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VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA. August 13, 2012 – At the close of the annual meeting of leading American shark and ray scientists, the IUCN Shark Specialist Group (SSG) is releasing the first compilation of conservation status assessments for nearly 300 sharks, rays, and chimaeras (collectively known as chondrichthyan fishes) found in North American, Central American, and Caribbean waters conducted using the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species criteria. The report and supplementary materials can be downloaded from the IUCN website.
The report documents that 13.5% of the region’s shark, skate, and chimaera species qualify for one of the three “threatened” categories — Critically Endangered, Endangered, Vulnerable — associated with an elevated risk of extinction. Nine rays and 20 sharks qualify as Vulnerable. Sixteen percent of species are classified as Near Threatened, 27% as Least Concern, and 43.4% as Data Deficient. Read more | <urn:uuid:17dd2fd5-d06e-4434-b4a1-42d5134b66e3> | {
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New research has found that transgender children who receive social and family support during their transition do not suffer from a higher rate of depression.
Researchers asked parents of 73 trans kids aged 3 to 12 to report on their children’s anxiety and depression symptoms.
These parents had all actively supported their kids’ transitions. The children expressed their gender identities both at school and at home.
By comparing the data with that from a control group, researchers found no major difference between depression levels of the trans kids and their peers.
The trans kids did have slightly higher levels of anxiety.
“But they are doing radically better than children in previous studies of gender-nonconforming kids who had not socially transitioned,” said Kristina Olson, at the University of Washington, who led the research.
Past data show that a quarter of trans youth report having made a suicide attempt at some point in their lives.
Studying these socially supported kids could offer a clue on how to improve mental health outcomes for trans youth. But researchers aren’t sure what exactly is making these kids resilient.
“This is the first of hopefully many studies that will come out on this topic, to speak to whether or not it’s the transition specifically that is leading these children to do so well, or whether or not there are special features about the kinds of families who transition their kids,” Olson said.
Olson said the parents of these kids tend to be more educated and on average more attentive to their children.
“Once we have more evidence, then we can make more clear recommendations,” she said.
She said she’s interested in following the study subjects over the long term, to see how their mental health fares during the challenges of adolescence. | <urn:uuid:ca389c52-660c-4ba1-bfb8-73c3d7c1e376> | {
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In the United States, childhood obesity is a big concern — and it’s growing bigger.
Children are at a greater risk of being obese than ever before. A recent study found that lack of exercise, fast food, and number of hours spent watching television are all factors contributing to the epidemic.
However, Dr. Joseph Galati, author of “Eating Yourself Sick: How to Stop Obesity, Fatty Liver, and Diabetes from Killing You and Your Family,” suggests another element is partially to blame: parents.
The root problem, he tells Heathline, is that parents aren’t paying enough attention to what they feed their kids. Families aren’t eating enough home-cooked meals and parents aren’t serving healthy snacks.
Galati, a liver specialist in Houston, says parents need to step up and take responsibly. He also urges doctors to be more forceful with their assessments.
“Most physicians do not have the spine to tell the entire family, you’re all in trouble, you’re all going to die early,” he says.
Galati may have a point. But the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) counsels a gentler approach.
“Obesity is a medical diagnosis with real health consequences, so it is important for children and families to understand the current and future health risks,” a 2017 policy statement notes. “But the information should be given in a sensitive and supportive manner.”
“Guilt and blame don’t motivate long-term healthy changes, they just make people feel bad,” Texas pediatrician Stephen Pont, co-author of the AAP statement, says. He encourages children and families to make small changes as a family that stick and “keep it positive.”
It’s a way of life
Obesity is a risk factor of the current American lifestyle and that’s heavily reflected in the habits of our children.
American kids are less likely to bike or walk to school than ever before.
From ages 8 to 18, they also spend an average of 7.5 hours a day wrapped up in TV, computers, video games, cell phones, and movies. During those hours they tend to snack as well.
About 1 in 5 American children/teens cope with obesity, compared to about a third of adults.
Recently, obesity rates among young children seemed to be dropping, but a study in the journal Pediatrics in March, using 2016 data, reported that this wasn’t true.
In fact, severe obesity among children ages 2 to 5 has jumped since 2013.
Among 16 to 19 year olds, 41.5 percent live with obesity. More than 4 percent fall into the heaviest group, “class III.”
Some parents dismiss plumpness as “baby fat,” but kids tend not to shrink. In a study of almost 4,000 public school students, nearly all 10th-graders with obesity were above normal weight in 5th grade.
Instead, experts advise a more realistic approach. They suggest concerned parents use tools such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s calculator, which includes healthy standards for different ages and heights, to assess their child’s risk.
Frank Biro at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center offers this rule of thumb: if after the age of 1 a girl’s waist is more than 60 percent of her height, both measured in inches, she’s “at risk of having the metabolic complications of overweight.”
Recent research shows childhood obesity may become an even bigger health concern in the future.
According to projections in a 2017 study, close to 60 percent of today’s American children could be living with obesity by the time they’re 35.
The risk to your child’s health
As a liver specialist, Galati tends to see adults with obesity who have been diagnosed with fatty liver disease. When those patients tell him they have children, he starts asking questions. Often, he finds that the kids of those patients are also heading into obese territory. That’s when Galati warns them that their kids are likely to die sooner than they would if they lost weight.
Modern medicine and a growing economy pushed U.S. life expectancy up rapidly for more than a century, but that increase began to slow when more Americans became overweight.
Research shows U.S. life expectancy at birth has actually dropped in the last two years.
The problem is worse in areas of the South and Midwest where more people are obese, notes David Ludwig, an endocrinologist and obesity specialist at Boston Children’s Hospital.
Ludwig, who is also author of the cookbook “Always Delicious,” argues that the “downward trend in longevity will almost certainly accelerate as the current generation of children — with higher body weights from earlier in life than ever before — reaches adulthood.”
Health problems we associate with middle age are showing up earlier. Galati has begun to see teenagers complaining of fatigue and nausea. Then their bloodwork shows they have a fatty liver.
Up to 40 percent of obese children have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NALD), which can progress to cirrhosis of the liver.
One group’s clinical guidelines recommend screening obese children for NALD between ages 9 and 11, and screening overweight children with prediabetes, a big belly, or sleep apnea. NALD seems linked to the size of your waistline as much as your overall weight.
A mother’s responsibility for a child’s weight may begin as early as the womb. According to one large 2012 German study, expectant mothers who gain too much weight during pregnancy increase their child’s chances of being overweight by 28 percent before they turn 6 years old.
Fighting the trends
How can you help your kids steer clear of this unhealthy trend?
Family dinner is a good start, according to much research.
In a study of 8,550 4-year-olds, findings showed that those who regularly ate dinner as a family — and also had limited screen-time and enough sleep — were 40 percent less likely to be obese.
Children who eat with their families also have better grades, family relationships, and overall health, Galati points out.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) advocates for “screen-free” zones in children’s bedrooms, no TV during dinner, and only one or two hours a day of TV or video games.
Tapping fingers on a keyboard or jiggling a mouse doesn’t count as exercise. The CDC suggests a target of doing at least an hour of physical activity a day, most of it aerobic, and muscle and bone-strengthening activities like skipping rope, gymnastics, and pushups at least three days a week.
Look into game-oriented activity and step trackers. You might also use point systems attached to rewards. For example, if your son is active for a half hour a day four or five nights a week, he might get to pick a family movie night. “It’s ideal if the reward is not an unhealthy food,” Pont says.
Stick to bedtimes and keep electronics away from bed. Fatigue leads to overeating and can prime the body for weight gain. Overweight children may need treatment for sleep apnea as well.
“When you do not sleep enough, your inflammatory markers go up, it raises blood pressure, insulin and cortisol,” Galati says.
When you eat out, you might talk about how portion sizes have grown bigger than in the past. Make it a rule to share entrees or have a child eat an appetizer as their main course. Turn down the bread basket, order salads, avoid rich sauces, and share or skip dessert.
But cooking food at home is the best way to control fat and sugar, Galati says. “When parents pick up the kid from an activity, they say, ‘I don’t have time to cook dinner, let’s go to the drive through, let’s go to Cheesecake Factory and take something home.’ So they’re consuming high-calorie, high-fat food three or four times a week,” Galati said. “Naysayers say to me you’re living in a fantasy world if you think parents are going to start cooking dinner again. I say, we have to get back to the basics.”
Galati argues that children like home-cooked healthful food. He recalls his mother serving soups and fruit salad to his friends growing up on Long Island. “The kids would come over looking for the cookies and chips,” but they’d love his mother’s food. “My mother would invariably get a phone call from the other kid’s mother asking for the recipe,” he said. “At her funeral, they were telling me they remembered what she made for them.”
Galati believes in teaching kids to think of food in two categories: “Earth food came from the ground or had a mother. Man food comes in a box or can.”
“It’s time parents start educating themselves and their children about food and start making better choices,” Galati says. “Otherwise the consequences will be a lot direr than what most parents probably realize.”
Pont, who is medical director of the Office of Science and Population Health for the Texas Department of State Health Services, urges doctors to avoid any kind of fat-shaming. A number of studies have documented “anti-fat bias” among medical professionals.
He points out that shame, guilt, and blame backfire.
A team at Johns Hopkins did a national survey of 600 higher-than-normal weight adults to test that thesis. The result: If your primary care doctor had talked to you about your weight and you felt judged, you were more likely to try to lose weight, but less likely to actually succeed. About 13.5 percent of those who felt judged in that conversation went on to lose at least 10 percent of their weight year. But among those who didn’t feel judged, a bigger group — more than 20 percent — reached that goal.
Pont, who struggled with his own weight as a boy, argues that parents should avoid judgment as well.
“Parents should be empathic and say that there’s no perfect shape or size,” he said.
The goal would be to slowly make healthy changes, rather than adopt an extreme diet that won’t last.
Parents can also set an example, improving their own eating habits. “If a parent does something then it is important; if a parent doesn’t do something then it means it is less important,” Pont says. “When parents lead the way and create a supportive environment for a child then they are all far more likely to be successful.” | <urn:uuid:c9567f67-dd07-43a4-a447-b4a696cbf181> | {
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The Element Tantalum
[Click for Isotope Data]
Atomic Number: 73
Atomic Weight: 180.94788
Melting Point: 3290 K (3017°C or 5463°F)
Boiling Point: 5731 K (5458°C or 9856°F)
Density: 16.4 grams per cubic centimeter
Phase at Room Temperature: Solid
Element Classification: Metal
Period Number: 6 Group Number: 5 Group Name: none
What's in a name? Named for the Greek mythological figure Tantalus.
Say what? Tantalum is pronounced as TAN-te-lem.
History and Uses:
Tantalum was discovered by Anders Gustaf Ekenberg, a Swedish chemist, in 1802 in minerals obtained from Ytterby, Sweden. Many scientists believed that he had only discovered an allotrope of niobium, an element that is chemically similar to tantalum. The issue was finally settled in 1866 when, Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac, a Swiss chemist, proved that tantalum and niobium were two distinct elements. The first relatively pure samples of tantalum were first produced in 1907. Today, tantalum is primarily obtained from the minerals columbite ((Fe, Mn, Mg)(Nb, Ta)2O6), tantalite ((Fe, Mn)(Ta, Nb)2O6) and euxenite ((Y, Ca, Er, La, Ce, U, Th)(Nb, Ta, Ti)2O6).
Tantalum is a strong, ductile metal that is nearly immune to chemical attack at room temperatures. It can be drawn into a fine wire that is used to evaporate metals, such as aluminum. It has a high melting point and is frequently used as a substitute for platinum, which is more expensive. Tantalum is used to make components for chemical plants, nuclear power plants, airplanes and missiles. Tantalum does not react with bodily fluids and is used to make surgical equipment. Tantalum also does not irritate the body and is used to make surgical sutures as well as implants, such as artificial joints and cranial plates. Tantalum is alloyed with steel to increase steel's ductility, strength and melting point.
Tantalum pentoxide (Ta2O5), one of tantalum's compounds, is a dielectric material and is used to make capacitors. It is also used to make a glass with a high index of refraction that is used in camera lenses. A composite consisting of tantalum carbide (TaC) and graphite is one of the hardest materials known and is used on the cutting edges of high-speed machine tools.
Estimated Crustal Abundance: 2.0 milligrams per kilogram
Estimated Oceanic Abundance: 2×10-6 milligrams per liter
Number of Stable Isotopes: 1 (View all isotope data)
Ionization Energy: 7.89 eV
Oxidation States: +5
3s2 3p6 3d10
4s2 4p6 4d10 4f14
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For the first time this place was mentioned in the Swedish annals of XIII century as reliable shelter for the sea ships. The narrow passage between two islands Hauensuoli keeps many old inscriptions and autographes on it's stones of seafarers of those times. Approximately since XV centuries Hanko was used as sea port.
In XVII century small fortress and custom were founded here. In XIV century Swedes built the fortifications on the three islands near to Hanko. In 1714 during Seven-year War Russian gained a victory above Swedish fleet near to Hangöudd (Gangut - rus., Hankoniemi - fin.) fortress. In 1910 strengthening of Hanko were included in structure of russian sea Fortress of Peter the Great.
The port of Hanko began to rapidly developed with constructing the railway to Helsinki area in 1873. It was unique nonfreezing port in all Finland in those times. The city itself was founded a year later - in 1874. Hanko became a pearl of Southern Finland at once - magnificent summer residences and villas (area Spa Park) began appears here in the beginning of the last century .
In the beginning of XX century more than 400 thousand peoples immigrated from Finland to England and further to America, Australia and Canada; the most of them leaved Motherland through the port of Hanko. Since then beacon Russari (that on an entrance of harbour) has been named "Eye of Hanko", because it was the last sign of native land for poor emigres.
By the Soviet-Finnish peace treaty in 1940 the peninsula of Hanko was rented by Soviet Union for 30 years for creation the naval base. July, 1941 here were 28 thousand garrisons, artillery (caliber up to 12'), coastal fleet and aviation. Construction of strengthenings on peninsula began in 1940 from both sides - Finnish and Soviet. In 1941 an isthmus of peninsula has 5 defensive lines on the Soviet side.
So called Harpaskog Line was constructed on the Finnish side of the front line. There were 46 concrete bunkers for machineguns and antitank guns in the end of May 1941. Another 141 bunkers were under construction. Harpaskog Line covered the sea coast and islands and crossed the Hanko neck near to 3 km north of present day Front Museum. Numerous machinegun nests and antitank gun's positions were prepeared for the battle. The trench line with barbed wire infantry obstacles complied the defence of the Line.
In the beginning of war (June, 29) Finns tried to grasp peninsula straight off by forces of two divisions. Naturally, it was not possible. Then they begun block and shell Hanko. The keeping of Hanko naval base became meaningless with grasping Tallinn and Moonsund's archipelago by Germans. Finns have begun to remove the armies and to send it to the front to Karelia. Evacuation of base began October, 26, 1941 and lasted to December, 2. The exact amount of victims and losses of evacuation has not known. 27 from 88 transport ships were missed.
By the armistice of 1944 of USSR refused of the rent of peninsula. Local residents begun to come back in it's destroyed houses in 1942.
Nowadays Hanko is silent resort one-storeyed small town where would be pleasant to pass the rest of a stormy life...
One of the most beautiful places I ever seen. It can be strongly recommended for visiting, survey and admiration of local nature first of all.
Fortress Hanko has not found actually (by me). All I saw were a pair of little blockhouses, quayes, rusty guns and etc. However there are many military prohibited zones with precautionary inscriptions - fortress may be there?
There are not any monuments and buildings of Soviet history period. It is strange...
It was autumn. Places were uninhabited, empty and fascinating...
All the same - it was good! | <urn:uuid:0b6f4d06-1857-4497-88ca-22e3b3adf18e> | {
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Flashback 1997: Climate Scientists Forecast Permanent El Ninos
Back in 1997, the BBC reported: Scientists are warning that global warming could make the El Nino a permanent feature of the world’s weather system. ‘They’re going to become more intense and in a few years, or a decade or so, we’ll go into a permanent El Nino.’
El Nino events normally occur roughly every 5 years, and last for between 12 and 18 months. However unpublished scientific research now suggests that the complex weather systems could occur every 3 years, making them a dominant weather pattern and in effect, almost permanent.
This year’s El Nino has been one of the strongest on record and has led to:
- Droughts in Australia and Papua New Guinea.
- Delayed monsoon in South East Asia leaving forest fires to rage out of control, blanketing the region with choking smog.
- Storms on the Pacific coast of South and Central America from Chile to Mexico.
- Drought in Southern Africa.
- Threat of floods in Peru and California
In the last decade there have been 5 El Nino’s, and some scientists believe that rising greenhouse gases and global warming.
That’s a theory endorsed by Dr Russ Schnell, a scientist doing atmospheric research at Mauna Loa Observatory, 11,000 feet up on Hawaii. “It appears that we have a very good case for suggesting that the El Ninos are going to become more frequent, and they’re going to become more intense and in a few years, or a decade or so, we’ll go into a permanent El Nino.”
“So instead of having cool water periods for a year or two, we’ll have El Nino upon El Nino, and that will become the norm. And you’ll have an El Nino, that instead of lasting 18 months, lasts 18 years,” he said.
Incas sacrificed 80 people to stop El Nino
El Nino events have been occurring for thousands of years. It is a natural phenomenon that has always had a profound effect on those who live within its influence.
High in the Peruvian Andes, archeologists have discovered the skeletons of what they believe are human sacrifices, linked to El Nino events, at Inca temples of the Sun and the Moon.
Dr Steve Bourget from the University of East Anglia believes the 80 victims were sacrificed to placate the Gods during El Nino rainstorms. “On the north coast of Peru it almost never rains … it rains like this only during the time of Nino’s.”
He continued, “So that’s why, during an El Nino event the temple was itself just melting down and they probably did the sacrifice in order to try and stop the rains.”
Of course, the Inca priest’s ceremonies were in vain, and if the scientists predictions are accurate, so might the best efforts of 21st century technology.
Meanwhile, back in the real world: | <urn:uuid:f18b6d8f-b427-4d89-8050-0a940e6bb86c> | {
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New footage has surfaced from the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan, and the incredible enhanced video shows the terrifying destructive power of the tsunami.
The tsunami was directly caused by the magnitude 9.0 'megathrust' earthquake that struck off the coast just half an hour beforehand, at around 2:45 p.m. Japan local time. The sudden movement of that much earth all at once set off a shockwave through the water that not only hit the Japanese coast, but also made it all the way to North and South America. As the video shows, the incoming tsunami pulled all the water ahead of it out to sea, draining the coastline and rivers down to their bottom, before the wave itself came crashing in, destroying entire communities and pushing tons of debris along with it.
Of the nearly 16 thousand people who lost their lives in this tragic disaster, it's estimated that over 90% of them were killed by the tsunami, and over 2,600 people are still missing.
The awesome power of this event is still shocking, even more than two years after it happened.
[ More Geekquinox: Could we suffer another power failure like the August 14, 2003 blackout? ]
One after-effect of the disaster that's still being felt even today is the damage done to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which was directly in the path of the tsunami. Even as recently as three weeks ago, news surfaced that the plant was leaking radioactive contamination into the Pacific Ocean. An innovative solution to this has been proposed, though, which would involve trapping the contaminants behind a wall of ice.
The plan, detailed on Bloomberg, is to install pipes around the site with coolant running through them. The coolant would freeze the water in the soil solid, trapping any contaminants within the perimeter of ice. According to the Bloomberg article, this same technique was used at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee when it was producing weapons grade plutonium for the U.S. military.
The feasibility of the project is still being investigated, with a decision expected by the end of March 2014, and the project (if it gets a go-ahead) would be completed sometime in 2015.
Geek out with the latest in science and weather.
Follow @ygeekquinox on Twitter! | <urn:uuid:b6eba18b-e399-45dc-9801-07ccd72c223a> | {
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If you have exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, or EPI, you’re probably familiar with the gastrointestinal symptoms of the condition — gas, bloating, frequent diarrhea, and of course, oily stools.
But EPI can trigger other problems. The reason: Without medication, people with EPI can’t properly digest nutrients, especially fat. Not only is fat an essential part of a healthy diet but it also helps the body absorb certain key vitamins, including A, D, E, and K.
When people don’t get enough of these vitamins, they can experience a host of problems, including vision trouble, bone weakness, fatigue, and other concerns. Here are a few symptoms that may occur and what you can do to manage them.
Recognizing Additional Symptoms of EPI
People with EPI can be more likely to experience deficiencies in vitamins D and A than in vitamins E and K, says Mohamed Othman, MD, chief of gastroenterology at Baylor St. Luke’s Hospital, in Houston. Here are some of the symptoms these deficiencies can cause:
Bone weakness and pain: This is the most common — and often the first — sign that you have a vitamin deficiency, says Dr. Othman. Our bodies need vitamin D to absorb calcium; together, both nutrients help support bone health and ward off osteoporosis. Without enough of these nutrients, our bones can become thin and brittle, causing pain and weakness. “The pain will be like a deep, generalized ache,” says Othman. “People may also experience muscle weakness and become fatigued easily.”
Muscle cramps: Getting too little calcium can cause muscle cramping in people with EPI, according to research published in 2013 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology. Additionally, dehydration (which can be triggered by a bout of diarrhea) can cause muscle cramping.
Depression: A vitamin D deficiency has also been linked to depression, says Othman. A research review published in 2017 in the Journal of Affective Disorders found an association between the two conditions and that vitamin D supplements might help treat depression in people who are deficient. (Talk to your doctor before starting any new supplements, and if you start taking one, be sure to take it at the same time that you take your EPI medications.)
Many people can have trouble getting enough vitamin D — it’s available in only a few foods, like fatty fish and fortified milk. The chief source of D, of course, is sunlight, but people are generally cautioned about protecting their skin from the sun. People with EPI are at higher risk of a deficiency because of their problems with digestion.
And managing any kind of chronic condition can take a toll on your mental health. (Depression can also surface in people without chronic conditions.) If you suspect that you’re experiencing signs of depression, talk to your doctor about whether you should see a therapist or other specialist.
Vision problems: If you’re lacking in vitamin A, you may experience nighttime blindness. Vitamin A helps with light absorption in the retina and keeps the cornea healthy. The most well known form of the vitamin — beta-carotene — may also help prevent or treat age-related macular degeneration, a major cause of vision loss among people over the age of 50.
Gastroenteritis: Vitamin A plays an important role in boosting the health of our immune system; its lack can lead to frequent infections, such as gastroenteritis. You can protect against gastrointestinal bacteria and viruses by washing your hands frequently. If you already have gastroenteritis, make sure you stay hydrated.
What to Know About Preventing Symptoms of EPI
The best way to ward off these deficiencies is to treat the cause of your EPI and take pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy, or PERT.
Because EPI occurs when something is wrong with the pancreas, it’s important for people to understand what’s causing the pancreas to malfunction, says Othman, and to treat that root cause.
Othman also emphasizes that if your doctor has suggested that you take vitamin supplements, you must take them at the same time you take your enzymes; the enzyme replacements help your body absorb the vitamins when the pancreas can’t.
People with EPI should also have their vitamin levels checked annually to make sure that they’re being absorbed. In addition, they should try to eat a diet that’s high in nutrients (one that contains plenty of fruits and vegetables), avoid smoking, and limit or avoid alcohol. | <urn:uuid:7b57872f-99e7-41b9-8d7a-573b91eec542> | {
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What is learning Languages about?
Learning a new language provides a means of communicating with people from another culture and exploring one’s own personal world.
Languages are inseparably linked to the social and cultural contexts in which they are used. Languages and cultures play a key role in developing our personal, group, national, and human identities. Every language has its own ways of expressing meanings; each has intrinsic value and special significance for its users.
This learning area provides the framework for the teaching and learning of languages that are additional to the language of instruction. Level 1 of the curriculum is the entry level for students with no prior knowledge of the language being learned, regardless of their school year.
Why study a language?
Languages link people locally and globally. They are spoken in the community, used internationally, and play a role in shaping the world. Oral, written, and visual forms of language link us to the past and give us access to new and different streams of thought and to beliefs and cultural practices.
Te reo Maori and New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) are official languages of New Zealand. Because of New Zealand’s close relationships with the peoples of the Pacific, Pasifika languages also have a special place.
By learning an additional language and its related culture(s), students come to appreciate that languages and cultures are systems that are organised and used in particular ways to achieve meaning. Learning a new language extends students’ linguistic and cultural understanding and their ability to interact appropriately with other speakers. Interaction in a new language, whether face to face or technologically facilitated, introduces them to new ways of thinking about, questioning, and interpreting the world and their place in it. Through such interaction, students acquire knowledge, skills, and attitudes that equip them for living in a world of diverse peoples, languages, and cultures. As they move between, and respond to, different languages and different cultural practices, they are challenged to consider their own identities and assumptions.
As they learn a language, students develop their understanding of the power of language. They discover new ways of learning, new ways of knowing, and more about their own capabilities. Learning a language provides students with the cognitive tools and strategies to learn further languages and to increase their understanding of their own language(s) and culture(s).
How is the learning area structured?
This learning area puts students’ ability to communicate at the centre by making Communication the core strand. This strand is supported by two further strands, which are directed specifically at developing the linguistic and cultural awareness needed for communicative competence.
In the core communication strand, students learn to use the language to make meaning. As their linguistic and cultural knowledge increases, they become more effective communicators, developing the receptive skills of listening, reading, and viewing and the productive skills of speaking, writing, and presenting or performing.
In the supporting language knowledge strand, students study the language in order to understand how it works. They learn about the relationships between different words and different structures, how speakers adjust their language when negotiating meaning in different contexts and for different purposes, and how different types of text are organised. This strand helps students to develop explicit knowledge of the language, which will, over time, contribute to greater accuracy of use.
In the supporting cultural knowledge strand, students learn about culture and the interrelationship between culture and language. They grow in confidence as they learn to recognise different elements of the belief systems of speakers of the target language. They become increasingly aware of the ways in which these systems are expressed through language and cultural practices. As they compare and contrast different beliefs and cultural practices, including their own, they understand more about themselves and become more understanding of others.
The content of the learning area is specified in terms of a general proficiency statement for each progressive pair of levels, together with achievement objectives for the core strand and the two supporting strands. The achievement objectives in the Communication strand provide the basis for assessment. The two supporting strands are only assessed indirectly through their contribution to the Communication strand.
The achievement objectives are generic in order to encompass all languages that may be offered for learning in schools. Language-specific guidelines provide further information. | <urn:uuid:36183aae-7cca-443e-bf69-05640262c16c> | {
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Center for Health Statistics
Texas Health Care Information Collection
Utilization Review: Specific Inpatient Procedures by Texas Hospital Referral Region, 2010
Cesarean section (C-section) is the birth of a baby through a surgical incision, or cut, made in the mother's abdomen and uterus. A primary cesarean delivery means that this is the first time the mother has delivered a baby and this first delivery was performed by cesarean section. The report presents the number of cesarean deliveries per 100 deliveries in women with no history of previous cesarean delivery.
Why is this measure important?
Cesarean section rates vary significantly from region to region and across the United States. There is considerable debate about the high utilization rates for this procedure and the appropriateness of performing this operation on some patients. Good clinical practice aims to minimize the use of C-sections for women who can avoid it. Such an operation entails major abdominal surgery which means that women take much longer to recover from the birth than they would have if they had delivered their baby vaginally. Also, there are greater risks to the mother, such as a higher risk of contracting a hospital-borne infection, if they undergo major surgery. In addition, cesareans are more expensive then vaginal deliveries.
Why might there be variation?
Variations may be a result of regional practice patterns. Other factors, such as patient preference, type of hospital or type of insurance, may also produce variation in the utilization of this procedure. While the appropriateness of Cesarean delivery depends largely on patients' clinical characteristics, studies have shown that individual physician practice patterns account for a significant portion of the variation in Cesarean delivery rates. Non-clinical factors such as patient insurance status and hospital characteristics have also been related to rates. Cesarean delivery is the most common operative procedure performed in the United States and is associated with higher costs than vaginal delivery. Statewide rates decreased from 27.91 in 2001 to 18.92 in 2007, but remain higher than the target of 15 recommended by Healthy People 2010. The overall Cesarean delivery rate cannot determine appropriate use, but the variation in rates across institutions and regions may, if the variations do not reflect variations in patient disease severity and comorbidities.
What does this measure tell us?
The graphs and tables in this section show:
These measures are calculated by comparing the total number of cesarean deliveries with the total number of deliveries. The number of C-sections does not include cases where there was a previous delivery, an abnormal presentation (e.g., the baby was in the breech position), the baby was delivered pre-term, it had died or there was more than one. Cesarean delivery has been identified as an overused procedure. As such, lower rates may represent better quality. | <urn:uuid:feb7ee7f-8b10-466d-983e-18e5e541f26b> | {
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A Teutonic tribe inhabiting the basin of the Vistula about the 1st century. In the 3rd century they migrated south towards the Black Sea, invading Greece, Thrace, and Mresia, and encroaching on the Roman possessions. Their kingdom extended from the Black Sea to the Gulf of Bothnia and was divided into the kingdom of the Visigoths (west) and the Ostrogoths (east). In Thrace they revolted against the Roman rule and inflicted a severe defeat on Valens, at Adrianople, in 378. The Visigothic kingdom existed in France from 478 to 507, and in Spain to 711. Under Alaric the Goths invaded Italy in the 5th century, sacked Rome twice, and were expelled by Narses in 552. They accepted Christianity very quickly and at the Council of Nicaea had a Gothic bishop. Of Gothic literature we have the Bible of Ulfilas; of Gothic legislation, the Edict of Theodoric and some law codes. | <urn:uuid:f004d959-5b2c-4b4e-bb1c-ece6908c442d> | {
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Barbarous flesh-excising surgeries, debilitating radiation therapy, poisonous chemotherapy drugs — treatments for cancer have been as severe on the human body as the disease. Yet the tale of cancer is more than just a medical one. Like any great modern story, it’s a saga filled with outsize personalities and political struggles and wads of money. Siddhartha Mukherjee calls his Pulitzer Prize–winning account a cancer “biography” — a word chosen carefully and appropriately. Mukherjee, an oncologist and cancer researcher, has impressively painted a life (from ancient Egypt to the advancements of today) of a scourge that is crafty and ceaseless and ever present. This is Mukherjee’s first book. It is also one of the best-written, most accessible, most relevant science books ever penned.
Next The Lives of a Cell | <urn:uuid:d5c385fd-4617-4ca8-8643-2628c7202b31> | {
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A Recovery No Better than the Recession
Median Household Income, 2007 to 2011
The median income of American households decreased by as much in the two years after the official end of the Great Recession as it did during the recession itself. The latest estimates from the Census Bureau show that the median income for U.S. households in 2011 was $50,054.1 In 2009, the year the Great Recession ended,2 the median income of U.S. households had been $52,195 (in 2011 dollars). Thus, in the two years since the end of the recession, median household income has fallen by 4.1%.
The decrease in household income from 2009 to 2011 almost exactly equaled the decrease in income in the two years of the recession. During the Great Recession, the median U.S. household income (in 2011 dollars) dropped from $54,489 in 2007 to $52,195 in 2009, a loss of 4.2%. By this yardstick, the recovery from the Great Recession is bypassing the nation’s households.
Recovery in Household Income Following Other Recessions
The current “recovery” is also the most negative for household income during any post-recession period in the past four decades. However, the failure of household incomes to regain ground two years into an economic recovery is not without precedent. U.S. households also experienced lingering losses during the recoveries from the 1990-91 and 2001 recessions—median household income fell by 1.3% in the first two years following the end of each of those two recessions. But those losses were less than half as great as the decrease of 4.1% in the first two years of the current economic recovery.
The nation also experienced prolonged recessions from 1973 to 1975 and 1980 to 19823 but household incomes began to recover immediately thereafter. The median household income fell by 5.7% in the 1973-75 recession but rose 2.3% in the first two years of the recovery. Similarly, the median income fell by 5.0% in the 1980-82 recession but increased 2.4% in the first two years of the recovery.
More than a Decade of Losses in Household Income
The continuing decline in household income means that 12 years have now passed without the median exceeding a previous peak. Estimates of household income from the Census Bureau are available starting from 1967. The highest level recorded for median household income since that year is $54,932 in 1999 (inflation adjusted to 2011 dollars). That was the end result of a record-long economic expansion in the 1990s.
The recession in 2001 triggered a significant decline in household income through 2004. As the recovery strengthened, the median household income in 2007—$54,489—stood at a level that was approximately the same as in 1999. However, the plunge caused by the Great Recession was swift and rapid. The median income in 2011—$50,054—was 8.9% less than its level in 1999.4
Other Indicators of the Wellbeing of U.S. Households
The lackluster results on household income are symptomatic of broader struggles in the economic well-being of U.S. households. As noted in the latest Census Bureau report, the poverty rate has also risen in the two years since the end of the Great Recession, from 14.3% in 2009 to 15.0% in 2011. The rate in 2007 was 12.5%.
Another financial burden on households is the nosedive in their wealth (value of assets owned minus outstanding value of debt) due to the recession. The latest available estimates from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System show that median household wealth fell from $131,016 in 2007 to $79,431 in 2010, a loss of 39%.5
The malaise in income, poverty and wealth in part reflects the weak performance of the U.S. labor market. The share of families with at least one unemployed member nearly doubled during the Great Recession and remains at a high level. In 2007, 6.3% of the nation’s families had at least one unemployed member. That share jumped to 12.0% in 2009 and declined modestly to 11.5% in 2011.6
At the more personal level, the unemployment rate increased from 4.6% in 2007 to 9.3% in 2009 and only edged down to 8.9% in 2011. Not only does unemployment remain high, those who are unemployed remain without work for long periods of time. The median number of weeks people are unemployed climbed sharply from 8.5 in 2007 to 15.1 in 2009 and then elevated further to 21.4 in 2011.7
Overall, on the basis of some indicators, such as income and poverty, the economic health of American families deteriorated further in the first two years of the recovery from the Great Recession. Other indicators, such as unemployment, showed minimal improvement, if any. Much like an unwelcome dinner guest who does not know when it is time to leave, the Great Recession seems blissfully unaware that it was declared over in June 2009.
- DeNavas-Walt, Carmen, Bernadette D. Proctor, and Jessica C. Smith. 2012. “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2011.” Current Population Reports, P60-243. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau, September. http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p60-243.pdf ↩
- Business cycle dates are determined by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) (http://www.nber.org/cycles/cyclesmain.html). According to NBER, the Great Recession started in December 2007 and ended in June 2009. However, household income data are available only on an annual basis from the Census Bureau. Thus, the analysis in this report captures changes in incomes across years that most closely approximate the actual dates of the recessions. ↩
- The period from 1980 to 1982 encompasses two recessions, the first from January 1980 to July 1980 and the second from July 1981 to November 1982. Those back-to-back episodes are counted as one recession for the analysis in this report. ↩
- Long-run trends in household income are affected by changes in household size. The average size of a U.S. household has fallen from 3.2 in 1970 to 2.5 in 2011. Almost all the decline occurred in the 1970s, a decade in which average household size fell from 3.2 to 2.7. Household size from 2000 to 2011 was virtually unchanged, inching down from 2.6 to 2.5. Additional details on this issue are contained in Pew Research Center Social & Demographic Trends project. 2012. “The Lost Decade of the Middle Class: Fewer, Poorer, Gloomier.” Washington, DC: August. http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/08/22/the-lost-decade-of-the-middle-class/ ↩
- Wealth estimates are expressed in 2011 dollars. See Bricker, Jesse, Arthur B. Kennickell, Kevin B. Moore, and John Sabelhaus. 2012. “Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2007 to 2010: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances.” Bulletin 98-2. Washington, DC: Federal Reserve, June. http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/bulletin/2012/PDF/scf12.pdf ↩
- Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2012. “Employment Characteristics of Families—2011.” Washington, DC: April. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/famee_04262012.pdf. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2011. “Employment Characteristics of Families—2010.” Washington, DC: March. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/famee_03242011.pdf ↩
- Data on the unemployment rate and the duration of unemployment are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The latest monthly estimates for August 2012 show that the unemployment rate was 8.1% and the median duration of unemployment was 18 weeks. ↩ | <urn:uuid:ebbaa4e7-3e81-4428-9647-ccc407a02a00> | {
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Matthew Rosiello is back in the DJ booth after getting a liver transplant.
Matthew was born with biliary atresia. Bile builds up in the liver and damages the vital organ.
"So, basically I was dying and I didn't even know," Matthew said.
Matthew was on the transplant list near his home in New York City. Experts say in some metropolitan areas the wait for an organ can be longer. Matthew decided to multi-list and visited two other hospitals, in Connecticut and Ohio.
He got his new liver in Cleveland, but multi-listing can take more time, money, and support from family. It's one reason why some say the system needs to change. In the United States, there are eleven regions for organ sharing.
"Do I believe that this is the best way to divide the country? No," Lewis Teperman, MD, Director of Transplantation and Vice Chair of Surgery of New York University, Langone Medical Center said.
Rather than state borders, transplant doctor Lew Teperman suggests concentric circles, meaning organs would be shared by a group of states or cities, organized by distance, time, and population?giving more patients more options.
"I'm a prime example of how it can save people's lives," Matthew said.
On average, 18 people die in the U.S. each day waiting for an organ, but more donors can help prevent that. | <urn:uuid:00b30bc9-7e2d-4113-9439-e4066bdc4f3d> | {
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Considered one of the worst examples of colonial abuse, many have called for Belgium to apologise and make reparations for the crimes committed during its colonisation of Congo.
Leopold II, King of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909, founded and exploited the Congo Free State as a private venture and atrocities were perpetrated there under his rule from 1885 to 1908. After Leopold handed over Congo to the Belgian state, the tiny nation continued to hold sway over an area 80 times its size and half a world away until Congo became independent in 1960.
The boldest estimates state that the forced labour system led directly and indirectly to the deaths of 50 percent of the population. Leopold’s regime was characterised by notorious systematic brutality. Men, women and children had hands amputated for failing to deliver their quota of rubber and thousands were sold into slavery.
The UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent said in an interim report that Belgium should consider reparations to the Congolese “with a view to closing the dark chapter in history and as a means of reconciliation and healing”. It added that the Belgian government needs “to issue an apology for the atrocities committed during colonisation”.
“The root causes of present-day human rights violations lie in the lack of recognition of the true scope of the violence and injustice of colonisation.”
The UN group also pointed to the reality that racism in Belgium continues today.
“(We are) concerned about the human rights situation of people of African descent in Belgium who experience racism and racial discrimination,” it said. “There is clear evidence that racial discrimination is endemic in institutions in Belgium.”
The Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) or AfricaMuseum is one of Belgium’s 10 federal scientific institutes under the authority of the Secretary of State for Federal Science Policy.
According to the museum’s website, the origin of the AfricaMuseum dates back to the Brussels International Exposition of 1897. It served as a propaganda tool for the king’s colonial project, aimed at attracting investors and winning over the Belgian population.
It goes on to detail that when independence was declared, its name was changed to the Royal Museum of Central Africa, offering a broader range of studies. Even today, two thirds of the staff and the budget of the AfricaMuseum are dedicated to scientific research.
“The Royal Museum for Central Africa must aspire to be a world centre of research and knowledge dissemination on past and present societies and natural environments of Africa, and in particular Central Africa,” the website states.
The museum was renovated as the spirit of colonialism pervaded it by presenting King Leopold II’s rule over the DRC and Belgium’s later colonisation as a “humanitarian endeavor”. It even had placards that boldly stated, “Belgium is bringing civilisation to Congo.”
“When it came to the renovation, the big challenge was to present a contemporary and decolonized vision of Africa in a building which had been designed as a colonial museum. Before the renovation, the permanent exhibition was outdated and its presentation not very critical of the colonial image. A new scenography was urgently required.”
However, the trauma of Belgium’s colonial past cannot be easily assuaged and remains an open wound, both for the Congolese and for Belgians. For decades there existed a system rooted in racism, based on military occupation and aimed at extracting profits from the resource-rich country.
“If you want to combat racism and Afrophobia, you have to look at the underlying cause, and it is found in our colonial past,” Tracy Tansia, a Flemish parliament worker with Congolese roots, told the online newspaper Flanders Today. “We continue to feel the pain of our ancestors. I’m convinced it’s in our DNA.” She described it as a collective form of trauma, passed on from one generation to the next. “For some white Belgians, it’s about covering up. Today they know: ‘What we did was not okay, so I’m going to close my eyes to it.’ But the best way to resolve trauma is to talk about it.” | <urn:uuid:5fd68b7e-1fe2-490d-822b-2aa138693717> | {
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The Silent Humanitarian Crises Beyond East Africa
The international response to the East African crisis is far short of urgent needs, yet the extreme deprivation being reported is only the tip of the iceberg.
The unfolding crisis in the Horn of Africa is yet another tragedy that reflects the dysfunction and injustice inherent in the structures of the world economy. Although the factors that are currently causing widespread hunger and deprivation across a large part of the region include the worst drought for 60 years, escalating food prices and continued regional conflict, the problem is largely man-made and entirely preventable if sufficient resources are redistributed to all people in need.
Around 10.7 million people already need urgent humanitarian assistance, while many thousands are fleeing a devastated Somalia each day to take refuge in makeshift camps across Ethiopia and Kenya. The United Nations has now officially declared two regions of southern Somalia to be in famine - a situation in which at least 20 percent of households face a complete lack of food and other basic necessities, and starvation, death and destitution are evident. As the Famine Early Warning Systems Network makes clear, the currently inadequate levels of humanitarian response are likely to see famine spread across all eight regions of southern Somalia within two months and could lead to "total livelihood/social collapse".
With food insecurity in the East African region remaining an ongoing concern for decades, many humanitarian agencies have been trying to draw attention to a potential famine in these countries for some time. The UN made an appeal for $500m in 2010 to assist with food security, but managed to secure only half from donors. Consequently, hunger levels have rocketed over recent months, and in some areas the number of young children suffering malnutrition is now three times the normal emergency level. At least half a million children risk death if immediate help does not reach them, according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).
The humanitarian coordinator for Somalia has also described the lack of resources as alarming, with insufficient donations of food, clean water, shelter and health services to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Somalis in desperate need. The underlying problem is repeated by various aid organisations: that the international response is not commensurate with the urgent requirements of those affected by the humanitarian catastrophe, and there is a lack of international support to address the deep-seated causes of the crisis or to mitigate future crises.
Yet the extreme deprivation being widely reported across East African is just the tip of the iceberg. Needless impoverishment and death is an ongoing catastrophe that unfolds daily, largely without any attention from the world's media or the public. At least 41,000 people in the developing world continue to die each day from easily preventable diseases that barely occur in high-income countries, such as diarrhoea, malaria or nutritional deficiencies. Despite the scale of these preventable deaths - amounting to 15 million lives lost each year, half of which affect young children before their fifth birthday - there is no official recognition that such extreme deprivation should also be considered a humanitarian catastrophe and treated accordingly.
These shameful mortality rates occur as a result of the ongoing silent disaster of world poverty, which receives a similarly inadequate international response to the periodic famines or food crises in countries like Somalia. For over a decade, international efforts to reduce poverty have centred around the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of globally agreed targets that are set to expire in 2015. Although the MDGs have done much to focus attention on global poverty, they are widely considered an insufficient and superficial approach to economic development and saving lives.
A deadly lack of ambition
The politically sensitive principles of equity and distributive justice that featured in the original Millennium Declaration have gradually faded from the official development discourse, accompanied by a deadly lack of ambition. Even if the MDG goal on halving rates of poverty is met, a staggering 882 million people will still be living in absolute poverty in 2015. In effect, the MDG's focus on merely reducing over time the number of people living below the threshold of human survival tacitly accepts the continuance of poverty-related deaths each day. Similarly, goals four and five commit to reduce maternal mortality by only three quarters by 2015, and under-five child mortality by two-thirds, which accepts not only a high number of preventable maternal and child deaths remaining at the end of the MDG period, but also many millions of such needless deaths in the interim.
In an interdependent and globalised world, there can be no meaningful process of development whilst so many people living in poverty die prematurely and unnecessarily. The impact on families, communities and economies are devastating, and preventing these deaths is an urgent moral necessity. Even in the crudest economic calculations, putting an end to avoidable deaths would amount to a significant investment in human capital, as healthy individuals whose basic needs are secured are far more likely to contribute to the growth of communities and nations. It is objectionable from any social, moral or economic viewpoint that sufficient resources are not immediately made available to address the crises of extreme deprivation, especially in its most acute manifestation well before the situation degenerates into a full-blown famine.
International efforts to address the life-threatening poverty of millions of people in the poorest countries must aim far higher and provide much more than the current insufficient, voluntary and often conditional donations of overseas aid and disaster assistance. A massively upscaled redistribution of resources from North to South is essential to avert humanitarian disasters and prevent extreme deprivation and poverty-related deaths. Given the scale of these related crises, an international program of emergency relief must become the highest priority of world governments, followed by assistance for developing countries to secure ongoing state-provided welfare and essential services for all their citizens. Efforts to improve the redistribution of wealth nationally through the development of local industries, better taxation and the provision of comprehensive social protection for all people should become the new focus of international development policy.
Central to this transformation of development is the principle of sharing, which embodies universally accepted ethical values that reflect our common humanity. Aligning the international policy discourse more closely to our shared moral obligations can help redeem decades of unjust economic and social policy, prevent future famines and help manifest an inclusive vision of progress and development. In the simplest economic terms, sharing points to the need for a redistribution of wealth from rich to poor, and a shift in power relations from financial and commercial interests to the world's majority population. The East African crisis presents another opportunity for civil society to demand that wealth and resources are shared more equitably across the world, and that policy-makers prioritise the complete eradication of poverty above all other concerns.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License | <urn:uuid:575d11ed-26de-4854-9b61-b31c9932416c> | {
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The stability constant of metal complexes is actually an equilibrium constant that describes the overall process of the formation of a metal complex in a solution.
This formation process is usually a substitution reaction in which one ligand replaces another ligand. In your case, EDTA, which is a hexadentate ligand (it has 6 lone pairs of electrons), replaces water, a simple ligand.
The overall reaction looks like this - all the species are in aquesous solution, except water, of course
To write the stability constant for this reaction you can use the same rules as you would for writing classic equilibrium constants - the concentrations of the products (water is excluded) divided by the concentration of the reactants | <urn:uuid:bf2dec01-2aa1-4c6f-b409-4e42a3e61697> | {
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Frog Killer Is Linked to Global Warming
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: January 12, 2006
Scientists studying a fast-dwindling genus of colorful harlequin frogs on misty mountainsides in Central and South America are reporting today that global warming is combining with a spreading fungus to kill off many species.
The researchers implicate global warming, as opposed to local variations in temperature or other conditions. Their conclusion is based on their finding that patterns of fungus outbreaks and extinctions in widely dispersed patches of habitat were synchronized in a way that could not be explained by chance.
If the analysis holds up, it will be the first to link recent climate changes to the spread of a fungus lethal to frogs and salamanders and their kin. The chytrid fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, has devastated amphibian communities in many parts of the world over the last several decades.
But experts on amphibian disease and ecology are divided over the finding, which is being published today in the journal Nature. Several scientists criticized the paper yesterday, saying it glossed over significant sources of uncertainty; others said it was important evidence that warming caused by humans was already harming wildlife. Climate scientists have linked most of the recent rise in the earth's average temperature to the buildup of greenhouse emissions from smokestacks and tailpipes.
The new study was led by J. Alan Pounds, the resident biologist at the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve in Costa Rica. In an accompanying commentary, two scientists not involved in the research say it provides ''compelling evidence'' that warming caused by human activity was already disrupting ecology.
''The frogs are sending an alarm call to all concerned about the future of biodiversity and the need to protect the greatest of all open-access resources -- the atmosphere,'' write the scientists, Andy Dobson, a Princeton University ecologist, and Andrew R. Blaustein, a zoologist at Oregon State University.
More than 110 species of brightly colored harlequin frogs, in the genus Atelopus, once lived near streams in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, but about two-thirds of them have vanished since the 1980's.
A leading suspect is the chytrid fungus, which in recent decades has killed amphibians from deserts to lowland tropical forests to mountainsides. It is not clear whether the fungus has been spread around the world by human trade in amphibians or whether it has laid largely undetected and has only recently erupted.
Paradoxically, the fungus thrives best in cooler conditions, challenging the theory that global warming is at fault. But Dr. Pounds and his team, in studying trends in temperature and disease around the American tropics, found patterns that they say explain the situation.
Because warming increases evaporation, it can create clouds that tend to make days cooler by blocking sunlight, and make nights warmer by trapping heat. In an interview, Dr. Pounds said those conditions could have created favorable conditions for the spread of the chytrid fungus.
He said that because the seeming extinctions had occurred in lockstep over dispersed field sites, they were hard to attribute to anything other than the broad warming trend that scientists have linked to rising concentrations of greenhouse gases.
But some experts who have read the paper said they were troubled by definitive statements like ''Our study sheds light on the amphibian-decline mystery by showing that large-scale warming is a key factor.''
Cynthia Carey, an amphibian disease expert at the University of Colorado, said that while both climate and amphibian die-offs were serious problems, this particular paper failed to offer anything beyond circumstantial evidence.
''It is difficult to prove cause and effect on the ground where multiple factors interact in complex ways,'' she said.
Stephen H. Schneider, a climate expert at Stanford, who has worked with Dr. Pounds on other studies and consulted on this one, acknowledged that uncertainties remained but said the work was significant.
''It's like anything else that's complex,'' he said. ''When you're in the early phases of learning you look for multiple lines of argument, and when they converge with basic theory, you increase your confidence in a connection.'' | <urn:uuid:03190fa6-fef8-47ab-82e9-8dbeef8c29ee> | {
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ETOH stands for ethanol. It is a common term used in medical histories to designate alcoholic beverages.
An alcoholic beverage is a drink that contains ethanol. Alcoholic beverages are divided into three general classes for taxation and regulation of production: beers, wines, and spirits (distilled beverages). They are legally consumed in most countries around the world. More than 100 countries have laws regulating their production, sale, and consumption. Beer is the third most popular drink in the world, after water and tea.
Alcoholic beverages have been consumed by humans since the Neolithic era; the earliest evidence of alcohol was discovered in Jiahu, dating from 7000–6600 BC. The production and consumption of alcohol occurs in most cultures of the world, from hunter-gatherer peoples to nation-states. Drink
Science of drugs including their origin, composition, pharmacokinetics,
pharmacodynamics, therapeutic use, and toxicology.
Pharmacology (from Greek φάρμακον, pharmakon, "poison" in classic Greek; "drug" in modern Greek; and -λογία, -logia "study of", "knowledge of") is the branch of medicine and biology concerned with the study of drug action, where a drug can be broadly defined as any man-made, natural, or endogenous (within the body) molecule which exerts a biochemical and/or physiological effect on the cell, tissue, organ, or organism. More specifically, it is the study of the interactions that occur between a living organism and chemicals that affect normal or abnormal biochemical function. If substances have medicinal properties, they are considered pharmaceuticals. | <urn:uuid:491dcdff-ea88-412b-99d0-46f5df2d79a3> | {
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Access, equity and the role of rights in health care
Newdick, C. and Derrett, S. (2006) Access, equity and the role of rights in health care. Health Care Analysis, 14 (3). pp. 157-168. ISSN 1065-3058
Full text not archived in this repository.
To link to this article DOI: 10.1007/s10728-006-0023-7
Modern health care rhetoric promotes choice and individual patient rights as dominant values. Yet we also accept that in any regime constrained by finite resources, difficult choices between patients are inevitable. How can we balance rights to liberty, on the one hand, with equity in the allocation of scarce resources on the other? For example, the duty of health authorities to allocate resources is a duty owed to the community as a whole, rather than to specific individuals. Macro-duties of this nature are founded on the notion of equity and fairness amongst individuals rather than personal liberty. They presume that if hard choices have to be made, they will be resolved according to fair and consistent principles which treat equal cases equally, and unequal cases unequally. In this paper, we argue for greater clarity and candour in the health care rights debate. With this in mind, we discuss (1) private and public rights, (2) negative and positive rights, (3) procedural and substantive rights, (4) sustainable health care rights and (5) the New Zealand booking system for prioritising access to elective services. This system aims to consider: individual need and ability to benefit alongside the resources made available to elective health services in an attempt to give the principles of equity practical effect. We describe a continuum on which the merits of those, sometimes competing, values-liberty and equity-can be evaluated and assessed. | <urn:uuid:bf1e484d-705c-47f0-a45c-42a9a79ae6f8> | {
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17th and 18th century theories of emotions first the treatment of the passions and their scientific ambitions the course of the two centuries. We can't imagine that the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries took the scientific revolution by the 17th scientific discoveries. In this lesson, we explore the early women's rights movement and their rejection of traditional gender roles in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Women in science - highlights of women scientists through history highlights of women scientists through history 18th: 17th: 16th: 15th: 14th: 13th. Women in 17th and 18th century british literature essaysin the british literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the presence of women suddenly becomes noticeable and crucial to the sociological studies of these time periods.
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Women from the renaissance to the enlightenment to be an emphasis on the importance of women trials during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Scientific revolution, enlightenment, 18th mid-17th to early 18th c elevation of human reason to a position of paramount philsophical importance. Free scientific revolution papers the scientific revolution and the discoveries made the decline of witchcraft prosecution in the 17th-18th centuries.
The 18th century, also referred to as 17th-18th century piano retrieved from bellis. Early history of recreation and leisure in the year ad 80 these kingdoms were in power for approximately 26 centuries, from about 2900 b. The 18th century proudly referred to itself as the age of enlightenment and thinkers during the 17th and 18th centuries discoveries of astronomers.
The roles of women in the 18th and 19th century essays and research and independence in the 17th and 18th century womens role the past few centuries.
Explain the role so called accidental discoveries played women played in the scientific revolution of in the scientific revolution of the 18th. For example, prior to the beginning of the 17th century, scientific study and scientists in the field were not truly recognized in fact. View notes - week 8 explain what role women played in the scientific revolution of the 18th century from science gs102 at grantham explain what role women played in the scientific revolution of the. Historians with an interest in gender and science have illuminated the scientific importance of an women in science & medicine: four centuries. Science in the eighteenth century in the 18th century, books of the great contribution to science of this century was not so much the actual discoveries. Pages in category 18th-century women scientists the following 62 pages are in this category, out of 62 total this list may not reflect recent changes (. Home » 18th- and 19th-century france — neoclassicism 18th- and 19th-century france ingres insisted on the importance of line though he nevertheless was a.
Of the 17th and 18th centuries peter suber, philosophy department women philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: a collection of primary. Women of the scientific revolution: the forgotten scholars was an 18th century french woman who played a “crucial role in 17th and 18th centuries, women were. Women in science throughout history to maria agnesi and laura bassi in the 18th century 14th century france and there she made her famous discoveries on the. Scientific developments in the 19th century had a major impact on understanding health and disease, as experimental research resulted in new knowledge in histology. | <urn:uuid:211e1b7e-9671-4520-8f72-53989edcc888> | {
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Last week, officials with the LeRoy Central School District in northwestern New York state approved a plan for further environmental testing at the town’s high school, where 19 people — 18 girls and one boy — have developed a sudden-onset disorder with symptoms similar to the movement disorder Tourette’s syndrome. The outbreak has captured national attention and led experts to suggest an array of possible explanations — none of which seem to quite work. With speculation running high, here is a look at the facts surrounding the outbreak.
How and when did the symptoms appear?
Several of the girls report that the symptoms seemed to come out of nowhere — one minute they were asleep, the next they had woken and developed uncontrollable movements and vocalizations. Their tics could be dramatic: arms twitching or jolting out to one side, speech chopped up by nonsense utterings, head jerking, eyes blinking. Some girls have also had blackouts and seizures. The first case was in May last year, the second in early September. By the end of October, eight students were affected. That is when the New York State Department of Health was called in to investigate.
Is there some contaminant in the school?
If there is, no one has found it yet. The high school was built in 2003 and has about 630 students. School officials commissioned air-quality testing in late December, measuring levels of 58 volatile organic chemicals, 63 pesticides and herbicides, 11 metals, cyanide, polychlorinated biphenyls and ketones. They found nothing amiss. They also found no evidence of fungus or mould and no problems with ventilation. Water was tested at two locations inside the school as well as at the point where the municipal supply enters the school, and the water quality seems fine.
What do the students’ doctors think?
Eight of the girls have been diagnosed with ‘conversion disorder’, or mass hysteria. (Three of the girls had reported prior tic problems.) Cases of conversion disorder generally occur among people who are in close contact with each other. Usually there is a trigger, such as a smell, and then one person becomes ill, followed by many others. The sickness seems to be organic, but investigations identify no physical cause. Females are affected more often than males. In such cases, the symptoms are distinct: for instance seizures occur without characteristic changes in an electroencephalogram. The condition is rare, but the health department’s report cites a few other cases in the medical literature. One describes a Tennessee high school at which the smell of gas, with no evidence of an actual gas leak, led to dozens of reports of illness. But the LeRoy situation doesn’t fit the diagnosis very well, say sceptics. The cases emerged over many months, and the students ranged in age from 13 to 19 years and were in five different grades. They did not spend time with each other and, at first, were not aware of each other’s symptoms.
Could it be an infection?
There is growing awareness that a bacterial infection can lead to sudden-onset tics. Known as PANDAS, or PANS, the syndrome is thought to be an autoimmune disorder. Again, however, these students’ cases don’t quite fit. None reported a serious infection immediately before the symptoms set in, they are older than is typical for the disorder, and PANS usually affects boys more than girls and doesn’t usually present in clusters. There is no definitive test for the condition, but to the extent that blood can hint at past infections, only some of the girls have evidence of recent bacterial infection.
What about environmental toxins?
This is a question that continues to haunt locals, because in December 1970, LeRoy was the site of a train derailment that spilt one tonne of what the Environmental Protection Agency describes as “cyanide crystals” and more than 114,000 litres of the industrial solvent trichloroethene (TCE). The spill site is about 5.6 kilometres from the school and, although there is groundwater contamination, it is well monitored and does not extend to the school area. Gravel from a quarry near the spill site was used to construct a playing field at the school. But water in the school was specifically tested for traces of TCE and levels were not elevated. Also, although TCE exposure has been linked to many conditions — for example, nausea, liver damage and cancer — tics are not among them. The only possible link is that it may increase the risk of another movement disorder, Parkinson’s disease. …
Some of those affected have now recovered. School officials have approved further testing of both the air and the soil, but still insist that there is no danger to other students. | <urn:uuid:b474a391-e1c0-4c0b-9f0c-0c0584ffc452> | {
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As in the other sciences, astronomers in the Muslim lands built upon and greatly expanded earlier traditions. At the House of Knowledge founded in Baghdad by the Abbasid caliph Mamun, scientists translated many texts from Sanskrit, Pahlavi or Old Persian, Greek and Syriac into Arabic, notably the great Sanskrit astronomical tables and Ptolemy's astronomical treatise, the Almagest. Muslim astronomers accepted the geometrical structure of the universe expounded by Ptolemy, in which the earth rests motionless near the center of a series of eight spheres, which encompass it, but then faced the problem of reconciling the theoretical model with Aristotelian physics and physical realities derived from observation.
Some of the most impressive efforts to modify Ptolemaic theory were made at the observatory founded by Nasir al-Din Tusi in 1257 at Maragha in northwestern Iran and continued by his successors at Tabriz and Damascus. With the assistance of Chinese colleagues, Muslim astronomers worked out planetary models that depended solely on combinations of uniform circular motions. The astronomical tables compiled at Maragha served as a model for later Muslim astronomical efforts. The most famous imitator was the observatory founded in 1420 by the Timurid prince Ulughbeg at Samarkand in Central Asia, where the astronomer Ghiyath al-Din Jamshid al-Kashi worked out his own set of astronomical tables, with sections on diverse computations and eras, the knowledge of time, the course of the stars, and the position of the fixed stars. Essentially Ptolemaic, these tables have improved parameters and structure as well as additional material on the Chinese Uighur-calendar. They were widely admired and translated even as far away as England, where John Greaves, professor at Oxford, called attention to them in 1665. | <urn:uuid:d683fabf-2ae4-4f16-bca3-2ed594d78c67> | {
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The definitive guide to 24-bit FLAC
Posted on 27 July 2018
CD was revolutionary when it first appeared, just over 30 years ago: none of the surface noise of well-played LPs, no annoying ticks and pops caused by invisible scratches, no need to handle the discs with kid gloves – though the early demonstrations of discs smeared with jam still playing were a little over the top! – and instant access to any track on an album at the push of a button. CD running orders could be programmed, favourite tracks repeated and the duff ones skipped, and in time added features such as CD Text readouts of album, track title and artist would become possible.
For all that, CD was always a compromise, using technology that was only just cutting edge at the time. 30 years on, we can do so much better.
Digital audio encodes the analogue musical waveform, using Pulse Code Modulation. With PCM, the two basic factors that determine the sound quality are bit depth (which determines the quality with which the analogue signal is digitised), and the sampling frequency (which is the number of times per second that the analogue signal is digitised). CD is a 16-bit, 44.1kHz system, what’s needed to improve conformity between the analogue original and the digitised version is a combination of more bits in each samples, and more samples for each second of music: the more bits you use, the more natural the music sounds, and the faster the samples, the wider the frequency range.
CD’s 16-bit/44.1kHz digital system may have been the apparent state of the art in 1982, but it didn’t take long for it to get past its sell-by date. Indeed, some say it was only ever almost good enough for high-quality sound reproduction: Malcolm Hawksford, Professor of Psychoacoustics at Essex University, feels that, ‘It was near the limit, but in my view probably a bit marginal. Ideally, at least 20-bit resolution at 60 kHz sampling frequency would have been better.’
However, 16-bit/44.1kHz is what we got back in 1982, and 16-bit/44.1kHz is what CD still uses more than three decades on: we’ve been trapped in a technology ‘almost good enough’ 30 years ago for all that time, just like we would be with everything else we own if all development had been stopped back then.
Yes, there have been attempts to replace the CD with something better – in the early 1990s not one but two ‘high-resolution’ audio formats appeared, and battle was joined between DVD-Audio and the Sony/Philips Super Audio CD (or SACD), the former offering 24-bit audio quality for greater resolution, improved dynamics and greatly reduced distortion, while the latter’s Direct Stream Digital system used a sampling rate of 2.8224Mhz, 64x that of CD and single-bit sampling.
The new formats also offered the opportunity for multichannel surround sound and greater security and copy protection – one good thing for consumers, it was suggested, and one for the record industry. However, there was a problem or two…
DVD-A discs needed a special player – not just a standard DVD-Video machine – and these were a while coming, while the music retail industry wasn’t keen on stocking releases in multiple formats, and dealing with a hassle of buyers picking up a DVD-A disc by mistake and finding it wouldn’t play on their CD player.
SACD had an answer to that one: its multilayer discs allowed back-compatibility with CD hardware, which just saw them as standard CDs. Only when used in an SACD player was the higher-resolution layer ‘unlocked’. That meant record stores could sell just one disc for SACD and CD buyers, but then the pitching of SACD as a premium medium would have meant CD prices rising, at a time when deep discounting on music was really beginning to kick in.
What has, unfortunately, made a big impression on the market is compressed audio formats, notably MP3: originally used to allow sensible amounts of music to be stored on early personal music players with very limited storage capacity, MP3 can reduce the size of a music file by around 80% by removing most of the sound you can’t hear – quieter sounds masked by louder ones, for example. Unfortunately along the way it also loses quite a lot of the sound quality you can hear, and while the losses may not be so apparent on lower-quality equipment or when played in noisy environments – on headphones in the street or on public transport, for example, or on standard-fit audio systems in many cars –, when you step up to better audio systems it’s all too easy to hear the reduction in quality.
The good news is that while MP3 does’t sound too great, it did open up new channels through which music could be obtained – via online downloads.With those channels opened up, Free Lossless Audio Codec – or FLAC – now makes it possible to download music at CD quality or better, or store your CDs on computer or external storage, while saving up to 50% of the file size without losing any quality.
The clue’s in the term Lossless: FLAC packs music without losing any of the content or quality, and when ‘unzipped’ correctly the file is exactly the same as the original file. And while we’ve seen a number of rival lossless systems, from Apple Lossless (ALAC) to Windows Media Audio Lossless (WMA Lossless), the Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) is the system of choice for many music-loving hi-fi buffs, simply because it’s not tied to any one manufacturer’s systems.
And it can do more than cut the size of CD-quality files: FLAC can also come in 24-bit form and beyond, as Albert Yong of Bowers & Wilkins explains: ‘The system is so flexible that it can take anything from 4 to 32 bits and sample rates up to 655350Hz in 1 Hz steps.’ he says.
FLAC, first introduced in 2001, is opening up a whole new world of high-end, high-resolution audio for enthusiasts: 24-bit digital has a theoretical resolution of 144dB (compared to around 96dB in CD’s 16-bit) which is more than enough, given that 130dB is the threshold of pain for the human ear. That means you can get ever closer to the master-tape used in the studio, as well as gaining all the information made possible by the greater data-rates of these high-resolution files: Albert Yong says ‘The difference is in the detail. Sounds generally are more open, and there is an extra level of airiness in the music. Voice and instruments sound closer to live, and more dynamic as well.’
While you can use computer software to rip your CDs into FLAC, there’s also a growing number of sites offering downloads at CD quality and beyond including Society of Sound. We’ve structured our site to make downloading FLAC a breeze. Once you’re signed up as a member you get free albums every month to download; it’s just a matter of downloading a zip file, unzipping it into whichever folder you want on your computer or storage device, and then playing your music using your choice of player software.
If you’re looking to build up a FLAC library of your existing CD collection, then a good starting point for ripping is Exact Audio Copy or dBpowerAMP. These are freely downloadable applications for Windows, commonly thought to be the best sounding and most bug-free. Mac Users can try Max, MacFlac or X Lossless Decoder.
To play the music, there’s a range of software players available, though as you’re using FLAC you’ll find neither iTunes nor Windows Media Player will handle the files directly, so you may have to use a modification to those programs or convert the files to play them. Fluke, for example, is a freeware program that works as ‘plug in’ for iTunes (Mac platform), but it can be buggy.
There are various programs available to convert files to PCM or even Apple Lossless, such as Max for MacOSX, but the best option is probably to use a different player solution, which will play all files in their native format.
On Windows systems, Winamp can play a wide variety of lie formats, and even burn 16-bit files to CD while other good player packages include Foobar2000, Media Monkey, Vox and Nightingale, the last of these being a ‘forked’ version of the now defunct Songbird package, having an interface very similar to iTunes and capable of playing almost any file you throw at it.
Nightingale is also available for Mac OSX, and like other players will hunt down all the music on your computer and add it to its own library if you require. These programs also allow editing of the ‘metadata’ of your music files – the information used to identify the music – should you find a rip or download doesn’t quite have the information you want about artist, album, track and so on.
Amarra Mini by Sonic Studio is a more sophisticated system that piggybacks on to iTunes, replacing much of its audio code with a superior sounding and more flexible system. Sound is excellent but you pay for it; the basic Junior version which gives FLAC playback up to 24/96 starts at $99.
Audirvana Plus (www.audirvana.com) is another fine application that, like Amarra, shuts down certain parts of your computer to minimise drain on CPU resources, to (so the theory goes) give better sound. There’s a free trial download but you’ll have to pay for the full version. It now offers optional integration with iTunes and is a strong, stable performer. For Mac users, its combination of value and performance is currently hard to beat.
All these programs work as the playback system, but unless you’re happy to listen via your computer’s speakers, or a pair of headphones plugged into it, you’ll need a means of connecting computer to your audio system in order to hear your new high-resolution music collection.
• The simplest way to do this is to take an analogue line output from your computer soundcard. This is likely to have a 3.5mm stereo mini-jack plug, so you’ll need a cable with a 3.5mm stereo plug on one end and a pair of RCA phonos on the other, to connect into a spare line input on your amplifier to system (although systems and amplifiers increasingly have a 3.5mm input on the from for just this purpose. This method will give a reasonable sound, particularly if you have a good quality soundcard, but it’s not ideal – computers are electrically ‘noisy’ environments, and it’s best if at all possible to pipe out the digital signal away from the PC or Mac.
• A range of USB DACs are now available to plug straight into your computer and provide an analogue output. Some provide a line output to connect to a hi-fi system, while others allow headphones to be connected for a truly portable high-resolution system, and there’s now a wide range of digital to analogue converters and even amplifiers with USB inputs. Prices start at about £100, while it’s perfectly possible to spend many times that amount on a DAC or headphone amplifier designed for high-resolution music.
Most of these DACs are powered from the computer, and use an asynchronous USB connection, so the high quality clock onboard will control the computer’s digital datastream. This gives tighter, smoother sound compared to standard asynchronous USB, as a result of lower jitter.
• There’s also a small selection of personal players able to play high-resolution FLAC files (among other formats), should you want to take your music library with you on your travels. The most affordable of these starts from under £200.
• Wireless and network streaming open up much greater flexibility. and also allows the streaming of music without the need to have your computer on all the time. You can copy your entire library to a Network-Attached Storage (or NAS) device, which is basically a hard-disk store designed to connect to your wired or wireless network storage, and which can be accessed by multiple players (either standalone systems or network music players designed to connect to a hi-fi system) on your home network.
Several players can be used at once, each playing different music if required: if you want a whole-house music solution, networking is definitely the way to go. Prices for NAS devices start from under £200 for a simple unit, and players at under £400. And the choice out there keeps on growing, as FLAC music catches on.
However, whichever solution you choose, the sound you achieve will only ever be as good as the quality of the files you’re playing, and that’s why we at Bowers & Wilkins, with almost 50 years’ experience of making top-quality premium loudspeakers, take FLAC very seriously. Not only is it convenient, with its shorter download times and almost bombproof content tagging, it’s also upgradable as high-resolution formats evolve: one label – Norway’s 2L – is already offering 24-bit/352.8kHz FLAC files taken from its original DXD masters.
Bowers & Wilkins’s Albert Yong says that ‘FLAC is as good as it can get for now. I think what it brings is not limited to quality of audio, but the added convenience as well’. And whereas once the choice of high-quality music in high-resolution FLAC was limited, more people aware of what high-resolution music can bring to their listening experience. | <urn:uuid:2193785b-12e1-489c-ab9d-6c4fe773e6a9> | {
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Faber Cylinders for scuba diving are manufactured from steel plates to ensure light tanks with the right buoyancy.
1. The material (steel plate) is carefully selected depending on its eventual use conditions, after verifying the chemical, physical, mechanical characteristics.
2. The design of Faber cylinders uses not only specified calculation formulae but also linear finite element analysis. The calculated data are then verified experimentally using strain-gauge measurements.
3. The fracture mechanics analysis of the steel allows us to define the maximum permissible defects in the cylinders, in order to enable us:
- to establish the non-destructive tests during production
- to guarantee the product fatigue life
- to demonstrate that a leak precedes the hypothetical burst of the cylinder (LBB)
4. The cylinders' surface protection is considered to be a function of the various environmental conditions of use and of the various corrosion agents.
5. Faber's cylinders are manufactured according to a quality control program certified to ISO 9001 and ISO / TS 16949 (where applicable).
Design Tests and Analyses are performed for new design approvals of diving cylinders:
- On materials
- Mechanical tests: tensile, elongation, impact, toughness, ductility, stress-cracking
- Chemical analysis
- On prototype cylinders (check of safety performances)
- Hydraulic burst test
- Pressure cycling test
- Ductility and impact resistance test
- Environmental test
- Extreme temperatures monotonic and cycling tests
- Flawed cylinder burst test
During production all the cylinders are subject to:
- Hardness test
- Ultrasonic inspection
- Hydraulic (proof and volumetric expansion) if required by the standard tests
- Leak test on spun cylinders
- Check of the critical dimensions and of the threads
- Check of the marking
- Check of the specified internal and external surface finish
- Flawed cylinders burst-test
If you are already using steel tanks when diving you don't need to be convinced about the advantages of steel. Just make sure that next time you purchase a tank the FABER stamp is on it (go to How to recognize Faber Cylinders).
If you are not using steel cylinders, try to use one and you will soon realise what you have been missing. | <urn:uuid:5610711c-10ad-4de6-b170-60d42b2486f8> | {
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|Part of a series on the|
|History of Ireland|
|Peoples and polities|
Gaelic Ireland refers to the period when a Gaelic political and social order existed in Ireland, and to the culture associated with it. It emerged in the prehistoric era and lasted until the early 17th century. For most of this period, Ireland was a 'patchwork' hierarchy of territories ruled by a hierarchy of kings or chiefs, who were elected by a system known as tanistry. Warfare between these territories was common. Occasionally, a powerful ruler was acknowledged as High King of Ireland. Society was separated into kin groups and, like the rest of Europe, was structured hierarchically according to class. Throughout this period, the economy was mainly pastoral and money generally not used. A Gaelic Irish style of dress, music, dance, sport and architecture can be identified, with Insular art developing from earlier Celtic art and spreading throughout the British Isles.
Gaelic Ireland was initially polytheistic/pagan and was mainly an oral culture, although inscription in the ogham alphabet began in the protohistoric period, perhaps as early as the 1st century BCE. The conversion to Christianity accompanied the introduction of literature, and much of Ireland's rich pre-Christian mythology and sophisticated law code were preserved, albeit slightly Christianized. Ireland was an important centre of learning and preserved knowledge during the Early Middle Ages. During this time, Irish monks helped to (re-)spread Christianity along with elements of Gaelic art and culture to Anglo-Saxon Britain and on to non-Christian areas of mainland Europe in the Hiberno-Scottish mission.
In the 9th century, the Vikings began raiding and founding settlements along Ireland's coasts and waterways. These became Ireland's first large towns. Over time, these settlers were assimilated into Gaelic society and became the Norse-Gaels. After the Norman invasion of 1169–71, large swaths of Ireland came under the control of Norman lords. The King of England claimed sovereignty over this territory – the Lordship of Ireland – and over the island as a whole. However, the Gaelic system continued in areas outside Anglo-Norman control. The territory under English control gradually shrank to an area known as The Pale and, outside this, many Anglo-Norman lords adopted Gaelic culture. There was regular conflict between the Irish and the English.
In 1542, Henry VIII declared the Lordship a Kingdom and himself King of Ireland. The English then began to conquer (or re-conquer) the island. By 1607, Ireland was fully under English control, bringing the old Gaelic political and social order to an end.
- 1 Culture and society
- 1.1 Religion and mythology
- 1.2 Social and political structure
- 1.3 Law
- 1.4 Settlements and architecture
- 1.5 Economy
- 1.6 Transport
- 1.7 Dress
- 1.8 Warfare
- 1.9 Arts
- 1.10 Sport
- 1.11 Assemblies
- 2 List of clanna, túatha and kings
- 3 History
- 4 See also
- 5 References
- 6 Further reading
Culture and society
Gaelic culture and society was centred around the Fine (clan – spelled clann in Gaelic) and, as such, the landscape and history of Ireland was wrought with inter-fine relationships, marriages, friendships, wars, vendettas, trading, and so on. Despite this, Gaelic Ireland had a rich oral culture and appreciation of deeper and intellectual pursuits. Filí and draoithe (druids) were held in high regard during pagan times and orally passed down the history and traditions of their people. Later, many of their spiritual and intellectual tasks were passed on to Christian monks, after said religion prevailed from the 5th century onwards. However, the filí continued to hold a high position in their clanns and territories. Poetry, music, storytelling, literature and other art forms were highly prized and cultivated in both pagan and Christian Gaelic Ireland. Hospitality, bonds of kinship and the fulfilment of social and ritual responsibilities were held sacred.
The Gaelic order in Ireland, rather than a single unified kingdom in the feudal sense, was a patchwork of túatha (singular: túath). These túatha often competed for control of resources and thus continually grew and shrank. Law tracts from the beginning of the 8th century describe a hierarchy of kings: kings of túath subject to kings of several túatha who again were subject to provincial overkings. Already before the 8th century these over-kingships had begun to dissolve the túatha as the basic sociopolitical unit.
Religion and mythology
Before Christianization, the Gaelic Irish were polytheistic or pagan. They had many gods and goddesses, which generally have parallels in the pantheons of European nations (notably Celtic-speakers). They were also animists, believing that all aspects of the natural world contained spirits, and that these spirits could be communicated with. Burial practices—which included burying food, weapons, and ornaments with the dead—suggest a belief in life after death. Some have equated this afterlife with the realms known as Magh Meall and Tír na nÓg in Irish mythology. There were four main religious festivals each year, marking the traditional four divisions of the year – Imbolc, Bealtaine, Lughnasadh and Samhain.
The mythology of Ireland was originally passed down orally, but much of it was eventually written down by Irish monks, who Christianized and modified it to an extent. This large body of work is often split into three overlapping cycles: the Mythological Cycle, the Ulster Cycle, and the Fenian Cycle. The first cycle is a pseudo-history that describes how Ireland, its people and its society came to be. The second cycle tells of the lives and deaths of Ulaidh heroes such as Cúchulainn. The third cycle tells of the exploits of Fionn mac Cumhaill and the Fianna. There are also a number of tales that do not fit into these cycles – this includes the immrama and echtrai, which are tales of voyages to the 'otherworld'. Two groups of supernatural beings who appear throughout Irish mythology—the Tuatha Dé Danann and Fomorians—are believed to represent the Gaelic pantheon.
|This section requires expansion. (October 2010)|
Social and political structure
In Gaelic Ireland each person belonged to an agnatic kin-group known as a fine (plural: finte) or clann (plural: clanna). This was a large group of related people supposedly descended from one progenitor through male forebears. It was headed by a male chieftain, known in Old Irish as a cennfine or toísech (plural: toísig). Although these groups were primarily based on blood kinship, they also included those who were fostered into the group and those who were accepted into it for other reasons. Nicholls suggests that they would be better thought of as akin to the modern-day corporation.
Succession to the chieftainship or kingship was through tanistry. When a man became chieftain or king, a relative was elected to be his deputy or 'tanist' (Irish: tánaiste, plural tanaistí). When the chieftain or king died, his tanist would automatically succeed him. The tanist had to share the same great-grandfather as his predecessor and he was elected by freemen who also shared the same great-grandfather. This group of relatives was known as the derbfine. Tanistry meant that the kingship usually went to whichever relative was deemed to be the most fitting. Sometimes there would be more than one tanist at a time and they would succeed each other in order of seniority. Some Anglo-Norman lordships later adopted tanistry from the Irish.
Gaelic Ireland was divided into a hierarchy of territories ruled by a hierarchy of kings or chiefs. The smallest territory was the túath (plural: túatha), which was typically the territory of a single kin-group. It was ruled by a rí túaithe (king of a túath) or toísech túaithe (leader of a túath). Several túatha formed a mór túath (overkingdom), which was ruled by a rí mór túath or ruirí (overking). Several mór túatha formed a cóiced (province), which was ruled by a rí cóicid or rí ruirech (provincial king). In the early Middle Ages the túatha was the main political unit, but over time they were subsumed into bigger conglomerate territories and became much less important politically.
Gaelic society was structured hierarchically, with those further up the hierarchy generally having more privileges, wealth and power than those further down.
- The top social layer was the sóernemed, which included kings, tanists, chieftains, highly skilled poets (fili), clerics, and their immediate families. The roles of a fili included reciting traditional lore, eulogizing the king and satirizing injustices within the kingdom. Before the Christianization of Ireland, this group also included the druids (druí) and vates (fáith). The druids combined the roles of priest, judge, scholar, poet, physician, and religious teacher, while the vates were oracles.
- Below that were the dóernemed, which included professionals such as jurists (brithem), physicians, skilled craftsmen, skilled musicians, scholars, and so on. A master in a particular profession was known as an ollam (modern spelling: ollamh). The various professions—including law, poetry, medicine, history and genealogy—were associated with particular families and the positions became hereditary. Since the poets, jurists and doctors depended on the patronage of the ruling families, the end of the Gaelic order brought their demise.
- Below that were freemen who owned land and cattle (for example the bóaire).
- Below that were freemen who did not own land or cattle, or who owned very little.
- Below that were the unfree, which included serfs and slaves. Slaves were typically criminals (debt slaves) or prisoners of war. There is no evidence to suggest that slavery in Gaelic Ireland was anything more than a marginal phenomenon of luxury for the nobles.
- The warrior bands (fianna) generally lived apart from society. A fian was typically composed of young men who had not yet come into their inheritance of land. A member of a fian was called a fénnid and the leader of a fian was a rígfénnid. Geoffrey Keating, in his 17th century History of Ireland, says that during the winter the fianna were quartered and fed by the nobility, during which time they would keep order on their behalf. But during the summer, from Bealtaine to Samhain, they were beholden to live by hunting for food and for hides to sell.
Although distinct, these ranks were not utterly exclusive castes like those of India. It was possible to rise or sink from one rank to another. Rising upward could be achieved a number of ways, such as by gaining wealth, by gaining skill in some department, by qualifying for a learned profession, by showing conspicuous valour, or by performing some service to the community. An example of the latter is a person choosing to become a briugu (hospitaller). A briugu had to have his house open to any guests, which included feeding no matter how big the group. For the briugu to fulfill these duties, he was allowed more land and privileges, but this could be lost if he ever refused guests.
A freeman could further himself by becoming the client of one or more lords. The lord made his client a grant of property (i.e. livestock or land) and, in return, the client owed his lord yearly payments of food and fixed amounts of work. The clientship agreement could last until the lord's death. If the client died, his heirs would carry on the agreement. This system of clientship enabled social mobility as a client could increase his wealth until he could afford clients of his own, thus becoming a lord. Clientship was also practised between nobles, which established hierarchies of homage and political support.
Gaelic law was originally passed down orally, but was written down in Old Irish during the period 600–900 AD. This collection of oral and written laws is known as the Fénechas or, in English, as the Brehon Law(s). The brehons (Old Irish: brithem, plural brithemain) were the jurists in Gaelic Ireland. Becoming a brehon took many years of training and the office was, or became, largely hereditary. Most legal cases were contested privately between opposing parties, with the brehons acting as arbitrators.
Offences against people and property were primarily settled by the offender paying compensation to the victims. Although any such offence required compensation, the law made a distinction between intentional and unintentional harm, and between murder and manslaughter. If an offender did not pay outright, his property was seized until he did so. Should the offender be unable to pay, his family would be responsible for doing so. Should the family be unable or unwilling to pay, responsibility would broaden to the wider kin-group. Hence, it has been argued that "the people were their own police". Acts of violence were generally settled by payment of compensation known as an éraic fine; the Gaelic equivalent of the Welsh galanas and the Germanic weregild. If a free person was murdered, the éraic was equal to 21 cows, regardless of the victim's rank in society. Each member of the murder victim's agnatic kin-group received a payment based on their closeness to the victim, their status, and so forth. There were separate payments for the kin-group of the victim's mother, and for the victim's foster-kin.
Execution seems to have been rare and carried out only as a last resort. If a murderer was unable/unwilling to pay éraic and was handed to his victim's family, they might kill him if they wished should nobody intervene by paying the éraic. Habitual or particularly serious offenders might be expelled from the kin-group and its territory. Such people became outlaws (with no protection from the law) and anyone who sheltered him became liable for his crimes. If he still haunted the territory and continued his crimes there, he was proclaimed in a public assembly and after this anyone might lawfully kill him.
Each person had an honour-price, which varied depending on their rank in society. This honour-price was to be paid to them if their honour was violated by certain offences. Those of higher rank had a higher honour-price. However, an offence against the property of a poor man (who could ill afford it), was punished more harshly than a similar offence upon a wealthy man. The clergy were more harshly punished than the laity. When a layman had paid his fine he would go through a probationary period and then regain his standing, but a clergyman could never regain his standing.
Most of the laws are pre-Christian in origin. These secular laws existed in parallel, and sometimes in conflict, with Church law. Although brehons usually dealt with legal cases, kings would have been able to deliver judgments also, but it is unclear how much they would have had to rely on brehons. Kings had their own brehons to deal with cases involving the king's own rights and to give him legal advice. Unlike other kingdoms in Europe, Gaelic kings—by their own authority—could not enact new laws as they wished and could not be "above the law". They could, however, enact temporary emergency laws. It was mainly through these emergency powers that the Church attempted to change Gaelic law.
The law texts take great care to define social status, the rights and duties that went with that status, and the relationships between people. For example, chieftains had to take responsibility for members of their fine, acting as a surety for some of their deeds and making sure debts were paid. He would also be responsible for unmarried women after the death of their fathers.
Marriage, women and children
Ancient Irish culture was patriarchal. The Brehon law excepted women from the ordinary course of the law so that, in general, every woman had to have a male guardian. However, women had some legal capacity. By the 8th century, the preferred form of marriage was one between social equals, under which a woman was technically legally dependent on her husband and had half his honor price, but could exercise considerable authority in regard to the transfer of property. Such women were called "women of joint dominion". Thus historian Patrick Weston Joyce could write that, relative to other European countries of the time, free women in Gaelic Ireland "held a good position" and their social and property rights were "in most respects, quite on a level with men".
Gaelic Irish society was also patrilineal, with land being primarily owned by men and inherited by the sons. Only when a man had no sons would his land pass to his daughters, and then only for their lifetimes. Upon their deaths, the land was redistributed among their father's male relations. Under Brehon law, rather than inheriting land, daughters had assigned to them a certain number of their father's cattle as their marriage-portion. It seems that, throughout the Middle Ages, the Gaelic Irish kept many of their marriage laws and traditions sundered from those of the Church. Under Gaelic law, married women could hold property independent of their husbands, a link was maintained between married women and their own families, couples could easily divorce or separate, and men could have concubines (which could be lawfully bought). These laws differed from most of contemporary Europe and from Church law.
The lawful age of marriage was fifteen for girls and eighteen for boys. Upon marriage, the families of the bride and bridegroom were expected to contribute to the match. It was custom for the bridegroom and his family to pay a coibche (modern spelling: coibhche) and the bride was allowed a share of it. If the marriage ended owing to a fault of the husband then the coibche was kept by the wife and her family, but if the fault lay with the wife then the coibche was to be returned. It was custom for the bride to receive a spréid (modern spelling: spréidh) from her family (or foster family) upon marriage. This was to be returned if the marriage ended through divorce or the death of the husband. Later, the spréid seems to have been converted into a dowry. Women could seek divorce/separation as easily as men could and, when obtained on her petition, she kept all the property she had brought her husband during their marriage. Trial marriages seem to have been popular among the rich and powerful, and thus it has been argued that cohabitation before marriage must have been acceptable. It also seems that the wife of a chieftain was entitled to some share of the chief's authority over his territory. This led to some Gaelic Irish wives wielding a great deal of political power.
Before the Norman invasion, it was common for priests and monks to have wives. This remained mostly unchanged after the Norman invasion, despite protests from bishops and archbishops. The authorities classed such women as priests' concubines and there is evidence that a formal contract of concubinage existed between priests and their women. However, unlike other concubines, they seem to have been treated just as wives were.
In Gaelic Ireland a kind of fosterage was common, whereby (for a certain length of time) children would be left in the care of other fine members, namely their mother's family, preferably her brother. This may have been used to strengthen family ties or political bonds. Foster parents were beholden to teach their foster children or to have them taught. Foster parents who had properly done their duties were entitled to be supported by their foster children in old age (if they were in need and had no children of their own). As with divorce, Gaelic law again differed from most of Europe and from Church law in giving legal standing to both "legitimate" and "illegitimate" children.
Settlements and architecture
For most of the Gaelic period, dwellings and farm buildings were circular with conical thatched roofs (see roundhouse). Square and rectangle-shaped buildings gradually became more common, and by the 14th or 15th century they had replaced round buildings completely. In some areas, buildings were made mostly of stone. In others, they were built of timber, wattle and daub, or a mix of materials. Most ancient and early medieval stone buildings were of dry stone construction. Some buildings would have had glass windows. It was common for women to have their own 'apartment' called a grianan (anglicized "greenan") in the sunniest part of the homestead.
The dwellings of freemen and their families were often surrounded by a circular rampart called a "ringfort". There are two main kinds of ringfort. The ráth is an earthen ringfort, averaging 30m diameter, with a dry outside ditch. The cathair or caiseal is a stone ringfort. The ringfort would typically have enclosed the family home, small farm buildings or workshops, and animal pens. Most date to the period 500–1000 CE and there is evidence of large-scale ringfort desertion at the end of the first millennium. The remains of between 30,000 and 40,000 lasted into the 19th century to be mapped by Ordnance Survey Ireland. Another kind of native dwelling was the crannóg, which were roundhouses built on artificial islands in lakes.
There were very few nucleated settlements in Gaelic areas. However, after the 5th century some monasteries became the heart of small "monastic towns". By the 10th century the Norse-Gaelic ports of Dublin, Wexford, Cork and Limerick had grown into substantial settlements. It was at this time, perhaps as a response to Viking raids, that many of the Irish round towers were built.
In the fifty years before the Norman invasion (1169), the term "castle" (Old Irish: caistél/caislén) appears in Gaelic writings, although there are no surviving examples of pre-Norman castles. After the invasion, the Normans built motte-and-bailey castles in the areas they occupied, some of which were converted from ringforts. By 1300 "some mottes, especially in frontier areas, had almost certainly been built by the Gaelic Irish in imitation". The Normans gradually replaced wooden motte-and-baileys with stone castles and tower houses. Tower houses are free-standing multi-storey stone towers usually surrounded by a wall (see bawn) and ancillary buildings. Gaelic families had begun to build their own tower houses by the 15th century. As many as 7000 may have been built, but they were rare in areas with little Norman settlement or contact. They are concentrated in counties Limerick and Clare but are lacking in Ulster, except the area around Strangford Lough.
In Gaelic law, a 'sanctuary' called a maighin digona surrounded each person's dwelling. The maighin digona's size varied according to the owner's rank. In the case of a bóaire it stretched as far as he, while sitting at his house, could cast a cnairsech (variously described as a spear or sledgehammer). The owner of a maighin digona could offer its protection to someone fleeing from pursuers, who would then have to bring that person to justice by lawful means.
Gaelic Ireland was involved in trade with Britain and mainland Europe from ancient times, and this trade increased over the centuries. Tacitus, for example, wrote in the 1st century that most of Ireland's harbours were known to the Romans through commerce. There are many passages in early Irish literature that mention luxury items imported from foreign lands, and the fair of Carman in Leinster included a market of foreign traders. In the Middle Ages the main exports were textiles such as wool and linen while the main imports were luxury items.
Money was seldom used in Gaelic society; instead, goods and services were usually exchanged for other goods and services. The economy was mainly a pastoral one, based on livestock (cows, sheep, pigs, goats, etc.) and their products. Cattle was "the main element in the Irish pastoral economy" and the main form of wealth, providing milk, butter, cheese, meat, fat, hides, and so forth. They were a "highly mobile form of wealth and economic resource which could be quickly and easily moved to a safer locality in time of war or trouble". The nobility owned great herds of cattle that had herdsmen and guards. Sheep, goats and pigs were also a valuable resource but had a lesser role in Irish pastoralism.
Horticulture was practised; the main crops being oats, wheat and barley, although flax was also grown for making linen.
Transhumance was also practised, whereby people moved with their livestock to higher pastures in summer and back to lower pastures in the cooler months. The summer pasture was called the buaile (anglicized as booley) and it is noteworthy that the Irish word for boy (buachaill) originally meant a herdsman. Many moorland areas were "shared as a common summer pasturage by the people of a whole parish or barony".
Gaelic Ireland was well furnished with roads and bridges. Bridges were typically wooden and the roads were sometimes laid with wood and stone. There were five main roads leading from Tara and many named roads are mentioned in literature.
Horses were one of the main means of long-distance transport. Although horseshoes and reins were used, the Gaelic Irish did not use saddles, stirrups or spurs. Every man was trained to spring from the ground on to the back of his horse (an ech-léim or "steed-leap") and they urged-on and guided their horses with a rod having a hooked goad at the end.
Two-wheeled and four-wheeled chariots (singular carbad) were used in Ireland from ancient times, both in private life and in war. They were big enough for two people, made of wickerwork and wood, and often had decorated hoods. The wheels were spoked, shod all round with iron, and were from three to four and a half feet high. Chariots were generally drawn by horses or oxen, with horse-drawn chariots being more common among chiefs and military men. War chariots furnished with scythes and spikes, like those of the ancient Gauls and Britons, are mentioned in literature.
Boats used in Gaelic Ireland include canoes, currachs and sailboats. Ferryboats were used to cross wide rivers and are often mentioned in the Brehon Laws as subject to strict regulations. Sometimes they were owned by individuals and sometimes they were the common property of those living round the ferry. Large boats were used for trade with mainland Europe.
Throughout the Middle Ages, the common clothing amongst the Gaelic Irish consisted of a brat (a woollen cloak) worn over a léine (a loose-fitting, long-sleeved tunic made of wool or linen). For men the léine went down to the thighs or knees and for women they were longer. Men sometimes wore tight-fitting truis on the legs, but otherwise went bare-legged. The brat was usually fastened with a crios (belt) and dealg (brooch), with men usually wearing the dealg at their shoulders and women at their chests. The ionar (a short, tight-fitting jacket) became popular later on. In Topographia Hibernica, written during the 1180s, Gerald de Barri wrote that the Irish commonly wore hoods at that time (perhaps forming part of the brat), while Edmund Spenser wrote in the 1580s that the brat was (in general) their main item of clothing. However, it is uncertain if Medieval Irish clothing fashions were influenced by other cultures they came in contact with, such as the Angles, Norse or the Romans. The discovery of the bog body in Gallagh indicates that during the Iron Age, wearing of animal skins was common. According to Gerald de Barri, most of the Irish he saw wore clothes made of black wool, apparently because most of the sheep in Ireland were black at that time. The number of colours worn came to betoken the rank or wealth of the wearer; the wealthy often wore cloth of many colours while the poor only wore cloth of one colour.
Women invariably grew their hair long and, as in other European cultures, this custom was also common among the men. It is said that the Gaelic Irish took great pride in their long hair—for example, a person could be forced to pay the heavy fine of two cows for shaving a man's head against his will. For women, very long hair was seen as a mark of beauty. Sometimes, both men and women would braid their hair and fasten hollow golden balls to the braids. Another style that was popular among some medieval Gaelic men was the glib (short all over except for a long, thick lock of hair towards the front of the head). A band or ribbon around the forehead was the typical way of holding one's hair in place. For the wealthy, this band was often a thin and bendy strip/ribbon of burnished gold, silver or findrinny. When the Anglo-Normans and the English colonized Ireland, hair length came to signify one's allegiance. Irishmen who cut their hair short were deemed to be forsaking their Irish heritage. Likewise, English colonists who grew their hair long at the back were deemed to be giving in to the Irish life.
Gaelic men typically let their facial hair grow into a beard and mustache, and it was often seen as dishonourable for a Gaelic man to have no facial hair. Beard styles varied – the long forked beard and the rectangular Mesopotamian-style beard were fashionable at times.
Warfare was common in Gaelic Ireland, as territories fought for supremacy against each other and (later) against the Anglo-Normans. Champion warfare is a common theme in Irish mythology. In the Middle Ages all able-bodied men, apart from the learned and the clergy, were eligible for military service on behalf of the king or chief. Throughout the Middle Ages and for some time after, outsiders often wrote that the style of Irish warfare differed greatly from what they deemed to be the norm in Western Europe. The Gaelic Irish preferred hit-and-run raids (the crech), which involved catching the enemy unaware. If this worked they would then seize any valuables (mainly livestock) and potentially valuable hostages, burn the crops, and escape. The cattle raid was often called a Táin Bó in Gaelic literature. Although hit-and-run raiding was the preferred tactic in medieval times, there were also pitched battles. From at least the 11th century, kings maintained small permanent fighting forces known as "troops of the household", who were often given houses and land on the king's mensal land. These were well-equipped professional soldiers made up of infantry and cavalry. By the reign of Brian Boru, Irish kings were taking large armies on campaign over long distances and using naval forces in tandem with land forces.
A typical medieval Irish army included light infantry, heavy infantry and cavalry. The bulk of the army was made-up of light infantry called ceithern (anglicized 'kern'). The ceithern wandered Ireland offering their services for hire and usually wielded swords, skenes (a kind of long knife), short spears, bows and shields. The cavalry was usually made-up of a king or chieftain and his close relatives. They usually rode without saddles but wore armour and iron helmets and wielded swords, skenes and long spears or lances. One kind of Irish cavalry was the hobelar. After the Norman invasion there emerged a kind of heavy infantry called gallóglaigh (anglicized 'gallo[w]glass'). They were originally Scottish mercenaries who appeared in the 13th century, but by the 15th century most large túatha had their own hereditary force of Irish gallóglaigh. Some Anglo-Norman lordships also began using gallóglaigh in imitation of the Irish. They usually wore mail and iron helmets and wielded sparth axes, claymores, and sometimes spears or lances. The gallóglaigh furnished the retreating plunderers with a "moving line of defence from which the horsemen could make short, sharp charges, and behind which they could retreat when pursued". As their armour made them less nimble, they were sometimes planted at strategic spots along the line of retreat. The kern, horsemen and gallóglaigh had lightly-armed servants to carry their weapons into battle.
Warriors were sometimes rallied into battle by blowing horns and warpipes. According to Gerald de Barri (in the 12th century), they did not wear armour, as they deemed it burdensome to wear and "brave and honourable" to fight without it. Instead, most ordinary soldiers fought semi-naked and carried only their weapons and a small round shield—Spenser wrote that these shields were covered with leather and painted in bright colours. Kings and chiefs sometimes went into battle wearing helmets adorned with eagle feathers. For ordinary soldiers, their thick hair often served as a helmet, but they sometimes wore simple helmets made from animal hides.
Artwork from Ireland's Gaelic period is found on pottery, jewellery, weapons, drinkware, tableware, stone carvings and illuminated manuscripts. Like other kinds of Celtic art, Irish art from about 300 BCE is part of the wider La Tène art style, which developed in west central Europe. By about 600 CE, after the Christianization of Ireland had begun, a style melding Celtic, Mediterranean and Germanic Anglo-Saxon elements emerged, and was spread to Britain and mainland Europe by the Hiberno-Scottish mission. This is known as Insular art or Hiberno-Saxon art, which continued in some form in Ireland until the 12th century, although the Viking invasions ended its "Golden Age". Most surviving works of Insular art were either made by monks or made for monasteries, with the exception of Celtic brooches, which were likely made and used by both clergy and laity. Examples of Insular art from Ireland include the Book of Kells, Muiredach's High Cross, the Tara Brooch, the Ardagh Hoard the Derrynaflan Chalice, and the late Cross of Cong, which also uses Viking styles.
Music and dance
Although Gerald de Barri had a negative view of the Irish, in Topographia Hibernica (1188) he conceded that they were more skilled at playing music than any other nation he had seen. He claimed that the two main instruments were the "harp" and "tabor" (see bodhrán), that their music was fast and lively, and that their songs always began and ended with B-flat. In A History of Irish Music (1905), W. H. Grattan Flood wrote that there were at least ten instruments in general use by the Gaelic Irish. These were the cruit (a small harp) and clairseach (a bigger harp with typically 30 strings), the timpan (a small string instrument played with a bow or plectrum), the feadan (a fife), the buinne (an oboe or flute), the guthbuinne (a bassoon-type horn), the bennbuabhal and corn (hornpipes), the cuislenna (bagpipes – see Great Irish Warpipes), the stoc and sturgan (clarions or trumpets), and the cnamha (castanets). He also mentions the fiddle as being used in the 8th century.
As mentioned before, Gaelic Ireland was split into many clann territories and kingdoms called túath (plural: túatha). Although there was no central 'government' or 'parliament', a number of local, regional and national gatherings were held. These combined features of assemblies and fairs.
In Ireland the highest of these was the feis at Teamhair na Rí (Tara), which was held every third Samhain. This was a gathering of the leading men of the whole island – kings, lords, chieftains, druids, judges etc. Below this was the óenach (modern spelling: aonach). These were regional or provincial gatherings open to everyone. Examples include that held at Tailtin each Lughnasadh, and that held at Uisneach each Bealtaine. The main purpose of these gatherings was to promulgate and reaffirm the laws – they were read aloud in public that they might not be forgotten, and any changes in them carefully explained to those present.
Each túath or clann had two assemblies of its own. These were the cuirmtig, which was open to all clann members, and the dal (a term later adopted for the Irish parliament – see Dáil Éireann), which was open only to clann chiefs. Each clann had a further assembly called a tocomra, in which the clann chief (toísech) and his deputy/successor (tanaiste) were elected.
List of clanna, túatha and kings
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400 to 800
800 to 1169
Ireland became Christianized between the 5th and 7th centuries. Pope Adrian IV, the only English pope, had already issued a Papal Bull in 1155 giving Henry II of England authority to invade Ireland as a means of curbing Irish refusal to recognize Roman law. Importantly, for later English monarchs, the Bull, Laudabiliter, maintained papal suzerainty over the island:
|“||There is indeed no doubt, as thy Highness doth also acknowledge, that Ireland and all other islands which Christ the Sun of Righteousness has illumined, and which have received the doctrines of the Christian faith, belong to the jurisdiction of St. Peter and of the holy Roman Church.||”|
In 1166, after losing the protection of High King Muirchertach Mac Lochlainn, the King of Leinster, Diarmait Mac Murchada, was forcibly exiled by a confederation of Irish forces under the new High King, Ruaidri mac Tairrdelbach Ua Conchobair. Fleeing first to Bristol and then to Normandy, Diarmait obtained permission from Henry II of England to use his subjects to regain his kingdom. By the following year, he had obtained these services and in 1169 the main body of Norman, Welsh and Flemish forces landed in Ireland and quickly retook Leinster and the cities of Waterford and Dublin on behalf of Diarmait. The leader of the Norman force, Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, more commonly known as Strongbow, married Diarmait's daughter, Aoife, and was named tánaiste to the Kingdom of Leinster. This caused consternation to Henry II, who feared the establishment of a rival Norman state in Ireland. Accordingly, he resolved to visit Leinster to establish his authority.
Henry landed in 1171, proclaiming Waterford and Dublin as Royal Cities. Adrian's successor, Pope Alexander III, ratified the grant of Ireland to Henry in 1172. The 1175 Treaty of Windsor between Henry and Ruaidhrí maintained Ruaidhrí as High King of Ireland but codified Henry's control of Leinster, Meath and Waterford. However, with Diarmuid and Strongbow dead, Henry back in England, and Ruaidhrí unable to curb his vassals, the high kingship rapidly lost control of the country. Henry, in 1185, awarded his younger son, John, the title Dominus Hiberniae, "Lord of Ireland". This kept the newly created title and the Kingdom of England personally and legally separate. However, when John unexpectedly succeeded his brother as King of England in 1199, the Lordship of Ireland fell back into personal union with the Kingdom of England.
By 1261, the weakening of the Anglo-Norman Lordship had become manifest following a string of military defeats. In the chaotic situation, local Irish lords won back large amounts of land. The invasion by Edward Bruce in 1315–18 at a time of famine weakened the Norman economy. The Black Death arrived in Ireland in 1348. Because most of the English and Norman inhabitants of Ireland lived in towns and villages, the plague hit them far harder than it did the native Irish, who lived in more dispersed rural settlements. After it had passed, Gaelic Irish language and customs came to dominate the country again. The English-controlled area shrank back to the Pale, a fortified area around Dublin. Outside the Pale, the Hiberno-Norman lords intermarried with Gaelic noble families, adopted the Irish language and customs and sided with the Gaelic Irish in political and military conflicts against the Lordship. They became known as the Old English, and in the words of a contemporary English commentator, were "more Irish than the Irish themselves."
The authorities in the Pale worried about the Gaelicisation of Norman Ireland, and passed the Statutes of Kilkenny in 1366 banning those of English descent from speaking the Irish language, wearing Irish clothes or inter-marrying with the Irish. The government in Dublin had little real authority. By the end of the fifteenth century, central English authority in Ireland had all but disappeared. England's attentions were diverted by the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453) and then by the Wars of the Roses (1450–85). Around the country, local Gaelic and Gaelicised lords expanded their powers at the expense of the English government in Dublin.
Gaelic kingdoms during the period
Following the failed attempt by the Scottish King Edward Bruce (see Irish Bruce Wars 1315–1318) to drive the Normans out of Ireland, there emerged a number of important Gaelic kingdoms and Gaelic-controlled lordships.
- Connacht. The Ó Conchobhair dynasty, despite their setback during the Bruce wars, had regrouped and ensured that the title King of Connacht was not yet an empty one. Their stronghold was in their homeland of Sil Muirdeag, from where they dominated much of northern and northeastern Connacht. However, after the death of Ruaidri mac Tairdelbach Ua Conchobair in 1384, the dynasty split into two factions, Ó Conchobhair Don and Ó Conchobhair Ruadh. By the late 15th century, internecine warfare between the two branches had weakened them to the point where they themselves became vassals of more powerful lords such as Ó Domhnaill of Tír Chonaill and the Clan Burke of Clanricarde. The Mac Diarmata Kings of Moylurg retained their status and kingdom during this era, up to the death of Tadhg Mac Diarmata in 1585 (last de facto King of Moylurg). Their cousins, the Mac Donnacha of Tír Ailella, found their fortunes bound to the Ó Conchobhair Ruadh. The kingdom of Uí Maine had lost much of its southern and western lands to the Clanricardes, but managed to flourish until repeated raids by Ó Domhnaill in the early 16th century weakened it. Other territories such as Ó Flaithbeheraigh of Iar Connacht, Ó Seachnasaigh of Aidhne, O'Dowd of Tireagh, O'Hara, Ó Gadhra and Ó Maddan, either survived in isolation or were vassals for greater men.
- Ulster: The Ulaid proper were in a sorry state all during this era, being squeezed between the emergent Ó Neill of Tír Eógain in the west, the MacDonnells, Clann Aodha Buidhe, and the Anglo-Normans from the east. Only Mag Aonghusa managed to retain a portion of their former kingdom with expansion into Iveagh. The two great success stories of this era were Ó Domhnaill of Tír Chonaill and Ó Neill of Tír Eógain. Ó Domhnaill was able to dominate much of northern Connacht to the detriment of its native lords, both Old English and Gaelic, though it took time to suborn the likes of Ó Conchobhair Sligigh and Ó Ruairc of Iar Breifne. Expansion southwards brought the hegemony of Tír Eógain, and by extension Ó Neill influence, well into the border lordships of Louth and Meath. Mag Uidir of Fear Manach would slightly later be able to build his lordship up to that of third most powerful in the province, at the expense of the Ó Ruaircs of Iar Breifne and the MacMahons of Airgíalla.
- Leinster: Likewise, despite the adverse (and unforeseen) effects of Diarmait Mac Murchada's efforts to regain his kingdom, the fact of the matter was that, of his twenty successors up to 1632, most of them had regained much of the ground they had lost to the Normans, and exacted yearly tribute from the towns. His most dynamic successor was the celebrated Art mac Art MacMurrough-Kavanagh. The Ó Broin and Ó Tuathail largely contented themselves with raids on Dublin (which, incredibly, continued into the 18th century). The Ó Mordha of Laois and Ó Conchobhair Falaighe of Offaly – the latter's capital was Daingean – were two self-contained territories that had earned the right to be called kingdoms due to their near-invincibility against successive generations of Anglo-Irish. The great losers were the Ó Melaghlins of Meath: their kingdom collapsed despite attempts by Cormac mac Art O Melaghlain to restore it. The royal family was reduced to vassal status, confined to the east shores of the River Shannon. The kingdom was substantially incorporated into the Lordship of Meath which was granted to Hugh de Lacy in 1172.
- Desmond: See Kingdom of Desmond, Barony of Carbery, Battle of Callann
- Thomond: Despite huge setbacks, the descendants of Brian Bóruma had, by surviving the Second Battle of Athenry and winning the decisive battles of Corcomroe and Dysert O'Dea, been able to suborn their vassals and eradicate the Normans from their home kingdom of Thomond. Their spheres of interest often met with conflict with Anglo-Normans such as the Earls of Desmond and Earls of Ormond, yet they ruled right up to the end of Gaelic Ireland, and beyond, by expedient of becoming the O'Brien Earls of Thomond.
From 1536, Henry VIII of England decided to conquer Ireland and bring it under English control. The FitzGerald dynasty of Kildare, who had become the effective rulers of the Lordship of Ireland (The Pale) in the 15th century, had become unreliable allies and Henry resolved to bring Ireland under English government control so the island would not become a base for future rebellions or foreign invasions of England. To involve the Gaelic nobility and allow them to retain their lands under English law the policy of surrender and regrant was applied.
In 1541, Henry upgraded Ireland from a lordship to a full kingdom, partly in response to changing relationships with the papacy, which still had suzerainty over Ireland, following Henry's break with the church. Henry was proclaimed King of Ireland at a meeting of the Irish Parliament that year. This was the first meeting of the Irish Parliament to be attended by the Gaelic Irish princes as well as the Hiberno-Norman aristocracy.
With the technical institutions of government in place, the next step was to extend the control of the Kingdom of Ireland over all of its claimed territory. This took nearly a century, with various English administrations in the process either negotiating or fighting with the independent Irish and Old English lords. The conquest was completed during the reigns of Elizabeth and James I, after several bloody conflicts.
The flight into exile in 1607 of Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone and Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell following their defeat at the Battle of Kinsale in 1601 and the suppression of their rebellion in Ulster in 1603 is seen as the watershed of Gaelic Ireland. It marked the destruction of Ireland's ancient Gaelic nobility following the Tudor conquest and cleared the way for the Plantation of Ulster. After this point, the English authorities in Dublin established real control over Ireland for the first time, bringing a centralised government to the entire island, and successfully disarmed the Gaelic lordships.
- Whilst Ireland had a single, strong, unifying culture, "patchwork" is a very common way to describe the political arrangement of Gaelic Ireland. For example:
- Dáibhí Ó Cróinín (1995), "Early medieval Ireland, 400–1200", in Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, Longman History of Ireland (London: Longman) 1: 110, ISBN 0-582-01566-9, "By the time of our earliest documentary evidence (law texts, genealogies, and annals), the vision of Ireland as a unitary state, ruled by a 'high-king', had apparently disappeared, to be replaced by a patchwork of local tribal kingdoms, each confident in its own distinctiveness."
- Michael Richter (2005), "Medieval Ireland: the Enduring Tradition", New Gill History of Ireland (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan) 1: 172, ISBN 0-7171-3293-5, "The political map of Ireland in the fifteenth century, like those of Germany and northern Italy at the time, resembles a patchwork, consisting of many elements of varying size."
- "After a period of relative quiet, Ireland was again invaded in the twelfth century. This time it was King Henry II and his Anglo-Norman barons from the neighboring island of Britain. The Ireland they found was still a regionalized patchwork of petty kingdoms. Henry set about consolidating the array of separate kingdoms into one kingdom, setting up a governing administration and instituting laws of a feudal society that rested on a hierarchy of authority under his kingship." – Patrick A. Lavin, Celtic Ireland West of the River Shannon
- "In 1023 Donnchad had his half-brother assassinated. He fought his way back to power in Munster, but that was as far as he could go. Brian's kingship of all Ireland has long since ended. He has not created a united kingdom of Ireland. Nor has he brought the Irish people together to fight the Viking outsiders. (Although in later centuries Irishmen came to believe that this is what he had done, and made Brian a national hero). In earlier centuries a few equally successfully Irish kings has claimed, just as Brian did, to be 'high king'. But none had tried to destroy the other kingdoms, and after their death the old pattern of many kingdoms had returned. After Brian's death in 1014 this happened once more. The map of eleventh-century Ireland remained a complicated patchwork quilt of scores of kingdoms. Like the Welsh, the Irish were united by language, law and culture, not by politics." – Mike Corbishley, Kenneth O Morgan, The young Oxford history of Britain & Ireland
- "When John succeeded to the throne in 1199, the lordship of Ireland was annexed to the kingdom of England. His policy was three-fold: to reduce the power of the older baronage in Ireland; to favour the Irish chiefs for policy's sake; and to build up a central government strong enough to override both. But this ambitious scheme failed to live up to expectations, and in the late thirteenth century the lordship of Ireland was 'less a lordship then a patchwork of lordships'." – David George Boyce, Nationalism in Ireland
- Jaski, Bart (2005). "Kings and kingship". In Seán Duffy. Medieval Ireland. An Encyclopedia. Abingdon and New York. pp. 251–254.
- Miranda Green. (1992:196) Animals in Celtic life and myth. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-05030-8
- Barry Cunliffe, The Ancient Celts. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997, pp.208–210. ISBN 0-19-815010-5.
- The Celts in The Encyclopedia of World Mythology, Dr Ray Dunning, page 91
- Koch, John (ed). Celtic Culture: a historical encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2006, p. 332
- Nicholls, Kenneth (2008) . "Chapter 14: Gaelic society and economy". In Cosgrove, Art. A New History of Ireland, Volume II: Medieval Ireland 1169–1534. Oxford University Press. pp. 397–438.
- The Brehon Laws: A Legal Handbook: Chapter IV, Laurence Ginnell (1894)
- Simms, Katharine (2000) . From Kings to Warlords: The Changing Political Structure of Gaelic Ireland in the Later Middle Ages. Boydell & Brewer. p. 79.
- Duffy, Seán, ed. (2005). Medieval Ireland: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. p. 11.
- The Brehon Laws: A Legal Handbook: Chapter V, Laurence Ginnell (1894)
- Hutton, Ronald, The Druids (London: HambledonContinuum, 2007) p2
- Jefferies, Dr. Henry A. "Culture and Religion in Tudor Ireland, 1494–1558". University College Cork. Retrieved 23 June 2008.
- Duffy, Seán, ed. (2005). Medieval Ireland: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. p. 713.
- Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, Early Medieval Ireland, Longman, 1995, p. 88
- Dictionary of the Irish Language, Compact Edition, Royal Irish Academy, 1990, pp. 299, 507
- Geoffrey Keating, Foras Feasa ar Éirinn 2.45
- Fergus Kelly, A Guide to Early Irish Law, pp. 36–7
- Duffy, Seán, ed. (2005). Medieval Ireland: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. pp. 72–74.
- The Brehon Laws: A Legal Handbook: Chapter I, Laurence Ginnell (1894)
- The Brehon Laws: A Legal Handbook: Chapter VII, Laurence Ginnell (1894)
- Fergus Kelly, A Guide to Early Irish Law, pp. 23–5, 52
- Fergus Kelly, A Guide to Early Irish Law, p. 21-22
- Fergus Kelly, A Guide to Early Irish Law, 13–14
- Encyclopædia Britannica (10th ed.), 1902, p. 639
- Encyclopædia Britannica (6th ed.), 1823, p. 588
- Joyce, Patrick Weston. A Smaller Social History of Ancient Ireland (1906). Chapter 15 part 2. Library Ireland.
- Kenny, Gillian (2006). "Anglo-Irish and Gaelic marriage laws and traditions in late medieval Ireland". Journal of Medieval History (Elsevier) 32.
- Connolly, Sean J (2007). "Chapter 2: Late Medieval Ireland: The Irish". Contested island: Ireland 1460–1630. Oxford University Press. pp. 20–24.
- The Brehon Laws: A Legal Handbook: Chapter VIII, Laurence Ginnell (1894)
- Joyce, Patrick Weston. A Smaller Social History of Ancient Ireland (1906). Chapter 16 part 1. Library Ireland.
- Joyce, Patrick Weston. A Smaller Social History of Ancient Ireland (1906). Chapter 16 part 2. Library Ireland.
- Barry, Terry. Rural settlement in Ireland in the middle ages: an overview. Ruralia 1 (1995).
- O'Keeffe, Tadhg. Rural settlement and cultural identity in Gaelic Ireland. Ruralia 1 (1995).
- Glasscock, Robin Edgar (2008) . "Chapter 8: Land and people, c.1300". In Cosgrove, Art. A New History of Ireland, Volume II: Medieval Ireland 1169–1534. Oxford University Press. pp. 205–239.
- Tacitus, Agricola 24
- Joyce, Patrick Weston. A Smaller Social History of Ancient Ireland (1906). Chapter 24 part 5. Library Ireland.
- Evans, E Estyn (2000). "Bally and Booley". Irish Folk Ways. Courier Dover Publications. pp. 27–38.
- Joyce, Patrick Weston. A Smaller Social History of Ancient Ireland (1906). Chapter 24 part 1. Library Ireland.
- Joyce, Patrick Weston. A Smaller Social History of Ancient Ireland (1906). Chapter 24 part 3. Library Ireland.
- Joyce, Patrick Weston. A Smaller Social History of Ancient Ireland (1906). Chapter 24 part 2. Library Ireland.
- Joyce, Patrick Weston. A Smaller Social History of Ancient Ireland (1906). Chapter 24 part 4. Library Ireland.
- Logan, James (1831). The Scottish Gael. Smith, Elder and Co.
- Connolly, Sean J (2007). "Prologue". Contested island: Ireland 1460–1630. Oxford University Press. p. 7.
- The Topography of Ireland by Giraldus Cambrensis (English translation)
- Joyce, Patrick Weston. A Smaller Social History of Ancient Ireland (1906). Chapter 18 part 1. Library Ireland.
- Bartlett, Robert (1994), "Symbolic Meanings of Hair in the Middle Ages", Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Sixth series 4: 43–60, doi:10.2307/3679214, ISSN 0080-4401
- Irish frontier warfare: a fifteenth-century case study. Cormac Ó Cléirigh (1997)
- Duffy, Seán, ed. (2005). Medieval Ireland: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. pp. 54–55.
- Flanagan, Marie Therese (1996). "Warfare in Twelfth-Century Ireland". A Military History of Ireland. Cambridge University Press. pp. 52–75.
- A History of Irish Music: Chapter III: Ancient Irish musical instruments, William H. Grattan Flood (1905)
- Malachy McCourt (2004) Malachy McCourt's History of Ireland, Running Press: "In the Treaty of Windsor, Rory accepted Henry II as the overlord and promised to pay annual tribute gathered from all of Ireland to him. For his part, Rory would remain King of Connaught and High King of all unconquered lands in Ireland."
- Kelly, Fergus (1988). A Guide to Early Irish Law. Early Irish Law Series 3. Dublin: DIAS. ISBN 0901282952.
- Duffy, Patrick J.; David Edwards; Elizabeth FitzPatrick, ed. (2001). Gaelic Ireland, c. 1250—c.1650: land, landlordship and settlement. Dublin: Four Courts Press.
- Fitzpatrick, Elizabeth (2004). Royal inauguration in Gaelic Ireland c. 1100–1600: a cultural landscape study. Studies in Celtic History 22. Woodbridge: Boydell.
- Mooney, Canice (1969). The Church in Gaelic Ireland, thirteenth to fifteenth centuries. A History of Irish Catholicism 2/5. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan.
- Nicholls, Kenneth W. (2003) . Gaelic and Gaelicised Ireland in the Middle Ages (2nd ed.). Dublin: Lilliput Press.
- Simms, Katherine (1987). From kings to warlords: the changing political structure of Gaelic Ireland in the later Middle Ages. Studies in Celtic History 7. Woodbridge: Boydell. | <urn:uuid:d45fa093-f239-4be4-bbe1-270b13cd750a> | {
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Definition of solanaceous in English:
Relating to or denoting plants of the nightshade family (Solanaceae).
- Tropane alkaloids of medicinal application, such as hyoscyamine and scopolamine are found in a limited number of solanaceous plants.
- To date, systemin has been described for tomato only, and not even for other solanaceous plants such as tobacco.
- In general, it is not a good practice to plant brambles immediately after solanaceous or other Verticillium-susceptible crops, such as tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, eggplant, melons, strawberries and other related crops.
Early 19th century: from modern Latin Solanaceae (plural), based on Latin solanum 'nightshade' + -ous.
Definition of solanaceous in:
- US English dictionary
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The knee-high hike activity gives kids a whole new perspective on their favorite outdoor pastime.
Take kids out on their next short hike on all fours, just like a puma, chipmunk, or hyena, and their outdoor perspective is bound to change.
What You'll Need:
- Long, sturdy pants
- Protective gloves
Be sure to dress kids in pants sturdy at the knees and give them gloves to protect their hands. Then head for the trail. Ask them what they see from this animal-like position. What do they smell? How do they feel? Do the kids begin to get a sense of how vulnerable some creatures of the wild might be? It's a whole new world.
To take kids out on the trails that our ancestors took (at knee-high or regular height), check out the activities on the next page. | <urn:uuid:146bf718-fd7b-4626-b5ea-f9908b473378> | {
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Despite the popular notion that most weapons found in video games or films about the future of warfare are entirely fictional, it is becoming clear that the technology is already here. Or at least the foundations are being built that can lead to surprising advancements in the near future.
In 2007, a British tank was made invisible by coating the tank in silicon, and utilizing cameras to project whatever images were visible behind the tank to make it blend in to the environment. Surprisingly, British soldiers present were unable to notice the tank while its cameras (And thus it’s “invisibility”) were active. This ability was expected to be placed on tanks capable for combat by the year 2012, though problems in the system’s reliability has prevented this thus far; however, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) in the United States has been developing a similar technology, although it’s status is currently unknown.
Another robotic piece of technology most people would have never imagined is in development is the aptly named “Blob Bot” by iRobot and the University of Chicago. The “Blob Bot” is capable of morphing it’s shape and moving around, with the capability of being able to squeeze through cracks being a major highlight, and is currently being fitted with sensors, making it an extremely unusual surveillance device.
An assault rifle named the Metal Storm Advanced Infantry Combat Weapon (AICW) sets itself apart by rather than the usual system of ammunition being stored in a detachable magazine, the ammunition is stored in the barrel itself. The AICW also includes the Metal Storm 40mm grenade launcher, which also shares this system. It has the appearance of similar 40mm grenade launchers, but actually contains three grenades stacked on each other.
These are just an example of the future advancements in weaponry that can be expected in the near future. | <urn:uuid:04f010f0-995c-4a6b-970e-99a3135ebc80> | {
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Last update: September 17th, 2019 at 8:00 am
Shiveluch and Klyuchevskaya Volcanoes on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula released simultaneous plumes on September 11, 2006, as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite passed overhead. In this image, Shiveluch’s plume is thicker and more noticeable, but Klyuchevskaya’s plume is also discernible. Both plumes are especially easy to detect over the dark blue waters of the Bering Sea. The pale color of both plumes suggests that water vapor predominates, although the plumes likely also contain some volcanic ash.
Shiveluch (sometimes spelled Sheveluch) is a stratovolcano—a steep-sloped volcano made from alternating layers of solidified ash, hardened lava, and volcanic rocks. One of Kamchatka’s largest volcanoes, it has a summit elevation of 3,283 meters (10,771 feet). Shiveluch is also one of Kamchatka’s most active volcanoes, with an estimated 60 substantial eruptions in the past 10,000 years.
Klyuchevskaya (sometimes spelled Klyuchevskoy or Kliuchevskoi) is also a stratovolcano, and the most active volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula. It is also the peninsula’s tallest, with a summit elevation of 4,835 meters (15,863 feet). Since its formation some 6,000 years ago, Klyuchevskaya has seen few periods of inactivity, and the volcano is estimated to have experienced more than 100 flank eruptions in the past 3,000 years.
Both Shiveluch and Klyuchevskaya are part of the Pacific “Ring of Fire.” Kamchatka experiences regular seismic activity as the Pacific Plate slides below other tectonic plates in the Earth’s crust.
Credit: NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. | <urn:uuid:1fa51ef9-e6dd-4ba2-8c77-4dbc68a54e12> | {
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Synopses & Reviews
The aims of the book - written by a practising engineer for practising engineers - are to provide an understanding of the basic principles of sonar and, to develop formulae and "rules of thumb" for sonar design and performance analysis. Ashley Waite uses his long experience in the design, trials and performance analysis of sonar systems to provide practical guidance and solutions to problems encountered by sonar engineers and technicians.
The books divides into the following parts:
* Equipment parameters: the motion of sound in an elastic medium; definitions of sound intensity and source level; the use of projector arrays to increase the source level; the use of hydrophone arrays to improve the signal to noise ratio of a wanted sound.
* The propagation of sound in the sea and the backgrounds to detection: spreading and absorption losses; propagation modes and simple modelling; noise and reverberation; the sonar equations
* Practical sonar systems: passive and active sonar systems; passive broadband, narrowband, intercept and communications (as a special case of intercept) sonars; active sonars for the detection of submarines, mines and torpedoes.
Sonar for Practising Engineers, third edition, covers all aspects of sonar systems and has extensive worked examples. No prior knowledge of sonar is assumed and the physical principles and mathematics will be readily understood by engineers, technicians and students of underwater acoustics. New to this edition, are end-of-chapter exercises and solutions for self assessment and training.
The first book exclusively on sonar and sonar technology. Written by an engineer (with over 40 years of experience in the field) for engineers. Taking an engineering approach rather than a physics/math one it provides an understanding of the basic principles of sonar and develops the formulae and "rules of thumb" for sonar design and performance analysis.
Written by an engineer for engineers, this book takes an engineering approach rather than a physics/math one. It provides an understanding of the basic principles of Sonar and develops the formulae and rules of thumb for sonar design and performance analysis.
Das erste Buch für Ingenieure, das sich ausschließlich Sonaren und Sonartechnologien widmet! Der Autor verfügt über vierzig Jahre Erfahrung auf diesem Gebiet und verfolgt einen weniger physikalisch-mathematischen als vielmehr praxisnahen Ansatz. Ausgehend von der Erklärung grundlegender Arbeitsprinzipien des Sonars werden Formalismen und Faustregeln für den Entwurf und die Leistungsanalyse erarbeitet. Besprochen werden u.a. Anordnungen zur Richtungsbündelung, Rauschquellen sowie Anwendungen in der Kommunikationstechnik.
About the Author
ASHLEY WAITE retired from the UK Ministry of Defence in 1990 after 40 years of Underwater Warfare Research at Portland. He then joined Thomson Marconi Sonar (now Thales Underwater Systems Limited) as a Consultant for a further 10 years. He still maintains an involvement with sonar in a freelance capacity.
Table of Contents
About the Author.
Propagation of Sound in the Sea.
Noise in Sonar Systems.
The Sonar Equations.
Echo Sounding and Side Scan Sonars.
Mine Hunting Sonars.
Intercept and Communications Sonars.
Active Sonar Design.
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Is Popcorn the Next Super Food?
Popcorn, one of America's favorite snacks, typically falls under the junk food category. However, eating the right kernels may provide you with more antioxidants than some fruits and vegetables.
Conducted by the University of Scranton in Scranton, Pennsylvania, researchers analyzed the nutritional value of several brands of popcorn. They found that the hull of the kernel, the crunchy, golden center, has an exceptionally high concentration of polyphenols. In fact, popcorn has nearly double the polyphenol content of most produce. These antioxidants help fight harmful molecules that damage cells and pack a variety of benefits from building healthier skin to preventing cancer.
The reason popcorn has such a high concentration of these antioxidants, according to researchers, is because of the kernel's low water content. Popcorn is approximately four percent water—compared to most fruits and vegetables clocking in at about 90 percent.
What's more, popcorn is one of the only snacks that is 100 percent whole grain. Since the average American gets only half of their daily value from whole grains, this could be an enjoyable way to fill the gap.
Eater beware: Not all popcorn is created equal. According to analysis conducted by the Center for Science and Public Interest (CSPI) and published by CBS News, a large popcorn at the movies is approximately 1,160 calories and nearly 60 grams of fat. What's more, some critics of the Scranton study say that the hull of a popcorn kernel is mainly comprised of insoluble fiber meaning much of what you eat goes undigested.
If you want to ensure you're getting all of the antioxidant punch you need to maintain healthy skin, fight off cancer, and inflammation, make sure you're not using popcorn as a substitute for other fare. The following foods are nutrient and antioxidant rich—not to mention delicious:
- Alfalfa sprouts
Popcorn Study Puts Scranton Faculty Member and Student in National Spotlight
Movie Popcorn Has Shocking Calories, Fat
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The material on the QualityHealth Web site is for informational purposes only, and is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment provided by a physician or other qualified health provider. See additional information. | <urn:uuid:76080070-f9f4-4459-aff6-f08e720c27d0> | {
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OAKLAND, Calif. — So much of empathy seems to be determined by the position we occupy in the world. If you’re around certain types of people and see them as equals, you’re more likely to relate to them and understand what they’re going through. A recent article in the New York Times pointed out that “Rich People Just Care Less”:
While Mr. Keltner’s research finds that the poor, compared with the wealthy, have keenly attuned interpersonal attention in all directions, in general, those with the most power in society seem to pay particularly little attention to those with the least power. To be sure, high-status people do attend to those of equal rank — but not as well as those low of status do.
It echoes a bit a recent piece from Racialicious that looked at research on how the skin color of someone being harmed affects how much we empathize with them:
“All things being equal, if you show a person an imag[e] of a dark- and a light-skinned person being harmed, they will most likely react more strongly to the latter. Studies have found evidence of this using both self-report and measures of brain activity. Notably, both Black and White people respond similarly.”
And then there’s a piece from NPR that notes that “Power fundamentally changes how the brain operates.” Those who felt less powerful also had higher levels of empathy for other people.
There’s an obvious challenge here. Those with power by definition have the greatest ability to effect positive change in social situations, and yet they also seem to be the ones who have the least empathy. Exposure to other lifestyles might help, but having power means having the power to control your social environment and thus block out the lives and concerns of those around you. It’s a difficult bridge to cross.
One article that’s been making the rounds lately is a study from the New School that suggests that reading literary fiction actually improves our ability to step into another person’s mindset. “Features of the modern literary novel set it apart from most bestselling thrillers or romances. Through the use of […] stylistic devices, literary fiction defamiliarizes its readers,” noted the study’s authors in a press release. “Just as in real life, the worlds of literary fiction are replete with complicated individuals whose inner lives are rarely easily discerned but warrant exploration.”
Another recent study from USC looked at theater exercises as a method of promoting empathy amongst medical students. “Despite the challenges and lessons learned,” noted the study’s authors after examining some of the hurdles the students faced in the exercise, “the theater workshop was an innovative and emotionally powerful attempt to foster empathy in medical students.” Meanwhile, a piece in EducationNext pointed at how visiting art museums can actually increase tolerance, with more pronounced effects amongst people from rural and impoverished regions.
None of these studies points to art as a panacea, but they at least suggest that art, media and literary fiction can have an impact. And with increasing socioeconomic divides in the United States and other countries, art seems more important than ever as a bridge to empathy for those who are less fortunate. The trick, of course, is getting people to cross it. | <urn:uuid:7ea8ea2f-6aaf-4614-88ec-22999dee6f4e> | {
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There can be no telling of the stories of Africa without reference to the long train of brutal wars that have afflicted her, for centuries.
For over 400 years Africa’s western coasts and southern regions were plundered of its human and material capital by the naval powers of Europe. Millions of the youngest, most vital people were bundled up and sent into foreign captivity for hundreds of years.
For over 1,000 years Arab states to the north wreaked havoc upon Africa’s eastern coasts, and southcentral regions. They walked millions of women and children for hundreds of miles north, to provide labor and pleasure for their wealthy elites.
Those thoughts came to mind as I discussed African history with a recent acquaintance who is an African historian (let’s call him Professor Mike).
Professor Mike, who has spent decades teaching history to Americans, lamented the economic devastation now experienced in his native country, Zimbabwe. A nation of some 12 million people, Zimbabwe just gained it’s political independence in 1980. The terms of the peace agreement, called the Lancaster House accords, promised political independence to the African majority, but not surprisingly, it left economic relationships untouched. Thus, Zimbabweans gained ‘independence’ in a nation where some 2% of the population (whites) owned about 70% of the land! This was a recipe for eventual disaster.
“Zimbabwe is an economic basket case!,” Professor Mike exclaimed, and, as if to illustrate his point, he cited the recent receipt of a letter from the capital city of Harare. In the mid-1980s, the letter cost between 50 cents and $1.00 (in Zimbabwe dollars). The 1986-era letter bore one stamp.
A 2003 letter received from the same city was ablaze with stamps. A simple letter, in order to survive deposit and mailing to the United States bore over $5,000 (!) worth of stamps! *Five Thousand*!
The most recent letter’s cost reflects the deep hyper-inflation ravaging the economy as it starves for foreign exchange. Because Zimbabwe dared to try to return some of the vast, stolen land-holdings to Zimbabweans, the U.S. and the former colonial power, Britain, have waged a relentless economic war against the country, using the IMF and the World Bank.
When the Mugabe government was letting the white minority live on stolen African land like princes of the Delta Queen, neither the British nor the Americans had much criticism, for their people were profiting from this new kind of colonialism.
But things have changed. While Mugabe’s cronies have indeed received land, millions of the majority Shona and Ndebele, many whom have worked the land from antiquity, are not given the security of ownership of the land of their fathers. Victims, years ago, of the wealthy white elites, who exploited their labor and resources, they now fall victim to a new African elite, who want to grow rich under the new dispensation.
Sadly, Professor Mike explains, “People are starving today in Zimbabwe.” It troubles him deeply that, in a country with so much potential wealth in natural minerals and resources, people are in such a bad way. Zimbabwe is rich in gold, chromium, nickel and other minerals. It’s colonial agriculture was devoted to serving external needs, and it became a major exporter of tobacco, sugar and cotton. These features survived into the ‘independence’ era, and survives today. The late Ghanaian leader, Kwame Nkrumah once warned, “Political independence, without economic independence, is but an illusion.” The plight of Zimbabwe (as well as many other African countries) demonstrates the truth of that adage.
Hours after our meeting, Professor Mike’s words kept ringing in my ear: ‘… people are starving!…’; ‘Zimbabwe is an economic basket-case…’ It was saddening.
I thought of recent works I’d read by African scholars and artists, which, in their own ways, spoke of similar conditions in other parts of Africa.
It seemed that Africa was still at war, still under attack by foreigners; still exploited and raped. Sad, but true. | <urn:uuid:284e2e47-0b68-40a0-9168-65de755d8a05> | {
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Methods | Statistics | Clinical | Educational | Industrial | Professional items | World psychology |
In a social theory context, reflexivity is an act of self-reference where examination or action 'bends back on', refers to, and affects the entity instigating the action or examination.
For example, a sentence is reflexive when it refers to itself, such as: 'this sentence is written in French'. The statement need not be true to be reflexive.
The concept of reflexivity
In social theory, reflexivity may occur when theories in a discipline should apply equally forcefully to the discipline itself, for example in the case that the theories of knowledge construction in the field of Sociology of Scientific Knowledge should apply equally to knowledge construction by Sociology of Scientific Knowledge practitioners, or when the subject matter of a discipline should apply equally well to the individual practitioners of that discipline, for example when psychological theory should explain the psychological mental processes of psychologists. More broadly, reflexivity is considered to occur when the observations or actions of observers in the social system affect the very situations they are observing, or theory being formulated is disseminated to and affects the behaviour of the individuals or systems the theory is meant to be objectively modelling. Thus for example an anthropologist living in an isolated village may affect the village and the behaviour of its citizens that he or she is studying. The observations are not independent of the participation of the observer.
Reflexivity is, therefore, a methodological issue in the social sciences analogous to the observer principle. Within that part of recent sociology of science that has been called the strong programme, reflexivity is suggested as a methodological norm or principle, meaning that a full theoretical account of the social construction of, say, scientific, religious or ethical knowledge systems, should itself be explainable by the same principles and methods as used for accounting for these other knowledge systems. This points to a general feature of naturalised epistemologies, that such theories of knowledge allows for specific fields of research to elucidate other fields as part of an overall self-reflective process: Any particular field of research occupied with aspects of knowledge processes in general (e.g., history of science, cognitive science, sociology of science, psychology of perception, semiotics, logic, neuroscience) may reflexively study other such fields yielding to an overall improved reflection on the conditions for creating knowledge.
The principle of reflexivity was perhaps first enunciated by the sociologist William Thomas (1923, 1928) as the Thomas theorem: that 'the situations that men define as true, become true for them.'
Sociologist Robert K. Merton (1948, 1949) built on the Thomas principle to define the notion of a self-fulfilling prophecy: that once a prediction or prophecy is made, actors may accommodate their behaviours and actions so that a statement that would have been false becomes true or, conversely, a statement that would have been true becomes false - as a consequence of the prediction or prophecy being made. The prophecy has a constitutive impact on the outcome or result, changing the outcome from what would otherwise have happened.
Reflexivity was taken up as an issue in science in general by Popper (1957), who called it the 'Oedipal effect', and more comprehensively by Nagel (1961). Reflexivity presents a problem for science because if a prediction can lead to changes in the system that the prediction is made in relation to, it becomes difficult to assess scientific hypotheses by comparing the predictions they entail with the events that actually occur. The problem is even more difficult in the social sciences.
Reflexivity has been taken up as the issue of "reflexive prediction" in economic science by Grunberg and Modigliani (1954) and Herbert Simon (1954), has been debated as a major issue in relation to the Lucas Critique, and has been raised as a methodological issue in economic science arising from the issue of reflexivity in the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK) literature.
Reflexivity has emerged as both an issue and a solution in modern approaches to the problem of structure and agency, for example in the work of Anthony Giddens in his structuration theory and Pierre Bourdieu in his genetic structuralism.
Giddens, for example, noted that constitutive reflexivity is possible in any social system, and that this presents a distinct methodological problem for the social sciences. Giddens accentuated this theme with his notion of "reflexive modernity" - the argument that, over time, society is becoming increasingly more self-aware, reflective, and hence reflexive.
Bourdieu argued that the social scientist is inherently laden with biases, and only by becoming reflexively aware of those biases can the social scientists free themselves from them and aspire to the practice of an objective science. For Bourdieu, therefore, reflexivity is part of the solution, not the problem.
The problem of reflexivity
Flanagan (1981) and others have argued that reflexivity complicates all three of the traditional roles that are typically played by a classical science: explanation, prediction and control.
The fact that individuals and social collectivities are capable of self-inquiry and adaptation is a key characteristic of real-world social systems, differentiating the social sciences from the physical sciences.
Reflexivity, therefore, raises real issues regarding the extent to which the social sciences may ever be 'hard' sciences analogous to classical physics, and raises questions about the nature of the social sciences.
- Experimenter effect
- Goodhart's law
- Hawthorne effect
- Observer effect
- Lucas critique
- Self fulfilling prophecy
- George Soros
- Thomas theorem
References and further reading
- Bartlett, S. J. and P. Suber (editors). (1987). Self-Reference: Reflections on Reflexivity, Dordrecht, Boston, and Lancaster, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
- Bourdieu, Pierre (1992). Invitation to a Reflexive Sociology. University of Chicago Press.
- Bryant, C. G. A. (2002). 'George Soros's theory of reflexivity: a comparison with the theories of Giddens and Beck and a consideration of its practical value', Economy and Society, 31 (1), pp. 112-131.
- Flanagan, O. J. (1981). 'Psychology, progress, and the problem of reflexivity: a study in the epistemological foundations of psychology', Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 17, pp. 375-386.
- Grunberg, E. and F. Modigliani (1954). 'The predictability of social events', Journal of Political Economy, 62 (6), pp. 465-478.
- Merton, R. K. (1948). 'The self-fulfilling prophecy', Antioch Review, 8, pp. 193-210.
- Merton, R. K. (1949/1957), Social Theory and Social Structure (rev. edn.), The Free Press, Glencoe, IL.
- Nagel, E. (1961), The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation, Harcourt, New York.
- Popper, K. (1957), The Poverty of Historicism, Harper and Row, New York.
- Simon, H. (1954). 'Bandwagon and underdog effects of election predictions', Public Opinion Quarterly, 18, pp. 245-253.
- Thomas, W. I. (1923), The Unadjusted Girl : With Cases and Standpoint for Behavior Analysis, Little, Brown, Boston, MA.
- Thomas, W. I. and D. S. Thomas (1928), The Child in America : Behavior Problems and Programs, Knopf, New York.
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Diagnostic of of vitamin B12 deficiency
Tests to prove the vitamin B12 deficiency
HOW TO TEST THE DEFICIT OF VITAMIN B12 OR COBALAMINE
How is a vitamin B12 deficiency known?
Deficiency of vitamin B12 (cobalamin) is a serious illness that must always be diagnosed and treated by a doctor. Fortunately, this deficit is easy to prevent by supplementing risk populations that may present a deficit B12:
Risk of vitamin B12 deficiency
A vegetarian diet can be healthy but it is deficient in vitamin B12, so it would be advisable to take supplements
The doctor can initially intuit a possible deficit of this vitamin if the person fulfills any of the following characteristics:
- People who follow a vegan diet (without food of animal origin)
- People who follow a vegetarian diet (low consumption of eggs and dairy)
- People following a diet with very few products of animal origin
- Pregnant and lactating women, especially if they are vegetarian
- Vegetarian babies, children and youth, who have high B12 requirements
- Infants, children and young people whose parents follow a vegetarian diet, even if they are not strictly vegetarian
- Elderly, even if they are not vegetarians, because with age decreases absorption capacity
Diagnosis of vitamin B12 deficiency
The doctor is the person in charge of diagnosing a deficiency of vitamin B12. For this, the doctor will perform a physical examination, evaluation of symptoms and blood tests. Urine tests may also be needed.
How is vitamin B12 deficiency or insufficiency determined?
It is recommended that vegetarians perform a specific analysis to determine the levels of this vitamin in the body. Generally the analysis consists of the following parameters:
- Mean corpuscular volume (VCM) of erythrocytes
- Levels of vitamin B12
- Homocysteine levels
- Levels of methylmalonic acid
With these values it is possible to determine the degree of lack of this vitamin that they present, if it is the case.
In severe cases, an encephalogram is performed to see if there are changes in the brain.
Symptoms that may indicate lack of vitamin B12. Deficiency in this vitamin leads to serious complications such as anemia, but only with these symptoms can not be diagnosed.
VALUES ALTERED IN THE VITAMIN B12 DEFICIT TESTS
Analysis to determine a deficit of B12
There are some values that allow to differentiate the deficit of B12 from the lack of other vitamins or causes that can give the same symptoms. For example, anemia can be due to lack of folic acid (vitamin B9), lack of iron, insufficient diet, digestive diseases or other causes.
It is possible to measure the amount of circulating vitamin B12 in the blood, although the results can be altered if the person consumes algae and foods with vitamin B12 analogues.
All of the following values help diagnose a lack of vitamin B12 or cobalamin:
- Megaloblastic anemia (macrocytic normochromic), low hematocrit
- In severe B12 deficiencies, histological examinations may be altered: Thrombocytopenia, coagulation problems, macrocytosis and neutrophil hypersegmentation
- Neuropathy due to degeneration of the myelin sheath.
Mean corpuscular volume (VCM) of erythrocytes
It tells us the size of erythrocytes or red blood cells. When vitamin B12 is missing, the size of these cells appears slightly increased because they can not be divided.
Although this parameter could be due to the lack or deficit of other vitamins or components, its increase, together with the other values, may indicate a cobalamin deficiency.
High levels of methylmalonic acid
In any vitamin B12 deficiency there is an increase in levels of methylmalonic acid, which is the main characteristic of B12 deficiency, which differentiates it from folic acid deficiency. Vegetarians should analyze what levels of methylmalonic acid present to determine possible subclinical B12 deficits.
The increase in methylmalonic acid is due to the lack of activity of the methylmalonyl-CoA mutase enzyme, which requires cobalamin (vitamin B12) as the coenzyme to produce Succinyl-CoA (which will subsequently be used to form erythrocytes).
Therefore, methylmalonic acid accumulates because Succinyl-CoA can not be formed, because of the decreased activity of the enzyme methylmalonyl-CoA mutase, which uses B12 as cofactor. This leads to decreased synthesis of the heme group (no red blood cells can be formed) and decreased gluconeogenesis.
The explanatory scheme of the reaction is as follows:
Scheme of the reaction performed by vitamin B12 as a coenzyme. The B12 deficit produces increased levels of methylmalonic acid.
High levels of methyl citric acid
Methylcyclic acid levels may also appear high in a B12 deficiency. They are formed from PropionylCoA (precursor methylmalonylCoA), due to the increase of methylmalonylCoA, which increases the production of methyl citric acids. This increase can also be produced by other causes and is not determinant if it is not accompanied by other values.
Increased levels of the amino acid glycine
The decrease in Succinyl-CoA substance causes a decrease in heme synthesis and an increase in glycine. This is because glycine and Succinyl-CoA form ALA (delta-aminolevulinic acid), the structure that will later be transformed into porphyrins (heme group of erythrocytes).
The increase in glycine can also be produced by deficits of other nutrients and other causes, so it is not a determinant of B12 deficiency.
High blood homocysteine levels
Homocysteine is a very harmful amino acid for blood to be removed. This process is responsible for vitamin B12 along with folic acid (vitamin B9).
When there is not enough B12 or folic acid, homocysteine accumulates and increases its elimination by urine due to the alteration of the methionine-homocysteine cycle, affected by the B12 deficit. Vitamin B12 is involved in the methylation and conversion of homocysteine to methionine.
Increased homocysteine may also be produced by deficiency of other nutrients (vitamin B9 or folic acid) and other causes.
* Related information:
More information on vitamin b12 in the listing above
Other interesting articles
This material is for informational purposes only. In case of doubt, consult the doctor.
"Botanical" is not responsible for damages caused by self-medication. | <urn:uuid:dbb6f435-87c1-408d-98ee-317809fda5f2> | {
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Developed with the University of Georgia Regenerative Bioscience Center, the putty could help save the limbs of service members.
Researchers at the University of Georgia Regenerative Bioscience Center in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Defense are developing a new "fracture putty" with the aim of significantly shortening the healing time of bone fractures in humans. According to the researchers, complex fractures can often lead to amputations for U.S. service men and women. The lengthy healing time often associated with these injuries can also prove to be a major burden for the patients and providers.
The research team is using adult stem cells to produce proteins involved in bone healing and generation. They incorporate these proteins into a gel which they have dubbed "fracture putty." To date the team has demonstrated some positive early results by using the putty to repair fractures in lab rats. After two weeks the rats were observed running around and standing on their hind legs with no evidence of injury. The putty is currently being used in large animal trials, but it may be some time before human testing commences.
- Press Release: UGA Discovery Uses 'Fracture Putty' to Repair Broken Bone...
Image: Wellcome Images.
This post also appears on medGadget, an Atlantic partner site.
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Rhesus Macaque Facts
The Rhesus Macaque is an Old World monkey. This species is a very popular one found and it’s also known as the Rhesus monkey. It has fast become one of the world’s best known monkey species. These monkeys can be either grey or brown and they will usually have a pink face. The monkey’s tails are quite long, they are around 8 inches though can stretch to 9 inches; and the males can weigh almost 17 pounds. Females however, are smaller and will only weigh 12 pounds.
The males can measure out to around 21 inches where female measure out to 19 inches. Their rib cage is wider than average and have a dorsal scapulae also; though, they have thirty two teeth and molars in their mouths. The Rhesus Macaque monkeys do have some expressional faces and have quite a busy lifestyle also.
The monkeys are charismatic and do have fun with each other; they can be very cheeky! Their coats are brown – pale shades of brown with some faded undertones to their underside of their bodies. Their faces have no fur and are bright red – though this is only in adults in which their faces and indeed their rumps are bright red in colour.
They do also have larger cheek pouches which they use in order to store up food when they are out foraging. The Rhesus Macaques monkeys are not the largest species of monkey so they are fairly small but they can weigh a tremendous amount of weight as they can reach up to 17 pounds.
The Rhesus Macaque Habitat
The Rhesus Macaque’s are mostly found in the continents of Asia. Countries such as;
- Northern India
- South China
These monkeys can live in a variety of areas throughout Asia; and are more comfortable in woodlands, mountainous regions and grasslands. The Rhesus Macaque monkey’s regular swimmers and do often have a dip in the rivers. They can swim and are quite good and even younger monkeys that are days old, they can swim. Adult monkeys are able to swim half a mile without any trouble whatsoever which is very impressive. However, some smaller babies often drown in drinking waters when they are a part of smaller groups.
However, some of these Rhesus Macaque monkeys live very close to human communities and are comfortable in doing so also. Some groups often live by some handouts from the humans when it comes to food sources being scarce. They can also adapt to most habitats so they can freely move from one location to another without trouble.
Mostly, the Rhesus Macaque monkeys are comfortable and found in forests and rainforests also. Occasionally, they will be seen around human habitations such as roads, temples and housing areas but in many parts of the world, these are very much loved. Most humans try to be respectful of their animals and do not harm them should they come in to contact with.
The Behavior Patterns of the Rhesus Macaques Monkey and What They Eat
These are herbivore animals because they will consume things such as seeds, roots, bark, cereals and fruits mainly, they do not eat meats. Though, when there are monsoons approaching, the animals can survive through fruits which are ripe which gives the animals a much needed source of water. However, it is not uncommon for some Rhesus Macaques monkeys to be homed further from a water source but when this does happen, they can live from getting water via dewdrops. These come from the leaves on the trees.
On occasion, they have been known to eat beetles, ants, terminate and even grasshoppers but this is when the food sources have dried up completely. Usually, a water source will be found close by to the Rhesus Macaques monkeys and shouldn’t have too many problems in getting water though this is not always the case.
They will live in troops which can house 20 through to 200 monkeys; but it is the females that outnumber the males at about 4 to 1. Every monkey in the troop will have their place within the group, have their own ranking. Though it is the males that outrank the female monkeys.
How Do Rhesus Monkeys Reproduce?
Male Rhesus Monkeys will try to maximise their success in reproducing. They’ll mate with females during the breeding period and outside the breeding period also this way it offers the males a higher chance of having a successful heritage. Females generally try to mate with males who are higher up the chain with rankings because it offers them a better chance of survival. | <urn:uuid:832a89ab-e8d9-47a2-85f1-86306c143426> | {
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01 of 04
Introduction and Supplies
Dichroic glass can be expensive, but it can also add a lot color and creativity to fused glass for jewelry making. Dichroic glass is different from regular glass in that it may contain multiple colors or even appear opalescent. It changes color with the light and the angle at which it is held.
Even if you are a beginning glass artist, you can make this dichroic fused pendant with minimal supplies and little to no glass experience. It does not take very much glass or a great deal of skill to make... a simple design such as this pendant (photo).
It is even easier if you think of it like a fused glass sandwich! You basically take two pieces of glass and stick them together with a jump ring in between them, at least that is the quick and dirty explanation of how to make this pendant.
This tutorial will show you the step by step details you need to follow to make a Dichroic Fused Glass Pendant.
You will need the following tools, supplies, and equipment:
- 1 Piece of black fused glass about 1 x 3/4 inches in diameter (96 COE)
- 1 Piece of Dichroic glass about 1 x 3/4 inches in diameter (96 COE)
- 1 large sterling jump ring made of 16 - 18 gauge wire
- Clear drying glue (white or fuser's glue)
- Glass studio setup (including grinder and kiln)
- Kiln Paper
Note About the Glass
The glass used for this project is specifically designed for fusing, so you cannot substitute glass used for stained glass or other types of glass hobbies. Fused glass is considerably thinner than other types of glass and has a particular Coefficient of Expansion (COE) that makes it perfect for fusing to other glass. Be sure that all glass used in a project has the same COE number.Continue to 2 of 4 below.
02 of 04
Add a Jump Ring to the Glass
1. Start with two pieces of glass, one black, and one dichroic glass. They should be about the same size, 1 by 3/4 inches. Clean all pieces of glass with a glass cleaner like Windex.
2. Dab some glue at the top of the black glass piece, and add a jump ring so half the ring is on the glass and half is hanging over. The part of the ring that is not split should be the part that is hanging over the edge of the glass.
3. If it is possible, it is a good idea to wait for the glue to dry a little before... continuing. If you want to make a number of these pendants, it is helpful to make a number of these "blanks" (black pre-cut glass pieces) ahead of time so that you may work assembly line style. Also, since it can take some power to heat up your kiln, consider making multiple pendants and firing them all at the same time so that you are not running your kiln for just one pendant. If you are doing this for the very first time, you may not want to make dozens of dichroic glass pendants until you get the process down as far as running the kiln and assembling the pendants, we suggest filling up your kiln shelf allowing at least an inch or more between each pendant so that air can circulate around each one as it is fired in the kiln.Continue to 3 of 4 below.
03 of 04
Add Dichroic Glass and Fire in Kiln
4. Next, dab some glue on the center of the black glass and put your dichroic glass on top of the black blank as if you are forming a sandwich.
5. Fuse in a kiln until both pieces become one. Though every kiln is different, this is the suggested schedule for these pendants:
- 25 minutes at #3 (500 degrees)
- 25 minutes at #5 (800 degrees)
- 20 minutes at #6 (1000 degrees)
- 10 minutes at Hi (1500 degrees)
All kilns operate differently. Please be sure to read the instructions for the kiln you are using and use... all safety precautions.Continue to 4 of 4 below.
04 of 04
Finish Dichroic Fused Glass Pendant
6. During the last 10 minutes, keep a good eye on the kiln so the pendant does not over fuse.
7. Open the kiln only part way to allow the glass to completely cool - but not too quickly - before removing from the kiln.
8. Finish the pendant by polishing the jump ring. (There will be a small amount of fire scale on the jump ring after firing.)
One item to consider is that if you use Dichroic glass that you can see through, you will see the jump ring. So, you might want to just use Dichroic glass... that has black on the back.
If you want to get fancier designs on your pendants, try layering dichroic glass or putting pieces together to cover the black piece as if you were putting together a puzzle. These look great if you want to just add them to a chain or create a whole necklace design around them.
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swimmerdude99 wrote:The Pinta Tortoise that was indigenous to the Galapagos, has officially gone extinct.The last known individual of the subspecies was a male named Lonesome George (Spanish: El Solitario Jorge/George), who died on 24 June 2012. In his last years, he was known as the rarest creature in the world. George served as a potent symbol for conservation efforts in the Galápagos and internationally.
since you posted this 6 more species have died.
we currently lose an estimate of 3 species per hour.
we've been fighting to save the dolphins and the whales for years but in this whole time tens of thousands of other species have gone extinct. | <urn:uuid:f4ddb142-7240-49f7-bb31-fede08a5f793> | {
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The Hoffman House is a Dutch Colonial style stone house built about 1679. An excellent example of early American-Dutch rubble construction, the Hoffman House displays several of the "prototypical" characteristics of Dutch Colonial housing. Since serious Dutch colonization in America occurred only from 1626 until 1664, and almost exclusively along the Hudson River between Albany and New Amsterdam (New York City), relatively few examples of Dutch colonial architecture exist in the United States. The Hoffman House, built after the British assumed control of New Netherland (New York State), reflects the survival of Dutch building traditions years after English colonists began pouring into New York. The building has remained basically unchanged since its initial construction, and the Hoffman family occupied the house for 201 years, until the late 19th century. In 1908, the property became the headquarters for the local Salvation Army Corps., who due to their programs of social work, spent little money restoring or modernizing the structure, and it fell into disrepair. In 1976, two local entrepreneurs obtained the site and rehabilitated the building for use as a restaurant. Whenever possible, all old usable material was salvaged and restored. The restoration replaced warped and damaged floors, reused original nails, and carefully reconditioned moldings, baseboards, mantels and door paneling. As one of the architectural highlights of Kingston's Stockade district, the Hoffman House vividly displays the long and varied history of the Dutch in America.
Photograph by John E. Reinhardt
Photograph courtesy of John F. Matthews
Hoffman House is located in the Stockade Historic District at 94 North Front Street, at the corner of Green Street. The restaurant is open for lunch and dinner. For more information call 845-338-2626. | <urn:uuid:b4d45dfb-3c08-49e6-8757-1548c4dbf7a2> | {
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In November 2013 Janet Hovorka and her sister Amy Slade wrote 4 companion workbooks to the "[amazon_link id="0988854805" target="_blank" container="" container_class="" ]Zap the Grandma Gap[/amazon_link]" book series published in 2012. It was my pleasure to review these child friendly workbooks and put them to the test with my own kids. Boy did they devour the books!
There are four activity books currently available to help educate children on their ancestors who were British, German, Swedish, or who fought in the American Civil War. As of today, I don’t have Swedish Ancestors, so my kids looked at me cross eyed when I showed them that one. However, they were more than happy to read, color, and sing along with the activities in the other books.
Each workbook is set up to trace one ancestor through its pages. There was a family tree your child can use to trace back to their ancestor of interest. After that they were lead through a series of pages explaining how to research the ancestor, websites they may want to visit, and worksheets to fill out about that ancestor. The rest of the book was filled with pages and pages of history and all sorts of information about the place your child was now researching.
I particularly liked the variety of things to do inside the books. My kids have a wide age gap but they each were able to find parts that interested them. For instance the books include activities such as mazes, word searches, paper dolls, coloring pages, music, recipes, and stories. While I even enjoyed the books, I think these are geared more to the elementary school (6th grade and below) level. However, you will have to judge your child’s interest and skill level.
It would have been nice if the sheets in the book were tear away making them easier to use. After complaining kids (who knew they both would want to use the same book at the same time) I ended up copying the pages they wanted to do. My youngest said he preferred this so that he didn’t have to work around the “hump” of the book (otherwise known as the binding). Plus, they can now hang their artwork up on the bulletin boards in their rooms.
Each of the books also have paper dolls in the back. The set comes with appropriate clothes to the time/place your ancestors came from. There is an entire family to color and decorate as well. While my boys were not interested in those, at all, a friend’s girl asked if she could glue the people to cardboard. Which made perfect sense to me too. That way they would hold up better under play. I even constructed a half circle stand so they would stand up by themselves on the table for her.
These books are a great way to engage and educate children about their ancestors. Making history fun is always important to grab a child’s imagination and attention. This series certainly does that. More importantly it gives them a good grasp at basic research skills, historical context, social history, and genealogy. Hopefully we will see more of these workbooks in the future!
[amazon_link id="098885483X" target="_blank" container="" container_class="" ][/amazon_link] [amazon_link id="0988854856" target="_blank" container="" container_class="" ][/amazon_link] [amazon_link id="0988854821" target="_blank" container="" container_class="" ][/amazon_link] [amazon_link id="0988854848" target="_blank" container="" container_class="" ][/amazon_link] | <urn:uuid:98ccd020-6ae2-44a4-a2e2-7d05ef910270> | {
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By Sam Piha
In the last decade, research on learning and the brain, and the impact of social-emotional and character skills, has expanded our understanding of learning. Currently, we are witnessing a significant pivot from a narrow focus on academic performance, measured by standardized reading and math test scores, to a broader perspective of young people’s development that includes and promotes social-emotional and character skills.
This shift is based on recent research on the importance of social emotional learning, non-cognitive skills, growth mindsets, and character skills. Much of this is reflected by the new Common Core State Standards, the CORE Waiver’s focus on social-emotional accountability, and Expanded Learning Quality Standards being developed in many states.
In order to see this shift fully realized, a number of capacity building organizations came together to form a new project, entitled Expanded Learning 360°/365: Skills for Success in School, Work, and Life. These organizations include ASAPconnect, California School-Age Consortium (CalSAC), Learning in Afterschool & Summer (LIAS)/Temescal Associates, and Partnership for Children and Youth.
This project is designed to help policymakers, district and school leaders and expanded learning providers better identify and integrate social-emotional and character skills into their work with young people. We will accomplish this by:
Because we have seen a recent proliferation of lists identifying critical skills for youth, it is easy to see why some afterschool leaders are confused - “Which list is most important; which list should I use?” The Expanded Learning 360°/365 project convened a research work group to distill these lists into one list. We will share more in our next post. Meanwhile, to learn more, click here.
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Tags can also contain data. In the previous example, we saw how tags have attributes to allow them
to receive information specific to the tag. The <SASET> tag is similar to the HTML
<IMG> tag in that it gets all of its information from the attributes that make up the
Way back at the beginning of this document, we discussed the <B> tag. The bold tag
took no attributes, but instead wrapped data in a start and end tag; namely
<B>HELLO</B>. This example shows how a tag can be used to wrap data that is to be
considered the data associated with the tag.
A tag that does not have an end tag is supposed to be written as <BR/>, notice the extra
'/' within the BR element. This syntax denotes that the tag both starts and ends, and contains
no associated data. Another HTML tag that should be written this way is the <IMG> tag
since it to has no contained data, and as previously mentioned gets all of its information from the
attributes that make up the tag itself.
In SteelArrow, there are many tags that are also start and end tags, and contain no data. Two that
we have seen so far are the <SASET> and <SAOUTPUT> elements. As you look through
the SteelArrow tag documentation, you will notice that some tags have the '/'. This should simply tell
you that the tag starts and ends without wrapping any data. The syntax is for reference, and tags
are not validated against this syntax, similar to that of HTML.
The next example shows a tag that does contain associated data. The element used in the example is
the <SAOUTPUT> tag. As with the previous examples, view the document source to see that
all of the SteelArrow tags have been removed from the output.
Some tags may take both attribues, and wrap data. The <SAOUTPUT> is an example of a
SteelArrow tag that does both. <SAOUTPUT> has an attribute called SCOPE, that tells
<SAOUTPUT> what context the data is to be seen in first. If the variable is not found in
the described SCOPE, then the global scope is used to find the variable. As an example, the sample
below shows the output of the SESSION object using the <SAOUTPUT> tag with the SCOPE
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Being in a rural location, Watton-at-Stone is fortunate to be surrounded by a large amount of open space such as fields and woodlands.
As you would expect, much of this type of open space is private farmland, etc, but there are still great opportunities for the public to enjoy the local countryside.
In addition to walking or cycling around the lanes, there is easy access to a varied network of public footpaths and 2 areas of Common Land, namely Watton Green and The Lammas.
Historical evidence suggests that village greens and commons (such as Watton Green) may once have been used for carnivals and fairs, not to mention the odd bit of archery practice, jousting and maypole dancing.
Watton Green sits on the edge of the village and can be reached via Perrywood Lane. It is a very peaceful area and is well worth a visit at any time of the year.
Watton Green is an ancient unenclosed ‘common’. Within the medieval agricultural system, these were owned by the Manorial Lord and considered as ‘waste lands’ because they were not suitable for growing crops. Villagers had ‘rights’ to use this land for grazing livestock, collecting firewood (firebote) or tethering pigs. Interestingly, the site and adjacent earthworks of moated houses suggest that early village-settlement may have centred on Watton Green.
Today, Watton Green is a registered County Wildlife Site and is a mosaic of ecological important habitats that is rich in wildflowers and provides a breeding/feeding ground for many species of birds, small mammals and invertebrates. The grassland is particularly valuable because such habitats are becoming increasingly rare in Hertfordshire due to modern agricultural practices and arable cropping.
The Parish Council, together with the Countryside Management Service and volunteers, undertook extensive groundwork to reclaim land lost to continuous scrub-encroachment, and made other improvements (including the addition of a circular bench) to ensure that the public could continue to enjoy Watton Green. A management plan is now in place to ensure that the quality of the grassland is maintained and further encroachment is kept under control.
The Lammas is at the northern-end of the village lying alongside the River Beane between Mill Lane and Walkern Road. It covers a range of habitats including a traditional hay meadow, wooded bank and blackthorn thickets.
The area was an important site for the commoners of the village because they would have grazed their animals there and been allowed to take a hay crop at certain times of the year. Also, the wooded bank may have been a source of timber and fuel, and from where berries could be collected.
As with Watton Green, the Parish Council, together with the Countryside Management Service and volunteers, undertook extensive groundwork, tree planting and other tasks (including the addition of benches) to improve the overall condition of the Lammas.
Again, a management plan is in place to ensure that the quality of the Lammas is maintained and can be enjoyed by future generations.
Walks – There is a section on the Hertfordshire County Council website that provides a bird’s-eye view of the entire rights of way network within our county.
Anyone using the link below can click on any part of a complete map of the county and zoom in and out to look at specific towns, villages, roads and individual paths that they are interested in. | <urn:uuid:576f1a11-a635-4561-8698-cdbf82688a6b> | {
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Methodism was introduced into America by Irish immigrants who had been converted by John Wesley. Wesley also sent preachers, the most successful of whom was Francis Asbury, a blacksmith, who arrived in 1771. He adapted Wesley’s principles to the needs of the settled communities and of the frontier, but, unlike Wesley, Asbury supported the American Revolution and the new republic. Despite this difference, Wesley sent the presbyters he ordained along with Thomas Coke as superintendent to help Asbury in 1784. In the same year, The Methodist Episcopal Church was organized, and Asbury and Coke allowed themselves to be called bishops.
During the next 50 years the church made remarkable advances led by the circuit riders who preached to the people on the frontier in simple terms. At the same time, the church faced schism over issues of race and slavery. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (1821) and the African Methodist Episcopal Church (1816) were formed because of the racial prejudice experienced by African Americans in the Methodist Episcopal Church. The slavery issue split the Methodist Church into two bodies: the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (organized in 1845). A third church formed as a result of the slavery question, the all-African American Colored (now “Christian”) Methodist Episcopal Church (1870), split from the southern Methodist church. After the Civil War the two main churches grew rapidly and gradually became assimilated to the general pattern of American Protestantism. When it was clear that the old issues no longer divided them, they began to move together. But it was not until 1939 that they formed the Methodist Church, which the smaller Methodist Protestant Church (established 1830) also joined.
The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, lost its African American members before and during the Civil War. In 1939 the Central Jurisdiction was formed for all African American members of the church. It was one of six jurisdictions—administrative units responsible for electing bishops—of the church and the only racial jurisdiction. Unlike the other jurisdictions, which were determined by geography, the Central Jurisdiction was shaped by race, which resulted in a segregated organizational structure and kept white and black Methodists apart. The Central Jurisdiction was also plagued by a lack of resources and the challenge of administering an excessively large geographic area. The Central Jurisdiction was abolished in 1968, and African American Methodists were integrated into the larger church.
The originally German-speaking Evangelical United Brethren Church, itself a union of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ and the Evangelical Church, was united with The Methodist Church in 1968 to form the United Methodist Church. Women were given limited clergy rights in 1924 and were accepted for full ordination in 1956. In 1980 the United Methodist Church elected its first woman bishop, and it has elected more since.
Methodism was introduced into Canada by preachers from the United States and later reinforced by British Methodists. In 1874 The Methodist Church of Canada became autonomous; it went on to negotiate a union with other Canadian nonepiscopal churches to form the United Church of Canada in 1925. An independent Methodist presence in Canada essentially ended with ratification of the union; Canadian Methodists joined the new church, which drew from the traditions of its constituent members to establish the basic beliefs and practices of the new church.
Methodism is marked by an acceptance of the doctrines of historical Christianity; by an emphasis on doctrines that indicate the power of the Holy Spirit to confirm the faith of believers and to transform their personal lives; by an insistence that the heart of religion lies in a personal relationship with God; by simplicity of worship; by the partnership of ordained ministers and laity in the worship and administration of the church; by a concern for the underprivileged and the improvement of social conditions; and (at least in its British form) by the formation of small groups for mutual encouragement and edification.
All Methodist churches accept the Scriptures as the supreme guide to faith and practice. Most welcome the findings of modern biblical scholarship, though the fundamentalist groups among them do not. The churches follow the historical creeds and believe that they are part of the tradition of the Protestant Reformation. They emphasize the teaching of Christian perfection, interpreted as “perfect love,” which is associated with John Wesley, who held that every Christian should aspire to such perfection with the help of the Holy Spirit.
Methodist churches affirm infant baptism. They also regularly receive the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, in which they believe Christ to be truly present, though they have no precise definition of the manner of his presence. They believe that they are integral parts of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church and that their ministers are true ministers of Word and sacrament in the church of God.
Worship and organization
Patterns of service
Methodist worship everywhere is partly liturgical and partly spontaneous. The general pattern was established by John Wesley, who regularly used the Anglican Book of Common Prayer (which he adapted for use in the United States) and conducted services that included extemporaneous prayer. This tradition continued in British Methodism into the 20th century, when it underwent change. The practice of Anglican morning prayer was eliminated first, and during the Liturgical Movement, when Roman Catholic and Protestant churches revised their liturgies, Anglican Holy Communion was dropped. The Liturgical Movement also influenced the Methodist Service Book (1975) in Britain and, in the United States, the Book of Worship (1965), the Ordinal (1980), and the United Methodist Hymnal, subtitled The Book of United Methodist Worship (1988). The reforms provided new opportunity for congregational participation. The Sunday service, or Holy Communion, restores the traditional fourfold pattern—the offering of bread and wine, the thanksgiving, the breaking of the bread, and the sharing of the elements. Nonliturgical services, which constitute the majority, claim to be spontaneous but are not. In British but not in American Methodism, many services are conducted by lay preachers.
Hymns are important in all branches of Methodism. The most important hymns of British Methodism are those of Charles Wesley, which are mingled with many contemporary hymns as well as those from other traditions. In Hymns and Psalms (1983), certain changes were made to eliminate overtones that Methodists considered sexist. American books contain fewer hymns by Wesley. | <urn:uuid:0cf414c8-b458-48e8-a4b7-a180ef1f51c8> | {
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Treatment For Finger/Nail Injuries or Infection
Our fingers and finger nails are involved in almost every aspect of daily life. They are therefore, very susceptible to injury and infection.
Healthy fingernails will have a pinkish color with the occasional flecks of white and “half moon” of white appearing at the nail bed. Bumps and ridges are normal, however severe alterations of the nail’s surface can indicate an underlying infection or fungus.
Cuticles are a common source of infection, especially resulting from picking, biting or the use if unsanitary manicure tools. If you spot a reddened or swollen area with red streaks radiating from the cuticle, this can indicate an infection that requires medical attention right away.
Pain or a tingling sensation in the fingers can mean several things: cramps from overuse, flexor tendon injury, ganglion cyst compression on a nerve in the hand, arthritis, diabetes or any number of immune disorders.
- Redness or swelling around the cuticle might signal infection
- Joint pain, stiffness or tingling in the fingers or joints can point to nerve compression, arthritis or an overuse syndrome
- Limited range of motion accompanied by swelling, bruising and stiffness in the presence of an injury could indicate a broken bone
- Deep ridges or loss of the fingernail may be due to fungus or infection
Who is at risk?
Symptoms related to overuse of a joint can happen at any age to persons engaged in repetitive motion activities. Cuticle damage is especially notable in children who bite and pick at their fingers; this could result in a limb-threatening infection if redness and swelling does not receive proper medical attention. Anyone can sustain an injury to the fingers or nails requiring a visit to your physician for x-rays and splinting.
A physician will stabilize a fracture by taping or splinting the finger. Surgery is a last resort that would most likely be required if the breakage is accompanied by nerve or tendon damage or if the bone fragments are seriously out of alignment. A finder or nail infection might require incision and debridement of an abscess followed by antibiotics. Let a doctor help you make that decision before the infection spreads or escalates into something worse. Tingling sensations may be evaluated through evaluating your vital signs and possibly ordering bloodwork to check you for anemia and Vitamin B deficiency. Tingling or pain without injury is sometimes related to pressure on a nerve which can also be evaluated and treated by a medical professional.
Emergency Warning Signs: When should I see a doctor?
Severe range of motion limitations and infection are the chief warning signs that immediate medical treatment is necessary. If you are unable to move the finger unassisted or if red streaks radiate from a swollen area, seek a doctor’s advice.
For more information on Finger/Nail Injuries or Infections, see the following websites:
eMedicineHealth Assessment of Finger Injuries
Disclaimer: The links above are to sites independent of STATCLINIX.com. The pages will open in a new browser window. The information provided is for educational purposes only, and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you have or suspect you may have a health problem, you should consult your doctor. Always follow your doctor’s recommendations regarding your specific medical questions, treatments, therapies, and other needs. | <urn:uuid:8f36e5ec-b9dc-4fbf-a426-d305637afee9> | {
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Sociologist and historian, Richard Teese has made major contributions to our knowledge of education systems, to public policy, and to the wider diffusion of knowledge about how well our schools work and for whom.
He pioneered the social analysis of curriculum access and achievement in school systems across Australia. Using examinations data for each Australia state, he mapped the links between who studied what subjects, how well they achieved, and their social origins and gender. This work formed the basis of his theory of structural inequality, elaborated in Academic Success and Social Power.
The social history of upper secondary education took a new turn through Teese’s study of fifty years of curriculum change in English, mathematics, chemistry and languages. He examined the nature of the cognitive and cultural demands of these subjects, which groups of students satisfied their demands, why them and how.
He is one of the first Australian scholars to measure social progress in school systems. He developed metrics for assessing the impact of schooling, first in Undemocratic Schooling and later in For the Common Weal. Applying these measures, he was able to show the contribution of the public high school system to the economic well-being of the Victorian community.
Richard Teese designed and implemented the most comprehensive destinations survey of school leavers ever undertaken in Australia. He was the architect of the On Track survey program, starting in Victoria in 2003 and later extending to Queensland (in the Next Step program). This survey gathered data on the education, training and employment destinations of all young people exiting school, analysed the links between destinations, academic achievement and socio-economic status, and provided transition reports to every school. It enabled schools to reliably measure what was happening to their students on exit and to adjust curriculum, teaching and counselling to improve outcomes.
School funding is another area of policy research in which Teese has played a major role. His work on the innovative Student Resource Package for Victorian government schools helped shift the emphasis of funding from inputs to outputs, giving schools greater flexibility in the use of their resources and focussing attention on student achievement. He led the development of a new funding model for public schools in Western Australia, which is now in the process of implementation. At a national level, Richard Teese’s work on school funding helped strengthen the case for reform by examining how well government schools performed relative to non-government schools, whom they served, and the trend to a growing social division in the use of public and private schools. From opportunity to outcomes (2011) was commissioned by state education departments as part of the Gonski review and attracted wide attention at the time of its (unauthorized) release.
Recognized internationally for his research on equity, he was invited by the OECD to lead reviews of the school systems of Spain (2005), Scotland (2007) and Ontario (2010). In 2014, he was one of two international experts appointed to review school funding in Flanders. He has written extensively on Catholic education in France.
In recognition of his scholarly work, Teese was awarded the Woodward Medal for Humanities in 2002. In 2003, he received a Centenary Medal for research services to government and in 2010 the Minister's Award for Significant Contributions to Victorian Education.
Richard’s books include For the Common Weal. The Public High School in Victoria 1910-2010 (2015), Academic Success and Social Power: Examinations and Inequality (2 editions, 2013, 2000), Quality and Equity of Schooling in Scotland (2007), Undemocratic Schooling (2003), Who wins at school? Girls and Boys in Australian Secondary Education (1995), Equity Outcomes (1993); co-editor of International Studies in Educational Inequality, Theory and Policy (in 3 vols) (2007), contributing editor of School dropout and completion: International comparative studies in theory and policy (2011). He is the English translator of Bourdieu’s Academic Discourse (1994). | <urn:uuid:62c5acf3-8e01-4902-b971-9c868ca086d7> | {
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The full text of this article is available by subscription only.
One cannot adequately describe United States tornado activity in 2012 without first recalling the devastating tornadoes of 2011 (Weatherwise, May/June 2012). The most recent year provides an intriguing contrast to 2011 when the annual tornado count (1,690) was 148 percent of the 30-year normal (1,145), and the greatest number of tornado fatalities (553) occurred in the modern era. By comparison, 2012, with a preliminary count of 940 tornadoes, was nearly at the opposite end of the spectrum (82 percent of normal). This provides us with a dramatic example of how variable and unpredictable tornado activity can be from year to year, or even from one month to the next. There were intra-annual contrasts in 2012 tornadoes as well. The first few months of the year experienced well above normal tornado activity when compared to most of the remainder of the year. The running tornado count through April 2012 was nearly double the 30-year normal (496 tornadoes through April compared to a 30 year average of 286). In contrast, the months of May and June, historically the most active months, were conspicuously quiet. | <urn:uuid:0662e84a-d5ee-4c5a-be9b-7aa91c773be4> | {
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- This brief looks at the costs of implementing the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. Specifically, it examines whether implementing the CPP on a state-by-state basis—that is, with each state meeting its own individual target for emissions reduction by 2030, rather than establishing regional targets—is economically efficient. The answer is yes.
- The economic analysis uses data from electricity-generating firms participating in the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland (PJM) Interconnection to examine the relative economic efficiency of regional versus state-by-state implementation of the CPP.
- Looking at natural gas capacity across regional and state-by-state implementations in 2030, the research shows that capacity in the state-by-state scenario (70 GW) is about 24% higher than the capacity in the regional scenario (56 GW). This translates to reduced CO2 prices in 2030—$27/ton (regional) and $15/ton (state-by-state).
- The key mechanism is investment. Compared to the regional scenario, implementing the CPP on a state-by-state basis leads to higher initial CO2 prices. But those higher prices increase incentives to invest aggressively in new natural gas capacity, using the best available technology in terms of emissions and efficiency. This, in turn, leads to an overall decrease in wholesale electricity prices—in fact, the research indicates that state-by-state implementation would yield the lowest electricity prices in 2030.
In February, the Supreme Court suspended the authority granted to the EPA under the Clean Air Act to compel states’ preliminary CPP compliance. This action grants courts the necessary time to resolve legal challenges related to the new rule before any early-stage EPA enforcement efforts could de facto nullify a negative judgment against CPP implementation, which could be handed down in the coming months. Presuming the EPA eventually will be able to move forward with the CPP—which is not guaranteed given the unprecedented scope of regulatory authority the agency is assuming—the conversation about the plan will return to the question of economic viability. In short, what will be the CPP’s effect on long-term energy prices in the United States?
Although the federal government is seeking to address carbon pollution from power plants by setting a national goal for reduced CO2 emissions from fossil fuel-fired and natural gas-fired plants, each state must meet its own individual target for emissions reduction by 2030, with interim requirements each year between 2022-2029. On the surface, the absence of a single, national CO2 market for trading emission allowances would suggest that implementing the CPP on a state-by-state basis would lead to inefficiencies in curbing emissions (and it definitely leads to higher initial CO2 prices), thus increasing the economic cost of the CPP. But we offer two considerations. First, the existence of a single market for wholesale electricity mitigates the potential negative effects of separate state-level CO2 markets. Individual firms will make optimal new power plant investment decisions based on the distribution of production and CO2 prices across state markets, implicitly coordinating them in the process. Second, we simulate a model that shows that electricity prices can actually be lower by 2030 when implementation occurs state-by-state instead of regionally.
The model takes advantage of rich energy production data from electricity-generating firms participating in the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland (PJM) Interconnection, which operates the country’s largest wholesale electricity market as the regional transmission organization (RTO) for 13 states across 20 zones. By utilizing PJM as an example of a viable cohort of states that, under the new rule, could aggregate their individual emission targets and implement the CPP at a regional-level, we examined the relative economic efficiency of regional versus state-by-state implementation. Our preliminary findings were remarkable. By 2022—the first year of interim benchmarks—regional implementation leads to electricity prices of 5.7 cents/kWh, while state-by-state implementation results in prices of 8.6 cents/kWh. However, by 2030, electricity prices are 5.8 cents/kWh regionally versus 4.6 cents/kWh in a state-by-state scenario. This Issue Brief highlights how investment, in implicitly coordinating separate state CO2 markets, is the main mechanism for our findings.
On October 23, 2015, the EPA published the Clean Power Plan Final Rule in the Federal Register after receiving and incorporating 4.3 million comments on the original proposed rule. The CPP, though a federal plan, establishes state-level targets for cutting carbon emissions from the nation’s largest polluter—power plants. When aggregated, the individual state targets add up to the national goal: a 32 percent reduction in carbon pollution below 2005 levels by 2030 (see Figure 1). According to the EPA, the CPP has expected climate benefits of $20 billion and health benefits in the range of $14-$34 billion. The rule would facilitate the transition to cleaner, natural gas energy, promote investment in alternative energy technologies, and provide states the flexibility to meet their emissions-cutting goals. Ultimately, the EPA’s chief concern is the federal 32 percent target that, if met, would constitute an important milestone in the fight against anthropogenic climate change.
If the stay of proceedings is lifted, the EPA will oblige states to submit unique Implementation Plans for ensuring that existing power plants within their jurisdictions achieve both interim and final CO2 targets. The rule offers three options for measuring progress and it highlights three so-called building blocks for meeting CCP targets based on the best system of emission reductions (BSER) available for CO2 emitting power plants (see Table 1). It also allows (but does not require) states to partner with other states when implementing their plans.
The state targets do not apply to new, modified, or reconstructed plants, which the EPA instead will regulate through standards and emissions limitations that are source- or unit-specific. For example, the final rule specifies a natural gas plant limit of 1000 lbs of CO2 per MWh, below which firms will not have to pay for what they emit. In essence, this requires them to invest in the latest combined cycle technology. For coal-fired plants, the limit is 1400 lbs of CO2 per MWh, which is currently achievable only with carbon capture and storage technology—a technology that is in its infancy and presently cannot meet the new standards. The EPA cannot require energy producing firms to use explicit technologies, but even the best new coal-fired plants cannot meet the new emission limits by design. Some existing natural gas-fired power plants, however, do meet these new standards, leading to a policy question that remains unresolved, at least from the perspective of energy producers (see Policy Implications below).
Implementation Scenarios in the PJM vs. State-Level Model
Policymakers generally have supported market-based mechanisms for addressing environmental externalities, such as carbon pollution, but the problem of coordinating various jurisdictions can quickly hamper implementation. Achieving state-level emissions goals under the CPP will require efficient implementation of one or more of the building blocks, as well as robust emissions trading, likely in the form of emission allowances, via (we assume) a perfectly competitive CO2 permit market. Inefficient implementation could significantly raise energy prices, which neither consumers nor policymakers want. Mitigating potential inefficiencies caused by state-by-state implementation of the CPP therefore depends on the ability of firms to reallocate electricity production across states. This is a complex challenge. States do not have unlimited capacity for generating electricity, and there are many firms striving to make optimal production and investment decisions in each state. These capacity limitations prevent existing plant output from being freely reallocated across states. However, output coming from new capacity investments can be located based on CO2 prices across states.
We sought to discover what would happen to CO2 prices, wholesale electricity prices, and investment in new capacity under a number of different scenarios, so we constructed and estimated a model of electricity generation and investment for firms participating in the PJM wholesale market. We assume that all new investment will be in the current best available technology (BAT) for coal and natural gas plants, both because the CPP mandates this and because such an investment maximizes firm profit. The scenarios are as follows:
- Baseline: Business-as-usual without CPP targets (e.g., courts rule against the EPA and prohibit CPP implementation).
- Regional Implementation: One PJM-wide carbon market and CO2 price to achieve a regional target.
- State-by-State Implementation: State-based carbon markets and CO2 prices to achieve CPP state-level targets. Under this scenario, states cannot trade allowances with other states, even within the same firm. All state markets are linked via the PJM wholesale market for electricity, and all markets must clear simultaneously.
- Regional Implementation ex-Investment: One PJM-wide carbon market and CO2 price in an environment with no new investment (assumes coal- and gas-fired capacity at 2012 levels).
A final note on the model: The CPP affects supply and investment decisions (and firm profits) by increasing the cost of generating electricity from fossil fuels and changing the relative prices of coal and natural gas. To accurately capture the CPP’s effect on firms’ decision-making, we needed to have a rich model of firms’ costs and how these costs evolve as they add new capacity. Since firms have different portfolios of plants, with different efficiency levels, different fuel types, and different capacities, our model uses all available data on heat rates, emission rates and operating and maintenance costs, thus preserving the diversity inherent in the industry.
Results and Policy Implications
The target CO2 emission rates in the CPP final rule are either mass-based (total CO2 short tons) or rate-based (lbs/MWh). We assume that all states choose mass-based targets. Implementation begins gradually and CO2 emissions decrease each year until 2030, after which time we assume emissions remain constant. Even without the CPP, the model predicts that firms will invest only in new natural gas capacity and not in coal.
If there is no CPP in 2030, natural gas capacity is just 33 GW, as generation from coal steadily increases while electricity demand increases despite no new investment in coal capacity. Once firms face a positive CO2 price, generation from coal falls sharply, especially in the state-by-state scenario.
If the CPP is implemented, its effects are significantly different, depending on whether there is regional or state-by-state implementation. Comparing natural gas capacity across regional and state-by-state implementations in 2030, capacity in the latter (70 GW) is about 24% higher than the capacity in the former (56 GW). In terms of 2030 CO2 prices, this translates to $27/ton (regional) and $15/ton (state-by-state). As noted earlier, the initial CO2 price is higher under the scenario of state-by-state implementation. This increases the incentives to invest in new natural gas capacity, which reflects the best available technology in terms of emissions and efficiency. High CO2 prices encourage firms to invest much more aggressively in order to retire old, inefficient capacity from the merit order, leading to an overall decrease in wholesale electricity prices (see Figure 2). Remarkably, electricity prices are even lower with the state-by-state implementation compared to the regional scenario by 2030. As noted in the opening of this brief, by 2030, electricity prices are 5.8 cents/kWh regionally versus 4.6 cents/kWh in a state-by-state scenario.
With regional implementation, BAT capacity accounts for 31% of total generation by 2030. In contrast, 45% of generation comes from BAT capacity under state-by-state implementation. Without CPP, BAT capacity accounts for less than 6% of total generation.
Considering the expected public health and environmental benefits garnered by a shift towards new BAT capacity, and noting that the lowest electricity prices in 2030 come as a result of state-by-state implementation, there is reason to believe the Clean Power Plan is economically beneficial. However, some questions remain. For instance, there is an ongoing debate about whether the location of new BAT capacity matters, as different sections of the Clean Air Act offer conflicting answers. But the primary concern is that existing natural gas plants that meet the new emissions standards, even if they do not represent BAT, may be facing artificial costs under the CPP. This (significant) subset of “old” yet standard-meeting plants must pay for emissions, according to the final rule, while new plants will not have to pay for emissions, as they only have to ensure they emit less than the new limit. The resolutions to these questions could still dramatically alter the final landscape.
If the stay on the CPP is lifted and policymakers refocus their attention on the cost of implementing the new rule, our research indicates that state-by-state implementation would not be a bad alternative to regional implementation (e.g., a cohort of PJM Interconnection states) in terms of wholesale electricity prices (and therefore CO2 prices in a competitive permit market) and new capacity investment. Because investment implicitly coordinates separate state CO2 markets, it is the key to evaluating CPP implementation. Our results on new BAT investment under the four implementation scenarios speak for themselves.
About the Authors
Jose Miguel Abito, PhD
Assistant Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
Christopher R. Knittel, PhD
George P. Schultz Professor, Sloan School of Management, MIT; Director, Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, MIT; Faculty Co-Director, The E2e Project, MIT, University of Chicago, and UC Berkeley
Konstantinos Metaxoglou, PhD
Assistant Professor of Economics, Carleton University
Andre Trindade, PhD
Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Economics of the Getulio Vargas Foundation
Some legal experts have suggested that the stay was granted to avoid an outcome similar to Michigan vs. EPA. In that case from 2015, preliminary clean air compliance measures – mandated by the EPA – cost states nearly $10 billion in exchange for only $4 million in direct health benefits before the Supreme Court ruled that the agency unreasonably interpreted the Clean Air Act. The Court decided that the EPA does need to consider costs when it implements regulations. For more, see Jonathan H. Adler, “Supreme Court puts the brakes on the EPA’s Clean Power Plan”, The Washington Post, February 9, 2016.
These thirteen states are Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C. There are nearly 1,000 electricity-generating firms that buy, sell, and deliver electricity through PJM’s spot wholesale market, including ten strategic firms that participate in the lion’s share of all exchanges and invest in all of the fuel-specific new capacity.
The primary source for this Issue Brief is our working paper: Jose Miguel Abito, Christopher R. Knittel, Konstantinos Metaxoglou, and Andre Trindade (2016), “Separate Markets for Externalities: Regional versus State-by-State Implementation of the Clean Power Plan”.
Technically, the CPP refers both to a set of emissions targets applied to existing power plants (pursuant to Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act) and to rules that are applicable to new energy sources as part of the “Carbon Pollution Standard for New Plants” (pursuant to Section 111(b) of the CAA). The final rule is available here: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2015-10-23/pdf/2015-22842.pdf
According to the EPA, fossil fuel-fired power plants are the largest source of U.S. CO2 emissions, accounting for 31 percent of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which itself is the largest source of pollution (82 percent) in the country.
All else equal, the CO2 price alters the merit order of plants with different fuel types (coal vs. natural gas), heat and emission rates, and it increases generating cost. Currently, since no emissions trading is occurring, the CO2 prices in question are shadow prices, or unofficial firm estimates of likely CO2 spot market prices.
An argument for this assumption can be found here: Bushnell, J., S. Holland, J. Hughes, and C. Knittel (2015), “Strategic Policy Choice in State-Level Regulation: The EPA’s Clean Power Plan”, NBER Working Paper 21259. | <urn:uuid:57193f76-9eff-4bd7-b4e9-8011948d9a8d> | {
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It snowed last night in Maryland, so all soccer games were cancelled. Yes, our teams are playing "winter league" so they have kids playing 11 v 11 outdoor games even in January! Anyway, if you find yourself snowed in, or with an unexpectedly clear schedule - then you could do some science!
Ideas for a project include:
Part I - Question: What substance makes snow melt the fastest?
Variables: Independent = various substances; Dependent = time it takes snow to melt
Experiment: Get several identical containers (yogurt cups, soup cans, drinking glasses, etc). Fill each with the same amount of snow. Put some "substances" sand, salt, sugar, chili powder, etc. on top and start a timer. Make sure you have 3 containers with nothing on top (that is your control) and 3 containers for EACH substance you test.
A. Does the amount of _____ affect the time it takes the snow to melt?
Experiment: Once you have identified the best substance in Part I, vary the amount (i.e. thickness or total quantity) you put on top - don't assume more always equals better!
B. Does where the substance is applied affect time to for snow to melt?
Experiment: Using the "best" substance identified in part I, apply some to the bottom of the container, and some to the top. This is relevant because sometimes cities "pre-treat" the roads in anticipation of snow - you would be evaluating if that is effective or not.
C. Does the location of the snow affect the melting time?Experiment: Using the substance identified in part I, go outside - mark off 3 areas that you know are on grass vs. 3 areas that are on pavement. The watch (and photograph) the areas to see which melt first. | <urn:uuid:4164e778-9fec-4f72-8796-3019f9ee337d> | {
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Are Sperm a Living Creature?
espinoza at cgl.ucsf.edu
Tue Dec 31 14:02:57 EST 1996
sidlip at lip.microserve.com (Sid Lipkin) writes:
>Always wondered this...Is human sperm classed as a living creature?
First, a few philosophical ramblings : What is alive and
what isn't depends on the particular set of definitions you use.
I'm going to use mine to answer your question, but I don't want
that to be confused with gospel.
Sperm is alive, but it is not its own creature. Rather,
it is a highly specialized, free-roaming organ of the male's body.
It is a partof the male body that is designed to be able to survive
independently of the body for a short amount of time for the sole
purpose of carrying genetic information.
> Is there a genus of animals that it belongs to?
Bear in mind that the species/genus classification
system was designed for and works best for multicellular, sexually
reproducing organisms. Its main value is that it is the standard
system we all use, but remember it is just a organizational scheme.
However, I cannot think of any scheme under which I would classify
sperm separately from the creature that produced them.
> Can sperm survive outside the human body(in a lab setting)?
Yes. They are designed to survive outside the human body that
produced them, after all. However, they will not survive long (unless
frozen) and they will not reproduce themselves.
> What about anti-bodies? are they Alive in the sense that we define life?
Anti-bodies are just bits of protein produced by our immune
system. They are not cells. They are not alive, They are just
> They have a purpose and act according to certain criteria? is this life?
Not by my definitions, but that's another story....
> Sorry if this is uneducated...just curious
One cannot get educated without being curious enough to ask
questions. Good job!
More information about the Bioforum | <urn:uuid:e29744a8-08d3-41d2-9ff7-15a7436b6f6b> | {
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The following web sites provide important information on the effects of alcohol use and abuse. Alcohol use is common among college students. It often leads to problems which can have an impact on students' physical and mental health. The following self-help list will be updated on a regular basis. If additional information is required, please contact the Suffolk University Counseling Center for further assistance.
Alcohol Awareness Links:
(Prevention of Substance Abuse)
(The Drug Abuse Treatment Outcome Study sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse)
(National Institute on Alcohol Abuse & Alcoholism)
(Site provides information about alcohol and other drug addictions. It is a resource for teachers, students and, mental health workers who need factual information about abused drugs. Contains: a collection of fact sheets and other material arranged by drug; links to Internet resources related to addictions; a "Rolodex" of contact information for a variety of groups; a topics page with in-depth information on special topics; and a help page containing a list of agencies to get help with addictions.) | <urn:uuid:23bb47aa-e1cc-4406-b9e2-7fd711f60fdb> | {
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Post a New Topic
Original post made
on Jul 22, 2014
There are many, repeat many, wonderful, colorful(if wanted) NATIVE CALIFORNIA PLANTS which do extremely well without much water.
These plants are hardy, drought tolerant, not all bothered by animals as deer, and many can produce many colorful blooms adding wonderful color to the landscape. These blooms ALSO help the bees which are dying off.
There are many examples of these all around.
One neighbor when I suggested drought tolerant plants, immediately referred to a cactus type plant.
NO; California natives are not a cactus, but a variety of plants which require very little water once established, usually in a year.
Require little in the way of maintenance; little in the use of water; and add beautiful color the landscape. All of this would take place in roughly a year once planted and fostered along during the first year.
Call in a California native plant expert to demonstrate the superb qualities these plants have to conserve on water.
Not only do they conserve water but also add much beauty to the landscape and help bees continue to flourish.
Less water usage, more color and multiple shape of California natives.
This is the optimum way to go for long term future conservation of water.
Wonderful idea Senior Citizen, but do it for a reason to beautify your property not to satisfy the self serving water company people...they will screw us all in the end.
Folks the more water you save and do not use the MORE you will pay for the drops you use. They need to bring in a specific amount of money to cover operating expenses and they will do that by charging us accordingly.
You may think I talking through my hat but I have been around a long time and time after time it's the same old story.
Thanks for listening or at least I hope you are listening. By the way there is not a damn thing we can do about it but pay the bill.
Julia Pardini from Alamo.
EBMUD had nothing to do with the drought.
We all suffer from the drought.
Population growth continues unabated; ergo the demand for more housing leading to more use/abuse of water.
More people means more demand on water resources.
Now one must "think" community survival and not personal cost at this point in time.
So, we will sink together or float together.
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Elon Musk knows how to tap the government till
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All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:8d8f4495-72de-4c50-9bfc-f99d9d47ebed> | {
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History of the Byzantine empire, £8.99
Height: 7.600 cm
Diameter: 5.900 cm
Room 54: Anatolia and Urartu
Anatolian Chalcolithic, around 5000 BC
Possibly from Hacilar, modern Turkey
This painted jar has designs like those found on pottery from Hacilar, excavated by James Mellaart between 1957 and 1960, although the shape is slightly different. The Hacilar potters were able to produce high-quality wares with beautifully executed, bright geometric designs that may reflect designs on textiles. The ceramics were well shaped and evenly fired.
Pottery workshops were found in an earlier level at Hacilar in the village centre. Grindstones were used to break up the natural pigments of red and yellow ochre for colouring the pottery. Alongside them were cups of paint, storage areas for the clay and modelling tools, and unpainted but burnished pottery. No kilns were discovered and the firing may have taken place outside the settlement. This type of pottery has also been found at other sites in western Anatolia, and at Mersin on the south-east coast of Turkey.
The jar dates to the so-called Chalcolithic (literally 'copper-stone') period when copper started to be more widely used. In Anatolia there was an increase in permanent settlement based on farming, although the largest part of the population was probably still semi-nomadic. By the beginning of the fifth millennium BC, Hacilar had been abandoned, and with the end of the settlement came an end to the fine pottery tradition. | <urn:uuid:ce6b8e4d-d96f-4e22-a8b4-759f84076afb> | {
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[gas-fahyuh rd] /ˈgæsˌfaɪərd/
using a gas for fuel.
using a combustible gas as fuel
noun 1. a person who installs gas pipes and apparatus in buildings.
noun 1. the work or business of a gas fitter. 2. gas fittings, fittings for the use of illuminating gas.
noun 1. a furnace using gas as a fuel. 2. a furnace for distilling gas from a solid fuel, as coal.
noun, Pathology. 1. a gangrenous infection developing in wounds, especially deep wounds with closed spaces, caused by bacteria that form gases in the subcutaneous tissues. noun 1. gangrene resulting from infection of a wound by anaerobic bacteria (esp Clostridium welchii) that cause gas bubbles and swelling in the surrounding tissues gas gangrene n. A form […] | <urn:uuid:ee4dc66d-8b77-4c40-b86a-414c5868c426> | {
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Beautiful tropical fish guide - how to keep, breed freshwater fish in aquarium - planted tank - keeping fish in community tank. Choosing fish and aquatic plants for aquascape.
Guppies are an immensely popular fish and breeding guppies is a hobby more and more people are enjoying each year. Even if you eventually want to breed other types of fish, breeding guppies is one of the best ways to start out. On the other hand, some people are just plain guppy lovers and they are very into breeding guppies and showing them. Yes, you heard right, showing guppies!
If you are going to start breeding guppies, you need to begin with some quality guppies. In most cases, that is going to mean going beyond the local pet store to find guppies to breed. While store guppies make wonderful pets, breeding guppies is best done by starting out with a pair of high quality guppies. You can purchase these from local fish breeders or from companies who sell guppies online. Get a young male and female.
Develop a plan for breeding your guppies before you start the actual breeding. Some people breed for size and others for color. If your goal is to grow the biggest guppies in the world, you won’t start out well if you begin with guppies which are too small. Make sure too that you set up separate aquariums for breeding, and that your aquariums are large enough.
If you have a 10 gallon fish tank, it is only meant to keep eight to twelve fish. And you need to take proper care of the aquarium. You don’t want the water quality or temperature to ever change too much. When you change water, do it a little every week rather than waiting longer and making a big change at once.
Keep your guppies healthy. They normally need a temperature of around 65 degrees, but when breeding, guppies need to be ten degrees warmer. Maintain a steady temperature of 73-78 degrees in your aquarium.
When it comes to breeding, don’t let your guppies choose their own mate. You want to continue to mate the female guppy who breeds the best male guppy. The best way to go about the task is to breed different females to the same male. Raise the guppies and see which offspring develop into the best males. There is no need to take more than two pair out to keep from any generation of guppies.
Guppies are livebearers and prolific breeders. Every thirty days (that’s once a month!) a female guppy will drop a new litter. They are completely formed when they are born. If you don’t separate your guppies into a separate breeding tank, larger fish will have some good meals out of your baby guppies.
Once you have put together the right couple, the female will literally always be pregnant. Guppies multiply like crazy. Every time the female is pregnant, she will likely have between twenty and fifty more babies. Sexual maturity is reached in just a couple of months.
Start out small and gradually obtain several ten gallon aquariums. These need to be set up with proper heat, lighting, and filtering. Your guppies need to be fed high quality food if you want them to breed. This means feeding live or frozen worms, mosquito larvae, and brine shrimp. Additionally, they should be given dry food every day. Baby guppies are known as fry, and you can get special fry food at pet stores and online shops.
Breeding guppies shouldn’t be done simply because it’s fun. You need to have enough financial resources to set up several different aquariums. You also need to have people to whom you can give or sell guppies. Remember that each guppy is a life--a living, breathing being which deserves the best care possible.
Baby guppies are a great project for anyone that loves keeping fish especially if your new to it. Keeping and caring for baby is pretty simple but you have to keep a few things in mind; like where are you going to keep them when their born, will they stay in the main community fish tank or will you put them into a separate tank?
If your going to keep them in that main fish tank there are a few things that you need to do to help your new baby guppies survive, you need to make sure there are plenty of places for the babies to hide in, things like rocks, caves and plenty of aquarium plants like java moss. Another thing that you can do to help is if you notice the expecting female hiding and acting strange, this could mean she is ready to give birth to her babies and you should put some food in the tank to keep the other fish occupied and turn off the lights to keep her stress levels down and protect the babies a little more.
If you are going the other route with your baby guppies and going to keep them in a separate fish tank then the main problem with this is getting the female before she gives birth otherwise you will have to try and catch the babies with a net once they are born, sure this is can be a pain but over all the survival rate tends to be higher than just in the main tank.
Both way have pros and cons and there isn’t a perfect way, it all depends on your own needs and space. Keeping more than one fish tank is a lot more work which some people are happy to do (like me!). You may need an a good aquarium filter for less maintenance.
Feeding is the other big thing that needs to be kept in mind when it comes to raising healthy baby guppies, things such as what you feed them and how often can really affect how quick or slow they grow. Live micro freshwater aquarium fish foods are the best for all baby fish especially baby guppies, foods such as infusoria, microworms, baby brine shrimp and daphnia. There are also some very good, highly nutritional powdered foods that guppies love. The main think that should be remembered when it comes to feeding your baby guppies is little and often and make sure you remove all uneaten food before it starts to rot and pollute the water.
Which of the common livebearers, guppies, mollies, platies, or swordtails, are the hardiest? Can they coexist in a 30 gallon aquarium tank?
First, I need to emphasize that there are different wild species of each of these groups and hybridization among the livebearers is rampant. Thus, any answer to your question would be a sweeping generalization at best.
That said, I would probably choose platies as the hardiest of the bunch with swordtails coming in a close second. Modern fancy guppy strains seem to be particularly fragile. Mollies can be very hardy when their requirements are met, but they seem to be less adaptable than platies and swordtails when it comes to water parameters. All of these livebearers prefer hard, basic water, but these conditions are pretty much non-negotiable for mollies. In fact, mollies tend to do best when kept in brackish conditions in aquariums.
Combining all four types together in the same 30 gallon aquarium may create some problems. For example, mollies can be major bullies and could make life miserable for the smaller, more peaceful platies and guppies. Male swordtails can be pretty obnoxious in this regard too. Not all livebearers are on the same page when it comes to water temperature either. Platies, for instance, prefer a temperature somewhere in the range of the low- to mid-70s Fahrenheit, while mollies like it warmer, between the upper- 70s and low-80s. The bottom line is, it won’t be easy to provide conditions that make everybody happy. | <urn:uuid:9f01e33a-60af-43b8-8f9e-5c43dcf142a0> | {
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The Remote Sensing Technology Institute (IMF)
The Remote Sensing Technology Institute (IMF) is an institute of the German Aerospace Center DLR. It is located in Oberpfaffenhofen (near Munich), Berlin, and Neustrelitz (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern). IMF and the German Remote Sensing Data Center (DFD) together comprise the Earth Observation Center EOC – a center of competence for earth observation in Germany.
Core competence of IMF
Research and development activities at IMF are dedicated to remote sensing technology. Algorithms and methods are developed to configure processors that extract relevant geoinformation from remote sensing data. Operational processors are the prerequisite for optimal utilization of modern sensor systems for advanced scientific purposes and numerous applications. These processors are integrated into the payload ground segments of DFD and industry for national and international earth observation missions.
IMF focuses on:
MF manages the air-based optical sensor suite of the EOC. The capabilities of the IMF calibration and spectrometry labs provide the basis for optimal use of remote sensing data. IMF’s expertise finds its way into the conception of various new sensor systems and earth operation missions.
IMF is subdivided into five departments:
The Controlling department (EOC-CON, headed by Dipl.-Forstwirt Hans-Henning Voß) is a central service unit for both IMF and DFD.
The institute is ISO9001:2008 certified.
Education of young academics is a major concern of IMF. In DLR’s School_Lab students are introduced to various aspects of remote sensing. Bachelor and master’s theses can be produced during hands-on participation in ongoing projects, and PhD students can work on attractive scientific problems. IMF scientists lecture at several universities, and the director of the institute holds a chair at Munich Technical University (TUM). | <urn:uuid:f06f7cc7-8f24-44a4-87d3-1cce2eaf5f26> | {
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Cocaine is a potent central nervous system (CNS) stimulant and a local anesthetic. Initially, it brings about extreme energy and restlessness while gradually resulting in tremors, over-sensitivity and spasms. In large amounts, cocaine causes fever, unresponsiveness, difficulty in breathing and unconsciousness
Cocaine is often self-administered by nasal inhalation, intravenous injection and free-base smoking. It is excreted in the urine in a short time primarily as Benzoylecgonine.2,3 Benzoylecgonine, a major metabolite of cocaine, has a longer biological half-life (5-8 hours) than cocaine (0.5-1.5 hours), and can generally be detected for 24-48 hours after cocaine exposure. | <urn:uuid:9dfd1191-6668-40d6-83fc-fdbadeb9a949> | {
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The Hawk and the Coling
Early one morning a hawk sallied forth from his nest to find something to eat. He flew so high that he could hardly be seen from the earth. He looked down, but as he could not see anything, he flew lower and lower, until he came to the top of a tree.
On one of the branches he saw sitting quietly a coling. The hawk despised the little bird and at once made up his mind to challenge him to a flight upward.
So the hawk said to the coling, “Do you wish to fly up into the sky with me to see which of us can fly the faster and the higher?”
The coling did not answer at once, but he thought of the matter for a while. Then he said to the hawk, “When do you want to have the race?”
“That is for you to decide,” said the hawk. “If you wish to have it now, well and good.”
“Well,” said the coling, “let us have it tomorrow morning before sunrise!”
“All right,” said the hawk.
“But,” said the coling, “each of us is to carry a load with him to make the flight a little more difficult.”
“Well, what do you want to take with you?” said the hawk.
“I will take some salt,” said the coling.
“Then I will take some cotton,” replied the hawk. “Let us meet here in this tree early to-morrow!” This agreed upon, the two birds separated. The hawk went to the cotton-field and got his load of cotton, while the coling went to the sea and got some salt.
The next morning they met in the tree, each having the object he would carry with him in his flight. They asked the crow, who was present, to be the judge of the contest. The crow accepted the commission and said that he would give a caw as a signal for them to start. He did so, and the two contestants were off.
At first the hawk flew faster and higher than the coling. but very soon it began to rain. The cotton on the hawk’s back became soaked with water and soon was very heavy, but the salt on the coling’s back was soon dissolved, and then he had no load at all.
Under these conditions, the coling soon overtook the bigger bird. For a time they flew side by side, but after a few minutes the coling had the best of the race, and in a little while longer the hawk could no longer see his rival.
But the coling flew so high that at last his head touched the sun, and all the feathers on the top were burned off. The hawk now flew down to the crow and said that he had won the race, for the coling had fallen to the ground dead. But by and by the coling himself came. He showed them the top of his head as a proof that he had won the race. The crow gave his decision in favor of the coling, and the hawk flew off disgraced.
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How Much of Each Ingredient Do We Need?
All good recipes tell the chef how much of each ingredient is required. The process by which we figure out how much of each reactant is required for a chemical process is called balancing the equation.
Equation Balancing Made Easy
Let's learn equation balancing by studying the equation for making water from hydrogen and oxygen: H2 + O2 ⇔ H2O. This equation, as well as any others you may come across, can be balanced by following these steps.
Before balancing equations, tell yourself never to change any of the chemical formulas of either the reactants or products. If you change the formulas by adding subscripts or altering them in any way, your equation is guaranteed to be wrong!
Draw a table that shows the number of atoms of each element both before and after the arrow. For the reaction of hydrogen and oxygen to make water, this table would look like this:
The Mole Says
The law of conservation of mass makes it important that the number of atoms of each element doesn't change during the equation. If there were more atoms of an element on one side of the equation than the other, this would imply either the formation or destruction of matter, which the law of conservation of mass for bids.
Change the equation in a way that will make the number of atoms of each element in the "before" and "after" columns match one another. To do this, the formulas of the chemicals involved can't be changed. Instead, we add numbers called "coefficients" in front of the formulas in the equation. These coefficients allow us to multiply the number of atoms of each element in the compound so the columns will match up.
Examining our table, we see that the hydrogen columns already match, so we'll change the equation to make the oxygen columns match. There are two oxygen atoms before the arrow and only one after the arrow, so we'll put a "2" in front of the molecule containing oxygen after the arrow to give us the following:
H2 + O2 ⇔ 2 H2O
Redo the table to reflect the change in the equation. If the columns match, the equation is balanced and we're done! If the columns don't match, we need to go back to step 3 and change another number.
In our example, we see that the table has changed in the following way:
The Mole Says
The best way to learn how to solve equations is to practice doing them over and over. The tricks in this section help me to solve equations; with practice, you'll discover tricks of your own!
As you can see, the oxygen columns now match perfectly, which is exactly what we were trying to do by adding the "2" in front of H2O. Unfortunately, the hydrogen column, which previously had matched, is now unbalanced. Though this may make it seem as if we've made a mistake, this is a common event when balancing equations.
After an examination of the revised table, it becomes clear that we should add a "2" in front of H2 before the arrow so we'll have four hydrogen atoms before the arrow. Our revised equation now looks like this:
Because we've changed another number, we can redo our table to find that the numbers of hydrogen and oxygen atoms are the same on both sides of the equation:
Equation Balancing Cautions, Tips, and Suggestions
You've Got Problems
Problem 1: Balance the following equations:
As with recipes, some equations are more difficult than others. Though these may initially be frustrating, below are some tips you can try when the going gets tough:
If you made the table showing the number of atoms in this equation, it would work out just fine. However, it's more proper to write this in a reduced form by dividing all of the subscripts by two to yield the equation that we solved earlier.
Excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chemistry © 2003 by Ian Guch. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. | <urn:uuid:f31832e1-5fb8-40de-bb51-07ed5cd10742> | {
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- Open Access
“Full-time wife” and the change of gender order in the Chinese City
© Fang and Walker. 2015
- Received: 26 November 2014
- Accepted: 15 May 2015
- Published: 18 June 2015
Work and family are the most critical of the contested terrains that determine the status of women in the gender order, the differing pattern of inequality between men and women. “Full-time wife” is a relatively new label in China, emerging only in the late twentieth century. It corresponds to the term “housewife” used in the 1950s and 1960s. Based on 59 in-depth interviews carried out between 2006 and 2007 in Guangzhou City, this article focuses on “full-time wives” and the dilemma they face in the conflict between family and work, an issue that is essential to an understanding of changing gender relations in China. The paper argues that a combination of the traditional Chinese gender order, improving wages of the family under the “socialist” market economy, and the rolling back of state protection was a key reason for the emergence of the full-time wife phenomenon. The analysis of the position of the full-time wife demonstrates how rolling back state protection affected women and specifically how it undermined the admittedly inconsistent advances in gender equality made in the previous era. For example, women now experience many new kinds of subordination, both in the labor market and the family. China’s market economy requires social policies that aim to improve the work-family balance in order to prevent or mitigate the further development of the market-constructed gender order.
- Full-time wife
- Gender order
- Work-family balance
Reconciling family life and paid work is one of the most important issues in feminist theory. With the development of capitalism, large-scale production was separated from the family. Women were expected to stay at home to take care of family members while men’s primary duty was to enter the labor market to make money and support their families (Crompton 2006). This model of the family emerged in Western societies in the nineteenth century; it was initially a middle-class phenomenon and only became widespread among the working classes after the Second World War (Stacey 1996; Nicholson 1997). This division of labor meant that women were confined to the private sphere of the family with little or no opportunity to develop their talents and abilities in the public domain. During the course of the twentieth century, the male breadwinner model was accompanied by institutional developments that reflected its basic assumptions in areas such as schooling, pensions, and the delivery of health and welfare services (Sainsbury 1999).
Liberal feminists argued that this situation made women into adjuncts of men rather than persons in their own right, while radical feminists claimed that the family was a site of patriarchal control (Millett 1999). In order to overcome “the nameless confusion” advanced by Friedan (2005), it was argued that women should have the chance to engage in the public domain of work instead of staying at home. Friedan saw that her daughter’s generation was exhausted because they wanted to simultaneously pursue a full-time career and the family role of mother and wife. She argues that it is as important for men to develop their private and family selves as it is for women to develop their public and social selves (Friedan 2004).
Paid employment is a right that women have fought for. The control of women’s access to paid work is maintained primarily by patriarchal relations in the workplace and in the household (Walby 1986). Women still face a series of problems after entering the labor market. First, it is difficult to balance the pressures of work and family. Hardworking men usually have a wife to take care of the family, yet it is still rare to find a man supporting a working woman. Having a paid job is both time-consuming and physically challenging for women. Especially when their children are very young, mothers face the dilemma of whether to engage in paid work or provide full-time care at home (Brannen 1999). Second, women face the problem of occupational segregation (Giddens 2003), which operates along both vertical and horizontal lines. On average, in the UK, women’s wages are 70 % of men’s in the same jobs—the so-called Female Forfeit (Rake 2000). Although slightly diminished by globalization today, occupational segregation is still the leading determinant of gender inequality in terms of earnings (Guachat 2012). Third, women need to rotate constantly between meeting formal job requirements and demonstrating femininity. Women in paid work are expected to be brisk and efficient, in contrast to the feminine characteristics of warmth, empathy, and tenderness. With the globally increasing rate of women with paid employment and dual-earner families, the dominant male breadwinner social policy no longer fits. Feminists thus proposed the family-work balance model to replace the present unequal one (Crompton 2006).
Work and family are the most important domains that determine the status of women in the gender order. This family-employment nexus underscores the socioeconomic security and social status of women and has therefore always been one of the central issues in feminism (Robila 2012; Fischlmayr and Kollinger 2010; Wattisa et al. 2013; Marian 2011; Trefalt et al. 2013). In the 1980s, research in developed countries focused on the conflict between family and work faced by career women (Friedan 1981; Jeffrey 1985). From the 1990s onward, social policies that supported both women and men in achieving a better balance between work and life were introduced in the UK and other European countries. These included childcare services, the promotion of flexible working time, and parental leave, all of which have become common in these countries (Han et al. 2007; Philips and Evans 1987; Bastian 1994).
In China, the trend is different because of the state’s strong intervention from 1949 to 1979 and the rolling back of such intervention in the economic reform period after 1979. From 1949 to 1979, the rate of employment among women increased to over 70 %, compared to 56.7 % as the average in other countries classified by the UN as having a medium level of human development and 51.5 % for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (Jiang 2003). Employment meant socialist construction since the private sector virtually disappeared in the early 1950s. For urban women growing up in the Maoist era, employment was taken for granted as an important component of a woman’s life (Wang 2003). Day nurseries became part of the workplace benefits in any urban work unit of significant size (Walker and Wong 2009). Such family-friendly support prevented many family-work conflicts. In contrast, after 1979, the reduction of state support was rapid, and today, even the protection of women’s basic maternity rights are not completely enforced, especially in private companies. Some Chinese women choose to be a full-time wife to avoid the increasing conflict between work and family. This demonstrates the state’s power in opening up or closing down choices and opportunities during women’s life course (Daly and Rake 2003).
The gender order
Giddens (2003) advanced the concept of gender order but did not offer a precise definition. It is clearly related to concepts such as gender relations, gender inequality, gender differences, gender socialization, and masculinity and femininity. Based on these concepts, gender order may be defined as the different characters, roles, and modes of action for men and women that are specified by culture, customs, political economy, and the social structure, including social policy. In this paper, the term “gender order” is used specifically to highlight the female roles formed by culture, regulation, and access to resources. Four types of gender order are discussed in this paper: 1) traditional gender order, also called private patriarchy and constructed with reference to Confucianism, that advocates “man responsible for the outside, woman responsible for the inside” (Nan zhu wai, niu zhu nei, 男主外,女主内); 2) state-constructed gender order, also called state patriarchy, that advocates “woman exactly like man in public areas”; 3) market-constructed gender order, also called capitalist patriarchy, that is characterized by discrimination against women in paid employment; and 4) modern equal-gender order or equality based on woman’s subjectivity and constructed in terms of equality with difference. Thus, although similar to terms such as “gender inequality” and “gender hierarchy,” “gender order” comprises a multidimensional framework that identifies different social constructions of the role of women in relation to men.
From “housewife” to “full-time wife”
Under the traditional Chinese gender order of “man responsible for the outside, woman responsible for the inside” (Nan zhu wai, niu zhu nei, 男主外,女主内), women were required to be good wives and loving mothers in the family. In the context of the traditional Confucian culture, a woman had to “comply with her father, her husband, and her son.” A woman’s position and duties were defined by this gender order.
After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the state established a different gender order—“woman exactly like man in public areas,” and in the sphere of work, most urban women entered into paid employment. At the same time, the employment-based urban welfare system (Danwei welfare) built up kindergartens and canteens to reduce the burden of domestic labor. Moreover, family life was suppressed under the ideology of “giving up the small family, working for the big family” (She xiao jia, wei da jia, 舍小家,为大家) (Zuo 2005). As a result, the conflict between unpaid and paid labor was mitigated to some extent (Zuo and Jiang 2009). The state was important both because women had entered the labor market, often as state employees, and also because the extension of state services was necessary for their transition from housework to the labor market. This change undoubtedly weakened the status of many Chinese men in relation to their wives. However, although their dependence on their husbands was reduced, women had become more dependent on the state (Walby 1990). The liberational path of both women and men “being national, bearing responsibility” (Tong wei guo min, tong dang ze ren, 同为国民,同担责任) was based on state demands, and in practice, the interests of women were subsumed into state discourses and state interests (Song 2005). As a result, not all women experienced a sense of liberation from participating in social production (Wang 2000). Influenced by the slogan “Woman holds up half the sky” (Fu niu neng ding ban bian tian, 妇女能顶半边天), images in newspapers and journals portrayed female warriors, weavers, electricians, and other labor models. The difference between men and women was erased in the public sphere through the erasure of gender and sexuality (Wang 2003). The social value of women’s employment received full official affirmation and praise. In contrast, a woman who stayed at home was criticized as a lazy housewife and shameful, decadent, bourgeois wife (Tong 2005). In the context of state socialism, the liberation of women embodied the legality of the state. Women were granted equal political, economic, educational, employment, and marriage rights within a short period of time, whereas Western women had to undertake a long battle for such rights. The main problem with this social progress was that women had no choice but to adapt to it and no time to consider its consequences. Thus women’s subjectivity and identity did not develop along with their labor market liberation. This is not to suggest that gender equality was achieved in the prereform era; it remained unfulfilled and problematic. For example, although women were pulled out of the family to participate in the labor force, job allocation and promotion were still gendered. Men were more likely to be assigned to managerial and technical posts and women to auxiliary ones. Moreover, the provision of public childcare in large urban units did not prevent the primary burden of household chores from falling on women (Wang 2003). Feminism in China must address this particular legacy (Yang 1999).
Beginning with the economic reform, guided by the market rationale of “efficiency first,” everyone was encouraged to put more time and energy into paid work. Women began to occupy inferior positions in the job market and to face discrimination based on age and gender because of the cost to employers of maternity leave. Mothers are more likely to leave male-dominated occupations when they work 50 h or more per week, but the same effect is not found for men or childless women. Also, overworked mothers are more likely to exit the labor force entirely, typically in male-dominated occupations (Cha 2013).
With economic development, the state released more space for the development of culture and ideas. Women’s value in the family, which in the traditional culture was previously confined, regained public interest. On one hand, the one-child policy strengthened the requirement to be a good mother; on the other hand, with the increase in living standards and the rise of individualism, a better family life was seen as a right by more and more people. However, because many families were still under the influence of the traditional gender order, women had to be more focused on domestic labor than men. In Chinese cities today, women’s attitude toward housework is divided: the traditional perspective argues that the woman should be responsible for it, while the modern view states that couples should share it equally. A possible third approach in which men should be solely responsible for housework has not yet emerged (Fang 2011). The equal balance between paid work and the family has become the “life politics” of many women in urban China today.
Women are no longer asked to obey only one prescribed gender order; each person must choose according to their specific resources and situation. For example, concerning the issue of how to deal with housework, there are multiple choices available to women: giving it priority, seeking support from parents, seeking support from domestic workers, or asking men to seek support from their parents (Fang 2011). The full-time wife gives up paid employment and returns home to satisfy the requirements of the traditional gender order by striving to be a good wife and loving mother within the family. This avoids the pressure to balance paid work and unpaid domestic labor. She is responsible for all housework chores and often strives to improve the standard in order to gain a sense of achievement in satisfying their families (Fang 2011).
“Full-time wife” is a new term that emerged in the late twentieth century that corresponds to the 1950s and 1960s term “housewife.” These two types of women do not take part in paid employment, but are portrayed with completely different images in different historical and political contexts.
The core issue discussed in the literature is how to balance work and family. The literature review is organized along two lines: one is the experience in Western countries, the other is the experience of Chinese women from 1949 to the economic transformation period. Using the core conception of gender order, the rest of this article examines the impact on women of social policy in China from the Maoist era to the market transformation. In the Maoist period, the state brought greatly improved equality to the public gender order, but the state’s strong intervention affected women’s choices and freedom. In the post-Maoist period, the state rolled back too many regulations that ensured gender fairness, which created difficulties for women in balancing work and family. This work presents the full-time wife’s situation in the context of gender order change and especially the reasons behind the choice. Based on an empirical study of the changes in gender order in present-day China, we argue that instead of holding back the policies that ensure gender equality, the state should remain the key guarantor of equality in the gender order. The question of how to reconcile family and paid work should be reconsidered in China. Lessons can be drawn from both the danwei system and family policies in Western countries.
The primary data were derived from 59 in-depth interviews carried out between 2006 and 2007 in Guangzhou, southern China. The lead author conducted 40 interviews, and the rest were carried out by undergraduate students under her supervision. The women interviewed had all lived in Guangzhou for 3 years or more and were between 22 and 55 years in age. Women of this age group generally experience the most intense energy and time conflicts between family and work. The sample included three types of women: single, full-time wives, and those balancing both work and family. Only the full-time wives are discussed in this paper. According to the abstract sampling standard, the lead author interviewed two women in each of the three types. Women of different age, career, and educational levels were then chosen according to the need for theory development. For example, by analyzing the first round of interviews, the lead author realized that it was important whether the full-time wife’s job had a comparative advantage to that of her husband’s before her resignation. Thus, purposive sampling was used to choose women who formed four types based on patterns of comparison between their former jobs and those of their husbands.
The interviews usually lasted around 2 h using a semistructured approach. All were audio recorded. Transcriptions were sent to each interviewee to confirm their accuracy. Follow-up telephone calls were made to seek additional information. Besides the in-depth interviews, group discussion and family joint narratives were used to increase the reliability and validity of the data. In the group discussion, several women debated the topic at the same time, which stimulated each other’s thinking and corrected the more uncommon and extreme views. In the family joint narratives, the voices of wife and husband could be heard at the same time, expressing different opinions that reflected the pressure of the gender order women faced in reality. Several male interviewees took part in family joint narratives, which was helpful in determining whether a specific opinion was held only by women, possibly due to the influence of the gender order. For example, the question “Which do you think is more important, work or family?” was initially designed to tap women’s attitudes to family and work, but it proved to be of little value since, being Chinese, both men and women chose the family as the more important factor. In addition to the primary data collected in the present reform era, secondary data covering women in the Maoist era are cited principally from Zuo (2005), whose data come from in-depth interviews of 80 elderly married individuals in Beijing in the summer of 2000 and 2003. Clearly, a longitudinal or matched sample design would have suited the comparative needs of this research but, for various practical reasons, this was not possible. The unmatched comparison provides a valid second-best approach when the ideal is not available.
The housewife in Mao’s era
In Mao’s era, the government called on Chinese women to engage in paid employment, and they played important roles in a variety of industries. Compared to the 1950s, the proportion of women remaining at home dropped from 90 to 10 % and the proportion of working women rose from 10 to 80–90 % (Li 2005). By establishing a number of “Female Worker Models” (Niu lao mo, 女劳模) and “38 Red-banner Pacesetters (San ba hong qi shou, 三八红旗手),”1 women engaging in paid employment were projected as glorious contributors to the collective and the country. In contrast, women who stayed at home as housewives were regarded as lazy. Discourses calling for women to work stated, “We also have hands, we should not stay at home to be fed by others” (Wo men ye you yi shuang shou, bu zai jia li chi xian fan, 我们也有一双手,不在家里吃闲饭) (Zuo 2005). Housewives were viewed as lesser beings with no desire or conscience to make contributions to national construction.
Grandma was paralyzed in bed for three years; I took care of her. After she died in 1958, I participated in work as called for by the street government. I wanted to work, on one hand to supplement the family income, on the other hand to get out of the family to liberate myself. At that time, no one wanted to be a domestic woman to be fed by others. If you get a salary you will be freer to use money. Firstly, I worked in a nursery school for a year. Then I worked in a picture factory for three years. But the job was too tiring and I earned little money. Every morning I got up at four or five o’clock to wash clothes and do cooking after work every day. In addition, I was afraid of my children learning badly because of me lacking time to take care of them. Then I quit my job. But I have many children and life was difficult, so I got some work to do at home and earned money to buy clothes for the children.2
Just because I am from a cadre family, they asked me to work in the neighborhood as a model. …Then my family moved to Huaihai Road. The local neighborhood came to persuade me again. There was no other way. I had to work again. I like to stay at home and feel good, but it was not so good to quit work because I am from a cadre family, so I went to work.3
This respondent did not take paid employment for economic reasons, but because of the political pressure on a cadre family to provide a role model. In the era that divided people according to their political views, the housewife was considered to have low political consciousness and low social status. Corresponding to the historical situation, the traditional gender order in the family was suppressed in favor of making a contribution to the common good. Women felt honored to be workers, while much of the housework, such as cooking lunch and taking care of children, was carried out by the canteens and nurseries provided by danwei. In the 1970s, the national total fertility rate was 5.8 children per couple (Cao 2009); thus, it was common for a woman to have around five or six children. Without support from danwei, it was impossible for them to take full-time jobs and provide family care at the same time. As Hernes (1984) argues, women reduced their dependence on their husband (private patriarchy) but increased their dependence on the welfare state both as employees of the state and as clients receiving state services (public patriarchy).
Since the danwei system provided employment and basic life protection to male and female residents, the mutual rights and obligations between the state and people was established, and a prominent phenomenon emerged in the city in which the worker was expected to “work for the country, not for the family” (She xiao jia, wei guo jia, 舍小家,为国家) (Zuo 2005). Both men and women began to depend on the state to arrange their jobs, welfare, and lives and they lost the freedom to choose for themselves.
The full-time wife in the market transformation era
What is the sociological difference between the Chinese housewife and the full-time wife? The image of the former is of low cultural quality: a woman who does housework at home pays no attention to her image and has limited interests. The image of the latter is dressed up as a desirable status: she has the ability and experience of working but chooses to be at home to take care of her family. The two labels appeared at different times: the former refers to women who did not take part in work after 1949, while the latter refers to women who chose to return home from employment from the end of the twentieth century onward. The two different labels are marked with a deep sense of their times: housewife represented a form of social stigma against women who did not participate in paid work, while full-time wife indicates an unusual choice in the context of a changing socially constructed gender order. The former reflects the state’s strong impact on personal life in the past, and the latter reflects the market-driven need to build a new image of middle-class women as beautiful, respectful, and with excellent consumer tastes. The latter can be seen in many Chinese commercial advertisements and represents a new major consumer model. Female body consumption has grown quickly and has become an important way of constructing self-identity (Fang 2006). This leads to the question: in present-day China, why do some women choose to be full-time wives?
The full-time wife who quits her job due to the traditional gender order
According to the second phase of a national investigation in 2000, the previously weakened traditional gender order—“man responsible for the outside, woman responsible for the inside” (Nan zhu wai, niu zhu nei, 男主外,女主内) revealed a new enhanced tendency in Guangdong province, which ironically began promarket transformations earlier than most of the other Chinese provinces. Three quarters of the women agreed with the statement “Even if the spouse’s income is high enough, or there is a lot of money at home, she will continue to work.” One quarter of female respondents believed that if economic conditions permitted, they would be willing to quit their jobs and return to the family. The ratio is nearly 13 percentage points higher than the national average. It is the combination of the traditional Chinese gender order and the improving market-driven wages of the family that is making the emergence of the full-time wife possible. According to the third phase of the national investigation in 2010, there has been a slow reduction in the rate of employment for women, which indicates the increasing trend of full-time wife (Wu 2014). Forty percent of mothers feel torn between work and child rearing and are likely to quit their jobs, compared to 20 % of fathers. One important reason is lack of professional childcare (He and Jiang 2012).
Through analysis of the in-depth interview data, we now explore why Chinese women say they will give up paid work in favor of domestic labor. Women were divided into four types according to their situation in the job market and in comparison with their husband’s jobs. Income levels and career development opportunities were also taken into account (Fang Ying 2009).
Women who are disadvantaged both in the job market and at home
This type of female status took the form of a low-grade job that was apparently disadvantaged in relation to the husband’s job. This meant the women earned a much lower income and had fewer career development opportunities. They were the most affected by patriarchy in both the job market and the family, and many had been full-time wives for a long period. They faced segregation in both occupational type and occupational status. Also, any sense of achievement and personal income gained from the job were limited. As a result, remaining in the job was not an attractive option when the family’s circumstances permitted a choice to be made. These women’s jobs were in a disadvantaged position compared to their husband’s. Their husband’s more-advantageous job provided them with the economic possibility of returning home; on the other hand, their husbands needed to invest more energy and time into their job and therefore had even less time to devote to family affairs. The gender order in the family placed higher expectations on the women than their spouses, and the woman’s resignation from employment further met the patriarchal expectation that the man should devote himself to paid work instead of the family.
As one respondent observed, “When we were preparing to get married, there were a lot of things to do. My husband went to work, and I went to do all kinds of things and felt embarrassed by my regular absence, so I quit the job” (Mrs. Ping).4 Mrs. Ping’s qualification was of the secondary school level. Before marriage, she was an accountant in a nursery, while her husband had founded a small advertising company. Her daughter was 4 years old, and she had held no job after marriage. Mrs. Ping’s reasoning appeared to contain this message: her job was not important to her while marriage was very important, so she felt she should quit her job to prepare for her marriage. Why did she consider her job unimportant? First, compared to her husband’s salary, her income was minimal; second, the job gave her no satisfaction in terms of stability and sense of achievement. It was a low-end job in which she could be replaced easily, and she was at a disadvantaged position in the labor market. In contrast, her husband had a much higher income and better career prospects. When she made the choice to leave her position, she expected it to bring great benefits and make her life happier. Gender discrimination in the job market pushed her and the traditional gender order in the family pulled her at the same time. Thus, her resignation from paid work was a response to these two restraints of gender order.
The resignation of another respondent, Mrs. Zhen, came in response to her husband’s job-changing trajectory. When they were married, her husband worked in a large state factory but then quit that position. After 2 years, he was employed by a large foreign-owned enterprise and was sent to work in another city. Mrs. Zhen’s job changed due to her husband’s move. She was a teacher in a kindergarten before her daughter was 5 years old and was the only wage earner in the family during the period her husband was looking for employment. When her husband was sent to work in another city, she resigned and transferred to take care of the family.
There was no change to Mrs. Zhen’s relative position in the labor market; the change was in her husband’s income. When the income gap between them became larger, her income became less important to the family, and market gender discrimination and traditional gender order led her to quit her job and carry out female domestic duties. This was in support of her husband’s career and the fact that the couple believed that, as a family, they could benefit more from her resignation. This choice was very different from that available to a housewife in the Maoist era.
Women with an advantage in the labor market, but a comparative disadvantage in the family
I only worked for a few years.
Interviewer: Is it because you had a baby?
No, it is not difficult to find a job, but I needed to pick up my child from school. In 1997 Hong Kong returned, foreign business wanted to open plants within the mainland. I did very well at the beginning, then I couldn’t continue [because of the need to take care of the child].
Interviewer: Did you feel sorry?
I felt a little sense of loss, at the beginning. I felt relaxed because you needn’t go to work everyday, then I felt a bit of loss. I managed to lessen the feeling of loss through my child. My job was easy and I had a good salary.
When I was young I wanted to do something, such as take part in his company, but I felt a man would suppress the woman somewhat. He said that I could do it, you just need to stay at home and enjoy life. I think I have this problem [the lack of opportunity outside the family].
Mrs. Chen was clearly affected by the traditional gender order, and her unfulfilled willingness to take part in her husband’s company was also controlled by this gender order.
Another respondent stated that “suppression of myself is the greatest impact brought by marriage. That is, sometimes you will transform your role slowly, feel you are a woman behind a man” (Ms. Liu). The disadvantaged role of women in the traditional gender order does not change because of improved economic conditions since women may no longer be disadvantaged in terms of material living standards (depending on the distribution of resources within the family), but are still inferior in terms of self-fulfillment. Women’s suppression resulting from the traditional gender order occurs independently of economic factors, and in the background of market transformation, economic factors sometimes become a powerful support of the traditional gender order.
Women who hold a position in the labor market that is equal to her husband’s
When a woman has a position in the labor market that matches that of her husband, what impact does the traditional gender order have on her job prospects? This type of forced resignation reflects the reemergence of the traditional gender order in the period of market transformation. Strong pressure is put on the woman to abandon her commitment to employment through a combination of complaints from her husband and her own feelings of guilt and anxiety. The result is that she gives up the pursuit of a career and submits to her family’s requirements. The woman’s employment-related goals are subordinated to the traditional gender order in the family.
Originally, [the husband] always complained when I came back late because of the busy job, He said that making money was for improving quality of life for someone else, but our family was not like a family at all [because there was no one to take care of the family]; I could not tolerate his complaints any more, so I had to give up the job to take care of my family. Generally, it is rare for a wife to complain that her husband is so busy at work. … At that time, I couldn’t go to Sing K [a kind of singing party], he [her son] was too young, his study was very important—the most important thing in our family. Sometimes I needed to go out for a while, I needed to ask my mother to help me to look after my son. I couldn’t leave them [son and husband] together at home, because my husband didn’t want to look after our son except when I went out for only a few minutes, not more than half an hour. If I went out of the university, I needed to take my son with me or ask someone to look after my son or let my son go play at his friends’ home. It was impossible to let them stay at home together. I think there are others like me. First, the man is macho; second, I think he is very busy and I cannot make him busier because of housework.
Before resigning, Mrs. Hu worked in a high-pressure job while her husband’s university job was more stable. If the husband had her job and the wife his, they would have been more balanced, a combination called the “two-track family.”6 This kind of family can enjoy the advantages of the state-owned sector and market sector at the same time, and it is in harmony with the traditional family gender order. However, Mrs. Hu’s case did not equate to a two-track family type. Mrs. Hu’s husband believed that her busy job should not affect her care of the family and was unwilling to do anything more for the family himself, yet he complained that their “home is not like a home.” Behind his complaint lies the traditional gender order: it is the woman’s responsibility to take care of the family regardless of how challenging her work might be. Only after doing so is it allowable for the woman to pursue career development in paid employment.
Under the strong pressure of the traditional gender order, Mrs. Hu gave up her high-status job and hopes to find one that will allow her to take good care of her family: “Yes, I had a high salary at that period, but I thought it was not good for my family, especially given such machismo in my husband. I will take good care of my family, and I think I can spend less time on my son as he grows up” (Mrs. Hu). The traditional gender order created a paradox in this case: her husband was a university teacher but was unwilling to care for his family; however, she is expected to do so when she becomes a university teacher. It is likely that, even when both of them are university teachers, there will be different approaches to paid work because of the unequal gender order for men and women. The wife has to pay more attention to the family and give less attention to her job. This will create a barrier to women’s improvement in career terms and disadvantage women in the long term. The gender order in the labor market (capitalist patriarchy) was reinforced by traditional gender order in the family (private patriarchy).
Women with superior status in both the labor market and the family
This type of female status occurs when the woman has a good job and her income and career prospects are both superior to that of her husband. Out of rational considerations, the family could get maximum benefit if the man gave up his job to take care of the family or the couple shared housework equally. However, they make a very different choice: the wife gives up her better-quality job to become a full-time wife. From this choice, we can see the strong effect of the traditional gender order. The choice eases a woman’s guilt and anxiety about her lack of time for caring for the family, especially her child. She makes a major concession in her career for the sake of the family’s harmony and stability. It is a rational choice in emotional terms.
Mrs. Wang7 was 30 years old and worked in the marketing department of a French design company. Her son was 4 years old, and her husband worked as an administrator at a university. After graduating from the university and before her child was born, she worked in a variety of foreign trade companies. When she stopped working, she received no compensation from the company. When she was asked why, she replied: “I was pregnant and couldn’t complete the work. Even if the company didn’t say ‘We’re letting you go,’ you have to go. It is impossible for the company to keep the empty seat waiting for you for several months, so I had to resign.” After the child was born, she held several temporary jobs until she found her last one in industrial design, a new industry in China. Led by her French boss, she rapidly improved her marketing ability. Her salary increased greatly with rising sales. She had to put increasing energy and time into the work and was upset by her lack of ability to care for her child. As a result, she resigned from the high-salary position.
In this case, external pressure coming from the gender order was not apparent. Mrs. Wang’s mother-in-law and husband took over the family duties when she was very busy, and she was relatively free to set work arrangements and priorities. The cause of her action came more from the inner pressure produced by the traditional gender order. First, she did not have a strong desire for success at work, and when facing great pressure, she made the choice to give up the position. Second, she believed that she should take care of her family because “you get the feeling of home after caring for it yourself.” She had internalized the gender role that dictated that women should always prioritize the family. When external constraints disappear, internal discipline becomes a powerful tool for maintaining the traditional gender order.
Although all the full-time wife interviewees had children and were required by the traditional gender order to quit their jobs, it is also possible that there is a type of full-time wife without children who is motivated more by consumerism and hedonism. This type of relationship status was not encountered in this research but could be the topic of future sociological studies (Chong and Li 2010).
The full-time wife as a product of the interaction between the traditional gender order and the market economy
The contemporary form of patriarchy has invaded the public domain and increasingly so. Women have entered the public sphere in very large numbers yet still occupy subordinate positions (Cha 2012). Contemporary American society has a labor market based on public patriarchy and Western Europe a mixed state/labor market from public patriarchy. Each of these represents a change from the previous form of private patriarchy (Walby 1990).
Under China’s patriarchal system in the Maoist era, women benefited from the strong role of the government and a variety of welfare services that removed much of the housework duties from the home. It was this welfare system that made it possible for most women in urban areas to take part in paid employment. The disadvantage of the state-constructed gender order was lack of individual freedom and choice, where women had to obey the requirements of the state or they would suffer societal pressure to conform (Wang 2003; Yang 1999). This was the direction of China’s national policy on women from 1949 to 1978, and reflected the commitment of the Communist Party to gender equality. After the economic reforms beginning in 1978, the government paid greater attention to efficiency than to equality. As a result, social protection was not given to the women who worked in the private sector, including foreign-owned companies, which made it more difficult for women to balance work and family. This is why the status of full-time wife was more prevalent in the private sector and is thus common in Guangdong province where there is a high proportion of private enterprises.
From Mao’s planned economy to the market reform era, the content and effect factors of gender order have changed. In Mao’s era, the principle of “equality between men and women” was implemented through the urban work unit system. Strong political forces brought many Chinese women a high level of equal rights, equal opportunities, and equal pay. These were advances that Western women had fought to achieve for over 100 years. “Equality between men and women” (Nan niu ping deng, 男女平等) became a principle of legitimacy for the government and the Communist Party. Following the economic development of the market, efficiency replaced fairness and work units began to avoid the burden of childcare, which was shifted back to women. As a result, women began to experience employment discrimination, which was reflected in occupational segregation and a widening wage gap. Inequalities between men and women in the job market became more and more apparent. According to the national investigation into women’s status in 2000, the average annual income of women in cities was 70.1 % of men’s, a decrease from 77.4 % in 1990 (Tong 2005).
After China’s state control system weakened and market individualism strengthened, people felt that they wanted an individual family life rather than only contributing to the common good. In this context, women’s role in the family regained attention. After the ideological liberation of the 1980s, the value of women to the family began to be generally recognized. This contrasted to the previous era in which women were asked to be the same as men and their value to the family was ignored, at least publicly.
The support system for families changed in response to ideological and related policy adjustments. In the planned economic era, the state implemented social services through the work unit system. Nurseries, kindergartens, schools, hospitals, and canteens in the unit shouldered a large part of the functions of the family. In the market economic era, the unit was no longer responsible for “housekeeping,” and consequently, these functions had to be taken over by society in different ways, such as the fast-food industry, educational institutions, parental support, and, of course, the women in the family.
The development of social support systems provides people with more choices and improves the social standards of housework and children’s upbringing. Taking children’s upbringing as an example, the time and energy put in by mothers increase rapidly, from prenatal care, arts education, to early education. Mothers take on these new methods of childcare and practice them on their children, which strengthen the ethics of motherhood. After the gradual weakening of “national patriarchy” (public patriarchy), the role of women in the family became the focus of attention, which is a continuation of traditional private patriarchy.
By analyzing job resignations and the creation of full-time wives, we can see the push coming from the labor market in which women face occupational segregation, while at the same time, the traditional gender order pulls them toward the family. Some women resigned to ease this pressure. Most of these women were engaged in the private sector. The high-end job takes maximum benefit as its standard: the female employee needs to put her full energy and time into the job, and it is impossible to fulfill her domestic role in the family. In other words, either the woman is excluded from high-paying employment because of her gender, or once she is employed, she must work like a man, ignoring her maternal- and child-rearing needs and her role as mother and wife. This “selective obliterating of gender difference” makes it difficult for women to balance family and work. Mrs. Hu and Mrs. Wang faced this dilemma before choosing resignation. The women at the low end of the labor market experienced a lack of training and promotion possibilities, such as Mrs. Zhen who worked in a private kindergarten. The pay was much lower than that of a public kindergarten and lacked security. This is a blunt and calculating way to treat low-skilled workers in the labor market. These employers appear to think that the family should be the top priority, so resignation is a logical choice. This combination of market calculation and the traditional gender order produces a market-constructed gender order in which gender difference is emphasized and results in obvious discrimination against women in the job market.
There is one significant factor that affected all of these women’s resignations: their husbands were very busy. The husband’s job brought a high income, but it also meant he not only had no time to help take care of the family but also expected the wife to provide all of the emotional and physical input. In other words, it was assumed that a woman was available to provide wholehearted support so that the man could work hard. The man insisted that the wife accept this subordinate role, and the woman believed it was reasonable. This ethic embodies the traditional gender expectation. It means that employers can maximize the efficiency of the husband’s labor and indirectly push the wife to return to the family. Capitalist employers have no obligations to families. They are free to effectively marginalize all employees who have responsibility for family work (predominantly women) and demand long hours and increased effort from employees (predominantly men), who are viewed as not having these responsibilities (Crompton 2006).
The principle of “gender equality” was replaced by “gender difference” through the combination of the market economy’s efficiency goal and the traditional gender order. The labor market is able to employ “high-efficiency” men only through the support of the full-time wife. However, this further excludes women from remaining in the labor market because it is difficult for these women to get the support they need from their husbands. If there is no effective external intervention, these two factors will mutually reinforce each other. In this case, women either work as high-efficiency women like men but usually with no man providing support or return to the home as a full-time wife. Thus, the status of full-time wife is a combination of market-economy discrimination and the traditional gender order, which can be called the market-constructed gender order. The only element of progress is that women can have some degree of choice rather than having to passively accept their status.
The move from housewife to full-time wife signals the changing gender order in China. Housewife was a stigmatized label in the Maoist era, which emphasized gender equality, and where women were expected to take part in work rather than stay at home to be fed by others. At that time, the traditional gender order in the family was neglected and repressed. The term full-time wife embodies an acceptance of the traditional gender order in the family and also the gender inequality in the labor market, which reflects a combination of the traditional gender order in the private sphere and the market-constructed gender order in the public sphere.
Compared to the Japanese housewife who has protections through social policies (Wang 2004), in China, full-time wives are a subgroup supported by a high family income. This group lacks social support and protections from national policies. It is an individual way of life in which women face significant risks because their economic and social status depends entirely on men. They face considerable psychological pressure about whether their marriage is stable. Thus, if a husband decides to divorce his wife in the future, the meaning and quality of her life will be seriously affected.
By analyzing the experience of the full-time wife, we see the Chinese state rolling back in terms of social protection for women and how this has affected equality between the sexes. The result is that women experience various kinds of subordination in both the market and the family. Social policy aiming to improve this situation should be introduced to intervene in the oppressive combination of public and private patriarchy. In China, there are two sources of social policy knowledge concerning gender equality: one is the danwei system and the other is the new research and practical achievements in Western countries. The transformation in China moved from a redistributive system to a market economy (Sun 2008). After giving priority to efficiency in order to develop the economy for over 30 years, the Gini Coefficient in China has increased from 0.382 in 1988, 0.4 in 2000, to 0.52 in 2010 (Chong and Li 2010),8 ranking the fourth highest (i.e., the most unequal) in the world. As a result, the issue of fairness has recently regained official attention. Concerning gender fairness, the danwei system provides many valuable examples of how to support female employees in balancing work and family. It is time to extend this experience to private companies.
At the same time, some new perspectives from Western countries on work-life balance are available for reference. Although the domain of paid work has evolved around male interests, women’s place in employment has largely been determined by the male hegemonic model of industrial labor (Irving 2008). The situation is changing with the increasing rate of women’s labor force participation. By 2011, family units with the male as the sole breadwinner had become a minority form in most European countries (Connolly 2013). Developed from debates around family-work reconciliation begun in the context of EU policy, and the concept of work-life balance has grown in importance for both women and men (Koslowski 2013; Speight 2013).
The question of reconciling the family and paid work should be reconsidered in China by learning from both danwei and family policies in Western countries, such as the working families agenda, statutory rights to request flexible work, and workplace arrangements to balance work and life (Fiksenbaum 2013; Jessop 2013; Kochan 2005; Marian 2011). If the state and workplace can enact a range of policies aimed at reducing work-family conflicts, more women can achieve a better work-life balance and even work-life enrichment (Trefalt et al. 2013; Skrypnek and Fast 1996), benefiting both women and men. For example, at-home fathers come to value their increased involvement in childcare in ways that reduce gender differences in parenting; this has the potential to change the company institution when they reenter the labor force. Also, at-home fathers generally appear to provide increased support for women’s employment, which may reduce inequalities that stem from traditional gendered division in work/family responsibilities (Chesley 2011). The gender relationship becomes more diverse and flexible when men develop both their private and family identities and come together with women in developing their public and social roles.
The state did much to release Chinese women from the traditional gender order (kinship patriarchy) in the Maoist period, but women were pushed into the public sphere of labor and politics (Yang 1999). In the market transformation period, the state is still one of the most important sources of ensuring equality in the gender order. Instead of rolling back the state in this area, the state’s responsibility should be reemphasized. In the future women’s subjectivity, traditional culture, the state, and the market will further impact each other, and the state should be more active in constructing a new gender order.
The number 38 refers to women in China since March 8 is the women’s day established by the government.
The interview cites from Zuo Ji-Ping (2005), “The Women’s Emancipation and Gender Equality Duties in 1950s: The Experience and Feelings of Couples in Chinese Urban,” Society 1, 20–30.
The interview cites from Zuo Ji-Ping (2005), “The Women’s Emancipation and Gender Equality Duties in 1950s: The Experience and Feelings of Couples in Chinese Urban,” Society 1, 20–30.
Interviews cited below in this article were conducted during my Ph.D. dissertation writing period between 2006 and 2007. I interviewed around 40 women, and the remaining interviews were conducted by my undergraduate students under my supervision. Each respondent was defined as: having lived and worked in Guangzhou for over 3 years and aged from 22 to 45. I divided the interviewees into “full-time wife,” “single lady,” and “balancing work and family.” Only the full-time wives were analyzed in this paper.
Mrs. Hu and Mrs. Wang are not typical full-time wives; they only became full-time wives for around 1 year. However, they are typical in that they gave up their favorite job to take care of their family. In the interview period, they should be regarded as “semi-full-time wives.”
In cases in which the spouse works in a state unit or market enterprises (usually, the wife in the state unit and the husband in the market enterprise), the wife’s job is stable and involves less time and energy and the husband’s job has a higher salary and requires more time and energy.
Similar to Mrs. Hu, Mrs. Wang was a full-time wife for only 1 year; 1 year later, she found a new job in which she could take care of her family at the same time.
This idea was suggested by an anonymous reviewer.
We are very grateful to the three reviewers for their positive responses to our paper and their helpful suggestions. The revisions based on their suggestions have substantially improved the paper. Part of this paper was published in Fang Ying (2009), “’Full-Time Wife’ and Change of Gender Order in Chinese City,” ZheJiang Social Science 1, ISSN1003-420X, but many critical ideas have been added to this revision.
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Heavy military funding of transformative technology is a recent phenomenon in human history. But it’s enough to clear a forecast for how cyber wartime may play out in the future.
Back in the old days, mil-tech came about through independent, craft-based work. Individuals would invent first and seek patronage later. Galileo, for example, attempted to promote the telescope as a military instrument to the Republic of Venice. The venture proved unsuccessful, but the wealthy and powerful Medici family did support his efforts to use the revolutionary new technology for astronomical studies.
The development of gunpowder-based weapons also demonstrates the move from a patronage-based system to rational planning and funding in military research. Gunpowder was used in 7th century China in search for an elixir of immortality, but wouldn’t be employed in Western warfare for seven more centuries.
Gunpowder had little impact on how battles were waged until 15th-century artillery and 16th-century firearms reshaped the organization of troops on the field — first from the feared tercio formations of the Spanish Empire, then from their eventual replacement by regiments. Such armed regiments not only brought more fire to bear, but were themselves less vulnerable to artillery. Repeating rifles, smokeless powder, long-range artillery and high explosives wouldn’t become the norm until World War I, when an inflexion point in military-funded technology indisputably became an indispensable feature of conventional warfare.
Believe it or not, some armies actually used cavalry in the beginning of WWI. The advent of the machine gun changed all that. It forced a reversal of the traditional advantage of swift-moving offensive tactics to the necessity of trench warfare. Thanks to the high attrition and strategic stalemate of the military doctrine of the era, national militaries would later turn to scientists and engineers for even newer technologies. Poison gas, nitrates and advanced explosives.
No wonder WWI is remembered as “the chemists’ war.” And it gave rise to more than chemistry-based technology. The application of scientific methods to weapons development impacted many other fields, particularly wireless communication. It set opposing sides on a race to develop more potent chemicals and device countermeasures.
That’s when the Air Force became an independent service branch from the Army and established its own research and development system, becoming what is today one of the most technologically advanced organizations in the world.
The Second World War, however, would far outdo the first in military funding for scientific research. Physics, electronics, radar, cryptography, meteorology, rocket science, aerospace engineering, materials science and biological sciences developed. And let’s not forget the secret nuclear research in the United States Manhattan Project that ultimately brought WWII to an abrupt end. Ever since, military leaders have viewed advancing technology as a critical element for military success… on through the cold war and the “space race” to now.
The Ongoing Cyber Draft
Today, we could be seeing a historic parallel between the establishment of the Air Force and the 2009 establishment of USCYBERCOM, a military command center for cyberspace operations that’s receiving heavy funding both “on the radar” and “off the radar”.
But here’s another historic parallel…
You may recall that the U.S. was completely unprepared for World War II, until the attack on Pearl Harbor forced U.S. military and private enterprise to scramble their resources together and cooperate en masse. The U.S. emerged from the Great Depression — during which the military was so undersupplied that troops performed drills with toy guns and wooden tanks — as a military superpower.
President Roosevelt was ridiculed when he called for the production of 50,000 planes in one year. But by 1944, three years after Pearl Harbor, the country was producing 96,000 a year. As the “arsenal of democracy,” the U.S. became a chief exporter of Allied weapons and war materials — including to the very undemocratic Soviet Union. Luckily, the unique geography of the United States meant that factories weren’t under threat of enemy bombardment.
Civilian employment jumped by 20%, and the gross national product — or all the goods and services produced in the country — doubled from 1939-1945. Companies and individuals made fortunes.
Our “Pearl Harbor moment” is happening now, even if not everyone realizes it. It’s the unanticipated attacks on U.S. digital infrastructure.
But there’s a key difference between 1942 and 2013. Now, belligerents aren’t immediately obvious. Unlike a bombing raid, attacks in the world of cyberspace are generally clandestine.
The battle lines are easily be blurred, as sovereign nations, countless regimes and rogue actors have begun to take sides and act either independently or in concert with one another. This has made for an extremely complex defense problem.
A Secret History of Cyber Warfare
Here’s what we’re up against nowadays…
In 2007, Russian hackers completely incapacitated Estonia’s national infrastructure because of tensions between the Estonian and Russian governments. For nearly three weeks, Estonia’s financial system and government resources were disrupted as more than a million “enslaved” botnet computers from 175 countries were hijacked for a coordinated attack.
This cyberattack not only turned Estonia’s IT industry into the country’s digital militia, but it also made developed nations sit up and take notice. Of course, it’s easy to think of Estonia’s infrastructure as small and that America easily has enough IT resources to handle a cyberattack, but that’s not necessarily the case.
The U.S. itself is no stranger to waging war in the cyberrealm. The Stuxnet worm, the most sophisticated piece of malware ever designed, is believed to have originally been created by the U.S. and Israel to deter Iran from progressing in their nuclear capabilities.
Unfortunately, Stuxnet has, in some respects, backfired. The computer worm broke out of Iran’s nuclear facilities, perhaps through an infected laptop that was connected to the Internet. The software, designed to propagate virally, spread beyond its intended target and across the Internet at large, infecting private computers and networks. Since then, it has spawned imitators who have exploited its code base for new attacks.
Let it not be said that there will not be collateral damage in the new domain of war!
But the largest target of all may be the U.S. itself. In May of this year, U.S. intelligence sources confirmed a cyberintrusion into one of the most sensitive databases of the nation’s physical infrastructure — the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ National Inventory of Dams (NID).
This single database details all the vulnerabilities of every major dam in the country — about 8,100 dams across our nation’s waterways. Now imagine a cyberattack on the network of a single major dam. Such an event could easily compromise the network and allow for malicious code to be planted inside — code that could later open the floodgates or lock them in place. Within minutes, the valley below could flood, with unimaginable consequences, including loss of property and life.
While the intrusion at the NID was discovered in May, intelligence reports show that the database was actually penetrated in January, five months before it was discovered. Further investigation suggests that this intrusion came from unauthorized users based in China. Of course, this raises new fears. Officials are now concerned that China may be preparing to conduct a future cyberattack on the national electrical power grid.
Some nations may even enlist the help of criminal organizations to carry out their cyberattacks. President Obama’s former cybersecurity coordinator, Howard Schmidt, recently said there was evidence that foreign governments were even taking kickbacks from local cybercriminals that target U.S. corporations — it’s a “quid pro pro for letting them operate.”
Now a foreign state can opportunistically soften up its targets, with little use of traditional military resources, under a guise of deniability.
The best thing you can do?
Load up on companies with cyber security technology. Cause you’re gonna’ need it!
for The Daily Reckoning
Unlike traditional warfare’s battlefields, cyberspace is invisible, knows no boundaries and is capable of covertly and inexpensively compromising the security of nations, financial institutions, industrial systems, public health, personal identity and individual freedom.
Josh Grasmick is managing editor of Tomorrow in Review and associate editor of Technology Profits Confidential and Breakthrough Technology Alert. After graduating from Washington College with a degree in English, the self-described autodidact was interviewed by Time magazine for his novel entrepreneurship and worldwide eco-adventures. His experience with those in the fields of science, medicine and technology puts readers ahead of the curve and on top of the market.
Believe it or not, some armies actually used cavalry in the beginning of WWII. Yes, the Polish army during the Second World War
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If you’re just tuning in, we’re two parts deep into our three-part conversation with Richard Duncan. Part III continues with talks on globalization, deflation, quantitative easing, the dollar crisis and more. Read on...
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Nuclear power has been hammered since the Fukushima disaster in Japan four years ago. But as Greg Guenthner explains, nuclear power is making a comeback as countries around the world appreciate its great potential. He’ll also tell you exactly how to play this trend. | <urn:uuid:67fda697-2b5e-4df5-8044-dec7a6e5fe53> | {
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Hill notation is a standard way of writing the formula for any chemical compound.
The empirical formula for any compound is written in correct Hill notation.
First, Count All Carbon Atoms and record. C10
Second, Count all Hydrogen atoms and record: C10H23
Third, determine all other elements in compound. Count each and record in alphabetical order. C10H23N
When determining counts from a structural drawing, CAREFULLY count H atoms!!
Counting all the Carbon atoms: C6
Counting all the Hydrogen atoms: C6H18
Determining all the other elements in the compound. Count each and record in alphabetical order.
EXAMPLE OF HILL ORDER
taken from Gary Wiggins' book
Back to Main page
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MIT engineers have created genetic circuits in bacterial cells that not only perform logic functions, but also remember the results, which are encoded in the cell’s DNA and passed on for dozens of generations.
The circuits, described in the Feb. 10 online edition of Nature Biotechnology, could be used as long-term environmental sensors, efficient controls for biomanufacturing, or to program stem cells to differentiate into other cell types.
“Almost all of the previous work in synthetic biology that we’re aware of has either focused on logic components or on memory modules that just encode memory. We think complex computation will involve combining both logic and memory, and that’s why we built this particular framework to do so,” says Timothy Lu, an MIT assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science and biological engineering and senior author of the Nature Biotechnology paper.
Lead author of the paper is MIT postdoc Piro Siuti. Undergraduate John Yazbek is also an author.
More than logic
Synthetic biologists use interchangeable genetic parts to design circuits that perform a specific function, such as detecting a chemical in the environment. In that type of circuit, the target chemical would generate a specific response, such as production of green fluorescent protein (GFP).
Circuits can also be designed for any type of Boolean logic function, such as AND gates and OR gates. Using those kinds of gates, circuits can detect multiple inputs. In most of the previously engineered cellular logic circuits, the end product is generated only as long as the original stimuli are present: Once they disappear, the circuit shuts off until another stimulus comes along.
Lu and his colleagues set out to design a circuit that would be irreversibly altered by the original stimulus, creating a permanent memory of the event. To do this, they drew on memory circuits that Lu and colleagues designed in 2009. Those circuits depend on enzymes known as recombinases, which can cut out stretches of DNA, flip them, or insert them. Sequential activation of those enzymes allows the circuits to count events happening inside a cell.
Lu designed the new circuits so that the memory function is built into the logic gate itself. With a typical cellular AND gate, the two necessary inputs activate proteins that together turn on expression of an output gene. However, in the new circuits, the inputs stably alter regions of DNA that control GFP production. These regions, known as promoters, recruit the cellular proteins responsible for transcribing the GFP gene into messenger RNA, which then directs protein assembly.
For example, in one circuit described in the paper, two DNA sequences called terminators are interposed between the promoter and the output gene (GFP, in this case). Each of these terminators inhibits the transcription of the output gene and can be flipped by a different recombinase enzyme, making the terminator inactive.
Each of the circuit’s two inputs turns on production of one of the recombinase enzymes needed to flip a terminator. In the absence of either input, GFP production is blocked. If both are present, both terminators are flipped, resulting in their inactivation and subsequent production of GFP.
Once the DNA terminator sequences are flipped, they can’t return to their original state — the memory of the logic gate activation is permanently stored in the DNA sequence. The sequence also gets passed on for at least 90 generations. Scientists wanting to read the cell’s history can either measure its GFP output, which will stay on continuously, or if the cell has died, they can retrieve the memory by sequencing its DNA.
Using this design strategy, the researchers can create all two-input logic gates and implement sequential logic systems. “It’s really easy to swap things in and out,” says Lu, who is also a member of MIT’s Synthetic Biology Center. “If you start off with a standard parts library, you can use a one-step reaction to assemble any kind of function that you want.”
Such circuits could also be used to create a type of circuit known as a digital-to-analog converter. This kind of circuit takes digital inputs — for example, the presence or absence of single chemicals — and converts them to an analog output, which can be a range of values, such as continuous levels of gene expression.
For example, if the cell has two circuits, each of which expresses GFP at different levels when they are activated by their specific input, those inputs can produce four different analog output levels. Moreover, by measuring how much GFP is produced, the researchers can figure out which of the inputs were present.
That type of circuit could offer better control over the production of cells that generate biofuels, drugs or other useful compounds. Instead of creating circuits that are always on, or using promoters that need continuous inputs to control their output levels, scientists could transiently program the circuit to produce at a certain level. The cells and their progeny would always remember that level, without needing any more information.
Used as environmental sensors, such circuits could also provide very precise long-term memory. “You could have different digital signals you wanted to sense, and just have one analog output that summarizes everything that was happening inside,” Lu says.
This platform could also allow scientists to more accurately control the fate of stem cells as they develop into other cell types. Lu is now working on engineering cells to follow sequential development steps, depending on what kinds of inputs they receive from the environment.
Michael Jewett, an assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering at Northwestern University, says the new design represents a “huge advancement in DNA-encoded memory storage.”
“I anticipate that the innovations reported here will help to inspire larger synthetic biology efforts that push the limits of engineered biological systems,” says Jewett, who was not involved in the research.
The research was funded by the Office of Naval Research and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. | <urn:uuid:2fcfce40-461c-4ec1-89dd-ca8bab1150d2> | {
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Space Laboratory Open for Business
Scientists say they can get better use of the International Space Station now that its construction is complete and operational time extended.
After nearly 12 years of development at a price of $100 billion, the International Space Station (ISS) is fully assembled, and the White House has agreed to keep the station operating until 2020 instead of 2016, as originally planned. But what to do with those extra four years? Researchers, scientists, and engineers are considering that question—while also dealing with the fact that the space shuttles that transport crew and cargo to the ISS will be retiring next year.
Jason Crusan, chief technologist in space operations at NASA, says the agency is working with its international partners to expand the use of the ISS now that researchers will have increased opportunities to conduct experiments in the station’s microgravity environment. Crusan discussed these ideas this week at the American Astronomical Society National Conference, International Space Station: The Next Decade, in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The space station has two main functions: it serves as a national laboratory for scientific research and a test bed for new technologies. It is funded by the United States, Russia, the European Space Agency, Canada, and Japan, but a total of 59 nations have participated in or utilized research on the station.
About 50 percent of the ISS is used for scientific research, and typically there are between 40 and 50 experiments onboard. Many are biomedical experiments, including research on drugs and treatments for diseases. Microgravity has a significant effect on how cells behave and how materials and metals form, says Marybeth Edeen, manager of the ISS national lab at NASA. For example, scientists were able to develop a vaccine against salmonella food poisoning that is being examined by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; there are drugs to treat prostate cancer that were tested on ISS in clinical trials; and the Japanese are moving forward on treatments for muscular dystrophy that were tested on the ISS. “You can do experiments on the station that you cannot do anywhere else,” says Julie Robinson, ISS program scientist at NASA.
Researchers are also using the ISS to test space-exploration systems and other technologies that can’t be fully understood until they are in orbit, says Crusan. For example, researchers are working on guidance, navigation, and control systems for satellites and spacecraft; advanced robotics to work on and repair orbiting spacecraft, and more efficient water-filtration systems. The entire space station itself serves as a test bed for life-support systems like power generation and recycling oxygen and water. Such technologies must be perfected if the Obama administration’s space goals are to be fulfilled: sending humans to an asteroid by 2025 and to Mars by the mid-2030s. NASA is authorized to spend $58.4 billion over the next three years to execute the administration’s plan, although the release of the money is dependent on a yet-to-be-passed appropriations bill. Crusan says that future technology projects on the space station like next-generation space suits and electric propulsion systems will be determined when the budget is set.
The last hurdle will be getting crew and cargo to the ISS once the space shuttles retire. Edward Mango, director of the commercial space transportation planning office at NASA, says that when the shuttles stop flying, the next U.S. vehicle will come from commercial companies like SpaceX and Orbital Sciences, and those vehicles will not be ready until at least 2015. Until then, the U.S. will rely on Russian, European, and Japanese vehicles. Russia will carry U.S. crews on at least two flights a year.
The ISS is an engineering marvel, says Robinson. “We want to be able to fully utilize it for the next 10 years.”
Weren't able to make it to EmTech Digital?
We've got you covered. | <urn:uuid:d5573bc2-006c-4851-87a1-7ae50fe1f36c> | {
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- Howard Bauchner, Editor-in-Chief
Moving beyond rates of obesity
This Journal and others have detailed the worldwide obesity epidemic. With the rare exception, despite numerous submissions, we have declined to publish additional reports that further describe the epidemic. However, two related papers in this issue describe important work that will help define potential interventions. Dr Lammers and colleagues from Great Ormond Street provide normal values for the 6-minute walk test in children aged 4–11 years. Based on a sample of 328 children, as discussed in a perspective by Ulf Ekelund, this study provides preliminary data on cardiorespiratory fitness in children. Assuming that this test measures the right thing – oxygen saturation – and it proves to be reliable, than it can be used to assess various interventions. In a second preliminary study, investigators adopted two very popular US programmes, Planet Health and Eat Well Keep Moving, that focus on healthy eating, increasing physical activity and reducing TV viewing, in a cluster randomised controlled trial in 19 primary schools in South West England. Although there was no difference in body mass index or likelihood of obesity at the end of the trial, there was a reduction in the amount of TV viewing. The authors suggest that these programmes can be further adopted to be more appropriate for children in the UK. Rather than always creating new interventions, we can adopt existing ones to reflect the cultural needs of patients.
Caring for children with pneumonia in resource-limited countries
Approximately 2 000 000 children die from acute respiratory tract infection each year. The World Health Organization recommends that children with severe pneumonia or very severe pneumonia be hospitalised for treatment, although in many countries this simply is not possible. In a report from Bangladesh, investigators from Dhaka, report the results of using a day-care centre (8:00 to 17:00) to provide care to 251 children with severe or very severe pneumonia, without co-morbidities such as malnutrition, who were denied care on an inpatient facility because of lack of beds. The results are extremely encouraging; however, before there is widespread acceptance of this approach, a randomised clinical trial with 3–6 months of follow-up is necessary to truly inform policy.
See page 490
Consequences of newborn screening
As newborn screening expands to include rarer and rarer diseases, the precision of the screen often declines. This is also true for universal neonatal hearing screening (UNHS), in which we know that the test has a substantial false positive rate. In a study from The Netherlands, van der Ploeg and colleagues assessed how anxious and worried a group of parents were 6 months after UNHS. They compared parents whose children tested positive or inclusive in at least one of three tests with a random sample of parents whose children passed the first test. Although there was no difference in parental anxiety measured on the state-trait anxiety inventory, more of the case parents were worried about their children’s hearing and this was related to the number of tests performed. These results are not surprising—diagnostic testing can make parents anxious—our responsibility is to discuss the results of these tests with families and try to allay their fears when appropriate.
See page 508
Autism: finding answers
The reported prevalence of autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) has increased in both Great Britain and the United States—from 1 in 2000 to approximately 1 in 200. Whether this represents diagnostic shift or a true increase in prevalence can be debated, but regardless, the recognition that ASD is more common than previously thought, has led to new research initiatives around the world. In a review article from Caronna and colleagues from Boston, they discuss clinical, epidemiologic, genetic and cognitive-neuroscience issues. They also discuss exciting new work around siblings of children with ASD. Clearly, the broad phenotypic presentation of this disorder complicates the diagnostic and therapeutic process.
See pages 518
Does vitamin D supplementation protect against type 1 diabetes?
One of the more recent trends in medicine is the measurement of vitamin D levels in various groups—children and adolescents who are obese, breast-fed infants, etc. It appears as though many children and adolescents are vitamin D deficient. The increasing prevalence of type 1 diabetes, particularly in the northern hemisphere, has led to the search for possible causes. In a meta-analysis, that included five observation studies, investigators from Manchester found that infants who were supplemented with vitamin D had a lower risk of developing type 1 diabetes. This result is provocative.
See pages 512
This month in Education & Practice
Education & Practice contains a problem solving case (bile-stained vomiting in an infant), best practice (back pain), pharmacy update (analgesia and sedation in critically ill children), a guideline review (atopic eczema), and a dermatophile review. See pages ep84, ep73, ep87, ep93 and ep98
If you have ideas for any other sections for E&P please let me know ()—we are developing an education section and one on new diagnostic tests. | <urn:uuid:20bcf31c-86cc-485e-ae30-09fe1bf8cf95> | {
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Physicists studying high-temperature superconductors are seeing quantum waves, and if they've interpreted the undulations correctly, a much-debated theory of how these materials work might be washed up.
According to the "stripes" theory, electric charges within copper-and-oxygen-based superconductors collect in long lines, and pairs of charges then glide along these stripes unhindered. But now a team of physicists led by J. C. Séamus Davis of the University of California (UC), Berkeley, suggests that stripes might be an illusion. By examining bismuth strontium calcium copper oxide (BSCCO), they show how stripes might be a subtle effect of overlapping quantum waves of electric charge.
As reported online 25 July by Science, Davis and colleagues studied the surface of a single crystal of BSCCO with a tiny, fingerlike electrical probe called a scanning tunneling microscope (STM). As they slowly moved the probe across the surface, the current between the tip and the material rose and fell in ripples--a pattern that other researchers had ascribed to stripes of charge lying just beneath the surface of the material. But going beyond the earlier studies, the UC Berkeley researchers found that as they varied the voltage between tip and surface, the spacing of the ripples changed. That shouldn't happen if stripes were causing the ripples, they argue. Moreover, Davis and colleagues found that the spacing varied just as it would if the ripples sprang from a quantum wave of electrical charge, reflecting off an imperfection in the crystal and then interfering with itself to produce peaks and valleys. The new data don't rule out stripes entirely, Davis says, but stripes aren't needed to explain the observed undulations.
Yet some researchers argue that the UC Berkeley group overlooked the stripes in its own data. The STM readings also show small signs of ripples whose spacing does not change with voltage, says Aharon Kapitulnik, a physicist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, who previously studied BSCCO with an STM and says he saw stripes. In plots where Davis and colleagues see only one peak that moves as the voltage changes, he sees a second that doesn't (see figure). "It's in their own data," Kapitulnik says. | <urn:uuid:be872921-8d31-439c-8d32-419fcad47c7a> | {
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Hurricane Irene left a path of destruction along the east coast of the US over August 27 and 28. Because of its impact on populated areas, Irene received an unusual amount of media coverage, and the projections of its progress became a good case study of the current state of hurricane forecasting, one that highlights the remaining challenges. In this article, we'll have a look at the National Weather Service's National Hurricane Center Irene Advisory Archive to highlight the challenges involved in predicting a hurricane’s behavior.
Hurricane Irene was first spotted on August 20, when the US Air Force’s Hurricane Hunter plane found a “small low-level circulation center just southwest of a large convective burst.” A hurricane forms when a large number of cumulus clouds form in a small area, which typically happens over a body of warm water. When a large amount of heat is injected into the atmosphere from the water vapor’s latent heat release, the buoyant air displaces the surrounding air and lowers the surface pressure. As a result, the air parcel starts spinning to balance the pressure gradient with Coriolis Effect—this is how a tropical cyclone is formed. A tropical cyclone is the general name for hurricanes, typhoons, and tropical depressions. The names differ depending on where they form and how strong they are.
Challenges at the start
The formation phase is actually the hardest part of hurricane forecasting. The necessary ingredients for forming a tropical cyclone are: 1) a warm body of water; and 2) small vertical wind shear. A warm body of water is necessary to sustain cumulus convection, and the wind shear must be weak so that the heat released by the cumulus cloud stays in the same area and accumulates until the air parcel starts spinning.
However, even when both of these conditions are satisfied, predicting where a convective event will start is very hard. It's kind of like predicting which direction a standing pencil is going to fall. A standing pencil is an unstable system, so predicting that it is going to fall is easy—the hard part is knowing which way its going to fall.
That doesn't mean that nothing about it is unpredictable. The tropical Atlantic develops an unstable airmass every summer, and statistical prediction of approximately how many hurricanes will form each season has become fairly accurate, but exactly where those hurricanes will form remains hard to predict. After Irene formed, given the observed sea surface temperature, it was also fairly easy to predict that it was going to continue to receive energy from the warm tropical water. That energy set it on the path to reaching hurricane strength.
A sense of direction
After a cyclonic circulation like a hurricane forms, its motion is controlled by two effects. The first is the prevailing background wind. When a tropical cyclone is close the equator, it rides the trade wind, which blows westward. When a hurricane is in the mid-latitudes, the steering force comes from the eastward jetstream.
The northward forcing on a hurricane is called the beta-drift; in the northern hemisphere, it acts in the poleward direction for a counter-clockwise vortex such as a hurricane, and southward for a clockwise circulation. The exact opposite effect was displayed by the Great Dark Spot of Neptune during Voyager 2’s flyby—the Great Dark Spot is an anticyclone, thus it was observed to be slowly drifting toward the equator.
When a hurricane forms in the tropical Atlantic, it first rides the westward trade wind as it is forced by the beta-drift forcing; that’s why they generally move toward the northwest. As the beta-drift pushes the hurricane into the mid-latitude jetstream, its path starts curving eastward so the heading changes to north and then northeast.
The exact timing of this change in the hurricane’s path depends on the interaction between the background wind and the hurricane itself. Complicating matters further, the strength of the beta-drift also depends on the background wind. For example, Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is a strong anticyclone, but because it is trapped between two strong, stable jetstreams, it has been around for the last 400 years. On Earth, the mid-latitude jetstream has a strongly meandering course, so its fluctuating nature introduces a challenge in predicting a hurricane’s behavior.
These complications are noted in the NHC discussion on August 24, when it mentioned that Irene was expected to cross the subtropical ridge, which is the boundary between the regions affected by the trade winds and the mid-latitude jet.
Once it catches the jet, a hurricane's ride on the background wind is dependent on many factors, including the vertical structures of both the hurricane and the jetstream, and small eddies contained within these features—many of these details are currently not resolved in observational data. These details are represented differently in various forecasting models, and the small differences can be enough to make the predictions diverge. That's why the NHC discussion refers to many different models, including the GFDL model, the WRF, UK Met Office Model, and the ECMWF model.
At the end, NHC takes predictions from these various models into account to produce a forecast envelope. The NHC advisory first mentioned the need for issuing a hurricane watch for the US east coast at 11pm EST of August 24.
After Irene crossed the subtropical ridge and started riding the jetstream, its behavior became markedly more predictable, which you can see in the NHC's archived forecast animation—you can see that the hurricane’s predicted track is constantly adjusted while it's still east of Florida, but after it made a landfall in the North Carolina coast, Irene is pretty much following the predicted track.
So, the current research on hurricane forecasting largely focuses on the interaction between the hurricane and the background flow—in particular, where the effect of the mid-latitude jet takes over from the trade winds. The effect of global climate change on these storm tracks is also a hot topic, because the location of subtropical ridge is affected by the changing climate. Thus, future hurricanes may reach areas previously not affected by such storms. | <urn:uuid:2251ffdd-692e-4165-9b9c-a7ea31868736> | {
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NASSAU, The Bahamas, Friday May 4, 2018 – Dr Merceline Dahl-Regis, a Bahamian public health pioneer known for her work in advancing and verifying regional disease elimination efforts, has been named a Public Health Hero of the Americas by the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO).
A Bahamian physician and public health expert, Dr Dahl-Regis is best known for her leadership of the International Expert Committee (IEC) for verification of the elimination of measles, rubella and congenital rubella syndrome and for her advocacy and support of the regional Dual Elimination Initiative, aimed at eliminating mother-to-child transmission of syphilis and HIV in the Americas. She most recently was invited to contribute her expertise on disease elimination as chair WHO’s Global Validation Advisory Committee.
“Dr Dahl-Regis’ list of accomplishments is long. But in addition to their number, there is something quite special about them, in that the most important ones in the areas of immunization and the elimination of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV and Congenital Syphilis are also regional achievements. They are historical milestones for public health in the Americas,” said PAHO Director Dr Carissa Etienne, during the award ceremony on Wednesday.
“She has carried on that Bahamian tradition of providing leadership for the pursuit of ambitious collective health goals. She has done so within the CARICOM sub-region, in the Americas as a whole, and most recently at the global level”.
Dr Dahl-Regis was one of the first women to graduate in medicine in the Bahamas during the 1960s. Early in her career, she recognized the vital role of primary health care and universal access to clean water, sanitation, good nutrition and vaccines, and dedicated her work to ensuring the health and well-being of people throughout the Americas and beyond.
“She is just the second Caribbean national and the first Caribbean women to receive this prestigious award,” added Dr Etienne. “The title of Public Health Hero of the Americas is not one that is bestowed lightly, but I know that those of us who have work with, studied under, been cared for or mentored by her, will agree that she merits a place among this distinguished group of public health servants”.
Dr Dahl-Regis expressed gratitude for the recognition.
“This recognition of the work I have done in public health does not belong to me alone. I could not have done it without the contributions of so many, particularly of the health care workers in the field, the staff at all levels, my family, my friends, and lots of faith and prayers,” she said.
Dr Dahl-Regis spearheaded a variety of ground-breaking health initiatives in the region. She was a strong advocate for maternal and child health services, working tirelessly with PAHO’s Latin American and Caribbean Center for Perinatology, Women and Reproductive Health, to ensure improvements in these areas. As Chief Medical Officer in the Bahamas, she also established the Comprehensive Adolescent Health Care Center in Nassau, which provides a holistic approach to health and development.
In 2010, Dr Dahl-Regis was appointed to lead PAHO’s International Expert Committee (IEC) for verification of the elimination of measles, rubella and congenital rubella syndrome. PAHO said that thanks, in great part, to her outstanding leadership, tireless commitment and holistic understanding of specific country needs and realities, during her tenure the Americas became the first region in the world to be declared free of measles and rubella.
As well as her work leading efforts towards the elimination of vaccine preventable diseases, Dr Dahl-Regis’ career was also distinguished by her contribution to the success of the dual Elimination Initiative, which seeks to prevent mother-to-child transmission of syphilis and HIV.
PAHO noted that the impact of her work is also felt at a global level. In 2015, she was invited to chair the WHO’s Global Validation Advisory Committee, a role that she continues to carry out today. She is also in demand in other regions to provide guidance for verifying the status of measles and rubella elimination.
Dr Dahl-Regis has received numerous honors during her career, including the PAHO Award for Administration, which recognized her outstanding contribution to healthcare management and research, and to medical education in primary healthcare.
The PAHO Public Health Heroes initiative recognizes individuals for their invaluable contributions to public health in the Americas. Previous heroes include, among others, Dr Mirna Cunningham of Nicaragua, who worked as an advocate for human rights, the collective rights of indigenous peoples, and women’s health; and Dr Maria Isabel Rodriguez of El Salvador, who was the country’s first female Minister of Health, leading the transformation of the national health sector toward a universal, equitable and high-quality system based on human rights. | <urn:uuid:3a47f610-0a7d-409e-b269-a202ca2b371f> | {
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Is the abundance of mayflies an indicator of high or low quality water in the Lake?
Mayflies are generally indicators of good habitat and water quality. The common mayfly in Lake Erie is called the "Burrowing Mayfly." It has a very interesting life cycle. After it hatches from an egg, the larvae spend 2 years living in the bottom of Lake Erie. It is approximately 1 inch long and has feather-like gills protruding from the sides of its abdomen. It digs a U-shaped burrow in the bottom of the lake with two openings. It then sits in the burrow and pumps water through it using its gills. It eats the organic material in the water that flows through the burrow. It is not tolerant of low oxygen levels. After 2 years it swims to the surface, sheds its exoskeleton, emerges as an adult, and flies toward lights on shore. It lives for 48 hours as an adult and has no mouth parts. It cannot bite or feed. Its sole purpose is to mate and lay its fertilized eggs over the water, where they sink to the bottom and the cycle starts again. Because they are not tolerant of low oxygen levels or contaminated sediments, they are generally considered to be indicators of good water quality.
Jeffrey Reutter, Ohio Sea Grant College Program | <urn:uuid:fb93f302-90de-4821-96a3-1ceaf7dd842a> | {
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Danny O. Calleja | Vox Bikol
Sunday, October 17th, 2010
PILI, Camarines Sur, Oct 13 — Researchers of the Bicol Integrated Agricultural Research Center (BIARC) have developed an innovative, environment-friendly technology to convert sweet sorghum residues into bio-organic fertilizer, agriculture officials based here revealed on Wednesday.
Bio-organic fertilizer is the compost from any organic material that has undergone rapid decomposition through the action of introduced homogeneous microbial inoculants.
It is different from fresh organic fertilizer in which natural decay process is brought about by the action of heterogeneous microbes present in the organic matter.
Compared with the traditional composting method, the introduction of microbial inoculants shortens composting time from three months to just three weeks.
Inoculants are commercially available in selected areas in the country. One of these is the Compost Fungus Activator (CFA) and often used is Trichoderma harzianum, a single-celled fungus that hastens the decomposition of organic materials high in lignin and cellulose like bagasse.
Bagasse is the pulp or dry refuse left after the juice is extracted from sweet sorghum or sugarcane stalks in the process of production of sugar, ethanol and other sweet sorghum products. Out of this refuse, the BIARC researchers produced bio-organic fertilizer.
The use of bio-organic fertilizer is promoted as inexpensive alternative to restore the fertility of poor degraded soils.
When applied to crops, bio-organic fertilizers can supply specific nutrients to plants, thus these are also known as microbial fertilizers.
Their effects include enhancing the supply and total volume of plants’ nutritional elements, stimulating plant growth, or stimulating plants’ absorption of nutritional elements.
They facilitate the continuous and long-term soil improvement and recycling and availability of nutrients and minerals essential for survival, growth, and fruit bearing of a wide variety of plants and trees.
BIARC implemented a collaborative project on the commercialization of sweet sorghum through a collaborative undertaking with the Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR) and the Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU).
This resulted in the successful field tests of sweet sorghum varieties that were found suitable in Bicol’s agro-climatic condition.
From this, BIARC proceeded to the region-wide commercialization of sweet sorghum including the development of village-level technologies.
According to Romulo Cambaya, head of the Soil and Water Research Unit of BIARC who also leads this initiative, conversion of sweet sorghum bagasse into bio-organic fertilizer originated from Bicol.
Cambaya said that a one-hectare plantation of sweet sorghum will yield about 75 tons of stalks and produce some 35,000 tons of bagasse and given the technology developed by BIARC, these waste materials can be converted to approximately 150 bags of bio-organic fertilizer with value of about P37,750.
Meanwhile, Jose Dayao, the regional executive director of the Department of Agriculture (DA) based here, said it is more advantageous to use bio-organic fertilizers than chemical fertilizers.
“Since bio-organic fertilizer involves recycling of nutrients from waste material, it is a cheap alternative or supplement to inorganic fertilizers. Thus, using it leads to increase in yield and profit. Soil tilth and fertility are also enhanced,” Dayao said.
With decreasing input price, he said bio-organic fertilizers can increase farmers yield and profit from 30 to 200 percent. Agricultural and industrial wastes if processed into biodegradable fertilizers and enhanced with microorganisms can continuously improve the growth, protection, and productivity of the plants or crops.
A 25,000 kilogram of sweet sorghum bagasse can produce 125 bags of the bio-organic fertilizer which can be sold at P230 per bag, with a gross value of P28,750, Dayao added. (PNA) | <urn:uuid:8912ddaa-ccd5-4313-97bf-b63964649f0a> | {
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Law of Succession in Númenor
The Law of succession in Númenor was a set of rules meant to legally establish who would be the next heir in the line of kings. The one who shaped it the most was Tar-Aldarion, the sixth ruler of Númenor, who not only gave the law a legal content, but also changed its position regarding male and female heirs. Thus before him there was the Old Law and after him the New Law.
The Old Law
Being more an inherited custom than an actual law, it stated that the eldest son of the ruler would inherit the Sceptre. In case there was no such son to be made heir, the closest male descendant on the line of Elros Tar-Minyatur would fill the position.
The New Law
Due to the fact that he had only one daughter, Tar-Aldarion replaced the principle of exclusive male heir with that of eldest progeny, of any gender and Ancalimë became the first ruling queen in the history of Númenor.
There were, however, additional statements and conditions for this New Law, mostly suggested by the Council of the Sceptre.
- The eldest daughter would have the right to inherit the throne, but she would not be forced to do so, being given the possibility to refuse the reign. In this case, the heir would have been the nearest kinsman by male or female descent.
- If the eldest daughter, heir to the throne, would have remained unmarried for a certain period of time, she had to abdicate.
- If a ruling queen desired to marry, it was mandatory for her husband to be from the Line of Elros. | <urn:uuid:cd35c36b-5ea3-46fd-a8c9-6226fd63487c> | {
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Pecan trees (Carya illinoinensis) can stave off a modest amount of pests, but significant numbers prove hard to manage without chemical controls. In addition to the usual suspects that share pecan’s growing range of U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 5 through 9, such as Japanese beetles (Popillia japonica) and whiteflies (Aleyrodidae), pecan trees also fall into the crosshairs of three species that target them specifically: the black pecan aphid (Melanocallis caryaefoliae), yellow pecan aphid (Monelliopsis pecanis) and black margined aphid (Monellia caryella). Controlling pecan-specific pests with a pest-specific pesticide, such as permethrin, reduces collateral damage to beneficial insects.
Examine the area between the pecan leaves’ veins for angular, bright yellow spots that measure about 1/2 square inch that turn brown over time, evidence of a black pecan aphid problem.
Look the foliage over for black pecan aphids if you see their damage. Black pecan aphids measure a little over 1 millimeter long, have dark red eyes, short cornicles and light yellow antennae. Although pecan aphids often have black exoskeletons, some have such a dark green color they appear black. Use a 10X magnifying lens, if needed, to examine the aphids.
Check the underside of the leaves for damage to the major leaflet veins or damage to the network of small veins. Yellow pecan aphids attack small veins while black margined aphids like major leaflet veins. Look the leaves over for black sooty mold or honeydew to see if you have aphids. Aphids secrete honeydew – a syrupy goo – on leaves, which collects bacteria and cultivates black sooty mold, a black, fuzzy fungal growth.
Inspect the leaves for yellow pecan or black margined aphids if you see their damage. Yellow pecan aphids have hair-like structures, called setae, protruding at angles from the body and red eyes; black margined aphids have much shorter setae. Both types have yellow exoskeletons with black markings and small pores for cornicles.
Squeeze the bulb of a bulbous duster to expel the air and insert its nozzle in a container of .25 percent permethrin powder. Release the bulb to fill the duster.
Hold the nozzle 1 or 2 inches away from the foliage and squeeze the bulb to apply the permethrin in an even layer to both sides. Spray the leaves until coated. You can also fill a shaker can and shake the permethrin on the foliage, or, for large applications, fill the tank of a dust gun or rotary duster and squeeze the trigger or rotate the handle to apply the permethrin.
Mix 2 tablespoons of 2.5 percent concentrated liquid permethrin with 1 gallon of water in a backpack or pump sprayer to use as an alternative to powdered permethrin. Spray the pecan’s foliage until covered on both sides. Apply the permethrin spray every four to eight days as needed, not exceeding 16 applications in one season.
Things You Will Need
- 10X magnifying lens (optional)
- Bulbous duster or shaker can, dust gun or rotary duster
- .25 percent permethrin powder
- Backpack or pump sprayer
- 2.5 percent concentrated permethrine
- Respiratory mask
- Latex gloves
- Protective goggles
- Long-sleeved shirt
- Long pants
- Read the permethrin container's label for specific instructions and warnings prior to mixing or applying it.
- Apply permethrin on a non-windy, dry day with a temperature between 55 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Wear protective goggles, a respiratory mask, latex gloves, long sleeves and long pants when handling and applying permethrin.
- National Gardening Association: I'm Nuts Over Nuts
- University of California Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program: Permethrin
- University of California Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program: How to Manage Pests - Pecan
- University of California Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program: Black Pecan Aphid
- University of California Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program: Yellow Aphid Complex
- U.S. Department of Agriculture: Carya Illinoinensis
- Alabama Cooperative Extension System: Pecan Cultivar Recommendations for Homes and Low Input Plantings
- Hemera Technologies/AbleStock.com/Getty Images | <urn:uuid:5bcaba96-d870-4711-94d4-d5b9b45f9642> | {
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Barley is an excellent source of soluble
fiber, and so can be effective in lowering cholesterol levels.
Barley is found in two forms: hulled and pearled.
Hulled barley, the form of the
grain in which the bran is left intact, is exceptionally nutritious.
Because only the outer, inedible hull, and not the bran, is removed,
hulled barley is rich in dietary fiber, iron, trace minerals and thiamin.
Hulled barley is brown, and takes longer to cook than pearled barley.
To produce Pearled barley
the barley grains are scoured six times during milling to completely
remove their double outer hull and their bran layer. Unfortunately, as
with white rice, this process also removes nutrients. The grain has
less iron, manganese, phosphorus, and thiamin.
This milling does shorten the grain's
cooking time considerably. And pearled barley is still a highly
nutritious and tasty food.
SCOTCH BROTH :
1 c barley
1 qt. Water
1 lb lamb bone with meat
1 Bay leaf
1/4 c. chopped carrots
1/4 c. chopped celery
1/4 c. chopped onion
Sea salt and pepper to taste
Soak barley in water overnight.
In the morning, add the lamb bone and water enough to cover all.
crock pot and simmer all day or until meat and barley are tender . Remove
bone and bay leaf.
Add vegetables. Season to
Continue cooking til vegetables are tender.
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Weather notwithstanding, the middle school students of Blessed Sacrament Catholic School tromped around Cedarock Park Thursday on an all-day STREAM field trip.
Blessed Sacrament has been working on its STEM certification, which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
STEM is a growing trend in education since 21st century jobs are expected to require those skills.
At Blessed Sacrament they decided to add Art and Religion to make it a STREAM school to recognize the importance of art education and the school’s religious foundation.
Unlike many curricular reforms these days, this was an in-house creation.
“Because the way we learned is different from how these kids are learning in the 21stt century,” said Principal Maria Gomez.
While the curriculum is ongoing, the field trip to Cedarock Park was an all-day, hands-on STREAM lesson.
Students had Spanish, literature, art, math, science, religion and technology lessons with no more cover than a picnic shelter.
Math teacher Tiffany Stalek said hands-on learning seems to work for kids with all kinds of learning styles.
The 49 students also seemed to enjoy being out of the classroom, even if their matching navy blue Blessed Sacrament hooded sweatshirts were kind of wet.
Like STEM, the new curriculum also teaches lessons across subjects.
For example, Gomez said teachers were combining art and religion lessons with the parable of the mustard seed.
Students read the scripture and did art projects on it giving students, who get mustard from a bottle now, a better idea of how small mustard seeds are, and what Jesus was getting at.
On the field trip, students combined technology and science by surveying small plots in the park to look at the trees and the other life in them.
They also used global positioning data to find latitude and longitude of locations, thermometers to measure ground temperature and the Beaufort Scale, observing the movements of leaves and branches, to measure wind speed.
A hike in the park fed into science and art lessons.
“We looked up about the trees we saw and we put some leaves in little bags and looked up the scientific names and learned what the value is to wildlife and humans,” said fifth-grader Daniella Urgiles, 10.
Urgiles said she would also have an art project about the wildlife she saw at the park. She saw two deer, and what one of her classmates called a poison caterpillar.
Some things about middle school never change.
Another religion lesson Thursday had students identify trees to see if they were native species and if they would do well on Blessed Sacrament’s campus.
If they would, students will see about planting some on campus, said religion teacher Carol Kearney.
Gomez said the lesson shows students “the wondrous things of God in nature.”
It is also follows Pope Francis’ call to be protectors of creation, Gomez said.
Science teacher Victoria Sebastian had students look at the connection between increases in ice cream sales and shark attacks in the summer.
“That’s the job of a scientist,” Sebastian said, “to find out ‘is this a cause or is this a correlation?’” | <urn:uuid:909fe005-4701-4e2a-b748-9dc51ddb5593> | {
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Erica Peplin Technology is a field typically associated with smooth screens, organized interfaces, and on a larger scale, with the pride and “progress” of western civilization. Dirty New Media, a branch of New Media Art, seeks to subvert these unquestioned assumptions by problematizing, rather than idealizing, common technologies. The “dirty” stems from the movement’s deliberate incorporation of brokenness as artists, hackers, and activists alike intentional hack, reconstruct, and complicate aspects of computer culture. By embracing the cyber flaws, short circuits, and disjointed components, Dirty New Media refers to a menagerie of alternative practices and subcultures spanning from punk and digital sampling to piracy and pornography. Most New Media artists are interested in exploring the ways in which technological systems and equipment can be realigned, modified and played with critically. While typically embodied by the forms of New Media Art, including Web Art, Software Art, Realtime Audio Video Performances, and Noise Music, Dirty New Media is distinguishable in its more experimental and purposely transgressive approach. Their critique catalyzes artists, critics, and audiences to ask important questions about the value of art as a commodity, the exclusionary power dynamics of art markets, and consumer computing within corporate cultures.
The graphic and industrial design styles of Apple Computers is one example of the kind of clean, smooth, slick style Dirty New Media is attempting to interrogate. Jon Cates began to use the term Dirty New Media, as he explains, “to express a contrast with the kind of cleanliness that I associate with more commercial or corporate styles of digital art and design.” A professor at the the Film, Video, New Media and Animation Department at the SAIC and developer of its New Media curriculum, Cates helped originate the raw, direct, unkempt, and noisy, style with colleagues and students. In 2005, Cates co-founded a micro-festival series called r4WB1t5, a program of digital art projects which ran successfully through 2007. Jason Scott, archivist for Archive.org, has called the Chicago-based community the “birthplace of dirty new media.” Rosa Menkman, the consummate Glitch Art theory practitioner from Amsterdam, has written that Cates and company have foreground Glitch Art in a way which has become a ‘pivotal axis’ of the international gitchscene. The trend of experimentally revising and perverting technology is rooted in much of the early video and conceptual art of the 1970s, most notably in the work of Phil Morton. Chicago was a prominent location where early media-centered endeavors were taking place and in the early 70s, Morton founded the Video department and the Video Data Bank at the SAIC and developed a concept which he called “COPY-IT-RIGHT”, an anti-copyright approach to making and freely sharing Media Art. Morton’s individual and collaborative projects were released under his COPY-IT-RIGHT license. Collaborating with Jane Vreeder, Morton produced work that catalyzed the pioneering computer graphics community of Chicago and encouraged people to make faithful copies whilst caring for and distributing media art works as widely as possible. In alliance with Dan Sandin, Tom DeFanti, and Bob Snyder, a close-knit association of artists, musicians, educators and students gradually emerged around these ideas and practices.
Curator Diane Kirkpatrick outlined in the catalogue for the 1978 exhibition, “Chicago: The City and Its Artists 1945-1978” how Morton, Sandin, DeFanti and Snyder’s efforts in projects such as RYRAL, a realtime audio and video performance, were only possible through the unique technical, conceptual and social combinations of their backgrounds and abilities. Kirkpatrick states that these Media Artists “developed an interactive performance mode of working together” in both pre-planned and improvised forms. Jon Cates and a wide gamut of artists continue to draw directly from the legacy of the vanguard Chicago Media Art community. In 2007, Cates founded the Phil Morton Memorial Research Archive (located at the SAIC), containing Phil Morton’s personal video databank, stretching across 30 years of Media Art Histories specific to the early Video Art and New Media Art cooperatives in Chicago. Cates is currently finishing a book on the subject which will be released as an entirely Free and Open Source work of Media Art Histories scholarship.
Perhaps the Dirty New Media movement’s growth can be partially attributed to the ease of access offered by the internet as both a material, medium, and means of reception. A breadth of websites centered around both media art, both New and Dirty, are accessible, entertaining, and perpetually growing. The Chicago-based website Dinca was founded in 2009 with the aim of expanding the sphere of avant-garde film, video, and New Media art. Rhizome is another media art website, founded in 1996, and dedicated to the creation, compiling, sharing, and preservation of artistic practices that engage technology. Through open platforms for exchange and collaboration, sites such as Dina, Rhizome, and Upgrade Chicago encourage and expands the digital communities and the ever-evolving trajectory of media art. | <urn:uuid:cca07504-555b-48f7-826f-cf873a6e4408> | {
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Teaching children morality through the Bible
By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
5/16/2014 (3 years ago)
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)
Children's minds are voracious in trying to understand the world around them. Many parents, busy trying to bring money into the household or to maintain their homes, leave their impressionable children to learn about the world gradually - letting them watch specific TV shows, or relying on the schools to help. A very important thing that is often left out is the moral teachings that the Bible gives us.
That old Sunday school standby, flannel graphs are also good to use, especially for young children.
LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Reading from the Bible daily to your children will instill in them strong moral character.
First and foremost, teaching moral and Christian values begins by setting a good example. Children will pay much more attention to what you do than what you say. If you want your children to be kind, generous and respectful, then you must be this way yourself. This is fundamental.
With Bible readings, you can teach your child is to have a personal relationship with Jesus. Even a two or three year old can accept Jesus. Explain to your child that Jesus loves them and wants to be their friend.
In helping with your child's religious instruction, choose a Bible book that is age appropriate and that will catch your child's interest. That old Sunday school standby, flannel graphs are also good to use, especially for young children.
There are also numerous books that promote good moral values and that are interesting and enjoyable at the same time. True life stories of famous people such as Florence Nightingale, Helen Keller and other real-life characters provide role models that your child can look up to. For younger children, choose simple stories that are not only easy to understand but also fun.
Having a wide variety of materials to choose from helps a lot. As the old saying goes, "variety is the spice of life."
Make sure that the Word of God is heard and read by the young --
Copyright 2018 - Distributed by THE CALIFORNIA NETWORK
Pope Francis Prayer Intentions for FEBRUARY 2018
Say 'No' to Corruption. That those who have material, political or spiritual power may resist any lure of corruption.
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Tax deductible support Free education | <urn:uuid:84b95673-ad72-4f31-95a1-ad7dc675f60c> | {
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When the IMF provides a loan to a country, a due diligence exercise is carried out to obtain assurances that the country’s central bank receiving IMF resources is able to adequately manage the funds, and provide reliable information. Experience with these “safeguards assessments”, since they were introduced in 2000, has shown a positive impact for many central banks through strengthened governance, control, and reporting mechanisms.
Protecting IMF resources ensures future availability to other members
Under its Articles of Agreement, the IMF must establish “adequate safeguards” for the use of its resources. This is to ensure that loans to member countries are repaid as they fall due so those resources become available to other members in need. Safeguards include limits on how much can be borrowed, conditions on the loans, measures to deal with misreporting or arrears, and “safeguards assessments” of central banks.
The “safeguards assessments”
A safeguards assessment is a diagnostic review of a central bank’s governance and control framework. Five key areas—denoted by the acronym ELRIC—are assessed to help safeguard IMF disbursements and minimize the risk of inaccurate reporting of key data to the IMF (“misreporting”) for as long as a country has IMF credit outstanding. Emphasis is placed on the effectiveness of the central bank’s governance across all ELRIC areas.
External audit mechanism: The publication of central bank annual financial statements that are independently audited in accordance with international standards is a key requirement under the safeguards policy. Assessments look at the process for the selection and rotation of external auditors, their compliance with international standards, and whether the audited financial statements are published.
Legal structure and autonomy: Government interference can undermine a central bank’s autonomy and increase the risks in its operations. Assessments focus on laws and regulations affecting autonomy, transparency, and governance at the central bank, as well as actual practices in these areas. They also ascertain whether the legal framework supports the other four ELRIC pillars.
Financial reporting: Safeguards assessments evaluate whether the central bank adheres to international good practices for transparent financial accounting and reporting so that accounting systems provide reliable and timely information. Assessments also focus on the consistency between published financial information and central bank monetary data that are sourced from the accounting system.
Internal audit mechanism: The internal audit function helps the central bank to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of risk management, control, and governance processes. The IMF assesses whether the internal audit function is effective, and whether it has sufficient staff resources and organizational independence to fulfill its mandate. Assessments also review compliance of the internal audit function with international standards.
System of internal controls: Sound policies and procedures, including effective risk management, are necessary to safeguard assets, and ensure the accuracy and completeness of accounting records and information. Assessments review the quality of oversight of external and internal audits, as well as controls over banking, accounting, and foreign exchange operations. Particular attention is paid to reserves management functions and controls over data reported to the IMF.
Assessments involve several steps
Central banks provide information—including financial statements, internal and external audit reports, and summaries of central bank controls—to the IMF on the above five areas. IMF staff review this documentation and hold discussions with the bank’s staff and external auditors; assessments may also include a visit to the central bank. A safeguards assessment report is produced, which includes recommendations to address identified vulnerabilities. Key recommendations may become part of program benchmarks.
Where IMF lending is provided as direct budgetary support, assessments look for a clear framework between the central bank and the government for repaying IMF lending so that their respective roles and obligations are transparent and well understood.
Country authorities have the opportunity to comment on the report before it is finalized. Safeguards assessment reports are confidential documents and the IMF Executive Board is informed of the findings and recommendations in summary form in country reports. Safeguards reports may be shared with the World Bank and, where relevant, the European Central Bank on a confidential basis, but only with the written consent of the central bank in question and subject to strict distribution controls. Formal confidential briefings can be provided to donors, if requested, with the consent of the central bank. The Board is also provided annual activity reports that include findings, issues, and corrective actions taken.
IMF staff monitor the implementation of safeguards recommendations and developments in central banks’ safeguards frameworks for as long as IMF credit is outstanding. Safeguards assessments are conducted for each new loan request. Flexible Credit Line (FCL) arrangements, however, are exempt because of the rigorous requirements that must be met to qualify for an FCL, and safeguard procedures are therefore limited to a review of the most recently completed external audit of the central bank. Members may also request a voluntary assessment where there is a non-financial arrangement with the IMF.
Assessments complement other IMF work
The safeguards assessments policy was introduced in March 2000, in the wake of instances of misreporting and allegations of misuse of IMF resources. It is now an integral part of the IMF’s lending activities, with 265 assessments covering 94 central banks having been completed to date. The policy was last reviewed by the Executive Board in July 2010.
Safeguards assessments are conducted independently from other IMF activities such as surveillance, program discussions, and technical assistance. They are distinct from other IMF initiatives, which aim to enhance transparency and data integrity, such as Financial Sector Assessment Programs (FSAPs), ROSCs, and data dissemination standards. In addition, these initiatives are voluntary, while safeguards assessments are linked to borrowings from the IMF. | <urn:uuid:45d13d97-c397-4e22-bcbf-734ed21dcc7f> | {
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Renaissance art made in Florence, Italy, more than half a millennium ago wouldn't look the way it does without art and artists working elsewhere in Europe.
It's easy to forget that travel and trade between Italy and other countries was frequent, including travel by artists and trade in art. Yet cosmopolitan interchange played an indispensable role in the blooming notion of a Renaissance.
One of the most important of these interchanges is the subject of a newly opened exhibition at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino. The result is a knockout, the fall's first great museum show.
Modest in size, it nonetheless digs deep. "Face to Face: Flanders, Florence and Renaissance Painting" is the first in the United States to explore the late-15th century effect of paintings by Rogier van der Weyden, Hans Memling, Petrus Christus and other artists working in the Low Countries of Northern Europe, especially modern-day Belgium, on such Florentine painters as Domenico Ghirlandaio, Filippino Lippi and Pietro Perugino. Choice loans were obtained from 17 European and American museums.
Paintings on wood panel — typically oak in the north and poplar in the south — are fragile, since the organic support is susceptible to changes in ambient temperature and humidity. Huntington curator Catherine Hess and independent British scholar Paula Nuttall, who co-organized the show, assembled 29 examples. Six illuminated manuscripts and five map-books showing Flanders and the cities of Bruges and Florence from the 15th through the 17th centuries enlarge the context.
Somewhat surprisingly, the Huntington's own distinguished collection inspired the event.
The Huntington is usually identified with its incomparable collection of aristocratic British paintings, especially portraiture. Yet Arabella Huntington was even more enamored of Renaissance and Old Master art. Much of what she once owned eventually ended up in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, and some was sold after her death; but a small group remains in San Marino. Three of those paintings bracket the show.
"Face to Face" opens with "Virgin and Child" by Rogier van der Weyden, probably the finest early Renaissance painting in Los Angeles. Set against a golden background that would shimmer in candlelight, Mary dandles a rambunctious baby Jesus.
In a clever narrative device, the child toys playfully with the metal clasp on a closed Bible as his wistful mother looks on. A newborn is about to open the story of Christian salvation.
Half of a devotional diptych, the panel is reunited for the first time on the West Coast with the "Portrait of Philippe de Croÿ," who commissioned it around 1460, near the end of the celebrated painter's life. Philippe's pale face, a stilled image of solemn piety whose downcast eyes are lost in grave contemplation of divinity, emerges from the sumptuous gloom of a dark velvet tunic within a darkened room.
A diptych is the pictorial cousin of a book. When its two wings are opened, a visual text can be studied. What's odd here is not the sweetly sorrowful image of mother and son but the adjacent portrait of the ruminating nobleman who commissioned it.
With the diptych opened in the privacy of his chamber, Philippe could contemplate the mysteries of Mary and Jesus — plus gaze on his own image of Christian devotion, as if reflected in a mirror. Van der Weyden, brilliantly exploiting the potential for oil paint to create naturalistic illusions of human beings and material objects in luminous, atmospheric space, gives powerful new meaning to "the word made flesh."
At the end of the exhibition, a second pair of paintings has brought us from Flanders to Florence. Two Ghirlandaio portraits — made to celebrate the marriage of an unidentified young man and woman — are also from the Huntington's collection, and they date from a full generation after Van der Weyden.
By then, a host of innovations from Flemish painting had been absorbed into Florentine art. The most obvious is the landscape setting for these half-length portraits. The landscape device became most famous in Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa," but it was conceived and popularized decades earlier by Memling in Bruges.
Ghirlandaio seated the husband before an expansive view, with a road winding off in the distance over his right shoulder and a harbor or river dotted with boats behind his left. The wife's portrait shows her inside a room, wedding gifts tucked into shelves, with a landscape only glimpsed through a window. The man is freely located in the world at large, while the woman is held within the domestic realm.
The couple gaze at one another across time and space, although not exactly face to face.
Ghirlandaio painted the woman in voluptuous profile made sturdy by the upright classical pillar behind her. A conservative format, it echoes such ancient Roman sources as portraits on coins, carved stone reliefs and mosaics. She is shown revered by history and restrained by tradition.
Her worldly husband is portrayed not in profile but turned toward us in three-quarter view. He is more open and fully revealed as a human being, like the pious Philippe de Croÿ.
Perhaps the most far-reaching difference between the Van der Weyden paintings and the two by Ghirlandaio is simply their materials. The Flemish panels were made with oil paint, the Florentine with tempera.
Different paints yield differing results. Generally speaking, tempera is fast-drying, hard, light-absorbent and best applied in thin layers of short hatched strokes. Oil paint is slow-drying, soft, light-reflective and capable of smoothly blended brushwork.
The difference is displayed in a fantastic, side-by-side installation of two nearly identical compositions showing Christ as "The Man of Sorrows Blessing." The oil is by Memling; about a decade later, Ghirlandaio copied it in tempera.
In the mysterious Memling, the softly blended forms fairly breathe. Christ's left hand is gently poised to reach out into the space occupied by a viewer, drawing him in for the blessing.
The Ghirlandaio is cooler and more formal, all dramatic linearity composed from brightly illuminated contrasts between dark and light. Here Christ's stylized hands perform elegant sign language.
Ghirlandaio enacts epic pictorial theater, inviting awe. Memling fuses divinity and humanity in equal measure. It isn't that one is better or worse than the other, but the differences in tone and feeling are emphatic. You can even sense the eventual schism between Catholic and Protestant world views taking shape.
Memling emerges as an unexpected star of the show, binding the two regions together. He is represented by five exceptional panels — one a devotional portrait of a member of the Florentine Portinari family, who lived in Bruges as representatives of the Medici bank. Nearby, an exceptional oil portrait of gem carver Francesco delle Opere is a virtual essay in Memling motifs painted by the Florentine Perugino.
An entrenched myth claims that oil paint was invented by Jan van Eyck, the first great artist of the Northern Renaissance; it wasn't, although the story's endurance indicates the medium's prominence in Flanders. Artists in Florence might have initially resisted, but "Face to Face" shows what a great gift it was to a rapidly expanding repertoire.
'Face to Face: Flanders, Florence and Renaissance Painting'
Where: Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens; 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino
When: Through Jan. 13. Closed Tuesday.
Contact: (626) 405-2100, http://www.huntington.org | <urn:uuid:95101d2e-da73-47a2-b0d2-a39e7c790933> | {
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|Double standard in 'no retreat' laws|
|Statutes of little aid to black defendants|
|Published Thursday, July 25, 2013 9:10 am|
The acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of 17-year-old unarmed Trayvon Martin has led to intense scrutiny of Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law and similar “no retreat” self-defense laws and their impact on people of color.
|LaShay White of Buffalo, N.Y., holds a poster during a rally at the Federal Courthouse in Charlotte on July 20. Hundreds of protesters gathered to offer support for the family of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed teen who was shot and killed last year in Sanford, Fla. George Zimmerman, who shot Martin, was found not guilty by a jury on July 11.|
“I think the Trayvon Martin case highlighted the racial inequalities that exist in American society,” said Brendan Fischer, general counsel of the Center for Media and Democracy. “It is a symbol of how the American justice system devalues the lives of people of color. (And), Stand Your Ground has embedded a lot of these injustices into the system. Statistics have shown its application has been anything but equitable.”
Supported by the National Rifle Association, “Stand Your Ground” was passed by the Florida legislature in 2005. The measure turned age-old self-defense principle on its head by allowing persons to use deadly force to defend themselves, without first trying to retreat, if they have what they consider a reasonable belief that they face a threat.
The law’s template was then adopted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a nonprofit organization made up of corporations, foundations and legislators that advance federalist and conservative public policies, authorities said. Since Florida passed the law, similar measures have been introduced in one form or another in about 30 states, usually those with state legislatures dominated by Republicans.
“That law gives law-and-order activists, right-wingers and vigilantes an arguable basis for defense and opens up a pathway for unjust dispositions of justice because it allows civilians to shoot first and make certain determinations later,” said Dwight Pettit, 67, an attorney in Baltimore.
Pettit drew comparisons to police-involved shootings of African Americans when the officers make claims such as “I was in fear for my life,” or “I thought he was reaching for his gun,” and are exonerated. He discusses the phenomenon in his soon-to-be-released book “Under Color of Law.”
“Blacks don’t fare well with these laws at all,” Pettit said. “It’s another lessening of protection for African Americans.”
An analysis conducted by the Tampa Bay Times last year showed that defendants in Florida who employ the “Stand Your Ground” defense are more successful when the victim is black. In its examination of 200 applicable cases, the Times found that 73 percent of those who killed a black person were acquitted, compared to 59 percent of those who killed a white.
Similarly, an analysis of Supplemental Homicide Reports submitted by local law enforcement to the FBI between 2005 and 2010 demonstrates that in cases with a black shooter and a White victim, the rate of justifiable homicide rulings is about 1 percent. However, if the shooter is White and the victim is black, it is ruled justified in 9.5 percent of cases in non-Stand Your Ground states. In Stand Your Ground states, the rate is even higher—almost 17 percent, according to John Roman of the Urban Institute.
The trends could partly explain Zimmerman’s verdict, some legal experts said. While his defense team did not invoke the law, Circuit Court Judge Debra Nelson introduced the principle in her instructions to the jury.
“If George Zimmerman was not engaged in an unlawful activity and was attacked in any place where he had a right to be, he had no duty to retreat and had the right to stand his ground and meet force with force, including deadly force, if he reasonably believed that it was necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony,” she said in her instructions to the jury of one Hispanic and five white women.
To police officers and prosecutors in Sanford, Fla. — who had initially decided not to charge Zimmerman — and to jurors in the case, Zimmerman’s “fear” of Trayvon Martin, a hoodie-wearing black teenager, likely appeared to be justified, Fischer said.
“If you have a case like George Zimmerman, who is part white, alleging that a young black male is a threat to him, a lot of times law enforcement would agree that such as person did (constitute) a threat because of the biases and presumptions about black males, in particular, which exist in society,” he said.
Conversely, Stand Your Ground laws are less accommodating of black defendants. Such was the case of successful African-American businessman John McNeil who was found guilty of aggravated assault and felony murder in Georgia in 2006 in connection with the fatal shooting of white contractor Brian Epp. McNeil said Epp threatened him and his son during a hostile encounter after going onto McNeil’s property to confront him. He was released earlier this year on time served.
Similarly, in July 2012, Marissa Alexander, 31, the mother of three, was given a 20-year mandatory sentence for an aggravated assault conviction for firing a warning shot into the air in the garage of her home at her abusive husband. Alexander said the man was moving toward her as she attempted to retreat from him when she fired the shot. He was not injured.
Florida Sen. Gary Siplin said the Alexander case was his motivation to attempt to get the Stand Your Ground law overturned. He was unsuccessful, however, because “there are more Democrats in Florida, but more Republicans (are) in charge and they don’t want to change the law,” he said.
Working toward a repeal of the laws would be a positive outcome or response to the verdict in the George Zimmerman case, Fischer said.
“People have to vote and elect legislators that would support more just laws that protect the rights of all people instead of just a few,” he said.
In the meantime, many officials are vowing to examine the laws and work toward their repeal, if necessary.
“It’s time to question laws that senselessly expand the concept of self-defense and sow dangerous conflict in our neighborhoods,” U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in a speech to the NAACP on July 16. “By allowing, and perhaps encouraging, violent situations to escalate in public, such laws undermine public safety.”
The Martin case “opened up a nationwide inquiry into the appropriateness and efficacy of Stand Your Ground laws,” said Commissioner Michael Yaki of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, who initiated the body’s investigation into racial bias in the application of such laws. He said the commission is committed to investigating the laws.
“To honor Trayvon and his family, we will continue this inquiry with resolve and renewed purpose,” Yaki said.
Send this page to a friend | <urn:uuid:1dc57dba-c40c-493d-9c0f-57d4f5aec721> | {
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FREE SHIPPING BOTH WAYSON EVERY ORDER!
With a new chapter on Response to Intervention and Progress Monitoring and with this approach integrated throughout the content area chapters, the fifth edition of this popular text continues to serve as an invaluable resource for teachers working with students in inclusive classrooms.
The author's strategic approach, engaging and accessible writing style, multi-chapter unit on curriculum adaptations, and strong emphasis on teaching secondary learners will allow teachers to meet the needs of all learners in their general education classrooms. New chapter on and thorough integration of the RTI framework RTI and Progress monitoring, IDEIA 2004 4 year undergraduate inclusion courses
- “The 60-Second Lesson” features throughout all chapters present brief mini-lessons that provide specific, concrete examples of how a teacher can make a difference for students with disabilities or diverse needs in only one minute of time.
- “Tips for Teachers” in every chapter provide guidelines, strategies and step-by-step procedures to enhance teaching practices.
- Updated chapter opening interviews that feature teachers and specialists who work in inclusive classrooms
- “Activities for All Learners” features in each of the “content area” chapters present sample lessons that include objectives, procedures, and application suggestions for classroom implementation.
- Updated “Tech Tips” features in most chapters provide suggestions for technology tools that can be used in the classroom to enhance success for all learners, particularly students with special needs.
- NEW Margin URLs direct students to online resources that will provide them information and tools to help them better accommodate all learners in their classrooms. | <urn:uuid:57cef712-6a0c-4ee9-bea4-d2a8ac4662e4> | {
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By: Megan Gannon, News Editor
Published: 10/01/2012 12:34 PM EDT on LiveScience
Sticking to traditional gender roles could make you less comfortable and less safe in the bedroom. In a new study, young adults who assumed that men should take charge during sex were less likely to feel confident in sexual situations and less receptive to using female condoms.
The study, published online Sept. 25 in the journal Sex Roles, involved 357 women and 126 men (ages 18-29) from a public university in the Northeast, all heterosexual and sexually active. The researchers, led by Lisa Rosenthal from Yale University, gave the students a survey to measure their sexual confidence, asking them how assertive they were about getting sexual satisfaction from a partner, using a condom and taking precautions for safer sex.
They also examined the students' support for social power inequalities and hierarchies based on their agreement with statements such as: "It’s OK if some groups have more of a chance in life than others;" and "The man should be the one who dictates what happens during sex." (The endorsement of such power dynamics has been linked to sexism, negative attitudes toward women's rights and a greater tolerance of sexual harassment.)
In the private cubicle where the students filled out their survey, there was a bowl of female condoms with a sign that read: "Protect yourself and your partner. Please take some! FREE FEMALE CONDOMS." There were small pamphlets next to the bowl about how to use female condoms, which are inserted into the vagina before sex.
The more men and women endorsed hierarchical power dynamics, the more likely they were to believe men should dominate during sex and the less likely they were to take the free female condoms and report confidence in sexual situations, the researchers said.
"If men believe that men should dominate sexually, this may prevent them from feeling open or comfortable discussing sexual behavior and protection with their partners or asking questions about things they may not know," which could lead to reduced sexual confidence, wrote the researchers.
"For both women and men, the belief that men should dominate sexually could reduce interest in female condoms, because female condoms are meant to be a woman-centered source of protection and may be seen as violating the norm or belief that men should be in control of sexual situations," Rosenthal and her team explained.
Women in the study were generally less likely than men to believe that men should dominate in the bedroom, the study's authors noted. The researchers controlled for variables such as age, family income, number of sexual partners in the past month and perceived HIV/AIDS risk.
- 10 Surprising Sex Statistics
- The Sex Quiz: Myths, Taboos and Bizarre Facts
- Busted! 6 Gender Myths in the Bedroom & Beyond | <urn:uuid:08eb2301-699f-4c50-ad63-1ba30b17fe43> | {
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The California Condor Recovery Program has defied the odds to rescue from oblivion the last of the prehistorics and icon of Native Californian cosmology. Threats such as lead ammunition, micro-trash, and sprawling land development threaten these impressive gains of an endangered species. The film “The Condor’s Shadow” documents this struggle.
An Endangered Species Success Story: Flying Free Again, From Baja to Big Sur
The name Chinigchinich, whose habitation is above, means “All-powerful” or “Almighty.” When dancing enrobed in a dress composed of feathers, a crown of the same upon his head, his face painted black and red, he is also known as Tobet. They say that once, while dancing in this costume, he was taken up into heaven, where are located the stars. — Father Friar Gerónimo Boscana, 1846, on the customs of the Acjachemen People of Alta California
During the Pleistocene Era, California condors ranged from what is now British Columbia, down to Baja California Sur, and through much of North America. By 1940, the condor’s range was reduced to a horseshoe-shaped mountain range in southern California.
The almost-10-foot wing-span vulture, the last of the prehistorics, known to soar on thermals up to 140 miles per day scavenging carcasses, had lost its way. Development of railroads and roads, and their attendant Euro-centric population explosion, brought about extinction of roving herds where the deer and the antelope once played. Lead bullets, powerlines, poisoned varmints, microtrash, and target-hungry hunters contributed to the death spiral. With the open range fenced and bulldozed into housing subdivisions, most considered the condor on his last wing.
On April 19, 1987, the final free-flying California condor was captured from the wild and placed in captivity. At that time, only 27 condors remained near-extinction, all in zoos. In the last thirty years, the multi-entity captive breeding and reintroduction effort of the US Fish and Wildlife Condor Recovery Program has brought the Gymnogyps californianus back from the abyss. Even though the population has rebounded to more than 360 birds, flying high in California, Arizona and Baja California, condors still face tremendous challenges. Many wonder whether this endangered species triumph is worth more than $5 million in annual costs, or roughly $13,000 per bird.
Ultimately, experts seek to attain three distinct populations — one wild in California, another wild in Arizona, with a third raised in captivity. Each would have 150 birds and at least 15 breeding pairs. Meanwhile, lead poisoning from hunter’s ammunition persists, wildfires consume habitat, micro-trash ingestion can prove fatal, West Nile Virus threatens fledglings, and it is unknown whether the remaining wildlands can produce sufficient carrion. Furthermore, large-scale land development such as Tejon Ranch and Newhall Ranch threaten to consume habitat, and hunters resist further long-term legislation banning lead ammo. Yet for the first time in decades, the recovery program managers as well as the community at large are optimistic for success.
Following the Southern California recovery team into wild condor nests, The Condor’s Shadow, the documentary by Jeff McLoughlin, reveals the inherent beauty of these huge birds soaring over the rugged refuges they call home. The film profiles the ongoing challenge of bringing the iconic California condor back from the brink of extinction.
The most celebrated of all their feasts, and which was observed yearly, was the one they called the “Panes,” signifying a bird feast. Particular adoration was observed by them, for a bird resembling much in appearance the common buzzard, or vulture, but of larger dimensions. — Father Friar Gerónimo Boscana
Hol-hol, the Condor-Impersonator, Holds Up the Sky
The condor played a prominent role in the cosmological beliefs and practices of the native people of the Californias. Hence, the bird’s resurgence at the hand of humans can be interpreted as a symbol of hope for renewal of an earth battered by overpopulation, contamination and misuse.
John W. Foster, the Senior State Archaeologist for California, wrote that ritual use of condors has been evidenced through much of historical native California, including widespread sacrifice. In general, this served to transfer the power of the bird sacrificed to those engaged in its ritual killing. Possibly the condor’s association with the dead (being a carrion eater), led to its incorporation into mourning activities and renewal ceremonies.
Not practiced since the time of the missions, first recorded verbal accounts of California condor ceremonies comes from October 8, 1769 when Fr. Juan Crespi observed a large stuffed condor in an Ohlone village near the present day Watsonville.
Many ceremonies throughout California involved dancers dressed in capes of condor skins or condor feather bands. The oldest extant example was collected by the Russian Illya Voznesenski in central California. It is preserved in the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography in St. Petersburg. The condor ceremony took many forms. Central Miwok shamen acquired powers from condors that allowed them to suck supernatural poisons from their patients. Among the Maidu, condor capes were used by Moki or Kuksuyu dancers. These capes were sometimes combined with Golden Eagle feathers to exaggerate the wearer’s height.
The Indians state that said “Panes” was once a female, who ran off and retired to the mountains, when accidentally meeting with “Chinigchinich,” he changed her into a bird, and their belief is, that notwithstanding they sacrificed it every year, she became again animated, and returned to her home among the mountains. — Father Friar Gerónimo Boscana
Perhaps the most detailed description of condor ceremony in southern California comes from the Panes (or bird) festival of the Juaneño (Acjachemen) and Luiseño. It was described by Friar Boscana of Mission San Juan Capistrano and by Friar Peyri of Mission San Luis Rey in the early 19th century. Similar ceremonies were held by the Gabrieleño, Cahuilla, Kumeyaay and Cupeño (Kroeber 1907; 2002).
The Panes (clearly a California condor from its description) is brought to the festival and placed upon an altar constructed for the purpose. The bird had been captured as a nestling, with condor nest sites being owned by the village. It was raised with great care until fully grown and selected for the sacrifice. Slowly, along with much crying and grimaces, the captive birds are killed by strangulation or pressing the heart. The bird’s skin was removed in one piece and the flesh thrown on a fire. Skins and feathers were used to decorate venerated objects for the annual mourning ceremony. California condor skins were also used to make skirts that were retained as important ritual objects by their native owners (Bates et.al. 1993:41; Bates 1982).
California condors could infuse humans with special powers. Vultures and condors, with their keen eyesight, were considered expert at finding lost objects. Among the Western Mono and Yokuts tribes, “money finders” wore full-length cloaks of condor feathers that reputedly enabled them to find lost valuables (Snyder and Snyder 2000:38). This power was extended to finding missing persons among condor shaman of the Chumash.
California condors also played a part in cosmic events. Among the Chumash, condors or eagles were sacrificed based on which celestial body was prominently visible at the time of the ceremony. Eagles were selected for rituals concerned with the Evening Star (Venus), while condors were chosen for rituals associated with the planet Mars (Hudson and Underhay 1978:88; Simons 1983).
Bates, Craig T. 1982 “A Historical View of Southern Sierra Miwok Dance and Ceremony.” Ms. on file at California State Department of Parks and Recreation, Sacramento.
Bates, Craig T., Janet M. Hamber and Martha J. Lee 1993 “The California Condor and the California Indians.” American Indian Art 19 (1): 40-48.
1846 Chinigchinich: A Historical Account of the Origin, Customs, and Traditions of the Indians at the Mission San Juan Capistrano, Alta California. Translated by Alfred Robinson. New York: Wiley and Putnam.
John W. Foster
Senior State Archaeologist, “Wings of the Spirit: The Place of the California Condor Among Native Peoples of the Californias.” California State Parks.
Hudson, Travis and Ernest Underhay
1978 Crystals in the Sky: An Intellectual Odyssey Involving Chumash Astronomy, Cosmology and Rock Art.
Ballena Press and the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History Cooperative Publication. Santa Barbara, California.
Kroeber, Alfred L.
1907 Indian Myths of South Central California. University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 4 (4). p. 220.
Snyder, Noel and Helen Snyder
2000 The California Condor: A Saga of Natural History and Conservation. San Francisco: Academic Press. | <urn:uuid:3fa48dd5-90f2-4897-b0cd-2f76e2e50b3c> | {
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This tutorial is meant to be a lesson on how to setup an eclipse project using jogl; hopefully it will be found useful. The opengl code is based on the excellent NeHe lessons 01-05. You should have basic knowledge of java, eclipse and jogl/opengl.
The first thing you need to do is create a new project. I suggest using java 1.4 if you plan on doing a public binary release. I also like having separate folders for my source and class files.
Create a new directory in your project called lib. Add jogl.jar and gluegen-rt.jar to the new lib directory. Take the platform specific libraries libjogl/libjogl_cg/libjogl_awt/libgluegen-rt and place them in the top level directory of your project. Go to Project->Properties->Java Build Path and switch to the Libraries tab. Add jogl.jar and gluegen-rt.jar.
Your project should now look something like this:
Now place the jogl source zip (jogl-1.1.0-src.zip) in the lib directory. Hit ctrl+shift+t you should be prompted to enter a class name. Type GLEventListener and hit OK.
Notice that there is no source? Click Attach source and add the jogl source zip (jogl-1.1.0-src.zip).
Right click on the source directory and go to New->Class. Set the name and package as desired. Add the interface of GLEventListener.
This should have created a new class and stubbed in the interfaces methods with the correct variable names. You can fill in the methods with the code from this file: Lesson01.java. If you want more information on what is actually going on in this file I suggest the NeHe tutorials and the jogl javadoc. Now you will need classes to launch this file in either an applet or a frame. Add these two files to your project: Lesson01Applet.java Lesson01Window.java. Launching the window should be straight forward. However the applet you will have to set its working directory to the root of your project. | <urn:uuid:5e78b466-f3ce-4bf3-83cf-983fd364615f> | {
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The Missouri Plan, otherwise known as Missouri’s Non-Partisan Court Plan, has become a model for the nation. Proposed and adopted by Missouri voters in 1940, it continues to be right for the people of Missouri because it attracts high-quality judges in the least political way and ultimately gives the people the final say.
In the City of St. Louis, and in St. Louis, Jackson, Clay, Platte and Greene Counties, judges apply for their positions on the bench and are selected on the basis of merit. This process is transparent to the public and accountable to the people.
In this judicial process laid out in the state’s constitution, judges who serve under this plan have been nominated by a judicial commission and then selected by the governor. After their first 12 months in office, non-partisan appointed judges must go before the voters in a retention election. Voters are asked whether each of these judges should be retained. To be retained, each judge must receive a majority vote. If a judge does not receive a majority of votes, his or her judicial office will become vacant at the end of its present term. The judicial commission will then nominate three candidates for the position and the governor will appoint one to fill the vacancy. The terms for appellate court judges are 12 years. Among trial judges, circuit judges serve six-year terms, while associate circuit judges serve four-year terms. | <urn:uuid:bec07d9f-c636-45ce-82f3-b3d50cf12e7f> | {
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US Department of Labor: Working in the veterinary field is more dangerous than working in law enforcement
According to figures compiled by the US Department of Labor, 12% of people who work in the veterinary services profession reported work-related injuries or illnesses in 2016, second only to people who work in nursing and residential care facilities, and ahead of police officers, firefighters, and construction workers.
That number includes veterinarians, veterinary technicians, veterinary assistants, and nonclinical staff.
“Veterinary workers are at risk from the time they walk into the veterinary practice in the morning until the time they leave in the evening,” said Richard Best, MA, CIHM, COSP, director of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) compliance for Stericycle, a medical waste–removal company that also provides regulatory compliance and OSHA training to healthcare facilities. “[Those workers] are at risk and they do need to be protected.”
The risks they face are many: infectious agents, zoonotic agents, waste anesthetic gases, medications, animal bites, repetitive-motion injuries, noise, ionizing radiation, long work hours, stress, and more.
NEWStat talked to Best about the biggest hazards veterinary workers face and what hospitals can do to help protect them.
“In the veterinary workplace, the number-one hazard is animal restraint,” Best said. The most-frequently reported injuries are animal bites and scratches received while restraining animals.
Exposure to hazardous chemicals is another big concern for veterinary workers, Best said, whether it’s something as simple as a bottle of Clorox, or exposure to anesthetic gas. “One of the biggest concerns in veterinary workplaces is exposure to waste anesthetic gases,” Best said, and that exposure is especially dangerous for pregnant women.
“The third major hazard in veterinary workplaces is ionizing radiation coming from diagnostic X-rays,” Best said. That’s because animals, unlike human patients, have to be restrained in some way in order to X-ray them. “And during that time, workers can be injured, either from the radiation itself or from animal bites [received] while trying to restrain the animal.”
“But there are many other injuries,” Best said, such as ergonomic injuries from lifting heavy dogs onto surgical tables, or sharps injuries that occur while injecting medicines or drawing blood.
Kennel noise is another hazard that’s often overlooked, Best says. “The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health did a study on kennel noise and found that the level of noise that the workers in those kennels are exposed to far exceeds OSHA’s permissible limits.”
Additionally, sharps are always a problem, says Best. “And in veterinary workplaces, it's not as regulated as it is in human workplaces.” In human healthcare, OSHA has a bloodborne-pathogen standard. But Best said it’s specific to human blood and, but for rare exceptions, it excludes animal blood. “So a lot of sharps injuries in veterinary workplaces go unreported as a result.”
So what can hospitals and workers do to protect themselves?
According to Best, “The number-one step to protect yourself is awareness. Just becoming aware that these hazards exist helps. But more importantly, become aware of steps you can take, like protecting yourself from ionizing radiation.” In addition to shielding yourself from the radiation, Best said, you have to factor in the length of exposure and your distance from the source of the radiation.
For animal bites, training is key. “Most animal bites and injuries to workers occur within their first three years of working in a veterinary workplace. The takeaway from that is, the more experienced workers become, they are learning techniques, perhaps even without thinking about it. They are learning from experience ways to maneuver animals, to hold them, to position them to prevent themselves from getting bitten.” The other takeaway, he said, would be to use more experienced workers to train less experienced workers, and pass along some of that wisdom before they learn the hard way.
In addition to training, Best recommends that hospitals maintain written programs and protocols regarding workplace hazards and safety.
If you don’t have the time to prepare them yourselves, there are resources available, such as OSHA’s Hazard Communication Standard and the Centers for Disease Control’s recommendations on veterinary safety and health, as well as from AAHA.
“It’s a little tough to do yourself,” Best concedes. “No one has time. You need to reach out to someone who knows what programs a veterinary workplace would need; [someone] who can advise them and get them through that process.”
Photo credit: © iStock/spawns | <urn:uuid:bf50245f-ff5a-4e9c-b2d6-909ba43c879f> | {
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|Harris, Robin - UNIV. OF WI - MADISON, WI|
|Mulla, David - UNIV. OF MN - ST. PAUL,MN|
Submitted to: Soil Science Society of America Special Publication Book Chapter
Publication Type: Book / Chapter
Publication Acceptance Date: August 15, 1996
Publication Date: N/A
Technical Abstract: One of the greatest challenges associated with assessing soil health or quality is determining how to interpret and combine indicator data gathered using various qualitative and quantitative procedures. The objective for this chapter is to review various approaches for accomplishing this goal within a common conceptual framework based on the role of soil in land use and environmental protection. The functional role of soil in terrestrial ecosystems, the need to qualify indicator properties as a function of land use, landscape and climate characteristics, and linkages between soil and environmental and biological systems are discussed. A functional definition of soil quality and soil health that recognizes the fitness of soil to carry out critical functions within specified land use, landscape, and climate boundaries is presented. Experimental implications of this functional definition are discussed and basic approaches for characterizing soil quality and health are reviewed. Finally, a protocol for assessing and managing soil quality and health is presented. | <urn:uuid:4b8b3ff5-931b-44ca-b597-4a6fb7030f39> | {
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Charles A. Ellwood (American, 1873 – 1946)
“The Eugenics Movement from the Standpoint of Sociology.”
Eugenics: Twelve University Lectures.
New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1914.
Depository 575.6 Eu4
University of Missouri Libraries
University of Missouri
Full text in Google Books
During the 1912-1913 school year, thirty-two universities and colleges throughout the United States were offered an honorarium to provide a lecture on the subject of eugenics. Sponsored by Lucy James Wilson, wife of former Assistant Secretary of State Huntington Wilson, the lecture series aimed at “paving the way to an effective operation of public opinion and wise legislation along eugenical lines” by putting the subject “clearly and forcefully before as many undergraduate student bodies as possible.” The lecture presented by Professor Charles A. Ellwood at the University of Missouri was selected as one of twelve in this compilation.
Ellwood presented a non-technical discourse on both the values and limitations of eugenics. His lecture emphasized “positive eugenics,” explaining the importance of marriage as a controlling factor in the quality of future generations and arguing for the importance of selecting wisely from a biological standpoint. Conversely, Ellwood explained the futility of adopting unenforceable “negative eugenics” laws to control segments of the population. He also addressed the conflicting views of heredity or environment as most important in determining character, acknowledging the vital contributions of each.
The Department of Sociology was founded at MU by Ellwood in 1900. He served as its chair and as advisor to some notable future leaders of the emerging field. Ellwood left the University of Missouri in 1930 to organize and head the Department of Sociology at Duke University.
Also on display are Professor Charles Ellwood’s recommendations for reading about eugenics, posted in the University Missourian, April 13th, 1913. | <urn:uuid:125f2cb2-82f5-4fdf-8a9a-a1ee0dbe6d55> | {
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The main thing that technology has done to benefit this relationship is to make communications between businesses and their customers simpler and clearer.
Technology, particularly in the form of the internet, allows businesses to convey much more information to their customers than was ever possible in the past. Customers do not have to guess as much about what they might get as they once did. They can look carefully at the thing they intend to purchase and be much more certain that it will fit their needs.
Technology also allows much more interactive communication between the business and the customer. Businesses can conduct surveys of customers to find out what the customers did and did not like about their interaction with the business. Businesses can use email to quickly contact customers with regard to concerns that the customers might have raised. In these ways, two-way communication becomes much quicker and simpler (as well as cheaper) than it was in the past. | <urn:uuid:b2e84872-813d-4d76-b925-50249dc405f3> | {
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When summer heats up, so does your risk of heat-related health issues – dehydration, heat exhaustion or heat stroke. Paying attention to the heat is especially important if you have a chronic illness such as diabetes.
To Teresa Brown, there’s nothing like a family game of backyard baseball. Brown has type 1 diabetes. She has to be careful when the sun soars.
"If we know we’re going to be doing anything active, then I need to plan ahead," she said.
"Diabetes patients are particularly susceptible to the heat. Not only do they have to worry about their health, they also have to worry about the impact of hot weather on their equipment, their medications and supplies," said Curtiss Cook, M.D. with the Mayo Clinic.
Curtiss Cook says dehydration can happen to diabetic patients quickly in hot weather.
"Because many times they lose their ability to cool themselves it the heat," he explained.
And high blood sugar levels also put them at risk of dehydration.
Brown explained, "If you get really warm and you’re not hydrating like you need to - I think it gets blurry to tell – am I just feeling this way because I’m really warm, or am I feeling this way because something’s going on with my blood sugar?"
So Brown stays hydrated, drinking plenty of water and checking her blood sugar before and after playing in the sun.
Brown is on an insulin pump that constantly delivers medication. It’s essential that she keep her medication and equipment cool. Heat can damage the technology, even the test strips, and it can make insulin less effective.
"The insulin’s going to break down and it’s not going to work like it needs to in my body," Brown said.
Insulin helps Brown’s body metabolize glucose – sugar. So she’s vigilant and takes care to stay healthy in the heat.
Brown says she checks her blood sugar levels four to five times a day, no matter what the temperature. It takes time and diligence, but she knows careful monitoring will help keep her healthy.
For more information on diabetes and staying healthy in the heat, go to mayoclinic.org or you can call the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville at (904) 953-2272. | <urn:uuid:ce1b5c1e-2b5e-49f6-a792-7e2828acaad8> | {
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This sheet has two newspaper articles that I have left gaps in. Before I give the sheets to the students, I either show them a video of the incident and pause it before the woman puts the cat in the bin, or I show a picture of the woman and cat in the empty street. I ask the students to guess what happened next and then show them the video / explain what happened.
The first exercise is a gap fill for prepositions - some of them are standard uses of 'in', 'into' etc, others are more complicated. The second exercise requires the students to guess which sentence goes in the gap and choose the correct relative pronoun. Afterwards we discuss the treatment of animals in their country or listen to the podcast on the same subject from www.listen-to-english.com. | <urn:uuid:fa8b2a05-a5a5-49fb-9be1-4bb4f87b5316> | {
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by The British Geographer
The Causes of the Flood
From its headwaters in the Himalayas of Tibet, the River Indus flows northwest through India before turning sharply south across Pakistan. It finally discharges into the Arabian Sea, a journey of some 3,200km (2,000 miles). The River Indus has an annual flood caused by tropical monsoon rainfall. It’s rich alluvium floodplain led to one of the cradles of civilization, 9000 years ago. However, this flood’s magnitude was according to Professor Rajiv Sinha, from the Indian Institute of Technology, 5 or even 10 times stronger than normal. The annual monsoon is caused by the movement of warm moisture laden air from the Indian Ocean toward areas of low pressure, marked out by the Inter-Tropical Convergent Zone (ITCZ) over the subcontinent. Here, the subcontinent is superheated, which creates strong rising thermals of low pressure. As warm air moves over the subcontinent it rises and dumps vast quantities of rainfall, which cools the surface and replenishes the vital soil moisture and ground water. In July 2010, more than half the normal rains fell in just one week in an unprecedented sequence of days. Intense rainfall totaling in excess of 200mm fell in a 4-day period from 27th to 30th July along with above average rainfall in August. The recorded monsoon rainfall associated with La Nina was the highest in a 50-year period.
The total area affected by flooding was 796,095 square kilometers, approximately one fifth of Pakistan’s total land area
There was much discussion over the exact causes of this level of rainfall. La Nina, which is a coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon that impacts southeast Pacific Ocean temperature but is also thought to increase Indian monsoon rainfall was thought to be a contributing factor. The cycle of El Nino and La Nina, which are both important global heat transfers seems to be occurring more frequently and is potentially a consequence of climate change. Climate change scientists are observing both greater spatial variation and severity in the monsoon rains. Scientists have observed in the last 30 years, a 40-60 mile northwest shift in the Pakistan monsoon. A second report in the New Scientist linked the severe monsoon to the affects of a phenomenon that was freezing the jet stream. This had in the same been previously associated with forest fires and heat waves in Russia. A second contributing factor is the alluvial nature of the River Indus. The Indus is choked with vast quantities of sediment supplied by its Himalayan headwaters. When combined with raised levées, the sediment only serve to choke the river further, reducing its capacity and causing the likelihood of floods to increase.
Raised levées and protected banks contain the sediment and reduce the river capacity. In this way river management is seen to exacerbate river floods along the Indus. Western river management systems have been wrongly transferred to Asian rivers. For example, with UK rivers, due to their size and scale they transport far less sediment. Raising the UK riverbanks has relatively little impact on channel capacity and sedimentation. A similar problem is the use of concrete line riverbanks. Often in rich sediment filled riverbanks, the shifting sands lead to concrete banks being undermined and less effective in holding back floods. This problem is more associated with Bangladeshi river management. Deforestation is also considered to be a major cause of the flood, with some commentators suggesting that it was key trigger. Deforestation rates vary in Pakistan from 2 percent to 2.4 percent annual rate. At this rate the country's forest cover would be reduced to half of its 1995 extent by 2019-24, says Pakistan's Food and Agriculture Organisation. Deforestation is known to aggravate flooding by reducing the ability of drainage basins to intercept inputs; consequently run-off rates and discharge... | <urn:uuid:02b244ee-e46d-4c02-bc9d-7d8ec3a9b409> | {
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On the odd occasion when I am asked what the greatest invention of the Victorian Era was, I tend to step sideways on it. Yes, various industrial, scientific, entertainment, and transportation technologies are interesting, but I think the best invention of the Victorian Era is the middle class. The idea of the bulk of persons in a society standing between obscene wealth and dire poverty, being able to enjoy opportunity and the fruits of their education and labour, to experience personal freedom as a birthright rather than a class privilege, is a remarkable idea virtually unprecedented in human history. For my second favourite Victorian invention, I may have to say Christmas.
|Victorian card of Father Christmas|
in his traditional green coat.
True, the Victorians did not invent Christmas. This Christian holy day was already being celebrated as early as 350 CE, with precursors in Pagan winter solstice celebrations. The practice continued through the Middle Ages but fell into disparagement with the advent of Protestantism. While small-c catholic denominations like the Lutheran and Anglican churches continued the celebration of Christmas, Puritans most assuredly did not. When Cromwell and the Puritans took over England during the Civil War, they actually outlawed Christmas! The holiday returned with the restoration of the monarchy, though it was not especially popular. English and Scottish Protestants came ever more to see it as a "superstition" of "Popery." In the United States, it first had the Puritans against it and then the Revolutionaries, who regarded Christmas as an English tradition.
By the beginning of the 19th Century this sectarian squabbling had finally calmed down and the people of the Regency period and Victorian Era began to rediscover the holiday, looking back nostalgically at the days of Merrie England. What tempered those rumblings between Protestant and Catholic was a much greater menace: the Industrial Revolution. This new way of life that began to inexorably transform the United Kingdom in the late-18th and 19th centuries increased nostalgia for the "days of yore," a mythologized Tudor period, Gothic Revivalism, a pleasant Olde England of thatched roofs, close-knit communities, and agrarian lifestyles. And Christmas.
As recreationists clamber over each other to lay primeval claims to the Christmas Tree, we know for certain that it was the Hanoverian Queen Charlotte, wife of King George the Third, that introduced the Tannenbaum to Buckingham Palace. Queen Victoria's marriage to Prince Albert further engrained the Christmas Tree in aristocratic society, and the 1848 Illustrated London News publication of an engraving with the Royal Family surrounding their tree festooned in lights and ornaments created a public fever. The fashionable practice spread across the Atlantic so that by 1870, Christmas Trees were ubiquitous in the English-speaking world.
|The Illustrated London News engraving.|
The United States had its own revival (or, more correctly, arrival) of Christmas in the 1820's. The poem popularly known as Twas the Night Before Christmas was composed in 1822 by the American professor Clement Clarke Moore. Two years before, Washington Irving documented the warmth of English Christmas celebrations in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., the same famous tome in which The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle are recorded. His picturesque descriptions of Christmas Eve in an English manor house piqued readers on both sides of the ocean:
Nothing in England exercises a more delightful spell over my imagination than the lingerings of the holiday customs and rural games of former times... Of all the old festivals, however, that of Christmas awakens the strongest and most heartfelt associations. There is a tone of solemn and sacred feeling that blends with our conviviality and lifts the spirit to a state of hallowed and elevated enjoyment. The services of the Church about this season are extremely tender and inspiring. They dwell on the beautiful story of the origin of our faith and the pastoral scenes that accompanied its announcement. They gradually increase in fervor and pathos during the season of Advent, until they break forth in full jubilee on the morning that brought peace and good-will to men. I do not know a grander effect of music on the moral feelings than to hear the full choir and the pealing organ performing a Christmas anthem in a cathedral, and filling every part of the vast pile with triumphant harmony...
There is something in the very season of the year that gives a charm to the festivity of Christmas. At other times we derive a great portion of our pleasures from the mere beauties of Nature. Our feelings sally forth and dissipate themselves over the sunny landscape, and we "live abroad and everywhere." The song of the bird, the murmur of the stream, the breathing fragrance of spring, the soft voluptuousness of summer, the golden pomp of autumn, earth with its mantle of refreshing green, and heaven with it deep delicious blue and its cloudy magnificence,—all fill us with mute but exquisite delight, and we revel in the luxury of mere sensation. But in the depth of winter, when Nature lies despoiled of every charm and wrapped in her shroud of sheeted snow, we turn for our gratifications to moral sources. The dreariness and desolation of the landscape, the short gloomy days and darksome nights, while they circumscribe our wanderings, shut in our feelings also from rambling abroad, and make us more keenly disposed for the pleasure of the social circle. Our thoughts are more concentrated; our friendly sympathies more aroused. We feel more sensibly the charm of each other's society, and are brought more closely together by dependence on each other for enjoyment. Heart calleth unto heart, and we draw our pleasures from the deep wells of loving-kindness which lie in the quiet recesses of our bosoms, and which, when resorted to, furnish forth the pure element of domestic felicity.
The pitchy gloom without makes the heart dilate on entering the room filled with the glow and warmth of the evening fire. The ruddy blaze diffuses an artificial summer and sunshine through the room, and lights up each countenance in a kindlier welcome. Where does the honest face of hospitality expand into a broader and more cordial smile, where is the shy glance of love more sweetly eloquent, than by the winter fireside? and as the hollow blast of wintry wind rushes through the hall, claps the distant door, whistles about the casement, and rumbles down the chimney, what can be more grateful than that feeling of sober and sheltered security with which we look round upon the comfortable chamber and the scene of domestic hilarity?
The English, from the great prevalence of rural habit throughout every class of society, have always been found of those festivals and holidays, which agreeably interrupt the stillness of country life, and they were, in former days, particularly observant of the religious and social rites of Christmas... It seemed to throw open every door and unlock every heart. It brought the peasant and the peer together, and blended all ranks in one warm, generous flow of joy and kindness. The old halls of castles and manor-houses resounded with the harp and the Christmas carol, and their ample boards groaned under the weight of hospitality. Even the poorest cottage welcomed the festive season with green decorations of bay and holly—the cheerful fire glanced its rays through the lattice, inviting the passengers to raise the latch and join the gossip knot huddled round the hearth beguiling the long evening with legendary jokes and oft-told Christmas tales.
|Illustration of Christmas dinner from Irving's Sketch Book.|
About 20 years after Irving, another pair of Americans would begin to define images of Christmas and winter frivolity. Currier and Ives were printmakers who achieved success by marketing their lithographs as affordable art for the masses. Winter scenes were among their best and most enduring, having enshrined themselves in popular song still to this day. The interest in winter in general coincided with the last cold snap of the "Little Ice Age" hitting around 1850. Winter became a major theme in art and warmth a major theme in fashion from the onset of the Little Ice Age in the 1650's, when people's attention turned to making the most of it.
|Central Park, Winter by Currier and Ives.|
|American Homestead Winter by Currier and Ives.|
Many of the songs to which Washington Irving referred were documented, along with numerous new inventions, in William Sandys' Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern, published in 1833. This text included, for the first time, familiar hymns like Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In, The First Noel, and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. Following the publication of these Christmas carols, the tradition of Christmas caroling began. The first commercially produced Christmas card was published by Sir Henry Cole in 1843, from an illustration by John Callcott Horsley depicting scenes of domestic joy and charitable giving.
|The first Christmas card.|
That theme of Christmas as a time not only of sensory and familial richness but of giving reached its apotheosis in the greatest Christmas book ever written. Also published in 1843, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol acted in many ways as a "secular Nativity story," defining what Christmas was supposed to be for generations to follow. It is, of course, the story of miserly Scrooge, one of the last abstainers from Christmas, too caught up in the age of commerce and industry to take notice of hearth, home, and family. After a warning from his departed business partner who learned too late that his life was wasted in business, Scrooge is visited by three spirits. The wraithlike Ghost of Christmas Past represents the ethos of Merrie England: simpler days, happier days, before the Industrial Revolution... an evanescent vapour of what once was, if it ever was. The Ghost of Christmas Present resembles the traditional image of Father Christmas and shows Scrooge how Christmas is celebrated in the homes of the wealthy and the poor, and more importantly, the effects of the Industrial Revolution in creating and maintaining poverty. This Ghost introduces us to Tiny Tim, and the hideous visages of Want and Ignorance. Finally the Ghost of Christmas Future shows life one year hence, when both Scrooge and Tiny Tim are dead, each victims of the Industrial Revolution in their own way. On Christmas Day Scrooge awakens a changed man who commits himself to improving the lot of his fellow person.
|Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Present.|
The impact of A Christmas Carol was immediate and lasting. Critics applauded its social message and marveled how it seemed to literally make its readers into better people. An upswing in charitable giving the following year was attributed to the story. It's twined message about the redemptive power of human fraternity - the enjoyment of family and charity towards the poor - has remained the dominant theme of Christmas ever since, above and beyond even its religious significance. Technically, Christmas is a lesser festival in the Christian calendar after Easter and Pentecost, and in an increasingly secular society, these are the values that Christmas has tended to hold on to. Everyone cognizant of Christmas is able to identify them.
The irony of Christmas, though, is that it became the high holy festival of Capitalism. For as much as the Victorians decried the Industrial Revolution and the lapse in values and the poverty it created, it was the Industrial Revolution itself that gave greatest shape to the institution of Christmas gift-giving. The creation of the middle class that I so lauded earlier was a direct product of the Industrial Revolution offering cheaply produced, affordable goods that could raise many people's standards of living, as well as the urbanization and concept of "white collar" work that went with it. The system fed itself, as people who now found themselves with disposable income needed something to spend it on and the production of goods needed people with disposable income to buy them. An annual celebration in which people bought to excess for things they perhaps never needed or intended for themselves was a perfect fit.
So it continues to this day. Originally Boxing Day - the day after Christmas recognized in countries of the Commonwealth - was a day of charitable giving. In particular it was related to boxing up goods to give to servants and labourers whose responsibilities may not have permitted them to fully enjoy the holiday. Its roots may be in the charitable offerings collected on the Feast of St. Stephen, the holy day on December 26th commemorating the first Christian martyr. Today, Boxing Day has been extended to "Boxing Week" and acts as an unadulterated orgy of consumerism that most clearly demonstrates the modern spirit of Christmas.
As one might be able to tell, I'm not a big fan of the consumerist aspects of Christmas. Ordinarily I tell people to donate to charity rather than give me a present, but it is surprisingly difficult to get people out of the rut of thinking they have to give you something. I still enjoy Christmas though, in all those wonderful, warmth, sumptuous, sensory, and liturgical aspects that the Victorians revived and invented so well. | <urn:uuid:6f3d1f27-9d9d-45c5-b729-0cce25124b8c> | {
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The Fiery Coin
Jews are generous people and this Shabbat recalls their first opportunity to contribute to a sacred cause.
In addition to the regular weekly portion, this Shabbat we will read Parshat Shekalim, which recalls that call to generosity includes a hint that Moshe was shown by G-d a fiery half-shekel coin as a model for the coins that Jews would be required to contribute.
Why a coin of fire rather than one of silver that was what Jews would be giving?
It has been suggested that the message was that even though every Jew would be giving exactly the same amount, the value of his gift would depend on how much fiery enthusiasm accompanied that gift.
It is this sort of enthusiastic giving for sacred causes that will sustain Israel forever. | <urn:uuid:94117046-8153-446c-b419-6b9f835d4dee> | {
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With ageing, the physical health of a person declines and the likelihood of disability increases. The chronic illnesses and injuries can cause many types of minor and major disabilities in elderly people. Any disability can restrict the ability of a person to perform day-to-day activities. Many senior people require assistance in old age. The help and assistance provided by a professional caretaker can make a significant difference in the life of a disabled elderly person.
Lets take a look at the main causes of disability in old age-
Arthritis is one of the most common causes of disabilities not just in the US but in other countries as well. In advanced cases, it can restrict the ability of a person to move and also cause persistent pain in the joints.
Heart diseases and stroke is another common factor that can limit the ability of a person to work. A heart stroke can cause weakness of the body and co-ordination problems in an elderly person.
Alzheimer’s disease is a neurodegenerative disease that affects many people in the US. Starting from forgetfulness and confusion, this illness can cause serious complications in the life of a person.
Cancer can be disabling. There are many types of cancer that can make a person dependant on another person for day-to-day activities. Cancer treatments such as radiation and chemotherapy can also make a person dependent on others.
Mental health problems
When people talk of disability, they tend to focus more on physical disabilities. However, disabilities caused by mental illnesses such as depression can also severely affect the quality of life of a person.
A fall or an injury can also cause disability in a person. There are many other illnesses and diseases that lead to minor or major physical disabilities and affect the ability of a person to carry out his daily activities.
When it comes to taking care of a disabled elderly person, the services provided by professional caretakers may prove to be very useful. Equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge, caretakers can help a person live a normal and fulfilling life. You can easily avail the services of family caregivers in Boise and other parts of Idaho. | <urn:uuid:3e760b96-9704-4063-b09b-8c042dbe9731> | {
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The collection of the British Library embraces virtually all known languages. It traces its formal history to the foundation of the British Museum Library in 1753. The quality, size and depth of the Library's collection (estimated at more than 150 million items) are central to its position as the UK's national library. The collection of the British Library operates on many levels and with reference to the rest of the library system in the country.
Bibliography: p. 3; skewed pages and narrow margins.%0A | <urn:uuid:7296dd06-2f9a-4fe0-a7ae-fe39b916151e> | {
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The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL)
is recognised by more than 9,000 colleges, universities and agencies in over 130 countries around the world. TOEFL is available in two formats: internet based (iBT) and paper-based (PBT).
“The TOEFL iBT test measures your ability to use and understand English at the university level. It also evaluates how well you combine your listening, reading, speaking and writing skills to perform academic tasks.”,
Structure and Scoring
The TOEFL test is in English. Since March 2013, the Listening and Speaking sections include other native English accents (United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia), in addition to accents from North America, to better reflect the variety of native English accents you may encounter while studying abroad. The Internet Based Test (TOEFL iBT) is administered via the Internet in certified testing centres and takes a total of about four and a half hours to complete. The test includes the following four sections:
1. ReadingFormat: 36-56 Questions Topic: Read 3 or 4 passages from academic texts, then answer questions Time: 60-80 minutes Score: 0 – 30
2. ListeningFormat: 34-51 Questions Topic: Listen to lectures, classroom discussions and conversations Time: 60-90 minutes Score: 0 – 30
3. SpeakingFormat: 6 tasks Topic: Express an opinion on a familiar topic Time: 20 minutes Score: 0 – 30
4. WritingFormat: 2 tasks Topic: Write essay responses based on 2 reading and listening tasks, support an opinion in writing Time: 50 minutes Score: 0 – 30
Overall score range is between 0 and 120.
You can register for the TOEFL test online, by telephone, by mail or in person at a TOEFL iBT Resource Centre. Register about two and a half months before the test date, especially if you are registering by mail.
Testing and Score Reporting
The TOEFL test is administered on more than 50 test dates per year in 4,500 test centres in 165 countries. The test fee varies by country and ranges between 160 and 250 USD. The test fee includes four free official score reports which will be automatically sent to institutions of your choice, selected before the test.
You can retake the test as many times as you wish, but no sooner than 12 days after the last test. Your test score is valid for two years. Allow at least two weeks for your official scores to be sent by ETS to the universities you have selected. | <urn:uuid:a374a06d-b401-481e-83cc-5863d344be30> | {
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Powder coating is a process by which a coating of pigment is applied to the surface of an item to create a layer of color that is brighter, thicker and much tougher than conventional paint. It involves the use of a dry powder which is sprayed onto the cleaned surface of the item in question. The powder is held on by means of an electrostatic charge imparted to it by the specialized spray gun that is used. This powder is made of a special thermoset polymer, which responds to heat. When the powder is baked, it reacts with other chemical groups in the powder polymer and increases the molecular weight and improves the performance properties of the material, creating a smooth and uniform layer of pigment. This process is used primarily on metals because of the high temperatures that the powder must be cured at. One will most commonly see power coats on processed aluminum goods and appliances as well as automobile and motorcycle parts. Here is a guide on how to powder coat any metal item.
Things You'll Need
- Corona gun
- Powder paint
- Convection cure oven
- Safety goggles
- Air compressor
- Chain and winch
- Grounding wire with alligator clips
- Large and open work space
- Sandblasting particulate
Begin by stringing up the metal item on a chain and hauling it off the ground with your winch. This is effective for large metal objects up to several hundred pounds in size. If you wish to powder coat a larger item it will have to be disassembled and then strung up. Before you can begin coating the item you must first clean it of all surface materials: scale, oil, grease, rust, etc. To do this you could dunk the item in several chemical baths, but the size of these baths and their cost makes this an inefficient method. A better choice is sandblasting.
Don your respirator and safety goggles first. Then connect your sandblaster gun to your air compressor. Make sure to fill the sandblaster’s reservoir with specialized particulate and then spray every surface of the hanging metal item thoroughly.
Clean the area with a broom before continuing further to make sure that you’ve gotten all your sandblasting particulate off the floor. If you are working outdoors then you won’t need to do this. You will also be unable to recollect the excess powder lying around once you’ve finished. The reason for doing this is that, if you recycle the unused powder coat, you do not want to get this mixed up with the abrasive granules of the sandblasting material.
Disconnect your sandblasting gun and set it aside. Connect the corona gun up to your air compressor, making sure to plug its electrical cord in if you have a model that does not use batteries. This gun needs to have electricity while it runs so that it can impart an electrostatic charge to the powder. Fill the gun’s reservoir with powder coating and make sure to keep on your goggles and respirator. Clip the grounding wire to the chain holding up your metal item so as not to create a spot on the item which will be covered. Simply spray the surface of the item in short, sweeping spurts as if you were using spray paint in order to evenly coat the item.
Swing the winch over to the curing oven and lower the metal item inside. Remove the chain and close the oven’s hatch. Set the oven to 400 degrees F and cook the item for 10 minutes to allow the powder coat to cure. Open the hatch and allow the item to cool for a few more minutes before reconnecting the chain and hauling the item out of the oven.
Go back to your work area and sweep up all the excess powder so that it may be reused some other time.
Tips & Warnings
- There are many advantages to using the powder coating process as opposed to traditional liquid-coating. Excess powder which has not stuck to an item can be swept up and reused. They produce almost no hazardous waste and do not harm the environment. The costs of running a large scale powder coating line are much lower than that of a large scale liquid painting line.
- Photo Credit www.cornabyrailing.com
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Researchers have used pet dogs, with real injuries, to test a treatment that involved transplanting cells from the lining of the nose and injecting them into the spine in an attempt to bridge the damage in their spinal column.
The scientists published their findings in the journal Brain. This was the first randomized controlled trial using this technique, so neither the vet nor the owner knew if they were receiving the real treatment. Early trials in humans with injuries like this have established that the procedure is safe.
The 34 pet dogs had all suffered severe spinal cord injury, which twelve months or more after the injury, left them unable to use their back legs and unable to feel pain in their hindquarters. The dogs had olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs) taken from their noses and cultured for further growth. These cells are found in the back of the nasal cavity, the only part of the body where nerve fibers continue to grow into adulthood.
After receiving the injections as part of the trial, the dogs were tested at one month intervals on a treadmill while being supported in a harness. The scientists analyzed the dogs’ ability to coordinate movement between their front and back limbs.
The group of dogs which received the stem cell injection showed a considerable improvement, which wasn’t seen in the other group.
Professor Robin Franklin, a co-author of the study said: “Our findings are extremely exciting because they show for the first time that transplanting these types of cell into a severely damaged spinal cord can bring about significant improvement. We’re confident that the technique might be able to restore at least a small amount of movement in human patients with spinal cord injuries but that’s a long way from saying they might be able to regain all lost function. It’s more likely that this procedure might one day be used as part of a combination of treatments, alongside drug and physical therapies, for example.”
The head of Regenerative Medicine at the MRC, Dr. Rob Buckle, said: “This proof of concept study on pet dogs with the type of injury sustained by human spinal patients is tremendously important and an excellent basis for further research in an area where options for treatment are extremely limited. It’s a great example of collaboration between veterinary and regenerative medicine researchers that has had an excellent outcome for the pet participants and potentially for human patients.” | <urn:uuid:3919c111-8d09-49c7-bded-ea803b830bda> | {
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