution as can be seen from the difference between the microwave-only and microwave-plus-SLR solution.
Based on the analysis presented above, we conclude that the 3-day solution using both microwave and SLR observations has provided the best orbit estimates.
The analyses of the observation data quality (signal quality) confirmed the good results from prior analyses for code multipath behavior and code noise. GPS C1C and the GIOVE-A C1B/C1C show a comparable multipath behavior, whereas the GPS precise codes C1P/C2P are comparable to the GIOVE-A C5I, C5Q, and C7Q. The least code multipath behavior could be found for GIOVE-A C8Q observable, closely followed by the GIOVE-A C1A. Based on this, the combination C1A/L1A – C8Q/L8Q should show the best noise behavior within the data processing scheme.
The results given in this article demonstrate that the 13-station GESS network allows us to determine the orbit of the GIOVE-A satellite quite accurately (~200 millimeters) using only microwave observations. The SLR validation of the microwave orbits gives an RMS of 100 millimeters (one-way range RMS). This result gives an absolute value for the orbital error. Of course, the SLR observations mainly tell us something about the radial orbit errors; the along- and cross-track errors could be much higher. To obtain accurate GIOVE-A orbit estimates, we need to keep the orbits and clocks of the GPS satellites, tracked simultaneously with the GIOVE-A satellite, fixed using the International GNSS Service (IGS) final orbit and clock products. Furthermore, an arc length of 3 days should be used. The microwave-based orbit estimates may be improved by adding the available SLR observations into the orbit-estimation process. Although there are relatively few SLR observations, they do have a significant positive effect on the orbit estimates, improving the internal consistency from 52 to 41 millimeters. Also, the validation of the orbits using the SLR observations shows a significant improvement. However, this is not an independent validation because the same SLR observations were used in the orbit determination.
The results presented in this article, even though based on observations from the GIOVE-A test satellite, can be considered as a first attempt towards establishing an optimal data processing approach for the future Galileo satellite constellation.
This article is based on the paper “GIOVE-A Precise Orbit Determination from Microwave and Satellite Laser Ranging Data – First Perspectives for the Galileo Constellation and Its Scientific Use” presented at the 1st Colloquium on the Scientific and Fundamental Aspects of the Galileo Program, held in Toulouse, France, October 1-7, 2007.
ERIK SCHÖNEMANN studied geodesy at the Technische Universität Darmstadt (TUD), Germany, writing his diploma thesis at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. Since receiving his diploma from TUD in April 2005, he has been working for the Institute of Physical Geodesy at TUD on GNSS station calibration and validation and analyses of GIOVE-A and GIOVE-B data.
TIM SPRINGER received his Ph.D. in physics from the Astronomical Institute of the University of Berne (AIUB) in 1999. He has been a key person in the development of the Center for Orbit Determination in Europe, one of the IGS analysis centers, located at AIUB. Since 2004, he has been working for the Navigation Support Office (NSO) at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) of the European Space Agency (ESA) in Darmstadt. In this group, he has led the development of the new ESOC GNSS software, which is used for most GNSS activities at NSO including GIOVE-A and -B analyses.
MICHIEL OTTEN obtained a degree in aerospace engineering from Delft University of Technology in 2001. He has been working for ESOC’s NSO since 2002. His main role within NSO is the precise orbit determination of low Earth-orbiting satellites equipped for SLR, DORIS, and GPS tracking. He is also responsible for ESA’s International DORIS Service Analysis Centre activities.
MATTHIAS BECKER is a full professor of geodesy and director of the Institute of Physical Geodesy, TUD. He received his diploma and Ph.D. in geodesy from TUD in 1979 and 1984, respectively. He is responsible for research and teaching in the fields of physical geodesy and satellite geodesy.
“Meet GIOVE-A: Galileo’s First Test Satellite” by E. Rooney, M. Unwin, A. Bradford, P. Davies, G. Gatti, V. Alpe, G. Mandorlo, and M. Malik in GPS World, Vol. 18, No. 5, May 2007, pp. 36–42.
“Galileo Signal Experimentation” by M. Hollreiser, M. Crisci, J.-M. Sleewaegen, J. Giraud, A. Simsky, D. Mertens, T. Burger, and M. Falcone in GPS World, Vol. 18, No. 5, May 2007, pp. 44-50.
• GIOVE Tracking Network
“GIOVE Mission Sensor Station Receiver Performance Characterization: Preliminary Results” by M. Crisci, M. Hollreiser, M. Falcone, M. Spelat, J. Giraud, and S. La Barbera in Proceedings of Navitec 2006, the 3rd ESA Workshop on Satellite Navigation User Equipment Technologies, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, December 11-13, 2006.
• GIOVE Tracking Performance
“Performance Assessment of Galileo Ranging Signals Transmitted by GSTB-V2 Satellites” by A. Simsky, J.-M. Sleewaegen, M. Hollreiser, and M. Crisci in Proceedings of ION GNSS 2006, the 19th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation, Fort Worth, Texas, September 26-29, 2006, pp. 1547–1559.
“Code and Carrier Phase Tracking Performance of a Future Galileo RTK Receiver” by T. Pany, M. Irsigler, B. Eissfeller, and J. Winkel in Proceedings of ENC-GNSS 2002, the European Navigation Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark, May 27-30, 2002.
• Multipath Mitigation in Modernized GNSS
“Comparison of Multipath Mitigation Techniques with Consideration of Future Signal Structures” by M. Irsigler and B. Eissfeller in Proceedings of ION GPS/GNSS 2003, the 16th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation, Portland, Oregon, September 9-12, 2003, pp. 2584–2592.
• GIOVE Orbit Determination
“Estimation and Prediction of the GIOVE Clocks” by I. Hidalgo, R. Píriz, A. Mozo, G. Tobias, P. Tavella, I. Sesia, G. Cerretto, P. Waller, F. González, and J. Hahn in Proceedings of the 40th Annual Precise Time and Time Interval (PTTI) Meeting, Reston, Virginia, December 1-4, 2008.
• Satellite Laser Ranging
“GIOVE’s Track: Satellite Laser-Ranging Campaigns” by M. Falcone, D. Navarro-Reyes, J. Hahn, M. Otten, R. Piriz, and M. Pearlman in GPS World, Vol. 17, No. 11, November 2006, pp. 34–37.
“The International Laser Ranging Service: Current Status and Future Developments” by W. Gurtner, R. Noomen, and M.R. Pearlman in Advances in Space Research, Vol. 36, No. 3, 2005, pp. 327–332 (doi:10.1016/j.asr.2004.12.012).
“Laser Ranging to GPS Satellites with Centimeter Accuracy” by J.J. Degnan and E.C. Pavlis in GPS World, Vol. 5, No. 9, September 1994, pp. 62–7. | <urn:uuid:5a94da2d-b174-4e69-a031-caf052c1f110> | {
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The denticles enhance this leading-edge vortex
. So my hypothesis is that these structures that make up shark skin reduce drag, but I also believe them to be thrust-enhancing," he said.
After all, notes Anders Henderstr6m of the University of Lund in Sweden, aeronautical engineers have long known that a swept-back wing with a sharp edge--the very shape of wings of fast-flying swifts--creates a leading-edge vortex
. Aircraft designers have used that wing architecture to create extra lift in some fighter jets and the now-retired supersonic transport the Concorde.
"As expected, we saw the leading-edge vortex
," Ellington said, "but as the smoke flowed around the vortex, we saw it suddenly make a right-angle turn and flow out strongly toward the wing tip." The moths, however, were still too small to see exactly when the vortex was being created.
This leading-edge vortex
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Before (below) and after (above), Loess Plateau Watershed Rehabiliation Project
A Breakthough of Worldwide Importance
In 1995, as the Chinese government and people were beginning an ambitious effort to restore the cradle of Chinese civilization, I was asked by the World Bank to document the “Loess Plateau Watershed Rehabilitation Project”. Originally the Loess Plateau had been fully vegetated with massive forests and grasslands. Resources extracted from the giant forests, rushing rivers, and abundance of the earth in this place blossomed into the magnificence of the Han, the Qin and the Tang dynasties. The accomplishments of the early Chinese dynasties, based in this area, rank among the greatest human scientific and artistic achievements of any age. The Loess Plateau gave birth to the Han race, the largest ethnic group on the planet, and the plateau is generally considered by historians and geographers to be the second place on Earth where human beings began to use settled agriculture.
As bright as the beginning was, the area over time suffered and eventually was almost completely denuded of vegetation. By 1000 years ago the Loess Plateau had been abandoned by the wealthy and powerful and by the mid-1990s was famous mainly for a continuous cycle of flooding, drought and famine known as “China’s Sorrow”. Over the years since beginning this inquiry in 1995 I have witnessed an extraordinary transformation on the Loess Plateau. The changes have been brought about by differentiating and designating ecological and economic land, infiltrating rainfall, terracing, and consciously increasing biomass and organic material through massive planting of trees in the ecological land and using better agriculture methods in the economic lands.
A measure of ecological function has been returned to the region and the general direction of development is now positive and accumulative with the functionality continuing to improve. The changes on the Loess Plateau have been transformational and are contributing to a growing movement to restore all degraded land on the Earth. As my understanding has grown I have presented the Loess Plateau restoration efforts and results of the restoration worldwide through public speaking and in several films including: “The Lessons of the Loess Plateau”, “Hope in a Changing Climate” and “Green Gold”.
I have been on a very long journey of inquiry since beginning to study China’s Loess Plateau. This article contains much of the journey, the wonder and beauty I have seen along the way and the conclusions that I have come to. My experiences have made me realize that while we live in interesting times, we are not helpless in the face of the many challenges we are grappling with. Biodiversity loss, human induced climate changes, increasing incidence of extreme weather, pollution, food insecurity, desertification, human population growth, financial crisis, racism, war, violence, and migration, are just some of the concerns that we have. What exactly is happening? Why do we seem to be on a downward spiral, leading seemingly toward an eventual catastrophic collapse? Are all these negative outcomes inevitable? Is it “God’s Wrath” directed at us because we have sinned and because of this we have been cast out from paradise? Should we take that literally or could this be a poetic metaphor intended to lead us to understanding? The inquiry that began with a short assignment to document a project in China has led me to every continent on Earth and to cast my thoughts across historical, evolutionary and geologic time. My focus in the beginning was to gain a better understanding of the biophysical aspects of Earth Systems but has more recently turned to how this is related to human activity, work and the economy. Surprising implications are emerging. What was at first distant from current events is now suggesting a new development paradigm that could address the most serious problems we face with profound implications for the present and the future.
Studying the Loess Plateau has proven to be broadly analogous to studying other cradles of civilization on the planet. By reducing biodiversity, biomass and accumulated organic matter the people of the Loess Plateau destroyed the ability to infiltrate and retain rainfall in biomass and organic soils, causing an area the size of France to dry out. Without the constant nutrient recycling from decaying organic matter, the soil and its fertility was eroded away by wind and water and the place was left barren and subject to intense flooding, drought and famine. There is evidence throughout the world of this phenomenon. This outcome is similar in Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean, Central Asia, the Sahel region of North Africa and elsewhere. What is different about the Loess Plateau is that there was a conscious decision to try to reverse the degradation at scale and restore ecological function to a vast area. The work on the Loess Plateau is helping prove that it is possible to rehabilitate large-scale damaged ecosystems and that this is the best way we have to mitigate and adapt to human induced climate changes as well as address numerous other problems.
Background: Natural Systems Global Research
The historical degradation and the contemporary restoration of China’s Loess Plateau is a complex story but it can be analyzed and understood. To really understand this some background information is necessary. For me this has meant traveling to degraded lands all over the world but also to the remaining pristine ecosystems in Africa, Asia, and the Americas to see what systems that have not been altered by human beings are like and what has been lost when we have changed the systems. My journey has taken me to over 80 countries around the world to look at the differences and similarities between the vegetative, hydrological and ecological functioning in various continents and ecosystems.
This has made me rather philosophical. With a good imagination it is possible to think back to a time before human beings had massively altered natural systems on the Earth. When we leave the environment that we humans have constructed even now we find great forests rich with oxygen, moisture, the scent of orchids and other flowers. These great remnants of the Earth’s natural systems can be found on all continents. In these great primary forests epiphytes cling to every surface, making it seem that the trees have beards hanging from their limbs and fur on their bark. Even the rocks are covered in moss or mottled with lichens. The forest floor is covered with decaying organic matter, the remains of former generations of plants, from which spring giant ferns and colorful fungi. Animal droppings on the pathways, paw-prints, birdsong and animal cries, provide evidence that the forest is not just for plants.
Within these forests are ancient trees that live for thousands of years. Giant trees anchoring vast diverse ecosystems, coexisting with their descendents and symbiotically with myriad forms of life. When it rains the raindrops hit the towering ancient canopy and then drizzle down, nurturing each level of the multi-story environment. Water drops bead on the tips of the leaves, slowly forming, and when fat and heavy they drop to the next lower level, the process beginning again. The air is dense with humidity that bathes everything in the forest. Water springs spontaneously from rock formations and flows joyously in clear streams growing stronger and stronger until eventually forming great rivers.
The rivers flowing from the highland forests inundate the wetlands in the lower lands below on their paths to the sea. During the rainy seasons these wetland systems absorb huge amounts of water and during the dry seasons they slowly release it so that the land is never dry. At various times in the year the sky is darkened by enormous migratory flocks of birds. Various species compete in seeking nesting grounds in a riot of birdsong and the beating of wings. In the coastal zones where the land and the sea meet are vast mangrove forests, the interface between the land and the sea and the breeding grounds for much of the sea’s life. Where there is little rainfall one finds seemingly endless grasslands interspersed with trees and plants specially adapted to the exact rainfall patterns of each specific ecological habitat. In the grasslands and savannah regions vast herds of migratory animals abound.
Evolutionary Trends: Through Decay to Fertility
In visiting these places and studying how they function I found that three evolutionary trends have been continuously at work. The first trend is toward total colonization of the Earth by biological life. The second trend is toward the constant accumulation of organic material as each generation of life gives up its body in death. The third trend is toward continuous differentiation through speciation leading to the potential of infinite variety in genetics or biodiversity. These trends over evolutionary time transformed a lifeless rock surrounded by poisonous gases into a wonderful garden. The basic engine for this change is photosynthesis, which takes sunlight, water and geologic minerals and converts them to living biomass. The photosynthesizing biomass has through gas exchange over prodigious time created and maintained the oxygenated atmosphere that we now breathe. The enormous quantities of biomass and accumulated organic material also infiltrate and retain rainfall releasing the moisture in respiration, creating, constantly filtering and continuously renewing the hydrological cycle that provides the water we drink and use in so many ways. The decay of organic matter over evolutionary time has built and renewed the fertility of the soil from which our food emerges. Even the fossil energy that we are so blithely using is derived from ancient photosynthesis and organic matter that decayed under specific pressurized conditions. These processes and functions of nature are the physical basis of life.
The Ecological Collapse of Civilizations
Into this natural world our human ancestors were born and as many great cultural cosmologies state we emerged in paradise. Through ingenuity and courage, we humans have become the latest dominant animal species. Our elevation to this lofty position has taken place in the relatively short time since the last ice age receded approximately 10,000 years ago. Yet we do not exist separately from other parts of the living earth, we are part of this system. As human power has grown we have cut down vast forests, converted natural systems to agriculture, relentlessly grazed our livestock, built great cities and industrial zones. Throughout the last 10,000 years various civilizations have risen but they have also fallen. Human history shows numerous examples of civilizations that failed to conserve and protect the natural diversity of life, the fertility of the soil and the hydrological cycle, and collapsed. Currently, as we experience biodiversity loss, extreme weather events, desertification, food insecurity, human induced climate changes, financial crisis, poverty, disparity, war and all our other problems we are facing the same fate as those civilizations that went before us. But our dilemma is somewhat more dangerous because while in the past the centers of power and affluence just shifted we are now altering planetary ecosystems. We urgently need to understand what is happening and what to do to ensure that history does not repeat itself.
|"Witnessing the incredible potential of restoration has helped me to understand that degradation is not inevitable and that there is a path forward for humanity that leads to a sustainable future."|
Our ancestors took great pride in their accomplishment as magnificent structures and complex institutions grew in the same way that we are now sure that our accomplishments are significant and enduring. But this can also be seen as hubris that focuses our attention on the transient and blinds us to the enduring and profound. Seeing how the early Chinese had destroyed the very systems needed for life has helped me to understand the process of ecological degradation and the relationship between human activity and degradation. Witnessing the incredible potential of restoration has helped me to understand that degradation is not inevitable and that there is a path forward for humanity that leads to a sustainable future.
What we know about the ancient civilizations of our human ancestors we glean from the ruins we unearth of once magnificent palaces and temples. The broken statues that stare at us across time suggest how seriously each generation takes their own existence. But finally the people who built these palaces die and if we don’t keep pulling the weeds up by the roots, biological life will swallow the infrastructure whole and it is again up to generations far in the future to “discover” the ruins and try to make sense of it all. But while the exploits and lives of our ancestors may be vague we do receive a record of what their lives did to the natural systems. We are left with the consequences of their understanding and decisions concerning the infiltration, retention and regulation of water, the respect or lack of respect for biodiversity and their understanding of fertility in the soils. The geographical records documenting this are quite clear. Virtually every past civilization degraded their ecosystem and many were driven to collapse when the system could no longer support them with food or water. That so many different civilizations in different parts of the world all suffered the same fate makes me consider humanity as a species and not a collection of different races. We may have cultural differences but our similarities are too great to ignore, not to mention the genetic evidence that we are all related.
In Rwanda, where relatively recent ecological degradation from over-farming in
the designated protected highland watersheds saw the near failure of the country’s
hydro-electricity supply, the government has undertaken a similar rehabilitation
project to China’s and experienced almost immediate improvements. Free ranging
goats are, however, still a problem. Gishwati Forest, Rwanda.
All the great civilizations include a great respect for the wisdom and contribution of those who have lived and died in the many generations that have gone before. Within the rise and fall of the great ancient civilizations on earth are profound lessons that our ancestors are sharing with us. The lessons of the Loess Plateau show that soil is not simply a medium for our agricultural crops to stand in and that fertility is not simply nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium to stimulate growth. Organic matter is required to recycle nutrients from one generation of life to the next and microbiologic communities that live in organic soils are required not only to assist in recycling but also to release nutrients from geologic materials and to infiltrate and retain moisture. Understanding that these same organic soils are the second largest carbon sink on Earth after the oceans is to recognize their role in mitigating and adapting to human induced climate changes and how they are of vital importance for our survival and sustainability.
The people of the Loess Plateau had interrupted the three great evolutionary trends that created the living system and that regulate the ecological functions on the plateau. The long destructive patterns of behavior on the plateau had left a nearly completely dysfunctional system. The cycle of poverty, ecological destruction was manifest in the cycle of flooding, drought and famine. Erosion of the loose sedimentary soils meant that huge sediment loads were deposited into the Yellow River increasing the risk that the river would flood it banks. Without vegetation cover or soil moisture the natural evaporation rates and temperatures were artificially elevated causing the plateau to be hotter and drier than necessary.
All this can be briefly stated as a reduction of biodiversity, leading to a reduction of biomass, that necessarily causes a reduction in the accumulation of organic matter, all of which causes reduction in gas exchange through reduced photosynthesis, a massive reduction in nutrient cycling through the loss of decaying organic material and a reduction in infiltration and retention of rainfall leading to the loss of natural regulation of the hydrological cycle, the weather and the climate. This is a very concise description of the developmental trajectory that has lead to the ecological collapse and the failure of numerous human civilizations.
The Causes of Degradation
In the Loess Plateau a multiyear study was implemented in the early 1990s in order to determine what was causing the consistent degradation. The negative factors that caused the vegetation to be lost were identified as tree cutting, farming on steep slopes and free ranging of goats and sheep. All of these negative behaviors were eventually banned. While understanding how ecosystems become dysfunctional is extremely important and somewhat satisfying, in order to get a different outcome on the Loess Plateau it was necessary to have a complete change in people’s behavior. Although many people assume, that in China, governed by the Chinese Communist Party, that the government could just order the people to give up their traditional behaviors, this was not the case. A massive public education campaign using the well-tested Participatory Rural Assessment (PRA) was employed to engage the population into the inquiry. This meant that the people could understand not only what the government was asking them to do but why. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) was also employed providing satellite images to map every watershed on the plateau. In this way a unique address could be assigned to even the smallest watercourse. Enterprise software that reflected every investment and every intervention was also used to track changes throughout the management chain.
Above: Former intact rainforest, recently highly impacted by mountain top and
slope farming, Gishwati Forest, Rwanda. Below: The White Nile and Congo River
watershed, functioning highland water tower system, Nyungwe Rainforest
Kamiranzovu, Isumo Waterfall, Rwanda.
The Problem: Productivity Valued over Ecosystem Function
Once the basic historical mistakes that needed to be addressed were identified a plan was developed and several physical interventions were envisioned. This began by making an econometric evaluation of profound importance. The Chinese recognized that the ecologic function that was being lost was vastly more valuable than the productivity that was being extracted from the plateau. This allowed them to make a huge breakthrough that is leading to several non-linear and somewhat counter-intuitive outcomes. Because they determined that the ecosystem value was higher than the productive value it made sense to designate much of the land as ecological land rather than economic land. This measure alone is a giant step forward in ensuring that biodiversity will survive into future generations. This step also concentrated the agricultural development in smaller areas where there could be focused investment and improvement. Although using Geographical Information Systems was basically a mapping exercise, it provided a strong tool to show everyone what was being contemplated and what was at stake. Since the project area was 35,000 sq kilometers the work reached a scale that went far beyond individual or even community production and income and reached landscape or ecological scales.
The Dynamics of Rainfall
One of the most fascinating things that I have learned on this journey is about the dynamics of rainfall and the role of the canopy, undergrowth and organic matter in regulating the natural water cycle. For the restoration of the Loess Plateau the next step was an engineering feat. Due to the massive impact that centuries and millennia of poor agricultural practices had it was necessary to first ensure that all the rain was infiltrated and retained where it fell. The plateau like many other parts of the world receives water at specific times of the year. These rainy seasons in this part of the world are monsoonal and depend on rainfall coming out of the Himalayan Mountains. These rain patterns have been relatively consistent and should have given a clue to ancient peoples what was happening to them. But because of the slow pace of change that might have been happening over generations they failed to see that although the rainfall was not changing that much, the infiltration, retention and evaporation was changing at a far greater pace. The answer was a series of engineering works such as, sediment traps, check dams, meanders and terraces, all designed to slow the runoff, to infiltrate and to hold the water within the system. In the very beginning this was a physical intervention but it quickly became a biophysical intervention as permanent vegetation grew up in both the ecological and the economic lands.
Differentiation Between Ecological and Economic Land
The Chinese determined that although the value of the ecological function was higher than the value of the production the people still needed to eat, to feed their livestock and to make some money by selling things on the local, regional and global economy. Having already banned slope farming they were limited in how much land could be used for agriculture. In order to maximize the area available for farming they decided to terrace the hillsides. If they could make the fields flat then they would be useful for farming without the enormous erosion caused by the slope farming. If they could not be terraced then the land would by necessity fall into the ecological land category and the people would not be allowed to farm it. This was a second massive engineering task and it was achieved by hiring the people to engage in the activity. This meant that the people gained in three ways. They were earning money, they were learning new sustainable agricultural methods and they would eventually own the outputs that came from the fields.
Worldwide Recognition of Land Rehabilitation
|“By bringing scientists, technicians and managers into the local communities the Chinese essentially helped transition poor, often illiterate subsistence agriculturalists to a new paradigm within one generation.”|
Over the years of following the rehabilitation of the Loess Plateau I have witnessed the land change from a fundamentally degraded system into a system that is stimulating the growth of vast amounts of biomass, accumulating organic matter in the soil, protecting and creating new habitat for biodiversity and naturally infiltrating and retaining rainfall. The results have exceeded even the designer’s expectations and have shown that it is possible to rehabilitate large-scale damaged ecosystems. By bringing scientists, technicians and managers into the local communities the Chinese essentially helped transition poor, often illiterate subsistence agriculturalists to a new paradigm within one generation.
Above: Displaced and growing populations pushing into once undisturbed highland
forests, Gishwati Forest, Rwanda. Below: Njungwe Forest, monitoring wild
Seeing and documenting the restoration of the Loess Plateau has been a source of inspiration and purpose but also a huge responsibility. When I began to realize how important the developments I was witnessing were, I began to speak publically about it. This has led to hundreds of opportunities to speak to various audiences of all sorts from the British Royal Society, to elementary school children, to many universities and to the presidents of several countries. As well the films are helping inform many about the potential of restoration. Gradually, a shift in perception is emerging all over the world, the principles outlined in this essay are being taken up by various institutions, organizations and individuals. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has begun to see the importance of restoration, as had the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD) and the United Nations Convention on Combating Desertification (UNCCD). The United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) has adopted the idea of restoration as has the Global Partnership on Forest and Landscape Restoration.
In the beginning of February 2011 at the United Nations General Assembly in New York the Rwanda Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative was formally launched. In August 2011 the Society for Ecological Restoration held its global meeting in Merida, Yucatan in Mexico where nearly one thousand scholars and restoration engineers convened to discuss the potential worldwide. In the beginning of September 2011 the Bonn Initiative led by the German Government set a target of restoring 150 million hectares or about 7 % of the estimated 2 billion hectares of degraded lands around the world. As I have been studying, documenting and communicating about the potential of restoration it has gone from being virtually ignored to being considered by many as the most viable option humanity has to combat human induced climate changes, biodiversity loss, desertification and more.
Human Economics and the Earth’s Ecology
Gradually as I have become aware of the enormous implications of what I have been studying I began to consider why do civilizations separated by large distances and in various times all end up destroying their ecosystems? My conclusions from observing natural systems in every continent suggest that it is not at all inevitable that ecosystems must degrade. They are degraded because human beings don’t understand or value their function. These thoughts have led me to examine human economics in relationship to the earth’s ecology and what I have found is perhaps of equal importance to the biophysical understandings, and the potential of restoration that has been detailed in this essay.
|“As long as our global economy continues to value production and consumption higher than the functioning ecosystem the results will remain the same and the outcome for humanity and the planet is bleak.”|
What the Chinese found on the Loess Plateau that allowed them to take the crucial step toward restoration was the theoretical understanding that “Ecosystem Function is vastly more valuable than the production and consumption of goods and services”. This statement changes everything. Over historical time human beings have valued the production and consumption of products and services higher than they have valued ecosystem function. Actually the situation is even worse because ecosystem function was not valued at all but was considered as a free good. This is just simply wrong and has created a perverse incentive to degrade the ecosystem. As long as our global economy continues to value production and consumption higher than the functioning ecosystem the results will remain the same and the outcome for humanity and the planet is bleak. It seems that humanity has made a gigantic error through our ignorance and has compounded this error over historical time. Some clichés such as “money is the root of all evil” perhaps should not be dismissed without consideration.
Money is now derived from the production and consumption of goods and services. This is the Gross Domestic Product or GDP. This thinking says that the total of the economy is what we produce and consume. But there is the rub. All the products and services we produce and consume come from functional ecosystems. If the ecosystems collapse then we actually have no productivity. This suggests the same finding that the Chinese had, that “Ecosystem Function is vastly more valuable than the production and consumption of goods and services". Recently there have been many attempts to envision “Green Economics” but the problem with many of these efforts is that they leave the fundamentals the same. They continue to assume that the basis of money is production and consumption.
This line of thinking made me ask: “What would happen if money were not derived from production and consumption, but the basis of money was functional ecosystems”? The answer seems to be that everything would change. Society would be completely transformed by this understanding, instead of working to produce and consume more and more, humanity would work to ensure that ecosystems functioned well. If ecosystem function was the basis of money the development trajectory would be accumulative and ecosystem function would be protected and improved. This replaces scarcity with abundance. This shows where and how the economy can grow larger than it is now but it doesn’t require endless and mindless growth of production and consumption in order to have wealth.
Pen fed sheep are a firm and increasingly observed rule now for all of China
When we study the consequences of human impact on biodiversity, desertification and climate changes, we realize that we are facing enormous problems and that the solutions must be equal to the size and difficulty of the problems. Redefining the basis of money and wealth certainly fits these criteria. Many of the problems we are facing were created long ago and have been institutionalized and legalized over generations. This makes it difficult to act because we must return and address fundamental mistakes of past. These mistakes are not our fault and we tend to simply accept them because they were envisioned and created long before we came onto the scene. Yet in order for us to ensure a sustainable future we must address these legacy issues.
Above: Mongolia — high impact from herding too many animals.
Below: Mongolia — vast dry steppe landscape
Poverty: Valuing Production over Ecosystems
Studying and documenting in over 80 countries around the world has allowed me to see many large degraded areas and one common denominator seems to be poverty. Large numbers of poor people are degrading their ecosystems in order to survive. Yet when one looks deeply into the situation one finds that the poverty has been imposed on the region because the people have been told that the natural ecosystem is worthless and only the products extracted and sold to the global production and consumption economy are of value. If ecosystem function were in fact valued the people often would not be poor at all. It is not simply ironic but terribly cruel that the developed world is providing “development assistance” to many countries and actually telling them that they must restore their ecosystems when simultaneously the values that the developed world have imposed on these societies are causing of the degradation.
Mali is a very good example of this. 14 million people live in lands measuring over 1 million square kilometers. This is like the population of Los Angeles living in an area almost twice the size of France. In Mali each year the inner Niger Delta floods to over 6 meters. This immense amount of water over evolutionary time was absorbed into giant trees and the specialized grasses. 85% of the vegetation is water and holding this much water in place helps to regulate the water cycle, the weather and the climate. But historically and now the vegetative cover has been consistently decreased. Simultaneously we are worried about biodiversity loss, desertification, the risk of extreme weather events such as flooding and drought, and the potential that human activity is causing massive climate changes including temperature increases. I have not found any biophysical reasons why the vegetation in Mali must be decreased. There doesn’t seem to be anything stopping the vegetation from returning except that we don’t value it and force the local people to cut it in order to get some money to participate in the global economy. Valuing production higher than ecosystem function in Mali forces virtually the entire population into poverty and destroys the very regulatory functions the world needs to reduce the threats of desertification, biodiversity loss, extreme weather events and climate change. Just think what would happen in Mali if ecosystem function were valued higher than production and consumption. Vegetation would again cover the land because it would be recognized as the basis of wealth.
The example of Mali is only one of numerous countries where the potential for rehabilitation is huge. However, in order to restore these systems the reasons that they were degraded in the first place must be addressed. And it is not simply in developing countries that valuing ecological function above production would have an impact. In the developed world millions of people are striving to produce and consume as much as they can because they are rewarded to do so. We are told that we must grow the economy and in order to do that we must produce more. The problem is that there are limits to growth. We cannot endlessly produce and consume more and more without catastrophic outcomes. For those with jobs it means working more hours and working harder. For those without jobs it means slipping further away from acceptability, the respect of others and sometimes even losing self-respect. This is the system, the daily grind, the rat race and it is just assumed to be necessary to serve this model. But it is illogical, immoral and impossible to sustain it. It is illogical because all the products and services we produce and consume can be shown to come from functional ecosystems, which we have valued at zero and this creates a perverse incentive to degrade the ecosystem. It is immoral because this system has been imposed on billions of people without their understanding or agreement and many of these have been impoverished by the experience. It is impossible because we cannot infinitely extract finite resources to grow the economy. It is like trying to fill a bottomless pit. If we stay the course we are finished. This is why Sir Nicolas Stern said that the “Business as usual scenario is no longer possible.” So for those trapped in this world of over production and over consumption, what would turn this juggernaut toward a more sustainable path?
The Path to a Sustainable Future and Climate Stability
For both the poor of the world living in large degraded ecosystems, and the so-called wealthy in the developed world, transformational change now seems to be required. Humanity cannot survive without functional ecosystems and the actions of all people are needed to act together as a species on a planetary scale to ensure that vital Earth systems are restored. From what I have seen the determining factors for survival and sustainability on the Earth are biodiversity, biomass and accumulation of organic matter, the more the better. The lessons of the Loess Plateau show that it is possible to restore large scale damaged ecosystems and that this mitigates and helps us adapt to climate impacts, makes the land more resilient and increases productivity. The Loess Plateau also shows that valuing ecosystem function higher than production and consumption allows one to make the choices necessary to make long-term investments and see the results of trans-generational thinking.
It can be daunting to consider the problems we currently face. There is much to distract us from pursuing what we imagine must be a dreadful pursuit. But the decisions we make are going to determine what the future will be for those who come after us.
Over the years I have been studying and documenting functional and dysfunctional ecosystems I have come to a number of realizations. One is that there are rarely biophysical reasons that ecosystems become dysfunctional. Ecosystems are mainly disrupted when human beings don’t value the function but instead value the products and services that are extracted from functional ecosystems.
By valuing ecosystem function above production and consumption and making this the basis of the global monetary system it becomes possible to restore all degraded land anywhere on the planet. We already have the knowledge necessary to do this and we certainly have the need for us to do this given the enormous threat of climate change. This seems to be the way to change the paradigm from producing and consuming for the wealthy and to end the grinding poverty that has been imposed on billions in the developing world. This is also the way to ensure that the great forests, wetlands, grasslands all return to the earth in their splendor and function for future generations to benefit from, admire and cherish. This is the development trajectory that leads to a sustainable future.
John Dennis Liu
Senior Research Fellow, IUCN
Director, Environmental Education Media Project (EEMP)
Currently though crowd sourcing and partnerships we have “Hope in a Changing Climate” in English, Chinese, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese, and Arabic is currently in production (although may be affected by unrest in the Middle East). These films are only a small part of the Environmental Education materials created and distributed by the Environmental Education Media Project (EEMP). We are seeking volunteers and partnerships to collaborate to ensure people all over the world can benefit what we have learned and produced.
High Resolution Copies of the Films for Broadcasting are available. If you would like to broadcast or to translate these films into other languages please contact the Environmental Education Media Project and we will help you.
Check out: www.whatifwechange.org | <urn:uuid:d17e11a8-e447-4f15-a9e1-6fb58d45ea2e> | {
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It's been about 20 years since Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web on the back of the Internet. For more than a billion people on the planet, the Web today is an alternate, digital universe that is gradually overtaking the analog, physical world as a source of information and connections.
Earlier this month, the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press conducted a survey that rendered two obvious conclusions: the Internet has overtaken newspapers as a source of national and international news, and television, led by CNN, continues to serve as the main source.
, 40 percent of respondents (versus 24 percent in 2007) said the Internet is their primary source for national and international news. That compares with 35 percent (versus 34 percent 2007) who rely on newspapers and 70 percent (versus 74 percent in 2007) who use television as their main source. Given the historic presidential campaign and economic woes this year, the large percentage increase year-over-year for the Internet is not surprising.
Among Americans under 30, 59 percent (versus 34 percent in 2007) said they get most of their national and international news from the Internet. Television tied with the Internet at 59 percent for that group, but that was a decline from 68 percent in 2007. (The figures add up to more 100 percent, by the way, because people could offer multiple answers.)
Television and printed newspapers are clearly stressed by financial pressures, which have been amplified by the ailing economy. While some of the newspapers have leading Web sites, their financial staple--classifieds and job and real estate listings--has been dominated by independent Internet services such as Craigslist, Monster.com, and Redfin. Mainstream television is competing with the likes of YouTube for eyeballs and is still trying to figure out how to swim with the Internet fishes and generate revenue, which at this point is a rounding error.
Most newspapers have figured out that you create content for the Web first and that the print edition is a byproduct of that output. Television programming can be viewed on a TV, PC, smartphone, or digital billboard. But as NBC's Jeff Zucker said recently, "People had been counting on digital exposure. I had been trying to talk about the fact that even as it grew, it was not necessarily the big growth engine for legacy media companies that were trading those analog dollars for digital dimes. We're now up to dimes. That's an improvement. It's still not a dollar for a dime kind of business that I would like to be in."
While the Internet is growing as the place where people go for news, the revenue simply isn't catching up fast enough. The less obvious part of the Internet overtaking newspapers as the main source for national and international news is that much of the seed content--the original reporting that breaks national and international news and is subsequently refactored by legions of bloggers--comes from the reporters and editors working at the financially strapped newspapers and national and local television outlets.
New publishing entities, such as Politico, the nonprofit ProPublica, the Huffington Post, and numerous blogs are making original contributions to national and international news, and some are trying to make money while they're at it.
As the financial pressures mount--the outlook for 2009 is dismal--and the cost cutting continues, we can only hope that the original news reporting by top-flight journalists is not a major casualty. | <urn:uuid:68fb1c4b-992d-477f-91b0-4408a77d48cf> | {
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Eric Foner Thinks Anew About Lincoln and Slavery
Special from The Record
As one of the nation's most prominent historians, Eric Foner has fulfilled a Columbia tradition of making history relevant to our own time, especially for audiences beyond the academy. While Foner retains a scholarly skepticism of facile comparisons between past and current events, he has consistently worked to make history part of our contemporary culture. Now he is about to publish his 22nd book, this one on a topic about which some might have thought there was little left to say: Abraham Lincoln and slavery. But it turns out that, despite Foner's own extensive scholarship on the 16th president's tumultuous epoch, the specific focus of The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery (W.W. Norton) remained fresh for him.
"I have touched on Lincoln in a number of my books on the pre-Civil War period, the Reconstruction era after the war," he explains. "But I personally have never really written directly about Lincoln and I thought that it was still possible to say something new, despite the voluminous literature that's out there."
Working on the book, Foner says, provided fresh insights about Lincoln's longtime opposition to slavery's westward spread; the role of the issue in the founding of the Republican Party in the 1850s; and, conversely, the frustration of abolitionists with Lincoln's resistance to emancipation in hopes of keeping slave-holding border states in the Union and his support of efforts to encourage blacks to resettle in colonies outside the U.S.
Foner believes that Lincoln's assassination and quick ascension to near saintly status as "the Great Emancipator" obscured a more interesting and human story about the change Lincoln underwent during the course of the war as he developed a greater respect for black people, so many of whom served bravely in the Union Army. What comes through the pages of The Fiery Trial is the sense of a practical, moral man of his time whose mind was open to change and who, only in the last years of his life, came to embrace the idea that former slaves could be full citizens in a reunified nation.
Q. One theme of your book is Lincoln's changing perspective on race. For many years, wasn't he more focused on saving the Union and preventing the spread of slavery than he was in abolishing it?
Lincoln never claimed to be an abolitionist, but he was strongly anti-slavery—there's no question about that. Like most politicians of the time, his position was that the westward expansion of slavery must be stopped. He was not willing to compromise on that. There was this idea that stopping the westward expansion would somehow eventually lead to the end of slavery. Lincoln was also devoted to the Constitution, the Union and the stability of the nation. Balancing those things was a very complicated process in the 20 years running up to the Civil War.
Q. The pre-Civil War period, you point out, was marked by two kinds of development in the United States: westward expansion and the Industrial Revolution. How did this new kind of economy affect the views of Lincoln and his peers?
We know that Lincoln grew up in modest circumstances on a self-sufficient farm. His father held the family together but never accumulated any significant amount of money. But during his own lifetime, Lincoln experienced what we call the market revolution, which benefited Illinois and Lincoln, too. He was a railroad lawyer, and by the time he ran for president, there were railroads crisscrossing Illinois. The state was becoming a major economic center of the United States. Lincoln believed this tremendous economic expansion offered opportunities to people like himself. And he was part of the glorification of Northern society as a place of opportunity, as opposed to what he considered the stagnant, unfair and undemocratic structure of slave society.
Q. People often seem to think of America's history with slavery as happening in a vacuum. What did a young man like Lincoln know about emancipation movements going on in England and elsewhere?
Lincoln was self-educated but widely read, and he was quite aware of the widespread discussions and actions about slavery in the 19th century. In one speech, he talks about Wilberforce and Sharp, the people who led the movement to abolish the slave trade in England. His early plans for getting rid of slavery were influenced by what happened in the British West Indies, where there was gradual emancipation with monetary compensation to the slave owners and some kind of apprenticeship system for the slaves as a transition to freedom. That's what he proposed in the early years of the Civil War to get the process of emancipation going, particularly in border slave states that remained in the Union.
Q. Was Lincoln's strategy of gradual, compensated emancipation in pivotal border states such as Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware politically doomed to fail? Do you see any echo of that dynamic today in President Obama's effort to achieve bipartisan support among the opposition party?
A former graduate student here at Columbia and now a professor, Manisha Sinha, wrote an op-ed piece comparing Lincoln's effort to conciliate the border slave states to Obama's effort to conciliate Republicans. She said Lincoln eventually realized that bipartisanship is a two-way street. You can't be bipartisan if the other side is not interested, and Lincoln eventually realized that border states were not interested in slave emancipation. He put forward various plans, and they were systematically rejected. Eventually, he moved to a completely different plan, which was immediate abolition. The key thing about Lincoln, as I've said, is when one policy didn't work, he was willing to change. He wasn't stubborn; he wasn't stuck to a policy. It was no humiliation to admit that something didn't work and that he'd have to try something else. I think that is one of the hallmarks of his greatness as a leader.
Well, of course historians don't like to pose parallels too closely between periods of the past and the present, although we all do it. But, then, as now, both presidents received severe criticism from what you might call the political left, and they resented it to some extent, although I would have to say that Lincoln showed a kind of open-mindedness and willingness to take criticism seriously. Abolitionists went to the White House, Lincoln talked to them, knew what they were saying. He didn't want to speak only to people who agreed with him, and he didn't surround himself with a small range of opinions. I think he realized that in a monumental crisis you must be open to new ideas, which enabled him to change and grow during the Civil War.
Appeals to prejudice, appeals to racism, appeals to ethnocentrism, appeals to anti-immigrant sentiment are very visible in our society today and certainly are not new. Lincoln in the 1850s had to deal with the Know-Nothings, a nativist anti-immigrant movement which he never joined and which he condemned, but he knew that Republicans needed their votes, so he kind of worked with them behind the scenes in some ways as well. The Democratic Party in the Civil War era was deeply racist and used what today would seem completely outrageous racial epithets and racial language to attack the Republicans, to attack Lincoln, and this can yield political dividends at various times. Unfortunately appeals to deep prejudice and can sometimes win you votes.
The 19th Century press was almost 100% partisan. Many newspaper editors were very important figures in the political parties. Henry J. Raymond, the editor of The New York Times, was also the head of the Republican National Committee, so you wouldn’t expect objectivity, so to speak, from his reporting. The top newspapers, The Tribune, The Times did have good correspondents in Washington, DC and war correspondents, and they reported what they saw and sometimes their reports conflicted with the editorial policy of the newspaper, but the newspapers of that time were scurrilous very often, full of abuse of the other party, and Lincoln suffered tremendous abuse from the Democratic press. Two Democratic journalists from The New York World invented this term miscegenation to use in the 1864 presidential campaign so that Democrats could charge the Republicans wanted this sexual intermingling of the races, and that was going to be the result of emancipation. So you’re not going to find an objective, nonpartisan journalistic press in the mid-19th Century.
Q. How can we understand the seeming contradiction that the man who came to be known as the "Great Emancipator" also actively promoted efforts to get former slaves to leave the U.S. and move to colonies in Africa, the Caribbean or South America?
In August 1862, Lincoln had a meeting with a black delegation in which he publicly pushed them toward endorsing the idea of colonization, of organizing among their own people to leave the country. He couldn't really conceptualize the United States as a biracial society of free people until really the last two years of his life. But then he did rethink these questions and moved to a very different position, which I think is much more interesting than to just say, "Well, he's born with all the right views and that's it throughout his whole life." While he ended up as the great emancipator, no question about it, he didn't get there in a straight line.
Q. Ultimately, Lincoln's views about race seemed to have changed in the last two years of his life. What was behind that?
By the end of the Civil War, 200,000 black men had served in the Union Army and Navy. Lincoln believed their contribution was essential to Union victory, and that by fighting, they had staked a claim to citizenship. But there were other things. Before the Civil War, Lincoln had virtually no contact with black people. And since he was not part of the abolitionist movement, he had no interaction before the war with articulate, politically active black men like Frederick Douglass or others. I think that this contact with African Americans of education, of talent, of political awareness broadened Lincoln's views of race. Lincoln also developed a deep, real compassion for the emancipated slaves and was concerned about their fate. We don't know what would have happened if Lincoln had not died in 1865, but he certainly was in a very different place in terms of race when he was assassinated than he had been when he entered the White House, or even a year or so into the Civil War.
Q. Was the Civil War in effect also a social revolution?
The historians Charles and Mary Beard called it the "second American Revolution." They were talking more about economics and the rise of industry, but the abolition of slavery is a revolutionary act, because slavery was the foundation of the society of half the country. Abolishing it meant you're going to have to have a new labor system, a new political system, a new system of race relations. It throws all those things up for grabs. It makes blacks feel for the first time that there really was the possibility of equality in the United States, which really no one had even glimpsed before the Civil War. At Lincoln's second inaugural, it is said that half the crowd was black; this would have been completely impossible before the Civil War. Why would any black person go to the inaugural of James Buchanan or Franklin Pierce?
Q. You allude to the great what-if question on Lincoln. What are your thoughts on how Reconstruction might have gone had he had lived out his second term?
I'm always asked what would have happened if Lincoln had not been killed. Lincoln was succeeded by a man who was his complete opposite. Some people grow in a crisis, as Lincoln did, and some people seem to shrivel away, and that's what happened to Andrew Johnson. He lacked Lincoln's broad-mindedness, he lacked his flexibility, he lacked his compassion for the emancipated slaves, he lacked Lincoln's connection with the Republicans in Congress and Northern public opinion. I think what would have happened is what happened during the war: Lincoln and Congress would have debated and fought, and they would have reached some kind of general policy on Reconstruction. It probably would have looked like what Congress passed over Johnson's vetoes in 1866: civil rights for black people, maybe limited black suffrage and federal protection of the rights of former slaves. It wouldn't have been as radical as Reconstruction would later become. Would it have worked better? Who knows. But the idea long embedded in our history that Andrew Johnson was simply following in Lincoln's footsteps is ludicrous. It is a tragedy that Lincoln was killed, given the man who followed him.
Q. Aside from it being the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth, why is he so relevant today?
Lincoln's life illuminates persistent questions of American history: obviously, the question of race, the role of the government, the role of presidential leadership, of social mobility in our society—all things he experienced in his own life. He seems like the quintessential American in some ways, and that's why I think every generation takes a new look at him. So there's nothing unusual perhaps in me coming along and saying, "Well, there's 10,000 books on Lincoln, but I have something to say—book number 10,001." I don't claim that this is the final word on Lincoln, but I do think that in some ways, Lincoln is always our contemporary.
—Interview by Record Staff
|Brown Institute for Media Innovation Grand Opening|
Five Columbia faculty members have been inducted into the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine. They are James J. Cimino, adjunct professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics; Quarraisha Abdool Karim, associate professor of epidemiology; Gerard Karsenty, Paul A. Marks Professor of Genetics & Development; Michael Shadlen, professor of neuroscience; and Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, Mikati Foundation Professor of Biomedical Engineering.
Herb Gans, the Robert S. Lynd Professor Emeritus of Sociology and special lecturer in sociology, was awarded the 2014 William Foote Whyte Career Achievement Award for sociological practice and public sociology | <urn:uuid:ba6d12a0-c058-4bdd-93ab-fb78cda40c6a> | {
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Winslow Homer in the National Gallery of Art
From the late 1850s until his death in 1910, Winslow Homer produced a body of work distinguished by its thoughtful expression and its independence from artistic conventions. A man of multiple talents, Homer excelled equally in the arts of illustration, oil painting, and watercolor. Many of his works—depictions of children at play and in school, of farm girls attending to their work, hunters and their prey—have become classic images of nineteenth-century American life. Others speak to more universal themes such as the primal relationship of man to nature.
Highlighting a wide and representative range of Homer's art, this Web feature traces his extraordinary career from the battlefields, farmland, and coastal villages of America, to the North Sea fishing village of Cullercoats, the rocky coast of Maine, the Adirondacks, and the Caribbean, offering viewers the opportunity to experience and appreciate the breadth of his remarkable artistic achievement.
More than fifty paintings, drawings, prints, and watercolors in the Gallery's Homer collection will be on view at the National Gallery of Art, East Building Mezzanine, from July 3, 2005 – February 26, 2006.
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Winslow Homer was born in Boston, the second of three sons of Henrietta Benson, an amateur watercolorist, and Charles Savage Homer, a hardware importer. As a young man, he was apprenticed to a commercial lithographer for two years before becoming a freelance illustrator in 1857. Soon he was a major contributor to such popular magazines as Harper’s Weekly; in 1859 he moved to New York to be closer to the publishers that commissioned his illustrations and to pursue his ambitions as a painter.
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Sent by Harper’s to the front as an artist-correspondent during the Civil War, Homer captured the essential modernity of the conflict in such images as The Army of the Potomac—A Sharp-Shooter on Picket Duty. While traditional battle pictures usually depicted, in the words of a contemporary, “long lines…led on by generals in cocked hats,” Homer instead shows a solitary figure who, using new rifle technology, is able to fire from a distance and remain unseen by his target.
The subject of this engraving is based on Homer's first oil painting. An emblematic image of the Civil War, the lone figure of a sharpshooter reveals the changing nature of modern warfare. With new, mass-produced weapons such as rifled muskets, killing became distant, impersonal, and efficiently deadly. Despite public admiration for sharpshooters' skill, ordinary soldiers looked upon them as cold-blooded, mechanical killers. Many years after the war, Homer wrote an old friend, "I looked through one of their rifles once....The...impression struck me as being as near murder as anything I could think of in connection with the army and I always had a horror of that branch of the service."
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Homer drew upon his experience of the war to create his first oil paintings, many of them scenes of camp life that illuminate the physical and psychological plight of ordinary soldiers. He received national acclaim for these early works, both for the strength of his technique and the candor of his subjects.
This picture, exhibited in New York in 1863, was enthusiastically admired and quickly sold. The title refers to the song frequently played by the Union regimental band, a piece that no doubt inspired homesickness and longing in the infantry men who listened to it.
But the title also refers to the soldiers' present "home," shown with all of its domestic details—a small pot on a smoky fire, hard biscuits on a tin plate—that Homer, who did the cooking and washing when he was on the front, knew intimately, and that, with surely intended irony, was far from "sweet."
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In the late 1860s, Homer turned to life in rural and coastal America for his subject matter. His postwar work employs a brighter palette and freer brushwork, and shows his interest in the fleeting effects of light and atmosphere. The freshness of his touch is evident in the brilliant light and delicate coloration of The Dinner Horn (Blowing the Horn at Seaside). The young woman sounding the call to dinner appears in several other paintings and relates to one of Homer’s favorite motifs throughout the 1870s: the solitary female figure, often absorbed in thought or work.
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Many of Homer's paintings show self-assured, independent, working women, such as the teacher featured prominently in The Red School House. The one-room schoolhouse in the background appears in a number of Homer's works from this time, including Snap the Whip, one of his most beloved images.
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Childhood, an important theme in the work of such contemporary American writers as Louisa May Alcott and Mark Twain, became Homer’s principal subject in the early 1870s. Pictures of children gathered in a one-room schoolhouse, playing in the countryside, or sitting on the beach on a summer day suited the postwar nostalgia for the presumed simplicity and innocence of a bygone era.
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Homer’s early works, while mainly set outdoors, are almost all figure paintings. This was a conspicuous departure from the type of pure landscape that dominated nineteenth-century American art. Homer spent the summer of 1873 in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where he painted this family of a fisherman awaiting his return. The exuberance suggested by the title—first given when an engraving of the painting was published in Harper's Weekly in 1873—is tempered by the meditative air of the still, silhouetted figures. The mother faces away from the sea, while the young boy scans a horizon that yields no sign of an approaching boat. Instead of depicting a celebratory narrative of homecoming, Homer captures the more ambiguous moment of watching and waiting. He would have been acutely aware of this aspect of the lives of fishermen's families, for Gloucester experienced a significant loss of life due to tragedies at sea during his stay.
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One of Homer's most popular paintings, Breezing Up was first exhibited in 1876, the year of America's centenary celebration. Critics hailed the work for its freshness and energy. Amid the general climate of optimism and great expectations for the future, some sensed an even larger meaning in the scene—one writer declared that "the skipper's young American son, gazing brightly off to the illimitable horizon [is a symbol of] our country's quiet valor, hearty cheer, and sublime ignorance of bad luck."
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Homer often assembled his prints from diverse sources. In Ship-Building, Gloucester Harbor, he brought together from four different works, including two oil paintings, a drawing, and a watercolor of four boys, who appear in reverse. Children often gathered in the shipyard after school, to collect chips for kindling, build chip houses, observe the workmen, and to carve and rig miniature vessels. The text that acccompanied the print in Harper's Weekly described the picture as "interesting not only as a work of art, but as a suggestion of the renewed enterprise and activity which are beginning to manifest themselves in American ship-yards. All along our immense line of coast may be seen indications which awaken the hope that America will soon resume her former supremacy in building ships."
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Homer had been working as an artist for nearly two decades when, in the words of one contemporary critic, he took "a sudden and desperate plunge into watercolor painting." Long the domain of amateur painters, watercolors had gained professional respectability in 1866 with the formation of the American Water Color Society. Homer recognized their potential for profit—for he could produce and sell them quickly—but he also liked the way watercolor allowed him to experiment more easily than oil.
He created his first series in Gloucester, Massachusetts, in 1873, and by the time he painted his last watercolor, in 1905, he had become the unrivaled master of the medium in America.
Some critics found fault in Homer's early watercolors for their apparent lack of finish and their commonplace subject matter. Yet Homer valued them from the start. He priced The Sick Chicken, a delicate work that demonstrates his early technique of filling in outlined forms with washes of color, at the steep price of one hundred dollars.
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The size of this watercolor and its highly finished state suggest that Homer was attempting to create what English artists called "exhibition watercolors"—works that were intended to rival the aesthetic power and impact of oil paintings.
Homer often reused the same figures in different scenes. The girl in this work appeared previously in a drawing, an oil painting, and two watercolors. More generally, she is related to the many solitary figures of women that appear in Homer's work especially during the 1870s, including The Sick Chicken and Fresh Eggs.
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For a short period in the late 1870s, a decorative quality became evident in Homer's art. Blackboard, which continues the theme of elementary education found in many of his oils, epitomizes this development. The studied elegance of the work's design derives in part from its monochromatic palette and in part from the geometric patterning found in the bands of color in the background, the checkered apron, and the marks on the board.
The marks on the blackboard puzzled scholars for many years. They now have been identified as belonging to a method of drawing instruction popular in American schools in the 1870s. In their earliest lessons, young children were taught to draw by forming simple combinations of lines, as seen on the blackboard here. Rather than being a polite accomplishment, drawing was viewed as having a practical application, playing a valuable role in industrial design. Homer playfully signed the blackboard in its lower-right corner as though with chalk.
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Homer spent several months during the summer and late fall of 1878 at Houghton Farm, the country residence of a patron in Mountainville, New York. There he created dozens of watercolors of farm girls and boys playing and pursuing various tasks, including Warm Afternoon. Painted quickly and often outdoors, these watercolors present idyllic scenes of rural life that follow in the European tradition of pastoral painting.
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These graceful depictions of boys and girls frolicking in the outdoors are fluidly painted and transparently colored, conveying a sense of lightness and spontaneity.
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In March 1881, Homer sailed from New York to England, where he spent twenty months in the small fishing villlage of Cullercoats on the North Sea.
Homer painted primarily in watercolor while in Cullercoats. Numerous preliminary studies and the careful planning evident in these works reflect his aspiration to construct a more classical, stable art of seriousness and gravity.
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The fisherwomen of Cullercoats were a source of constant inspiration to Homer during his stay in England. Admiring their strength and endurance, he endowed them with a sense of calm dignity and grace. Sparrow Hall, one of a few finished oil paintings produced in Cullercoats, depicts women knitting or darning near the entrance to a seventeenth-century cottage, the oldest house in the village. The children, as well as the array of baskets, barrels, crates, and floats scattered about the scene, serve as reminders of the women's innumerable responsibilities: keeping house, tending children, repairing nets, gathering bait, and cleaning fish. On the steps, a girl protectively steadies a younger child who dangles a bit of blue yarn in front of a calico cat. Sparrow Hall, wonderfully conceived, brightly colored, and superbly painted, stands very high among the Cullercoats works, and indeed among Homer's images from any period.
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Homer's Cullercoats women have often been called heroic, and, although he may have idealized them somewhat, the stern facts of their lives clearly instilled in them great strength and courage. Popular literature of the period depicted the fisherwomen of the North Sea region as uninhibited beauties who exemplified morality and intellectual honesty, a fitting subject for a high and profound art based on contemporary life. Homer remarked, "There were none like them in my country."
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Homer returned to New York in 1882 and faced the challenge of finding a theme as compelling as that which had occupied him in Cullercoats. Homer had almost always set up an emphatic juxtaposition between the role of women on the shore and that of the men on the sea. As the women determinedly went about their own business, confronted with the inexorable prospect of separation and loss, the men faced tangible physical peril in their constant battle with the elements. In the paintings (and subsequent graphic depictions) of the 1880s, Homer occasionally merged the two themes. The etching Saved, a powerful, highly classicized representation of herioic struggle is based on Homer's 1884 oil painting The Life Line. The wet drapery clinging to the woman's solid form, the anonymity of the rescuer, whose face has been obscured by the scarf as wind and waves swirl about them, all help to convey the sense of physical and emotional exhaustion and the protagonist's heroic effort to triumph over nature's fury.
This remarkably fertile period in Homer's career brought him great critical acclaim. The Life Line was an immediate success, but Homer's work held little commercial appeal. Its striking composition and strong dramatic mood did not match the prevailing aesthetic taste. After viewing Homer's work in a National Academy exhibition, one critic remarked that his paintings had a "rude vigor and grim force that is almost a tonic in the midst of the namby-pambyism of many of the other pictures on display."
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Eight Bells, one of Homer's best-known paintings and the last of the series of great sea pictures that had commenced with The Life Line three years earlier, was completed in 1886 but not shown until 1888. The title refers to the sounding of eight bells done at the hours of four, eight, and twelve a.m. and p.m. Two sailors dominate the foreground, but the details of the ship and its riggings have been minimized. In the etching above, one of his finest, Homer has de-emphasized the background rigging and sky even further to underscore the figures' monumentality.
Homer's depiction seems to transcend "mere realism" and reveal an element of heroism in the mundane activities of his protagonists. A contemporary critic noted that the artist "has caught the color and motion of the greenish waves, white-capped and rolling, the strength of the dark clouds broken with a rift of sunlight, and the sturdy, manly character of the sailors at the rail. In short, he has seen and told in a strong painter's manner what there was of beauty and interest in the scene."
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Homer was drawn to the starkly beautiful scenery of the peninsula of Prout's Neck, Maine, settling permenantly there in 1883. Working in watercolor, he began recording the wild power of the sea in various conditions of light and weather, as in this picture of waves breaking against the rugged shore in a dramatic spray of foam. It is one of Homer's first pure marine pictures, without the addition of figures or narrative. This depiction of the elemental forces of nature is an early indication of the artist's primary pictorial concern in his later years. A friend later recalled Homer's attraction to inclement weather: "[W]hen I knew him he was comparatively indifferent to the ordinary and peaceful aspects of the ocean....But when the lowering clouds gathered above the horizon, and tumultuous waves ran along the rockbound coast and up the shelving, precipitous rocks, his interest became intense."
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To escape the harsh Maine winters, Homer began traveling in 1884 to the tropics (Florida, Cuba, the Bahamas, and Bermuda) where, in response to the extraordinary light and color, he created dazzling watercolors distinguished by their spontaneity, freshness, and informal compositions.
Homer traveled to Nassau in the winter of 1884–1885 at the request of Century Magazine, which commissioned illustrations for an article on the popular tourist destination. There Homer executed more than thirty watercolors whose subjects are representative of the scenery of the island and lives of its citizens; however, his greater interest was in capturing the light and atmosphere of the region.
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In scenes of sun-drenched harbors and shores, Homer often left parts of the white paper exposed to give a sense of the brilliant atmosphere. He painted at least nineteen watercolors in Bermuda, a place he visited twice beginning in 1899. He believed them to be "as good work...as I ever did." They reveal—especially in their fluid washes—the consummate mastery of the medium that Homer had achieved by this point in his career. Homer generally preferred the blue skies and white clouds typical of the island's climate. Only occasionally, as in the remarkable The Coming Storm, did he portray ominous weather.
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An avid fisherman, Homer often visited the Adirondack region of upstate New York, where he made many of his finest and most moving paintings. Using watercolor as his principal medium, he recorded the various pursuits of fishermen and hunters.
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These works celebrate the pleasures and beauty of life in the Adirondacks but also confront the more brutal realities of hunting. In one series, Homer depicted a practice called hounding, in which dogs were used to drive deer into a lake.
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Once in the lake, the deer would be clubbed, shot, or drowned easily by hunters in boats. In Sketch for "Hound and Hunter," a young boy struggles to secure a dead deer while also attending to his dog. It was an unusual subject that many found disturbing; critics mistakenly believed that the hunter here was struggling to drown a live deer when in fact, as Homer explained, the deer was already dead.
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Homer considered the oil version of Hound and Hunter a "great work" and described the pains he took in painting it: "Did you notice the boy's hands–all sunburnt; the wrists somewhat sunburnt, but not as brown as his hands; and the bit of forearm where his sleeve is pulled back but not sunburnt at all? I spent more than a week painting those hands."
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The watercolors Homer produced in Key West in 1903 focus on the graceful white sailing vessels that filled the harbor and plied the local waters. Key West, Hauling Anchor, with its white boat, red-shirted crew, and blue sea reveals Homer's ability to create powerful images using simple pictorial elements. The remarkable confidence and freedom of his handling, with details convincingly suggested but not literally described, make the Key West watercolors some of his most vibrant.
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During the last decade of his life, Homer made four visits to Florida. An avid angler, he spent much of his time on these trips fishing rather than painting. He declared the fishing in Homosassa, located off the Gulf of Mexico, "the best in America." Many of the Homosassa watercolors, such as this one, depict the black swath of jungle just beyond the waters where Homer and others fished. The Florida pictures of 1903 to 1905 would be Homer's final series of watercolors. After that, he painted only in oil.
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Homer painted less frequently in the last decade of his life. The paintings he did produce, deepened by intimations of mortality, include some of the most complex pictures of his career.
Right and Left, one of Homer's last paintings, is at once a sporting picture and a tragic reflection on life and death. The title refers to the act of shooting the ducks successivelly with separate barrels of a shotgun. The red flash and billowing gray smoke barely visible at the middle left indicate that a hunter has just fired at the pair of goldeneye ducks. The picture captures the moment but leaves important questions unresolved. Has the rifle hit its mark? If so, does the downward plunge of the bird on the right indicate that it has been hit, or is it diving to escape? The duck on the left seems frozen, but that stasis does not necessarily reveal its physical condition. And consider the precarious position in which Homer has placed the viewer, observing the scene while apparently hovering in mid-air, at one with the threatened creatures—and directly in the path of the oncoming shotgun blast. With its ambiguous message, unconventional point of view, and diverse sources of inspiration ranging from Japanese art to popular hunting imagery, this painting summarizes the creative complexity of Homer's late style.
Although Winslow Homer avoided any discussion of the meaning of his art, the progression of his creative life attests to the presence of a rigorous, principled mind. Continuously refining his artistic efforts, Homer created work that was not only powerful in aesthetic terms but also movingly profound. Acclaimed at his death for his extraordinary achievements, Homer remains today among the most respected and admired figures in the history of American art.
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The Winslow Homer Web feature was designed and produced by Donna Mann and edited by Amanda Sparrow. The text has been compiled from various Gallery sources, including exhibition brochures, catalogue essays, and wall texts written by Charles M. Brock and Franklin Kelly in the Department of American and British Paintings and Margaret Doyle in the Department of Exhibition Programs. The video program excerpted here was produced by the Division of Education. Thanks to Charles Brock, Franklin Kelly, Margaret Doyle, Barbara Moore, Amy Lewis, Rachel Richards, Leo Kasun, the Department of Imaging and Visual Services, and the Publishing Office for their assistance with this project.
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|Schillinger, William - WASHINGTON STATE UNIV|
|Young, Douglas - WASHINGTON STATE UNIV|
Submitted to: Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: October 15, 2006
Publication Date: February 15, 2007
Repository URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10113/10818
Citation: Schillinger, W.F., Kennedy, A.C., Young, D.L. Eight Years of annual No-Till Cropping in Washington's Winter Wheat - Summer Fallow Region. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment. 120: 345-358. 2007. Interpretive Summary: Blowing dust from excessively tilled soil is a major environmental concern in the winter wheat – summer fallow region of the Inland Pacific Northwest, USA. Conservation-till and no-till farming methods have become increasingly popular with farmers in many areas of the world, but adoption of such practices in the low-precipitation dryland zone in the Pacific Northwest has been slow. We evaluated the agronomic and economic feasibility of long-term no-till annual crop production in a typical winter wheat – summer fallow production region. All crops were susceptible to the disease, rhizoctonia, but the disease was reduced, and grain yield increased, when wheat was grown in rotation with barley. Weed seed remained dormant for 6 years and longer. Soil organic carbon increased with no-till during the 8 years to approach that found in undisturbed native soil. Annual no-till crop rotations experienced lower average profitability and greater income variability compared to winter wheat – summer fallow. We found that continuous annual cropping using no-till provided protection against wind erosion and increased soil quality, but the practice involves high economic risk compared to winter wheat – summer fallow in this dry region.
Technical Abstract: Blowing dust from excessively tilled soil is a major environmental concern in the 1.5 million ha winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) – summer fallow (WW-SF) region of the Inland Pacific Northwest, USA, where only one crop is produced every other year. An 8-year experiment was conducted to evaluate continuous annual (i.e., no summer fallow) cropping systems using no-till as an alternative to tillage-intensive WW-SF. Soft white and hard white classes of winter and spring wheat, spring barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), yellow mustard (Brassica hirta Moench), and safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) were grown in various rotation combinations. Average annual precipitation is 301 mm at the site near Ritzville, WA. Precipitation was less than average in 7 out of 8 years. Rhizoctonia bare patch caused by Rhizoctonia solani AG-8 appeared in year 3 and continued through year 8 in all no-till plots. All crops were susceptible to rhizoctonia, but bare patch area in wheat was reduced, and grain yield increased, when wheat was grown in rotation with barley every other year. Remnant downy brome (Bromus tectorum L.) weed seed remained dormant for 6 years and longer to heavily infest recrop winter wheat. There were few quantifiable changes in soil quality due to crop rotation, but soil organic carbon (SOC) increased with no-till during the 8 years to approach that found in undisturbed native soil. Annual no-till crop rotations experienced lower average profitability and greater income variability compared to WW-SF. Annual cropping was generally economically viable when grain yield was 65% of that for WW-SF, which occurred in higher precipitation years. Yellow mustard and safflower were not economically viable. Continuous annual cropping using no-till provides excellent protection against wind erosion and shows potential to increase soil quality, but the practice involves high economic risk compared to WW-SF in this dry region. | <urn:uuid:1a6b9366-a59b-4e0e-94ae-8823c90ed0fa> | {
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Our K5 program meets five days a week. This full five-day program allows for a firmer educational foundation and even more fun during the learning process. Our Language Arts curriculum teaches basic reading skills using an intensive phonics approach. This gives students a solid foundation for developing exceptional reading skills.
Weekly sight words, writing, great literature and center activities round out the program. Kindergarten students work with numbers up to 100. They enjoy skip-counting, addition, subtraction, working with money, telling time, basic geometry and learning how to form numbers correctly. The Bible is taught in story form through use of color flash cards beginning with creation and moving through the Bible to the life, death and resurrection of Christ. | <urn:uuid:b8d030b3-a49a-43e1-9e10-e6ed27d6d56b> | {
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Lets go one by one,
(i) A graph in which there is a unique path between every pair of vertices is a tree.
==> This statement is true, Because graph can have unique path only when it does not have cycle. And according to the definition of tree, its a graph without cycel. Hence this is a valid statement.
(ii) A connected graph with e = v − 1 is a tree.
==> This statement is true. Not every graph with e = v - 1, will be a tree. But if the graph is connected hence its true.
(iii) A graph with e = v − 1 that has no circuit is a tree.
==> This statement is also true, Here he has not mentioned the connected thing, but mentioned that it has no circuit. It means that its connected.
You can also proof these, just by taking some example. For the formal Proof check this. | <urn:uuid:85037e80-3e35-48f1-b843-b8163a8d507d> | {
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This play is a stage drama focusing on the conflicts plaguing one family, the Tyrones. Even if no one dies at the end, the play is a tragedy: it documents the downfall of the House of Tyrone. In most tragedies the hero has a fatal flaw or makes some error in judgment. Each of the Tyrones has at least one tragic flaw with which they're slowly destroying themselves. James is miserly and an alcoholic, Jamie is a gambler and an alcoholic, Edmund has consumption and is an alcoholic, and Mary is addicted to morphine.
Often times, Greek tragic heroes are victims of fate. Take Oedipus for example. He was doomed from birth to kill his father and sleep with his mother. Unknowingly, he does just that. A comparison can be made to the Greek notion of fate and the idea of the past controlling the future. We learn over the course of Long Day's Journey into Night how events in each character's past made them into who they are. Though the Tyrones aren't powerless in the hands of the gods (like many Greek tragic heroes), they are certainly prisoners, in a sense, to events that are no longer under their control. | <urn:uuid:ddaf6811-e4c4-4861-b76b-14f5ebd006aa> | {
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Men's jacket sleeves often have buttons on them...but they don't button! Students read the passage, and use the words on the provided word list, to fill in the blanks in this story to find out why.
The Flesch-Kincaid reading level for this nonfiction passage is RL 2.6. The Think About It question included with this passage targets the following reading comprehension skill: make inferences.
Perfect for independent practice, small groups, or homework, as well as assessment and test prep!
Once students have gotten the hang of cloze passages, you can also create your own using other classroom materials, such as picture books, science texts, and social studies passages. Photocopy the passage once and use correction fluid to create blank spaces. Include a word list of the missing words in alphabetical order. | <urn:uuid:72137909-b554-4952-afb4-a57f0f40c0ef> | {
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The latest data from Tennessee about the state’s experience with its new photographic voter identification law show that this requirement has done nothing to suppress voter turnout throughout the state. In fact, overall turnout in Tennessee was slightly higher, and black voters turned out at higher rates than white voters in the first election held after the law became effective.
The claims made by voter ID opponents that the law would prevent minorities and other Tennesseans from being able to vote have been shown to be untrue.
Voter ID Requirements
Tennessee’s Voter Identification Act, which became effective in 2012, requires almost all in-person voters to present a valid photo ID when voting. Acceptable IDs include:
- A Tennessee driver’s license with a photo;
- A U.S. passport;
- A photo ID issued by the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security;
- A photo ID issued by the federal or Tennessee state government, including employee IDs;
- A U.S. military photo ID; and
- A Tennessee handgun carry permit with a photo.
Free photo IDs can be obtained at 48 of the 49 Driver Service Centers across the state. These centers offer appointments and an “express service” to expedite the process for citizens seeking free government-issued IDs for voting. There is an exemption to the voter ID requirement for voters who:
- Are residents of a licensed nursing home or assisted living center who vote at the facility;
- Vote by absentee mail;
- Are hospitalized within 20 days of the election;
- Have a religious objection to being photographed; or
- Are indigent and unable to obtain a free photo ID without paying a fee for an underlying document needed to get an ID, such as a birth certificate.
A person who attempts to vote in person without a valid ID and who does not meet one of the exemptions can vote by provisional ballot. The ballot will be counted if the voter presents proof of identification to election officials “by the close of business on the second business day after the election.”
A lawsuit filed in 2012 claimed the voter ID law was both facially unconstitutional under the state’s constitution and unconstitutional as applied to the plaintiffs specifically. In October 2013, the Tennessee Supreme Court held that the law was constitutional and did not infringe upon any voting rights.
The court dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims that requiring a voter ID placed an “undue burden on their right to vote” simply because it required “time and travel” to obtain an ID card. The court recognized the “compelling nature of the state’s interest in the integrity of the election process” and explicitly rejected the “notion that a state must present evidence that it has been afflicted by voter fraud” before it can enact laws intended to prevent fraud.
A federal judge similarly dismissed claims by the Green Party of Tennessee that the law violated the Tennessee and U.S. Constitutions, the Help America Vote Act of 2002 and the National Voter Registration Act. The Green Party even claimed that travel and other expenses incurred in obtaining a free ID card amounted to an “unconstitutional constructive poll tax,” a claim that has been consistently rejected by numerous courts. The court stated that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision upholding Indiana’s voter ID law in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board “is the controlling precedent.” Tennessee’s voter ID law is “virtually identical” to the Indiana case.
Turnout in Presidential Elections
In 2008, when Tennessee had no voter ID requirement in place, 53.6 percent of the voting-age population (VAP) turned out to vote, according to a Census Bureau survey—4.6 percentage points below the national rate of 58.2 percent. In 2012, after Tennessee enacted its voter ID requirement, 53.7 percent of the state’s VAP voted, a very slight uptick in turnout from 2008. The national turnout rate dropped to 56.5 percent.
So in 2012, when Tennessee’s voter photo ID requirement was in place for the first time in a general election and the turnout nationally went down from 2008, the turnout rate in Tennessee was slightly up and only 2.8 percentage points below the national rate. Tennesseans actually did better in 2012 with the new photo ID law in place in comparison to national turnout, and the turnout rate in Tennessee actually rose slightly from what it was in 2008.
Tennessee also had better turnout in 2012 than other states with no ID requirement. For example, according to the Census survey, the turnout rate in California (47.5 percent), Nevada (51.4 percent), New York (50.9 percent), and West Virginia (47.5 percent)—none of which has voter ID requirements—was below the turnout rate in Tennessee. Last year, undercover agents for the Department of Investigation of the City of New York were able to impersonate and obtain ballots for 61 registered voters out of 63 attempts because of the lack of an ID requirement and lax security in polling places. New York’s turnout in 2012 was almost 3 percentage points below that of Tennessee.
Black and Hispanic Turnout
In 2008, according to the Census Bureau, 60.8 percent of the black VAP voted in the general election, and 31.6 percent of the Hispanic VAP voted nationwide. In Tennessee, African American VAP turnout was 58.1 percent, and Hispanic VAP turnout was 19.2 percent. Since white VAP turnout was only 53.7 percent, blacks voted at a higher rate than whites by slightly more than 4 percentage points.
In 2012, the national voter turnout of the African American VAP increased to 62 percent. Hispanic VAP turnout jumped modestly to 31.8 percent. Just as in 2008, African American voter turnout in Tennessee (57.4 percent) was below the national turnout rate. However, this result was a mere 0.7 percentage point decrease from 2008 and fell within the margin of error for the Census survey, so essentially there was no difference. Black Tennesseans still outvoted whites by 4 percentage points in 2012, since the white voting rate was only 53.4 percent.
Thus, even with a new photo ID requirement in place for the first time, blacks still voted at a higher rate than whites. Hispanic VAP turnout in Tennessee saw a huge increase in turnout in 2012, with 34.7 percent showing up to vote, nearly doubling turnout from 2008.
Moving Forward with Voter ID
Voter ID in Tennessee does not impede its citizens from exercising their right to vote. Statewide turnout in Tennessee actually increased slightly from 2008 to 2012, after its voter ID law went into effect, while there was an overall decline in turnout seen across the country.
Black voters in Tennessee voted at a higher rate than white voters in 2012 while turnout of Hispanic voters almost doubled. This despite constant claims that voter ID was going to have drastic negative effects on minority voters.
Multiple courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court and the Tennessee Supreme Court, have found voter ID laws constitutional and not a burden on voters. As the Tennessee legislature concluded, voter ID is simply a common-sense reform that is needed to protect the security of elections. The goals of voter ID are simple: to fight against voter fraud, to maintain public confidence in the democratic process, and to ensure the legitimacy of elections in America.
—Hans A. von Spakovsky is a Senior Legal Fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation and manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative. Peter McGinley, a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation, provided valuable research assistance for this paper. | <urn:uuid:a3ea3664-c603-4225-b5b6-3aa17cfe9b7f> | {
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As the more accessible methods for micro energy (microwatt-hour to watt-hour) harvesting and storage become commercialized, the research community will focus on extremes in efficiency and cost breakthroughs and exploration of entirely new methods and applications. Make no mistake; there is plenty of exciting new ground to be covered! We will in this session profile the space of current and anticipated micro energy harvesting needs and approaches suitable for sensing, computing, and communications.
The Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center will conduct this afternoon- through- evening conference and reception at the Leeds Certified Green David Brower Center on the edge of the beautiful UC Berkeley campus on Wednesday March 9th.
Applications Drivers: Energy Consumption in Communicating Sensor Networks
Will radical reductions in power requirements of wireless radios and integrated sensors and processors make energy “harvesting” ubiquitous, or unnecessary? Application requirements, hardware trends, and protocol efficiency will be discussed in the context of energy harvesting solutions.
Advanced Sensing Technology for Harsh Environments
Present and future research directions for harsh environment telemetry will be discussed in this presentation. Using the application of sensors in geothermal power plants as a focus, a comprehensive research program will be described for the development of sensors, telemetry, energy harvesting, materials, packaging and bonding. Aluminum Nitride and Silicon Carbide material technologies (as well as other related material technologies) will be described.
Energy Harvesting and Sensing for the Power Grid
BSAC work on energy harvesting and wireless sensors for the Smart Grid will be discussed. The current situation of sparse deployment of expensive sensors for even basic electrical parameters and without ability to quickly locate faults, and with no way of predicting future faults will be addressed by these technologies. As renewable but rapidly fluctuating wind and solar power sources are connected, the sensing and actuation situation will become critical.
Small, hermetically sealed, meso-scale and MEMS-based lightweight sensors and scavengers with the goal of increase in the granularity of sensing and the controllability of our power grids. Some of these devices involve piezo-magnetic harvesting, MEMS-on-glass manufacture and packaging, and scavengers that draw the small amount of energy they need from the power lines themselves. They will include new methods for extending the usable life of piezoelectric members.
Cost Effective and Efficient Microphotovoltaics
Solar energy presents a viable candidate for fossil fuel replacement. In this regard, developing technologies for $1/W installed PV system is needed. The choice of materials and cell architecture, the cost and abundance of the raw materials, the component manufacturing costs, the cell design and framework, the capital cost, and the installation costs are all important contributing factors to the final cost. Although there is considerable current focus on the absorber materials and the required deposition processes, the rest of the cell, including transparent conductors, texturing, optical coatings, etc., and reliability are equally important. All of these are fundamentally materials related problems and progress requires an interdisciplinary approach drawing on materials science, chemistry, applied physics, mechanical and electrical engineering, however, significant challenges exist in developing efficient and low cost systems that are scalable to small formats and small capacities (micropower) as well as to commercial scale (kilowatts to megawatts).
Micro Energy Storage
Micro energy storage is indispensable for energy harvester systems. Energy generation from various resources is required to be stored and released when the power is needed. Two systems are commonly known in the macroscale systems: battery and supercapacitors. This talk will provide efforts in micro energy storage systems including high power density supercapacitors with high energy storage capability and nanostructure-based micro batteries.
Biologically-Inspired Scavenging Technologies
Recent developments focusing on two very different bio-inspired energy harvesting Microsystems will be discussed. The first, in collaboration with CFD Corporation, is a miniaturized electrochemical system for harvesting energy from an insect’s reactions with the sugar trehalose. The system is being designed to produce 100′s of uW’s in a compact footprint, suitable for powering instrumentation on a cyborg insect. A similar system is being studied for mammalian implants. The second topic will briefly discuss developments in the scavenging of power from evaporation and low pressure head flows, including our work on microscale boundary-layer turbines (so-called Tesla turbines), a topic which has applications beyond scavenging.
Panel and Mixing Reception
The topics are certain to generate interest if not some controversy among the audience and speakers. An extended reception and mixing event will allow continuation of the discussions and renewal of prior and establishment of new connections among practitioners, students, and investors of impacted applications.
Agenda and registration can be found here: http://bsac.berkeley.edu/events/8706520851/ | <urn:uuid:8f8d1471-a399-474c-8d92-8809bcb7cc82> | {
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A Muslim or Moslem is an adherent of the religion of Islam. Literally, the word means "one who submits (to God)". Muslim is the participle of the same verb of which Islam is the infinitive. Muslims believe that there is only one God, called Allah in Arabic, and that Islam existed long before Muhammad though it was not called that until the revelation of Surah al-Ma'ida, which states: "This day have I perfected your religion for you, completed My favour upon you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion." All Muslims observe Sunnah, but differences in the definition of what is and what is not Sunnah has led to the emergence of sectarian movements. Current use of "Muslim" is defined in the Amman Message. A literal translation would be "one who wants or seeks wholeness", where "wholeness" translates islāmun. In a religious sense, Al-Islām translates to "faith, piety", and Muslim to "one who has (religious) faith or piety". Muslims who accept the Sunnah as defined within one of the traditional Maliki, Hanafi, Shafi or Hanbali madh'habs are classical Sunni Muslims. The next largest faction, that of Shia Islam regard Ali as the second most important figure after Prophet Muhammad. Others, such as the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, are also known as being organised and disciplined communities, with varying degrees of acceptance among various factions. Sufism is defined by its adherents as the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. The feminine form of muslimun is muslimatun and a female adherent is a Muslimah. Mu'min is an Arabic term frequently referenced in the Qur'an, meaning "believer", and denoting a person that has complete submission to the will of Allah.
- I'm a Christian, But Muslims are misunderstood. Intentionally misunderstood. We should all be more like them. They make sense, especially with their children. There is no other group like the Black Muslims, who put so much effort into teaching children the right things: They don't smoke, they don't drink or overindulge in alcohol, they protect their women, they command respect. And what do these other people do?
- At the beginning of the twentieth century, every single leading Muslim intellectual was in love with the west, and wanted their countries to look just like Britain and France. Some of them even said that the Europeans … were better Muslims than they themselves, because their modern society had enabled them to create a fairer and more just distribution of wealth, than was possible in their pre-modern climates, and that accorded more perfectly with the vision of the Quran.
Then there was the experience of colonialism under Britain and France, experiences like Suez, the Iranian revolution, Israel, and some people, not all by any means… have allowed this … these series of disasters to corrode into hatred.
- I would like to stress that I did not come into contact with any Muslim before I embraced Islam. I read the Qur'an first and realized no person is perfect, Islam is perfect, and if we imitate the conduct of the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of God be upon him), we will be successful. May Allah give us guidance to follow the path of the Ummah of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him).
- Ever since I became a Muslim … I've had to deal with attempts to damage my reputation and countless insinuations seeking to cast doubt on my character and trying to connect me to causes, concepts or sayings which I do not and would never wilfully subscribe to.
- Farhad was also taught that any Muslim working with the Americans in Afghanistan was no longer a Muslim, but a "munafiq," a pretend Muslim. It was written in the Quran, Farhad was assured.
- Robert Baer regarding the indoctrinations of the Taliban, albas quoted in "A Talk With a Suicide Bomber" in TIME magazine (20 July 2007)
- Islam does not permit a non-Muslim to rule over Muslims.
- Islam, followed by more than a billion people today, is the world's fastest growing religion and will soon be the world's largest. The 1.2 billion Muslims make up approximately one quarter of the world's population, and the Muslim population of the United States now outnumbers that of Episcopalians. The most populous Muslim countries are Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India. | <urn:uuid:6f87793b-d48a-492f-a515-79c5a345058c> | {
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Bonding with your infant is one of life's most joyful processes. Research shows that, by the second month of life, an infant feels "at one" with the parent, and starts showing signs of that developing attachment: smiling, making "happy" sounds, maintaining eye contact for longer durations, and studying the parent's face with interest. By six months old, infants demonstrate a full range of emotions and have become responsive to parental "wooing", sometimes initiating exchanges on their own. As they age, their attachment becomes stronger and deeper--until, of course, they become teenagers.
Physically, infant development presents countless milestones in which parents delight. Newborn babies turn their heads, kick their legs, wave their arms, and show a number of reflex behaviors. As they approach their third month of life, babies begin to lift their head up and look around while lying on their stomachs; roll over from front to back and later vice versa; open and close their hands; and bring objects to their mouth. From four to seven months, babies gain enough muscle strength to be able to sit up. As their hands are used more often, they are also able to transfer objects from one hand to another. By the 12th month, babies are crawling, pulling up, and moving alongside furniture while holding on, forever changing their parents' lives (and often the configuration of their living room).
While most infant development happens naturally through regular interaction with parents, a number of businesses and organizations offer classes and activities designed to promote early childhood development and strengthen the bonding process.
Birmingham Arts, Music, and Gym Classes for Babies and Toddlers (click title below for details)
- Baby Signs | <urn:uuid:3e021d6f-d244-4121-abc7-3a531d6c57e3> | {
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One of the structural difficulties with any systematic study of civilizations is that the sample size of the category is rather small, as is clear in the few attempts to examine their progression (see Arnold Toynbee). Additionally, there’s always the problem with how one generates a typology for something as fluid as civilization. Where does antiquity end, and the medieval period begin? One can get a rough sense of the discontinuities impressionistically. Consider the appearance of the Column of Phocas, erected in 608 AD. It may be correct that chronologically the Byzantine state and society on the eve of the expansion of Islam in the early 7th century was closer to the era of Charlemagne than Constantine, but many would argue that it was basically a Late Antique society more than an Early Medieval one. Certainly the Byzantines of that age would have agreed with that assessment (though one has to be careful about taking people at their word, the last Byzantines before the Ottoman conquest in 1453 famously still referred to themselves as Romans).
But such typologies remain a matter of art, and are subject to great dispute. Any inferences one generates or generalities one perceives will be subject to the reality that the individuals engaging in the act have a strong impact on the size and distribution of the sample (this is obviously true in ecology or empirical social sciences, but the methods here are generally more explicit and easy to critique). With all that said I think at the boundary condition we can agree upon some civilizational distinctions if such typologies have any meaning or utility. The world of the ancient Near East was on a deep level culturally alien to our own, and the period between 1200 and 800 spans a extremely sharp rupture between what came before, and what came after.
Its alien aspect is one reason that I am fascinated by the ancient Near East. Egypt as a civilization and society exhibited intelligible continuity within itself for nearly 2,000 years between the Old Kingdom and the first centuries of the first millennium before Christ, up to the conquest by the Assyrians (I suspect intelligible continuity precedes the Old Kingdom, but written sources become rather sparse before that). Obviously aspects of ancient Egypt persisted for centuries after its operational demise, as made clear by artifacts such as the Rosetta Stone which date to the kingdom of the Ptolemies. The pagan Egyptian temple of Philae was active down to the 6th century A.D., but with its closing by Justinian the last deep cultural connection to the world of the Pharaohs was lost (the Coptic language is derived from ancient Egyptian, but the Copts were unable to tell Europeans how to read the hieroglyphs because they did not know). The world of the ancient Fertile Crescent is in many ways even more distant in memory from ours than that of Egypt. Egypt in its declining phase was a stronger active influence on the Greeks. Rather, it is through the Hebrew Bible that we can glean fragments of the shape of the ancient Bronze Age societies of Mesopotamia and Syria, in particular in Genesis. And just as a shadow of Egypt persisted down to the Roman conquest and beyond, so the civilization of Babylon and Assyria was absorbed in part by their Persian conquerors. But note that the Epic of Gilgamesh, which has within it a variant of the famous Biblical flood story, was not rediscovered until the 19th century, despite its enduring fame over the 2,000 years of Mesopotamian civilization between Sumer and the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Without the translation efforts of modern archaeologists and philologists Mesopotamian culture would be an empire of artifacts, rather one which illuminates our minds with the imaginings of the past.
The ancient Near Eastern cultural complex extended beyond Egypt and the Fertile Crescent. It encompassed Anatolia, and even the Aegean, into what we today call Greece. But I contend that despite the differences of language a modern person might have more in common with a citizen of 4th century Athens, than a citizen of 4th century Athens would have with a subject of the wanax of 12th century Athens. Some of this is a function of the reality that the modern mentality is to a large extent an outgrowth of that of the Ionian Greeks and their intellectuals heirs. Similarly, the Chinese civilization also took its present shape during this period. Hindu civilization in a non-mythic dimension goes back no further than the first millennium. In the Greek and Indian cases there is a great deal of archaeological evidence for complex literate societies during the Bronze Age. In the Aegean case the script of the last of the successive societies, the Mycenaean, has been deciphered. They spoke Greek and worshiped the same gods as the Classical Greeks. Much of the background material in the Iliad and the Odyssey clearly references the Mycenaean period (though the narrative core is perhaps reflective of the Dark Ages before the rise of Classical Greece). But Classical Greece was built anew, on a different cultural foundation from that the Mycenaeans. The kings of Bronze Age Greece were part of the “brotherhood of kings.” The city-states of Classical Greece were distinct from the despotisms of Asia. The Classical Greeks had forgotten their history aside from legends. The Bronze Age walls of cities such as Tyrins were presumed to have been constructed by giants (“cyclopean”)!
I have alluded to the fact that the enormous proportion of ancient Classical works we have today can be attributed to intense phases of translation and transcription during the Carolingian Renaissance, the Abbassid House of Wisdom, and the efforts of Byzantine men of letters such as Constantine Porphyrogennetos. The reason for these efforts was that in part these ancient literary works were the products of natural predecessor civilizations, to whom the medieval West, Byzantium, and Islam, owed a great deal. The memory of Plato and Aristotle, Caesar and Darius, persisted down to their day. The classical education of early modern Europeans built upon the toil of the medieval period. The Renaissance would not have been able to revive anything if no works of the ancients were copied down and transmitted down to future generations.
In sharp contrast the details of our knowledge of the Bronze Age world are due to the work of modern archaeologists and philologists. Aside from a few references in the Bible to an offshoot kingdom, the Hittite Empire had been totally forgotten! Dead cuneiform, once deciphered, brought back a world which had lain dormant for thousands of years. There are many elements of these lost civilizations which we comprehend only in spare fragments. For example in the fourth millennium BC it seems from the archaeological record that Mesopotamian merchants had colonies which replicated their culture in toto in Anatolia, while Mesopotamian influences through diffusion are indisputable in pre-Dynastic Egypt. In the 3rd millennium this cultural hegemony waned, and Egypt seems to have sealed itself off from outside influence until the 2nd millennium, while the Mesopotamian stamp on Anatolian society diminishes. But without full-blown writing we can only conjecture as to the dynamics of this period of the expansion of Mesopotamian civilization. By the time the light of text illuminates the world Mesopotamian culture had retreated in its complete form to Sumer and Akkad.
But there is still much we know now. The robusticity of baked cuneiform means that the destruction of ancient palace complexes is a boon to modern archaeologists and historians. Though Egyptians used papyrus, they also stamped their monuments with hieroglyphs, and critically the correspondence with foreign nations was generally done in Akkadian cuneiform. This last is critical for the narrative in Brotherhood of Kings: How International Relations Shaped the Ancient Near East. From the introduction:
The diplomatic system developed in the ancient Near East was forgotten for millennia; there’s no collection of marble busts of ancient kings in the entrance hall to the United Nations in honor of their contribution to the history of humanking, no requirement that children study the ancient peace treaties as founding documents, the way they might study the Magna Carta or the United States Constitution. There’s a good reason for this: We can find no direct link between the ancient practice of diplomacy and that used today.
But it is edifying, even inspiring, to know that right from the earliest centuries of civilization, ancient kings and statesmen of distinct and different lands were oftne willing, even eager, to find alternatives to war and see one another as brothers rather than enemies.
Economists might term this a separate “natural experiment,” distinct from the Westphalian model. More colloquially one might consider the Near Eastern diplomatic system as a “first draft.” Because of the sharp differences between that world, and our epoch, similarities are particularly telling as to the deep cognitive biases which drive our cultural forms. In Brotherhood of Kings the author traces the evolution of the art of ancient diplomacy from the cities of third millennium Mesopotamia and Syria, down to the climax of the tradition during period of the Amarna letters, in the 14th century BC.
First, kinship matters. This is almost a trivial assertion, but the ubiquity of kin terminology in political orders despite the lack of blood ties reinforces the importance of abstracting the genealogical relationship to a grander scale. The Chinese Emperor was the Son of Heaven, and the father to his people. Similarly, the President of the United States of America was the “Great White Father” to Native tribes in the 19th century. Sometimes the kinship was not fictive, but literal. In the 19th century continental Europe was generally at peace, at least in relation to previous eras. Some attribute this to the fact that European states were generally monarchies, and the monarchs were all members of an extended family. Similarly, by the 14th century relations between Egypt, Mitanni (Syria and northern Mesopotamia) and Babylonia were generally peaceful, and cemented by exchanges of royal women as brides in the polygynous households of the monarchs. The existence of a Minoan palace in northern Egypt is evidence in the author’s eye to princesses from the island of Crete in the household of the Pharaoh. A wedding was a marker of a cultural exchange.
Sometimes the analogies to later epochs are striking. After the famous king Tutankhamen died, his young wife wrote a letter to the king of the Hittites:
“My husband has died and I have no son. They say about you that you have many sons. You might give me one of your sons to become my husband. I would not wish to take one of my subjects as a husband… I am afraid.”
The king, a powerful warlord by the name of Suppiluliuma, eventually sent his son Zannanza, who seems to have died. There is a strong suspicion by the nature of Suppiluliuma’s angry subsequent correspondence that foul play was involved, and that Zannanza was undone by a reaction in the court of Egypt to the arrival of a foreign prince. The outcome of this personal and political tragedy was war, as Suppiluliuma used this event as a casus belli for an invasion which rolled back Egypt’s dominion in the Levant and expanded the Hittite Empire. The connection between the personal and political, and the necessity for noble women to seek outside aid, reminds me greatly of the period before the Gothic Wars, with Tutankhamen’s wife being in a similar position as Amalasuntha.
But this episode was peculiar in another way: the Pharaohs of Egypt never gave their daughters out to foreign powers, rather, they received the daughters of the other kings. This is explained in Brotherhood of Kings in two ways. The more prosaic one is that while the non-Egyptian kings generally viewed the potentate receiving the daughter as inferior, because now he would be the son-in-law (extending the kinship analogy), the Pharaohs perceived that they were superior because they were receiving gifts from non-Egyptian kings. This is a classic “win-win” scenario. Even if the monarchs in question understood the cultural disjunction, these movement of women from the Fertile Crescent to Egypt was in part motivated by signalling status to their own circle of nobles, who may not have been as conscious of these cross-cultural distinctions.
More importantly I suspect, Egypt was richer and more powerful than any of the other kingdoms during this period. It is indicative to me that the instance where the Egyptian widow seeks a foreign prince it is from the Hittites, as this nation was waxing, and was arguably as resource rich as Egypt in many ways, not to mention militarily successful. The correspondence in the Egyptian archives show that the kings of Mitanni and Babylonia persistently bleat for gold, gold, gold. Egypt was rich in gold, and they were not. These kings frankly state that so long as they receive gold they will return to Egypt whatever the Pharaoh would like to maintain the balance of payments. The supply of gold was inelastic to the demand because of its scarcity. In contrast the monarchs of Mitanni or Babylonia could increase the production or procurement of textiles and other fine manufactures and imports. One of the most bizarre facts about the reign of Akhenaten is that he apparently promised the king of the Mitanni a set of gold statues, which he never delivered. Nearly every piece of correspondence from the Mitanni king during Akhenaten’s two decades of power includes a reference to the missing gold statues!
It seems clear that one of the goals of the ancient diplomatic system was to substitute gift giving for war. Plunder and piracy were a major revenue source for elites, especially in an age where commerce and trade did not exhibit the efficiencies we take for granted later (recall that there was no standard coinage). But this was risky, and entailed expending resources and time. Part of the rationale for conquest was clearly to secure resources which were scarce or nonexistent in one’s own domains. The giving of gifts between monarchs, whether equals (“Great Kings”) or between a hegemon and his vassals, was a way in which scarce goods could flow between territories. If gold and other luxury goods were to travel between states there would obviously be a necessary premium on security. Certain fixed costs would be entailed, and one would probably want a reasonable economy of scale to maximize efficiency. The despots of this ancient world were in the best position to provide these services. The luxury goods would eventually “trickle down” to the sub-elites after the initial exchange in subsequent gift giving.
But these abstractions, the aggregate flow of goods and services (in the latter case, specialists such as doctors and diviners), had to be made concrete in the concepts that these people understood. Contracts and treaties were witnessed by the gods, and the gods served as guarantors of the fidelity of the parties involved to their oaths. Oath-breaking was serious enough that Suppiluliuma’s own son attributed some of his father’s misfortunes to oath-breaking early in his tenure during his usurpation of the throne. These gods were classical polytheistic entities, but the various nations operated in the same supernatural framework, as these were henotheistic societies. Religious concepts had not become so elaborated or philosophical that the oaths would have encountered difficulty because of incommensurability of terminology. And these contracts and treaties were made between fictive, and sometimes real, kin. On occasion the blood ties mattered, as when an Assyrian monarch intervened to kill the usurper who had killed his own grandson, the king of Babylon. Just as these blood bonds could motivate violence and intervention, so no doubt they engendered more amity than would otherwise have been the case. The royal women who moved between capitals served as the critical glue, and it seems that they brought entourages on the order of hundreds. Young princes of mixed parentage would then have grown up in a relatively cosmopolitan world, and been less conditioned to view outsiders as aliens.
So there is much that is familiar in this ancient world, even down to a transnational elite which may share more in common in values and culture with each other than with the populations which they rule. But there are differences. I alluded above to an analogy with 19th century Europe. Despite the differences in national history and religion, the Christian kings of Europe in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars forged a common sense of purpose and mutual understanding. This was made concrete by an acceleration of the pattern of intermarriage, or the placement of branches of the European ruling caste as heads of state of new nations (e.g., Greece). This stability was shattered with the maturity of mass populist nationalism in the 19th century, and basically killed during World War I. But it was constrained to Europe and European descended societies. The Ottoman state and the Empire of Japan were on the fringes, in large part because of deep civilizational differences. In enlightened circles works such as Clash of Civilizations are in bad odor. Though most would balk at accepting an argument with the punch of Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man, a milder variant was common in the 1990s.
As we enter the teens of the 21st century I think the idea of a world civilization, with a common cultural currency which might serve as a means of exchange for deep diplomatic understandings, is fading somewhat. The world of the ancient Near East did not include Shang China, and during its more antique phase it did not include the society of the Indus Valley (which was integrated in terms of trade and commerce, but not politics, with Mesopotamia). It was a small world where ties bound through fictive kinship made sense, as kinship terms in their atoms are human universals. The rhetoric of universal brotherhood persists down to this day, glossed up with a scientific patina through reflexive references to Lewontin’s Fallacy. But the rise of China and Russia should give us pause in assuming a deep common cultural foundation which can serve as a universal glue. Russia is a petro-state in demographic decline, so it is less interesting. Rather, China is reasserting its traditional position as the preeminent civilization in the world, and it is doing so without being Westernized in a way we would recognize. The political liberalization of the world’s most dynamic capitalist Communist state is always over the horizon. Just as the roots of the modern West go back to the eastern Mediterranean in the early first millennium BC, so China’s cultural roots extend back to the same period. China is obviously a synthesis of its own indigenous traditions, and modern Western culture, in particular science & technology. But I am not convinced that there is a true “brotherhood” between the president of China, and Western powers, and that is not a cheery prospect.
Image Credit: Wikimedia | <urn:uuid:9975b407-f9c5-4dac-a51d-55b589ae0fa2> | {
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There is no denying that the Internet has revolutionized the ways in which the world functions. Businesses and consumers alike have benefited from the vast tools available through the Web, and, as a result, they continue to grow increasingly dependent on this innovation. Despite the clear pros that come with solutions made possible by the power of the Internet, information technology professionals should be avoid becoming too trusting of this advancement, as it poses an array of risks in terms of data. For example, government agencies and private business dealing with especially sensitive information should tread cautiously and take the proper precautions so that they can keep their data out of the hands of unauthorized personnel.
Companies throughout the U.S. watched in shock and awe as the Target data debacle unfolded. While there is no denying that this incident was a mess for both this retailer and its affected customers, this is not the only instance when improper information security ended poorly. For example, IT professionals should look at the recent cybersecurity scandal that happened across the Atlantic so that they can learn a thing or two about improving their own information protection protocol.
U.K. incident puts data protection in spotlight
The U.K.’s Wirral Borough Council was under the microscope because it violated the government’s Data Protection Act. According to Computing, this organization took a misstep when it comes to keeping its confidential information secure. Staff members employ the Internet to carry out the council’s basic functions, including sending sensitive data about individuals to other government agencies. Although this tool benefits the organization by increasing efficiency, it has also presented a whole slew of security traps – ones into which the council has unfortunately fallen.
Last year, there were two different instances when this organization sent social services files to the wrong email address, essentially sharing extremely personal information about two families with individuals outside of the system. Among the data sent was even a report about a crime that one person had committed, and now all the specifics of that incident have been disclosed to an unrelated party. In light of these two breaches in confidentiality, the U.K.-based Information Commissioner’s Office looked into the matter to see what went wrong with regards to the organization’s data protection practices. What this firm found was shocking: The council provided no obligatory training that would equip staff members with the skills to treat sensitive data with care and ensure that it would stay within the organization.
Following this investigation, Wirral Borough Council stepped up to the plate in terms of its training measures, and it now has a mandatory program that will give employees the know-how to help them handle confidential materials. Even after the initial training that staff members receive, the council holds review sessions, keeping representatives up to speed with the latest security techniques. Additionally, the organization has implemented other safeguards to prevent any personal information from leaking. Computing explained that they have adopted tools to guarantee that documents are heading to the right address, as well as those that lock printers so that outsiders cannot access these materials.
Baby steps to eliminate breaches
All of these steps are perfect examples of the processes that IT professionals should consider implementing throughout their companies. InformationWeek stated that people need to take control of their data, and how they use it could influence policymakers responsible for establishing rules that outline how companies are supposed to handle their data. For instance, businesses and consumers should recognize that not all information is created equal, nor should it be treated in the same manner. This way, they can prioritize their security measures, tapping into the power of the Internet without putting any data in jeopardy.
The source explained that companies and individual Internet users have to establish a set of concrete guidelines for how their representatives must deal with their data. This way, they can start to shape how everyone from marketing teams to government agencies view information, creating a norm. In the end, IT professionals can promote proper data protection policies to be universally embraced by society, which may help combat both the frequency and the severity of security breaches.
Get started with the VocaWorks Tech Hiring platform
Curated talent, vetted employers. Learn more and sign up for the VocaWorks tech hiring platform. | <urn:uuid:168d2379-6667-4e65-ab89-f5473d814848> | {
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Goal: This exercise helps writers to understand the need of addressing as many of the five senses as possible for complete descriptions. Also writers demonstrate the use of sensory words in poetry.
Materials needed: Sample of Sensory Words
NOTES: Descriptions should be complete and accurate enough that a person/reader can picture the thing being described. Since words are tools used to create imagery, then sensory words are tools needed to create thorough descriptions. The more senses that can be utilized and the more specific the word used, the better the description, the more the reader can identify with what the writer is describing.
1. Consider the five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch (feel).
2. Read over the Sample of Sensory Words handout. Consider which are more specific.
3. Add as many sensory words for each sense as possible, may use thesaurus.
(NOTE: I'm sorry I am unable to format the lists of words into columns for easier reading.)
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The first execution by electric chair happened on this date in 1890. For almost 10 years, the state of New York had been looking for a more humane method of capital punishment to replace hanging. Alfred Southwick, a dentist from Buffalo, was on the committee. He’s the first one to suggest using electric current, because he’d heard a story about a man who had accidentally touched an exposed power line and died quickly and painlessly.
The chair’s first victim was William Kemmler. The execution wasn’t an immediate success. The “state electrician” only gave Kemmler enough juice to knock him out, so they had to try again, but it took a while for the generator to build up enough power to deliver the lethal voltage. The execution took about eight minutes, and Westinghouse later said, “They would have done better using an axe.”
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About the Flood Warning System
King County, Washington
What is the purpose of the King County Flood Warning Program?
To warn residents and agencies of impending floodwaters on major rivers so they can take action and prepare themselves before serious flooding occurs. In most locations, the warning system provides at least 2 hours lead time before floodwaters reach damaging levels. This program does not take the place of individuals and local groups making their own flood disaster plans.
When does flooding and high water typically happen in King County?
Most commonly from November through February during periods of heavy rainfall or rapid snowmelt. Historically, King County rivers have flooded in every month but August.
How does the Flood Warning System operate?
When high water conditions are imminent, King County activates its Flood Warning Center. Operation of the Center is based on a four-phase warning system, issued independently for each river. The thresholds for each phase are based on river gages which measure the flow and stage (depth) of the major rivers in various locations. King County staff monitor the gages on a 24 hour basis, so that actions can be taken depending on river conditions.
What other information is available from the Flood Warning Center?
King County (KC) works closely with the National Weather Service to obtain forecast information used to make flood predictions. Close coordination occurs with the KC Office of Emergency Management, KC Roads, and other agencies to obtain up-to-date information about problems sites, road closures, evacuations and other emergency services. Coordination also occurs with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Seattle Public Utilities regarding dam operations. Personnel at the Center are available to answer questions and help interpret gage readings during a flood event. Current river and flood information is always available through the phone menu system. Call the Flood Warning Center at: 206-296-8200 or 800-945-9263.
What can you do to avoid flood disasters?
Once a warning is issued by the National Weather Service or by King County, residents should prepare for flooding. Becoming familiar with the relationship between upstream gage readings and local flood characteristics can help you prepare your individual emergency plan. Read what you can do before, during and after a flood. Keep informed of changing river conditions and make early preparations in case of major flooding.
What does each phase mean?
Flood phases indicate the severity of flooding and guide King County’s response. Flood phases are issued independently for six major rivers. The thresholds for each phase are based on river gages which measure the flow and stage (depth) of the major rivers in various locations. Phase 1 is an internal alert to King County staff. Phase 2 indicates minor flooding in some areas. Phase 3 indicates moderate flooding in some areas. Phase 4 indicates major flooding in areas.
At Phase 1, County personnel are put on alert and preparations are made to open the Flood Warning Center. When a Phase 2 threshold is reached, the Center is opened. Staff at the Center monitor river gages and flood conditions around the clock and are available to take calls from the public. When a Phase 3 threshold is reached, investigation crews are sent out to monitor flood control facilities (such as levees). Flood Alerts are sent to anyone who has registered at Phase 2, 3 and 4.
King County provides funding to the United States Geological Survey to support the operation and maintenance of river and stream gages and related systems. | <urn:uuid:64fb8cb8-3568-49f2-865f-ad999f9e05f7> | {
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Throughout this series, I have highlighted the pitfalls and issues associated with effective communication of scientific knowledge to and with the public. This has largely been fueled by a recent paper highlighting these points as stepping stones and hurdles which scientists face and can develop upon to create strategies for becoming better at public communication. However, I’ve yet to offer any kind of solution.
Yesterday, I wrote briefly about the way in which geoscientists can use different plots to help them reconstruct scientific information into a digestible narrative format, taking on the style of a refashioned ‘story’. Continuing to draw upon the analysis by Iain Stewart and Ted Nield, this post will focus on how developing a narrative and particular language can help researchers to ‘talk geoscience’ in a more engaging manner.
To reiterate the actual issue, I’m going to steal a quote from the Stewart and Nield paper citing the geoscientist and science writer Rex Buchanan (it’s like he was made to be a geoscientist with a name like that..):
“We do a mediocre job of helping adults to learn about and appreciate science. Many of the science stories that I read in newspapers or try to watch on television aren’t very engaging. Some are too long, and many seem irrelevant. Popular science often seems like castor oil – some we should take because it’s good for us, not because we want too” (2005)
I don’t think the current situation is quite as dire as this makes out. There are now small armies of dedicated ‘science communicators’ at many institutions, many scientists and learned societies are becoming increasingly involved with this, and the internet is ablaze with science blogs, both amateur and professional. The scientific community appears to be embracing the role of science communication, based on the realisation that it is actually themselves who are best placed, and probably best equipped to do so in this digital era.
The manner in which we communicate with our audiences is still a largely unresolved issue. This is partially driven by the fact that we often simply do not, and cannot know who we are communicating to, which makes the communication format increasingly challenging, and the quantitative assessment of success or impact a nightmare of entangled metrics. On the ‘supply’ side, the reasons why there is still an over-arching inability for scientists to communicate are myriad and complex. Perhaps the main barrier here, is not that science is inherently complex, but the language which science and scientists use. Anyone who reads a scientific paper will be caught up in the baffling lexicon and whirlwind of field-specific science-speak. This is natural. It takes a long time to become accustomed to the way in which scientists communicate among themselves, principally through journals. I’ve been in academia for over 5 years now, and still the geoscientific literature can be confounding at times. It’s nothing to be ashamed of – this stuff is complicated!
What we need is a standardised format based on how the fundamentals of rhetoric, linguistics, and cognitive psychology (Stewart and Nield, 2012) to organise our thoughts and allow us to express them in ways that non-specialist or non-scientific audiences may be able to interact with. Perhaps also, something that I’m sure will annoy the hell out of many scientists, is the need to admit that our language is overly technical, such that it can alienate potential audiences and act as a real barrier to public communication. I think there has never been more of a time to acknowledge this than with the impending onset of near-global open access to the scientific literature (with the UK leading the way). Simply put, what’s the point in making all of this scientific information open to the public, if they can’t read it? Access does not imply accessibility. To pull a stat from Stewart and Nield: “61% of surveyed geoscientists considered that ‘most scientists are so intellectual and immersed in their own jargon that they can’t communicate with journalists or the public.’” Most is the key word here. A majority, but not all – many scientists I know personally are skilled communicators, whether it be through blogging, podcasts, direct communications, practical demonstrations, or the use of Barbie dolls (hi Tony). The use of context can be powerful in overcoming this, by providing points of reference and using metaphors and analogy to communicate complexity in digestible ways. Background information becomes redundant through this, as the placement of information in a context which is engaging and memorable at the same time outdoes the need for a 101-style education. This is a significant difference between the way in which scientists communicate, and the demand of the public. Generally speaking, scientists want to know background details, followed by supporting information, topped off with conclusions, implications, and results. Does a non-specialist audience want to know all of this? Or just the relevance to them – the ‘so what?’ question. In this respect, the context, the relevance and real-life implications are substantially more important than the communication of every specific detail.
Language is the first step in understanding what phrases and terms to use and when. The broader challenge comes from organising these, with a theme and narrative, to fashion a story with an explicit message. I think this just comes from practice – test, learn, adapt, and throughout it all remain passionate, not-boring, and most of all have a damn good time doing it! If you can’t demonstrate that your science is fun and exciting, have fun trying to get someone else to feel that way. I’m pretty lucky being a palaeontologist, as I think this is one of the easier subjects for people to get excited about (from personal experience with random people, mostly in London). Scientists can learn a thing or two from the mass media in this respect – have a hook, a context, and a message that will resonate with people and be remembered. Go out all guns blazing, but don’t forget about the actual content in the process, and the placement of information within the bigger story.
One thing to be mindful of during all of this is the concept of ‘dumbing down’ for the audience, which is often conflated with the idea of reframing a message to suit a particular purpose or audience. This charge is often made against scientists, and that we need to become better at conveying complexity; but if this is so, then the case that scientific information is too complicated with an overly-technical language has to be dropped. It cannot be both ways. It’s not about ‘dumbing down’, but it can be about simplification, which is really just a nicer way of saying ‘we removed all the unnecessary tech-speak’, while reframing the information in a more engaging format. If you want to be blunt, this is ‘dumbing down’, but only in the same way a lecturer would give the same presentation to a class of masters students then first year undergraduates. Different audience levels require different modes of language, and this example is perfectly transferable between the scientific community and non-specialist audiences.
If all else fails, become a palaeontologist.
This was originally posted at: http://blogs.egu.eu/palaeoblog/2012/11/27/the-crux-of-the-matter-language-and-narrative/ | <urn:uuid:34e86250-3dea-4c46-974e-41caedddad3e> | {
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Cubic Unit Cell
Cubic unit cell
There are three types of cubic unit cells which are (i) Simple cubic (ii) Body centered cubic (iii) Face centered cubic. These unit cells are formed by different number of atoms or ions, which are as follows:
(i) Simple cubic unit cell: In this case one atom or ion lies at each corner of the cube. Since only 1/8 of each corner sphere lies within the unit cell hence simple cubic unit cell contains a total (1/8) 8 =1, atom or ion. The volume occupied by the particles in simple cubic unit cell is 52.4% and open space in this cell is 47.6%.
(ii) Body centred cubic unit cell: In this case one atom or ion lies at each comer of the cube and one atom (or ion) lies at the centre of the cube (unshared atom or ion). Thus the contribution of the 8 corners is (1 / 8 ) X 8 = 1, while that of the body centred (unshared atom) is 1 in the unit cell. Hence total number of atoms per unit cell 1 + 1 = 2 atoms (or ions). The volume occupied by the particles in bcc is 68% and open space is 32%.
(iii) Face centred cubic unit cell: In this case one atom or ion lies at each corner of the cube and one atom or ion lies at the centre of each face of the cube.
It may be noted that only 1/2 of each face sphere lies within the unit cell and there are six such faces. The total contribution of 8 comers is (1 / 8 ) x 8 =1 while that of 6-face-centred atoms is (1 / 2)×6 = 3 in the unit cell. Hence total number of atoms per unit cell is 1 + 3 = 4 atoms (or ions). The volume occupied by the particles in fcc is 74% and open space is 26%.
On the basis of above description the number of atoms (ions) per unit cell is summarized in the following table.
NUMBER OF ATOMS PER UNIT CELL IN CUBIC CLOSE PACKED STRUCTURE OF ATOMS
|Unit cell||Number of atoms at||Number of atoms per unit cell||Volume occupied by particles (%)|
|Body centered (BCC)||1||1||0||2||68|
|Face centered (FCC)||1||0||3||4||74|
- Space Lattice and Unit Cell Space Lattice and Unit Cell According to Hauy (1784) a...
- Spacing of Planes Spacing of Planes The distance between successive lattice planes of...
- Unit Vector Unit Vector. What is unit vector? What are standard unit...
- Atomic Mass Atomic Mass. What is Atomic Mass? the infinitesimally small mass...
- Oxidation Number Change Method Oxidation Number Change Method: Following steps are followed while balancing... | <urn:uuid:a2f4f3a2-6d08-4ec2-8246-df6a1d466730> | {
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The EU Constitution and the Union’s Democratic Deficit
Stephen C. Sieberson
Creighton University - School of Law
EXPANDED EU: FROM AUTONOMY TO ALLIANCE, Kseniya Khovanova, Nejat Dogan & Maxym Kovalev, eds., Rodopi Press, 2008
This article weighs the European Union’s proposed Constitution against historical complaints that the EU suffers from a democratic deficit. Various manifestations of the deficit are identified from official documents, scholarly works and other sources. The concerns include complaints that the EU’s structure is too complex, that its institutions lack accountability, and that its workings are not transparent. In addition to these broad themes, the analysis examines concerns relating to specific EU institutions. For example, it has been suggested that the European Parliament should have more legislative and oversight authority, that the Council should make greater use of qualified majority voting, and that the Commission should be more accountable. For each identified concern, the relevant provisions of the Constitution are identified to determine whether the issue would have been resolved. The conclusion is that the Constitution offered welcome improvements to the EU system, but its changes relating to the democratic deficit were incremental. Significant aspects of the deficit would have remained in place if the Constitution had been ratified.
Number of Pages in PDF File: 12
Keywords: Democratic Deficit, EU Constitution, Accountability of EU InstitutionsAccepted Paper Series
Date posted: July 1, 2010
© 2014 Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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ON MARCH 4, 2014, the US Patent Office issued new guidelines on how to evaluate the patentability of inventions reciting or involving “laws of nature/natural principles, natural phenomena, and/or natural products”. Considering the fact that the first federal patent statute of the United States was established in 1790, one might be inclined to believe that the boundaries for what can be patented has long since been settled, but this is far from true. The explosive growth within the life sciences field in the last few decades has really put pressure on the patent system to adapt to the technologies “of our time”. Of course, the legislators in the late 18th century had no idea of concepts like gene therapy and cloning.
Under the current US patent law, the four statutory categories qualifying for patent protection are: process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter. Over the years the courts have interpreted the categories as excluding laws of nature/natural principles, natural phenomena and/or natural products.
Generally speaking, inventions in the following fields are at risk of being classified as ineligible for patent protection:
- chemicals derived from natural sources (e.g. antibiotics, fats, oils, petroleum derivatives, resins, toxins, etc.);
- foods (e.g. fruits, grains, meats and vegetables);
- metals and metallic compounds that exist in nature; minerals; natural materials (e.g. rocks, sands, soils);
- nucleic acids;
- organisms (e.g. bacteria, plants and multicellular animals);
- proteins and peptides; and
- other substances found in or derived from nature.
The key factor in determining whether or not an invention qualifies for patent protection lies in the level of difference from what exists in nature; a claim reflecting a significant difference from what exists in nature is eligible, while a claim effectively drawn to something that is naturally occurring is not.
The new guidelines are intended to assist in making this determination, by establishing six factors weighing towards eligibility and six factors weighing against eligibility. On balance, if the totality of the relevant factors weighs towards eligibility, the claim qualifies for patent protection, while if the totality of the relevant factors weighs against eligibility, the claim should be rejected. Crystal clear, right? Well, the new guidelines also provide some specific examples to illustrate how the guidelines are to be implemented in practice. More information can be found here.
Initially, the new US guidelines appeared to be well-received within the patent community. However, as the practical consequences of the new guidelines sank in, an uproar of
protests have arisen. It also remains to be seen whether the courts’ view of the law is consistent with the USPTO’s guidance. Somehow, it seems unlikely that these guidelines will be the end of the story, so the evolvement of US patent law can be expected to continue for some centuries yet.
Inga-Lill Andersson, European Patent Attorney, Partner | <urn:uuid:1cc10468-4c7a-4130-a1e6-8e09ad97eb16> | {
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4.7 Magnetism and electromagnetism
Electromagnetic effects are used in a wide variety of devices. Engineers make use of the fact that a magnet moving in a coil can produce electric current and also that when current flows around a magnet it can produce movement. It means that systems that involve control or communications can take full advantage of this.
4.7.1 Permanent and induced magnetism, magnetic forces and fields
188.8.131.52 Poles of a magnet
The poles of a magnet are the places where the magnetic forces are strongest. When two magnets are brought close together they exert a force on each other. Two like poles repel each other. Two, unlike poles, attract each other. Attraction and repulsion between two magnetic poles are examples of non-contact force. A permanent magnet produces its own magnetic field. An induced magnet is a material that becomes a magnet when it is placed in
a magnetic field. Induced magnetism always causes a force of attraction. When removed from the magnetic field an induced magnet loses most/all of its magnetism quickly.
Students should be able to describe:
the attraction and repulsion between unlike and like poles for permanent magnets
the difference between permanent and induced magnets.
184.108.40.206 Magnetic fields
The region around a magnet where a force acts on another magnet or on a magnetic material (iron, steel, cobalt and nickel) is called the magnetic field. The force between a magnet and a magnetic material is always one of attraction. The strength of the magnetic field depends on the distance from the magnet. The field is strongest at the poles of the magnet. The direction of the magnetic field at any point is given by the direction of the force that would act on another north pole placed at that point. The direction of a magnetic field line is from the north (seeking) pole of a magnet to the south(seeking) pole of the magnet. A magnetic compass contains a small bar magnet. The Earth has
a magnetic field. The compass needle points in the direction of the Earth’s magnetic field.
Students should be able to:
describe how to plot the magnetic field pattern of a magnet using a compass
draw the magnetic field pattern of a bar magnet showing how strength and direction change from one point to another
explain how the behaviour of a magnetic compass is related to evidence that the core of the Earth must be magnetic.
4.7.2 The motor effect
When a current flows through a conducting wire a magnetic field is produced around the wire. The strength of the magnetic field depends on the current through the wire and the distance from the wire. Shaping a wire to form a solenoid increases the strength of the magnetic field created by a current through the wire. The magnetic field inside a solenoid is strong and uniform. The magnetic field around a solenoid has a similar shape to that of a bar magnet. Adding an iron core increases the strength of… | <urn:uuid:e6b4c207-1e7c-4c9d-aa97-2b371b733a92> | {
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The Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946 originally mandated the standards for feeder-calf grades. Changes were made to the grading standards for live feeder cattle in October 2000. They offer a valuable tool for marketing of cattle and calves and certify the grades used to make contracts for cattle on the futures market.
The grade of feeder cattle is determined by evaluating three general value-determining characteristics: frame size, thickness and thriftiness.
• Frame size is a skeletal measurement that considers height and body length in relation to age.
• Thickness refers to the development of the animal's muscling in relation to its skeletal size.
• Thriftiness is an appraisal of the apparent health of the animal and its ability to grow and fatten normally.
Frame-size standards for thrifty feeder cattle are assigned one of three marks, L (large frame), M (medium frame) and S (small frame). Large-frame steers and heifers are expected to reach a U.S. Choice carcass grade at Yield Grade 3 (about 0.5 in. of fat at the 12th rib) at a weight heavier than 1,250 lbs.
The thickness (muscling) grades range from Number 1-4. “Inferior” cattle are unthrifty and are not expected to perform normally in their present state and include those that are “double muscled.” Inferior cattle can have any combination of thickness and frame size.
Therefore, where we've had only four grades or so to concern ourselves with in the past, we now have 13. They are L1, L2, L3, L4, M1, M2, M3, M4, S1, S2, S3, S4 and Inferior. This will give potential buyers an even clearer picture of the calves offered for sale.
Producers and buyers alike will benefit as the entire beef industry looks to improve the quality and consistency of the product that eventually finds its way to the dinner table.
A classic Colorado study (Table 1) compared performance of steers of each of the USDA Feeder Grade frame sizes. Small-, medium- and large-frame steers were fed a finishing ration for 135 days.
It is important to note that while large-frame steers had more rapid gains than small-frame steers, the small-frame steers were the most efficient. Although it may seem odd that faster-gaining cattle could be less efficient, two facts must be considered.
• First, large cattle require more feed for maintenance and thus must gain faster to maintain equal feed efficiency.
• Second, the final backfat thicknesses for all three frame sizes in the Colorado trial were similar, indicating all the cattle were slaughtered at about the same physiological maturity and carcass composition. Quality grade also decreased as frame size increased.
Frame score is considered to be moderately to highly heritable. As such, selection can significantly change frame scores, primarily achieved through sire selection. With a heritability estimate of 0.40, about 40% of a bull's difference in frame score from herd average will appear in the progeny.
Frame-score measurements are descriptive of animal type and growth patterns in beef cattle. They are useful in evaluating animal nutritional requirements and characterizing target market weights, and aid in selection decisions. A certain amount of sorting may be required for each group to attain their optimum carcass weight and not be overfed or underfed.
Table 1. Feedlot performance of small, medium and large frame steers
|Initial weight (lb.)||651||770||880|
|Final weight (lb.)||1,016||1,186||1,313|
|Daily gain (lb./day)||2.7||3.1||3.2|
|Feed intake (lb.)||19.1||22.3||24.1|
|Carcass weight (lb.)||621||739||817|
|Fat thickness (in.)||0.5||0.5||0.5|
|Ribeye area (in.2)||11.9||12.8||13.9|
|*5 = USDA low Choice, 6 = USDA average Choice|
Source: Colorado State University | <urn:uuid:906a7917-6ce0-4cf9-a0fe-7bcdad91d8eb> | {
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Pasteurized Donor Human Milk from HMBANA Milk Banks Is A Safe Alternative To Formula Supplementation
You may have come across information in the media about breast milk sharing. At Lactation Care, we feel that there is a need for increased public awareness about human milk banking and how it works. There have been many articles written about casual online milk sharing but few people may be aware of a safe alternative for procuring human milk supplements for their little ones. Did you know that there are 18 milk banks providing pasteurized donor milk to the United States and Canada that are members of the Human Milk Banking Association of North America (HMBANA) as well as ten more in development? According to HMBANA, the first human milk bank was established in Vienna, Austria in 1909. By 1919, there were two additional banks, a second in Germany and one in Boston, Massachusetts! HMBANA was established in 1985 drawing representatives from donor milk banks and members of the medical community to establish guidelines for safety and best practices in the collection, processing, and dispensing of donor human milk.
Why do we need milk banks? Remember that human milk provides the optimal nutrition available for human infants. Nutritional and immunological benefits continue well beyond infancy, offering babies, toddlers and young children the best nutrition available as well as protection against early respiratory and gastrointestinal infections as well as food allergies, Crohn’s disease and diabetes to name just a few examples. The American Academy of Pediatrics confirms in their Policy Statement that “Breastfeeding and human milk are the normative standards for infant feeding and nutrition.”
As a first choice, an infant should receive his or her own mother’s milk. In their Policy Statement, the American Academy of Pediatrics also states that “donor milk is considered a suitable feeding alternative for infants whose mothers are unable or unwilling to provide their own milk.” This becomes an even more critical issue when we consider the need of infants who arrive prematurely or with health challenges. For these babies human milk is not only the optimal source of nutrition, it can literally be lifesaving – a form of treatment or medicine. Often mothers who give birth to premature infants suffer from illness or complications from the birth which may make it difficult for them to initiate and / or maintain an adequate milk supply for their babies. For these reasons, pasteurized, banked donor milk can provide optimal nourishment as well as treatment and protection for these very vulnerable infants.
A growing number of hospitals now provide premature infants with pasteurized donor human milk (PDHM). In addition, when supply may allow, babies being cared for at home may also be eligible to receive PDHM with a prescription from their doctor. In general, we find that the need for donor milk surpasses the supply; it is in great demand. Mothers who have a surplus of milk can help to ease this shortfall by becoming volunteer donors to a regional HMBANA milk bank.
Because the milk banks serve a very vulnerable clientele of often fragile and/or premature infants they follow many steps to ensure the safety and purity of the milk they collect, process and distribute. The screening process gathers information about a potential donor’s lifestyle behaviors, health, as well as the health of her nursling, requiring signed letters from her medical provider and her baby’s pediatrician, and in addition blood tests through independent laboratories. The donors are provided with the best practices for the proper collection storage and handling of the milk they collect. The donated milk is heat treated and tested and must be free of bacterial contamination. In 40 years of modern milk banking, there has never been a case of a baby becoming sick from using donor milk obtained through a milk bank.
For families seeking an alternative to formula to supplement their baby, HMBANA milk banks provide a safe, nutritionally optimal option without the risks associated with online, milk share sites. For more information about HMBANA and the wonderful important work they are doing check out: https://www.hmbana.org/. | <urn:uuid:77e8a921-abe7-4eb8-878f-614c219281f2> | {
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Cars that drive themselves are not that far away, according to the latest report.
New European technology has been developed that will actually allow you to eat, read and sleep whilst driving.
How amazing is this!
Why not go the whole hog and slip an Odd size mattress in the back of the car and catch up on your shut eye on your way to work?
Or if you had a late one the night before, this is the perfect solution to sleep it off; so you arrive to your destination refreshed and energetic.
The Safe Road Trains for the Environment (SARTRE) program, partnered with Volvo, will install an advanced steering and sensory technology inside of cars to create a way to let cars drive themselves.
The “road train” will be a line of cars that communicates with a leader car via Wi-Fi that will allow drivers in the other cars to spend little time paying attention to the road.
Inside experts say that this technology will be fully developed by 2021 and will increase fuel efficiency by as much as 20%.
So it seems the future of driving is to curl up in the back, let the car drive it-self and get some zzzzs. Perfect.
Featured Image Credit: iStockphoto.com / Geber86 (Via Custard Online Marketing) | <urn:uuid:1945f9a3-c767-4878-842f-5e744f1afe71> | {
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Image Resource Bank
Image Gallery | 2 of 15
Illustration from a Kalila wa Dimna Manuscript, 1200–1220 CE
This is an illustration from Ibn al-Muqaffa’s work entitled Kalila wa Dimna, which he translated from Persian to Arabic in the middle of the 8th century CE. This book of animal fables with a moral and a political message became, and still is, immensely popular, and was a landmark in the development of Arabic literary prose in the Golden Age of Islam.
Name: Illustration from a Kalila wa Dimna Manuscript, 1200–1220 CE
Material: Ink and color on paper
Length: 19.1 cm (7.5 in)
Width: 12.5 cm (4.9 in)
Date: 1200–1220 CE
Place of Origin: Kalila wa Dimna Manuscript
Location: Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris, France
Source and Registration#:
(accessed April 30, 2010).
Avalon Foundation Distinguished Service Professor of Islamic Studies, Emerita, Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations, University of Chicago | <urn:uuid:a179008d-5230-40b6-88a3-e21721e783e1> | {
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Of course, that has impact in the decades ahead - we will have a work force incapable of shouldering the responsibility for sustaining progress. Many youth will find themselves stuck in minimum wage jobs for the better part of their lives, because they didn't finish school.
"For generations, Americans have worked to ensure that their children's lives will be better than their own. This core belief has remained strong even in a rapidly changing world, and a good education has long been considered the key to success. Yet while the kind of education young people must acquire to succeed today is drastically different, the nation’s schools have not changed in decades."
It is amazing, that the richest country in the world cannot convince most students of the value of a good education! Yet, if we go to developing countries, we see young girls in Afghanistan eager to learn. The Oprah show advocated 'better buildings and materials', yet, we don't see favorable conditions for academic environments in Iraq. There, buildings are bombed out, cement dwellings are the classrooms. Students sit on the floor and listen. In parts of Africa students bring their own chair.
Boredom is the real reason most kids stop the academic process. They don't see relevance, don't feel inspired. I wonder, if a two hour class-day would be the answer. Then, the remainder of the day would be devoted to life-experiences, hands on experience doing a variety of jobs. Learning through doing. That would wake kids up to the issues they will need to face 10 years down the road....a real wake-up call.
I also advocate doing homework as a group, collectively, where team interaction teaches the role of one's place, one's unique contributions. Getting the job done would be a group effort, resulting in relationships and interactive skill-building. I wouldn't be having a kid spend three hours every day working on homework alone at home. When school is over, life-enrichment classes would take over - team sports, hikes in the country, swimming, art and music. It would be a day of activity, rather than passive learning. Kids today just sit in a stupor, for most of the day - at school, then at home with video games and TV. No wonder they are bored.
Preparation for life in the world would also be an exploration of history and culture - travel would be a part of the academic learning format, with exchange students living and working abroad to get a better understanding of the differences in cultures and countries.
Graduating from high school would mean that several years of experience working for wages would be part of the completion of credits for graduation. In other words, much of what I advocate for students today is a complete overhaul in the curriculum and processes of learning. Learning one's place in the world, learning how to contribute in a positive way, and learning how to be productive are at the heart of a good education. We don't learn that just with listening and books....we need experiences to teach it, with hands-on learning with a curriculum that is not 50 years old. It is not that kids just need academia.
They need experiences, starting in grade school, that wake them up to their places in the world, surrounded by meaningful vital relationships that instill enthusiasm and self esteem.
And, lastly, we need parents who have high expectations, who help their children round every curve by paying attention to the process. When nothing is expected, nothing is gained. | <urn:uuid:8b98a5e2-db50-4ce6-827b-b2b9c6311728> | {
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There is nothing new about the concept of vocoders–in fact they have been around since WWII. The core function of a vocoder was to analyze the human voice and recreate it electronically. The voice is a complex sound generating device, and consists of a frequency and amplitude-controlled oscillator known as the larynx, and a set of tone filters, i.e. nasal cavity, mouth and throat. The first thing to do when designing a similar system is to take these individually simple devices and translate them into a block schematic form. Thus a chain may be visualized whose components can be separately converted into discrete circuits-so the larynx becomes a VCO (voice controlled oscillator) coupled with a noise generator, the controlling source being (in synthesizer terms) a DC signal derived from a voicing detector. The final stage would be a multistage voltage – controlled filter bank. Gradually a new picture emerges: we now have in block form the basis for a simple voice synthesizer. So what?
Not so fast! The dawn of electronic music (early eighties) introduced a unique breed of analogue synthesizers that made the hairs of every known musician literally stand on end. The voice synthesizer was now a reality. The vocoder sound was being produced by instruments like the VC10 by Korg, the EMS by MOOG and Syntovox 221. These instruments were able to take any sound and blend its harmonic quality onto another signal. The end result was a single sound with characteristics of both sounds. The percussive and tonal qualities of the modulator were applied to the final carrier signal.
Now a new revolution has begun. The familiar awe inspiring sound has returned to the scene with a little help from OPCODE. They have rekindled and introduced a new face of the vocoder symposium. OPCODE has released a vocoder that installs on a few megabytes of hard drive space and can modulate just about everything except your coffee.
It is obvious that Opcodes success with the Studio Vision and Studio Vision Pro line of products didn’t stop there. The release of this breakthrough plug-in reinforces OPCODE’s understanding of the industry and brings the familiar OPCODE quality to a new plateau. The next step maybe to introduce a suite of Web enabled plug-ins, who knows?
fusion:Vocode doesn’t require you to be an audio file. “The proof is in the pudding” as it is clear in the final processed carrier signal. fusion:VOCODE clearly pervades the fear of the “learning curve” by merely providing a well designed and easy-to-use interface.
fusion:Vocode’s user interface is fresh and clean. The knobs can be manipulated simply by a click and drag. An option to set parameters numerically is also OPCODE fusion:VOCODE mixer control panel available for those precise transactions. Different host applications spawn variations in the mixer interface but not enough to confuse.
Choosing the sound elements to modulate and fuse couldn’t be any easier. The on-board synthesizer engine can create classic analog carrier waveforms. By clicking on a miniature keyboard to make any note or chord to confirm the final signal to the key of your finished musical score. fuson:VOCODE allows you to choose your own carrier waveform by loading an audio file from your hard disk. The CD-ROM contains an interesting collection of looped samples to fuse and manipulate. The unique Emphasis and Depth features far surpass the controls of an analog vocoder. Dial-in the filters and carrier wave for a more intense “vocode” sound.
fusion:VOCODE has a powerful preview function which allows you to tweak the parameters as it recalculates the vocoded waveform in real-time. However, auditioning the sounds and hear the results isn’t instantaneous. This really depends on the processing power of your computer. Virtual Urth ran tests and found that a 10MB file took 3 minutes to process on a P133 with 72MB RAM. Not unbearable and certainly not a reason enough to go out buy the product.
Furthermore, you can store two alternate settings as Setup A and B, then switch between them, arriving at a sound quickly. Save unique settings into a popup preset menu for easy access in the future.
The “Lo-Fi” button gives an authentic retro effect and makes previews much faster on slower CPUs. OPCODE provides a complement of controls for mixing and precisely tailoring the vocoding effect to taste, topped off with a 5-band tone control makes fusion:VOCODE a truly complete tool.
With a little experimentation you’ll soon be creating sounds that even a trusty old Korg VC10 only dreamed of ever being able to produce. Go, go now and buy this, find out what you’re missing.
Macintosh ( PowerPC only)
Requires: Adobe Premiere, Opcode Vision, Studio Vision Pro,
Macromedia’s Deck II.
Compatibilty: Digidesign’s Pro Tools 4.0 or later.
Windows 95/NT (Pentium only)
Requires: DirectX (aka ActiveX and Active Movie plug-ins),
Sonic Foundry’s Sound Forge; Cakewalk Music Systems | <urn:uuid:3be55b48-6566-4adb-a27c-b13e5127f138> | {
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